Danny Jones Podcast - #28 - The Success Story of the 'Kutcher Brothers’ | Michael Kutcher
Aired: 2019-12-20
Duration: 01:06:47


=== Overcoming Life's Obstacles (02:34) ===

[00:00:10]  It's Kutcher like Butcher.
[00:00:12]  Kutcher like Butcher.
[00:00:13]  Yeah.
[00:00:13]  Okay.
[00:00:14]  Okay.
[00:00:14]  Cool.
[00:00:14]  Well, first of all, thanks for having me on today.
[00:00:17]  And it's good to be in sunny Florida and not in freezing Denver, Colorado.
[00:00:23]  Who I am and my story.
[00:00:26]  My name is Michael Kutcher.
[00:00:29]  You know, my, I guess where I kind of come into my story is really about, and what my story is really all about is overcoming obstacles, it's persevering through life.
[00:00:43]  You know, I often talk to people about knowing their purpose in life.
[00:00:51]  And I know that that's kind of a big, big question, right?
[00:00:55]  Of what's your purpose in life.
[00:00:58]  But I've been through certain obstacles and challenges in my life that have led me to my purpose.
[00:01:05]  And, you know, I don't think that a lot of people understand their purpose at all.
[00:01:11]  But I've been fortunate enough to.
[00:01:14]  To go through challenges and obstacles throughout my life, um, they have led me to a purpose of really inspiring people and, um, kind of having a greater appreciation for life, you know.
[00:01:29]  Yeah, um, yeah, that's that's you know, we all have our stories, right?
[00:01:35]  We all have our obstacles and challenges to overcome, um, but uh, I've found a unique way to kind of turn that into, uh, An inspirational story for others, and hopefully, it just inspires people and gives people hope.
[00:01:53]  It really kind of covers my story, and we'll get into this, but my story covers really kind of two realms of overcoming obstacles.
[00:02:02]  One is persevering through a disability, where I go back to kind of how I'm channeling my story to others the disability community really kind of needs a voice.
[00:02:18]  I feel about overcoming obstacles and challenges, and I found that I can be that voice or I want to be that voice.
[00:02:26]  The other is around the overall appreciation for life, really more centered around organ donation and how that's affected my life as well.
[00:02:38]  So, you were the benefited from an organ donor when you were very young.

=== Surviving the NIC Unit (02:31) ===

[00:02:44]  Can you explain what led up to that?
[00:02:47]  Like, you were very young, like 13 years old, right?
[00:02:50]  Yep.
[00:02:50]  Yeah.
[00:02:51]  So, It was, it's really an odd story.
[00:02:54]  Um, one that, you know, I, I try to, to put in real terms for, for people and understanding that, hey, listen, like, this wasn't due to a birth defect.
[00:03:06]  This wasn't due to a traumatic issue that I had growing up.
[00:03:11]  Let's start, let's start from the beginning.
[00:03:12]  Sure.
[00:03:13]  Let's tell it.
[00:03:13]  Let's start from the beginning leading up to that.
[00:03:15]  So, um, explain to the audience, um, the story of you being born.
[00:03:21]  You were, you were a twin.
[00:03:23]  So, uh, I was born a twin.
[00:03:27]  Actually, my parents didn't even know that they were going to have twins.
[00:03:31]  The whole time they didn't know.
[00:03:32]  No, no, until about two hours before birth.
[00:03:36]  Wow.
[00:03:37]  So, talking about like a surprising moment, unexpected moment for my parents.
[00:03:44]  I mean, you have a child.
[00:03:45]  Yeah, I just had a child.
[00:03:46]  I can't imagine.
[00:03:48]  I mean, could you imagine the doctor walking into the delivery room saying, hey, Danny, guess what?
[00:03:53]  We noticed there's two babies.
[00:03:56]  Yeah, I can't even imagine.
[00:03:57]  I can't imagine having the one child I have now and multiplying that by two.
[00:04:00]  Yeah, you'd be going nuts, right?
[00:04:04]  So it started out that way to where I was the quote unquote unexpected twin.
[00:04:10]  Okay.
[00:04:12]  And my brother was born.
[00:04:14]  My brother was born very healthy and weighing the average size.
[00:04:19]  I think he weighed like 7.9 pounds, eight pounds, healthy baby boy.
[00:04:24]  When I was born, I weighed about 4.6 pounds.
[00:04:29]  Half size.
[00:04:31]  And I was almost a preemie, really.
[00:04:35]  Not breathing when I was born.
[00:04:38]  And then I started to lose weight.
[00:04:42]  I had to be rushed to.
[00:04:44]  The NIC unit read my last rites because they didn't know if I would survive.
[00:04:51]  But, you know, I kept fighting.
[00:04:53]  And about a month later, I was able to go home to my family.
[00:04:57]  So you stayed there for a month when you stayed there in the NIC unit, receiving oxygen and just gaining my weight.
[00:05:04]  You know, I would slip to like three pounds.
[00:05:07]  And then I think at like five, five and a half pounds, you can officially go home.
[00:05:13]  So I was sent home after a month.

