Have you ever felt the transformative power of sharing the raw, gritty truth of your story? Today's episode invites you on a journey with us as Kevin retells his personal story that leads off the Mountain Mover Manual.
This episode is a testament to the fact that true strength lies in our weaknesses. We believe in the power of sharing our struggles and how this sets us free. So, come and be a part of this transformative journey with us. Embrace vulnerability, overcome fear, and find strength in your weaknesses.
|| Connect with Us ||
Check out all our episodes on all major streaming platforms, and further engagement with the 17Twenty crew on social media at:
https://17twenty.buzzsprout.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/17twenty
https://www.instagram.com/17twentypodcast
Grab your copy of the Mountain Mover Manual: How to Live Intentionally, Lead with Purpose, and Achieve Your Greatest Potential, by Kevin Carey
Originally in print:
https://amzn.to/441OPeH
And now available on Audible:
https://adbl.co/45YIKB2
Have you ever felt the transformative power of sharing the raw, gritty truth of your story? Today's episode invites you on a journey with us as Kevin retells his personal story that leads off the Mountain Mover Manual.
This episode is a testament to the fact that true strength lies in our weaknesses. We believe in the power of sharing our struggles and how this sets us free. So, come and be a part of this transformative journey with us. Embrace vulnerability, overcome fear, and find strength in your weaknesses.
|| Connect with Us ||
Check out all our episodes on all major streaming platforms, and further engagement with the 17Twenty crew on social media at:
https://17twenty.buzzsprout.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/17twenty
https://www.instagram.com/17twentypodcast
Grab your copy of the Mountain Mover Manual: How to Live Intentionally, Lead with Purpose, and Achieve Your Greatest Potential, by Kevin Carey
Originally in print:
https://amzn.to/441OPeH
And now available on Audible:
https://adbl.co/45YIKB2
What I failed to do that I see now is you can't run from the person in the mirror, and so when I moved out here just like transitioning from high school to college found the same old me's.
Stewart Shurtleff:Every single individual has a story to tell, and they're great stories that need to be heard.
Kevin Carey:I want every listener to know they have the ability to change the world.
Stewart Shurtleff:Welcome to the 1720 podcast.
Kevin Carey:What's up, Mount Movers? Welcome back to the 1720 podcast. How cool was it to have Holly back after three-ish years. I think you broke down the exact day in the description.
Stewart Shurtleff:I went and did the Google math calendar translator thing because I was actually curious, because we sort of kicked around, was it two years or was it three years? And you go back and look and it was man. That was an early episode and a transformational episode, I think, for us, but I did break it. What was it? 1029? I think something like that was the exact amount of days.
Kevin Carey:I knew it was making you itch that I was saying approximately three years. You're like we're not approximating anything.
Stewart Shurtleff:This is figureoutable, we will figure it out. I was, after we recorded with her, I did go back and listen to most of the episode, the original one. It was transformational because it was a new day, like a new day, sort of dawning, if you will, for us in the podcast and sort of the stories we're telling and the messaging that we were putting out there not our stories but of others, and I don't know if I've ever told you this or not, but it was transformational for you too. Have we had this conversation? Because up until that date, I think well, let me, let me say it differently Me on the podcast has just been me, like this is just me. I've probably people listen and say I've changed some or my approach to this change some or something, but for the most part it is as me. There was a moment, like a market moment in there where you change from hey, this is Kevin, to like on the fly, like this, we're doing this. Do you know? You know, I know the exact moment. You know what I'm talking about.
Kevin Carey:I think, I think when it just got real in the room.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yes, you, it was the moment where we were talking and I I guess you could just sense like I was I was not going to be able to make a really good transition from where we were to the next moment in time. I couldn't. I couldn't figure it out and you figured it out. I forget exactly the question you asked, but you laid out like the perfect question to her that like folded us into the next next part of that episode and I remember when it happened, thinking it's all new now, like we, that's a new Kevin in terms of our podcast journey, and it happened right there in that episode. I don't know if you and I ever talked about that or not, but if you go back and listen to it now you'd be like that was it? That was the question that started that like the getting us away from hello.
Kevin Carey:This is Kevin into this version of like shucking and jiving, kevin, so brutal but those openers, like as soon as like, I just want to throw my phone out the window.
