Driving Vision Podcast with Sam D'Arc

Driving Vision Podcast with Sam D'Arc

By Sam D'ArcBusinessNewsBusiness News
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Driving Vision Podcast with Sam D'Arc episodes

  • Nashville Singer Songwriter Jimmy Yeary |EP124

    From Nashville to Los Angeles, Jimmy Yeary is known for moving people with his words. As a speaker, Jimmy magnifies his natural-born storytelling talent and ability to connect with audiences to uplift them and guide them toward cohesion and unity within their organizations. You've never seen a presentation like Jimmy Yeary’s. Www.jimmyyeart.com

    40 min
  • Kalamazoo Tornado with Nascar's Carson Hocevar
    Carson Hocevar: And unfortunately, the house is behind us. You know, the roofs got ripped off and, you know, the side of buildings of next door and
    Sam Darc: Welcome everyone to the Driving Vision Podcast brought to you by the Zeigler Auto Group. And here with me, Auto Group Director of Talent Development, Mike Van Ryn. Welcome, Mike. Hey. Thanks, Sam.
    Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Like it if you do, and leave a comment.
    Carson Hocevar: Hey, everybody. NASCAR Cup Series driver, Carlos Svar, born and raised in Portage, Michigan. Super proud and super thankful to partner with Drive For Life and the Ziegler Auto Group to come together and raise some funds for the most recent tornado event in Portage, Michigan. We'll be at the Ziegler Motorsports location on Wednesday, 6:30 PM on June 5th coming up shortly to help raise some funds for the people that need it, that were affected. So be sure to come out, and, we'll have a lot of fun and raise some money for charity, but also to give away a lot of things of myself, but also good times as always.
    Sam Darc: Hey, everybody out there, including team Ziegler. I'm here with NASCAR race car driver, Ziegler sponsored spire number 77, Carson Hocevar. Carson, welcome.
    Carson Hocevar: Yeah. Thanks, Sam. I appreciate having me on once again.
    Sam Darc: Carson, it's always so much fun to have you on this show, and you're so important to the Zeigler Auto Group and things we do out there in the NASCAR world that it's fun to catch up with you every every once in a while. And we have something kind of new and different to talk about. So since we last talked, a a crazy unfortunate terrible event happened locally, in your hometown, which happens to be also where our corporate offices are located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Of all things, a tornado touchdown, not just 1, but they say 3 or 4 super strong tornadoes. And and, it hit really your hometown.
    Tell us what you know about what happened and and how it impacted you and your family.
    Carson Hocevar: Yeah. I mean, it was, it's tough for me because I'm I wasn't there. I was obviously in North Carolina. Yeah. Just done with a simulator session, got home, and had a few tweets about it, you know, hoping that I was staying safe or hoping that I was not in Portage of my hometown.
    Right? So I was like, man, you know, this is, you know, I'm I'm you know, so I called my mom and, you know, I I I called her and was on the phone and and she, you know, just was getting out of the basement. She's like, oh, hey. You know, we just got a tornado and, you know, tornado watch and everything. The sun's out now and everything's all good, and she's like, oh, your dad's called me just to make sure everything's alright.
    But, yeah, we're fine. And then I got a a callback right away from mom, and I'm like, okay. Well, I know she at least talked to dad. Right? Because, what I might mean, it's you know, it started to scare me a little bit.
    Got on the phone and, you know, my our family business on West Edge got hit, pretty hard, you know, and and and then it started to realize the severity of it. Now all of a sudden, I'm checking Twitter nonstop. You know, I'm looking up, you know, Portage online, you know, just trying to find everything. You know, I'm calling all my buddies and, you know, how I you know, the cell service was knocked out. I'm I'm sure for most everybody in Portage, but I know, my family was struggling to get ahold of me, and I was struggling to get ahold of them with all the cell service.
    So I hadn't seen any video, and, unfortunately, the house is behind us. You know, the roofs got ripped off and, you know, the side of buildings of next door, and our, you know, our roof have, you know, got really torn up. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like and obviously, mistranslation, you know, as far as I was concerned, all the windows were blown out. My dad's truck's upside down, and, you know, the gutters completely, you know, miles away, and the roof's completely open.
