Show Transcript

0:00:20 Kevin Lowe Yes. All right, perfect. So we will go ahead and get started. Recording in three, two, one. Evans, welcome to the podcast.

0:00:34 Evans Putman Oh, thank you so much. I'm grateful for the opportunity and look forward to the amazing, amazing.

0:00:42 Kevin Lowe Well, Evans, I want to start out with a big question and try to not overthink it. I mean, take your time. All of know you have the time on your side. Some people try to get tripped up with it. And so I encourage you to not overthink it. Is simple question of when you look back on this journey that you've been on, what is that moment in your past that you can say heavily influenced getting you to where you are today?

0:01:15 Kevin Lowe Maybe for good reasons, the journey, it led you down or maybe the person it made you into. But what is that story? And let's start there.

0:01:27 Evans Putman Oh, my goodness. Talk about divine timing. So today I open up and I'm looking at the date. It's 725 as we speak today, July 25. And I look and there's this July 25 one to 2001. And it was one of my memories. And I remember specifically because it's a little bit of what happened before that, but the 25th just reminded me of this event. Well, around that time, probably the beginning of July ish June.

0:02:07 Evans Putman I was living in Charleston, South Carolina, where I live now, in another home. And I was at sort of a low point in my life. I was a personal trainer at the time, but I was really burnt out on it. I was burnout. For those of you listening, I'm sure there's many of you, when you give and give and give, sometimes it can affect you. Right? Well, I was burnout in many ways, Kevin. And I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night in my Lazy Boy with a half empty glass of gym Beam and water sitting next to me. I would pass out every night.

0:02:51 Evans Putman I was not in a good place. And I remember one day I go driving to visit my friend, and on the way back, I have this intuitive moment as I'm in my car getting ready to cross over the bridge from what is Sullivan's Island. So I'm crossing the causeway and if I don't turn around right then, I have to continue going. But something hit me and it's like, turn around, go to Dunleavy's and get a burger. Have you ever had the spirit talk to you that says, go to this Irish pub and get a burger? Right.

0:03:29 Evans Putman And so I'm sitting here in my mind, because this is the way my mind always processed at that time. I started thinking ahead. Right. All these thoughts like, well, why would I do that? I got food at home already cooked. Because I was a personal trainer. I kept a lot of the healthy foods, like cooked and ready to go. But I kept sort of fighting the urge. And then finally, right at the last minute, before there was no other way, I could just turn around without crossing the bridge. And then I had to go like another half mile or so. And at that point I was almost home so there was no way I was going back.

0:04:03 Evans Putman I turned around and I turned around. I go back to this Irish bar and this is where things gets a little bit crazy. I'm sitting at the bar, I order my food and there's person next to me. And I have a pretty good memory, Kevin. And I don't remember this person at all. I remember them being there. I don't remember if they were a male or a female. I just remember we had this long conversation and they kept talking to me about how they had been there for so long waiting on their order.

0:04:35 Evans Putman And for some reason they kept getting delayed. But I mean, I cannot remember this person and it baffles me to this day. But for some reason I just started talking about my life. How I hated getting out of bed in the morning. I didn't like what I was doing. I was drinking too much. I was trying to cover up medicate the bad feelings instead of dealing with them and just not in a good place in my life. And I'm sharing this with this stranger, which is really OD for me because at that time I used to didn't share anything, even with my close friends.

0:05:14 Evans Putman And they just look at me and they're like there's this book you need to read. It's called The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. Have you ever heard of it? And I'm like, no, I haven't. And I was like, okay. And they're like, well, you should read that. I was like, I will. I will read that. And so I get my food and I leave. And it was almost like I don't remember that person leaving. I don't remember anything about them still. And it still baffles me. It's like I don't even remember saying goodbye to them anything.

0:05:44 Evans Putman It was almost like I was sitting there. I hope I wasn't talking to like an empty chair next to me and people were looking at me like I was crazy. So I go home and this is 2001, so there is no Amazon Prime. At the time, we had a Barnes and Noble and you asked me this question. I'm giving you the long answer, but I hope this is a good journey that we're going on. So I go to the local Barnes and Noble and I think I could go online, but I didn't order from them because it was like, why would I order? Because it'll take forever, and it's right here in town. But I could see what their inventory was.