=== Diagnosed at Three Years Old (15:31) ===

[00:05:15]  And, uh, You know, is this growing up?
[00:05:21]  Just, you know, I was my mom was raising three kids at this point two twins and a three year old.
[00:05:30]  Okay.
[00:05:30]  And then, yeah, she's three years old.
[00:05:33]  Okay.
[00:05:34]  She was three years old.
[00:05:37]  And, you know, at about the age of three, my mom just realized that, you know, Michael's not developing the same that, you know, Chris and Tasha are.
[00:05:48]  My brother and sister, and she was very in tune with what was going on with us kids at home.
[00:05:56]  And she raised some concerns with physicians and area education specialists.
[00:06:02]  Come to find out, my mom actually diagnosed me with a disability with cerebral palsy when I was three years old.
[00:06:10]  Your mom did?
[00:06:10]  My mom did.
[00:06:11]  Yeah.
[00:06:12]  Well, I credit it to my mom just because she was so in tune with what was going on.
[00:06:19]  Right.
[00:06:19]  And every time she would go to the physician, he would say, Well, he'll catch up.
[00:06:24]  Right.
[00:06:24]  Just he'll catch up.
[00:06:26]  He'll catch up.
[00:06:27]  My mom's a bulldog on some things and she just won't give up.
[00:06:32]  And she didn't give up demanding answers.
[00:06:34]  And then as they took a closer look, they realized that I had developed cerebral palsy and they don't know where I developed it.
[00:06:46]  And really, that's kind of an issue within that.
[00:06:51]  Within cerebral palsy itself is the understanding of really what causes CP.
[00:06:57]  It can be a number of things, but cerebral palsy is the leading motor disability amongst children today.
[00:07:08]  Okay, I didn't even know that.
[00:07:09]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:07:10]  So it's pretty prevalent and it's kind of this you know, it's a motor disability, so it comes in all shapes and sizes and forms, severities.
[00:07:21]  I have a very mild form of cerebral palsy.
[00:07:24]  So, you know, I've got the eyesight issues.
[00:07:31]  I've got hearing issues.
[00:07:34]  I slur my speech a little bit.
[00:07:38]  My right side's a little bit weaker than my left.
[00:07:42]  But if I'm walking down the street or even if someone's listening to this podcast here, they're not going to probably think that I have a disability.
[00:07:52]  Right.
[00:07:53]  But then you've got other severities where you've got people in, you know, in wheelchairs and you've got, yeah, it's a wide range because it's interesting because when a diagnosis, there really is no kind of aha moment of, oh, yes, he definitely has cerebral palsy.
[00:08:14]  It's kind of a bucket, right?
[00:08:16]  So, like, oh, well, you've got all the classic signs.
[00:08:20]  We're just going to put you in this bucket over here where you could have autism as well.
[00:08:25]  And cerebral palsy.
[00:08:27]  So, yeah, I mean, long story short, at three years old, my mom diagnosed me with having a disability.
[00:08:35]  What age do they typically diagnose cerebral palsy?
[00:08:39]  Well, they're starting to find out that and look into ways that they can diagnose it earlier at the infancy stage.
[00:08:50]  Even in the womb, they're looking at ways that they might be able to diagnose.
[00:08:55]  They don't even really know, like I said, what causes it.
[00:08:58]  Sometimes when babies extracted at birth, you know, there can be some cerebral damage that could cause it.
[00:09:08]  They believe that I was, due to being born at such a low birth weight, they feel that I was given too much oxygen during birth that led to, you know, some cerebral damage or issues.
[00:09:27]  But there's really no real, real.
[00:09:32]  Kind of thought around the cause.
[00:09:34]  There's multiple causes, I guess.
[00:09:36]  To answer your question, typically it's around three years old, two, three years old that the kids are diagnosed when they start seeing obvious signs of this.
[00:09:46]  But back in 1978, you know, it wasn't as widely known.
[00:09:52]  And physicians, like I said, just kind of passed it off as it was something that the child would overcome.
[00:10:00]  Right.
[00:10:00]  Your brother was born twice the weight of you.
[00:10:02]  I mean, obviously they think that that has something to do with.
[00:10:06]  You know, your development because obviously something happened in the womb.
[00:10:10]  You guys were sharing the same womb.
[00:10:12]  Maybe he got more nutrients than you did, or something like that happened.
[00:10:17]  And at three years old, when your mom diagnosed you, what changed when she diagnosed you from leading up to that point?
[00:10:26]  Yeah.
[00:10:27]  You know, I often talk and say that nothing changed, at least not in my family.
[00:10:37]  Yeah, we were a middle class Iowa family, right?
[00:10:42]  Where, you know, at that point, my dad was, you know, I think he was working at a packing plant at that point, and my mom was doing some stuff for the area education teaching, and also, you know, raising three kids at home.
[00:10:59]  But what's very awesome and unique, well, I wouldn't say unique, what's special about my family is that.
[00:11:09]  Even though I was born with a disability and diagnosed with that disability at three years old, they didn't treat me any different than they did Tasha and Chris.
[00:11:22]  There was no, it was all about inclusion in my household, which is great because it made me thrive.
[00:11:31]  It made me, it challenged me to do things.
[00:11:35]  I recall many times doing physical therapy with my siblings.
[00:11:40]  Right, there's one like one of the things with physical therapies.
[00:11:44]  I would have two or three dishes laid out, and I would take jelly beans and move them from one dish to another, try and like help the dexterity of my fingers.
[00:11:55]  Um, because my right side, my right hand has less dexterity than my left.
[00:12:03]  And Chris was there doing the same thing with me, but he thought that we were just doing a game, he just thought that we were just playing around.
[00:12:12]  But little did he know it was actually my physical therapy that he was joining in on.
[00:12:19]  So my mom was.
[00:12:20]  Chris is your brother?
[00:12:21]  Chris is my brother, right.
[00:12:22]  Okay.
[00:12:22]  Right.
[00:12:23]  And so my mom was just very inclusive with the whole family.
[00:12:31]  And that said a lot about how, you know, kind of I was treated growing up, at least inside the family and with friends and peers.
[00:12:47]  And it also kind of gave my siblings the understanding of, you know, working with someone with a disability and how you treat other individuals.
