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Well, welcome back to the Exhomes Schoolers Club. I of course am your host, Jacob Gooden, and uh we've got a
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repeat offender on our hands today. RB is back for round two. I shouldn't say
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offender, that sounds really bad, but repeat guest. RB, first and foremost, thank you for coming back to the club.
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>> Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Um yeah, it's been a while. Yeah, almost I
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think it's been about a year uh since we last chatted and so I'm I'm excited to
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catch up with you. I know some things have changed in your life. We're going
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to get into that, but if you have not listened to Arby's >> interview from before, I encourage you
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go back. It's going to be linked probably up here and also down in the description and wherever you're
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consuming this, it'll be linked. Okay, go check it out. But um can you give us
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can you give us like a quick taste like give the people a quick hit of like what
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your homeschool journey was like? just the quick elevator pitch of like what it was. So, if they do want to go back and
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listen, what they're what they're in store for there. >> Quick and dirty for a repeat offender. I
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got it. Um, yeah. So, I was I never went to a regular like public school or even a
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private school, right? My entire education from preschool or kindergarten up to college at 17 was uh
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homeschooling. And it was myself and my two sisters who were pretty close in age to me
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primarily. And I experienced homeschooling in two different states. Uh Kansas um and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was
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where I was born and we moved to Kansas when I was 13. So, um, there's some nuances there in and how homeschooling
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worked in those states, but also the kinds of curriculums and I would say even more so the kinds of homeschooling
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groups and religious groups that we were affiliated with in both places and those
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certainly shaped that experience. So, yeah, that's uh that's it in a nutshell.
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to your point about the nuances and the differences between homeschool states. I
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also just add um the uh leader not leader but the uh the chairman I I don't remember her title
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but Tess Ol I think is how you say her name and I'm I'm I'm butchering it. I'm just I'm
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waking up guys. I haven't had my coffee yet today and that's okay. But uh
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anyway, I had Tess from the Coalition for Responsible Home Educators or Education on the show and we talked a
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lot about the states and how they differ and we're going to have some other people back on and talk more about that.
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So, if that's also something you want to know, link for that down below. All
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right. >> I would I would like to understand that better because I think part of what
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defined my experience was that there was a lack of accountability, right? And and
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that definitely shaped. So, I love that folks who are choosing that path today are also choosing ways to hold
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themselves accountable, right? >> Yeah. No, and I think that's the the
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cool thing about what they're doing. They are kind of I don't want to say the
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antithesis, but a little bit of like HSLDA or HSLDA wants everything to be up to parents to decide every little nuance
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and everything. And there's some there's some credence to some of that, but um
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but the >> that's homechool legal defense for those of you who don't know as a like I was in
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the what we would consider one of the first generations of homeschoolers, right? I consider myself an a not a
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millennial but also not a Gen Xer. I'm I'm a Zenial, right? I'm 1982, grew up
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in the 80s, right? That that kind of generation. So I was the first one in my county to be homeschooled. So that yeah,
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that early experience and like all the all the parasitic organizations that were
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cropping up to leech off of people who chose that path. Um I'm very familiar
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with. >> Yeah. So, what I think is great about the coalition, one of the big things
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that they're pushing for is just like very common sense standards across the
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board for our states. And so, anyway, go check them out. Link down below. And >> yeah, I want to listen to that one. I
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haven't I haven't listened. >> Yeah. And we're going to have more of
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them on and talk more about what they do soon cuz it's it's really cool. I I
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appreciate it because it's not something when you're a kid, you really don't
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realize that like my the the rules and regulations of my state when it comes to homeschooling are different from other
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states. California. I I just assumed every other state was that way, you know, and then I come to find out I'm
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like, no, other states like they had to go for testing every every year and I'm
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like, I didn't have to do that. I'm thankful my parents did the few times
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that I did take testing, you know. >> Yeah. >> So, well, uh well, let's let's get into
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you sent me we we've been messaging a little bit and you kind of were like, "Hey, some life stuff has changed." And,
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uh and you wanted to chat about it. And one of the things you brought up was that uh was it over the summer you got
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diagnosed with ADHD? >> Yeah. Yeah. Last summer. >> I can't believe it's been a year ago.
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That's that's crazy. So, talk me through that because I feel like that is it's
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kind of a a big thing I'm seeing in my friend groups and just I I think in people in general who are like 30s and
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and 40s and and they're starting to they they missed the diagnosis when they were
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a kid and now they're going back and getting it and they're like, "Oh my
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gosh, things are making sense now. It's unlocking things." So, talk me through
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like what made you want to get tested in the first place? What was the process like? and then and then we'll get into
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like what you're doing with that information. Now, >> there's a little bit of pre-story to the
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actual decision to be tested. Um, and not to go into it a whole lot, but I I think some of these things I mentioned
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in the previous episode, but there was a lot of trauma in my childhood. There's a
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lot of trauma in my childhood. There's a lot of trauma in my parents' childhood.
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and that that kind of passing down of of that trauma is uh is just what happens.
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And so I had been working with a trauma therapist for 4 years I think at that point. And we
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worked through it was one of these things to where it was a little bit of a roller coaster. Like I'd work through
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some things. I'd be pretty good. I'd kind of be hit a dip again. I call him
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up. Hey, I need to come chat with you. Um and there were a few points where he was he was kind of like, "Dude, you're
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good. you're good like come see me anytime you want but we don't need to do
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it you know every month or you know every other week as it was for a while and every time he said that I was like
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yes I have arrived I am healed right I and there were there were a few things it I
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don't know if this is how everyone's therapy journey is but how mine was was
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it was a lot of like very general things and then it was very specific things that were triggering or that happened
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and because of the work that I had done and he had helped me with I was able to recognize that and go address it pretty
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much right away. Right? So, this had been kind of going on for, like I said, about 4 years. And then I kind of
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reached this point to where I was like, I don't I don't need this kind of therapy anymore. and
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my whole kind of view of life had not just all of a sudden but had kind of shifted right away from a trauma
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narrative away from like I I am who I am because of my parents right and there's
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I just want to say for anyone listening to you if if that's where you are right
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now it's okay right that is that is part of the journey but I promise you it is
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not the end of the journey um keep at it. So I reached the reached this point and I was like, okay, I don't
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like I'm ready to move forward with my life, right? And it wasn't from the like
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I'm shoving down what happened to me. It is that I now have the tools to be able
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to handle it, right? When it when it comes up and I have a better understanding of of all the things that
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have happened. So when I got to that point, I was able to let go of a lot of the
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coping mechanisms that I had kind of internalized in my experience. And it was things like,
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you know, you see people wearing t-shirts, right? I lift heavy weights so I don't kill people, right? It's it's
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that kind of like I didn't need those same tools that would just completely take me
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out of my mind and out of my body in some cases to a pain cave to where I I could go there and that felt safe.
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Right? So there were multiple things that I was like I don't need this anymore. I don't need this anymore. I
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don't need this anymore. And I entered this space that my wife and I like to call
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Arby's manic phase because all of a sudden I had time and I had energy because I wasn't putting it towards
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controlling everything around me so that I wouldn't be triggered. And so over the span of like a few
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months I started like four businesses. I did a bunch of really looking back like kind
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of dumb stuff that if I had been in a better a healthier state of mind, I wouldn't have necessarily done.
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But all of that was me like trying to figure out who I was without the shackles of trauma essentially, right?
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And as we as I kind of started looking at like, okay, what is this? What am I doing? Right? Because I immediately
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overwhelmed myself. I started a co-working space. I started like vending. I bought $2,000 worth of B
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movie star autographs cuz I was positive that I was going to be able to flip these and sell them for so much money.
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Um, I started going to I was going to the state surplus store and buying used pocket knives and like vending those at
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different shows and events. And um, I put all of this burden onto myself cuz I didn't I didn't know at the time what I
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was looking for. And like I said, I had never experienced this kind of freedom before. And God bless my wife. like she
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was so kind and so gracious and just cuz I would get I would get I was really stubborn too and I couldn't hear what
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other people were telling me because she was like I don't think that whole picture thing is going to work out like
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you think it's going to. Uh shout out if any of your followers want autograph
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pictures from be movie stars from like the 60s and 70s like hit me up. I've got
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them. Um, but you know, I couldn't hear it, right? And I was just like so sure
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of everything. So, this happened and then and then I started to burn out. Um, after a few
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months, I was like, I I can't do all of this and I've I've overextended myself
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and I I've made commitments that are going to be really challenging for me to
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keep because I'm I'm on the downward slope and I didn't know what that meant.
