The Kindness Matters Podcast
So. Much. Division. Let's talk about how to change that. Re-engage as neighbors, friends, co-workers and family. Let's set out to change the world. Strike that. Change A World. One person at a time, make someone's life a little better and then do it again tomorrow and the day after that, through kindness.
Kindness is a Super-Power that each of us has within us. It is so powerful it has the potential to change not only your life but those around you, too. Let's talk about kindness.
The Kindness Matters Podcast
Finding Light in the Shadows of the Past
What if the simple act of kindness could transform your life in unexpected ways? Join us on the Kindness Matters Podcast as we share an unforgettable conversation with Pete Partin, whose life story is a testament to the resilience found in compassion. Growing up in a challenging environment with financial hardship and an abusive, alcoholic father, Pete faced immense adversity. Yet, his story is one of triumph, thanks to the unwavering support of his grandfather and some influential teachers who saw his potential. Their belief in him during his darkest times helped Pete build self-worth and overcome the shadows of his past. In this heartfelt episode, Pete opens up about the power of kindness in overcoming life's hurdles and how it inspired him to aspire to be a motivational speaker, sharing hope with those facing similar struggles.
The struggles for Pete did not end with adolescence, though, as he shares his journey of overcoming setbacks, such as the fear of artistic failure and the life-altering experience of surviving a stroke. Together, we explore the embracing of creativity through painting and the role it played in his recovery. We discuss the significant impact of small gestures of kindness, like a simple smile, which can change lives in profound ways. Pete's story underscores the importance of being a supportive presence for those around us. Together, we hope to inspire you to spread kindness and recognize the unseen battles others may face. If you're looking for a motivational speaker who embodies perseverance and compassion, connect with Pete Partin for his uplifting and transformative message. Connect with Pete on Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube
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Well, hello there and welcome. You are listening to the Kindness Matters podcast and I am your host, mike Rathbun. What is this podcast all about? It's about kindness. It's a pushback against everything negative that we see in the news and on social media today, and it's a way to highlight people, organizations, that are simply striving to make their little corner of the world a little better place. If you want to join in on the conversation, feel free Go ahead and follow us on all of your social media feeds. We're on Facebook, instagram, tiktok. We're even on LinkedIn under Mike Rathbun. Check us out. We're even on LinkedIn under Mike Rathbun. Check us out and, in the meantime, sit back, relax, enjoy and we'll get into the Kindness Matters podcast.
Mike:Hey, welcome everybody to the show. How are you today? I hope you're well. I have a fantastic guest for you, as always, because all of my guests are fantastic. My guest today is Pete Parton, and Pete, by any measure, has every reason to be an angry man. An angry man. His life has not been kind to him for the most part, and yet, and yet, pete is an incredibly kind individual who shines a light on everyone he meets. Welcome to the show, pete.
Pete:Hey, thank you so much, mike, it's a pleasure.
Mike:Because really your biography really reads I mean you had a very. I should let you tell it. Your childhood was not a happy one.
Pete:Right, right, so I'll just start at the very beginning, even before I was born. So I come from a poor family. Dad was a mechanic, mom was a dietician, they had my sister eight years before I was born, my brother six years before I was born, and after that they were happy because it's like we have a boy and a girl, we're done having kids. And so my mom actually made the decision to have a tubal ligation, have her tube side, and six years later I was surprised. Yeah, somebody wants me to be here anyway, but you know that caused a tremendous financial strain to the family.
Pete:Yeah, so my dad. Actually, he turned to alcohol and drinking, you know, became abusive and took it out of me a lot of times because I was the one that you know brought that hardship.
Mike:In his eyes, you were the reason for the problems.
Pete:Right.
Mike:Yes, that's okay.
Pete:Even though I was just a kid.
Mike:Right, that's so wrong.
Pete:Right. So you know he became very abusive. There was several times that he actually attempted to take my life from me. I know one time I was eight years old, I think, and he attacked me. He came home, attacked me with a baseball bat, which is why I have this scar on my head here. I passed out after the first hit Wow, I swear to this day, I had angels watching over me because I don't know how I'm here after that first hit Wow, I had angels watching over me because I don't know how I'm here after that, right. There's another instance where he came upstairs. We had a two-story house. He came upstairs and was just angry with me and just took me and threw me head over heels down the stairs. Somehow I left that without a single scratch.
Mike:Oh my gosh, no broken bones or anything, huh.
Pete:No broken bones, not even a bruise, which is crazy, that is nuts. But you know, it wasn't all dark, because I had my grandfather and my grandparents, and there were times that he literally stepped in and saved my life. He came and took me out of that house. And not only that, he loved me and he believed in me and eventually taught me to believe in myself and gave me the greatest gifts of all, which is my faith. And so, yeah, childhood was very difficult.
