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What would you do if you’d been given three hearts and a second chance at life—twice? For Simon Keith, former pro soccer player and one of the world’s only double heart transplant survivors, the answer is clear: stop waiting, start living. In this episode, Simon shares his incredible journey from facing a life-threatening heart condition in his early 20s to returning to the field as the first athlete to play professional soccer with a transplanted heart. His story is one of grit, resilience, and defying impossible odds.

Simon opens up about the relentless drive that carried him through years of surgeries, recoveries, and unyielding media attention, and what it means to make every day count. From managing his health to building a legacy, Simon talks about the urgency that fuels his life and the lessons he’s learned about prioritizing time, well-being, and relationships. His approach to life after facing mortality twice is both humbling and empowering.

Get ready to be inspired as Simon shares practical advice on creating a life that reflects what truly matters. This conversation will push you to stop holding back, re-evaluate your own priorities, and seize the opportunities waiting in front of you.

No Grey Areas is a motivational podcast with captivating guests centered around how our choices humanize, empower, and define who we become. This podcast is inspired by the cautionary tale, No Grey Areas, written by Joseph Gagliano. Learn more about the truth behind his story involved with sports' biggest scandal at https://www.nogreyareas.com/

Speaker 1

On today's episode of the No Gray Areas podcast, we welcome Simon Keith, world class soccer athlete who survived two heart transplants. We discuss what it means to create a lasting legacy, how to present the best version of yourself and his remarkable story that will leave you speechless. Let's dive in.

Pat McCalla

Simon, Keith's, so good to have you on the No Gray Areas podcast.

Pat McCalla

The audience, they just got a little snippet on the beginning

Simon Keith

Yeah, a little

Pat McCalla

bit about your story. I just want the audience to think, though, for a moment. It's something we take for granted every single day.

Pat McCalla

Pat McCalla

That means they beat about 100,000 times a day. We never really think about that. I bet you do now,

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

because here we go.

Pat McCalla

you're on your third heart.

Simon Keith

I yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Okay. Run with that. What in.

Simon Keith

The world?

Simon Keith

Okay?

Simon Keith

Yeah, I was 21. 21. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right.

Simon Keith

Run from there.

Simon Keith

So, yeah. Total. You know, I'll say it humbly. I was a world class athlete playing soccer, playing professionally in the UK and the top divisions of England. And, answered a call one day from a guy in Canada, the head coach of the Canadian World Cup team. He said, Simon, we've been scouting you. You look like a good player.

Simon Keith

Pat McCalla

Oh, yeah. Well, it's probably the dream of most staff because, I mean, soccer's worldwide, just one of the most popular sports worldwide. So there's probably more young people that dream of playing at the World Cup, level than any other

Simon Keith

sport.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. The most popular sport on the planet. The World Cup finals, watched by half the people on the planet like it dwarfs some of the other sports that we may know anyways.

Simon Keith

And, Americans are starting to watch.

Simon Keith

And it's getting crazy.

Simon Keith

Soccer is on fire in North America is on fire on North America. Yeah.

Simon Keith

So so

Pat McCalla

you're the, you're you're a world class athlete at that time.

Simon Keith

Yeah, I was I was I was fit and strong. And you know, I was the youngest of three boys and my dad was a very good soccer guy, good player, good coach. Turned down Chelsea at some point when he was younger.

Simon Keith

So, you know, my my oldest brother was part of the Olympic program. My, my next brother, older than me.

Simon Keith

His name's Adam. Adam was 13 months older than me and was an absolute phenom. And, you know, at sort of 15, 16 years old, Adam was one of the best players in Canada, men included. He was that dominant. And so yes, I.

Simon Keith

Was

Pat McCalla

then, too, because you have two older brothers who are at that high level of soccer, and I know I had a younger brother. Older brothers can be kind of brutal to the younger brother. So I'm sure you were tough

Simon Keith

Well, I, I think I got tough. I was the, I was the runt of the litter. Forgotten child. Small, quiet in the shadows. Oh, yeah. Just burn it. Burning up inside every minute of every day. Like somebody pay attention to me. And it didn't really happen til I left. Till I left, you know, went to England. Yeah,

Pat McCalla

Wow. So what position did you

Simon Keith

I played center forward.

Simon Keith

Okay.

Simon Keith

So I came back from, from the UK and joined the, the Canadian program. And, what I learned over the UK is that, everybody was fast, everybody was strong, everybody was fit, everybody was skillful, everyone was smart. And the difference between being an amateur player and a professional player is from the neck up and the and it really was.

Simon Keith

What are you willing to do to what are you willing to do? Are you willing to step on a guy's neck? And so I learned this over in the UK too how to be a pro, lessons, you know, tough lessons, scrapping, you know, tough. So when I came back to Canada, for some reason, this was leaving my body, this ability to step on people's necks, and it didn't make sense.

Simon Keith

So anyways, long story short, I got very sick. And eventually was.

Pat McCalla

was it

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

Yeah,

Simon Keith

yeah.

Simon Keith

later. Yeah.

Simon Keith

Yeah. No, it was like, like a water torture. It was just drip, drip, drip. And I you're an athlete, right? You just think you're going to run through it. You're going to just just gut just grit it out. And, I spent the better part of a year in and out of hospitals and my it would be, you know, in the hospital for a couple days back training with the, you know, at the high level with the national team playing competitive games the next day, back in the hospital.

Simon Keith

And like this yo yo existence just fighting, man. Just fighting. And, it was a fight that I just used. My body wouldn't let me win.

Pat McCalla

telling you at the time? Like, was there because your your hands were really white, right? Like your fingers. I remember seeing

Simon Keith

seeing that.

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

know, sometimes doctors be like, all right, he's tired, you know, but you have some other indicators where they giving you any advice.

Simon Keith

Well, we had it all. Well, I mean, we me, I remember me and my pops sat in front of this, psychologist and said he's too stressed and he needs to slow down. And we were look at each other like, what a bunch of crap this is. But we did everything. I went to the cancer clinic. I had, you know, treatments for that.

Simon Keith

I had, you know, it was just it was just, it was just a crapshoot. It was just guessing for a long time until. Until they narrowed it down to. Something's going on with the ticker. And, I was eventually diagnosed with, with something called cardiomyopathy, which is really just inflammation of the heart muscle. And it was due to a virus.

Simon Keith

So it was just luck of the draw.

Pat McCalla

just had a virus and it went to your heart. And and

Pat McCalla

what was the indicator on the heart though? I mean, I'm assuming when you go in, you know, they always take your blood pressure and heart rate in that. So that must have been somewhat normal for you

Pat McCalla

that they're not finding it right

Simon Keith

Yeah. Eventually. Eventually did. They did what's called a heart biopsy biopsy. And the heart biopsy is, they they slice a bit of your neck open here, and they run a plastic tube down your vein, and then they run a big wire with some clippers on the end. And, you're still awake, by the way, watching this, I've had about 300 of these.

