The Gifted Life: Spreading Positive Rhetoric

Hello, and welcome to the gifted life podcast where we have conversations about Oregon, Tissue, and I Donation. I'm Laurie Steele. I'm Sally Gentry. And Joey.

Wait, wait, wait. No, Joey. I'm excited because you're back in the studio. Yes, I'm sure.

Joey's out. He says there's some specialized training which he did talk about in the last episode, but he is in the process of doing that specialized training, which is where he needs to be. But Sal, you're back in the saddle. How are things?

Things are going very, very well. And I really appreciate you asking, Laurie. It's been just one of those whirlwinds sort of last five months. But, you know, I really want to thank Kelly and the Lopez staff and all the folks who came out and helped with some of the removal of debris and all that.

I really appreciate it a lot. And you know what? That makes it a lot easier too. So, you know, it's all going to be good.

Well, if you're just joining us and you're just catching on to Sally's story back in August of 2016, she was one of the flood victims from the historic flooding in Louisiana. And it is five months out. Lots of people are still rebuilding. That's right.

Sally, fortunately, seems to be ahead of the game. She is back in and trying to become whole. That's it. You know what we can.

But let me tell you, you had a great attitude through it all. I was following you. It's awesome. Wow.

You've been moving forward. You had a plan. You stuck to it and you got it done. I love it.

And one of the things on that list was the podcast. So we got to do it. Here's what's going on this episode of the gifted life. We'll talk to a donor mom, Miss Benita Wilson, and you know Miss Benita.

She is fresh back from California. Her son was one of many honored on the donate life float. And so from what we've heard, just a whirlwind of a trip, lots of emotion, lots of things going on. And she's going to tell us all about it, which is pretty incredible.

And I know she's just so proud to be able to share this with everyone too. So, we're looking forward to that. Also on today's episode, we're also going to talk about how to motivate volunteers and this new year. I love that conversation.

Let's have that conversation in 2017. We want you to get involved and we are going to pump you up. I love it. Another thing that we're going to be talking about today in our family support segment, Pity, Sympathy, Empathy, and Compassion.

And we're going to discuss what these different terms mean. Sometimes we all get confused when we're talking with someone about what the situation is for them. And so hopefully this will do some clarification for folks. Always learn something from the fabulous South.

We'll also honor a hero here on the gifted life. So we want you to stay tuned and listen. We want you to share what you hear. We want you to get involved.

You can find us on your favorite podcast apps. If you're on social media, a lot of what we talk about, you can find on our Facebook page. That's to donate live, Louisiana. Maybe you tweet.

Maybe you're on Instagram at Donate Life LA. Get involved today. And you know, too, Lori, I talk with a lot of folks after the recovery. And many times I say, you know, we'd really like to call in, but we're not sure what that phone number might be.

So I want everyone to know. Yes. It's 504, 648, 3477. Please give us a call.

And I tell people, you can call it one in the morning in your jammies whenever it's going to be in it for you. We just want that interaction going on. Tell us your story. Motivate us.

We love it. So as you can see lots of get to you right now. Yes, indeed. You ready, girl?

I am. Are you? Let's do it. Yes.

Well, a special treat, Sally. We are joined by the Benita Wilson. Hey, Miss Benita. Hello.

How are you? I'm great. She is a whirlwind of a volunteer. She's a donor mother and she does all of this in honor of her son, Ricardo Buck Brown.

So we hear that you're smiling because we know you're about to talk about your baby, right? I am really smiling. Miss Benita, we know that you recently took a trip to California to honor Buck, but we want to talk a little bit about his story. He was a registered donor, right?

Yes, ma'am. He was licensed in February of 2011. Yes, ma'am. Yes, and then he gave his gifts of life in April of 2011.

So from what I'm reading, he was a giver. He always had a smile. He was just a good person, right, mom? Yes, ma'am.