Pete:There was that at home and then going to school, kids didn't understand. They didn't know what was going on in my house. Sure, so I was bullied a lot growing up too, so I had that going on as well. But fortunately and I had people in my life like my grandfather I had several teachers. You know, teachers they don't get enough credit because they pour into our lives and I was blessed in sixth grade actually to have a man that won the Indiana State Teeser of the Year twice. Oh, wow, and he just he really inspired me and he believed in me also, and so I give him a lot of credit. I give my grandpa a lot of credit, you know, I've always had help along the way.
Mike:When you needed it the most.
Pete:Yes.
Mike:Wow, help along the way when you needed it the most. Yes, wow, um, and it's just so. I mean just that start in life, probably. I mean nobody would blame you if you were just a angry young man. I mean nobody I. But you weren't you. You went on, you moved on from there, right?
Pete:I did, yes, and Mike, there were. There were dark times, Certainly. There were times when I questioned my, questioned my worth and my value and questioned whether I even deserve to live. And you know my father it wasn't just the physical abuse. I mean, yes, I had bruises, I had scars, but it was his words, I think, that were worse than anything. You know, telling me you're nothing, you're never going to amount to anything, you're a mistake, things like that, and that's difficult to overcome.
Mike:That's almost impossible to overcome. I think we really underestimate when we say to our children you know that when we talk down to them like that, that leaves that stays forever or for a long time, unless you're in therapy.
Pete:Right, yeah, a long time to recover from that For sure. So go ahead. I don't know that you ever completely recover from that. I know there are times when things go wrong. I still hear my father's words in my head. They're still there. But I've learned how to kind of not grasp on to those words and those feelings and recognize them for what they are. Their feelings, sure, go right on by.
Mike:And focus on the positive things in life. But that could be hard to do in your situation. I mean, it must be a real struggle to, you know, to focus on the good things when there's all that other stuff floating around up there.
Pete:Yeah, certainly it has not been an easy road, that's for sure.
Mike:Now have you always been. You mentioned your school teacher. Is that where you learned your love of writing?
Pete:Actually, yes, interesting enough, it was in that sixth grade. Actually, yes, interesting enough, it was in that sixth grade I actually there was an essay contest and he encouraged me to enter it, and so I wrote this essay. It's two pages and I actually won an award. I came in second place with the Fort Wayne newspapers, and you know. So that really is where my love of writing started, and it just evolved from there.
Mike:Yeah, because you can't Go ahead. I'm sorry.
Pete:It's been great because not only it's a great outlet also. You know and if anyone out there is struggling I encourage you to journal Journaling is such a wonderful release and outlet for feelings. When you go back and reflect over what you wrote, it kind of helps you understand and come to terms with everything that you've been through. Oh yeah for sure thing that you've been through?
Mike:Oh, yeah, for sure. It's kind of funny because my last three episodes have all been about people who have come to terms with things in life, in their life, through journaling, so we're just continuing the theme here. How about art? Where did that love come from?
Pete:So I've always been interested in art and, honestly, well and this probably goes back to the words of my father, I was afraid to do it. I was afraid I wouldn't be any good at it. Well, and the same holds back to the words of my father, I was afraid to do it. I was afraid I wouldn't be any good at it. Well, and the same holds true for writing as well. You know, if I wouldn't have had encouragement by my teacher, I probably never would have pursued it. But art was very much the same way, and for most of my life, it was probably five years ago when I finally decided. You know what? I'm going to conquer my fears and I'm going to give it a try. And you know, I found an outlet that just brings me such peace. You know, I was painting right before our podcast here.
Mike:Oh nice.
Pete:And you know it. Just here's what I say. It's the one thing that when I'm doing it I don't feel like it should be someplace else. Kind of all my worries just float away.
Mike:Nice yeah.
Pete:You know, but when I started again I was afraid I wouldn't be any good at it. So there is one holiday I was out doing Christmas shopping and Michael's had, you know, a set that had an easel, a canvas and some paints. I'm like you know what, I'm just going to try it. So I got it. I came back and I purposely have not and I still haven't it to this day watched any videos or had any instruction on art. I wanted to learn from my own mistakes and and learn how to make things better. Um, but when I did that first painting, I thought it turned out horrible and initially I'm like well, maybe my father was right, I suck at everything. So I took it, I threw it in the closet and it sat there for five or six days. But there was something inside of me that nagged at me, that made me want to try again, and so I kept at it and, you know, I improved over time and eventually I found something called, uh, poor painting or liquid art, and that's really my first love.
Mike:Um, but I think, yeah, I've gotten better over time right, I was going to ask you what your favorite medium is yeah because I painting what's that?
Pete:definitely poor, poor painting Nice.
Mike:Because I used to watch Bob Ross, oh yes, and I so wanted to paint like Bob Ross and I bought the oil paint. Oh, I sucked, I sucked big time. But I was in there with my little knife, you know, and making happy little trees.
