Turning Your Journey's Challenges into Opportunities with Dennis Mellen

How I became blind at just 17 years of age.

They always want to know how I've done it and how I've kept smiling all along the way.

Well, I've just chosen to focus my attention on the positive and on the podcast.

That's what I want to do for you.

Because no matter what you may be going through, I hope to inspire you to focus on the positive.

And you know what?

I hope that I can also be a source of inspiration for you to just positive.

Hey, welcome back to the podcast.

This is the slowdown with Kevin Lowe, episode number 66.

And well, I of course am that guy, Kevin Lowe, here to talk to you today about a story that kind of hit home for me.

And I have an inkling that it's going to do the same for you.

Because it doesn't really matter if the details of the story are very different from one another.

But the principle behind the story, the meaning behind the story, is what matters.

And for myself, it really hit close to home.

Because today I'm talking with a guy named Dennis Mellon.

And Dennis, he knew from a young age that he was going to be a pilot.

He was one of those kids who sat there staring up at the sky.

He knew at that moment, as he sat watching an airplane flying through the sky, that that was what he was meant to do.

And he sure enough would do that.

He would go on to become an airline pilot, both in the service as well as flying commercial until out of his control, it was taken from him.

Can't you relate to that?

That you have this force out of your control that takes something from you, something you enjoy, something you love, something that you have a passion for.

All of a sudden it's ripped away, out of your control, and you're left to figure out what do I do now?

And well, I can relate to so many aspects of Dennis's story in my own life after I became blind.

You know, talk about trying to figure out a whole new identity of who I really was, because everything that made me who I was, or what I thought made me who I was, you know, was taken from me, like driving or riding dirt bikes, all of that was gone.

For Dennis, it was his passion for flying.

Literally.

We're talking about a guy who spent years, decades flying planes.

And he went from one day flying through crystal clear blue skies to the next day, it all being taken away.

The awesome thing about Dennis Mellon is that he did not let it stop him.

He's gone on to do amazing things.

Matter of fact, we're going to be talking about his book, It Takes More Than Heart.

And we're going to be talking about some of his coaching services, something that we'll talk about called Bea Beam.

And well, like I said, Dennis is a pretty awesome guy.

It was a pleasure that I got a chance to sit down and talk with him, and that I get to bring that conversation to you today through this podcast.

I want to encourage you, if you're enjoying the podcast, to please share it with a friend, leave a review on you know Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening, or if you want to support the podcast financially, there's a cool way of doing so left in the show notes called Buy Me a Coffee.

And uh, well, you're not actually buying me coffee, but it's just a cool way of uh leaving a donation for the podcast.

If you like what I'm doing, want to share a little love, you know, feel free, no obligation, just throwing it out there.

Anyways, for all of you who've been supporting me in the podcast from the very beginning, I want to thank you.

You guys are absolutely amazing.

You guys make me love doing this and putting in the work to be sure that I'm producing an episode each and every week here for you.

So, anyways, without further ado, let's get on to a conversation with today's guest, Dennis Mellon.

Dennis Mellon, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks, Kevin.

I appreciate the opportunity to uh talk with your uh listeners.

SPEAKER_01: Well, wonderful.

Well, man, I'm so excited to have you here today.

And uh so I guess I first want to start things off by talking about your rather impressive career in the airline industry.

And that started back you were actually in the Air Force, correct?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I started off actually as a 10-year-old looking up at the airplanes up above.

My I had my father's Air Force Base.

I was looking at the airplanes uh flying above, and I go, hey, that's pretty cool.

That's what I want to do when I grow up.

Of course, my wife says I haven't reached that point yet, but uh but uh I had a signalness of purpose.

I wanted to be uh a pilot.

So I went to the Air Force Academy and went to Air Force pilot training.

And as it developed, I uh I moved over into uh professional airline pilot and stayed in the Air Force Reserves for uh for 20 years.

So uh and then worked with the uh airline for another uh 28 years before I was forced to retire.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow.

So now when you were in the Air Force, were you actually a pilot flying?

SPEAKER_00: I was, I was.

I uh I retired uh as a lieutenant colonel and uh uh as a what do they call it?

Command pilot.

Okay.

Spent 20 years in the uh Air Force and the Air Force Reserves.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow.

What kind of planes did you fly?

