The Changes In Our Lives Uncategorized Episode 18: Will: Some Crazy Years, Part 2

Episode 18: Will: Some Crazy Years, Part 2

Join Will Schmierer and I as we discuss the “you can’t make this stuff up” experiences he’s had and how it has led him to learning how to breathe again.

If you’d like to get in touch with Will, you can find him at:

https://twitter.com/BougieWill

https://www.linkedin.com/in/willschmierer/

Transcription

Stacie Crawford
let’s pick up where we left off with Well, well, I have a question for you. Um, so

you you have your jersey attitude that is lovely and wonderful, because you are still friendly and kind and welcoming to people, okay, it’s it’s not standoffish, and you have your humor that you put into everything. And you talk about bad, you know, having bad days, but at the same time, it’s like, Well, I’m just gonna get to work and do this. Like, what’s their grief?

Will Schmierer
For which part is super apparent?

Stacie Crawford
I mean, like, honestly, like, like, the whole process, like, this is so much for one person to carry in such a short period of time. Like, what? I assumed there was grief for your, for your parents, you know, but but also free you?

Will Schmierer
Yeah, a little bit. Probably, you know, and I’m a very open book, I’m very kind of in touch.

For your typical male, I’m not your typical male, hetero, I guess, for lack of a better word. But yeah, I’ve always had female friends. So I’m in touch with my feelings and awareness, and all the things that most men are not typically known for.

When it came to my parents, you know? Yeah, I think the initial shock was so much that it took a while, but I’ve kind of processed that. I didn’t really specifically see anybody about it. But my parents raised us in a way that I feel like we were kind of prepared. For this to some degree, I mean, of course, never prepared. But when I think about the possibilities of what could have been versus what happened, it makes it a little easier, because we didn’t see them suffer. They were not getting old and dealing with you know, they didn’t even deal with things that I’ve dealt with now. Like, they didn’t have a stroke, I had a stroke. Okay. So, in that regard, you know, my parents lived a really good life, they had a lot of fun, they were able to retire younger by almost 10 years than the typical retiree. And yeah, of course, it sucks that they passed, I kind of think about them almost daily, probably daily, you know, in some way, shape, or form, whether they realize it or not. And we still laugh a lot as a my family here, like, my mom. So when I met my wife, I also met my daughter because and I wound up adopting my daughter. So my mother became a grandma before, she probably thought she would or wanted it just as kind of funny thing that like once. Ali was a part of my life, and our life, and we started building a family. My mom immediately became grandma Sue, which is my favorite thing in the world, and that I still refer to my mom as grandma. So that’s like, the daily in my own head, not mom, grandma Sue. And so, I don’t know, I just tried to laugh about the good times. And yeah, we had family that’s been pretty supportive and helpful, especially that first year. And my mom’s family, and even my dad’s to a degree, there’s sort of like a distance where we keep in touch, but it’s not like family, family, family family. We just had this different sort of Outlook. So it’s been okay. And of course, I have my two sisters and yeah, so with the parents, not easy, but, um, and yeah, I miss them. And yes, I would love to ask a few more questions and laugh, because we’re all kind of big on laughing. You know, that was my favorite thing to do. So as a kid growing up was trying to get my mom to I was kind of notorious for this to get her to spit out her tricks during dinner. She would have you know, she we as kids, we drank a lot of milk for some reason some we always had milk with my mom, I always got her to spit out for water. Like if if if I went a week without her spitting out water during dinner. I was pissed. So yeah, I mean, I just tried to think about the good times and the I’m sure there was some grief there probably was some level of self soothing with the alcohol but again, that was that was well established for everything I’ve done for myself. You know, I think we’re a couple years in and I’m First Year definitely. And it honestly helped that show, I hate to say that COVID helped me but COVID helped me because I didn’t have as much FOMO as I might have otherwise had because everybody was in lockdown. Even in Florida, we were in lockdown for a good couple months. So that helped, I had already been working remotely for a decade. So that also helps to a degree. That only got weird when things got weird. And it really had nothing to do with me as much as other factors. But um, that was fine. I was ready to get out of a career anyways. And then I kind of fell into coaching because I knew during 2020, I read a lot of books, like a lot of people. And I didn’t get into coaching because of COVID, I’m pretty sure it had direct impact because I was very into leadership, I wanted to be specifically a leadership coach. And I only really got away from that, because a lot of companies want certain certifications with that, and I’m not big on the certification process of coaching. And that’s fine, you know, like leadership coaching? I’m not sure. I feel like if you want to talk to coworkers of mine in the past, they would speak highly of me, probably. Because I’ve always lead by example, like it just I don’t know that I really like I love coaching and I, you know, I could talk about it forever. But when it came comes specifically to leadership, there’s something weird about I think you can coach people when you’re on a team. Sit you think, yeah, I just I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to like authentically, Coach Young, like, I think you could work with high school kids, but they’re not really paying the big bucks. But I think you could obviously, I think any adults could probably who has had some significant training or or just experience in leadership could definitely be valuable for high school and college students. And I think there are adults who want to be in leadership who probably shouldn’t be in leadership, but something dead ass honest. And I’m not saying I was the best, but I’m pretty good at admitting my faults and mistakes to a level that just I think that helps. It has helped me but um, yeah, I don’t know exactly where I’m going with that. But um,

