Explosive Ordnance Inspiration: Critically Injured Army EOD Tech Aaron Hale Interview

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If I'm going to set them up with I'm not going to be blind guy, I'm gonna be the best damn blind person I can be. Then I started looking for ways to start doing what I'm already expected to do. I'm still a father, I still son, I'm still a brother, and I'm still Soldier Soldier. I was still active duty at Walter Reed. So I have all this responsibilities all these hands still where my life does not belong to me alone.

Thank you for joining us today, folks. Today our guest came to a fork in the road after being critically injured while serving in Afghanistan and decided to take the path of positivity being an inspiration to his loved ones and created a legacy of a can do attitude and never give up attitude. He decided the value of the bigger picture of his family over the here and now situation. I'm absolutely honored to have my guest today who served as a former Navy cook turned army EOD tech, Mr. Aaron Hale. And for those of you listening, Aaron's army occupation in EOD is considered one of the most dangerous occupations, especially in our current warfare. For anyone out there unfamiliar. The recent movie Hurt Locker was a job that Aaron performed well in the army, and was the job that was ultimately caused him to lose his eyesight and hearing from an IED blast while serving in Afghanistan. Aaron, thank you for joining us today.

If you give me thank you so much for the invite. It's an honor to be here been talking to you and your your audience.

So Aaron, let's just get things started. In 1999, you join the Navy as a cook. Can you tell me a little bit why you made that decision? And what was your time like in the Navy?

Sure. It wasn't one of those I'm even grew up knowing I'd be in the military quite the opposite for almost my entire life up until about a month before enlisted, absolutely knew that I'd never be in the military. I just didn't have much ambition for it. And in fact, I didn't have much ambition for anything. You could describe me as the all American slacker. I had just enough natural born talent and personality to get by. without ever having to put in a whole lot of effort in anything. I was pretty athletic, pretty outgoing, and kind of the floater in school, from the jocks to the nerds, and everywhere in between. And I just that was enjoying life. I had no path, no goals. I didn't have a mission in life. And well, I could get in fine up through high school on on just that once I got to college. It really caught up with me. I just I did all of the people, all the hard workers around me, my peers, quickly passed me by and I soon found myself out of college, realizing that it just wasn't wasn't ready. So I did absolutely abysmal grades. And it was kind of a mutual thing. I wasn't ready to be there and college just didn't want me. So I decided I needed to find that path. I needed to set some goals and have a little ambition and work towards my future. So at the time, I've always been a cook. I always love being in the kitchen ever since I could reach over the counter. So I decided to be a cook in the Navy. I enlisted. I wanted to get the four years the GI Bill, get out and go to culinary school so I could become a chef. Of course, along the way I kind of fell in love with the service and stayed.

So at what point did you decide to go into EOD and what were your first impressions of the of the army?

