If you haven’t yet heard Part 1 with Adrian Jones, make sure to go back and listen to that episode first. In part 2 with Adrian, we hear how his heart attack led him to a chance meeting with someone who helped him find his biological mom, dad, and half-siblings. With his exceptional storytelling skills, Adrian takes us through the steps, thoughts, feelings, and emotions he went through to work up the courage and finally reach out to his bio families who were living right under his nose. In this episode, we also talk about how these two life-changing experiences led to another big change in Adrian’s life including leaving his career and starting his own podcast called Profound Awesomeness where other people share their near-death experiences. If you’re enjoying these episodes don’t forget to share them with people you love. The more we grow the more we can help you grow. Full Transcription is available at www.iamthisage.com
If you haven’t yet heard Part 1 with Adrian Jones, make sure to go back and listen to that episode first.
In part 2 with Adrian, we hear how his heart attack led him to a chance meeting with someone who helped him find his biological mom, dad, and half-siblings. With his exceptional storytelling skills, Adrian takes us through the steps, thoughts, feelings, and emotions he went through to work up the courage and finally reach out to his bio families who were living right under his nose.
In this episode, we also talk about how these two life-changing experiences led to another big change in Adrian’s life including leaving his career and starting his own podcast called Profound Awesomeness where other people share their near-death experiences.
If you’re enjoying these episodes don’t forget to share them with people you love. The more we grow the more we can help you grow.
Molly’s links:
Instagram: @mollyatthisage
Work with Molly: molly@jellyfishindustries.com
Adrian’s Links:
Instagram: @profound_awesomeness
Full Transcription is available at www.iamthisage.com
What if everything really did happen for a reason? What if we paid closer attention to what the universe presented to us and made decisions accordingly? What new and unexpected opportunities might unfold to woo woo woo for you? I get it, but then I hear stories like the one you are about to hear and everything changes.
Welcome to I Am This Age. I'm Molly Sider, a certified professional life coach, inspirational speaker, and changemaker in my midlife at 45.
Today's episode is part two with Adrian Jones. So if you haven't yet listened to part one, make sure you go do that first. It's a great story about surviving a heart attack while on a mountain bike ride. So make sure you go do that and then come back here for part two. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know a little bit more about me.
I'm Molly, the midlife change coach because what is a crisis other than a change we didn't invite or don't want to face? Like turning 40 something and not being where you thought you'd be at that age, or having your youngest kid graduate from high school and not knowing what to do with your time or just feeling sort of yucky when you're wanting to feel something extraordinary.
When I turned 40, I needed to find proof that it wasn't too late and I wasn't too old to find my extraordinary career love friendships. I was questioning all of it, and I'm here to tell you that it's not too late and you're never too old. And I will help you turn your quote crisis into meaningful change so you can write your next life chapter with purpose because life really is short.
So don't get stuck in your yuck. Click the link in the show notes for one-on-one coaching with me. Let's find your extraordinary. Together
Now onto part two with Adrian Jones, or as we like to call him, aj.
Remember in part one when AJ mentions that he was taken to the same hospital where his mom carried him in her belly and delivered him that after his heart attack, he walked out of the same hospital he was born in?
Well, there's an important reason that that was mentioned. See, AJ and his younger sister were both adopted. AJ was born at Marin County Hospital in Northern California, but his family left San Francisco for Colorado and then Massachusetts.
Both AJ and his sister never had any real desire to find their biological parents. They felt content with the family that they had. It wasn't until AJ was married with two children and moved back to Marin County that things started to feel a little strange for aj.
Conceivably, I've got biological family in this community. And as we have two kids who. You know, we're coming up through the elementary school system and we're playing youth sports. I started to wonder like, am I back to school night sitting next to a cousin or a brother or a sister? And I coached youth soccer for both my son and my daughter.
And I would wonder, am I coaching a nephew or a niece and soccer? Is that possible? Like, that's kind of a trip. Like, I don't know. They could be, logic would seem to dictate that they could happen. Um, crazier things have happened, so maybe that's the case, but so then it started to, my mind started to, to spin on it a bit more, but never to the point of actually going to, to search.
