The WAY to WOW Shows
The Singing Nurse
June 2, 2022
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:03] good afternoon and welcome to bounce back my name is leah siegel and i am so excited to bring you an incredible guest today you are in for a treat thank you to my producer rabbi kevin bemel in los angeles i come to you from valencia california and we have a very special woman with us today her name is suzanne geimer and you're going to get to hear her story she has some pretty powerful things to share get out those notebooks because you're gonna learn a lot from her a lot of

[0:38] wisdom a lot of experience from many different fields many different backgrounds so i'm actually going to let her share a little bit about her story and i want to thank you and welcome you suzanne to our show today why don't you tell us a little bit about your background in nursing let's start with nursing because i know there's much more we're going to dive into today but what made you decide to be in that field many years ago well it's really kind of funny i grew up in augusta georgia the oldest of seven my mom woke me up uh

[1:14] on a bright spring morning when we were on spring break and said get up you have an appointment at the barrett school of nursing you're going to be a nurse and i was like i was like what uh because i really always wanted to sing and write songs and play music so uh she took me they accepted me and i guess that was in the days when you do what your mama says you know you don't talk back you don't say no but uh she said you need a profession to fall back on

[1:49] while you work on your music so i ended up going to nursing school in atlanta with two of my classmates i cried constantly the first six months beca and i'd call my mom and say this is too hard you know they get you up early and it was a lot of structure but um around my after about six months i realized that hey this is pretty neat to be able to make people feel better but um

[2:24] the time that i really really knew that i could i could kind of do the two things together music and nursing it was christmas eve i was on affiliation in cincinnati at the cincinnati children's hospital i had to work the evening shift and i was very upset about that it was christmas i was away from home you know why why am i doing this again and my assignment was uh a little girl who was about

[3:00] two years old she had hydrocephalus which is huge swelling in her head they told me she didn't talk she didn't she didn't respond to anybody so i picked her up and there was a large rocking chair with a good strong arm so i put i rested her head i rocked back and forth and i started singing to her silent night you know christmas songs and it's really hard to explain the feeling i got she opened her eyes looked

[3:35] up at me and smiled and that was when that that's what i got and it was like wow that was my christmas gift from that little girl i've always remember her on christmas and that's also when i saw the power of music to reach people so that's a strong memory for me

[4:10] i mean i i don't know if anyone's ever asked you this but do you know where she is today is she still with us today you know uh i really there's no way for me to know because it was so long ago but uh she's with me and literally really every christmas every christmas i relived that because that was truly a gift and um hopefully she got better but she was pretty sick now that paved the way for you to really think about doing what you do well but

[4:47] in in different ways than most people do you know there's nurses and there are people yeah musical healing but you found a way to fuse them you found a way to bring your skills talents passions love into people's lives before we get into that detail tell me about some disappointments that you've had in your nursing career well one of my biggest ones that i think was actually a blessing when you know it's it's easy to be upset

[5:22] when you're in the middle of it but i was working as a nurse my husband and i had moved to we had gotten married in augusta georgia and then we moved to hilton head island south carolina they had no hospital at the time that we moved there and when i met the doctor that ran the clinic there and i told him i had been the ccu coronary care intensive care supervisor at saint joseph's hospital in augusta he almost jumped across the desk at me and he offered to hire me gave me a

[5:57] beeper so 24 hours a day seven days a week whether i was there or not if they had a trauma or a patient that needed to be taken off the island then they would call me so the doctor didn't have to leave and uh soon after that they built a hospital and i i was the day supervisor then i became the director of nursing and um i did that for 10 years almost every year i would help the nurses put on a show so i was always trying to entertain people and so like at the hospital ball we

[6:33] would put on a show for everybody and i would we it was a lot of fun so uh hca hospital corporation of america started managing the hospital and i had been the director for 10 years and i loved my job i loved helping the nurses grow and thrive but they decided they wanted one of their hca nurses to be the director of nursing so i was told that i was going to do well they really gave me a lateral move way down to the other end of the island

[7:09] at the clinic that i started at 10 years before that to help uh start up urgent care center and um at the time i was very i was it was it was a big loss for me and i was reading the book that lee iacocca wrote about the time when ford tried to get rid of him and they finally moved him to like what he considered a warehouse and gave him an office and said okay you can stay but you're going to be here so then he left you know i wasn't going to stay in the warehouse