Kevin Carey:When you go back to any one of those where we had that opener but we didn't know any better man, we were trying to, trying to get it going but like you would bail me out all the time and I only thing I remember about that one is like you're like dude, I didn't know what to say next and you jumped in and it was like the first role reversal. But that was before we had the cues on when you're dried up or I'm dried up. Now we have them, we know exactly when each other are dried up and we got to jump in. But that's funny, it doesn't really happen anymore.
Stewart Shurtleff:No, what, I think I know what yours are. What are mine. How can you tell when I'm about to like just run out of stuff? Man, man, man, is that my? Is that my verbal ticket?
Stewart Shurtleff:I've, I've it's a whisper, I'm like okay, jumping Kev you better have something I could tell yours, because you're feverishly taking notes normally, like like writing things down is, I think, oftentimes like the Kevin's not jumping back in here Like either you've like your brain has gone somewhere else or you're like locked into that, or I don't know, maybe it's a cover too. It might be your version of man, but I'll look over and you're writing. I'm like, okay, grab the paddle.
Kevin Carey:Okay. So maybe I got multiple ones because I thought maybe I look up at you with lost puppy eyes Like, oh, sometimes I'm staring at you. That means I got nothing.
Stewart Shurtleff:Well, obviously this is audio, but the face you just made was. I've seen that face before. I do that.
Kevin Carey:Yes.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, well, the parts of. I think we pivot off of Holly's episode because there's a couple of really interesting points in there. That brings us to something we're going to talk about today. The thing that jumped out at me from or her second recording was the permission part of that, like having permission to have the conversations and such. But then you said something in there and you didn't make that face, but you made a face at me.
Stewart Shurtleff:That was about how you know, when we first started this journey, you didn't know if I even knew all of your story and my mind started racing because I knew parts of it. Right, I knew I knew parts of it Eventually, before it got written in the book. I knew all of it. I don't remember when that all happened and I don't remember if, like, at that date, on that time, I knew all of it for sure, but it was, it was. It was a spot where I was like, okay, if you haven't grabbed the book, if you haven't read through the opener of that, or if you've sort of missed some of us talking about it on the podcast, right, because we haven't done this sort of in long form, it only lives in print. Maybe this is our opportunity to give that permission here and just say, man, talk us through, because there's a point in there, man, and it builds to a poignant moment. But let's tell that story, kev, if you're willing to do it, man.
Kevin Carey:Yeah, for sure I mean I've. That transition over the past year has went from not a soul to I'll tell everyone. And it's the same but different, right, holly's, you know wasn't a self sabotage type thing. You know hers hers was outside of her control and something that she was forced grit and resilience with and she still finds healing through sharing that testimony, and so do I was sharing mine. But the other thing I get out of it is accountability. Like there's really no accountability misses with hers, right, like, yeah, you know, it's not the same. And so I like sharing this because it sort of has to do with our industry and then definitely has to do with the purpose solar system, so the son of my solar system and where I had that wrong and with the industry. Like I love construction. It's done so much for me, I'm so happy and proud to be a part of it.
Kevin Carey:But it fell backwards into it. You know it was when I, when I was a kid, I didn't say construction is going to be it. You know, like this is, this is my gold standard, this is the everything it's. Now you made some life choices and all of a sudden that spectrum gets smaller and smaller of the things you can do, and it was just clawing and scratching to get a job. And going back to construction was just my natural tendency because of my come up and part of my come up is coming from South Side of Chicago. Parents did an awesome job of continuing to move us further away from Chicago yeah, out into the suburbs and probably got us in places where we absolutely could not afford, but they somehow, some way made it happen. My mom was a bus driver, my dad was a union cocker and so that makes some sense on how I got into the glass business.
Kevin Carey:But construction has always been in my bones.
Kevin Carey:But there was a lot of things that I wrestled with in my childhood, into my early adulthood where, man, I was slinging dope before I even had a driver's license, and so there was, there was a little retail shop of a small food shop and I would sell sandwiches out the front and other things out the back. And you know we're talking about an age where I would have to get picked up for my shift from work and have stuff on me or leave stuff there, and you know I would say the son of my solar system at that time was money right, like I was willing to cross moral, ethical, any boundaries to get it. And now, when I really reflect on it, I think another close son to that was approval and respect. Right, feel like Chicago's a big respect thing and you know a tough guy thing and you're chasing respect from the wrong people and that's that's where I found myself in my early teenage years. What's the? I mean there's a catalyst that you don't just wake up and start doing that.