Simon Keith

Anyways. Super, super fun way to spend a Tuesday morning. Yeah, yeah yeah. This whole that now. Anyways they jam this thing down your down into your heart

Simon Keith

and they grab a piece of the heart muscle from the inside. They pull it out, look at it microscopically and they can tell if it's inflamed and what the problems are.

Simon Keith

So they grab a piece of your heart muscle while you're awake and pull it out.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah. The medical term is they yank it.

Simon Keith

It's, It's a you can feel it. Oh, yeah. It's a yank. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah.

Pat McCalla

So they do that. You're 21

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

And now I'm 20. 20. Yeah.

Pat McCalla

now you're sitting down

Pat McCalla

and they're telling you, you have a serious heart

Simon Keith

Simon Keith

And it didn't matter what my dad said. So doctor comes out, says, looks me right in the eye and says, listen, we we absolutely know what you have now. You have, cardiomyopathy. You need a heart transplant and you need it now, or you'll be dead in six months.

Pat McCalla

What in the world does it? How does, I mean, that's hard for any human to process, but 20, 20 years old.

Simon Keith

21. Yeah, 20 at the time. Yeah, yeah.

Pat McCalla

what was the first thing that went through your mind?

Simon Keith

You remember. Yeah I do, I do, I do

Simon Keith

a bit like the movies. I mean, I sort of left my body for about an hour, sort of in this fog. In this haze.

Simon Keith

Didn't really say much.

Simon Keith

Was really happening.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been. You know, the the word sort of heart transplant had floated around in the rooms,

Simon Keith

but it wasn't really a real thing. It was more like this long way off science fiction. I'll never get there sort of thing. And now it is staring me in the face. But then after about an hour,

Simon Keith

I think being the third youngest son and being from a competitive household really helped me because I just got in pissed off and I was like, okay, how do I get it?

Simon Keith

What's the quickest I can get it so that I can return to my life and move along?

Simon Keith

Yeah,

Pat McCalla

that's fascinating. So it takes you about an hour

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

from this,

Pat McCalla

haze of like, is this really happening to like. All right, I'm all in. I'm fighting this thing.

Simon Keith

That's right.

Simon Keith

In this.

Simon Keith

Thing. Yeah.

Pat McCalla

the competitive spirit, obviously if you're a world class athlete, you have to have it right. But then your family, you're saying you got these two older brothers.

Pat McCalla

So where do you go from there? Then you're like, all right, we're we're fighting this thing.

Simon Keith

Simon Keith

And go do all the tests again. Right. Because now they gotta do the evaluation. So they do all the physical tests and the X-rays and the this and the another biopsy and cycle.

Simon Keith

And a piece of that.

Simon Keith

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. The whole thing.

Simon Keith

I guess the medical term.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah. The yank and, the psychologist. Right. Who's who? I just failed miserably because I'm just looking at her like I'm not blinking, lady. So just get me the heart.

Simon Keith

I'm here. I remember that

Pat McCalla

E60 interview with you where you said if you could go back again, you would. Because.

Pat McCalla

they didn't take it serious, like,

Pat McCalla

or from their perspective, it wasn't that serious for you because you were in such a the fighting mood. Right.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah. I sealed my own fate when I got on. You know, they do the treadmill test and many people have had the treadmill test, right?

Simon Keith

You were going to prove that you.

Simon Keith

Simon Keith

so.

Simon Keith

Correct. So we had to we had tubes around us so we couldn't get the oxygen. And and then those spikes. So I knew this test and I knew how to how to do it. I jumped on that thing and I gave it everything I got. And after 35 minutes and running seven miles, I collapsed.

Simon Keith

And the doctor walked in and said, I don't know who sent you here.

Simon Keith

I've never seen anybody do what you've just done, ever. You don't need a heart transplant. Go home, go home.

Pat McCalla

wow. So what happens after that? And so you're in Canada and they're telling you you're not getting a heart. You don't need

Simon Keith

They said actually, what the the the the advice they gave me was go home, get sicker and then come back.

Pat McCalla

Yeah. Get sicker and come back.

Simon Keith

Right.

Pat McCalla

So,

Pat McCalla

what was your response? What was your family's response to that?

Simon Keith

Well, you figured out already our family. So when we have big family decisions, we we used to sit around the kitchen table and we would chat about what our options were. And, very quickly we figured out we're not going to do what they said. We're not going to sit around and get sicker and go back. So we just started to get on the phone and figure out where we could go.

Simon Keith

It turned out we could go to, you know, I was born in England, so we we went back to England in search of, a solution outside of transplantation. And once I got there, I had actually made a decision about about the medication that I was on, and, I was pretty juiced up on some medication that kept me sort of alive.

Simon Keith

And

Simon Keith

I was. You could do.

Simon Keith

Correct, correct, correct.

Simon Keith

I mean, I was jacked up on, you know, on corticosteroids. Just I was just jacked up. And so I made the very private, risky decision inside my bedroom that I was not going to take any more medicine.

Pat McCalla

personal decision. That wasn't even a family discussion. That

Simon Keith

Nobody knew. And, and I went to England. I fell off the cliff.

Pat McCalla

you'd you started regressing fast.

Simon Keith

Big, big.

Pat McCalla

like as in weeks. Days.

Simon Keith

It was pretty bad. I mean, I,

Simon Keith

I'm not one to exaggerate, but I will tell you that, we got to England in early May and, between sort of May 5th and the date that I got the transplant, which was July 7th. So about two months, I lost 35% of my body weight. I ended up in hospital for the last month.

Simon Keith

I didn't eat the last month. I was being, you know, fed through a tube, unconscious. Most of the time. And, Yeah, it's it sucks.

Pat McCalla

So let me

Simon Keith

because I want to. Yeah,

Pat McCalla

Pat McCalla

What is your heart not doing that's, making you regress so

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

So, yeah.

Pat McCalla

audience.

Pat McCalla

It's something that we just take for granted, like, I don't I don't wake up and go, okay, heartbeat

Simon Keith

No. Yeah.

Simon Keith

Yeah, obviously I'm

Simon Keith

about it.

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

it's a.

Simon Keith

Yeah, it's an amazing organ, by the way. It's the it's the the core of the of the human body for a reason. So what happens in healthy hearts is, when when you, when your heart beats, the left ventricle fills up with blood. Okay. And so when it fills up with blood, there's this thing called the ejection fraction.

Simon Keith

And that is the amount of blood that's squeezed out of the left ventricle to your body. That's the pumping. That's the heartbeat. That's the pumping. And so in healthy humans it's 75% anywhere from 55 to 75% of that blood that goes into the left ventricle gets pumped out every, every beat. Right. And that's what keeps your fingers warm and your toes warm and you know, your oxygen to your brain.

Simon Keith

Yeah. So

Simon Keith

once you once you dip below 20% of that ejection fraction, then you become start to become very critical. And if you're get below ten, you you absolutely need a new heart like today. Yeah.

Simon Keith

I was in that zone you were in for a long time.

Pat McCalla

was your family. If you were dropping or regressing that quickly, were they getting a little nervous or were they trying to encourage you to go back on these things that you were taking?

Simon Keith

Well, I got to a point, of course, when once we got to England, you know, my mom and dad were still really young kid, right? Even at 21, you're still a young kid. And my mom and dad sort of stopped their life in the community, helped us, and we all went over and, they they did they there was arguments about about it, and, and I just was steadfast in I'm going to do this my way.

Pat McCalla

Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Keith

I'm not going to get turned down again because I'm jacked up.

Simon Keith

That's what it

Simon Keith

Correct. And they did and they did. Yeah. Yeah.

Pat McCalla

So what was what was this back in 19. Did you say 86.

Simon Keith

86?

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah.

Simon Keith

Simon Keith

Pat McCalla

So if this if you if this were to happen to you three years earlier,

Simon Keith

No one.

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

Yeah. Pretty slim. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that was a tipping point. Okay, so I get to 86 and I'm over there, and, the guy who let me in his program was Doctor Terence English, who is now Sir Terence English, has been knighted for his work. Incredible guy.

Simon Keith

And so, Sir Terence said, listen, we're gonna we're gonna we're going to he actually gave me a pager.

Simon Keith

Now, I know you're old enough to know what pager is not everybody is cool when I got. Yeah. So the girls are going to have to put a graphic of of what a pager is, but he gives us this pager and he says, when this thing goes off, you're gonna that we've got your donor heart.

Simon Keith

Oh, so you go home with this pager?

Simon Keith

Of course I go home and immediately in the hospital. But my, you know, my pops is looking at this pager every minute of every day, and my mom's saying, check the batteries. Check the batteries. Yeah. You know, you've been to Applebee's, you know, and you and you get the little thing and you go outside and wait, and then your partner says,

Simon Keith

get

Simon Keith

back in there.

Simon Keith

Just make sure this thing's working. It's been four minutes.

Pat McCalla

Well, again, for listeners who are too young to know what a pager is, I remember how exciting it was when it would go off. You know, like, okay, I can't imagine

Pat McCalla

the excitement you must have felt

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

Well, yes, I, I was wholly unaware of it because I was so far out of it.

Simon Keith

Oh, yeah.

Simon Keith

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.

Simon Keith

Was

Simon Keith

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Pat McCalla

man. That had to be so difficult for your parents. Like you're barely alive.

Simon Keith

Yeah. My parents watched their young, athletic son wither away and essentially die. It's brutal.

Simon Keith

Brutal,

Pat McCalla

wasn't it. I didn't I didn't pick this up, especially from the E60 interview, how bad it was for you. Because that's what what the audience is going to hear in a moment is that you come back and you end up becoming a professional athlete again, which is I didn't realize how far gone you were before this.

Pat McCalla

So I'm getting ahead of the story here.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah.

Simon Keith

Jump back again.

Pat McCalla

So

Pat McCalla

you find out they have a heart for you

Simon Keith

Correct. So I'm, I'm actually in this on the, in the south, east side of London. And the hospital is just outside Cambridge. And so in on a, on a Monday in the middle of rush hour, I've got to be loaded into an ambulance and transported to Cambridge, and I need to be there in like two hours, which it usually takes six hours through rush hour.

Simon Keith

And so, so an amazing system in England is that the police from each county hands you off and lights and sirens until the next, and then the next county picks you up until the and the. So they do this, they do this relay. Yeah.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah. Your new heart. Yeah, yeah.

Simon Keith

Are you still so out of.

Simon Keith

I'm out of it I'm out of it.

Simon Keith

Do you even.

Simon Keith

Remember. No, no I mean I remember the fight. Yeah I remember the fight.

Simon Keith

that's okay ESPN. We gotta keep it PG, right?

Simon Keith

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Simon Keith

Yeah. Tough on my folks. Of course. Yeah.

Simon Keith

Oh my goodness I can't imagine. Yeah.

Simon Keith

Well, there's one thing worse. Having your kids watch you die, which is what happened five years ago. We may get to that. Yeah, yeah,

Pat McCalla

can we jump forward a little bit in the story?

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

The guy that gives you the heart, what was crazy to me when I heard your story was, you get this heart, and, you're you move on with your life and didn't never really connected with this.

Pat McCalla

Didn't know really anything about where it came from, the heart or who it was. So can you jump forward in the story

Pat McCalla

then we're going to come back to where we're at

Simon Keith

now.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah.

Simon Keith

Yeah, I took a lot

Simon Keith

from that, from that ESPN piece for coming off as, you know, just brutally unfeeling and cavalier and

Simon Keith

Yes, I was I was very determined to look forward and not look backward. But,

Simon Keith

Simon Keith

It was the ultimate respect not to go seek them out.

Pat McCalla

people were telling you that's not your place to go find

Simon Keith

them.

Simon Keith

One person told me, it's not my place. And now we're Sir Terence English. And what he says I do. He says, that's it. That's it's your heart now. You can't carry on. You don't look back. It's over.

Pat McCalla

That is good to know because some of our audience is going to go dig up the E60 piece. And when I watched it I kind of felt that way a little

Simon Keith

Yeah. Look at this

Simon Keith

Yeah,

Pat McCalla

kind of felt that way.

Pat McCalla

But that makes a lot of sense when you, when you share that, that you were told you just need to move on like it's not your place to go. And the guy that told you that is one of the most well respected

Pat McCalla

heart transplant doctors.

Pat McCalla

In the world.

Simon Keith

That's right. But

Simon Keith

I also didn't want to know. So I you can you can still sort of pay me with that sort of

Simon Keith

ish brush. I didn't want to know. And the reason I didn't want to know is because, as I said in that in that piece, it was absolutely counterproductive to my goals.

Pat McCalla

it's clear just sitting here and getting to know you this I mean, I read your book and I, and I, and I watch that piece that clearly comes out in there, but just the 30 minutes or so that we've connected here today, it's clear that you have that athletic, competitive driver. I don't care what Mount in front of me, I'll find a way over it, through it, around it, under it.

Pat McCalla

I'm doing it somehow.

Simon Keith

yeah. Clear that that's thank you. Your personality.

Simon Keith

Your drive. Thank you. I think.

Simon Keith

No no no I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

Simon Keith

like that in the world.

Simon Keith

That's right. Yeah.

Pat McCalla

we need people like that. So. And

Pat McCalla

I have respect for people like that and respect for people like yourself.

Pat McCalla

But that's where you're saying that's one of the reasons. So that even if your doctor had said, don't go find them, you probably wouldn't have because you're like, I just I had to move on and go after my goals.

Simon Keith

Yeah, I don't yeah, I don't know. I mean, it wasn't really a question I asked myself, you know,

Simon Keith

he told me, he told me, he said, this is yours. Don't look back. Move forward. I said, okay, you're you're the guy, man. I'm doing what you tell me to do. Yeah.

Pat McCalla

How old was the kid?

Simon Keith

17.

Simon Keith

So, 17 year old kid.

Simon Keith

I was 21. Yeah, yeah,

Simon Keith

25.

Simon Keith

Well, I had made a pledge after my after I returned to play professional soccer. And it was a it was terrible. It was it was hard. I made a decision when I retired. I would never, ever, ever speak about my transplant again. Ever, ever.

Simon Keith

Did you retire? That became your story.

Simon Keith

Exhausted. I was the hard guy. I was a hard guy. I was okay,

Simon Keith

and so, even for even for Cavalier me, 25 years, I mean, heart transplants. The data shows that they last ten, maybe 12 years on average. So even for for a guy like me, 20, 25, yeah, 25 years comes on the horizon. I'm like, okay.

Simon Keith

So I decided to write the book and I got a ghost writer guy named Jason Cole. Great, great guy, NFL beat writer, and super guy. Anyways, Jason says to me, listen, there's only one way we can end this book. And I said, what is it? He says, you got to go meet the family. And I said to him, I'll go if you find him, I'll go meet him.

Simon Keith

And he called me. One day he says, we're going to we're going to Wales. Yeah, yeah.

Pat McCalla

You know, I do remember that, though. You got tired of being called the heart guy, so I didn't know you well enough. But I was going to open this podcast by

Simon Keith

saying so.

Simon Keith

This is reached across the

Simon Keith

table. Yeah, yeah. No

Pat McCalla

But

Pat McCalla

yeah. So,

Pat McCalla

what was that like then when you, when you walked in the room with this, were actually you were in the room,

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah.

Simon Keith

way.

Simon Keith

That's right. Yeah.

Simon Keith

Well, I think I think now looking back on it, I have a different perspective, but I think the, you know, in the moment, it was, it was exciting. It was nerve wracking. It was weird. You feel you feel guilt, but it's not really guilt because you haven't done anything. You've, of course, feel gratitude, but that's not a big enough word.

Simon Keith

You know, I, I, you know, I wanted him to be proud of me, you know, much like you're you like it like you're like, he's a father. You know, a father figure. Like, I want you to be proud of all that.

Simon Keith

not I've accomplished, but we've accomplished together. So there's a whole batch of feelings is it's a very still to this day.

Simon Keith

Not just with me and Roger, but but any between any organ recipient and a family whose loved one has passed away and donated. It's a very complicated

Simon Keith

relationship. Yeah. Very complicated.

Pat McCalla

yeah. I mean, I'm just trying to put my, my, myself in the place. Like, if I had lost one of my kids and you were sitting here and you, it was their heart that you were caring. I'm trying to impart, but I can't. It's just

Simon Keith

hope you never have to. Yeah, yeah.

Pat McCalla

but in some ways. And I don't know if they, I don't know what they shared with you. You can share that in a moment. Maybe. But, in some ways I would think I'm just imagining. But I would think that it would be like, well, you know, I lost a child and, especially if enough time had gone by and I'm glad that there was a piece of them that helped someone else live their life.

Simon Keith

Well, yes. So in the sense since the day that I got back from from Wales and that fateful meeting with my donor family, I changed everything about my life and I became an expert in organ donation and transportation systems around the world. I am a world expert in this stuff, and I have met tens of thousands of donor families who's lost, lost their loved ones, and every single one of them say the same thing.

Simon Keith

It's terrible. I miss my son, my daughter, my husband, my wife, whatever. But I'm glad I had the courage to say yes. It's the only single silver lining that came out of it.

Pat McCalla

Well, I was thinking about when I was driving here because one of my questions and I'll ask you now we've queued it up pretty well right now, as I know that's something that you're a huge advocate for and right on your website. You actually advocate for that. Hey, if you want to be an organ donor, here's how, you can you can do that.

Pat McCalla

You have

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

they can click on.

Pat McCalla

I was thinking about that driving here and I'm like, gosh, it's kind of crazy that I wouldn't have that because I don't whatever. When I die, whenever that is, I don't need my organs anymore. So for me to say, if you can use these to give someone else life, I wouldn't.

Pat McCalla

I do that.

Simon Keith

Well, I think it's an individual decision. I think that, and so I don't and of course, I advocate for people to say, yes, I actually advocate more for people just to make a decision, because what is worse, a terrible situation is when a loved one dies and the family sitting there in that room at the hospital and someone asks them the question and they don't know the answer, that sucks.

Simon Keith

That sucks.

Pat McCalla

So that's important. I don't want our audience to miss that. You're saying a really important decision to make. Is it? Make your answer maybe. No, I don't want to be an organ donor, but make the decision

Simon Keith

Just make the decision so your loved one doesn't have to for you and makes the wrong decision. Yeah,

Pat McCalla

So I'm going

Simon Keith

to drop.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah. I mean I got a couple websites, but the best one is Simon Keith, Dot com. It's easy. You can navigate from there, get you the foundation page, get you the other stuff. Yeah.

Simon Keith

Yeah. You'll see my big beautiful face come up. So yeah. Yeah that's worth it just to do that. Yeah.

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

So.

Simon Keith

Yeah yeah.

Pat McCalla

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

So did they say anything to the family? Say anything to you that's memorable? When you met them that first time?

Simon Keith

yeah. So, in many of these cases, in many cases, when families lose a child, that, that event tears a family apart. And this family was no different. And, so I only met, my mom. I can call him. I can tell you. His name's John Edward Groves, and I met John's dad, Roger, and that's the only family member they met.

Simon Keith

And Roger was, kind and generous. And, you know, the grandfather and every hallmark movie you've ever seen. And get a beautiful English word about him. And probably the the most poignant moment was me standing beside him at his son's gravesite and just having a quiet moment together. And what what what resonated throughout my, throughout my mind in that whole day was how do you say thank you to someone who gave you everything?

Simon Keith

Everything, everything,

Simon Keith

everything. And this man and his wife that at the time made a very difficult decision at a time of horrific tragedy. They lost their son and they had the courage to say yes to organ donation at a time when organ donation wasn't talked about or really known about or. And so, you know, how do you say thank you?

Simon Keith

How I hadn't had my two of my children there. I had my wife. They're, they're responsible for all of that. Everything. And, and I know what the answer is.

Simon Keith

Don't waste a

Simon Keith

minute. Don't waste a minute.

Simon Keith

To say thank you.

Simon Keith

So you say thank you. Yeah. Don't waste a minute. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

Pat McCalla

I mean that's the that's the line of the podcast. That's a mic drop right there. You know, how do you say thank you to someone who gave you everything?

Pat McCalla

But I love that you that you've thought through the answer. Yeah,

Pat McCalla

So you come back now I'm backing up in the

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

when I woke up from the transplant, it was very it was, it was like a mini epiphany. I was alive again and I could feel my hands and feet for the first time in over a year. And as I sat in that bed, I just just the competitiveness just

Simon Keith

burned inside me.

Simon Keith

And it was a blazing inferno.

Pat McCalla

got a good heart then.

Simon Keith

I got a good heart. I definitely got a good heart.

Simon Keith

And so now I had to. Now I had to, to travel down a path that I was naive about. And everybody around me didn't want me to do it. And again, my manager, Terrence, gave me the line that I've lived my whole life by. And he said, Simon, heart transplantation for you, is to resume the life you led prior to being sick.

Simon Keith

And I don't think he really knew who he said it to. Yeah, but I took him very literally. And for the for until today. I still live by that credo. That's it. Man. I'm not trying to be something I'm not. I'm living the life that was. I was destined to live. Yeah, yeah,

Pat McCalla

yeah.

Pat McCalla

you didn't go change who you were. You just went back to the Simon that so that drive that competitiveness,

Pat McCalla

all the things that you were before your heart was started giving out on you, you just went back to that.

Simon Keith

Yeah. When everybody's.

Pat McCalla

But again, especially probably your loved one. I'm guessing your loved ones are, like, going, whoa, whoa, whoa, because they don't know how this is going to, you know, this.

Pat McCalla

You got this, other person's heart in your body now, like, how is that all going to

Simon Keith

And and and the pacemaker,

Simon Keith

the first of 15 pacemakers I've had in my life. So that's a new thing. And by the way, your heart transplant heart is not connected to your central nervous system, so there's no connection to your brain. So you got all this

Simon Keith

going on? Of course you got. It's cut out.

Pat McCalla

totally sense when you total sense when you say it, but I did.

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

No. Once. Once the heart. The the heart is an electric all system. And once it starts, it can keep going forever. It doesn't need continual stimulation. Okay. Yeah. It's self-governing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, you can imagine. Right. So,

Simon Keith

there's the moments when you're by yourself and you're running until you throw up and you're questioning yourself and all that stuff, but probably the biggest challenge was, you know, people, frankly, people around me, people around me, my my major, my mom.

Simon Keith

Right. Imagine my former teammates in the administrators and the coaches and the attorneys and everybody. Right? No, no, no, no.

Simon Keith

Sitting

Pat McCalla

up in the C-suite and deals with, insurance companies,

Simon Keith

Of course.

Simon Keith

I'm sure

Simon Keith

Right? Yeah.

Simon Keith

Right.

Simon Keith

that went throughout my whole career. You know, when I got back to our relative, really small town of Victoria, British Columbia, you know, 4 or 500,000 people, everybody knew the story. Everybody knew me. I couldn't I couldn't, eat a French fry without somebody sort of putting their eyebrow up or, God forbid, I went for a beer.

Simon Keith

Oh, yeah. So

Simon Keith

It was through love. But it was just so much,

Simon Keith

too much. Yeah.

Simon Keith

That's right.

Simon Keith

That's why you're getting fired.

Simon Keith

That. That's right.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah.

Pat McCalla

So how long did it take you to start feeling. You obviously had to take quite a while to get back to that athletic level that you were

Simon Keith

Yeah, it took it. I mean, I would say it took me a while. I started right away. I mean, I was, I was arguing with physical therapist after ten days, like, get out of my way, get me on the treadmill. I'm not walking up two stairs and resting. Get me out of this place. I got to go.

Simon Keith

So. But the reality is, in terms of, in terms of, really recovering, I did that under the watchful eye of my dad. And so I got back to Canada and we spent sort of the winter, training privately. And, he would get home from, from here to school teacher get home from school and after school we'd go out and he'd do a two hour session with me and just run my

Simon Keith

socks off.

Pat McCalla

and he's but he's watching closely. He's wanting to

Simon Keith

Yeah. And he's just letting the rope out a little bit more, right? All the time. And, it got to a point where,

Simon Keith

I would go to training and people would just look at me like, what? What is going on with this guy? It's. This is madness.

Pat McCalla

Yeah, yeah,

Pat McCalla

to fast forward where you actually become the first heart transplant recipient to get drafted, play professional sports?

Simon Keith

Yeah. So I got out of I got out of Canada. Not because I don't love Canada, I love Canada, but I went to Unlv. I played a couple years of my brother Adam.

Pat McCalla

position does he.

Simon Keith

Played, he played center midfield.

Simon Keith

I was right, yeah. He's still playing center.

Simon Keith

Sarah. Center forward. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. So we we it was a, you know, in theory. In theory,

Simon Keith

So, you know, that's a whole thing too, right? Like, that was the first time to be competitively, competitively, playing anywhere. And so kudos to Unlv and the athletic department.

Simon Keith

I talk about attorneys and insurance guys and athletic directors and all that. Right. And

Simon Keith

you know, you're playing in the middle of August and it's 115 degrees and you're playing at 1:00 in the afternoon.

Simon Keith

So the.

Simon Keith

Burden on the heart, a little.

Simon Keith

Curiosity and, and but so, so

Simon Keith

from a standard level. Not that it's not good, but it was a step down from me. I've been playing professionally and at the World Cup level. So it was a step down for me. But I had this complication of, you know, this new heart and a pacemaker and trying to figure out what that looks like and no connection to your nervous system and all that.

Simon Keith

So there was a whole bunch of stuff there. Anyways, I got through a couple seasons, me and Adam played together and, got invited to the All-American game, the Senior Bowl for all the All-Americans in my what's now called my senior year. And, you know, you have a combine like, like they do in all pro sports.

Simon Keith

How fast can you run? How high can you jump all that crap? And, the day before the Senior Bowl, a guy from. I didn't know anything. I was, I was Canadian, didn't know anything like this existed. So a guy comes up to me and says, hey, I'm, his name would be our Miller. I'm Al Miller and the general manager of the Cleveland franchise.

Simon Keith

We have the number one pick, and we really like you. We think you're the best player here, and we want to draft you number one tomorrow. And I'm like, okay, sounds great.

Pat McCalla

did you have a feeling that that that could happen, or was that a shock to you to hear that?

Simon Keith

I was oblivious, I was just there to play soccer. I was just having fun with

Simon Keith

one of my other teammates, Eddie Annable. He was there.

Simon Keith

To announce that

Pat McCalla

you're going to be able to play professional, but not just that to be the number one

Simon Keith

pick.

Simon Keith

Yeah. And but then he says, but then he says, but I understand you have had some sort of heart thing.

Simon Keith

How did you explain that.

Simon Keith

And and so

Simon Keith

I had grown weary of explaining it as you can imagine. And I looked him dead in the eyes and I said, yup. And he said, can you tell me what it is? I said, sure, I had won out, had won in, and I walked away. That was it. That was it. He tells a story later.

Simon Keith

He's still he's still around. He's still he's still in Florida and retired and involved with soccer. He said at that moment he knew I was going to draft you, he says. I knew I was going to draft you number one. Then later in the day, he comes back to me. Of course not. Yeah, yeah.

Simon Keith

That's the kind of person you.

Simon Keith

Want, I, I guess, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he comes back to me and he says, listen, we, we, we think we are going to pick you. Number one, we'd like you to try and do well tonight in the All-Star game. And, if you could win the MVP, that'd be great. And so in my life, of course, I

Simon Keith

play well, I win the MVP, and the next day I get drafted number one overall in the country.

Simon Keith

Exactly three years to the day after my transplant.

Simon Keith

Big deal. Did it

Pat McCalla

did it matter to you that because you hate being the heart guy at that time, were people talking about the first heart transplant recipient to ever play professional sports? Was that that being thrown around at the time?

Simon Keith

not when I first got drafted. And I was at that at that All-Star classic. Not not then. Almost immediately after. Yeah.

Simon Keith

I mean, it was big guys, right?

Simon Keith

Still bother you? Starting to take

Pat McCalla

be was there a little bit of pride in that at this point? Like, yeah, I guess I am.

Simon Keith

I was obligation to the franchise at that point.

Simon Keith

you know, it was it was madness. It was madness.

Pat McCalla

Was it still was still wearing on you then. So they're talking about your heart set on how you played in the

Simon Keith

It drove me out of the game.

Pat McCalla

Oh

Simon Keith

Drove me out of the game. Okay. So what we would what would happen is inevitably, we would play on a Saturday night as an example. Guys would have Sunday off and arrest it. And, you know, like down to on Monday and then play again on Tuesday, not Simon after Saturday, Sunday morning you're on a plane somewhere to go do a TV interview and then on another plane to do a radio interview, meet the team on Tuesday, just an hour before the game.

Simon Keith

Play the game on Wednesday. You're on another plane now. You got to go to LA and do a TV show. And there you go. On and on and on and on and on.

Simon Keith

You're saying it was madness. It was that.

Simon Keith

It was madness.

Simon Keith

I called my then girlfriend, now wife Kelly, when I was in Milan, Italy, doing an Italian, we had three days off and the team had sent me to Milan, Italy, to do a, talk show, an Italian talk show, TV show in Italian, of which I do not speak. And I'm sitting there and going, what in the am I doing here?

Simon Keith

What am I doing? What am I doing? I call you, I said, I think my career is over.

Pat McCalla

How long you been

Simon Keith

by then?

Simon Keith

I had I played total, I played before and after. I played six professional years. After I played four seasons.

Simon Keith

Yeah,

Pat McCalla

But at this point, you're.

Simon Keith

It was enough. I just like, it's what am I doing? What I'm looking around like, what am I doing? This has nothing to do with the game.

Pat McCalla

you. So he didn't really lose the love of the game. It was all the other extracurricular stuff that just had gotten where wearing on you.

Simon Keith

Yeah, I think so. I the reality is I was, you know, you it's going to sound funny being the number one pick overall in the maybe the best college player in the country at the time. But I was half the player that I was before.

Pat McCalla

you knew that

Simon Keith

Yeah. It was a, it was a grind, man.

Simon Keith

it's frustrating to you. It was it's hard to describe how much of a grind it was. It's it was really tough. Yeah, yeah.

Pat McCalla

Well, every, you know, every level someone goes up in sports, it gets more of a grind in, it gets more, it starts turning into more of a business. Right? Like, I just I just know, like players that go from high school into Division one, all of a sudden that Division one level, it's just like it's like it's your job now.

Pat McCalla

It's your full time job now. And I can't even imagine that next step up. You know, where you were.

Simon Keith

Pat McCalla

Do you, do you ever, we can even edit this next

Simon Keith

question.

Simon Keith

It's okay.

Simon Keith

No, I don't know if it's the

Simon Keith

Not really. Not really. Because, you know, I met my wife and all this stuff. It's. I wouldn't change anything.

Simon Keith

But you never asked that

Pat McCalla

question. I where you're sitting now, you're saying you have enough hindsight. Where are you going? Like, oh, man, enough good things happen. I wouldn't change it. But during the journey, did you ever ask that?

Simon Keith

No, no. It doesn't matter. When you're on the field, you're competing athletically. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter doesn't matter if you had a knee surgery or a shoulder surgery, a new heart, it doesn't matter. It's you against the other person.

Pat McCalla

yeah, it was Simon. A heart transplant. A little different than knee surgery. And so almost everybody in the fields had an ankle or knee or shoulder. But again,

Simon Keith

It doesn't.

Simon Keith

Matter anyone out there with a.

Simon Keith

Heart, but it doesn't matter. You know, you don't get a free pass. Doesn't matter.

Simon Keith

Yeah, I

Pat McCalla

And none of the other players out there, the competitors are thinking that way. So.

Pat McCalla

you go 25 years with this heart where they tell you you might get 10 or 12 out of

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

Pat McCalla

Simon Keith

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Simon Keith

Well,

Simon Keith

question.

Simon Keith

No it's okay.

Simon Keith

Every day since I got my first transplant. There's been a clock ticking in my head, and it's relentless, and it just ticks nonstop. And it's a reminder just to go. Go faster, more stronger, more, more. It. It's relentless.

Pat McCalla

Is that good or bad thing?

Simon Keith

I'm only starting now to have any peace in my brain.

Simon Keith

Really? Yeah.

Pat McCalla

bringing peace now?

Simon Keith

I've made it. I've ticked all the boxes. Yeah.

Pat McCalla

Pat McCalla

where you get the second one?

Simon Keith

Yeah

Pat McCalla

And that's. And I'm jumping back now

Simon Keith

Oh good.

Simon Keith

Yeah. Is that

Simon Keith

Simon Keith

Simon Keith

You don't look great. You're not da da da da da. And so I, I succumb to Doctor Adler's advice and say, okay, I'm I'm ready. I'm not really. My body's ready. My kidney starts to shut down, so I have to go on dialysis.

Simon Keith

because that's, that's a side effect of end stage heart disease.

Pat McCalla

ask. So your kidneys are shutting down because of the

Simon Keith

Correct. Correct. And I've been taking this medicine for the last 32 years. Yeah. It's hard on the kidneys.

Simon Keith

so the challenge that we've got is that now you're going to introduce a third immune system to this body. Because I've got my immune system, I've got the immune system from my first heart donor. And now I'm going to introduce a third immune system.

Simon Keith

And so it's, it's a, it's a medical, terminology called being sensitized. And what that means is that, I was sensitized up to 98.75. So, so you want a low number? Not a high number, a high number means that 98.75 of all hearts that you try to transplant into this body will reject immediately.

Simon Keith

So my pool goes from 100% of people who pass away, and our organ donors to 1.25%.

Simon Keith

So

Simon Keith

odds are long. And so eventually I get put on the transplant list and, there's something you can do where you can bring that sensitized number, net, that number down. So we did that. And, it's no fun. It's basically chemotherapy and your blasting your immune system and you're taking all your blood out of your body and treating it over and over and over again.

Simon Keith

Simon Keith

Chemotherapy was.

Simon Keith

Brutal, brutal. I lost 20 pounds in one week. It was brutal. And I woke up one Saturday morning and my wife was there and my kids were coming from Las Vegas. And I woke up and I said to my wife, today's the day I'm going to die. Today, so you shouldn't have the kids come. And I and I was sure that I was going to die that day.

Simon Keith

That was in December. I made it to March and, you know, whatever, whatever spiritual following you have, for some reason, I was rescued again from the brink of death. Man, I got

Simon Keith

I weighed 129 pounds at surgery. I weigh 185 right now. I was nothing. Yeah, it was brutal. Yeah.

Pat McCalla

When you went back in to get those tests prior to you doing all the chemotherapy and everything, did they put you on a treadmill again?

Simon Keith

Yes they did.

Simon Keith

Did

Simon Keith

did you take it easy?

Simon Keith

I failed miserably.

Simon Keith

But you did. So you learned your lesson.

Simon Keith

Yeah. For sure.

Simon Keith

I do a heart and kidney. I got a heart and kidney. Yeah. So I got you, get you get the heart on one day, and then the next day they give you the kidney. Same donor. Yeah,

Simon Keith

I do. I know the widow, of, the man who passed away, from the East coast and, a little more private.

Simon Keith

And I respect that. Of course, I've spoken to her, and, same question. Right. How do you say thank you to to these people? They've and and I got a boy's heart when I was a boy. And I got a man's heart when I was a man. He was the same age as me. And, so his family has lost their their patriarch, and she's lost her husband, and their children have lost their dad and grandfather.

Simon Keith

And so it's complicated.

Simon Keith

It's tough. I,

Pat McCalla

Simon, I can't, and I'm going back to something we talked about earlier, but I just I can't imagine processing all the feelings that you that you must have to deal with, whether, you know, you're the survivor of someone who's the donor or you're the recipient of it. I mean, just it's just I'm sure it's got to be confusing.

Pat McCalla

Inspiring.

Pat McCalla

It's just crazy to think about.

Simon Keith

it.

Simon Keith

It's taken me.

Simon Keith

really, in the last sort of ten years that I've finally gotten comfortable in my skin because I would, you know, I would be that guy who would walk into any room and people would whisper and gawk and kind of look like, you know, and and it's not bad. It's it's mostly because they love you and they don't know what to say.

Simon Keith

They don't know what to ask. They don't know what to, they don't know what to do. And so and that's not only the donor families on both sides, but it's all my friends and all my loved ones. And, you know, me and my wife been at this for 40 years now. So we're pretty good at it. But it's taken a while.

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

are some of the things you learned through this? You shared one of them,

Pat McCalla

to live. To really live. What are some of the things that you've learned through this journey?

Simon Keith

Well, I you know, I spend most of my days now, as I mentioned before, I was like for for more than a decade, I became really an expert in organ donation and transplantation, which I thought was really my calling. And what I learned throughout that process is that, I, I spend most of my time now talking with people about being the greatest version of themselves and what that means, and it sounds really hokey and really complicated, but it's actually really simple.

Simon Keith

Most people struggle with it because of it. Could be it could be fear. You know, the fear of being great is really powerful. And many people struggle because they just don't know how to do it. And so I talk to people about that. That's what I've really learned. I've learned about teaching people about things like time management and health and wellness.

Simon Keith

And, you know, what's your educational goal? What's the pathway, what's your financial plan, blah, blah, blah. And then you get into complicated stuff like, what's your brand? What's your brand, man? Who are you? What are you trying to do? What's your legacy going to be? And so I talk to people about this kind of stuff.

Simon Keith

That is

Pat McCalla

such a powerful question. The last one, isn't it?

Simon Keith

oh, I think if

Simon Keith

audience, yeah,

Pat McCalla

I want to encourage myself to as well to ponder that for what do you want your legacy to be?

Simon Keith

Yeah,

Pat McCalla

Because the interesting thing is, statistically, our our great grandkids won't even remember our names. You know, if right now, if I ask you, you know, name your four great grandparents, paternal and maternal, you can probably do it if I said name your eight great

Simon Keith

grandma.

Simon Keith

No chance.

Simon Keith

That's right. Most people

Pat McCalla

can't. So,

Pat McCalla

handful of decades from now, for you and I, where we're at in age, our own family won't even remember our names.

Pat McCalla

But that doesn't mean that you didn't leave a legacy.

Simon Keith

Right?

Simon Keith

wrestle with.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I take people through the whole journey. Right. That's that's near the end of, of sort of this greatness journey.

Simon Keith

But you'd be surprised and maybe you wouldn't be surprised. I am shocked when I talk to Young High functioning, super bright, professional people who have no plan. No plan,

Simon Keith

no plan. And then you get past that and then you start to ask questions like, what do you really want to be doing?

Simon Keith

I know you're doing X, but what's your what's in your soul that you want to do and why aren't you doing it? That's a tough question.

Simon Keith

Do

Pat McCalla

What. Where do you think people lose that.

Pat McCalla

because I think most of us, when we're little children, we don't know ourselves well at the time, but we're, we're dreamers. We're imagining. We're like, I want to do this. I want to do this. And it doesn't matter who tells you, well, that's impossible.

Pat McCalla

But somewhere along that line, we kind of lose that, don't

Simon Keith

we?

Simon Keith

Do we do that? Yeah. Well, again, I think it's two reasons, right? Either fear right. It's the fear. And many times it's fear of judgment. And that is when you start acting differently around your loved ones and you say things like, I am going to be great, I am going to change the world. They're like, no, you're just little Simon, the third of three boys from a small town in Canada.

Simon Keith

How can you possibly say that? You're going to be great and and it's not their fault. But we listen to those voices, and they sort of tug us down and tug us back. So, so that's that's one thing. But when you start acting different and you get judgment and then that little voice in your head goes, oh, maybe I shouldn't be doing that.

Simon Keith

F that. And then the other thing is that they don't know how to do it. They don't know the steps and the plan of how to of how to be great. Yeah.

Simon Keith

That's it's you can systemize this stuff.

Pat McCalla

that's one of the things you do is you help people walk through that now. Yeah.

Simon Keith

Every day I talk to dozens of people and I coach people and it's like, it's it's so fulfilling. And what's most fulfilling for me is that it's not about me. And I see that person's like, go off. And I'm like, oh, they got it. They got it. Yeah.

Simon Keith

It's cool

Pat McCalla

fun to see people get that spark that something ignites in them, right? And they have that passion

Simon Keith

Yeah. I think

Simon Keith

Simon Keith

I'm only speaking to five of you because only five of you are going to do anything about it.

Pat McCalla

That's good. I like that

Simon Keith

It's true?

Simon Keith

Simon Keith

You got to do it too. You got to take action. Yeah. Anyways.

Pat McCalla

How do you help someone though. Because you're wired. You have that that competitive spirit in that drive. And you've always had it. You had it before. And then you're saying you wake up in the hospital and you feel that again. You know, when you're 21 years old

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

so two things that I find when I speak with people, two most important things that I talked about, one is one I'm going to I mean, I even kick myself when I say it. One is, what in the hell is your financial plan? That's number one. That's number one, not number two is let me show you.

Simon Keith

Let me show you the steps to greatness. Let me show you. There are steps to greatness. You don't know them. I'm going to teach them to you. And once I teach them to you, you're going to. You're going to figure out, I'm going to go down this path. By the way, you're also going to trip and you're going to fall, and I'm going to be there.