Yes, tell us a little bit about Buck. Well, I was born he and his brother both weighed in under two pounds. Oh, my. And he's brought over the year 14 hours and after his brother passed, I feel like Buck took on the strength of his brother.

Wow. He stayed in a Nick unit five and a half months. We went home with hard monitors. All kinds of things connected to him to try to build him back up to be the man he became a day to 23 and he became quite the hero, right?

That's amazing. So if you want to hear more about Buck's story, he's on our heroes page at lopa.org and he was actually on episode 47 of the gifted life podcast. So you can go back and you can hear mom talking about her hero and you can hear one of his recipients talk about that hero as well, saving lives and then seen by millions in California. So Benita, I would like for you to tell us what it was like to participate in decorating the floor graph and being there as a different flowers and seeds and all this was put onto the float.

So the main thing about using flowers to make a float. All plant materials, which is amazing. And if you don't know, a floor graph is in Buck's image, but all plant material. Right, Benita?

Just me. And did it look like him? Just like his smile was still there. I saw it.

It was incredible. And how would you describe the trip to California? Lopa sponsors a family each year to attend and then you were that family this year. But how would you describe that trip that experience?

The experience I had was very heart peeled. I mean, walking into the hotel lobby, seeing all those families there that were there for the same reason that I was the love, the hugs, listening to the other stories. I just felt like part of a great big happy family. I was meant to be there.

Now, beautiful floats. What did you think about it? That float. Girl.

I'm speechless. Yeah. Benita, do you know how many hours it took to finish the float? I really don't because when I left there at Friday night, it was hardly anything done to it.

Oh, well, so they moved pretty quickly then, huh? Yeah, yes. And I thought it thought again like Sunday. I'm like, how did those people do this?

Is it little time? Because you're on a night shift, so you participated and you helped make that magic happen. What I think is pretty incredible, Miss Benita is that I've heard of donor families going and honoring their hero. You got to take one of the lives that Buck saved with you.

Yes, I did. All right, so tell us about the bomb that you guys have, what it was like for you guys to experience this on that trip. Being with Mr. Wanda, it was like a handbook by my side if we stepped up their trip.

Her character, I could swear it was Buck. I was happy being there with her. She made that whole trip worthwhile. I heard you also describe the trip as a dream trip.

Is that true? It was a dream. It was a dream come true. Oh, so for those who haven't been, is that an experience that they should try and take part in?

I constantly call myself a dream country girl. The country is in me. I took the country with me. But that's an experience that I had to bring back to the country to let everyone know.

If you had a being, please put it on the bucket list. It's a great experience just to go and see how people live in different areas, more particularly like you're saying. You know, you're being a country girl to get out there and see how there's big city folk live. Yes, I do.

I'm glad to get back to the country. No place like home, Miss Anita. No place like home. No place like home.

Yeah, but Anita, I do want to ask you something. You know, from the very beginning, it was a difficult time for Buck. But then as he grew into a young man, obviously he thrived and did well. So I'm sure that this journey you took to California to honor him along with his recipient was really very emotional for you.

Kind of just looking back over time and saying that here he was a young man and he's prime and still at this point he did save lives. So has it made sense to you how all this has come about? Yes, ma'am. I mean, growing up, he had difficulty.

He had stumbling blocks, had cerebral palsy and I mean, growing through life. Sometimes he would question me about why he was the way he was and I couldn't get changed him. I just always compliment you all the way you are because God has a purpose for you. Accept it, make the best of what you are and that he did.

You are a great mom to be able to remain positive and give him encouragement like that. That's truly a wonderful attribute, Anita. I see you using social media to help spread donation awareness. You keep that up.

We love that you're one of our volunteers and one of our donation advocates. Thank you, Miss Benita Wilson. Yes ma'am, it's a lot for having me. I am excited, Sally.

We have a lady who's going to be joining us by phone. I've heard her described as Perky. Quite the motivator and cute. And she talks about positive rhetoric.

Oh, I love it. Her name is Brianna Dobi of Positive. Hey, ma'am. Hello, how are you?