0:06:25 Evans Putman And according to the inventory, they had one copy of this book. And I go in and I'm looking where the book should be. I think it was like in personal development, spiritual, wherever that is. And it's not there. I can't find it anywhere. So I go ask the little person in the middle kiosk there at Barnes and Noble if they could help me. And they're like, oh, yeah, it shows. We have it. They go back there and look. It's not there.

0:06:51 Evans Putman They can't find it. So we're giving up. And as I'm walking out, I go walking past this other section, and there's this book, like, sticking out. Odly. And the person stops. It was, like, totally in a different category, in the wrong place. And they're like, that's odd. Here's that book right there. And so he pulled it out and hands it to me. So I go read this book, and the reason I share all this is because this book sort of led me on a journey of thinking differently.

0:07:21 Evans Putman And it sort of helped guide me to get me out of that place I was in by starting to see things in a different way. I don't know if you have you ever read the book, Kevin?

0:07:31 Kevin Lowe I don't. That's what I was going to ask you. I don't know this book at all.

0:07:35 Evans Putman Oh, my gosh. It's an amazing book. I recommend it to people all the time. I've read it many times. Dan Millman is the author, and he's got many other books, too. But that's the best one, in my opinion, to start with. It's one of those books that you do. You meet someone and you're like, you should read this book. So it sort of opened me up to possibilities. It got me to start living in the moment, to start seeing things that were as they were done for me and not to me, right? So it shifted my mindset so much.

0:08:10 Evans Putman And probably about three weeks after reading that book, I was feeling better, but I was still like, this just isn't what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't know what it is. But I was happier. I was focusing on the present moment, which is what mainly a lot of that book was about, right? Living in the present moment. So as I'm doing this one night, I go to sleep. I have this dream, and this is why it all goes back to 725, which I promise I'm going to hit you in a second what this means. But I have this dream, and in this dream, I'm on a basketball court, and I can't remember if I was playing or on the sideline, but one of my old camp counselors and a mentor, and I would consider him a friend. As I got a little bit older, his name is Dick DeVenzio. He was a basketball he played basketball at Duke University.

0:09:05 Evans Putman Was a Rhodes scholar. Really smart, great guy, totally different. I won't even get into the whole different approach that he had to life and the way he did things. It was not like going to a college basketball camp, I'll tell you that. It was like going to hang out with I don't know, it was like a different world. But in this dream, he's just doing his best to get a message across to me. And I mean, it's like he's not yelling at me, but he's adamant about something and I have no idea what it is. But I wake up the next morning. It was one of the most intense dreams I ever had.

0:09:47 Evans Putman And at this point, I hadn't spoken to him or been to any of his camps, probably in, I don't know, 1520 years. It was back when I was probably a senior in high school. The last time I saw him at one of his camps when I was actually a counselor. So I go online and I'm like, I'm going to look him up and I find the website for the basketball camp. And there's an email address. So I email and I'm like, hey, I was just thinking about you.

0:10:17 Evans Putman I had a dream last night. You were in it. Just wanted to check in, see how things were going. About two days later, I get an email back from his brother, who was also a counselor, but he was a couple years younger. And he emails me and he tells know I won't use his terminology because I don't want to get an explicit marking on the podcast. But he shares with me. He's like, Dick is in the hospital. And he's got basically like a week to was the he was just amazed that I had that. So we started this relationship.

0:10:58 Evans Putman Well, what came from it was that Dick ended up passing away and I ended up dropping everything leaving my home behind, leaving my job behind and going on the road that summer starting on July 25 to work with Dick, Dave's brother after he passed away to continue the camps that were already in place that summer to help. Because now, all of a sudden, instead of Dick running the camps Dave had taken it over and needed the help.

0:11:31 Evans Putman So it was really powerful. So that's what 725 means to me. But really what it means to me is that I followed my intuition probably for the first time in my life that I can actually remember. And I listened to it as a guide, and I left everything behind and I went on this journey. And I'm telling you, that summer. Kevin I was healed by those kids that were mostly, I guess, middle school think, you know, maybe middle school freshman in high school at the I did I did multiple stops. I just drove my car. I packed everything up I had into my car and I drove around the country going to these camps. And mind you, I was not getting paid. I just did this because I was felt called to do it. And it built a relationship with myself and Dave that we still have today.

