Starter Girlz Podcast

From Wheelchair to Dance Floor in 21 Days (with Ari Medrano, Medical Miracle, Motivational Speaker & Community Advocate)

• Jennifer Loehding • Season 7 • Episode 103

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What would you do if your body gave up before your spirit did? In this powerful episode of the Starter Girlz Podcast, host Jennifer Loehding sits down with Ari Medrano, a medical miracle, motivational speaker, and community advocate, to share her unbelievable journey from wheelchair to the dance floor in just 21 days.

Ari opens up about her fight through heart disease, brain tumor surgery, and a car accident that nearly took her life, and how faith, focus, action, and commitment became the four pillars that rebuilt it. This isn’t just a recovery story; it’s a blueprint for anyone ready to overcome adversity, rebuild their life, and rediscover purpose.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✅ How Ari turned her medical miracle into a mission of community empowerment
✅ The 4-step system (Faith, Focus, Action, Commitment) that can help you overcome any challenge
✅ How to turn pain into purpose and trauma into transformation
✅ Why emotional healing and inner child work are crucial for real growth
✅ Lessons on setting boundaries, practicing empathy, and building resilience
✅ How to find strength, hope, and motivation when life falls apart

Whether you’re struggling through your own season of hardship or simply need inspiration to move forward, this conversation will help you see that miracles happen when faith meets focused action. This episode is more than inspiration; it’s a guide to real transformation. If you’ve ever searched for how to overcome adversity, how to rebuild your life, or how to turn pain into purpose, this story will give you the framework, mindset, and motivation you need to start again. Perfect for anyone seeking resilience, healing, and faith-based motivation or those looking for a real-life comeback story that proves nothing is impossible.

Connect with Ari Medrano:
📸 Instagram: @arimedranoofficial
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arimedrano

Connect with Starter Girlz Podcast:
🌐 Website: https://startergirlz.com

Love this episode?
Subscribe to the Starter Girlz Podcast for more bold, inspiring conversations that fuel your personal and professional growth. Don’t forget to rate and review — your support helps us share more stories that inspire change.

Ari Medrano:

Embrace life, love life. No matter what it gives you. And and even if it's that like that one thing that you go, There's no way I'm gonna embrace that thing. Yeah. Well, that thing is the thing that I'm actually talking about. Because that thing that you're you're actually going like this to yourself with, yeah. Until you release that, until you reframe it and understand that when you get curious about being curious about the pain that's come through in your life, you get to really understand that all of those stories that you have attached to that thing, that unspeakable thing, there is some gifts in there that have really defined who you are today, right?

Jennifer Loehding:

Welcome to the Starter Girlz Podcast, your ultimate source of inspiration and empowerment. We're here to help women succeed in every area of their lives: career, money, relationships, and health and well-being. While celebrating the remarkable journeys of individuals from all walks of life who've achieved amazing things. Whether you're looking to supercharge your career, build financial independence, nurture meaningful relationships, or enhance your overall well-being, the Starter Girlz Podcast is here to guide you. Join us as we explore the journeys of those who dare to dream big and achieve greatness. I'm your host, Jennifer Loehding, and welcome to this episode. Welcome to another episode of the Starter Girls Podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Loehding, and wherever you are tuning in today, we are so glad to have you. Well, here we are, another episode of the Starter Girlz Podcast. We are in a fun place today. We've been here before, the meeting place and Farmers Branch Addison area. And I love it here because it's such a great place to bring people together. If you have a meeting or an event you need to hold, or if you just need to sit down and pop open the laptop and make a few phone calls, it's a great place to sit down and do that. So we're here today. And I'm so excited about my guest today. And so let me open this up real quick and give you a little bit about her before we bring her on. Imagine facing a life-threatening heart disease and a full brain tumor removal that leaves you paralyzed and then in just 21 days going from a wheelchair back to the dance floor. That's the kind of resilience and determination my guest today embodies. From Capitol Hill to underserved community, she spent three decades championing healthcare advocacy and inspiring others to overcome adversity. And so I'm so excited to chat with her today. She is such a lively spirit. But before I get her on here and chat with her, we do need to do a quick shout out to our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Walt Mills Productions. Need to add excitement to your YouTube videos or some expert hands for editing? Look no further. Walt Mills is the solution you've been searching for. Walt is not only your go-to guy for spicing up content, he's the force behind a thriving film production company with numerous titles in the pipeline. Always on the lookout for raw talent, Walt is eager to collaborate on film and internet productions. With a background deeply rooted in entertainment and promotion, Walt Mills leverages years of skills to give you the spotlight you deserve. Want to learn more about Walt and his work? Head on over to Waltmills Productions.net and let your content shine. All right. And with that, we do want to make a mention to head on over to startergirls.com. I say this every single show. Why, or excuse me, every single episode. Why? Because one, if you've ever missed an episode, you can catch up. All the cheesy ones are still there. Go check them out. If you want to stay in the know about what's coming up, you can sign up for our community newsletter, and then you can check out all the upcoming things that are happening with Starter Girlz. And last but not least, if you are an inspiring, excuse me, aspiring entrepreneur, or maybe you're in the thick of it, I've got a two-minute quiz over there that you can take that will help you determine what your number one subconscious block is that may be hindering your success. So as I always say, head on over to startergirlz.com and do your thing. All right? Are you ready for this? This is going to be so much fun. Ari Medrano is a what we want to say, a medical miracle, fierce advocate, and in-demand speaker whose miracle mindset brand empowers others to rise above challenges. From corporate boardrooms to underserved communities, she transforms lives with her unwavering determination, passion, and resilience. So, Ari, welcome to Starter Girlz. I am so excited to have you here today. Thank you.