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And during this time I was, you know, kind of following the social media trend, which I think it is a trend right
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now. There's a huge space that is like everyone is ADHD and you need all these
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tools, right? And that is a trap um that I got caught in of like let me sell you
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this fidget spinner or let me sell you this piece of software or sign up for this music app that's going to help. And
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some of them are helpful. Some of them are not. But like you can dump all of your money into trying to manage what
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whatever condition you think you have. So I got to the point where I was like, I think I think I have ADHD. And I
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remember one night there's there's a an actual test you can go take online that
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is like a DSM and and um you go through it. And I remember taking it and waiting
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for my results and they didn't come quick enough. So I took it again and those results didn't come quick enough.
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So I took it again. I took it four times in the space of like 20 minutes because
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I was so like >> this is I was moving fast. I need the answer now. And it came back as like
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>> probably and I was like god damn it. Um what do I do with this information? So,
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I found a spot in Austin, um, which is an incredible place, and they're the only place that I know in this area of
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Texas that will do an actual come to our office, we will evaluate you, and it's
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not like we're going to chat with you and and tell you maybe you have it. It's
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like we're going to get super detailed. It's like it was like 6 hours of
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testing. Um, and then there was a like a pre like I sent them my kind of life history ahead of time.
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And then they took several weeks to basically go through that, go through that with a psychologist. And then a
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psychologist is actually the one who like calls you and says like, "Here's
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what it is. Here's what's going on." And um, and so they did that. And
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there's so many things I learned. So yes, you have ADHD and it's there are
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different types of ADHD and what you have is called inattentive ADHD. And what inattentive ADHD
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is is it's it's an imbalance in some of the ways that your brain processes or
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stores information. So for me there was no and there's different different systems inside of
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your brain essentially that do different tasks and all of mine were like around normal
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um except for one was lower and then a few were much higher. And how they explained it was it's not
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so much like where you are, it's where you are relative to the other parts of
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your brain and those processing speeds. So for me, working memory is really low.
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And one of the tests I did was like, I'm going to tell you a 10-digit number.
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When I finish with the last number, I want you to write that number down. Right? And I couldn't do it. I could get
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like four numbers in and then I I didn't know what it was. Right. So, it's it was
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very specific like we're testing um specific types of of brain processing. So, um once I got that diagnosis, I was
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like, okay, it didn't feel real. It didn't feel like I think some people experience
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a like, okay, this makes so much sense, right? That didn't come later until I started
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with the uh the medication, which we'll get into. But um yeah, that's like the
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the pre-story into the the like how I decided to to get tested. Well, I think one of the things I picked up on that
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that I haven't really heard a lot of people talk about is the fact that there's different types of ADHD. And I
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think that's that's important in the way you kind of described it of like looking
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at where your brain levels are and how they are relative to each other. Not just in general of like, hey, if
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everything is low, then you're I mean, probably to some degree then you're
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diagnosed as this, but also how they impact each other is is super interesting. Um, and yeah, because that
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that's that's the reality of like the more people I know who who are like,
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"Okay, yeah, I'm ADHD." I'm like, "But you all are so different." Like there's
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not a there's not a like common thread, so to speak, of like you all just like
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forget this one thing or like like I'm married to an ADHD person. They don't
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close the cabinets. Sorry, babe. Love you. But like it it's like one of those
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things where it's like I have just learned that it's like I'll just do it.
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It's not a big deal. you know, I'll go and close the cabinets. Um, and like the
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object permanence thing of like if it's out of sight, it's out of mind, you
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know. Yes. And so learning those things about >> people, it's like, okay, but not
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everybody who has ADHD >> struggles with that. >> Well, why is that? Okay. So, very
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interesting. So now, okay, so now that you've got your diagnosis, you said it
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took a while to kind of like hit you of like, okay, I've got this and like like
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a wave of relief or like just an understanding of like, okay, yeah, it's it's real. Um, cuz I had some friends
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who it's like it's instantaneous. They get the results and they're just like,
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>> okay, yeah, this makes sense. Like instantly it's like weight rolls off the
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shoulders kind of a deal. >> So that it doesn't seem like that totally happened for you. It took a
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little bit, but once that started to kind of kick in and you were like, "Okay, now I can do something with this.
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What what are we doing with this information?" Now, I I started on some medication and um
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part of this journey has also been around how do I connect ADHD to the rest of my health, right? So
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my primary care physician at the time was like, I get it. Um, I am not going to prescribe you a stimulant stimulant.
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You're in your 40s. Um, in people in their 40s, I'm more concerned about
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their heart health than I am about management of a of a of a, you know, ADHD or ADD or So he was like, I'm not
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telling you no. I'll give you some things to try that are non-stimulant options, but if you want a stimulant,
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you need to go see another another physician. So, I was really grateful that he was very open and honest about
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what he was willing to do and what he wasn't willing to do and why. So, I did
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try some non-stimulant options and they were more of the like they'll take your lyic system and help
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it calm down, right? So, your fight orflight response um and those I didn't notice a difference like that
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that wasn't that wasn't the challenge because that that is another type of
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ADHD to where you get you can get locked into that. >> Um so that wasn't the right medication
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for my type of ADHD. Um, so then I tried rolin and this is where it kind of starts like getting into the
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childhood stuff which is tied to homeschooling and how that all happened because we had a kid in our neighborhood
00:19:43
in Pennsylvania who was on Roland and he w he was not sure where on the spectrum he was but he was in the like I
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am a functioning human area without a lot of cognition, right? So he could go to
00:20:07
school, he, you know, he was in the in the, you know, more focused classes that can help
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someone whose brain works like that. But the way that my parents treated it was he is like that because he is on rolin.
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If they would take him off rolin, he would be a normal kid. >> Right? So there's some tapes that are
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playing >> and for you young people, a tape is like a cassette that we used to put into
00:20:38
something and press play and it would roll a tape. So, um, but the old tapes of like if I take
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this, it's going to destroy my life, right? It's going to turn me into a
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zombie. It's going I'm going to get addicted to it. It's something that's
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going to like start controlling me rather than me being able to control my own life.
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It's not true, right? It's just it's it's not true. Now, are they are they
00:21:07
potentially uh dangerous? Yes. Are they habit forming? Yes, they are. And that is why
00:21:16
you need physician assistance and oversight with these kinds of medications because if I
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I've had conversations with with my psychiatrist of like this like this dosage like made me feel like a million
00:21:34
dollars and I was crying because I'd never felt my brain all working in the same way before. And their response was,
00:21:47
"That's fantastic. Also, that means it's too high of a dose because you're going
00:21:53
to get addicted to that, right? So, we're going to take that back down. We're going to like the goal is that you
00:21:59
slowly ramp up and you slowly ramp off, right?" So, there's not this like I took
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this drug and now I am a I'm a super, you know, I have superpowers. Um, if you
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want more information about that, go watch the Limitless movie with Bradley Cooper. But
00:22:17
>> I was, yeah, I was thinking about that as you were saying that. But I think
00:22:20
what you said there about like the doctor oversight thing is like really important because I think
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I'm kind of that way too with with drugs and stimulants and things like that
00:22:30
where I'm just like, you know, are they gonna are they going to be addictive?
