Find your Purpose

Find Your Purpose You might be reading this title thinking, "Find your Purpose?" Pretty big question there buddy. This week on the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast we have a special guest Brad Sweeney. Brad is a store director in his 40th year with Bashas Supermarkets. He is also Brian and Joey's dad. In this episode, we talk about the positives and the negatives of being on the frontlines during this crisis, Review the growth of the studio from Brad's perspective, and the importance of a positive outlook.  Growth We start off talking about Brad's memories and outside perspective of the studio. The first thing he said was, "mcdowell road." He's referring to our second studio location, which was in a bad neighborhood, right between two freeways. Matt then talks about how the studio was started in 2007 during the recession but we succeeded because we learned how to grind and didn't know any better. Brad then shares the story of Brian being in the hospital long term in 2018. He remembers Brian's strong purpose to keep pushing Dearing further from the hospital and his refusal to let the studio die. Brian explains his reason why, which was he's never seen a facility focused on love and pushing the person.   Giving is Powerful As a store director, Matt brings attention to the fact that Brad is on the frontlines. Brad talks about how there are good moments and bad moments and shares an incredible story. He practices what we preach when he describes the bad moments because he gives those people the benefit of the doubt. He says that the people who come in the store stressed are the ones who are struggling, and they have big hearts even if they aren't showing it. The good is still present. He shares about two customers who came in and chose to GIVE. They bought $1,000 worth of gift cards from small businesses and gave them to his employees. This helped the small businesses, and acknowledged the hard work from the employees.  On the Next Podcast As we wrap up with Brad, we called Shea into the podcast to talk about her latest blogs & our upcoming episode of the podcast. Shea has been grinding from home writing these amazing blogs trying to make a difference. Check out her blog on non-essentials and what that means for us as an acting school.  A Message From Joey Having our Dad on the podcast today was so much fun. He raised all three of us to live by the golden rule, "treat others how you want to be treated." My dad has faced a ton of hardships in his life. One of which was helping Brian and I fight through living positively with our blood disorder, ALPS Gene. When Brian was in his coma, my dad always kept hope and was a rock for our family. I will never forget being quarantined on my birthday when I was younger with low blood numbers. My dad invited two of my closes friends over and had us decorate face-masks & play video games. He is an inspiration for me to be selfless and always care for others, and I hope his story inspires you all to do the same!