What Was That Like - True Stories. Real People.

What if you kind of knew someone in high school, then you became friends with that person when you both ended up at the same college?What if you started hanging out with that person, and talking with him most days before or after classes?What if you confided in this person, and came to really appreciate the friendship that was growing?Then, what if you started to realize that this person was not at all the person you thought they were?That’s what happened to Marina, and it was a pretty scary time – not just for her, but for her unborn baby. She’s just now starting to be able to tell this whole story out loud.As you listen to Marina, ask yourself a question – is this podcast worth supporting? If you get any value from this episode, or any of the other incredible stories that my guests tell on this show, I would really appreciate it if you’d consider supporting the show through my Patreon. You can do that at WhatWasThatLike.com/support. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sometimes great ideas show up in your brain at the most surprising times.One morning last September, Whitney Austin suddenly had the idea that she was going to do something. She was going to take action and do everything in her power to reduce gun violence. And let me tell you, Whitney is a very determined person. When she decides to do something, it’s gonna happen. Since that day, she has started a non-profit organization, along with several of her colleagues, with the purpose of reducing ALL gun violence in a way that everyone can accept.And what prompted her to have that great idea? Well, when she first thought of it, she was at the Fifth Third Bank building in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she worked. She remembers this very specifically, because she was inside the revolving door, the main entrance to the building. She was slumped on the floor, inside that revolving door. And she was bleeding, because she had just been shot 12 times.That morning, as she entered the building, she had unknowingly walked into a mass shooting that was happening right there in the lobby. And as she lay there, pretending to be dead, with literally a dozen bullet wounds in her body, she thought about her husband and her two young children, and she also thought, “If I live through this, I have to do something to stop this from happening again.”I love talking with people who don’t just talk about problems, they take action. That’s Whitney. The non-profit she started is Whitney/Strong, and you can get more info at https://www.whitneystrong.org/This is Whitney with Officer Al Staples, who was the one who pulled her out of that revolving door to safety:Included in this episode: Police communication audio as the shooting happened Whitney telling the story first-hand 911 audio calls Comments from Officer Staples If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting it by becoming a patron at WhatWasThatLike.com/support. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The tag line for this podcast is “real people in unreal situations”, and today’s story is about as unreal as it gets.Imagine you’re leaving work one night. It’s dark. You’re walking through the parking lot, and suddenly an SUV with two men inside pulls up beside you, one of them jumps out and grabs you, throws you in the car, and they quickly drive away. And there was no one around to see this happen.They drive for a while but you can’t see where they’re taking you. You end up at a house. You don’t know where you are, but you know it’s very quiet. There are no sounds of traffic. No other human activity nearby.Then they start beating you.This might sound like a bad dream, or the opening scene to a horror movie. But for Tyson, it was real life.When he first told me what happened, it sounded just a little too bizarre. On this podcast I don’t cover situations that are fictional – only true stories. So I did the research, obtained police reports, verified addresses, all that, to make sure Tyson’s story is true. Unfortunately for him, it actually happened. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know, this isn’t really a true crime podcast, but today’s episode sure puts it in that category.Ramon and Lulu got married, and for the first few years it was great. They had a business that was doing very well, they built a new house, they had cars and nice clothes. Life was good.Of course, every marriage has its ups and downs. If you’re married, you know what I mean. But in most cases, a marriage that goes bad just ends in a divorce, and eventually everyone gets on with their lives.That’s not what happened with Ramon and Lulu.Ramon was okay with getting a divorce, and he wanted them to split everything 50/50. Lulu didn’t want that. She wanted everything. And if she couldn’t have everything, she wanted Ramon dead. So she paid someone to kill him.I had a great conversation with Ramon, so obviously he is not dead. But he has been through quite a horrific ordeal, including lying in his own grave while being photographed as if he had been shot in the head.Like I said, not your typical divorce story. Here’s the police body cam video of the day Lulu was arrested:https://youtu.be/yXh0dhurgukRamon has written a book about what happened, and the book includes a lot of details that we did not talk about here on the podcast. It will be out soon.Mundo has also written a book from his perspective, available on Amazon here. (book links are affiliate links) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s story happened last summer – July of 2018.William was out riding his bike. He came up to an