This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Alan Seales: I don't think there's a penalty with a lot of failure. There's not a lot of fatal failures. You know, if you go out with hate speech or something like that, that's gonna be kind of a fatal flaw. But if you do things with good intentions, you know, it's just a learning aspect. Learn from your failures. That's how we learn how to walk. That's how we learn how to talk. That's how we—almost everything we do is built on trying, and then, you know, getting feedback, whether it's ourselves or somebody else giving it to you, and then trying to adapt and correct our behavior.

[0:39] Heather Vickery: You're an ass.

[0:40] Alan Seales: You're in the ass.

[0:42] Heather Vickery: You're in—No, that's not where it comes from.

[0:44] Alan Seales: Wait, what?

[0:46] Heather Vickery: Stop. Don't put that in our episode. I don't want to talk about—I don't want to talk. I'm not even gonna keep talking about it.

[0:52] Alan Seales: I think it's a great way to start an episode.

[0:55] Heather Vickery: So you're an ass.

[0:57] Alan Seales: Nah.

[0:58] Heather Vickery: This is great, y'all. Can you see what I'm already into today? You see what's going on for me today?

[1:03] Alan Seales: Oh my goodness. Okay. Let's—let's—Ellen, you're rubbing your shoulder. What happened?

[1:08] Heather Vickery: Oh my goodness. Well, let's start the episode, then I can tell you.

[1:10] Alan Seales: You're gonna start the episode?

[1:12] Heather Vickery: We'll go ahead and start the episode.

[1:13] Heather Vickery: Hey everyone, welcome to Was It Chance, the podcast about embracing opportunity and taking intentional risk for your creative life. I'm Heather Vickery.

[1:21] Alan Seales: I am Alan Seales, and now you get to listen in as we talk to other—and I'm in pain right now. I can't remember the intro.

[1:27] Heather Vickery: And we started off as two perfect strangers who met by chance and embraced opportunity. Listen in as we chat with other successful people about the risks they've taken to put themselves on a path to creative success.

[1:40] Alan Seales: What's wrong, baby?

[1:42] Heather Vickery: I fell down the stairs this morning.

[1:43] Alan Seales: You fell down the stairs?

[1:46] Heather Vickery: You're lucky you only hurt your shoulder.

[1:48] Alan Seales: Yes.

[1:48] Heather Vickery: Yeah, you're old now. You're fragile. You can't fall down the stairs.

[1:51] Alan Seales: No, listen. So I—in my place in Brooklyn, there's a drain and a backup drain in the front that if they both get clogged with leaves, which tends to happen this time of year, then water will overflow down the front of the house into the basement. And so we have water in the basement, not fun.

[2:08] Heather Vickery: Oh no.

[2:10] Alan Seales: So it was a heavy, heavy northeastern storm today. Lots of rain, lots of wind. So I'm out there. Um, it's real quick. I'm just out there like with the broom and a little pickup thing, like to get the leaves out so the drains will properly work without any problem.

[2:26] Heather Vickery: Oh no.

[2:26] Alan Seales: And I'm just in there out there in my— with sandals and my jeans rolled up. So I'm like, you know, whatever. I don't need to be out there for too long. And so I come back in, and the stairs going from the first floor up to the second floor are just solid wood. And I was barefoot. I took my sandals off because they were soaking wet. And so I was barefoot walking up the stairs, and I turned around to take something back downstairs. Slipped, my heel slipped off the stairs, and I fell three or four stairs. I went and caught myself on my hand. All my weight, you know, landed on my palm and my shoulder shot up into a place that I don't feel like it should have been.

[3:11] Heather Vickery: I'm so sorry.

[3:13] Alan Seales: Thought I had dislocated it. Obviously didn't, but now I can't raise it like above my—I can't raise my arm straight out above my hand, and it hurts. And so after this, I'm gonna like go to urgent care and see if I tore my rotator cuff.

[3:27] Heather Vickery: I am so sorry. I'm not a physician, but I'm going to encourage you to ask about your AC joint when you go to the—

[3:35] Alan Seales: AC?

[3:37] Heather Vickery: I didn't know I had air conditioning inside my body.

[3:37] Alan Seales: You might not anymore.

[3:43] Heather Vickery: Secret guest who people don't know who you are yet. I'm glad it's not just me.

[3:45] Alan Seales: But yeah, so if you see me rubbing my shoulder, I am deep tissue massaging because it actually does feel good.

[3:50] Heather Vickery: Well, thanks for, you know, powering through it for this conversation.

[3:54] Alan Seales: Of course. Anything for you.

[3:55] Heather Vickery: Yeah, I feel—I feel honored that you're, you know, pros play hurt, and so he's playing hurt here game time, and we'll deal with the physical injuries later.

[4:04] Alan Seales: Yeah. I don't think you know this, Alan, but falling downstairs is my number one major phobia. I am always terrified going down a set of stairs.

[4:13] Heather Vickery: Literally always. Sometimes I'm even scared going upstairs because I've also fallen upstairs several times.

[4:18] Alan Seales: Like you've actively already fallen down and upstairs, or you're just afraid of it?

[4:23] Heather Vickery: Oh yeah, many times. In what phase of your life?

[4:26] Heather Vickery: Several different ones, you know. Yeah, young as a kid in college, totally like in the morning, no just walking down—we'd carpeted stairs in my house, my senior year in college, and I had socks on and they were a lot of stairs, and they like—they weren't circular, but they turned a corner, and I went all the way down all of them from the top to the bottom.

[4:45] Alan Seales: Wait, what? Like death becomes her head over heels type of—

[4:46] Heather Vickery: No, straight down on my back and my butt.

[4:51] Alan Seales: Oh wow, okay, okay I didn't like flip.

[4:53] Heather Vickery: Okay. Um, I fell up a set of stairs when I was pregnant a couple times. That was terrifying, like broke my finger because I tried to catch my fall. And then once—this was several years ago, 2018, 2019. I was—I have a group of clients. So if any of you listen to this show, you're gonna know it's you. They're all accountants. I can't say who they all work for, but they're all accountants, and I do a program for them.

[5:16] Alan Seales: Boring and boring incorporated.

[5:18] Heather Vickery: Nope, it's called the Empowerment Program.

[5:20] Alan Seales: No, no, no, the company they work for, not your—not your force.

[5:23] Heather Vickery: No, we have fun, we have fun, but these people are our parties, and I am not a partier. So we were together in Washington, DC, and we had had our big graduation and everybody was feeling good. And you go out with these people, and the managers are like liquor-ing you up like it's nobody's business. And at one point, I fell straight down from the top of a set of stairs. I had boots on, and it was a little bit wet, and everyone was like, is it your turn to go? And I just—it clipped it. And I mean, I went straight down. No, straight down those stairs in front of everybody. I think it's a good thing I was super drunk because I was a little sore the next day, but nothing broke because I was not tense.

[6:05] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[6:06] Heather Vickery: Yeah. Now that like it's been a couple hours. This was like 8:30 this morning. Now it's been a couple hours. My everything else other than my shoulders is starting to hurt like my heel, my toe. I got a finger that's kind of weird. That's totally unrelated to the injury, but no, I don't know. This is random. What you get with Was It Chance? Random shit that we're experiencing.

[6:26] Alan Seales: It is chance that I fell down the stairs and now we're talking about it.

