The Fuzzy Mic
After retiring from a 30-year, major market morning radio career, I'm often asked what I miss the most about the job. I miss 3 C's...camaraderie, creativity but most of all, conversation.
The Fuzzy Mic is built around creativity and conversation to develop camaraderie. The 4 focus areas are: Mental Health, True Crime, Music and Sports.
So, while The Fuzzy Mic allows me to fill some professional voids, it's my sincere hope that maybe you'll find something personally fulfilling in it too.
The Fuzzy Mic
The Power of Vision and Resilience
What drives a person to transform their deepest grief into a mission to save lives?
On this episode of Fuzzy Mic, we welcome Carey Conley, who opens her heart about the unimaginable loss of her husband and son to suicide. Carey’s story is one of resilience and hope as she reveals how her faith has been a guiding light through the darkest times.
Listen in as she shares her inspiring journey of turning pain into purpose, her work with the Helping Parents Heal community, and the profound belief that her loved ones remain with her in spirit.
This episode underscores the power of having a clear vision—how it aids in making decisions, setting boundaries, and staying open to new opportunities. Discover how breaking down long-term goals into actionable steps can make the mantra "Vision is Victory" a reality.
Get your free copy of Carey's Vision Is Victory workbook here: https://bit.ly/VisionisVictory, or text VICTORY to 26786
From the critical importance of open communication around mental health to finding purpose in advocacy, we cover it all. Learn about the pressures that prevent individuals from seeking help and how direct questions about mental health can save lives.
Thank you for being an integral part of this journey—we couldn’t do it without our amazing community!
Welcome to the Fuzzy Mike, the interview series, the podcast, whatever Kevin wants to call it. It's Fuzzy Mike, hello, and thank you for joining me. Your feedback and messages about my conversation with James Baker and Rorschach Test. Well, quite simply, it's what makes me know that I'm doing the right thing with the Fuzzy Mike. It's what makes me know that I'm doing the right thing with the fuzzy mic. I often well, okay, not often more like every second of every waking minute question if the fuzzy mic is doing what I want it to do, and that is educate on mental health and provide comfort, showing you that you're not alone. My guest on this episode, she's on a personal mission to save 1 million lives. She was faced with a choice after tragedy struck her family in 2014, and then again in 2017. Her choice Now she could either find purpose through despair or she could throw in the towel. She chose purpose. Hello, carrie Conley.
Speaker 2:Hello Kevin, how are you?
Speaker 1:I am fantastic. What a pleasure to be speaking with you.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure to meet you as well.
Speaker 1:Thank you. You and I have quite a bit in common and we're going to talk about that today and you and I, hopefully, are going to take more steps for you to get closer to one million lives saved.
Speaker 2:OK, I love that.
Speaker 1:It's a pretty audacious goal? Yes, it is, but I have a force of a team behind me, a lot of people supporting me, and yeah so Well, it's a goal that I think a lot of people want to help you get to, that goal of one million lives saved. You and I come from a unique perspective on this. My father died from suicide and you have two people in your family.
Speaker 2:Yes, Unfortunately yes.
Speaker 1:Not just people your husband and, three years later, your son.
Speaker 2:Yes, I don't know how you cope with that A lot of faith.
Speaker 2:Number one Okay, I am very certain of where they are and that I will see them again. Um, I have a belief that they are very much with me, behind it, just driving this mission with me, kevin, especially my son he was 25 when he passed and I have a huge mission in those 1 million people to really help young adults right now, because they're really struggling, and they'll be the first to tell you that I have them on my podcast. I interviewed them sometimes and I love that. So I have a lot of support and a lot of communities that I'm in. One of them in particular is called Helping Parents Heal. It's a huge community that are all parents that have lost a child one way or another.
Speaker 2:They have a big conference happening here in Arizona at the end of this week. 1, will be there, oh, wow, and a lot of the people that they have speak there, kevin, are people who are and I don't know what your belief is, but like mediums, very, very connected to the other side type people, right, oh, amazing, yeah, so they are. You know they're actually there to just giving you a whole lot of peace about the situation, right, yeah, so it's not. You know it's hard, I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 1:But you're 10 years removed from your husband, seven years removed from your son. Are the wounds?
Speaker 2:still as fresh today as they were the day you found out. Um, in one way, yes, in one way, yes, in one way, no, you know. Do I recall every facet of what happened that day as much anymore? No, you know, for the first year or whatever, I had a friend who actually lost her husband to suicide years before mine, and we got together shortly after my husband passed. She said it's going to be several months, if not years, where you stop having what she called bookend days, days where you wake up recalling the whole scene and days where you go to bed thinking about it. Yeah, so I don't have that so much anymore. But do I have days where you know just missing them so bad, absolutely.