Stewart Shurtleff:Like what? There's a not the catalyst is not the right word. But you know, there's a moment in time where you're like, okay, I'm gonna cross this bright red line, like, do you remember that moment?
Kevin Carey:Man, I don't. I remember. I remember like trying cigarettes and we're like at a young age and like how big of a deal that was, so maybe that's that's part of the answer Like we were so scared to get caught that we there was a sod farm near our house and we would bury my friend's dad's Winston cigarettes in a hole and we would go undig it and smoke and then dig it back to get back in and maybe those were those reps and I'm talking 10 years old.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, fifth grade.
Kevin Carey:That's when that started and building those reps, and I think it just started growing from there from from cigarettes and went alcohol from alcohol went, weed from weed it went to harder things and there was just a natural progression. Like you talk about routines and habits and all those things that we talk about that I was building those habits. So then when I had those moments of decision in the crosshairs, it was getting easier and easier for me to pick the wrong direction, if that makes sense.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, I mean, I think it's like that with positive things and with negative things, right, totally. It's easier to do, it's easier to get up and go to the gym in the morning when you've gone 150 days in a row just as it is, and I'll over exaggerate the other direction, but I would imagine for like soldiers, it's easier to shoot the 100th bad guy than it wants to shoot the first one.
Kevin Carey:Yeah, and you see these things in early high school and God bless my parents for dealing with all my nonsense. But there was a time where I was either going to the military or the union trades. Like the future was already laid out for me and my mom kind of gave me an ultimatum on college and I won't share more of that story. But basically I looked at my buddy, jake, in English class one day because of this ultimatum and I just slapped him on the shoulder and I'm like hey, where are you going to school, dude? He said Illinois State and I'm like Cool, and I got an application and I filled out to that school, application to that school, and I was like, all right, I've done my minimum, you know, here it is.
Kevin Carey:You know, low ECT score, subpar, gpa, all that sort of stuff. If I get in I'll go. And I thought the chances were next to nothing. And I got into school and I was like, wow, all right, well, I got to live up to my end of the bargain and I went and ended up going to college. And I will say, because of all the things I was living like, college was just another day which I actually think helped me get through college a little bit, because it didn't rock my foundation of the party lifestyle, because I've been doing it.
Stewart Shurtleff:I was primed and ready. Yeah right, like it's again. I've already had those reps. It's cool. There was no big deal.
Kevin Carey:Yeah, but what happens and you're going to see this continued progression is I go to school but I bring some old habits behind me. So, like I got this next phase of life holy cow, I got into a college, but very quickly, with a whole new spectrum of people that I don't know and I'm finding the bad. I don't want to call them out, but like finding the people that I look like right, you know, I just naturally, naturally gravitate towards and so I'm bouncing at bar, I'm going to go to school, I'm bouncing at bars, I'm starting to sell drugs again, but now at college and you know you're living that broke college life and so now I'm bouncing those together and again, money is the sun and respect and friendships and you get all that when you're doing those types of things. So, although I made that transition to college, those old habits stayed with me and actually even got worse.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, it's funny how the I don't want to say it's like the haunting of your past, right, but I guess to some extent it is that the habits follow you. It doesn't I think you have maybe said this before like your friends change or your locations change, but the stuff, the baggage, it comes with you unless you make a willing, difficult decision to break from it, leave it behind or whatever, because it all tends to follow you, right, it's not the people, it's not the place, it's not the location, it's not the thing.