[00:12:58]  So, you know, it was, I'm forever grateful for my parents for giving me that kind of, you know, that challenge throughout my life and not treating me as if I needed special treatment or, you know, They needed to cater to me.
[00:13:23]  Things were normal.
[00:13:24]  In fact, when I was going through kindergarten and going into first grade, the elementary school wanted to hold me back, right?
[00:13:34]  Because they're just, you know, kids get held back for a grade, right?
[00:13:38]  And my mom said, absolutely not.
[00:13:40]  She said, Michael will go through the education program with, you know, alongside his brother every step of the way.
[00:13:48]  And that just challenged me more.
[00:13:50]  And you did?
[00:13:50]  Did you go to school with your brother the whole way?
[00:13:52]  I did.
[00:13:52]  Really?
[00:13:53]  Oh, yeah.
[00:13:55]  We were in the same kindergarten class, but after that, they start to separate you.
[00:14:00]  Oh, really?
[00:14:00]  So, yeah.
[00:14:01]  So, we were in different classes growing up all the way through.
[00:14:04]  But, yeah, we graduated high school together.
[00:14:07]  Yeah.
[00:14:07]  I mean, we're going through the same grades.
[00:14:10]  Sometimes, unfortunately, wearing the same clothes, right?
[00:14:15]  Mom wanted to be matchy matchy.
[00:14:19]  But, you know, I don't think that my life would turn out the way it.
[00:14:25]  It has today without my brother because I talk about inclusion in the household and how great the household was.
[00:14:34]  But when you step outside the household and outside those family dynamics, society has a whole different view for you, right?
[00:14:43]  And a whole different approach.
[00:14:46]  I often talk about the playground, and you know, we've always heard the phrase that the playground's the cruelest place for kids.
[00:14:54]  Yeah, kids can be shitheads, and it is.
[00:14:57]  I mean, it's just Just complete heads.
[00:14:59]  It's you know, I think I've been called every name in the book, every kind of disability name, and um, it's hurtful, especially at that age when you don't know how to deal with it and you don't know how to internalize it.
[00:15:12]  You don't realize that these kids are just they don't know any better because they haven't been taught the right things at home, right?
[00:15:22]  Um, but me on the playground was a little bit different because he was there with me, right?
[00:15:28]  And and I mean.
[00:15:31]  He would literally like take fights for me and stand up for me.
[00:15:36]  Yeah, I mean, he's, in some respects, he's my big brother, right?
[00:15:40]  And he took on that role for me.
[00:15:44]  They really, you know, gave me an insight of how a society really is with people with disabilities.
[00:15:55]  And I've got a mild disability, right?
[00:15:58]  Right.
[00:15:59]  And people that were picking on me probably just didn't even know I actually had a disability.
[00:16:06]  A disability, like a named disability, they probably just thought that I had thick glasses or needed hearing aids.
[00:16:16]  Um, and it, like I said, just gave me more perception on how life was going to be growing up, um, in a societal way, in a societal view.
[00:16:32]  And as I did grow up, um, I think that they really kind of suppressed.
[00:16:39]  My comfort with having a disability.
[00:16:43]  I hid my disability for years and wasn't.
[00:16:47]  Didn't talk about it.
[00:16:48]  Didn't talk about it, didn't acknowledge it, no one asked.
[00:16:53]  Because I was really, I internalized it.
[00:16:56]  I was really afraid of, you know, what would my friends think?
[00:17:00]  What would my employer think when I started working?
[00:17:04]  Would they treat me differently?
[00:17:08]  You know, trying to build a relationship with a woman.
[00:17:11]  How is that going to work?
[00:17:13]  Who's going to accept that?
[00:17:14]  So I really kind of held that in for a number of years.
[00:17:18]  And you had a heart transplant, right?
[00:17:19]  I did.
[00:17:20]  And how old were you when that happened?
[00:17:22]  And why did they have to do that?
[00:17:24]  Yeah, I was 13.
[00:17:26]  So once again, going back, this had nothing to do with developing cerebral palsy, nothing to do with being underweight at birth.
[00:17:37]  I like to say that, you know, in a joking way, I just got.
[00:17:43]  dealt a different set of cards, you know, than maybe even, you know, my twin did.
[00:17:50]  And that's okay with me.
[00:17:51]  I'm cool with that.
[00:17:53]  I'm glad that happened that way.
[00:17:55]  At age 13, I just got sick.
[00:17:59]  I mean, I thought I had the flu.
[00:18:03]  It was around Thanksgiving time.
[00:18:06]  So I was off school.
[00:18:08]  I was home for about, you know, about a week.
[00:18:12]  And, you know, didn't really go to the doctor because What's the doctor going to tell you?
[00:18:18]  Like, you have viral, you know, it's viral.
[00:18:21]  Go home.
[00:18:22]  Don't worry about it.
[00:18:24]  And in some respects, I'm glad I didn't go to the doctor so early because they would have kind of passed up the signs that I thought that actually were critical.
[00:18:35]  And so after a week when, you know, I wasn't getting better, my mom finally took me to an area hospital where they realized that I was.
[00:18:46]  You know, severely dehydrated.
[00:18:49]  But also, through an x ray, they realized that my heart was four times the size of a normal heart wow.
[00:18:57]  So, so it was enlarged and, and they had no idea why i'd later, you know, see a cardiologist, and it was then determined that I had I had a viral, what they call myocarditis, Viral inflammation of the heart.
[00:19:21]  And, you know, it was that cardiologist's recommendation that I have a heart transplant.
[00:19:29]  So, yeah, it was pretty alarming, I guess, point in my life.
[00:19:37]  Scary.
[00:19:38]  But at 13 years old, you.
[00:19:41]  How do you process that when you're a 13 year old?
[00:19:44]  You don't.
[00:19:46]  I mean, you don't.
[00:19:48]  Or at least I didn't.
[00:19:51]  I didn't know what was going on.
[00:19:54]  I just thought that, you know, it would be a quick process and it would be like getting your appendix out.
[00:20:01]  Really, I remember asking the cardiologist how long I'd be out of school.
[00:20:06]  Oh, really?
[00:20:07]  That was my biggest concern.
[00:20:08]  Yeah, you know, how much ice cream do I get to eat?
[00:20:11]  Like, it just wasn't, I didn't understand the severity of it.
[00:20:18]  And it didn't take long for me to quickly understand when someone asked, you know, how much time I would have.
[00:20:28]  And I kind of had to think and process that for a moment.
[00:20:34]  And realize what they're talking about.
[00:20:37]  You know, how long you would have to live?
[00:20:39]  Yeah.
[00:20:41]  And, right, how long would my current heart have to survive?