[6:32] Heather Vickery: I know. And now I wonder what it's gonna lead to. What interesting thing is gonna happen when you go to urgent care that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

[6:39] Alan Seales: They're gonna do a full body scan and be like, you ate your brother.

[6:43] Heather Vickery: You have a twin brother inside.

[6:45] Alan Seales: That scares me. That's like—we talked about this in a previous episode that my electrician who got hit by the garbage truck.

[6:53] Heather Vickery: Yes.

[6:54] Alan Seales: I don't want that to be true.

[6:55] Heather Vickery: Let's hope.

[6:57] Alan Seales: I found out he had colon cancer.

[6:57] Heather Vickery: Yeah. Well, yeah, like I said. Anyway, well, let's get on to our guest.

[7:02] Heather Vickery: All right, Alan, who we got today?

[7:05] Heather Vickery: I am super excited to have this conversation with our new friend who's been very patient with us, Ray Hartjen. Ray's a writer, a musician who has spent five decades proving that you're never stuck in just one lane. He's pivoted from investment banking to tech and I think everywhere in between. But one thing that's always stuck is his love for a good story. Whether he's writing books about the Steelers, navigating life as a cancer patient advocate, or playing acoustic sets in his band, the Chronic Padres.

[7:37] Alan Seales: Do I have that right?

[7:37] Ray Hartjen: You do have that right.

[7:39] Alan Seales: Always father.

[7:42] Heather Vickery: Ray lives with a constant soundtrack running through his head. And he joins us from Southern California to talk about the twists of the turns and the music that keeps him moving forward. Ray, you're patient, friends. Welcome.

[7:55] Ray Hartjen: I appreciate hearing his stories about people falling up and downstairs. I am worried about you, Heather. Do you have stairs in your home? I mean, do you have to navigate fear every day?

[8:05] Heather Vickery: I do. I embrace fear and I step into the world bravely, which anybody who actually knows me and knows that I have an entire business based on that will have giggled at that. Yeah, I navigate fear all day, every day. I wrote a book called Fuck Fearless.

[8:19] Ray Hartjen: Which is also just about walking stairs.

[8:21] Heather Vickery: It's not a good thing.

[8:24] Alan Seales: I learned something new about you every day.

[8:25] Heather Vickery: And I'm—That's not true. That's pretty cool.

[8:27] Alan Seales: The book is not about that.

[8:28] Heather Vickery: But to answer your question, Ray, yes, I have to go downstairs. My office is upstairs. I'm always have a hand on the handrail. And if my hands are full, then I will put my whole body on the side of the wall and walk down fully touching the wall because I can't catch myself if I fall because my hands are full. So I'm like, nope, this is—and I just go one step at a time.

[8:50] Ray Hartjen: I know I sound like a crazy old lady.

[8:52] Heather Vickery: You know, I just met you two, but I'm worried about both of you. Like I just—I want to buy like a safety harness or something.

[8:58] Alan Seales: But we like to live on the edge.

[9:01] Ray Hartjen: Yeah, sure.

[9:03] Alan Seales: Well, you said in the bio, Heather, that he's started investment banking and been everywhere between, except being a physician. He did give that disclaimer.

[9:09] Ray Hartjen: But my sister was telling me I had a chance. My sister's a physician, so I kind of feel as though you know I'm entitled to share my stuff.

[9:18] Alan Seales: Yeah, I know a couple of doctors.

[9:19] Ray Hartjen: And as a cancer patient, I see a physician all the time. You'll imagine your share.

[9:24] Alan Seales: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[9:25] Ray Hartjen: And I've watched—I've watched beginning to end of Suits. So I know how to file an injunction and get a TRO. I am lawyer ready.

[9:32] Alan Seales: And I watched a lot of House.

[9:35] Ray Hartjen: I watched a lot of House back in the day.

[9:38] Alan Seales: So back in the day, I liked House. I think I had a bit of a medical background. My partner and I have watched like all 22 seasons of Ink Master, and we are now—we consider ourselves tattoo experts.

[9:47] Ray Hartjen: Oh, sure.

[9:48] Alan Seales: Fantastic. You get an honorary degree from Tattoo University.

[9:53] Heather Vickery: TV.

[9:54] Alan Seales: Who wants me to give them a tattoo?

[9:55] Ray Hartjen: No, that would be a great listener contest is I can assure you, nobody wants me to give them a tattoo. I am not that kind of artist.

[10:03] Alan Seales: Give me a temporary tattoo.

[10:06] Heather Vickery: Yeah. Talk about Was It Chance, you know, coming back and maybe getting your first tattoo ever by someone who's made their first tattoo ever. Um, there's a difference in embracing opportunity and taking intentional risk for creative success and being stupid, though.

[10:21] Alan Seales: There's calculated risks versus just not doing that.

[10:25] Heather Vickery: Idiot see.

[10:26] Alan Seales: Speaking of calculating risks, okay. Ray, looking back at your 50 decades of living.

[10:29] Ray Hartjen: 50 decades.

[10:35] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[10:38] Ray Hartjen: I was like, wait, wait, is it—but I'm looking good.

[10:40] Alan Seales: Did I say that?

[10:43] Ray Hartjen: I was like, does say five decades, just so everybody knows it.

[10:46] Alan Seales: 50 years.

[10:48] Ray Hartjen: Five decades.

[10:51] Alan Seales: 525,600 minutes times 50.

[10:57] Ray Hartjen: I look good for my age.

[11:01] Alan Seales: 50 decades.

[11:04] Ray Hartjen: Listen. Listen, y'all. I can tell you, man, Da Vinci, when I met Da Vinci, he was a cool dude. He really was. And uh, I'm gonna need a minute of soon.

[11:17] Alan Seales: It's been a morning.

[11:27] Ray Hartjen: Okay. Okay. What was my question?

[11:31] Alan Seales: Looking back at your 5-0 experience.

[11:35] Ray Hartjen: Five decades.

[11:36] Alan Seales: Five decades.

[11:37] Ray Hartjen: Or just say experience.

[11:38] Alan Seales: Experience in life. Your multiple careers of inventing the wheel.

[12:08] Ray Hartjen: So take us back. Let's get on track. Uh, what did you start with and why? Huh, you know, uh, a dream, I guess.

[12:19] Alan Seales: Okay, that is the right answer.

[12:20] Ray Hartjen: Oh, yeah, you know, you know, I I can I can say uh, you know, I s I started out with a great foundation. Uh, you know, I'm uh I I think you know, relatively rare in the fact that I had a stable home life with both parents involved in my life, right? And uh, you know, they encouraged uh uh education. There's a value in reading uh and learning. And uh so you know, I I'm you know blessed to have uh, you know, we weren't rich. My my father's a career army officer, my mom most of the time uh stayed at home. Uh, you know, but uh we I had a a solid foundation and I don't take that for granted. I probably did at the time. Sure. Of course I did. But uh, you know, uh, you know, knowing that there are so many people out there that you know, whether they come from broken homes from parents or they have food insecurity or housing insecurity or something like that, those are things I never had to worry about.

You know, I was always gonna be on like on a college track, right? And uh and I did go to college and uh, you know, f from there, you know, I I I you know I I made a lot of pivots in my career just trying to uh you know explore what was most interesting for me and the people that were most interesting for me, because I you know, once I I kind of discovered who I didn't want to work with, uh I began to discover who I did want to work with, right?

[13:29] Heather Vickery: Yeah.