Speaker 1:How much of your son's decision was based upon what his father did three years earlier.
Speaker 2:You know, I know there's statistics around that that I probably would have been more aware of at the time. I just never thought my son would take his life because of what we went through losing his dad, because he knew how hard that was on him, me and my daughter. He is. I have a daughter who's 30 now.
Speaker 1:And she's helped you write books. You've got two books and she's helped you write both of them, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2:She did not help me write the first one. The first one is all me. It's called Vision is Victory. It's a workbook, because what I specialize in, kevin, is helping people get a very powerful vision and purpose for their life. Yes, because I know that can be an anchor of hope for a lot of people. So that's what I specialize in. She and I co-authored a book called Keep Looking Up two years after losing my son, and that book is about us telling the story, but mostly it's a book about what has helped us through the journey, because we have so many people come to us that have been through some sort of diversity that just really didn't. They were how do I deal with this? Or how do I help my friend who's dealing with something. So it's 11 chapters of what we learned.
Speaker 1:I mean, how many people come up to you on a regular basis, like I have two friends going through grief right now and I'm just, I'm an ear and a shoulder, I don't know, I don't know what else to provide for them, you know. But like I know what, I know how I grieve, okay, and I don't grieve the same way as other people, and so, um, are there proper ways and improper ways to grieve?
Speaker 2:Um, I don't know that there's not an improper way to grieve. I think it's a very personal thing. I think, however, you need to handle it. You do you right? That's probably the biggest thing we learned is that what worked for my daughter doesn't necessarily work for me, and vice versa. I think what's also important and this is a chapter in our book is that you, as the friend, allow them to grieve the way they need to grieve, not the way that you would want it. So I'll give you an example of that. So you know, a lot of friends of ours wanted to just come to the house and sit with us and hug us and cry and do all the things, and that was the last thing we wanted do all the things, and that was the last thing we wanted. And so what we learned was the people who learned how to mirror what we needed and respect that and honor that have been the people who have stuck with us the longest.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because the people that we didn't didn't necessarily allow them in the way they wanted to be in, or the way they would have wanted necessarily allow them in the way they wanted to be in or the way they would have wanted. I think kind of just didn't understand it, Maybe felt like they weren't included in it as much.
Speaker 1:Sure, I get that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we learned a lot from that and still learning.
Speaker 1:If you're not learning, you're not growing. Yeah, you know, you're just not so. And I want to talk to you about Vision is Victory. You have generously agreed to provide that for free to the Fuzzy Mike audience and we're going to put links up in the description and also, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see where to sign up for that. I signed up for your newsletter earlier this morning. I would love to be on your couch, on your chair, because I think you could really help me. So today I'm going to be that one person that you save. Ok, and I tell you why because I'm depressed, clinically depressed and also chronic suicidal ideation. Ok, that's always an option. It's always. It's always an option. You know, and I don't handle stress very well and I stress about everything. So how do you and I'm going to go exactly off of your uh podcast description Do you stress about money and it is consuming your thoughts with fear about your future. How do you not? And especially young adults who are coming out of college with massive debt?
Speaker 2:right. How do you not? Well, there's a lot of, there's a lot of negative narrative behind all that, right, a lot, especially with money. One is that a lot of the messaging that you have about money are beliefs that aren't necessarily true. So a lot of us grew up with money doesn't grow on trees. You've got to work really hard for the money. You know it's never enough. There's not enough to go around all lies, right. So the first thing we have to identify again, specifically talk about money is that most of what we've been taught are not true, and I was that person that I had to really change my whole thought process around that.
Speaker 2:When I stepped in to be an entrepreneur, kevin, the first. When I stepped into being an entrepreneur, kevin, the first place I stepped into was the industry of network marketing, and so I had a lot of bad narrative around that. My people thought I was all crazy. Like you have a college degree, you've got a great job, why would you go sell lipstick?
Speaker 2:But the community that I was in, I was learning whole different narratives, right, that the income that I could make there was infinite which it is and that anybody following their simple system can work their way to the top and beyond. So we have to change the narrative. You have to get around people who have different thoughts about it so that you can start retraining the brain. There's so much out there now on podcasts and books and all this stuff. Right, I'm reading a lot of books right now on millionaire mindset. Okay, maybe the circumstance you're in right now can be a little stressful, but how can you see a future beyond where you are right now and create a game plan? So I ended up coaching a lot of entrepreneurs, and so the very first question I would ask them is okay, what's the vision, where are you going and by when? I need a target date.