It wasn't until the heart attack that I had this compulsion to go out and find my biological family.
And why after the heart attack did you have this compulsion to find him?
Well, I, it, I know this is impossible to fact check, but I swear it to be true. When they took me out of the cath lab and wheeled me into the, um, the I C U, the cardiac recovery wing of the hospital, the nurses set me up on the machines and made sure all my IVs were working properly, and the the machines were chirping.
And, you know, everything looked stable and normal. And they left me alone to my, they left the room and left me alone to my thoughts. And the first thought I had, which wasn't even a thought, it was a voice in my right ear, said, find your birth parents. And it was so powerful. I looked to my right. I was like, there was no one else in the room, but it was this, the, the voice was very clear.
Find your birth parents. And as I heard that, I agreed with it. I said, yep, now's the time. I almost checked out of here. Maybe they've wanted to know ultimately how I turned out. Two, I wanted, I'm sort of having these thoughts as I'm laying in the gurney. My second thought was, yeah, I just almost died of a heart attack.
I need to know if this runs in my genes. Like how did this happen? I need to know for me and I need to know for my kids and for their kids. Uh, and then I, then my third thought was I was having these, these thoughts as they were racing through my mind was, yeah, and let's find out if I have any siblings.
Do I have sisters or brothers? Are they out there? Like, how old are they? What do they like? Would they like me? Would they embrace me in their lives? So yeah, what I'm gonna do when I get outta this hospital is I'm gonna go find my biological family. I just didn't know how, but I knew I was gonna do it.
If you remember from part one, it took AJ a bit of time after he had his heart attack to be social again, and the very first time he did, he and his wife went to a fundraiser for their kids' school district, and you will not believe what happened there.
My wife and I are at the event and a couple walk up to me. And they said, aj, oh my gosh, what happened? We heard all about your heart attack. And so I gave them the 32nd, you know, mountain biking with friends. This is how it all happened. And the wife of the couple leaned into me closer to me, and she looked up at me and she said, um, is this genetic?
And I said, I have no idea. I'm adopted. said, well, have you ever thought about searching for your biological family? Um, answered, yeah, of course. Yeah. Now I want to go find him right now. And she goes, well, where were you born? I said, down the road at Marin General Hospital. And then she kept grilling me with questions, and she asked the fourth question, what's your birthday?
And I'm like asking myself, like, why is she asking me all this? And I said, well, it's October 10th, 1969. And I was getting very uncomfortable with this line of questioning for someone I barely knew. And mercifully, our, our conversation was broken up as things happen at parties and social situations. And, and I was like, oh, okay.
I'm not gonna get grilled from her anymore. And she came up to me late at night and put her phone in front of my face and it on it, it had a table of listing all, well, she didn't, she just said, Hey, look, I gotta show this to you. And she put it in front of my face. I'm like, no, her name's Christina. I said, Christina, I, I can't look at this right now.
Just can you email it to me tomorrow? the next morning I woke up to an email from this woman who'd asked me all these questions, Christina, and on it was the same table she'd showed me the night before, which listed all the babies born in Marin County on October 10th, 1969. And there were five babies that were born.
Four out of the five had traditional names, you know, traditional as we think of as names here, like. Molly Cider or John Doe. And, but there was one listing where they only listed the last names of the birth parents in the baby names cell on this table. And she explained to me in this email that conceivably or potentially those are the, that's how, this is how California records births of unwed parents and that maybe these are the last names of my biological parents.
Wow.
The, the mother's last name was Kyle, k y l e. And the father's last name was Kelly. And she writes, would you like to know more? I'm like, my head's exploding. Like I wake up to this. Like, what on earth is this information? Like I just met this woman. I mean, I knew her, but we really, I. Met met the night before, like, what the heck?
And I replied right away. Absolutely. I wanted to learn more, um, like when, let's get together and figure this thing out. So we agreed to go for a walk two days later and Christina, it's now a very close friend of mine, and we refer to it as our, our famous walk and talk. And we went for a walk in these hills slash mountains.