00:22:34
are they going to be you know all you know and it's hard because it's like you yeah you
00:22:40
do need you need those people in your life who are going to also help regulate you to some degree and you need the
00:22:45
people who are also with you on a day-to-day basis to understand what what you're going through and
00:22:51
>> yes >> you know and because they can start throwing up the red flags and the green
00:22:55
flags of like yes this is working and no it's not working or something is really
00:22:58
wrong here and so I think that's important that you said that because so many people they want the miracle pill,
00:23:05
right? They want to take it once and they, you know, and be like, "This is the what I'm going to do for the rest of
00:23:09
my life." And it's like, that's just not the way the human body works. Like we
00:23:13
>> we are a very delicate chemical balance and sometimes it goes out of balance and
00:23:18
we got to fix that with some with some prescription drugs and that's okay. But
00:23:21
it's just like you it's going to change again at some point. You know, your
00:23:26
chemical your chemical balance doesn't stay the same always. that is always in
00:23:30
flux and so it makes sense that your drug would also be in flux. >> So, so now so have we gotten the dosage
00:23:38
dialed in at this point or >> gotten the dosage pretty much dialed in. I switched from rolin to aderall and I
00:23:44
ju I just want to say out loud a lot of people when they go on podcast or whatever they don't talk about the types
00:23:50
of medication they're taking because they don't want people to think exactly
00:23:53
that like oh is the one I'm going to go ask my doctor for aderall. Um because I
00:24:00
I'm still like Aderal is working but I'm curious about Viveance. Like there's
00:24:04
some some things about Adderall that I'm like uh not not great but also maybe
00:24:09
there's something else. So like and I really appreciate what you said because
00:24:14
one of the one of the challenges um with all of this is is thinking that there is a magic solution
00:24:25
that is going to not only help today but also is going to be the same for the rest of your life. And that very black
00:24:34
and white thinking was something that was a another coping mechanism that I learned early on of like someone was
00:24:42
either safe or unsafe. There was no in between. Right? And I would I have been the type of person my whole life that I
00:24:49
assume everyone is safe until they prove otherwise and then get out of my life. I
00:24:53
don't want to have anything to do with you. Right? So along with the medication
00:24:59
and figuring out the dosage and meeting regularly with a psychiatrist, I'm also
00:25:04
meeting regularly with a a therapist who specializes in ADHD. And so it's taking everything from a
00:25:13
trauma lens to help me understand how my brain works so that I don't just spin in circles
00:25:24
because that's a lot of the struggle I think that folks with ADHD have is we
00:25:30
get in this loop of I should I should be able to do this. I should be able to wake up and immediately
00:25:39
check my messages on social media and not have it [ __ ] my entire day up, right? Because when when I do that, my
00:25:48
brain is now running and I have a very hard time trying to grab it and say, "Hey, it's time to answer that email
00:25:59
from Brenda and talk about what we're going to work on next week." Right? when
00:26:04
I just watch someone be shot and killed on TV, right? It's like >> I can't exist in two places at the same
00:26:13
time. So, I've learned >> like some some things like I keep my phone in the bathroom, right? It's very
00:26:22
rare that I have my phone next to me at night anymore. Um because I will get lost in social media. Um and then and
00:26:34
then I can't I can't sleep. Um sleep is super important for people with ADHD. Um
00:26:41
and I think I think it's important for everyone, but I think it's easier for
00:26:45
people without with ADHD to be like, "Oh, I'm fine. I am I am hyperfocused on
00:26:52
this thing and I'm gonna stay up till two o'clock in the morning and I know if
00:26:55
I take Adderall the next day on only four hours of sleep I'll still be able to function. And let me tell you, you
00:27:02
can only do that so long. That is not a sustainable plan. >> No, it's not. I I used to work for a guy
00:27:09
who would kind of go through spells of that where he would >> and and we would have a meeting at the
00:27:13
end of the week and I'd be like, "How many hours have you slept this week?"
00:27:16
And if it was less than eight, I was like, "Okay, you need to like >> get some help, please. Like, yes,
00:27:23
>> next week needs to be different because like you are all over the place." Um,
00:27:27
and like I felt bad, but I was just like, you know, I'm like, we're over
00:27:31
Zoom, so it's like I can't physically be there for him, but I'm like, yo,
00:27:34
something is really wrong here. So, I think what you said about the phone is also really important. I'm I'm guilty of
00:27:40
that, too. You know, I think that just in general, >> our phones are a stimulant. They are
00:27:44
meant to be. And social media in particular is meant to be a stimulant and it's meant to
00:27:49
>> fire certain synapses in your brain, right? And so it's it is one of those
00:27:52
things where right now, especially with the fact that the news cycle is 24/7 and
00:27:58
it's the the stuff that always gets pushed the most is negative, it's nasty,
00:28:02
it's evil, it's wicked. And so yeah, I think what you were saying about just
00:28:06
like keeping it in the other room and like being selective of when you check it and how you check it. Like I have all
00:28:12
notifications turned off for social media. you DM me on social media, I'm checking it when I want to check it kind
00:28:17
of a deal. So, you know, >> and so when you earn enough trust in my life, >> I'll give you my phone number and that
00:28:24
will alert me as soon as you text me kind of a deal. But anyway, so I appreciate you. Can we can we touch on
00:28:29
that because I I feel like that's a concept that I really struggled to understand
00:28:39
because in the digital age and I work completely remote um in the digital age it's very hard
00:28:50
to explain the circles of trust and to build those walls to protect yourself, right? And when I started first started
00:29:07
experiencing this was or or coming to understand that was in the same space of like I can do anything. So like I was on
00:29:17
I don't know if I ever made a blue sky account but I was on threads, I was on
00:29:21
Instagram, I was on Facebook, right? I was like, maybe I want to be a content creator. And so, like, just opening
00:29:27
myself up to the entire online world and not understanding what you just explained that it's very important for
00:29:38
us to have circles that are allowed to reach us at any time. And then there's
00:29:45
usually a few other circles as you go out. you know, you've got your business
00:29:50
associates, which they are allowed to contact you at specific times and not at other times, but usually there's one of
00:29:58
those people that's in your inner circle. So, if something's really blowing up, they're going to text you
00:30:03
and be like, RB, I need you online, right? And I'll be like, cool. You wouldn't have contacted me if if you
00:30:10
didn't need that. So that I think that is something that we're I don't see
00:30:16
obviously I don't see it on social media right because that is all the social
00:30:21
medias want all of your attention but it's been really important to for me to
00:30:26
kind of set up those boundaries of who can meet reach me in when and in what situations. Again, that was like a huge
00:30:35
shift for me this past year was when I turned off like it. So, what happened was like a year or so ago, might have
00:30:42
almost maybe a year and a half ago or so, there was a big movement to do a social media blackout during I want to
00:30:50
say it was like Black Friday or Christmas. And it was just like commit to two days of no social media. And I
00:30:55
was like, >> hell yeah, I'm on board with this. I was real. I was looking at my screen time,
00:30:59
right? And I was like I was like that is where I'm spending the majority of my
00:31:03
time on my phone is on social media. And so I deleted everything off my phone for
00:31:07
those two days. It was fantastic. I read books. I did puzzles. I watched movies.
00:31:11
Like I still did YouTube because I don't consider YouTube a social media platform
00:31:15
even though it kind of technically is. But I was like, "Okay, but I'm not doing
00:31:18
the messaging and I'm not doing the short stuff. I was like much more intentional with like long form
00:31:24
>> content." And when I brought it back, I was like, "Okay, I'm turning
00:31:28
notifications off. Like, this cannot keep happening." So, inside the app, yeah, all the bells and whistles go off.
00:31:35
You know, it's all going to be there. It's going to show up for you. But as
00:31:37
far as like my home screen goes, never, right? I don't If you DM me, I don't see
00:31:43
it until I go looking for it. And I go check every single day, but it's just I
00:31:47
can't do it. And it's the same with work stuff, too, like you were talking about.
00:31:51
>> I I use Slack for some of my clients. It's like one of those things where it's
00:31:54
like during regular office hours I have it on. I won't always respond cuz if I'm
00:31:59
in editing I usually will put myself as like I'm in the editing bay right now
00:32:02
like don't bother me kind of a thing. I'll get to it. But it is one of those
00:32:06
things where it's like, you know, you have access to me during these hours. And then I also take it a step further
00:32:12
and when I respond to people, I'll schedule stuff out if I if I'm working
00:32:15
at midnight cuz sometimes I do that cuz we're all guilty of that, you know, but
00:32:20
I will just set it to go to send it to them first thing in the morning because it's just it's one of those things where
00:32:24
it's like I don't want to be I don't know if they have their notifications
00:32:27
turned off and I don't want to be bothering them at two in the morning, you know? Um, and so
00:32:33
>> can I can I touch on something you just said? >> Yeah. >> See, you said we're all guilty of that.
00:32:42
And these are the kinds of things that my therapist is helping me with now because
00:32:48
you're not guilty, right? There's no shame in that. It's as humans, we have different energy spurts
00:32:57
and different needs at different times. And that's okay. What's not okay is to
00:33:05
not take care of yourself, right? So, as long as you're like, I was up working at
00:33:10
midnight and I'm going to clear two hours to my calendar tomorrow so I can sleep in a little bit and have a slower
00:33:16
morning and allow myself as a as a as a mammal to let all of those chemicals release from my body so I can face the
00:33:27
next day with the energy and the intention that I intend to. No shame. >> You You're so right. I Yeah. No, you're
00:33:35
you're so right because that is definitely something where I think I tend to beat myself up. I
00:33:41
think a lot of people tend to beat themselves up, right? Because like who wants to be working at midnight, 2 a.m.
