Living a Life of Service: The Path to Purpose and Fulfillment | Ep. 73 with Dr. John Richards

:: 00:00:03

Speaker 1

So today's guest, Dr. John Richardson, is going to motivate you and inspire you, I promise. And his two truths and a lie at the end. Probably my favorite of all the guests so far. Watch right now.

:: 00:23:02

Speaker 1

Well, Dr. John Richardson, welcome to the No Great Areas podcast. It is a pleasure having you on. Let me just tell the audience really quick how you and I even met. So we're both in Destin, Florida, and we bump into each other in the hallway and just start visiting. I met you and your wife, Sonya. Right? Right. Right.

:: 00:41:00

Speaker 1

We ended up talking for like two or 3 hours or something. And so, like about a half an hour into, I'm like, we have got to get you on the podcast because your story is amazing. Your life has been amazing. And so thank you. And so the audience, anybody who's watching, we have a lot of listeners, if they're listening, you actually just got out of surgery.

:: 01:00:15

Speaker 1

Your heart surgeon. Correct.

:: 01:02:07

Speaker 2

Heart surgeon. That's correct. Heart thoracic vascular surgeon. That's right.

:: 01:06:02

Speaker 1

Yeah. So you just made it sound like it was an everyday thing that you just came out of repairing someone's aorta.

:: 01:12:12

Speaker 2

Well, I replaced a valve that was abnormal in a patient and aortic valve and associated with that aortic valve abnormality, he had an ascending aortic aneurysm. And so I replaces Valve and replaced his order at the same time. So that's typical for what I do pretty much every day. So that's kind of my specialty. But I've been doing a long time.

:: 01:34:13

Speaker 2

But you never take anything for granted. Anything can go wrong at any minute. And yeah, you always respect the the operation.

:: 01:42:00

Speaker 1

Well, just just to remind you, Dr. John, that's not something that most of us do every day. What you just rattled off there, though.

:: 01:50:13

Speaker 2

How long Couldn't do it. 34 years. I've been in practice. 34 years. Wow.

:: 01:55:07

Speaker 1

Wow. So long time. Back up. Let me back just get a little bit of your history. So where did you grow up? Where are you from originally?

:: 02:01:04

Speaker 2

Well, I moved around. I was born actually in Lynchburg, Virginia, but moved around a lot before I was 12. And then we moved to Birmingham when I was 12 and pretty much was raised in Birmingham after that, went to Auburn University and then from that went to medical school in south Alabama and Mobile, Alabama, and did general surgery there for another five years and then went to Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia at 87, 89 to do cardiac surgery, thoracic surgery and heart transplant.

:: 02:31:23

Speaker 1

So you're in Birmingham, Alabama. You're married. You've got a couple of kids, five grandchildren, some of them little. Are you You've actually you volunteer at Auburn, obviously became a huge Auburn fan since you went there. Right. And you've also a football team. So how are you doing that?

:: 02:49:09

Speaker 2

You know, I went down, I played football in high school, was trying to think about playing college ball, got recruited, but I had too many injuries and so I had to give up on that dream when I went to Auburn and then I threw the discus at Auburn for a couple of years on the track team and had a scholarship on the track team doing that.

:: 03:06:22

Speaker 2

Then I tore my ACL. I had to have that repaired. So in any event, I decided to go ahead and just dedicate myself to medicine at that time, and I still help with the track team and the shot putters and discus throwers. But so I graduated from Auburn, went to medical school and did all that, and I'm still a big Auburn fan.

:: 03:26:00

Speaker 2

I grew up when I was little, I lived in Auburn. My dad was born and raised in Auburn and my grandfather was and my dad played ball at Auburn back before when it was API. And then he went to all or to and came back and finished at Auburn and he was a marine in the South Pacific on Peleliu and Okinawa.