Kevin Carey:The hard thing to say is it's you, homie Like, it's you, oh yeah, and that took a few more phases until I finally figured that out. You fast forward through college. I got in and out at four years, you know. I kept my grades up and got out, and when I got out that was the end of my entrepreneurial career. We'll just call it that. But when you, when you sell drugs for that long, if you partake in them as well, you can build up a pretty mighty tolerance. You know, number one, probably because it's just built within me. Number two, because it's free. You know they say don't get high in your supply. But I was. And now you, I graduate college and I go into a professional career. Yes, I'm leaving the dealing behind and all that sort of stuff, but the habits still there. Yeah, and now I. And now I'm making real money, legal money, real career money, and it's okay, it's grind time, and so Monday through Friday we're going to grind it out, and then my weekends I was still doing the same old thing.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, the, the, the, my, the, the grind during the week, sort of giving rise to the habits on the weekend or whatever. The. You know the relief, the, the I don't know what the right word is there and how many. You feel like that's a common refrain, right? It's like? And I'm more worked in the week, but the weekends are mine. I'm going to do whatever I want, no matter what that means.
Kevin Carey:Yeah, and when I really reflect on it, the son of the solar system. When I transitioned from college to my career, the sun changes from money to work. So now, okay, career time I'm going to, I'm going to stay at this building, even if I have nothing else to do, so I could set the alarm, just in case the the president's looking at the alarm codes to see who's setting the alarm. You know, like that's it's effort, it's tenacity, it's hustle. I'm going to go grind, but it's all about me still Like, I want the promotions, the raises, the glory, whatever the case may be. So if I'm doing those things and that's the son of my solar system and their success there, I have no driver reason to fix the weekends Like it's. It's justified, it doesn't matter. I'm killing it Monday through Friday, I'm killing it. So there's nothing to fix.
Stewart Shurtleff:Maybe I don't know what the other word is, but maybe even more than justified, right, Like it's, it's, building it, it's it's there's a bigger word there, I'm remiss to grab it, but you know, like it's, it's evidence that the weekend is deserved. Like because I'm killing over there, like I get to do this now because look at what I did over there. It's an entitlement perhaps even to have those weekends like that.
Kevin Carey:Yeah, and quite honestly I mean you've seen the statistics were in an industry that you know we're looking like 15 years ago, if that's part of the story like it wasn't taboo doing the things I was doing, especially in Chicago, like, right, there was plenty of people within the industry and organization that was doing the same, you know so I wasn't. It wasn't like I was this lone wolf so it was hard to even see it recognized as a problem, right.
Stewart Shurtleff:Right, so what? So then you're still. I got the timeline wall jumbled in my head, but you pinpointed is there for a second, like still in Chicago, where you hadn't made the trek down to the, to the motherland, yet.
Kevin Carey:No, and that that ends up happening in 2010. And when I get offered an opportunity to move out here, man, I really in my heart of hearts, but I didn't know what was actually stirring because I was unsaved in 2010. So I get that opportunity and in my heart of hearts I'm like man, I think it's, I think I need to get away from everybody. Like I think I need a reset. And I was single no kids at the time, I never even bended Dallas for worth got this opportunity and I just said yes, you know, like you know my personality profile, you'd have analyzed it for six months. I think I took six seconds. I'm like, yeah, let's do this. Yeah, I'm sure it's an awesome city and I'm sure it's great.
Stewart Shurtleff:I'll figure out when I get there.
Kevin Carey:Yeah, well, and I pictured hats and hay bales and All that sort of stuff you get out here. This is like Dallas is a smaller Chicago.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah it's much better.
Kevin Carey:There's really. Yeah, go to the stockyards for what I was envisioning.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, right, right, so this is 10.
Kevin Carey:You said 2010 yeah, 2010, and what I failed to do that I see now is you can't run from the person in the mirror, mm-hmm. So when I moved out here, just like transitioning from high school to college, found the same old me's and and again reactivated my Monday through Friday lifestyle, friday through Sunday, and that that show just kept going and going and going and going, and we're talking weekend, week out and between 2010 and 2014. I was saved in 2012. So, you know, came to know Christ and gave my life to him. 2012 to 2014 I would call like the honeymoon period, mm-hmm. You get on fire, you want to change and then that kind of fades off, like our New Year's resolutions and good habits, and, you know, I ended up sliding into an even deeper valley one of the deepest valleys of my life by 2014, just because Wasn't working on the man in the mirror enough.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah. So let's hold that for just a minute and look back, because when you leave from Chicago and head to Dallas, like the thought is I don't know exactly how you phrase it, but the thought is like I'm gonna leave that guy behind. This is a fresh start, yep, and I think now and you may have said this you like that was not true. You were not. You can't run from that, dude. But if you had to do over, right, like let's rewind it to 2010 and your 2010 cab and your head it's Dallas, to get that life reset, like you're gonna. This is it Like? What advice would you give somebody who's staring down that decision to actually create the hard reset that you thought you had but didn't? Like what's the talk to somebody about it?
