From Abandonment to a Brain Tumor Shannon DalPozzal's life reads like a Danielle Steel Novel

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Welcome to the unforgettable conversations podcast, where you'll meet people from all walks of life. Everyone from experts in their fields to ordinary folks leading extraordinary lives. We're pulling back the curtain every week on sometimes difficult, often hilarious, but always engaging conversations that promise to be unforgettable. I'm your host, Sandy McKenna. I have been so fortunate over the years to meet many inspiring people who have overcome insurmountable odds. Today's guest is one of them. The deck was stacked against her from birth. She was born to a mother who adored her. But to a father who didn't want her, the rollercoaster of ups and downs that followed her throughout her life. Read like a Danielle steel, novel abandonment, adoption, motherhood, divorce, a brain tumor, the glass ceiling, several careers, reinventions, and. Ultimately finding love at 30,000 feet. But the common thread throughout her journey has been one of determination fueled by love. Her resilience has paved the way for an extraordinary life. Her name? Shannon DalPozzal.. Now let's get this conversation started

sandi: 1:08

Well, you've got a great story to tell Shannon. Let's start where it all began.

Shannon: 1:12

My, biological father wanted my mother, to not have me. They have been married for about three years and, he didn't want kids. He chose a different path, the drugs and alcohol path. But my mom wanted me, so she had me anyway. Mom left him, because he would steal her money she couldn't buy baby food or anything. She had been trying to get divorced this whole time that didn't work out. It takes like three years or something for a divorce to go through it the spouse does not sign the papers. So then it ended up being like an abandonment thing. I think I was about nine months old, maybe when she met Robin. He told me that the first time mom had him over for dinner, she had made lasagna. She knew it was his favorite. she spent her entire paycheck and when he went in the refrigerator to go get something to drink, all that was in the fridge was baby formula and baby food.. There was no food. The next morning he went to the grocery store and he stocked up the kitchen with all the food and he just took care of mom and I ever since that day. They ended up getting married when I was about four and a half years old. They had my little brother. They were just great parents, just great people, both of them. when I was 10, they ended up, giving me the opportunity to be adopted by my stepfather Robin. I remember that day clearly sitting in the judges chambers. I was nine about to be 10. It was August 10th, 1983. And I sat there with the judge and we had until noon until 12 o'clock. My biological father had until then to show up and only had to do was say he still wanted me. He still wanted to be in my life. And then they would not change my name, nothing like that, that were going to waive all the back child support. So 12 noon comes around. And it's just me and the judge and I look at the clock, I'm gonna kind of look at him and I just. Give me the paper to sign and he goes, so you know what you're doing? And I said, yup. And I signed the paper. I changed my name from Shannon Elizabeth Romano to Shannon Robyn. I actually changed my first name to my stepdad's name and added that kept the Elizabeth and then added Hearst My dad Robbins that adopted me, my dad, was, higher up in the fire service. He'd always told me. You screw up, you're gonna end up working the fire department.

sandi: 3:50

Well, not only did you work in the fire department, you work there for decades.

Shannon: 3:55

I did. I ended up working there for 26 years, but what a screw up, right. But no, it was good. What I learned so much about myself in the fire service was I just liked to help people. I like to do things and fix things for other people. And I just really found my niche there. Being that calm voice for people when they were having their just terrible day that was just my way. I guess that whole hospitality thing, it's even a 911. You have to be customer service. Even when someone's having their most terrible day of their lives, you still have to help them find their way to where they need to be so they can move on or take care of whatever issue they're dealing with.

sandi: 4:45

My question for you is how did you deal with the stress of that? That is a really high, stressful job.