:: 03:50:07

Speaker 2

So he survived that. Went back to Korea. Yeah, he he's he died at 90. He was one of the last few survivors of Peleliu and wow. But yeah, he was a So in any event, that's the Auburn connection. Pretty much all my family's gone there and I lived there when I was little. And then the connection with the university once I started practice here in Birmingham, um, I started being involved with the team and the coaches and basically just really being what I do as a surgeon, as a heart surgeon.

:: 04:23:04

Speaker 2

I'm an orthopedic surgeon, of course, I would see kids and coaches. I've operated on some of the coaches over the years for different things, but mainly to help the kids get kind of medical treatment they need if the specialist is needed. But and coaches, but basically the last 15 or 16 years has just been type like a mentoring to the kids.

:: 04:48:01

Speaker 2

Yeah. You know when you're down there as a physician all the time and you practice some of the times and you can beat these kids when they come in as freshmen and you watch them every year, get older and more mature and then graduate and either go to the NFL or a lot of most of them don't. But then you watch them grow up and be fathers and husbands.

:: 05:07:22

Speaker 2

And and that's where it's really cool to see these guys change through the years. And we've gotten close. I've got I can't tell how many sons I really have that are indirectly from Auburn and and so the reason I got on the field about 15 years ago operated on Dr. Jim Andrews, who I don't know if you know who that is, but he's the top sports medicine doctor in the world, probably orthopedic surgeon, probably.

:: 05:39:04

Speaker 2

He operates on all the Major League Baseball players, football players. And he's probably you know, he was one of the few the guys that started sports medicine and one of the one of the founders, anyhow. Yeah, well, he he had a massive heart attack back about six years ago and I took care of him. He's a friend of mine and I did his heart surgery and he's one of the Auburn doctors, Alabama doctors, the Saints doctors, the Redskins doctors or now the commanders or whatever they're called now, the Washington football team.

:: 06:08:11

Speaker 2

But yeah, I can't keep up with it. But it's so bad that I started being on the field with him and then going to the games and it just one thing went to another. And I'm just down there now, you know, trying to mentor the kids, putting on, bring in speakers in. I've had them all up to our house through the years for cookouts and speakers and Christian speakers, military speakers.

:: 06:33:00

Speaker 2

So just, you know, whoever wants to come, of course, volunteer voluntarily. And but it's been a privilege and an honor and a blessing for me to work with those kids and just to see what young men they grow into. And we still keep up with them a lot to this day.

:: 06:47:23

Speaker 1

What an incredible opportunity. And I mean, you're changing generations by doing that, right? Like you're affecting them, which can affect their children and their children.

:: 06:57:17

Speaker 2

Right? That's what that's what we're trying to do with a lot of other men like me. Exactly. Exactly.

:: 07:03:06

Speaker 1

Well, I know when we met in the lobby and we were talking, I'm jumping ahead in your story a little bit, but you do a lot with the military in the Special Forces as well. You were telling me that you took some of the young men from the Auburn football team and you took them out to San Diego and did some course on a deal with them.

:: 07:17:22

Speaker 1

Right, with the SEAL team, right?

:: 07:19:01

Speaker 2

Yeah, Right. Well, in: 2014

:: 07:46:05

Speaker 2

When they get out with all the issues they have, it can be physical, can be mental, can be spiritual, PTSD, suicide prevention, but it's a problem. And the more I've dealt into it through the last 15 years, the more I realized, the more help they need. And, you know, they're our war fighters, the special operations guys or the war fighters.

:: 08:10:14

Speaker 2

And what they're asked to do and what they see overseas is just something that none of us would ever want to see or do. Yeah, and because of that, there's really no you know, there's there's things out there that try to help these guys transition to private life, but nothing is is perfect. Nothing's adequate. The the government tries the VA system's overloaded.

:: 08:37:14

Speaker 2

So we've gone through private channels and I've worked with retired Navy SEALs, active SEALs, Delta operators, Green Berets, Rangers to try to have some things that we've raised money for so we can get money to where it's needed.

:: 08:52:14

Speaker 1

Yeah. Dr. John, do you think that part of your passion for that is, is perhaps growing up with a dad who saw some of that kind of fighting? I mean, anybody that knows anything about history knows that the couple of places you said your dad fought were some of the most brutal fighting in World War Two.