And, um, she proceeds to tell me that she's a genetic genealogist and that what she does is she helps a crazy, absolutely crazy that she helps adoptees find their biological parents and families. I'm like, how, what are the odds that I met somebody who does this line of work in my mind, back going back. It would've been several weeks ago when I was in the hospital with that idea.
After I heard that voice in my ear, find your birth parents, I thought I'd probably Google how to find your biological family. I didn't know where to begin. And here, I've got this woman and this is what she does, and she's a member of our community and well respected and what have you. And I'm like, wow, okay.
I'd love your help. And she goes, great. Then tell me everything you know about your biological family, your parents. And I'm like, well, I've never, at this point, I'd never seen my adoption papers. But I told her what my parents had told me is that my biological mother was of Norwegian descent, had brothers and was Catholic. And then she's like, great, that's a ton of information. What do you know about Bio Dad? And I'm like, uh, all I know from what my parents told me is that he was a uh, title officer for a bank. And she goes, great. We got a, we got a ton of information here. But I, but I said, I also thought that my biological father was Italian.
That's what my parents had always told me, but his last name potentially is Kelly. Like, that's Irish. Like I don't, maybe there's something goofed in the information. I don't know. And she's like, no problem. We'll figure it all out. We finished our walk and his geneticists are apparently want to do, they drive around with DNA n a kits in their car she had an ancestry, d n a kit in her car and she's like, I need you to spit in this file right now.
I'm like, okay, alright. Right. I'm, I'm all in. I'm gonna lean into the universe. I not sure where this is going. So I did my part and I spit into the file, up to the line. I handed the vial back to her and she goes, great. I'm gonna submit this and I'm gonna go do some research. And that was that. And I drove home from that trail thinking, what have I done?
Like, I have just given a woman who I barely know, Who is a genetic genealogist. My dna, like there's no contract, there's no non-disclosure agreement, there's no privacy agreement. Like I just gave her my dna n a. And I thought to myself, that's crazy. What are you doing? And then my other side of my brain said, lean into it.
Lean into it. The universe is trying to help you. Like, okay, that's what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna lean into this and see where it goes. So that was on a Sunday, mid late November, two days later, she texts me and I'm out on the trails with my dog and she says, where are you? I need to show you something.
And I said, well, I'm out kind of near your house. I've got the dog I'll be by in 20, 30 minutes. So I swing by her. Now I know where she lives. I swing by her house. She greets me, brings me into her kitchen, sits me down at this nice rectangular wooden kitchen table. Very sturdy. I remember, cuz I came in handy in just a minute and she sits me down and says, okay.
Aj, I've done some research. Great. I'm like, what does that mean? She said, well, I, I looked at both your, what might be, we don't know your parents' last name's Kelly and Kyle Kelly. She goes, no offense is a very common name, very hard to search over, search after. And I go, well, I'm not offended. My last name is Jones.
I, I get the common last name thing here. And she said, okay. But, but the last name Kyle is an unusual last name. And I started looking in all the Bay Area counties, Marin County, Contra Costa County, San Francisco County, Alameda County looking for women of childbearing age in 1969. And she said, I came across two. And I'm like, okay. And she said, but one of them gave birth in, in September of the year you were born. So one month before I was born. So that eliminated that woman, unless there was some miraculous birth, which. No. Yeah. Didn't happen. And she said there was one other, uh, woman of childbearing age in 1969 with the last name Kyle that she could find.
And she goes, guess where she lived? I'm like, I have no idea. She goes, well, she lived in Marin County, like stance to reason. Okay. And she goes, can you guess which town? And I'm thinking to myself, I have no idea. And she said, just take a wild guess. I'm like, I can't guess. Christina. Like, what, where she, where did she live?
And she goes, she lived in San, in Selmo, California. And at that point I started to grab this very sturdy table with, with my fingers and started to white knuckle, grab the tail. I'm like, cuz that's the town I live in at the time. You know? Now
and then I did some research, some additional research, and it turns out that this woman, her name was Sharon Kyle. She was 24 at the time of your birth. And uh, she goes, I built her family tree in Ancestry and I can see that her grandparents came over from Norway. So that checks your Norwegian box that you had.