Ari Medrano:

I'm incredibly excited to be here with another powerhouse right next to me. Thank you.

Jennifer Loehding:

And this is so fun. We get to do this in the meeting place today, which I think is so much fun. I mean, most of my episodes we do online. So although they are wonderful, I say they're all magnificent. It's like we're having that face-to-face on the uh computer screen, right? Right. There's so much power when you're in the same room, especially with somebody like you who is just like a powerhouse L in itself, you know? So you're like a little walking like billboard for just energy, excitement, and powerfulness. Right. So I love it.

Ari Medrano:

Resiliency.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, I love it. I love it. So let's talk about that. I want to because as we were walking in here, I was asking you, like, what do you have going on today? And you're like, I've got this and I've got this, and tomorrow I've got this, and the next two months are gonna, you know, through, or guess through the end of October are gonna be crazy. So maybe take us really quick a little bit through what it is you're doing. Like, what is your is this passion, is purpose, like what you're out there doing right now.

Ari Medrano:

Yeah, thanks so much. I mean, truly what I do is the empowerment of people, right? And so that leads then to the empowerment of community, and that leads to being an inspiration, you know, to them. And yeah, the resiliency, all the things that you read, most definitely, but also being someone that motivates, transcends them to like the different place than where they're at. So it's literally moving from somewhere where you are to where you can be. And again, that's individual and or community, but as a patient advocate, as a health advocate, so yes, I've gone to Washington, DC and been able to advocate for our Latino unchampioned community. So I'm very big working with the unchampioned communities, and whether that's with people with special abilities, people who are living with, you know, cancer, people who have different diagnoses, really being there to champion for them and be the like, hello, Washington, hello community, hello, hospitals, hello, whoever it is, right? Um, we need your attention and we need some advocacy behind these unchampioned communities. And so I'm an amplifier for people, places, and brands.

Jennifer Loehding:

I love it. People, places, and brands. And you are definitely an amplifier. I love it. Okay, so I have so much I want to do do with this because I feel like we need to backpedal a little bit and talk about your journey because I feel like so many of us, we just said this before we turned the camera on, or maybe we had the camera on. I don't know. But we just said most of us that are doing community work have a story. Usually there's some passion, some reason why we're doing what we're doing. And because I don't know that we always just wake up in this place going, oh, I just want to give back to the world. I think we have these big transformations that happen in our lives that put us in a place where we now know that we have a voice, right? And um I don't know if you were like I was as a child. I think I just saw I was watching your appearance on Jeff Crilly or something about, I don't know where it was, about something about being silent, and you're like, that's that was not me. And I laughed because not because you were told this, but because I kind of was too. And as a child was always, you know, being felt like I was sort of being stifled a little bit with my voice. And ironically enough, you know, all the things that I used to get in trouble for for talking and being loud and all those things are the very things that I do now, right? And so um there's a lot to them. And so I don't know where I was going with all of that, but I was diving into all of that because I saw you. But I want to back up and talk about your story a little bit, what brought you to today? So maybe walk us through some of that. You don't have to get into all the detail, but kind of walk us through what brought you to where you are right now.

Ari Medrano:

