Luke Wentlandt recounts volunteering as a soccer parking lot attendant, reflects on choosing positive engagement despite frustrated parents, and shares two takeaways about effort and not absorbing others' negativity.
Luke Wentlandt opens the video with a friendly Monday greeting, briefly introduces himself and mentions his mental health journey and recovery to set a personal tone.
Luke describes the summer soccer volunteer requirement and explains his role as a parking lot attendant for his son's St. Croix soccer event, including the logistics and choices parents have about volunteering or paying a fee.
Luke shares details about his 7:45–11:00 parking lot shift, how he chose to engage positively with attendees, and his decision to give full effort rather than complain, emphasizing representation of his family and club.
Luke discusses encountering angry or frustrated parents, advising not to absorb their negativity. He encourages smiling, staying calm, and not matching bad energy when others are upset.
Luke summarizes his two main messages from the parking lot story, mentions attending a men's mental health fashion show, encourages lifting someone up this week, and gives well wishes to the community.
What is up everybody? It's Luke Wentlandt here. Happy Monday to you and yours. I'm sure you got a busy week, so do I. It's gonna be a great week though. It's gonna be a really, really, really great week. Like I said, happy Monday. My name is Luke Wentlandt. I've been at CADRE since day one. I've dealt with generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and I used alcohol to curb with it for years until I didn't. So it feels good to be here. It feels good to be me. It feels good to be seen. It feels good to have my week started off by Mr.
JC Lippold. What up, bro? Oh, man, it's always good to see you. So I started, I had a little Bad Bunny Monday going. It's just phenomenal stuff. So I love him. Some of the music in the background that you'll hear. I'm going to pause it now, though. Just one second, please. Alexa, pause. So again, happy Monday to you and yours. Hopefully you had a weekend that just like hit or resonated or maybe even something you learned. But so I'll take you through mine real quick. I have a 9 o'clock meeting today so I'm only going to be able to have so long.
Christy, good morning, good morning, good morning everybody. So good to see you all. So every summer we have for my son's soccer, he's in St. Croix soccer. And every summer you have to sign up to be a volunteer to something, whatever it might be. It could be working stations, it could be volunteering in regards to parking lot attendance. There's 1,000,001 different volunteer jobs, but there's this big St. Croix Cup and you got to volunteer. You can choose to pay it out, which means you have to pay $75 per family, then you don't have to volunteer.
Or you can put in the time, effort, and energy necessary, then you can be able to do that. And then if you're doing that, then you don't have to pay the $75 and you give back from a volunteer-based perspective, right? So those are your option A, option B. Well, so what ended up happening is I signed up for Sunday mornings 745 parking lot attendants. I had 745 until 11. That was that was my job. So there's long story short, it's this big acreage. And then they have like 7 parking lot attendants that go all the way around through.
And you're just supposed to help people like keep the figure 8 going because there's just there's so many cars that are traveling through all of this soccer festivities. There's just a lot of soccer going on, right? And so what I learned was this. is the crazy part, okay? What I learned was this. Two things. Number one, man, how you do something is how you do everything is, how you do anything is how you do everything, right? And so the very first thing I learned is like, there's a group of individual, parents or otherwise, that were almost like complaining to be there.
there was a group of them that was kind of complaining like, I can't believe I have to do this Sunday morning. grab the flag, put on the vest to tell individuals where to go, da, da, da, da. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to show them like who I am and I'm going to represent like myself, you know, our family and the Saint Croix, the Saint Croix Soccer Club in a different light. So I promise you, If there's anybody, and I mean anybody that drove through there, I waved to everybody, smiled to everybody, gave them one of these, whatever.
I went over to their car, asked how you could help any one of the different spots. Where are you at? Which field? How can I help you? Where do you need? Do you have a handicap representative? I was like, you know what I'm going to do? If I'm going to be here, I'm gonna give it my all, just like I do in anything else in this life. So if I'm gonna be here, if I'm gonna volunteer, I'm gonna deliver and I'm gonna deliver and knock it out of the park and do a 10 out of 10 job. So it's one thing. So if you ever volunteer, if you're ever giving back, if you're ever doing something like, don't show up and have this mentality like, woe is me.
no, go in there and give it all you got. And I guarantee you in that country, in the United States or wherever, from 745 to 11, if there's anybody else out there volunteering at the level 10 that I was bringing it, I highly doubt it. That's #1. Number 2, the attitudes of individuals towards volunteers that are driving into these places I mean, I was yelled at. And I mean, again, I always say that that's the, how you doing, buddy? Like if somebody's frustrated, like it's on them, it's not on you.