Well, I I've been in the Navy for about eight years I've spent for those in Italy really loved it. I loved being a sailor out at sea. I mean it was it was great. I got to tour around the Mediterranean on duty. We got to go hit all sorts of different foreign ports and explore and enjoy cuisine and cultures and stuff like that. And then off duty. I would take my leave time and go travel to Paris and Munich and And all over Europe, it was amazing. But it wasn't much of a hardship duty. And I really wasn't feeling fulfilled. As a career wise, personally, I was just I was really enjoying being a sailor, I was enjoying my time. But in 2004, the both both wars in Afghanistan, Iraq were in full swing, and I was watching it on the ship on CNN. And there's just this poll. So after going back to the United States, and being stationed and Newport, Rhode Island, I volunteered to go to Afghanistan. And I, as a sailor, I ran an army chow hall, in instead of cooking for the admiral and 35 of his staff. I was cooking for, like 600 NATO troops. That's pretty cool. There was definitely a change of pace, but I was closer to feeling more fulfilled, having played a bigger part. And while I was there, I met some EOD technicians, these guys weren't doing preventive maintenance, check so on on all of their gear in, they had their bomb service and the robots all laid out and they were doing batteries and cleaning and all that kind of stuff. It was like a cool guy garage sale outside the truck. And I just took a conversation with these guys learned about the tight knit fraternity that EOD is the technical aspect of the job and just a very challenging job, of course, and the fact that they're first responders lifesavers on the battlefield. So everything about it really turned me on. So as soon as I got back from deployment, my enlistment my contract was up for the Navy. For various reasons the Navy wouldn't approve my request to switch over to God. So I let my contract expire. I ceased being a sailor hung up that uniform, and I went over to the army recruiter, handed him my record and said, I want to go EOD. And that was it. So from then on, I started training to become a soldier and it wasn't quite like basic training. They've sent me through the gentleman's course version of basic training for prior service service members and it was it's all of the basics of basic training without the indoctrination you know, other than yelling and you know, that kind of stuff. But then right after that, I started at army's phase one in Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. And then, for the the main school, though the joint school here at Eglin Air Force Base, which I live just down the road now. And it's about a year worth of training to become an EOD technician. And it's just a probationary status. You really got to earn it once you get to your unit. And they say that the year of training is just to teach you how to learn how to be an EOD tech, learn the lingo, learn the basics of ordinance, which is really our bread and butter IUDs have only been at the forefront of our mission for the last couple decades or so. But we were you know, the job was born in you know, many years ago, overseas, and it was all about foreign and munitions, learning how to defuse bombs that have landed and haven't detonated and know how to defuse them safely. Every single thing about it is exciting, rewarding. And I'd love my job.

Would you mind talking a little bit about your deployments and what they were like and, and maybe go into some of the differences between what you saw as far as the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan from your own perspectives?

Well, of course, my first appointment, I was still a Navy cook. And all I really saw was the inside of the farm. The interesting part of that was we're in a very remote location so remote that the Taliban were likely to keep and we had no trouble whatsoever the entire time. We were there. The great thing about it, besides the fact that you know, there were no casualties whatsoever Who was that? It was very close to Herat and I deployed twice as an EOD technician. So almost immediately after graduating EOD school, my company was sent to Iraq. And I was having switched over from the Navy, I got to keep my rank. So I went from Petty Officer second class to sergeant and the difficulty there was that I I was on a really fast track to becoming a team leader because by the time you make Staff Sergeant, you're expected to be a team leader. Only problem there is that I had zero experience in EOD. So I had to learn really fast. And this was not just going to for my own safety, but the safety of everybody around me, including my, especially my team. So I had to learn really fast. So I was pleased as a fourth man on a three man team. And I got time rag, and we were on on response. And but soon afterwards, arriving there, I was taken from my team and put at was Task Force Troy, their counter explosives exploitation, so also known as sexy. But one of the jobs for EOD on battlefield is much like CSI, we do post blast analysis, and we collect evidence from the IDs, we render safe, and we send that up to hire, we do a triage on it, where we'll separate all the components and send them off to chemical analysis, biometrics, electrical analysis, and, and so on. So, I got placed in the the triage section of the sexy cell, and what my job was to receive evidence from the front lines from other team leaders. And I would then categorize, photograph, measure, do all that kind of stuff. And then I would send it off to wherever it would need to be analyzed. So you know, tape and fingerprint and that kind of stuff will go off to biometrics, whereas any types of computers, switches or circuitry would go off to electrical analysis, that kind of stuff. And it was an incredible learning experience, because I got to learn what happens to the evidence I wouldn't be collecting when I wouldn't take my, you know, takeover team myself. And I learned how they wanted packaged, you know, some some team leaders out there would just take coils of debt card and put it in an evidence bag and send it up when we would need maybe an inch worth of it for chemical chemical analysis. And all the rest is cost and is just more of an explosive hazard in transit, is that kind of stuff. And the evidence collected on the battlefield would go to test scores Troy in Giteau, and then it would get split off. And the evidence these storyboards that we would create from this would go to all of those alphabet. So the ATF, FBI, CIA, di, so everything I put my hands on, and everything we would do in that triage center will be seen by the US intelligence there and to find these bomb makers, the bomb places the financers, and trying to get away call the left of the boom. If you think of a timeline, we're always trying to get lift up the boat. Right?

