EP #01: The Moments That Define You
Welcome to Speaking of Impact, where your host Bob DePasquale will inspire you to identify and utilize your time, talent, and treasures in ways that will allow you to make a more meaningful impact on the people and the world around you. Each week, Bob will share educational and empowering stories and advice to help you to find joy and fulfillment in your life.
In this opening episode, he explains why now is the perfect time to take action and make the world a better place for everyone. Listen in to learn which moments in his life led him to where he is today, as well as the major life shifts he experienced after being diagnosed with cancer at just 18 years old. If you are ready to challenge yourself and find the things that drive you, this is the podcast for you.
What You'll Learn In Today's Episode:
What impact is truly about.
How to find fulfillment.
The importance of teaching others.
What inspired Bob to make an impact on the world.
How to identify your gifts.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“My fulfillment lies in the fulfillment of others.” - Bob DePasquale
“Impact is not about recognition, it’s about what actually gets done and the change that you make.” - Bob DePasquale
“We cannot deny our differences, but we must acknowledge our similarities.” - Bob DePasquale
Resources In Today's Episode:
Full Episode Transcript:
Do you feel like there are gifts inside of you ready to burst out? Are you feeling unfulfilled and called to make a difference in a more meaningful way?
Welcome to Speaking of Impact with your host Bob DePasquale. Led by his own unique experiences and curiosity, Bob will inspire you to identify and utilize your gifts in ways that will make more of an impact on the world around you.
And now, here's Bob.
Bob DePasquale: Speaking of impact, what does it take to make a difference in the world? Hi, I'm Bob DePasquale and welcome to episode one of Speaking of Impact. Man, am I excited? This has been in the works for about five years and here we are in July of 2020. And what better time to start a podcast about impact? There's a lot of things going on in our world right now, especially our country that we all need to consider.
How can we make this a better place to live for all people? How can we work together to make an impact. Consider your daily routine, even during the COVID crisis, what is it that you do every day? Why do you wake up? Why do you go to work? Do you even go to work right now? If you were to have the ideal work, what would it be? Maybe your work is ideal for you, but is there something that you want to be doing? Whether it's a profession or another activity that you feel really called to, you have immense desire to participate in and you know that if you do and when you do, you're going to make a difference.
No, I know that's a really, really hard question. And I don't expect you to answer that in a very short period of time. It might take you months or years, maybe five years, like it took to get this podcast launched. But the goal of our time here on Speaking of Impact is to get you to think about it, to get you to challenge yourself and to move forward, to find the things that do drive you. Maybe you have to look back and realize the things that have driven you in the past so that you can identify them in the present and use them for a better future for you, your family, your loved ones, people around you and the world as a whole. It's taking quite a bit of thinking, but somehow I've been able to find what truly drives me and my fulfillment lies in the fulfillment of others.
I want to see as many people find their why as could possibly be in the entire world. I promise you that on Speaking of Impact, we're going to look deep into the minds. There's some very successful people. Well, we're going to figure out how they reach their success by whatever definition that is. But we're going to go beyond that as well. We're going to find out what they truly feel and what they truly desire as far as impact goes. Does their business success... It's probably defined by either the company they work for or the metrics that they've developed as an entrepreneur to measure their success, give any indication to their desires, or is it something else? I found a lot of business people may seem super successful but by their own definitions, outside of their organization, the business they work for, the company that they run, they're not really that successful.
And so it gives an illusion whether they're trying to show that or not, it's actually what's going on and it what's going on in their mind, in their head and that's what means the most. In order for them to find fulfillment, there's something else that needs to be done. Their daily work either needs to change, shift, or find different purpose, or they need to completely change their daily work. They need to find a new career or find a new job, find a new activity, find something else that will enable them to be fulfilled. And I'm lucky enough right now, after a five-year pondering period, to be able to do something that's going to bring me some joy, talking with these people and hopefully bringing out their most exciting stories, their favorite things, the things that they're super proud of, the things that they've been recognized for that have made an impact and have made a change in our world. And what a blessing to be able to do that?
And I know, I know I'm super lucky and it makes me think back to probably the most intense time of my life was when I was 18 years old. This period of time for most people is probably pretty exciting. Most people are graduating high school, new changes, new things going on, an opportunity to spread their wings, maybe they're going away for college. Maybe some people are going into the military. Maybe they're not going away, but they're just moving up, becoming an adult, some exciting times. Well, for myself, many of this was true. I grew up in South Florida, not too far from Fort Lauderdale, for those of you familiar with the geography of South Flo, does anyone actually call it South Flo anymore or did we ever? Anyway at 18, I was headed up to Hofstra University in Long Island, New York.