Speaker 1:And you usually say three years right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I use three years so I get them to write a vision, a big, beautiful vision of every area of their life. They see that they want to create three years from now, regardless of what's happening now. I want to know what your family life looks like. Where are you living? If you're traveling, where are you going? Who's going with you? What are you doing as far as your career? How much money are you making? Right? So we set that out there, so that now we can reverse engineer some one-year goals, six-month goals, 90-day goals. We can break it down into bite-sized chunks, especially as business owners.
Speaker 1:So vision is victory is what we're actually kind of talking about right now. Yes, Number one, why is vision victory? And number two are we writing down our three-year dream, our idea, or are we writing down where we think we can get?
Speaker 2:What you're writing out is the desires of your heart, kevin, what you truly desire. So my backstory is when I was in my late twenties, my husband and I went to high school and college together, came out of college both of us with business degrees. This was the late eighties. So we were both going into the corporate world. Right, this is what you did. You were told to go get a job, stick with it, work your way up the ranks. So my husband did that extremely well. I did not.
Speaker 2:I was changing jobs every two years because I couldn't fit the job, and it wasn't until I had my first mentor that I sat with going. Why am I like this? Why can't I do what all my friends are doing? She said you're never going to fit that mold, carrie. You aren't wired that way. You need to go figure out what it is, that lifestyle that you want to create and find the thing that fits that.
Speaker 2:And so and this is why I had the workbook Kevin is I sat down with a legal pad of paper one day and just wrote who I wanted to be, what I wanted to become, what kind of mom I wanted to be, the relationship I wanted to have with my kids, the values I wanted to instill in them, the trips we wanted to take, everything. The key to this is that I did not know the how. I think this is where people get tripped up. They feel like they've got to know the how before they write the vision, and it's backwards. You write the vision, the how shows up. So because I wrote a lot of things about I wanted to work from home, I wanted to make a substantial residual income, I wanted to earn trips, I wanted to be in a company with a lot of leadership, right, not knowing what that vehicle is going to be. Well, a year later, that vehicle showed up and the minute it showed up, I was like this is it?
Speaker 1:So did it show up because it just happened, because you manifested it, or did you actively seek that out, since you had it written down?
Speaker 2:I think it's a both thing.
Speaker 2:I think what happened that day is a lot of things. One, I believe because I was in such a quiet place, kevin and this goes back to my faith that I was really listening to what God's will was for my life and what he was revealing to me was this is the path you're going to go, and here's why. Because on the last line of one of those pieces of paper, when I was noodling a bunch of ideas I didn't know right Did I want to go into marketing consulting, cause that was my background I wrote things around maybe I'd be in a company in health and wellness, skincare, question mark all these things. On the last line, for the very first time in my life, I wrote that someday I wanted to teach visioning and goal setting to other people, and I truly believe that was God giving a little peek as to what was coming. So me aligning with that and people, you know, call it the universe manifesting whatever. I think I was opening up now to being open to a whole other path than the nine to five.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Because I was open to it and I started talking about my vision with other people. Those people started showing up.
Speaker 1:How rewarding was that previous career compared to what you do now.
Speaker 2:They're both very rewarding. For 20 years I I I built a really big team If you know about networking, it's all about building a team and reached the highest rank, a lot of recognition, a lot of trips earned. I did this while I was raising my kids, so we have a lot of great memories from all of that. Those people that were leaders in the company poured into me like none other. I would not be the speaker and coach I am right now. Without that, wow, right, yeah, it just became this thing that right before my husband died, I decided, because I was teaching all my team members, I need you to write a vision, a really powerful vision, because I knew, kevin, if they didn't have that, they were going to quit on me. The first rejection they got oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:For sure quit on me. The first rejection they got oh, yeah, yeah, yeah for sure, Because I had all that my family. When I told them that I was going to step into Arbonne as the name of the company, they were like what? So I needed to have a really powerful vision, because I needed to see beyond where I was right then and see beyond what my other friends and family could not see. So I was able to take all of that into what I do now and do it in a much more public way, which is very, very rewarding. My favorite thing to do is to speak on stage.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you're very good at speaking. Thank you.
Speaker 2:I love it. Just give me a microphone, I'm on.
Speaker 1:Vision is victory. The writing down of it. Is it because you write it down, it becomes concrete and now you have something that you look at and you know that you're striving for that. Or is it that you write that down and now you're committed?
Speaker 2:All of the above.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So when I do a vision workshop I talk about depending on the audience, I will pick five or 10 things that I know what vision helps fix in your life, which is why my tagline is Vision is Victory. It helps a lot of people make better decisions with their time, money and the people they spend it with, because at any time I'm presented, something like doing this podcast, kevin right, either lines up with the vision of where I'm going or it doesn't. So it's easy for me to say yes or no. Yeah, better boundaries Leadership. You cannot influence people and make an impact without a very powerful vision that you can convey to other people, right?