Shannon: 4:54

It is. It is, especially in south Louisiana with all the hurricanes and there's high crime there. There's a lot of drug use and, well, it's wonderful place to live in the food's good. And everybody likes to have a good time. There was a whole nother side of humanity and you see that all the time in public safety. Accidentally fell into travel writing. I thought I was going to write romance novels. I started researching how to do that because I, I wanted a creative outlet, just something to do on my days off. An editor at a local newspaper. He said, well, why don't you come work for me on, on your days off, I'll teach you the newspaper business so you can get your writing skills honed. So I was like, okay, I can do that. So I interviewed a lady that wrote romance novels, like Harlequin novels. And then I found out that, wow, they just really don't make a whole lot of money. It's a lot of work for just, so you really have to love what you're doing or have another way to sustain yourself for life, unfortunately. Um, so I knew that I wasn't going to leave to that fire department job anytime soon. I'd say that my money on the side. And I took my family to The Bahamas on one of these newspaper deals I saw in the newspaper. It was like, oh, that's a great deal. We're going to go to Marine Bahama island. It's all inclusive. The kids get to go. I think they were like three and five. We get there. Oh, it was like the whole. Bait and switch thing. Like it was horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. And we still had a great time because, you can make the most of your vacation that you can. When we got back, I was telling the editor, I said, this was terrible. I said, somebody needs to like, let people know about these issues that can come along when you bought that great deal that you see on in a newspaper or an a. And he goes, well, why don't you write about for the, for the paper? And I said, okay. So I wrote about what to avoid or what to look for when you're booking your vacation. Next thing I know, I start getting emails on emails for a press trip. Hey, would you like to come check out our, our place in Jamaica? I'm like, um, Yeah, how much is this going to cost me? And then of course my dad, when I told him, I said, yeah, I said, I got invited to go to Jamaica and Caruso and they're taking care of everything. And he goes, that's a scam. You're going to get, get abducted when you get there. And I go, no, now I don't know. I just feel like. I need to go for this. It's scary, you know, to go be a 30 or 28 year old mother of two and hop on a plane and go to these islands with people. I don't know. I've never met them before. I don't know who they are, but I did it. It was a little scary. But wow. What a payoff for taking that big, scary step and just going with my gut, going with that inner voice, you need to do this, you need to do this. And, that's where it started. Where I had an outlet away from public safety, away from the stress, the fire service, where I saw the whole other side of humanity, when people are having their best day of their life. Cause they're on vacation and they're having a great time and they're relaxing, they're away from their normal routine.

sandi: 8:23

And that was really a beginning of almost a second career for you because you went from fire safety and 9 1 1. And while you were still doing that all the time, you really were a pioneer back in the early days of social media.

Shannon: 8:42

My brain always is looking for a puzzle or something, new, a new challenge and, social media wasn't really. Taken off yet. I don't even know that Facebook was around yet. But online websites were, so I started out with an online newsletter and a website called the traveling firefighter.com. What I did was I found all these deals for people that were in public safety, so they could save money on vacation. And I would write about, you know, a couple of little things. From there, it evolved to, other online sites that didn't have travel yet that I saw a need that needed to be filled. There was a void. So I'd reach out and say, hi. Do you need somebody to write about romantic getaways? There was, a website called Bella online at the time. So this was, this is a long time ago. So I started riding the romantic getaways page for this website.. So it was more of the micro site. As I kept developing and learning and trying things out, I did come across, a few unsavory characters, who were scammy So you learn some street smarts or along the way, about getting taken for a ride of what can happen, pitfalls. Ultimately, I kept advocating for the whole online travel. A lot of these places that go, well, you need a print outlet. With, so I'd fall back on the newspaper that I wrote for that was just a very small newspaper, but they would rather have a newspaper where 5,000 people read it, then, websites where you could write evergreen content and you've got hundreds of thousands of people at the time looking at it and I couldn't comprehend why they just weren't getting it like, Hey, print is great. It's really pretty. But this, everybody gets to see this. so it's been fun to be part of that beginning of how things evolved and when Twitter first started and Facebook, It was so much fun. When Twitter came out, I used that as note keeping, I would take a picture and I tweeted because for me, when I would get back home, I was like, oh, look, I've got a picture of the menu. I've got this, a picture of the food. Now I've got the timeline of how my trip went instead of just taking a bunch of pictures and trying to decipher when I got back home. And I didn't realize anybody was actually looking at it on Twitter. You are aware of how Twitter, we, we all evolved and, that's how I met you guys, you know, was through Twitter and it was the same thing. You guys were pioneers as well. it's so funny that when you look back now, it really wasn't that long ago, but it seems like a lifetime ago

