- Speaker #0
Hey, everyone. We are the Brian Samoa Show. I'm Samoa.
- Speaker #1
I'm Bri, and we are super excited to be here.
- Speaker #0
So welcome to our very first episode. I ask that you buckle in, hang tight, and make sure you come back because there'll be more fun to be had.
- Speaker #1
Absolutely. Absolutely. We've been looking at this for a while now, and to be sitting here talking to all of you, we're so excited.
- Speaker #0
Yes, it has actually been like literally over a year in the making. And Life has been lifing and we have had lessons to learn about the podcast world and we want to make sure that right off the bat we brought you guys something awesome. So here we are, episode one. And what we wanted to do for this episode is just kind of introduce our friendship to you and give you a little bit of a backstory because we really want this podcast to not be about you tuning in and watching our show. We really want it to be a community that we create. And we want you to feel like you're pulling up. a chair with us, whether you're having a margarita, a glass of wine, a mocktail, or a cup of coffee, a cup of tea. We want you to feel like you're here with us, that we become friends and you get to know us. And so we felt that in order to do that, we wanted you to know us.
- Speaker #1
We're going to have some social media that we'll share with you. We'd love for you to interact, give us feedback, let us know maybe some ideas that you'd like to see us do, but we definitely want to interact with you, talk to you. share things with you and also have you share with us.
- Speaker #0
So to get us started with our story, Bri is literally one of my best friends. Maybe a little bit unconventional because as you look at us, we have different age demographics and people, although I will say that especially in the last like five years, I don't think people guess on that anymore. She's aging in reverse and I'm catching up.
- Speaker #1
We're having fun, but I will say that we'll talk about maybe how I'm aging in reverse a little bit later and maybe one of the Remo-
- Speaker #0
The other episodes. So make sure you come back. But yeah, we met through church and you started coming to our church at Grace. And I don't remember how you even came to the small group. Did you just like pick us at random? Did I invite you? I don't remember. Do you remember?
- Speaker #1
I think what happened is we were looking for a small group and I believe that it was one of the gentlemen that was in the group talked to Brad because Brad was in the band at the time. And said that they needed some people and we needed a group. And so it just kind of met like that.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And one of the things I remember about Bri coming to my house for small group, this was before my gluten-free days, was she brought this monkey bread. And I had never had monkey bread and I was hooked on monkey bread. But then sadly, like six months later, I went gluten-free. So that wasn't very helpful. I've been tortured ever since.
- Speaker #1
Totally restructure what I was bringing to her house.
- Speaker #0
Dreams of monkey bread. But yeah, so Bri was at my house. a couple of times a month, I think we met, not every week. And just casually, you know, it was a large, small group meeting. So it wasn't one-on-one or anything. I think we had eight to nine couples at the time.
- Speaker #1
At one point we had like 10. It was a huge, small group.
- Speaker #0
And we did have obviously some deep and candid conversations in that environment, but it's not like we had one-on-one meetings. But then within a year's time, if not less, my daughter was diagnosed with autism. And at the time she was three and a half. And needless to say, things were kind of turned upside down starting right around two and a half. So it's been about a year that I started having issues with her. I don't remember if it was something I talked about in the group or not, but I definitely knew she was going to get that diagnosis. I had been doing my research and based on her behaviors and I, we had a huge wait list to go through speech therapy first, and then a huge wait list and time to wait to see the specialist to get the diagnosis. So that really builds a lot of time there of getting to, and she kept getting worse. She was. going downhill. So that took a while. And I think one of the things that stuck out to me that makes you such an awesome person is that we really weren't close. And then Naomi gets this diagnosis and Bri spearheaded this whole movement to get a group of people, mostly our small group, I think it was, to come in and do it. We wanted to be able to sell the house. because it was by water. And that was one of the issues that unfortunately is still a huge issue for families and children with autism being by water. And they're just attracted to it. And like one split second and your worst nightmare can happen. And I remember you just spearheading this group to come in, everything from meals to the babysitting for the children to all these little handyman jobs and things like that for this one long weekend at our house.
- Speaker #1
And we didn't have kids. So I remember this one time we were sitting there and everybody from a small group kept leaving. And the next thing Brad and I knew, we were by ourselves with kids. And we were like, what do we even say to these children? They were little at the time. And at the time, too, what I remember that was so hard is autism was new. Like right now, you hear about it all the time. But back then, it wasn't such a conversation. It wasn't something that you heard about. So the research was really important and the funding of things was limited.
- Speaker #0
Very.
- Speaker #1
So we started talking about that because there are so many things you need to do at that young age for Naomi in order for her to thrive. If you wait, you lose those. chances.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, the window gets smaller. The funny thing is, you know, it's been 15 years that we have been friends and Naomi's been, well, longer than that, but that Naomi's been diagnosed. And though people know more about, like, though people hear way more about autism and the numbers from when Naomi was diagnosed, I believe it was like one in 148, I think, and now it's one in 36. It's amazing to me, though, how today most people, including people in the medical professional, don't really know autism. Yeah. You know, like they know about it. They know what's happening. They know that it's these quirky kids or these behaviors, but they still don't really know, which is a whole other topic that will also be another episode, I'm sure, at one point.
- Speaker #1
Right.
- Speaker #0
But the next thing that really kindled our friendship was actually American Idol.
- Speaker #1
Yep.
- Speaker #0
Which then led to Keith Urban.
- Speaker #1
Oh, Keith Urban. How can you not bond over Keith Urban?
- Speaker #0
And the only reason I didn't like country music at the time, had not really gotten into it, just not part of. the cultural that I grew up in between being Brazilian and all of that. But I remember watching the American Idol finale or one of the final episodes where they bring in like actual famous people to do their songs. And I think they did a duet with the finalists or something. Kiss the Girl by Keith Urban was the song and Keith Urban was there. And I loved this song. And it was before Spotify. So I remember YouTubing to like find the song because I couldn't. You couldn't just listen to it on the radio. I didn't even know what stations around here were country. And you couldn't just Spotify it. So I YouTubed it. And I remember playing that song all the time, like the rest of that summer. And then we get, because Naomi was diagnosed on June 2nd. I remember American Idol finale was sometime later in June. And then, you know, so we go through that. And then I think one of the small groups, we must have been having a conversation. And somehow it must have come up that I love this song. and by default, really liked Keith Urban.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. So I started looking to see when Keith Urban was going to be touring and found a date. Now, he wasn't near us. He was going to be in Indiana. But I mean, a good road trip is always nice, right?
- Speaker #0
That was actually my first girls road trip.
- Speaker #1
I don't think I knew that. Really?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. My only other girls trip that whole time was when I was 20. I did a girls Miami spring break trip. A little bit different of a girl's trip there going to Miami at 20. But yeah, that was my first like girl's road trip.
- Speaker #1
Wow. Well, we went to Indianapolis to see him. And another friend of mine was there with her two girls. And so we were able to kind of hang out with them. But it was so great. But I mean, we rode there, rode back. And I think that's when we really got to know each other so much better.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And then I remember, and again, you're definitely, I would, and I always say this, I've said this to Leo. I feel like you're one of my wisest friends, probably. Always have such great advice and insight. So I think we were rounding out the summer where you had helped me with all this housework and all these logistical things. And then I had just finalized, because that was like end of August, I feel. I had just finalized Naomi's therapies and fighting with insurance and getting things covered and all these different things. So it was kind of like this letdown period now, like everything is similar. And I think you recognize like you need something else to keep your brain busy. And you started talking about running the full marathon at Disney one time that you did it with team and training. What year did you do it?
- Speaker #1
We were driving home and we were talking about limited funding for autism and how much she was struggling with trying to get things covered. let alone even get them to entertain covering some of the things that were so needed for her daughter. And I ran a marathon in 2004 and I did it with team and training.
- Speaker #0
So little side note there, you were the second person that I personally knew that had run a marathon. My first person was my friend, Ashley Brady, who lived, I was pregnant with Isaac and And she lived in the... apartments upstairs from us. And at one point, I think she's a year or two younger than me. But at that time, I remember her telling me about running the Boston Marathon, which I lived in Boston since I was six years old. And I don't think I knew the Boston Marathon existed until after I started running. So how pathetic is that? But just wasn't a thing that was on my family's radar. I didn't know what was happening. I wasn't in Boston, you know, like every second Monday of April, whenever the heck it is.
- Speaker #1
Sure.
- Speaker #0
So I literally didn't even know this marathon existed, but she was telling me about it. And I remember standing there, like listening to her story, but having this sort of not out-of-body experience, but like being like, oh, wow, like people who run marathons are real people. They actually exist. Like, how does a person in my world run a marathon? Because in my mind, it was like a movie star or, you know, it's like a little kid who like grows up with Disney princesses like You realize at one point, like they're not real. And that's kind of how I felt about Marathon Runner. So then you became the second person that was like a thrill in my head. Like, wait, I can touch you? You're a real human being who ran 26.2 miles? Like how?
- Speaker #1
Yeah. So we talked about it and I said, you know, I bet you team and training was one fundraising opportunity, but I knew they had more. So we started looking things up and found out.
- Speaker #0
On our Blackberries.
- Speaker #1
On our Blackberries. I miss my Blackberry. Or iPhones. How many of you had to give up Blackberries? I had a red one. Yeah.
- Speaker #0
Maybe iPhones had just come out, but they were still like five gazillion dollars. Yeah. And they were flips.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, no. We were not interested. But anyway, okay, I digress. But we looked it up and realized that Autism Speaks was a group that we could partner with and we could raise some money and we could do a race. And thinking about this, some what if it was in August, the race that we did was probably what, in January?
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
So we didn't have long to train or get ready or anything.
- Speaker #0
So we decided to do the half. We were looking it up while driving back and came up with this idea that we would do the half and we would do it with Autism Speak so that we could, as you said, just be a part of the solution. And I think for me, you really recognize like I needed something productive and positive to keep me kind of moving forward now that the dust was settling on all this work that I had done for her. And so we came home, talked about it. we had another good friend of ours. At the time, Michelle just jumped on the bandwagon and we signed up through teaming through. It wasn't teaming training, but just autism speaks and started to do some fun fundraisers. We had a bowling night and all this kind of stuff. Fundraise all the money we needed to fundraise and showed up in January to do this race. And I remember we showed up thinking we were so cool because we thought to bring like Mickey Mouse ears and many ears to run with. And then like we were waiting. we were getting on the bus and a couple of people come in with like really cute shirts that were Disney themed. And then we had the glittery running skirts.
- Speaker #1
So many.
- Speaker #0
Then people come out with these like full blown costumes. Right. And we're like, I'm sorry, our ears are like kind of.
- Speaker #1
They were very weak.
- Speaker #0
And we survived that weekend. And I really went into that thinking I hate running. I still hate running. And I remember in high school, like they used to do that fit test every year for the mile fit test. And I remember a couple of years being like, no, I'm going to, I'm going to try this year. I'm going to do good. And I would run like a 14 minute mile and still get side stitches. So this was not my thing. And I remember thinking like, I'm going to do this one race, be done and never run again. And I ended up before we left that weekend, we had committed to doing the full the following year only because we wanted to be able to up our costume game.
- Speaker #1
I just remember we started the race together because the Disney race, if you don't have any races under your belt, then you start in the back. And it's kind of a scary place to be because there's time limits that you have to think about. But we decided that I didn't want her to be held back because our racing was a little bit different in how fast we go. And I just remember seeing a ponytail running off and I'm like, you go, girl. And she ended up doing so, so good. We both finished and we had such a good time. It was just a great race. And that's where we went back.
- Speaker #0
Yep. So we went on, we kept doing some races together and other life things and hosting Zoomathons and fundraising for autism. And then we found a different organization called Train for Autism, which I don't know if they exist anymore, but they were a great avenue to be able to fundraise because they had the 501c. So you didn't have to have your own nonprofit, but you fundraise through them and they took a percentage to. run, you know, to be able to run their operation as well as to fund their own organization or their own autism choices. But then they would actually let you distribute the funds to places you want it locally. And I remember we distributed to Fieldstone Farms and paid for three different students locally to be able to do a summer camp. We sent it to, I don't remember which one it was, but one of the local autism chapters to pay for some swim lessons.
- Speaker #1
That was huge. Yeah.
- Speaker #0
So we did. It was really cool because we went from funding, I think a couple of the races, we gave all the money to, you know, train for autism speaks, which, you know, it's out there, right? It's helping the collective, but we don't really know. And then with Team, not Team in Training, but Train for Autism, that charity, we were then able to really direct where the funds went. And that was awesome. And whoever donated and things like that still were able to get the 501c text write off and all of that because Train for Autism was a 501c. So that was really cool. And then, you know, we went through a couple of years of that and hanging out as much as we could and ended up...
- Speaker #1
The oils. Don't forget the oils.
- Speaker #0
Yes, the essential oils.
- Speaker #1
Heavy into essential oils.
- Speaker #0
Yes. Totally my fault because just trying to clean up Naomi's environment was one of the things that I learned about and things like that. And then we ended up having some bumps in the road. So it's not like our friendship hasn't been tried and tested.
- Speaker #1
For real.
- Speaker #0
And we both had a mutual friend that ended up, in retrospect, neither one of us recognized us at the time.
- Speaker #1
See it.
- Speaker #0
But definitely, you know, hindsight being 2020, there was definitely some toxic traits and behaviors there and ended up kind of pulling us apart. And I think because I was not the squeaky wheel, you just kind of went along with the path of least resistance and got dragged along there. So we went a couple of years without talking at all.
- Speaker #1
Right.
- Speaker #0
Because I left the church, so we didn't have that connection anymore. I think it was just a little bit out of sight, out of mind. We didn't see each other on a regular basis. And you guys were still at the same church.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
So we ended up just kind of there was no like argument or drama of explosive.
- Speaker #1
And that happens sometimes, doesn't it?
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
You know, you think about your friends and you may not talk to them for a while. But then when you reconnect, it's like you never lost time.
- Speaker #0
Exactly.
- Speaker #1
And I feel like that was us. We lost that time. Life got in the way. Things happened, you know.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
And then we reconnected again.
- Speaker #0
I think we reconnected through Disney again, wasn't it? I think so. I think by happenstance we ran into each other at a race. Right. Is that what happened?
- Speaker #1
I think what might be the case.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. It was one of those random, like, we're here running a Disney. Oh, look who's here. Right, right, right. Amazingly, even though there's like 30,000 runners. You still run into people you know. You do run into a lot of people that you know.
- Speaker #1
It's so crazy. Yeah.
- Speaker #0
And then from there, we got to get back together. And, you know, like you said, picked up where we left off. And I think one of the cool things about being around you is that, like, I've never felt like. there was just something about you that especially when it was ever just the two of us, I felt like I could always, the filters could come off. I could have candid conversations. I didn't have to think about how I would word something or say something and have you misconstrue it or judge. There was just something about, and maybe it all started because we had those two long car rides back and forth from Indiana, but there was always this sense of authenticity and like a safe space that you created.
- Speaker #1
I agree. I think it was both of us, though, because when you think about it, we don't always agree on things and that's OK. But we can have a good, honest conversation about pretty much anything respectfully. We can joke about it, you know, and give each other a hard time about it. But neither of us ever leave the conversation annoyed or like, you know,
- Speaker #0
hurt. Which is where the idea for the Brian Samara show came from. Because It is so easy to just pick up with you wherever, even now and even after we rekindled. I mean, we'll go six months before we can get together in person.
- Speaker #1
Exactly.
- Speaker #0
And it is just, you know, because life is crazy and we schedule and then one of us has to cancel or it takes forever, whatever. Usually it's my fault.
- Speaker #1
Not necessarily.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And even though we're not necessarily always together, when things have gone wrong, which a lot of things in my life have blown up, you've always been the first friend that I've been like. blah, blah, blah. Like this just happened. And, you know, between me choosing that I needed to end my first marriage, you know, me disclosing to you, you know, that I met somebody new, like all of that, like it was always like, this is the person that I can have this conversation with. And always because it wasn't even that I knew you'd agree with me because you're my friend, because like you said, we have disagreed and we absolutely we talked through those. And that is actually more like I wanted you to be my sounding board. A lot of times some of these harder things going through, it's like, oh, I got to talk to Brian. I'm just going to tell her I'm just going to like, you know, mind dump on her because I want to hear her feedback. I want to hear. the devil's advocate, the challenges, you know, and sometimes even if you kind of agree with me or we agree, you do such a great job of giving me a couple other ways to think about it too, just to like double check it, right? That double blind study.
- Speaker #1
I think the same thing of you because, you know, just from everything that we've gone through, we can talk about it and I might say something and you give me that look and I already know the look, right? The look is, I'm not really quite sure that you would look at it that way. And I'm Like what? And we can just sit down and talk about it. And a lot of times I'll stick to my guns. But there are times when I'm like, you know what? You're absolutely right. But that's what friendship is.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
That's what friendship is. It's being open to that, you know, conversation and that trust that you have with each other. Because I trust her. I trust her with anything. And I think that's so important that you have that with somebody. Have a friend that does that with you. That's so important.