Simon Keith

I'm going to hold a mirror up to you. I'm going to say.

Simon Keith

You're the reason that that happened, not anybody else. Not because your boss, not because your spouse, not because you're not. It's it's because of you. So people need a young people. When I talk to you need a financial plan and they need a mentor, small accountability person that's going to say exactly what they need to hear, not what they want to hear, what they need to hear.

Pat McCalla

did you lead with financial plan?

Simon Keith

Because I would say nor of 90% of all people I talked to don't have one

Simon Keith

North of 90% of the people I talked to don't have a financial plan that they don't know what to do. They don't know. And they're embarrassed to ask the question,

Simon Keith

And we've been taught generationally not to talk about money, not to talk about goals.

Pat McCalla

families I think you're right.

Simon Keith

How do you not have a net worth evaluator every month?

Simon Keith

Anyways? I could go on all day about that.

Simon Keith

No, no, I love I see your

Simon Keith

passion.

Simon Keith

I you do a.

Simon Keith

Whole nother podcast of

Simon Keith

Things. Yeah, yeah. Good.

Pat McCalla

what's next for you?

Pat McCalla

Like what? What is your what's your passion for whatever. And we don't you don't know what yours are and I don't know mine or how many days we have left.

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

Yeah, I'm still on. You might outlive.

Simon Keith

We just don't know.

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Pat McCalla

But with the time that you have left, what are some of your goals? What are your passions?

Simon Keith

Yeah, I think the foundation is an interesting thing for me. You know, the Simon Q Foundation, we started ten years ago. Ish. And, I thought I thought it was a. I thought it was a smart business move. I don't I think that sounds a little cavalier, but I think that was part of it. I thought it was a good legacy play.

Simon Keith

I thought it was a good branding play. I thought it was cool. And what I've learned ten years later is that none of that stuff matters. Because when you see JR, who you've supported and, you know, paid for their swimming lessons or whatever it is and and they're thriving and that's, that's a cool moment.

Simon Keith

Foundation.

Simon Keith

Do we support kids who have an organ transplant and their desire to be active and healthy again?

Pat McCalla

Yeah,

Pat McCalla

I can totally see what your what you're saying that that you know, you started it for all these reasons. But when you actually see that, that that young human, that young boy or that young girl, recipient of of what your foundation does

Pat McCalla

changes that,

Simon Keith

We think we're helping them. We think we're helping them.

Simon Keith

us. Yeah,

Simon Keith

I think, to answer your question, I would say about five years ago, I had the courage to look myself in the mirror and say, I'm going to be the guy, I'm going to be the guy. I'm going to be the guy that people want me to be. I'm going to I'm a carry the flag.

Simon Keith

I'm going to stand in the room. I'm going to I'm, you know, I'm going to win the award. I'm going to raise the money to ask people for millions of dollars. I'm going to be the guy.

Pat McCalla

For the

Simon Keith

foundation.

Simon Keith

Yep.

Pat McCalla

Instead of it being kind of a side thing, something you started for maybe these reasons now it's it's it's part of the center of who you are.

Simon Keith

Yeah. We literally started this to raise 10 or 20 grand to help a kid, you know, we're we're going to we're going to be at 10 million soon.

Pat McCalla

That's

Simon Keith

Yeah. But you got to you got to be young to be courageous. Right? You got to stand up and say, I'm doing this. Come. Come with me.

Pat McCalla

And that's if people wanted to learn more about the foundation, they would go to the same place.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah. So I'm wkyc.com you can get there from. Yeah, yeah yeah,

Pat McCalla

Well, Simon, thank you so much for being on here, man.

Pat McCalla

It has been. I love watching the documentary. I loved, reading the book, but it has been even a greater joy to meet you in person. Just great respect for what you're doing, great respect for your

Simon Keith

Thank you.

Simon Keith

Thank you.

Simon Keith

Yeah,

Simon Keith

areas.

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

gay audiences

Simon Keith

Yeah,

Pat McCalla

I've.

Pat McCalla

read your stuff. I've known, talk to you about an hour. See if you can stump us.

Pat McCalla

So give us three statements. Two are truths. One or a lie. And I gotta get you to

Simon Keith

line.

Simon Keith

Okay. First one is I wrote them down. So that's why I'm reading. On my dad's side. I'm five eight. As you. As you know, when I walked in, all my uncles on my dad's side are over six feet five.

Pat McCalla

Oh, man. Okay.

Simon Keith

Number two is when I was in the sixth and seventh grade, I was the city state. I was the city chess champion.

Pat McCalla

Okay.

Simon Keith

And number three is I wasn't allowed to wear jeans to school until I was in the 11th grade.

Simon Keith

Two truth's in a lie.

Simon Keith

Oh,

Pat McCalla

Oh, man, those are good ones.

Pat McCalla

Simon Keith

5051 of them. That's kind of given away.

Simon Keith

Okay.

Pat McCalla

There's the I don't even have a good guess on which one. So this is going to be total guess I'm going to say number three. You didn't wear jeans until high school to school.

Simon Keith

You think that's a lie?

Simon Keith

I'm sure that's true.

Simon Keith

You think that's true? Yeah, that is true.

Simon Keith

Okay, so now I got to go to 50.

Simon Keith

Yeah. Good job.

Pat McCalla

right.

Pat McCalla

You know, I'm going to go with number two being true. And the really the only reason is because I'm guessing everybody you did that because if if you were a professional athlete, no one's thinking that you were a chess champion. So I'm gonna say that's true.

Simon Keith

Number two.

Simon Keith

Yeah.

Simon Keith

It's false.

Simon Keith

So you're you're

Pat McCalla

uncles on your dad's side, or it'd be all your uncles.

Simon Keith

Yeah. Our six five or taller. Yeah,

Pat McCalla

who

Simon Keith

Are you brothers tall?

Simon Keith

Nope. No we're not. None of us got it. None of it. None of us.

Pat McCalla

And your dad. What about your dad?

Simon Keith

Five, eight.

Pat McCalla

Wow. Interesting.

Simon Keith

Yeah, yeah, yeah, those.

Simon Keith

Were good, man. You got me.

Simon Keith

By the way. The second one, the chess champion. That's my brother. He was chess champion two years in a row. Yeah, yeah.

Pat McCalla

and then why didn't you get to wear jeans? Did you go to,

Simon Keith

My dad wouldn't let me. We wouldn't let us.

Pat McCalla

okay. I assume maybe it was like a private

Simon Keith

No, just one of his things, man.

Pat McCalla

Interesting.

Simon Keith

Yeah,

Simon Keith

My pleasure.

Simon Keith

Simon. Keith.com. Easy. Yeah. Yeah, right. Awesome, man. Thanks, brother.

Speaker 1

What an incredible story from Simon Keith. A true testament to living life to the fullest. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to like, subscribe and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast. We'll catch you in two weeks with another new episode.