Maintaining The Spirit of Gratitude with yogesh Patel

Michael Hurst [00:00:00]:
Dancing through my life Elegance and grace.

Jen Hardy [00:00:12]:
Welcome to the fabulous Over 50 podcast. I’m your host, Jen Hardy and I am bringing you another incredible episode in our marathon. What is this marathon? Well, we had the 50 over 50 podcaster awards this past March 2025 and. And all of the winners have been invited to share an episode of their show right here with you so that you can get to meet them, hear what their show’s about, and hopefully subscribe and get to know them better. Today I have got Yogesh Patel, Yogi to his friends, and he is here with Yog Nation, the Spirit of Gratitude podcast. And the guest he’s brought today fits in so well with my story, if you know it. If you don’t, well, we’ll talk about that another day. But Yogi’s guest is sharing the true spirit of gratitude.

Jen Hardy [00:01:10]:
No matter what we go through, and in this day and time, this is an incredible message. I hope that it resonates with you as much as it resonated with me. You’re there.

Yogesh Patel [00:01:24]:
Welcome to the Yog Nation, the Spirit of Gratitude podcast on the 12 duration platform. Hello, friends, my name is Yogesh Patel and this podcast explores the themes of bullying, self awareness and the power of our inner spirit, including the silent battles we all face. Join me every week as I invite high profile guests as we explore how adversity shapes us, how gratitude lifts us, and how we can all uncover the inner strength that we all have within ourselves. Join the conversation. I appreciate you listening in. And today my next guest is a multifaceted podcaster and global keynote speaker, Michael Hurst, who has a popular podcast titled and one more thing before you go, focusing on society, culture and the metaphysical. Sounds interesting. A retired police sergeant, he was injured in the line of duty where he was bound in a wheelchair until he found inspiration and resolve to walk again, thanks to what his daughter asked him as a wedding gift, walking her down the aisle.

Yogesh Patel [00:02:28]:
I’m sure that must have been very special.

Michael Hurst [00:02:29]:
Absolutely special. If I tear up a little bit, we know why.

Yogesh Patel [00:02:34]:
Absolutely. Understood. Well, on that note, and with gratitude, welcome to the podcast.

Michael Hurst [00:02:38]:
Michael, thank you very much for having me here. I appreciate your time.

Yogesh Patel [00:02:42]:
Thank you. Well, I was just curious to find out what exactly happened in the line of duty.

Michael Hurst [00:02:46]:
I was a sergeant and I had a call one night to back up two of my officers, and there was a vehicle that had parked on somebody’s private property and refused to move. And this is where this is in Manatee Springs, Colorado.

Yogesh Patel [00:03:00]:
Gotcha.

Michael Hurst [00:03:01]:
Okay, so the. It’s right but something right next to Colorado Springs. So the individual did not want to move and he was hyper and they felt he was on drugs or, and, or alcohol. So they called for supervisor. And when I showed up, I walked in front of my car, which was a mistake, and he put it in gear and floored it and he hit me and pinned me between his car and my patrol car and it pushed me out of the way and then took off down the road. So it created a multitude of injuries which then eventually turned into a severe rheumatoid arthritis and I’ll be darn ended my career.

Yogesh Patel [00:03:43]:
Did you ever forgive the person that did this to you?

Michael Hurst [00:03:45]:
Not completely honest with you. It’s one of these things where, you know, I was anger, full of anger, full of depression, full of resentment on so many aspects. This individual caused me to lose a career that I had worked for since I was 17 years old.

Yogesh Patel [00:04:00]:
I’m sure the passion that you had in law enforcement at the time, it.

Michael Hurst [00:04:05]:
Is, I say 17 years old. I. 18 years old. I went into college to be a law enforcement officer and I enjoyed my job and I wanted to go up the line. So he put a halt to that. I was a sergeant getting ready to take lieutenant’s test and move up. He changed my life drastically. My wife’s life, my kid’s life, my colleague’s life.

Michael Hurst [00:04:27]:
So there’s a certain amount of resentment that I still hold in regard to that because was difficult. It was a difficult journey. I went through eight operations to get back where I’m at now. We’ll talk about that here, obviously in a few minutes. Yeah, it’s been a journey, a painful journey kind of a situation. So it was hard to forgive completely. But at the same time I forgave him a little bit because it allowed me to redirect my purpose in life. We all want to redefine ourselves sometimes.