Good. How are you? I'm very well and I appreciate that cute and Perky. That's so nice of you.

Well, it's like we're twins. So. I like this. I pull this from your site, turning great words into great deeds, which is what we try to do in order to save more lives.

And so positive rhetoric, I'd assume, is helping us understand ourselves and what we do to communicate better, hopefully saving more lives is kind of what I got out of it and telling our story. So tell us how you got into the nonprofit consultant world and how it is that you motivate through the organ donation process. Absolutely. Well, again, it's a great honor to be on.

So thank you all for having me. Love the podcast. My personal journey with donation and transportation. Actually, I was a nonprofit consultant right out of college who was really interested in education and kids.

Those were kind of my two focus areas and I wanted to work with nonprofits that served kids in schools. So I started working for a nonprofit, a national nonprofit called Donors Choose, which some of your listeners may have heard of. It's a nonprofit that serves public school teachers, public school teachers can post a proposal and people like you and I can go online and search for something that interests us and then make a public school classroom and a whole bunch of kids really happy and get the things they need to learn and to be the best students they can be and support those teachers. So that was kind of my first nonprofit consulting work.

I was very executive director and then I became their national director of special projects. And then when I had a little one and then another little one, they were kind enough to let me stay on as a consultant. And I started working for a few other large national nonprofits in that vein. And then in 2008, I lost my mom, my best friend and just an amazing woman.

And in the process of losing her, I was her medical power fraternity. I was the person kind of in charge of holding and protecting her decisions and the decisions that she had made very clear to her family, all of us who loved her and the good folks that don't rely on. So shout out to Donor Alliance, Donor Alliance, Colorado and Wyoming. Those amazing people in the very worst moments of my life came forward and protected my mother's donation decision, protected me and then helped my mother help others, which is exactly who she was in this world.

And I'm so proud that her legacy continued even after she left us. So I started volunteering for Donor Alliance. I volunteered a whole lot. I was not volunteering for Donor Alliance.

I volunteered a whole lot. I was that volunteer. I was that volunteer. I was the one who just always had my hands up and said, hey, how can I make things better?

And then I started to see my volunteerism in my professional life collide in a great way, because I saw places where the things that I learned about, um, rhetoric, message development, strategy, communication, strategy, crisis, strategy kind of intersect with the work that I was doing as a volunteer at Donor Alliance. And the good people at Donor Alliance were kind enough to hire me to start training all of their volunteers. And then they told their friends. And now I do strategic consulting, communications for OPOs, transplant centers, eye and tissue banks all around the country.

So that's how I got here today. We love it. And I was looking on your side just about some of the things that you do, some of your clients. And I saw one thing that caught my eye is social media.

A lot of our volunteers are saying, how can I use social media to help? That's easy. Life is so busy. And one of the things that I like that you put on there was that if somebody posts a maybe a fake news story or mits about donation, you turn it around with some positive rhetoric.

So talk about some of those things that work from your point of view. Absolutely. That's a great and very timely question. I think right now, you know, as we're moving into a world where donation is really stretching and transplant is crossing into new frontiers all the time, that's an extraordinary opportunity.

And I think that in the past, sometimes we've been hesitant as volunteers maybe to talk about the complex issues around donation. Or if there's been a story that has an angle that kind of we don't necessarily understand or we're not sure if it's entirely kind of pro-downation and we're not sure what to do. I think these are the moments to be open and transparent with those folks in your circles and those folks that you talk to, your friends, your family, those people you know online saying to someone, you know, hey, here's a story about the first genonodourinary transplant, which is something that I get asked a lot about. These new frontiers and BCA are the first uterus transplants.