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:It also becomes a whole lot of thing around. Ok, again what we talked about earlier of having that three year dream, that vision, that purpose, so that you can break it down into quantifiable, measurable things, smaller increments that are doable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like eating the elephant, you don't? You do a bite, bite, bite, bite, bite, yes, and so, like you said, you got that three-year plan, but then you break it down into 90 days, 60 days, two years, one year. Yeah, how much of victory is vision? How much of that is in our control?
Speaker 2:Well. So this is the question mark. Everybody has right. So my vision, of course, at this point in life has shifted dramatically because of losing my husband and my son. That was absolutely outside of my control, and I think this is another place where people get tripped up. They get tripped up because they need to know the how first, and they also get tripped up with so many things they think are outside of their control.
Speaker 2:Why write a vision if you could lose somebody, or you could lose your job, or you could be disabled or whatever right? The thing about the vision, kevin, is it's not so much, like I've said already, it's not so much about what I'm doing, what I'm making who you know. It's a lot about my purpose. That has not changed the underlying thing, and the biggest reason why I get people to sit and write their vision is I want them to really think about and hear what's going on inside, because that's where your purpose is hidden. We've just buried it under a lot of, again, negative narrative, what everybody told us to do, and I want people to bring out that thing that's tapping at their heart every day and go after it, because that's how we die with regrets.
Speaker 1:Oh very true.
Speaker 2:Right, I think, to answer your question, more things are in your control than you think. Most people think that they can't control a lot of things, and you really can.
Speaker 1:Well, most people would write down in their vision, I think, that they want to have a successful job and most people would think, well, somebody's got to give me that break. Yeah, how do you get out of that thought process?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if you've been seeing a lot of the celebrity type people talking lately about like Mel Robbins has been saying this a lot lately Kevin, that nobody's coming for you, it's all you. That is a victim mentality kind of thing and entitlement mentality kind of thing. Right Like so. When I stepped into network marketing, I didn't know that industry at all. I didn't understand how to go after it. What it looked like. All I knew is what I wanted. I had other people teach me okay, this is where you start. Take these baby steps, you're gonna be here. Take the next baby steps, you're gonna be here. And because they were further ahead and where I wanted to be, I trusted that what they were telling me was the thing to go do and that it was a no-fail system. If I did it the way they told me to do it, I was going to get there.
Speaker 1:So you work with youth and you work with young adults and what we're talking about is, I think, right up their alley, and when you and I were in the workforce early on, it was, yeah, I'm going to do this. I worked for 22 months for free because I knew that's what I wanted to do for a living. I don't think young adults and kids want to do that anymore. They get out of school. They get out of college. They want to make that $100,000 immediately. So how do we help them throttle back?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it. We could talk all day about this topic. So I talk a lot with young adults, specifically early 20s to early 30s ish, and one of the things they tell me, kevin, is that they feel like they are already behind.
Speaker 1:They are because of the cost of school.
Speaker 2:Well, that could be one. Two is what they're seeing all over social media. Oh yeah, what they're seeing is that their colleagues are crushing it. We're seeing 11-year-olds making a million dollars, right? So my 22-year-old intern that's the producer in the studio that I go in when I record my podcast he said to me that he felt like he was already behind. I said dude, you're 22 years old, you're just getting started. Yeah, we have to really crush that lie, because what they're seeing is not real and I think that they just want to feel like, yes, they want to make money, but I think the bigger thing about them, kevin, is they also want to make. I think they feel more than you and I don't know how old you are, but they want to be feeling like they're making a bigger impact and a contribution in this world too.
Speaker 1:That's a beautiful thing, right. I didn't learn about that until I was 36. I'll be 55 next month, right, yeah, I didn't learn about giving back until I was 36, because my first 35 years were to live in spite of what my dad predicted and told me. You know, my dad, my, my concept of money comes from my dad. It's how many figures are on your paycheck. That's success, right? So my sole motivation in life was to, you know, make as much money as I could buy the biggest house, coolest car. Shove it up his ass and I reached the pinnacle of my career and two weeks later he hanged himself.
Speaker 1:So I never got that. I never got that victory, you know, and I mean, he's been dead 18 years now and I still think about that. You know, I still think about I don't, I, I never knew him. We lived in the same house. He, you know, took me to every baseball game, but I, he, he was very, very secretive, you know, and and I know that from his upbringing but I would have never, never suspected that he was going to kill himself. Nobody in our family did.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And we just knew he was depressed. We didn't know that that far and I remember my mom calling me and I said you got to be shitting me. I mean there was no, that was my emotion.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's why people like they can't understand why I didn't break down. I just didn't. Yeah, I just didn't.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I think the biggest question you and I probably get asked, and everybody else who's been through this, is did you see it coming? Right, yeah, what were the signs?