Yeah, I mean, quite frankly, what brought me through it all is adversity and then the the power of resiliency. And so being able to thread along the thread, right, of how did I get here? Because I get that asked that question all the time. Yeah. So when I look back, especially when I was five years old, I'll tell you, I have a memory in my younger years. So um, we came out here while we were, you know, undocumented. And we at that point, my mother wanted to make sure that we were not, you know, there's there's a word called la migra, right? Which is like the officers that come and and and take folks who aren't supposed to be here, right? And so we let our visa pass. However, we were in the process of getting things um corrected, right, for us. But one of the things that you don't do is when there's just like a knock on the door, you don't just go and open the door, right? And so we were very conditioned to run into the table. You never know who's gonna be there. Yeah. So it did that. And there was a woman who came out and just said, you know, we I brought some food for you. My mother had five children, and she says, You know, I just wanted to, you know, give this to you and bless you. And and my mother was like, Well, thank you. And then she says, You know, I know that you're running on really hard times. And so I just wanted to tell you that the government here gives you money. And my mother was like, What do you mean? And she says, Yeah, they give you money, they give you like these these stamps, um, they will give you food, they will give you, you know, medical care, all you know, all the things. And my mother said, Why? And she says, Well, it's just free. That's what the country gives you here. And my mother said, We did not come here to take. We came here to give. And I'll never forget that moment. And quite frankly, that transferred on to all five children because all of us in the careers that we're in, we are all of service in one way or another. So I have two sisters who have, you know, tenure in the um academic way of life, right? So they're teachers and and and professors. Um, my brother just finished 26 plus years as a senior master chief in the Navy. Uh, he is also a sheriff. You know, my other brother, who's now in heaven, was a week away from joining the police academy. And so I am, you know, a community impactor. And so that that thread was with us in all those years. And then we had a lot of adversity that happened between that just as a family, but then medically for myself. And then I just kind of fell into working in community with a mentor that I had. I'm a firm believer in mentorship. And one day she had me in a class and she says, Will you meet me after class? I said, Sure. That meeting led to my entire life changing, and that's when I started my outreach with community, um, working on the streets of East Los Angeles in California with gang members, with drug and alcohol people who were addicted, with sex workers. I mean, it was an array of folks. But what I did see was I was also in my own form of pain. We all have pain, right? What I noticed with them is that they wore their pain differently, but we were still the same. And so that really tugged at my heart. And I said, okay, but why don't they have the resources that the rest of us have? That's not okay with me. So that's where my advocacy really jumped out. So it started at 21, 22 years old.

Jennifer Loehding:

Wow. You know, and you gave me chills when you're talking about the same thing because that's one of the things that I always talk about, you know, and I don't want to get into like the political parts of things, but how we're so divided on so many levels all the time. And, you know, one of the things I've learned in doing this podcast show is that because I've talked to people all over the world, and I've learned that, you know, and not that I don't think I already knew this, but it confirmed it for me, that people really are the same wherever you go. Like their basic needs, the things, the wants, all the desires. We have little nuances that we're different, but really we're all the same. Right. You know, and when you when you start working on figuring out, you know, how we are the same versus how we are different, it really puts a different perspective and view on things, I think. And I think that's what makes you comfort be able to come to a place of how can I be of service and help? Because you're looking at people as a whole and not individually. Yes. You know what I mean? Yes. And that's how when I that's why I tell you, like when I bring people on the show, it's so interesting because I one of the things, and I will say this, and maybe you've been this way from a small child, and maybe that's because it's just something we learned at a very young age. I've always been a very inclusive person. So even as a very young person, I didn't care what color somebody was, I didn't care where they came from. I had poor friends, rich friends, minorities, not minorities. I didn't care where people, I didn't care. That was the one thing I've always been good at is bringing people together from different communities and different, you know, walks of life. And so even now in the work that I do, I still find it hard sometimes because I don't want to be in any particular group. Like I have friends in this group and friends in this group. And I'm like, why can't we just all come together and all be friends? Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way with everybody, right? But I think you and I see that that we look at people and just say, we're all kind of collectively together. And I think when you also look at people and say, everything that you do from the time you get up in the morning till the time you go to bed, like you step out that door, everything you do impacts somebody around you. So you always are having an impact with the people around you, you know, and when we look at that, then we start to see how we're all collectively joined. Yes. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I think it just gives a very different view.

Ari Medrano:

I agree. Absolutely. I I I know that working with the population that I was working with, again, I like to call them unchampioned communities. So it's not about because you're black, white, or Latino or a a drug user or a sex worker or whatever it is, right? That it's really about getting curious about how you came to be, what opportunities do you need, and then let's fill the gap without judgment, right? Without any, you know, anything else. Like I'm not, and and and I know that I remember particularly, I had one client and and call them clients, right? So she was a uh sex worker at the time, and so we used to go in and we'd give condoms in between the the windows at motels, okay, right? And and and a lot of them were dealing with drugs and alcohol addiction because it was helping them to get through what they needed to get to do in order to either feed their children or themselves or whatever the reason was, right? And so I remember she said to me, you know, why do you keep coming? She had a big ol' attitude, right? Yeah. She says, Why do you keep coming? Why are you here? You're not even an addict. What do you know about anything? And I looked at her and I was like, I can't believe her. Okay, I'm gonna give it to you straight with no tracer because that's what I do. Yeah. I said, Listen, I don't see any one of y'all coming here waking up in the morning carrying this bag and coming door to door to y'all. So when you can get clean and sober and you'd like to take this bag and go help your own people, I'd be happy to hand it over. And I can go do something else. That is good. She was jaw-dropped. And can I tell you, two years later, I run into her at a community college clean, taking a certification course for drug and alcohol studies. It makes me want to cry right now.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, it just gave me chills. Oh, you know, that and that is one of the things I will say about you. And just because I'm not even gonna get into this specific conversation, but the the other day when we were here and I was observing something you were saying to somebody, and I mentioned this to my husband after the fact that said one of the gifts that you have is the ability to reframe things in a in a in a very well manner for other people to take ownership of it, but in a way that it doesn't make them feel dismantled. It gets emboldens them to or to be better. Do you know what I'm saying? Which is a gift because a lot of times people get defensive. Whenever they feel like you could have been in that particular situation you're talking about right now, you could have easily gone, oh, okay, well, fine, I'm out of here. Right. You know, you could have just totally cowered down and ran out the door and said, I don't have to do this, forget this, right? But instead, you flip the switch, turned it. We're getting into a whole emotional intelligence conversation right now. You flip the switch back to, hey, I'm empowering you, but at the same time, I'm letting you know, like, this ain't cool. Right. Right. Right, absolutely. But you're gonna own it because you've got a chance now to step up to the plate and take it over.

Ari Medrano:

Correct. Absolutely. I love it. An opportunity to get curious about the other human on the side on the other side of you. And when we realize when, and and this comes from being confident in who we are within ourselves, that I know the words coming out of her mouth have nothing to do with me. No, exactly. Absolutely. So when you can pull yourself out of situations, that's where you're able to get another view and go, ah, I see the pain. Absolutely. I'm gonna speak to it. Or you need a kick in the butt and I'm gonna speak to you.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah. Well, and I think that the point I'm trying to make here is that it's having empathy, right? Like having the empathy to say, here's where the person's coming up coming from, but also having the maturity and the wisdom and the emotional, the EQ, whatever, to come over here and go, okay, that's why they're they're doing reacting because this is where they're coming from. So I think that I will say that is a gift. I mean, and and that's something I think a lot of us strive to do. It's a it's what I try to do in the work that I do is to try to all one of the biggest things, Ari, I will say, because I'm a quick thinker, I'm also a quick talker, I'm a quick doer, impulsive sometimes. And so I have learned the pause is a very good thing, you know. And when when you don't know what, yeah, when you don't know what to say or do, sometimes it's just okay to say, give me a moment, or allow yourself a moment to pause, redirect that, and then you can come back with a much more efficient and then it takes it practice. I think after a while, you as you grow and you get better at that anyways. But I didn't want to commend you on that because I think that's so powerful. Yes, it's powerful, and it dismantles people, right? Not in a bad way, but it arms them in a way that they can take ownership, but also you're not taking you're not taking ownership of that.

Ari Medrano:

Correct. And that those are call boundaries, right? This is where you stop. This is where I start. Like this is me. That is all you.

Jennifer Loehding:

Well, and one of the things you and I were talking about right before this is that we weren't quite recording here about having these hardships, right? Like some of us, I feel like, and I don't, you know, one of the things, I don't know if you've read the book, I forgot his name, Gary Um Chapman Bishop. Oh, no. He does the stop the book. It's like stop doing that. I'm gonna say this word, stop doing that shit. It's one of my favorite books. It's one of my favorite books. I tell everybody, like when I have new clients come on, there's like a handful of books I have people read. One is Stephen Covey's, one's a I have a John, a couple of John Maxwell's in there, and then um Jamie Kern Lima's unworthy. So I've got to list them. This is another one. Okay. One of the things I like about this book is he talks about these belief systems that we have about ourselves, about people, and about life. And these belief systems are formed like very early on at when we're children, right? And so the reason that you're gonna, you're gonna love this, probably what I'm talking about, because when I did this assessment for myself, and let me say this, I have my clients do it. So when I do workshops, I have them do it. It's like eye-opener for people, right? So when I did it for myself, one of the things I realized is that I had a lot of these beliefs that life was hard. Yes. Like a lot of just energy wrapped around life is so hard and that people are selfish and that and that like I deserve like all this bad, right? Like I've had so when I say all this, so I started going down and writing these these things down. Now, if you or I walked into an interview and somebody said, right now, are you tell me about yourself and you'll be like, I'm this, this, this, this. I do the same thing, right? But then we have those moments where we start to doubt ourselves, right? And that's where those things come up. And so it was interesting because when I started looking at that life is hard thing, that was because I'd watched how the dynamics in my home life were, like how things, and I and I and I love my parents, don't get me wrong. But it was just that's it was like we lived chaotically, you know. My mother was very structured, my dad wasn't as much, we just had a lot of things going on, you know? And so when you have that, you tend to a lot of times cling on to those patterns because they're comfort, right? That's what you know, right? And so I've spent the, I feel like this last, you know, these last 12 years really trying to dismantle a lot of that, right? And so it's weird because I guard like this is where the boundaries we're talking about. I guard my peace, I want my calm, sometimes I want my boring, you know, because we didn't have that. And so going back to when you and I talked about having a lot of these hard things happen in our lives, some of that I feel like sometimes it's because that's what we know. It's what we know. But there's also that part where we experience life fully, like we put, we're willing to throw ourselves out there to the wolves, you know. I don't know about the wolves, but we're willing to throw ourselves out there, right? And be bold and and risk that rejection and failure in order to get that fulfillment we want, right? Well, in order to move forward.