0:12:28 Evans Putman I think he's in his seventy S now. But that giving of myself over that time, over that summer with those kids, changed my life. And I felt renewed and revived like a new person when I came out of that summer. And I actually went on to go from that. Instead of coming back to Charleston, I went back to Raleigh, North Carolina. Coached high school basketball, coached one of the number, depending on who you asked. He was either number one, two, or three player in the country in high school basketball. He later went on to play at Duke University in the NBA.

0:13:06 Evans Putman Got to travel the country and I got to go play and meet some of these coaches and play in these arenas. I got go to private practices at Duke University and Cameron Indoor Stadium. I got to coach against the University of North Carolina JV team in the Dean Dome. I got to do all these things. This is the crazy part. When I was a kid, I used to visualize when I shot basketball in my backyard that I was in those arenas playing basketball and doing these things. And now I'm actually living that dream. Not playing the game, but being in the arenas and actually going to these different things. I sat in Madison Square Garden next to Mr. Nick Bill Bradley to watch the McDonald's High School All American Game because my kid that I coached was playing in it against all these amazing players that were future NBA stars.

0:14:05 Evans Putman All from listening to my intuition, turning my jeep around, getting a book that some mysterious stranger mentioned to me, having a crazy dream, leaving everything behind because of what that dream felt like it was pulling me towards. And that all happened just and led to like, a total different life. Wow. Yeah. And it all happened today. 725 is the day that I left my home to take that trek across the country to do those camps.

0:14:40 Evans Putman Wow. Yeah. Imagine that happening today. And that question you just asked me. So it was a very powerful journey. I think it still lives with me now because I just got off of with my client and I just started a new movement called the Serve Preneur Movement. This thing came into my mind today that giving is living right. And I think it all started from that one moment in time, in that one decision, and just one other quick thing, and then I'll let you jump back in. Because I know I've been sort of taking everybody on a long journey here, but I want people to think about this.

0:15:29 Evans Putman When I went to do these camps. About the second stop, another former counselor, camp counselor showed up. He had played basketball at Duke University, too. He was a little bit older than me. He was a partner in this prestigious law firm in Chicago, had argued cases in front of the Supreme Court, was absolutely miserable with his life. The exact same night that I had that dream that Dick came to me, he had the same dream, and he left everything behind to start getting back into basketball. And now he runs basketball camps again, and I think in the Charlote, North Carolina area, and he's one of the happiest guys in the world. But when we had the conversation, it was like we both had the same experience, the same dream with the same and it was the same type of dream where Dick was like, trying to get a point across to us. And I don't know if it was to start living, to start following your dreams, to stop doing what didn't feel right. I don't know what it was, but it worked for us, too. It got us moving in the right direction. So it was his last gift to me before he passed away.

0:16:44 Kevin Lowe Wow. Evans, man. Dude, you have started this off in the most crazy, beautiful way possible. This conversation today, I mean, this is powerful, you know? How long after you read this book did this dream occur?

0:17:08 Evans Putman It was probably within like three weeks. Three weeks to four weeks, somewhere in that range. And believe me, when I read the book, Kevin, I didn't put it down. It was one of those things where it was like it just felt like and I still like, a lot of times when life throughout the years after that, when life would feel like it was getting a little out of control and I was sort of spiraling in the wrong direction or whatever that feels like. I'm sure many of your listeners have felt this before, and you can feel that constraint and that stress building up, and maybe it's going to take you to a dark place or whatever that looks like.

0:17:46 Evans Putman I still reach for that book and reread it, although it's not the original copy because I've actually handed it and passed it off. Although now that we have Amazon Prime, I can just send it to people. It makes it much easier. But yeah, it's very wow.

0:18:03 Kevin Lowe Wow. That's incredible. Now, if you wouldn't mind kind of back up for me because I'm kind of wondering, what was life like that brought you to that point? We're talking back, I think you had said 2001, and when you described the lifestyle you were living, what brought you there? I don't know exactly how old you were at that point, but I'm thinking, what was childhood like for you? What were all those years growing up to bring you to that point?

0:18:44 Evans Putman Yeah, I can't complain about my life because I'd never lacked for anything when it came to a nice place to live, clothes I wanted, I wasn't given stuff. I wasn't like a spoiled kid. I wasn't only child. So there was that part of it. But the one thing that I would say that as I look back on it that I didn't know growing up, because you don't know these things, right, is that my father, while he was there and he provided, he was very distant and very emotionally unattached.