Michael Hurst [00:04:57]:
Absolutely figure out where we fall in this lifetime. So it allowed me to redefine my purpose in life.

Yogesh Patel [00:05:03]:
Two questions. What got you over the hump of the anger and depression that you experienced?

Michael Hurst [00:05:08]:
A lot of work.

Yogesh Patel [00:05:09]:
Yeah. Was that more of the self awareness or the inner spirit?

Michael Hurst [00:05:12]:
A little bit of self awareness, a little bit of, you know, inner spirit. A lot of family and friends and my wife and both my daughters and my sister, my brother in law, my colleagues, a family support, a network of support that allowed me the confidence to say we’re here to push you from behind. We’re here to pull you up if you need it.

Yogesh Patel [00:05:38]:
Right.

Michael Hurst [00:05:38]:
We’re here to walk Side by side and hold your hand. So when you have that kind of environment with you that they don’t allow you to go down a very dark, dark path. They don’t allow you to be able to take the negativity of it all and make that the forefront of it. They give you a positive environment, a positive atmosphere, which makes it easy to kind of start working your way out of that.

Yogesh Patel [00:06:07]:
And I guess that’s a life lesson we hear see today in individuals that perhaps are struggling, finding that support unit, whether that comes from friends, family, teachers, law enforcement as an example.

Michael Hurst [00:06:19]:
Oh, exactly. I think that we don’t communicate enough with our family and our friends and you know, when people in this position.

Yogesh Patel [00:06:25]:
Why do you think that?

Michael Hurst [00:06:27]:
Well, I think it’s because today’s day and age, with all the chaos that’s going around, I think in the electronics and the digital age, it has taken us away from the one on one conversations. It’s taken us away from the looking at somebody and saying, I want to talk to you about your day to day. How was this? How was that?

Yogesh Patel [00:06:45]:
Yeah.

Michael Hurst [00:06:46]:
Being able to remember to say I love you before somebody walks out the door or I’m proud of you or I appreciate you, instead of doing it through a text, in saying it face to face because it means more.

Yogesh Patel [00:06:58]:
Isn’t that the same thing though?

Michael Hurst [00:07:00]:
It isn’t. A text is impersonal, a conversation.

Yogesh Patel [00:07:04]:
I agree, by the way.

Michael Hurst [00:07:06]:
A conversation is personal. A conversation means you can look at somebody, you can look them in the eye, you can look them in your eye. This way you can tell them, you.

Yogesh Patel [00:07:16]:
Can feel their energy too.

Michael Hurst [00:07:17]:
Exactly. What I’m saying to you is, I mean to you. You know, my wife and I, every day before she walks out the door, we say I love you. Every day when she makes it to work, I say I love you. Have a nice day. Have a great day. Okay. It’s a communication, something I should learn.

Yogesh Patel [00:07:35]:
He’s not here.

Michael Hurst [00:07:38]:
It’s a communication that allows us the personal connection and to keep that personal connection because I think we as humanity, society and culture, we have developed during this time period where we need people, we need people around us. We need friends, we need family, we need grandmothers and grandfathers, and we need sons, daughters, friends, co workers, co workers. We need that commitment with each other. If we don’t have that, then we isolate ourselves. And isolation creates its own problems, its own compounding of depression and anxiety and loneliness. And when those things start creeping up on people, it changes people’s lives. So I think the Communication is more important than a text.

Yogesh Patel [00:08:20]:
And that goes back to something we talked about in our pre planning call, Michael. That concept of memories. Right. That’s a subject that really wasn’t explored on the podcast to date, but certainly you opened that up and tell me about that in terms of. And I guess this applies to all of us, the parents and young teenagers that are perhaps addicted to technology, not to our phones, but just in technology in general, with so much coming at us. I mean, for me, the greatest thing that. The most basic of things that I always like to appreciate is just conversations at the dinner table with the phone on silent or the phone in the other room.

Michael Hurst [00:08:59]:
Exactly. I think that, you know, I. One of my fondest memories. Okay, I’d like to share. One of my fondest memories is I grew up in a very like a Little Italy community environment where there were, you know, like 12 Italian families that all lived in the same apartment complex. It was an amazing group of people. And one of the most amazing things that I remember and to this day is the fact that we would, we’d all, everybody would, every one of the families would cook and they bring their portion up from Naples or from Sicily or from Rome or wherever it would be. It all come to the same dinner table and some feast, its own feast.