:: 09:08:03

Speaker 2

d there was a book written in: 1994

:: 09:28:13

Speaker 2

It's amazing that anyone survived that environment, much less alone, the fighting itself, but the stench and the dysentery and the disease and how anybody came home from that was amazing. But that started it. I didn't serve because, you know, the draft ended soon as I was finishing up high school. My oldest brother was a Ranger in the Vietnam era, so that started a lot of that, too.

:: 09:54:14

Speaker 2

And then we've all our families always been very patriotic. And, you know, we believe America's the greatest country in the world. And and we feel like the and a lot of that secondary to the military and we I just decided 15 years ago how could we get involved and help. And it just turned out through a lot of different avenues and doors opening up, which I think God opened them up, you know, to basically meet some guys that were actually in special operations or retired.

:: 10:26:03

Speaker 2

And then one thing led to another. And then once you start doing things for these guys, then the other door is open up and they're so appreciative of anything you do. I mean, it's amazing. So I've been able to. So I took some All-bran kids out to corn on about ten of them back in 14 because of a retired SEAL commander, Tom Chalabi, who's like my brother, who was an incredible warrior.

:: 10:50:07

Speaker 2

Some unbelievable things about him I could tell you about. But these guys got to go out there for three days. Me and my wife went with them and the strength coach at Auburn, and they got to spend three days out there out in the Pacific Ocean, freezing to death, going through some of the hell week type stuff a little bit than they did in the last ten or 15 minutes.

:: 11:11:18

Speaker 2

But they got it and then they got some leadership classes and then they got to see stuff that no one really would get to see, you know, unless you were being invited to come out there and see stuff, which I've done numerous times and watch these guys train. And up in Virginia at Little Creek where the East Coast SEAL teams are and and the West Coast.

:: 11:31:21

Speaker 2

But it's been a privilege to be able to and an honor to spend some time with these guys and watch them train.

:: 11:37:15

Speaker 1

Yeah, well, I suspect that they went back in those two days, which are brutal in football. Right. But they're two of days, probably less brutal after going to hell week in the.

:: 11:46:16

Speaker 2

So they were carrying those logs around on the beach and the instructors yelling at them and getting in the cold water. Yeah. And, and then they'd make them run up and get all wet and sandy and what they call sugar cookies and, but they couldn't carry those logs for about 5 minutes. Those guys will care them for 2 hours.

:: 12:04:06

Speaker 2

During Helwig. Yeah, it's.

:: 12:06:02

Speaker 1

Incredible. Well, let me jump back to something you said earlier, because I want to keep in on that. You talked about mentoring and the importance of mentoring. Yeah. Is is there a reason like did you have some mentors in your life or is there a reason that you're so passionate about that? Because I believe that mentoring, I look back on my own personal life and people, I come from a really broken home and people are like, Well, what?

:: 12:24:13

Speaker 1

How did you turn out? And I said, Well, it was it was mentors in my life. It was some men that came and stepped into my life when I could have gone off the rails.

:: 12:32:06

Speaker 2

Well, fortunately, my father was my mentor was the man I looked up to. I had my dad. I've got three older brothers. My dad was your man's man and he was tough on us. But but that did not want to disappoint my dad. My dad taught us all our work ethic. I may have been short on talent, but nobody ever outwork me.

:: 12:54:05

Speaker 2

Period. In anything. Medical, school, residency, football, sports. Nobody would outwork me. And I did. I got that from my dad. So I think that led to the fact that that kind of played a part in me getting the athletics because of the physical nature of it, the middle nature of it, which translates over to the Special Forces world.

:: 13:16:00

Speaker 2

And but the mentoring for these kids, once I started spending a lot of time with them and they'd come up to my house some of them individually, some groups or the whole team at time, and you hear their story with the broken homes and see some of them whose mom they saw their mom stabbed death in, or whatever their situation may have been.