She had two brothers that I can see in the date in the census database. So you said she had brothers. So we have two brothers. I'm like, oh my God, what is happening? then she started, then she officially rocked my world and she said, then I did even some more research, um, thinking, and I'm starting to get a little uncomfortable in my skin and a little sweaty, like, where is this going?
And the San Somo connection is really crazy. And she said, well, she was 24 in 1969. I rolled her age back to when she would've been, A senior in high school when she was 18, and I wanted to see if she went to any of the local public high schools and, and Southern were in there three. she looked at all three local public high schools for a Sharon.
Kyle couldn't find any instance. And, and yearbooks by the way, are, are publicly available information, which I didn't know at the time, but, so she was looking at old yearbooks, couldn't find a Sharon Kyle. And then she said, but I remember on our walk you told me she was Catholic. And I'm thinking to myself, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Don't, don't tell me what I think you're about to tell me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And she said, yeah. So I looked at the one Catholic high school in Marin County called Marin Catholic, and guess what? And I'm like, don't tell me, don't tell me. Do not say what you're about to say. And she said, Sharon, Kyle graduated from Marin Catholic class of 62. I lost it. Molly, I've lo every visceral reaction in me sh exploded because my daughter, our oldest was two months into her freshman year at this very same Catholic high school.
Wow.
She was walking unwittingly under the senior year photograph of her maternal biological grandmother that was on the wall of the administration building
I'm like, oh my God. I'm like, this is nuts. This is nuts. But we still don't know. It's her. Like, this is all, like, Christina's done some research who found a woman named Sharon Kyle and things are matching up, but we don't know, we don't have dna. And she goes, I wanna show you a picture. I'm like, no way.
And she goes, yeah, I got a picture of her and I just wanna show it to you. Get your reaction. So she. Maneuvers her laptop around and pulls up a picture, and I stand up and stand behind Christina looking over her shoulder at her computer screen, and as soon as she pulled up this picture, I jumped, I screamed.
That's her, that's her. I've looked at that picture or that face in the mirror for 47 years. I know that face. That's me, that's my biological mother. I know. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. That's her. We don't need dna. N you found her
So AJ knew just from one photograph that he found his biological mother, and then a short time later, his D N A ancestry results routed to a first cousin of Sharon's officially tying AJ to that family.
They had found his mom and they were now searching for his biological dad.
It didn't take long before Christina came to AJ with a picture of a man named Ron Kelly from his senior year at a local high school. And just like with a picture of bio mom, AJ took one look and thought.
That's my nose, that's my jaw. No doubt about it. That's I. That's Bio Dad. We got 'em. And then again, DNA n a came in and just like with Sharon, I was routed to a first cousin, one of Ron's first cousins in the Ancestry database.
And so that put my DNA n into his family. And so that therefore we've got walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. We've got our duck. And it turns out that Ron lives up in the, in the Sonoma area, and Sharon lives here in the Bay Area in the East Bay. So they're both still alive, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
And live within an hour drive of where I live now,
It's so crazy, and they both married other people and had children and families and live near you, and you ended up sending letters to each of your parents, right, to see if they would want to meet you. And they did.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean there's, there's no like, Maybe, maybe there isn't. I just didn't find it. The, like how to book, like how to reach out to your biological family that has no idea you're about to reach out to them and you know, do you pick up the phone because you know you can find anything online these days.
We had phone numbers, we had email addresses, we had physical addresses like do I drive by their house and knock on their door? Do I call them? Do I reach out to them via social media? Like Facebook? Do I, what do I do? And what I landed on was I'm gonna send them a letter and I will definitely send it so I can track it and I know it's been delivered.
Um, but I'll send a letter and give them time to process because I have no idea what any of their families know. Like to your point, we, Christina and I were able to discern and Facebook is an amazing medium to do DNA sleuthing homework, but we were able to discern and ascertain that they both were married and they both had daughters.
Ron had two daughters. Sharon had one daughter. And I have no idea what anybody knew. Did they know that I existed and they all were waiting for me to track them down and reach out to find them? Did did they have no idea I existed? Like who knew what? I have no idea. So I sent Ron and Sharon individual letters in January of 2017, and they were delivered on Tuesday.