You know, those are moments when maybe instead of sharing something without comment or just kind of being like, oh, that might be controversial or I'm not sure what to do. I think a real opportunity for our field and for our volunteers is to instead say, hey, you know, this is something that some of you are asking me about and here are a couple of things that I do know. I can't advise you on maybe the medical side of this but what I can tell you from a family perspective is that if someone who is weighted for a gift that would heal, that even though this isn't the type of transplant we all kind of think about first, if someone's healed by a gift given in compassion, that's a good thing to me. Or another good and compelling message might be that VCA transplant is an above and beyond consent process for those donor families.

So I might say something like, you know, as a donor family, those are very personal decisions and discussions and for me, I'm not sure what my family would do in the same situation but I would like to think that if my mother made clear she wanted to help people that we would have protected that decision whether it be for faith or hand or other kinds of transplant and recovery as well. That's just some great information that you're sharing here. That's why I get the thing back there. Oh, they're very reasonable.

Very reasonable. I want to continue talking to you about that social media plan. We have lots of folks that say, oh, I'll share that on my page or I like that when you posted that. Is there something more that we could start doing as a group maybe to try to have a larger online presence when it comes to donation awareness and spreading facts getting folks signed up to be donors?

I think that's a great question. I'm also on the board of directors and volunteers and agencies which is a wonderful group. We do have chapters around the country here in Colorado that's quite strong. That's one of the things we talk about across all fields is advocacy and volunteerism.

What I feel like I can share specifically with our listeners today is that these are moments where liking and sharing are good but we have done a really good job of preaching to our choir. So what I like to encourage people to do is say, hey, if you're really active on Facebook and you make sure you like something all the time, odds are the people that you're friends with right now, they know what you believe in, they know what you support. So one, try and always add a comment or open something up for discussion or say, there are some folks who might worry about something like this or, gosh, do any of you have questions? I know you all know what I believe but maybe you have some questions because, hey, there are tough things about deaf and dying or talking about illness and I want to hear from you.

So one thing is to always add a comment to make that comment somehow relatable to the person reading. Another thing is to try a new social media channel for yourself. For myself in particular, some of you might have seen that we did a live tweet in response to a really, truly awful NBC show that came out last year called Heartbeats. And why I think that was an important moment for social media advocacy and volunteerism and donation and transplantation is that we were reaching beyond the group of people that already believe in and know what we do.

By talking about another pop culture event, we were able to hook into tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of new people who were unfamiliar with our message. But by engaging with them where they were, we were able to talk to them in real time. And that was by using the hashtag for the NBC show's live tweet, just like Grace and Adam Hoch, and she's on the rimes and her cast. They are online.

And believe me, I have my own thoughts. Miss Rimes about how she has written about donation in the past. Bless her heart. But those are the moments if there's something happening online or you see a teaser for a TV show, reach out to your OP-O, to your volunteer coordinator.

See if there's someone getting online who in a very positive and caring way is saying like, hey, you know, this makes for great TV, but we want to make sure that people know the real story of how donation and transplantation save lives or how you're protected as a person making that donation decision or why your life comes first or any of those things that we can talk about and say, from my experience, I know, you know, this is why this is important. This is why registering is a good thing. And Brianne, you may like this. We had a donor dad.

His name is Duncan and his daughter Tabitha died, but she had expressed her wishes to be a donor before she gave the gift of life. And so he wanted to grow her online presence and he wanted to spread awareness that way because he worked shift work. He couldn't always be here. And so he said, you know, I just kind of created a page and it really didn't go anywhere.

And then he started looking through old pictures. And so she did horseback riding and skiing. She went to this camp and she was connected in all these ways. And so he reached out to those folks and people who knew her.

And so what started as just something that was in his community spread across the country, is because he reached out to those people kind of like what you were talking about. I think that's extraordinary. And my heart certainly breaks for his loss, but it's the worst to hear of the lives he exchanged and his daughter will continue to impact him for many years to come. I think that what you say is important to connect our affinity group.

I think that's one thing missing a little bit in America right now and not to get onto too big of a tangent. But these are moments where being connected to other people is important and it's meaningful. And we know it helps you live a longer and healthier life to volunteer and to talk to other folks and to have friends. And by connecting your affinity group to your advocacy, I think you also, again, like you said with this wonderful family, you reach out past your normal circle of influence.

