Let Me Tell You This About That

Prepare and Pivot

• Delbert and Hess • Season 1 • Episode 31

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Delbert and Hess continue their Sunday Chats, talking about their lives.  In this episode they talk about experiencing what life brings to you, be it circumstance or bad weather.  They both were sophomores in high school when a tornado hit their hometown of Louisville.  Delbert was shopping at Oxmoor, and Hess and her mother had pulled over and found shelter in an office. The keys that they have found is to always be prepared, and then to always be flexible to pivot when something happens.   Hess loves some Brené Brown--and she reminds us in her books that we must allow ourselves to feel grateful and to be able to move towards joy.

I am still collecting for José's cancer treatments. We are awaiting the next CT Scans that will tell you where he is after his second round of treatments. Thank you for your continued support!
https://gofund.me/e6f61999

In addition to being a podcast host, Hess is also an LCSW--if you'd like to learn more about her work as a therapist, check it out at www.jessicabollinger.com

One of her mission's is for all of our lights to shine--when we see each other and allow ourself to be seen--and we can say to the person in front of us, There You Are! the world will be an amazing place!

Delbert is a top realtor in Louisville, KY, and you can find her at Kentucky Select Properties She will help you find your home, and also help you get the most equity when you sell your house.

Her philanthropic work to continue her sister Carole and niece Meghan is Carole's Kitchen. Blessings in a Backpack helps feed the many hungry students in our schools. The instagram account is: https://www.instagram.com/caroleskitchen.nonprofit?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==




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Hess:

Hey, welcome you all to let me tell you this about that. My name's Hess and I'm in Lexington, Kentucky on my little white chair looking out my bedroom window at the green grass.

Delbert:

Good morning. This is Delbert. I'm in Louisville, Kentucky, on the green couch, as always looking out my big picture window, and it's a beautiful day in Kentucky Today. The grass is so green, the trees are all bloomed, lots of flowers blooming. I think the storm got the rest of my peonies tests.

Hess:

Yeah, I

Delbert:

enjoyed them while they were there, but yeah.

Hess:

Delbert, I was thinking last night about talking this morning with our pods about preparing and pivoting and this is what I, this is when I think about preparing, I think about sometimes I think about my boat. Yeah. I watched this one guy, he's called the coaches captain, and I love watching his YouTube videos because he. He teaches and coaches people how to dock their boat. You would love it. I gotta send you some of these because you always do that boat rental down at the lake and take your family out and he teaches people how to come up to a dock or how to leave a dock and he is just really super guy and he is never critical. He is just really calm. Anyway, he does boat deliveries, Delbert and last night. I was watching the video of him delivering this 48 foot Bennetau from from the west coast of Florida up to west Palm to the boat show. And so he gets on this fancy new boat and he is gonna be solo delivering. He is gonna have about a 12 hour journey in one day. And he, it's just this brand new spanking boat, and he does all, he got his little bag and stuff like that. And halfway through the video, Delbert, he goes one thing I gotta tell y'all, when you get on a new boat everything might be there, but there's not gonna be any toilet paper. So even that, that got in mind, the, about being able to prepare. So I think about boats to get ready. We collect information, right? We decide what we need, and then we do it. Now, coach is captain. He is gonna have that toilet paper with him next time he has to move a boat. But

Delbert:

Yeah.

Hess:

yeah, and he also commented that he didn't have a spotlight. So always have a big spotlight. Have a spotlight with you that there's portable ones that you can put in your bag because that's. For the Coast Guard, you have to have a spotlight in it for sure. You need it. If you were to get out there and it gets dark and be able to see the markers in the channel. So when I think about taking my boat out, I've got fenders, right? I've got the lines, I've got the anchor, and I didn't have a spare anchor up in my front locker. I've done the maintenance on the engines and the oil, all that stuff's in order, and the batteries are charged up and I tow my boat where I wanna take it. So I've also checked the tires and the trailer and I'm ready to launch. Delbert. So what causes I'm a good captain. Thanks.

Delbert:

are.

Hess:

What causes a pivot? On a boat weather. If the seas are rough it's not a good day to go. I can wait, I can adjust. And when we travel by boat, you can have a destination, but you should not have a schedule because you gotta be able to be flexible for the weather. It's the same thing with life Delbert. We have knowledge that gets, that we collect, we can do research, we could talk to people, we could get more information from any kind of resources. Then we make our decision. But that decision is just that beginning of a path. It's like a tree after that decision, then it might branch off into another direction as things go, or like an actual path, it comes to an intersection and we go right, or we go left. We pivot. We have to be ready to pivot in any moment. It doesn't mean we, we need to worry about the future, but living in the moment. We can get all in with the information that we have right now. So a pivot really is a change of strategy without a change of vision.