And don't ever meet them where they're at. In other words, just kind of like, you know, smile, nod, all the things, right? 45 to 11 o'clock, bringing their son or daughter to play soccer. and how they were wronged on a parking spot, how they can't believe they've been circling around here for the last 20 minutes trying to find a spot, a spot. I'm like, oh my gosh, like this is the state of our world. It's just it's really too bad. So number one, how you do anything is how you do everything. Meaning if you're going to do something Give it all you got.
Do it well. And if that was me being a volunteer at my son's soccer, right, at my son's soccer event and I'm doing the thing, I'm going to be there anyhow, why wouldn't I go out and be really good at it and give it all you got and be nice to other people and wave to them and smile to them and welcome them to the club and do all the things? Like, to me, it was just a no-brainer versus just grabbing the flag Going like this to the next one, waving in like, no, like, make their day. And I think it's really easy to make somebody else's day.
So that's checkbox one, right? The second thing is there is a group of individuals that just wake up in the morning and maybe don't have the best energy. Maybe it's that day, maybe it's that week, maybe that's a month, who knows. But I would encourage you to not let them get to you. right? I could have easily been swayed between 745 to 11 when a couple individuals were frustrated by a situation or whatever. And again, we're talking about parking a vehicle somewhere in this beautiful park to probably go watch your son or daughter play soccer.
Like take a step back and think about that. Think about that mentality, right? Of like being frustrated going to that. Maybe you're late, maybe whatever. But it's not our problem. So I just want to really encourage everybody to recognize and realize yet again, when individuals bring really negative energy, like bring really, really negative energy into the room, to spaces, to environments, to relationships, you name it, you have the choice of how you want to meet that and match that. You can match the negativity, which is what they're searching for, right?
Like you don't act like that to not have a reaction. You're acting like that to draw some sort of reaction from somebody else. Maybe it's just making them feel as bad as you're feeling. But regardless, don't give them the power. Do not give them the power. Smile. Smile on. When they are frustrated and upset and angry, like you do not have to match where they're sitting that day. You just don't, right? So like when those individuals are frustrated coming into the parking lot saying, where's field six?
It's unbelievable. Parkway over there. It's like, yep, you have a great day. Enjoy your son or daughter's soccer. What a beautiful morning to be here. Right? Like I'm not being sarcastic. I'm not being chauvin. I'm not being any of those things. I'm just saying like, meet the energy in a different way. And hopefully it'll just change the narrative for them in that course of that day. So again, those are my 2 messages today. The tales from a parking lot. The tales from a parking lot in the middle of Stillwater, Minnesota, watching my incredible son's soccer event this weekend was just fantastic.
Volunteering was beautiful. I loved it. And I love seeing those families. And there are so many families that also match the energy that I brought. So that's just something to keep in mind is it's almost like, which one are you going to be? Are you going to bring the energy of the negative and match? Are you going to bring the energy of the positive and match? But no matter what, it's a beautiful feeling. Thanks for being here today. And I also wanted to share that I went to my first fashion show ever this weekend, which was amazing.
It was called the Man Down Experience. This individual's name's Gail Smaller Jr. He wanted to create a fashion show that specifically allowed for individuals to be able to have moments to connect with other individuals, males specifically, for males' mental health. And it was a phenomenal experience. I had the privilege to speak at it. was awesome. So I can't wait to go to my next fashion show. And you too, Christy, you have an amazing week. Junk Food Junkie, always the best to see you. Ro, what up?
Everybody that participated, I live for this, you all, this is what I live for. come Monday mornings is to be a part of this community, this group, and just to share stories of life that I hope resonate and hit home that you can maybe say like, hmm, you know that Aunt Sally that just has like a bad vibe and a bad attitude when she comes to Christmas? You know, I'm just not going to let that bug me. I'm not like, why? Like, I can still have a really great experience despite Aunt Sally, right? I'm not saying I have an Aunt Sally, but you know what I'm saying.
Have a phenomenal week, everybody. I always say lift one person up. If you can text somebody, connect with somebody, have a phone call, anything, and just make one person's day by saying hi. Sometimes that's half the battle in this life. So you all take care. Thanks for joining in today. Peace, be with you all. All right, bye-bye.