That's actually fascinating to think about that, that much analysis goes into that and what an amazing and fascinating position that you held in a very important and integral position that you held as well. So can you take us back to the day when you lost your your eyesight from that Id blast? Can you just explain to us what happened?

Sure.

I was in Afghanistan for the second time. And this time as a team leader. My team had been working in a region of Kandahar called this array district. And that's the birthplace of the Taliban. In fact, the Russians just a call at the heart of darkness. And we it's was a very busy time for us because they didn't want to give it up. My team was located with the four four CAV scouts out of Fort Riley. And we were in a little village called see a toy and I asked a turret interpreter, like see a toy meant and he said cemetery that you put that all together at the heart of darkness cemetery like right, this is Tombstone, and it really felt like the wild west of Afghanistan. Every everywhere you play, you placed your foot you're afraid it was going to explode. And we were running IEDs almost the same thing all the time. A vegetable oil jug full of homemade explosive with a little pressure plate connected by lamp cord and a nine volt battery almost every single time with rare exceptions. But that was That was what we were doing for eight months straight. And then I got to spend two weeks of r&r back home. Before coming back and finishing up my year rotation in Afghanistan. I got to see my son, turn one. I got I got to spend the whole Thanksgiving with my family. And we didn't have a reunion. And it was just it was a great last page in the photo album. Then I got back to work. And it was it was just days after arriving back in Kandahar, I got into convoy jumped into a truck with my team. And we headed out toward back towards the toy. And along the way, but in a convoy the the convoy commander calls back and says, Oh, god, there's an ID up in the road ahead of us. Can you take care of it, we weren't even stuck luggage in the back of the truck. And you know, time like the present, I got back to work. We took the through the luggage off the robot or the robot out of the truck and got to work. And yeah, what we found was exactly what you'd expect with the pressure plate in the jug of a shimmy. So the robot had to separated the pressure plate, which is right on top and rate yanked out the wires, so essentially rendering it safe. I wanted to get that evidence as safely as I could. So I jumped out. The problem was the robots pinchers, the arm wasn't strong enough to get the jug out of the hard Packers. So I jumped out with my evidence kit and my metal detector. And I started making my way towards the end of it about 20 or 30 meters from the original ID there was a secondary device that hadn't been detected. That pointed me into the air. I stayed conscious. I don't know how loosen I was but I was conscious and landed on my knees and elbows. And the lights have gone out. I thought my helmet had gotten pushed over my face. That's why I couldn't see. So I did the functions check first did the wiggle the fingers and toes and all that everything seemed to be right where I left it. So I reached out to fix my helmet just to find that the helmet was gone. And the very first thing I kid you not first thing I thought was Oh no, this is bad. The Army's gonna want that back. Oh, that's that's how it happened. Then it was just my team coming in to pull me out. medics taken a look. I mean, manufacture chopper arrived about 14 minutes. And I was on my way right back to Kandahar then to Landstuhl and within 48 hours I was it was at Walter Reed. Now,

I also recall in another interview where you mentioned something that was a little bit awkward about how this specific ad was called in. That wasn't like other IDs that had been reported. And it had something to do with the amount of civilians that were that happened to be in the area and how they kind of parted, parted ways. Can you talk a little bit about that.

Um, this is speculation on my part, of course. But there are two ways that a an alien p officer lets us know about an IUD. first way is they just kind of dig it up. And maybe they rip it apart. And then they walk right up to our data. our ECP is a Hey, look, what I found. Doesn't work just like okay, set that down, back away, I will take care of it. Right. And that's that's how to deal with the mic. What I got on the other way is like they will go, there's a bomb over there. And, um, and when they point at it, and then you look at it, and by the time you look back at them, they've disappeared. And that's shady to me because they're like, I found this I found it, you know, right? How they figured it out found it or how? Let them know about it? I don't know. So I This was one of those times where they're like there was an IUD over there. And there there was like there's all these and Aamp stand around there just knowing about and I said to the turret give me their find me their chief that of course. Like the biggest dude. the fattest guy, and I gave them my I have one of those little laser pointers, as I pointed. I said, Where's this IUD and he pointed this guy say my guys over there. Yeah, it's right there. Okay. Would you tell them to get to a safe area I'm about to go to work. And it was like ninja ninja vanish. They disappeared. So it was kind of shady. I gave him my laser pointer, but the doubt right on the pressure plate said, Okay, then I got to work. So in the circumstances around it were kind of shady. There were people stepping all over that place. How come nobody stepped on that? secondary device?

luck? No, I totally understand we had similar situations when we were in Iraq. I understand what you're saying when when you're talking about that specifically. And so after the incident, I understand that you taught at the EOD school. And you've been in a number of physically challenging events since then, such as climbing a number of mountains, physical races, marathons. And you mentioned in another interview, that you viewed this injury as an example of divine direction. So can you tell us if there's anything that could help others better understand how they could develop a stronger or grittier mindset? through all of this,

I've learned one of the most important lessons is that we can't avoid hardship, it's going to come in one form or another. It's just how we look at it, how we approach it, and how we attack it. And, you know, I sat in the hospital at Walter Reed and those demons were trying to get in, you know, the Why me the what if, and that's such a self defeating thing to do, because you just go with this spiral. And, you know, resilience is built up over over time. And it's not just something that we will ourselves to do. We're not like a rubber band, you don't just like stretch, and we come back, right? For humans, every time you stress us, every time we endure these hardships, we get stronger, we get better, in things in this life, don't just get easier, hardships don't become easier, we just get better. So when I'm when I went blind, you like those demons I call the demons that whatever, why me is the sad thoughts. Try to get in. And thank goodness for an incredible support system system with my family, my military training, all of that. I turned it into, if I'm gonna I just said to myself, if I'm looking to be blind guy, I'm gonna be the best damn blind person I can be. Then I started looking for ways to start doing what I'm already expected to do. I'm still a father, I still sunstone brother, and I'm still a Soldier Soldier. I was still active duty at Walter Reed. So I have all this responsibilities all this hand still where my life does not belong to me alone. It when you look at it, that it's an ethical, I see it as like an ethical imperative that I do and be the best way I can be, despite having endured this setback. So things are gonna be harder. And I'll tell you what run thing right now. And you know, this and all service members know, something being hard is never a good excuse for mission failure. Right? Now, I'm sitting there in the hospital and Walter Reed going, Okay, I've decided, I'm going to carry out my mission. I'm going to be the best data cam, I'm going to be the best husband and son, and brother, I'm going to be the best service member like to fellow veterans, fellow service members. I can use this as it to be an example, in what kind of example is up to me. So I started as soon as I started learning, I went after Walter Reed, I started I went to the blind rehabilitation center in Augusta, Georgia at the VA hospital, I started learning how to be blind. They are they teach you how to use the phone with a text to speech to computers, I got barcode scanners, these other tools, the longest learning curves that the longest class there is orientation and mobility, which is the key just being able to move about with you know, navigating with a cane. And while I was there, as soon as I learned how to use my phone, I was I was on the internet searching blind plus, outside blind plus running, bind plus climbing whatever it can do. So I can you don't get back into fitness. I can go out and explore my world and travel and everything I love to do, and kidneys named kept coming up. There's a guy Eric wine Mayer, who this year is celebrating his 20th anniversary of becoming the first I think still the only blind person to climb Mount Everest. So I sought him out and I'm gonna kill me with that which I enjoy. All wounded veteran team up and 18,000 foot peak in the Peruvian Andes. And with Eric leading the way, and I learned about a fellow Navy veteran Lani Bedwell, who is the first blind veteran to kayak the entire Grand Canyon in a solo kayak. But these are amazing things. And if these guys can do these amazing feats, I can get my butt off of the sofa and not feel sorry about myself. I don't do something. And I joined Lonnie, and I went kayaking with him. I've been kayaking with him many times. I've gone skiing, cycling, mountain climbing, whitewater kayaking, and I started running. There's another blind veteran, Ivan Castro. He said he played it in my head that he said, every year he makes it a point to run the airforce marathon, the army 10 miler and the Marine Corps marathon. So I thought that's a great idea. I'll do that too. And I signed up for all three of those races. And somehow I got to talk to the two more marathons and I was registered for five races, all within four months of each other altogether for hormones, and I haven't yet run a 5k even though my first marathon, the airforce marathon was not a very good showing. I didn't didn't finish the next three marathons or qualifying me for Boston. In 2015. I ran the Boston Marathon.

Wow, just a marathon in itself for anyone is no joke that 26 miles is is incredible. And you're an absolute monster, like your mindset is just incredible. And from what I understand your troubles didn't just stop after you being in learning to live again from being blind. I understand that their residual injuries from the ad also caused you to go deaf eventually. Can you explain a little bit to the folks listening? What happened? Yeah,

well, the run up to this 14 2015 time i was i was retired from the military, become a speaker. I was doing all this adventure stuff and about 2000 2015. I'd also gone on this this first date, a week long first date with a young lady that I've known since we were both kids, she was living in California, and Florida. And we struck up this conversation. Then, after I was I'd gotten back off my flight and returned back home. I was on the phone with her. And I was feeling a bit funny. I was going it was given these dizzy spells and feeling extremely fatigued. So I told her I'd hang up and I was gonna call it back later after after nap. Um, and then I woke up with this, this just pure Singh pain in my brain. Within moments I knew I'd have to call 912. What had happened was the blast though I was virtually untouched from the neck down. The bulk of the blast hit me right in the head. But that's a perfect place for one of us hail boys is because of the density of our skulls. What happened was he besides going blind and blowing out my eardrums, which kind of recovered it also cracked of my my skull and a few places within my sinuses. I was actually leaking spinal fluid for years, and meningitis crept straight into my brain and was trying to kill me from the inside out. So I call nine one it was kind of funny, I was a little embarrassed. I called the operator AND operator said state of nature of emergency. And I said Ma'am, I've got a really bad headache. And she said on a scale of one to 10 how bad the pain is like, well, I've never felt pain like this in my life. And I've literally been blown up before. She said The ambulance is on its way. Four days later, I came to in the slightest by my side, I learned that the bacteria or the heavy doses of antibiotics. Were going to steal what was left of my hearing that the bomb blast hadn't taken. And I'm actually asked the doctor so wait a second, I'm going to be totally blind and totally deaf. So you're telling me I won't ever have to pretend to pay attention ever again.

Oh man, I I I love I love how you find how you found the humor in that man. It's just it's just it all ties back into your into your tough mindset. And many times in the military. We find humor in some of those dark situations and it helps us get through those times. But I'm absolutely inspired by how tough you are, mentally and physically taken an IED blast to the head. And then here you are today talking to me on this podcast. So I want to pivot forward. And I understand you and your wife now operate a chocolate business called extraordinary delights, otherwise known as EOD, which that business plays off of the acronym, EOD explosive, Explosive Ordnance Disposal, which is a genius tie in to your occupation in the army. So Aaron, can you explain to the audience how that business was born?