Most of my family are New Yorkers and so it was a pretty exciting time for me to head up North, get away from my parents. I was an only child. I love my parents, but needed a chance to go out, try something new, get out of the South Florida heat and head up to New York for college. And I was lucky enough to be able to play football at Hofstra University, which at the time had a football team. Right now, we don't have a team and I don't think we'll ever get one back, maybe someday. So I was lucky enough to do that and I headed up for training camp and training camp and college are little bit different than high school although my high school was a great opportunity too to play ball at St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale. But in college, you're moving up there, you're on your own, first time living by yourself.
And you're up before all the students and anyone's really there. It's mostly just athletes on campus, but believe it or not, I was pretty confident being an only child, mama's boy without mom and not the discipline of my dad and any of those things that I was used to but I headed up there pretty confident. You're 18, you're young, you're healthy, you think you're indestructable maybe, maybe is the word. So within my first week of training playing ball there, I ended up having an injury. And at the time I had thought I had pulled my groin muscle. And for those of you athletes out there, if you've ever pulled a groin muscle, that's got to be one of the most nagging injuries in the history of athletic ailments. I don't think you realize how much you use that muscle on a daily basis when you're training and playing sports and being athletic.
Needless to say, this injury lingered for probably two weeks and one morning I'm in the training room. And in some strange twisted way, I enjoyed getting up at 5:30, 6:00 in the morning to go to the training room before practice. Maybe I felt like I was getting some professional treatment or still some kind of excitement of the new chapter of life, but I'm in there every morning doing my drills, that they had me sitting on this chair and I'm inching across the floor, was sitting on this rolling stool type of chair.
And our head trainer comes up to me and we got 120 players on the team at this point, right? And this guy, he's probably got 50 people to attend to every morning that early. So the fact that he even knew what the heck was going on with was good enough. But anyway, he said to me, "Bobby, what are you doing here? I mean, you had a mild groin strain, you need to get back out on the field." And I'm thinking to myself, okay, the trainer is giving me a hard time about being weak and not getting over an injury. I got to suck it up, get out there and go play. Otherwise, I'm not going to play.
So anyway, Rick is his name and I said, "Rick, listen, it still hurts a little bit, but you're right. I got to get out there." So I tried to get out there and practice and to be honest with you, I couldn't. And I had to come in the next day. And Rick said to me, "Bobby, if you're truly still hurting, then I'm going to send you to a doctor. I'm going to send you to a urologist because this is not something you want to mess with at your age. And if it's not getting any better, this is more than a groin strain." Well, long story short, he sent me out to the urologist and I had to get a series of tests done. And whether it was my confidence in myself or still feeling like I was indestructable or maybe I was just oblivious, which I probably say most people in my life would argue that, the latter, went through a series of tests, had no worries or thoughts or could possibly be anything wrong.
And I was waiting for the results, but by this time it was the end of training camp and there wasn't a whole lot of time before our first game. In fact, it was coming up and my parents had booked a flight months prior to come up for my first college football game. And I'll never forget this. They were coming up on a Thursday for the game, which was a Saturday, Saturday in America, college football, right? Even in the Northeast.
So they gave me a call. They were in the car on the way to my uncle's house from the airport and I had just gotten out of a meeting with one of my doctors and in that meeting, the doctor told me, "Bobby, you have testicular cancer." And I was blown away probably in shock, still oblivious. So I gave my parents a call when I got out of the office there and they were in the car on the way to my uncle's house, as I mentioned, and I told them what was up.
And it was like the most deafening silence that could ever feel. I don't think my mom said anything, to be honest with you. And my dad was totally confused. We met back at my uncle's house, which for me was not more than maybe a 15, 20 minute ride from where I was. And when we got there, it was definitely a state of shock. I had to try to explain what the doctor said and I'm relaying medical information as an 18 year old kid to my parents who were smart people, but certainly not physicians.
Anyway, we had some time there to think about it and made the phone calls that we needed to make and talk to the doctors and go through a really trying time. And lucky enough, my uncle's best friend at the time was such a giving person. His name was Tim, and he came over to my uncle's house that Saturday and dropped off his car before my parents said, "Here you go, Bob and Susan DePasquale, I cannot believe what you're going through right now with your son and his diagnosis at 18, just about to start college, take my car. You can have it for as long as you need. I'm sure there's some tests and some things that have to go on, surgery, but have my car take it for as long as you could possibly need."