[7:44] and uh so what i did i got uh some information about a parenting class that was going to be taught at vanderbilt um in nashville and so i said you know i'd like they wanted me to do community outreach projects so i said i think you should send me to nashville so i can learn this parenting program and uh i told my husband i said i'm gonna bring my demo tape of songs that i wrote and performed with my brother's band and i'm going to see if somebody will listen like you need to have a lot more good sense you know you don't just walk into

[8:20] nashville and get appointments and say hey will you listen to my daddy uh one day i i went everywhere i went to rca where i went everywhere and they said you have to have an appointment so at the end of the day i walked into ascap this beautiful girl i'll never forget her she had blonde hair and a pink dress and a big circular desk you know and i said you just don't i said i know you think i'm crazy but i have a big decision to make i've got to have somebody to listen to mommy just tell tell me if

[8:57] it's good or not and i thought she's not gonna let me in so she said i'll be back in a minute she went behind these big doors and she came out and said john briggs we'll see you now and i met the director of new the person who signed all new people and um he liked it but he said it was a little dated he said i want you to come back in a month i'm going to introduce you to some people that can mentor you i went home i told marty he said i want you to write your resignation tonight write your resignation and go try this because you'll never get

[9:34] a chance like this again so i did i resigned everybody was kind of surprised but um and the neat part about this story is i eventually met mr lee iacocca and hilton head i can't remember where but i met him i told him my little story i told he laughed i said you helped me so much you know and i said i was not going to be in that warehouse down at the other end so anyway that was kind of cool that i i was able to thank him and it turned out to be

[10:10] a good move first of all when i read that you had met lee iacocca i was floored because he's someone that once i started learning about leadership i kept seeing reference to him and his stories um and his entire career with the automobile industry and what he's had to endure and how he's come above and the controversies that came along with it and the movies that were written the documentary there's so much on him and i was like wait a minute she got to not just fall in love with you know the idea of him but then you

[10:45] got to meet him and share what he has taught you through his writings i i felt that was so so powerful and i'm so glad you brought that up because i was going to ask about that thank you you're welcome and i'm sure that you carry that with all the stories that you have collected along the way you know from that little two-year-old on christmas eve to to meeting him and i find that you were given so many gifts along the way and i think you're still collecting gifts as you touch people's lives i mean that beauty of giving is that

[11:20] it you we think the person that you know the recipient of that is who's gaining it but the truth is you're gaining so much too and so you know yeah oh yeah and um it's it seems like so fulfilling you you found the best of both worlds and created some pretty incredible things and i know you're a mom too and i know you said an extremely incredible example to to how you raise um you know at least i i know from speaking to kevin about one of your daughters who uh follows in your footsteps but yeah when i think about nurses you know going

[11:56] back to that evening we all meet people along the way that are having these night shifts on holidays we meet people in different industries that have to work when everyone else is home around the thanksgiving table having turkey there are people at trader joe's and there are people at the doctor's office and there are people all over i wonder how many people see the world the way you do here's how i feel you see the world is what impact can i make in every given moment whose life can i touch and change at every given moment and that's why you say yes to these things you've got a

[12:32] huge aha moment where god is saying to you you're gonna get that smile from that two-year-old girl you will know why you needed to be here this evening and and for your entire life you have that memory and i think that's so powerful and more people need to learn how to say yes to moments that at the time might seem really like a hard situation but you have something most people will never get that's huge right and you took a big leap now you're very lucky to have the support it's like a certain yeah go ahead

[13:08] very yeah i just think uh i know when i was working uh just fast forward a little bit to um i thought i had arrived and then our daughter kelly um at that time went through her teenage rebellion and so i was free i i had quit my job saying i always tell people the most important job in the whole world is being a parent

[13:43] period if you fail at that it's no good and nothing else works yeah and i think it's very important and especially even if i had anything to do over again when i was the director of nursing i i always stayed too late i you know i was always available to everybody but i didn't have the structure that um looking back and i've told kelly this that i should have left work on time they could do without me for a while and had a little more structure and i've shared that with a lot of nurses who have thanked me

