S1 E11: Tribes and Community at the Intersection of Volleyball & Metastatic Breast Cancer | Rick Dunetz, Founder & CVO, The Side-Out Foundation

Hi, this is Gary Thompson with Team Powdered Donut.

This Thanksgiving week, we come to you with two special episodes of the Team Powdered Donut Podcast.

One, a conversation with Rick Dunetz, founder and chief vision officer of The Side-Out Foundation, who you heard from in an earlier episode.

However, in this episode, we take a different path, as we talk about tribes and community, inspired by the book Tribes from Seth Godin.

We talk about how Side-Out intersects two tight-knit communities, volleyball and metastatic breast cancer.

The power of community and advocacy, and building the next generation of advocates, his Side-Out brings innovative approaches to awareness and engagement.

We also talk about a concept known as the Celebration of Moms, that along with his research into StoryCorps, laid the seeds for Team Powdered Donuts' road trip via Airstream starting next fall.

Enjoy our full conversation here, and you can also listen to some outtakes from both this episode and others about the road trip and advice I've received to date about my mobile love letter and love crusade hitting the road next fall.

Enjoy them both, and happy Thanksgiving.

Hi, this is Gary Thompson with Team Powdered Donuts.

Super excited for my conversation with Rick Dunetz, the founder of The Side-Out Foundation and now Chief Vision Officer.

For folks that have been tracking the podcast since our launch, you'll remember the episode I did with Rick and Ellen Dempsey, our new Executive Director.

Well, I guess not that new, right, Rick?

I mean, she's been at the helm for a couple of years and just doing really great work.

But for the guests that are listening, when I think about the next phase of Team Powdered Donut and going on the road, not just on the air with this podcast and visiting all 73 NCI, which stands for National Cancer Institute, Comprehensive Cancer Centers.

These are the places you go when the cases are tough.

I think about what that journey is going to look like.

I think about what that community is going to feel like.

I couldn't think of anybody better than a man I respect greatly, an organization I care about deeply, to have a conversation about Tribes and community and what all this means.

Rick, welcome to the podcast again.

Great to see you.

Yeah.

Good to see you too, man.

Thanks for having me again.

Absolutely.

So think back to that first DigPink game.

So when you think back to that first game and everything that's happened in these almost 20 years since the founding of Side-Out, that you brought to life, what stands out for you, my friend?

Oh man, there's a lot.

I mean, you know, the first year that DigPink happened, raising a half a million dollars.

I mean, completely shocking.

Didn't know that was going to happen.

My dad putting together the first clinical trial after that year.

Going to Rec Hall and seeing the DigPink logo on the Jumbotron, that was something.

And stuff like, you know, April Ross walking through the halls of Caris Life Sciences and looking like seeing what we're doing in Precision Medicine.

That was really cool.

And, you know, being around for 20 years is pretty cool.

There's something to be said for being around for 20 years, right?

Yeah, it's a heck of a journey and so privileged that, you know, my two daughters that, along with some of their teammates at St.

Andrew's, who we just recognized as the number one fundraising high school in the country just a few weeks ago at their Dig Bank game.

I mean, I really owe it to them that I even know you, my friend.

And I was always really invigorated by those early conversations.

Just the way you think, right?

And not just the way you think.

You think up here and you think here, right?

And that combination is incredibly powerful, for sure.

I can't help but think about a lot of the stuff that we tend to, for folks that are listening, Rick and I, whether it's Google Chat or Slack, we'll toss stuff back and forth.

And Rick's usually feeding me with just great things to think about.

And one of those is Seth Godin, who's a prolific writer and just put such good thinking out there in the world.

And Rick, you shared a quote, and I'm taking my eyes away from the screen because I want to read or write, but you shared me a quote with me a few years back from Seth.

Revolutions destroy the perfect and then they enable the impossible.

So let's talk about the revolution of Side-Out a bit more and maybe the impossible of bringing an end to metastatic breast cancer, or maybe not an end to metastatic breast cancer, but at least an end to dying of metastatic breast cancer.

Yeah.

I mean, I have kind of an interesting perspective on, I mean, I don't know if it's interesting, I don't know if it's actually interesting.

If you don't think it's interesting, hey, you know, what's hard, where, that's all good.

But, you know, we spend a lot of time talking about the disease, about the science of the disease and how the disease infiltrates the body, and then the symptoms to the person coping with the disease.