Kevin Carey:Yeah, because it was all up here in my head like I Knew what I was leaving. But who could I talk to you about? Where I was going to hang out with better people like it? I would have to have a level of openness out here and be like here's who I was and who I am and here's who I would like to be. But when you're, I was surrounded by nobody out here, yeah, and so I had to go find people and since I wasn't, I didn't have like a structure or Set parameters. You know it was well, I don't know anybody out here. So after the Monday through Friday, where am I gonna go meet people? How about the bar across the street from my apartment? You know, right, and Same old story. Yeah, same old story.
Stewart Shurtleff:That's again. I mean that's a among other great advice. I think we've kicked around or people have told us over the last few years on the podcast, like, find someone to talk to about. It Is great advice. Just, period in a vacuum, find somebody to talk to about it. But especially in those like and I'm about to do something really hard, I'm about to have a hard reset here, gotta find somebody to talk to you. You got to find somebody say look man, actually, if that's what you're trying to do, don't go across the streets of the bar. That's a bad spot to go. Don't go over there. Come with me, man, we're gonna go to the football game. Come, hey, come with me, we're gonna go to, we're gonna go to service on Sunday, like whatever you got to seek out, either professional or like groups of people who are gonna seem to you in the right direction. Find your tribe right.
Kevin Carey:Super important and what I realized is not only can you not run away from your issues, like if work is your son and you're solely focused on that, probably some success and some promotions, and more money's coming. More money, more problems. Right, like I had more money to play with, which even deepened the addictions I was in the darkness I was in and started spinning me deeper into that Valley, which, which got pretty scary.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, this is the part of the story where I knew you by now and when you tell the balance of this, it it's your story. And, as you say, I'm not telling a story to tell story. I stole that for me last week. But, man, as you tell this part of the story that burns because I knew you when this was going on and you didn't have any idea. I didn't have any idea and it will I'll, we'll tell through it and then we could talk about like just leaning in in those moments and whatnot. But my bad dude, like I, I know you say like it's no big deal, but like how can you call yourself a friend if you let this happen?
Kevin Carey:I didn't even know it was underneath your nose, so man, we're recording this on Halloween day and it just makes me think of masks. I just had a pretty dog on good mask on. Yeah, you know, I have it all together Monday through Friday, right, oh, until I didn't. And that's what led us to March of 2014, where it was another standard week of Monday through Friday killing it at work, and then Friday through Sunday it was time to binge, and so it was the typical part in and hard drugs and Saturday night, you know, people were at my place and then they left and I was really high and really alone and man, I, for the first time, I have like a full-blown panic attack, like, like just an uppercut of like this is your life, this is your present, this is your future. You're going nowhere, you're empty, no one's here, you got no family, like all of this is building up and you know, you know things like cocaine is, they mess with your brain a little bit, where you're not thinking rationally. And so when I was as high as I was, to the point where I couldn't even speak out loud, right, like I could only like text or type I Started thinking about end of my life. And now, and I had a handgun and I was looking at it and I caught the fork in the road. Like I had a decision to make there.
Kevin Carey:And Earlier that weekend I was hanging out with another buddy that moved here from Dallas and we were watching the bowls, and After the bowls I went off and continued a party. He went home and just something in my spirit Just told me just message Jeff. And so, instead of pulling the trigger, I messaged Jeff and told him man I this is the first time I'm gonna tell him, telling somebody like it man I got a problem, I had a problem, I need some help. Would you be able to help me out? He jumped. He jumped straight into action.
Stewart Shurtleff:man, like I had flights and a spot booked within hours, yeah, so I mean, see the call, say more about Jeff, because I I don't know Jeff personally. I've now heard this story a few times, but I didn't, yeah, heard something when you told it just then that jumped out of me Was a heat. He was new to Dallas. Also, was it someone you knew from home?