[14:18] many times because you have to just keep it you have to keep your priorities right and it's very hard in today's world because a lot of people they need to work you know it doesn't matter you can be a working mom and you can still be a good mom you know because people that say working moms you know don't do get enough time with their kids you can make that time we're all different some of us have lots of things we want to do but not to forget the most important job i agree and thanks for saying that we have i'm

[14:53] sure a lot of moms listening in on this and i think the same thing goes for dads we can't underestimate the power of what they have at home too um and the overworking or or i don't want to say like workaholic syndrome type of overworking but where they put that unnecessary stress when really what do kids really want they want their parents right so that's a strong message to to both and women out there as well and so i'm going to pivot over to you write this resignation letter you're

[15:29] you're going full force but you you started a project an organization in your own right tell us about the special angel project well when one thing i noticed with my daughter i couldn't get her to talk to me she wouldn't you know i mean you're in that stage but the thing that i noticed i would be working on a song when she came home from school and i'd say what do you think about this you know and she'd say you know i don't like that you shouldn't you know you those words are stupid or something and i'd say well what what would you do so

[16:04] we ended up having fun working out songs and she really helped me with a lot of them and so that was kind of fun and then um we moved to california because i wanted to get uh all of us together in one place her brother was in going to school at musicians institute in hollywood i wanted us all to be together so here we are in california we know no one and um kelly and i really started singing a lot together

[16:40] and i saw a lady on tv that had a uh a shelter for sex traffic teens and um i just thought how lucky am i that you know i i didn't have to go through that like a lot of moms that worry about their kids or they get taken away or they run away and they think they're gonna have fun and they end up in a lot of trouble but i called her and i said my daughter and i sing together and i saw you on tv and we'd like to come sing for your kids and tell our story like she thought i was the meanest mom

[17:15] in the world and i couldn't you know i didn't like her friends and so uh she said sure and one thing that impressed me that we had to be fingerprinted and we were thoroughly checked out before we went in there so we did our thing and we got and it was a room we left and the two counselors that were there followed us to the door and said when are you coming back we've never seen the kids open up like this so i thought we were going for one time so what happened is we worked with it's a place called children of the night it was a wonderful organization

[17:52] for 20 25 years you know with and the beauty of that place is we were able to see the miracles happen because the kids could stay there for a year so we were able to see them the magic of what happens but they loved ours music so much like they would ask play that again or if a new person was there they'd say sing it for so and so and another thing with them is they were very closed off if they were new because they're you can imagine the trauma they've had and they're afraid to trust

[18:28] anybody but because we came back we said we're coming back and we came back and um then they would slowly open up and talk to us and then it just took wings i was working with the doctor who said you should apply for a grant from the elton john aids foundation he was on the board wow he said it may take you a long time you're using music to talk to kids and teach them about changing high risk behavior so a year later we got a 5 000 grant so that's how we started our program

[19:04] i have so many questions this is incredible do you feel that it's the type of music is it the words in your songs what about your music is so powerful that it's helpful in that situation with troubled teens what i think that well you know teens can recognize bs right away they see right through if you're not sincere if you're not real they're gonna get it and so i think because we're very open and honest about

[19:41] maybe what we went through or i always tell them the story behind a song um and then i'll say i want you to really listen and when i finish i want you to tell me what what uh spoke to you what line spoke to you in that song so then i can go into talking about that's right you can stand on your empty feet you don't have to have anybody tell you what you know if you don't if you want to say no you can say no um there's a song i wrote called don't call me i'll call you well that's whoa

[20:21] the line they like the most is i've got your number and i've changed mine and so then we can talk about it you know so it's just uh and then i have such great musicians that work with us in l.a they one night a little girl said i bet you don't know any queen and i heard them say what key what you and they they played a queen song and then we were golden for the rest of the night so you have to have really good musicians that can on the spot make you know they know everything

[20:56] and um and we don't the only thing we don't do is rap i mean i really don't think that not yet well dude [Laughter] not yet well but this is so fascinating i mean you're taking something that you're good at that you enjoy and you're making a difference in so many people's lives and i'm sure it's healing for you your your family as well taking part in this tell me how nursing has helped you in this arena

