I want to welcome everyone to the shop. We the entire staff are so happy to have you all here and its such an honor to host the event. My name is glenda and i am the owner of the bookshop. We are happy to be in a community that supports our business and nonprofits and this is a special one today. So, it is my honor to introduce you to the authors of this book. I will start with ryan manion who devoted her life to supporting the nations military, veterans and families of fallen heroes. Shes inspired by the character, leadership and sacrifice of her brother, First LieutenantCharles Manion who made the ultimate sacrifice in 2,007. Since the foundation of 2012, ryan leads a National Movement focused on assisting veterans and families of the falling to take the next step in their personal journeys and inspiring the next generation of leaders. In 2015, she received the president s Lifetime Achievement award for volunteer service. In 2016, ryan took an official appointment to serve on the remember and explore subcommittee and the honor subcommittee for the Advisory Committee of Arlington National cemetery. Ryan also serves as a board member of the National Association of veteran serving organizations as well as on the Advisory Board for the global war on terror, a morula foundation. The author of this book as well, she has been surviving First Lieutenant robert who was killed in afghanistan on november 9, 2010, as west Region Program manager for the Travis Foundation she worked closely with veterans returning to civilian life in the surviving family members of those who make the ultimate sacrifice and fostering americas next generation of leaders. So ryan and heather will be in conversation with derrick morgan, derek is the director of marketing for the foundation and the coowner of the store. Please join me in welcoming ryan, heather and derek. [applause] welcome everyone, what we will do this afternoon is i am going to ask ryan and heather, they will reason their favorite excerpts from the book, and they will elaborate on a little bit more and will go through a few of those and do q a and then we will lead into the actual book signing portion, to open, what i really want to do, i will start with you ryan, we are here in doylestown, the knock at the door for you happen right here in this community and your brother travis was so well known that this community did field the ripple effect. But with that, you made a decision on how to move forward and really honored travis. Do you mind elaborating on that a little bit more . Sure. Thank you all for coming out today, i truly appreciated. , i was just telling linda, heather and i are so excited to be here, we have been in new york all week and were so happy to be with people, weve been sitting in hotel rooms all week, its great to be in doylestown for this today. For those that are not familiar, our organization was founded in 2007 after my brother was killed in iraq, i will tell you when i got the news that travis was killed, i was standing in front of coaches. I was actually about to open a store right there where is the Holiday House grooming and i was standing there with the landlord about to sign the lease on my second location, i owned a Small Business in new jersey and my phone ring and it was my aunt telling me too come back to my parents house, so i drove five minutes down the road and learned that my brother had been killed, it was on the day of travis funeral, my dad told my mom and my husband into their bedroom and he said from this day forward we continue on making sure that we live to honor travis, that we continue his legacy and service, we committed that day to do just that, that was really the birth of the Travis Manion foundation and i say it all the time, we become a National Veteran serving organization across the country but the roots of our organization are from here in this community, to this day when i travel across the country and they say where are you headquarter, i say doylestown pennsylvania. We have eight regional offices across the country and operate with over 130,000 members, staff of over 50 employees across the country in the community here really plays a large part and still plays a tremendously large part in helping us to do the work that we do to support veterans and families of the fallen. Thank you. With that i want to go into a little bit more of some of ryan heathers excerpts from the book. Will pick the first expert that you picked out. This is actually from the introduction, just a little bit more about us talking about grief. None of us know how to do grief right. And none of us believe theres only one way to do it. We know how to do it wrong, we all aired at various points, we lashed out at loved ones and checked out of daily life. We drug and self medicated heavily, slept too much in exercise and eating too little. Weve known anger and depressi depression, we abandon friendships and selfcare. You name the tragic flaw or unhealthy mechanism and we all done at one time or another. But weve grown too. We found forgiveness, healing and peace. We have realized how much fright there is left in us and how much opportunity has been afforded us. We have been challenged to embrace those moments of opportunity and we fully expect to continue to learn. Our individual journey dont all look the same and they will not look like yours. But despite our