=== Facing a Heart Transplant (11:30) ===

[00:20:47]  And he told me three to four weeks.
[00:20:53]  So, I mean, here I am, three to four weeks to live, 13 years old.
[00:21:01]  There's a lot that goes through your mind.
[00:21:04]  They need to find somebody to donate a heart to you, right?
[00:21:06]  It's not like, okay, sure, we'll schedule you for next week.
[00:21:10]  They have to, I mean, there's obviously like a waiting list to get organ transplants, right?
[00:21:14]  Yeah, there is.
[00:21:16]  And I don't know, it was like back then compared to what it's like now, but.
[00:21:21]  Yeah, it wasn't as prevalent.
[00:21:22]  I mean, the first heart transplant, I think, was in 1969.
[00:21:26]  I was number 50 at the University of Iowa Hospital.
[00:21:30]  So it's a fairly new procedure.
[00:21:32]  And you're right.
[00:21:33]  I mean, they've got to find.
[00:21:35]  When they look for a donor, it's got to be the right match of tissue, size, blood type, so it's got to be an ideal match.
[00:21:44]  Um, and when I was first diagnosed, um, I went through several tests, and when I went to a larger hospital, they thought that they could, you know, cure me and they thought that they could decrease the inflammation of the heart and I wouldn't need a transplant.
[00:22:03]  Okay, so here I am, um, with.
[00:22:06]  A great medical team at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, and they're trying their best to assist me.
[00:22:18]  But just as the first cardiologist had predicted, about three to four weeks later, I would just slip into cardiac arrest.
[00:22:27]  And at this point, remember that the hospital doesn't think that I need a heart transplant, the larger medical hospital.
[00:22:40]  So, I wasn't even put on the list yet.
[00:22:42]  So, here I am in cardiac arrest, and I'm not even put on the transplant list yet.
[00:22:48]  It wasn't until I went into cardiac arrest that I was put on the transplant list.
[00:22:54]  How long did it take them to find somebody with a heart?
[00:22:57]  Yeah.
[00:22:57]  I don't know what that could have been like.
[00:23:00]  Right.
[00:23:00]  I mean, people wait for years.
[00:23:02]  Right.
[00:23:02]  You know, people wait for a long time.
[00:23:05]  You had less than three weeks.
[00:23:06]  I had less than three weeks, and now I've got less than 48 hours.
[00:23:10]  Once you went into cardiac arrest?
[00:23:12]  Yeah, once I went into cardiac arrest, they determined that, you know, my parents really had two choices.
[00:23:18]  They could either put me on a ventricle pump, which would cycle my blood, a kind of artificial heart for me, or they could say their goodbyes at that point because they didn't feel, physicians didn't feel that if I went through another cardiac arrest, that I would survive.
[00:23:42]  And my parents, you know, took the window of the ventricle pump, but.
[00:23:50]  Back then, the ventricle pump, your heart tissue would start to die if it wasn't actually pumping itself.
[00:24:00]  Because it's a muscle, right?
[00:24:02]  So you're only really, the heart tissue dies after about 48 hours.
[00:24:08]  So really, I've only got a 48 hour window on this ventricle pump.
[00:24:16]  At this point, I'm out of it, right?
[00:24:19]  I'm so drugged up.
[00:24:21]  Morphine is a great thing.
[00:24:22]  Yeah.
[00:24:23]  Yeah, it's a great thing.
[00:24:25]  But yeah, it was a very difficult time.
[00:24:29]  I mean, my, think about it.
[00:24:32]  I mean, my parents are faced with this, the same thing they faced 13 years ago, right?
[00:24:39]  Bringing the chaplain in, reading the last rites.
[00:24:41]  I mean, I, um, yeah, I mean, you've got a son now.
[00:24:47]  I mean, I've got kids.
[00:24:49]  Um, could you imagine how much harder it was for your parents, let alone you?
[00:24:53]  I can't, right?
[00:24:54]  Uh, they're, they're some of the strongest people I know to be able to, Persevere through this, and that's where I get the most of my strength, you know.
[00:25:04]  Um, is it through my family and looking at the obstacles that we've been through?
[00:25:10]  And um, I was we were just fortunate enough, you know, by the grace of God that a match was found, you know, within 24 hours.
[00:25:22]  So, yeah, so I only literally waited on the transplant list for about 24 hours.
[00:25:30]  So I was, you know, I always joke that it was, I was number one in the country.
[00:25:37]  Probably the only time they'll ever be number one in the nation.
[00:25:40]  But yeah, but yeah, I mean, my severity was so high.
[00:25:44]  I was so sick that I was number one.
[00:25:48]  So they found the ideal individual and a match was made.
[00:25:55]  And it's interesting that we sit here today in Tampa, Florida, right?
[00:26:00]  That's wild.
[00:26:01]  Because my match.
[00:26:03]  Uh, my donor actually came from, um, from why I'm told, uh, it came from the Tampa Bay area, really.
[00:26:11]  Yeah, so it's like this, like a homecoming for me.
[00:26:13]  Home is where the heart is, right?
[00:26:14]  Right, exactly, something like that.
[00:26:17]  I like that.
[00:26:17]  I'll use that.
[00:26:18]  Yeah, so your parents, they within 24 hours, they were jumping for joy, so to speak, because they found a match for you, and uh, and then you underwent the operation, right?
[00:26:31]  So, how long did the operation take for you to get a new heart?
[00:26:33]  I think it took about uh, eight to ten hours, yeah, and You know, once again, I can't imagine what my parents are going through and my siblings, and, and, um, you know, I'd never want to be put in that type of place.
[00:26:50]  Um, but yeah, I mean, it took about eight, 10 hours and took the old out, put the new in, and, uh, you know, I've been blessed.
[00:27:00]  Yeah.
[00:27:01]  I truly have.
[00:27:03]  I heard when you get the new heart, you sort of develop some of the intuitions.
[00:27:09]  That the previous owner of that organ had.
[00:27:12]  Is that true?
[00:27:12]  I mean, there's been studies and books about it, right?
[00:27:15]  Well, it's a little hard because A, I don't know a lot about my donor.
[00:27:21]  But B, I was only 13 years old.
[00:27:24]  So the habits, yeah, well, in the habits that I built, I attribute that those are my habits, right?
[00:27:33]  This is the way I am.
[00:27:35]  Right.
[00:27:35]  I'm too young to know.
[00:27:36]  Yeah.
[00:27:37]  Yeah.
[00:27:37]  Or even to have developed my own intuitions.
[00:27:41]  But my donor was a female.
[00:27:44]  Okay.
[00:27:45]  So, you know, I don't know whether it's just the circumstances I've been through, the obstacles I've been through, or it's, you know, people say females are more emotional.
[00:27:58]  I just, you know, I find myself, you know, watching a sad TV program or like even just thinking of something like sad.
[00:28:12]  I just get teary.
[00:28:13]  You like watching the notebook?
[00:28:15]  Oh, I can't watch that.
[00:28:17]  I can't deal with the notebook.
[00:28:20]  I mean, it's such a good show, but, you know, I know my fiance probably laughing at me because, A, talking about chick flicks, but no, I mean, sometimes I'll watch, you know, a video on like YouTube, right?
[00:28:42]  I watched recently, there was a video that ESPN put out about this.
[00:28:47]  This high school, I think it was high school or middle school kid in Iowa with cerebral palsy, and he was wrestling an opponent, and he beat him.
[00:29:01]  It was the first time that he ever won a match in his wrestling career.
[00:29:05]  And not only am I proud that he's an Iowan, but he just demonstrated a number of things about his perseverance and his passion, but also about the sportsmanship and the The wherewithal and maturity of the other wrestler to allow him to experience that joy in that moment.
[00:29:33]  And it's just stuff like that that'll tear me into a tailspin to where I need a Kleenex.
[00:29:40]  Really?
[00:29:42]  That's not a bad thing necessarily.
[00:29:43]  No, it's not.
[00:29:45]  And when we open this podcast.
[00:29:49]  At least it's not a bad side effect.
[00:29:51]  If that's the worst side effect of a new heart, then.
[00:29:53]  Exactly.
[00:29:54]  You're doing pretty good.
[00:29:55]  And you know, when we opened up this conversation, you told me to kind of talk about my story.
[00:29:59]  And, you know, one of the things I mentioned was my appreciation for life.
[00:30:04]  And when you go through that type of experience of having 24 hours to live, you do look at life differently.
[00:30:18]  And, you know, if a video makes me tear up, then so be it.
[00:30:24]  Right?
[00:30:26]  I don't care.
[00:30:27]  Right?
[00:30:27]  There's worse things in this world to worry about.
[00:30:31]  And it gives you a different perspective on appreciation on life itself, on the people in your life, and really what you're concerned with and maybe what you shouldn't be so concerned with.
[00:30:52]  So it's definitely giving me a new perspective.
[00:30:56]  Kind of a new lease on life.
[00:30:58]  Yeah.
[00:30:58]  Yeah.
[00:30:59]  For sure.
[00:31:00]  So after you got the heart transplant, you obviously, obviously took a while for that to heal up and for you to get back on your feet.
[00:31:07]  What happened after that?
[00:31:09]  Yeah.
[00:31:09]  I mean, life just goes on, right?
[00:31:12]  I mean, obviously, there's things that I have to worry about diet, health, can't go play football, right?
[00:31:21]  I mean, we've just broken open the breastbone, had a major surgery.
[00:31:26]  But, you know, there's worse things.
[00:31:32]  There's more important things in my life at that point than worrying about playing football or contact sports or whether I can eat pizza or salty food.
[00:31:42]  You know, I'm just grateful to.
[00:31:45]  To wake up every day.
[00:31:49]  You know, I went through school and I had a great, amazing support group through school and through my family and friends.
[00:31:57]  And, you know, I just started living life as a normal teenage kid, doing the normal, stupid stuff a teenage kid does and, you know, having the sibling rivalries and trying to find your own individual path, right?
[00:32:15]  It was difficult being a twin, you know, as.

