Ep33 a Living Testament to Resilience - Ross Alexander

Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze

Luke 00:00:07  Welcome to another episode of the Impro Pod podcast. My guest today is Ross Alexander, who is a motivational public speaker and personal trainer from Texas. Yes, sir. I'd like you to tell me a story of some kind. So it could be anything like narrative, something that happened to you. Anecdote. And then I'm going to improvise a soundtrack to the story.

Ross 00:00:32  I was a teenager through the late 90s, early 2000. My father was paralyzed. My mom worked a few different jobs, and I'd gotten in trouble a lot as a teenager. Early on, I was arrested multiple times. I set myself straight, though, found some good people to hang out with, and I knew I wanted to go to college, so I was going to be the first out of my immediate family to go to college. and I got accepted and went in. And then my first semester in college goofed off a lot. I made bad grades. Me and my twin brother had to really care for ourselves a lot.

Ross 00:01:05  But one thing always kept me focused was sports. There was a thing that was said back then if you didn't pass, you didn't play. So I went ahead and became a collegiate powerlifter because I was a state qualifier in powerlifting in high school. And what powerlifting is, you take three lifts, the bench press, the squat and the deadlift, and you competed against other lifters and whoever lifts the most wins. I was working two and three jobs the whole time I was in college to pay for my bills and so forth, because I didn't have the support system to help me financially. There was also a time where I was homeless. My third year into college, I had to sleep on a friend's uncle's couch for about 4 or 5 months, and then when I did find a place to move into, my car was broken into. It was just not the best part of town, but I would still make it to school every day. Through college, I had to make sure I studies. My day never ended until about 11 p.m. or 12 a.m. at night, and I get up and do it all over again.

Ross 00:02:00  The next day when I was done powerlifting, I was recruited by a classmate to do collegiate cheerleading, which was different for me. You think about the pom poms and the rah rah, but the cheerleading for collegiate level is super competitive, right? You have to be strong. You have to be athletic. Fortunately, I was athletic enough. I learned how to do a backflip in ten minutes, and I was part of this really cool team. And I'm still friends with a lot of them today. I was part of one of the best teams in the country for the fact that I made the team. I was really happy for myself and impressed myself. I really focused on that. I continued to work for myself as well. I worked for a gym, the owner had a contract with the university, and he would have classes to where we would teach the students how to lift weights properly, a proper technique, and also help program workouts for them. And that also helped me with where I wanted to go to as far as personal training and public speaking as well, because it got me really comfortable with speaking to groups of people.

Ross 00:02:59  Finally starting college from the fall of 2001 and the spring of 2009, I was able to walk the stage with my bachelor's degree. I took about eight years off and on. You have a goal and you believe in it hard enough and you go to attain it. No matter how far that little light seems, just one day at a time. Put one foot in front of the other and just don't give up and you'll be able to achieve that goal.

Luke 00:03:21  So in terms of a soundtrack, I'm going to go for this idea of ascension. Are you pretty down now? You've got this quite hard existence. And then you start taking up weight training competitively. And instead of trying to concentrate on all those different narrative points, I'm just going to go for just ascension, you know, life ascension.

Ross 00:03:38  Like, hey, that's perfect. But yeah, putting.

Luke 00:03:40  In the effort and getting something out of it.

Ross 00:03:42  Exactly. That's what I was talking about. The light at the tunnel. That's essentially that word right there, I think is perfect of what you described.

Luke 00:05:32  So what did you think of that?

Ross 00:05:33  Dude, I love that. That's freaking awesome. Yeah, I loved it, man.

Luke 00:05:36  I simplified it because I couldn't remember all of those different narrative points, but just in general, that whole college experience that you went through and all of that, that motivation to keep going. Did you find that music spoke to you in any way?

Ross 00:05:52  You were playing and I was going through everything that I had just said. Just remembering all those times. When you first start playing, it's like, okay, start from somewhere in a low place. And that's just how I felt like I'm going to something that's unsure, right? I'm going on my own going to college. And then it got a little darker, right? Starting to feel the struggles. Then it went through. Everything's the same, right? You started playing the same notes over and over and over again. The struggles. That's my whole college life experience. And then things started coming to a lighter tone.

Ross 00:06:21  I'm starting to see towards obtaining my goal. I'm starting to get there. I'm getting closer and closer, and then towards the very end, it was just like light. How the playing of the keys were. It just had a more of a high pitched type of deal, The weight on my shoulders wasn't as heavy. Right when you initially started playing, there was uncertainty, but there was heaviness. Then there was a lot of heaviness. The closer you got to the end of what you were playing, I literally felt as if like bricks were being taken off my shoulders until the very end. You're just playing on air. Boom. I'm done. I finished with this almost decade old goal and then graduated.

Luke 00:06:55  I was moving up the piano.

Ross 00:06:56  Slowly I noticed that that dude. That's freaking awesome, man.

Luke 00:07:06  So you have to tell me another story. Just an atmosphere, you remember? Or just a kind of a vibe.

Ross 00:07:14  This story is about the day my son was born. We were going to go pick up my mother in law from the airport she was flying in from Connecticut.

Ross 00:07:23  My wife says my water just broke. So while we're driving, luckily we found a cousin to pick her up. Of course, they've never met. Ever. Right. And you know that she has this big Texas guy going to go pick her up in his pickup truck. My wife and her family are from Portugal. They're Portuguese, and she's this huge state. And of course, it's in August and it's super hot here in August during that time of year. My son is born, and one of the funny things that I remember is the fact that he had this little cry and just cry that even the nurses said was super unique only to him, and he comes out looking like those old troll dolls. He had so much hair. He's a different, unique, fun individual. The super smart and bright kid. Very strong. This kid was doing math at the age of three. He was reading at the age of three. He's part of the Talented and Gifted program here. This kid is just way smarter than I could have ever dreamed to have been at his age.

Ross 00:08:16  It was really fun as far as when he was born, bro. We had plans that day. He changed those plans that day.

Luke 00:08:22  Do you remember what the emotion was like?

Ross 00:08:24  Oh, man. Yeah, it was, of course, happy, right? It was a bright, sunny day and we were excited to go pick up my mother in law, and she didn't think we're going to have the baby. He was like two weeks early, I think. And the fact that she came in the same day that our son was born is really cool for us, but there was a lot of uncertainty. He's kind of small for his age. We have to monitor him. And so there was definitely some worry after that. But every time we held him, there was just nothing but love. So I would say excitement, uncertainty, excitement, uncertainty, worrying. Then it calmed down and we had a bunch of love there, man.

Luke 00:11:40  So how was that?

Ross 00:11:41  I loved it, man. I felt everything, and they smoothed out those parts of it where I even took it in.

Ross 00:11:47  Like I'm listening to the music that you're playing, and it sounds like life is happening, right? It sounds like life is being born. Sounds just something of a new. I think it was probably the last minute and a half that those notes started playing, and I was like, that really resonates.

Luke 00:12:02  There's the newness. Yeah I was thinking about that and that that idea of that potential new being.

Ross 00:12:08  I was almost like hypnotized. Just watching you play and listening to it just sounded so smooth. You really caught the different type of feelings that were happening, especially early on. Then it just went into this gradual tone of just settling in. And then once again, you started with the newness, the way that something was being created. That's wild that I'm getting all that from what you're playing and how the different keys and everything just come alive. It's not like you're playing like 2 or 3 keyboards at the same time, not even playing one.

Luke 00:12:37  Then if you know anything about music theory. But let's just see with a six and a nine and it brings a sense of joy, maybe new beginnings.

Ross 00:12:50  Exactly. Yeah. I'm watching out to maybe some hills or some like that. It goes up into the sky. That's how I picture that. Maybe a scene from the movie Notting Hill or something like that. And those things kind of start. I love that movie.

Luke 00:13:02  No. Hell yeah. That kind of romantic comedy. I mean.

Ross 00:13:05  I don't tell a lot of people that bad. I've always been a rom com guy. Just it's one of those things. If you're in a bad mood, you have to say you see something. Or if you're like, feeling down, man, there's always a happy ending. There's always a lightheartedness. That's always brought me out of my funks.

Luke 00:13:16  My sister used to watch a lot when my big fat Greek wedding scene, that one dude.

Ross 00:13:21  Well, I tell you, that's like my wife's family. Just Portuguese.

Luke 00:13:25  Like, similar to the Greeks. Like super.

Ross 00:13:27  Similar. Man. I love different types of comedy, man. Different cultures as well from my dad's side because I'm half Hispanic, half white.

Ross 00:13:33  But if you wanted to deeper like great grandparents had migrated over here from Scotland and all throughout the 1860s, and then in the early 1900s, my mom's side came over here from Mexico. But in between that, there was some German that kind of played a key, and some Lebanese that kind of came in or Middle Eastern kind of came on my mom's side as well. But to sit back and look to see how people from different cultures interact with each other. What's cool about Texas? The barbecue is a mix between Native American, the African, some of that culture, and then of course, the German. And you can mix all that in and you have the barbecue we have here in Texas.

Luke 00:14:13  So what did you get out of this podcast?

Ross 00:14:14  What I got about is just something really cool I'm thinking about what my story is, and then I'm really excited to see what the type of music you're going to play outside of that. I felt like hypnotized by the music you're playing throughout the music. I'm rewinding everything I said.

Ross 00:14:27  I'm like, wow, that makes sense. It's a gift that you have as far as doing that impromptu like that within seconds after me telling a story is this super impressive and very talented on your part? I think just playing the music maybe opens people up. I felt more open to talk about different things from my own background personally. Do you think.

Luke 00:14:45  There's a therapeutic element to what I was doing?

Ross 00:14:48  Most definitely. I don't know if you've ever been to therapy or whatnot. People do therapy and things come up and the emotions start to stir up and so forth. And then as you're starting to play the music, there's a calmness that kind of comes about it, right? There's a calm as it comes. And of course, like I said, I got like almost hypnotized and drawn into not only the music itself, but just watching you play the keys. And so definitely therapeutic on that and definitely calm me down. And I appreciate it, man.

Luke 00:15:18  Is there anything you want to promote?

Ross 00:15:19  I do personal training, and I work with young athletes for a company called War Room Strength Club.

Ross 00:15:24  In October, I started a public speaking and motivational speaking business called War Room Speakers Club, and with that I have a website and I have a IG page and of course the Facebook page. The public speaking is what I'm geared towards now, but I talk about overcoming obstacles, resilience, different mind shifts and mindsets that you could have. And basically the way I really talk is there's two roads you could take. You could either be a testimony from all the struggles you've been through in life, or you could be an excuse and blame everything on what you went through. And the other thing I talk about is there's a lot of people out there that do great things, and they didn't have to struggle, right? They didn't. They had what you call a pretty good life. But I also talk about don't be ashamed of that. Don't be ashamed of the fact that that your parents might have had those struggles and they've given you the best life. And as long as you're a good person and you do what's right by others, it's okay to live to live that type of life.

Luke 00:16:14  Thank you very much for being on the podcast.

Ross 00:16:16  Oh no.

Luke 00:16:16  Problem. See you later.

Ross 00:16:18  Take care man. Good to meet you. Bye.

Luke 00:16:20  Join us next week for another episode of Improv Pod. Thanks for listening. Would you like to be a guest on this podcast? If you're into telling stories that inspire improvised music and exploring our relationship to music, then please get in touch. Email guest at improper Comment or send a message via the Improv Pod Instagram page.