Michael Hurst [00:09:39]:
At the dinner table, you have conversations and you, you communicate. I learned culture, I learned history. I learned so much about the Italian culture from different regions of Italy. For example, yeah, we have family out there, so different regions, how they affect, how they relate, how they’ve grown up, how they grew up compared to what they see here. And to me, every time I cook something, I love to cook, every time I cook an Italian meal, every time I make pasta, every time I hand make pasta or bread or focaccia or something, it’s a chance for conversation and it’s a chance to relive those memories, which I think are important because it keeps the generations alive. We forget we have grandmothers, we forget we have grandfathers, we forget what they’ve been through and how we got here. And I think those conversations are important to continue, to pay it forward.

Yogesh Patel [00:10:34]:
Not to make it political, but there seems to be an element of family dynamics involved where you get generations coming together and not reliving those memories and stories, but to actually pass it down.

Michael Hurst [00:10:47]:
Exactly. And I think it’s important for our culture, for our well being. I think that it’s important because it allows us to keep that connection with family, to keep that. I’m grateful. I cannot, I can Immensely, immensely grateful for what was given to me during those time periods because I walked away with culture and history and memories and family, the importance of family, food, fun, and how they all interconnect with us.

Yogesh Patel [00:11:14]:
And I’m sure that was part of your healing process.

Michael Hurst [00:11:16]:
Oh, absolutely, part of my healing process.

Yogesh Patel [00:11:18]:
And I think that’s something that hopefully the listeners out there can take note and realize that it doesn’t necessarily take effort, a lot of effort and time. It’s just opening your heart to say, can I talk to you?

Michael Hurst [00:11:30]:
Exactly. And look, if I may. I worked at domestic Violence Task force for about four years. It was specific to domestic violence and we did the worst. Not that any domestic violence is normal, it isn’t sure. But we work the worst of the worst. And it was a multi agency one. In seeing the dysfunction in families, seeing the domestic violence in families, both verbal as well as physical, the common thread that I found through all of those investigations was lack of communication, lack of family, lack of moving forward in a positive way from what they had experienced.

Michael Hurst [00:12:11]:
They were stuck in, in this, this rut of intergenerational trauma that sometimes they didn’t know how to break away from.

Yogesh Patel [00:12:20]:
You just triggered a memory where I heard generational poverty, now it’s generational trauma.

Michael Hurst [00:12:28]:
Intergenerational, intergenerational trauma. And they carry it forward. So the key to overcoming that, the key to getting out of that, the key to moving forward in that in a positive way is communication, in talking, in having those conversations that are important. Why is it important that we do this? Why is it important that I need to leave or be here, work through it, or walk away from it kind of a situation? I believe the same thing in all aspects of the world.

Yogesh Patel [00:12:54]:
Is this something that you learned over time as you healed or how did this mindset come about?

Michael Hurst [00:13:00]:
I grew up in a very dysfunctional family myself. I see both my parents were alcoholics. My father died at a very young age. I hadn’t seen him since I was 15 years old. He died when I was 17. And in. I can’t. I don’t know how far away Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is, but from Colorado to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a long, long way.

Yogesh Patel [00:13:19]:
Sure.

Michael Hurst [00:13:20]:
So I got a phone call to tell me, my brother in law, my Roberto, my brother in law at the time, the guy from Rome, he is the one that had, you know, actually told me that my father had passed. So I never got the opportunity to say goodbye to my father. I never got the opportunity for that because the family had been so dysfunctional. He, my Mother, which I found out later, both of them had suffered so much trauma during their childhoods and as they grew up that I didn’t realize until later in life that those generational traumas were brought forward to myself. So it allowed me to kind of recognize that where I made sure. I promised to myself that they would not happen in my family. I promised myself that I would not be the same individual.

Yogesh Patel [00:14:15]:
Do you forgive them?

Michael Hurst [00:14:16]:
I do forgive them because I understand the circumstances now where before I did not. So I had years of anger at my mother. I had years of anger at my father. And based upon that anger and that resentment and that. Why didn’t you. Why didn’t this happen? Why didn’t that happen? Why weren’t you there for me here? Why weren’t you there for me? Now I look back on it, I had a lot of time when I was rehabilitating, so I did kind of genealogical research.

