Storytelling

"I want to use today up. I mean, I want to honor them, the people who didn't receive the gift. I want to honor the day, and I want to honor myself by making the most of it."
— Ray Hartjen

Ray Hartjen was 55 when he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma — an incurable but treatable blood cancer. His first instinct was to attack it physically: train harder, eat cleaner, beat the transplant timeline. Ten days in, sitting exhausted at a restaurant with his family, he realized he had pushed one instrument all the way up and let the rest of the band go quiet. The physical was everything; the mental, emotional, and spiritual had been left behind.

What followed was a simple exercise: draw a line, mark your birth on the left, your death on the right, and place an honest tick mark where you actually are. For Ray, that moment cracked open a new way of seeing time, people, and purpose. In the seven years since, he has published six books, built a global community around multiple myeloma, and rebuilt his life around what matters most — family, friends, fun, fitness, education, and challenge.

He also makes a warm, practical case that you are a better storyteller than you believe — and that your story is worth telling.

Learn more and connect:

https://www.rayhartjen.com

rayhartjen@gmail.com

Ray Hartjen on all major social media platforms — search Ray Hartjen

Resources mentioned:

Me, Myself, and My Multiple Myeloma by Ray Hartjen — available at https://www.rayhartjen.com and wherever books are sold; writer proceeds benefit the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation

Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation: https://www.themmrf.org

Respark Your Life Podcast: https://www.resparkyourlife.com

Raymond Aaron: https://www.aaron.com

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Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author!

https://www.aaron.com

"We don't grow spiritually when everything's going good. When we're blind and we're wondering what the future is gonna — that's when we're in that pain, that emotional pain and anxiety. It's when we grow spiritually."

Rand Timmerman grew up in poverty, survived Vietnam, built a 40-year legal career, fought alcoholism into his 60s, and got sober through AA. At 72, four years into his sobriety, he set out to hike the Appalachian Trail — 2,200 miles, 600 mountains, half a million feet of elevation change — alongside his grieving younger brother. What happened on that trail changed his understanding of God, of suffering, and of what it actually means to be grateful.

He describes standing alone on a mountain above the Hudson River at daybreak, raptors circling, New York City just visible on the horizon, not a single sign of human life — and feeling, for the first time, that his higher power was as large as the universe itself. That expansion stayed with him. The following year, he went blind on Christmas Eve. He was alone in a home with alcohol in it for two months. He never once thought about a drink.

Raymond presses Rand on the question most listeners will be asking: why does it seem to take so much pain to get there? Rand's answer is honest and oddly comforting. The hard times are not in the way. They are the way.

Learn more and connect:

A Spiritual Passage by Rand Timmerman — available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com

Resources mentioned:

A Spiritual Passage by Rand Timmerman — memoir of the Appalachian Trail hike, grief, sobriety, and faith
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) 12-step program — https://www.aa.org
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy — https://www.appalachiantrail.org
Respark Your Life Podcast — https://www.resparkyourlife.com
Raymond Aaron — https://www.aaron.com

Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT-Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author!

https://www.aaron.com

"Once you cut, you can't uncut. So you should do everything you possibly can prior."

If you have ever felt that getting healthy after 50 means an all-or-nothing overhaul, this conversation will ease your mind. Dr. Michael Guadagnino, a chiropractor of more than thirty years and author of Fitness Over 50, 60, 70, and Beyond, sits down with Raymond to lay out a genuinely doable path to aging well — built on a nonjudgmental mindset, small steps you can start tonight, and clean food. They get into why walking is one of the most powerful things you can do for your body and your mind, why healthy fats belong back in your diet, and why your daily environment shapes your health even more than your genes. Raymond, 81 and still an athlete, has his own habits checked along the way. It is warm, practical, and easy to act on.

Learn more and connect:

Book: Fitness Over 50, 60, 70, and Beyond
https://a.co/d/0aUnv3Yb
YouTube: @dr.michaelguadagnino6874

Raymond Aaron has shared his vision and wisdom on radio and television programs for over 40 years. He is the author of over 100 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love, Canadian best-seller Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul, and he co-authored the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul. Raymond's latest, co-authored book is The AI Millionaire's Path: Discover How ChatGPT‐Written Books Become Bestsellers and How They Can Make You a Millionaire Author!

https://www.Aaron.com