[21:32] well it's really funny because nursing is a really tough job especially now days and uh i worked at cedars-sinai medical center uh they gave me permission to um to say that in the book that kelly and i wrote but uh cedarsana is a world-renowned hospital people come there from all over the world so in the 29 years that i worked there i met people from everywhere and you've

[22:07] learned that whether no matter what color we are what language we speak where we're from we all worry about our mama we you know we get scared you know if we're sick we we're all basically very much alike and i always tell people working at cedars is like working at the united nations oh yeah it is an amazing opportunity it i loved my job and um i was a radio nurse so you know for 20 years answering the paramedic calls we had to we had to really be on top of

[22:44] that and i was a certified er nurse and but the day came when i said to myself self okay you have nothing else to prove you've done everything and you really want to expand special angel and you can't do it with two all these plates in the air so i decided i need to quit for now so that i can focus totally on expanding the special angel project because we've already proven that it works and i had someone offered to give us a

[23:21] pretty large donation to start a program in my hometown i guess to georgia so i just saw the opportunity it was like a sign another sign it's scary uh and i missed it i miss you know what i miss about nursing i miss uh helping the new nurses that are scared and you know don't know the website and i miss uh walking in the room with my uniform on saying good morning i'm suzanne i'm gonna be your nurse today it's just something that's so much a part of me i really miss that but i can do it in a better and bigger way if i can help more

[23:57] people through specializing wow i do want to share with you that i've been in the hospital a few times mainly to give birth but with each birth who was more important than my doctor who delivered the baby that was there what for the for the last hour of it it was the nurses and the nurses afterwards that took care of me um in in after the birth and so i have a very special place in my heart for nurses my sister-in-law's a nurse her sister is a nurse my mother was a school nurse and a camp nurse

[24:33] so nursing wow those are really smart people you got to really be good to do that keep all those kids happy i know people escape we last to go there's a there's a big um problem nationwide now with nurses being uh understaffed and um so i still use my voice in a positive way to try to help help them any way i can i still talk to the people i worked with i still i can write my former manager

[25:10] and say i have a thought about this and he'll appreciate it you know i mean i think that we need to be supportive of those people that are working in healthcare today because they got a really tough job they don't have enough and enough help and the coveted i didn't know that i was i quit right before the covet happened i did not know that was going to happen but i just that's when i quit so anyway you'll be sharing a different story today suzanne um if if you hadn't you know but you were on a different

[25:45] journey i have a business partner who's a nurse at ucla and the stories that she shares with me is unreal i mean we do not give enough credit to to these men and women who are no front line um of covet and the amount of hours that they put in and the risk they're taking being around you know people that seriously get them sick so and they they take care of a there's a higher acuity of patients now and there's much more responsibility and so

[26:21] every chance i get i have to give them a shout out you did a good one you did a good job at that tell me about on a daily basis what motivates you what what excites you most well it's really funny because my husband just said me um yes and he's very very supportive uh we we really it's like what i like to tell people is he can't

[26:56] carry a tune but he carries the key to my heart oh and he's heard our songs over and over and over so he's a pretty good guy well he said he's very good he started this whole thing when he told you to write your resignation letter i mean that's a man who sees something special in you and he's saying don't worry it's going to work out i got you so you you do what your heart needs to to do i mean that that takes yeah that was a big man yep he's a pretty good guy

[27:32] and um i think the hard part right now is uh with the covid still aftermath of the covid there's not a lot of places you can go in person so we started a youtube channel um during the covet with a a nice you know johnny carson foundation gave us grant money the people in beverly hills the friars charitable foundation they've really been very supportive over the years a lot of people had to cut back

[28:07] during the covet because they wanted to give their their money to the most needy for for the problem and um i always say like when i came to augusta uh back to augusta it's been a long time and i can't just walk in and say i'm back everybody you know donate to me so i've been networking with uh people that i can collaborate with and i we can add to their program and not make them feel like we're trying to take over or do some but actually we're doing something so unique