Speaker 1:And, unfortunately, there is no checklist I can give people Right.
Speaker 2:Um, because on the outside appearances neither my husband or my son looked depressed. Um, I knew they were struggling specifically with their identity around their jobs, which, unfortunately, with men that's a big deal, and they were working through things. But did I ever think how deep and how dark the thoughts had gotten for my husband? No, because he kept that very secret.
Speaker 1:In a previous interview that I saw you do with Jen Drummond you talked about you knew your husband in high, you were dating in high school, right but you said after he committed suicide is when you found out things about his family that you didn't know, that you didn't know. How could that be hidden? How could that have been hidden?
Speaker 2:I don't know that they were necessarily hidden. I think that they were. Just they played a bigger part into what turned him mentally. My husband's family were very much. We don't talk about bad stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:With rose colored glasses all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So there was. He would never have gone to his parents, especially his dad, and told them here's, I'm really struggling, Right, his dad, and told them I'm really struggling, right. I think that there was a lot of pressure on my husband to have a successful career versus what he really, I think, wanted to do. I think in hindsight my husband would have really made a great teacher, but there was no money in that right, and the reason I believe that is that he ran our, our the second grade Bible study at our church for many, many years. He loved it. It was the highlight of his week, Right.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep.
Speaker 2:So it's just things that like you it's. You can see it now in hindsight.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Some things that had. I even thought he was really struggling to that level probably would have. I would have seen it sooner, but you just don't.
Speaker 1:So let's suppose that a parent or a sibling does see that a loved one is suffering or a friend is suffering. How do you bring that up, or do you?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you do, I've learned a lot about this.
Speaker 2:I've done several podcasts with some experts on this. As a matter of fact, people who are going into the schools and teaching kids how to communicate with each other, because they're isolated and that's the biggest problem. They'll be all together in an assembly and not know each other. They're hiding a lot of stuff and they're not asking. They're hiding a lot of stuff and they're not asking. And so one of the myths is that if you ask somebody hey, are you thinking about killing yourself? That you are planting the seed. I've definitely believed this. In hindsight, I would ask way sooner, especially with my son, and that is completely false. We need to be asking people. Are you thinking about taking your life?
Speaker 1:That bluntly, not like, are you okay? Just that bluntly yes, okay, yeah, I just learned something.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I would have never thought that. I would have thought you know, hey, are you okay?
Speaker 2:It's okay not to be okay, but this is the world we're in now. Is that we've got to be really on top of this, kevin, or else it's not going to change. Yeah, no, it won't. We've got to take some drastic changes in how we are communicating, how we are relating to each other, how we are stepping in instead of just saying, hey, are you okay, instead of saying, I think you're really in trouble and I want to help you. Now the help can be many different ways directing them to you know a 988 support line. I've had, literally friends that have picked up their kids and taken them to the hospital and checked them in.
Speaker 1:Wow Against their will.
Speaker 2:I think at that moment it's like an intervention.
Speaker 1:You just resigned to it.
Speaker 2:You're going.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, I had one friend who actually this was a few years ago. She left a Facebook post saying goodbye. I got a message from a mutual friend saying hey, have you seen her posts driving herself up to some cliff? I think her intention was she was going to drive off. Somebody got to her and stopped her and she turned around and drove herself to the nearest hospital and checked herself in Good for her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause that's a strong person, that's a strong thing to do.
Speaker 2:Well and here's. But here's the thing, kevin, is that her posting that was her. I believe her cried us out saying somebody stop me.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because more times than not nobody does that. They don't even leave a note, statistically right. I think that when people attempt it and make that public, they are really wanting the help.
Speaker 1:It's kind of what happened to me in high school. When I was a senior in high school, I was in typing class and before class started I just started writing I want to die, I want to die, I want to die. And the girl behind me, renee Hill she saw that didn't say anything to me. But the next period I get a call to go see the high school counselor who says you know what's going on. And I think it was brilliant what counselor Heitman did called my parents and said your son is struggling. This is how you bring it up. Ask your younger son at the dinner table what's going on with you. And they did, my parents did. And after the third question to him, my brother I'm like it's not him, it's me, yeah, and then they dismissed him from the table and we had a nice long talk. Wow, if it wasn't for Renee, I don't know people would have known that I was struggling that much.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's one of my goals with the podcast is to help people open up.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'm in that fight with you two to save those 1 million folks, because I know the effect that my dad's decision had on the family not so much me, but on the family, and that's what you have to think about.
Speaker 2:That's the thing I think about, yeah yeah. Because you had asked me to help save you. That would be my biggest question is. You have to know, kevin, that because I think people who, towards the end, take their life have a very big belief that their family will be better off without them, and nothing could be further from the truth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I say that. I say that to my wife on occasion. I'm like wouldn't you be better off without me? She's like, absolutely not.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so three years after your husband passes away, your son does, and did you sit down with your daughter and have conversations like what are you thinking? Where are you at, are you OK?