Stacie Crawford
well actually, I’m glad that you brought that up because you you have been coaching. Yeah. And I think that, you know, this is a new thing for you. And so it has morphed and it’s even recently like you’ve got kind of some new pieces of things that you’re working into your own life and I’m curious if those are working into your coaching and so so what’s this new thing that you’ve got kind of going on

Will Schmierer
there? Yeah, so the new thing this year and I was kind of going there as well was I’ve gotten into breathing

Stacie Crawford
when you want to stay alive it’s helpful for breathing clearly not what you mean

Will Schmierer
yes. A lot of people refer to it as breathwork which I think is why I stayed away from it for so long. Because that sounds as you and I discussed very woowoo which is not necessarily my general vibe um I would say my general vibe is rather be exact opposite I’m not against the like a massage I’m not against you know hot stones I’m not against now now I’m not against the you know if you’re if you’re really big on social media and you come across the bro mentality they always tell you take cold showers and wake up at 5am Definitely not waking up at 5am but I I’m not anti Cold Shower anymore. Um but yeah, I think this summer really I just knew I knew I wanted different so at the beginning of the year I started working with coach to kind of level up my business. And I went on a side tangent as I usually do. Got into building a clothing line, which I still run. I’m just doing it much slower than people. If I’ve learned anything from this stroke, it has been to Slow the fuck down. My entire life has been going out on 100 miles an hour. And yeah, I think I was thinking about this last night like I just people can run their own race like I don’t really care anymore. I don’t need to run it. You know, I don’t need to build a $7 million a month annual recurring revenue, like none of that stuff like I just want to do the things I want to do I want to build them correctly. And so and then, kind of randomly this summer I started reading a book, I think I told you breath by James Messer. And this book has been an eye opener for me, my sister recommended it. Of course, as she usually does, like a year ago, maybe 18 months, I always joke that she’s like, I’m 18 months behind my younger sister. She always seems to have the information that I want. But I don’t know I want until I decided that I wanted.

Stacie Crawford
I think that’s that she was very good awareness on your part. And I’m sure that she would really love to hear that.