[13:29] Ray Hartjen: Uh but you know, one thing that kind of, you know, you know, I realized, you know, kind of late in my career, maybe 20 years in my career, that really was all about storytelling. Whereas whether it's storytelling in investment banking, with you know, the you know, the story behind a company and why you should invest or not invest to uh you know, storytelling in organizational development internally with the company or or externally as a consultant about hey, this is this is what you think you do at work, but this is what work really is. And you know, these are the the opportunities that you as the organization have to improve the team or what have you. So it was always uh, you know, kind of a storytelling. And uh, you know, it's over time, uh, you know, fifty decades of experience, I've uh, you know I've I've pivoted a lot and you know, now I'm a a professional storyteller.

[14:12] Alan Seales: Listen, buddy. A prof I love that I love I don't hear that term.

[14:21] Heather Vickery: And we talk to a lot of authors and writers and uh a lot of people, you know, uh actors and uh you know, musicians, storyteller, professional storyteller, professional storyteller. I feel like that's a really magical statement.

[14:35] Ray Hartjen: But I like um I like how you applied it to investment banking. Like you you knew from the beginning that's kind of like who you were and and how you communicate, because you're trying to figure out what this company is, whether they're worth investing in supporting.

[14:51] Heather Vickery: You know, Ray, you know, uh you mentioned that you don't hear you know that often. I really think there's a lot of storytelling uh involved in in all of comics. Everything.

[15:00] Ray Hartjen: I agree. If you're in a in a in a uh go-to-market team for a a company, uh whether it's uh you know, customer service, sales, marketing, professional services, it's all about telling stories, right? And uh no matter what you know how you want to communicate, we as people, you know, we have this yearning for a story. If you really want to be engaged, you want to listen to or watch uh story. We beg people as children to tell us a story. Uh those are the things that that resonate most. And uh you can just, you know, meet at that at the the cocktail party that you were at in DC where you fell down the stairs. There's probably a great deal of storytelling uh that took place just in the networking event that uh that you went to, and certainly after you fell down the stairs, there was some more storytelling as well.

Uh including ours today. But I think storytelling is uh a lot more common. I remember I remember a a guy selling me a television set about 35 years ago at Good Guys, you know, and he's like, Yeah, you know, I'm just like a just a salesman. I'm like, what do you what do you mean you're just a salesman? So, you know, it's like there's physicians or researchers over at the university, and they are also salespeople. They are selling grants, uh, and you know, selling research ideas and the like. It's it's storytelling and it's uh it's engagement. And uh I think it's a lot more common than people kind of give themselves credit for.

[16:20] Heather Vickery: I totally agree. When did you realize that that was the better approach to what you were originally doing?

[16:26] Ray Hartjen: Uh when it came down to understanding engagement and uh, you know, going through communication processes, it's about engagement. Uh, you know, how do you engage with somebody? Uh and uh, you know, there's uh a lot of times in in in corporate America when you kind of look at uh relationships kind of transactional, right? Uh and they they really don't pan out uh well in in the long term. You know, how do you engage with the customer uh in a meaningful way? A lot of it's listening, so it's not just storytelling, it's also encouraging storytelling from the other aspect. What's your story, you know, as a as a potential customer? Yeah, how can I, you know, you know, represent a value proposition to you, uh whether it's immediate now, sometime in the and uh in the short term, intermediate term, long term, or what have you. Uh tell me your story, understand your customer's story, and then you know, uh, you know, let me try to have you understand my story as well.

[17:17] Alan Seales: Right, right. We're gonna take a quick break. Stay tuned for more of the episode.

[17:22] Heather Vickery: And now we're back. So Ray, here's what I'm curious. You you already told us that you didn't really realize that through line until a little bit later in your career. But if you're looking back on like little Ray, were you always a storyteller?

[17:38] Ray Hartjen: Uh that's a uh good question. When if I'm going all the way back to Little Ray, uh I mean, back 50 decades is a lot to remember when you could try back in the 1400s when I uh but survived the plague. I you know, I I uh I think I still have an active imagination, right? You know, so uh yeah, I think I was a storyteller, maybe not uh always uh ex to an external audience, but certainly a story for myself, playing with little army men and you know, and on on uh in the backyard or uh, you know, uh, you know, you know, pretending I'm a professional athlete and providing interviews for the media who are gonna talk to about my you know great performance on the field or on the racetrack or what have you. Uh so uh so yeah, I think I've I've always kind of been a bit of a imaginative uh storyteller, at least internally in my head. Uh and and that's probably come out in you know, yeah, me sharing my my share of tall tales.

[18:35] Heather Vickery: I think it's so fascinating to think about ourselves as little. I my I have four daughters, and my littlest two, especially my third, she used to interview people all the time. She'd be like, Okay, and now I'm sitting here with Eve, you know, and just or make up commercials all the time. She's my she's my actress, she's the one that wants to make that her career. Um, but just since she was teeny tiny, she'd be like, let's sit down and have a conversation. I used to tell stories, I was an only child though. So if I didn't tell my own stories, then I was just didn't have anybody to talk to. But like I would create, and I know I've said this on the show before, so I know Alan's heard this, but I loved Barbies. But before I could play with my Barbies, I would have to create their backstory. And they were different every time. Different names, different jobs, different everything. And then once we had the full foundation of their story, then we could play.

[19:26] Ray Hartjen: Yeah, that's makes perfect sense. You know, I know I know people who create backstories for people as they're just people watching, right? You know, sitting down in a restaurant.

[19:34] Heather Vickery: My partner loves to do it.

[19:35] Ray Hartjen: Oh yeah. Yeah.

[19:35] Heather Vickery: So that's a fun thing to do. It's like where do you think they're coming from? Where do you think they're going?

[19:40] Ray Hartjen: Great airport games as you're waiting in the terminal and people walking by.

[19:45] Heather Vickery: Well then okay so you're in investment banking then what was the next thing tech was the next thing writing pharma pharma uh next thing was graduate school. And uh you know I I wanted to reinvent myself you know so I uh you know I uh it was uh the the 80s um and uh when I was in investment banking uh initially I liked it making lots of money and you doing all that stuff but it was the people you know I talked earlier about you know who are the people that you want to work with and who are the people you don't want to work with and I began to realize that you know the culture there's just it all around the whole industry just not something I wanted to hang out with. And you know I I at that point in time in the late 80s you know I had a lot of uh uh friends that I knew that were in companies that were really uh employing you know uh Japanese management principles you know so uh uh work teams uh self-directed work teams uh consensus decision making um uh you know uh uh aspects like that that were completely different than you know corporate America and certainly investment banking and and I wanted to learn more about that so I won't I wanted to retool myself I I viewed myself as uh as a like a factory you know and I needed to get new machinery in my in my factory for the output so uh that was graduate school uh it was the university of washington where um that's where my daughter goes.

[21:03] Heather Vickery: Oh, great.

[21:04] Ray Hartjen: Uh go huskies. Uh it was a um one of the people on the the faculty was a man named Cecil Bell. He's one of the founders of the uh the applied behavioral science of organizational development. That's was what was interesting me most because of that time period, you know, this you know, how how do you unlock the the power of the people of the organization to make a competitive difference? So uh I went to grad school and uh you know that uh kind of was the impetus, a catalyst for a big pivot in my career.

[21:31] Heather Vickery: And then and then what?

[21:32] Ray Hartjen: Like I first of all I can tell that you're a learner and I love that. Like I'm always learning. I have a thousand certifications, not quite the same as graduate school, but wanting to learn more so that you can pivot into a new thing. I hear that from you.