sandi: 11:28

The landscape of Twitter is not at all what we experienced when we started, it was truly a conversation. You could really engage and meet people and who have become lifelong friends. We really did take some chances meeting all these people that, I mean, at the time Rick was my business partner and I met him on Twitter. I went and met somebody that had this idea about a company and how to create this, travel business. And so I went and met him and, but, you know, I wouldn't do that today.

Shannon: 12:04

There's a lot of things I think we wouldn't do today. Cause we've. The pros and cons of, of that. with, with Twitter and with the online, I then blogging started, you know, it was started as the word web blog. I was like, oh, what's this word, press. Let me figure this out. And of course, it's like, whenever you need somebody on Twitter, like when you know Rick and you guys, go into these projects together, you got a lot of trust, you have to trust and. So I did that. I was sitting at work one night and I was like, I've got it. I'm not so many people that are, they, they seem to be really nice people, they know what they're doing. But they need an outlet as well to, to place a lot of stories. I remember it was about two o'clock in the morning. I registered the domain name, traveling mamas dot com. Then I'm just sent an email out to a couple of girls that I knew, and I said, Hey, look, I got this great idea. You don't have to do it if you don't want to. But I think it'd be a lot of fun. Just be a place for us to do our stories. And I can show you guys how to, use the WordPress site, how to do the stories. So that was just how things just kept evolving from. You know that the traveling firefighter.com to the Romania, to getaways for somebody else, to me having my own sites. Wow. What a ride? What an evolution of how things went, because next thing I knew, when there is power in numbers, When you you're doing something and you're not alone and you have other people that are excited about it as well, the momentum just really picks up very quickly. For me, I'm like, oh look, I started with $10. We got this going. It's a business. That's when I learned this is not play time anymore. This is like a real big, legitimate thing. A lot of lessons learned through there. A lot of fun, a lot of good times. Just the evolution we all grow up. Don't we, we, we keep maturing as we keep going.

sandi: 14:08

In the early days there were no examples. It was kind of build it and they will come. There were no brands on Twitter. There was no Instagram. We were. Early early adapters. We were there before the brands were there and we had to convince them that, Hey, this Twitter is a legitimate thing. You know, what we're doing is legitimate. You as well as, Rick and I did video when nobody else was

Shannon: 14:35

doing video. Right. I had my little flip camera. Yes. The little flip camera. We were, we were some of the first people to start doing that and, that's just crazy the first Twitter press trip ever was with princess cruises. And that was actually the first cruise I ever went on. That in itself took me down a whole nother road as well with my, my travel writing career. I felt blessed all the time we give, we get so many wonderful options, especially when you're really open to it. It was like that trip to Jamaica. It's scary, but you just have to take a step and you just have to go, go forward. What a journey, what a ride we've been on and it's. It's not been all, roses.

sandi: 15:28

No. And during this time you're multitasking, you've got the job with the fire service.