Ari Medrano:

Yeah. Because if you don't fail, then how do you move forward? Yeah. Like if you're just stagnant all the time, well, that's not growth. Like when people say, wow, you've changed. Oh my gosh, thank you. Because can you imagine if you run into someone that you knew when you were in high school and they're like, you're exactly the same when I met them in the world?

Jennifer Loehding:

They're back in the political school. Okay, all right, there are people that are still like that. No, I mean, we're motioned to them.

Ari Medrano:

No, but all I am saying is if you have not had anyone say to you that you have changed, I am just going to, with truth and grace and love, say, get some growth in you, baby. Yeah, which means you gotta fail some.

Jennifer Loehding:

You gotta fail some. It's okay if you're young, you can still be that way. But you're right, there are people our age now that are like still doing the like talking the same way, everything. And I'm like, Right. I'm like, did I change that much? Because it's like just bizarre to me now, you know. And that's why, you know, like if you they always say, like, when you we used to say this, you know, in all the 27 years I was in Mary Kay, that like, you know, the people you start with in the beginning won't be the people that take you to the next step, and right, you know, and you're gonna outgrow the people, and you do, you really do. You start to keep you level up, your dynamics change, the people around you change. It doesn't mean you don't still love the, you know, the the people that are around you. It's just that the people you spend the time with the most are gonna change and evolve, and you know, and and you're right. If you haven't been changing, then you're stagnant.

Ari Medrano:

Yeah, let's talk about that. Because quite frankly, it's not everyone is supposed to be going on the journey with you forever. We get stuck on this forever business, right? Um, I get it in marriage, right? There's a covenant, there's a contract, there's all those things. Um, but in friendships, we all have different directions, and it's kind of silly to go, oh, you're gonna be going in my direction for the rest of my life together with me. Like that is really selfish. Yeah. Like, no, you don't know if you're who you're supposed to be for them on their journey. Maybe you're supposed to release them so that they can find other things, other people, other places, other whatever they need to level up or to go on whatever journey that they're a part of. And the same thing with us. So it's we thank the person who is in front of us for the time being that they gave us the gift of their presence, and then we allow them to be present in their present, right? The presence that they have for them, so that then we can go and move forward. Now, what happens sometimes we get so caught up in our life story that we tell ourselves. That's not even the story quite, right? Right, it's just it's it's just a story we tell ourselves. So when we have to, when we look back at whatever event that we're in, it's who's driving the bus right now. So I'm 53 years old. I've got 53 versions of Ari up in me. And I got 52.5 and 52.6, and then I go up until you know 53 or whatever it is. So whenever I'm going through something, I have to stop and ask myself, who's driving the bus right now? Who's driving the bus? Because if five-year-old Ari is driving the bus when I'm ticked and mad at whatever situations in front of me, I gotta tell five-year-old Ari, hey, hey, hey. Chill out. Hands off. I'm gonna need you to step away from the wheel. I got this. I don't need the tool of a tantrum or yelling or being angry. And we're safe today, Ari. Like it's gonna be okay. So we need to be able to go back and speak to our younger self and and wrap the love, the the the thank yous on them for giving us what we needed in those moments. But today, hey, five-year-old Ari, eight-year-old Ari, 15-year-old Ari, turn around. How old am I? Yeah, and that 15-year-old Ari's gonna go, uh you're 53, and I'm gonna turn around and go, yeah, baby. And we made it, and we're good. And we don't need to throw that tantrum anymore, and we don't need to move all the puzzle pieces. We have new tools, but I just want to thank you for how you protected me when I was 15. But we did this together, and I love you. Hey, what would you want to do if you didn't have to protect me like that anymore? Like those are those deep real conversations that we didn't internally have with ourselves. So that's called IFS, internal family systems. It's a wonderful process to go through because you're able to go back and do the shadow work and heal your inner child, release them so that then you can be who you were called to be in always and always.