But sometimes we forget about all the other things that happen as a result of the disease, like the financial hardships, the psychological hardships, you know, obviously the physical hardships and the mental hardships and the hardships of relationships and families and all of that stuff.

And I look at those things, and I look at those things as weeds.

That's, I say, they're weeds.

And yes, metastatic breast cancer in itself is a weed, but I'm talking about these external things.

And so, you know, what we tend to do as a society is we just mow the weeds.

We just mow them down and make it palatable until they eventually come back, and they don't go away.

And so, what we like to say is, you know, you basically, if you want to get rid of a disease or you want to make it something that you can live with, you got to pull the weeds out by the roots, and then you can't give it any sun, okay?

And that's the way you get rid of them.

You can't, you know, sprinkling poison over it doesn't really make them go away.

They're always going to be pervasive and difficult and complicated.

But the two things that are known factors in weed killing is pull about the roots and don't give them any sun.

And so, when we think about the disease, when we think about cancer, we say, hey, if we can make this a chronic disease, if you can find treatment solutions that have low symptoms and that people can live fairly normal lives without too many side effects, then all those other things go away.

They all just go away.

You don't need all the other stuff.

You don't need the support systems and things to kind of cope with all the other stuff because it doesn't become an issue.

And so that's kind of how we look at it.

Yeah, no, I think that notion of weeds is such incredibly sort of powerful framing around it, right?

I mean, when I think about going through the journey with my late wife, Maureen, you know, who, like your mom, Gloria, you know, had to deal with metastatic breast cancer, it wasn't just the infusions and the treatments, but it was all the appointments.

It was all of the data.

And it's like, hold it.

At this point, I know I have limited time left, right?

And I want to dedicate that time to time with her and to time with the kids and not have, as you said, all of those other weeds invading, right?

And that's what I think excites me about this podcast and the road trip part of this, right, which is shining a light on what does this community look like, right?

And obviously, in the case of Sign Out, it's metastatic breast cancer, you know, but all cancer and all diseases.

You're like, how can communities, right, come together in a way to solve big problems, right?

And to attack those weeds, you know, one yard at a time, so to speak, to really carry the analogy.

So, what inspires you about the Side-Out Tribe, you know?

And where do you see our tribe and our community going next?

And for our guest, when I keep saying our, I have the privilege of being the board chair for the Side-Out Foundation and the ability to honor, you know, my own wife by working on something that was built by the man that I'm on the screen with right now, that he founded in honor of his mom, has just been the greatest joy of my life these last three years.

But talk about our Tribe and talk about Seth a little bit, Rick.

Yeah, so the big Seth Godin quote is, people like us do things like this.

That's his big quote.

That's his claim to fame.

And so, you know, just kind of we've talked about like the challenges of attacking the hardest part of the disease and trying to figure out how to do that.

Well, we're dealing with these two communities that are like not really connected to each other, right?

And I remember, back in, I don't know, a while back, I showed you this like gauge.

And we kind of want everybody pointing north.

And we have our volleyball community in one part of the gauge, on the left side.

And then we have, on the right side, we have the metastatic breast cancer community.

And what we need to do is we need to get those gauges both pointing in the same direction.

And so, around here, we don't, you know, we, we, people have heard me communicate, or I'm probably sick of hearing me communicate, that we're an entrepreneurial nonprofit.

And so, when I look at, when I talk about entrepreneurial nonprofits, I say, we're not looking, we're not looking for donors and fundraisers.

We're looking for investors, people that are so, that so much believe in what we are doing, that they will go out of their way to make things happen, whether they're giving their time, their energy, raising funds, doing science, whatever it is, like they're invested in it.

And so, the word investment is a little too entrepreneurial.

So, what we did was we kind of thought about it and we said, what we really are looking for is advocates.

Like people that say, I believe in you, and I'm investing my time and my energy and my dollars into what you're doing.

And what that does for us, another Seth Godin thing is puts us on the hook.

And there is no better place than to be on the hook.

So, why I'm saying this before I talk about our community is, our community right now is not a large community.

And I want to be clear on what Seth believes.

Seth Godin believes that you don't need more.

You just need enough.

Right.

And I was just watching his talk that you had shared with me last night.

And to exactly that point, there's this big crowd of folks.

And there's a little circle.

These are the thousand folks that I need.

Right.

So, a little note on that is that 40% of our supporters raise 80% of our funds.