0:19:19 Evans Putman And I never really had a bond of any type. And he had a lot of issues that I discovered as I got older, mental problems and things going on. So it wasn't like I was abused in any way. But I think I lived in my well, I know I did, being an only child, I lived in my own space, in my own world almost, of imagination and creation, which that was a gift because I still use that now. I tap into it so much with what I do in my business and how I help my clients.

0:19:54 Evans Putman But I think that led to a lot of things as I got older, that I dealt with a lot of probably anxiety and stress and things as I got older and instead of knowing how to deal with them, because in my family, back in those times, it was almost like you didn't talk about things. You sort of pushed them under the rug, put them in the carpet, whatever. I mean, I'm from the south. I think there's like, always that stereotype of the Southern families where you always got lots of bones hiding in the closet.

0:20:33 Evans Putman As I got older, I coped a lot of it with drinking, drinking a lot. And I'd say I didn't do like, crazy drugs and stuff. I just smoked a lot of pot when I was younger and as I got older. So I didn't know how to cope. I didn't know how to deal with things in a healthy way. And it's funny because I was reading today in my morning routine. Part of it is I read I actually read a few different things, but I think this was in a Buddhist, like, daily Buddhism type book with a little passage each day, and it was talking about how you can compound, right, when you compound the bad emotions and maybe the bad activities that you're doing, unhealthy activities. We won't call them bad, just unhealthy, but when you compound them, over time, they continue to build up and build up and build up. It's like you're filling the cup up with dirty water until it overflows. So I think that was my whole thing, was just never knowing how to deal with this stuff. And there was a lot of times that I got through it.

0:21:47 Evans Putman One reason I was doing personal training is because I had turned to exercise. And even though I was an athlete when I was younger, as I got older, I wasn't as much anymore. But I turned to working out and I started noticing the change in the self esteem getting better, the stress getting better, all these things happening. So that's why I went into personal training, because when I experienced all this stuff, I was like, this is really cool. I want to help others experience this as well. So I wasn't there to teach people here's how to lose 20 pounds or how to build, get a huge muscular body or whatever to look ready for the summer here at the beach.

0:22:28 Evans Putman But it was more of me wanting to give back a little bit of what I had received from the exercise, which was more in the esteem and the feeling better and having more energy and just feeling healthier. But there was still that underlying way of not knowing how to cope with stress and different things. So I always found myself sort of almost straddling two lines, right?

0:22:58 Kevin Lowe Yeah.

0:22:58 Evans Putman And sometimes the wrong one would win.

0:23:02 Kevin Lowe Yeah. Of course. Now, when you talk about your childhood and you mentioned that it was good that you didn't lack for anything, but I want to, though, I guess, kind of get to one part of your childhood is the fact that there was an incident. And I want you to tell the story between where things got really bad with your dad and you and your mom had to leave.

0:23:33 Evans Putman Okay? Yes. And here's the thing. It didn't actually happen in my childhood. This happened in 2001. Right. So we just talked about 725, 2001. I go on this journey, I go coach. So I don't remember the exact year, but it was in my mind, if I remember correctly, it was probably 23, 2003. So a couple of years later okay, so it's a couple of years later I decide I'm coming back to Charleston. I'm going to move back.

0:24:18 Evans Putman I'd been living in Raleigh. I'd started personal training again, doing some different things. Actually, at this time, I had started shifting into the online space, which I am now. So even that long ago, right? 2002, 2003. So I was like, you know, I want to move back to Charleston because, I mean, once you come to Charleston, it's hard to I've left a couple times. It's hard not to come back because it's such a beautiful area to live, the beach. You got history, you got restaurants.

0:24:51 Evans Putman It's just amazing. It's like a big city in a small town, but you just happen to live by the beach with all these beautiful islands all around. Great place to live. So I'm coming back and I'm deciding I'm going to make a stop at where my parents live now, which now is where my mother still lives. They had left our hometown in upstate South Carolina and decided to move down. Well, my mom was they already had a house there, actually learned to walk at the beach in North Carolina.