:: 13:37:17

Speaker 2

And you just cannot believe some of these stories, like one of the kids I'm closest to at Auburn, great kid is out. He didn't get to play in the NFL because of his needs. He could have he was all-American in high school, but he didn't sleep in a bid to do a 15 years old. He slept on the floor in a high school gym.

:: 13:56:05

Speaker 2

And we took in just guys like that who have made something of themselves now and guys who have struggled through the years and still struggling. But, you know, the main thing a lot of these guys have become, they've dedicated her life to the Lord and the Lord changed them and they become unbelievable fathers, husbands, and they still struggle.

:: 14:19:18

Speaker 2

Some of them have a lot of money, some don't have a part to play in. Yeah, and but they're good young men. And that's been the more the blessing to me than winning football games. Watching us win football. They used to I used to hate to lose and see Auburn lose it terribly up for a weekend. But now it's like the main thing is, is you know what the character of these kids are and what they become.

:: 14:46:07

Speaker 2

And that's been the blessing to me through the years, is to watch these kids. And I could give you examples people, kids you would know about if I mention their name. Yeah. Some of these guys played in the NFL for ten years. We're all Americans, all pro. Some of them are. Some of them, you know, selling real estate.

:: 15:02:17

Speaker 2

Some are working it. You know, some of them have great jobs. Some of them have no jobs. But they're still they're still good men.

:: 15:10:12

Speaker 1

Dr. John, I just got to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Because what you're doing, stepping their lives. I had some men that did that for me. And so I recognized firsthand the importance of that. That part of the you know, I love this. I can't remember who gave this quote, but it's one of my favorite quotes.

:: 15:24:13

Speaker 1

That part of the tragic rationale of our culture today is that if you can't do everything, you can't do anything right. The thing is, is none of us can do everything, but we can do something. And for you and you and Sonya, your wife, are living that out, you know, mentoring and taking some you thing and just connecting them.

:: 15:42:06

Speaker 1

And I mean, until you get to heaven someday you will probably have no idea the the level of impact and how many generations that impact is going to go down.

:: 15:51:02

Speaker 2

Well, those are kind words. And I hope our life and our example has helped kids. And like my dad said, told me long time ago, it's not what you do for people, but it's how you make people feel. In the end, it really counts. And so and then I had a high school coach that saw something in me that that, you know, I didn't I wasn't the best athlete for sure.

:: 16:15:12

Speaker 2

But like I said, I outworked everybody. And he saw that he appreciated that. He drove me to the point where I succeeded in that and other things. Yeah. So but I would say my father, you know, was the the figure of my life that that was there. And he traveled a lot. He wasn't there all the time. But man, if I disappointed my dad that he did.

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Speaker 2

My dad didn't have to say a word to me. He didn't have to. He just could say you disappointed me and that ruined me. Well, that's, you know, that was enough. That was enough.

:: 16:46:12

Speaker 1

Well, you you talk about outworking anybody, and most people will know this. I know this because I stood next to you in the lobby of that hotel. I don't know if you want to give away your age, but I can promise everyone that you are in better shape than people that are decades and decades younger than you. You're still working hard, aren't you?

:: 17:04:09

Speaker 2

I do. I'll be 68 in October, and I'm fortunate to have some young kids that work out with me. My Jake, my surgical assistant who you met. Yeah, one a couple of my Navy SEAL buddies that are retired, come over and work out with me, and I will have to say I can. I can give them all they want.

:: 17:23:03

Speaker 2

So but I you know, it's like that to me is to me that's kind of a hobby. It's a stress reliever. I've got my own gym here at home. I don't have any excuses. I've always eaten correctly. I've always watch my nutritional intake. I've always watched my hormonal status for as long as that's become, you know, important, which we know now from a cardiovascular standpoint, you know, about all the hormonal things out there and all the new peptides that are out there and things that can help extend life and longevity and quality of life, which is the main thing you know, I don't care if I live to be 90, but I want to live

:: 18:00:17

Speaker 2

if I'm going to live to be 90, I want to live, you know.