=== Finding Purpose Beyond Sports (09:57) ===

[00:32:18]  His mom kind of molds you, mom and dad kind of mold you together as one.
[00:32:23]  It was always Chris and Mike, Chris and Mike, right?
[00:32:26]  Yeah, it's like, you know, why does he always have to be first, right?
[00:32:31]  Like, why can't it be Mike and Chris?
[00:32:34]  So it's, you know, we did start to see kind of individual lives and paths start.
[00:32:43]  And then something just kind of crazy happened when we were like, Uh, about 18, probably at 19 years old, our sophomore year, I had gone to a small Catholic college in my hometown and worked in the banking community growing up and stayed close to home.
[00:33:08]  My brother went to Iowa City and he actually wanted to study to be a biochemical engineer at the University of Iowa, yeah, because he wanted to.
[00:33:21]  Go into medical science as a biochemical engineer and find cures and develop like different research around my heart ailment.
[00:33:33]  Really?
[00:33:35]  Yeah.
[00:33:35]  So that was his career path.
[00:33:37]  I did not know that.
[00:33:39]  At first, right?
[00:33:41]  And then he, it quickly changed.
[00:33:44]  Yeah, it quickly changed.
[00:33:47]  He was a sophomore in college and was.
[00:33:53]  Uh, noticed by a modeling scout, um, and um, asked to be in a model talent show in Iowa.
[00:34:04]  I mean, of all places, Iowa, right?
[00:34:07]  Modeling show in Iowa, yeah.
[00:34:08]  We've got we have a lot of attractive people in Iowa, yeah, yeah.
[00:34:11]  Um, and he, um, he actually kind of tussled with that kind of invite for a while.
[00:34:20]  And long story short, he he he did the talent show, actually won the talent show.
[00:34:27]  Yeah, he went on to go to New York to be in a larger modeling talent show.
[00:34:36]  Ended up placing well in that talent show.
[00:34:41]  And next thing I know, my brother's on billboards modeling underwear for Calvin Klein.
[00:34:47]  Oh my God.
[00:34:48]  Yeah.
[00:34:48]  So we were probably, I think, I'm still in college, you know, trying to get my higher education, right?
[00:34:58]  Looking at pictures of your brother wearing tighty whiteys on billboards.
[00:35:01]  Yeah, right.
[00:35:02]  But, you know, good for him.
[00:35:05]  He was able to travel the world and get into that.
[00:35:09]  And you've been calling him Chris this whole time.
[00:35:11]  I have.
[00:35:12]  Is that his real name?
[00:35:13]  Well, it is.
[00:35:15]  And I guess here's where we divulge the secret, right?
[00:35:19]  Maybe of who I'm speaking of.
[00:35:22]  My brother was born Christopher Ashton.
[00:35:24]  Okay.
[00:35:25]  So Ashton's his middle name.
[00:35:26]  And how the story goes is he was, from what I heard, how he changed the name, so to speak, was he was in a.
[00:35:43]  Model agency, and when the call came through to send Chris to the shoot, they really had like three or four Chris's in the agency, and you know, they didn't know who'd send.
[00:35:59]  And at least that's the story I heard, maybe it's different, but he they you know decided to do Ashton with a better, more unique, right?
[00:36:13]  More model, I guess, better model name for him.
[00:36:16]  Um, so he uh, it'll rank quicker on Google, yeah.
[00:36:19]  I guess, right?
[00:36:21]  No one beats an A. Um, maybe that was before Google, I don't know.
[00:36:24]  I don't know, yeah, but um, so that that took him to uh, to be known as Ashen, and uh, you know, then he um, he always wanted to act, right?
[00:36:37]  Did he really?
[00:36:37]  Yeah, he did.
[00:36:38]  He did.
[00:36:39]  He was always in plays, and uh, even before the modeling talent shows, yeah, yeah, he was always uh, doing high school plays and musicals, and um.
[00:36:51]  And then he, you know, I'm really proud of him because I mean, here's one guy, and he does it to this day.
[00:37:00]  When he sees something, he just goes for it.
[00:37:03]  Like, I don't care how big the dream is, he just takes it.
[00:37:11]  And he achieves greatness through it.
[00:37:15]  And there's a lot to be said in that.
[00:37:17]  And I think that more people need to do that.
[00:37:20]  Right.
[00:37:22]  Who cares if your dream is, you know, more than what you think is possible, right?
[00:37:31]  If that's your dream, go for it.
[00:37:32]  And he did.
[00:37:33]  He, you know, went to LA to audition for a few shows.
[00:37:41]  And long story short, ended up on that 70s show.
[00:37:45]  Wow.
[00:37:46]  Kind of.
[00:37:47]  And how old were you?
[00:37:48]  I'm sure everyone knows the story after that.
[00:37:50]  Yeah.
[00:37:51]  Yeah, I think we were like 20, 21.
[00:37:54]  21 when he's on that 70 show.
[00:37:56]  Yeah, around that time.
[00:37:57]  So, and yeah, I really struggled with that.
[00:38:03]  I mean, it's.
[00:38:04]  Yeah, I mean, here you are.
[00:38:05]  I mean, you're going to college, right?
[00:38:07]  You're still in Iowa, and your twin brother is basically a movie star now.
[00:38:14]  Yeah.
[00:38:15]  It was, and it really was kind of overnight type sensation.
[00:38:20]  And, you know, there was a lot of.
[00:38:23]  Cool things that come with that, you know, and different experiences.
[00:38:29]  I'm grateful to be able to experience through him.
[00:38:33]  But as an individual, I really struggled with my own identity and trying, because now I'm not just Chris and Mike.
[00:38:46]  Now I'm Ashen's brother.
[00:38:48]  Right.
[00:38:49]  And by the way, I have a name, right?
[00:38:53]  I mean, literally, people would introduce me sometimes as Ashen's brother.
[00:38:57]  Right.
[00:38:58]  And to me, that was difficult to deal with.
[00:39:02]  Was it?
[00:39:02]  Yeah.
[00:39:02]  I mean, he's my brother, right?
[00:39:07]  Right.
[00:39:08]  Like, at least introduce me with my first name first, right?
[00:39:15]  And kind of like, why does it matter who I'm related to?
[00:39:20]  So I struggle with that, just finding my own identity.
[00:39:23]  Like, who is Michael Kutcher?
[00:39:26]  And it was a difficult time for me, you know?
[00:39:31]  I'm in my 20s.
[00:39:33]  And typically a difficult time for any 20 year old.
[00:39:37]  It is.
[00:39:37]  But you have a very unique set of circumstances.
[00:39:40]  Yeah.
[00:39:40]  Yeah and, believe me, I mean there's there's, you know, like I said, there's some, some good that come with it.
[00:39:47]  There's, you know, some perks, so to speak.
[00:39:51]  Um, but um, you know, I just wanted to find my own person and I think that, you know, regardless of my brother, I think that everyone struggles with that, like what's, what's my passion in life, what's my purpose what?
[00:40:12]  What do I want to stand for, You know, and what do I want to do for a career?
[00:40:17]  And what do I want to do for a family?
[00:40:20]  And you're on this earth for a fucking reason.
[00:40:23]  You've already been through so much.
[00:40:24]  There's like, you know, if I'm you, I'm like, if I'm still here, there's got to be a really important reason I'm still here.
[00:40:31]  Well, and that's it.
[00:40:32]  I mean, like, here I am.
[00:40:34]  You know, I've almost died at birth.
[00:40:39]  I almost died with a heart transplant.
[00:40:44]  One thing we left out is.
[00:40:46]  During high school, I had two other open heart surgeries.
[00:40:50]  Oh, really?
[00:40:50]  To remove blood clots.
[00:40:53]  So, this was after the heart transplant?
[00:40:55]  Yeah.
[00:40:56]  So, here I am.
[00:40:57]  I've almost literally died about four times, but I'm still here.
[00:41:02]  But, like, to your point, like, why?
[00:41:04]  Why am I still here?
[00:41:05]  Yeah.
[00:41:05]  Like, what is my purpose?
[00:41:06]  Yeah.
[00:41:07]  I got to do something with this opportunity.
[00:41:09]  Yeah.
[00:41:09]  And now my brother is a major celebrity, and I love my brother.
[00:41:14]  You love your siblings.
[00:41:16]  Family is family, and um, I'm yeah, he's he's one of my best friends, he's a great inspiration to me and role model to me.
[00:41:29]  Um, and how do I utilize kind of the notoriety that I built kind of through that, right?
[00:41:40]  Um, because I never want to deny that he, you know, family is family, um.
[00:41:47]  But how do we utilize that for the greater good and to be able to give back to people?
[00:41:53]  You know, and those are some great lessons that my brother taught me was the gift of generosity and the gift of giving back to others and how much fulfillment you can actually receive through that.
[00:42:08]  And then I kind of fell into my purpose when I was about 30 years old.