Shannon: 15:34

You're writing for

sandi: 15:35

the paper. You've got your blog. You're married with two children and

Shannon: 15:40

there's some issues there. Well, there are, there really are. So I worked a lot of nights and worked a lot of weekends. So whenever I was off work, I very much wanted to do things with my children, with my family. One of the fun sides of how the evolution with the travel writing side of things with it used to be the solo trips, but because I was starting to do family travel, they were allowing me to bring my children with me and my husband at the time, if he wanted. He didn't ever really want to go. He's like, man, I want him to stay home and work. Okay. Well, I'm not sitting here. I'd say kids load up, get in the car. I had a little Volkswagen, they get their bags, they get in the car and we'd go. We take little road trips. We had a great time doing that. But then again, where's the marriage, where's the relationship, and here I'm writing about these romantic getaways and I'm finding I'm going by myself to write all this place right. About these places. So, because I know what's from me to, to me, what I needed. Um, and I really wanted someone that would, would, was there with me and would have fun. As many marriages do people grow apart and then you get into the moment of, okay, are we gonna fix this? Are we gonna get this going together again? I'm trying to think what year it was. Cause I tried to block it from my mind that I found out that I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I went to the doctor's appointment by myself. I was told that I had a brain tumor by myself. I shouldn't have had to be by myself for these things, and I, I just remember sitting in the parking lot, finding out that there's this thing in my head. Which explained a lot of my fatigue, my headaches, dizziness. It just makes you take a step back and look at your whole life. What am I doing? So this went on for a couple of years where I was just, I kept going to doctors trying to figure out what to fix me. You know, somebody do something to help me. Nobody would touch it because of where. So even though it was a benign brain tumor, it, it was still life-threatening. And I think that's what a lot of people don't seem to comprehend is even though something might be benign in, um, its DNA makeup, the cellular makeup, it's not benign to your life. It affects your life in so many ways. I sat down with my husband at the time once Do you think if we didn't have kids, would we still be married and he goes, no. And I said, well, I said, look, I don't want to continue to work the shift work for, what, till I die, sit in this chair until I die. I want to do the things that we had talked about when we first got married, we talked about, eventually retiring and moving to the mountains and having another job. And he goes, I'm just not going to leave Louisiana.. And I said, well, then we really need to figure something out. And. It was about a week or two later, he comes back and he goes, I didn't, I really didn't mean that what I said about, if we weren't didn't have the kids, we wouldn't still be married. I said, no, no. I said, you were being honest. You were being honest. So we need to really think about what we're going to do here then, because I just, I don't want this for my life. That was the beginning of the end. That was the beginning of. The downward spiral of our relationship as husband and wife, then he would find all these things that I was doing wrong because it had to be me instead of just saying this, we did what we were supposed to. We have these two great kids. We can still be great parents to them, but let's just not fair to be with each other, if we don't want the best for each other. I ended up, filing papers. And I felt like that's what I was supposed to be doing. Like so many people they're like, I have to ask the receptionist. I said, am I supposed to be crying? Like I'm sitting in the receptionist office. Am I supposed to be crying? I'm bringing you a deposit to start divorce proceedings for a 17 year marriage. And she said, No. She said, it's all on what you, you know, your emotions that you feel. And I said, well, I feel like I'm doing the right thing, she goes, well, there it is. So I, I was doing the right thing for my life path. Unfortunately, the kids, when they're younger, they don't see, they only see what's right in front of them. And they, um, especially my daughter, Lauren came up with all these scenarios in her head on why, why did they get divorced? What did mom do? Bad? You know, like she just came up with all these stories and stuff, but now, you know, now she sees that she's now that she's in her early twenties, she's like, I'm glad you and dad get along. You know, I'm glad that you're happy. I'm glad he's happy. Like, yeah, yeah. Look, look how awesome life is for all of us. You know, we're all happy.

sandi: 21:08

And while that was a sad ending, it was it made room for your new beginning? Well,