God, I wanna say it was the 31st of January. It was the 30th, 31st. Anyways and I gotta tell you, I was at work that day. I sent those letters, two day delivery via FedEx the day they were supposed to be delivered. Molly, I was like on that FedEx site, refresh, refresh, refresh,
refresh,
I bet.
tracking the status of them.
And then when it hit delivered, I was like, oh my gosh. You know, I put those letters in the mail and I just surrendered myself to fate. I said, I'm ready for it all. I don't know where this is gonna go, but. This is my time. The universe is working in ways that is propelling me down this path, and I'm excited to embrace whatever comes my way.
AJ did eventually get to meet both Ron and Sharon and his half siblings, but it wasn't that easy.
So I met Sharon first.
And she sends me an email about five days after she had gotten my letter. And the subject line was, thank you. And she said that in the letter that she had never changed her last name in the hopes that I would come find her.
Wow.
Yeah. And so anyways, I replied back to her.
She replied back to me. We went that night. We emailed back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. We talked the next day and hearing her voice for the first time was. A trip beyond a trip.
Like it resonated deep in my core. Wow, this is powerful. I feel a connection to this woman more than I could ever have imagined. And we talked for about two and a half hours and she told me, and I, I said, well, whatever happened with you And, and Ron, and she explained to me that they had been dating and then they got engaged and then along I came. And she realized when she was pregnant with me that she did not wanna marry him and she wanted to put me up for adoption.
She was a first year elementary school teacher in 1969 and just didn't have the means to, to care for me
Wow.
or the support system.
AJ hadn't heard from Ron yet and assumed he may never hear from him. Given that AJ's adoption and Ron and Sharon's split probably was a heartbreaking time in Ron's life. AJ imagined that Ron probably wouldn't want that reminder, but AJ also knew through a bit of social media stalking that he had two paternal sisters and he was hell bent on getting in touch with them, which eventually did lead to a meeting not just with his sisters, but with Ron himself.
The night that I met Ron, I met Ron, his wife and his two daughters, my two sisters on that side in, in late March of 2017. And we had a wonderful dinner. We talked for, we were there for a couple of hours and the next day, I called both the sisters to check in on them, just to make sure they were doing okay.
And the youngest of the two said she'd been up all night crying. And I'm like, w why were you crying? And she said, because she'd always wanted a brother. And here I had arrived and she said, I feel like a part of my soul is complete now.
Wow.
Yeah. And that hit home for me, and it got me thinking the same way, like, my holes are, are complete now.
The coals that I didn't know I had, I, I can identify them. They're complete, they're full. I feel like a more rich and robust person that I'm fully living in the capacity of who I'm meant to be. Now that I have this information and these relationships.
Did you feel any resentment at all?
No. No. And I will say, you know, even in my, my initial letters to each of them, you know, I said to them, I, I come from, I have a big heart and I'd like to share it with you in some capacity. I do not come from a place I don't harbor. Ill will, I don't remember my exact language, but something to the effect of, I don't harbor ill will or any, anger towards either of you and I, and I haven't.
I think, I mean, and part of that is because I had a great upbringing and I loved my parents and, and my sister and the family that I grew up with and raised me and who are my family, and I had, I, I was never wanting for opportunities as a kid growing up. So I, I wasn't angry in that way, but I think where I did, where I have checked myself when I felt a little bit of resentment or is, is towards my maternal grandparents.
Hmm.
Because I questioned what kind of support they gave Sharon in 1969 when she was unwed and pregnant. And I think my, her mother, so my maternal grandmother was, was very helpful, was with Sharon and, and helped her with her pregnancy and was there for the day of the birth and, and everything like that. But in those days, it just wasn't the support structure.
It wasn't societally accepted. And so when she was really on her own to pull this off, and I just, maybe my, I have some level of resentment that's unfounded. I don't know, but I, I just wish, I hope that they gave her all the support and then some, and I'm, I'm not sure that they did just because of that's the way times were in those days.
What's your relationship to them now?
So I'll tell you there's three things that is really, important in an, in a re in adoption reunion that I think are important. One is acceptance or acknowledge. I acknowledge you. Two is I, two, I accept you, and three, I embrace you.