SPEAKER_00: I flew the big uh tankers, the KC-10, which is uh uh DC-10 derivative that they use to uh refuel other airplanes, and it can be refueled itself.

So we're the ones that uh get the airplanes to wherever they're supposed to go.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow.

Now, while you were in the Air Force, were you deployed at all?

Like were there any uh wars and stuff going on while you were in service?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there was uh uh several of us.

Uh there was Desert Storm, Desert Shield, and uh prior to that there were a few uh operational uh missions that I that I went to and worked with.

Uh I remember back in 1996 or 86, I guess it was, uh the Libyans were doing something uh uh in uh Sudan, and uh we deployed to Sudan to counter it and uh stayed in the desert there for three or four weeks, just basically saying, hey, we're the we're here, don't do anything further here.

So there were several of those types of uh deployments.

There's one other deployment where I dealt with uh back in the 70s with the Iranian hostage crisis, where I was deployed uh to a little island in the middle of uh the Indian Ocean, probably six hours from any big landmass called Diego Garcia.

Oh, wow, wow.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

Well that's that's crazy.

Now, did you go into service right after high school?

SPEAKER_00: I did.

I uh went to the Air Force Academy.

I'm a 1975 graduate of the Air Force Academy, and then uh spent four years there uh getting my degree and and uh looking at an Air Force career.

I was gonna be a general and a fighter pilot, but just like things pop up in life sometimes and uh changes your direction.

Uh, I didn't get the fighter and I uh went in a different direction flying uh heavy airplanes, the KC-10 and and uh earlier the KC-135, both uh Air Force tankers.

SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, no, that that's cool.

I think I think uh no matter whether or not you had a a true passion for for flying or not, I think all of us want to be um, you know, Tom Cruise and top gun at some point.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, there's still there's still a little bit of that in everybody.

SPEAKER_01: That's right.

No, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00: Going Mach 1 with your hair on fire, you know?

SPEAKER_01: Exactly.

Upside down, you know.

No, that's too cool.

Too cool.

So now, so then at some point, then you transitioned from that, you you got out of the service and you started flying commercial airlines?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did.

Uh, but actually it was simultaneously.

Back in about 1984, I was hired on with a small startup uh airline flying MD 80s out of Long Beach that was eventually bought by Alaska Airlines out of uh Seattle, and we became part of uh Alaska Airlines, and I spent the majority of the my career with Alaska Airlines.

So it was about 28 years in uh counting uh the uh Jet America days, which was the first two or three years, and then the rest was with uh Alaska Airlines.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow, that that's so that's so awesome.

So now I have to assume that back from the time you were that, you know, small boy, 10-year-old, you know, looking up at the sky at the plane, to at that point in your career.

Obviously, flying was was more than a career.

It was a true passion.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.

And it led to uh when I finally lost uh my uh medical at age 56, it was similar to what an 18-year-old goes through out of high school.

As a 10-year-old, I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, which is really unusual to find that passion that early.

But to lose it, all of a sudden, at age 56, I got to that point where I was looking at it and going, uh, well, what do I do now?

What's my purpose now?

And uh that's what my uh book uh turned out to be motivated by was what do I do now?

How do I recover from this?

What's my next goal?

I mean, I I at f at 56, you're not ready for Geezerville, right?

Sitting in a Barker Lounger with a remote control and uh a cool drink, wondering what uh what reruns you're gonna watch for the day.

I wasn't ready for that.

SPEAKER_01: Of course.

So now tell me, take me back, what happened that you had to get out of flying?

SPEAKER_00: Well, as an airline pilot, we would get physicals every six months.

And so it was important to stay in in shape and everything.

And one of my uh other passions was uh mountain bike riding.

So we lived outside of uh Seattle near the foothills of the Cascades, and on one of the mornings I I was taking as many as three and four long bike rides uh a week, sometimes as much as three and four hours.

Well, I'd picked out a uh uh a trail that in the um trail guide itself, it's called It's a Bitch, and it was it's uh a set of trails that starts out with a 500-foot climb and uh within about a mile with a bunch of switchbacks.

And uh I didn't quite make it up to the top.

I uh ended up having a serious heart attack, and I was alone.

And I I'm not sure there's anything, I don't know if you could describe any heart attack as not serious, but uh luckily two hikers found me, basically passed out on the uh trail and called 911, and the um the EMTs had a hard time getting up that same trail that I that I was on.