Shannon: 21:14

it did because we were, legally separated for 18 months, but I still kept our, our family things going like my parents, they couldn't seem to understand why. I want to do this for the kids that were going to do things that are great for the kids. And we shared the house. So we didn't want Lauren to have to move out of her bedroom and be displaced or go to a new place because it was enough change knowing mom and dad aren't gonna be married anymore. We even went on a family cruise while we were separated because our oldest was graduating from high school and we wanted to have one last, Hey, this is change. It's not bad. We can still all make memories. So we went, it was fine. We had a great time, but I had found out when I was there, that I had been accepted as a patient at the Cleveland clinic. Even though we were, going through our divorce I asked him, I said, do you want to go with me to the Cleveland clinic? Because you know how scary to kind of go by yourself, get on a plane, to go see doctors. And it's like last resort, last chance in my mind of, of getting some answers. And he goes, no, no, I'm good. Oh, you go, I'm going to go. Okay. So I was going to drive because I was really on a budget and I was like, well, I gotta save money. Even though it's my life here. He still gets, cause that doesn't stop. And then at the last minute I said, I'm buying myself a plane ticket and I'm staying in a hotel and I'm going to go home own little, little trip there. So I flew to Cleveland, a friend of mine who was a producer from Baton Rouge that moved to Cleveland. Said, well, I'll take you to dinner, you know, so you won't have to be by yourself at least the whole time you're here so I went and visited him. I went to my appointments and so when I got, got to the doctor's office with all this hope somebody's going to fix me, somebody is going to have many answers. The. The neurologist came in and he goes, yeah, I don't know why you came here. He said, we canceled your neurosurgeon appointment for after this. He said, well, your tumor is in a spot. I mean, we're just not going to touch it. I mean, unless you are like, when your death bed, we just, we just don't feel comfortable touch. I remember when he left, after saying that I was so angry, what was so angry and I got my purse and I just walked out. I didn't check out. I didn't get my scans.. I didn't care. I went to the bathrooms and I cried and I sobbed because to me, my marriage was over. I did not see any future for myself. And I felt like this is so unfair. And so I walked out the bathroom and I had my sunglasses on, I sucked it up because I was like, well, I kind of go back. I'm leaving. I'm gonna go back home. Just forget this. And I walked out and I remember looking at all these other patients in that waiting room, no hair, oxygen tanks. And I said, as bad as this is for me, it's not that bad. So I said, I'm done. I'm not going to work nights and weekends anymore. Throw away the rest of my life market in a job that I'm not appreciated at all because that's one thing Sandi, even though I worked in the fire service all these years, I was a woman working for a bunch of men who are a couple of them are narcissists and they would not no matter how many classes I took, no matter how hard I tried to work my way up that way up that ladder, they kept stomping on me and trying to keep me on the bottom rung of the ladder for 26 years. So it's frustrating. You want to feel validated when you look back, what did you do with your life? You want to feel like you accomplished something? I just felt so defeated that day. So sad. So I went back to my hotel room and I tried to change my flight. I wanted to go back home instead of staying an extra day. And they said, no, you can't change your flight. You can do a same day flight change in the morning, but we can't, there's no seats. We can't move you. So I was like, fine. So I got in a taxi, and I went to, the, music hall of fame. And there wasn't hardly anybody in there. And I just went through because the music so much from my childhood, from before I started at the fire service and I went and looked at every single one of those artists that were memorialized in this museum, and I read the lyrics that the handwritten lyrics, the stories behind the music. I listened to the music. I listened to the words. And then at the end, there's where they have the award ceremonies, the big theater. And I walked through and I sat down and they start playing parts of different awards, ceremonies, and they played the song. Let It Be. And it brought such a sense of a calmness to me at that moment, the words just let it be. And I said, you know, I'm fighting, I'm fighting all this. What am I fighting? What am I fighting for? And I went back to my room and, took a hot shower. Had a glass of wine know, it's like, you know, just, just go back home tomorrow and just take it from there. And, so I did, I woke up the next morning and I still have a little bit of frustration before. because I've just felt like that doctor had like no bedside manner. Like the delivery was just such a, yeah. I don't know why he came here. Like I just spent like $1,500 to go for you to tell me he can't do anything, but I'm trying to change my flight again. The next morning for an earlier flight still couldn't do it. I was like, okay. Alright, whatever. So I went and took my a regular flight. I should back up, I did have breakfast with my little friend, the producer. We went and had pancakes and, his apartment, he said here, I want you to hold my Emmys. So he had two Emmys and I held them in my hands and I go, oh, one for each hand and this is awesome. You know, this is, this gives me some, some inspiration. I'm holding two Emmy's before I go back to what just happened. How crazy is this? So I get on the plane. I made sure that my seat, I had nobody sitting next to me. When I picked my seat, I was like, okay, this is an empty row. Last second. That's where I'm sitting. Everybody gets on the plane. I still have. My seat next to me empty. And I'm like, thank goodness. Cause I just really don't want to talk to anybody. I don't want to see anybody. I do. I can't people today. And right before the door shuts, this handsome man sits down next to me. He's wearing this plaid shirt, shorts. Flip-flops really laid back and he goes, Hey, um, Hey, and I just kind of do my thing. And then he gets to talking to me throughout the. And he starts telling me about Maine and I start telling him about my travel writing. And it was like, I had met my best friend, like we had just, hadn't seen each other in a long time and we're just catching up and it was really, really great. Right before he got off the plane, he said, Hey, could I get your number? I'd love to have coffee with you and get to know you better while I'm into. And I said, sure. So I gave him my number. And now here we are, we're married. I'm living in Maine, in the cottage. I'm sitting in the cottage now that he was telling me about on the plane. And I just sometimes have to laugh at the irony of. And there's the way the unexpected happens and we get to be where we need to be. Maybe it's not where we want it to be. Never even imagined it.