So, the idea is, and that 40% is great, but like our community, that when we talk about community, we're talking about advocates.

And what's neat about the gauge that I just talked about is, when you talk about advocacy, it doesn't matter if you're a metastatic breast cancer patient, a volleyball coach, a volleyball parent or a volleyball player, or anybody in the volleyball community, or just a person, you know, walking around on the street.

It could be a scientist, could be a biological researcher.

Any one of those people can be an advocate, and that's how it brings us together.

I love that.

And I'm going to figure out how to get in the show notes that slide, because I think it's a really, really powerful one.

And what I love about the first month of my podcast is how these guests that I've had the privilege of working with and knowing as friends like you, you know, all interconnect.

I just recorded an episode with Paula Schneider, who's now the honorary vice chair of Susan G.

Komen and has been at the helm of Komen for the last eight years.

And we talked about this whole cancer ecosystem, right?

Like everybody has their thing that they can do, right?

Side-out does this thing and we need just enough in Seth's word to do what we do.

And there's groups like Mediviver, right?

Where I, you know, one of my inaugural episodes was with Kelly Shanahan, who's the president of Mediviver, who, you know, they invest in groundbreaking research like cures therapy stuff, right?

Meanwhile, Side-out invests in research and via patients.

And the cool part is because of those two episodes, I know Ellen, our executive director and Kelly are in conversations about, what will hold it?

How can we connect those things?

Or I think about the entrepreneurial part of what you just talked about and, you know, Suzanne Stone, who used to be the head of the affiliate for Komen in Austin, which is how I first met her, right?

Who's now the CEO of Livestrong, you know, speaking of the yellow sweatshirt, right?

And the fact is, if we do what we do as our thing, people like us, you know, do these sorts of things, then there's going to be more survivors, right?

And so, you know, what does that look like in that community?

And it really is, we don't have to change everything.

We just have to change our one thing.

And if we each indeed change our one thing, then we can change everything.

And I love what we're changing at Side-Out.

And so, with that backdrop, and thanks for weaving in, you know, that insight to Seth and the way he thinks about stuff, how do you think about our tribe?

Yeah, I mean, it's allowed us, excuse me, it's allowed us to be here for 20 years.

It's allowed us to put together three full clinical trials and tremendous findings being represented at every major cancer center in the United States.

And it's connected to me, to people like you.

And so, that's the beauty of it.

But we're sort of tip of the iceberg on our community.

Like we're, you know, our gauge isn't kind of where we want it to be.

And so, we're going to keep pressing the envelope because, you know, you said this, man.

You're the one that says it all the time.

It's like in the month of October, we want everybody who is touching a volleyball in the month of October to know that this is the Side-Out Foundation and this is what we're trying to do.

And so, you know, we have a long way to go.

Like I said, we don't need everybody.

We just need enough of the right folks that believe in what we're doing.

But wouldn't it be nice to have Side-Out be part of the framework and the ecosystem of the volleyball community?

And then on the research side of things, as our program becomes settled in, to have more of the nonprofits and organizations recognize that what we're doing is in support of their work and not in competition with their work, right?

And then that community can come in too.

And then all of a sudden they're going, look what all these volleyball kids are doing.

They're like knocking it out of the park every year.

That's really cool.

And we don't have to infiltrate that space because that one's taken.

It's fine.

When I think about why I'm an advocate, right?

Like, I mean, I can no longer do for her what I did while she was traveling with this disease.

But there's 118 women and some men that are dying every day of metastatic breast cancer.

And I think about the Kellys of the world or the Abigales.

And I mean, I could go through a whole long list and Janice.

I mean, like, beautiful people that I know that in the midst of dealing with the disease, they're advocating, they're leading organizations.

And I'm privileged at this point to still have my good health.

So it's like, well, so what you're going to do, right?

It's my one thing.

And so, yeah, I love everything that we've done to this point and where we're going to be headed next.

Yeah, I'm excited because it's not a sprint, it's a marathon, right?

It's a slow burn.

There's no quick fixes here.

There's no hacks.

If you want to do relationship building and build a tribe, it's slow and steady wins the race and connect with people in meaningful ways and let them know that, we're not just here to tell you to go raise a bunch of money, but the work that we're doing can not just impact the people around the country, it could impact your life directly in some way, and know that we're here and available to you.

Yeah, no, that's powerful.