differences, we have learned one universal truth that applies to each of us. Every human will struggle in this life, our challenge is to struggle well because after all, struggle is antecedent of growth, it is only when we embrace the pain, heartache and discomfort to punctuate our life that we can ultimately find the strength we need to grow from those moments. This is a fact of human existence and if its true at the molecular level as it is. Our muscles do not grow unless we literally damage a fiber muscle by exercising them strenuously. Only when the fibers have broken down in our body go through the natural process of repair and strengthening. [applause] i went a little too long. I had to stop. [laughter] i cant tell her what to do. So in the section with what you detail, it really does not speak directly to anything with the military, it really sounds more something that anyone can relate to and different types of a knock at the door. Can you talk about that . Heather, amy and i, she is not with us, shes been with us all week but she has her first child, eight weeks old, took the baby grease up to new york with us all week and we give her the day off today, we actually gave her the weekend off. But heather, amy and i all lost our loved ones and service to this country. And while we thought it was important to share stories in brandon and robs and travis story, more than that we wrote this book because each and every one of us is going to get a knock on the door, the knock can come in many different forms, it can come from the death of a loved one, it can come from divorce, it can come from heartache, it can come from a cancer diagnosis and what we talk about a lot in the book, not so much about what happens when that knock comes but how you respond when you get it. So we talk a lot about through that process, i am very upfront to say that it took me 12 years to be able to put pen to paper and share my thoughts on this. If you wouldve asked me five years ago to write the book it wouldve been a different story and probably not terribly uplifting but i feel like we have all come to find where no place we also a much say were not self Health Experts but we also feel that we have some pretty good professional experience in grief and loss and how we move forward. So we have put our tricks and tips and what worked for us and what did not work for us into this book and it really is for anyone. This book is for anyone, not only who has gotten a knock at the door but for those who have not. For those who have not gotten a knock at the door, be the best version of yourself today. That is great. Thank you. Heather, i want to ask you to read your first excerpt, i will preface it by saying ryan did a tremendous job of setting the table for what her knock at the door was like an heathers first excerpt shes going to explain how her experience was wa with. Can you hear me . Hi, this is the story of how my knock started, tuesday novembe november 9, 2010, my knock at the door came at 3 00 a. M. , i was in a deep sleep and when i first heard the knock at the door it felt far away. So i was still coming out of a drowsy haze and i did not recognize the noise. The knocking noise i was hearing was part of a dream and eventually i realized the sound was real coming from my own front door, i was not expecting company at that hour so i hit it before it was answered, i saw three people standing together, immediately had a sinking feeling in my gut, my husband had deployed to afghanistan six weeks earlier, my third appointment together and i know as parents of marines in uniforms was really good thing. Then i remembered something i heard in a meeting i attended for spouses of deployed Service Members and gave me hope, if you receive a notification that officer had instructed shortly before rob left, two to three marines will come to your house no earlier than 8 00 oclock in the morning, i recalled sitting with other families at the meeting where we learned important things we would need to know to get through the next seven months, a strict protocol and problem families were notified. If this were bad news about rob, it would not be coming for another five hours at least. I wondered how long they had been standing outside trying to get my attention. After concluding it was unlikely they were there for rob i figured they were there to ask where another marine family lived, i felt sorry who they were planing on visiting. Regardless of whom they were seeking to visit i knew they were bringing bad news for someone. Id been halfasleep a moment ago but wideawake now. One of the rings served his notification officer and when he began his formal script whic sph telling me my husband was dead. On behalf of the president of the United States he began heats into my he ha had fell into my. Something about the honor of the duty lieutenant kelly had been performing, something how he had sustained injuries that resulted in the loss of his legs and some formal clothing where i caught only the phrase extend our deepest sympathies. And then silence. When he finished reading the speech, the notification officer looked up and stared at me, i imagine waiting for storm to interrupt, i felt the gates of the two marines only and look at the chaplain who accompanied them, i dont think they were sure to make of my reaction i rather lack of reaction. There was nothing on