Yogesh Patel [00:14:44]:
You channeled it in a way that was positive, and the outcome benefited not you, your family, but others around you.

Michael Hurst [00:14:52]:
Well, that’s the reason I became a police officer, actually, because I became a police officer to help individuals like this. I became a police officer so that I can contribute to positively with that. But I didn’t learn till later. Okay, after I left the police department, all the intergenerational trauma that my parents had suffered, it took me 40, 45 years, 50 years to figure this out. So once I was able to understand and figure this out, it gave me the opportunity to grasp it and say, I have a better understanding of my family. And I forgive my mother, I forgive my father. And it allowed me to move forward from there, but it also gave me the strength to understand how I could heal myself.

Yogesh Patel [00:15:32]:
Yeah.

Michael Hurst [00:15:33]:
Because going through eight different operations, I’ve had two knees replaced completely, a hip replaced completely, my foot surgery, two shoulders completely replaced. I had learned to walk again three times.

Yogesh Patel [00:15:44]:
Bionic Man, Lee Majors back in the late 70s, early 80s show, for those.

Michael Hurst [00:15:49]:
That remember, pretty close.

Yogesh Patel [00:15:51]:
So it looks like this was this a lot to me, is part of your DNA in the podcast? Was it on?

Michael Hurst [00:15:57]:
It is a very good foundation of this podcast.

Yogesh Patel [00:15:59]:
So I’m curious, how did you come up with the title and what’s it about?

Michael Hurst [00:16:02]:
You know, one more thing before you go was born from my personal experience as well as my professional experience, because I, number one, is that I lost my father without getting to say goodbye. I lost my mother without getting to say goodbye. I spent almost 17 years in law enforcement where I was the last person that somebody saw before they passed. And they always said, can you please tell my wife, can you please tell my husband? Can you please tell my kids? Can you please tell my mother? And I’d have to deliver these messages to people saying this is what happened because they walked out the door and they didn’t come back. So because that.

Yogesh Patel [00:16:39]:
How do you not affected by that? Or were you.

Michael Hurst [00:16:41]:
Oh, I am affected by it. It still affects me to today. It is still something that’s within me. It’s having to deliver a message like this to somebody, is understanding that I had somebody have to deliver the message to me that way that my father was never coming home, that my mother was never coming home. And the phone call that I had gotten in order to receive that walking and knocking on people’s doors and telling them that it’s an immense personal connection with that individual. Because you have to be strong for them at that time. You have to be there for them. You cannot falter from that.

Michael Hurst [00:17:21]:
You have to be strong for them because they just realize somebody’s not coming home. Sure. So those memories stick with you. Those memories stick with you. I watch something on tv, I will relive it. If I hear something on the radio sometimes, I will relive it. But I appreciate those as well, because it gave me the opportunity to create an environment like one more thing before you go. To be able for people to get closure, to be able to get to say what they didn’t get to say before, to get to do what they didn’t get get to do before they lost somebody that walked out the door.

Michael Hurst [00:17:53]:
To say, there always is a possibility. There’s one more thing that you can do to get closure after losing somebody and to move forward in a positive way or positive light.

Yogesh Patel [00:18:04]:
And I guess for me, if I can just stop interrupt you. Michael is thinking about my own mom’s passing in the hospital. It’s like, what did she want to say before she took her last breath?

Michael Hurst [00:18:14]:
Yes. I think we all have been presented with something that. Like that, where we did not get to say what we wanted to say. And that plays on you. And we didn’t get to hear or we didn’t get to have that personal connection with saying goodbye. You know, you have the difference between the long goodbye and the short goodbye. The long goodbye, cancer, dementia. You know, Diane’s father, my wife’s father, we took care of him the last 18 months of his life.

Michael Hurst [00:18:45]:
It was a long goodbye. We had that opportunity to get closure because it allowed us the long goodbye. We were able to take Our time with it. We were able to spend time with him, get to say what we wanted to get to say. Our kids get to say what they wanted to say with their grandparents. That’s the long goodbye. And there’s an advantage to a long goodbye. And a disadvantage because by the time you get done with a long goodbye, it’s easier when they pass, but it’s still difficult.