=== Raising Awareness Through Giving (14:58) ===

[00:42:15]  So, I was, I received a phone call one day and a woman asked me to speak at a gala, a cerebral palsy gala that she was starting a foundation for in Iowa.
[00:42:33]  I remember when I was speaking earlier where I said that I kind of denied that I had a disability.
[00:42:41]  Yeah.
[00:42:41]  I still had that.
[00:42:43]  But now I've got my brother, you know, kind of talking about his family life and doing different media things.
[00:42:51]  And, You know, it kind of creeped out.
[00:42:53]  So he was talking about you?
[00:42:54]  Yeah.
[00:42:55]  Okay.
[00:42:56]  And our upbringing and myself having this disability.
[00:43:00]  And, you know, so when this woman asked me to speak at this gala about my struggles with cerebral palsy, I was like, what are you talking about?
[00:43:18]  You know, I don't need to publicize it any more than it's been publicized.
[00:43:26]  And then she introduced me to her daughter.
[00:43:32]  We talked about different severities of CP.
[00:43:36]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:43:37]  And her daughter, Bella, who is five years old, who's the same age as my son at that time, you know, she had more limitations than I did.
[00:43:50]  Okay.
[00:43:51]  Right?
[00:43:51]  She used a gait to walk.
[00:43:54]  She had trouble communicating without the use of a machine, feeding tubes.
[00:44:03]  At 30 years old, it.
[00:44:06]  Was something that kind of struck me, you know.
[00:44:11]  Um, but here's a child that is, you know, has all these limitations, but she's amazing.
[00:44:23]  I mean, her smile just lit up a room, and she was beautiful and she was so happy and so full of life, and it really was a key moment of mine where I was like.
[00:44:38]  You know, I gotta stop.
[00:44:40]  Like, guess what?
[00:44:42]  Our disability is called the same thing.
[00:44:45]  Right.
[00:44:46]  Like, why am I in the closet, so to speak, when this girl is so happy with her disability and she has bigger limitations than you do?
[00:44:58]  So, that's when I realized that that was kind of my voice.
[00:45:03]  And that was my.
[00:45:04]  You feel like a responsibility, kind of.
[00:45:06]  Did, yeah.
[00:45:07]  And I felt like I could make a difference.
[00:45:10]  And, um,.
[00:45:13]  You know, so I spoke at that gala that was, you know, 12 years ago.
[00:45:19]  And that was the first time I ever spoke in public about the cerebral palsy, about organ donation, about obstacles.
[00:45:32]  And then I've since over the years learned to build a network and build a foundation around that and build my story to inspire.
[00:45:45]  Audiences and now I find myself being an advocate for cerebral disabilities overall.
[00:45:57]  I sit on the board as an advisor for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation.
[00:46:06]  I have gone to Washington to advance budgets and speak about disabilities, cerebral palsy in specific.
[00:46:14]  There's been some advancement over the years, and that's really due to.
[00:46:20]  You know, the people that I had kind of, I won't say on my team, that I had the privilege of joining them on their crusade.
[00:46:31]  And that was a foundation I started with called Reaching for the Stars out of Georgia.
[00:46:38]  Same foundation that I spoke for at that gala.
[00:46:43]  And, you know, we went to Washington and we were kind of naive thinking that we would just point out the disparity in funding.
[00:46:54]  And they would just, it would be like an aha moment.
[00:46:58]  Like, oh, hey, like, yeah, you're right.
[00:47:00]  Let's give them $5 million.
[00:47:02]  Let's point it out to them.
[00:47:03]  Let's point it out to them.
[00:47:05]  But little did we know that, as we all know today, Washington's a little political.
[00:47:12]  A little bit.
[00:47:14]  And partisan.
[00:47:17]  And when you look at the National Institute of Health, the NIH, and the CDC, and their funding for different disabilities within the budget.
[00:47:32]  They actually line item every disability.
[00:47:35]  And it was disturbing to me that there were great causes in there spina bifida, autism, Down syndrome, right?
[00:47:49]  All great causes and the needs there for those as well.
[00:47:56]  But there wasn't even a mention or a line item of cerebral palsy.
[00:48:00]  Really?
[00:48:01]  Yeah.
[00:48:04]  Infuriated me.
[00:48:07]  And it wasn't because of lack of trying.
[00:48:10]  So, what the group that I was with did was we raised awareness around it.
[00:48:19]  And I'm not sure where the funding is to this date, but at least there's recognition.
[00:48:28]  And they continue, the Cerebral Palsy Foundation continues to advocate, they continue to raise awareness.
[00:48:37]  And be a resource for families with cerebral palsy because it affects so many people worldwide, across our nation.
[00:48:49]  And there's a large community there.
[00:48:53]  But then I started to look at my work with cerebral palsy and how I'm fighting for rights and advocacy and to.
[00:49:07]  To change societal views that I dealt with growing up, right?
[00:49:12]  That kind of put me in that closet, so to speak.
[00:49:17]  So, as I start to fight and work through those and talk through those, I realize like this, this isn't just cerebral palsy.
[00:49:27]  You know, cerebral palsy is what I'm infected with, and it, you know, I support those initiatives.
[00:49:36]  But we have to have a broader conversation around disabilities in general.
[00:49:41]  You know, my nephew was born with autism.
[00:49:46]  He's five years old.
[00:49:48]  Can recite the periodic table of elements with the corresponding atomic numbers at five years old.
[00:49:56]  Wow.
[00:49:57]  Some people would call that a genius.
[00:50:00]  Yeah.
[00:50:00]  Right?
[00:50:00]  For sure.
[00:50:02]  But why are we labeling people with different inabilities versus viewing their abilities?
[00:50:13]  So let me ask you this.
[00:50:14]  Can you do that?
[00:50:17]  Hell no.
[00:50:18]  Right.