Delbert:

I love that quote, Hess. That's so true. We've gotta remember that.'cause sometimes we get so disheartened about having to make a big pivot, Got a vision and a goal but the vision remains the same.

Hess:

Say that again. I interrupted you.

Delbert:

That's okay. I just said, sometimes we get disheartened, when we have to make a hard pivot when we've got a goal in mind. But I think that's such a good quote. It is a change in strategy, but not in vision. I Can tell yourself that's such a good lesson, such a good quote. I love that.

Hess:

You just talked about what happened to your peonies that they got beaten down with some bad weather, and I want to tell the pods that April 4th, 1974 in our life, Delbert, we had a, we have a story to tell about that day. We experienced it. You were already 16, your birthday's in January mine's April 29th, so I was still 15, but we experienced this event that passed through Louisville. What do you remember about that day?

Delbert:

We weren't really all that prepared.'cause it had, that had never happened in Kentucky or it hadn't for a very long time. I had just got my driver's license. My birthday was in January and I had this little yellow Volkswagen beetle that my dad got me. And I was taking my sister to dance class and really we should have gotten off the expressway and gotten down in a ditch, but we drove to Oxmoor. This mall where the dance studio was, and all the lights were out. That's back when there were Spencer's gifts and there were wicks and sticks and everybody's walking around with a mushroom candle in the mall that they buy. And I was, I love strawberries, so I had all the strawberry scented stuff and I was like, I'd really like a strawberry candle. My mom's for God's sakes, just get a mushroom like everybody else, it's dark, but I, we got my sister, we, we got back in the Volkswagen and we're, it took us so long to get home because all the devastation was really around where we lived. Northfield. Was devastated. A lot of houses torn down in, in Spring Valley where I lived. And my dad did get everybody to the basement they said as they were running down the steps, they could see two by fours flying through the air.

Hess:

Wow.

Delbert:

you, he got'em down just in time. what was your experience that day?

Hess:

Delbert. I'd been at basketball practice, and my mom had picked me up and was driving me home. And we were at, we were on Shelbyville Road getting ready to turn left there by Trinity High School, and we were listening to WHAS and the traffic copter guy was up in the air talking about the tornado. And it's hitting the fairgrounds barns right now. And I think we were able to go ahead and speak. No, I think we turned left there and we went into one of those stores over there on the right. I think that's what we did. Delbert up you. So were you in Oxmoor when it was hitting?

Delbert:

Yeah. I was in the

Hess:

Okay.

Delbert:

and I

Hess:

were in the middle.

Delbert:

but

Hess:

You didn't know what was going on,

Delbert:

I really did not know what the buzz was, what was happening. I,

Hess:

right.

Delbert:

It was just out there in far as like weather that we had experienced. It was just so out there. We really didn't know what was happening but we were in a place where we were able to get a lot of information from other people and people were under the stairs of Oxmoor. And Thank goodness it didn't really hit the mall because I don't think we were. re aside from those mushroom candles, I don't think we were super prepared. Wix and Sticks sold out of candles that day.

Hess:

Wow.

Delbert:

Yeah. But because everybody had one. But that's all I remember. And then getting home and nothing happened to our house, but there, there was devastation all around us and nothing happened,

Hess:

the neighborhood next to you got hit and the neighborhood after you got hit.

Delbert:

No, even houses in our neighborhood got hit.

Hess:

Really.

Delbert:

Oh yeah. That's the randomness of the universe. That's what I was talking to you about. Life throws a lot our way and some ways we have no control over. Where we're born or what the circumstances are that we're born into. You just sent me that book by Peter Buffet. Life is what You Make it. We don't he, starts out by saying that in the book, Don't, the universe does not yield. The universe is random, and it really is all about what you make out of what your life is. It's a series, and in some ways from the time we're born, we're prepping and pivoting as little children. And the way

Hess:

Right.

Delbert:

the good in life, I think, is wherever you come from, whatever you do. And we talk about writing our stories. The point of my story collection of stories is just to the good that you're given. In the middle of all the chaos in your life, come back to center and honor the good and do what you know.