Michael Hurst [00:19:12]:
I mean, there’s this fine line, of course it’s easy, but it still hurts because, you know, the short goodbye, the one where they walk out the door and they don’t come back, where you just have no idea. Why didn’t I say this? Why didn’t I say I love them? Why didn’t I say I missed them? Why didn’t I say I was proud of them? Why did I have a fight with my wife this morning or my husband this morning when they walked out that door? What are they gonna. How can they cross over? How can they, how can they do this if I can’t tell them I’m sorry?

Yogesh Patel [00:19:48]:
Sure.

Michael Hurst [00:19:49]:
So I think from this perspective, what we have is an opportunity to be able to say one more thing. And that’s what woman think before ego podcast came up. And that’s how it was developed and born. It was developed and born to give a voice. It was developed and born to be able to give the voice for somebody, to get closure, to give a. Now we’ve evolved, obviously, like anything, we’ve evolved and we’ve expanded our opportunities, but the messaging is still there. I think it’s important for us. It’s just like conversation.

Michael Hurst [00:20:18]:
It’s communication.

Yogesh Patel [00:20:19]:
Well, you beat me to the punch where my next question was going to trigger some of your happy tears. But I guess I teared up first based on the memories that I relived with my mom and her passing. But what was that moment like walking Caitlin down the aisle?

Michael Hurst [00:20:35]:
See, you just. You want to make me cry, don’t you?

Yogesh Patel [00:20:39]:
We’re going to have a slugfest on this. Arm wrestle it for you.

Michael Hurst [00:20:43]:
No, you know, it’s interesting because I think the, you know, when I was sitting there in my wheelchair feeling sorry for myself, I want to express something really quick. My wife, my daughters, my sister, my brother in law, nobody ever treated me with a disability. Nobody ever treated me any less than I was as an individual, a person, a father, a son, a brother. You know, nobody ever treated me different. Okay with this. So when my daughter was. My oldest daughter was going to get married, she, she came up and I said, okay, let’s Have a talk. We’re going to pay for the wedding, of course, but what do you want for your wedding present? Here’s where it becomes difficult.

Michael Hurst [00:21:26]:
She put her hand on each one of my. The arms on my chair, and she leaned down and she looked me square in the face and she said, I want you to walk me down the aisle. And I know you can do it.

Yogesh Patel [00:21:39]:
And take your time, sir.

Michael Hurst [00:21:41]:
It lit a fire under my butt.

Yogesh Patel [00:21:43]:
Yeah.

Michael Hurst [00:21:45]:
To say, why am I sitting here like this when I could be doing this.

Yogesh Patel [00:21:49]:
Yep.

Michael Hurst [00:21:50]:
So it was at that time that we, as a family, set out to find out how I could do this. So we found a doctor here, wonderful Dr. Robert Berghoff, and we went there to visit him and he said, what can I, you know, what can we do? What can I do for you?

Yogesh Patel [00:22:06]:
Right.

Michael Hurst [00:22:07]:
And I said, I want to walk her down the aisle. And he said, yeah, we can do that. So the journey was tough. I finished rehabilitation six weeks before I was supposed to in order to walk her down the aisle. And it was like up there with both of my marriage to my wife, both kids being born. Yeah, it’s right up there with that. With that emotional impact on me to be able to walk her down the aisle. And actually, it’s one of her and mine.

Michael Hurst [00:22:42]:
One of our favorite pictures of her whole wedding package is a picture of me walking her down the aisle.

Yogesh Patel [00:22:47]:
Well, not only that, I’m sure, but it’s also the strength and resolve you have in terms of your own inner spirit and character to go against all odds from what the previous doctors had mentioned and be stubborn enough to say, dammit, I’m going to do it, you know? Right.

Michael Hurst [00:23:03]:
She reminded me that we have a choice in life. And I’ll say that to everybody. We have a choice. You can choose to move forward, or you can choose to sit back and feel sorry for yourself. You can choose to take the step to improve yourself, or you can choose to sit back and feel sorry for yourself or angry or resentful and let these negativity and just surround you. We have a choice in life. She reminded me that we have a choice in life and that that choice was to move forward. Right.

Michael Hurst [00:23:34]:
So. And it was one of the best days of my life when I did that. And I made sure. And I am making sure I walk two to five miles every day. I walk. I think I walked 76 miles last month. Okay.