kind of started out of therapy. For me. It wasn't always good. I'm nobody is, you're always like, yo, suck it up. And, you know, bootstrap your way through it. There were those those there's always those times and over for almost four years, I've been preaching this this triumph through tragedy and strength through struggle and all that. And here I was, sitting at my breakfast, counter deaf, a blind and really feeling down on myself. And I'm just thinking don't By the way, me again, you know, when as one guy paid his dues, when does this soldier have his fair share? You know, but that Okay, that's self defeating there. Where does that lead nowhere. So I first started to cooking again, because it was a way for me to take my mind off of the situation. We were coming up on Thanksgiving, and I, like, I lost my hearing about August, September. And so it was a very, very long process for six months, I was totally trapped in my body. Oh, yeah, I couldn't get messages in you couldn't see you couldn't hear everything ended at the tips of my fingers. So I started cooking, thanksgiving was coming. And we just I just decided, Okay, enough of this yos, pity me thing, sorry. Sorry for my situation. I'm just going to we're going to make this feast, right huge, huge feast, we're going to write the burdens the family they're all coming from, there's going to be this big reunion. Thanksgiving has really become and the holidays really become very, very special to me, it never was happened. And what happened was I just threw myself into the cooking process. I didn't even have time to think about what I've lost or what was going on. And I I started making all this rather than the Thanksgiving stuff that Turkey has in the vegetables and you know, try to make everything on the table as unhealthy as it possibly can. And I started making desserts, weeks in advance, right. And I also had cakes and cookies and pies. And I started making batch after batch of fudge. After one was done, I slide it to the side, I start making another one seasonings and nice I was going to the liquor cabinet was like, This is awesome. And I was having fun. And she noticed two things. One was that there was something on me that hadn't been there for six straight months. And that was a smile on my face. I was actually having a good time again. And I was taking the focus off of me I was I was trying to do something I'd love for something for the people I love. And the other things you notice was that there was just so much fun piling up, that she started sneaking it out the front door and I say sneaking like we got to be real stealthy around and been gone, right? But she started giving away then people start coming back and saying, Hey, can we buy some of this from the capitalist? And he said, Well, of course again. And one thing turned into another and extraordinary delights was born, or EOD fudge.com

that's an absolutely amazing story. And well what it was such a strong relationship and a strong wife that so many people, you know, strive to have that type of relationship just she just dropped everything in California and moved out to Florida and nursed back to health and stood by her side and helped you get this business off the ground. So can you just explain a little bit about what has been some of your biggest challenges? Being a veteran entrepreneur? And do you find success in having multiple streams of income with that

many of the challenges and besides the obvious I can't see or hear very well is that the benefits of that, in fact are that I have to find new and creative ways I have to find a new methods or tools or team members to do what would be my weakness. And the benefit of that, though is that I gain these team members, these strategies, I find ways to automate or improve on on something that I would otherwise feel like doing all myself, right. So I had to take that step beyond just the can do attitude and doing everything myself and just go right into becoming this the leader, this business owner, and allowing myself to relinquish some of that control. So it actually the challenge turned itself into a positive. As far as income streams, that's fantastic. Because once we did the hard work of setting up the business, because it started with me just cooking at the stove, hours and hours making fudge. And we would would put them into the pans, we set them in the fridge, the freezer, we let them set mckaela would be there cutting and wrapping and boxing, we started selling right out of the house, until demand grew to the point where we had to decide if you're going to go a couple of routes or go by a brick and mortar and actually run a store. Or we can go find a co Packer or commercial food kitchen manufactured like a contract kitchen. And they would do all the labor. And this is what we ultimately decided is that we didn't want to build a job for ourselves and go checking in and running a register. And that kind of thing we just did. We didn't want to do that. So we hired a much larger Candy Company to make our recipes. And from time to time, we just order our own stuff. And to make the quality assurance we just haven't send samples. And it's my fudge. But somebody else cooks it, somebody else packages, somebody else ships it. And we get to spend the time with this home kitchen is now the r&d Lab. Now we spend time on marketing and we do we have a tick tock show called Aaron Hales cook without looking. And we get to have the fun part of running a business while the labor granted I still love the experimenting part of the cooking is the most fun. And that's turned out to be very rewarding.