Pete:I was never very good at it and yeah anyway, the one thing I've learned, mike, is beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That's very true. I know that because I eventually featured that first work of art and let other people see it. I've had numerous people tell me that they think it's beautiful. I still don't see it. That's okay.
Mike:But art is subjective basically, it is, it is. And what's the old quote? Quote I don't know much about art, but I know what I like. Right, and you know everybody. You show it to 100 people, you're gonna have 99 different takes on it and and that's okay, right, um you?
Pete:art. What's that? That's the beauty of art. Yeah.
Mike:There's something for everyone, absolutely. So now you grew up and you were living your life and then, as if you hadn't had enough setbacks in your life, you had a stroke.
Pete:Yes, setbacks in your life. You had a stroke, yes, so I've been as my full-time job. I've been working in IT for 25 years and, and you know, last few years at my job had been particularly rough. But you know, it led to a stroke. And you know, I came into work one day like I normally would, got in my car, was walking in, stopped to talk to some colleagues and in the middle of a sentence I couldn't talk and the words were there but they could not come out of my mouth, no matter how hard I tried to make them. So, you know, I waited about five minutes and then I just went on to my seat. You know, I'm just going to pretend that nothing happened, just go about my day. And then I picked up my mouse and I kept dropping it and I'm I don't know what's going on.
Pete:Finally, I had a coworker turn around and looked at me and said are you okay? And I just shook my head. No, he went and got the supervisor, got the safety guy, and they came called an ambulance. By the time the ambulance got there, my right arm had gone completely numb. Oh wow. So they rushed me to the hospital and, yeah, I had a blood clot in my brain, as it turns out. Ironically enough and I think I say this is a miracle too it required a very specific surgery, and there are only a few people in this state that can do the surgery, and one just happened to be at the hospital that day when I got there, so they got me in, had a clot buster drug in me within an hour and he took me into surgery immediately and I think it helped minimize the impact Wow Impacts, as you know.
Mike:Yeah, what do they call that? The golden hour for strokes, if you get this, this and this in this amount of time.
Pete:Yes.
Mike:Wow.
Pete:Flatbuster drug is very important to get it in as soon as possible. The longer it takes takes, the more effects that you have on your body.
Mike:So right um yeah, so so were you able to. Well, obviously that was a stupid question. I don't know why I started to ask it. Did you get your boys back? Oh, I'm talking to you. I mean, so you did eventually recover.
Pete:Yes.
Mike:Were there any lasting effects?
Pete:Well, let me just say, after having the stroke, they intubated me. I was out for a day and a half. I woke up and somebody came and talked to me and said do you know your name? And all I could do was groan. I couldn't talk at that point.
Pete:So while I was in the hospital, they had speech therapists come work with me and I ended up being in the hospital for just six days, which is miraculous in and of itself because there's so many that are in there for five or six months after having a stroke.
Pete:So after six days, they told me that it would probably and likely take a year or two to recover my voice, Because I was going to have to learn to talk again because it damaged the area of my brain that handles language. Oh, wow, you know, I would have the words, but again my brain forgot how to talk. So I had to learn how to do that all over again. But when I left the hospital, they gave me exercises to work on and the closest appointment I could get was six weeks out. Oh, but you know, when I went home, I thought to myself you know, one, two years, and keep in mind up to this point, I wanted to be a motivational speaker, and so losing my voice was, you know, a tremendous setback. It's the worst thing that could possibly happen to me.
Mike:Right.
Pete:So I basically said to myself that doesn't work for me. A year or two does not work for me, so I took those exercises and.
Pete:I worked at it every single day, very, very, very long, very hard hours doing that. But by the time I got to the six week appointment they tested me and I'll tell you a funny story about that in just a minute. But after they tested me they said, well, basically there's nothing more we can do for you that you haven't already done for yourself. Was wow, now, was I perfect at that point? No, definitely not. I still had hang-ups, but I had the basics back right and the funny story, real quick was in the test. They have basically a series of pictures. There's a flip book.
Pete:And they said okay, just look at the picture and tell us what you see, the best that you can. And so the first picture was of a house and I think they were expecting me to say that's a house. But I said it's a house, but I don't know what you want me to say. It's a tutor? Is it a colonial?
Mike:oh my gosh, you gave them so much more than what they were expecting.
Pete:Exactly. Yeah so initially I had an issue Whenever I would get upset or stressed, my brain would try to go back to that damage area and talk from there. Yeah, so I would basically stutter or not be able to talk at all if I was upset. And unfortunately I was in a situation where I went back to work. Some people made me upset because I don't know if they thought it was funny to hear me stutter and whatever. But just further things, right they did that on purpose.
Pete:They, they did it on purpose. Yes, oh my gosh. Yes, um, but you know it is what it is. I've forgiven him, yeah, as I've forgiven my father. I've forgiven everyone that's wronged me in my life.