Yogesh Patel [00:23:50]:
Wow.

Michael Hurst [00:23:50]:
Because I plan on walking my second daughter down the aisle.

Yogesh Patel [00:23:54]:
No kidding.

Michael Hurst [00:23:56]:
So it is. It is within ourselves. It. It made me recognize within ourselves.

Yogesh Patel [00:24:03]:
Yeah.

Michael Hurst [00:24:04]:
That we have the power, the strength and the ability to overcome and to move forward in life in a positive way. We just have to choose to take that step.

Yogesh Patel [00:24:14]:
So I have a question. What about the. Yeah, buts. Yes, I’m listening to you, but. Dot, dot, dot. How would you address that? To say, I think. And I always like to say for the person that’s listening in the quiet.

Michael Hurst [00:24:26]:
Corner of the room, you know, it. It’s. I’m guilty of this myself because there are times that, you know, my wife is an absolutely wonderful, brilliant person. She has. She gets me ready every day. She buns my shirts because I can’t. She washes my hair for me because I can’t. You know, there are things that she does for me.

Yogesh Patel [00:24:48]:
You look great, by the way, Mr. Casanova.

Michael Hurst [00:24:49]:
Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. That’s my Elvis.

Yogesh Patel [00:24:55]:
There you go.

Michael Hurst [00:24:57]:
The aspect that I’m grateful her. For her each and every day. I’m grateful for my children each and every day. I’m grateful for my wife and she. But I’m human, just like we all are. I’m human. So there are days that I do go back and I revert a little bit, and I say, yeah, butter. Yeah, butter, yeah, but.

Michael Hurst [00:25:14]:
Or I get angry that there’s something that I can’t do. Or they’re so I can’t open this jar, or I can’t pick this up and carry it in, or my wife has to carry the groceries in because I can’t pick them up because I still have a disability. I still have a disease. I still have rheumatoid arthritis. In those particular cases. I will give that credit to my wife because she says, yeah, but it doesn’t matter to me. It’s okay that I have to do this because I love you.

Yogesh Patel [00:25:39]:
So it’s your perception which is not accurate to a certain degree.

Michael Hurst [00:25:44]:
Yes. And it takes a reminder sometimes.

Yogesh Patel [00:25:47]:
Yeah.

Michael Hurst [00:25:48]:
And those reminders, we just have to listen to those reminders. Because sometimes we have the problem where we close off the outside noise. We close our ears. We hide our eyes.

Yogesh Patel [00:26:01]:
Yeah.

Michael Hurst [00:26:02]:
Shut our mouth. We have to open our eyes. We have to open our ears. We have to listen to what’s around us. We have to listen to the things that are around us. We have to listen to the people around us. We have to listen to. To see who’s with us still.

Michael Hurst [00:26:16]:
My wife and I are 36 years. We’re together 36 years in this year, we’ll be married 36 years. So we’ve been together Maybe a little longer. So you have to look at things like this. You have to look at the fact that my kids have never ever treated me with a disability, never thought me as a lesser person because I wasn’t a cop anymore for the longest time. I spent six months after I retired calling stuff in because I couldn’t let it go.

Yogesh Patel [00:26:45]:
Oh, really?

Michael Hurst [00:26:46]:
Yeah. Until the guy said, sarge, you got to stop doing this. You know, let it go. So I get a reminder every once in a while from my wife and my kids and my sister or my brother in law or my friends that say, you got to stop. You got to stop. Look around what you have looked. Look what’s around you. Look who’s around you.

Michael Hurst [00:27:08]:
Be grateful for where you’re at in life. Be grateful for the roof over you.

Yogesh Patel [00:27:11]:
So those reminders that others.

Michael Hurst [00:27:12]:
Yes.

Yogesh Patel [00:27:13]:
Get you back to the present.

Michael Hurst [00:27:14]:
Be grateful for the food on the table. Be grateful for the people in your life. Be grateful for the reminders that you have always. Be grateful.

Yogesh Patel [00:27:23]:
Yeah, it’s a very. I’d say that is the one main theme behind all of my guests. Certainly it says a spirit of gratitude. But within the word gratitude, there’s many dimensions and facets. And being grateful is certainly up there.

