Ordinary People Extraordinary Things
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Ordinary People Extraordinary Things
85. The Ripple Effect of Kindness: Mike Waid's Journey from Citizen to Community Leader
Have you ever wondered how small acts of kindness can ripple out to create significant change? Join me for a thoughtful conversation with Mike, the former mayor of Parker, as he shares his transformative journey from an average citizen to a community leader dedicated to empowering others. Mike's stories from his Cub Scout days remind us that leaving places better than we found them is a lesson that can shape a lifetime. We tackle the pressing issues of today, including how social media and technology have impacted our sense of personal power and community responsibility.
Through engaging anecdotes, Mike illustrates the profound impact of simple, meaningful gestures. We discuss how society often waits for external solutions, which can lead to a loss of personal power. Mike uses baseball as a metaphor for life's challenges, showing that even the greatest athletes face failure but find success through persistence and the courage to keep swinging. This episode is a testament to the power of taking action, no matter how small, and the importance of stepping up despite fears of inadequacy or potential failure.
As we explore Mike's unexpected path to public service, we uncover the challenges and rewards of local politics and community service. From misconceptions about land development to the emotional trials of dealing with community tragedies, Mike offers insights into how we can all contribute to community healing and resilience. We wrap up with Mike's inspiring work with justice-involved youth. Get ready for stories that inspire hope, resilience, and the enduring power of community.
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Welcome to Ordinary People Extraordinary Things. I'm so glad you're here. I'm your host, Nancy Brucher, and I get to talk to ordinary people just like you about real stories, stories of faith and hope. Would you do me a favor, Wherever you listen, could you give us a five-star rating or write a review? This really helps other people find Ordinary People Extraordinary Things, but also if they see a review or five stars, they know it's worth their time. Thank you so much for helping us out with that. Thank you for joining Ordinary People Extraordinary Things. I'm here with Mike. Mike, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2:It's my pleasure and my honor to be here.
Speaker 1:So excited to have you. I have known you from afar because you have been the mayor of Parker, so I'm sure you'll get that a lot of. I have no idea who you are, but you seem to know who I am.
Speaker 2:It happens a lot. Yeah, it's actually kind of cool. I've even had instances where I've been in other states and I've run into someone. I was with the family one time in Scottsdale Arizona.
Speaker 1:Oh states and I've run into someone.
Speaker 2:I was with the family one time in Scottsdale, arizona, oh yeah, and we were in a little gift shop in downtown and as I was walking down the aisle, someone was walking opposite me and just said good morning, mayor. As I walked by and it didn't hit me at first, because it used to happen all the time, and then I had to stop and think, oh my gosh, I'm in a different state and they still recognize me. So it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, yeah, so if people don't know who you are, how would you describe yourself?
Speaker 2:Ooh, I honestly, I'm just an average guy. I'm just someone who's here hoping to make the world a better place. Who? I love people, I love things that are happy, I love informing and educating people and, most importantly, I really, really, really love showing people how powerful they really are and showing how they don't need permission to be powerful.
Speaker 1:Oh, those are all good. It is.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, the world we live in more often than not strips away people's power. You know, whether it's relationship situations, whether it's employment, whether it's just general mental health and anguish, it just seems like there are so many roadblocks and so many things in the world right now to strip away your ability to feel powerful and to be happy with making those changes to make our future better. One of the things growing up it's a funny little story. I used to tell that when I was a Cub Scout I grew up in Albuquerque, new Mexico, and I remember very vividly going on one of our first big campouts and I'm an outdoorsman, I love camping, I grew up hunting and fishing and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:But going on one of the campouts and when we got done, as we're cleaning up, I remember the leader, the camp leader said okay, boys, clean up, but make sure you're leaving it better than you found it, so that the next group can have a better experience than you did. And that always stuck with me through my life. And that's really, you know, that basic tenet that I've believed in is that we all have that obligation to do something every day to make our tomorrows better than our todays. And if you think about it, it's just such a simple concept that society has lost. You know, if you can imagine what, if everybody just every day did one thing to make our world better, the place would be pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why do you think that's been stripped away?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's been stripped away for a lot of reasons. I mean, you could sit and examine a lot. I hate to sound like the big old stodgy, you know old man complaining about all the youth and that technology and stuff like that, but honestly, social media and the Internet has brought so many blessings to us as humans, but it has also brought so many detriments, in my opinion. You know, if you think about it, this is another kind of story and I apologize.
Speaker 3:I tell lots of stories, so you're going to get lots of stories today. It's great.
Speaker 2:If you think about when we were younger and in high school, before the Internet, before cell phones Didn't have a cell phone.
Speaker 2:Before social media, before any of that. What if it's a Friday, okay, and your locker is in the same hall as my locker and I thought you were cute and maybe you thought I was cute, but I wasn't quite sure if you did and so I'm with my buddies and, you know, I kind of go up to you and we're chit-chatting with you and I'm getting the wrong impression. I'm getting the impression that you think I'm, you're into me, so I lean over and let's say I just I go for it, I shoot my shot and I lean over and I give you a kiss right.
Speaker 2:And you're not interested.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you push me back and slap me across the face.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then it's done, and then it's done, right what?
Speaker 2:happens. The two or three buddies that are around me are going to laugh at me.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:The two or three girlfriends that are around you are going to go. Ooh, he's weird, right, and my buddies will probably tell another buddy or two, your girlfriends will probably tell another girl or two, but the reality is, by Monday probably no one's going to remember. I mean, I'm going to be embarrassed as anything.
Speaker 1:You're going to be embarrassed, but by Monday Tuesday, wednesday it's probably gone and forgotten.
Speaker 2:Take that same scenario in today's world.
Speaker 2:And if that happened at the same time you're a freshman in high school and that same situation happens by the time that slap happens within seconds. Everyone in the school has seen the Snapchat video that someone just took of you slapping me and within the hour, probably everyone at the neighboring high schools has also seen it and by the end of the day, it's probably gone viral and it's all over the state and the world and everywhere else, right? Well, you're dealing with humans who don't have fully developed consequence portions of their brain yet, and now you've just thrown something in front of them that is truly representative of their entire world going away, right? So for me, the speed of delivery of information and the reason I tell that story in relationship to doing something to make our world a better place, and why that power has been stripped away that speed of transfer of information means two things has happened to our society. One is dissemination of everything good, bad or indifferent is instant.