Speaker 2:Actually, it was both of us coming together saying, OK, we're going to make sure that neither one of us get to this place, right, nice. So we have a very open communication about how we're feeling all the time. My daughter is very happy and very well adjusted and has done the work to heal herself and get through the grief, right, and she checks on me on a regular basis Right, yeah. So we just have a very open communication, especially on the days that we're feeling sad or yeah, this is why we co-wrote the book together.
Speaker 1:I was going to say that had to be very cathartic for both of you and very helpful.
Speaker 2:Yes, and at the time she had just gotten married. But was she married yet? Yes, she was married, but she had not started her family yet. So we were speaking together when we launched the book. We went on a four city book tour um started and did a whole lot of media and speaking together on a few stages.
Speaker 1:Now she has two very active little boys, so she can't do this, yeah, yeah. Uh, we're talking to Carrie Conley and the book that we're talking about that she co-wrote with her daughter, Laurel, is keep looking up. And then also the book vision is victory written by. It's a workbook written by Carrie herself and we are going to give you an opportunity to get that for free today. What do the Fuzzy Mic listeners have to do to get that for free?
Speaker 2:Well, I think I gave you a link you can put in the show notes, but there's also a text option.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So if people want to try that, it's just texting the word VICTORY all in caps, to 26786.
Speaker 1:26786, victory in all caps and you will get the Vision is Victory workbook. I know I'm going to get myself one because I think that's the thing. I know where I want to be. But unless I write it down, it's just I know where I want to be.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and that's the game changer, Kevin. That's the reason I do what I do, because everybody tells me that. You know, when I speak on stage, my first question is always do you feel like you have a very strong, powerful vision for your life? And most people kind of nod their head and go yeah. But the next thing I ask him is can you show me a three-year written letter to me as to what your life looks like, with target dates on things? That's the thing is that you've got to be shooting for certain targets of where you want to be in each of those categories. Yeah, Because without that, you're just kind of letting it. Well, we'll see if it happens. If it doesn't, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I for my ultra running stuff that I do, unless I tell somebody about it I'm not committed. Right, as soon as I tell somebody about it, then I'm committed.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's the same thing with vision is victory.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You're writing it down and now you're committed to making that happen. What if, after three years, you haven't achieved what you've written down? What happens?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people really worry about that too, and what I tell them. I usually go back to my network marketing days, right, one of my goals was to earn the Mercedes-Benz within the first year or two. That's a pretty big level. I did not earn that car until seven years in the company, so I kept pushing the date out, pushing the date out, pushing the date out. Here's the thing. It doesn't matter that I had to push the date out. What matters is that I got there.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I didn't beat myself up about it, that's the other thing is that just you'll get there at the time you're supposed to get there. But if you don't have target dates, you're not going to know the action that you need to take. So at the end of three years, if you haven't, how do you not consider yourself?
Speaker 1:a failure.
Speaker 2:I just kept believing in the people that were around me saying you're, you are there, you just need a little more time. Okay, you got to have the community around you. You have to have a lot of faith and you have to have a vision that is bigger than how you're feeling at the moment.
Speaker 1:You have to have a lot of faith and you have to have a vision that is bigger than how you're feeling at the moment? Yeah, oh right. That is a very powerful statement. Number one, but also number two, is that you kind of you get away from thinking about yourself and the vision and you continue to think about the goal.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's what keeps propelling you forward.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. There were so many days I wanted to quit that business you have no idea so many days by all the rejection, you know I was 18 months into the company and this close to earning the car and all my team quit, had to rebuild and go right. So my husband was not a fan of me doing it. The, the woman who sponsored me into the company, was my best friend from high school and she died a year into it. Uh, of us doing it together, there was so much, but the reason I got into my office every day and did what they told me to do was that the vision that I had for me and my family was bigger. It overrode the emotion. That's where people get tripped up as they live their life based on how they're feeling, not on where they're going and the impact they're making.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's an interesting thing that you just said, because I was talking to my former radio partner yesterday and we were talking about living in the moment. Now you're saying that it's okay about living in the moment. Now you're saying that it's okay to live in the future.