Michael Hurst [00:27:38]:
Absolutely. I think that we as human beings sometimes forget and even in my positions and everything that I’ve been through with regard to this, my journey with this disease and with these injuries are daily. They’re daily. And I have to remind myself on a daily basis. I have to make a choice to move forward. I have to make a choice to step forward. I have to make a choice to get out of bed. I have to make a choice to work through the pain.

Michael Hurst [00:28:05]:
If I’m having a bad day, we all have the choice, but we have to choose to be grateful as well. We have to choose to be grateful for the fact that I can get out of it. I have a bad end that I can get out of.

Yogesh Patel [00:28:15]:
I guess it doesn’t matter what problem you have in that particular moment. It could be emotional, it could be a health issue, it could be a financial issue. Because we all are dealing with something.

Michael Hurst [00:28:26]:
Yes.

Yogesh Patel [00:28:27]:
And so the key common denominator, the key foundation is that spirit of gratitude.

Michael Hurst [00:28:33]:
Spirit of gratitude is, I think, at the forefront of everything. You have to be grateful. You know something, if Caitlin would not have done what she did, I don’t know where I would have been. Because at this point in life, I may or may not have been right here talking to you. You know, she introduced me to podcasting that’s how I got into podcasting, because she. While I. I was doing my physical therapy, and she said, you ever listen to a podcast? I said, no, I haven’t. And here you go.

Michael Hurst [00:29:01]:
Listen to this. And she says, I think you can do this. And saying, I think you can do this. This. You’d be good at it. I went, hey, I found my purpose again once I started looking at this.

Yogesh Patel [00:29:13]:
So how many podcasts have you done?

Michael Hurst [00:29:15]:
I’m sorry?

Yogesh Patel [00:29:15]:
How many podcasts have you recorded?

Michael Hurst [00:29:17]:
I’ve recorded 476 podcasts.

Yogesh Patel [00:29:21]:
Wow. And I’m just a rookie at the Citizens.

Michael Hurst [00:29:23]:
Well, wait a second. Hold on. I’ve still got. I’ve got five in the bank, so. 481. 481 podcast.

Yogesh Patel [00:29:29]:
Yeah. This is kind of like the wise old person at the top of the mountain. Here I am just trying to climb those little rocks to get there, to ask this gentleman those key life questions. And one of them was, in your experience, having other guests, Is there anything like, I guess, what are the top three things that you’ve seen commonalities with your guests?

Michael Hurst [00:29:53]:
It’s interesting because in the beginning of the podcast, the first two or three years that I had it, there was a lot of conversations about, again, losing somebody and what they didn’t get to say or what they didn’t get to do. There were many conversations with what I’ve lost. And I had people who triumph over tragedy. There were individuals that a woman had ALS and. And she said that they gave her five months to live, and this was five years later she was on my podcast. And that the tenacity, the fortitude, the ability for us to recognize that we can overcome in a very positive way, the ability to recognize that although we are human beings and that we do, we should allow ourselves to be depressed, angry, resentful. We should allow ourselves to grieve. That’s important.

Yogesh Patel [00:30:50]:
Allowing yourself to feel these emotions and not feel bad.

Michael Hurst [00:30:54]:
Exactly. You have to feel them. And in doing so, we also have to allow ourselves to let go of those negativities. We have to allow ourselves the ability to overcome, the ability to move forward, the ability to recognize that we, within ourselves, have the ability to connect our mind, our body, and our soul completely together to make. To change our life the way we need to change it, to move forward from a negativity, to move forward from the environment that we’re in, to move forward from whatever situation that we have, that it’s only temporary.

Yogesh Patel [00:31:29]:
Well, for me, what you just told me triggered a memory Just triggered a thought where if I’m having an argument with an individual, I don’t have too many arguments, I hope, but allowing them to feel angry at me for whatever reason, is that the same thing that you’re talking about or is it slightly different?

Michael Hurst [00:31:48]:
I would never say that it is a situation where you should allow somebody to degrade you or to.

Yogesh Patel [00:31:54]:
No, not in that. Okay, I’m sorry. Please continue.

Michael Hurst [00:31:56]:
Yeah, in this kind of a situation, I would. I would never say that. But in reality, you know, my family, my wife and my kids and I, you know, we have. We have a thing that we do. If you want, in this sense that we’re kids, if we get into a fight, we can. We’re human beings, We’re a family. We’re all living under the same roof. We get into an argument, we get into a fight.