Jennifer Loehding:

Come with me. I love it, Ari. Well, listen, you beautiful, amazing soul you are. We're the same age, by the way. I love it. But I always love to tell people because it's like it's funny. We talk about, you know, like we always say age thing is such a thing that women women don't like to talk about. But I think for us that feel I feel okay in my skin, and so for me, it doesn't bother me. But I do want to say you are an amazing soul and you look amazing. And I know women tell you this probably all the time because they tell me this. They're like, I tell them how old I am, and then they're like, What? Right. And they don't even believe me until I tell them how old my kids are, and then I'm like, I got one fixing to be 29. And they're like, What? When did you have? Or were you like 10? You know, like, no, not quite, not quite. So it's a good thing. But I think, yes, what you're saying is so powerful, and it is so true because you know, I joke all the time. I think it was Tony Robbins that said we're like all like five-year-olds in adult bodies, right? We have to remind ourselves, you know, that hey, listen, we don't need to do that. You're right, we don't need to act that way. We don't need to be that way. And I think that's what's great about having, you know, the wisdom. And also, uh things I want to say here, you know, like what your mom taught you about being a servant leader, you know, that ingrained in your spirit. But I think a lot of you having to go through these different adversity stages also created a lot of this for you. And it gives you a different look at a really different perspective on life and humans and how we interact. So I love it. I think it's just you're giving me chills with all of it.

Ari Medrano:

So embrace life, love life, no matter what it gives you. And and even if it's that like that one thing that you go, there's no way I'm gonna embrace that thing. Yeah. Well, that thing is the thing that I'm actually talking about because that thing that you're you're actually going like this to yourself with until you release that, until you reframe it and understand that when you get curious about being curious about the pain that's come through in your life, you get to really understand that all of those stories that you have attached to that thing, that unspeakable thing, there is some gifts in there that have really defined who you are today. Right. And so then you go, Oh wow. I you know what I'm so grateful. I had 47 stables in my head. Yeah. I'm so grateful that I lost everything because I was able to find me in the heat of all that. And even though my house was burning down gradually, I don't smell like smoke. And I'm grateful for that today. Yeah.

Jennifer Loehding:

So I don't want to, I don't want to have make you share anything you don't want to share, but I'm sure some of the people are listening to this because we talked in the bit in the very beginning a little bit about your intro and your journey. If you would share just because I know our audience is like what happened to her? Like, what's brought her to this other side where she's like this? Do you want to share a little bit? Absolutely. Because I'm sure they're gonna be, I I know your story is powerful, and I don't know that I've heard all of it. And so, I mean, I've I've seen pieces of it here and there, but I know everybody here is going, why is she so amazing like this? You know, like what I mean, we know it's not just one thing, it's a lot of things. But maybe tell us a little bit about that, that medical stuff, because I know it's several things too.

Ari Medrano:

Right. So, I mean, it it was it it stems from even when I was a child. So I was definitely an abused child growing up, you know. Um, to your point, like you said, you know, my my my parents were wonderful. My parents were very much abusive as a child, but when I got curious about getting curious about how and why they were so abusive, I found out that I actually had it pretty easy compared to what they went through with their own parents, right? So then it gave me gratitude that they at least did better than what they were exposed to, right? And so then became for me going, I want to do better than that, right? And so that's how we changed generation, right? Trauma in that way. So it started with that, and then I lost, you know, my brother. Um, the brother that I knew at the time, he was shot several times. It was a robbery, and we were it was a traumatic experience for the entire family. And then, you know, my mother was also very sick many times. So there was so much adversity, right? In the very beginning. In the very, very beginning, right? Yeah. And so I had to decide how do I live my life? And so I decided that I was able to create other stories in my head. So I got very much into acting and theater and and speech team and all the things where I can be somebody else and not be who I was at home, right?

Jennifer Loehding:

Sure.

Ari Medrano:

And then the medical things started happening with me. I started having heart issues. I had, you know, 21% heart function. Uh, I was given 30 days to live. I uh I and to know unbeknownst to me, I had heart disease. That was really, really, really challenging. Um, from there, I ended up having multiple tumors. So I've I've I'm a mosaic masterpiece under this gorgeous beautiful dress. Surgery after surgery after surgery. On top of that, uh, I was married and uh was in a very abusive relationship. There were some addictions going on on that end, and that was a very challenging time for me. So to deal with the heart disease, to deal with the addiction and the marriage at the same time was challenging. And so once I left from that, I found myself in another relationship. Wow. And that one was also abusive. And, you know, imagine that common denominator. Yep, yep. Right here until I got myself right. I got right, right? But all of these things, even throughout over and over, I've been in a car accident. I rolled three times. I have flatlined twice already. It's been a journey. It's been a heartache, it's been physical, it's been emotional, it's been psychological. I lost my family many times along the way. We had some um victimization of children in between all of that. So I mean, it ran the gamut, right, of horrific, traumatic situations. But what I do know is that when you go through horrific and traumatic situations, that that opens up the door for joy, love, and faith. And so you get to decide to use that opportunity to go, I'm in a lot of pain right now. And all I want to do is see that chandelier, all I want to do is hang from it. I wonder if the saline. Those moments, so even to your listeners, I want to say in those moments, you just have to hang on for just one moment more. I don't even say a day because I didn't have a day. I didn't have an hour, I literally had a minute, and you hang on for that one minute, and that'll lead to the second minute, and then that leads to the third minute. And for me, the next minute, a phone call came from a pastor and said, I just wanted to check on you. And then did he know that at that moment all I wanted to do was die. Yeah. But thank the Lord for the fact that I have people around me, right? It's so important to choose your people wisely. So what I speak about is faith, focus, action, commitment. With those things in place, anything and everything is possible. So those are the things that gave me the opportunity to be the woman that I am today. So I am grateful, I am blessed, I am loved, regardless what comes at me. Any moment of any day, every moment of every day, I have an opportunity to make a different choice and to live a life of joy from what may, no matter what.