[21:44] Ray Hartjen: Yeah, and then uh, you know, uh I graduated uh uh grad school in '93, and in '93, every MBA uh pretty much uh went into consulting. So I went into consulting. Uh and uh, you know, worked uh organizational development consulting for uh externally uh until uh I moved internally and that was with uh a pharma company, Smith Klein Beachum. Uh and uh and from there, you know, my career went to uh continued into you know human resources, uh but from there made a sh uh jump to marketing uh and then and public relations and then uh uh back to marketing.

[22:17] Heather Vickery: What industry were you doing PR and marketing in?

[22:19] Ray Hartjen: Uh uh several. Uh one was uh consumer electronics uh with Sony and uh and then after Sony it was uh with uh three different SaaS companies and in the B2B space.

[22:29] Heather Vickery: So the so the Sony in the nineties, you were were you like plugging storytelling.

[22:35] Ray Hartjen: Yeah, you'd like plug in the DVD player like that.

[22:37] Heather Vickery: No, it was for for me it was Sony in the 2000s, uh from 2000 to 2014. Uh but yeah, it was uh you know, uh the last things that I I worked on were 4K television, introduction to 4K, but it was the introduction of 3D to Hell Vision, if you can remember that. Uh and then uh, you know, that whole transition from a uh from uh you know standard def high def uh into high deaf and and flat screens.

[23:02] Alan Seales: But it's interesting, you did so many different things. And yeah, I can see clearly how storytelling would be part of each of one of these things. And once you put that through line together and you're like, oh, this is storytelling, how did that change things for you?

[23:19] Ray Hartjen: Well, you know that I um it was it was kind of a validation of continuing to do what you're doing. But you know what I what has really, you know, that you know, was it chance uh uh aspect of it, uh was when I got diagnosed in March of 2019 with multiple myeloma. And uh for those of you in the audience who aren't familiar with it, it's uh blood cancer, it's uh an incurable blood cancer, but treatable blood cancer. And uh, you know, soon after that diagnosis, you know, I kind of, you know, uh I I was kind of like sparked onto a journey of self-discovery and a journey of learning, right? You know, uh you know, that what what started it was uh m you know, maybe 10, 11 days afterwards uh uh of my diagnosis, I was absolutely exhausted. I'm at dinner with my wife Lori and our son, uh Raymond, and I can't even look at the menu. I'm just tired.

[24:08] Ray Hartjen: And uh, you know, that was a realization uh to me that you know, my entire well being is more than just my physical well being. You know, there's this mental component, emotional component, this spiritual component. And if you if I let one of those, you know, kind of you know, faster or more than one, you know, kind of weaken, it can pull down my strengths. Uh and likewise, but uh, you know, I think that, you know, strengths can maybe pull up those areas that are are lessening. So, you know, my experience as a musician with a mixing board, you know, like I'm a guitar player, more guitar, more guitar, more guitar, you know, less vocals, less vocals. You know, uh you know, adjusting those levels, you know, I I I learned something about myself that day and that night.

And I thought, well, man, if I can, if I learned this, what else can I learn by proactively kind of approaching this with a sense of discovery, right? Uh with a growth mindset. And uh, you know, I I immediately got uh uh went back to an exercise that I used to facilitate um in a time management course that I've uh facilitated at Sony Electronics. And and that was a timeline exercise. And it's this really simple exercise audience. If you have something to write with, it's that's great. If you don't, you can just use it in your head, you use your head. And that is, you know, mentally or physically on a piece of paper, just draw a horizontal line from left to right. Uh, and then that the far left hand side of the line, a little tick mark, far right hand side, another little tick mark.

On the left hand side, write the letter B, represents your birth. And then on the right hand side, since you're smarter than me, you're already one step ahead, you're gonna write the letter D, that represents your death. Delicious. Oh, the okay, death. So the intro introspective part of this is that you know, you like spend a little moment and where do you think you are in your timeline? You know, and and Heather and Alan, you know, for you know, years, I would always just throw my hash mark right in the middle. Yeah, I'm I'm gonna live forever. I'm at least gonna live for a hundred or you know, probably 50 decades, one of the two. So uh one of the three, right? So uh I would just throw my my decades or yeah, okay.

I would just throw my my uh my tick mark right in the middle. Uh you know, but after being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, you know, I I I, you know, being you know, intellectually honest with myself, you know, my tick mark's further to the right than it was before my diagnosis. Uh so what did what did that mean? And so, you know, me meant to me, I looked at that timeline and I said, you know what? What it has meant to me is that I think, like a lot of people, I've taken time for granted in the past. Uh, and uh, and you know, I I would take all tomorrow's and next week's, next months for granted, but sometimes years, maybe decades, depending on the topic. You know, I was one of those guys that one day I'm going to dot dot dot.

And uh so I I still wanting to learn more about myself. It's like, all right, Ray, if you if you take time for granted, you know, how does that manifest itself in your life? And uh for me it was obvious. So I took people and relationships for granted, because I took time for granted. You know, and so well, you know, was it chance? Uh my diagnosis. I don't know if it was chance or not, but by you know, being open to having uh an open mind and a uh uh you know a discovery mindset and uh you know a growth mindset, you know, I I recognize that hey, there's things I want to get done. Uh, you know, what's my legacy and what are the what's what I want to spend my time on? What what do I want to do?

And who do I want to do it with? Uh and uh that's been a uh a changing point for for me in my career, a big pivot, big pivot for me personally, and it's it's made me a better husband, a better father, a better bandmate, a better writer, a better consultant, uh all those things um because of just taking a moment and uh you know running through an exercise that I hadn't run through many times before, but hadn't really taken uh too seriously.

[27:45] Heather Vickery: That's beautiful. And you mentioned so many things father, husband, bandmate, writer, uh do you you I was gonna say, like, well, do you consider yourself one thing? And I I think the answer to that is storyteller. But um is there one thing that that post the diagnosis uh using the slider analogy, if you're at a mixing board and you're you're turning up the father, you're pulling down the band mate, whatever. Like, like did you how did you readjust the sliders after your diagnosis?

[28:14] Ray Hartjen: I added more sliders. Uh there's a that's what I'm talking about. There is a add more. Yeah, there's a tendency in the patient community to think about what cancer takes away. And there are some things that get takes away. I have treatment once a week. Uh, you know, I'm kind of married to an infusion center. So, you know, there goes the idea of sailing around the world for three years. Uh not that I have a sailboat and or that I've ever sailed, but but you know, there are some limitations. But, you know, uh on I I was diagnosed March 11th, uh uh 2019. On March 10th, I was a father, an employee, a boss, a band mate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, you know what? On March 11th, I was also a father, uh a boss, an employee, a teammate.

Uh I had all those exact same roles. I still had the objectives and accountabilities uh that were associated with those roles. But very quickly, you know, I experienced a I went to a patient support group and they kind of taught me how to begin life as a cancer patient. You know, and I I looked at those brave cancer fighters and I said, man, that that's I want to be like them. You know, when I'm feeling good and I'm feeling strong, if there's something I can do for a member of the community, I want to be there for that member. Uh, you know, if there's something I can do to pull them forward to get them to where they want to be or where they need to be, I want to be that person. You know, so immediately I added, you know, cancer patient advocate, uh uh fundraiser, and all these other roles.