Speaker 2:I think it's a balance of both things. Be grateful where you are in the present, okay, always, because it's a gift you don't know if you have tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:But, regardless of what happens today, hopefully you're choosing to make it a good day, right? What's going to get you through how you're feeling or whatever happens to you today? What got me through was knowing that, okay, this is just today. I know that it's building to the next day, and where I'm going and my purpose is driving it. I very much live in the moment, very present, very in gratitude. But so much of what I'm building right now, kevin, is so big that it's scary. This is another very big point I want to make. There's a lot of fear and most people believe that if you are fearful or you're scared, you're doing something wrong. What I know is, because what I'm building is so big it's way outside of my comfort zone that the fear is good.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, our friend Jen Drummond says you're not living. If you're living in your comfort zone, if you're living out of your comfort zone. That's when you start living.
Speaker 2:Totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If you're comfortable, you're drifting, you're you're. You know you're not making an impact in other people's lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're, you're, you're stagnant, you're not doing anything, like you're, just, you're not engaging yourself. Right, you're not at all, and we are. We're a species that has to be engaged yes and whatever it is, you know, whether a relationship, or whether a task or whether a quest. I know that's for me. You know and I think that's what vision is victory is about too is you're writing down what the end of that quest is going to be?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Can you put vision is victory? Can you just put I want to be happy three years from now, or has it got to be something more concrete than that?
Speaker 2:Well, what does happiness mean? I mean you've got to be really clear on, okay, what is what are you being happy mean? What does that mean for you that you're living in your dream house in downtown Chicago, or are you living up on top of a mountain, away from everybody? You know? You have to be super clear on what that vision is for you.
Speaker 1:So you just said you have to define what happiness is for you. Let me ask you this question, and it's a question that I ask a lot of people who are trying to help others what is hope? What is hope?
Speaker 2:What is hope? Hope is knowing that, no matter what is happening, that there is a better future than where you are right now. It's everything, it's the anchor that will get you through it. That's why I said that my faith is my everything, because I know that, no matter what I'm going through right now and how tough this is in the moment, I know that ultimately I'm going to be with my son and my husband forever, in a much better place than this. That's hope, yeah. Knowing there's a better future than where you are right now, yeah.
Speaker 1:A lot of people mistake that when they hear the word hope, they're like oh, that's just a wish, it's not, it's not. You know, my wife and I run a pediatric cancer nonprofit and one of the words is hope, courage and love. And hope to me in that respect is a belief that there's going to be victories, there's going to be a better cure and then better treatment and then maybe one day a cure. So that's what I define hope as better treatment and then maybe one day a cure. So that's what I define hope as. So I was very happy to hear you define it. As you know, seeing things get better.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not a wish. It's not a wish at all.
Speaker 2:No, because that's just kind of leaving it up to whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Hope you've got to be a more active participant, I think. Yeah, for sure, for sure you have got to be, you've got to be a more active participant. I think, yeah, for sure, for sure. You again have to figure out what is it that links you to that hope? Um, the people around you, your faith, whatever that is your purpose, the legacy that you want to leave right yeah, it's so cool to finally find your purpose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you, you know, I found mine when I was 36, you know, and I've just been so blessed beyond what I deserve since I found pediatric cancer patients that I want to help, you know, right, and it kind of it strengthens me a little bit, but then when we lose one, it really it really affects me. The victories really energize you and really encourage you. And so when somebody, when, when somebody writes me, as my friend Brenda did the other day, and says your podcast really helps me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's that. That's what makes it all worth it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, and you know you and I there's only one person on this planet who ever walked us are perfect and could save people. You and I can't do that Right. We can help, we can inspire, we can encourage, we can give people tools and skills. I still coach.
Speaker 1:That's where I was going. We can give them tools, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but for everyone that we lose there's 20 more. Hopefully that turn around and I get the same uh reach outs that you do of. You know I heard you on so-and-so kevin's podcast or I heard your podcast or whatever, and you have no idea. You know, because when you put these out there, kevin, don't you go? Oh, I hope somebody's listening to that, right.
Speaker 1:I do, I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then when you get somebody randomly going hey, you don't know me, but I heard you blah, blah, blah, you really, really helped me, especially if they're a young adult that's struggling, that means everything to me.
Speaker 1:It really does. You know, because, on multiple levels number one, they took the time to listen Right. Not only just hear, but listen Right. You know, because so many people use this as background noise. But if you really pay attention you could save your own life.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's a very powerful medium and it's just, it's something that I've been doing. Well, the focus now with the fuzzy mic is the mental health, and that focus has been since January of this year and I I have I've had several people reach out to me and say, please, just keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Keep doing it, yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Especially with casting. You know it's not a. I've learned a lot since I started my podcast two years ago when I hired the team. I go into a studio and do it Um.
Speaker 1:I was wondering why it sounds so good. I mean, the audio is very, very good.
Speaker 2:But your audio today is fantastic. I know and I'm at home on my computer, so you wonder. But when I hired that team they said do not think that you can try this for six months. We need a good two to three year run consistently.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So mine drops once a week. I don't know how yours does, but we are very consistent with every Monday it drops right, yeah, I'm every Tuesday. And I enjoy it. It's fun doing the interviews.