Jennifer Loehding:

I love it. Well, and I and I always say this, you know, when I hear stories like this, that I hate that somebody has to go through those things, but in the same breath, it's why you're where you are today, right? It's like like when I was writing my book, I remember coming out of that. And I remember crying while I was writing it. And I have not had to go near through the things you've had to go through, but I feel like I've had to go through some hard things that altered my life and made made me different. And um, those of us that have to deal with medical things that are chronic, they don't go away. We are like, I feel like my life is I was to be able, my life changed in January of 2012. It's never been the same since that time. Um, because I have lived with health stuff ever since, and I have to be very mindful and and conscientious about everything that I do every single day of my life. And so, but the thing is when I was writing that book, I remember, I remember at the time crying when I was going through it because it was such a hard time. And I was documenting, you know, like getting this all down on paper, and I couldn't do it without being very emotional about like all the pain, the hospital visits, the medicine, all the things, the the fact of how it affected my children, all the things, right? It's crazy now because when I talk about it now, I look at it with a whole fresh set of eyes. I'm like, man, that that time period sucked. Right. It really, it was probably the most the most difficult. And I have been through abusive marriage, divorce, I've been through, I mean, I feel like I've just had a lot of crazy things happen. But that was the hardest for me, the hardest, because I had four years of it, four years of unrentant relenting pain, 24-7 in my face every single day. And so, um, and so I can look at it very differently though, with a fresh set of eyes. And I can also say, coming out of that, that that for me is what it was the catalyst to finding me. When you talk about finding you, that was the catalyst because I went into that strictly to figure out how to get to get out of pain, to get out of pain, and in the process of that unfolded an entire mass. I mean, obviously, we're still growing, we haven't stopped. Right. We're still growing, but it won't have so much for me in who I am today and why I do what I do. And I don't, and I, and I think it taught me empathy, yes, I think it gave me empathy because I don't know that I had it before that. I mean, I I thought I was a compassionate person, but I think those are a little bit different. I don't know that I've had true empathy, and I think I think there may have been a part of me that does, but I think it really gives me the ability now to look at people from wherever they are. I don't care where they are, and to look at that person and go, oh, that situation they're in right in right now, that sucks. I don't understand it. But for whatever they're dealing with right now, that is hard for them. Yes, and it's not my job to judge or criticize or to to it to try to solve it because that they're in that. You know what I mean? So um I think there's beauty in these pain things that we get. But I will tell you for me, the biggest thing is is the empathy it's given me for humans, and it allowed me, like I said, to go back and take that and use my voice in a place with it. My mother put something just to tell you the other day, a few weeks ago, I put something up on Facebook about how I used to get in trouble for talking because I laugh about this now because I was the kid in school that would make straight A's that I just because I get my work done so fast and stand it, and I just needed to talk to the neighbor and the neighbor and the neighbor. And I was planning groups and clubs, and like we were gonna go outside and like talk on, you know, we were doing all this stuff, and the teachers, I would just, I would, we had to put stickers on our conduct at the end of the day, and I would just pray that I was gonna get to put a sticker because I just knew when the folder went home. If I didn't have an A on conduct, my mother didn't care about my grades. Conduct, the conduct, you know. So it riddled me, you know, and so being able to now, like my mom put on this post one day, she says, I always told you that if you could use your voice in a good place, you know, in an appropriate place, you can move mountains. Yeah, you know, and not even because I was mouthing, I was always in trouble, and you know, like she's like, if you could just put it in a in a place where you for good, you can move mountains. Right.