[28:44] that i don't think there's really anybody around that's doing what we're doing tell us at the moment so we just have to uh it's funny because some people say because it's like yeah but so you're singing songs for kids well no not really we're sneaking up we're you know i'm using all of my nursing knowledge and background um i worked in the chemical dependency unit for four years i worked in psych i worked in i had i've taken care of some really scary people but

[29:21] i think i'm never the some of the nurses they called me the psych whisperer they said why are you so good with these people like well you treat them like a human being first you don't act afraid of them and you do have to have a good sense of is this person hearing voices is he really in touch with reality do i how far can i push how far can i come but i think a lot of that just comes from experience um and my southern accent came in handy you know because uh they they were like where are you

[29:57] from you know so i just miss it and i think that the i can do more on the outside about some of these problems than i can on the inside does that make sense i'm thinking really big now no no i actually i'm going to ask you a couple things that you probably did not know i'm going to ask you to do if you're okay with it share with us your biggest success and it doesn't have to be recent it may be recent but thinking about bringing music to teens who are troubled whether they're struggling with drugs and alcohol

[30:32] mental illness tell us if you can and you don't have to limit it to one powerful event but maybe a success story where you can say this is why i'm doing this now i have so many of those thoughts but i can think of one time um we we worked with the uh probation camp uh these were eight 17 18 19 year old juveniles that are at camp i think it was camp kilpatrick or camp miller out in the malibu mountains

[31:08] and they they were serious offenders and you know they they uh they knew we were coming and it was me and two of my guys and it was in the summertime and it was hot so hot that they put us outside on the football field and all the guys walked out there there was a hundred and nineteen guys sitting on on a hill and we were down here and we had one little speaker and a little my microphone and the first thing i told them

[31:45] was i don't we don't need to know why you're here we're just here to have a good time but i will tell you i had a brother who made some mistakes in his teenage years and he ended up having to pay for him and so i never stopped loving him i never turned my back on him and i'm sure you have many people that feel the same so that right away let them know who i was and then we we had a great time and we even had them singing on some of the songs

[32:21] and then when we finished they gave us a standing ovation okay this was a really big deal so when we left the guy who was in charge i'll never forget this man he looked at me and he said little lady i gotta tell you when you walked in i had some real misgivings about how this was gonna go and then he said but you really won them over and i just oh and we left a program evaluation

[32:56] for them to fill out i said they may not we have a program evaluation that helps us to show how why it works and so i said i don't know how many of them will fill it out but if you can get them to do it and send it to me well they filled out every line wow and uh one of them wrote one of them wrote i thought it was really cool that a bunch of um rappers gave you a standing ovation and um some of them wrote you made me think of my mom and you know how i disappointed her and i'm gonna be better and so i

[33:32] i really really um refer back to that every now and then because sometimes you can think am i doing what am i doing here you know am i is this working is this good so i look back and my husband reminded me we wrote kelly and i wrote a book i'd be glad to send you one yeah um about our experience and um in the book we have a lot of quotes from the kids that we've worked with that and we tell our story a little more in detail and right we wrote it

[34:07] was i think 10 years ago so we need to write up we do not at we need to add some more chapters but it's still very significant today and so i usually just give it away to people who look like they need it you know or want it or wow moms that have said stuff to me so that's pretty cool and and how much work do you get to do like one-on-one as opposed to group settings we don't really do one-on-one i've had and i'm trying to figure this out now

[34:42] because i had a lady that she must have heard about me in augusta and somebody they texted me and said i'd like to get my daughter in your program and i thought well we don't have that kind of a program yet but maybe that's like a little clue i think there's a lot of kids that are having a lot of trouble and also there's no place in augusta for kids with drug problems there's there's places further away but there's nothing here so i'm trying to think of a way we could

[35:17] either get families together kids i don't know but it's kind of like uh it'll keep it'll keep you know on my brain and then all of a sudden i'll say oh it's a sign this is what i'm supposed to do so there's too many kids that are no i'm sorry for interrupting i'm thinking about different programs that exist you know for drug and alcohol you know you have alcoholics anonymous right totally so part of that world is the giving back piece right you become a sponsor for

[35:53] someone else and you're helping them who's dependent well i couldn't help but thinking about your program and collecting little angels along the way who also want to do what you're doing for the sake that it helped them through music that they can learn how to how to really do that and provide that kind of healing for others through your music i mean what if you started your own organization for that purpose as well where you become part of what you're doing i don't know