Will Schmierer
She would. And then to be honest, I don’t know that she knew that it might have the impacted head because she does know. She knows me very well. We went to high school together as freshmen, she skipped eighth grade. So we have been kind of best friends for a very long time. Which is weird to say considering we don’t really have a traditional family dynamic. We couldn’t give a shit about holidays or seeing each other. But yeah, so this book has really changed my life and I knew I was looking to spend the summer taking a break from coaching. Because I just wanted to kind of go from you know, a to b, like I’ve been hovering in a people kept asking Oh, how long how do you how do you think how far along are you from when you have the stroke? And I feel like for years I’d been saying 8586 87 90% Like okay, two and a half years why am I still saying 85% It’s always like one more thing this could worth one more thing could be better and then I’ll be at 90% and I just kind of got tired of saying that we went on a vacation this summer I was just like you know what, which we hadn’t done since before anything Yeah, we haven’t done it since 2019 before we moved into this house so we’re on vacation I decided you know I’m gonna buy a fucking peloton because peloton finally had made shoes that I could wear and I knew that my leg strength was getting better but I didn’t want to go back to like more rehab because I’m just kind of tired or rehab. I wanted to see I had been riding bike I’ve been working out for about a year. Yeah, since I left my previous career in May of 21. I’ve been working out pretty much daily. Wanted to build strength I got a peloton because I was like you know what? Just get a peloton. I can ride it it fits It’s seems better than I think I initially thought turns out I was right. I think on day 150 Something June 11 was my first day at peloton and I have not I have not written to peloton since June 11 of this year awesome. I think we’re at 150 Something days in a row but I wanted that to build up leg strength because I was just tired of walking funny. Most people wouldn’t recognize it but I felt that I’m again I’m a little bit of a narcissist like I want to I just want it to feel and be like a head and I wasn’t kind of getting there and I didn’t know that peloton. peloton didn’t solve a problem peloton just maybe you, peloton writer I really like it. It’s a lot of fun, but I knew I wanted to level up. Anyways, I started reading the start, you know really getting into my health I decided I’m going to take it back a notch. I worked with moms for a couple months to help them but that was starting to wear on me because I was talking a lot on Zoom throughout the week. I didn’t really get zoom fatigue because I’ve been working in tech we’ve been using Zoom since like probably 2014 And before that he’s got awful Skype. Um so yeah, the the work from home life has never been new to me really. Unless we want to go back to like 2011 but I just yeah, like the the heaviness with working with moms like us. I gotta run my own household. I got a wife who’s deaf. I’ve got three kids. I got one in college now like I just there’s a lot going on, I can’t like, I can’t my own drama. I’m a bit of a diva. You know, I find myself bougie will because I’m fucking bougie. And I own it, and I love it. And I wouldn’t change it. But it just it was starting to take a toll. And I didn’t really know why. So I knew I need to I had wanted to get into group coaching. And I just couldn’t I couldn’t figure out a course or what to build that felt authentic and real to help these moms that I’ve been helping. You know, and I just started working with moms because it kind of like, that whole niche thing that always gets weird. But I was like, Oh, well, yeah. And it worked out really well for me because I’m a guy, right? That’s sometimes women love talking to women. And sometimes they don’t love talking to other women because they feel judged. Or maybe they’ve tried it. Maybe they just haven’t been the right one. So in comes me, dude who has runs a household. I would say from my experience, my mom ran the household when we were kids, my dad just went to work. So that was probably where I got a lot of that influence. Because when she retired from Wall Street, she just became mom, she ran the house, she ran the bills, she cheated. She did fucking everything. But that didn’t have a fucking clue. Like, like God, they passed together because I would have been taking care of my father to that is the silver lining there. But yeah, I just I’m able to relate. I went to college in Miami, I had a lot of girlfriends. Like friends that were girls. You know, it just it just kind of was just my crew. And I was like, yeah, why wouldn’t I work with women, and they kind of enjoy working with me. It’s a good mix. It just made sense. And there was a lot of fun. You know, I really tried to help and I think I was successful in helping a lot of mothers, you know, kind of, I’m really good at pushing back. I’m really good at saying no to stupid shit as a parent. Um, I have I have kind of, I think I learned that because my daughter, you know, in theory, if my daughter was mine by birth, she’s turning 20 This month I’m turning 40 So we’re 20 years apart. I was solid 10 years younger than all my daughter’s friends so I’ve been saying no stupid shit for a long time. Like I I call myself like the millennial Boomer pic saying no has never really been a hard thing for me. So like when there was stupid stuff happening at school like let’s bring snacks frolic in Nope. Nope. Not happening like, you know, and then I don’t know if you’ve ever read I’m forgetting the book. Linda Doyle? Yes. untamed, untamed. Yeah. So yes, I

Stacie Crawford
read. I’m a white woman. And of course I read it.

Will Schmierer
Yeah. So. And honestly, I think a lot of a lot of my clients have not read it before. And I think it is a really eye opening book. And I’m getting way off track where I was going, but I kind of use that book as kind of like the basis to help my clients initially. But again, with moms, there’s never you know, they have kids, they have issues. It was kind of taken toll. I really just wanted to go beyond one on one coaching. I wanted to continue that and just kind of stupidly fell into breathing this summer. And what why I kind of changed this whole thing is because breathing after reading that breath book by James Messer, I went down the rabbit hole. I started researching, I started, I was like, Oh my God. I’m a mouth breather. I should not be a mouth breather. I knew that mouth freezing wasn’t ideal. But nobody talks about breathing. Because it’s a thing that we all do. From birth till death. If you’re not doing it, you’re not alive. We all take it for granted. There is the are people in the space. But again, I feel like I can speak to the everyday person, the person that just wants to you know, the people that I’m kind of pivoting towards are people who maybe used to be an athlete or they toyed with the idea of maybe running or walking or they want to work out or they’ve been at home for two years working from home and they Got a little bit of a funk. And I just read these books and I went down this path and I was like, Holy shit, and I gotta be honest, I see like it has, it has been the secret pill that I was looking for this entire time. Because when you’re 37 in rehab for a stroke, they kind of I don’t think they mean to lead you on. But they’re like, Well, you could just wake up one day and be fine. Oh, well, okay. Don’t tell me that, because now I got my hopes up. I mean, not in so many words, I don’t think it was quite as plainly clear as that.