Hess:

Yeah Delbert, it hit a lot of areas in Louisville. It wiped out all these trees in Cherokee Park and. All of this stuff and the fairgrounds the neighborhoods close to you. And since we experienced that, I've always had a weather radio. I've, when I went to live on my own that that I go pee. Beep. If there's a weather alert, now we can get those notifications on our phone. Last month. There was enough go ahead to know, and for me to say, Hey, Cathy, we're going downstairs in the crawl space, and we took two chairs down there and all the dogs we're coming down here. Because of that experience of, in April, 1974 that we experienced it, it made me more attuned to prepare and to take action. To take cover if there's an alert. And it's so good the way that we'll know ahead of time that there could be a weather incident that can happen because I wanna get all the horses out of the barn. I'd rather have them out in the field versus being in a building that could be. That could be wiped out. And then they have everything fall on'em, that they're safer if they could be out in the field and disperse and to go up to the top of the hill or the bottom of the hill if they would know because they really can sense weather. So preparing is doing everything that we can so that we can. Then do what? Do what we need to do. And then there's a pivot. So Cathy and I pivoted a month ago, Delbert, where, okay, it's passed. It's clear. It's 12:30 AM we can go upstairs now it's gone. But the people down near London and Laurel County and down there in Kentucky, they were hit by, a bad tornado. Somerset was hit by one. They had some businesses there, and then it went on straight west, excuse me, straight east and cut through neighborhoods and wiped out part of people that live in London, Kentucky.

Delbert:

Yeah, it hit them. Then that's just recent. That's just happened this weekend. Our governor declared another state of emergency and just. Just another example of just the randomness of the universe. You know

Hess:

Yeah, so Friday night.

Delbert:

town? Yeah. Why that little town? Cute little town. Yeah.

Hess:

Friday night. That happened this past Friday night to them where. A month ago it passed for us. And so Cathy and I came out from the crawlspace, but these people down that were hit Friday night, they came out, whoa, the rest of my house is gone. Or the whole garage has collapsed on our vehicles. And they weren't a point. And even though it something tragic happened. And it is hard and you lose material things. Then you pivot to a, thank God I'm alive.

Delbert:

Exactly. I was. Talking to my youngest daughter and she said, mom, the best thing that you ever said to me I think, was that the universe does not yield. It doesn't matter if, you could have one of the people that could have their house, could have been destroyed, could have cancer, could be with some other type of. changing event, and then your house is gone. The universe doesn't yield it, and it really is how we come back to center and assess and pivot. And sometimes it's a small pivot, like on a basketball court, and sometimes it's a huge pivot. It's a huge pivot in life. Completely. You think about those people, they have to completely rebuild their lives and no, tell'em what else is going on. So all those people in Somerset, in London, were thinking about y'all.

Hess:

Very much rebuild in the same place or do a total move. And I like this dolbert that the pivoting really, it's the beginning of the next leg of a journey, right?

Delbert:

You'd think. When you think about life, you think that we do most of our prepping and pivoting and adjusting and learning when we're young, but it's not true. You and I can testify to that. We're still learning, we're still growing. We're still like dag on. Why didn't I know that, until I was today years old. And you're six, we're 67 and we're still learning. We're still, we're going to a great retreat soon to, to learn more at Hessa, set up for us and with our Barkley Village group. And yeah, just, it's just a series of learning and using your knowledge that you have and gathering even more makes your life beautiful.

Hess:

Delbert, I came across, I was cleaning off the top of my desk. I love Post-It note, post-its, so I have small post-its, I make post-its, I like the bigger post-its. And I'll, and I had all of this stuff written on these Post-Its, and I'll just tear it off and I'll glue it to the backside of it. And I was going through all of those and I had written down that. Death is not learning anything to me. That's what death is

Delbert:

Wow.

Hess:

when I stop learning. Yeah.

Delbert:

You and I both talked a lot about, a lot of our friends have already retired and you and I are still working. And me that would be not I. Working and being out in the world to not learning new. I love to, every day I learn something new about real estate that I didn't know the day before. And sometimes people ask me questions and I say let me find out about that, I Like I know a lot and I do, but I don't know everything. So it is true when you just keep that motion going, you're creating that electricity right? And it's sparking your brain and it's keeping you moving forward. Even if life throws you some things that, that push you back just a little bit, long as you can get

Hess:

Right.

Delbert:

up, move to center. Pivot and go

Hess:

I just walked into the other room, Delbert, and it squabbled right there. Repeat what you just said that last line.