Kevin Carey:Yeah, what's crazy is so like I don't know if you've ever had this happen, like we were like acquaintance level in college, like a friend of a friend type thing, and we'd see each other partying and stuff, and then he notifies me like hey, I'm moving to Dallas, and instantly we become closer because now we're doing this together.
Kevin Carey:If that makes sense, 100% and so we became really close friends, stood up in each other's weddings level, you know, yeah, but it was that I'm moving to where you live.
Kevin Carey:Therefore, we are now instantly good friends. And you know I'm going to keep him anonymous for his for career reasons, for him, without sharing his last name, but he went through some deep stuff prior to this that I was able to help him walk through and so, like we were able to be there for each other through some really tough times and, yeah, he stepped up. And what you know now and I didn't know until we started writing the book and asking him permission to put this story in the book was that there was a season before me reaching out to him where he had another friend reach out and he didn't do anything and that friend and ended up passing away Mm-hmm. And so the moment I reached out to this dude, jeff, this was his chance at redemption, this was his chance at helping another brother. He wasn't going to let another brother down and we even I even put a snapshot of his text reply into the book as a caption to show you know what the profound God moment and all that.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah yeah. That is the intersection of a bunch of profound moments and the opportunity for folks to just linger, and I think I may have said it as well. I was working through the comments in the book, right In the reflections. It's just like you never know when whatever that conversation you're having is is actually a call for help. You never know when you're Jeff.
Kevin Carey:Yeah.
Stewart Shurtleff:And when you need the end and when that comes at you and an opportunity to like step into action and do something huge, you know. So just like, be alert to that. Be Jeff, in that situation, you know, be Jeff, be ready to help. Be ready to drop what you're doing and help, because it literally is life or death.
Kevin Carey:You know, yeah, it is, you know, and we joke we're big time South Side Chicago jokesters too. So, like he knew that this was different this night, you know, because it wasn't I don't even think it was the middle of the night, because it was far into the next day, you know so. But yeah, forever thankful for him and we'll always have that bond together. But I wanted the rules of engagement.
Kevin Carey:I wanted a rehab facility outside of Texas, outside of Illinois, mountain of shame, right. So I'm already dealing with addiction and the shame and guilt is building, and if I'm going to work on me, I don't want anybody knowing about it. So we settled on California on the very next day, had a flight book, one way flight, which is a scary thing in itself, yeah and just flew out to California and stayed in a hotel and then the following day got picked up by the facility and I was in rehab for three weeks and just off the grid right Like off the grid from work, off the grid from friends, off the grid from people in Dallas, off the grid from your parents, even right.
Kevin Carey:Yeah, no phone, no connection to the outside world at all, and my parents ended up. I actually don't even remember they found out somehow, because one day one of the rehab facilitators pulled me aside, said, hey, your mom or your dad's on the phone, and you know, obvious, obvious concern with them, and was just able to tell them I got this yeah, south Side, it's just a thing. I'll be back in a couple of weeks, don't worry about it. Right, all right.
Stewart Shurtleff:You know one of the things about the story that and I don't know if everybody kind of appreciates this, but we've had these conversations before about how people who have addictions like in my stupid, feeble, ignorant mind think, oh, it's over. You beat it, you did it right, like it's over. And you said we were in the studio one day and I remember I was like curling the cords up as we had finished recording. I was like you know, looping them back together and you said something like yeah, it never goes away and I like it floored me to think that, like the struggle, the war wages on the war wages on either way. It floored me because I never had that thought, I've never.
Stewart Shurtleff:That's never crossed my mind that you know, like you don't get a, you don't and I should get like liking it to like a king or a king Like you. If you love a can of coke, you never forget like what that sound is like when you pop the top of the in the, that, like the smell of the fizz coming out. You never forget it and you always want to like man, what's another? Like we're just a red can of Coca-Cola. That'd be amazing right now. You never forget and I never thought about it like that.