:: 18:03:15

Speaker 1

I'm with you. The great theologian William Wallace says every man dies. Not every man really lives, right?

:: 18:08:21

Speaker 2

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah. And I see you know, and I see the worst of disease, too. I see, you know, cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of anything out there and all cancers combined. And, you know, I see it every day. And just because you do all the right things doesn't make you immune to it.

:: 18:28:22

Speaker 2

But it sure decreases your risk. Your risk. Yeah. And but, you know, I don't do it for that. I do it for that one reason, but I do it because I love it. I love pushing my body to see what you know, how far can I go? You know, everybody can go a little bit more. And that's what's so cool about seeing some of these Special Forces guys like the SEALs through training.

:: 18:50:13

Speaker 2

They have what's called the 20 to 40% rule, which you when you think you can't go any more and you're dead, you can go another 30, 40%. And that's been proven physiologically through studies. And those guys are push beyond. And when you see that, you just you know, it's just kind of one of those things. It's amazing what the human body can tolerate and what the human body can do.

:: 19:13:00

Speaker 1

Yeah, absolutely.

:: 19:14:06

Speaker 2

It's a it's a fascinating organism that God made. And and people think that body was created by atoms coming together at the sound of a bang. Just don't know what I know or haven't seen what I've seen.

:: 19:29:14

Speaker 1

I'm with you. I'm fascinated by science. And this universe is full of scientific things that will blow your mind. But there's just nothing quite like the human body. And as you're a man of faith, I'm a man of faith. That shouldn't surprise us, because in the entire universe, where the one thing that's created the image of God right?

:: 19:45:16

Speaker 2

Yes, absolutely.

:: 19:47:05

Speaker 1

I'll go.

:: 19:47:12

Speaker 2

Dark. So lutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, you know, just the things that have to line up in the solar system every second so we're not burned up. There's just enough people. There's just I mean, that's not even my field, but I like to read about it, But I'm ignorant when it comes to all that. But when you start reading these nuclear physicists and scientists talk about that, it's and how you could not believe in something, there was a creator.

:: 20:12:03

Speaker 2

I don't understand. Yeah.

:: 20:13:23

Speaker 1

Well, let me let me just jumping out for just a moment here, because you are a person of faith. And here's what's interesting for our audience. I'm visiting with you and your wife in the hallway there at that hotel in Destin, Florida. And we're talking and about 30 minutes in and I'm like, man, there's something different about this couple.

:: 20:29:06

Speaker 1

There's something. And this, again, I think, is a person of faith. And you being a person of faith, we would recognize that is there was God in you, there was the spirit of God in you. And I recognized and and I say that to honor you and your wife, because not only was I motivated, encouraged by our conversation, but there was a difference.

:: 20:49:18

Speaker 1

And so how has your faith played out in your life? Well, when did you come to know God?

:: 20:55:17

Speaker 2

Right? Well, I will say, cause Sonya's my motivation, you know for sure. We've been married 47 years. We got married at Auburn. We dated each other in high school. She's really the only girl that I've ever known, except for a few. You know where we are at Auburn when we tried to date other people. And that didn't work.

:: 21:11:14

Speaker 2

But. But, you know, she's taking care of our children. When I was training and gone, you know, hours of the night, she raised our kids. And that's why our daughters are like they are and our grandchildren are like they are because of her. But I when I was 16 years old, I really didn't really think about if there there was a heaven or hell.

:: 21:35:11

Speaker 2

I didn't I didn't have any interest in even though my parents were Christians, I just didn't, you know, it just didn't interest me. And one of my neighbors asked me to go to a young Life meeting one night, and I did. And we went through the book of John. And I realized then that there was a heaven and hell.

:: 21:56:18

Speaker 2

I came home that night and I was lying in my bed at my home. I was 16 and I started crying because I knew that, hey, I don't I'm going to hell or something if I don't, you know, change or or whatever. I did really know what was going on. And but I knew that that scared me, you know.