And one thing that I think is really interesting that I know that some OPOs do upon intake for their advocate or ambassador programs is say, what are your hobbies? Because you know, all it takes is three or four people connecting together to find out that there could be a donate life, following league, or where there's a whole group of trail riders. Of course, there's that great program up in North and South Dakota, that group of horseback riders that work in fundraise for transplant and donation. Like all of those little affinity moments we can connect to each other on a deeper level, reach more folks.

And I think in the long term, you benefit because your advocacy is deeper and your connections to other people around you are deeper too. We love it. We love what you have to say. If you want more, all you have to do is check out positive rhetoric.com.

That's positive rhetoric.com. Ms. Briana, we appreciate you and your time. Thank you so much.

We have reached our family support segments and Sally is going to fill us in other differences between pity, sympathy, empathy and compassion. Easy for me to say, right? I need some help here. Well, and you know, the thing is that many times, and up until, you know, when I say recently, maybe the last 25 years, I wasn't real clear on what all these meant, you know, until you actually are dealing with folks that are going through a traumatic loss and that could be not only the loss of a loved one, but their home or pet or, you know, through divorce, this sort of thing.

I'm very sorry about that or my deepest compassion. You go, what does that really mean? So part of this is to be able to, you know, share information with you all. So you kind of get when you're talking about, you know, you hear someone say, I have a lot of pity for that person.

Well, they're really not connecting with a person. They're just kind of acknowledging as an object that this person is going through something and it's just that I can acknowledge your suffering. Yeah, we've heard people say this before. But then when you get to sympathy, you know, you do have more care about that person.

You can kind of really get into, I wish they were better off, hoping they could be happier in the situation. But it really doesn't have like a shared perspective or emotional tie like empathy does. However, with sympathy, you know, it means I do care about your suffering. And then we kind of move into empathy.

And that's where I think those of us here at LOPA and I'm sure in other fields that are working with individuals who are suffering through a very difficult time in their lives, we'd like to have someone that can say, you know, I'm kind of here with you on this. I don't know exactly what you're going through, but I want to be of help to you. And I think that's where the difference comes in as far as and I'm stressing more on empathy than I am the others in the fact that until you've actually walked in that person's shoes, it's kind of difficult to understand what they mean because you really, unless you're in that situation and not everybody can do it. You know, a lot of people say, oh, yeah, I got it.

I can be very caring and compassionate. Yes, you can. But to empathize, text on a whole new meaning of giving up your own self and what I mean by that is your own thoughts and feelings about it and being able to say, Laurie, I hear what you're saying to me and I get what you're going through. I may not know it exactly, but I get what you're going through.

Boy, you're more willing and ready to discuss with me what's happening in your personal life. Anyway, empathy is, you know, I feel you're suffering. It's that feeling that one gets. And then finally, with empathy, you do have compassion because you want to help that person, whatever the situation might be, to hopefully alleviate some of the suffering and that way people feel that you are hearing them, that you're listening to them.

And basically it just comes down to, you know, I want to help you walk through this. I think we use compassion in our field a lot when our staff is approaching families by letting them know we hear it, we see it. We kind of understand what you're going through, but we want you to know that we're going to walk with you side by side. And so when we get to the final end of this, you can say yes.

And even if your loved one has been a designated donor, you're going to feel that we were there for you. And I think that's what most of our staff that are working directly with families want that family to feel. And then just personally, sometimes you get tongue twisted and you don't know what to say. And so just all these things come out and you want to say, call me if I can do anything, but nobody really calls you.

So what can I do for you? I'm thinking about you. I'm checking in. Right.

And I don't like awkward silence. So sometimes I just keeps coming out, Sal. Yeah. I want to show.

I understand. But sometimes it's just that touch. Just the touch on the arm, unless somebody's not into touching. I'm under.