the surface to observe, i was in total shock, i do not offer screams or agonized cries, note torn up questions for them to field, i think they much prefer it if i had, instead i was dumbfounded staring straight ahead, although stood between me and them was a sadness that made me feel empty. The news that rob was dead did not seem real but real enough to lead me hollow. Unlike some people i did not conclude there mustve been some mistake that the notification couldve been meant for me. This was not the thing they were going to screw up, he was gone forever and that was clear to me. There was nothing to be said so i said nothing. [applause] thank you for that heather. You mentioned that your knock came at 3 00 a. M. Can you talk more about why that time what happened specifically at the time. Like i mentioned in the book is very out of the ordinary that they came at 3 00 a. M. , at the time when he was serving overseas my fatherinlaw was also an active duty marine and they knew when he went into work he wouldve found out the news immediately, he wouldve signed onto his computer and seen the list of casualties, he is very dialed in on that, i was living in california at the time and i still do, i was notified at the exact same time as him. One of his best friend went to his door at 6 00 a. M. And notified him and so the marines also came to me at 3 00 a. M. So we would both find out at the same time and we were able to communicate immediately. So that was the reasoning behind my unusual notification time and why it did not go along with what i had a ways been told it would be like. Great, thank you. Ryan, we will come back to you and have you read your second excerpt if you dont mind. This is from the third paragraph called a few months out, my drug of choice. Anna has some takeaways at the end of the chapter. The first take away was second, embrace your support system, relationships are everything, family, friends and loved ones can get us through the darkest and saddest moments, we just need to let them. Our friends and families feed our wild ambitions and nourish our dreams. When we share with them some embarrassing fantasy that is well beyond our reach, they always say go for it. If youre lucky enough to have friends and family like mine, they may even say im in, lets do it together, they gently and lovingly protect us from her own selfdestructive habits. They lift us up literally when we cannot go another step and they cheer us on when we look like frankenstein. With a loving support system we can afford to be a little naive, be bold, be fearless but do not do it alone. You are human and only one person. Allow yourself to be carried forward by those who love you. And finally do not wait, i bid you, do not wait. I had no idea how tough i was. Why did i wait until my brother was dead to find out. My only regret of running the marathon in 2007 was it did not take place in 2006. You know who wouldve loved to run and train with me, travis. Something like that would require focus and discipline with far more up his ally than mine. He wouldve been so proud and we wouldve had a ball together, theres so many things i wish we couldve done together, im not the same woman he knew when he was alive, i am better and stronger, why did i wait for him to disappear before it became the woman i wanted to be. Thank you. [applause] and that excerpt you talk about how your better and stronger than the woman that travis knew. What are your thoughts if travis were here today. What would he think about in the person you are today. I would say the travis meaning foundation, he would be right beside all of us with the organization, he would be right in the mix, im also very clear to say the one thing he would hate is that we named it the Travis Manion foundation. It was actually something that we recognized but it was a few years ago and my dad said i feel like travis would not like that we named after him maybe we should change the name and i was like no we already committed we cannot change it now. But i talk a lot in the chapter, a lot of the takeaways are because i talk about how i decided to run along with 100 family and friends in 2007 we decided to run the marine corps mayomarathon in one of the thini say in the book, travis did not ask me too run it, he called my dad. He knew that was not something i was going to do. So it was a thing, as soon as travis passed away, here i am saying now all run a marathon in theres something to that, of course i finished the marathon and felt tremendously strong and proud and i honored travis so well but i was also like why did it take him leaving for me too say now im going to do it. That is a lot of what i battled with and wrote about in that chapter but i think he would be incredibly proud to be right here beside us and i know they had transitioned out of the military he would do everything he could to support his fellow veterans and those transitioning out as well. Great, thank you. Heather, were going back to you, the next excerpt that heather will read has a heading, your dream may be taken away from you tomorrow, but dream anyway. When my 17yearold self met rob kelly at Florida State university in 2002 we dreamed of spending our lives together, fun during the occupy the greater part of our adult lives every day thereafter. As the years went on come the dream remained buddy to evolve to become more