Mike Peterson
Episode 202

Narrator:

Welcome, friends, to another episode of The Story & Experience Podcast. Join your host, Japhet De Oliveira, with his guest today and discover the moments that shape us, our families, and communities.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Hey, welcome friends to another episode of The Story & Experience Podcast. I'm delighted to be sitting across the table with a good guest here, a great guest here that you can enjoy hearing from. If you're brand new to the podcast, we have 100 questions. They are about stories and experiences that shape you into the leader that you are today. I'm going to ask the first 10, and then they get to pick a number between 11 and 100, and obviously the closer we get to 100, the more vulnerable, more open, more difficult it is, and so we'll see. They're smiling. This is a good sign where we're going to land today. Right. Let me begin with the first one. Could you tell us your name, and does anybody ever mispronounce it?

Mike Peterson:

Well, my name is Michael Peterson. I go by different things because it's Michael, Mike, Mikey, things like that.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Mikey.

Mike Peterson:

I go by any of those.

Japhet De Oliveira:

All right, that's good. Do you ever correct anybody or?

Mike Peterson:

No, no,

Japhet De Oliveira:

No?

Mike Peterson:

No.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's good.

Mike Peterson:

I feel like if they've come up with a name like that, it's a term of endearment.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, hey, that's good. All right. Mike, what do you do for work?

Mike Peterson:

Well, currently I'm a manager of IT. It surprises me every day that I'm doing that, but I manage a group of people that are considered the HR IT team. Some are still here, some are outsourced, things like that at the moment, but that's our team. We focus on all the HR things, Oracle, timekeeping, all of those kinds of things.

Japhet De Oliveira:

For me, if I ever have a question about like-

Mike Peterson:

Why didn't you get paid correctly?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Sure, sure.

Mike Peterson:

Right.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Never happened, but sure, I'll just think of that one. I come to you.

Mike Peterson:

Call me and I'll send you to payroll.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's good. How long have you been doing this? [inaudible 00:01:49]?

Mike Peterson:

Yeah. Well, I've been with Adventist Health 15 years.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, great.

Mike Peterson:

Just got my plaque.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, nice.

Mike Peterson:

But I'm on this team with David Phillips for going on five.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Hey, that's great. That's great.

Mike Peterson:

I was a Cerner person. When we did a similar outsourcing to Cerner, I went to Cerner for I think three and a half years-ish. So there's some of that time of the 15 was at Cerner, but I was sitting in this building-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Okay. All right.

Mike Peterson:

... doing clinical things.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Hey, that's fantastic, man. That's great. Hey. So now, where were you born, Mike?

Mike Peterson:

Redwood City, California.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Now I don't know where that is. Is that close by to Sacramento or-

Mike Peterson:

No, it's about a half an hour south of San Francisco.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Okay. All right. Good. Did you grow up there?

Mike Peterson:

Grew up there. Met my wife there at school. We went to high school together and then lived in San Carlos, which is another town. It's like Rocklin, Roseville. And then we moved up here in 2002 with two kids.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Wow. All right. Now, when you were a child growing up there, what did you imagine you would grow up to be? What was Mike's dream as a kid?

Mike Peterson:

Okay. To be honest, it was a sound engineer.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Really?

Mike Peterson:

Mm-hmm. I was always intrigued by sound.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, still are?

Mike Peterson:

Yes, and really, really awesome recordings and things like that. My mom encouraged me to send, this is back we send letters, so I sent letters to radio stations, to studios, things like that. I got one response. I think I was 14, 15-ish.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's pretty good.

Mike Peterson:

I got one response from the NBC affiliate in San Francisco, which is KRON, I think. He was discouraging. He said that-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Really?

Mike Peterson:

He goes, "You don't get paid enough. It's too long," and all these things about it where I was like, "Okay, maybe I don't want to..." It was weird like, why did I listen to that? But I did listen to that for some reason and then I just wanted to do whatever my dad was doing. My dad was, I think, well, he's done a few different things, but at the time, I'm trying to think back around that time, but he was a property manager for a while. He was in real estate and stuff. So that's where I, when I got out of high school, I started to take real estate courses, got my real estate license. I was 18 or 19. The market in the Bay Area, believe it or not, at that time wasn't that great. It crashed a little. Interest rates were high. But I really enjoyed the appraising part of the real estate school.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Really? Okay.