[36:28] more than my daydream in this moment of how that would pan out but think about it if if we're talking about touching here right we can't leave it up to two three people we've got to be part of an army of people who they don't even have to be on key or know how to play an instrument i mean you play an instrument i saw some photos you're playing guitar um what what other instruments do you play right at your main um instrument that the guitar i taught myself how to

[37:04] play guitar when i was in nursing school and you know when i would cry and want to quit i'd put my feelings down on paper and that's what i tell the kids you know you all you have to put your feelings down you'd be surprised at what you come up with because a good song i look at it like we're sitting right here talking in the kitchen across the table i'm telling you what i'm upset about you know or like uh i had a friend who wrote to me he was so upset he had broken up with his significant other and he said i wish god would just send me a postcard

[37:39] and tell me when this is going to be over oh and i wrote him back and i said you have just gone and made me write a new country song god won't you send me a postcard floated on down to my backyard you know and it's all about uh we all have songs in us if we just pay attention and so i really get these ideas from that and we want to teach the kids we have talked about teaching them how to write a song or maybe we could get a group together for the summer and then we end up writing the song and performing it for their parents or something so

[38:14] do you sell your music like recordings of your music that people can play over and over again well we have uh um marty brought me this this was our first cd kelly and i co-wrote some of these songs and um and we have it on cdb it should be on spotify how do we get it on spotify i do i think we are on it but i have to learn um how to push it um and i think um

[38:50] the one reason i'm i'm happy like kelly is gonna start taking care of the west coast and i'm taking care of the east coast and i'm still gonna go back and forth but i think she has really great ideas and if i can just get i think our main goal right now is we need to get a big i don't know what you call it a donation to to build our organization like a fundraiser because you know you can have more people you could do a virtual fundraiser

[39:26] um people do them all day long and you can perform i went to a violin uh type of event these were violins that survived the holocaust they're called violins of hope and it was during copenhagen everything was done you can donate it was pretty powerful and then we were able to go see it live it was the most incredible thing speaking of instruments the ukulele tell me about you have a program yeah we have the yeah the light the la women and music um donated 12 ukuleles to us because

[40:02] we tried teaching guitar and the guitars are so big and if you don't know how to play anything you know that's hard so the ukulele only has four strings it's smaller it's easier to hold so we did a lot of that with the vista del mar and um it's funny they're they're that is a really great program i can't say enough about that yeah but they it's funny because sometimes you'll get a group that really likes it and they want to continue it and sometimes you'll get a group that

[40:37] they liked it but then they want to do something different so it's always a challenge to figure out but but we have them we have 12 ukuleles we have about three or four guitars daisy rock gave us a guitar so we we kind of they kind of come in and go out and um but the guys are really good with it they they teach them really easy you you can play a lot of songs with just a couple of chords yes i know my daughter took ukulele in high school and then when we were in hawaii last summer we both took lessons together on

[41:12] her birthday it was so much fun i had never played that yeah so i got to play with her and she already knows how to play but you know like you said there's there's four strings you learn a couple chords and then you put a song to it um i think it's taylor swift has so many songs that sound really good when you know if you're singing them and you're holding an ukulele like a professional singer yes she's she's a good songwriter yeah and the kids like her i don't know any of her songs but i mean i know of them but i can't sing them

[41:53] and and speaking of bouncing back because that's really what this show provides for our listeners um having setbacks having challenges how do we bounce back i feel like you're constantly helping others bounce back through your music through your kindness through your song tell me about some of the setbacks you may have had recently how do you feel the bouncing back or the recovery has come for you well i think the one yeah that's what i want i think the thing that has been the most frustrating

[42:29] is wanting so badly to go and sing for these kids here and the coveted restrictions just held us back so um and we have we've met with the boys and girls club here they're a great organization and there's some others and it's just simply waiting for everything to get back on track so when i decided i i was really almost you know how you well everybody has a day when you think well is this it am i not going to be able to do it let