And you know, they had to hump 100 pounds of equipment up there in a portable gurney.

They got me uh on that uh gurney and started down the hill.

And uh they had to stop between the hill and the hospital was about a half an hour, and they had to uh use the uh paddles on me like uh 25 times between uh the hill and the and the hospital, and then another 20 times inside the uh the ER itself.

And of course, I'm totally unaware of all this stuff.

And lucky for for me, I was able to recover from this with no adverse effects.

Although, again, my friends might say that my mental capacity has been uh challenged, but that might have been since birth.

Who knows?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

I was just saying that that that's something that only true friends would tell you.

SPEAKER_00: Exactly.

Well, they keep me straight.

They keep me straight.

SPEAKER_01: So now at that point, because of having a heart attack, that that then automatically ends your your career flying.

SPEAKER_00: Well, not necessarily.

There are a lot of pilots that have recovered from heart attacks and been able to uh get their medicals back.

But unfortunately, uh my heart had been uh damaged to such an extent that uh I wasn't able to uh retain my uh medical.

So from one day of uh of flying to the next day, you never get to fly again as a captain.

It was a pretty tough pill to swallow.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no doubt.

No.

Just just my own curiosity.

Do you remember the last flight that you did?

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely do.

Yeah.

In fact, it's it's ironic.

It was on a perfectly blue sky, what I call blue bird day, flying from Seattle down to San Diego and back.

And uh, I remember being real busy, of course, from takeoff through uh climb out.

And up at cruise altitude, I'm looking down at uh Eugene, Oregon, uh, you know, kind of just letting my mind wander a little bit.

And I'm looking down, going, hey, I wonder what those people are doing down there.

And of course, I had to smile because I said, they're probably looking up at me, going, Hey, look at those guys up there.

I wonder what they're doing.

And I, you know, it was the sheer joy of I've been doing this for over 30 plus years, really enjoying it, still hard work, but I was making it look easy.

And and then the very next day, I have a heart attack and I can never fly again.

So it was abrupt end to a uh what I consider a really enjoyable, challenging career.

And I still miss it.

SPEAKER_01: So yeah, no, no, no, no, no doubt.

I mean, that it's tough to, you know, to have something that not only you enjoy your career, but it kind of becomes your identity in a way.

Oh, exactly.

As a pilot.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

And then and then to have something that is out of your control, take it away from you, it's frustrating.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

I mean, and I and I I'm I'm not gonna kid at your audience or anybody that I talked to about it.

It was absolutely devastating.

And I went through a lot of depression, really, because even when I finally found a new job, it just wasn't the same.

It took a long time to find out what my new why or my new purpose was.

But, you know, if you keep plugging away, I think the Japanese have a uh a saying is uh, you know, fall down seven times, get up eight.

Just keep plugging away.

And I finally found uh found that in uh in my uh leadership training and uh athletic coaching.

I I'm lucky enough to be able to coach high school baseball at the local uh high school here.

And uh I've been doing that for about nine years now.

SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.

Well that's that's pretty awesome.

That's you know, though, it it it goes back to what you say is you know, we we we just we never understand why things happen in in life many times.

But but then, you know, we get to understand in I don't even know what I'm trying to say.

Is it is just you know, I I look at your story and and I can equate it to to my own story, which is very, very different.

Yet, you know, and I and I'm sure people listening can equate it to their own life, even though maybe they've not had a heart attack or something, but something something causes you to change course in life.

SPEAKER_00: Right.

SPEAKER_01: And it's rediscovering who you are and and and kind of rediscovering new strengths, new things that bring you joy.

And, you know, and so I think I think that's awesome that you found that in coaching.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

Uh between uh the business coaching and the and the athletic coaching, there's a a lot of really good things that go on there.

And it goes back to another saying that says, if you uh enjoy your job, if you're challenged by your job, you'll never work a day into your life, you know?

And uh that was the search there.

And I I think you alluded to it a little bit there, and it's in the subtitle to my book.

It's really about changing uh the journeys, the the life's challenges into opportunities.

What's my next opportunity here?

You know, why why at age 56 should I retire to Geezerville when you feel like you still have something you can contribute?

Whether it's like you uh doing your podcasts or or me doing my uh business training or and uh athletic coaching?

I mean, if you have a passion, you're really not working, you know?

SPEAKER_01: Exactly.