And in kind of my board chair role, as opposed to my podcast host role for a moment, for the folks that are listening to this in the Side-Out community, I mean, when I get to intersect with my little piece of that tribe at St.

Andrews, which we just did at our game on October 23rd, to see that sea of pink, to see the pride that the girls have, to see the parents that are stepping up, and to know that that is happening thousands of times over around the country.

From the bottom of my heart.

Thank you, right?

Because we can change things.

And make sure that there's more tomorrows, right?

Another day that a mom or again, dad, that can get metastatic breast cancer, that can be in those stands, watching their little girl or little boy play a really beautiful game.

And being in Austin, Texas, hopefully my longhorns go far in the SEC tournament.

You know, the challenge for folks who are listening to this, too, is if you've never listened to the Leave It Better podcast, which I'll also put in the show notes, that Hall of Famer Janice Kruger runs, who was a legendary coach at University of Maryland and a corn husker.

Sometimes during the tournament, there are a little bumpy moments, right, Rick?

She's appreciative of good volleyball.

She'll succumb when she knows that her team was beaten.

There's that deep red color, though, that just gets a burnt orange guy like me a little fussy.

Longhorns and huskers are very serious about their sports.

They are indeed.

But the beauty is, as with any tribe and with any community, the one thing that coalesces all of us, even though we may be competing on the court, and I say this when I open a game sometimes, right, which is the one winner of a Dig Pink game is going to be the fight with cancer.

Right, and the fight with metastatic breast cancer, no matter what the score is back and forth over that net, right?

One sort of untapped part of our sport that we just haven't been able to figure out how to connect with is our club community.

So after high school volleyball and college volleyball happens, we go into high school age kids, club seasons.

And we got to thinking about a couple of things.

There's three things.

One is we got to thinking about the original awareness campaign, which was Charlotte Haley with the peach ribbon.

It wasn't pink.

The original ribbon was peach.

And that she put these things on cards, and she mailed them out to people on Friends and Family.

And the messaging on it was challenging a person to get involved with the cause.

So we did that.

We thought about that.

Then we thought about the ice bucket challenge, which was very successful.

But we want to do this in a way that Charlotte Haley would have been appreciative of it.

Do it the manual way, not the social media way.

So you say, how do we do that?

Well, we get the kids to make ribbons and put them on challenge cards.

And then they go to a volleyball match in very much like international teams.

International teams, when they come over here to play, they always give a gift before, like when they're giving high fives or good lucks at the beginning of the match, they give them a gift.

So our kids are going to give the opponent a handmade ribbon that they made with a challenge card on it, challenging them to participate in the cause.

So in our way, we're trying to honor Charlotte Haley, who was the original awareness person, challenging people to participate, and we're getting these kids motivated to challenge the opponent across the net.

And so I'm excited about it, and we're hoping it's going to do big things.

Yeah, I think it's a really cool concept, again, to where literally every time somebody touches a volleyball now, not just in October, but throughout the tournament that we're about to go into for college and then into club.

And it's the power of connection, right?

I mean, you've been a coach of this sport, right?

So I'm just an observer, but that whole moment of connection where a libero like my daughter who takes after my side of the family has got to get it, but it's got to connect to the setter, and then the setter's got to get it to connect with the outside hitter or whatever else.

And it's that power of connection, right?

And when I think about virtually I'm creating connection with folks via this Team Powdered Donut Podcast, but when I think about going out via the Airstream, it really is that notion of connecting everyone in this broader community, one story, one moment, one donut at a time as I stop at these cancer centers.

And to your point, Rick, right?

It's not just going to be patients and oncologists and the cancer center directors, but I'm going to have conversations with caregivers just like me that are facing all of those weeds that you talked about earlier in the episode.

So where do you think this is going?

They were in their teens.

These young ladies are probably moms right now, right?

The setter from the team that got this whole thing started, she's got like five kids and they're all in middle school.

All of this is in middle school now, so.

But I think if I go back to my high school reunion and for the future that come back, I'm sure they're looking around going like, hold it, these were nutty teenagers and we're all a little bit older, right Rick?

Just a little bit older.

Yeah, because I mean, that's what I dream about, right?

Like, I mean, it's, can this group of players right now be the last generation that, as Paul and I talked about from Coma, she's like, we may not ever be able to say that cancer in and of itself is gone, but something that you said earlier in our conversation, right?

Which is, we can figure out a way to make it chronic, right?