00:33:47
in the morning? Nobody. But sometimes it's just when your brain is firing and
00:33:50
so it just makes sense to actually do that, right? And so it's like >> absolutely
00:33:54
>> I get creatively active sometimes at 2 in the morning and I'm like, you know
00:33:57
what, dude? Let's just rock it, you know? >> Yes. And that's that's also part of this
00:34:03
journey is starting to understand that there are times when my brain is creative
00:34:11
and there are times when it's not. Right? And one of the challenges with taking a
00:34:19
stimulant is for me it lowers the creativity. I can focus on a task, right? But I can't
00:34:29
um go create a script that's going to make my job easier, right? Like that's that's not
00:34:38
where I'm I'm doing a thing and I'm going to do the thing and I'm going to
00:34:42
finish the thing and and it's hard, right? But that's not the creative space. So
00:34:49
sometimes that creative space comes when the aderall wears off and I'm like I
00:34:54
have energy and I've been wondering how to do this thing. Like one of the thing an example
00:35:01
of this is like I stayed up until I think 4:00 in the morning and this was during more of the manic phase but like
00:35:08
I need for those pictures I needed to figure out how to price them right. So, I was working with Chad GPT and I was
00:35:17
creating scripts in Google Sheets and doing things like I was hitting APIs and pulling back pricing information from
00:35:25
like eBay and Etsy for this name and and building this. And I'd never built anything that complicated before and I
00:35:36
did it in a space of like 6 hours which was amazing. Um, but I don't know that I
00:35:42
could replicate that with the energy I have right now. Right? So, just understanding that there's different
00:35:48
times and part of that is just your your awareness, right? And I think that's
00:35:55
what the trauma therapy t started to teach me was awareness of how triggers show up in my body. Right? Because now
00:36:07
I'm ever able to leverage that that I've learned and be like, "Okay, now without
00:36:14
the trauma piece, how is what I'm doing and what I'm thinking showing up in my body today,
00:36:25
right? And how do I do I want to change that or not? Or is that a recognition of
00:36:29
like, oh, when I sit here and I take deep breaths for 60 seconds, my shoulders drop and the speed that I talk
00:36:42
slows and I gain clarity and I'm not in this stressed out situation where like I
00:36:49
have a deadline in an hour and I put this off because I have ADHD and now there's such a sense of urgency that
00:36:57
I've got to get it done. But I can be aware enough about my body to Okay, you
00:37:04
are not in danger, right? Your body is reacting to before you got beat by your dad right now, right?
00:37:13
>> Let it go. Let it go. If you need to ask your boss, hey, I can I get this to you
00:37:20
tomorrow morning? I'm working on it. I promise I'll have it to you then, but
00:37:23
it's not going to be by 6:00 p.m. tonight. Right? and then you can take those breaths and you can you can move
00:37:29
on. But that that awareness is something that the trauma therapy really helped me
00:37:34
with and and the um ADHD therapy is just kind of helping take that to the next level.
00:37:40
>> I was Yeah, I was going to ask you kind of like now with that ADHD like diagnosis and now
00:37:47
that you're you're learning the skills to manage that, right? and you're
00:37:52
looking at a as you look back and you okay like you've obviously done a lot of
00:37:57
work in like healing your trauma right but as you are able to like look back and look at your childhood and things
00:38:02
like that >> does it make it a lot more clear with like >> okay I acted this way in this situation
00:38:08
because >> my brain is different right I needed right >> maybe I needed medication maybe I needed
00:38:14
rol rin right and then like >> it's like so how is that what is that How is that going in your brain? Like
00:38:22
what what are you thinking when it comes to that kind of stuff? >> Some of the earliest like when I started
00:38:28
when I finally could accept like I have ADHD because part of it was acceptance and then once I was able to accept it,
00:38:35
it was like okay now what do I do about it? Because you don't have to. Like there's plenty of people that have this
00:38:44
that choose not to go down the medication path. They find other ways to to handle it. But one of the things that
00:38:51
really helped it become real for me was thinking about times in my childhood that
00:39:03
it was very clear that this was a condition that I had. Right? So, when I was I think I was
00:39:13
nine or 10, I can I can like picture it in my mind sitting at my desk cuz we we got actual like school desks
00:39:23
um in the kitchen. I'm sitting there and I'm staring at a blank sheet of paper.
00:39:30
And I'm going to get emotional about this, but I remember staring at a blank
00:39:35
sheet of paper and my assignment was write a research paper on Pearl Harbor. And I remember for 3 days staring at a
00:39:46
blank sheet of paper and I could not put anything down on that piece of paper. And
00:39:54
I am so grateful that my parents did not um punish me for that. They actually once they saw how much I was struggling,
00:40:05
they were like, "Okay, we think maybe this was too big of a task. Like maybe
00:40:09
just do like a book report on a book that you read about Pearl Harbor." Right? And and I was able to do that.
00:40:18
Um, but recognizing that experience which still is is like seared into my being, right? And I can still feel that
00:40:29
anxiety trying to creep in. Um, that was that was ADHD. That's because I didn't
00:40:36
have enough working memory to be able to read something, be able to restate it in
00:40:40
my own words and write it down. Like, and besides, like really at 9 or 10, like a subject that huge, you're going
00:40:49
to ask a kid to do that. So, that goes back to the whole like what is what is reasonable to ask kids in a certain
00:40:57
grade level to do, right? based on research and people who have studied this kind of thing of how brains develop
00:41:05
their entire lives, right? We were not informed by that. We were informed by Abeca says that this is third grade
00:41:14
material that a third grader should be able to do. Therefore, do this. Right? So there there's been multiple
00:41:23
experiences like that that I've been able to think back and be like just and it's not just remembering, right?
00:41:33
And this is part of what I've learned in therapy. It's it's remembering and it's
00:41:38
talking to that little boy and it's saying you didn't have the tools you needed,
00:41:48
right? You didn't have the tools you needed. No one around you understood what was happening.
00:41:55
And that's okay. You're okay. You did what you could and you were trying and
00:42:02
there was nothing wrong or evil or bad about you that you weren't able to do
00:42:08
this quote unquote simple thing that someone had asked you to do. Right? And and it's so important for us as humans,
00:42:16
I think, to get to the point where we can revisit those traumatic pieces in our past. And
00:42:25
and people listening to this might be like, I mean, come on, that's [ __ ] ridiculous. You're going to call like
00:42:31
being required to write a research paper traumatic. And I will counter with trauma is not the event that happens to
00:42:39
you. Trauma is the story you tell yourself about yourself to make it through that
00:42:47
experience. Right? So the story that I told myself was you're bad, you're evil, you're
00:42:54
broken, there's something wrong with you. They had to dumb this assignment down for you
00:43:00
because you couldn't do it right. And that is the trauma and that is what I can go back and heal. what you said
00:43:07
there is like super powerful because the biggest thing I've come to realize in
00:43:11
the last probably two-ish years is like I discounted my own traumas always because I felt like they were nothing
00:43:21
compared to what other people had gone through, right? Being physically >> beaten, sexually assaulted,
00:43:28
>> drug abuse, like just crazy stuff, right? the things that we label as like,
00:43:33
oh my god, that must be insanely painful, right? And what I realized is like what you just said, it's the
00:43:41
narrative associated with it. Yes. >> It's not always just the thing. And so
00:43:47
that has been a huge eye openening thing for me as I like you were talking about
00:43:52
going back and talking to your younger self and saying it's okay your feelings
00:43:56
are valid and like giving them a big hug and say you know you you're safe here
00:44:00
and that shouldn't have happened to you but nobody knew how to deal with it and
00:44:04
you didn't know how to deal with it and that's okay. that's okay that you didn't
00:44:07
know how to deal with it, >> you know, but you know now and you do better now. And so
00:44:12
>> that's like that's a big thing. And so I appreciate you saying that because it is
00:44:18
just this like it's a mind [ __ ] in a lot of ways of like like you were saying like like the
00:44:23
way we react and the way we you know things that trigger us and and we act out and we do a certain you know this is
00:44:29
this is our coping mechanism. This is the thing we do, right? It's like and then you start to unpack it and you're
00:44:33
like, "Oh man, I'm like really screwed up." Right? Like I got so many journal
00:44:37
entries at this point where I'm just like I'm like what is wrong with this
00:44:40
guy you know um and uh and I tell my wife all the time I'm like I'm like I am a
00:44:48
mess half of the time. And you know but it it's it's taking those steps.
00:44:54
>> Yeah. It's it's taking those little steps day by day and and it gets better.
00:44:59
It gets easier. it gets faster, you know, and you know, and so and then you get to a place where it's like it
00:45:04
doesn't control you. And so like hearing at the beginning when you were talking
00:45:07
about like kind of getting through trauma therapy to where you're like, okay, I I have the tools now to deal
00:45:13
with that and it's given me freedom to now have access to this other this time,
00:45:17
this energy that I didn't have before. That's huge. That's like a massive win,
00:45:23
right? And like I want to applaud you. That's like incredible, you know? And
00:45:27
so, but and so and I'm hoping I'm hoping for that. I mean, I see that in my life in
00:45:33
little wins, but like I I hope that for all of the people who have come on the show, the people who listen, like as you
00:45:38
work through these things, you get it will pay off at some point. It does. It's just taking the time to get there.
00:45:45
>> Yes. And it's good to reflect on that. And I that's one of the reasons honestly
00:45:50
that I wanted to have this conversation because it's helpful for me to kind of
00:45:55
see how far I'm come I I've come and it and that's not that's not pride that's
00:46:01
that's I mean maybe it is pride I mean of course I was grown up to believe that
00:46:05
pride was a deadly sin but I can be proud of myself right for the work that I put in for the journey that
00:46:13
I'm on and I'm not there I'm I haven't arrived I will never arrive Right. Um,
00:46:20
but it's it's it's worth the time and it's worth the energy and it's worth the
00:46:26
the wrestling with your past to to get to a point where you can see things in a different light.