Mike Peterson:

I wanted to be an appraiser. I had an aunt who worked at Bank of America. I was 19 and she says, "Well, if you like appraising, just get into the bank, maybe you can get into the..." I needed a job kind of thing. So I got in at Bank of America at 19 as a teller, and then whatever my dream was to be an appraiser just never became the thing because I became a teller, then I was a new accounts person. Then I was the manager of the branch all of a sudden in my mid 20s or whatever I guess it was. So I'm managing branches now and never appraised a thing in my life to this day, but I did really like that aspect of the business for some reason. I think it was just the way it was being taught to us, and I liked the idea of maybe not being in an office. Look at me now-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, I know.

Mike Peterson:

... going out and all that-

Japhet De Oliveira:

The journey of life, right?

Mike Peterson:

It's just the journey of life, and none of it's bad. It just didn't happen.

Japhet De Oliveira:

So how did you end up being in IT?

Mike Peterson:

Well, from banking, when I moved up to this area in 2002, I vowed to get out of it because it was a branch atmosphere, like at Bank of America and the other, and I was with another bank called First Republic, which isn't around anymore, but it was a retail store kind of feel. It wasn't really a banker anymore. It was more like a Walmart with money. So, how many sales did you do today? Stuff like that. I was a little disenchanted, anyway. So moving up here, I was like, "I'm going to find something else."

Japhet De Oliveira:

Really?

Mike Peterson:

Well, I didn't.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Okay, I was going to say-

Mike Peterson:

Because I do have two kids and a house and all that stuff.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I was going to say both.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah. Milk still costs the same up here. I ended up back in banking, but I was doing construction lending for a small bank. I did that for eight or nine years, actually. So this brought us to 2008, 2009 when the market, the real estate market, if you remember, it was pretty bad. In construction lending, it was real bad because people were walking away from their half-built houses, this kind of stuff.

I hung onto that. I kind of was the captain of the Titanic. We were like, the thing was sinking, but I had to see it through because the bank was going under, but I had to see these loans through, so I did all that. And then that bank was taken over by a regional bank, all that story. Well, at the same time, I was like, "Man, is this really what I want to keep doing?" It was a little stressful. I had friends here because half my church worked here and it was one of those things where I'm like, "I don't know IT." And then a friend of mine says, "Well, have you ever implemented a new system at the bank?" I'm like, "Yeah." "Have you ever trained people on how to use this?" "Oh, yeah."

Japhet De Oliveira:

You really started going that way.

Mike Peterson:

I didn't really think I was qualified, and I kind of wasn't, but it was a ripe time to get into clinical IT here, I think. I was lucky enough to get a job. I was working on Cerner stuff, all new to me, and it was kind of an adventure because I didn't think I had that kind of-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Lots of training.

Mike Peterson:

Lots of training for me. I'm not a natural IT person.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Sound is your magic still.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah. I don't think I have that kind of brain. I think my strength is managing people. I really like that aspect of it. I like having a team to get behind a project and kill it-

Japhet De Oliveira:

And deliver.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, deliver and just feel good about what they've done and things like that. I'm more into the people part of it, and I really like that. The IT part is like I'm faking it every day. David Phillips is my mentor, so it's like, hello.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, exactly.

Mike Peterson:

He can launch the space shuttle with his iPhone, probably. Anyway, that's how I got here.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's fantastic. That's good. That's good.

Mike Peterson:

Just one thing led to another.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Hey, that's good. Well, let me dive into some of the real quick practical ones. Are you an early riser or late night owl?

Mike Peterson:

I'm an early riser.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Early. What's early for you?

Mike Peterson:

Six.

Japhet De Oliveira:

All right.

Mike Peterson:

Is that early?

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's good. No, it's good.

Mike Peterson:

It seems early.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It seems early, all right. So 6:00 in the morning. First thought that went through your mind today was?

Mike Peterson:

Oh, when I woke up?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, at six.

Mike Peterson:

'I don't want to go to the gym." But I did. I did go.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Good for you, man. Good for you.

Mike Peterson:

But I did snooze.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's encouraging.

Mike Peterson:

I did snooze once, though.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Good for you. All right, all right. And then do you have a liquid green smoothie, coffee, tea, water? What's your first drink of the day?

Mike Peterson:

It's usually a green smoothie, believe it or not. Okay, so there's a gal that I followed, read her book and everything. It was actually Dr. Golder. She beat lupus.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Wow.

Mike Peterson:

AShe had lupus as a kid and she has this program where she says, "This is what I did." Not that I have lupus, I'm just saying, but I read her book and it was like a beat-all-disease kind of thing. Basically, it's 80% spinach and kale and stuff, which doesn't go down easy, but then you put some blueberries and some other stuff, flax, all this stuff. I'd have to say I'm not as good about it right now, but it's supposed to be my daily routine.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I am so excited that you are my first out of, I don't know, 200 guests who actually has a liquid green smoothie.

Mike Peterson:

Do you, too?

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, no, no.

Mike Peterson:

Oh.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I do, occasionally, but not a lot, but you're the first one like, "Hey, this is great." I'm so excited, Mike.

Mike Peterson:

Well, I had heart surgery this year.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Did you really?

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, it was a valve repair. So I'm trying to do things that are not...

Japhet De Oliveira:

All right. Tell me, what was the symptom that made you go see your doc about?

Mike Peterson:

It was about a year and a half ago. I had the flu or something, one of those things. It was prolonged and I was at home. All of a sudden I couldn't breathe too well-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Wow.

Mike Peterson:

... and couldn't really-

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's scary.

Mike Peterson:

... catch... Yeah, it was crazy. I knew that I had a heart murmur from just a previous doctor's appointment a year before, but he said, "It's probably mild." And then I had a scan done and they said it was a mild, they call it a prolapse, mild prolapse. He says, "Well, a lot of people have that, so what you're feeling shouldn't be that." I'm like, "Okay." We kept going through all these other tests. I think I've had every test, pulmonary stuff to asthma, allergies, all these things just to figure it out and then circle back to the heart again and they were like, "Yeah, it's a..." So I had to do something called the transesophageal echocardiogram, which doesn't sound great, but it's basically like an endoscopy, but they go in there and do an echo, because your esophagus is right next to your heart. That's where they showed me the live images of the valve was just broken open.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Wow.

Mike Peterson:

It explained a lot because the murmur was getting worse, just fatigue. I couldn't really get a good day in for a long time and struggling to even work. So then, as soon as they did that test, they were like, "Okay, this needs to be fixed right away."

Japhet De Oliveira:

[inaudible 00:10:56] and get it done.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, and so I had to do some other tests to make sure they can do what they consider to be minimally invasive. Now if you saw what really happened, if you think that's minimally invasive, I'm going to be like, "Well, what's normally invasive?" What's normal invasive because this is not.

Japhet De Oliveira:

They cracked you open, that's normal.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, I guess that's normal. The normal would be crack you open. They didn't have to do that, but they did go through other places. I still feel like I'm in recovery, actually, because he said it's going to be about a year-ish to really feel good, but a lot of it's on me. That's why I'm trying to go to the gym-

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's really good.

Mike Peterson:

... and drink the smoothies and stuff.

Japhet De Oliveira:

All right, so I got to ask, you go to the gym every day or five days a week or...

Mike Peterson:

No. Three times.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Times a week. All right.

Mike Peterson:

It should be more, but I think I'm easing. I'm easing.

Japhet De Oliveira:

And then the liquid green smoothies and... This is good, Mike.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, I'm easing.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Encouraging. Encouraging to-

Mike Peterson:

I'm trying to, yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. Hey, that's good. Good. All right.

Mike Peterson:

I got more life to live, you know?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yes, you do. Yes, you do. All right. Hey, personality, Mike, would people say you're an extrovert or an introvert, and would you agree with that?

Mike Peterson:

Probably they would say I'm an extrovert.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, and would you say that's true?

Mike Peterson:

No. I don't think so. I'm the guy that goes to a party that slips out. I feel like I'm like my dad a lot. We would go to my grandmother's for Christmas. We lived around the corner from my grandmother, so we would have a little Christmas at my house, go to my grandmother's for the ransacked kitchen, whatever's left, and then we would slip out because I don't think I could take-

Japhet De Oliveira:

A lot.

Mike Peterson:

A lot.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's fair.

Mike Peterson:

I think I'm better one-on-one or a small group, like a couple of friends or something, but when I'm in a big group, I'm like, "Okay, I've had..." Maybe it's a sensory thing. I'm not sure, but I feel like I'm like my dad. I'd find him, we were like, "Where's dad?" He's walked home. He's watching football, whatever. But it was just a normal thing.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's okay, that's okay. All right. You love leading teams, so here's a leadership question for you. Last one. Are you a backseat driver?