Michael Hurst [00:32:18]:
You know, we allow everybody to be angry. We allow you to do.

Yogesh Patel [00:32:22]:
That’s what I’m saying. Yeah, That’s. That’s where I’m going.

Michael Hurst [00:32:24]:
When you cool off, once you cool off, then you come back and we talk about it.

Yogesh Patel [00:32:28]:
Okay.

Michael Hurst [00:32:29]:
Okay. So you allow the anger to be there. You will. Because you’re a human being. If you push down the anger and you push down so far that it just compounds upon itself, you keep pushing down and pushing down, push it down, it’s going to explode.

Yogesh Patel [00:32:43]:
Right. It’s resistance, too.

Michael Hurst [00:32:45]:
It’s more negative than it will be in. Than it would be if you just let it happen. This without violence. Violence is unacceptable in any circumstance. Violence is unacceptable. But if you have an argument, you get angry, somebody just let the anger go, Let somebody get angry, let them walk away, let them go in the other room. But you have the understanding that when you’re done, you come back out and talk about it. Because communication is the key to any kind of a relationship moving forward in a positive way.

Michael Hurst [00:33:17]:
You have to be able to communicate. And that’s where it goes back to the communication. Put the phone down, put the iPad down and talk it out. Kind of a situation.

Yogesh Patel [00:33:26]:
Yeah. And I just hope that both parents and kids learn that together, because, I mean, I happen to believe that this is just my bias, but it’s really not the fault of the kids that they’re addicted to their phones. I mean, certainly technology plays a large role in that, but it’s. Who is to help guide them to say, let’s put the phone away, let’s just talk, or let’s, you know, throw the baseball outside.

Michael Hurst [00:33:52]:
And sometimes it’s difficult to teach that, especially if you haven’t done it for a while.

Yogesh Patel [00:33:55]:
Yeah.

Michael Hurst [00:33:56]:
So in, in this particular case, if.

Yogesh Patel [00:33:59]:
You haven’t done it for a while. So introduce this.

Michael Hurst [00:34:01]:
You have to introduce this.

Yogesh Patel [00:34:02]:
Okay.

Michael Hurst [00:34:02]:
And then you have to build upon it and you have to be able to introduce it in such a way that it doesn’t seem like it. It is forced. Forced. Okay, I’m your dad and this is what you’re going to do kind of a situation. Right. Or I’m your mom is what you’re gonna do.

Yogesh Patel [00:34:18]:
Yeah.

Michael Hurst [00:34:19]:
Just introduce it as a concept. And the concept is communication. And here’s the thing, allow them to be human. When you allow somebody to be human, then you can go back and have a conversation as to why they were angry, why they got upset, why they got depressed, why they were. Had anxiety about the whole situation. And you can talk through it and you can make compromises. And in making compromises, it allows you to continue the relationship. Continue, whether it be with a friend or family and, you know, mother, child, father, child, grandparents, parents, whatever the case may be, it allows you that opportunity to continue that relationship in a positive way.

Yogesh Patel [00:34:55]:
We can conclude on that just. Again, I think everything that you’ve shared boils down to the relationship you have with others stemming from communication. That’s again, one of the key takeaways that I’ve learned. And allowing yourself to feel those emotions of anger. Okay. Find what you cool off, come back.

Michael Hurst [00:35:13]:
Exactly. And be grateful. Be grateful. Be grateful for those people in your life. Be grateful, even if it’s a tumultuous relationship, because life can change in an instant and we don’t know when it’s going to change. So you may lose an opportunity. So be grateful.

Yogesh Patel [00:35:32]:
Michael, it’s an honor to have you. Thank you.

Michael Hurst [00:35:34]:
Thank you very much.

Jen Hardy [00:35:35]:
And thank you, our dear listener, for sharing your time with us, because that is the most valuable thing you have and we do appreciate it. Our marathon continues tomorrow with another incredible story. So stay tuned and stay fabulous.

Michael Hurst [00:36:04]:
A swish of our skirt Spirits blazing we took on the world that we want Gen Z, we’re not done.

Yogesh Patel [00:36:15]:
Here’s to the darkness that’s turned to light.