[43:04] me know what's going to happen and not going places yeah and so that's when we decided to work on the youtube channel and i got different musicians to tell their story and be on there and um so that really that really helped and i can use it in a lot of ways to show people this is what we do but um and then i have a fantastic person uh that helps us in augusta that that we met in las vegas years ago he is the lead singer for the coasters

[43:39] and they were playing at the sahara for 10 years the coasters the drifters and the platters now a lot of people haven't heard of them because that was a while back but that music is still pretty popular and he is a fantastic entertainer and he drives up here to he drives two hours up here from dublin georgia and he goes with us everywhere and we worked with the juvenile court after school program and the kids loved him and um so i was very lucky you know connected every time i think is this is this is this it and then

[44:15] something else comes up that's good that's so you have to be you have to be open to the signs and i wanted to read you i have keep this it's all born and torn it's on my refrigerator and it says the three simple rules three simple rules in life if you do not go after what you want you'll never have it if you do not ask the answer will always be no and number three if you do not step forward you'll always be in the same place

[44:50] so i have to read that every day on my refrigerator wow it's so true and you know rule number two i'm constantly having to tell myself if you don't ask you're just exactly where you are right now not having that thing so if you could be okay with that then yeah you don't need to open your mouth but if you're curious if you could have the yes what do you got to lose you're already at the know that's really really yeah wow and i know that we have um our producer kevin bemel

[45:26] he's on your he's chairman of the board and um i know that you guys have worked closely together and it's through him that i got to connect with you and tell me about you looking for people to be part of your movement and um how does that work well mainly um i've been looking for musicians and um but also uh kelly has a lot of good ideas and i want her to be able to explore it and talk

[46:01] with kevin about it i think she has great ideas and there was a point where she just kind of quit asked she'd say mom i'm not going to tell you my ideas because you just don't want to change you just want to do the same thing all the time and i said oh let's see let me think about that i didn't realize i was doing that but um it's really been good and kevin is probably agreeing he's nodding his head for me to be here away and then for her to be able to develop her own magnificent ideas she's a fantastic mother

[46:36] she has twin boys they're 13 now she has a beautiful daughter allie who is 20 and the thing about ali ali we carried her in her bait little carrier with us every time we went to children of the night ali grew up going everywhere with us and now she loves it so now i'm kind of jealous because allie and kelly are now talking together and talking about how so they're turning i'm looking like wow that was me and kelly and that's kelly and ally and it's kind

[47:11] of like you have to be able to grow and have a succession plan and and be able to let go letting go is very hard when you have one way of doing things but um for sure i'm working on it with kevin's head i'll tell you something about that because there's two sides to this one is yes having the uneasy feelings right feeling replaced feeling hey what if it changes too much and it you know goes too far away from what i had

[47:46] in mind right like you feel like disconnect but there's another element yeah which i'm thinking of is pride and joy and really being proud of what you've done i mean suzanne to see your granddaughter finding value in things that you created and saying yes to pursuing yes to continuing yes because here's what happens i'm picturing her speaking to a room and saying something like this

[48:21] my grandmother my grandmother you're part of this it's nowhere replacing you it is a combination of three generations making a difference and it is because of you and your work and your dedication that it has now gone deeper into the roots of your family and it's not stopping here that's what's crazy we don't know the life that this takes on the best is yet to come and you've had some incredibles [Music] yeah i think um i think kevin's pretty

[48:57] smart he's guiding us in the right direction and i have to be willing to take direction as long as i can show up and talk and sing a few songs i don't i can sing a few songs and let somebody else do all the work but i just uh i know it's it's not going to stop i and when i think about it i just say god i know you're sending me somewhere and i'm ready and i'm not going to ask why i'm not gonna ask when i'm just gonna let it be take one day at a time

[49:34] um and that's a hard thing for people who get depressed you cannot i saw something lately you don't concentrate so much on the beginning if something bad happened back here start from today and make it a great ending instead of just staying in the misery of woulda coulda shoulda you know or what happened in your life long time ago because you have to accept the things you cannot change and that's one thing that's hard for people to do but that's

[50:09] the way it works you know what's so cool one of the nurses told me after a meeting she said what no no no tell me about the nurse and then i'll share with you my thought oh she said she said i really like that meeting you know you should have been a preacher you'd be a really good preacher probably right you can have your guitar there i said well i think yeah i think i am in a way but anyway you said something so cool you said you know don't think of this uh you said think back to the beginning and make today like the ending can be you know a