Hmm.
And it's really important to get that. I acknowledge you down, and I've been very blessed that I've have had all three.
They've, they acknowledge me, they accepted me, and they've embraced me into their families. So, you know, we're, we're screaming up on Easter weekend, and just to give you real life sneak peek into how this is going is Saturday, I'm, I'm doing a dinner, a pre Easter dinner with Ron at the paternal side of my family.
And then on Easter Sunday I'll be with Sharon and her side and that side of the family getting together for Easter. So we text and talk all the time. I see them fairly frequently. Like I said earlier, that's about an hour drive or so to see everybody, which is nothing. I mean, just what a gift to have access to this new discovery. And the other thing too, I should point out is, This all happened when I was 40, you know, I just turned 47. And to have this entire new family open up to me, right? They, they acknowledged, accepted, and embraced me to be at that age in life, a midlifer. And to have this whole new family to, as I explained to my mom, don't feel threatened because I have more people in my life that will love me and will love my kids, your grandkids, just more people that are looking out for us and loving us. And I think that that has really been how it's played out. For us, it's been just, I, I don't know. I, it sounds trite to say, but in on so many levels, I think this is like, I. An adoptee reunion does not always go smoothly. It can. It can. It can. They go down all sorts of different paths and it can start out great and then it gets super rocky and it implodes.
It. Could it start out rocky and then it gets better with time? It, whatever. I'm one of the lucky ones that they did all these things to embrace me and welcome me into their families. You know, we're six years into this and we're really tight. We're really, really tight and what a blessing to have this now in, in, in my life.
That's incredible. did your sister then wanna go find her parents?
No. Still doesn't.
Interesting. That's so interesting. Okay, so at some point, after all of these things happened you, after the heart attack, after the survival, after meeting your parents, you were like, all of this is happening for a reason. And it had such a, this profound effect on you that you started a podcast called Profound Awesomeness And just a couple months ago you quit your job to start a business based around helping other people find their own profound awesomeness.
What exactly are you hoping to help other people feel?
Yeah. Thank you for the plug on Profoundness.
Yep.
appreciate it very much. Yes.
part of your story. You know, it's interesting.
So profound awesomeness is, is actually a blog post I wrote after I had lunch with my younger paternal sister, the one who had cried the, the day af the night we met and said her soul felt complete and everything, and it was really a com. I was feeling this incredible, overwhelmingly powerful sensation that was a combination of two things.
On one hand, I was a survivor, like I had survived what could have been catastrophic. Heart attack and I made it through, and as a result, I gained these, what I call survivor superpowers. I was more in the moment like I felt being present, like I felt something different when I was present. I have this gratitude, which I've talked about before, um, this greater appreciation for life.
So the, I call these my survivor superpower, so that was really cool. Like, wow, I survived and I've got these new skills about being grateful and present in the moment, like, wow, so cool. That coupled with all those emotions of this, the discovery of who I am and having these biological family members and embrace me and welcome me into their ho their, their hearts and homes and family ultimately. Just filled up, filled me up too, so my soul was complete. So I had these, these powerful things happening and I didn't know how else to describe it other than to say what I'm feeling is profound awesomeness. And so, and so, I, I wrote a blog post and that eventually, to your point, turned into a podcast.
Thank you very much for the plug. I definitely appreciate it. But,
It's great. Everyone listen.
uh, thank you. And, um, what I hope to do is to help people, you know, tell uncover stories about other people who've been through things and how they've experienced their version of profound awesomeness to help people get to their living in a profoundly awesome way. Uh, and living with more meaning, more intent, more purpose, having hope, inspiration and motivation.
That's what I hope that my story and the stories of other people that I tell on the podcast will bring to, to, to society. And it is unabashedly supposed to be a good news story, good news podcast like from my little lily pad and the universe. I got my little bullhorn and I want shout out, like good news things to try to put positive energy into the universe is what I'm trying to do to help people live their profound awesomeness,
That's awesome.
profoundly
Profoundly, um, why, why quit your job to do this? Why not just like volunteer or. Make it a hobby.