    So I'm freaking out now because I'm like Yeah. Like, you know, I I don't know what's real, what's not. And, unfortunately, fortunately, I was on the phone with my buddy, and he's watching the news and saw it and, you know, sent me a video of it and and, you know, luckily, it was everything was alright. Most importantly, everything was safe, and, you know, they started rebuilding and everything. But, you know, for me, it was scary at first.
    You know, as humans, right, we're we're Yeah. Cared for our family first. But but then too, you start to see other pictures of, you know, the FedEx building and and all these other buildings and and businesses. I know that pizza place, the local pizza shop, and, you know, they're just things ripped from the ground, that you wouldn't even know. I showed a handful of pictures to my team, and they you know, me, I know there was a building there, but they, you know, they're looking at it and they're like, what what's different?
    I was like, there used to be a building. And There was something there.
    Sam Darc: There was
    Carson Hocevar: something there. And, that that that part was the most wild. You know, I looked into it for a while, and it doesn't seem like there was any really reported deaths or anything No. Which obviously was right and truly a miracle. I mean, the e 4, but obviously, a lot of local businesses, a lot of, you know, a lot of, you know, people's lives were affected regardless of injury.
    Right? You know, a lot of families and and relatives, I'm sure, to these families are, you know, definitely hurting. That, you know, it's it's it's a tough loss for the whole community, but luckily, it seems like everybody was able to stay safe and seek shelter. And and ultimately, right,
    Sam Darc: you
    Carson Hocevar: know, these buildings, you know, either held up really well or they collapsed or struggled in the right spots. Right? You know? Yeah. But but just shocker.
    I've never had to do that growing up. You know, Michigan's not I don't feel like a tornado type of type
    Sam Darc: There usually aren't tornadoes. Yeah. You have to go back decades to the last tornado, and it hit downtown Kalamazoo. Did some significant damage back then, but to have 3 touchdown the way it did that night, a couple weeks ago is just astounding. I I was at a workout when the sirens went off, and somebody walked into our workout.
    They're like, what do you do? What do we do? And everybody in the room were all like, well, let's just keep working out. So we finished the hour session and, and then I went back to my apartment at Greenspire, which which the tornado ripped right through there and was just astounded at, like, all the trees and the damage and limbs and trees through, you know, roofs and roofs gone. They had a brand new building at at Greenspire where it actually took the entire roof off.
    And I'll tell you, Carson, one of the things that is so impressive about this community, you think about Kalamazoo, you think about Portage and just the people that live here. Everybody came together in an instant so quickly to help. Like, there were people cutting down trees and wood chipping and guiding traffic and trying to make sure people didn't touch power lines minutes after the storm. And then as I'm trying to get into the apartment, this is about 20 minutes probably after it struck, The the tornado alarms went off again, and cops said, hey. You gotta get back inside.
    It's coming back again. And or or I guess another tornado was about to touch down, and I think there was another one that may have, touched down after that. So just unprecedented in terms of weather. And thankfully, nobody died, but a lot of property damage. And it it was so cool, Carson.
    Props to you and your team. Instantly after, this happened, your team reached out to us and said, hey. We'd love to help the the community somehow. Carson lives there. His parents live ...
    29 min
  • Backstage with Rebekah Gregory| EP121

     Zeigler Auto Group Rebekah Gregory as its latest celebrity presenter for its Zeigler University Guest Speaker Series. The acclaimed speaker, advocate, and Boston Marathon survivor kicked off the 2024 Speaker Series with her presentation titled: "Taking My Life Back," echoing the account from her book of the same name. Gregory shared the moving and inspirational speech last Friday at the Zeigler Honda Locker Room in Kalamazoo, Michigan. 

