S2 Ep 14.Finding Purpose Through Tragedy: A Conversation with Collin Hughes

00:00 - David (Host)
You have a successful life. You've done all of the things that you wanted to do when you were a young kid. However, you still haven't found your purpose, but when tragedy strikes due to the suicide of your 15 year old granddaughter, your purpose through tragedy is found and you become an incredible advocate for her life and for saving the lives of others. Join me as I talk with cowboy pilot, voice over artists and my extraordinary person, colin Hughes, on this episode of True Crime. Authors and Extraordinary People. 

00:47 - Jaquie (Announcement)
Welcome to True Crime Authors and Extraordinary People, the podcast where we bring two passions together. The show that gives new meaning to the old adage truth is stranger than fiction. And reminding you that there is an extraordinary person in all of us. Here is your host, david McClam. 

01:08 - David (Host)
What's going on, everybody and welcome to the episode of True Crime. Authors and Extraordinary People. Of course, I'm your man, david McClam. Hey, if you guys haven't already, make sure you follow us on all of our social media. One link to a link tree where you get every link you need to have pertaining to the show. But once again, it is time to speak to someone that I have deemed an extraordinary person. Let me tell you about who our guest is. 

01:36
He had three dreams as a child he wanted to be a cowboy, a pilot and an actor. He rolled bulls for several years and competed against some of the greatest legends in the sport of professional rodeo. He is now a retired airline pilot and a voice actor. On June 10, 2022, his life changed forever when his 15 year old granddaughter entered her own life. On the morning of her death, he received a phone call from her stepfather informing him of what happened, and it was in the depth of all the pain and agony that he instantly felt that he now knew what topic he had to talk about. Welcome, cowboy pilot, voice actor and suicide prevention advocate and extraordinary person, colin Hughes. Hey, colin, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being here, my friend. It is a pleasure and honor. You have lived quite the life. It looks like you got to do all of the things that you dreamed of. So how was it being able to do all of those and be good at them? 

02:36 - Collin (Host)
It was amazing. I remember growing up my parents were dead set against me riding bulls. My father, he just went on and on about oh you're going to get hurt, going to get hurt, you know, and he, he wasn't very nice a person after anyway and he said I know these old cowboys, you know now they're just all broken up and you're going to regret it. I feel aches and pains for my rodeo days. But I have one regret about my days riding bulls is that I didn't put more into it and go harder and qualify for the national finals rodeo, which is top 15 money winners in the world. But I got to compete against and became friends with some of the biggest names in the sport profession, rodeo from back in that day and you know the era that I was riding bulls from the late seventies to 1990, some of the biggest names ever you know Donny Gay, eight times world's champion bull rider. 

03:41
Lane Frost, the man that had a movie made after him called Eight Seconds. He was died in the rodeo arena at Cheyenne, wyoming, in 1989. And there was a movie made about him and Lane is probably one of those, the well-known figures in the sport of bull riding because of that movie and you know a lot of people have gone into bull riding because of him and it was a. It was a pleasure to be able to call him a friend. Last thing you ever said to me is he called me an old fart and then then flying it's oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah. Yeah, taxi out onto the runway, push those throttles forward. The auto throttles kick in. They go on the way forward. And that thrust of the jet engines, oh yeah. 

04:36 - David (Host)
Were you ever concerned? You know, as a pilot, I mean I know back then, but you know there's always some concern. Maybe I get high decked, whatever. Do you ever have any of those kind of fears? 

04:44 - Collin (Host)
Oh, not really. I mean, if you, if you, if you think about them, you just you just take things as they come and you know whatever happens happens and you're trained to do the things that you know you're going to be faced with. And if an issue comes up, you just deal with it and work through it and okay, we're done. 

05:01 - David (Host)
I did what I did. Let's hop into the unpleasant dreams. We come back to the pleasantries. Okay, I have found you because you are a advocate for suicide prevention, because it happened to you by way of your 15 year old granddaughter Right One, let me say I'm sorry for your loss. It never gets any easier. Thank you, no matter how long it goes on, can you tell us what were you doing that morning when you got the news? 

05:25 - Collin (Host)
I was sitting in my recliner watching television and my phone rang and it was my daughter's color ID. So I just pick up the phone hey, honey, how you doing? And then it was not her on the phone, but the children stepped farther, farther, and I instantly knew that you know something, something's wrong. But I didn't expect anything like that. And the second he told me I have never, never, ever felt such excruciating pain in my entire life, and that's even after losing my oldest daughter to cancer in 2015. 

06:05
That news I don't think anybody can be prepared for with. You know, my daughter's death it was. You know, we, we knew for a few years, but for her passing that you know this could happen and that doesn't make it any easier when it happens. But you've had time to process it and go through it and you know, say, say you're goodbyes. That with suicide you can't even process that afterwards. It's I don't know. There's just, there's no rationality to it, there's no, I can't really describe it unless you've been there. It is the worst feeling that I've ever had in my life, absolutely the complete worst, the most pain. You know I've broken bones, I've been stepped on my bulls and I've been hooked. I've been all kinds of painful things, but nothing, all of those things combined, all the other pains combined in my entire life, wasn't even one millionth of the pain that I felt that day, do we? 

07:24 - David (Host)
know what happened, or were there any signs that she was heading in this direction? 

07:29 - Collin (Host)
No, no, not that we knew at that point, but there is one thing that I wondered about. Afterwards, you hear a lot of people have heard that if somebody is contemplating ending their own life, that once they've made the decision to go through with it, there's like relief. They know that all the things that's causing them to feel this amount of pain that they want to end, they're relieved of it all of a sudden. So she lived out in Nebraska, not far from Omaha at the time, and I live in Las Vegas, and so my wife and I flew in for the funeral, and she lived in a small town and this girl absolutely loved, loved, loved swimming. She's like a fish. So in the summer she worked at the local swimming pool. She always told me how much she enjoyed it and what was going on and how excited she was to work there. 

08:46
So the first day that my wife and I got there, I kind of wanted to go through the last little bit of her life and so drove out to the swimming pool and I was just standing outside of the fence was closed at the time and a man came over. 

09:05
He turned out to be the pool manager. He asked me if he could help me and I told him who I was and why I was there and he opened the gate, he took me inside and he showed me that, you know, she was worked in the snack stand, concession stand, whatever you want to call it and that she was training to be a chef supervisor. He told me that it was the day before that she died was her last day of work there and he said that was the best day that she'd ever had. So it just made me wonder if you know that decision had been made at that point and that she was just letting everything go and just okay, I'm going to go here, I'm going to do this because I love it. So that just made me think about that. After, after I got home and I just started thinking you know, was that a sign that someone could have? 

10:02 - David (Host)
caught. You know children is very complicated these days. Back in the times that you and I were growing up you're probably a few years older than I am, I'm 50. I was raised in the 70s and 80s. You know parenting was a lot different. What kids went through in school was a lot different. You know, the biggest things we dealt with or got complained about was we talked too much in school or we chewed gum. My youngest is at home, is 13, and I constantly fight this all the time now because there's so many influences out there. Oh yeah, and kids are so cruel that they're quick to say things like go kill yourself or you know you shouldn't be here or get out of here, and these kids takes that to heart. I don't know how you feel. I almost was there. 

10:48
About three years ago my middle son he was in the Navy was contemplating suicide. He reached out to us. Luckily, my wife had said you need to call your son and she sent me this long manifesto that he had written. The Navy had broken him and he's currently writing a book about it. Because what people don't understand about the armed forces is sometimes they don't do the right things either and they miss all these signs and he had told me he goes. 

11:15
I planned on going out at sea and I was going to like just jump off and split my head on the end of the hull. And here is the manifesto. And that's when I said what's going on, son, you know what's, you know he goes. I thought I would call you and say goodbye beforehand, but I ended up talking him out of it and I wish that that would have happened on your end. I don't know what she was going through, but knowing what I go through now having a 13 year old going to high school or junior high school, high school, now the things I'm battling with the school district about it's enough sometimes just to make you say I'm done, oh yeah, and no matter how much love you get from you know, grandfather or whoever, then they begin to feel like a burden, because these people has programmed in their mind that they're broken and nobody wants to be around. 

12:01 - Collin (Host)
I know it's. I'm what you just told me about. Talking to your son brings up something that I took a course online QPR question, persuade, refer a QPR Institute and it's a $30 course that you took, that a person can take. That teaches you how to deal with somebody who has suicidal ideology and the first thing you do is you question and you can. It teaches you how to do the questions in the proper manner. 

12:44
You know it's not something like oh man, you're not going to kill yourself, are you? You have to be straight to the point and say are you considering ending your own life? Have you ever thought of wishing you wouldn't wake up in the morning? Things like that, being direct, just straightforward with it, because it is a huge, huge myth that if you mention suicide to somebody, that is, if they're thinking about it, that it's going to make them think more about it. No, that's a myth. If you question somebody, just like you talked with your son, that's the opposite is going to happen. If you can talk to them, you can persuade them, just like he persuaded your son. 

13:40
Then the next step is refer. Refer them to somebody who can help and, if you're able to like, if you're in the same town as that person or nearby, don't just have them call somebody. You get on the phone with them, set up an appointment with whoever it is and you take them there if you can. So question, persuade, refer I think it's qpratinstitutecom. The gatekeeper course is what QPR calls it. It's $30 to take and there is a wealth of knowledge in this course. It's the wealth of knowledge I'll be sure to link that. 

14:21 - David (Host)
The other thing that goes with that too, which I'm sure that you know, is I think when people get to that point, they feel like they're useless and not wanted. The one thing I told my son was do you understand what that would do to me and to your stepmom and your mom and your brother and sisters if we woke up one morning and you wouldn't hear anymore? I'm like, did you think about that beforehand? And it kind of snapped them back. Do you think that your? Is there a reason that you think your granddaughter maybe didn't reach out to you to tell you that she had this on her mind? She? 

14:53 - Collin (Host)
was a very private person. When she knows somebody, you know she really opens up and you just a delight to be around. But she could be, you know, pretty bashful and didn't want to burden anyone. It just you know, she just well. Here's a really good example of how she thinks about things is when she was 12, my wife and I took her to Hawaii on vacation. 

15:20
On this trip, this child asked for only one thing from us the entire time she was there with us, and that was if we could take her to a store so she can buy a swimming suit for herself. She even showed us she had the money to do it. Mom gave her the money and it's okay. Okay, so we take her to a store and she finds she finds a swimming suit she likes, and then her face just kind of drops and she puts it back and I said well, honey, is that the one you want? She says yeah. I says well, why don't you get it? And she says it told me it costs too much. I says, well, do you have enough money to pay for it? She says yeah, but she says she wouldn't be able to buy food or anything like that on the trip. I says you don't have to pay for your food. Your grandma and I are taking care of all those things while you're here with us. Don't worry about that stuff. Really, yeah, so if you want it, you go over there to you, go up to the counter and pay for it and you're getting it. So she tranced on over to the checkout counter and pulling out her cash, but right behind her, you know what old grandpa is doing, don't you? I'm pulling out that credit card and she, she just started crying when she saw that I was paying for it. She, she just couldn't believe it. And then I found an ad for a, an attraction down on the South side of, on a Wahoo the first, swimming with the dolphins, and I asked her she wanted to do that. She's oh, grandpa, that would cost too much money. That's full. No, don't worry about what it costs. Do you want to do that? She's that's too expensive, isn't it? I just finally says if it was free, would you want to do it? Yeah, this is okay. Then we're doing it. Stop arguing with me. 

17:27
Then, on the way home, we're going through the airport and I have her small. She had one carry-on bag that was, you know, very light and small and I had it on my roller board behind me and she's grandpa, I can carry that. And I says, well, I know you can't, it's no big deal, it's not heavy. She's, let me carry it. Yeah, I can do it. I says, okay, honey, that's fine. So she took it, she carried it, mmm-hmm. 

17:53
When I got home my first I live in Vegas and I was based in Houston, texas, with my job and had my first, my first trip back from vacation. I had to actually Catch a ride down to Houston the night before because first flight was early in the morning the next day. And I get to Houston. I'm walking through the terminal. There's a family in front of me had a daughter about the same age as my granddaughter and this girl was carrying her jacket and she throws it at her father, says here, you carry it, I'm not going to. 

18:27
I thought, oh, thank goodness for my lovely grandchild. But you know that that's. She just didn't want to feel like she was burdening anyone and so that's the only reason I can think of, because she would call me, for I've got all these safe voice voice mails from her. You know she's. She called me, says oh, I just wanted to. I'm just bored and just wanted to talk Her grandpa my little brother's being a pain in the neck. Can you call him and talk to him, because you always make him laugh and you know she'd call me just out of the blue for anything. But she must have thought that it was too big of a burden for me to talk to her about anything. 

19:14 - David (Host)
I go through that right now, my 13 year old. He's been having some problems at school. One of the episodes I'm about to do is pretty much exposing and talking about his school district and I asked him. I says why don't you tell me these things? You come home and that's exactly what he said to me. He says because you and mom have so many things on your plate that I just feel like that it's a burden. Didn't come to find out. You know, as the floodgates opened, there's a number of things at school that's going to. He hadn't told me. 

19:40
And I said now with him and said no matter what you think we have going on, you're the most important thing that we have going on, right? You can't be afraid to tell me that. And when I hear your story about your granddaughter, that's what I kind of lean towards is that whatever was happening was going on. She didn't want to feel like she was burdening you or the mom and the dad, knowing that you guys are probably talking her out of it, um, and that's why she didn't, and I'm glad you're speaking out about it, as painful as it is I mean, it's just been over a year, um, but I just don't think that people understand how complicated Our children's lives, especially teenagers, are these days, and we face more than ever now these table things happening. How was mom and stepfather handling it? 

20:27 - Collin (Host)
Well, it's, the pain I feel is probably not even remotely close to the pain that my daughter is going through. She's been through through so, so much. In 2017, it was her ex husband the children's father, died in an automobile accident and my grandson, who my daughter and I had been estranged for a while. I hadn't seen my granddaughter since she was like two and a half three years old, something like that. My grandson, after divorce, was living with his father in Florida and my granddaughter was in New Hampshire with my daughter and Her father was killed in an automobile accident. 

21:14
My grandson was in the accident and nearly nearly died. He's doing great now. He his front was totally gashed open and his internal organs were exposed Several broken bones. He was in the hospital for a, in a coma for Well, in the hospital for months, in a coma for several days, and so you know my daughter had been through that and you know this poor, this poor kid, has been through so much. It's, it's uh. I I don't know how she does it. I don't have no clue how, how she's pulled through it's. It's been horrific, being that you're a grandfather. 

22:04 - David (Host)
Morning, the loss of his granddaughter. What would you say to any Child out there right now that could be thinking of contemplating suicide? 

22:13 - Collin (Host)
Well, going back, to QPR Is that there's one thing that anyone who's ever thought of suicide All have in common is that, for whatever reason, they feel that there is no hope, if there's no hope at all you know, maybe I'll say a star football player in high school, miss scoring the winning goal or whatever you know and he just, he just feels that was life-crushing. There's nothing he can do about it. There's no hope in life, because that's what a lot of these kids are like now. You know, they're just so. You can do it, you can do it, and if they can't do it for some reason, they don't know how to cope. 

22:50
When I was, when I was young, I grew up in a home that Well, let's just say, it wasn't easy and I truly didn't feel like, like I was loved. And so what I would say to young people today? You know, if you're in a situation where you feel there is no hope, or you feel that there's no love in your life, if you feel you can't talk to somebody at home, find someone to talk to. And I'm not talking about the friends at school who say, yeah, man, yeah, I almost did that. Once. You know something like that, go somewhere, go to a church, go to a synagogue, go to a mosque, go to a youth center, go somewhere where you can find somebody who is responsible, who you can talk to, who can tell you that there is hope. Love and hope still exist in this world, no matter what's been going on for these past few years and all the hate that we've seen, all the turmoil that we've seen and the war and the uprisings that we've seen for these last few years. Love and hope exist. It's still there. You just have to find it. And you know what. It's not really all that tough to find, but people are still there. But put forth the effort, put forth some stock in yourself and know that you are worthy of love, know that there is hope beyond what you're going through. That touchdown doesn't matter. That see on a report card instead of an a doesn't matter. It's you that matters. You are of great worth. 

24:32
You know a lot of people Say to themselves you know they. They identify themselves with what they do in life. Like you know, when I was younger, I am a bull rider. When I was flying airplanes yeah, I'm a pilot, that's right. Yeah, I've liked jets, I am a pilot. But you know what? Those are things that we do. Playing football, that's something that a person does. It's not who you are is. Who we truly are is we're the son or daughter of someone, brother, a sister is someone, the cousin of someone, grandchild of someone, and you know older people. You're a parent or a grandparent and an uncle. Those are all the things that you are, not the things that you do. Those do not define you. 

25:24 - David (Host)
What are you doing now? I know you're here with me today, but what are you doing now to continue your granddaughter's memory and to honor her legacy? 

25:33 - Collin (Host)
Well, I've, uh, I've got a website that I kind of kicked myself in the backside because I haven't been doing things much with this, more of just, you know, kind of a memory for and of her and a little, a little um, some information on there as to where you can go and all this very, very, very, very, very, very important. There's no longer a toll free 800 number for suicide prevention online. It's very simple. If you need help, if you're in crisis mode, all you have to do is call or text nine eight, eight. You know everybody's known about 911 for several years, but now there's nine eight eight, nine eight, eight and if I had if I haven't told you that number yet, it is nine eight eight Is the crisis hotline number. If you need to talk to somebody and you don't know who to talk, to call nine eight eight. I've got likes. 

26:35
I started to talk about the, the website, and it's basically two, two, two websites that you know are mirroring each other. That I was thinking, you know, trying to find a good url for them, but I looked for, uh, stopsuicideorg, comnet. They were all taken and all taken. Then you need a little drop down menus. Here's your different options. There was stop suicide suicidelife. I thought very appropriate. So I have stop to stop suicide dot life and stop teen suicide dot life. 

27:16
There's a an essay that I wrote. It's on the front page and a video of her with us in Hawaii in our hotel room After we had just gotten back from the room from a from a luau and the fun that we had. And then, second page, there's video of me that right after I got off the phone of hearing the news, I came into my my sound booth and turned on my webcam and I just, I just thought that if people could see someone who had just gotten the news and all the pain that they feel at that raw pain could hopefully touch somebody and prevent them from doing something that hurt their family. My wife has, you know, just heard a little piece of it. She can't bear to listen to it, she says, because it's too raw, it's too painful, she says. 

28:10
And so I'm just trying to put together a public speaking presentation that I can get out and do some public speaking on, because when I, when I stopped riding bulls, I started to announce rodeos and one thing I discovered is I love being behind the microphone. You know most people. It's like public speaking. It's uh, uh, no, uh. I'd rather eat raw snails with nails in them. But me, you put a microphone in front of me and a coliseum full of people. We're going to have us some fun. 

28:55
But when I found that love of public presentation, I thought you know what, there's got to be something more that I can do with with this gift that I've been blessed with throughout a big portion of my life. I always thought what is it? Can I do that? I can, that can do something that's meaningful, and I truly feel that I've been preserved throughout this life to do something like that. 

29:19
And when I was a small child, I was on a picnic with my family at Lake Manawa, iowa, and I was out in the water and I got caught in this whirlpool, kept going around and around. I couldn't kick myself out, I couldn't get out of the water, you know, and I was so close to drowning that you know I I kind of understood what death was and I thought, you know that that that's that was going to happen to me. And just at the last second, somebody reached in and grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the water. Talk we talked for just a few seconds and I can't remember what was said. And he, he goes off to wherever he was and I go back to my family and I told my mother about it. There's nothing like that in Lake Manawa, okay, so I go over to the picnic area next to us where I saw this man walked into and I didn't see him. I described him to people and nobody knew on earth who. Nobody knew who he was. 

30:14
And as a young man, I was starting to cross the road country highway to go to a convenience store and just as I was stepping out on the highway, somebody yelled at me get back in a car. I mean missed me by just six inches or so. I could feel the wind up, the car going by me at 60, 70 miles an hour. And there's been a couple of other things, things you know like that that I truly believe that if there would not have been some intervention that day, I would have died. And so I felt that I've been saved for a reason. 

30:50
And just in the first few seconds of that phone call on June 10th of last year, I made all that pain. All I was wailing and screaming and crying, and my wife is a social worker and she was working from home. That day she was on a video call with a client. She came running out and she said at first she thought I was in my sound booth, you know, doing a character voice with really loud stuff. And so she came running out. But in the first few seconds of that call it just came to me says this is what you're supposed to do. 

31:33 - David (Host)
Well, you know, sometimes from the greatest pain comes some of the biggest triumphs. This is why I do what I do. I did YouTube for 13 plus years. Like you, I love being behind the microphone, I love helping people, and when that was over, I was like what is it that I can do with this gift that I was given? Everybody was helping me. You have this great voice. You should be on the radio. 

31:55
I try that for years, and then when I started podcasting five years ago with my daughter and opened this show is when I opened this show and I added the leg of extraordinary people that I knew this is what I needed to do True crime for me. 

32:10
I always say this because it's cases that we don't know in cases that we should know and things that we should never forget. 

32:16
Right, I'm a big advocate for wrongdoing, especially in my own African American community, but there's not a lot of people willing to take that up and to come out here without being afraid to be in council and say this is what's happening in the world and this is what we need to change. 

32:31
Right, and when I have people like yourself which is why I built that I'm a survivor of domestic abuse from my from next wife and from my father, and I said how many other people out there have stories that can potentially save someone's life just because they tuned in that day? Right, you are one of the biggest reasons why that is Nobody can see you yet until I upload the video, but I see the pain, I can see the anguish, but I can also see the light in your eyes at the end of that. But now you feel like you are doing something by being here today, by doing voiceovers, by spreading this word that you are potentially and believe me, you are saving somebody's life. Somebody's going to hear this today that was thinking about committing suicide and because they heard Colin Hughes speak and the pain that he went through, they're going to think twice about that. So I think it would be here today. 

33:33 - Collin (Host)
Yeah, I told you that I searched, thought for a long time what topic I could speak about and I still haven't found that topic, but unfortunately it found me and sometimes, unfortunately, that happens in the worst way. 

33:48 - David (Host)
I lost my mom in 2020. She was the closest person to me unexpected, and I thought about throwing a microphone in, and the one thing I remembered was my mom always loved to hear me do my podcast, and my oldest daughter was going. Grandma would not want you to stop. Instead of that, do what you do in her memory, and that's what I continue to do, so I encourage you to do the same thing Whatever you do. Know that you're a granddaughter, whatever reason, whatever things happen, happen, slug it down on you and she's proud of what you're doing to help somebody else. That is in her position, that you don't even know what that position is, but it's not important to know that. It's important to know is that you're helping somebody see their life. 

34:30 - Collin (Host)
I've had three huge tragedies in my life that through each of them, you know, I found something good. My daughter's death in 2015,. She and I didn't have the best relationship until she found out that she was diagnosed with cancer and we started to grow closer together. And that brought my oldest granddaughter, who is now a senior in college graduates next May, and that brought her back into my life. And oh she's. She is fantastic. 

35:05
The accident that I told you about in 2017 with my grandson you know I told you we were, I was estranged from her, hadn't seen those children before in a while, and before this happened, a couple of days before we found out about that, my wife asked me well, what if she contacts you again and wants to get back together? And I says, honey, I can't go through that again. It's just. It's just too much emotions, too many emotions attached. There. 

35:32
Next morning I'm getting ready to go to work. I had just the first day of a four day trip. All I had was a one leg flight to Detroit and lay over in Detroit, overnight in Detroit, and I'm saying my prayers in the morning and middle of the prayers, I hear this voice coming unto me says pray for your children as my children. They don't want anything to do with me. I don't have any children. I know I became back, says pray for your children. And I mean several times. I find, okay, I'll do it. So I did Get to work, work to work the flight into into Detroit next morning, go back to Houston. I'm deep planning passengers. 

36:21
I'm walking up the jet bridge, my phone rings and it's my daughter and tells me where she's at in the hospital with my grandson I've never met and she's you know. She says that her mother couldn't come down to be with her, her sisters couldn't come down to be with her, and Asked me. She said she just needed someone there for support and I just says I'm on the next flight and I didn't take the jump. You know I didn't try to do stand by and get a free ride down there. I bought a seat just to be sure. 