I was doing it at, at the at the side. In fact. After my heart attack, after I found my biological family, I was working, I was commuting three hours a day, in and out of, combined in and out of San Francisco working for, in financial services. And I wanted time back in my life to invest in my health, invest in my family, and to start doing what I can to advocate for adoptees for heart attack survivors.
The truth, as AJ says, is that his company was downsizing and the decision to leave his job was ultimately made for him. But sometimes that's just the kind of kick in the, you know what, that we need to then go do the thing we really want to do. It certainly was for me,
it seems like the universe gave you this enormous wake up call and you answered it, and once you answered it, the universe has continued to show up for you.
So you met Christina who helped you find your your biological family. Everyone in your family is alive and living near you and wanted to meet you and so did all of your half biological siblings and then the job, like, do you believe there is a correlation between all these things and that the universe is something we can respond to and almost interact with, or is that like way woowoo for you?
No way. W I agree wholeheartedly. When I, when I do the math and I look down the ledger of this whole thing, it is crazy. Like the fact I was discharged on my birthday from the same hospital I was in, which I was born 47 years earlier. Like weird sign to your point, meeting Christina moving to this little town in Marin County, which is the same town that my birth mother carried me.
when I was in u in her belly. Fact that she went to the same high school that our daughter went to just these connection points are, are crazy and, and, and everything with like how work is, things at work happened in a way such that it opened up the store for me to walk through to, to really bring forward this profound awesomeness concept to the universe.
Yeah, I think there's something really powerful working. In fact, it was so strong about a year or so into my reunion, like so much, I, I just, there was such a powerful like universal force working through me and around me. I, I went and met with was it a, a reverend at the local Episcopalian church and I'm just like, What is this?
Like, I can't, this is bigger than me. I'm not sure what is happening. And he said, you've got the, he goes, I've never really quite seen the hand of God working through someone quite like this before. So I don't know where everyone falls on their belief system, but it was just, I feel like there's something bigger at play.
And prior to my heart attack, I f I would be the first to poo poo the expression. Everything happens for a reason. I'd be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's impossible. How could that be Now I'm like, no, no. I think that's right.
Yeah,
happen for a reason.
it seems so, and it seems like it's just getting easier and easier for you to lean into it and trust.
yes.
yes.
What do you think your wife and your kids would say about the person you've become since your heart attack?
What I hope they say or what they would say, I don't know.
Either one.
Um, I think they would say, I've become more patient.
Hmm.
I've be, I've calmed down. I'm, I'm less, I used to be quite driven, quite type A I, I think I'm less so now. I think they see me calmer and moving a little slower and that could be a function of just getting older. But I think as just being someone who appreciates life and I'm less in a rush to be someplace and more happy just to be here.
So I hope that's what they would say about me. I hope they would say I'm more loving and they're really sick of me saying, I love you all the time.
that sounds right.
Well, we've done it. We've gotten to the end of part two, and here's where I ask AJ to reintroduce himself without using descriptors like podcast or father entrepreneur because we are not our successes, our failures, our titles, or our experiences.
I'm Adrian Jones. I go by Adrian or aj. My initials, I'm 53 years old. And I love the life that I had, and I want to put a dent in the world with the time I have left,
Awesome. Thank you so much for doing this, for coming on and telling us all of those stories. You're a very good storyteller and I'm so glad that you're here today and that I got to, I got to know you. I feel like that was another, like moment of the universe doing its thing.
I'm doing its thing. I agree. I agree. It's been really wonderful to be on the show. I, I loved your questions. I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and to know you as well. Molly, it's been fantastic. So thanks, thanks for having me on. Give me a chance to share my story with your listeners.
What a story, what an amazing storyteller, and what bigger signs do you need to make big changes and moves than a heart attack that leads to finding your biological family. Am I right? Listen to the universe, and if you are listening to this universe and enjoying even a little bit of it, please make sure you're subscribed. Give us a little rating and review and talk about the show to other people who might need to hear it. The more we grow, the more we can help you grow. Thank you to David Ben Perot for Sound Engineering.
Dan Davin for the music. David Harper for the Artwork.
I'm your host, Molly Sider. I am. This age is produced by Jellyfish Industries. Catch you all next episode.