- Speaker #0
And nowadays it's so hard.
- Speaker #1
Oh, my gosh.
- Speaker #0
You know, especially in the last. five, six years or so, there's just been such a cultural shift that unfortunately, a lot of people, even with close family members, even with close friendships, you know, like I know many people who have lost significant people that they had deep ties to because they saw differently on, you know, all these different issues that have been coming up. And we kind of lost the ability to either agree to disagree or respectfully hear another person's opinion. And then come to either a new conclusion or like you said, sometimes be like, no, I'm sticking to my guns, but I can understand why you have your thought. And I respect you for your thought. But this, you know, you're not changing my mind today kind of thing. And so we wanted to create this environment, this community. It's going to be a lifestyle based podcast. So we'll be talking about everything and anything, which is why we would love for you guys to connect with us via our website, via social media. We'll do polls or you can submit questions and things like that, different ideas so that we can we really want you to feel like you're sitting right here with us. And it's a safe environment to just think and talk through some of, you know, not only cultural things, but just life.
- Speaker #1
Life. Because life gets so hard. And if you don't have a place to express what's happening and get like, you know, bounce your ideas off somebody else. It builds up and builds up and it's not good for you at all. So we would love for you to be able to come here and we would be able to talk through things and debate healthily about things and really just talk through anything that comes up. We don't want to limit ourselves. You know, some of the podcasts are so.
- Speaker #0
We'll talk sports, Browns fans or not, because who wants to be a Browns fan except for you?
- Speaker #1
Well. I did.
- Speaker #0
That's another episode too.
- Speaker #1
Just real quickly, I ordered a Baker jersey from Tampa Bay. And then when I wore it, they lost. So I can't wear it again.
- Speaker #0
Maybe the problem with the Browns is that you're their fan. I think it is.
- Speaker #1
I think I'm going to have to totally like, I'm going to have to truly like switch gears to the Steelers.
- Speaker #0
Oh, there you go. That would be perfect,
- Speaker #1
right? But no, so it really is a place where we want you to feel safe and feel like you can talk about anything. And you don't have to agree with us. And we would love if you didn't.
- Speaker #0
And we really just don't want people out there feeling alone, whatever But you're going to learn more about us. And between the two of us, we have probably encountered every single hardship, difficult, traumatic thing that life can throw your way between divorce, death of parents. I mean, everything, poverty, sexual abuse, like everything, suicide. We've had that personally touch us in some way or another throughout our lives. But we just want you to know that you're seeing that whatever difficulty you're going through. you know, another day is coming and that we are going to be here to help you work through that. You know, my husband always says that two things can be true at once. And one of the lessons I've been learning as an adult, because for some reason as a kid, I don't think I was specifically told this, but just the vibe from both within my home and maybe outside, you kind of have this sense that like there's an arrival point for life, right? Like if you get on the right train, if you make all the right decisions. then you get to a point where like now it's just uphill from here. Like life is just clicking. And I think a lot of people kind of think that even if it's subconsciously. And we're here to tell you that life can be wonderful and simultaneously a shit show.
- Speaker #1
Right.
- Speaker #0
And that for most of us, I think that's where we're at, especially nowadays where we see social media And we assume that. you know, like, oh, this person has it all together or this person's life is so perfect. Like, I am here to tell you, no, whatever you think is perfect, maybe one area of their life is going really well right now, but there's two or three areas that there's probably little fires happening. So we just want to go through all those conversations and be your friend carrying through life.
- Speaker #1
I think Facebook and some of the social medias have. has just presented itself like that. You see the pictures, the flowers, the cards, you know, all the trips and all that stuff. But behind the scenes, you have no idea what's happening. And that's really what we want to talk about is how do you maneuver those things? You know, you can put the show on, but at some point you've got to step back from the show and deal with the reality of it.
- Speaker #0
So stay tuned. Make sure you come back. We're going to be releasing episodes every two weeks. And again, it'll be a hodgepodge between specific topics. We're going to have expert guests come in when we go into specific topics to really bring you some knowledge and good information. And then other episodes, it's going to be about lifing.
- Speaker #1
Yep. And how I think can suck. We're going to make it better or not. We'll figure it out.
- Speaker #0
So join us again. We look forward to seeing you.
- Speaker #1
Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We appreciate your time. We'll see you soon.