36:48
When I first saw my grandson, the first time I saw this seven-year-old child, this beautiful, beautiful boy, is Align in a hospital bed, near death. But that brought my daughter, my granddaughter and my grandson back into my life and it's been great ever since, until she died and then her death I now have. It's a long story but Get that deep into it. But now I have another grandchild that I have strong communications with and and Just so, opposite my other granddaughter, this one is she holds nothing back, nothing, she's gonna talk about it. But through all this tragedy, there are still good things in life. 

37:40 - David (Host)
So one of those good things in life for you is you are now a successful voice actor. Is there any big ads that you've done that we may have heard you do on TV? 

37:50 - Collin (Host)
Oh, I'm working up there. I haven't gotten any big television spots yet. I came really close to getting the Super Bowl out here a while back. So that's. My agent got me an audition for a Super Bowl commercial and I just barely missed, and Most of the things I've been doing is character work. I've just recently updated my commercial demo. I Finally bit the bullet and I put a ton of money into using professional demo producer and it it cost me a big. Well, it didn't cost me. It was a sizable investment. And it it comes out. It came, came out great, and that's on my home page calling toxcom C-o-l-l-i-n-t-a-l-k-scom. 

38:45 - David (Host)
You can certainly appreciate that. I can, because I spent a ton of money to just in the production of the podcast and I'm a new ball writing a book right now and one of the things I touch on is I'm like dude, when we're doing podcasts and they can't see you, your voice, how it sounds, is everything. I had a burden on the background. You might as well forget it, oh yeah, this commercial demo. 

39:07 - Collin (Host)
I would just you know, in the past I'd worked some with some other voice actors who did some coaching on the side to help me put together some demos and you know they work professional demo producers. But I Was doing search online for professional demo producers and you know I looked and I looked and I came across this one that the name of it is so much fits what this guy does. His name is Chuck Durand. It's demos that rock and he made my demo rock and then about two weeks I've got a recording session set up with him to record my video game demo and my Animation demo. 

39:52 - David (Host)
Oh, wow. 

39:54 - Collin (Host)
And I'm taking my commercial demo and having video put to it, so it's yeah when I get things out there. 

40:02 - David (Host)
So how did you get into the world of voice acting? 

40:04 - Collin (Host)
Well, you know, I said I always wanted to be an actor. I remember as a child, like in the Second or third grade, something like that there was a new thing at it this time, an Amazing creation. You'll never believe what this is. It was a thing called a video camera, a home video camera that anybody can take Make movies at home or wherever they want to go. And I was in this really small school we had, I Think it was like 12 people in my class Up to the fifth grade and that. Then we're at sixth grade. We were absorbed into a larger school, but one of my classmates Was having his birthday. We every, every time somebody had a birthday in this class, we had a party, and so his mother came out and she had a video camera with her. She told us that she wanted to take some video of us. We're all standing up front. You know, at that age you take a picture. You stand still and smile and I'm up there moving my arms around and running my mouth Looking at my what are you doing? I says it's a video, it's a movie. I didn't say video, I said it's a movie. It's a movie camera, I'm acting. So then, after announcing rodeos I just really enjoyed. I'd done some commercials for some of the rodeos that I'd announced and some other things like that, some promotional things. 

41:50
What is COVID hit? I was diagnosed with renal cancer and it's all taken care of now. I've been through surgery, everything's good. But that got me started where I could no longer fly. I'd lost my FA medical certification because I had to go on some other medications during that time. And then my official retirement date age 65, that's it year no longer legal to fly for the airlines and that happened to me last year. In April was my 65th birthday. 

42:24
But during that time, after COVID started, I was at home. All this time I was just bored and I thought you know what, why not find out what I got to do? You'll get a microphone, do some voiceover stuff. I had a friend I reached out to. He says oh, you've got to call this guy TZ Collins or BZ Collins. He's a voice actor, he's done it for years and he can teach you. So I got with BZ and did some lessons with him and he's the one that did my first commercial demo. Then another lady who does some character voice and I just started investing this money like crazy. I mean $1,000. Microphone, $1,400 booth that I just got. I had a smaller one, four foot by four foot that cost me $1,200. I thought I need more room. I want to reach out. So now I'm in a six by six booth and, just you know, investing all this money into it saying, working and practicing and getting coaching and lessons. And now here I am and my next step lights, camera, action. 