sandi: 30:16

There's good news and an update on your tumor.

Shannon: 30:19

That's right. Before our first year wedding anniversary,, I had gone back to my neurologist in Baton Rouge who had told me before he didn't want to touch it as well. Then I ended up going to mass general, see a neurologist there who said, no, we don't, we don't want to touch it until you're like on the verge of death. I'm like, okay. So my tumor grew. My tumor grew.. It had a growth spurt and, it was really scary because that's when I found out that my time had run out with this, whatever it was, that journey. So I had the surgery., at first the surgeon didn't want to do it. He's like, I'm kind of 50%. I'm on the fence if you should have the surgery or not, he said, because I'm just afraid that it's not going to turn out. Well, if we, if we try to remove it, he said, I kind kinda recommend radiation, but we're going to have, um, a doctor's conference. So all these doctors got together and reviewed my file and they presented me these options. One was, was do nothing. And then I would just pass out and never wake up again. the second one was radiation, which would possibly shrink the tumor. But I would possibly get brain cancer within two years and then surgery wouldn't be an option. Yeah. And then the last one was the riskiest, which was surgery, but where the tumor was, it was about to touch. There's a vein that an artery that goes right through the top of your brain, the, sagittal sinus, and my tumor was touching it. So if I went into surgery and knicked it, I would just bleed out and that will be it. So. I was like, well, what do we do? So my husband, James, he went with me to all my appointments, which, you know, That right there. That's a big difference from what I was dealing with before. So I had somebody that was there with me and he went to the radiologist with me and he went to the surgeon with me and I asked the radiologist. I said, if it was your daughter or your mother or your wife, what, what would you suggest? And he said, he said, if they were older, I'd say the radiation, but you're a. You, if you do the radiation, you're just going to be dealing with this for a very, very long time. he said, you guys just gotta go with what you feel is the best, best option for you and know that it's just going to be okay. And I said, well, that's what I needed to hear. Cause I was kind of feeling like that surgery route and I did it and my surgeon who did it. He said I was his miracle. Because it was supposed to be a six hour surgery. And he said, when he opened me up, the tumor just pretty much lifted itself out. So they were able to not have to shave my head. They were able to, so everything you can't even tell me, hello, look at all this hair, you know, this is so. Minimal minimal recovery time. You know, it took, it did take about a year until I started feeling really good again, but as long as I sleep at night, I'm great. I'm great. And it's, it's like crazy. It's so crazy. Cause I was good until the surgery until I went in for the surgery stuff. I even had a margarita party two nights before I haven't all my friends. Like if I don't make it well, at least y'all have good time, you know, because I tried to be very, very positive and upbeat about it. My parents at the time were, they were really, really nervous and upset. And I remember my mom telling me that she had just prayed she said I was just praying, pray that I would rather the Lord take me than you. And I was like, mom, we know it's going to be okay. But right before I went into surgery right before they wheeled me in cause I can't give you anything for your nerves because they're dealing with the brain. I was good until they wheeled me down the hallway and James had to let go of my hand. And I was just like, I can't do this. And when I said I can't do this, I was saying, I don't want to die. I, I can't let this be the end. That's that's really what I was saying. I'm still in. Right. Uh, every day, every day I wake up, I'm so grateful. I'm so thankful. I always wonder, why am I still here? Like, what is it because my kids am I supposed to be here to do some other things? One of the reasons why I was still here was because somebody had to take care of my parents, you know? They didn't stay around too much longer, too many more years after my surgery, but I was very honored

sandi: 35:11

I feel very much the same way. I took care of both my parents who died like yours within a very close amount of time. And it was the greatest privilege of my entire life was to be able to go to that.