0:25:25 Evans Putman So she was there, and my father was living there at the time. So I'm going down, and I'm staying there. And it was definitely in 2003, because I can remember now, it was around the end of May. And I just remember I'm waiting, because what I was doing at the time, Kevin, I was waiting. I was buying a new house. So there was like a lag time between me being able to close on the house and move into it. So I'm like, hey, I'll just go stay at my parents, spend some time with them, enjoy the time together before I move on down, because it's only like 2 hours away south on the coast. So I'm like, okay, I'm there.

0:26:13 Evans Putman And I noticed my father's acting really strange in many different ways. I remember him talking to me about people being on top of the roof doing stuff, and it's like, well, yeah, it's the air conditioning people. But in his mind, it was like some sort of secretive, bad thing happening. They weren't the air conditioning people, right? But then he's, like, normal, and then he's, like, not normal, and then he's normal again.

0:26:45 Evans Putman But he was very distant. He was very secretive, very weird acting. And I think it was the day if I remember correctly, it was like the day before. Well, actually, what happened was I remember now because the closing got delayed a little bit because the people needed a couple of extra days before they could move. So we signed some papers, allowed them to do it. So I ended up staying at my parents house a couple of extra days.

0:27:11 Evans Putman Well, it was during that time, those extra days. What you're talking about? I remember going to bed one night, and 2003, I was what is this now, 2023? So I was, like, in my so 2003, I was born in 67. Help me out, Kevin.

0:27:34 Kevin Lowe We're not doing math on the podcast.

0:27:37 Evans Putman I wasn't young at the time. I was a little bit older, right? So I moved back. But I'm sleeping in one of the rooms upstairs, and it's the middle of the morning, and I hear this blood curdling scream, right? At first, it's this scream that I can still remember it now as you and I are talking. I can feel it almost like my hair is actually starting to stand up a little bit. But I hear this scream coming from I didn't know where it was at first. I thought it was a dream, right, because you're in that moment of sort of sleep and awake where you don't know either one.

0:28:11 Evans Putman Then I hear it again, and it's my name being yelled in this way that I've never heard it before. And I recognize it was my mom. So I jump up and I run down the steps, and she's standing there, like, shaking and white as I'm looking at my AirPod case right now. And she was as white as this AirPod case, like all the blood had flushed out of her and she's just looking at me and just saying stuff, and I can't figure out what she's saying and she's looking down at the ground. I look over and there's this claw hammer laying on the ground by the stairs and my dad's nowhere to be found.

0:28:54 Evans Putman Well, what happened was and basically my mother pretty much saved my life and her life, but she's sitting at the table having breakfast and I guess my father walked up behind her and was standing there and had that hammer in his hand. And she turned around and looked at him and she said, just matter of factly, with no emotion, no anything, he just looked at her and he said, I'm going to kill you with this hammer.

0:29:22 Evans Putman And he had it held up. He was like, I'm going to hit you and kill you with this hammer, and then I'm going up to kill our son, and then I'm going to kill the cat. Why the cat, I have no idea. But with my mom yelling, it was like, it almost the second time she yelled my name. She said it was like it sort of startled him and he threw down the hammer and ran down the steps and disappeared. So, yeah, it was a crazy experience that luckily, I think there was obviously something at play that kept me there for an extra day to be there with my mom, because she was like, if you wouldn't have been here, I don't know if I would have what would have happened? Because it was like when he realized you were coming down the stairs is when he left.

0:30:11 Evans Putman So there was some reason that I was there an extra day, and the thing that happened through that, and I won't go through everything that happened after that, but it ended up some bad stuff started happening. He got arrested, got put into the mental hospital for evaluation, and they let him out without even warning us that they were letting him back out. Didn't even warn the victim. My mom tell us anything? We were actually up there waiting because we were supposed to see a judge to speak to him, to talk about what was going on, and they're like, oh, sorry, they already released him to his brother.

0:30:52 Evans Putman And like a couple of days later, he evidently stole his brother's gun and was driving around that he got picked up by the police again down in the beach where my mom lived with driving around with that gun under his seat. Of course he said he wasn't there to do anything, but I mean, you put two and two together, it's like, what else? And then at that point, my mom, I mean, she's much older at this point, she's probably in her seventy s and she's getting divorced.