00:46:35
And and being diagnosed with ADHD has helped me to look at some of my childhood stuff differently, right? and
00:46:47
see that in a lot of ways my parents were trying super hard. They didn't know
00:46:52
what to do. They like I and it wasn't like I was a a a a wildly different kid
00:46:59
than everyone else, but obviously I had struggles that were unique to me and they did not have the tools or the
00:47:06
information to be able to process that, notice it even sometimes um because of their own unresolved [ __ ]
00:47:16
from I mean my mom grew up you know working as a child labor in the Hines ketchup fields in Pennsylvania, right?
00:47:24
My dad was adopted when he was 6 weeks old because his his family didn't want
00:47:31
him. And like I look at my life and then I look at their lives and I'm like what
00:47:38
a beautiful example in a lot of ways. Even though some of the stuff that happened to me was terrible and I would
00:47:44
never want it to happen to someone else. What a beautiful view of evolution. through generations of where we are
00:47:57
trying to be better, right? And some of this like I was talking to a friend of mine and he was like
00:48:04
>> my childhood was my dad beat my mom in front of us, but he never beat us because his dad beat
00:48:15
him. And that was him being a good dad to us, right? And and what a horrible situation that you had to you had to be
00:48:23
there and watch your mom be abused, right? And also now he is coming out of that same like
00:48:32
trauma and wanting better for his future, right? So it's not like I can go back and excuse
00:48:39
I'm I'm estranged from my dad, right? That's something that's happened in the
00:48:43
in the last year or two. Um because there's certain things that he he has done in his life that I cannot explain
00:48:50
through that lens, right? They are heinous and evil and I cannot have a relationship with him unless he
00:49:00
addresses those things and he's not willing to do that and he may never be willing to do that, right? Um but I can
00:49:07
see a lot of the other things that impacted me directly as he was trying to help me. He just had no [ __ ] clue
00:49:16
what he was doing and his experience was worse than mine. >> I think what you said there is it's
00:49:22
something I've said on the show before. I I say it all the time. It's like I
00:49:25
know that my dad is better than his dad and I want to be better than my dad. Right. And that's exactly what you just
00:49:31
said. It's the evolution process of like taking the things that they did poorly
00:49:35
and doing them better, but also taking the things that they did right >> and continuing to do them better. Right.
00:49:41
>> Yes. The other thing that you said there that really struck me and this is kind
00:49:45
of going back even earlier in our conversation when we talked about like black and white, right? And that's
00:49:49
something that as as two people who grew up very religious, black and white is like that's the answer to everything,
00:49:55
right? Is God or Satan is good and evil, right? It's like it's like black and
00:49:58
white. Everything is black and white. You know, it's like historically accurate or like a complete lie and
00:50:03
sham, right? >> And so it's very interesting now existing in that gray space, right?
00:50:10
because >> it's hard. You see the the the ways that our parents messed up or right or the
00:50:16
things that traumatized us. Those are bad. Those are arguably bad, >> but then there's all this gray space of
00:50:22
like like you were just saying there like they were trying to be better to some degree than their parents.
00:50:27
>> Yeah. >> So, it's like hard because it's like where do you start to draw those lines?
00:50:31
It becomes a lot trickier of like >> when and how and all these things. And
00:50:36
so I applaud anyone who's on that journey because like it's not easy to kind of start to figure out and draw
00:50:41
those lines and eventually you have to, right? You know, and it >> it can be messy and it's not fun and
00:50:47
it's it's painful, but it's one of those things where it's like >> existing in the gray space now
00:50:53
>> has oh my gosh, it has freed me up in so many ways where I'm just like
00:50:58
>> I'm okay not really having the answer. I'm okay just kind of being like, you
00:51:01
know, I I don't think it's good. I don't think it's bad. I think it's in the
00:51:04
middle here and that's okay, you know. And so I applaud you again for doing that work and continuing and like
00:51:11
sharing about it because it's not easy. It's also not easy to talk about it.
00:51:15
>> Yeah, it's getting easier to talk about it sometimes. I think I'm I bore people
00:51:19
and I probably do. Uh it's it but it's also kind of fun being that one guy in
00:51:24
the friend group who like you go around the room and you're like, you know, sharing stories from your childhood and
00:51:29
and then I share something and everyone's like, "Holy [ __ ] Everyone gets quiet and I'm like, "Oh, I
00:51:36
said too much." >> Yeah. You're like, "Uh, okay." Um, I had
00:51:43
one other question. I >> Go ahead. >> Um, no, I was actually gonna gonna
00:51:48
slightly I was going to play off the gray, living in the gray. So, if you've
00:51:53
got >> No, I was going to completely pivot. So, I mean, >> Okay. >> Let's Let's stay in the gray.
00:51:58
>> Okay. Um, I I've I've I've got a a working title for my autobiography that is
00:52:05
Ascent to Gray. Um, because that like that's where that's where everyone is,
00:52:13
right? And and something, you know, in our supercharged political climate that we're in,
00:52:20
it is so black and white and it's like that on both sides, right? And it's it's hard sometimes because the way
00:52:30
that I see things now, it's almost challenging to connect to how I saw them even 10 years ago, right? 10 years ago,
00:52:39
2016. And and this is one of those things like I don't want to say this out loud, right? I voted for Trump, right? I
00:52:45
did. That was the situation I was in. That was the world that I lived in. And I was starting to come out of that, but
00:52:52
I was still connected enough to where I was like, man, Hillary's the devil, man.
00:52:57
Like, Trump's bad, but good grief. Like, she's she's she's it, right? So, so I
00:53:03
voted for him. And now I see people on different social media sites saying like, if you ever voted for Trump, you
00:53:10
are out of my life. Like, I cannot trust you. you are the kind of person who is,
00:53:16
you know, you're not a critical thinker and I can't I can't have that in my
00:53:20
life. And I recently saw a clip from um uh Glennon and and Aby's podcast, We Can
00:53:29
Do Hard Things, and they did a they did a tour last year and they talked about this concept of there's a river of love
00:53:39
and the betterment of humanity and it's flowing, right? and and we get in this space where we're we're worried
00:53:48
and we're like, "Oh, everything is worse than it has ever been." And in in this
00:53:52
country, in some ways, it is for white people, right? But it's it's they talked
00:53:59
about this concept of like there's boats on this river and there's boats for
00:54:04
immigrant justice and there's boats for better education and there's boats for
00:54:07
better healthcare, right? And as humans, pick your boat and get on it. And also once you're on that boat, you
00:54:19
have no right to look at someone else who is trying to get on that boat and say, "Why weren't you here earlier?"
00:54:29
Right? And and that's the narrative that I think needs to needs to change, right?
00:54:35
Because as things come to light, as people are starting to question the choices that they have made in the past
00:54:40
that have affected the trajectory of this country, they need to feel like changing their
00:54:46
mind is not something that they're not welcome to do. Right? >> So, anyhow, that was a that was a very
00:54:55
much a a a tangent. Um, and I wouldn't blame you if you don't put that in the
00:55:00
in the podcast. That is totally fine. Um, >> you know, I I've been thinking a lot
00:55:04
about this recently, too. And like, you know, in 2016, that was the first election I got to vote in. I was a
00:55:10
senior in college. It was a big deal, mailin ballot. And I I remember sitting there and looking at it and having
00:55:16
watched the news and all these things. And I was I grew up conservative. I I was like when Barack Obama was running
00:55:22
for president, he was I don't want to say he was the devil because I don't
00:55:25
think that that was really what I believed, but I definitely was like he is the he is the evil um side of it. And
00:55:31
so, you know, >> but I I remember sitting there and being like, can I really vote for Trump? And
00:55:38
like >> and I I couldn't vote for either of them. and I went third party and I knew
00:55:42
that that was like a throwaway kind of a thing to some degree, but I was like I I
00:55:48
was unpacking things but I still had that taste of like Hillary Clinton is the devil and I but I also was like
00:55:56
>> I couldn't do the Trump thing either. I just it was one of those really rough
00:56:00
>> situations and I remember just sitting there and but what you said is great of
00:56:04
like it is okay to change your mind. That is the last 10 years of my life has been nothing but changing my mind. It
00:56:11
has been shifting my perspective and >> in in all aspects of my life, not only
00:56:17
just politically, religiously, and >> in in who I am as a person and and just
00:56:23
everything, right? And so, >> and that's okay. >> That's again that gray area that we're
00:56:28
talking about. It's the ability to ask the questions and say, "Okay, I don't
00:56:32
know that this is good or this is bad. I just need to continue searching to figure that out, right? And find that
00:56:38
place for myself. And so >> I appreciate you saying that and it probably will make it in. Um
00:56:45
so, you know, um but yeah, I think man, I just Yes, we need to we need to come to a
00:56:53
place where we can be accepting of people changing their minds. And yes, we can be frustrated that it's like you
00:56:57
didn't do it fast enough. >> Yeah. I mean I h I'm frustrated with myself
00:57:02
>> that I that I it wasn't faster right I >> right but >> but the thing is
00:57:06
>> I would not make the same >> yeah but I know I have become the person
00:57:10
who would make a different choice today right and I I think that that recognition and that like that is just
00:57:18
human growth that is natural and that's how like we should be learning we should
00:57:25
be changing and that was something that growing up change was scary, right? And and part of the light that has changed
00:57:35
for me and looking back is yes, homeschooling is a part of my story and the and the way that homeschooling
00:57:43
showed up for me was not healthy, right? And it was not healthy for my sisters. Um,
00:57:52
but I look at my my past more now through the lens of trauma and poverty than I do
00:58:02
homeschooling. Right? I think when I when I was on the podcast for the first for the first time, um, my story was a
00:58:10
lot of like my experience was terrible, right? And it legit was in some ways. And the reason why my parents chose that
00:58:22
instead of public education or instead of private education had a lot to do with poverty and had a lot to do with
00:58:29
their own trauma. And so while if I was them with the information that I know now, I would have made a different
00:58:35
choice. I can understand the choices that they made and why they made them, right? And that brings a lot of peace.