When we say chronic, it's like juvenile diabetes or something, right?

Like chronic means it just goes on a long time, but the side effects of the treatment and the financial side effects of the treatment are less so that those things change.

And so, as we do our clinical trials, and I'm hoping to get Daniel Von Hoff on an episode, that would be incredibly cool.

Still love how your dad just picked up the phone and called him.

He just called him.

Yeah, Brian Dunnitz is a good man in doing that.

But like, where do you see this going as we work as a foundation to having a thousand patients that we can be directly helping and then feeding that into research to help the next round of patients?

Yeah, well, there's two things.

The first thing is on the participation and support of the foundation side.

And that is we want our student athletes to be the face and the voice of this.

Like, we don't want Side-Out to be the face and the voice of this.

And nobody needs to be looking at this.

This doesn't need to be out there.

We need our kids because that's the story.

That's our story.

The story is that kids inspired my mother to fight the disease.

And that's what we want.

We want the youth generation to take this cause and make it their own and be the face and voice.

And on the other side of it, we are now, you know, I have, I always joke with my staff.

It's like, I have this like control anxiety.

I have a major control anxiety.

So I don't like getting in planes and getting in buses.

If I can't drive the plane, if I can't fly the plane, I can't drive the car.

I'm not down for it.

But I have a little bit of control anxiety.

And one of the things that I get frustrated with is that when you delegate responsibility in the cancer world, it's always challenging.

It's always, there's always challenges with that.

And it's a struggle.

So what I decided with Alan is we got to bring this in house.

We have to start to build our research program, but have someone come in.

And so we brought in Marissa.

I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce her name.

I'll mess it up so that you don't have to take any blame for it.

Marissa de Bolle, cop, I think, and watching this young lady.

Everybody's young for me anymore, but watching her in action as our director of clinical research is amazing.

She's very, very talented and doing some great things with my fellow board member, Stephanie Reife, who stood up research at Goldman before she went to tech sciences.

So watching that come to life, but I interrupted you telling a great story.

So anyway, so what we're trying to do here now is bring this in house.

And one of the big things that I gave Marissa as a directive is we cannot treat people like numbers on a spreadsheet.

It's not what we're doing here.

Okay.

We have an opportunity to help them with a precision analysis that will help move our science forward and hopefully that information and data and those trials that we eventually will do will feed our precision analysis and make it better so that people can get the right treatments at the right time.

But we will not sacrifice that.

We need to change that.

The other thing I want to say about what Marissa is doing, which is a little, not a super known fact, to the layman, let's say, is that patient recruitment in clinical trials is extraordinarily difficult.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so they think, oh, yeah, there's a trial.

Just go sign up for it.

It's like it doesn't quite work like that.

And especially when you have people that are fighting for their lives, there's an inherent risk for them to go into a clinical trial when they don't know that what they're going to get in that trial will help them because it's a time issue, right?

And there's a stigma behind that.

So we want to change that too.

We want to nullify the stigma and create a space that's comfortable and safe for someone to participate in what we're doing, such that they tell others and we get to that thousand patient number, which, by the way, would be an extraordinary thing to hit.

But it's going to be really hard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we should have a word with the board chair about working a little bit harder to be sure that we can get there.

Oh, hey.

I'm committed to that cause, and I'm committed to it because you articulated it so well, Rick, right?

Which is, these are moms, these are daughters, these are aunts, these are sisters, these are friends of people in a community.

My Maureen never wanted to be Maureen with cancer, right?

And a shout out to O'Connell Robertson, which was the architecture firm that she worked with, and I said this at her celebration of life.

When they asked her in her last year, when things got hard, they were like, what can we do for you?

And she said, when I walk through that door, I just want to be Maureen the architect, right?

I want to leave the rest of it behind.

So, this commitment to people I think is really, really important.

And the idea that this community, literally the metastatic breast cancer community, that we have the privilege of bringing this precision medicine analysis to, and again, for folks that are listening that may have a need for this, right?

Go to sideout.org and you can get connected with Marissa and all of our resources if we can help, right?

I mean, heck, Rick, I was at the Dig Pink game, and one of the parents wanted to get connected with Katie Olexak, who's leading our community engagement leaders about sending in a check from his donor-advised fund, but then he shared that he's got a family member that's dealing with metastatic breast cancer.

We're like, well, thank you for the gift, but like, hey, connect with Marissa so that we can help that person and maybe find a better path, right?