Yeah, no, definitely, definitely.

So now, so how long has it been since you had your heart attacked?

SPEAKER_00: Well, it was 2008, so it's been uh going on 13 years here.

SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, wow, wow, wow.

So I'm curious though, so at what point in this journey that you're on did you decide to take what you'd been through and turn it into a book?

SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, that's an interesting question.

My best friend and his wife, Tom and Karma Kemp, had been telling me all along, hey, you should, you should take your story and and write a book about it.

And I go, I'm not an author.

I haven't done this, I've never done anything like this.

And so when the pandemic hit last uh February, you know, we're all locked down and everything.

I said, well, maybe it's time to finally sit down and write.

And I so I typed up a Word document and started it, just started putting thoughts in, and pretty soon I, you know, I said, Well, I've got something here.

Well, it looked like it was about 30 or 40 pages, maybe.

So luckily, I'd been keeping a uh journal.

That's a manly way of saying a diary, really.

But uh, you know, guys, guys can't say diary, they have to call it a journal.

So I'd kept a journal since the event and off and on put anecdotes, uh things that struck my fancy, just little stories of things that had happened.

So I I said, I looked at it, I said, maybe I should look at this.

And all of a sudden it was like, oh, that'll fit here, and this'll fit there, and that'll fit there.

And all of a sudden I've got, you know, a pretty, pretty long book.

I think the book's 162 pages or something like that.

Uh, and it's basically a memoir of my journey from that first challenge in back in 2008 until um I wrote the book, all the things that had gone on, all my thoughts, the different jobs that I'd had in the interim.

And I, you know, I had no idea that it was gonna connect with people, but and I I, you know, I had no intention of uh, oh, I wanted to be a New York Times bestseller or something like that.

I always figured, well, if if people like it, it'll get there eventually.

But then I started noticing that people are coming to me and saying, hey, reading your book made a difference.

And to me, whether I never make another penny off of it, somebody come up and say, Hey, I made a difference.

I don't know, it just strikes a chord with me, you know, that that I've done something to help them.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

So first off, I have to applaud you for finally doing what everybody told you to do and finally writing a book because I can relate completely to my own life and my own story, and I cannot tell you how many people have told me, Kevin, you've got to turn your story into a book.

And I can't tell you, and I can't tell you how many times I have tried it.

I've attempted it.

I have I have a folder on my on my desktop of my computer with all the different Word documents where I start writing, but I tell everybody, I'm like, you don't understand.

I'm like, it's easy for me to like tell my story.

It's a whole nother thing of trying to now put it into words and create a book, and it's just overwhelming.

And so I applaud you so much.

SPEAKER_00: Well, well, thank you.

I you know, uh, I wouldn't give up on it, Kevin, because you do have a story to tell, and there it could make a difference with somebody.

SPEAKER_01: Yep, you know, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: And and I think that should be the motivation for something like uh you and I have experienced uh is go and make a difference.

You know?

Yep.

It it will make a difference to somebody, and it's such a gratifying feeling.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, no, definitely, definitely.

So now tell me, so what exactly is the whole title of your book for those interested?

SPEAKER_00: It's actually called Takes More Than Heart: Changing the Journey's Challenges into Opportunities.

SPEAKER_01: Love it.

Absolutely love it.

So now, when you wrote this book and after you finished it, do you feel as though it was written for any particular person at like a certain stage of their life?

SPEAKER_00: Or well, obviously, anybody that's suffered a traumatic uh health event in their life and how that's changing.

But I also look at it as addressing athletes that have season-ending or possibly career-ending injuries, or even um somebody that's gone through a business failure.

You know, it's a Yogi Berra thing, you know, it ain't over until it's over, you know?

Yep.

I think that's who said that.

But uh maybe it may be uh I've forgotten what the what the uh coach's name was that that was coaching, but uh yeah, it's it it really ain't over until it's over.

So go out and and enjoy the challenge.

You know, if you're gonna be successful, you never reach success, you know.

You're successful because you're in the Process.

You're successful because you um you're moving on.

You're taking advantage of that.

Yay, you fell down seven times.

It's time to get up the eighth time and keep moving.

SPEAKER_01: Yep.

Definitely.

So now I'm curious, your book is it something that that isn't just simply a story that you read, but something that is going to be like is supposed to be turned around to help the person reading it, also?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

The lessons that I've learned from it, there's um applications from uh where I've used people's quotes about what's important next is a is a big one.