Delbert:

oh, I just said, as long as whatever life throws at you, as long as you can, come back to center. I. Regroup and then pivot and go, your whole life. That's what it's about. There's, there really is no okay, now I'm gonna stop. We're never gonna Living, never gonna stop

Hess:

ever.

Delbert:

never gonna stop learning and trying to be better just take on whatever the universe throws our way.

Hess:

And that's our own journey in Delbert. I notice sometimes in my own journey I'll get frustrated because of where somebody else might be on their journey that, that they're in a spot where life is hard or they're not making good decisions. And I'll get real aggravated. They just haven't come to the place where they've learned what they need to know. And I like this. I went into the other room to pick up this purple post-it note, it says I re I release and let go of anyone learning good lessons on their journey. They don't have to have it figured out for me to feel better.

Delbert:

Exactly. And I think that you have such a heart for that. Because you're, a therapist and and physical health means so much to you. It's hard to accept sometimes but we gotta let it go. We can't live anybody's life for them.

Hess:

As you said, we're 67 and still learning stuff, and somebody 74 might say, gosh, how did you make that mistake? Why didn't you know that already? But maybe somebody 20 years old's already learned something that we haven't learned yet, and it's just we're where we are to learn it.

Delbert:

right. That's the beauty of life you're in. Exactly. The place that you should be.

Hess:

So life has the world and this weather system, which is so awesome, Delbert, that we have alerts that can alert us more in advance. And I was telling somebody this morning, like with a hurricane. You can know a few days in advance like to leave and to go ahead and get on the route of that evacu, that evacuation route With a tornado, you don't, you, you might only get hours or you might get a day, or you might, there's a weather system coming in. You might know a day in advance, then you might know a few hours. Then you might know only minutes. And especially this happened this event down in London happened at night. It's so bad when it happens at night because you might not know at all that it's going on, and it might already be in bed. You might have to get up early the next morning, and you got in bed at eight 30 and you have no idea.

Delbert:

It's true. I've slept through a lot of storms. I'm a heavy sleeper. I'm not proud of it, but it's happened. Okay. It's.

Hess:

Yeah, you were telling me last month when that weather event happened, that you didn't hear your phone go off.

Delbert:

No, I had it set. I'm like, okay, I'm really exhausted. I'm gonna lay down here, but I'm gonna have all the alarms set. And my neighbor said, you didn't hear that the alarm was going off at Bowman Field, which is super close to our house. And I had one on my phone, but I'd had a rough day. I was learning a lot of lessons. I was weathering a lot of storms, and I just. fell into a deep sleep eye. I am a deep sleeper and I dream a lot in color. And that recharges me for my next day. And so anyway, I woke up and said thank goodness nothing happened. There were a lot of sticks and limbs in my yard, but my and my peonies took a beating,

Hess:

yeah my, my blooms are like facing down now. I might have to go fill some VAEs up out there, so I can bring that smell into the house. Delbert, I have a big, I have a vase with a bunch of'em on my kitchen table, and I just discovered the other day that it smells like Coppertone suntan lotion.

Delbert:

it's making me excited for summer. That's one of the things my daughter put in my Easter basket was, lotion, sunscreen do you remember Band Is Soleil, the smell of that smells so good. There's a new product that smells like that. And so she got

Hess:

Oh.

Delbert:

tube of that to take to Bethany. So I'm ready. I got a big hat. I haven't bought my book yet, I'm more about the the accessories, but I am gonna get my book where Read, tell'em what we're reading has.

Hess:

We are reading the Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, and it's really fantastic. We're gonna have so much fun. We, I have the 10th anniversary edition. I think it was, I think it's now 15 years. Really. I believe that it was copyright 2010. And it's about kinda like what helps us live a wholehearted life and what are some guideposts that we can do to make sure that we live that wholehearted life and. Along this topic that we're talking about right now, Bert, some, something that's coming to me that, that's in this book is that when we do hit that hard spot and we have to pivot that something that can help us is gratitude.

Delbert:

Yes.

Hess:

Like I say the people that, that were in this tornado path, they've moved to, we are glad we're alive to that kind of gratitude.

Delbert:

And that's the same as that. Going back to Center in the Chaos and going back to honoring the good that we've been given. I. You can dance anywhere. You can have a joyful heart and sing a song anywhere. And just, and remember the good that's in your life, the good people that have crossed your path.

Hess:

One of the pivots that some of these victims of the tornado are probably experiencing is what they're experiencing now are the helpers.