So so Alan, to address your question, I don't know if I've really pivoted many of the roles. There's still things I want to get done. I mean, there's a pivot now not working so much for other people that as it is for maybe working for myself and the things that I want to do. But then I've added some of those sliders. I was never a patient advocate before. Now I am. A patient caregiver advocate, now I am. A fundraiser, yeah. You know, I'm a I'm a paid influencer for some uh uh uh for a uh a drug therapy. Uh so there's there's more things. You take a bunch of tracks off mute, man.

[30:07] Alan Seales: I know, I dig it. But I love this reminder that we are expansive. And it's kind of unlimited, but also, you know, what did you have to let go of? Because we can't just keep adding things without creating a new shift of harmony and balance. So what did you have to let go of in order to add all these other sliders in?

[30:27] Ray Hartjen: Uh full-time work uh uh for me. I uh I I can't work uh full-time actually, you know, with uh with treatment and the way it makes me uh feel as treatment. So uh, you know, uh uh it's led me into a life of a freelance uh consultant uh as it relates to marketing, content marketing uh specifically, storytelling. Uh and then uh, you know, the the rest of the time on my own uh creative storytelling, be it through through writing or music. But yeah, I think the the biggest thing I've I've left the bind is you know, I'm no longer gonna lead teams uh on go-to-market uh uh strategies uh for uh for companies. That's uh just something I don't have the the time and frankly the energy uh to do.

[31:10] Heather Vickery: Yeah, yeah.

[31:10] Alan Seales: So at what point in this journey, I think it was after your diagnosis, but did you start writing books?

[31:16] Ray Hartjen: Yeah, you know, um uh being a musician, uh always looking for ways to put food on the table. Uh and uh, you know, when you have a gig, it's like, well, you get paid for the gig, but wouldn't it be nice if you can have a nice little you know t-shirt to be able to sell on the side? So I'm always on the look for a pithy little quote to put on the back of the t-shirt with the logo on the front. You know, every t-shirt we make is like 20 bucks. So that's uh that's that's pretty cool. So it looking at my timeline, came up with this this motto. If not now, when you know that was kind of like a driving, you know, motto for me. It inspired me and it motivated me in my daily life. And that's kind of morphed itself into punch today in the face. Uh, both you know, gig shirt uh uh quotes to put on the back. So fast forward a little bit, you know, a couple years after my diagnosis, a good dear friend of mine, his name's Tom O'Lenick. He's um uh he's from Pittsburgh.

[32:06] Ray Hartjen: He's a Yinzer. And uh he has he has lived through, he's my age, he's 61, 62 years old. You know, he lived through 50 decades old. Yeah, 50 years. Come on. There's gonna be a lot of editing of this episode. No, we're leaving it all in. If I made a flub like that, Alan would talk about it for the next six weeks. So we're just leaving it all in.

[32:27] Heather Vickery: We're definitely gonna leave it in.

[32:29] Ray Hartjen: Uh, anyways, Tom, Tom lived through this painful deindustrialization transformation in the city of Pittsburgh. And he had for years, decades, he had this thesis in his head. You know, the reason that Pittsburgh came out of this difficult transition, smelling like a rose, as opposed to Detroit, Buffalo and Cleveland and other rust belt cousin cities that have are continuing their transition, and it's been difficult. In his mind, it was the Pittsburgh Steelers. And so I grabbed him one day and said, Tom, and you've been talking about this for two decades. You've been talking about to me for 15 years about how this would make a great book. If not now, when you know, we're talking about something that happened 50 years ago, right?

So I said, you know, you're you're a biotech executive. I'm a storyteller. How about if I get started writing this book? And we should ever veer off of your you know vision, but we can course correct. Well, a year and a half later, we didn't have to course correct at all. We had this book that I'm extraordinarily proud of. It's called Immaculate, How the Steelers Save Pittsburgh. And uh, you know, it's a story that you know, weaves in the story of sports uh with the story of Pittsburgh, uh, which delves into a lot of characters from athletes to you know, business people that you know who built and created the steel industry and the like. So it's uh it's a cool book and uh I am proud of it. But it it was born from this idea, if not now when someday I'm going to dot dot dot.

Let's make sure that someday's today. Let's get forward with this. Let's tell this story because it's got an expiration date on it. I mean, it's people who lived back then are beginning to not live anymore, right? You know, so if we want to talk to folks, uh let's uh let's talk to them now.

[34:01] Alan Seales: We're gonna take a quick break. Stay tuned for more of the episode.

[34:05] Ray Hartjen: And now we're back.

[34:07] Alan Seales: Do you get to meet any of the actual Pittsburgh Steelers?

[34:11] Ray Hartjen: I uh I I did not. Uh Tom has. And uh, you know, it's uh you know, one a big part of this is it, it's the the play, uh, the Immaculate Reception. It's referenced in the title. There's this picture of Franco Harris making this play. It's the most memorable play in NFL history, as voted on by the media and fans. Uh warms our heart, uh, Tom and I, that uh that Franco saw the book and liked the book. We know that though from his wife. Tom is now uh become good uh good friends with his wife. Unfortunately, Franco passed away uh the day that the book um uh hit the market. Uh yeah, so it was uh but it it does it. We um I mean it's it means a lot to us. You know, we have a picture of him holding the book, you know, and he was a supporter of the book, and uh and his wife's uh support of the book is uh is meaningful to us uh as well. But uh that was uh like the the tragic thing, you know, this this hero uh uh for the city of Pittsburgh, and then you know, losing uh losing him um, you know, the day the book comes out.

[35:13] Heather Vickery: Yeah. So this was the first book. How many books total have there been?

[35:17] Ray Hartjen: Five books total. Uh four nonfiction books, and then uh and wanting to challenge myself, thinking that I had stories, I wanted to experiment with a a fiction book. That's my latest book. Uh came out uh a month ago or so. It's called Outflanked. I hope it's uh viewed as an espionage thriller because it says so right on the title.

[35:27] Alan Seales: It says so.

[35:40] Ray Hartjen: So how embarrassing would it be for a reader to go, you know what? I I read it. Yeah, it says so in the title. So I wanted to take a chance at uh at uh at fiction. I knew I could write nonfiction. Um the reviews so far have been uh positive. It's encouraged me to start a second book. So um I'm I've uh started.

[36:01] Heather Vickery: What was that pivot like for you? Because I've written nonfiction, and we've talked about this a bunch of times on the show. I'm terrified of writing a novel, although I would like to.

[36:10] Ray Hartjen: I'm just not sure that I have like that creative mind. Like I work off of things that are real, right? And then I make them sound lovely. What was that transition like for you? Uh similar to some of the things that you're uh bouncing around around with in your head. You know, I knew I could write nonfiction. Um, but uh I think the fear of failure in writing fiction is more, you know, instead of you know telling something that that happened or you know, like a journalist might speak. Now you're making things up, and maybe people just don't like what you just made up. Uh and uh so I think you know, overcoming that uh inertia. It's like, you know, it's like, wow, you're you're stepping out there, you're taking a creative risk.

Uh, but you know, I'm kind of uh a bit of a risk taker, uh, I think. Uh also maybe a maybe that I just don't care, right? You know, there's because what difference does it make? Yeah, you're doing a thing you feel passionate for, and who who cares what people think of it? Yeah, you know, particularly in the arts, right? You know, and you know, uh particularly, I you know, I always look for inspiration for uh graphic artist, like a painter, you know. Uh very few people make a living painting, right? You know, uh they they paint for themselves and they end up with a house full of paintings and they give them away to their friends, like, oh, you like this here? You know, take it. There's an intrinsic sense of satisfaction, a piece of inner mind, uh coming from getting what you know is in their head onto onto Canvas.