    During her time with TEAM ZEIGLER she discussed her journey following her survival of the Boston Marathon bombing which led to the amputation of her leg. After the incident, Gregory went on to start Rebekah's Angels, a charity dedicated to helping families with trauma therapy. So far over 700 families have been supported by the organization. 

    "The most beautiful parts of life come from the most broken places."


       


    Gregory's keynote address, recounted her extraordinary journey of courage and perseverance following the life-altering events of the Boston Marathon. Despite initially attending the marathon as a spectator, Gregory and her son found themselves just feet away from the bomb blast, an experience that forever changed her and her family's life. 

    She recounted her path to recovery, which included a staggering 76 surgeries, speaking in detail on how this journey helped her find her purpose amidst adversity. She spoke about how her son gave her so much strength during this time despite being so young and having experienced an extraordinarily traumatic event himself. He helped shift her perspective in terms of what her amputation meant by being excited to have a "robot mom," which gave her so much courage in a time where so many people would break. 

    After her surgery she made it her goal to run the Boston Marathon and started learning how to walk and run at the same time. During her time training to walk she encountered a man that came up to her after she parked in a disabled space. An interaction that anyone else would have taken to be saddening and infuriating, she saw it with so much gratitude because the man had identified her as having both legs. This was something she was conscious about as she was learning to walk, studying people's gait and stride to mimic it with her new leg which she affectionately called "Carmen Sandi-Lego." 



    "Rebekah Gregory's story is a powerful testament to the 

     spirit. Her message of 

    resilience and living with intention deeply resonated with our team, inspiring us all to embrace obstacles as opportunities for growth."

    Aaron Zeigler, CEO & President, Zeigler Auto Group

    Gregory was eventually able to run the last 3.2 miles of the Marathon after training for mere months post-op and suffering an injury where her leg split open. The 3.2 miles stood for the amount of time it took her to not only walk but to be able to run again. When she passed the finish line, she fell to the ground and said to herself: "this is the day I take my life back."

    Another impactful moment came that same year, where she had to face  one of the men responsible for the bombing in the courtroom. She was asked to write a victim's impact statement, she was asked to go last, after 26 people, because of how powerful her statement was. Her exact words were: "I was asked to give an impact statement today, and in order to do that I would have to be someone's victim, and I'm not yours; and I'm not your brother's."

    She also went on to say that although his act of hate stretched a couple hundred feet, the act of love seen in response stretched hundreds of thousands of miles; and that no one would remember them only what survivors have gone on to do despite the tragedy. She ended her state with "how's that for your victim statement!" In response, she was met with a soul-less, unfazed person, showing no remorse, looking back at her.

    This was the day she remembered what her nurse Sandy told her before her amputation: "on the other side of fear, YOU will be unstoppable." Leaving the courtroom she felt unstoppable, because if she could face down a bomber in court, there was nothing she couldn't do.

    "Rebekah Gregory's story is a powerful testament to the human spirit," said Aaron Zeigler, CEO & President of Zeigler Auto Group. "Her message of resilience and living with intention deeply resonated with our team, inspiring us all to embrace obstacles as opportunities for growth."

    "On the other side of fear, YOU will be unstoppable.




    "Rebekah Gregory was a very impactful speaker. We had amazing feedback from our team across the organization about how she was such a genuine and caring person.She has a real talent for sharing her story and taking the audience there with her and making them part of the journey!  Her perspective, mindset and sense of humor make her so special!  We were fortunate to have invested time with Rebekah!"
    Mike Van Ryn, VP of Talent Development, Zeigler Auto Group

    Gregory was also a guest this week on our upcoming Zeigler's Driving Vision Podcast with COO Sam D'Arc, Culture and Talent Development Director Ariah Daniels, and VP of Talent Development Mike Van Ryn. During the podcast interview she went on to share even more details about how her world view changed completely after the incident. She recounts feeling like she was on autopilot for the first 26 years of her life and suddenly feeling very blessed when she saw the good in people through the "angels" that rescued her at the Boston Marathon. She also went into more details about the  Listen to the interview here.

    45 min

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