Tales from a life of battling pain—physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. I’ve faced it all. Now, my purpose is to turn my experience into a roadmap to healing for others.
The host opens with a warm greeting and enthusiastic recap of the Refreshed Wellness and Movement Festival, thanking contributors and explaining recordings will be shared. Viewers get context for the speaker’s recent work and the positive community energy motivating the talk.
The speaker introduces a Harvey McKay column about making happiness a habit, reading key passages about steering the mind and noting that excessive stress links to many health problems. This section connects the article’s ideas to the importance of reducing stress to improve quality and longevity of life.
Drawing from personal history—losing a hockey identity and battling depression—the host explains the ‘training camp’ metaphor for recovery and the strategy of setting a distant goal while doing daily small actions. Listeners hear concrete mental shifts and encouragement for anyone struggling to use gradual steps toward wellbeing.
The speaker discusses the new moon, their interest in astrology and human design, and reads horoscopes about inventing tomorrow. They describe a long-term vision of building an accessible community of wellness and how small, persistent efforts are meant to bring that vision to life.
This concluding segment reinforces that meaningful change takes time, persistence, and trust in small daily practices, recounting a three-year effort toward current goals. The host invites listeners to join the journey, offers a final encouragement to prioritize wellbeing, and signs off.
Good morning, Cadre. Beautiful Wednesday that we got here. And I couldn't have more gratitude than I do right now. I'll tell you that for sure. Refreshed Wellness and Movement Festival was everything that I could have hoped for, especially for this first go-round. I'm just feeling all the love. And it's just incredible that so many people came out and shared in the connection and movement, healing, all of it. And it would not have been possible without the Cadre team bringing the van, bringing the sauna, JC and Dr.
Cherise Johnson having speaking engagements. And those were recorded. So if you weren't able to attend, those will be available in due time. I'll make sure that they're available in multiple locations, one of which being on my YouTube channel, Get Sweaty with Letty. And then we'll have links to them on Instagram, on my Instagram, on the refresh Instagram. We'll get them out to cadre as well. But it was incredible and I'm feeling the love. And so for today, I think what I'm going to talk about is a little nugget that one of my favorite writers and just inspiring businessmen contributes to the Star Tribune on a weekly basis.
The column is called Out Swimming the Sharks. And every Monday you get a nice little bit from Harvey McKay. And you can see Louie in the back there. Love that little guy. He's just having a good time. So the title of this article is Be Happy, Make It a Way of Life. There's actually a little typo in here. It says, make it a way of lie. I had to, I was like, is that for real? But not everyone's perfect. Even the Star Tribunal make a couple little errors. But the reason being is, let me, I'll just read this first paragraph here.
It is, happiness is a state of mind. So are anger, sorrow, disappointment, and loneliness. The mind is a powerful tool in the universe, but you are the one who controls it. Like your car, if you see your mind heading in the wrong direction, you can steer it the other way. You need to recognize when you have negative feelings and try to steer your mind in a different direction. And there is no better time since August is Happiness Happens Month. So we're in it right now. We're in the month to celebrate and honor happiness.
And I'll just, you know, I'll give another little nugget here, but studies have shown that too much stress can inhibit your immune system, causing many of the health problems that plague our society. Heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcers, migraine headaches, mental illness, and even cancer are just a few of the health issues that have been linked to excessive stress. So in addition to improving the quality of your life, reducing your level of stress and increasing your happiness may also help save your life.
Now I can attest to that because I was going through an incredible stressful period as I was transitioning out of my old identity and into my new identity. New identity being one that fosters healing, fosters connection, wellness, fosters healing, fosters connection, through movement, through wellness, through nature. And the previous me learned a lot through building community, through events and experiences, and I'm forever grateful for that. But I am no longer the individual that I was 10-ish years ago when I started the endeavor of building a brewery.
I can't, you know, for me, I can't get behind promoting something that I do not consume every day, nor do I think anybody should consume every single day. But what you can consume every day is wellness, community, movement, healing. Those are the things that make us feel well. And when I think of this article that Harvey wrote here when he's talking about if you see your mind heading in the wrong direction, you can steer it the other way. And cadre is that sun that you want to steer towards. If you're ever feeling down, just open the app, come inside, walk around, check out a new contributor, Find a new community within the app that just to explore.
It might resonate with you. Another little thing, and I think that I love my Star Tribune. I love reading it. Sometimes it can be very frustrating because of some of the crazy things that are going on in the world. It's hard to read some of it. It's almost like Groundhog Day where I'm just reading the same disappointing things that are happening in the world. But you have to sometimes search for the good. It's not going to just be right out there in front of you. And I always kind of say nothing good comes easy.
And when I was going through a really depressive state, in my early 20s after I lost my identity as a hockey player through physical injuries that then led to a huge mental injury called depression. I struggled for the better part of, I don't know, three years probably. first two were the worst, then I was able to see and realize that I can, there were moments when I felt good. So how do I harness that? And now I kind of see life as different seasons and Each season you have to prepare for and each season is going to have a training camp and training camp sucks.