Stacie Crawford
But it does kind of seem like that, you know how you if you if you put the work in now, just one day, this, you know, and it might not be that long, you’re young, you’re fresh, you’re you can do this, like, you know, that was maybe not the two days that you were talking about a little more than not the 10 weeks that you are talking about, because that is a really short period of time. I feel like that. And when you’re in it, it’s not a short period of time. But when you think about what has been done to your body in the process, 10 weeks is a very short time to go back to a normal place. Maybe Yeah, maybe not that short. But yeah, I think that I think that that would make sense that there’s this Yeah, like one day you’re gonna wake up and everything’s gonna be fine.

Will Schmierer
Right? And you keep putting in the work and you keep thinking, all right, you hear things like 10,000 repetitions, and then 1000 repetitions and this X amount of time to build the habit. Like, what, I think that’s where I was, like, I mean, the whole time kind of grasping for straws to a degree, but like, I’m like, Alright, two and a half years in, I’m putting in the work. Where’s this magic pill? Where are the results from putting in the work? I know MSX plays a role in like, certain fatigue and like, maybe you can lift every day, but the way your body’s recovering and recuperating. And I just again, I went down this rabbit hole of breathing and I, I found more people I read more information, more books, more research, I kept doing it, I kept starting to do these exercises, because I’m like, bucket, what else? The nothing else has worked to this point, right? And, you know, lo and behold, I started to realize, okay, I’m a mouth breather. That could have played a significant role. It did probably play a significant role in Sleep apnea. It didn’t cause me to go undiagnosed. That was my own fault. But yeah, I learned all this information. And now I really just want to share it with other people because the don’t think breathing will solve every problem, right? Thank you. I can’t think of a single thing. Any of us all do from the day we are born for the day we die. That we also put zero effort or thought into and you think about gonna get I’m not saying breathing will solve everybody’s problems in every way, shape, or form. But it’s free. Which people are always big on finding that free thing, right? Oh, here we go. cost zero fucking money to breathe. I mean, you can’t get more free. Right? Then breathing. I suppose if you’re in a gas chamber for some street. You might be not free for breathing, but like, generally speaking, you could, you know, it takes effort just like anything else. You have to kind of commit to doing these. What seemed like silly little exercises. And I think the big eye opener for me initially with breathing was like, I read the book, right, I started doing a little research, I found out that you could unblock your nose if you have a stuffy nose. How did I live to 39? Almost 40 and not know that you could naturally unbox your nose. Nobody ever said, Hey, do these couple exercises. Try it 2345 times it might take a little effort. I knew brew Breathe Right strips were a thing but like they they’re always sucky sticky with glue. They’re all over your face. Like they’re okay, but they’re not great. They’re definitely helpful. They’re not helpful. And yeah, just It’s crazy to think how if I had known how there’s this thing called saying nose or or noses are for breathing mouths or for eating. Oh, yeah, that would have been nice to know that we’re doing good information that say 1012 1520 2030 Any point my life yeah, I obviously like Mauser. Breathing and noses are for breathing. But like what do you do if you perpetually have a stuffy nose? Maybe you have a deviated septum. I knew I snored because I snored so loud, it would wake up my entire house, but my wife was deaf. So she had no idea I snore. Yeah, and it’s just, I cannot tell you the number of things that could potentially like ADHD is a very big topic, lack of focus, sleep. I don’t think breathing cures ADHD. But I think, you know, when you start to put the pieces together with breathing, and you start to do a little bit, you could potentially. And I only say that because because of my brain injuries, because of the stroke, because of the MS, which is also a brain injury. I also talked to my neurologist at the beginning of the year, because I touch her several times a year, throughout the year. And I thought maybe I had developed ADHD as a result of stroke. And, you know, I think to some degree, we all do in this day and age because of phones. Some of us are, for lack of a better word, able to be more disciplined than others with phones and social media. I think I’m so guilty of it all the time I scroll aimlessly, even when I think I’m not scrolling aimlessly, you know, we all do to a degree, but it’s about building that awareness. And, and really what I learned was a lot of my life issues that I had from heart, you know, high blood pressure. Again, it doesn’t solve the problem, but you could certainly improve overall general health. But as simple things is, yeah, like,

Stacie Crawford
it makes a lot of sense. Because you think about, you know, just taking a moment before you do anything to take, say, three nice, slow, deep breaths, okay, like, and I know that this is like, not necessarily the same as what you’re talking about. But it the impact that those three slow, deep breaths have on you in that moment. That is mind boggling. Because you’ve come to center, you feel calm, like you, if you have anxiety, it calms the anxiety down, you get to a point where you feel settled inside of your body, as opposed to maybe floating around out here, which sounds a little woowoo. But I think that people will understand what I mean by being settled into your body. And it calms your brain, you get a focus. And that’s, that’s three little breaths. This is not even a taking time to create a practice of doing this. So what what, what happens when you’re doing this practice, and you’re building on it, and you’re building on it? What’s the impact of that?