Well, there you go. Not everyone knows, but that touch means so much for people. And actually it's very, very healthy, whether it's just a quick hug, a long hug, just holding a hand means so much because that speaks volumes where, like you're saying, you get tongue tied, you're saying this and that and you're going, well, that's not really what I meant to say, but that touch can mean so much. And that does convey your empathy and compassion and not that you just feel sorry for something or someone, but that you truly want them to be better as time goes on.

I'm glad you tell me that. I'm also a food cinder. I try to do that. So I'm not going to show you that.

But you have something there if you need. I'm thinking about you. That's it. That's it.

Well, you can do sometimes, Tom. Yeah. And I think that all of us, you know, as we go through life, just having someone to say, I care about you, it makes all the difference in the world on how then we perceive the situation that we find ourselves in when it's a very serious situation. So, yep.

So anyway, I hope that will be helpful. Very good. If you want to learn more, Sal and I will continue talking info at lowbut.org or maybe there's a topic you want her to tackle, we can do that as well. Just stay in touch.

At this point in the podcast, we do want to honor a hero. And our hero today is Anthony Washington. And we learn about Anthony from his wife. She says, my husband was a good man, a wonderful father who loved life.

It was never a dull moment around him. He would always put others before himself. That's what he loved to do is to help others. So when he passed away on June 27, 2016, I knew then what was going to happen.

He was an organ donor. My husband touched so many lives when he was here with us. People I didn't even know whose lives he touched, which was so amazing. He was loved by so many.

And now that he is no longer with us, he's still helping others and I'm so proud of him. Lobo was so wonderful and so helpful through this ordeal. I want to thank them for taking care of my husband and letting me know what was going on with them. I'm so proud of my husband for giving someone else another chance at life.

You can learn more about Anthony. You can see his picture on our hero's page located at lopa.org. And now let's pause to say thank you to Anthony for the gift of life. In today's question and answer segment, my mom said that she heard there was a waiting period of a year that a recipient has to wait before they can contact the donor family.

Is this correct? Or anything about that? That's right. You were Alex out.

Certainly as Lori and I'm glad she's asked this question. There is no waiting period or recipient and or donor family to decide when they'd like to write to the other party. Whenever the time is right and each person has their own timeframe, sometimes we hear from recipients within a matter of two weeks after they've been transplanted. And sometimes it takes a year or two before they're ready to write, conversely with the donor families, the same thing.

Some families are ready to write sooner and some not so soon. However, you know, there was a point in time many years ago that there was this arbitrary. That's way to year. And I think part of that was on both the transplant side and on the organ procurement side was to give families and or the recipients time to heal, time to, you know, find a little bit of relief in their life where then they might be more open to communicating.

But we found that usually, no, whenever you're ready, the answer is you can write whenever you choose to write. Whenever you're ready. All right. So that was a good one.

You want something you want us to answer info at loba.org or don't forget about our hotline. I vote for you know it. I know it now. Five over one.

You know it. Five over four six four eight three four seven. See how we did that. Team work.

Yes. All right. You can join our team too. The Get to Life podcast episode 48.

That's a wrap. Pause out. Yes. Great episode.

Thanks to Benita Wilson for sharing her story about her trip to Pasadena, Laura Graf of her son Buck. Very moving story. Yes. And she will continue to honor her hero and continue to help us save more lives.

Thanks, Miss Benita. Also, thanks to Brianna Dobe spreading positive rhetoric positive rhetoric.com. If you want more information and Joey still in that specialized training, we think. Well, so it's just us.

I guess. Girl power, Joey. Better hurry back. I'm not sure if I should ask on the air or not, but you're writing the date.

Do you still put 16 or do you put 17? Like the end of January, right? Yeah, it is. I have to, you know, make myself right 17 on there, but it's getting better.

Well, and it will over time. Okay, easier. No, good, easier. All right.

We thank you for listening and we hope that you go out and do something that you don't normally do to help us make life happen.