About This Episode
At 53, with both parents gone, life takes on a different perspective. In this deeply personal conversation, we talk about love, loss, and the importance of gratitude in the face of hardship. He opens up about: - The tragic death of his father after a violent encounter with police - Losing his mother to ALS — in the very same ICU, one bed over - The painful responsibility of making end-of-life decisions for loved ones Realizing that life is short and precious - Choosing to focus on positivity, helping others, and living with purpose - Why we must stop being worriers and start being warriors - A raw, unfiltered reminder that we only get so many sunrises and sunsets — and it’s up to us how we spend them. Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/cG3NLSWAzEk #LifeLessons #Gratitude #Positivity #PersonalGrowth #Loss #Grief #Mindset #WarriorNotWorrier #Inspiration #MattStudioPodcast #LifePerspective #billycarson #austinandmatt
Topics
Full Transcript
How old are you? >> 53. I'll be 54 in September in a month. >> You're 53? >> Yeah, man. >> That's amazing. You don't you don't look a day over Yeah, man. What does life look like from 53? >> You know, you hit that half a century range, right? And uh both my parents have been gone for a while, so and I'm the oldest uh sibling, so you know, you get that realization like, oh, I'm not I'm not going to live forever, you know? >> Yeah. >> Uh because when did you have that realization? How old were you when you realized you were >> I was uh let's see my dad died in that was 200 uh 2017 October of 2017. >> I mean I'm sorry to hear that. >> Yeah, that's okay. You know, it's just part of life. I mean, unfortunately, it was a bad way for him to die, but you know, he was beaten by cops um at the age of 74 at 113 pounds. >> No way. >> Somebody called uh 911 and uh and said that, you know, there was a drunk guy harassing people in the front row of this concert. He was invited to the concert by his own band member who was his neighbor and he was in the front row just dancing having a good time and somebody lay in the back probably jealous or something who knows but the cops came in in 5 minutes and they literally beat him down double concussion and broke his back. Consequently, after that, he they never repaired his back properly and he started he was already fortunately he was an alcoholic, but he wasn't drunk that night, thankfully. He had on his nice suit and everything I had just bought him, but he uh he started drinking three times the amount to to to just mask the pain. And um you know, he he had his neighbor take him back to the hospital and when he got there, he just went down the tubes from there. And uh he ended up having what they call a cascade seizure from all this damage. He had 123 seizures within like an hour which completely erased his brain. Just wiped it clean. Um I sent him to another hospital to get scans there. Came back more scans there cuz you know the oldest I have to the decision to pull the plug. I had to make the same decision on my mom because she had ALS u and she was in the same ICU one bed over. So they both died in the same hospital one bed over from each other over different time periods. My mom died back in 2010. So, uh, it's a rough decision to have to make and to see that, but >> you realize that life is really short, man. You come, you realize like, wow, um, I'm next in line, you know, >> and it's like, damn, you really got to smell the roses. You really have to be grateful, gratitude, enjoy every moment. Stop focusing on negativity and and things that are just, you know, not suiting your best favor. Focus on things helping people, you know, being loving, being of service to others. um you know trying to just again see what you can do to help change the world instead of being a complainer. Being a worrier you know is not going to help anything. I tell people don't be a worrier be a warrior. And uh you know this fearbased system that we're in has people so scared and everything else and fighting one another. And I look back and I just see it and I go man if they only knew. You only get so many sunrises and so many sunsets.