Shannon: 35:26

It's true. It's true. And I'm just so thankful for, all the travel writing that I did when I look back, I think, wow, this gave me the opportunity to make so many beautiful memories with the people I love and care about because I, I w because of that first Twitter press cruise, I ended up getting more cruise invites and. I remember getting invited to, a carnival magic in the Mediterranean and I said, can I bring somebody? And I said, yeah, you can bring whoever you want. They just have to buy their own plane tickets. I said, well, if I asked my parents, would the three of us be able to share a cabin, would that be possible? Yeah. So I said, mom, dad, Y'all have always talked about taking dad to Europe because mom had been there before. I said, neither one of you been on a cruise and said, here's your opportunity. Let's go do it. And they did. And that was wow. The memories I was able to make with them. Just unforgettable, unforgettable. And I'm glad that we did that. And then my dad wanted a cruise again. He wanted to go to Alaska, but he kept putting it off, putting it off, putting it off. And that was one of the things he said to me on his, on his death bed when we had one of our conversations. It was the two of us and he said, I should have gone on that Alaska cruise. He said, I don't know. I don't know why I kept waiting. I said, I. And so I, I try to live by that, you know, like if you want to do something, make it happen. Stop coming up with excuses on why you can't do it. You know? Oh, I got work. Oh, I have to do this. Oh, I have to do that. No, you must not really want to do it then, because if you really want to do it, you're going to make it happen.

sandi: 37:11

And with all these extraordinary experiences that you had and you have had. I mean more experiences than somebody twice your age. So what is, what is your takeaway? what do you tell people? Your advice for them?

Shannon: 37:29

My advice is, opportunities are gonna come to you. Life is going to have you go a certain direction. And we can either fight it and make that path a windy, windy, long, difficult road, or we can open ourselves up to it and embrace the opportunities, even if they seem crazy. If, you know, in your heart and your gut inside of you, your intuition, that inner voice, if it feels like that's what you're supposed to do, then you need to do. Because you're being guided down your path and,, when you know what's right. It's right. My advice is trust, trust it, trust the path, trust the process. just trust it. Always evolve. Don't stop learning. Don't stop moving down your path. I mean, I I'm in Maine now and I'm on the verge of a whole nother life for myself that I didn't even imagine. I wouldn't be going down this road, you know, 10 years ago would not have even thought it. Has it been easy? No, it's not easy. especially when you do things and there's other people involved because they're not always ready to go down the journey as well. So sometimes you just gotta dig your heels in and you have to be determined and not let up. But just love people. Just love people where they're at. They may not be where you're at. I'm so thankful that I met you all those years ago, Sandy and you know, and I, when we talk about unforgettable conversations in moments, I will be forever grateful that time we went to Miami and we had a couple of days together, the conversations that we had

sandi: 39:14

I couldn't think of somebody that, is the epitome of resilience better than you. Truly grace and grit at it's fine.

Shannon: 39:24

Well, I appreciate that. I don't know if I can agree with the grace part all the time.

sandi: 39:30

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Shannon: 39:33

Cheers.

sandi: 39:35

Cheers to you,

39:38

As hunter S Thompson, so eloquently wrote. Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke thoroughly used up totally worn out and loudly proclaiming. Wow. What a ride. And what a ride it's been. Thank you for listening to the unforgettable conversations podcast. If you know, someone who might benefit from listening to this podcast. Please send it their way. If you would like to connect on Instagram, Facebook. Twitter, all the socials, the links are in the show notes below.