Speaker 1:Instant yep.
Speaker 2:And two, it's allowed us to become lazy. If I receive a message from you and I know who you are or have an idea of who you are, I immediately accept that as fact. When the reality is, I could sit here and make a social media meme that says you know whatever.
Speaker 1:I want to say Right.
Speaker 2:And there will be a group of people who believe it. And now that perception becomes reality, there will be a group of people who believe it. And now that perception becomes reality, so that's where I think society, that ability to feel powerful in who you are, has been stripped away, because people I hate to say it this way people have become lazy with information and communication is instantaneous. Now there's no longer that time frame for your brain to vet and catch up. Now take all of those concepts and put it into the brain of a 13-year-old. From a physical standpoint and I'm going to screw this up because I'm not a biologist my wife's a biology teacher, so when she hears this she'll tell me I'm right or wrong.
Speaker 2:But I believe it's the frontal lobe of your brain which is the consequence processing portion of your brain. That is literally consequence processing portion of your brain. That is literally the last part of your brain to develop as a human and that develops in your 20s. So you've taken someone who is 13, 12, 14 years old, whose brain truly isn't fully developed yet to understand consequences, and put them in this world where they have access to all the information possible instantly and no capability of discerning what's legitimate, real or fake. It just adds to a lot of problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, do you like you said, you want to do something every day to make the world a better place? I think that everyone would say, oh, I like that idea, but the reality is that we don't do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but how Right right the how becomes the question, right Do?
Speaker 1:you think it's because we're looking for something so grand, 100%. We have to buy someone a car. I have to pay a mortgage, right, right.
Speaker 2:Is that where we're?
Speaker 1:going in quicksand of not even doing anything because we're looking.
Speaker 2:The concept is called analysis paralysis.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:You start analyzing how to do this right? Everything we're bombarded with now is one-upsmanship. Is how can this viral meme or this video or this reel outdo the one that I just saw and the sensationalism of it has to get bigger, bigger, badder, badder, badder, right? Okay? Well, the reality is, if you want a true effect on someone, it's not these large things, it's the little pieces that make that big change. I'll give a couple of quick examples.
Speaker 2:Like, one of the things I always used to always tell my boys is, whenever there was a large challenge or a large task in front of them, I'd say just remember how do you eat an elephant? And you eat an elephant one bite at a time. Right, if you sit there and focus on the size and the grandeur of this elephant or the thing that's in front of you, you're going to spend more time not solving the problem than you are overanalyzing the problem, right? It's the same kind of thing here that when all of us I truly believe innate in every human and their soul is to do good, right, and you want the world to be better, but you start to look at things and go gosh, well, I can't save someone's life today. I can't buy someone a car today. I can't feed a family of 10 today, but you know, what you can do is you can have a small change. You can do something little. It can be as simple as looking someone in the eye and acknowledging that they're a human.
Speaker 1:Yeah, saying hello.
Speaker 2:There's a little thing that I did and again, I'm way off topic and in topic or whatever. I just kind of ramble. But years ago I wrote an article about how to watch someone go from being invisible to visible, and the example I used was go to Disneyland. So here is the happiest place on earth, right, every aspect of Disneyland is meant to exude joy and happiness. It's even in their tagline the happiest place on earth.
Speaker 2:Well, if you want to see how one small, insignificant, what seems to be insignificant action, how that can make someone go from being invisible to visible, well, when you're at Disneyland and you're waiting in line to get on a ride any ride at all. Well, when you're at Disneyland and you're waiting in line to get on a ride any ride at all you're going to see highly trained people who work there that are guiding you along the line. Right, sir, you'll be the next. You know, get into aisle three or whatever, right? Well, when you're going through that line and the person you come up to, that person stop, look them in the eye and just say two words Thank you, that's it you will see someone turn from invisible to visible in front of you because they are no longer a signpost.
Speaker 2:They are a human who is being seen. That small action, that small little thing, has made someone's world better. Made that person's world better. That's one action that you can do right. There's this. I don't know if I wouldn't call it a parable, but there's this saying about two people walking on the beach and the beach is covered in starfish. Have you heard this one? Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:And the little boy's picking up the starfish and throwing them back in, and the mom or dad, whoever's walking with them, says what are you doing? There are so many starfish you can't possibly make a difference in all of them. And the little kid can pick up one starfish and say, yeah, but I can make a difference in this one, right. And the little kid can pick up one starfish and say, yeah, but I can make a difference in this one.
Speaker 2:Right, that's what we can do. You don't know when you're going to have a demonstrable impact on someone's life, but we should all make that attempt to be better and to do better. The opportunities will be there sometimes to do the big and grandiose things, but it's those little things. I'll give another example. There was a gentleman that I know that had started a nonprofit years ago. He came from the music industry, you know rock and roll guy and music producer and he started this nonprofit years and years ago here in Colorado. Where he would bring it was an anti-teen suicide program and he would bring in not national, national acts, big acts, but national acts. They're kind of a little bit more under the radar and they would play concerts at high schools and middle schools and then they would use that as the opportunity to bring kids in, have these free concerts and then talk to them about how powerful they are and mental health concerns and to help advocate for them, showing them that suicide is not the direction to take. Well, he gave me this example of how, you know, these concerts take a lot of planning and a lot of work to put on right, a lot of money and all the things At the end of one of the concerts, when he got done and he's picking up and cleaning up and they're wrapping things up he said this young lady walked up to him and just said thank you for for doing this.
Speaker 2:And he said, of course. And she handed him a letter. It was her suicide note and she was planning on going home that day and taking her life. And because of the actions, of what she learned there, she decided not to Like how you can't get more powerful than that, right, because of something that he did, that he had a passion for, there is another human on this planet who is alive.