Mike Peterson:

Yes. I'm a little bit a control... especially in the music thing. I think I come across, I wouldn't say passive-aggressive, but a little bit covert, like where I'm trying to make it seem like it's your idea.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Does your team joke with you about the fact that that's pretty obvious?

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, sometimes, sometimes. They could tell. Especially leading music teams at church and stuff where you've got volunteers and friends and people you've done it with for years and stuff like that, you're trying to get them to do what you want, but you're also saying, "Hey, what's your idea?" And then they give it to you and you somehow figure out how to say no to that if it's not great. Sometimes what I'll do, I know this is a conscious thing, is I'll allow things because it's like, "Oh, that's not a bad idea. Let's do that one," because I want people to feel like they're part of this, their feedback is worth it> If it's a terrible idea, of course not, but if it's just like, "Okay, let's try that. Let's do that," because then they feel like, oh, they've contributed. But I think deep down I'm a control freak.

Japhet De Oliveira:

All right. Thanks, Mike. Well, we are open. Where would you like to go? 11 to 100, sir.

Mike Peterson:

23.

Japhet De Oliveira:

23, all right. Tell us about the most outdated piece of technology that you still own and use on a regular basis.

Mike Peterson:

Okay. I think that what comes to mind right off the bat is I have a CD player.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Wow.

Mike Peterson:

It's a recording CD player. To some, that might not seem outdated, but I used to do a lot of recording at home for fun, like a song that I like, I'd want to do it myself or something. I had this recording device, which I think that actually the recording device might be even more outdated, but it's a digital recording device. It's got eight tracks on it or 12 tracks, I think. I can record the drums and I can record the piano and the bass and the vocals and all that, but then I'd have to cut that to a CD. So I had a recordable CD player. I still use it because it's a very awesome CD player. It was $1,000 TASCAM or whatever and so it really-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, I know the brand.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, and I paired it with my TASCAM recorder. So you know what I'm talking about.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, yeah, I do.

Mike Peterson:

So I still have that stuff and I still use it.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Do you have a CD player in your car?

Mike Peterson:

I do. Well, maybe my car might be the thing because my car is 23 years old.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Hey, that's fantastic.

Mike Peterson:

I have this old beamer. It's like a demanding old friend.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Now I've got to ask, is the CD player like one of those as hidden stealth-like or is it-

Mike Peterson:

Oh, no, it's out there. Because we have a room then in our house that's kind of a gym/music room, and it's just on display.

Japhet De Oliveira:

In the center with flowers. All right, that's good.

Mike Peterson:

Absolutely.

Japhet De Oliveira:

All right. Good. All right. Where next after 23?

Mike Peterson:

Let's go with 87.

Japhet De Oliveira:

87. All right. When you're under incredible stress, what helps to ground you?

Mike Peterson:

Playing the piano.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah?

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, because I can kind of tune out. I got a new piano a couple of days ago, and so I'm tuning out a lot.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Wow.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, except it's in the middle of the living room, but...

Japhet De Oliveira:

Pianos are not small, so how does one decide the time to get rid of the old piano and get a new one? Was it painful?

Mike Peterson:

I've always wanted a baby grand. I've never had one. We had an upright in the house for a long time. I just wasn't playing it much. It wasn't great. I shouldn't say that because we did give it to a family that needed it, so I shouldn't say it wasn't great, but it wasn't. Anyway, we gave it, and then immediately I was like, "I need a piano."

Japhet De Oliveira:

The withdrawal.

Mike Peterson:

My wife, Liz, she made it happen. I found somebody that is an acquaintance that just posted a, "I'm selling my piano" thing. It just fell out of the sky.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Wow.

Mike Peterson:

We went over there and, it wasn't like we were ready. It's one of those things like, "Hey, we should get a piano someday." We weren't ready to get it financially or anything. We get there and this person had two pianos in their living room, one that was just given to her and one that she was selling. The one given to her was my holy grail piano. It's a Yamaha. I love that. I was like, "Wow, okay." It's like shopping for a Honda Accord and there's a Porsche right there and you're like, "How much is that? "

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, exactly.