mature and complex and we adjusted to what our circumstances happened to be at any given time. We imagine our reunion after deployment and hosting parties of a married couple at our new house, we imagine holidays with her future family, we played the dream out in minute detail and had as much pleasure as we possibly could. We rung it right and one day in 2010 i buried my fellow dreamer and was left to dream alone. Obviously there was no landmark on the map i crated for myself that accounted for this. No part of the dream involves losing my husband so young of age. But now it is like driving through a snowstorm, you can only see 10 feet in front of you, its scary and treacherous but its doable. You can make the whole journey that way, you may not know 15 miles down the road but that should not stop you from dreaming about how wonderful it will be when you get there. If rob and i had know that fate with separator so early i dont think her dreams wouldve looked any different. We still would have a carefree summer in tallahassee, florida, we wouldve spent our time apart marking down the days until a next reunion, we wouldve committed our lives to one another. Anyones dreams can be ripped away in an instant and believe me it hurts like hell, im not going to pretend it doesnt, but dream anyway, the joyful and dissipation the dreams bring you will far outweigh the pain. After all anticipation is half the fun. [applause] thank you for that. You talk about dreaming anyway, can you speak a little bit more about the process for you in your own personal journey and how you went about being able to dream again and look forward to things as you started to take the first steps forward . I think part of finding the anticipation and life again and things to look forward to was trying to find a way to find a purpose in having lost rob. I dont know that there is ever something that you say was it worth it to of lost him but finding a meaning behind it and what can i do continue to move forward purposefully and part of that was the travis meaning foundation, thats how i first crossed paths with my coauthors brian and amy i met them both at different stages in my journey throughout the years in finding what travis meaning foundation did in a way to honor his sacrifice and service and to continue service in my own way and his name was a huge part of that and being able to volunteer with the foundation was very early in my journey and very important to me. I talk about in the book but after volunteering for a while in san diego, a full time position with the foundation opened up and when i interviewed for the job at the end our west coast director at the time said we want to bring you on the team, congratulation, how soon can you start and i said ill go and give two weeks notice and he said okay, we flipped the calendar in two weeks from the day i was sitting there in his office on a monday morning, two weeks ahead was november 9, 2015. My first day was going to be the fiveyear anniversary of losing rob and in that moment when he said novembe november 9, i knewt me Something Special that that was what helped bring me to the other side, huge part of the journey in taking on a new career with the Travis Manion foundation really helped me see ahead and see what the future could look like without him here and i did a little internal thank you and today is the four year fiveyear anniversary of joining the foundation, nine years since we lost rob and ja. [applause] we are going to ask you to read your third excerpts and this is from a section that is titled failure is a bruise, not a tattoo. Before travis died i never bothered to think much about failure. That is not because i was wildly successful at everything i tried my hand at, believe me i feel that plenty of things. Rather it was because i did not care enough about anything to give it much effort. I was sometimes apathetic. Travis was ambitious, goal oriented and i was coasting through life. After he died and then my mom died i had a major wakeup call, now i feel compelled to take advantage of the time i have left on this earth to leave a life they can both be proud of. I want to do this not for my sake but for theirs. After their death goals filled me, intention nursed me and i became obsessed with finding the next mountain to climb. I would let nothing stop me from getting to the top. But then as occurs with all humans, i feel. I had no idea how to deal with failure, since ive never permitted myself to do with her before. Failure can be crushing, it can make you feel worthless and disillusioned. The first few times i failed i was simply not prepared for the consequences. I have become so programmed to forge ahead and not let anything stop me that i did not know how to handle it when i hit a roadblock. For a time i log my failures to define me. Then i began to accept them as staging the process, failure was not so scary anymore. When we recognize that our lives are a series of successes and failures, we are more likely to handle difficulties when they arrive and they always do. Eventually, despite the inevitable failures, we come to learn that our next success is never too far off in the distance. [applause] you talk about overcoming the challenges and the failures and the successes having taken over leading the foundation, you had big shoes to fill from your mom and obviously with carrying on travis legacy going forward, for you, what really is your approach when it comes to just the goalsetting and saying this is what were going to do and how were going to do it and how were going to get there, how do you approach that knowing in your own mind you have put yourself in a very high position that you feel like you have to succeed at everything. Five years almost to the day after my brother was killed my mom passed of cancer, at this point, the Travis Manion foundation was added National Scale and i actually worked at the foundation at the time, i came on a couple years earlier, my position was executive director but i was actually janets assistant, i followed her, she led the charge, i never had to make any real decisions because she made the decisions. I was like whatever you need and i was just filling the gaps, after she passed away it was two weeks later our board met and they told me i would now be the president of the travis meaning foundation and i felt tremendous weight on my shoulders, one that i did not fully comprehend so i got a little but more into it but here i was being talked into, you are in charge, youre close to 50 employees, youre running a multibillion dollar nonprofit and by the way named after your brother and by the way your mom started it. So do not feel. That was really scary. I jokingly say but also seriously say the first thing i did was one out and i hired really talented people who i knew would not let the organization fail and we brought in great leadership to help us but i think for me the way i work through things, it was an idea that i cannot feel at this, i cannot let this, if i feel i dont just feel myself, i feel a lot of people including the legacy of my mom and my brother. So i had to learn to not just look at setting goals in a way of next we have to do this, i had to be very intentional and i talk a lot in the book about intention and setting intentional goals, not just setting goals for glory but setting goals in a way to say this is how we will do it, being very intentional about the thought behind it and why you are setting the goal and what the purpose of it is. I guess it is been almost seven years running this organization and outside of that i also talk about the daily challenges of not just what i do at the travis meaning foundation but also being a wife and a mother and making sure i do not let those responsibilities fall to the wayside. Its a bit of a balancing act, i dont know another way to say it but in a very happy medium, is there a fine balance you will find, no and that is why i talk a lot about the idea, dont let the small things such you back too far because for a time in the beginning i was letting small little failures, when i talk about failures in the book it is small things. It is failures like we did not get the grant i thought we were going to get and i would go into a place of oh my gosh, this organization is indeed, they dont believe in our impact and were not doing what were supposed to do an outside great, that one did not catch, the next one will. Its about changing your mindset and having a belief in knowing again you will feel today but you have the opportunity to wake up tomorrow and succeed. [applause] how to struggle well. Heather im going to ask you to lead one last excerpt, this is titled if you expect to see the good or expect to see the bad, you will. There is a quote by henry florida that goes, if you think you can or you cannot, youre right. Perspective is everything and so much of life is subject to becoming a self under fulfilling prophecy. Not long ago i was cruising items for sale at a small antique shop near my home in carlsbad California North of san diego, i stumbled upon a bar set one aside yours and when the said mine. The glasses were a company by matching picture the set ours, there was a time i wouldve considered it sweet but these days i find it depressing. I was feeling pretty down about the turn my life had taken in the little reminder the full me wherever i go. I turned to quarter inside the shop and as i did the song that we considered our song brother together began playing on the radio that was sitting on the shelf in a nearby booth, i like to think it was his way reminded me he was still with me and understood the pain and no matter what i would never be alone. It is true, reminders of her difficulty and sadness are everywhere, we dont have to look too hard to find them, the best is reminders of happier times are everywhere to and you can feel reassured and take pleasure in the gifts and joys that they bring to us when we need them the most. Sometimes however, we have to be much more intentional of seeking out the little signs. [applause] thank you. In the book you speak a good deal about how you used humor. I was wondering if you can elaborate on that a little bit more. One of my earliest coping mechanisms was trying to find dark humor in the situation that came after and my brotherinlaw, robs brother john was my partner in that, it is pretty surreal, hell be 26 years old and lost her husband to be sitting in a funeral home planning a funeral with his family and my brotherinlaw tried to lighten the mood, he and i and he whispered, you know what rob wouldve wanted for his funeral i said what and he said he wouldve wanted you to ride into arlington on an elephant. The most absurd thing you can possibly think of and i said youre right. He wouldve. It became our joke for that first week and he reminded me there is a simpson episode where bart came in with an elephant and it never materializes and he gives very indignant of wheres my elephant. That was our joke for the week of between me and him, where is my elephant, get the elephant. But it sounds so absurd and ridiculous but it was what could take us out of the moment and still john and i to reconnect in a moment of whiteness because you have to laugh, i did not want to cry everyday, i cannot cry everyday. So the early humor was so important and it carried me through still and rob was really funny and sarcastic and always cracking jokes so i can see him and that still with humor being one of my early ways to cope that i still use. [applause] thank you. At this point, we would like to open it up to questions from the audience. If you could raise your hand, the girls would love to answer a few questions. My husband drives an hour to each way to work, is this available on audiobook . The audio version is actually being recorded right now, we just taped our voices, that was fantastic. They have not given us a final date but audio version forthcoming. For heather, when you got the news did you have family members near when you were in california . At the time i was only one outside of san diego but my brotherinlaw john who i mentioned was also an active duty marine and he was two hours away so as soon as the marines were how my door and i knew everybody in the family knew i said i needed to see john and he hopped in the car immediately, sat with me the first day before i flew to the east coast and a talk about in the book buddy help me take care of all those things and sat with me as we sat with the news, john was robs big brother and he took on the big brother role and the closest one when i got the new. I want to make a comic, not so much a question but on how they are there. When my mother passed away tenure to go i had not spoken to her the previous birthday, she died within two months. In that day forward starting the next june my parents anniversary was june 23 there he married in 1939, all the time i find that day a dime and a penny and the penny was 1959 and i find everyday 11 cents. But my stepdaughter died two years ago from suicide on october 13 and today i was pumping gas and i stopped in the pump was 1313. I think everybody should be aware, they are gone but theyre still there. Were all looking for those signs. We were at dinner the other night talking about stuff like that. For sure. How is his foundation funded . Our foundation is funded through individual donors, corporations and private funds. We are pretty evenly dispersed in our funding stream but yeah private foundations, grant, everything. Do you want to talk about what the foundation does. Those not familiar with the Travis Manion foundation, were a 50123 nonprofit, our mission is to empower veterans and families to instill character in the next generation. And were community of likeminded individuals with veterans, military families and what we like to say inspired civilians and we do everything, right now were in the midst of operation legacy where we have Service Projects happening across the country in the month of november, all of our Service Projects are named in honor of a fallen servicemember so will bring out thousands of people in the month of november to do that. One of our biggest initiatives is called character does matter, we train veterans to go into schools and deliver Character Education to our youth. So we worked with over 300,000 kids across the country. Ages 12 18 and its about constant engagement for our veterans, we have programs happening each and every day in cities and states across the country. Making sure that they have an opportunity to continue to serve outside of uniform. Thank i just want to say thank you to three of you for giving me an extended family, i know im not amongst the people you know here today but being an educator who has benefited, i now collaborate and inspired by susie cook and i thank you for the family you have given me as an inspired educator. So i thank you so much for the family i have been given and you are all responsible for that, i talked to your dad at the summit last year end i got to think him and im so starstruck that your frenemy. As an educator i been trying hard with charlie to get my ministries on board with the clc and my middle school, do you have any advice to turn the tide for getting a ministry theres and local Police Officers and veterans on board with teaching . Let me go talk to him, all help with your administrators, i am good at that. [laughter] i would say as a manager, i am kelleys counterpart in san diego, i think wordofmouth has been so popular. If i can go to a middle school and say their fellow principal at whatever school, weve been there and seen success, they can talk, i think the proof is in how the students and the experience that they get in the wordofmouth and testimony for sure. Any other questions . At this point, what we will do i will ask our authors to make their way back to the signing table and then christie is going to come up and give everyone directions on forming line and how we will get their books autographed. Thank you again, heather and ryan. Thank you so much. Out. See all the book tv and cspan products available