Speaker 2:That's the thing, and too often in society, in my opinion, is that people have been trained to rely on someone else to solve their problem. That's the epitome of giving away your power. I'm struggling mentally, I'm struggling financially, I'm struggling in my relationships, I'm struggling in whatever. I'm going to sit here and struggle until somebody else comes and solves my problem for me, until the government says here's a program that will allow you to eat, or an organization will come in and say I will give you this pill and the pill will make you feel better so you can be happier in life. They've been trained to just wait around for that Again. That is the clearest way of someone stealing your power.
Speaker 2:When you have the ability to sit there and change your life, become powerful for the better. So I took us way off course on that one.
Speaker 1:No, that was good. I was just thinking that I do wonder if it's a lot of social media or just stories that you hear of that it does almost paralyze you not to do these small things, because I think innately we understand that that works right, like I think in my own life, what has really made a difference? Sometimes it's just a kind word, someone seeing that I'm struggling and saying, hey, can I pray for you? Hey, when I say I'm fine, someone's like oh, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:And that meant so much. Someone bringing me a meal. These are all all small things, but they make a big difference. But I think about you know. It's almost three years since I started this podcast and sometimes I didn't want to start. What if I'm not successful? What if I'm not having as many downloads as these famous people?
Speaker 2:so is it worth.
Speaker 1:So is it worth my time Is it worth my time, and I think that's such a good reminder that it doesn't have to be.
Speaker 2:What's the saying about the longest epic journey or whatever, starts with one step, and that's what it is. I'm a baseball nut and with my boys I would always use different examples of baseball, and one of the best ones is you will never hit a home run if you don't swing the bat In baseball terms. My oldest son was a baseball player in high school and I remember one time when he was struggling with am I not good enough?
Speaker 2:Am I you know, I failed because I struck out or this or that. And I asked him at the time. I said, chris, who do you in your opinion, who is one of the best baseball players playing right now? And he goes Todd Helton. I said okay. I said so, let's pull up his stats, and I don't remember the exact number, but I think Todd Helton's batting average at the time was about 350. What that means is for every time he went up to bat, two of the three times he failed. He did not accomplish what he was up there to do, right, only a third of the time he did, but yet he was considered and now he's in the Hall of Fame. Wow.
Speaker 2:He was considered by my son one of the greatest baseball players of the time, which was yeah Right. What other capacity in your life are you allowed? Do you give yourself the permission to fail two out of three times and still consider yourself one of the greatest?
Speaker 2:right we set these unreasonable expectations for ourselves. I need to look a certain way, I need to be a certain weight, I have to be a certain proportion, I have to be. I'm not smart enough, I'm not tall enough, I'm not funny enough, I'm not, you know, outgoing at whatever it is. Those are self-imposed walls, right? Spend the time and energy looking at how you can convert those walls to bridges and that is where you really find, you know, happiness and joy. That then exudes to those around you and it is like a drug. Once they get a taste of that, then those people want to be leaders in happiness around them. And that is like a drug. Once they get a taste of that, then those people want to be leaders and happiness around them, and that's what makes the world a better place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that's good. So you were mayor of Parker. How long were you the?
Speaker 2:mayor. I was mayor of Parker for two terms, so that's eight years. At the time I was term limited in that role. So I was on town council for four years, first limited in that role. So I was on town council for four years first, then elected to mayor, then reelected to mayor and then I was term limited. The town's charter has changed, so people can I could have. If I was mayor now I could have served longer, but even with that option, being elected to office for three terms, so for 12 years. And then I was on the town's special licensing authority, which is an appointed board, for five years before I ran for office. So 17 years is a career right and I'm of the belief that everyone should have the opportunity to serve their fellow citizens. I'm not a fan of career politicians. I'm not a fan of political positions being used to advance your political career. We are all neighbors who should be supporting each other. So after that amount of time even if I could have run more times I was ready for someone else to take the reins.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Is that why you started in your political career? I might say it's because you felt a need to serve.
Speaker 2:So in a way, to be quite honest, I had no desire or knowledge to run for office and it sounds ironic because my degree in college is in political science and economics A little funny side story with that. The reason I had that as a degree was I put myself through college a very loving family but we were not of means and I started in community college because at the time it was $99 a semester. I grew up in New Mexico so it was really affordable to go.
Speaker 2:The credits transferred to the University of New Mexico, but I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I'm not going to lie, my grades weren't great. I liked sports and I liked girls a lot too much. You know way too much for school right. So I didn't study as much as I should. Grades out of high school were mediocre at best. Got into community college because that's what I thought you were supposed to do.
Speaker 1:Right, that was very common, right? You just go to college Like that's what you have to do. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:And I remember being a senior in high school and my counselor me going to the counselor saying what do I need to do, what classes do I need to take? And the counselor looked at my grades and said well, why don't you just take what sounds fun? Counselor knew I was not the most astute of people, so I did. I took classes that sounded fun. Then the next year comes up and I go to my counselor at community college and said okay, what classes should I take next year? And they looked at my grades and said just take what sounds fun. Well, I did this game, you know, for three years and now I'm at the University of New Mexico. My friends are talking to companies about jobs. I have no idea what I want to do or what I want to be. And I sat down and the counselor starts to tell me the same song and dance and I'm like, okay, look, I've been paying for this out of my own pocket. I've already invested a lot of money in me. No, I'm not just going to do this. I said what is the quickest way out of college? She could have said a nursing degree, accounting, you know, lawn bowling, whatever, and I would have gone that route. She looked at what classes I took. That sounded fun and she goes, your quickest path out is political, science and economics. And I said, done. And so that's what I did, with no desire to go into politics.
Speaker 2:But when my wife and I moved to Parker in 2000, one of again, one of the pieces that my dad you know, one of the pieces that my dad, one of the values my dad instilled in me, was always serving your community when you can. My dad was a Marine. He worked in a lot of capacities to serve the community, my mom as well. And so it was just a logical thing that when we moved to Parker, I was starting a business at the time and I walked into Town Hall and said, hey, I want to volunteer, I want to serve some way. How do I serve?
Speaker 2:And at the time I remember Carol Baumgartner was our town clerk at the time and Carol kind of looked at me and she was, you know, the short little older lady and she was just kind of like, well, I don't know, the town special licensing authority has a vacancy and they at the time handled all the it was funny to say, the hotel liquor, to see hotel liquor and cabaret licenses. So that was a problem. Because everyone hears cabaret. It thinks exactly what you do, they go ooh, cabaret right well at the time.
Speaker 2:So I was on the little special licensing authority. I was the chair of it for four of the five years. Cabaret licenses in colorado meant a dance floor oh, that's funny. So if you had a dance floor back then you had to get a cabaret license. And it was the funniest thing because any time someone with a dance floor it's a separate license they'd have to apply for it. It goes out to public notice. We'd have a line of little old ladies no strip clubs in parker, no, and it's like those are called.
Speaker 2:Those types of businesses were called sobs, sexually oriented businesses, and we, no one has ever applied. Well, one person did a long time ago, but at any rate people don't apply for those businesses like that's not a parker thing, but cabaret the name people would go crazy on.
Speaker 1:So I, I served on they need to change that name well, it's gone.
Speaker 2:Now they don't. Yeah, the laws have changed. That's no longer around. Liquor laws have changed quite a bit since. Back then too, there used to be licenses. If you sold packaged liquor, a different license. If you just had wine, another one if you had full spirits. You know, now you have a liquor license.
Speaker 2:It's just kind of one thing yeah it's much easier, but I so I was like, okay, cool, so I served on that committee as just a way to give back, and then I got to learn more and more about the town and how it operates and the incredible staff that work here in the town of Parker, and then the opportunity came up for me to look at running for town council. I did first office I ever ran for in 2008, was blessed to be elected. There were three positions open, because every two years there's an election, you serve a four-year term and there's six council members so they rotate, and I had the third highest votes out of, I think, six or seven people, so I got elected to town council. Then four years, so that was 2008. 2012 is coming along and I was planning on rerunning for council and a friend of mine who was on council with me Scott Jackson is his name he was going to run for mayor and at the time during his campaign, he was diagnosed with cancer. He's a survivor.
Speaker 2:Everything worked out. But I remember him pulling me aside, saying I just don't have it in me to do this. You should run for mayor. So I did? Blessed to be elected in 2012. Then, in 2016, ran for re-election, was again blessed to be re-elected and then in 2020, retired from being mayor. That's awesome, that's a great story.
Speaker 1:What was the hardest thing about being mayor?
Speaker 2:The hardest part about being mayor was people's, and this kind of goes back to what I was saying before about this sounds very negative, but about how people now have become lazy and the hardest part about being mayor is when people choose to not put even a little bit of time into finding out what is real, what the role of government is, what the role of their local government is what a cabernet is, what a cabernet is, what a cabernet Not cabernet, that's a wine.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm sorry, cabaret, darn it. Yes, darn it, but that was one of the hardest pieces. However, I chose to use that. Instead of a difficulty, turn that into an opportunity. So I really tasked myself with trying trying to become the conduit between government and its people and its citizens. So a lot of my job was educating people. So when someone would say, oh, the open space behind my house is being developed, how can you let them develop that? And I would say why do you think that's open space? And they would say that and.
Speaker 2:I would say why do you think that's open space? And they would say well, my realtor told me that. Well, that's not, it's owned by someone. That land is owned by somebody and that owner has the ability to do legally what they're allowed to do with that land. Open space is a legal designation and that land behind your house is not open space, it's just privately owned land that hadn't developed yet. You know, it's interesting. Right now Parker has about 70,000 citizens in the town limits. When Parker was incorporated in the early 80s it had about 300. And I would tell people, if you weren't one of those 300 people, then you moved into someone else's hometown and made it your own. How would you feel if those 300 people said no, you're not allowed to move here. Right, everybody living in parker, except for those I think it was 383 people moved into someone else's hometown yeah and they embraced and they now love to call this home.
Speaker 2:It's the same way. So, because of you know, again back to what made it so difficult was people get so wrapped up into the negativity and, you know, hate and all of this that we see on a national level and they I don't know why, but they feel that they have to apply that to the local level when it comes to politics and they really shouldn't. The people serving in an elected role in the town of Parker or the city of Lone Tree or anywhere locally, any local municipality, these are your neighbors. These are people who are there to help make their community better and give of their time and their talents to do that.
Speaker 2:And the hardest part is when people just want to immediately, you know, discount you or assume that because they read something on Nextdoor that that's the facts. And then they become lazy and not look at the facts. And so a lot of my time was just doing that. But again, that was difficult, but I took those as opportunities.
Speaker 1:How did you not? Or maybe you did, but some of this must become very personal.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:How do you not take that on Sure? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Well, and you do.
Speaker 1:You always do take it on.
Speaker 2:And that's part of it. But I always said and I'm a non-traditional kind of guy, I try to be a straight shooter, and that was also in my role as being mayor I would tell people there's only three things that are going to get you kicked off the Mike Island. So, whether it's a friend on social media or whatever, I never discount someone's opinion when it's different than mine. In fact, we all have the God-given right to our opinion. That's why God gave us individuality, so we can have our opinions. It's a very powerful tool. However, the three things that get you kicked off Mike's Island if you bring my family into a situation. So if you're threatening or disparaging my family, they didn't get elected.
Speaker 2:My wife and boys didn't get elected, I did so. The moment you bring them in, we got a problem. You question my faith. You question my integrity. Okay. Having a different opinion from someone is not questioning someone's integrity. Yes. Right. Questioning someone's integrity yes, right. But saying things that are direct accusations of integrity without having any information, that's just dirty pool, that's just being mean.
Speaker 2:And there's enough meanness and ugliness out there. So outside of that we can all live harmoniously on the Mike Island. But bringing it in personally, there are times it was very, very, very heavy load. I'll use an example of one. This one, this one was tough while I was married. I almost said married. It's what it felt like being mayor a lot of times. While I was mayor there was this unfortunate time where in one week three young kids, separate from each other, committed suicide in Parker.
Speaker 1:Yes, I remember that.
Speaker 2:They were not friends, they didn't have relationships. It just worked out that three youth decided their only recourse was to end their life.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And I am not a mental health therapist. I don't pretend to be a mental health therapist, but what I do know is the government, in quotes, has invested millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to address teen suicide and it has presented no positive change. There are stacks and stacks of books, then binders and workflows to say what you're supposed to do to help address teen suicide and they are not working. So when that happened, I decided, I decided to. I said look, I'm going to call an emergency town hall meeting. We reserved the PACE Center. I said we're going to have open microphones, anyone who wants to come heal and talk you're welcome.
Speaker 2:I said, however, who is not welcome to come are therapists? I said we're not here. This is not going to be a time.
Speaker 1:This is not a fix it.
Speaker 2:Exactly. This is a time for healing. I don't want someone to walk in and feel intimidated by a line of therapists saying this is what you should do to make yourself feel better, or here is the notebook that this government department says you should follow to make yourself heal and feel better. That's not what this is about. We're going to be here as a community. There's going to be two microphones and anyone who wants to come up can talk, and it was a beautiful evening of people just healing and crying and all of the things. Well, emotionally, that's very draining to go through, but it's very rewarding.
Speaker 2:Your heart is full. It's hard to explain how your heart can be broken and full at the same time. Well, about two days later I was getting ready for my day. I happened to be at Fika Coffeehouse, one of my favorite coffee spots here in Parker on Main Street, and I was kind of back on my own a little bit and I know the workers they're the baristas and I have my cup of coffee and I'm just kind of processing what my day is going to be like that day.
Speaker 2:And a woman walks up to me and she goes Mayor Wade, can I talk to you for a second? I said sure, and she says my name is blankety, blankety, blank. And she threw a few initials at the end and she is a mental health therapist that deals with suicide, teen suicide specifically. And as I'm sitting there and she looks at me and she says I just want you to know how much damage you caused by not allowing us to be there that night. And it was one of the few times, I mean what is trying to keep it clean in terms of no swear words, but what a selfish thing for her to do. She put herself above the healing that these people needed to have and they didn't need to have someone tell them how to heal.
Speaker 2:At that point I kind of banged not banged, but I kind of dropped my coffee cup. The barista, who knows me, saw this interaction kind of happen and I literally said you, you know what I give up, and I just sat back and I just went into my head. It was such a hard time for me to hold that, that emotion, that responsibility, that load of trying to help and then have someone's ego come in and kick you in the teeth. Right, that was tough and I've had situations like that from time to time. What I have found for me the best catharsis I have, and I use that example because I learned that day I did something for the first time that I've recycled many times since then.
Speaker 2:She left. She obviously could tell that I was upset about it and it was all I could do to not give her a real piece of my mind. Right, I'm sitting there and the barista kind of turns to me and she was like I'm really sorry, mike, that was really uncard, how hurtful and thank you, thank you, thank you. I have found that when I'm at my lowest, when I have the largest burden on my shoulders, when my soul is just aching for whatever reason. I have to double down and make a concerted effort that moment to improve someone else's life. So that moment, that morning I went and I drove down to one of my two favorite donut shops and I bought three dozen donuts and I drove over to our police station and I walked in and I said hey guys donuts on me today.
Speaker 2:Here you go and I walked out. Doing something for somebody else is the most cathartic, healing thing that, as humans, we can do, and so when those burdens get hard on me, I put it in God's hands and I say where do I need to give today? What do I need to do, whether it's donuts?
Speaker 2:or whether it's running into someone at the store and you just know something's not right with them and you give them a hug, right, doing something, allowing the world, allowing God, allowing your faith to take you where you're needed. And again, like we were saying earlier, it could be just something small or it could be something grandiose, but that is the best way to heal those burdens.
Speaker 1:Wow, so I have never heard anyone say it like that, and it just makes so much sense.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 1:It's not to go into yourself, but to pour back out, even though that's probably the last thing you want to do.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's the last thing you want to do.
Speaker 1:I am done with people.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I am discounting them. Right, right. Like you said, I am done yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the time to double down. That is the time to say, okay, I need to push extra hard, because all of these other things right now are telling me. What I need to do is I need to just go lock myself in a room and cry, or again to get societally, or go lock myself in a room with a bottle of booze, or go lock myself in a room and put something in my arm, or fill in the blank of a lot of worse things that could go down Right a lot of addictions.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the time for you to say, okay, I am hurting, Let me take that and use it for good. You know, from the concept of hurting and emotions, this is another thing I used to always tell my kids Both of my boys, they're 22 months apart, or 23 months apart. They could not be more opposite. It's hard to believe they came from the same people. Right, they are both wonderful humans, but they're very, very, very different and they have both have the emotionally their, their ups downs, challenges, attributes, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, I remember telling my sons when they were young and struggling with emotions, anger, you know all of these things I would say okay, look, you have to remember that your emotions are a gift from God. Anger is a blessing. That is a gift that God created for you to have, gift that God created for you to have. Now, if you're using that anger and it's not making a positive change, it's not affecting a positive change, then you're taking a beautiful gift God gave you and you're wasting it. So don't use it for that. If you being angry at another kid or a person, or at me or whatever, can make a positive change or a positive outcome, then 10 times out of 10, I will support you being angry. But if it can't, you're wasting that beautiful gift from God right.
Speaker 2:And so often in today's world we are not allowed to express our emotions when appropriate. And these emotions are tools again, gifts from God, right. And these emotions are tools again, gifts from God, right. So, when you're feeling that just overload of life and your soul is damaged and you've been kicked in the teeth and kicked in the gut and all of that, that is the time to say, okay, I need to really embrace these gifts, and one of them could be I just need to sit here and cry for an hour. One of them could be I need to go to the gym and put all that anger into that bar of weights or the heavy bag. I'm going to go beat the snot out of this heavy bag for a week, right. Or I'm going to go out for a run, or I'm just going to do something like that, right. Those are all tools, gifts that God gave you to do and you need to.
Speaker 2:When you're feeling that overloaded feeling, that's the time to take that energy and turn it into something that will benefit somebody else. You can still feel like garbage right, but taking that energy will make someone else's life better than our. Everyone's.
Speaker 1:Vibration goes up and everyone feels better, so that's so good, and I was, you know, I think we all are. Oh, humanity, it's so terrible, and this and that, and, and I was wondering what you do when you feel like that Is that. Is that what you do? When you just get down on one person or everything, or society, or it's.
Speaker 2:It's tough, tough, I mean, especially right now. Again, if I go back to the, the way, social media and the internet and our phones, I mean we are all connected 24 7 and it's hard, very hard, to disseminate between truth and fact and and fiction and manipulation and all these pieces. And there are times where it just seems like everywhere you look you're getting dumped on, like there's just negativity all around you. Right, you are obligated to make that change. If sitting there on your phone for an hour is making you feel like crap, then put the damn phone away right.
Speaker 2:That is the truth, but we have a hard time doing that as humans right now. I don't know why we do, but I think some of that stems from all of us have a natural yearning to be connected to each other, even the most introverted person and, I'm sorry, my wife and some friends and we get in this discussion about this. I'm obviously a very extroverted person and I don't use the term introvert as a pejorative. I'm not being negative towards somebody, but I think sometimes it becomes too convenient for people to say ew, people, I'm going to be introverted and just stay away from people instead of addressing what the world really is around them.
Speaker 2:You can still be an introvert and still interact with people.
Speaker 1:I'm an introvert. Right, right yeah.
Speaker 2:But you're not locking yourself in the room blaming the world for or not having a conversation with people. I'm an introvert, right, right, yeah, but you're not locking yourself in the room blaming the world for or not having a conversation with you, exactly, exactly. So I think it almost seems sometimes in vogue to be ooh people suck.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna kind of do this.
Speaker 2:Why Like again, what makes a? How does that affect a positive role in the world? If you can convince me that hating people and staying locked in your room and complaining about stuff all day can somehow make the world a better place, then I'll lock the door for you. You know what I mean. But we have to use those energies that are around us to make the world better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, energies that are around us to make the world better, yeah, so you were an elected official and we are. Everyone knows November, november is coming up and I there's excitement, there's scared, there's frustration. I mean a million things, but I would say a lot of it is there's a lot of fear, right, correct, going on with it. What would you say to people about this time and about an election? I feel like we just get more and more polarized, more and more scared, more and more fearful, more and more hateful.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So a couple things to it. One of it is it's your fault, so a couple things to it. One of it is it's your fault. What I mean by that is this is a small group of people on both sides, who are manipulating you to do what they want.
Speaker 2:That is the ultimate power grab that's out there. If you notice, the messages of hate and the messages of division aren't coming from the bottom up, they're coming from the top down. Look at campaigns now on a national level and I'll address local as well. On a national level, people don't talk about why one side is better than the other. They talk about why the other side's worse than them. Truthfully a little side note, I'm going to editorialize, so if I had a little light to go on to tell everyone this is just my own personal opinion, not of the podcast or anything like this when I talk to people about elections and I'd listen to people about elections and I'd listen to people about elections, especially this cycle I rarely hear someone say my candidate, I'm voting for my candidate because of these five things that he or she are going to do to make the country better. All you hear is oh, he's evil because of this or she's incompetent because of this. So they're making their vote against someone, not for someone.
Speaker 2:What a ridiculously bad premise to have out there right, and the reason it's there is because that's what the controlling organizations want us to do.
Speaker 2:We are much easier to manipulate when we're divided than when we're strong Right and again, this isn't a Republican thing, this isn't a Democrat thing, this isn't a Trump thing, this isn't a Harris thing. This is the fact that I have discussed it, that those two people are the best we can seat as a nation. So, at a national level, unfortunately, people fall into this cycle of, and the misinformation and manipulation on both sides is beyond ridiculous. At the national level, let's take it down to the local level, because the reality is this Local is where the national level.
Speaker 1:Let's take it down to the local level, because the reality is this local is where the magic happens.
Speaker 2:It really is, but we get so wrapped up that we assume it has to be the same down here. Right, that has got to bleed down, that it's got to be. We have to be one against another or this or that. Here's my advice. First off, I will never tell somebody who they need to vote for. I'll tell someone who I'm going to vote for. If I endorse a candidate, I'll say why and I don't do many endorsements, but if I, you know I'll give information. But I will never steal your right and ability to form your own opinion.
Speaker 2:God put a lot of time into creating our self-awareness and our individual opinions. Wow, what ego would I have to have to think that I should be able to steal your opinion from you? But at local elections, my advice is this. It's a novel idea Talk to the candidates, reach out and ask them a question what's important to you? When I ran for office, do you know how many people actually reached out to me unsolicited to say I'd like to know your opinion on blank Two? I could count the total number in three elections on both hands. Wow.
Speaker 2:Right. And one of the frustrating things for me is when someone would come to me and they would say I'm so happy I voted. I'm going to vote for you. You are amazing and I would go. Thank you very much. What about me makes you think you're amazing? That I'm amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, you're such a nice guy, thank you, that's a great attribute, but what am I going to do to make part? What position do I have that you really support? Well, you know, you just seem like you care. Well, I do. I believe everyone cares. I believe Trump and Harris both care about our country. I don't think neither one of them hates the United States, right, but obviously they have different opinions. So what is it about me that makes you and it's crazy how, how few times people can go I like your position on pro small business or on economic development or on enterprise design you know all of these things, they would just go.
Speaker 2:You just seem like such a good guy, right. The part that really torques me is that when someone would go, well, it's because you're a.
Speaker 2:Republican. Oh guess what? I know some really nasty Republicans that have ethics that I wouldn't scrape off the bottom of my shoe. I know some Democrats who are the most honorable, hardworking people I've ever met in my life. The Republican and Democrat doesn't make someone good or bad, right, that just kind of puts them into a bucket, right, and unfortunately there are a lot. I mean, I have I never talk bad about candidates directly, so I'm not going to say anything specific. But I know currently elected Republicans who have lied to my face in this community we're in right now, who've lied to my wife's face, who are as unethical as they come. But just because they have an R at the end of their name, there's the assumption that, oh, they're going to be better than the one that has the D or the I at the end of their name. Right, and that's just wrong. I mean, again, we are all neighbors. Talk to the. So the local level.
Speaker 2:The biggest advice I can say is talk to the candidates who are asking you for the ability for them to serve you. Ask them what's important to you and see what their answer is. If you don't want to or don't have the ability to, here's another one. Talk to the people who they work with. Call up someone at town hall, call up staff, go into the parks and rec department and say can I speak to a manager please? And they go how do you like working with XYZ? Or walk into the police department and say how is it? How do you feel working with so-and-so? I just want to know how they are. Those are great ways to get.
Speaker 2:Don't trust an endorsement from someone who's in a different position you know, 45 miles away, in another city just because that endorsement has an R or a D at the end of their name. Like, these are our neighbors. We need to remember that. Let's be neighborly to each other and talk to them and find out if they have this, if they have the same value set that you do, and if they don't, that's okay. Give them a hug, give them a high five and go. I appreciate you. You know that's not what I'm down with, but that's fine.
Speaker 2:When I talk to people who want to run for office, the one piece of advice they always say what's the best, biggest piece of advice that you can give me? And I would tell them don't be afraid to say I don't want your vote. I remember I was downtown one time in Parker when I was running for mayor and I had this little old lady kind of stop me. And she goes I really want to vote for you. You seem like a great young guy, but you don't look Republican enough. And I went what do you mean? So this was actually it wasn't my first term, it was my second term. This was happening because during my first term I started a fundraiser every year I would do for pediatric cancer research and it was called Shave the Mayor.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, yes, yes and I would grow my beard real long, dye my hair, auction off the color of my hair and we'd raise lots of money for pediatric cancer research. Well, she goes, and I was standing there in shorts that day and I have tattoos on my leg, I have tattoos on my arm, I have piercings I had. My beard was probably. My hair was probably rainbow colored or pink or purple or whatever I had auctioned it off for. And she goes. Well, you have tattoos and you have a big beard and you know, weird colored hair.
Speaker 2:She goes you don't look Republican enough. Colored hair. She goes you don't look republican enough. And I said, okay, so would you prefer a clean-cut socialist? Well, no, because you know they don't have values or they don't. Blah, blah. I go. Well, what am I missing? You can't vote for me because of how you love what I represent, you love what I do, but you don't like how I look. She goes, yes, and I said, ma'am, please don't vote for me. And that was something that I see candidates all the time chasing votes as opposed to just being authentic, and you know I there's.
Speaker 2:There's one other story I tell again. I'm not giving specific names, but of a political person here who in one room, if the room is a bunch of business owners, this person will be the most pro-economic development person you will ever see and literally in that afternoon can go into a meeting of people who want no more growth in Parker and say we have too much growth, no more businesses should be allowed, we should not issue any more building permits. Blah, have too much growth, no more businesses should be allowed, we should not issue any more building permits. Blah, blah, blah. That's someone who's chasing votes, who will say whatever they want to, just try to grab any vote they can, because if they can get into office then they can do good things right.
Speaker 2:Well, you know what Selling your soul is. That doesn't benefit anyone. Stick to who you are, be authentic, stick to who you are. So I tell that to candidates, and that same applies for just citizens. Like when you talk to someone, ask those questions that are important to you, and if the answer doesn't mesh with you, that doesn't mean the other person's evil.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we need to get that out of our head Absolutely yeah, it's so crazy nowadays that the concept is if you don't look, act or think like me, it's not that we're different, it's your evil. And that's just the wrong place to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. What was the best thing about being mayor?
Speaker 2:favorite part? Not think I know my favorite part about being mayor was how I got to work with kids so much I made it a point to really really try to empower youth and show them how powerful they really are. I've had the privilege of speaking at every single school in Parker except for one, and almost every school in Douglas County and even some schools in Denver County and Arapahoe County and others. Wow.
Speaker 2:Everything from kindergarten through high school. One of my favorite ones was I was invited to a kindergarten program here in Parker, and there's a book that I used to read to my boys when they were little called Duck for President.
Speaker 1:Okay, have you ever heard of this book? Yes, it's the one that has all the animals right in the farm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the duck decides he doesn't like the fact that the farmer does this. So the duck wants to run for the and the duck eventually becomes president. You know, it's just such a cute little book, right? Well, they didn't know that that was one of my favorite books to read, read my kids, and this kindergarten had me in and the funny part is when I would talk to high schoolers you could have high schoolers attention for an hour hour and a half, tops right Kindergarteners. You got about five minutes right and then they're gone right. So it was such a cool way they set it up. The whole thing was for me to come in and read Duck for President to the kids and then they set up voting that day for the kids on what their who, their mascot was going to be for the classroom and what snack they were going to have that day Nice.
Speaker 2:But the kids would have to individually go to the teacher to register to vote and then they would take their ballot for each of those two and put it in there and that would decide what was going to happen that day. And I still have the book. The kids all signed the book and they wrote this wonderful thing on it for me. But sitting there reading this book to the kids, I mean it actually brought me to tears, thinking of reading to my boys and seeing how engaged these littles were for five minutes until it was time to vote. But that kind of experience working with the kids and showing them that their elected officials, even their mayor, is not the most important person in the room. I say this to people all the time, including elected officials, at any point in time if you're a mayor, you are the least important person in any room Because any perceived power you think you have is a gift given to you by your citizens. You didn't earn that.
Speaker 2:All you did was win a popularity contest. That's all it is right. So, understanding, you know, helping these youth understand their role in government and their role as just humans, how powerful they really are. So that was the best part of being mayor.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:This has been so good. This has brought so many things up that I had no idea I've enjoyed our time so much.
Speaker 2:Absolutely it's my pleasure Anytime. As you can tell, I love to talk, so I apologize if. I rambled too much, oh no.
Speaker 1:I do like to end with three things. What is your favorite Bible verse or story?