And the initials to that are are W I N, WIN.

You know, what's important next?

I use the the Navy uh SEAL acronym uh DWI, not as driving while intoxicated, but as a you know, DWI, deal with it.

You know, people get frozen because they don't know what to do.

Well, just do something, keep moving forward.

Because if you stop, now you're contemplating the uh complete retirement, you're contemplating Geezerville, like we were talking about earlier, you know.

And you you need to sit down and think about what's my goal here?

What you know, five years from now, where do I want to be?

And just like when you uh when you go uh driving somewhere, you know, you have a goal in mind of where you want to get to, like if we're going to Disney World, and there's a thousand ways of getting there.

Some of them are shorter, some of them are scenic.

There may be traffic jams, there may be detours, or like in your case with today, uh tropical storm moving through.

But just like your headlights only cover the next 200 feet, you have to take care of that 200 feet.

And then once you take care of that, take care of the next 200 feet.

Because it's not abracadabra, I'm at my destination, I'm at my goal, but it's taking care of the next 200 feet.

And once you get to your to that goal, establish another goal.

Because I think that's what it's about is making sure that you have a purpose, making sure that you are making a difference with somebody.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely.

I I'm just I'm curious, have you always had this type of mindset, or do you feel it's something that was instilled in you for after being in the service?

SPEAKER_00: You know, I I think everybody has everybody evolves.

You know, as some people evolve and and go in a wrong direction, and maybe they go into become criminals or or self-absorbed uh people, but everybody has something that evolves in them.

And and I I think, well, definitely the heart attack was an epiphany for me, you know.

I think uh before that I was a different person.

Now I wasn't a bad person by any means, but this epiphany, and and we can allude to religion all we want, God had an effect on me.

This may change the way I looked at things.

And changed it for the better.

And I think it's all part of the learning process.

I don't think uh I I think that's why people go to the mountaintops to see, to talk to the uh yogi or or the Dalai Lama or whatever, you know, to find their new purpose, you know.

They have these epiphanies, these these events that happen to.

I think each one of them teaches you something.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely.

And I think, you know, it it's events in our life, especially traumatic events like you, you know, went through, it does, it teaches us something.

And and as I always like to say, is situations are only bad if you can't figure out some way to use it for good.

Right.

And, you know, and whether that's good in in your own life in making a change or, you know, or are using it as something to do good in another person's life.

And so yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Right.

I think that's one of the reasons I like that uh Navy SEAL acronym, D DWI.

I mean, uh it applies to them, you know, hey, we're surrounded by the enemy and we're running out of bullets.

What do we do?

You deal with it, you know, you keep dealing with it until you can't deal, you can't do anything else.

And I I I think uh in a name, unfortunately, with the Navy SEALs, that's where you to the point where you're not breathing anymore.

But, you know, those guys are amazing guys.

And they're who you want to have on your team because they never give up.

They keep moving ahead.

Now they they go through the same thing that you and I go through with the depressions and ups and downs.

But it's it's uh like in my book, I'm trying to provide tools for people to deal with it, to move on, to take care of the next 200 feet and keep finding that that next challenge or change that challenge into an opportunity.

That's what success is.

It's a journey, it's not a destination, you know.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I I completely agree 100%.

Well, so I'm just curious.

So, so right now you're coaching uh baseball, you you're now this published author.

Any plans for what's next?

SPEAKER_00: Well, just improving those skills and helping people.

I uh I love helping like new and emerging leaders in particular, but giving uh leaders, team leaders, new tools to help them keep their employees and their team engaged.

And that's why there's so much uh interactive uh skills between coaching uh athletics and and coaching business uh leaders is it's it's about keeping everybody engaged.

Engaged employees if help the bottom line, help your profits.

So I'm finding that making just a little bit of difference with each person I come in contact with has been a goal for me.

And it's just a really not only is it a challenge, but it's a really satisfying feeling when somebody says, uh, hey, that made a difference, or or uh thanks for that, for all that teaching or or those tips.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I I love it, absolutely love it.

And you know, is I think I think that's something for all of us to strive for is to make a difference in other people's lives, you know, and and I'm telling you, there's there's nothing that can bring you greater joy in your own life than then to do good for someone else and and to reach out and and make that initiative, you know, to to help somebody, you know.