[00:50:19]  Why are we saying that he has the inability to be social and sit down with you at a table?
[00:50:26]  Yeah.
[00:50:27]  If we're going to do that and we're going to point him out for that, why don't we point out your inability to recite the periodic table?
[00:50:37]  Right.
[00:50:38]  We don't.
[00:50:39]  That's because we're not focused on people's abilities.
[00:50:44]  As society would focus more on the mainstream quote unquote norms they can't achieve.
[00:50:51]  Right.
[00:50:52]  You know, I go back to Bella and the little girl that inspired me.
[00:50:55]  Yeah.
[00:50:56]  She may not have all the abilities that you and I have, but she had the grace ability of all, and that was to inspire me.
[00:51:05]  Right.
[00:51:06]  You know, same thing that my nephew does.
[00:51:09]  So, I've started to kind of build that conversation, and I continue to build that societal conversation around abilities.
[00:51:20]  And, you know, I know I've mentioned the word disability here quite a few times, but I've actually coined the phrase that I.
[00:51:29]  I prefer the word diffability.
[00:51:32]  Diffability.
[00:51:33]  Diffability with Fs, right?
[00:51:35]  Because we're all different.
[00:51:39]  I mean, who the hell wants to be the same?
[00:51:42]  I don't.
[00:51:43]  So I'm proud of my differences.
[00:51:46]  And you have to embrace your differences and the abilities that you do have.
[00:51:51]  And yeah, also, I mean, think about the words that kind of how disability sounds.
[00:52:00]  I mean, Is it kind of the prefix disc kind of has a disability, right?
[00:52:05]  Is a negative connotation, yeah?
[00:52:08]  Right?
[00:52:08]  I mean, the prefix alone means something negative, so um, I just think that we all have differences, we all need to appreciate and celebrate our differences.
[00:52:21]  Um, and I still think that society has a ways to go in that, in the conversation, just as much as we have a ways to go in the gender equality and the race equality.
[00:52:35]  In the LGBTQ community.
[00:52:38]  But I feel like the disability community is kind of the one left out.
[00:52:43]  There's so much stuff that we just like to put them in little boxes so we can understand them.
[00:52:48]  Right.
[00:52:48]  And you like to point out kind of the bigger ones, the more noticeable ones.
[00:52:56]  And I think that society and changing views, you know, look at that story of that YouTube of that.
[00:53:07]  That young wrestler that I spoke about, right?
[00:53:10]  The um, what was his name again?
[00:53:13]  Uh, his name is Logan.
[00:53:15]  Logan, okay.
[00:53:16]  Um, and it's on my Twitter feed.
[00:53:18]  I threw it up there if anyone wants to see it.
[00:53:20]  Um, but you know, people are starting to kind of accept a little bit more.
[00:53:27]  Um, and that's kind of Logan on the mat, right?
[00:53:32]  Let's accept Logan on the wrestling mat, much like me on the playground.
[00:53:37]  Or me in the home, but once you get to the playground, things change.
[00:53:45]  I just feel like there's always going to be more advancement that needs to occur, much like all the other communities out there, all the other, you know, how we put people in boxes with race.
[00:53:58]  And although you and I use social media as a kind of a way to communicate with our audiences, and we're appreciative for that.
[00:54:09]  You know, social media is kind of divided, or even though in some ways it's brought our country together and communities together, it's divided as well.
[00:54:19]  I remember the days where my brother and I would go in the backyard in the dirt pile and we would play with matchbox cars and we would build a road and ramp matchbox cars off of a mound, you know, Dukes of Hazzard, all that stuff.
[00:54:38]  My kids don't do that these days.
[00:54:40]  My kids.
[00:54:42]  Or on social media Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
[00:54:52]  It consumes them.
[00:54:53]  And so I think that, you know, along with the appreciation of life and different things that we need to do in the appreciation of life, we also need to look at the things that consume us and the things that maybe distract us, like, you know, TV and our phones and our computers.
[00:55:21]  And we need to get back to the day where we.
[00:55:25]  We have the ability to shell that off and we can talk to people, yeah.
[00:55:31]  And that's why I think, I mean, podcasts are awesome, yeah, because we're sitting here, we're just having a dialogue.
[00:55:36]  I'm telling you about my life, you're learning about my life.
[00:55:39]  And I hope, Danny, I hope that you're gaining a greater appreciation for life and a greater understanding for your own family.
[00:55:47]  That you can go home and maybe, you know, Liam, right, is your son, Leo, Leo.
[00:55:53]  Sorry, um.
[00:55:56]  That maybe you'll hug him a little bit tighter tonight, right?
[00:55:59]  Because you don't know when he might get the quote unquote flu, right?
[00:56:04]  God forbid.
[00:56:05]  Right.
[00:56:06]  You know, anyone goes through challenges I have, but we got to get to the point where, and it's really my purpose to share my story and help people get to the point,
[00:56:20]  even if it's just for the hour that I speak to them, that they think about this stuff and that they shut down the noise and, They really just are in the moment and think about life.
[00:56:36]  No.
[00:56:37]  Yeah, I think, at least I hope, the pendulum will swing heavily the other way eventually and hopefully soon.
[00:56:45]  Because, you know, you think of the short attention span of social media apps like Instagram and Twitter, just like the endless scrolling, bite sized, ADD type content.
[00:56:56]  And podcasting is sort of the opposite of that, right?
[00:57:00]  Yeah.
[00:57:01]  And thank God, you know, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have a social media outlet to distribute it, right?
[00:57:08]  I wouldn't have this opportunity to sit here with you for an hour and just have a straight up one on one human connection with somebody.