Speaker 2:Sure Well so actually I'm going to pull it up here because I'm always bad about remembering exact wording and scripture numbers, so my favorite is Matthew 6, 17. And it's. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that you may not appear to others to be fasting, except to your father, who is hidden, and your father, who sees what is hidden, will repay you. I think that's something as society we need to learn, we need to remember. It's not about bragging on yourself. It's not about showing I'm the best Catholic that's out there and I'm fasting, or I have my ashes on my forehead on Ash Wednesday early in the morning so everyone during the day can see it and know that I'm a better Catholic than they are.
Speaker 2:It's not about that. It's about being humble. It's about answering to yourself and to God of how you are improving our world. It's not about bragging or showboating or having the right filter or the right angle when you take your picture, or the right number of friends or the right number of streams or followers or any of that. It's about being a good human, and you don that. It's about being a good human, and you don't have to brag about being a good human. Just be a good human.
Speaker 1:That's good. No one has ever brought up that particular verse.
Speaker 2:There we go. I'm a trendsetter.
Speaker 1:What are you grateful for?
Speaker 2:Right now. I'm grateful this week, specifically in my new role as the executive director of Cafe Momentum Denver. Specifically in my new role as the executive director of Cafe Momentum Denver, we are a restaurant that will be opening up, where we bring justice involved, youth, so kids 15 to 19 who have just been released from jail. We bring them in and teach them how to run front of house, back of house, give them life skills, pay them on a year Long paid internship all this this week I was blessed to bring in internship.
Speaker 2:All this this week I was blessed to bring in 10 of our ambassadors from other states and these are youth who've been through the program in other states, who are successful in life and are leading and inspiring other kids. So I brought in 10 of them this week to meet with kids who are currently incarcerated in Colorado in the metro area, to show them where our new home is going to be in Denver, the place that our restaurant is going to be open and our community center is going to be. And then I got to take them to Red Rocks yesterday for a hike.
Speaker 2:Oh, fun and so these kids are from Dallas, from Atlanta, from Nashville, I think. All except for one of them have never been above 1,000 feet above sea level and hearing their questions and getting to talk to them and just learn about them as humans. These are all kids who've been in jail, who've made mistakes. One of them had been in jail 19 times before he entered the program. Wow.
Speaker 2:He was originally from Cameroon. He was originally from Cameroon and the system is set up to not allow these kids to get out once they get in.
Speaker 2:Our juvenile justice system is broken. That's just the reality of it, and this program has taken these kids who were on a path of self-destruction and destruction to others and have turned them into the most amazing leaders you will ever see. There's one of them that was there that I didn't know the story of her. While she was working in the restaurant, they did a pop-up dinner and she didn't know it, but the president and CEO of the company that owns Taco Bell Kentucky Fried Chicken Pizza Hut I think it's called Yum Brands or something like that anyway happened to be one of the patrons that day and he was so impressed with her that he and his wife paid for her college. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:There was another gentleman named Cameron, who's in Nashville. He actually left the program early, I believe, because while he was in the program at a dinner a local restaurateur who owns a bunch of very successful restaurants in Tennessee was there, was so impressed by him, offered him a job as a chef on the spot and he still to this day currently works for this guy.
Speaker 1:Wow so these.
Speaker 2:You know, there's a young lady named I'm Unique and I love it because her name is I apostrophe Munique, but if you said I'm unique that's her name her name that she was given.
Speaker 2:She was incarcerated as well and now she is uh, she is a junior in college and she is a youth leader at her school in in Dallas and she has. They have created the I'm unique fund and it's a program to help fund, to help kids get on track when they've made bad decisions. So these are humans that made very poor decisions, were incarcerated and found a path out of the system through Cafe Momentum. So for me this week, they inspired me getting to hang out with these amazing humans.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. Yeah, we'll have to link that in the show notes. And this is exactly what we're talking about mostly, for this whole thing is what kindness have you shown or what kindness have you seen from someone in the last week?
Speaker 2:Well, honestly, watching the kindness from our ambassadors, when we were at the Foote Juvenile Detention Center here in Arapahoe County, they brought in some currently incarcerated youth to meet with our ambassadors and we had a screening. We have a documentary that was done about Cafe Momentum. They were doing a screening of the documentary. You know how earlier I talked about turning someone from invisible to visible at disneyland. So, as they're bringing in these youth to meet with our ambassadors and the way they put it is some of their situations are very hot, so they have to they're spaced out, they have to be very cautious of interactions from different, from kids, because for violence and all this kind of stuff. So as they all are brought in, you can sense this bravado, this you know I'm I'm a tough kid. You know kind of stuff sitting at angles in their chair and you know not really making I kind of all this kind of stuff. So as they're bringing them in, all of a sudden a couple of the ambassadors who are in their own kind of section stand up and walk over to them, start, start shaking their hands, look them in the eye, go hi, I'm so-and-so, what's your name? And then all the ambassadors came over and started doing that and you saw you could the palpable feeling in the room of the tension just going away.
Speaker 2:And what happened? They were seen. These youth acknowledged that these are humans sitting there. They're not only going to be known as criminals. They're not only going to be known as someone who's done something wrong. They're a human that deserves to be loved and respected and acknowledged. And just that little handshake and eye contact changed these humans and you could see it in front of you. Such an inspirational moment. I wish we obviously weren't allowed to record anything. I wish we could have recorded that.
Speaker 2:Because it just brought it. It made your heart swell seeing it, so that was mine.
Speaker 1:That's so good. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I've so enjoyed getting to know, you my pleasure.
Speaker 1:So many tidbits just for myself in this.
Speaker 2:Wonderful, wonderful. I'm always appreciative of people like you, who want to gather and just talk about ways to make our world better. So thank you for all you're doing.
Speaker 1:Thank you Well remember. On Ordinary People, extraordinary Things, your story is his glory. Thank you for joining Ordinary People Extraordinary Things. I hope that this podcast was impactful for you. I will see you in two weeks for a brand new episode of Faith and Hope. Don't forget to give us a five-star rating and write a review so that others can find Ordinary People, extraordinary Things.