intersection where he had a stop sign, and had to turn either left or right. While he was stopped at that intersection, a car approached from his right, and turned left – coming straight at him.What makes this story interesting is that the driver of that car didn’t see William sitting on his bike at that intersection, because the driver was looking down at his phone. He didn’t look up in time, and he drove right into William and his bike. William was knocked to the ground, and his bike was destroyed.Oh, and there’s another part of this story that makes it even more interesting. The driver of that car was a police officer, and he was on duty driving his police cruiser.Like a lot of cyclists, William has an action cam mounted on his helmet. So when this crash happened, the camera was rolling so the whole thing is on video. This video has been viewed over 11 million times:https://youtu.be/QoSOEtzWPlUThis was a pretty interesting conversation. We talked about William’s high-end bike that was destroyed, the camera he uses when he’s biking, what happened when he got hit, who paid for his bike, as well as the coverage for his injuries. You’ll see in the video, the police officer that crashed into him two different times told him, “You’re fine”. But he wasn’t actually fine.This is the other video we discussed, with his interaction with one of the EMTs:https://youtu.be/YvdlZCYrVvENow, William has a new bike and a new camera. And that police officer is no longer an officer with that police department.William’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXdapW5go7Jof99qzXcHFxwI hope you enjoy this episode. And if you do, and you’d like to support this podcast, you can buy me a coffee at WhatWasThatLike.com/coffee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’ve lived in areas where it gets really cold, and I’ve lived where it’s warm most of the time. I’ve lived up north in Ohio and in Maine, and now I’m in sunny Florida. I definitely prefer the warmer climate.But today’s story is about being cold. Really, really cold. Dan Burton brought his fat tire bike to the coast of Antarctica, and he biked from there to the South Pole. That’s 750 miles, and it’s uphill, and it’s against the wind, and it’s in temperatures that are colder than just about anyone would be comfortable with.But he did it – and in fact, he was the first one to do it. And actually, it happened 5 years ago, and no one has done it again since then – at least not at the time we recorded this conversation, which is early 2019.And I learned something really interesting. The elevation at the South Pole is 9300 feet. But only 300 feet of that is actual land. The 9000 feet of elevation on top of that land is solid ice. So at the South Pole Dan was standing on ice that was almost 2 miles thick. In fact, during our conversation he mentions that he actually walked over some mountains but he wasn’t able to see them, because he was actually on top of them because of that thick layer of ice.I’m always intrigued by stories of human endurance like this, so I really loved hearing this story first hand from Dan. Here’s where you can learn more about his expedition:Blog: http://epicsouthpole.blogspot.com/YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/EpicBikingFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthPoleEpic/Book: https://amzn.to/2VVRrHR (Amazon aff link)Here’s the video Dan and I discuss, about the lady that fell into the crevasse:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIGbKLmEkKMAnd if you like this podcast, you’re welcome to buy me a coffee – WhatWasThatLike.com/coffee Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is a fun one for me. I’m an entrepreneur, so I love watching Shark Tank. If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s where some regular person who has the beginnings of a business comes on and pitches the idea to 5 investors, called Sharks. The investors ask questions and decide if they want to become partners with that person and invest in the business.Some of the people who have gone on there have gotten deals and gone on to great success. Others have gotten no deal, but perhaps some constructive criticism and encouragement. And then there are others that have just gotten criticism. And of course that’s part of what makes it entertaining.Here’s some interesting facts about Shark Tank: Each season, they film batches of episodes together. All of the sharks come out to California for 2 weeks in June and they see as many as ten product pitches in each 10-hour day of filming. Then they come out again for 2 weeks in September and do the same thing. Out of all that, they get the 22 episodes for a season. In a recent season, there were 158 pitches filmed, but only 88 of them actually got on the air. The pitches average about 45 minutes, and then they get edited down to about 11 minutes each. Many of the deals made on the show never actually happen. And really that makes sense. The person might get their sales or cost numbers wrong, or some other details that don’t add up, and that can obviously cause a change of mind for the investor. But my conversation today is with a young business man named Max, and in his case, the investment in his business DID happen. Max is a 19 year old college student, and he has developed a cold-brew coffee filter that he hopes will soon become a household product and introduce lots of people to the idea of cold-brew coffee.And it turns out Mark Cuban, who’s one of the sharks and is also a billionaire investor who owns the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, also thought the product has potential, so he and Max are now partners in this