Mike Peterson:

Well, anyway, so Liz says, "Why don't you try both?" I was like, "Okay. Is that okay?" I was asking this gal and she says, "Oh, sure," because it was given to her. She loves her old piano, she said. She loves it. She'd be willing to maybe talk about this. Well, the Yamaha, it was a weird experience because I played it and it was okay, but it wasn't double price okay kind of thing. So I went with the other one, and I love it. It's a Baldwin, which is a semi-known brand, but I used to have a Baldwin when I was a kid, a Baldwin upright. It was a Spinet or something. Anyway, we just got it a couple days ago. We love it. Now the trick is, where do we position it?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Sure, because it's not small.

Mike Peterson:

No, it's in the living room, but do we have the keyboard going this way? Do we have it going that way? Because we want to maybe do it unconventionally where you're facing out... Anyway. But you can't just move it. We had a friend come over to tune it and he says, "Unless you know where you're going to... 'll tune it after." So we moved it last night and I don't think it's the final resting place.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Good luck, good luck. All right, that's good. All right. That was 87. So where next?

Mike Peterson:

97.

Japhet De Oliveira:

97. All right. Oh, okay. Here we go. Tell us about a time when you did the right thing.

Mike Peterson:

Okay. I think what's coming to mind is a happening that happened at the bank long time ago, because, I don't know, for some reason I'm thinking work.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, it's fine. It's great.

Mike Peterson:

It was one of those deals where, we're in this industry where you've got, we were in a branch that was a ritzy area down in the Bay Area and stuff, and so you had clientele that were demanding. You even had clientele that were famous football players, this and that. So we had this teller that was a career teller. She was at the time in her late 70s, just getting by. She still had to work, but technology wasn't her thing. Think about that, this was in the '90s.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. That's a big shift.

Mike Peterson:

Some of the shifts in technology even back then were huge. All of a sudden we had ATM machines, right? And all of a sudden at the bank, where you come up to the teller and everybody used to know you, now it's like, "Can you slide your card, put your pin number in to make sure we got you covered?" That stuff was happening. This poor gal, she was struggling with all that. Even though she may know somebody, the instructions from on high was do it to everybody, make sure that they get used to sliding their cards. This was conditioning the customer thing. Well, here comes a football player that we should all know. I won't say.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Okay. No, that's fine.

Mike Peterson:

We're down in the Bay Area, so guess the team. Anyways, and everybody knows him, but she doesn't. He gets upset. Normally, I think a bank manager guy would probably come and get him and bring him away. I'm thinking what would have happened normally, just bring him over and take care of him and then just take off. But I felt compelled because I saw that this person was struggling just in the technology alone, and now it's coming to this moment where she's now getting yelled at by a guy that thinks he's entitled to just being known.

So I go over there and, instead of just doing the manager thing, I tried to explain to him what's going on here. I guess in my body language and the way I was describing it, he calmed down to understand that we're dealing with somebody who's almost 80. Just a couple of weeks ago, we were writing things down. All of a sudden we just implemented new technology. So it diffused it, but it also, I was really doing it for her, because I knew that he's fine. He's a football player. He was fine, but I wanted there to be mutual understanding. When you come in here, this is a bank. It's not a social club. It's not a bar. We're dealing with your money, so if you want us to keep that money safe...

I was doing all that stuff. I don't know if I'm saying this because it was a combination of I felt like I did the right thing for her, but I also was a little bit proud of myself because I was a young dude. I was a young dude talking to some rich football player and I felt like everybody was watching it, too. It was at the teller line. So I felt like, "I better do this right." It was a moment, I think, as a manager at that time where I felt like I grew into something else. All of a sudden I felt like an adult, because I've always had a hard time feeling worthy of these positions I've gotten.

I don't know why. I think it's because in my generation, and maybe it's the same nowadays, I don't know, I only know my generation, which is that I always felt a little bit like, well, why didn't I finish school or why didn't I... So I've always been making up for that just with peer-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Proving [inaudible 00:22:14] worthy-

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, proving myself. Just pure grit and just like, "Okay, tell me what to do. I'll do it," that kind of thing, because I knew I was trying to overcome the fact that I never finished. I went to real estate school for a while, went to junior college, but I didn't finish. I got married, had kids, boom, all of a sudden here we are. So I'm saying all that, I guess, because that situation, when you asked me that, I think it might have been more. I did the right thing, but I felt like I grew at that point, like something that kind of pushed me into a different...