0:31:29 Evans Putman But it brought us two together in a way that we had never been together before. Actually. It flipped a switch in me that I became much more responsible. I became a much better person because I started thinking about her instead of always thinking about me much of the time. Right? So I started stepping up more and we bonded much more. We grew much closer together. I know we're not on video, so you can't see it but I have a portrait of my mother tattooed on my forearm from when she was 21 that the guy hand tattooed. It didn't even put whatever you call it, didn't trace it, didn't do that or anything. Just sort of did it by eye looking at the picture. And it's amazing.

0:32:19 Evans Putman But we grew close together. And then later my father passed away. And at that point, he had just gone down to the depths of just mental despair. And amazingly, Kevin, it's totally amazing because I think about it I drove back up to my hometown where he was staying at the time. His brothers were supposedly taking care of him but they had just stuck him in a hotel room to let him rot away and die. Then we ended up having a big family fight over the will because the will was magically changed at some point even when he was mentally incapable of doing this.

0:33:01 Evans Putman So I ended up having a lawsuit against my own family. That side of the family, it was just a crazy experience. But when I look back on it, one of the things that stands out is that I actually drove up to that hometown one time to meet with somebody who we were doing like a partnership, a business partnership. And I have no idea how this happened. I don't know if someone was following me or what. But three and a half hours away, where my dad's living at the time somehow I met with this other person at Barnes and Noble. I come working out of Barnes and Noble, and there's my father.

0:33:44 Evans Putman And we just sort of you know by the end of it, I can't remember what it was crazy. I can't remember the whole conversation. But I just looked at him and I was like I said, dad, you're my father. I love you. I said, but we can't be around each other because you won't admit what happened. And he never would admit it. He acted like it never happened. Like it was all just fabricated. Just one of those things back to let's just put it under the let's put it in the closet, as if it didn't happen. It's like, no, that's a pretty big thing that we're not pushing this one in the closet.

0:34:23 Evans Putman But I told him I was like and the funny thing is that's probably one of the one or two times I ever told him I loved him in the first place. And you imagine, after all that I'd gone through and everything I went through to say it then, but it was one of those things. And I can't even explain how it changed me, but it changed me immensely. So when I look back at it now, it's one of those things that I often tell people I'm like, I know it's cliche to say it, but it was done for me. Not to me, it really was, because I would not be the person I am today.

0:35:06 Evans Putman I would not be the father I am today, which is really important to me, top of the list of importances. And I wouldn't be anybody the person at all that I am today if it wasn't for that experience. And in a good way, in a really good way, it shifted my life. So it's one of those things where we're given gifts, even in the strangest wrappings sometimes.

0:35:36 Kevin Lowe Absolutely, I believe that wholeheartedly. And when you talk about meeting your father afterwards, and you said that you said that you told him I love you, would I assume that to get to that point, there had to be some massive level of forgiveness in your heart that happened?

0:36:02 Evans Putman Well, that didn't really come till much later. Really?

0:36:06 Kevin Lowe Okay.

0:36:07 Evans Putman That didn't come till later when I actually worked on it. But yeah, there was a point where I don't know what it was. It was almost like I can't explain, like, seeing him in the state that he was in when I saw him there and talking to him, and it was almost as if he was a total different person. And I think it was almost that. I just felt it was almost weird. It was like I felt like I just needed like he needed to be told that, because I knew the next step was he was not going to be with us much longer.

0:36:39 Evans Putman And so even though he went out on his deathbed by basically taking me out of the will, not even putting me in the obituary, his only son, as if I'd never existed, I shared with him that I loved him. So I was able to walk away from that with no regrets. But it really wasn't until later at one point, and we can jump ahead or I can wait to fill folks in on that, but, yeah, it was a time that I had to really sit down and realize, I need to go through this. I need to forgive him.

0:37:23 Kevin Lowe I did that's powerful. Now, I would really love to get to that part, but first what I have to just kind of draw focus to is 2001. Two years later, roughly 2003, you had some two massive things happen in your life. Massive, massive things that are truly life changing. How did life then go after that point? I mean, you've had 2001 was like this just glorious amazingness that happened. And then 2003 had this horrific event occur, and yet you still found blessings out of it.

0:38:21 Evans Putman Yeah, I'm kind of curious. Yeah, 2003, and it went like he didn't pass away until late November, I think. So it pretty much went through the rest of th