I don't know.

I think it's it's awesome.

I see that you're doing that in in such amazing ways.

I I find your story just I find your story really incredible because you know, we all have the choice to take the easy road.

And you could have taken the easy road, the easy, the easy out, but you didn't.

You kept fighting and you know, and you didn't give up on life.

And that's what I think is so awesome about your story.

SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks.

I appreciate those comments.

That's that's exactly uh what the motivation is behind it.

You know, you just it's part and parcel of the contrast between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.

You know, there's a lot of people that are just satisfied with going to work and and coming home and and watching TV and uh same vacation, same space every year.

There is a great story about an architect, an English architect from the 1600s.

Evidently, uh the story goes that London burned almost to the ground back in 1666, and this guy, uh Christopher Wren, was charged with uh rebuilding St.

Patrick's Cathedral.

And he went and visited the work site one day, and he came up to the to a bricklayer and said, Hey, what are you doing?

And the guy said, Well, uh, I'm building a wall.

And he went up to the next bricklayer and said, Hey, what are you doing?

And the guy said, Well, I'm collecting a paycheck to feed my family.

Goes to the third guy, and this is an actual story.

Goes to the third guy and says, What are you doing?

And the guy drops everything, smiles, comes over to him, and says, I'm building a cathedral that's gonna house 800 parishioners on Sunday, and during the week it's gonna be a shelter for homeless people.

That's what I'm doing.

Getting your employees, getting your team members, getting your athletic team on board with being a cathedral builder in your organization is what not only what the book is about, but what my uh my coaching, my business coaching does.

You want to get your team members engaged so much that they are your cathedral builders.

Anyway, long story short, that's uh what it's about.

A lot of people think it's the hokey pokey, but I think it's it's really about making a difference and creating things and making things better.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

No, I love it.

I love it.

And and and all I kept thinking is to think of the big picture.

You know, don't get so focused on just the the laying the individual, you know, brick, you know, that makes up the wall, but think of the final product.

That's what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00: Right.

SPEAKER_01: You know?

So I think that's awesome.

Now, now, for anybody interested either in in reading your book and learning more about what you're able to do with with businesses and stuff, where can they learn more?

SPEAKER_00: Well, you can go to uh I have two websites, one for the book and one for my uh coaching.

And actually, the uh the the book is takes more than heart, all one word.com.

And there you can uh go to all the usual uh book vendors, Barnes and Noble, Apple, Nook, my publisher themselves, uh Friesen Press.

And then for the um the coaching part, it's uh beabean.net.

And my uh tagline is uh if you're you know if you're gonna influence your team, if you want to get engage your team, you want to be the bean that transforms your team from ordinary water into gourmet coffee.

And um so that would be be a bean.net or takes more than heart.com for the book.

SPEAKER_01: Awesome, awesome.

I love it.

Be a bean.

That's fantastic, fantastic.

And and if if it's my choice of a bean, it would be a uh Starbucks dark Italian roast.

SPEAKER_00: So whatever you're you're the influencer when you go into your group, you know, that every every group, every business is in that roiling, boiling pot of water.

You have no control over that, but you can certainly influence how that water turns out.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely.

Well, well, Dennis, thank you so much for uh coming on the podcast today.

And I'm so excited for for everyone to get a chance to hear your story.

And I feel like um it will be very easy for them to leave feeling inspired and empowered to not give up on life, um, you know, no matter what obstacles may be in the way.

SPEAKER_00: Well, that's I'm glad that to uh have the opportunity.

Anybody that goes to the uh be a bean website, there is uh a downloadable uh newsletter that has four actionable items that you can use today to influence your team.

I would strongly encourage you to do it.

It's four things that you can do to help with your team.

SPEAKER_01: Well, fantastic.

Well, well, Dennis Mellon, I want to thank you once again for coming on the on the podcast and for all of you listening today.

As always, I hope that you were able to take something said today and turn it around and use it in your own life, you know, because I want you to strive to make tomorrow a little bit better than today.

SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much, Kevin.

Uh, I appreciate getting the lowdown here.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.

Thank you so much, Dennis.

And for all of you listening, have an amazing day.

And that's the lowdown with Kevin Low.

I hope today's episode inspired you, motivated you, and excited you to get out and enjoy life, no matter what obstacles that may be standing in the way.