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's great. That's a great moment, actually. I've got to ask, this is a bonus question, 97a. A lot of young people today are questioning what their careers are, what their life is, and you're a grown man, you've got kids, you've got your entire life, so much of your life already lived in many ways. What advice would you give them if they're worried about their own self-worth and value? What would you say to them?

Mike Peterson:

Well, first of all, I usually would go right to your worth and value or with God. That's where it should start. Don't worry about what other people... But on a different level, on a human level or whatever, for me, I think I followed my dad's example too. He did a lot of different stuff. He was in the Navy and the Vietnam War. He should have come out as a nurse. He was a corpsman. He was doing stuff that nurses do. He never finished that.

But then he did other things, and he was not afraid to try stuff. He was a butcher to a tow truck manager, to a paint and maintenance business owner, too. I used to work for him when I was a teenager. Property manager guy, real estate agent, all these things. Luckily my mom had a stable job with my grandfather's company all those years, because he could try things, but he wasn't afraid to try stuff to see what worked and see what he'd be happy with or whatever.

I feel like sometimes young people, they go to school for a specific thing and they feel like, "I got to do that specific thing," because you come out with a million dollars worth of loans. That's probably true to some degree. If you're a doctor, yeah, be a doctor. I'm a good example, too. I've been able to eke out a living by trying different things. There's so many different things within the banking realm that I did. Here at Adventist Health for the last 15 years, I've done three or four different things, and I'm not really afraid if something changed, if I had to go do something else. It's not a big deal to do that, to start over. You're not a fail or something like that, if that's what people are thinking.

In terms of their value... It's easy for me to say because I've got an awesome family. My wife's awesome. I know I'm valued by her, I know my kids' value, all those things. If you're struggling with that, that's hard. If you're on your own or something like that, then you really have to just find your value in God, because-

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's good.

Mike Peterson:

... He created you, so He values you pretty good. He says it a lot. Those kind of things, that's what you lean on, for sure.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's a good, good, love it, bonus question there. All right. That was 97a.

Mike Peterson:

97a.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're now... We have time, actually, for two more.

Mike Peterson:

Oh, we do?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, yeah.

Mike Peterson:

Oh, okay. Well, let's go down a little bit.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, sure.

Mike Peterson:

How about we go to 25?

Japhet De Oliveira:

25. All right. Here we go. Oh, share the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.

Mike Peterson:

Right off the bat, my daughter being born. My son, too, but my daughter was first.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's magical.

Mike Peterson:

It was magical. And then of course, my wife gave birth to both kids without stuff.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Wow.

Mike Peterson:

The aftermath of that was beautiful, but during it was kind of, whoa. But yeah, that's where I go right away. In fact, that's weird that that came to mind because I just saw some old pictures of that when she was first born in the hospital and stuff like that. It just brought me back to that.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Good memories.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, very good.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Good. All right. Last one.

Mike Peterson:

Okay, last one. Go up a little bit. How about 54?

Japhet De Oliveira:

54. All right. Here we go. Oh, this is great. If your life was a book, what would this chapter be called?

Mike Peterson:

Rebuild.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Rebuild. Ooh, I like that. I like that. All right. Give me the opening paragraphs of this rebuild. How's it begin?

Mike Peterson:

It begins with Mike coming out of surgery, reassessing, determining that he wants to live more. What does that look like?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Absolutely.

Mike Peterson:

Does he want to just exist or does he want to do the things that are memorable with his kids, with his wife, things like that? That's what he's grappling with, and he's deciding that he wants more, that he doesn't want to just exist or wait for retirement or whatever. So he decides to rebuild.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's pretty good.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Mike, it has been a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for the time.

Mike Peterson:

Thank you, Japhet.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, it's been fantastic. I want to encourage people to do the same thing. Sit down with a friend, hopefully over maybe a liquid green smoothie, tea, coffee, and ask good questions, because by asking, we learn and we are better people for it.

Mike Peterson:

Indeed.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, absolutely. God bless you and we'll connect again with everybody soon. Thanks.

Mike Peterson:

Thanks, Japhet.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Bye.

Mike Peterson:

Appreciate it.

Narrator:

Thank you for joining us for The Story & Experience Podcast. We invite you to read, watch and submit your story and experience at adventisthealth.org/story. The Story & Experience Podcast was bought to you by Adventist Health through the Office of Culture.