Ari Medrano:

I look back at at my um grade school, you know, report cards, we called them back then, right? Every single one of them from first grade all the way up to 12th grade, but for first through eighth was all handwritten, and every single one of the notes says, she's beautiful, she's kind, she's helpful, she talks too much.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, you and I would have been in trouble. We would have been in trouble, you know, on Fridays in elementary school, um, P like we go down to PE. So on Fridays, we had free days. So then we got to do like, you know, double dutch or four square or tinning cling with the and I love that with the clicker, the clicker things. Almost every Friday, I was in the jump rope line because I got in trouble for talking. And so when we got in trouble for talking, all you could do is jump rope. I couldn't every almost every single Friday, I was in the jump rope line because I'd get in trouble for talking. I'm telling you, look at us today and you and me. I would have been like in trouble. I would have like separate those two. Do not let them get together. We would have been playing clubs and doing all the things. It would have been great.

Ari Medrano:

Absolutely.

Jennifer Loehding:

All right, so I want to ask you one more thing. What do you got coming up? I know you got all kinds of what's the next big thing? You mentioned something about a book coming up. Tell us what's going on with you.

Ari Medrano:

I'm currently writing my book. So the you know, title is a work in progress, but I I believe it will be, you know, from wheelchair to dance floor in 21 days because that is what I did, 1% medical miracle. And so, whew, yes, it is a story that most want to know for sure, right? And there's so much behind that. And it's not just so it's not about me. Again, it's about what I can share with others so that they can get better results in their life, right? And so there is a thread that led me to going from wheelchair to dance or right. It wasn't just uh, you know, God just said, and you get a miracle, and you get a miracle, and you get a miracle, right? It's like, no, no, no, no, no. There was work that I also needed to do. I needed to believe that it was gonna happen. Right. But there was work behind that, right? And so when I look back at the thread of my life, I realized that there were four pillars to everything that brought me to where I am today. So I am writing all of that in the book. It's all about faith, focus, action, and commitment and action steps to get the life that you want in business and in life. Get best the best results. So I have that going on, and I am continuing. We have I am also an ambassador for the National Breast Cancer Foundation, very much championed for my Latina community in that space, Spanish speaking. And so we are holding a host of events for them in October because that is coming up. You know, we are currently all you know celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. So that again is just being part of the community, amplifying our voices, not just for the month of, right? And but it is always an ongoing thread that I have. And so then I'm also very involved within my community. I I'm doing a um something with the police department, I'm doing something with the fire department, and I just finished up a you know uh city 101 certification um in my city. So it's important for me to do things locally, yeah, and then also to do things to that are impactful in Washington, D.C. as a health advocate, patient advocate. So a lot going on, a lot of amazing things. I love it.

Jennifer Loehding:

I think it's so awesome. I think it's great that you're getting to step in, especially in a space where you can thrive and um shine your light, girl.

Ari Medrano:

Yeah, and then let everyone see that it is something that you are capable of doing. Because I really do not feel that I am any more special than anybody. Right. But what I will say is that I have 100% intentionality in the way that I live my life and making sure that I get the results in life that I want. And that is possible for everybody. So when on my social media, on my LinkedIn, and my Instagram, and it is really about showing you, inspiring you, and then leading you to different events within the community where you can also learn to grow and be who God called you to be.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, and on that note, so if our listeners want to follow you, where do you want us to send them?

Ari Medrano:

You can go to LinkedIn, you can go to uh TikTok, you can go to Instagram, all the socials. Yeah, Ari Madrano.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, and she's your like I I checked out your Instagram. It's she's got a lot happening there. Check her out over there. You got a lot going on over there. It's awesome. So this has been so much fun. I want to tell you thank you so much, and and comminue and um tell you to keep doing your thing and inspiring. And I love your story. I need to I want to read your book when you get it out. I'm gonna need to read it. So I'm gonna read it too. Yeah, you're gonna read it a few times, right? You've been reading it a few times as a guy, you're gonna get so tired of reading it after a while, right? Time about that. I was like, if we just get this book out, get it out, I never want to read it again. This now I'm like, somebody asked me, I'm like, you know, what's it about? I'm like, maybe I need to do a 2.0, and then I'm like, no, we're not gonna do that right now. We're just gonna hold up on the birthing a child, right?

Ari Medrano:

I mean, there's so much that goes into the incubation of it all. I know.

Jennifer Loehding:

I think everybody should at least try it one time, just experience it, you know, like everything in life. Just try try it, even if it's not, you know, the your favorite. I mean, just do it. It's okay because we all get to fail forward. Exactly, exactly. Must have been great, Arya. And we'll make sure when the show notes go out, we'll get some contact links in there so everybody knows how to find you. All that good stuff. All right, and of course, to our audience, we appreciate you. Love you. Hope you found this episode both inspiring and informative. And if you did, you know what to do, all the things. Like, share, comment, so we can keep sharing all this fabulous content. And as I always say, in order to live the extraordinary, you must start. And every start begins with a decision. You guys take care, be safe, be kind to one another, and we will see you next time.

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Jennifer Loehding

Host
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Ari Medrano

Guest