Will Schmierer
Yeah, I mean, it’s gone so far as I for the last 17 years, said I would never run, I am still on the fence about paying to run race. But you know, I’m now a stroke survivor with Ms. Who, who is running So, and again, I’m actually down some weight. So I’m kind of getting closer to three. I’m right around three. But I’m six foot eight, I played football. Most of my life. I played sports, I love sports, but I always knew I always hated the running part. Let’s be honest, that’s what it is. I hated running. I thought it was stupid. And I think I wouldn’t have thought it was so stupid if I was just able to breathe better. Because a lot of times when you’re young and you’re an athlete, even even older, even if you’re somebody who’s super fit and you know you’re a little bit more conditioned to be able to run from the jump. You might be through your mouth, which is okay. When you know it’s okay. Like if you’re really pushing hard and you’re sprinting. Yeah, you’re gonna breathe through your mouth when I talk too fast. I’m gonna breathe through my mouth if I don’t slow down consciously. You’re gonna hear me breathing on the mic. I try not to you know, I, I can hear I’m aware of it. And I’m annoyed by it now. But it does, you know, and there’s so many things people tell you things like take a deep breath. Well, what the hell does that mean? Because it’s like, I’ll give you an example. I do the word diaphragm. Okay, like I’m not stupid, but I never really looked for a picture of what it looked like. I never asked the questions like how do you breathe? If your diaphragm, what how do you gauge your debt? How come I can’t feel my diet? Well, you can’t feel your diaphragm because it has no nerve endings. Oh,

Stacie Crawford
that might be nice to know, what’s your how does that change things like, Yeah,

Will Schmierer
or like you say, take a deep breath and people like automatically? Well, okay, I just raised my shoulder 10 feet and feeling that’s still a very shallow breath, like, low and slow, like, there are so many ways to kind of learn these habits. And if you like I, I’ve seen the results, right. This is why I’m so passionate now about breathing because I have had I have a sleep apnea machine, I can see that I am now breathing through my nose predominantly through the evening, because the number of apnea as I have, throughout the evening or lower, there are other. There are a lot of benefits to breathing through your nose. And a lot of signals, you can tell like, I’ve had some circulation issues, again, I felt they were circulation issues from being tall. Now that doesn’t help and sitting down at a desk. For you know, I’ve been taking more breaks since I’ve been on my own but like, I used to sit a desk for like eight hours, my legs would be frickin numb by the end of the day. Yeah, people would say Get up, take breaks, that’s helpful. But if you don’t really know why you’re taking the break, you know, in circulation it like there are lots of things as men in general, like, for example, most people sleep, probably with their mouth open for part of the night and they don’t even realize it. How do you know you feel tired in the morning, but you slept for eight, nine hours on, you know, for men, especially, it doesn’t matter how old you are. And this is not to be funny, but like, if you sleep with your mouth closed, I use a tape to train myself. You know, but I feel safe doing that. I’ve talked to my doctors. I’ve now tried it for a couple months. So I don’t recommend going out and taping it right away. But there are lots of things and information you can learn. But then, you know if you the magic blue pill, right, we’ve all heard about it. Basically what that pill does is it opens up your nasal passages and allows you know, there’s a lot of yeah, basically, if you’re sleeping with your mouth closed, you know, because you’re gonna wake up, ready to go.

Stacie Crawford
Ready to hit.

Will Schmierer
The flagpole is raised. Yeah. Not every day. But like, Yeah, I mean, you will see that.

Stacie Crawford
That makes sense. Because you’ve got oxygen flowing through your body, your blood is flowing through your body and you know, delivering everything where it needs to be going. Right. And

Will Schmierer
the problem with mouth breathing is yeah, you can certainly do it when you’re exhausting running super hard, or you know, doing anything at an intense level. But it’s short term. Whereas I was prefigured in my mouth all day long. Yeah. And nobody ever stopped me. You know, I’ve actually I think I told you this days, like my neurologist who I see for the stroke and also for the MS. asked me for the recommendation on the book, which I just did. She’s lovely. She’s fantastic. Doctors, and I only I only say this because I’ve see so many doctors throughout the year that like my primary care. My cardiologist, they have asked me about this book. So you can say that you anybody could say like, Oh, I know how to breathe deep. Because I thought I knew a lot of shit. Like I was three years, almost three years into this stroke recovery and nobody you know, when you go to the hospital, they throw this stupid device at you tell you to breathe. Nobody shows you what to do how to use it. They never tell you. You know, nobody. I just didn’t I didn’t even know over breathing was a thing until like, three months ago. Yeah. Okay, just for breathing. Yeah. How do you over breathe? Well, how do you, Erin? Yeah, you take too much air and your body doesn’t use it. It’s just kind of wasteful. You know? There are other factors in this whole breathing thing like one of my sons isn’t officially asthmatic, but he has some weird stuff, right? Like it’s not bad, but he’ll get this cough out of nowhere, which has been fun during COVID Because I’m always like, do you have COVID

Stacie Crawford
out Other school because you haven’t passed the protocol, you have an account from nowhere, like what he does? It’s fine.