00:58:44
Yeah, I I I agree. The other thing I wanted to kind of that that you had said in talking about like the river with the
00:58:52
boats and like every boat is kind of these different topics. The thing that I've realized
00:58:57
especially last year was there is this unfortunate call right now to be like you have to be informed about everything
00:59:07
and you have to be >> pro or anti whatever all the time, right? >> You have to pick a side. You have to and
00:59:13
you have to pick a side, right? And and I I think that everybody should have their own opinions on whatever, but I
00:59:21
also don't think that everybody can advocate for every injustice and everything wrong. Yeah. Right. And so
00:59:27
that's why I really took the end of 2025 to evaluate where is it that I want to
00:59:34
talk, where is it that I want to support the most because >> we will be stronger the more that we get
00:59:42
groups of people together to focus in on one area at a time, right? And so this podcast, we talk a lot about education,
00:59:48
we talk about a lot about homeschooling, the alternatives to that. That's kind of
00:59:54
the direction that the show is going to continue to go is that vein of like and and childhood trauma and religion and
01:00:01
that kind of a thing because th those things get grouped together. I'm not going to sit up here and probably talk
01:00:06
about Israel and and Gaza and the genocide and Palestine and and the genocide that's happening there because
01:00:12
that's not my lane. That's not what I I'm an expert in talking about. There's
01:00:16
other shows that are going to talk about that. >> This is a show where we're going to talk
01:00:19
about education in in the States, maybe in the world. We'll see. Maybe maybe
01:00:23
it'll come up at some point. Um had a few people from out of the country be like maybe we'll come talk about it. But
01:00:28
um childhood education, religion, and and that process of growing up and the traumas surrounding that and the good,
01:00:36
the bad, and the ugly. That's what this show is about. And that's where I want
01:00:39
to focus and that's where I want the people who are here to ride that ride with me. Great. That's our cause. That's
01:00:45
what we're going for. Okay? Get on the boat or hop on your own boat and it's
01:00:50
okay. It's okay. It's just where we're at. So >> yeah. No, I love that. And I like I
01:00:58
>> even more so because I just saw that clip a few days ago. Even more so I'm
01:01:02
grateful for this opportunity because I am I'm on a different boat, right? But
01:01:08
you inviting me and having this conversation means I get to I get to hop on a boat
01:01:14
that is really important to me, right? And I get to contribute to this space. And then, you know, in two hours I'm
01:01:23
back on my other boat, right? Which is which is how do we get health care to millions of people in this country who
01:01:31
don't have sufficient access to it, right? That's the boat I'm on. That's
01:01:36
the company I'm working for. That's the vision that I'm I'm aligned with right
01:01:39
now. Um, but I love that like you are taking um ownership of this space and you are
01:01:52
helping guide this boat down that river. Like I love that and I support you and I'm so grateful that you are using your
01:02:01
platform for that. >> Well, thank you. And I wanted to let's talk about healthcare because that is
01:02:08
that is a big topic. It's something we t we chatted a little bit before we hit
01:02:12
record about. >> Yeah. >> And the way earlier in the show, the way I was gonna kind of pivot it is like the
01:02:18
tools that we're using, right, to for >> stuff. But since you brought it up,
01:02:24
let's just go there. Like what what are what are you trying to do? What is this
01:02:29
boat that you're on that you're like, "Okay, let's get healthcare to millions
01:02:32
of people." Because the reality is, yeah, there's there's a ton of us,
01:02:35
myself included, who we we not insured. And so going to the doctor >> is really scary because I'm going to get
01:02:41
slapped with a big fat medical bill. >> Yeah. It's terrifying. And that that
01:02:46
society, you know, if you think about our our health across the entire country, the
01:02:53
access to care, the availability of care is lacking, right? and and getting people
01:03:05
connected to the to care that they can afford, care that they need um is is a challenge and and what I've come to
01:03:14
understand and you know I've been at this company now for four and a half years
01:03:20
and um it's uh be wellconed health um but we're in this space of how do we
01:03:30
connect people to their medical information and then how do we help them find the care that they need, right?
01:03:39
Because the way that this our the US health care system worked um in especially from early on is it was
01:03:51
a uh pay for a service model, right? to where you said, "I cut off my arm and I need to go to the
01:04:04
emergency room, right? And so you're paying for this help with this event that has happened
01:04:12
to you." And the more that we learn about the human body and the way our brains work and I mean the whole thing
01:04:19
that we talked about with ADHD, right? ADHD wasn't a thing a hundred years ago,
01:04:25
right? People didn't understand, the research hadn't been done, the drugs
01:04:28
hadn't been developed, right? To understand how we could help people with these different conditions, right? And
01:04:36
there's swas of our population that have challenges like this in worse, right, to
01:04:42
where they have high blood pressure, they're at risk for heart attack, they're diabetic, right? and they don't
01:04:47
have access to the kinds of preventative care that are going to improve their life experience. And that is the space
01:04:57
that that my company is in. The the challenging part about this is for me, I see people on other boats and I see
01:05:08
people who are going out to protest or donating to food banks or taking food to families who are afraid to lo leave
01:05:16
their house, right? And I'm like, I I want to do that. It's and it's very
01:05:21
discreet. It's very um I went and I did a thing and and I feel good, right? because I did this this demonstrable
01:05:30
thing. When you're dealing with hundreds of years of legislation, right, and you're dealing with a
01:05:39
market that is primarily based on capitalism and how do we maximize profits? you start getting into
01:05:50
situations where um it's a it's a you have things like what we've seen
01:06:00
with different insurance companies to where they have entire department that are dedicated to denying paying for your
01:06:07
care because it's going to cost them money and they are in the business of making money not spending money right
01:06:17
and we're like how Is health care so terrible in this country and yet the heads of these companies are making
01:06:26
million-dollar bonuses and the stock price keeps going up and up and up, right? So, I work for this tiny little
01:06:33
startup that's like we are trying to change how this country does health. And what's
01:06:42
been fascinating about the last few years is as the administration of the government
01:06:52
has changed, there is now the the space we're in currently, the administration is much more likely
01:07:03
to rule by edict than by legislation. Right? So, they're much more likely to
01:07:12
sign something, right, than go work with Congress and figure out how to change things and change laws and do that.
01:07:20
They're much more likely to just like, "Oh, you have a good idea. Okay, cool.
01:07:26
Let's make it happen." Right? And that is what has happened in the health
01:07:31
industry to where these people there's people in like the, you know, they're
01:07:36
not the the Dr. Oz and the RFK Jr. that everyone is like throwing out this guy said this thing and it's so stupid and I
01:07:45
can't believe he would say that. Right? That's a lot of the what the social
01:07:48
media cycle is about. But the people who work for those people are people who have been there for 20 and 30 years.