My parents were blown away by this guy's generosity. He's my uncle's best friend. My uncle said, "You know what? Tim is a top notch guy. I'm honestly not surprised that he's letting you have the car." So almost reluctantly, they took the car. And that was on Saturday, the day of what was supposed to be my first game. Now, after consultation with my new oncologist, he recommended that I still take some courses no matter what my course of treatment was. So I ended up taking two courses and Monday through Friday, I'd have class in the morning. So the following week started and then I went to class on Monday and pretty normal day, believe it or not considering all that was going on but the next day would be the most memorable day of my life.
It started out as just my second day of college. After my class that morning, I headed over to the small cafe that was right next to the hall that my class was in. I got something to eat and I sat down and they had a small TV. Now, not like one of these fancy curved, HD, 4k, cookie breakfast type of TVs that they have out there now, but a small little tube TV hanging on a rack there in the corner of the ceiling.
And I'm watching the news and I look up and there's some commotion going on the TV and the reporters totally confused that a plane had crashed into one of the towers in the World Trade Center. And I'm thinking to myself, man, that's terrible. That's crazy. You better finish up eating here and I had to head back to my uncle's house, meet up with my parents and do some... I think we had a doctor's appointment. And I'm sitting there for another couple of minutes and then all of a sudden, another plane hits the other tower. And now we all know something's up. So I called my family and said, "You guys watching the news here?" And my dad was like, "Yeah, you should probably come home, come back to your uncle's house." So I hopped in the car and what was about a 15 minute drive, took me nine hours to get back to my uncle's house.
And with the World Trade Center in the distance, I pretty much watched the events of 911 and listened to on the radio for nine straight hours. In fact, I was in the car so long. I ran out of gas in my uncle's neighborhood. Thankfully, I was close enough to, we could push the car into the driveway there, but I will never forget that day. And I don't think will ever or have ever listened to nine hours of AM Radio otherwise. But that experience is truly unforgettable.
When I got back to my uncle's house, my uncle wasn't there. And we knew that he would be flying from Denver back to New York that morning. And there was some panic for sure, but we were able to get a hold of him and figured out that he just got stuck in Denver. So that wasn't that bad, but what was terrible news was that my uncle's friend Tim, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center was in that building when the plane hit.
He along with thousands of other people lost his life because of those senseless acts. Over 90 countries lost citizens in the September 11th attacks. People still grieve this event today. At that point when we found out that Tim had lost his life, it felt like our best friend or brother or father was in the tower. And it was an amazing feeling to understand generosity of one man in such a short period of time. I know that Tim O'Brien was just trying to help out the family of his best friend, but man, it meant a lot more than that. And to look at my aunt, at my uncle and the other people that knew him and tell that story was truly powerful. I barely knew the guy, but I've quite a story to tell. Anytime we talk about 911 with the family or other people that lived up in New York at the time, it always comes up.
And as an 18 year old boy, I learned some lessons then, but I'm still learning lessons to this day from Tim O'Brien. Speaking of Impact is certainly not about the biggest, most recognizable craziest stories, it's about the most impactful stories. And some of those stories just haven't even been told. And some of those people probably don't even want to be recognized, they just want to make sure that they made a difference. And for a world that felt like it was crashing down at the time for my family, that was about as big as it could get. The lesson here is that impact is not about recognition. It's about what actually gets done and the change that you make for either one person, one family, for the whole world.
If you're looking for adventure, mystery, daredevil tales, heroic stories, I'd say there's better resources. On Speaking of Impact, we're going for a lasting effect. The intention behind the action, not necessarily the spontaneity. 18 year old Bobby DePasquale went through quite a trying period but the lesson to be learned from the story is about what happened a long time afterwards. It probably took me two years to realize what actually happened to me when I was 18. It wasn't until I was a junior in college until I really had some time to sit back and contemplate what happened. I was getting close to graduation.
I was thinking about life beyond that, professions, what to do. And so I really had to think back on my experience in college and I really realized what a learning experience all of that was. And I was thankful to say at that point I was cancer-free and 100% healthy according to my doctors. And here I am almost 20 years later and that feeling is still as vivid as it was then. I still feel very, very blessed to have experienced that and touched by the life of Tim O'Brien and supported by so many people at that time. And I realized that they were making a difference in my life, whether I knew it or not. And my hope is over the next weeks, months, hopefully years that Speaking of Impact will be able to share stories that help people realize those blessings in their life and motivate them to find their fulfillment and how that they can do the same for other people.
As I mentioned at the top of the show, we're in a very challenging time right now in our country, but it's good. Challenges are good, they promote growth. They enable us the opportunity to make change, to make good change. Right now, we need to come together and learn and educate and also understand that we all have different ways of learning and understanding things. It's vitally important that all parties are heard. We cannot deny our differences but we must acknowledge our similarities, which includes our country, our right to freedom and prosperity and our human need for fulfillment. I sense that there's a tremendous opportunity right now for us to make change and for many, many people to be fulfilled. With that being said, the best way to get things done is to communicate.