:: 22:15:03

Speaker 2

And so they told me, do I read the book, John, that night and ask Lord to come in my life. And, you know, things didn't go, you know, no lights went off. I felt at peace. But one thing that happened, I remember like it was yesterday and this maybe sounds crazy, but we were in the midst of football season at that time, and I had a pretty foul mouth, you know, and especially on the football field.

:: 22:42:07

Speaker 2

And, you know, we were doing tackling drills and I got hit wrong. And normally I would say something bad and I said, shoot. And and I remember I go, good lord, you know, that's that's coming out of my mouth. And that sounds little, but, you know, I didn't have to change anything. You know, people think when you become a Christian, you got to change your whole life.

:: 23:01:19

Speaker 2

God changed me. He changed the things that need to be changed and he still changed them. And I'm as you know, we're all sinners and we you know, we all we none of us are deserving of heaven. But when God sees us, He sees Christ, you know, in front of us. And so but so that's kind of how it started.

:: 23:23:09

Speaker 2

And Sonja and I started dating. We got married and she's a she's been kind of a person of faith all her life. There wasn't a particular day that she remembers that she became a Christian. But and but she's been my motivation as much as anybody, of course, you know.

:: 23:39:06

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's beautiful. They need to write a book or a movie about your life with that one.

:: 23:43:14

Speaker 2

No. Well.

:: 23:44:15

Speaker 1

Well, there's not. Well, there's not a lot of people that have that story anymore, Right? Like you're saying, you guys met in high school. You start dating in high school through college. You're married 47 years now. You said congratulations, you.

:: 23:54:07

Speaker 2

Seven in December. And she's been through it all, all those years of training and and even after training. And we're, you know, back in back in the day when medicine was medicine and I that's a whole nother subject. But when doctors you know when the work our laws weren't put in place where you work night and day for days after days after days and you didn't come home for several weeks at a time when you were training, she ran the household.

:: 24:21:05

Speaker 2

Yeah. And she did it all. And, you know, I'm still busy and still out at night and things like that. And she still does. I hadn't written a check in my whole life. She does are planning. I wouldn't know where the checkbook is and I you know but you know so but you know medicine to me is a calling.

:: 24:41:00

Speaker 2

I mean, I knew I wanted to be a heart surgeon when I was like in the third grade. And back then the third grade was about you know, you're talking about 19 Oh, in the mid-sixties. Well, the heart surgery was just in its infancy then. And all the pioneers of heart surgery were still alive doing Michael DeBakey, little of all those guys.

:: 25:04:16

Speaker 2

So the way our I start reading the encyclopedia, if anybody knows what the encyclopedia is anymore.

:: 25:09:19

Speaker 1

You're kidding me. So you get interested in heart surgery in third.

:: 25:13:11

Speaker 2

Reading the encyclopedia when I was in third and fourth grade. And. And I knew then whatever that was, that's what I wanted to do. So I never wavered now. And that's just in itself. I mean, you know, so.

:: 25:26:02

Speaker 1

Yeah, well, we're going to have to tell the younger listeners, if you don't want encyclopedias, go Google it.

:: 25:31:09

Speaker 2

And so I knew if I mentioned that, probably nobody would know what I was talking about, but I would I would read those encyclopedias cover to cover.

:: 25:42:13

Speaker 1

So, yeah, well, John, I would love some time if we could get our lives together. I did meet your wife, and I can tell the way you're bragging about her. That is amazing. I have a similar story my wife and I met in sixth grade. We dated through high school. We just celebrated 32 years, so we're.

:: 25:58:08

Speaker 2

Congratulations. Well, you know what's so funny? My mother taught my wife in Sunday school in sixth grade, so here in Birmingham. Yeah. Yeah. So we've known her or the family for cheap since I was 12 years old, so. Yeah, but no, not many people have that experience anymore. And but, you know, marriage has kind of become like a contract.

:: 26:22:17

Speaker 2

Now, if it doesn't work out, it's okay. You know? You know, everybody just kind of wants to be if if you're not happy, well, then something's wrong. Well, you know, that's not what your vows were about. Being happy. You know, it's about a vow.

:: 26:35:09

Speaker 1

I so agree with that. I don't want to, you know, bring any shame on anybody that doesn't have that story.

:: 26:41:00

Speaker 2

But I know.

:: 26:41:21

Speaker 1

I am with you, my friend, because I think that's helped my wife and I more than anything, when we do come up against some really serious conflict, we're just like we're in this together. Absolutely. I mean, I'm not going away. And you're not going away, so we better.

:: 26:54:10

Speaker 2

That was our thought from the very beginning. You know, we went through some very rough times, too, the training and this and that and and financially had no money and and things were rough. And but, you know, divorce was just not an option. And that was instilled for me from my parents and and Sonia's parents. My parents were married 56 years until my mom died.

:: 27:15:10

Speaker 2

So, you know, and and I'm actually not I was got that story and that's okay And but, you know, marriage has taken a different viewpoint now than it then, I think. And I think we need to this country needs to get back on the right track for a lot of different ways, if you know what I mean. I do go do you know?

:: 27:34:04

Speaker 2

Yeah.

:: 27:34:15

Speaker 1

Well, Dr. John, thank you so much for today. I'm telling you, I knew I knew I knew that our audience was going to be motivated and inspired by you and your story. As I was and when I met you at Destin. But we always finish the podcasts with two truths and a Lie, which is ironic because we call this no gray areas.

:: 27:51:14

Speaker 1

And yet I'm going to ask you to lie to us. So. Well, we've been listening to about 30 minutes. See if you can stump me.

:: 27:57:23

Speaker 2

Okay. I would just tell you I had the opportunity or whatever you want to call it, of seeing a a gentleman, a man basically severed in half after living in a sea dumpster. And the truck that unloaded the dumpster into the into the the actual truck came down and cut him right in half. And he lived to talk about it.

:: 28:23:06

Speaker 1

What? Okay, okay, okay. Keep going.

:: 28:28:18

Speaker 2

All right. That's one. Number two, when I was at the Navy SEAL base in Coronado with the Auburn athletes, they talked me into going up in a C-17 with one of the SEALs that teaches the the jumpers. He'd done 25,000 jumps and he talked me into doing a tandem jump with him in Coronado over Coronado Bay.

:: 28:51:20

Speaker 1

Okay. All right. I can't wait to hear three.

:: 28:55:17

Speaker 2

And three is that I flew out one night from Virginia to get a heart, flew over the Appalachian Mountains in the helicopter, were the one with me, and a helicopter pilot flew to the hospital that I was born in. Horrors, had a heart, flew back over the mountains and put that heart in and a heart training. So I flew to the hospital that I was actually born in.

:: 29:21:09

Speaker 1

Oh, my goodness. Okay.

:: 29:23:06

Speaker 2

So heart out at the place I was born in.

:: 29:26:22

Speaker 1

And then brought it back and put it in.

:: 29:28:14

Speaker 2

And brought it back and put it in somebody in Virginia?

:: 29:30:20

Speaker 1

Yes. Okay. This is going to be tough. Let me see here. I'm going to go with. Oh, man, these are these are tough ones. Okay. I'm going to go with the harvested the heart that's got been a heart surgeon. And see, that's a true one.

:: 29:43:06

Speaker 2

That's true. That's true. That's correct.

:: 29:45:02

Speaker 1

That's an amazing story, though. So you went to the hospital. You were born.

:: 29:48:12

Speaker 2

Now? I was born in. Yeah. And, you know, we fill out all the time getting hearts at different places in the country and use, you know. But we flew in a helicopter over the Appalachian Mountains that night, which if you never flown in the helicopter over the actual mountains, it is an experience because you got to pretty much fly sideways because of the winds.

:: 30:07:09

Speaker 2

And so I was I was sitting there with that cooler with the heart in front of my legs with the pilot. And, you know, I thought, are we going to make it home? But yeah, I went to the hospital in Lynchburg, Virginia, where I was born, and I actually went down to medical records because when we would take we would take the heart out, the donor heart, we had to go in and fill out a lot of forms.