The beginning of training camp is hard. Think of any sport where you get going and you pick yourself back up and you're getting into the grind of things and you're having to go through extra conditioning. You're working really hard and it's like, gosh, it's going to take me a while to get back into my prime form. that's kind of how I was able to not trick myself, but give myself this kind of framework where, gosh, this does suck. I don't like feeling like this. But I know that there's good feelings to be had.
And the more good feelings I try to bring into my life, the better I'll feel. And I kind of picked a time period off in the distance where I was, I told myself, all right, I'm gonna make it through this. It's gonna be a while, but I'm willing to put in the work to be well, feel good mentally, feel good physically. And that would eventually turn into feeling good emotionally, feeling good spiritually. So if you're someone that is struggling, know that it's not going to be this instantaneous forever feeling of good.
Pick that time off in the distance and start doing those little things to make yourself a complete person. So I love astrology. We've got a new moon going on tonight. And I'm going to be visiting some of the Refresh instructors, Katie Brown and Chi Taylor from Soul Body Finesse for a sound bath tonight, a New Moon sound bath. I'm really excited about that. So I think it's important to mark the constant change that happens in our universe and apply it to ourselves because change is good. And what I've learned through kind of just diving into astrology, even human design, and even the genetic type theory that is associated with resistance flexibility, I am that person of change.
In the astrology world, I'm a Pisces, and that's fluid, right? It never needs to take the same shape. In the human design world, I'm a manifestor, and the based on the time that I was born, I'm like extra Pisces. So I'm like a super Pisces, which I love. Resonate that. Got my tattoo of my, well, it's really tough to see in this angle. Cool, how about that? The lake that I grew up on right here, Schmidt Lake in Plymouth, shout out. And so I love water. I resonate with that. And in the resistance flexibility world, I'm an appendix, which is the genius of change.
So understanding these elements of who I am, it's not a, I take all the information, I see what best resonates with me, and see how I can apply that to my life. And knowing that I am this person of change, I am this fluid person, I am this manifestor, I'm just now working towards living a truly authentic life filled with integrity. So I'm going to read yesterday's horoscope from the Star Tribune, which I've been reading this horoscope as long as I've been sauna, as long as I've been reading the paper, which is over 20 years.
So it's a pretty good sample size, right? And the same person has contributed these horoscopes, Holiday Mathis, a woman who lives in Tennessee. She's the most syndicated horoscope producer in all newspapers throughout the country. And this is what yesterday's horoscope was. And Grant reminds you yesterday, we're still the Lionsgate portal, so lots of manifesting going on, lots of opportunities to cement this change that I'm striving for. So New Moon Focus. Inventing tomorrow. Every invention sounded strange before it became ordinary.
Every movement began with one brave person imagining a different future. What are your dreams of tomorrow that feel too early, too ambitious, or too unusual? And I guess for me, it is that ultimate community of wellness. I have, I play in a fantasy football league that is pretty, that is just as old as the practice, it's actually older than the practice of sauna reading the newspaper, reading my horoscope. And so I've been with some of these friends, I grew up with them, and we've been together for our whole lives in a sense, right?
And of those friends, the very small percentage of them that you know, want to sauna with me regularly, want to be a part of the wellness events that I'm putting together. So, you know, we have trust in each other because we grew up with each other, we support each other, but it's like pulling teeth to get them into the sauna or to get them to make them feel good. And why is that? So I see myself as, you know, My dreams of tomorrow are making it so that it's easy for them to want to come and be part of all this.
It's easier for them to embrace mental health, mental wealth, feeling good through community, through conversation, through experiences. And it doesn't come instantaneously. I can see it. So I'm going to keep doing it. I'm going to keep fostering this type of community, helping to team up with CADRE to create the physical community that is the social media online community that CADRE is. So that's what I see. Today's horoscope, it says, your emerging talent. Envisioning and creating the future. New moon mantra.
I believe in a better tomorrow. I see things that don't exist yet. I find ways of bringing beautiful visions into reality. So that really hit home with me, as you could probably understand why. And I I know that not everyone is going to resonate with what I'm doing right now, but I have a strong enough foundation, a strong enough community to support this. And I can put on the blinders per se and just focus on that. It was much harder for me to see and act on this when I began this journey. which was, I don't know, probably when I started writing my book in the, or really started the plans to write my book in the fall of 2023.
So we're almost three years later to that, three years. That's how long it's taken me to get to this point, right here, three years. And I'm still not there. So I hope that you can see that and resonate with that, that nothing good comes easy. It takes time. It takes persistence. It takes trust in yourself, trust in the process that just doesn't happen overnight. And the more little things that you can do, that will create that foundation, that healthy, strong base, which will make it easier for you to live and thrive and be well.
Because that's what I'm here for. So if you're down with that, let's go, right? So that's what I got here today. That's what I got. So appreciate you taking the time to listen to me on this beautiful morning. So, don't worry, be happy. We'll talk to you guys very soon. Cheers.
