From Befuddled to Blessed: Russ Hedge’s Approach to Cancer and Adversity

Dr. Brad Miller 0:00

Hello, good people. Welcome back to cancer and comedy. This is the podcast where we like to offer cancer impacted people a sense of how to cope with hope and with a dash of humor in the whole process. And we're really pleased that we have a great, inspirational leader and speaker and business person, and with his who has his own journey of navigating cancer, road which many of us have in his name is Russ Hedge from Russ hedge.com and we'll talk more about other things, but he's also the author of the book be a funnel. But Russ, welcome to our conversation here to today.

Russ Hedge 0:37

Well, first of all, welcome Brad. What an honor to be here today, and I'm just so thankful to have a chance to talk with you. Thank you.

Dr. Brad Miller 0:44

What's a blessing to me, and I've been got to know you a little bit here through some conversations and reading your website and some of the testimonies about you. And that's you've got an inspirational story. We'll get into the nitty gritty of it here in just a minute. But I know you. One of the things that you shared with me, as you'd like to do when you start off a talk, or start off some sort of accounts consulting or or some sort of event that you're at, is to have laughter as a part of it, some sort of a laughter therapy exercise, or something like this. So tell me a little bit about that. And particularly, what is something that's happened in your life, oh, recently, last few days, a week or so, to put a smile on your face or made you laugh.

Russ Hedge 1:24

Well, first of all, I just want to say comment to that, that I love starting with laughter, because what an amazing way to get people feeling good. Yes, when I'm speaking and doing my inspirational speaking, love to do that, and I love laughter. And I can tell you, I've had some great, great moments laughing at myself recently, like this morning, when I set off the alarms on both of my cars, both depending alarms at the same time. That was a it was a good one, because, first of all, part of this whole journey, I am very hard of hearing. Okay, thank God for air pods and things that go directly in my ears that help me with that, the hearing aids that I normally wear. But when I am out and about in regular life, I don't hear super well. And so first of all, I didn't know which car that I had set off, and then trying to turn it off, I actually activated the other car. That's one. That's one way to make it was going. My wife tried to flag me down to tell me which car it is. It was hilarious. And that was just this morning, and that made me laugh. And it gave me a really, maybe, you know, sometimes we just have to laugh at ourselves.

Dr. Brad Miller 2:32

It also makes you really popular in the neighborhood, too, when you're setting out the car alarms, and everybody's dealing with that. So, so that's, that's great, the things, it's awesome. Then when things can make us laugh, I know that I enjoy my grandchildren. I got to visit with them a couple days ago over the weekend, and you know, they're doing silly stuff. They're 554, and seven years old, and they doing flip flops and doing games. And just made me laugh, and makes makes you feel good to start your life out like it, because there's a lot of difficult things in life that we deal with, and a lot of challenges, a lot of negativity, a lot of depression, a lot of people who are dealing with hopelessness, and you've had your share of challenges to deal with, including the area of cancer, and so tell us some of these challenges that you've dealt with, and that'll Help Us and kind of set the stage for for stage for for what's next to how you've been dealing with that.

Russ Hedge 3:26

Yeah, well, well, where to start actually, you know, I have, over the last just several years, had a couple very monumental things happen in my life. First of all, both my parents moved into senior living. My dad had lung cancer, my my mama had Alzheimer's, and so went through that whole process. Both of them are now in heaven and and, but you know, the whole journey actually, not only was it difficult and challenging, but it was also the most fulfilling and some of the best time of my life with them. And I can tell you, they were amazing parents, so I had a really, really good life, but it was the last years were some of the closest with my parents, especially my mama, because she lasted through Alzheimer's for several years and that whole process. So then right on the day she went to heaven, which was my dad's birthday, July 18. Oh, wow. About three years ago, I found out I had a wart on the bottom of my foot, I thought. And what that turned in to find out about a month later was it was actually melanoma, and it became went from Stage Two a to find it and metastasized to my groin, stage 3c then after they thought, they got it through two rounds of treatment and surgery, about a year later, it showed up again, stage four in my lungs and my brain and so, quite a process. So. That last, this last, you know, five, six years, has been kind of a whirlwind for me,

Dr. Brad Miller 5:06

and the fact that you started that whole process with, you know, the grief and everything else went along with losing your losing your your mom and your your dad in the short order there and the same day. And then it seemed to me, maybe I'm wrong here, but your reaction was that a water your foot. It's bothersome, but it's not the type of thing you would think is going to be life threatening, but it kind of advanced quickly, didn't it? So tell me a little bit about your mental process, how you kind of dealt with what Something seemed kind of relatively minor, and also they ratcheted pretty quick. Sure.

Russ Hedge 5:41

Yeah. Well, I mean, let's face it, when somebody tells you have cancer, your kind of heart kind of stops for a moment because you don't want to hear that word. But when they explained it to me, what had happened was from what looked like a wart about a month later. It was about the size of a quarter. It was black. That's why I had it. Went in and had it biopsied and and, of course, it came back invasive melanoma, one of the worst types. And then before I was able to get into surgery, when they went into surgery, they did lymph node mapping, and they they traced it up to my groin. It had already metastasized. So my mindset at the very beginning was, okay, they're going to get this. No big deal. I'm going to get through it. I'm a really positive guy, so I was going to fly through it, and I was just going to tell everybody, God is good and that I'm going to make it all is going to be great. And then when I get the call after the surgery, and now I'm laid up for I couldn't walk on my foot for over eight weeks because they basically had cut up a good chunk of my foot and re redone it right? They did surgery, and then they did plastic surgery, took out the whole instep on my foot and redid it. And so then I found out it was in my groin, and then I was going to have to have cancer treatment. So I went into immunotherapy that that hit a little bit harder, and after some tears with my family, sure, you know, I woke up the next day, my dad always said, tomorrow's a new day. That's what he always told me. You know what? Today, may today may be lousy, but tomorrow's a new day. Fresh perspective, I woke up and I thought, Okay. I heard God saying to me, you know you've got this. It's okay. I gotcha. And you know you're gonna make it. You're just going to get in there and you're going to do what the doctors say, and you're going to take care of yourself. So sure enough, move forward. Everything was going okay. Found more cancer, actually a few months later. So they changed up the treatment. Then the real side effects started. This is where a lot of the problems that I'm having now started. The second treatment, a different medication, on immunotherapy. My body didn't like it Okay, and so I'd already had one round. First round is like four treatments. Second round, one treatment. My body blew up. Suddenly. I end up in the hospital. I call my doctor. They said, Call 911, and and have them pick you up now transport me to the hospital. Found out my blood sugar is going through this the roof. Nobody knows what's going on. And now we find out. The treatment shut down my pancreas, insulin, so now I'm a type one diabetic, and then lots of other issues. I mean, pretty much every side effect, sick and horrible and fever and all kind of rashes and all kinds of things were happening, not good. So they stopped that treatment, and then we went back to surgery. So they went in, they took out all the lymph nodes in the upper part of my groin. Thought they got everything, actually, all the doctors conferred. Didn't see any cancer. All was good. Everybody was happy. And so we moved forward. They were doing quarterly checks, and about three checks later, the next summer is when they found that it had metastasized back to the groin, my lungs and my my brain, and it also re showed up on my foot. So then they had to treat all of those areas. The good news is, Brad that, and you know, my mindset through this whole process was, now I'm in it. And so I'm gonna, I'm in it to to to really be successful and beat this thing, right? I'm gonna live. I I'll tell you I love scripture in Psalm 118, 17 says I will not die, but live and proclaim what the Lord has done. I'm gonna, I was gonna live. That's was my answer. And so. The good news was that the after the beginning of this year, well, I guess this starts off with some rough news. I ended up in the hospital on the new treatment they were doing for my stage four cancer. This time, it shut down my adrenal glands. It shut down my thyroid. It shut down several other things. So my doctor stopped everything and said, Okay, we can't have this happening. It can't be shut I have great doctors. I can't We can't have the shutting down your body. So So basically, they gave me medication to replace the functions on my body that were no longer working. And so in. Now things started to level out, and today, now, today, I am actually doing much, much better. Have medication to level up the things that weren't working, feeling so much better dealing with some of the side effects, the hearing, also right eye surgery, other things that came out of this whole process, those are challenging, the diabetes, all those things, but, but I'm getting a new rhythm in life, and I'm believing that things are going to continue to get better. So now I I really, honestly have a great mindset and moving forward.

Well, that's awesome to hear that and where you're at now. But my goodness, man, when you went further, when you got involved with this, you said, I'm all in. Let's go. The whole body basically is going to be challenged here. And I mean, starting from head to toe, if you went from your foot to your brain, and every your eyes, your ears and your lymph nodes, you've just gone, you've gone through the gamut of things, and yet here you are, right. You're still here, and you still got something to share. And what have you What have you learned through this incredible gauntlet of processes that you've gone through now, and you said you're still got perspective, you still got some learned from things for your dad, that every day is a new day. You've learned some of these things, but I know there's been some dark valleys in this whole process. So what have you learned in this whole process that you're able to share with some others then?

Well a ton. I mean, I'm learning every day. Brad. I mean, it is, life is the best teacher. And what I have done is I've gone from believing all of these things to then living and having to live what I believe, right? So I've always had a good mindset, a good perspective, but never had to live through all that I've gone through over the last several years. And so I have learned that, you know what, no matter what happens to me, my circumstances do not define me, that I can, that I have so much power in the perspective that I bring every day. And I love the quote by Chip Ingram. He's got a divine equation and circumstances plus perspective equals experience. And what that means is living above your circumstances occurs when your perspective interprets your circumstances, and rather than your circumstances determining your perspective. And so I do part of my inspirational speaking, which I do? I do on the power of perspective, because your perspective is so so powerful. So what I want to do is I want to show people, Brad, that no matter what you're going through, cancer, family problems, other illnesses, whatever you're going through, that if you keep the right perspective, it does not mean you're always happy and that things are always Whoa, that's so great. You know, we're going to chuckle and just have fun right now. No, but it does mean that you have hope and faith, you're going to make it through to a better day, that you're going to make it through the process and come out better on the other end. And I truly, truly believe that, and I keep that perspective every day, and that's what gets me through, trusting God and keeping a good perspective.

Well, that's a that's awesome, keeping it, keeping the proper perspective to help you get through the tough times and be an inspiration to others. I know you come from a sales and marketing background, and so did any of that come into play? Was any of that helpful to you at all and just dealing with what you're dealing with and then sharing with others?

Yeah, I really think so. You know, over the years, I learned that not to take things personally and not to and through the sales process, and not to get myself too up or down, too high or low, through the yeses and nos, the positives and negatives. And so I think that really helped me now, later in life, you know, having that type of of personality, and I'm also a very positive guy. So, you know, I joke sometimes Brad that I had an unfair advantage, because God already made me as a positive, good mindset, good perspective, kind of personality. And I'm my mama's son. My mama was the happiest person alive. If anybody ever wants to go to my YouTube page at Russ hedge and check out happy moments with Mama way back at the beginning, when I started my YouTube page, we would laugh, and she called it laughing and laughing, we would walk around her memory care. This is while she was in memory care, we would laugh and sing and do laps walking. And it was all about the perspective of having joy right at that moment, no matter what, she didn't even really know half the time what we were singing and talking about, but she was having fun and joy through it. And so the fact that you can have joy laughter, and you can have a good sense through struggles is some. Saying that is totally possible, but people have to choose that. In some what you choose, right?

It's about the choice of joy, the choice of joy over the choice of of Demise and dark and dark places which so people go to. And what we try to speak to here in cancer and comedy, and what you're speaking to in your inspirational speaking and leadership is to help make some choices that are about life, not about death and doom, but about life. And I love, love to hear that. But one of the things you've mentioned here a time or two is the is connections that with other people and in connections with with higher power, with with God. Tell me a little bit about that. Tell me about connections that you had, family, friends, others that may have been a part of this process. Let's go there for first thing, and then we might dive into the faith perspective.

So I truly believe the connection and community building is a foundation for life. You know, I tell everybody on my marketing with Russ live stream, show that connection to community building is a foundation of any good marketing plan, any good business really, any good life. And so what it does is it builds a support system. And I did this over the years of my sales and marketing Brad, that created a community that when I went through cancer and when I went through all the I did with my parents, this community surrounded me and loved me and blessed me, but I also really felt driven through this whole process. I really felt like God had wanted me to share my journey, and so I started sharing posts on Facebook and LinkedIn about what I was going through. This is where a lot of my community started coming back to me and saying, listen, we're praying for you, but thank you. You're giving me hope and inspiration, making it through all that you're going through with the perspective and the mindset that you have. And what that did is it brought people in the door, not only that I could pray for and I could be with, but that actually then had to go through the cancer journey. And I've had many friends during my cancer journey, Brad, that have already come and gone to heaven during my cancer journey, that were inspired by me and came to me and leaned on my inspiration and prayer and trusting that things were going to be better. And, you know, everybody has their own beliefs and their own their own perspective. My perspective is all of us are going to die at some point because we we have moral bodies, right? And that's that's something that we just all have to accept, no matter how much we believe and how much we do, we're going to all die on this earth at some point. But sure to me, there's always hope after, right? There's always hope after with God and so things always look better on the other side, no matter where you're at. Well, take me

inside one of those relationships that you mentioned there, Russ, you mentioned how you've had some people who've gone on to gone on to heaven and but you had it sound like kind of a shift to kind of a specialness in your relationship with here, and without divulging anything you don't really want to divulge. But can you kind of describe the nature of the one? Of the one are those relationships and how was impactful upon you, or maybe what you said, or were part of is impactful upon them?

Well, one just happened very recently, really good friend of mine, and she had breast cancer years ago, and she they took care of it, and she was cancer free. I believe, I'm not 100% sure of my timeline, but I believe for over 20 years, had a wonderful husband and family, and then she went on vacation. Just recently, she sent me a Father's Day card, in fact, this last June, telling me how much she was praying for me and inspired by me, and everybody was supporting me, and she was very supportive and uplifting when she came back from that vacation. Right after that, she didn't feel well, went to the doctor, found out that the cancer had come back in her bones and her lungs. She was gone within a couple months, and it happened very quickly, but during that time, she confided in me. I was able to talk with her and pray with her and encourage her. I was able to talk with her family and she she even I visited her in the hospital just days before her she called me like probably a day or two before she went to heaven, and it was just such an honor for me to walk through this with her, but at the same time, I think I brought her some hope, not because of me, but because of the fact that I kept a good perspective and mindset through everything, and I really give God all the glory for that. Honestly. I mean, it's not my strength, it's his strength, but sure that. Helped her through the process. And it really meant to be an even though it was very hard on me to lose a friend, sure, in fact, in this circle of friends that I have, that I'm talking about, that she was in this it was a small circle in a chamber of commerce. I've lost two of them over the last three and a half years, I think, to cancer. And so it you know that can be really tough, but that's where perspective comes in.

Well, you shared a special gift with her, and she with you, and now you have that, that special moments that you can cherish and be a part of your life. And then you, you mentioned how your faith stories are important part of this whole process for you. And I, I really believe when it comes to connection, we have really kind of two types of connections. The one you're talking about your your friends and your family and people supportive, even your medical teams and so on, are all part of that. But then there's a greater perspective of of a of something greater than ourselves and and so tell me what part that has played. Because when you have cancer, things like this, that can be a real challenge to men and women of faith, right?

Oh, it can be, and it you know? The thing is, it doesn't matter how much faith you have, how positive you are. Brad, things are still going to happen, right? Sure. You know, it says, in God's Word that in this world we will have troubles. We're going to have trouble. It's just going to happen. We live in a fallen world. We live in a we just live in the world like everybody else, right? There's disease and there's there's problems and all this stuff. But I can tell you that my number one go to is God. My strength totally comes from him. And I tell you that my connection to God, and my faith is what has propelled me through everything that I do, and so it's such a great community around me. I actually was a worship pastor on top of my sales and marketing, okay, for like, 35 years now, I have two amazing children with my beautiful wife. I have two amazing adult children that are both in music. One's a music pastor, one's a professional musician, and God has taken that music and that joy of music and and that with, you know, trusting in God, and propelled that through my family, that talking about affecting people, Brad, it affects not only the people that I have touched, but now that my our children, my beautiful wife and I, our children, are touching 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of people. And so it means so much to me that connection is continued through the next generation.

That is so awesome. That's awesome and then, and that's that's the kind of legacy you want to leave, whether you're whether we are here another 10 minutes, or 10 years, or 20 years, or whatever, if we leave some sort of a living legacy beyond ourselves, that's a that's a real joy in and of itself. Let's talk for a minute. Let's talk for a minute, Russ, about how you live your life day to day. You know, we've talked about some high moments and some low moments here, but let's talk about how you get by life day to day. I'm talking about strategy. I'm talking about habits. I'm talking about what you do. I'm talking about your you, whether it's your physical health or your spiritual life. I think what are some of the things you're doing in your day to day life that may be helpful to our audience?

Well, I personally think I have some things that would be super helpful to anybody, things that I've learned from other people and things that help me so Brett, I am a right brain, creative, fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy, right? I would go through life my son's just like me. I would go through life just happy, go lucky. Whoo, you know, not planning just doing these things. But I found that when I got married to my beautiful wife, and then we had kids, I started I had to be a little bit more organized and actually have life on a little bit more of a plan. And so within all of those years, I slowly but surely, and in my later years especially, have developed an amazing morning routine that launches my day towards a successful day and a positive, significant day. Every day, I wake up first thing in the morning and I talk in my book, befuddled live the life you choose right there behind me that I talk about what I do every morning, I wake up and I do three things. First of all, I'm thankful. I'm just thankful and blessed for God, for my beautiful wife, my family. Number two, I give myself a pep talk and I say, I've got this God's given me the talents and abilities to do what I need to do. I'm going to go get them. Number three, I say, Today's going to be awesome. And people laugh at me because I'm a 4am guy, right? I get up early and they said, There's no way we're saying that in the morning. But what I do is I set my mindset on today's going to be awesome, and when you are got a filter of awesome that everything is going through, things look a whole lot better, even when they're bad. And so that's how I start. I always obviously pray, and then I get up and I actually do journaling, prayer devotions and exercise. Every morning I walk. I used to run, but I had knee replacement surgery several years ago, so now I walk every morning to exercise and and so those things really get me moving and give me then some space to then start planning and focusing on what the day has ahead. And I can tell you, Brad, that this process recently has gone, had a little glitch, another little bump in the road, my my joy, and my little Beagle and and companion, Maddie, who walked with me every morning she she had to be sent to doggy heaven on not long ago, and it was horribly hard on me. In fact, as the process happened, I held her and hugged her and bald hysterically, and she my beautiful wife, though, came to me and said, Honey, listen, I love you. I know this is hard. I'm going to start walking with you every morning. And so she's been out walking with me, and we've developed into walking even more. We always used to walk some, but now it's become a daily it's been added to my daily routine, and we've not only done that in the morning, but now we do it at the in the evening, and we do prayer and devotions in the evening before we go to bed to prep ourselves for a good night's sleep and the next day. So that morning routine and now the evening routine has just really propelled my life into such a positive, positive way, positive mindset and perspective way beyond what I had before. So I would highly encourage anybody to do that.

Yeah. Well, I just want to resonate with you. If I just think about it. Here today, somebody asked me on some other group I was going to share a picture of your pet. Well, my pet, my dog, red, died two years ago, almost exactly today. And I think about it because we she was 17 years old, and we had to do the process to put her to sleep and so on. And I Dev is heartbreaking to me, in some ways even more so than the cancer that I've been dealing with myself, because it was just so visceral. So I agree with that, but what I'm hearing you say is that you've still taken the opportunity to choose your perspective, a perspective of awesome. And then things are not the same as with your dog, but they're in some ways enhanced even better with your wife, and you're doing things together with her. And I, I love that you're choosing an awesome perspective. And so yes, I love that, that thinking of the perspective process that you're so into. So let's talk for a minute here about how, oh, there we go. A picture of your little doggy there. How about that? That's awesome. Yeah, love that. Just what was your dog's name? Again, I forget you just told

me, Maddie. She was a girl, Maddie, and we had her for almost 14 years. She was very popular on YouTube shorts. If anybody wants to see me and Maddie, go to at rest hedge on YouTube, and you will see lots of YouTube shorts with Maddie. She was very popular and way more popular than me.

