From Heart Failure to a Second Chance at Life: Gaylen Wilson on Surviving Addiction, Heart Failure, and Starting Again

Hello everyone, and welcome to Tell My Story, the podcast where we explore the real experiences, challenges, turning points, and lessons that shape who we become. Today, I'm joined by someone whose story is truly about second chances, resilience, love, and purpose. Our guest is Glenn Wilson, a heart transplant survivor, 20-year sober former alcoholic, relationship author, certified striving relationship coach, and co-founder of the Monuments Method Institute, alongside his wife, Heather. Glenn's life hasn't been defined by just one comeback. It has been a series of forced reinvention, former farming and career setback to alcoholism, sober- sober rebuilding his career, and eventually facing end-stage heart failure. In 2018, after telling his wife that he believed he only had a few months left, Glenn received a call from the transplant center just 30 minutes later. The next morning, he received a new heart. Th- that second chance eventually led him to helping thousands of men and couples understand the deeper emotional and relationship challenges surrounding erectile dysfunction, intimacy, masculinity, and mental health. Today, we're going to talk about surviving life storm, rebuilding after failure, creating emotional safety in relationship, and perhaps most importantly, what we do with the years we were never guaranteed. Glenn, welcome to Tell My Story. It's a pleasure to have you here with us today.

It's my honor to be here, Henry. Thanks for having me.

All right, Glenn, your life has involved several major reinventions. When you look back, what do those experiences teach you about resilience?

Well, um, well, [clears throat] yeah, like you said, I've, I've, I've had several, uh, most people would call them disasters in my life, uh, where the career I was in, uh, just instantly disappeared, [chuckles] and I had to rebuild myself. And, uh, and, and over the last few months I've been doing these podcasts, I, I've had a time to ref- time to reflect back on why I didn't become a bitter old man. Because if you looked at my re- my bio on paper and saw all these disasters, you might expect to meet a bitter old man. But I-- what I figured out was, and I didn't ever do it, really do it on purpose, although it can be done on purpose, but the reason I was able to rebuild so many times was I always stayed grateful for what I had rather than bitter for what I had lost. And so gratefulness, I think, is, is the biggest gift we can give ourselves, is to, to look for things in our lives to be grateful for.

That's really very insightful. So was there a particular failure that changed the way you viewed yourself?

Oh, absolutely, yo. Uh, y'all, I'll back up and tell my story here a little bit, um, since that's the, [chuckles] the theme of your podcast. Um, Heather and I got together 20, uh, it'll be 24 years ago on September 22nd, uh, is the day we met. And, uh, [clears throat] and, uh, we had both been in failed marriages and, uh, and, and so we both-- we, I think we both feel like we hit the jackpot when we met, uh, because we instantly had an incredible bond. Um, we, we, we made love with presence and with eye gazing, and eye gazing during lovemaking can create