Surviving Life’s Twists: Larry Ambrose’s Story of Resilience and Faith
Join us on this inspiring journey as our guest, Larry Ambrose, a beacon of resilience and hope, shares his profound life story. Larry left a successful career at GE to focus on raising his eight children after the sudden passing of his wife. We discuss the power of resilience, faith, and hard work, and their crucial roles in overcoming life’s challenges while finding fulfillment. Don’t miss this powerful story and the high impact learning that awaits you.
Welcome back to The Main Thing Podcast. Our special guest today is someone I’ve known for quite a while. He’s an incredibly resilient, strong and hope-filled person. Larry Ambrose was living the life of his dreams as a husband, father and corporate executive with GE when tragedy struck, and his wife suddenly passed away two months after giving birth to their eighth child.
By the grace of God and the help of a small army of a support system, he was able to stabilize and continue to raise his family and excel in his career. But six years of trying to do it all eventually took its toll, and Larry was forced to take a leave of absence. A gut-wrenching and soul-searching process resulted in a new life mission statement for Larry. He made the decision to walk away from a company and career that he loved, to stay home and raise his children.
Today, with the goal of achieving a life of joy and now thriving again, Larry Ambrose is fulfilling his life’s mission completely. Larry and fiancée Dawne Jacoby have launched #Grit2Grace – a company designed to offer hope, inspiration, and real-world solutions to those who need it. Through their speaking, coaching, book writing and podcasting, they teach how faith, resilience and doing the hard work can help you get unstuck, find your true purpose, and live a life of joy.
Larry joins us today from his home in Philadelphia.
Now, get ready! Over the next 9 minutes, you will discover why Larry Ambrose is one of the wisest – and strongest – people I know.
Resources
“His and Her Life Hacks Podcast” on YouTube or on Apple Podcasts
Connect with Larry on LinkedIn
Check out Episode 3 featuring our Mentor Dr. Jack Byrd from West Virginia University
Credits
Editor + Technical Advisor Bob Hotchkiss
Brand + Strategy Advisor Andy Malinoski
PR + Partnerships Advisor Rachel Bell
Graphic Design Chloe Lineberg
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Episode Chapters
[0:03:07] – Lifelong connections
[0:05:13] – When tragedy struck
[0:08:37] – Reaching the breaking point
[0:10:53] – Crying out to God; transformation through faith and prayer
[0:12:47] – Making a uncommon and crucial decision; gaining clarity
[0:14:44] – A new path and new ventures; living into the new mission.
[0:17:08] – Larry reveals his Main Thing wisdom
[0:18:15] – The trouble with trying to dodge pain
Full Transcript of Episode 101
0:00:00 – Announcer
Wisdom. It’s an incredibly valuable asset, someone say, more precious than gold. It’s attractive, appealing, admirable. Conversely, a lack of wisdom is the basis of immaturity, blind spots and bad decisions. Wisdom, it can be gained over time, but it can’t be rushed. But wisdom can be shared. That’s precisely what we are here to do right now, today. We are here to hack wisdom, to distill it, to understand it and to process it. Why? To get better at life.
Welcome to The Main Thing. This is your new 9-minute podcast. I’m your host, Skip Lineberg, and I’ve set out to interview the wisest people I know. We’ll see what we can learn from each one when they’re faced with an incredibly difficult, soul piercing question.
0:00:59 – Skip Lineberg
Welcome back to The Main Thing Podcast. I’m your host, Skip Lineberg, coming to you again from Parkwood Studios. As we get into this episode today, I want to encourage you to think about someone you know who is feeling stuck in a rut or possibly just overwhelmed. Once you’ve listened to this terrific wisdom lesson from our special guest, share the episode with that person who came to mind for you. It’s a simple way to help someone.
Our special guest today is someone I’ve known for quite a while. He’s an incredibly resilient, strong and hope-filled person, Larry Ambrose.
Larry was living the life of his dreams as a husband, father and corporate executive with GE when tragedy struck and his wife suddenly passed away two months after giving birth to their eighth child. By the grace of God and the help of a small army of a support system, he was able to stabilize and continue to raise his family and excel in his career. But six years of trying to do it all eventually took its toll and Larry was forced to take a leave of absence. A gut wrenching and soul searching process resulted in a new life mission statement for Larry. He made the decision to walk away from a company and career that he loved, to stay home and raise his children With the goal of achieving a life of joy and now thriving again, Larry is fulfilling his life’s mission completely.
Larry Ambrose and his fiancee, Dawne Jacoby have launched Grit to Grace, a company designed to offer hope, inspiration and real world solutions to those who need it. Through their speaking, coaching, book writing and podcasting, they teach how faith, resilience and doing the hard work can help you get unstuck, find your true purpose and live a life of joy. Larry joins us today from his home in Philadelphia.
Now get ready. Over the next nine minutes, you will discover why Larry Ambrose is one of the wisest and strongest people I know.
0:02:59 – Skip
Larry Ambrose, welcome to The Main Thing Podcast. It’s great to be with you this morning!
0:03:04 – Larry Ambrose
Good morning, Skip. Thanks for having me on. It’s great to be here.
0:03:07 – Skip
Larry, let’s talk a little bit about how we’re connected. For the listeners, they probably already hear a familiarity, but we have at least four things in common, beginning with attending West Virginia University.
0:03:22 – Larry Ambrose
Yeah, that was the foundation … and not just West Virginia, of course, but our beloved fraternity Phi Sigma Kappa.
0:03:34 – Skip
Right, that’s right where we know each other. Then, we ended up in the same major in industrial engineering, trekking out from downtown out to the College of Engineering, where we went through a rigorous program of study. And we both had the blessing of being under the tutelage of one, Dr. Jack Byrd, who’s been on this show. And Larry there’s the fourth chapter of that story would be General Electric Company, known as GE, where we both began our careers.
0:04:05 – Larry Ambrose
Yeah, it’s crazy, huh. So we had the same university, same fraternity, same major and then same company. And what a great company to start with, right! Both on these training programs, and for me it turned into be a 20-plus year career.
0:04:22 – Skip
Larry, with that introduction I want to get into your story. Your unique life story involves tragedy and recovering from that … is kind of the foreshadowing.
0:04:31 – Larry Ambrose
Yeah, so you know, Skip, I think in the intro you covered a little bit right I was living the life of my dreams right back in 2011. I had married Chris Federico back in 1993, and we settled back in the Philadelphia region in Pennsylvania and, you know, our life was blessed abundantly. Ultimately, we welcomed into our lives eight children. Wow, and you know, yeah, it was incredible and we were just living the life we had dreamed about. You know, chris was the rock, the foundation at home, keeping you know everything going in the and the house kind of moving along.
0:05:10 – Skip
So then the next chapter of that story, Larry what happens?
0:05:13 – Larry Ambrose
Yeah, so it was May of 2011. And it was about two months after my youngest son, Solomon, was born. I was away on a literally a one day business trip and I was actually supposed to dial in, but I got kind of got called down the night before, so got up, drove down to Charlottesville, Virginia, where our headquarters of that division of GE was, and it was in a meeting and, you know, got a call skip that you never want to receive, right? And it was from the local police department that they were in our house working on my wife. And so, you know, we quickly—two colleagues of mine, Sheila Kester and Jim Wallace— got in the car. We drove up, you know, frantically trying to figure out what was going on.
And then I got the second call you don’t really ever want to receive and it was from my brother-in-law, Craig, who was had made his way into the hospital room and came out to let me know that Chris had passed away. You know, totally healthy, completely healthy, you know, just very unexpected. It was literally life changing in an instant, and it wasn’t instant, right, she had a heart arrhythmia and that was it. And, yeah, so, as you could imagine, complete devastation in your life was just completely turned upside down in that moment.
0:06:28 – Skip
Yeah, yeah, drop you to your knees. I’m sure my goodness yeah.
0:06:31 – Larry Ambrose
The first thing I had to do is I had to learn to accept help, right, because I think, as a provider, right, you know you’re so used to just I’ll take care of it, we’ll figure it out. But you know, at that point I couldn’t. And you know, fortunately I have a very close, strong family. Chris’s family is unbelievably supportive as well and of community. You know, a church community of St Joe’s and Downingtown, the school community, the sports community, and they all just rallied around us and they really wouldn’t let us fail. And the type of support we received was unbelievable, right, I mean, we had meals served to us for a year. We had our laundry done for two years every day.
0:07:15 – Skip
Oh my gosh.
0:07:16 – Larry Ambrose
You know, rides here and there. We had nannies who were in our home, you know, helping to take care of the kids, Just anything you could think of, people were willing to help. I think when something like this happens, it just shocks you down to your core like how does a young mother of eight children, just you know, die in an instant? And I think it just rallies people. And we were forever, we will be forever, grateful for the help that we received during that time and actually, you know, honestly, still continue to receive.
The kids still needed a mom figure and, of course, the dad figure, and I had to try to figure out how to do it and you know the way I would describe it is. You know, it literally was one day, one hour, sometimes 10 minutes at a time, because that’s all that we could figure out, right, you know, that’s as far as we could look in front of us to solve some of the things that we did. But you know, but GE was great. After I came back, they gave me a job that I could work from home. We were able to kind of progress forward with this incredible support system and with a company that supported to me the way they did. It was our new normal and we figured it out and it worked until it didn’t, Until it didn’t.
0:08:32 – Skip
Well strained. Where did the cracks occur? What signaled you that, hey, I need to pivot here?
0:08:37 – Larry Ambrose
The younger ones were getting older and they were getting involved in activities and sports and friend group, and you know so the scale at which you have to parent, you know, increase drastically and it’s a lot more.
You know, effort, a lot more requirements to serve their daily needs. At the same time, you know, GE is investing in a global software business and we became part of that and my center of gravity shifted from Virginia to California. So I was out traveling a lot more to California. After. You know, doing that 24 by seven, day after day after day, it eventually takes its toll and that’s really what happened. Yeah, and the way I describe it is really the losses just started to pile up. You know I really lost my connection to the kids. You know I would come home from a business trip and I might be there physically, but I certainly wasn’t there mentally or emotionally in a way that they needed me.
0:09:38 – Skip
Yeah, because you were probably pretty tired from travel and a week of business.
0:09:42 – Larry Ambrose
So I felt like our relationships were suffering and they were suffering for it. That was partly due because my health was in decline. Right, I had stopped sleeping through the night. I was waking up multiple times and, you know, after a while I’d be like I may as well just start working. So I started working at three in the morning, until five and hopefully try to get another hour of sleep. And you know, when you do that over a sustained period of time, it just wreaks havoc on your system and that’s really what happened to me, physically, mentally, I just broke down, but I think, ultimately, what happened skipped is.
I think God brought me to my knees and because I think he needed me to see and be something completely different than where I was headed. Okay, so, fortunately, I had, I had these people in my life and they said you need to go take a leave of absence, which I did, you know, intending to go back to GE. You know, as soon as I got healthy and cleared my mind and so forth.
0:10:37 – Skip
What are the age ranges of your kids. What’s the youngest age and the oldest age at that May 2017?
0:10:45 – Larry Ambrose
So, 21 down to six.
0:10:52 – Skip
Okay, okay. Wow.
0:10:53 – Larry Ambrose
So I had kids still like just entering, you know, kindergarten, right, first grade, you know, up to you know, a child that was graduating or in the process of graduating, right and everywhere in between.
I think it was God bringing me to my knees because I think I was headed down a path that was going to be destructive for me. I think he pulled me out and he gave me kind of a new lease on life and then I went through a process to, you know, to heal, yeah, yeah, and, and he was there every step of the way, right With me. And my relationship with God changed, my faith changed. I leaned into, I’d like to say I doubled down on my faith. I was now having full on conversations, arguments, yelling with God, you know like crying out.
Yeah, crying out. Like, what do you want me to do? Like you’ve brought me to this point and you know I, you know, am I to go back to work and continue doing what I was doing, or is I meant for something different? And you know, as I progressed through that summer, I gained more and more clarity and I hit a point skip, where I think you know what what I really needed to do was. I needed to dig deep, I needed to resolve some things from my past.
This was the time and I needed to go through and do the really hard really necessary work to, to you know, to kind of grieve her, to grieve the loss.
0:12:19 – Skip
You know, Larry, that’s a big point here and it’s something that I’ve learned and I’ve seen it with multiple friends and stories that I’ve heard and observed. This notion of postponed grief I’ll deal with it later it never, it never works out, it never ends well and it always causes. It always causes more, more trouble, more unrest, more problems, health, wise, emotional goodness.
0:12:47 – Larry Ambrose
Because that summer went on, you know, I felt like each week I gained my health back and I started to gain more clarity. But with that clarity I just I redefined my life and I said what are the priorities? And I came up with these five pillars and wrote this mission statement around it and they were about those things. It was about through my relationship with God. It was about my health right, spiritual, mentally, physical, emotionally like to be there for my kids. I had to be healthy in all those phases. And then it was about being present with my kids, the connection to my kids being there, you know, being there, emotionally invested with them and having that relationship. And you know, the fourth one was around wanting to fall in love again. Right, because I’d always wanted that.
And I needed to make sure I was in a place that I was ready to do that. And then the fifth one was just, you know, you know, live out my mission. I came through this for a reason that led me to the decision to not go back to GE. In November of 17, I left GE in a career in a company that I love. This decision isn’t for everybody. Not everybody can kind of walk away. But I had sat down with my accountant, my financial planner, and I said can I, can I do this? Can I basically invert my retirement and can I take my retirement now during my kids formative years and you know, I know it’s going to tap into anything. I had assets, my retirement accounts, to do, but it was that important to me and you know.
They figured out a way it would work and I was going to do it. I was committed to do it for as long as I could.
0:14:21 – Skip
What a clever and courageous move to make there, Larry. Wow, I just admire that so much. You have launched a new business platform – Grit 2 Grace. You’re engaged. I think on this new path, you continue to be blessed, and I’ll dare say are experiencing quite a bit of joy, would you agree?
0:14:44 – Larry Ambrose
So I met my fiancee, Dawne Jacoby, back in December of 2021. And we immediately hit it off, we immediately connected, but at a at a much different level than what you would normally think. But you know she has a very similar mission. You know, the path that she took to get to the point in her life at that moment was different than the path I took, but we both had to go through some significant loss in our life. We had to work our way through it. We had to get to a point where we could thrive again and be joyful and then be ready to kind of meet.
And that’s what happened through, a mutual friend introduced us, and you know so. So not only did we have this blossoming romance, but we also then you know this was my fifth pillar right, we, we had this combined mission and you know, over time we figured it out together that this is what we needed to go do. And so that’s where grit to grace came from. It symbolizes the determination, the grit to do the hard work, to get to the other side to live that graceful life, that life where you’re thriving, the joyful life again. And you know, that’s where, in the process of doing, and it’s different components. You know we’ve just launched a podcast and I remember talking to you in the very beginning when we started out like Skip, how do we do this podcast thing? You were great with your advice.
So we just launched “His and Her Life Hacks.” It’s kind of giving you know both the male-female perspective on our life experiences the parenting of 10 kids, the loss we came through, the work we did and the corporate careers. Some of it’s funny. Some of it’s more serious. We’re both in the process of writing books about the. You know what we came through individually, and hopefully they’ll be released in the early part of next year. We’re out there speaking. We’re coaching.
0:16:39 – Skip
Yeah, you’ve got such a powerful testimony, and it needs to be shared. Gosh, I can’t wait to read the book and I can’t wait to listen to the podcast. I’m going to put a link for listeners. Just scroll down into the show notes and you’ll see a link to all the offerings that Larry and Dawne are putting out under their brand – Grit 2 Grace.
0:17:03 – Skip
Larry Ambrose, what’s the main thing you’ve learned in your lifetime so far?
0:17:08 – Larry Ambrose
Skip, the main thing I’ve learned in my lifetime so far is that true healing comes from going through the pain, not around it.
0:17:18 – Skip
Wow, true healing comes from going through the pain, not around it. Wow, would you tell us more about that?
0:17:27 – Larry Ambrose
Think about the story we just talked about, right? So Chris passed away. I tried to do everything I can to provide and you know I, like you mentioned with some of your friends, I just avoided some of the things and necessary things I needed to deal with. Needed to deal with that pain, right, and it wasn’t until 2017 when, again, god brought me to my knees that I had. I faced into it and did the really hard but really necessary work to deal with the pain and because of that, I could come out on the other side and thrive again. But for those six years prior, I was avoiding it, right, I was ignoring it, I was putting it to the side.
0:18:09 – Skip
Bottling it up inside, stuffing it down, exactly If you’re like most people, you’re trying to numb it in some way.
0:18:15 – Larry Ambrose
Yeah, ignore it. Just you know anything to try to avoid it. And only when you go through the pain and deal with it head on, I believe, anyway from my experience, is when you can come out on the other side healed. And when you’re healed and when you have that clarity, the magic really happens right, the brain is open, it’s in tune to what you need, it’s in tune to God and where he wants you to be, and then, you make, I think, the right decisions about the future.
Up until that point, though, there’s this thing that’s always there inside of you, and I think it prevents you from fully living that life that you intended to live.
0:18:59 – Skip
Someone out there listening needs to deal with loss, pain, grief, and they’ve postponed it. They’re bottling it up, they’re not going through it, they’re going around it or postponing it. What might that person be experiencing?
0:19:13 – Larry Ambrose
I think, when you start to lose your motivation, your hope … what inspires you every day to get up and do things, I think those, when they’re impacted, clearly those are signs as well. But it could be a multitude of things, and I think you just have to lean into it and face into it and kind of say, You know what—I’m going to go, take the time to kind of go through this process and heal myself. The reward on the other side of it is just immense!
0:19:43 – Larry Ambrose
You’ve had quite a run here. This is awesome what you’re providing to your listeners. And these nuggets of wisdom that hopefully they take and apply in their lives to help them achieve and get to where they need to be.
0:19:57 – Skip
Our missions are so closely aligned. So we really have five things in common the four we mentioned up front and this fifth one, which is to help people you know, to share what we’ve learned and help people to thrive. I wish you all the best, Larry. Take good care. So long for now.
20:14 – Larry Ambrose
Thank you, Skip.
20:15 – Announcer
Wow, that goes by incredibly fast, doesn’t it? Time flies when you’re hacking wisdom. I hope you’re left wanting more. Sync up with us again next time on The Main Thing … for nine more minutes of wisdom.
Transcribed by https://podium.page