=== The Pendulum of Social Media (04:52) ===

[00:57:14]  Yeah.
[00:57:14]  I mean, there's a beauty around it, right?
[00:57:17]  And don't get me wrong, social media does provide some great things to us, and it's a great outlet for people to communicate with people.
[00:57:28]  But there are a lot of negative things.
[00:57:32]  Associated with social media, and you say that you hope the pendulum's gonna swing, but I'm afraid it probably won't.
[00:57:39]  I mean, it's gonna get worse.
[00:57:42]  And, you know, I'm raising kids that are consumed with it, and you just, as a parent, you're gonna learn with Leo as he grows up, it's gonna get worse, you know, when he's 15, 16, and you're gonna have different, hopefully not worse, challenges that I deal with.
[00:58:04]  You know, with Snapchat and Instagram.
[00:58:07]  But it really goes back to, you know, we were talking about this earlier like how you raise your kids and, you know, the morals and the values that you instill in them at a young age.
[00:58:21]  And, you know, I look at my family, I look at, you know, my brother that is doing great things.
[00:58:30]  Does he have kids?
[00:58:31]  He does.
[00:58:32]  Yeah.
[00:58:32]  So he's a five year old and then a three year old.
[00:58:35]  Um, yeah, I see him doing great things, um, in the like the human trafficking realm, okay.
[00:58:43]  You know, so he's heavily advocates for that and is literally saving lives through his work with Thorne.
[00:58:52]  Thorne?
[00:58:54]  Thorne is the name of his foundation.
[00:58:57]  And then I look at my sister, who's heavily involved in the autism community.
[00:59:03]  And when I go back to, you know, I look at all three of us and, you know, we're all giving back in some way or another.
[00:59:11]  And.
[00:59:12]  You guys are making a difference.
[00:59:13]  We're trying, right?
[00:59:16]  And.
[00:59:18]  Through the gift of giving to others, and our parents did something right.
[00:59:24]  Right?
[00:59:25]  I don't know what, but I think it just goes back to the morals and the values that they raised us with, to where all three of us are trying to make a difference and doing great things.
[00:59:40]  I think you guys are definitely moving the needle in the right direction with what you're doing.
[00:59:44]  And there was one story I heard I wanted to ask you about.
[00:59:50]  The story you told about playing basketball with your brother.
[00:59:54]  Yeah.
[00:59:54]  And there was an instance where you guys were playing horse or something.
[00:59:56]  Yeah.
[00:59:56]  Yeah.
[00:59:57]  This is early on.
[00:59:59]  We were probably around 10 years old.
[01:00:02]  And we were, you know, just in the backyard, in the driveway, playing basketball and playing the game of a horse.
[01:00:12]  And I was losing.
[01:00:14]  And, you know, my brother went to make a trick shot.
[01:00:20]  And he made the trick shot using his right hand.
[01:00:25]  And I mean, we play a mean game of horse, like a serious game of horse where you're calling your shots.
[01:00:36]  There's no BS in anything.
[01:00:40]  So, you know, he called a right handed shot.
[01:00:44]  Due to my limitation with cerebral palsy, I couldn't make the shot.
[01:00:50]  Uh, and but I could make it with my left, so I made the shot with my left hand, and he called me on it, you know.
[01:00:59]  And he said, No, he didn't make the shot.
[01:01:02]  Um, supposed to do it with the right hand, supposed to do it with the right hand.
[01:01:05]  Um, so I sulked, you know.
[01:01:08]  I was 10 years old, and I was, you know, I had a pity party for myself, and uh, you know, I remember telling him, like, you know, he was cheating because he knew that it was difficult for me to.
[01:01:22]  Shoot with my right hand, and you know, that I had every right to shoot with my left hand, and I was using my disability as a crutch, you know.
[01:01:33]  And at 10 years old, he was more mature for his age, and he just looked at me and he's like, You know, what are you doing?
[01:01:46]  Well, you know, I looked up at him and Yeah, he told me, he's like, Listen, you got to stop this.
[01:01:58]  Like, I can't make this shot for you.
[01:02:03]  Mom can't make this shot for you.

=== Learning to Lose and Win (03:12) ===

[01:02:06]  You're the only one that can do this, that can make this shot and overcome this obstacle.
[01:02:13]  And I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but I got the message, and I lost that game.
[01:02:22]  I didn't win the horse.
[01:02:24]  In fact, he kind of Kicked my ass at every sport.
[01:02:28]  But that says a lot too that he didn't, he never let you win.
[01:02:32]  Oh, yeah.
[01:02:35]  He had no reservation with letting me win.
[01:02:39]  And, you know, I lost that game, but I won that day.
[01:02:47]  I won the greatest lesson I think I've ever learned in my life.
[01:02:52]  And that was just that, you know, people can help you in moments.
[01:02:58]  There's no reason why people can't help you.
[01:03:01]  I'm not saying that.
[01:03:03]  But at the end of the day, when you've got a challenge or an obstacle or an opportunity, You're the only one that can make that shot.
[01:03:18]  You're the only one that can overcome what you need to overcome in that moment.
[01:03:27]  And you look at just even the little things in your life that you might think are challenges or, you know, all the struggles, right?
[01:03:42]  Like, I mean, Leo crying in the middle of the night, right?
[01:03:45]  Oh, do you really gotta like.
[01:03:48]  Brother, I've been there, right?
[01:03:50]  I mean, do I really got to get up with this kid at 3 a.m. because I've only gotten two hours of sleep?
[01:03:58]  But why is it a struggle?
[01:04:00]  Why is it a challenge?
[01:04:02]  It's not a challenge, it's your perception that it's a challenge.
[01:04:07]  That's actually an opportunity.
[01:04:10]  That's an opportunity for you to give back to your son.
[01:04:13]  That's an opportunity for you to hold your son a little bit closer and bond with your son.
[01:04:20]  That's not a weakness.
[01:04:21]  That's not a challenge that you face.
[01:04:24]  And I think that that mindset is really just perception.
[01:04:32]  And I point out to people when I speak to them that everything that you go through on a day to day basis, everything you work through, they're not challenges.
[01:04:47]  It's an opportunity.
[01:04:49]  It's an opportunity to.
[01:04:50]  Either do better, be better, be a better individual, be a better human, or give back to other people, or learn something.
[01:05:01]  And my dad always told me a valuable lesson.
[01:05:06]  He said, You know, a mistake made once is a lesson.
[01:05:12]  Same mistake made twice, it's a lesson not learned.

=== Inspiring Others Through Stories (01:27) ===

[01:05:19]  So make mistakes.
[01:05:21]  Learn from them.
[01:05:22]  Take the opportunity to learn from them.
[01:05:25]  Don't make them twice.
[01:05:26]  Right.
[01:05:27]  Don't make them twice.
[01:05:28]  That was amazing.
[01:05:29]  Well, I think we're running out of time.
[01:05:30]  We got to get you back soon.
[01:05:31]  Dude, thank you so much.
[01:05:32]  No, I appreciate the opportunity.
[01:05:34]  Your story is so inspiring, and I'm sure a lot of people can gain a lot of valuable insight from your story and what you have to tell.
[01:05:39]  Your social media, where can people find you online?
[01:05:42]  Where can people find you on your website, your Twitter?
[01:05:45]  Yeah, I mean, it's pretty simple.
[01:05:47]  It's michaelkutcher.com.
[01:05:49]  That's Kutcher, right?
[01:05:52]  Kutcher, like butcher.
[01:05:55]  Yeah, michaelkutcher.com, Twitter, actually, all of my social medias at mkutch.
[01:06:03]  So, m k u t c h.
[01:06:05]  I appreciate you giving a little shout out for that.
[01:06:08]  And, you know, I hope that just inspired people through some of my posts and some of my conversations.
[01:06:15]  And, you know, if you have the opportunity to, if I'm in your area speaking, you know, I would love to share my message with your audience and hopefully.
[01:06:29]  You know, I give podcasts like this.
[01:06:33]  I tell my story like this because if it just touches one person, then I've done my job.
[01:06:42]  That's beautiful.
[01:06:42]  But there's millions more to go.
[01:06:44]  Hell yeah, man.
[01:06:45]  Thank you so much.
[01:06:46]  Appreciate it.
[01:06:46]  Thank you.