43:34 - David (Host)
Well, I can totally say I know how you feel. I've been at this and I'm still. I'm just now starting to see the fruits of labor. You know, coming from that You'll get there. I've got people that I've met along the way doing this. That's not want to partner with me, some big names and once the propeller palmy, you'll be the same. I thought you was already doing big spots because I went to your website and you had a demo reel and I did hear the wrangler demo that you did and I was like saying, man, I feel like I've heard this commercial before, because in the back of my mind there was this Dodge Ram commercial that kind of sounded just like this one. I'm like man did the Dodge Ram? 

44:10 - Collin (Host)
That's the demo that Chuck did for me. This guy is amazing. You know, before you know these, if you want to call them demos, it's like, okay, here's the scripts, you know, let's practice them. And the first appointment with Chuck is he talks to you for about two hours just getting to know you. You just talk like you just just met at a game or something like that. Get, yeah, hey, yeah, I'm calling, oh, hey, glad to meet you, chuck, and we just talked, just talked about, about life. Then, towards the end of that, you know, he brings up now let's find some categories. This is clothing. What do you think would be it? What do you think would be a good thing for clothing Rangler? 

45:00
And he says what about automobiles, ram trucks, just what about Subaru? And he talked me into Subaru's. That Subaru spots on there and he says you know? He says I don't know how to ask you this because it might be too hard what about a PSA for suicide prevention? I says I'd love to do it. So you hear that on there. And then he says food. I says firehouse subs. And so that's how the conversation went. 

45:34
And then from all that, he has a lady who writes the scripts. So she writes the scripts and sends them back to you. He recommended a coach for me to get with that he's you know has had used for a lot of people. They had three coaching sessions with this gentleman preparing for the recording session. And then the recording session was less than an hour with him. I recorded all on on my studio at home and send him, send him the files and he works his magic. And then that, that, that demo that you just heard, that you listened to on there, that's from, that's my demo that rocks, from Chuck Durant of demos that rock. 

46:18 - David (Host)
Well, it certainly did that. It was. It was good I was looking for. I'm like this guy's out here already doing these things. He's doing his thing, but you keep working with him, you're definitely going to get there. I'm looking forward to hearing you. I've worked a lot of good things coming down the line, thank you. 

46:33 - Collin (Host)
Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

46:36 - David (Host)
So, in closing, colin, with everything that we've talked about today, what would you like the orders to take away from everything we talked about today? 

46:43 - Collin (Host)
Like I was saying earlier, don't give up. Life is beautiful. Love and hope exist in the world. Put yourself out there. Don't be afraid to take the leap, no matter what you're going through. There's something better, and better than those negative things that you're feeling. Okay, here's a great way to end it On the words of someone who almost well everybody in the United States probably knows the man anyway. Michael Jordan says that his success came about because of failure. You can't learn how to succeed if you haven't failed and continued to push forward. Failure creates success. Don't give up. 

47:40 - David (Host)
Well, colin, I certainly think you've come on the show today. This has been very enlightening conversation, heartbreaking at times. You're doing God's work out there. Just keep doing what you're doing. Anytime that you will want to come back here on the show, you always have a open invitation, and I offer you good luck into your future endeavors down the road. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. 

48:05
All right guys, that was the incredible Colin Hughes. You can learn everything you need to know about him on my website. Also, go to collintalkscom. All of the websites that you heard listed today will be listed in the show notes along with that 988 number. If you are thinking about suicide or know someone, that is three letters or three numbers 988, text or call can get you some help. All right, guys, I hope you're being safe out there. I know you have many options for true crime and interview podcasts. I'm grateful that you have chosen me. I hope you're being good to yourself and to each other and always remember, always stay humbled. An act of kindness can make someone's day. A little love and compassion can go a long way, and remember that there is an extraordinary person in all of us. I'll catch you, guys on the next one. 

49:06 - Jaquie (Announcement)
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