There you go. There you go. Well, what are you doing these days to be helpful to other people, because I think the people who have the most seem to have the most things, peace in their life, are also doing something to serve others. I know you have your book that you have, what are what are you doing to serve other people these days, especially based out of the experiences you've had for the last couple years?

Well, I tell you, I've always been through through the sales and marketing career, going back to your question on that, I learned that serving and giving to others was the door to relationship, and what I really wanted was friends. In fact, I do a workshop called How to win. I mean, it's called How to turn cold calling into making friends. I'm all about making friends and building relationships, not just selling somebody something. But I love to give. I love to people. Take people to lunch. I love to be able to help people when they're down and in need, and do things and you know, we have always been, of course, givers to our church and through other organizations. But what I have found is the older I get, the more I want to do that. And, you know, I never thought Brad that there would come a day when I had to admit that I needed help. And through my cancer journey, my actual daughter, who was my little princess now my 34 or 35 year old little princess, sure? She she told me probably when a couple of years ago she said, Dad, listen, you need help, because my go to has always been, Oh, I'm fine. Everything's good, thank you. You're a blessing. Appreciate it, but I'm all good, right? And my daughter looks at me and says, Dad, you're not all good. But you're not you need help. What happened was my attitude over the years got turned around on me, and people started blessing me. And I can't even begin to go into Brad, it would make me break down and cry. The number of significant things that have happened that God has brought about, the people have helped us with during this process. And so I think what I would say to everybody is, you get what you live by, right? It's a boomerang effect. I love the book by Bob Berg called Go Giver. If you haven't read it, you should

I read it years ago. Yes, it is. And Bob has

actually been on my live stream a couple times. He's an amazing individual, and that book is all about what I always wanted to be. I wanted to be a go giver. I wanted to be able to bless people. And the fact that people have been that now, to me, has been kind of full circle and very humbling, very humbling.

No, that is awesome. That is awesome. And people can find some about that in your in your book, I assume, and that is some of your story there, which is called be photo. I love that title, by the way. I think that speaks to a lot of people. I think, I think it speaks to a lot of people, not only cancer people, but people in life these days, they're kind of be photo. What's next? What do I do? Give me some direction here? And I think that's part of what you're doing. I was just

going to say, by the way, I know you're going to ask me this at the end, but I would just tell people you brought that up. If you go to Russ edge.com which is my website, you can find out all about that Book. And I had four, I have a work companion workbook to that, but I also have four anthology collaborative books. We're number one on Amazon, number one bestsellers that I wrote with other authors that were amazing books more about my journey and the stuff we're talking about here, the way I bring those up other stories about my life. But right now I'm getting ready to release late fall, early winter, the follow up to befuddled, which is called life happens, and then you choose life happens, and then you choose which I live by that every day, you choose every moment after life happens. And you know, people used to always tell me, why can't, I can't choose my life. And I said, it's true, you cannot choose what happens to you, but then you get to choose what you do with that. Sure, so it's that'll be out soon, and that'll be a follow up to this book, and looking forward to that.

We'll look forward to having it certainly promote that when it comes out. Well, you know, one things I like to do Russ sometimes, as I start to wind down a little bit in our conversation, is to kind of throw you a little something out of left field. And I'm sure you can handle this. But it's simply that I noticed in some of your materials that not too long ago, you were able to go to a pro football game. I take it. You're a Seattle Seahawks fan. Is that? It is what I'm picking up on, and you got to go to Los Angeles to see him play the Rams. Is that right?