01:07:55
They know where it's broken. They know what needs to change and they're actually getting a chance right now to
01:08:02
change it. And and that's the hard work that my company has been doing is trying
01:08:09
to be involved in legislative changes around Medicare and Medicaid and how that is administered and how that is
01:08:18
that data essentially is shared or not shared. Um, so it's it's been this
01:08:25
evolution and we're right now at a point where 600 over 600 um, healthc care providers have signed a
01:08:36
piece of paper agreeing that by I believe it's June of this year, you will be able to using
01:08:46
their software walk into a doctor's office and instead of having to spend 15
01:08:52
minutes trying to remember every medication you've ever t taken, every um surgery you've ever had and you know
01:09:00
what diseases your mother's aunt's uncle had, right? That might still apply to
01:09:05
you that your physician might want to know about to where you'll be able to scan a QR code and share that
01:09:11
information with them. Right? So that that's that's just one example of how we
01:09:20
are trying to change the industry and this is not something that like you can do as a weekend warrior on your Saturday
01:09:28
for a few hours, right? This this is time and energy and frustration and like what do you mean you want to fax us
01:09:35
health information? The number one piece of technology for the last 40 years still in use today is faxes. I've talked
01:09:43
to people who have worked in offices where they literally had a fax machine tied to another fax machine so they
01:09:48
could get information from one provider and send it to another provider. So, how
01:09:53
do we how do we work in this space? Going back to the whole gray area, right? Because some of the stuff that's
01:10:02
happening could be viewed from the lens of, oh my god, what do you mean that entity
01:10:10
has my data? or why would I ever consent to that entity having my data right um and so as as my company and I say my
01:10:22
company I work there it's not I'm not one of the founders but I'm fortunate
01:10:26
enough to be part of this journey is that is that area of we have taken a very firm stance that number one your
01:10:36
data is your data it is never shared with anyone house without your express consent. And number two, that consent
01:10:46
needs to be readable and easily understood and not 50 pages of garbage that in the end means you don't own your
01:10:56
health data, but you're not going to take the time to read it because it's 50
01:11:00
pages long, right? So, so it's a it's trying to say this is the future. This
01:11:06
is where we can go, right? But you are still in control of your the things that affect you the most.
01:11:15
>> One of the big things a couple years ago I worked a lot in the web 3 space.
01:11:20
Crypto NFTTS those big bad words that a lot of people don't like. Um and web 3
01:11:26
also encapsulates AI. So to some degree you could say I still work in the web 3 space
01:11:31
>> because I use AI for a lot of stuff. Um and and try to keep my thumb on, you
01:11:36
know, what's going on there. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> one of the things that working in the
01:11:39
crypto space helped me to realize was there are options and there is the ability to like own your own data like
01:11:48
you were saying, right? >> Because a lot of times when we go on a website, right, Tik Tok is a good
01:11:52
example of this, Instagram is a great example of this, Spotify is a great example of this. If you post your stuff
01:11:58
onto those platforms, you no longer own it >> in any way, shape, or form. They are
01:12:03
able to use it. And this is very different from >> our health or health information, but there are
01:12:10
protective ways and there are digital wallets and things that can be can protect your your information and and
01:12:18
it's not giving it out to it's not going to be trained on an AI thing, right? It's it's it's a closed
01:12:23
wall garden kind of situation. >> And I think that that there is this kind
01:12:27
of disconnect in people's brains of like we we've been burned. Social media
01:12:33
burned a lot of us, I think, for for >> the fact of like for so long I've held
01:12:38
this kind of belief. I'm like, >> well, it doesn't really matter if I
01:12:41
delete my Facebook because guess what? They already have all that information anyways. You know, Amazon's already got
01:12:46
all my information. I I there's nothing I can do about it, right? >> The reality is that there but there's
01:12:53
new technologies that in the future can alleviate some of that. And so it's just
01:12:57
shifting people's mindset to understand you can own it. You can protect it. It
01:13:02
takes a little bit of work. It's not the easiest thing right now. There are people like like your company who I'm
01:13:08
sure are trying to make that easier and faster and more on board than it has ever been before. The first time I
01:13:15
bought a piece of a cryptocoin, it was a nightmare to do. I was convinced that I
01:13:20
had just lost like I didn't even put that I made 50 bucks, 100 bucks, something like that. I was like that
01:13:25
that money's gone. I'm never going to see that ever again. And then guess
01:13:28
what? 24 hours later, I was like, "Oh, guess what? It's in my wallet." You
01:13:31
know? I was like, "Okay, cool." >> Um, and if you don't know what I'm
01:13:34
talking about when I'm talking about crypto, like, it's okay. Like, it's it's
01:13:37
jargon. It's, you know, >> I've done I've done a little bit of it
01:13:41
cuz the I I in my in my manic phase, I was like, I'm going to create a memecoin. Like, I'm going to figure out
01:13:48
how to do this. And then as I got into it, I was like, this thing is a [ __ ] scam. Um, and people are losing. so much
01:13:56
money. But I know also that there's like there's a lot of good that can come out
01:14:01
of it, right? There's a lot of good with having a a a a stable um currency that
01:14:07
is worldwide and has the same value no matter where you're at in the world. Um
01:14:12
like things like that that that used to be the British pound. Now it's the US
01:14:16
American dollar and soon that's going to be some version of cryptocurrency, right? And and it's one of those things
01:14:24
that like there's still parts of me that doesn't like it. I don't like it, but it
01:14:30
is going to happen, right? And that's how I feel a lot about the AI space is
01:14:37
I get the concerns, right? I get the like they're building data centers and it
01:14:44
uses so much power. Um, and we're concerned about AI taking over the world. And there's sometimes I have to
01:14:51
sit back and be like, I can't control that. It is outside of my control, right? And if there's a way
01:15:02
that I get to influence how that world gets created, so it is safer, so it is based on consent, so it
01:15:13
is um actually helping people instead of hurting them, um then then yes, I'm I'm on board with
01:15:24
those parts. But you know, an example of this is is early I'm going to keep referring to my manic
01:15:32
phase because apparently I did way more than I even thought I did. But like I was I was experimenting with like what
01:15:38
if I made songs about my trauma, right? That would resonate with people, right? So I went to an AI website and I was I
01:15:47
put this stuff in. Dude, it made a song that made me cry. It was so real and so visceral and so like
01:15:57
I could not have come up with the pairings of words and the and the imagery that it it did because that's
01:16:03
not my expertise. That's not my forte. So I was like this is amazing and I was
01:16:08
trying to share it with people and then I hit this point of like I started getting out more which is
01:16:17
another part of the journey. I started getting out more. I started going to see live music and I
01:16:26
was like, this is part of the human experience that I don't want to lose. And so I like
01:16:33
deleted that. I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not like when I I'm still
01:16:37
on Spotify. I need to switch everybody over to title or something. But but like one of the things I hate about Spotify
01:16:42
right now is that they are constantly suggesting AI songs, AI generated songs. And maybe there's a person behind this,
01:16:50
maybe there's not. But I don't I don't listen to music to hear an AI band in an AI voice. I listen to
01:16:59
hear Noah talk about his experience, right? That's what I connect with. I want to connect with a human. Um, so I
01:17:08
think there's there's areas of that to where we can use AI to help us, but we should never ever
01:17:19
be putting humans sharing their experiences at risk because we're running towards a
01:17:28
simulation. The other important thing I think that a lot of people don't understand is that
01:17:33
all AI gets lumped together and the reality is there are very different forms of AI.
01:17:38
>> Yes. If >> you've ever used Google even before the AI stuff came out
01:17:44
>> you you used a form of AI and so >> the the they vary in the levels of power
01:17:49
that they consume and all these different things. Generative AI is the big kind of scary thing that a lot of
01:17:54
people talk about and that's what they're referring to a lot of time. That's what you're talking about with
01:17:57
the song creation. I've done that too, right? >> I played around with it.
01:18:01
>> It's really cool. It is a cool technology, >> but like you, I got to the same point of
01:18:05
like, now this is human creation and I want to as best I can, I want to leave it up to the humans.
01:18:12
>> And so, it's figuring out where the good comes from it and the bad comes from it
01:18:17
and those types of things. So again, that is where a lot of what we're talking about owning your own data and
01:18:24
those types of things and how can AI influence, you know, uh the health care system, a lot of those things happen
01:18:30
inside of walled garden large language models that are sectioned off. They're
01:18:36
not training across the entirety of the internet. They are locked into a server set. And you know, again, these are very
01:18:43
technical terms. If you don't know what we're talking about, that's okay. Just
01:18:46
understand it. It's it's getting put in a walled garden that is not it's not being trained. It's not you
01:18:53
know you're yeah of course you can feed your health insurance stuff into chatbt
01:18:57
and I would not do that because guess what that is going to train and then everybody has access to it. That's just
01:19:03
a dumb move. Please don't do that. Um but but there are these other areas of
01:19:08
where it's like it can be sectioned off. The other thing that I'll say about this
01:19:12
too is that >> it can become more environmentally friendly and that is a big push that a
01:19:19
lot of people do have. So while we are hearing about all of the drinking water that is getting tainted, I live in
01:19:25
Tennessee in Memphis, Tennessee, >> XAI is down there. I'm not an Elon
01:19:30
fanboy by any stretch of the imagination. What they're doing down there is really [ __ ] up and it's
01:19:35
screwed up and they're breaking the law in a lot of cases. >> Yep. >> That can get
01:19:39
>> Same here. I live SpaceX. Um, the Boring Company and X are headquartered less than five miles from
01:19:47
my house and our river pollution is off the charts because of what they're dumping in there. Like it's just a fact,
01:19:55
right? And it it is terrible. But yeah, >> I'm sorry I interrupted you. Continue.