Will Schmierer
And yeah, no, I have my children sleep training, tape their mouths with the tape called Bio tape, which is super safe, it goes around the lips, it just helps them keep their nose close. I don’t want them to be, I want them to have the tools. Like if they want to play sports, like they play soccer. They’re my little guy I call my Chunky Monkey. He’s a little bit like Dad, we’re here, which is funny because my other boy, the older one, the middle child, he’s like, he’s got a six pack, and I’m envious. And I’m just like, how come I never had that when I was jury. But my little one, you know is a little bigger. And I was like, Oh, he’s mouth breathing. Like, if I can get him to a point. You know, and I don’t know that I do. It’s very hard to train any six, eight year old to do anything but like, just to give them a shot to really like. I’m not saying I ever would have made it through the NBA or NFL. But like I feel like if I use I mean, there are athletes that the guy I worked with recently. He’s trained professional MMA fighters, boxers, elite level Premier League players in the British Premier League. And these guys were top athletes around the world she’s worked with, you know, different swimmers, male and female, and like, elite athletes have been able to improve their breathing, which blows my mind, like people that are elite athletes, also, not knowing how to properly breathe, just mind boggling. And

Stacie Crawford
we don’t we don’t get taught that we don’t get taught how to breathe and sports either because everybody knows how to do it. So why would I teach you how to do it?

Will Schmierer
Yeah, and people just take kind of take it for granted like absolutely never occurs to people that reading is actually the root kind of of everything. And I think that’s where I’m going with my coaching program. I do want to do group classes. I do love working with women, but I wouldn’t mind working with men to like, I just want to like I think everybody gets into coaching because they want to they want to help people they want to have an impact they want to I mean, and I can’t think of a better example honestly, like, again, not to sound too narcissistic, but like, I could help somebody with some exercises. And I plan on doing that here in the coming weeks. I haven’t gotten it launched yet. But uh you know, I can’t really think of a better story than somebody like myself who is a young stroke survivor about to turn 43 years into recovery to go from I mean, I’m not going from couch to 5k I’m going like I am running now. I think it’s the last 39 days in a row I’m averaging seven miles a day. Wow. And it’s not just the running volume is also breathing has helped the recovery because how else would you get a 300 and let’s let’s say on 325 325 pounds six foot eight dude who hated running up until two months ago to be averaging seven miles a day and I’m not I mean I probably should take a break but I’m I’m clearly I have an addictive personality.

Stacie Crawford
traits are a big deal for well,

Will Schmierer
they are but I feel like with I mean I could probably take a break from peloton and go back to peloton I feel like if I take a break from running prior to

Stacie Crawford
like 50 ed quite fair yet

Will Schmierer
I want to make sure running sticks Now could I honestly I take it easy at least once a week and I have been doing it like I did four and a half miles the other day setting weight get to seven was really more of a timing thing but yeah, I mean that’s breathing is really changed my life and I think that’s what I’ve learned too is that throughout this whole process yes I want to help other people but fuck why don’t I help myself first like and that’s I kind of got there right like it took a while but like there’s all these ways to help people I’m a firm believer online like you know you can kind of pick anything whether you’re new to coaching or old to coaching you want to get into something different you find yourself down a rabbit hole books and it’s interesting like that’s what I like about coaching is you can kinda like stay in coaching but do it different right and group classes are, you can do things at a more affordable price for people. You know, I’d rather help 30 people for like, two weeks or whatever it becomes like I kind of want to go cohort to community because I don’t think it ends up breathing, but people who might be interested in breathing, I think is foundational. And you know, it could spin off into a million different things. Not super like, into like, I’m not into keto. I’m not into any particular I forget to eat cheese like you know, I don’t do sugar so much anymore. More Gatorade, zero and water, but like Gatorade, you know, I still drink coffee. Like, I’m not doing that cheese. Yeah, but I mean, you know, general health and wellness. Like I’m kind of going after the group of people that maybe were athletes when they were younger, the kind of you know, they’re maybe not super into fitness, but they, they know they can maybe do a better like that was my vibe. Like I always made fun of runners, but I kind of secretly like wasn’t against it. I just couldn’t figure out how to do it without getting hurt. Recovering or, you know, frankly sucking wind. Yeah, yeah. And I seem to have uncovered it and a guy like I said, I can’t think of a better story than somebody who’s had a stroke diagnosed with MS. You know there are bigger people than me but not many so I don’t want to be too much of a and they asked but like if the six foot eight stroke survivor that’s 325 pounds with MS can go for you know you want to run like me you don’t do it erotic but like certainly do a jog you know. You know, I do want to kind of tamp down fear I will I’m just kind of pushing right now to see. I guess I’m in that push phase like I’m really just have some mesmerized by my own breathing shit that I’m like, let’s just see how