And another day.

Yeah, and just so you know that Marissa's, and we're going to eventually have to build a team because she's not going to be able to eventually not going to be able to do this by herself.

But Marissa is not just going to help you with a precision analysis.

Like, if there's anything that we can do to connect you with someone that can help you in your current situation, we will do so.

That's part of it.

There's lots of great, you know, we don't, we don't claim to be like one of the great support organizations in that way, like in just sort of traditional support mechanisms like Cancer Navigators and things like that.

We don't really have that.

But Marissa is the closest thing we have to it.

And if we can't help you with something, something we will find somebody for you.

Yeah.

And I think that's really, really, really cool, you know, for sure.

And again, that's the power of this ecosystem, right?

Of cancer.

And it's something that Suzanne talked about, right?

Like, and you talked about it as weeds.

Like, your ecosystem gets disrupted, you drive a different car, your schedule changes.

I mean, those weeds take on so many different dynamics.

We forget about that.

I mean, I think we forget about that.

We get caught up in the person that has the disease, and I'm not saying we shouldn't.

I'm just saying, they're coping with other things that are not happening inside their body, and it's a lot.

And if we can help them mitigate those problems, make those things kind of go away with giving them a treatment solution that has the lowest amount of symptoms, gives them the most time, keeps their disease progression free for very, very long, then that's a win.

That's a win.

That's a really big win.

And so when I think about this celebration of moms, right?

And again, that is who we're celebrating, right?

And so I took some time and thought about it.

And I had just done like a search on, just a Google search on the Celebration of Moms just to see what would come up.

And a book that's lit like it kind of, I don't think it says a Celebration, I think it says Stories About Mom, I think it was called.

Yep, yep.

It's in my bookshelf in there.

Yeah, I know the book you're talking about, I remember that, yeah.

So I saw that and it came out of a group called, nonprofit called StoryCorps, which I had already known, I knew who they were.

And so I had done some research on StoryCorps and since the thing is like this wasn't even an original idea, like literally was just saying StoryCorps is doing a thing, we could kind of replicate that thing that they're already doing.

I mean, are there really any original ideas anymore?

The powerful thing is, and this is the power of community, right?

Is like we build on the shoulders of giants, right?

And so when I think about StoryCorps, right?

Which started in Grand Central Station with a booth just to capture stories of generations that we're losing from World War II and things like that.

And then they took it on the road in an Airstream.

And so, yeah, I remember all of that idea generation that you were doing, Rick.

So we did a, I had to do a presentation because I was like, I want to do this.

Because we said this in the last podcast.

If it doesn't weigh anything, it's not worth anything, right?

Gaylars are great if you want to raise money.

And yeah, you might hear a good keynote address or a great speech, but you want something to have weight and have it be lasting.

And I thought this idea of having a mother and a daughter, have a daughter interviewing a mother about her life...

And I thought that was really powerful, like that weighs a lot.

That's very heavy.

And I thought if we could turn that into a way to get folks to tell stories like that, I think that would be super powerful.

And not just mothers, but it could be if they lost their mother, it could be a father and a daughter.

It could be talking about their mother.

So I thought if we could compile stories like that, that could be really powerful.

And the Airstream thing was really just like a StoryCorps thing.

Like they did Airstreams and I don't even know if I was serious about it, Gary.

I was sort of like, yeah, we could drive an Airstream around the country.

What you say sometimes when you're bored chair is listening, because I take a lot of stuff really seriously that comes out of your mouth, because it's always a good idea.

No, but anyway, so I did the presentation and there was tears and emotion and it was nice.

And unfortunately, I think for us, where we were, it would have been a really heavy lift in terms of time commitment and our ability to actually put it together, and it never really came into fruition.

And now, you know, now here you go.

And just to time stamp that for folks, right?

Like it was also with the whole COVID and lockdown situation, right?

So at that point, you know, even in my professional work, you know, doing dinners with the Executive Council, like, you know, we moved online and started doing webinars.

So yeah, you know, timing sometimes is what timing is.

But yeah, no, just super proud of my daughter, for sure, and all three of my kids that, you know.

I'm just glad somebody's going to hook an Airstream up to a truck and do something with it, because that was, we couldn't pull that off, unfortunately.

Well, you know, and that's the crazy thing.

This summer, as Team Powdered Donut has come together, and I started to think about, like, well, hold it.