01:19:59
>> No, no, I just it can get better is what I I guess what I'm saying. And there is
01:20:04
hope for it to get better and >> we always find ways to clean things up. That's
01:20:10
That's the reality. Hopefully, we do it sooner rather than later. And so, look
01:20:13
for those people who are talking about those things because >> yes, >> that's important. It feels like it's not
01:20:18
happening and that that conversation is not happening. It really is. It just >> it's a lot quieter. We talked about it
01:20:24
earlier with the way that social media is. It's always going to push the negative. It's not going to push the
01:20:30
positive. And so, >> you really have to go digging for it because good stuff is happening in the
01:20:34
world every single day. and we are missing out on it because it is not being shown. And so
01:20:41
>> if you like me get worn out with turning on the news and it's just all bad and
01:20:45
it's just like I promise you like go pick up a local newspaper, go like to your local library and like we have like
01:20:52
a library thing that they put out that's our local area. Always good things in
01:20:56
there of like this person is helping this and this is happening. There's a lot of good in the world.
01:21:02
>> There's a lot of bad in the world too, but there's a lot of good stuff
01:21:05
happening in the world. And so go seek that out. I mean, like we were talking about good in the world right here,
01:21:11
>> you got diagnosed with ADHD. You've made some changes in your life. Like things
01:21:16
are better, right? It's it's it's a positive. It's not a negative.
01:21:19
>> Yeah. And and AI was part of that journey for me, right? Like I >> I have chat GPT open and I have a it's
01:21:27
not listening to us, but I have a um I have an ADHD coach, right? a agent or project or whatever they call it, right?
01:21:36
To where I've I have uploaded my diagnosis. I've I've I go in there and I
01:21:40
ask like based on the conversations that you know we've had over the past two
01:21:45
weeks, um would you recommend any changes to medication cuz I'm talking to my psychiatrist tomorrow, right? But I
01:21:53
also go to my wife and I ask the same thing, right? Because AI doesn't know everything about me. Um, but it it has
01:22:01
been a tool for me that has been super useful. And I want to go back just real quick to the concept of um the walled
01:22:10
gardens, right? Because one of the things my company is doing is we are partnering with OpenAI and we are adding
01:22:18
a health connector. And again, it's completely based on um consent. Like this is not hey here's all the
01:22:26
information we have about everyone who's ever used our product. It's yours now.
01:22:30
It is literally you have to go in and you have to consent and say yes for the purposes of this walled off garden I am
01:22:39
going to allow you to access my health data and then bring that in and then it be informed and you be able to say oh
01:22:48
like I now know what my blood pressure looked like for the last 15 years because it's
01:22:56
spread across 15 different portals and it's you know it's unreachable in a lot
01:23:02
of cases for me to know what my health trends have been over this time right so it's not I get it it's not for everyone
01:23:11
right if you bubble up another layer it's like well do I really trust Sam Alman do I really trust open AI like I
01:23:17
can't answer that question for anyone else other than myself and it's a gray
01:23:22
area for me so but >> people are already using it so again how can we make it safer How can we make it
01:23:31
more consentbased? How can we do things that are like you said, um, not pulling from the entire internet
01:23:40
to where it's going to tell you like it's going to go find that one article
01:23:45
that's like don't vaccinate your kids for measles and it's going to it's going
01:23:50
to parrot that back at you as actual health advice, right? We've got to get away from that. And that's why, like you
01:23:56
said, having different AIs that do different things are essentially specialists in this area. Um that's
01:24:05
that's the direction that we need to continue to go in so that there are these walled gardens to where it's
01:24:12
helpful in the areas that we want it to be helpful in and we take it out of the spaces that is going to ultimately hurt
01:24:19
our creativity and our our our human experience. And I want to circle back I know we're
01:24:27
almost out of time. I want to circle back to something else that I think was really foundational for me in this whole
01:24:35
like figuring out getting diagnosed and then having this period of like I am just trying to connect to the world
01:24:42
around me in so many ways. I was looking for friends cuz I didn't have friends. I had people
01:24:54
that I talked and worked with on a computer screen for eight hours a day and that was my connection to the
01:25:02
outside world. It's what happened to us during CO. It's what's happened with
01:25:06
completely remote companies, and there's pros and cons. But if you're listening to this and you
01:25:14
don't have real in-person friends that you can call and you can say, "Hey,
01:25:22
want to come over and play a game tonight?" Find ways to do that. Because that was a
01:25:27
lot of what I couldn't I couldn't say it at the time, but that was why I was
01:25:31
starting businesses. That's why I was I was like, I'm going to become a content
01:25:35
creator, right? And go on the internet and and connect with people. That's why
01:25:39
I got so sucked into social media because I thought those connections were what I needed. And what I needed was a
01:25:47
hug. What I needed was to get out and and watch a band that five other people are watching and get up on stage with
01:25:56
them and and like actually have real human interactions. Um, one of the most amazing things that's happened to me in
01:26:06
the last 6 months is I joined a baseball team and Sandlot baseball is making a resurgence. I played baseball when I was
01:26:15
nine and 10 and haven't played since. Um, and it's a friend group and we get
01:26:22
together, we see each other in person. like tomorrow we're going to go to our
01:26:27
home field which is full of weeds and and like do some field work together and get our hands dirty. And those are
01:26:36
experiences that the technology that we have today is making it easier and easier not to do and not to have those
01:26:46
kinds of relationships. But we are [ __ ] mammals and we are pack animals and we need other people. And that is
01:26:57
everything else aside that's happened over the last year and a half. That is
01:27:03
the number one thing I think that has helped me is actually finding other humans that I get to see a couple times
01:27:12
a week and hang out with. It's amazing. >> It It changes everything like it does to
01:27:22
and and that physical >> touch is like >> it it Yeah. It's what we've been talking
01:27:30
about. >> Yes. >> Humans need human experience. >> Yes. >> Can't we can't replace that. And so, you
01:27:37
know, that is where that it's so important. And so, yeah, go find that. If you don't got it, like go find it.
01:27:44
it. I don't want to say it's easy. It's It's like an easy hard It's not It's not
01:27:50
hard to go out and be around people. It's harder to go out and be around people and build genuine connection.
01:27:57
>> And so, >> yes, >> but it's it's good and it's important
01:28:00
and do it. And so, text your buddy today, text your friends, >> say, "Let's go get coffee. Let's go do
01:28:06
something stupid. Let's, you know, come over, play a game, you know, whatever it
01:28:11
might be." like go do that because it's it yeah it it could make or break your
01:28:16
whole week I think. >> Yeah. >> So or B I got this has been so much fun.
01:28:22
Is there anything else have we got? I we went all over the place which I think >> we did. We did
01:28:28
you had an ADA HD experience today. Um and yeah, Rusty's telling me that uh it's it's it's time to be done. But
01:28:38
dude, I'm so again, thank you for using your platform to talk about these things. Thank you for
01:28:47
helping drive the boat that you're on. Like, I see it. I see you. I see the difference that you're making. And
01:28:54
you've made a difference in my life. And in just understanding that my homeschool
01:28:59
experience was not uh it was not unique, but it was also not the only homeschool
01:29:05
experience. and that other people are taking it more seriously and are thinking through the the cultural and
01:29:13
the um impacts that it has on a child's development when they are isolated. And
01:29:21
I see families around here, you know, that that are choosing to homeschool and I see a more intentional
01:29:28
um mindset towards the experience than than what I had. So, I am super grateful about that and thanks for having me on
01:29:38
and talking about all the things. >> Of course. Yeah. I think this is going
01:29:42
to have to be an annual thing now at this point. We'll just do our yearly our
01:29:45
yearly checkup. >> Oh my god. I don't know what's going to change in the next year for me, but
01:29:51
that's a little anxiety producing, but also I'm here for it. Let's do it.
01:29:55
>> Yeah. Yeah. And uh to the audience, thank you guys for sticking around.
01:29:59
Hopefully you stuck around this whole time. If you did, leave a comment down below. Let me know you stuck around. Let
01:30:03
me know your favorite part of the episode. And as always, all the links, all the things will be down below. Uh if
01:30:11
you want to be on the show, if you've got a story to share, you know how to reach me. [email protected].
01:30:16
Shoot me an email. Give me a little blurb about your story and then we'll connect. We'll start chatting. I promise
01:30:21
I don't bite. RB came back for a second a second uh run through the gamut. So, I
01:30:25
can't be that bad. Okay. >> Not at all. Not at all. No. I I've really enjoyed it.
01:30:30
>> Yeah. And uh yeah, until next time, we'll see you. Peace.