We're going to have some great guests on the show and I can't wait to talk to them. But in addition to that, I want to communicate with you. So you can connect with me on social media at BDEPA that's B-D-E-P-A on Twitter, Instagram, Snap. You choose the medium, but just tell me what you're thinking. Tell me what's on your mind. Are we making progress? Are you feeling fulfilled? Are you feeling under fulfilled? And you need a reason, you need some motivation, some encouragement to get there, I want to hear from you so we can keep the conversation going and speak of impact. In addition to that, you can check out the website, bobdepasquale.com. That's B-O-B-D-E-P-A-S-Q-U-A-L-E.com. For more information, they'll be show notes posted there from the podcast. So you can go back and look at what we talked about and catch links to any of the things that you want to learn more about.
Also, we have my blog, the blog will have more information about impact and a little bit deeper dive into some of the subjects that we talk about as if I need another place to share my opinions, but I thought it'd be a good place for me to describe in greater detail some of my thoughts on fulfillment and impact, and also talk about some of the current things that are going on in our world. Also right now on the side, you can get what I call my Initiatives for Impact, you could sign up to get reminders for the pod and the blog, and also get a free copy of the Initiatives for Impact, which is a document that you can use to remind yourself posts, maybe it's on your computer, on your desk, on the fridge, maybe at your workspace at work, to remind yourself, to look for impact initiatives, to look for the things that will help you make a change and provide you with fulfillment as you help people around you.
Well, here we are, five years seems like a really long time, and I'm excited to be launching this podcast, but man, 25 minutes goes by really fast, which tells me that we're going to have a lot of content to share as time goes on here. Well, I want to thank you for stopping in, taking time, whatever you're doing, whether you're working out or sitting around doing some work, whatever it might be I want to express my appreciation for people tuning in and experiencing this with me, this first episode of Speaking of Impact. I truly am pumped to move forward and to start recording and talking to some really inspirational people, it should be really fun.
So in closing, I want to share one more story. This past year, I had the pleasure of attending my cousin's wedding. Now, this is not a visual medium, so you can't see me smiling, but this was one of the coolest parties I've ever been to. I think we spent nine hours in total celebrating this wedding from 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon. No, wait a minute, my math is terrible. It must have been 10 hours. Either way from 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon to I'm pretty sure it was 3:00 AM when the thing finally shut down.
Anyway, I love weddings and I had such an amazing time at this celebration. And I connected with some people that I hadn't seen in very, very long. And so at the wedding, everyone's so happy and you barely even get to talk to the bride and the groom because they have 1000 things to do and you really don't want to ruin their day by swiping a bunch of time from them and you probably feel a little bit selfish to do that. So honestly, you end up connecting with other people that you haven't seen in quite a while. And so for myself and actually for my wife too, because I was able to introduce her to Tim, our friend, Tim O'Brien, his wife and his kids.
And at the time that 911 happened, his kids were very, very young. So they certainly don't remember me and I had met them in between then, but there's something about a wedding where it's just such a happy occasion and you get the opportunity to connect and talk about things. And we certainly didn't have a super long conversation with everything going on, but I was able to kind of reach back to that period of time in my life where I certainly couldn't have articulated my thanks and what was going through my head at the time.
And it took, as I mentioned before, probably almost 20 years to get this out, but I was able to at least say some sort of thank you and give some sort of gratitude for what their father had done for my family. And it just makes me realize, and it makes me think that there are tremendous acts of kindness that go unnoticed in our world all the time. And it's no fault to the people that do them. In fact, many of these people aren't looking for recognition, but if you can give them recognition, it really means a lot. And in this case, Tim was no longer with us on earth, but knowing that his family understood what a great man he was, that also means a lot.
And I'm sure that we can all learn a lesson there as well. Don't let a day
go by without giving thanks to the people who have helped you or inspired
you because by you telling them that, that indicates that their thought
process and their actions were good, and that will provide them with the
satisfaction of doing the right thing and doing something that helps
somebody. They can go to sleep that night knowing that they made an impact.
And they'll be more likely to do it again and again and again. That'll do
it for episode one of Speaking of Impact, be sure to check out episode two,
it's already available, be safe and smart out there, and I will talk to you
soon. See you.
Thanks for listening today. If you'd like to connect with Bob, visit bobdepasquale.com. Tune in next time for more inspiring stories and remember to like and subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