Delbert:

Yes, and the sun's out. The sun is gonna Dry things up and the sun is shining in our Kentucky home And that's good. Good weather, good neighbors. we have a wonderful governor. That's putting things together to help all those people. So those are the good things that we can be thankful for in, in the tragedy.

Hess:

I love Delbert. I listened to him in his talk when he went down to London. Yesterday morning how he talks about the people, it all comes about their stories. The 54-year-old firefighter that, that passed. He, he listens and he hears the stories. And our story of April 3rd, 1974, we carry with us our whole life. We've trans, we've transformed that story to help us be more prepared if we get hints of bad weather and so forth. It's, we learn from our stories and then it can help us rewrite our story.

Delbert:

And I was, I'll tell you one other thing. I wasn't allowed to drive at night the April 3rd tornado'cause I just had my license. But that my dad said, you drove through a tornado, you can drive at night. Now. I was. Hah. Okay. Yeah. So that did happen. So

Hess:

Delbert, I'm really glad that your dad was home getting all the younger siblings down in the basement.

Delbert:

Like I said, it didn't touch our house. Not a, but we had a lot of two by fours and construction stuff in the front yard afterwards. Yeah. Not even a window cracked. In that crazy. But my dad did build that house really well.

Hess:

So that's pretty cool that he built a basement. We had a basement growing up, and we go down there. In the house that I built here dad said, no, you don't need a basement. It's a, it's really an underground pool, and so you don't.

Delbert:

I know a lot of people feel that way about basements. Yeah.

Hess:

When I put the addition on the back I put a crawlspace in, so I now have a place to go. So that's good. And UBI that lives next door, we put a big basement in his, at his house. So if it's gonna be real bad, it could go up there. It's almost like a bomb shelter. It's so big. But anyway yeah. So that's cool that your dad went home and got everybody in the basement and, i'm not sure. I don't know where my dad was during that, but we did, we went into a store there in St. Matthew's and hovered in an office and now I remember my mom saying that.

Delbert:

Hess, what are you doing this week?

Hess:

I did some pivots yesterday, Delbert our furnace broke. We're gonna be getting a new geothermal unit in the house. I'll be making a decision about that. My little dog, she had those cataracts taken out last month and she got some swelling in one of her eyes, so I ran her to our vet and pivoted with her and got her more medications and she's a lot better today. So I feel a whole lot better. And so I'm ready to go to Dollywood tomorrow. I'm going with two friends from church and we're driving to Dollywood

Delbert:

Oh,

Hess:

Monday, Tuesday.

Delbert:

Dolly Parton shows up.

Hess:

I heard that she can, I heard that she does, and I'm gonna manifest that.

Delbert:

manifest it. Yes. Oh, that's wonderful. I have the best time. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have an open house today and then I'm gonna go show some property and, and my youngest darlings graduating from middle school. I sent Hess a video yesterday was the Best West Fest. And that's a big festival that the school has out in the streets in Portland. So I was in the neighborhood where my dad grew up and where my darlings went to middle school at my dad's same middle school down in Portland. And

Hess:

and that's called manual? Is that right? No,

Delbert:

Middle School is

Hess:

Middle School.

Delbert:

Down in Portland. My great-grandfather was a captain on the Ohio they lived in Portland and it just happens to be like a really great school for the Arts Magnet School for the arts as well, middle school. So went to their very last performance and I sent us a video of them singing High Hopes with the whole little brass band. And it was beautiful. It was.

Hess:

In the background it.

Delbert:

is awesome. Awesome. period to the end of the sentence of the week and getting ready to move forward into high school.

Hess:

That is so fantastic. So you got a lot of cool things to look forward to.

Delbert:

Lot to

Hess:

be manifesting Dolly and I will feel her in spirit and it's gonna be fun and I'm prepared.

Delbert:

Hey, and I wanna give a gratitude really quick here. Hess, you all is the person who sends the link every Sunday morning. Then she edits our podcast and broadcasts it. I really just show up on the green couch and tell y'all what's on my mind, but I wanna give a gratitude and honor that. Hess, thank you so much for always doing that.

Hess:

You're so welcome. I love you and you contribute greatly to this. It wouldn't be, let me tell you this about that, unless you were, if we were together

Delbert:

you're sweet for saying that everybody. We

Hess:

all right.

Delbert:

you have an awesome week this week. Go out there and. Get ready today to go out there and have a great week. And if some, if the universe throws you a curve ball, be ready to pivot towards joy and productivity I.

Hess:

We love you. Take care.