Mike:That could be a whole other episode, because what it takes to forgive somebody who I don't and I have a hard time with that because I tend to hold on to stuff any negative thing that's ever been said to me, I can recall it and I hold that in there and I don't know. That can't be healthy.
Pete:Well, and the thing you know that people get stuck on with forgiveness is you know what the other person did. They get you know to think in that, about that. But forgiveness is not about the other person at all. It's not condoning what happened, it's not saying I accept it and you know I'm going to let this person back in my life. No, it's not that at all. It's all about you. It's all about you letting go of the resentment, the bitterness and the anger and basically it frees you from all those emotions.
Mike:You're absolutely right. So you're all recovered and you have a book right, I'm working on the book. You're working on the book.
Pete:You're working on the book I do have a couple chapters and a friend of mine, a mentor of mine, who's also a motivational speaker. He has two books that he's let me write a chapter in, so he's blessed me with that, which has been wonderful, so my story is partially out there in his books. I am working on my story though.
Mike:Awesome, awesome. So your main motivation now is to be a motivational speaker. That's really what you want to do.
Pete:Yes, well, I know there's a lot of people out there that are hurting and that have been through similar things to what I've been through, and I'm sure they feel hopeless and so I want to do everything I can do to be that light for them and to go sit with them in the darkness. You know, I meet people where they are and I sit with them in the darkness. I meet people where they are and I sit with them in the dark without judgment, and I just am there for them and I just want to be there for them. I think motivational speaking is just a way to reach many people at once.
Mike:Yeah, so what are you lacking Gigs? What's lacking Gigs? What's that?
Pete:Speaking gigs? Yeah, gigs, definitely. You know I've been unemployed for over a year and so, financially, I'd love to travel. That would be. My dream is to travel around the country and even around the world and speak. It's to travel around the country and even around the world and speak. However, right now I just don't financially have the resources to do that. Sure.
Mike:Yeah, because it's not cheap to do that. Your story is so amazing. Pete, I know you're a better man than I will ever be, but I think so many people would hear your story and feel a sense of hope, a sense that all is not lost, and would really benefit from hearing your story. I hope that this little podcast can maybe get that word out there, and I talked to some people who are speakers, so maybe we'll have to see if we can do something there for you. But at any rate, I appreciate the fact that you wanted to come on and share your story with me. I think my audience is going to absolutely eat this up and I hope that. You know I always say I don't need a million listeners, I just need one person who needs to hear that story that day.
Pete:Exactly, and that's kind of my philosophy too, and I just want to say I think you're a pretty great individual yourself, so don't put yourself down. I think you're pretty great.
Mike:Oh no.
Pete:And I love your podcast and that's why I wanted to be on it. Kindness matters. It does it really matters. I know I've passed people on the street that I haven't seen in years. They remember a kind act that I've done for them years ago. People remember I had another story just real quick.
Pete:I remember in high school I was walking down the hall and there was a gentleman walking the other way and I could tell he was having a bad day right, and I just smiled at him. I didn't even say anything, I smiled. You know. His complexion changed Years later. I ran into this guy and he told me I had no idea at the time. He told me that he was planning to take his life that night because things were so bad.
Pete:But he did it because of my smile, and so even the power of a smile, I'm telling you it makes a difference.
Mike:It absolutely does. You have, and I got a new shirt. I don't know if you can see it be kind. Everybody is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Absolutely yes and uh, yeah it you. Somewhere in this world, somebody is thinking about you, p parton, because of something you did for them that was kind and they'll remember you forever. And yeah, before I cry, I got to get off, pete. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it, and good luck to you, man.
Pete:Yeah, thank you so much, and thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure to get to know you and um, it's just wonderful. And thank you for having me on the podcast wow, pete parton, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot.
Mike:I have no words. Uh, the man has been through more than most of us have or will be going through, and yet he comes out on the other side smiling and wanting to be kind and forgiving, and I just I find his story so moving. I absolutely. I hope that you were able to take something from this episode Inspiration, motivation, what have you? And if you are booking for speakers, please get in touch with Pete. I'll have his information on the show notes. I think his story would be fantastic for any venue.
Mike:So, yeah, that will do it for this episode of the Kindness Matters podcast. We will be back again next week. Also, just a reminder that this show is a part of the Mayday Media Network and if you are a podcaster or wanting to get into the podcast business, reach out to them. The link will be in the show notes as well, and they can help you become a great podcast and you can join our little group here, because we have a fantastic lineup of podcasts. We will be back again next week with another episode, but, of course, until that time, be that person who roots for others, who tells a stranger that they look amazing and encourages others to believe in themselves and their dreams. You've been listening to the Kindness Matters podcast. I'm your host, mike Rathbun. Have a fantastic week.