Yeah, got into SoFi with my son and daughter in law. A gift from them.

There you go. Wow, I'm an Indianapolis Colts fan. That's my that's my deal. That that, but we've had tough times the last few years. But anyhow, what I'm getting at is tell me just a little bit what the thrill of being at that live experience was about. Because I just think there's a big difference. You know, for instance, I went to see a rock I'm gonna I'm an old rock and roll DJ, so I go see Classic Rock Band sometimes with the camera. I saw sticks when they came here the other day, there's something different. I've seen a band in person than on a recording. It's something different seeing a ball game in person than recording. But tell a little bit about that experience. And kind of for the perspective of, if you're going to be a player or a coach on the field, what would you be? You know, what player, what position would you be?

Well, I love football. I played all the way through high school, I would be the quarterback, because that's what I always was, because I love to lead by example and help others, and that's part of what a quarterback does, and so that's what I would be in the life experience is amazing. It's, you know, it's great to be able to watch on TV. Definitely way more cost effective. It was such a blessing to be there, and it was a gift from my son and daughter in law. And I think I told you the story, but it was a miracle of God. I made it to this game because I found the hospital right then I got out the day before, I flew down from Port, from Portland to Burbank to be with my kids and then go to that game. But the amazing thing was, it just lights you up. Real life experience in this whole process just lights you up. And I just had so much fun. Love being there. I would definitely be the quarterback. And I say that to people too, Brad about when you get to know people, sometimes just online, because of the way that our world is, you can't get to everybody. And ever since covid, we've been connected to people that are in places we don't get to get to very often, but when you do, and I have had great, great opportunities that I've done it and people have done it to me. You get together with some of those people real life, in person, give them a big hug. It makes all the difference. It's such an amazing experience.

That's awesome. I want to leave you with one more thought here, one more ask of you, and that is, let's just say there's someone listening to us today who's saying, oh, Russ and Brad, that's all well and good. But my, you know, my perspective is not so good. My I've got, you know, cancer, some of the situation is really tearing me up. My finances are messed up. My marriage is messed up. You know, I've depression, whatever it is, what is, what is a word that you would give? I know your word is perspective, but what is some way, some practical way, that person might be able to shift perspective, a little bit, shift mindset, maybe something that they could do.

Well, first of all, I would tell them, I don't know where you are and all that you're going through, but I can definitely relate, because I've been through similar circumstances, both with my health, obviously, with my finances, with life, everything coming down. There were times through the journey, the cancer journey, that I would just ready for God to take me home to heaven, because I thought I don't know that I can take much more of what I'm going through, and so I can understand all of these things happening. And you know what, it's okay to not be okay. People need to realize we're not happy. Go lucky and everything is wonderful. Every moment it's okay not to be okay. But the qualifier to that is, don't stay there. Don't allow yourself. You have the power to shift your perspective. That is where the power of perspective comes in. You have the power to shift that perspective how it is very difficult. It's not easy. There's no simple snap your fingers and it happens. It's one step at a time. It's help moving forward and finding solutions, trusting God and believing that there's better days ahead, that shift happens slowly and over time, you suddenly start to get the perspective with the help of God and other people, obviously, in whatever circumstance you're going through, you start to build a little bit of momentum through the good things, celebrate the little wins, the little things that happen, and next thing you know, you're moving in a positive direction. You can make it through. And if you need help, I am always here. You can always talk to me. I've had people from all over the world that come to me and talk to me about the situations they're going through. And I'd love to do that for you. Just go to Russ edge.com, my connect link is there. I'm always happy to do that.

Well, I love to hear what you said there shift perspective, but you still have to do the one to shift and but things can and they will happen. We thank you for being with state. His name Russ hedge, from Russ hedge.com you'll find a abundance of resources right there on his website, including his book befuddled, and other books he's been a part of, and some really cool blog posts and some of the teaching that he does. And I invite you to check that out. Reshed.com We'll put links to his website and his resources at our website, cancer and comedy.com and certainly when his new book comes out, we'll have for links to that as well our guest today here on cancer and comedy. Russ hedge, thanks for being our guest today. Russ, you.