Stacie Crawford
great your experiment mode and yeah, what’s what happens if I do this?

Will Schmierer
Yeah, what happens if I Yeah, and I’m not gonna push myself to a ridiculous level. But you know, I just want to see like, Okay, if my knee hurts, I’ll take some time off. Right. But if I can kind of do a light, you know, if I do a light jog in the middle of the week, and I can do six days of some miles a day that, you know, we’re averaging around 50 miles a week. It’s not. Yeah, I’m just pushing myself to see where I can do if it can help. Like, any point, like, you know, it’s been kind of fun. I’ve been eating carbs and cheese, like, you know, who can complain about that. But of course, a markers come back and there’s a little bit of a peak cholesterol or anything like that, you know? Okay, Taylor back the cheese, cut out some carbs. Like, you know, it’s like you said it’s experimental and safe. Because thankfully, they dropped blood so often that I don’t have a choice. was wrong that yeah, I’m on like, monthly plan.

Stacie Crawford
So Well, Tommy, if people are interested and checking you out learning more about your future programs, or working with you in any way, or just getting in touch with you to talk more? How can they reach? You

Will Schmierer
know, definitely, for right now, I think because I have a couple of things in the state of flux for talking about that, but um, yeah, really just LinkedIn is always a good place. Because I’m usually pretty good negative, ignoring the DMS and LinkedIn that I don’t care about, and the ones that are from actual other humans. I’m very good about answering. And also on Twitter, pretty active there. I talk a lot about breathing over there. You know, with timing of things going on, it’s just the course or not the course the cohort is coming soon. I’m just kind of getting all that set up. One of the unfortunate things in Florida is if you name your original company, something that you don’t love the process are switching that in Florida, it’s actually easier to just stop that company and restart a new one. Yeah, so So I just set up a new LLC. Really just because I wanted to change the name of my company because I didn’t really give that enough foresight. Beginning so doing all the paperwork stuff, but yeah, hopefully the cohort will be soon I really, you know, I think it’s impactful. I want to make it affordable for people. And yeah, I’m just So excited to kind of help people I think I think breathing really, like I said is foundational. It’s just such. I can’t be the only one who’s gonna wake up and realize this one day like, oh man, my whole life, like I have increased focus, I no longer give a crap about like, you know, I’ve been on lots of pills over the last couple of years. Pills are great for initially, you know, stabilizing anybody. Um, but you see it a lot with like focus and ADHD and that kind of stuff specifically, too, is that like, we’re so quick to go to the pill solution, which may be the right solution for somebody initially, but like, sometimes, from what I hear, I’m obviously not diagnosed specifically, but I’ve heard a fair amount that, you know, that only increases so like, that’s okay, if you’re okay with that, but a lot of people have been diagnosed now and like are like, I don’t really want to be on this.

Stacie Crawford
I know a lot of people that they don’t want to be on medication. I know parents who instead of putting their smaller children on medication, they would just hop them up on Mountain Dew with Pixy six fill, you know, poured into it, because the amount of caffeine and sugar and that combination, what it helps their kids to get through the school day, which I can’t even imagine, like a parent being like, Okay, here’s a Candy Mountain Dew, we’re gonna pour in a couple of these pixie sticks, chug it, let’s get your butt to the bus stop, like, but you know what, when you don’t want your kid to be on medication, if there’s something else that works great. Okay, so I’m sitting here talking about Mountain Dew and pixie sticks, which I think we can all pretty much agree generally not good for your body. That might be tasty. It sounds disgusting, but

Will Schmierer
my six year old is very go

Stacie Crawford
okay. But this is something that is free, and can only help any situation, even if it like you said, maybe it doesn’t cure a situation, maybe it doesn’t get rid of something completely. But it’s certainly going to help mitigate certain symptoms and help calm you to a place where you’re feeling better about things. Which who doesn’t want that? Yeah, I