Kevin Carey:It's pretty difficult when you know it's just you're just one wrong decision away. You know when that wrong decision can tailspin you, you know, and I thought I was stronger than it, right than the addiction. And so there was several times I tried to reintroduce drinking into my life and really that's the gateway, because once I have a few cocktails, like all reason, risk what cost out the door doesn't matter, it does not matter, family doesn't matter and that's what'll. Like. People in recovery or that have faced addiction, they understand it and we can commiserate together. But when you're outside looking in, you're like how could you do that? Like you have your family on the line because it's broken in us, you know. And so learning that, and so I guess I should say, after the three weeks came back, got back online. The stewards of the world to use that. My friends were like, where are you been? I'm like, yeah, busy working. I didn't tell a soul.
Kevin Carey:Then, when I came back, not, not one person and just tried to ease back into this. But now, not drink. And that got so weird that I started drinking again, which then increased the temptation. But man, so that was 2014. And I went what does it know? What does it know. 2022 is when I started letting that cat out of the bags. There was a good eight years that I held on to all those mountains of shame and having to fight this alone and the awkwardness of trying not to drink at events and explain it away. That has, thankfully, gotten a lot more mainstream nowadays, but like it's, that was taboo in construction, not drinking. You know, to my earlier point, like I could find somebody to hang out with and party with in this industry, no problem, yeah, which which made things more difficult than they had to be, because I was trying to hide it. I was trying to hide my flaws. I was trying to hide the mountains and not seen them for what they were.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, it is becoming increasingly easier to not have a drink in your hand or whatever, but it is. It is still mean. Show up at a Christmas party, show you know it's. There is a certain commissar amount of peer pressure around all that stuff, that one thing leads to another and I suppose if you're, if that's the way your, your brain has been rewired, it's man, it's everywhere and it's it's you know, I sort of like this best as I can empathize with it. You know the like. I'm kind of a neat freak. I is this, shock you to know this. And whenever things are out of order and I think you're probably to me sounds more like being a control freak than a neat freak, but when things are out of order, it feels like people are just screaming at me in my brains, like it's, like I, it's a, it's an unavoidable, like distraction that I can't get rid of, and I can only assume it's just something like that. Like it's everywhere, at those events, everywhere, some it's like screaming at you, everywhere, you know.
Kevin Carey:Yeah, and, and I think I think it's atomic habits, where it says like you don't have to make all the a million right decisions in a row and constantly beyond it's the timing of the right decision. Yeah, you know, and so it's like a pre decision of mindset thing. We've been talking a lot about that lately, like and yes, of course I know you're a clean freak, we started the an organization freak, we started this podcast in your garage and I looked around and I'm like this does not look like my garage. It was, you know, pretty spotless.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, the the Barry said remember we had Barry Brooks on he said something about the decision only matters at the time you make it, or something that's affected. He was talking about that, how you would have to drive home and there was a spot during the drive home where he would turn left or turn right, and he turned right to go to the, to the jam, or turn left and go home, and he could think all day long about going to the gym, going to, but the only time the decision matter was right there at the Y on the road. And that's the point is like you have to decide all day long. That's the point where I'm going to make this decision. Not I'm going to the gym today, going to the gym today when it no, I'm going to go when I get in the car. I'm going to the gym when I show up at this Christmas party. There will be a decision to be made and I'm making this decision now. It's not going to be the hard one. I get there.
Kevin Carey:I'm making the decision now, yeah, and that fork in the road, you mix a six pack in, it's a lot more difficult to see. It's plain as day when you're sober, yeah. And for anybody in recovery. They know that just that the choices you make in the decisions ahead get very blurry and maybe worse, crystal clear which way you should go, and that's the wrong way.
Stewart Shurtleff:It is worse and thought about like that either You're like oh yeah, well, obviously we're going the wrong way now yeah.
Kevin Carey:Well, and we've mentioned that this the story's in the book but it wasn't originally designed in the book. So you knew, I was starting to label out the chapters and stuff in that transition period and I was working with Keon on it and we had the chapters laid out and then I had that service at church. So I mean I came to take credit for, hey, this is going to be the opener of the book. It was in church during worship music. God's like hey, you know that story. You're running from that. You don't want anybody to know. You're starting the book with it.