And uh that's you you find that in music. I mean, when you write a song, chances are no one's ever gonna remember it. I mean, it'd be awesome if they did. You know, I I'll go to like a Kinney Chesney concert and sit stand there in a stadium with 70,000 people and they're singing his song back to him, or you know, go to a U2 show, same thing. They're singing the song back to you know, that must be incredible. But for the vast majority of songs, you never even hear them. You don't even remember, but it is just something about, you know, you know, writing the music, writing the lyrics that uh is uh a rewarding to stuff. You have you have a story to tell this time you're telling it in you know three minutes and twenty two seconds.

Do you is that easier for you? Uh do you write the songs for your band? Is that easier for you in story form? Or do you find it's easier or I guess different in different mediums? Uh so the question of do we write songs? Uh, yes. Do we play them often? No. Uh because uh it's our experience, is that nobody wants to hear our our songs. They'd much rather like, you know, hear our take on somebody else's song. Uh we, you know, we're a a winery band, uh, a brewery band, uh, you know, a happy hour band, but by design, built on our age, you know, and we started when you started, you know, 10 years ago, it's like, do we want to, you know, be in a band that starts at nine o'clock at night? Now I'm thinking about you know, going to bed at nine o'clock at night.

So, you know, let's do the happy hour band. Let's do two-piece acoustic, 30-minute setup, 20-minute teardown. Uh we get paid uh, you know, a little bit of money and some beer free beer and some nachos, and you know, we're home, you know, it in time, maybe even to see the sunset. Uh but uh so yeah, there is a there is uh there is writing music, but we tend not to play, uh play it a lot. Uh, you know, every once in a while sprinkle something in or somebody kind of asks for it. And you know, it's uh, you know, how it gets started. You know, sometimes it's a cool little riff from noodling around, and you'll you'll you'll get some music and you'll think, well, what's that music about? You know, that that music's about surfing and the sunsetting, you know, uh, or it's the other way around where you just have a couple of words that come to your head and you go, that's that would make a cool chorus.

Uh and uh and then it's like, oh now the harbor, now we got great music around it. So I usually make up songs about my kids. My favorite one is like, get your damn shoes on, we're gonna be late. Like that's usually what I'm saying.

[39:51] Heather Vickery: No, but Ray, you said something that I think is really profound, and I want to call it out for listeners, which is you built it the way you wanted it. You want to play music, you want to be in this band, you want to be in bed by nine, right? Like we get these ideas in our heads that if we're going to be musicians, if we're going to be authors, if we're going to whatever, we have to do X, Y, and Z. And I love this reminder that you actually get to do whatever the fuck you want with your life. That you have to know what it is. You have to be like, okay, I want to make this work for me, given these other things that are important to me. So I'm gonna build it this way.

[40:30] Ray Hartjen: Yeah. And I uh it is it's not just with music. I you know, I think it's also with the writing aspect of it. You know, those of you out there in the audience, you know, don't don't get uh don't get fooled into thinking your life as a writer has gotta be set in, you know, some uh, you know, some particular way. There are so many ways to get your story out um in in a variety of manners. And even if it's books, there's so many ways with books uh to get your story out into market uh that it can fit to what you need it to fit, you know. Sometimes it's like, well, hey, I gotta do this part-time because I need I need to do something else to you know, pay the mortgage and and put groceries on the table.

Uh so that you know there's there's flexibility. But one thing you you have to do is you have to take that first step. You know, it's cliche. This journey of a thousand miles starts with your first step. But it's the truth. You gotta you gotta get started, you know, and yeah, referring back to the patient community, you know, there's a and and what you lose, you know, there's a lot of times, you know, people with like, man, I just I just want to clean my house, you know, and I I'm too tired. I don't feel well enough to clean my house. And you know, I try to encourage them to look at it a little bit differently. It's like, forget about cleaning your house. That's the outcome. That's the end of right.

Let's start about the journey. How about just cleaning off the top of your dining room table, right? Let's start there. There's some small little sub goal that you can get to, but at least you got started. Because if you never get started, you're never getting that clean house. But uh maybe this is all you can do today, and that's okay. But just clear off the dining room table. Uh, you know, and then the next thing you know, the dining room's done. And and then maybe we'll move on to some other things. So uh get started, folks. Whatever you've got out there, your dream, your passion, uh, this is stuff that you want to do. And it's not so hard. I I talk to writers all the time. It's like, man, it's 60,000 uh word book. You know, I I don't I don't that's a lot. It's like, yeah, it's a lot. Or if you think of writing 500 words a day um in a half a year, you've got a book. So I mean, 500 words isn't that much.

[42:28] Heather Vickery: What is your what are your writing habits? How do you get a book done?

[42:33] Ray Hartjen: Uh well that that's it, it it varies uh a little bit, depending on what the book is. So I've got three different books on project sound. Sometimes there's an impetus, particularly with c uh collaborators. It's like, oh, wait, we gotta, you know, kind of binge on some stuff now. But my process is a little bit each day so that it's not overwhelming. So it's it is 500 words on uh 500 to a thousand words for the the second novel. Let's try to you know, do that in a day. Uh, you know, for some of these a couple of nonfiction books uh projects that I'm working on with many collaborators. Let's you know, let's understand this with uh you know three, four hundred words, or maybe finishing it kind of a train of thought uh before I can turn it over to a collaborator to take a look at. So it's trying to do that and trying to do it early in the day too.

[43:13] Heather Vickery: That's what I was gonna say. What are yeah, your routines? Do you like mornings?

[43:15] Ray Hartjen: Yeah, and well, I it that comes back to this this time management aspect uh that uh I spoke about earlier in this time management course. And you know, it comes from uh Stephen Covey, uh the Franklin uh uh Covey folks, Stephen Covey, the seven habits of highly effective uh uh people. And it was the idea of big rocks, you know, and uh you know, put your big rocks into your your calendar uh with your meetings and your uh and your tasks, and all the little stuff's gonna, if you do that second, it's all gonna fit in. But if you do it the other way around, it might not. And those big rocks are the things that are most important to you. So if writing your novel is important to you, you can knock out knock it out while you're eating your avocado toast and drinking your coffee in the morning, knock out a little bit, and then get on to you know something else, all the leftover things that are maybe less important for you.

So you do it the other way around. You get caught up in your email, you get caught up in a bunch of phone calls, a couple of meetings. Next thing you know, you're tired, you don't want to do it, you procrastinate it. Uh, and you know, you you don't have that time for procrastination. We we do that with our workout schedule and our new year's resolutions coming up. For those who I've heard it called Eating the Frog. The thing that's important to you. That's a Brian Kelly. He actually wrote that that's the book called Eat the Frog, Eat That Frog. That's the rock thing. It's figure out the big important thing that you want to prioritize for the day, but also it feels intimidating and do it first.

[44:37] Heather Vickery: Yeah.

[44:38] Ray Hartjen: And then everything else is cake.

[44:39] Heather Vickery: So in the corner of your room behind your amp, is that a didgeridoo?

[44:44] Ray Hartjen: It is.

[44:45] Heather Vickery: Can you play?

[44:46] Ray Hartjen: Nice eyes. What is a didgeridoo? Can you play some? I love didgeridoo.