Will Schmierer
mean, that’s that’s exactly it. It’s like, all these I think it’s some friends recently, it’s like, all the parenting books. And I know you have children too. It’s like, you know, I’ve read parenting books, I’ve listened to parenting advice. Some of it, I’ve taken with a grain of salt, some thrown directly in the trash. But yeah, that was the eye opener. For me. It’s like I heard a I wrote a paper on children breathing. And obviously, if you don’t breathe correctly, during the day, you don’t breathe correctly while you’re sleeping. I mean, that may be obvious, but it wasn’t obvious to me initially. And, you know, I, I started to realize like my kids, right, they, they kids are kids, they wake up early, they go to bed late, but their quality of sleep really determined how their day you know, they get seven hours of nose breathing sleep, that’s way better than 10 hours of mouth breathing. You know, and they’re gonna wake up refreshed. And honestly, even me too, but like, I’m concerned about them, because I don’t want them to go through the rest of the shit I’ve gone through. And obviously, there are things that we can eliminate for them probably hopefully down the road that they don’t encounter. But yeah, just breathing properly, would have maybe helped me tremendously. You know, that’s, I think that was kind of the the eye opener for me is like, oh, that’s how you have a stroke at 37. It’s not just say alcohol and cigarettes. It’s also 37 years of shitty breathing.

Stacie Crawford
Yeah, and the thing is learning how to breathe. It’s not going to hurt you. It truly no side effects that are going to cause problems.

Will Schmierer
Yeah, the only the only real side effect is if somebody is super anxious, or has severe anxiety or panic attacks. There are certain breathing exercises that you want to really stray away from initially, but yeah, in general. Most, you know, most breathing techniques starting out and that’s the other thing about breathing is like you can kind of, you know, if you feel sort of thing happening like you’ve just

Stacie Crawford
just stopped doing. Yeah, right. It’s not like she stopped running. Right? Right. You know, my my dad’s a physician and I remember being Yeah, and being like, Oh, it hurts when I do this and you’d be like, well don’t do that. And then I’m hurt. And I’m like, You’re not helping me. And he’s like, I went to medical school for this, don’t do that. And the thing is, with breathing, if you’re changing the way that you’re breathing, if you don’t like it, or it doesn’t feel good, or it’s causing, you know, if you do have a panic attack, because place are more anxiety, then you don’t do that piece. More or, you know, you know that as opposed to, you know, you’re on a medication and a lot of medications you have to wean yourself off of or, you know, like, you don’t realize what side effects are going on until so much usage and then how do you get rid of it like this is? This is just breathing. Yep. Yeah. I love it. I love it. This. This has been so wonderful. Thank you. I know he went way, way over, but so sorry for that. No, it’s It’s lovely. It’s lovely. Thank you so much for being here. I’m gonna have your Twitter and your LinkedIn. And because of the book, The James Nester book, I’m gonna put that in the show notes, too, because I think that is I think people might find that really interesting.

Will Schmierer
Yeah, I mean, I think I think yeah, that’s what I love about that book is that it is sort of the gateway and what what really is the eye opener with that one is he’s not a practitioner, although I think he’s starting to do something. I think I might have mentioned that. But like, Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t matter. I would I honestly, at this point, I was grasping at straws. I would listen to anybody. But yeah, like that book, because it is kind of, he’s not fully in the game, so to speak. So he’s not pushing services or anything like that. Yeah, there are a lot of great books and lots of practitioners that have good books, some are better than others. And what I like about breathing is they’re actually like a ton of different breathing techniques. And things and I think that’s why I’m building that community is because you can kind of pick and choose what works for you. Like, I think the the essence is really like we can all agree mouth breathing, not ideal, those breathing is ideal, but not easy. Like if you have a bunch of stuffy nose, like it’s very hard to start breathing through your nose if you don’t know how to address that. Like that was key number one for me. I’m blocking the nose. Oh, shit, this. This is what people are talking about. This is why everybody else can run and I’m just a fat ass second window all the time. Like actually not true.

Stacie Crawford
Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you for sharing your story. It is a hell of a story. Like it’s weird. And it’s strange. And it’s it’s, it’s really, it’s really crazy how much stuff was packed into such a short period of time, and I loved getting to know you and watching you, honestly, like watching you go through this last bit of this journey has been really inspiring to me. So thank you,

Will Schmierer
God. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I hope you know that’s that’s the one thing I could do with all of this is hopefully inspire people to make change and like really make change before it’s too late. Because I can tell you it’s not fun this way. I would rather done it differently. So absolutely. Hopefully, it’s helpful to both most people there. I’ve made those changes ahead of time.

Stacie Crawford
I think they will. Thank you. Well, awesome.

Will Schmierer
Thanks this appreciate


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