There's this tradition I've kept in my backyard with Powdered Donuts.

You know, how can I shine a light on this bigger community and connect it, right?

And so, obviously, that whole StoryCorps Airstream celebration of mom things was tickling around in the back of my head, which led to, well, hold it.

You know, what if, right?

And, you know, crazy ideas sometimes are the best ones.

I mean, you know, you said the quote from Seth at the beginning, right?

Say it for me again.

People like us do things like this.

And so I'm going to do a thing like this.

And so, you know, next fall, starting October 21st, which will be the 12th anniversary of my wife's passing, I'll do a little pilot run kind of in the southwest, you know, to about six cancer centers.

And then in June of 27, after my youngest graduates college, I'll actually hit the road.

I'll take, you know, July and August off and, you know, all of that.

But for about two and a half years, go week by week to all of these cancer centers.

And what you've just reminded me of, Rick, with the celebration of moms is that recognition of having a child and a parent or a, you know, spouses together, like that conversation to where it's not just one-on-one but, like, in that community of what, you know, what did the weeds look like, right?

And to shine a light on the power of community, right?

Especially in a more challenging federal financing dynamic for this disease, like, well, hold it.

You know, what can we do together to change this?

So, yeah, I'm super excited, you know, for the road trip.

I'm obviously going to be sure that The Side-Out Foundation is one of the logos that's on the side of that airstream as I go.

And I also like to joke that when I introduce podcasts, like the one that we did with you and Ellen, I do the Ford method, right?

Family occupation, recreation and dreams.

I'm reaching out to the CMO of Ford to say, you know, in order to get an airstream around the country, I do need to have something with the right toeing.

More importantly than that, Gary, you're going to have to learn how to back that sucker up.

We're going to work something into the budget where maybe I can have a driver so that the CMO of Airstream feels comfortable about their Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation edition of this thing going around.

So, you know, as we kind of get closer to wrapping up, what I am going to do is a whole bunch of outtakes, too, Rick, right?

Like, I've had this Airstream conversation where I've gotten advice from some guests on, like, you know, what should you do?

Like, Mark Reuthmayer, who's now the CEO of Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, whose episode dropped yesterday.

He's like, you know, I'm like, what should I do?

He goes, please shower a lot.

Because that podcast studio is going to be really small in that pack at the Airstream.

I think Suzanne Stone suggested, well, with all those donuts, you know, from Entenmann's or, you know, Mrs.

Deer.

She's like, take your bike, right?

You're going to need some exercise.

So we've gotten some fun advice.

But in any closing thoughts, my friend, on Tribes, community, powdered donuts, volleyball, like what's on your heart?

I just think, you know, we tell this to our athletes when I'm coaching.

I tell it to everyone.

It's like, you got to do hard things.

Like, you're not, there are so many things that you can do to support a mission and a cause, but if you really want to impact change, that's, you got to do hard things.

You know, I use the word impact frequently because I don't really love the word difference.

I say people and say make a difference.

I think that's soft.

I think it gives you an out, but impact, that's pretty powerful.

You can't, you can't, that's not a wishy washy word.

That's a very specific word.

And so, if you're going to go out there and support anything, you know, do something hard.

It's going to be challenging, but in the end, you will feel rewarded and you will have made an impact.

Yeah, well, I've loved having an impact with you, with this organization that you founded, along with your dad, in honor of your mom.

I'll probably put in the show notes another link to just that story, storied season, you know, where your team really did rally around your mom because it's a beautiful story, Rick, for folks to share.

So, thanks for spending time with me again.

Thanks for not just reflecting on the conversations we've had, but reminding me of some of those conversations to where, again, I want to guess to have kind of a glimpse into the joy I feel interacting with Rick about doing hard things and having an impact and what this Airstream tour of mine is going to look like and kind of where it was born, which was a celebration of moms.

So, thanks to our guests.

We're recording this the week before Thanksgiving.

It's actually going to drop the Tuesday of Thanksgiving.

So, happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, Rick.

Thank you.

Of course, I do know that Christmas is getting close and that box of incredible cookies that you make every year is out of your hands.

I was going to tell you, the gingerbread, the problem this year is that I got a whole staff of people that I got to make gingerbread cookies for.

Our organization is growing for sure.

So, the gingerbread cookie tradition continues alongside my powdered donuts.

So, Rick, thanks so much, my friend.

Yeah, man.