:: 30:27:07

Speaker 2

I went down to medical records when I had to sign all these forms, and they somehow kept all the births at that hospital since they'd been there. And they found my, like a copy of my birth certificate.

:: 30:39:05

Speaker 1

, crazy story. So now I got a: 5050

:: 30:43:14

Speaker 2

You do it. Good. You're doing good.

:: 30:46:02

Speaker 1

The man's seven and a half and lived to tell about it. Or you do a tandem jump out of a C 17 over Coronado. Oh, okay. I'm going to go. I'm going to go with the C 17. The tandem jump is true.

:: 30:58:04

Speaker 2

That is false. I had the opportunity and the Auburn players are trying to coax me into doing it. And but at that time I was a little bit younger and I said, this is probably not the thing to do right now. Now, if if I go back out there and I have been, I will do it now. But I'm 15 years older and things are a little bit different and my children are grown.

:: 31:21:02

Speaker 2

And so that that I did not do. I had the opportunity but didn't do it.

:: 31:25:22

Speaker 1

Well, that leaves number one, being hard to believe. See, I was going to say that that was a lie because you saw someone suffered in half, but they didn't live. You saw that they lived.

:: 31:35:07

Speaker 2

He was brought in to our emergency room in Mobile, Alabama. He was a homeless gentleman living in a dumpster. The truck came by. You know how the truck brings that dumpster overhead and empties it. And then the thing that comes down and smashes the trash or decompressed the trash for whatever term half his body was outside the blade and half was inside the truck.

:: 31:58:04

Speaker 2

And he was basically severed in half right about the level of the pelvis.

:: 32:01:21

Speaker 1

And he survived.

:: 32:02:21

Speaker 2

He was brought in our merch room and shot. We resuscitated him and basically through about 40 or 50 operations and time and four or five years in the hospital, he was out. He was still in the hospital when I went to do my heart training in Virginia. But he eventually left the hospital after about four years.

:: 32:23:05

Speaker 1

Okay. Okay. Well, John, let me just say this. Thank you so much again. And I think we do these two truths in life with all of our guests. We've done about 60 guests, I think. And I think that was my favorite one so far.

:: 32:36:08

Speaker 2

Well, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and I appreciate what you're doing. I know what you do, what you stand for, and I appreciate it. And if any of your listeners out there are interested and maybe helping with some of these events or special forces or foundations that we do, I've got so many stories that where the need is there and so many neat stories.

:: 33:00:23

Speaker 2

I'd be glad to talk to you on a private basis about some of them, about how things have intervened in people's lives that have prevented guys from taking their life. And that's if we save one particular special, one particular veteran or a military guy. It's worth it. But we've threw some foundations. It's we've we've been able to change some lives.

:: 33:23:18

Speaker 2

And and I would you know, anybody out there that would like to be involved with that through financial aid or whatever any of their talents, we would love to you know, we'd love to talk to them.

:: 33:34:22

Speaker 1

Well, tell you what, Dr. John, we'll get will connect with you after this. And when we when we drop this podcast will include some of those links in the description. So any of our listeners that want to go, they can just go to the description and link and go support. I'm with you.

:: 33:52:04

Speaker 2

Well, I know you.

:: 33:53:06

Speaker 1

All of our men and women, we take care of our men and women.

:: 33:56:19

Speaker 2

And I know you from our conversation at the beach and and like I say, I look forward to meet you and your wife and we will make it happen soon.

:: 34:05:06

Speaker 1

All right. Thanks, John. What an amazing interview with Dr. John Richardson. Inspiring. He talked about a lot of things, but certainly the mentorship is one that stood out to me. And so we would love for you to comment below or email us that info at no gray areas dot com and let us know someone who had an impact in your life as a mentor.

:: 34:25:01

Speaker 1

Remember to like, follow and especially subscribe No gray areas.