[50:44] sweet ending i once heard something similar and these are all just little tweaks that we can make mentally right we've got to get through the day people struggle with depression people struggle with anxiety people struggle with maybe you're not suffering with anxiety and depression but you have your low days you have your down days we're human right it's a roller coaster it's got highs and lows but something i learned is you know we tend to think that where we are today that this is where we are today like that like this is the end but what if you looked at it like wait this isn't the beginning

[51:19] like the end is not even right nearly written and so the beauty of the discovery of the curiosity of what's to come if we could stay excited about that right it doesn't have to be oh this is it ended up it's oh my god i wonder how it's going to end up right yeah that's the beauty a movie that's not finished yet it's a movie that if you stay and watch it you might really like that movie i like that yeah um

[51:55] i wanted to say one thing but because this is really important the very first guitar player that worked with me and kelly in l.a ron finn he was a he's just a great and he he i think i paid him 25 dollars each time he went he is now the music supervisor music director for uh ncis new orleans he has he's just doing great wow i'm really proud of him he's very uh

[52:31] he's just a great guy and he went with us when we were just little you know and brought his guitar and so cool that's really cool could you imagine his mind i'm getting 25 bucks and i'm going with suzanne and kelly to play a song i mean imagine he thought that was his ending look at him now because those are stepping stones and we wrote the greatness that's true and that's that yeah and we

[53:07] wrote some really good songs together too and um another one that was first with us was john walmsley he was one of the kids on the waltons which a lot of people are not familiar with because it was so long ago but it's a great family show and um i don't know like todd tatum uh michael monaghan and um howie anderson these are great guys that have been studio musicians they've played in big places they've gone on tour uh boo bernstein peddle steel

[53:43] um i can't i'm gonna leave somebody out but just so many people have helped me and us to grow and because they were such fun and wonderful musicians they made us sound really good that's so awesome anyway how about awesome suzanne how do you feel about me putting you on the spot and singing do we have time um we have a couple minutes and then we're going to end with your beautiful voice

[54:20] well one of them i'll say to the kids i'll say you know i took care of this guy he was coming off a crack cocaine he didn't like our rules he didn't like anything he was leaving he wasn't going to stay he cussed everybody out but every day i came back he was still there still there so after about four or five days of that i walked down the hall and he was sitting on the floor in the corner and i said well i beat on you told me you were leaving and he looked at me and he said you didn't see me put my jacket on did you so write that down

[54:55] and i i wrote a song and for the kids i'll say how many of you've ever run away from home and they'll raise their hand i'll say well what did you want to hear when you said you were leaving please don't go right okay so here's a little bit of don't believe i'm leaving until i put my jacket on when i told you i was leaving did you ever stop to notice i wasn't looking for my jacket i wasn't packing up my clothes i wasn't looking for my car keys cause i didn't really wanna go

[55:32] and did you ever really listen to my voices i was crying i was looking for some loving i wanted just to hear you say oh baby baby please don't leave me everything will be okay so don't believe i got i stopped oh my god you are so talented i see i see this family i see it all you are a

[56:07] really good storyteller you're a good listener you are bringing powerful healing methods to teens and children around the world this is incredible and it's so true what you just shared um the power of saying don't go it's gonna be okay um sometimes the families at their wits end they don't even know they need to say that in their mind they're just there's overwhelm there's a lot overwhelmed right wow you are incredible and i'm so grateful i don't believe them

[56:53] [Music] yes we have to have kelly on and in the notes of the show we're gonna put how people can find you okay so all the ways in which they can find you we have that kevin has that so people can go on and they can go to the youtube channel and they can see for themselves how to connect with you how to find your songs your music your organization how to donate etc and if they uh if there's a mom out there that doesn't know what to do and just maybe our book would help we're happy to send the book amazing i just have to all i want is for

[57:29] them to read it and tell us what they think thank you so much suzanne and thank marty for us as well have you are welcome enjoy the rest of your your uh thursday and have a great weekend and thank you all for tuning in ah youtube