[44:49] Ray Hartjen: I I don't have skills with it. I I have it as an interesting uh, you know, little thing, but it's uh it's uh Southern Hemisphere thing, uh and they have various notes to it, but it's this kind of droning uh it's it's primarily played in like Australia, like it comes from the Aboriginity culture. You know what it is, Alan?

[45:13] Alan Seales: I I don't know, it's just an answer like a djim bay, a dijury do. I just like non-standard things.

[45:17] Ray Hartjen: Like I'll send you, I'll send you some really good didgeridoo because like people who are really good, they can inhale through their nose while they're still blowing out of their mouth, so it's an uninterrupted uh uh air stream of like a stream of noise. It's just incredible, it's really good.

[45:34] Ray Hartjen: It's cool it it and yes, it does come from like Australia, but it it was worked its way into like Celtic music, yeah, yeah, uh and things like that. And it's uh it's it it's pretty cool and it's I like noise um you know I I you know, I I love like all sorts of different percussion instruments I wouldn't call myself a percussionist but just make a noise and I I you know so many people say I'm not musical you know I have any musical talent and I'm like I I think you probably do a shaker you have what you have this rhythm section in your chest right your heart beating and all this and you know there's there's uh there is a rhythm uh to everyone's life whether you know you're kind of conscious of it or not uh and I and I you know for those people who really focus on the rhythm section as a musician being a bass player or a percussionist uh you know that's that they really live live their rhythm it's tough I mean you're you you're carrying the whole band um for for a lot of it all right so you can also I also like to tell folks I uh working for a music school it's like if you want to play in a band be a bass player there are a million guitar players but you're always looking for a bass player.

[46:39] Heather Vickery: My daughter plays the bass.

[46:40] Ray Hartjen: Yeah she tap a dead bass she she she will be in any band that she wants to be in.

[46:45] Ray Hartjen: Yeah she also writes music of course because so she let people do and plays the regular guitar like the acoustic guitar. Um but she digs her bass.

[46:53] Heather Vickery: Well now there there is no difference between uh an acoustic guitar and uh and an electric guitar. Same instrument just different sound.

[47:02] Ray Hartjen: So uh there you go she can play them both.

[47:05] Heather Vickery: So we'll wrap here up here with our famous infamous question of just what is your relationship with failure?

[47:12] Ray Hartjen: Uh we're uh we're close friends. Uh I have uh failed way more than I have uh than I have succeeded. Uh I'm also a a big believer that failure is good. You know, from a a uh corporate America viewpoint. I used to love to lead my teams with if you took if you did everything right, if you you know, access the information and acted on all the information that was available to you. Yeah, you made a decision and it didn't work out. Well, good for you. I mean, you you did it in the right way. You did you didn't get the result that you're striving for, but at least you did it in the right way and you used all that information. And I think it's okay to to fail. You know, there's uh I think there's a tendency to for people to be afraid of failure.

Uh and and certainly there's that mental outcome. Nobody I don't want to fail. I just f fail uh because you're trying. I'm I'm trying, and I I don't think there's a a penalty for a lot of failure. There's not a lot of fatal failures. You know, if you if you go out with hate speech or something like that, that's gonna be kind of a fatal flaw. But if you if you do things with good intentions, you know, it's just a learning aspect.

[48:15] Ray Hartjen: Uh learn from your failures. That's how we learn how to walk. That's how we learn how to talk. That's how we almost everything we do is built on trying, uh and then, you know, getting feedback, whether it's ourself or somebody else giving it to you, uh, and and then trying to adapt and correct our behavior. So my my relationship was failure is that we're uh we're like two peas in a pod. Uh and boy, you know, someday I would love to to, you know, maybe be more strangers uh than we are at this point in time. But uh but you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? You know, and so I'll I'll look at um, you know, uh like this book, Immaculate, it's it's been, you know, successful and very proud of that book.

I'm also proud of this Indy 500 book. Uh back here, the Indy 500, a year-long quest to win the greatest spectacle in racing. I think it's a great book. Not a whole lot of people have bought it. Uh, you know, and it's so so at this point in time, I'd say that book's a a a failure uh for me to tell the story. Book sales, but not a failure in the storytelling book sales and what how I feel about the book, but like how can I get people to understand that they want to buy this book? You know, how can I, you know, how can I get somebody who has read it, who has reviewed it nicely, you know, to tell somebody else about it. Say you should you should get that book. So yeah, it's a it's a great question. I'm glad you asked it. And uh, you know, for me, we're we're we're kissing cousins, me and failure.

[49:32] Heather Vickery: Kids and cousins. I love that. Um, I think that you're just a really fun, fascinating person, Ray. And I'm so glad you came to spend a little time with us. Also, you're very patient and and we appreciate that.

[49:45] Ray Hartjen: Um I appreciate the opportunity. Uh uh I I like what you're doing, and uh, I like both you. I think you two are cool. So uh thank you so much for the opportunity. Um I'm looking forward to uh getting feedback from the audience. I mean, uh for you audience folks out there, there's ever anything I can do for you if there's stories you want to tell me, particularly if you're a cancer patient or cancer patient uh caregiver or just a cancer patient ally, you can get you can get a hold of me anywhere. Uh my name is Ray Hartjen. That's my website, all my social media handles, uh, etc. Uh, you know, some of the coolest things that I've had the honor of doing is connecting with with patients and caregivers from around the world. Uh and I truly uh would love to hear your story, understand uh how I can uh how I can help you.

[50:30] Heather Vickery: I love that. That's awesome. Yeah, and and grab Ray's book. So we've got Outflanked and the Indy 500 one and Immaculate, but you also have a book, me, myself, and my multiple myeloma.

[50:42] Ray Hartjen: So yeah, uh that was uh that's uh a memoir. Again, me wanting to be a resource for the community, uh learning, uh, you know, and having that ambition. And uh so uh I hope it's uh viewed as a value-added resource. It uh My NetWriters Proceeds benefit the multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. So I wanted to be, you know, by the community for the community to benefit the community. And and like I said, you know, I've had these these these patient interactions with, you know, people because of the book from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, Egypt, Iran of all places, you know, throughout the UK and the United States. And it's been the honor of my life, other than uh, you know, being married for over 30 years and raising two beautiful children, uh just connecting with folks.

Uh, you know, again, asking that question was a chance. Uh uh, you know, not so much. Uh, you know, by writing a book and inviting people to please reach out to me if there's anything I can do to help.

[51:34] Heather Vickery: That's great. That's awesome. Yeah. I feel like you're bend over and sunshine would come out of your ass. Like you are just a fun guy to hang with.

[51:41] Ray Hartjen: I hope so. Man, I try. I'm trying on my hardest.

[51:46] Heather Vickery: That's awesome. Well, hope everybody will connect with Ray and follow along. And um, you'll keep us posted, uh, Ray on the next book. We actually have a bookshop.org page.

[51:57] Ray Hartjen: I do, and there's a a whole library for was it chance guest books. So we'll make sure you're up there.

[52:02] Heather Vickery: And I will uh I will put you on my bookshop.org shop as well.

[52:07] Ray Hartjen: Uh thank you. Uh yeah. Um it's that for and for those of you aren't aren't familiar with it. If you love independent booksellers, go to bookshop.org. You can select you can buy any book you want there, and then you can select uh what store you wanted to come from. Support of the indie bookstore. Absolutely makes a big difference, y'all. Ray, thank you so much.