Again that cooking without looking I saw a few of your videos and absolutely awesome and every time I watch you on tik tok, or I see your Instagram sometimes you post those tic tocs on Instagram. Man, I definitely want to take advantage and order some of your some of your chocolates for sure. And Aaron, you know, you've overcome so much in your life. And you have such a strong mentality, what advice would you give someone with uncertainty of their future or someone who's at a point in their life, of feeling like the goals are out of reach,

tied to everything in life. It's almost almost always mindset, the belief that these limited beliefs that something is out of reach are just too hard. And because I was forced to find, get started with that, but now it's the success to accepting the hardships. taking those challenges and tournament opportunities is like a flywheel effect, though it's hard to get started. But then success begets more success. And there's a compounding effect, really. So each time I find a new challenge, and I push myself a little bit harder out of my comfort zone I find against it's easier and easier. It doesn't like it's like I said before, it's not that the hardship gets easier. I just get better. And I get better at how I think about it. And things are still difficult. By now I know that each time I know that each time I get to a tough amount, right? I can look back and go, that wasn't so bad. Same thing with running a race with kayaking was starting a business. But all these other things. I know that once I get through the work, I can look back. I can I can remember I can say that wasn't as bad as I thought. Because I can move on to the next challenge. So it's mindset,

right? And speaking of mindset, and we spoke before you mentioned the book. Can you speak a little bit about that book and how that sort of inspired you and had a little bit to do with your perspectives overall? limitless? Yes.

recently read this book. And it's a pretty fantastic book by Jim quick, I think he's got the podcast and even a movie called limitless. And he, at a very young age had a TBI in kindergarten or something. And from a very happy go lucky, an intelligent kid came slow kind of depressed and had almost a learning disorder. So he had to learn an entire another way to learn. And he turned himself into one of the foremost masters of your brain. So he just goes through different types of great like the top 10 List of brain foods from blueberries and walnuts to avocados and salmon, leafy greens, and all that kind of stuff to proper sleep habits, and study habits can do all sorts of things. And it's a fantastic book, and it definitely helps me out with it didn't I find when I'm reading this, that some of the things I'm already doing some things I already know, some of the things are new to me, but it's pretty cool how he ties everything into his lifelong love of superheroes and comics. And he, his, he turd is his disability into a superpower. So it's a pretty good book, and I definitely recommend it to everybody.

Yeah, it sounds like it I'll definitely look into and I'll be sure to put that in the show notes as well, for anyone else that's interested out there. And for anyone out there who's interested Aaron, who would like to connect with you, either on your social media platforms or on your website or anything, can you talk about how they can get ahold of you?

Absolutely. Of course, the website is, UD fudge calm, and you can connect to us through the contact page there, I'm available for speaking. And of course, you can buy our delicious treats on a od verge calm. Otherwise, you can catch us on social media at EOD confections on all of the major social pages,

okay, and I'll make sure I put all those in the show notes as well. So anyone listening out there interested in connecting with Aaron, I will post all of his social media platforms in the show notes. So take a look at that and and check out some of his some of his interesting materials and content that he puts out there, because it's certainly very clever, very inspirational at the same time. And before we wrap up the show today, Aaron, I want to thank you for giving me your time today. And I just want to finish it out by asking do you have anything else for the audience?

Just remind everybody what we've been talking about this entire time is that don't look forward to the hardships. Don't forget who said it, but don't waste the pain. Use it. Use it as fuel. We're going to have to endure some pain at times. You can either, you know survive it but can use you can use it to thrive. So don't waste the pain.

Absolutely amazing. Aaron I again, I really appreciate your time today and you sharing your story. And there's a few times when you were talking I actually got a little lump in my throat. Just thinking about you know, how, what you've what you've been through and what an amazing life that you've prepared and built for yourself overall, despite all the obstacles that you've had to overcome. So, with that being said, Aaron, thank you so much again for being on the show. And you know, I'm looking forward to seeing more your content. anyone listening out there, please connect with Aaron. We're gonna finish up the morning formation today. Aaron, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you so much. Again, it's been an honor and a privilege to be invited on.

Thank you so much for more information. This is KP with Aaron and we're out