Kevin Carey:I'm like no, I'm not Like you know, like what are you talking about? But like those, those moments don't happen to me that often. So I knew there was no choice to make and so I even my next time with Keon I was like hey, I got, I got something to share with you. And then I told him the testimony and what's funny about this is what I really want people to hear. I was so nervous to tell him about my brokenness. And then, when I told him, he said something along the lines of Kev, I've always had you right here. You're right here now in my life.
Kevin Carey:Yeah, and Stuart, I'm telling you I've had double digit people say the exact same thing. After you share that testimony, Like I've always thought highly of you, You're now here, yeah, and so there's something about connecting with people that Craig Rochelle quote through your weaknesses, through your brokenness, the humility of it, that people could just see you for what you are. And you take that mask off and it's liberating. And, man, it was so scary for me to share that the first few times when I wrote. I have a log here's. Here's my version of the clean garage. I have a spreadsheet of every day, the day I said I would start that book, and every day until it finished, and I have a notes column.
Kevin Carey:And day two of writing that book finished, the intro, and I was crying like a baby man, yeah, it just brought me back in detail to that broken place and it was painful because, like I still other than our peer group at Telluride, I hadn't shared really with anybody and that was the first. Like, hey, I'm going to tell a group of people that's not NA, some pretty big things here. You know it's there. I think it's harder when the people are closer to you for whatever crazy reason, until you start doing it Right. And then you start doing it and you let go of it. And then you see the. You see the oh, you're not chastised and kicked out of clubs and fired from companies. You're actually embraced to even a further level, which is a lie. The enemy right that wants you to stay down and think you should be shamed and you're alone in this. That's incorrect and so sorry, go ahead.
Stewart Shurtleff:No, I was just saying it's incorrect and it's like incongruent with, you know, the heroes of the Bible too. It's just like those people weren't, they didn't have it all together. They were stutterers and cascades and people who were afraid and dudes that were bankrupt and abuse. Like over and over and over and over and over again. The power comes from the weakness, not from the perceived or faked or feigned strength. It's there, in the lowly, the lowly of lows, that people see your strength and that is very that is consistent with, like the heroes of the Bible and the biblical narrative that when you tell the story, people say I've always thought I love you and now I think, hand to your hand higher in there, like this right, just because that's the truth about where your strength comes from, right.
Kevin Carey:It's absolutely. That's where my son of my son, current son of the solar system, comes from Building an army of mountain movers, one person at a time, and you know this, like obviously with the podcast prior to the podcast, the book, like the glazing company, it's not just a fun expression.
Kevin Carey:It's my purpose for a reason I want people to move the mountains in their lives and see them for what they are and know that they're seasons. And what I'm learning is not only do you get through those mountains, but over time, become thankful for them. Yeah, I'm thankful that happened.
Kevin Carey:I'm not looking to run it back. I don't want to go all right, let's do that again. But I'm thankful for them and now I'm better prepared for the next set of mountains that I don't even know. You know they're, they're coming right, but I know I need to talk through them. I know I need to have predecisions of mindset. I know I need to have my tribes. I know I need to stay true to my purpose. I know I need to keep my routines and goals. I am better equipped, through God and through my people, to take on whatever challenges come ahead that I don't see yet.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, yeah, so that's a great lesson. Through all of it, right Through your testimony, through stuff you talked in the book, through listening to all of the stuff, is there's lessons in there to hold fast to and realize and remember that whatever you're hiding from, whatever you're running from, whatever you're struggling with, is once, once you realize it is what it is, once you realize that it is derivative generally of not having you know your purpose, solar system aligned. Once you realize that the strength lies in the weakness, once you start talking with people about it, once you start sharing it, dude, you're free from it. You're free from it.
Kevin Carey:Yes, and you can move on.
Stewart Shurtleff:And there's there is, like we said earlier, there's great strength in that, no doubt.
Kevin Carey:And that's if you're going to take anything away from listening and if you've made it this far, whatever that mountain is that's holding you down, confess it to somebody. And and I don't mean confession as like I'm looking for an apology just get it out. Get it off your shoulders to somebody, whether it's somebody you trust, whether it's a third party professional, you know you got to, you got to be choose wisely, have discernment and who you're going to share it with, but get it out, get it out of your head, yeah.
Stewart Shurtleff:Well, there's no real great like how do you end that right and how do you put on other than just run the run the wardrooms, right?