[52:25] Ray Hartjen: Thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate it. Appreciate you. Take care. Bye.

[52:32] Heather Vickery: Hey folks, you we you might be able to tell that maybe the sound is a little different. Alan and I look a little different. We did not do our regular rap right after our conversation with Ray because poor little broken Alan had to rush out and get his shoulder look.

[52:48] Alan Seales: Oh dude.

[52:50] Heather Vickery: Oh yeah.

[52:50] Alan Seales: So in now between recording the episode and today, it's two weeks over two weeks.

[52:50] Heather Vickery: Two weeks.

[52:58] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[52:58] Heather Vickery: And um got two x-rays, nothing, nothing broken. Bones are fine. But they they think I I went to see an orthopedic surgeon who ordered an MRI. That hasn't happened yet. And they think I I tore my arm labia.

[53:14] Alan Seales: Holy shit.

[53:15] Heather Vickery: Sorry, labrum. You didn't catch the joke.

[53:17] Alan Seales: Oh, well, I'm ignoring you.

[53:20] Heather Vickery: I tried to ignore you. I caught the joke. I just felt like I didn't need to feed that.

[53:25] Alan Seales: Oh, come on. But you wouldn't let me get away with it. What the audience is gonna be like, what a moron.

[53:33] Heather Vickery: Labias are not in your arm, dipshit.

[53:36] Alan Seales: I have a funny story. I have a funny story like that. My niece, who was taught all of the appropriate words for all of her body parts when she was very, very young. She was about four. My mom was buckling her into the car seat. And my mom said, okay, be careful. I don't I don't want to squash your urethra. And my four-year-old niece goes, uh, Gigi, I think you meet my Volva. That's not my urethra. Four year old.

[54:09] Heather Vickery: Oh gosh.

[54:10] Alan Seales: My mom's like, yeah, that it that is. Yeah, that tracks. Well, so in this last two and a half weeks, I've also caught a cold that or the actually getting over the super flu that everyone's had in New York. Anyway, that's why my voice is all sexy musician right now.

[54:25] Heather Vickery: Um sexy hangover voice hangover voice.

[54:28] Alan Seales: So Ray, this dude has been going on for 50 decades. I have to tell you though, I have not laughed that hard. I I have not I I don't know how much of it'll make it into the final cut, but I laughed so hard that I had to lay my head down on my desk and could not catch my breath. It was needed that it was great.

[54:47] Heather Vickery: It was great. It was great.

[54:49] Alan Seales: My math was not mathing. My brain was not braining.

[54:54] Heather Vickery: No, I get it. You were in holiday mode on it.

[54:56] Alan Seales: I was in holiday holiday pain avoidant mode. I don't think I'd even popped any Motrin at that point.

[55:01] Heather Vickery: Ray is a really fascinating guy to me. His um, you know, he he did all the things, he checked off all the boxes, and then he got cancer, and he's like, Well, wait a minute. The fuck? Like, I I want to do all the things I want to do. And has done them.

[55:21] Alan Seales: You can't you you see stories in movies about stuff like that, but then there are others that you know, I don't know, the reality of life just kinda is kind of like, well, I guess I A, I don't have the energy, or B, I don't have the money, or C, I have this like they just don't do it like he did. And he just made it happen.

[55:40] Heather Vickery: And I that is repeatedly repeatedly, and it's still making it happen.

[55:45] Alan Seales: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love how he tied storytelling in, is he looks back. Like, you know, this is I think something most people we just don't cause long enough to piece things together. But as he looks back, he's like, Oh, there was always storytelling. There storytelling and marketing, they're storytelling, you know. And then he's like, Well, maybe I should just tell you know beautiful stories. And then started writing these books, and and we didn't get to talk about this very much. Um a little bit at there at the end, but Ray does a lot of work with cancer patients, families of cancer patients, and he's got this beautiful support network.

[56:24] Heather Vickery: Um we didn't want to get too invasive with him and he shared his cancer and that it is not curable, but it's treatable. I think that means you're being treated all the time, right? Like we didn't really I I didn't want to focus on that. It felt like that was invasive, but um that work is really important to him. So if that resonates with you, yeah, reach out.

[56:45] Alan Seales: Well all the all the connection links will be in the show notes as as they are. Normally he's got a lot of them too. I'm looking at them right now.

[57:01] Heather Vickery: Of like being able to use both both sides of your brain equally.

[57:04] Alan Seales: Yeah, oh yeah, I can't. Between the the creativity and the logic and the math and the finance and everything. You have that it's hard, yeah.

[57:12] Heather Vickery: And it's it's really hard to focus like he's done and to like be able to combine or sat not not combined to be able to satisfy all of the itches, everything that you're drawn to because of your creativity and your logic.

[57:27] Alan Seales: See, you could satisfy your itches, Alan, if you would ever be satisfied, but you I could never be satisfied.

[57:34] Heather Vickery: I would never be satisfied.

[57:35] Alan Seales: I knew it was coming. I walked right into that with open eyes.

[57:38] Heather Vickery: It's all good. Can we talk a minute for just a millisecond? Do you guess I remember I remember the story? But I don't know if our audience knows that story.

[57:47] Alan Seales: When when we're going to be able to do it, okay, we reel a second, that's the lyric.

[57:50] Heather Vickery: Yes.

[57:50] Alan Seales: We became instant best friends. You've heard, maybe you've listened to or watched our very first episode of Was It Chance. We tell our story, we met at a podcasting conference, we became instant best friends. We're putting all of our time together. We're texting, we're talking, and we of course have Broadway and Hamilton in common and all these things. And so I sent him a text message that said, uh, can we be real a second? And I was just expecting you to completely immediately get that. And you were like, yeah, absolutely. But let's not chat in the conference app. Here's my phone number. Nicest guy ever. But also it was just a a musical wine.

[58:30] Heather Vickery: Yeah. I was like, I don't know what you were about to tell me, but I was like, I don't want to put whatever it is into this app that is made for conference collect data collection. Here's my number. Call me. I'm here for you. I don't know you, but let's do this.

[58:44] Alan Seales: Yeah, we were done. We were really sad by that. And you were like, no, idiot. It's just a lyric.

[58:52] Heather Vickery: For just a millisecond. For just a millisecond. That's all I wanted.

[58:56] Alan Seales: Oh, anyway. Well, if you've journeyed with us through all the milliseconds to the end of this episode, thank you for listening. Thank you for checking out Ray and all his all of his information in the show notes. Thank you for leaving a rating and a review. We love that.

[59:10] Heather Vickery: We love that. We appreciate it. How can people find us, follow us, write those reviews? Tell us what they think of the show.

[59:19] Alan Seales: Oh goodness. Well, uh, at Was It Chance Podcast at gmail.com at Was It Chance on uh Instagram. Was it Chance Pod on TikTok? Was it Chance Podcast on Blue Sky? Was it Chance on Instagram? Oh, the link they're on the in the show notes.

[59:35] Heather Vickery: In the show notes and the website, and you know, whatever. It's cool.

[59:38] Alan Seales: Um anyway. So I'll see you in about two minutes to record our end of your episode.

[59:46] Heather Vickery: Wait, hold on. You've been listening to Was It Chance. The podcast about embracing opportunity and taking an intentional risk for your creative life. I'm Heather Vickery.

[59:56] Alan Seales: And I'm a very sick Alan Seales.

[59:59] Heather Vickery: Oh, I love that sexy bit voice button. Bye-bye.