Speaker 1:Well, it's the only thing that I miss about what I used to do on radio. I retired in 2021. And, like you said about your husband, the job was an identity and the job was an identity and the job was a major identity for me. I mean, I have 1.1 million listeners a week and then, all of a sudden, I drop off the face of the earth. So, yeah, that was a shock to the system, but everything I miss about it, I'm getting right here with you the conversation, the education you know.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And it's helping other people.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I'm going to bet Kevin that this is a big part of your positive mental health. Oh huge huge that and your running right.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, running is the cheapest medicine you can find.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, but no, I mean today. In talking to you, I've learned three things that I can do to cope number one. In talking to you, I've learned three things that I can do to cope number one and to manifest where I want to be and what I want to do with the podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So thank you for that.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. No, thank you. This is my favorite thing to do, as you know.
Speaker 1:So cool of you to join me and thank you so much for doing that. What else do we want to hit? We want to hit kerryconleycom C-A-R-E-Y-C-O-N-L-E-Ycom. If you're watching on YouTube, that's down to the bottom of the screen. Vision is Victory. What's that number again that we text?
Speaker 2:The word VICTORY all in caps to 26786.
Speaker 1:26786.
Speaker 2:And I wanted to mention, the name of my podcast, Moving Through and Beyond, changed a couple of months recently and it's now called Mental Health Breakthroughs for Young Adults.
Speaker 1:Okay, there it is Well. Mental Health Breakthroughs for Young Adults. There's a link right there. I highly recommend that you go listen to them, because the podcast is really really good and you have some fascinating guests too.
Speaker 2:I'm very blessed to know a lot of really awesome people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you're really awesome.
Speaker 2:Oh thanks.
Speaker 1:Awesome begets awesome, doesn't it? Yes, awesome begets awesome, doesn't it? Yes, seriously, I mean, you know, I have very low self-esteem, but who we're attracted to because it's a mirror reflection of us.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Don't you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:You've got some really awesome guests on your show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and more to come. Jen's going to come on and Todd Blyleven is going to come on. Do you know his story? I don't. His father's a Hall of Fame pitcher and he he carried 40 people off of the. Todd carried 40 people off of the concert festival at Las Vegas during the mass shooting. Yeah, that actually gave him PTSD.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah. You know, I would imagine Heck, yeah, still working through some of that myself.
Speaker 1:I'm surprised my mom never really had that, because she was the one that found my dad, you know and I'm surprised that she has never really had post-traumatic stress disorder from seeing him, you know. So, again, it's like you. However, you grieve, you grieve and however it affects you, what affects you. There's really no, there's no set way.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, right. He's got to seek out the help that works for you. And boy I've sought out a lot, me too.
Speaker 1:Solicited, unsolicited money. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Well, carrie, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for all of your success and what you share with the world, because I think it does help a lot of people open up about themselves and to know that they're not alone. Yes, and that's the major point.
Speaker 2:And I am honored to be here with you, kevin, so thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:All right, you got a friend for life here, buddy.
Speaker 2:Thank you, you too, I got a new friend.
Speaker 1:How about that? I've downloaded Carrie's Vision to Victory workbook. I've already done it and it indeed is completely free To get yours go to bitly forward. Slash vision is victory or simply text the word victory in all caps B-I-C-T-O-R-Y, in all caps to this number 26786. Again, victory in all caps to 26786. Like we kind of said in the conversation, once you write it down, the vision becomes an actionable plan. So get writing and make that vision your victory.
Speaker 1:My thanks to Carrie Conley for joining me and sharing her story and message of empowerment and ownership over your future. You can visit Carrie's website at carrieconleycom. Now, if you're looking to add some laughter into your life, I suggest the Tuttle Clime podcast. You can listen to it on the same platform. If you're looking to add some laughter into your life, I suggest the Tuttle Clime podcast. You can listen to it on the same platform where you're listening to the Fuzzy Mike. New episodes post every Wednesday. If you don't mind, I sure could use your help growing the Fuzzy Mike family. Every download, share like rating and comment, is your contribution to help save a life. There are people out there who could benefit from the message of the fuzzy mic, but they just don't know about it. So please help me, help them find it.
Speaker 1:The Fuzzy Mic is hosted and produced by Kevin Kline. Intro and outro voice Zach Sheesh at the Radio Farm. Social media director is Trish Kline. We have got some amazing guests coming up over the next several weeks and, can you believe it? We're almost at episode number 100. Yeah, thank you for sharing your time with the Fuzzy Mike. I'm great. That's it for the Fuzzy Mike. Thank you, the Fuzzy Mike with Kevin Kline.