venture. And I agree, it’s a pretty clever idea.As you’ll tell from our conversation, Max is a really bright kid and he’s got a tremendous future. I loved talking with him, and really I liked kind of getting the perspective of someone that has actually gone on that show – how he prepared for it, how he got the deal, and what’s happened since then. Going on a show like this to pitch your idea to investors is one of those things that’s part exhilarating and part terrifying.If you want to watch the episode with Max, it’s this current season of Shark Tank, which is Season 10, and he’s on episode 9. It aired on January 6, 2019.Here’s Max, showing how his cold-brew coffee filter works:https://youtu.be/zVybyq00QToTo connect with Max: Website: https://www.bruw.net/ Facebook: https://facebook.com/bruwcoffee Instagram: https://instagram.com/bruwcoffee Twitter: https://twitter.com/bruwcoffee And as always, I’d love to hear what you think of this episode! Email me at Scott@WhatWasThatLike.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’ve been friends with Sue for several years, so I know what she’s like. And after you hear the conversation I had with Sue recently, you’ll have a pretty good idea too. I hope you’re ready.October 24, 2015 – Sue was with her daughter Jessica, who was 14 years old at the time, and her friend Elise. Sue and Elise were skydiving buddies, and they were doing what they often did on a beautiful Saturday morning – they were going to go jump out of a plane. Since she was 14, Jessica wasn’t yet old enough to jump – but she just liked being with her mom and hanging out at the drop zone.The weather was beautiful, and everything was going fine, until Sue got to about 5000 feet. She tried to make a quick turn just before landing, and things went terribly wrong.The thing about Sue is, she has a heart full of compassion and love like few people I know. And even though she was on the ground, unable to move, with broken bones and in just excruciating pain, her primary concern was for her daughter – she didn’t want Jessica to see her in pain and be traumatized by that.Obviously, Sue survived. And wait til you hear what she’s done since then.Link: Sue's blog post about that day  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the United States, 1 out of 3 women have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner. Alyssa Moore WAS that one out of three.Alyssa lives in Tennessee, and she’s a musician, a songwriter, and an audio engineer. She was also a victim of physical and emotional abuse from her boyfriend, Jared McLemore. One day, at her request, police put out a warrant for his arrest. That night, while she was at work setting up audio at a bar called Murphy’s (in midtown Memphis), Alyssa got a notification on her phone that Jared was doing a Facebook Live video. What she didn’t realize is that Jared was doing this just outside the bar where she was working. Within a few minutes, Jared had covered himself in gasoline, and set himself on fire. Hundreds of people saw it live on Facebook. Alyssa saw it live in person. Jared died shortly after that from his injuries.Alyssa told me about Jared, what drew her to him, about their relationship, and how she handled his death. And how she is enjoying her new sense of freedom.In the video below, you can see the Facebook Live video that Jared created that night. This video will not be suitable for everyone, so view it at your own discretion.https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=dcc_1494654611Below are some of the resources that Alyssa talks about that are available to help domestic violence victims.Domestic Violence statistics, compiled by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence: https://ncadv.org/statisticsNational Domestic Violence Hotline: https://www.thehotline.org/National Network to End Domestic Violence: https://nnedv.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On November 29, 2018, 50 year old Andrew Bush of College Station, Texas was driving his white Dodge Charger. Up ahead was a red light. Cars were stopped, waiting for the light to change, and one of those vehicles was a Ford pickup truck in the left turn lane.Witnesses say Bush didn’t even brake before slamming into the back of that truck. The driver of the pickup truck was 20 year old Zane Wallace, a Texas A&M college student, who was with his girlfriend Mackenzie. They were shaken up but not seriously injured.Zane got out of the truck to check on the driver of the car that just hit them. And that’s where our story today really begins. Zane had a day he’ll never forget.As you listen to my conversation with Zane, I think you’ll get the same impression I did when we were talking. He’s a good kid, very polite and respectful. And throughout this whole ordeal, his concern was not for himself, even though it was his life that was in danger that day. Instead, he was concerned for the safety of his girlfriend, and the welfare of the driver of the car that hit them. I like Zane and I think he has a great future ahead of him.The incident that Zane told me about was caught on video by someone nearby who happened to think quickly and hit “record” on his phone. This is his video:https://youtu.be/qTpd4_kjofkAlso, at the beginning of the episode, I mentioned a Saturday Night Live parody sketch that poked fun at the old TJ Hooker show, which starred William Shatner. Here’s that video:https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/tj-hooker/n9514And if you don’t already follow me on Instagram, you really should. I post something new there every day, @WhatWasThatLike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices