Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Life is crappy.
Life is hard. It's not supposed to be easy.
And no matter how successful you are, it's still going to be crappy and hard until you're retired. I guess you maybe have a whole bunch of money. I don't know how that works. I'm never going to do that. But life is tough. Life is hard. Crappy things happen to good people. It's your choice and how you deal with it. Yeah, it's totally your choice. I've made my choice.
I deal with my crap every day. I deal with my lost, my son. I deal with all the problems in my life with a smile on my face and I go back out there and hit it hard again the next day because that's the only choice I have.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: This next guest is a good friend, a confidant, a CEO of multiple companies. To the extent that he is a CEO coach, he's a renaissance man. He's an ironman, he's a black belt, he's an eight time author and he's about to be a jetpack racer.
But this guy, as successful as he is, also has experienced failures and pain starting with the suicide of his 14 year old son.
He now is on a plight to educate people and make sense of that suicide and the impact that he's made is pretty remarkable. To help me in welcoming my good friend to the tcast, Jay Reed. One of the things I'm curious about because we've known each other a little while now but haven't had enough time to really get down to some of the nitty gritty which includes where you actually were weaned. Because I know I'd like to talk about the successes that you've had and some of the failures you've had and, and the, the rocky ride. But how were your beginnings?
Where did you, where did you grow up and what were some of the lessons you took from your childhood?
[00:02:03] Speaker A: Born in Sudbury, Ontario, small white mine town. I lived in Sudbury, London, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal. My dad moved around a lot. Um, one step ahead of the law. No, he was, he always got transferred. So I was changing schools every three or four years. And so what I think I learned a lot about when I grew up was resilience. Right. Because you have to go as I was a really shy kid. I'm nothing like the kid I was when I was a kid or the adult I am now. And I, you know, I had to learn how to make new friends and find new ways to meet people and I was shy and that was probably one of the more important things. I mean, I didn't like it, but it was good for me.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Makes any sense.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And back then, since we're about the same age, I had the same experience with a dad that was just fickle. He'd go in and conquer a job and want to tackle something new like, I don't know, 1500 miles away. Yeah. And move. So when you move you as a kid back then you just say bye, yet, bye, friends, like, never see you again. You know, long distance calls were expensive.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: And there's nothing, you know, the phone was on the wall. Right. We grew up and your dad answered it. You're talking to anybody.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: I was the same way too. You know, obviously when you're around people that you're familiar with, it makes it easier to function and stuff like that. Do you find any of those anxious times. I don't know if you would call it anxiety or just a pure introvert being put into an extroverted scenario because you got to go start over and meet new people. Do you struggle with any of that anymore?
[00:03:37] Speaker A: I. You know, it's interesting because to wrap up, like the rest of my growing up, like, I was a sickly kid, I had asthma, allergies, into the hospital all the time, and my parents were both unfortunately, alcoholics.
So I had a very interesting childhood. So I left home when I was 17 as soon as I could.
But yeah, it was. And so they asked you a question with the introverted extrovert piece. It was like, you know, I am an introvert. Most people don't get that about me, but I am an introvert. I would rather, much rather be by myself, but I'm fine with people.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: What I don't like is big crowds of people and walk into a party with 100 people and I'm supposed to have small talk with people I'll never see again.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: At my age, at 57, I have zero interest in that.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Choose not to do it. And you don't.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: I don't eat dinner with six people or seven people or ten people. And I. And I've never met them. I'm fine with that.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Because you have some meaningful conversations. But parties, I don't. I don't go to parties.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: I think we're just old. Two old men. Because that sounds super familiar.
Plus I can't hear you get more than six people at a table. I'm not going to hear what's happened at the other end of the table anyway. It could be a great conversation, but that's Just a few too many people for me to hear.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: I can't hear the restaurants loud. I'm like, if we go in a restaurant, I'm like, no noise. That wasn't my job.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: So do you think getting cut loose on your own by your own accord, obviously, do you think that had a lot to do with your determination? Because it's interesting too that you had alcoholic parents. Whereas a lot of people fall straight in line with that behavior. Other people jump off the ship and are bound and determined to never become anything that those examples were, were you the latter.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: So I, I would say that when I. When people ask me what the story of something along that line.
I came home from school one day when I was 16 and my dad was there in the middle of the day, I'm like, he's like, what are you doing here? I'm like, I'm skipping school. I skip school all the time. Why are you here?
He's like, I lost my job.
And I always thought my dad was high level exec, all this kind of stuff. And he had a lot of demons that I didn't know about. Yeah, I knew the demons at home, but I didn't know the demons at work. Right. So that day I kind of made a pact with myself that I would never get a job where someone could fire me.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: And I kept that pact.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: Very interesting. So you were entrepreneur from.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Well, I was a wannabe.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: But yeah, I started early. Yeah.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Because that, I mean back in that day also, it was still get in line, you had to do this much school that got you an opportunity for XYZ job which if you work long enough, you work your way up and then you retire. So you already had a path of entrepreneurship?
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Kind of in my head.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: Yeah. In your head. Whatever version of that is.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Yeah. But it started, it started early. Like, you know, I wanted to always be, you know, I always wanted to have my own little thing. So I mean, I mean, one of the funnier stories growing up is I used to make tin soldiers or lead soldiers and paint them. In fact, I still do lead casting. You're not lead, but pure casting.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: And I used to make them, I paint them. And my dad would drive me up to a flea market but a half hour away and I'd sell them. This kindly old lady who would turn around and sell them as.
And that's how I, you know, my first start, but my first real entrepreneurial venture was I was like, I was 19 and with student painters, with college kids, painting houses in the summertime oh, and now it's college we're spending. I own it here in the States with my partners, but I was a franchisee up in Canada. So I had my first business.
I did $100,000 in painting that summer. I employed like 19 of my friends. I made like $35,000 as a 19 year old kid and that. And I stayed in that business, you know, ended up becoming a general manager for the partner kind of thing with the guys who ran it. And then my partners and I took it over back in 1993 and that's where we started.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: That's wild. So.
So I think a lot of people, aspiring entrepreneurs. I'm probably jumping ahead of myself here. A lot of aspiring entrepreneurs don't really have experience in business necessarily.
Especially these days where college isn't necessarily a prerequisite for all these things. How did you find that helped your experience in building the types of businesses that you have now? Because you have more than one business that you run now.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: I have a buff.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: So how did that play a part? I mean, it sounds like you had a lot of success, but especially at that age, it seems like whatever money you'd made would just get sunk into something else. Irresponsible. At 19, at least it would have for me.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: 19, 40, same thing.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Right. Somewhere in there. So what, what, how did you compare that lessons and just trial by fire, for instance, versus well, it's gonna sound.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Crazy, but that business, the student painting business, has been around for 35, 40 years. And when I look back on my summer doing that, I had some of my best learning ever.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: How to market, how to sell, how to organize people, hire people, get a project done, deal with customers, deal customers. Jobs would go bad. It was just an intense, tense summer. I'd wake up every morning just stressed out and throwing up. And then I'd go to work and I worked 18 hours a day or 16 hours a day where the hell it was. And I did that all summer long. And I learned so many things that I. That was, that was like the best thing I could ever do as an entrepreneur.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: And it still is.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Like we still. The program still exists mainly in the Midwest and stuff.
But it's, you know, kids today learn how to really run a business. And it's not like, you know, I'm selling stuff on ebay. It's a real business with real employees and a real thing. You have to finish painting a house from start to finish. Right. It's a project that has to get done.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: And learn a lot and Part of.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: It is just the, the determination which I think is innate in real entrepreneurs, which is, dear, you're going to be damned before you fail. A lot of us end up damned anyway, but it's fine. But it's, it's a mentality. Right. Is that, is that something you relate to? Is just that I was a fire to get it done.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Because a lot of sue, we are. Right? You are. I am. I'm like, I'm, I'm not going to give up. I should give up easier and sometimes. Right.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: I've lost a lot of money because I won't give up. Right. That's. It's like, oh, okay. Yeah. I haven't learned that lesson very well.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: But that's something that I think, you know, I wish more kids, they had a little more drive to stick it through. Realize it has to be hard, all this lesson. Like when you're in your 20s, it's all about the lessons you're learning, not with money you're making. Yeah, right. And I think we're missing that. It's like a hard message to get across to people.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: It is. And I don't know how else to explain it because it just seems like people will be dismissive because, you know, we're trying to, they say that we're trying to make people feel like they need to do it the way it was, but it's not, I mean, it's simply, it's a work ethic issue attached to that determination, which is kind of the little, one little piece that is missing in some people. I mean, we, you know, now you've got guys that come on and within the first month of working, they want work, life, balance, answers, you know, things like that.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: You know, that.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's insane. I mean, I understand and appreciate it, but it's also difficult for me to understand how somebody feels like, man, I'm so exhausted. I've been doing eight hour days for the last, you know, full a week, you know, trying to start this company.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: I have worked full time for two years. I'm so burned out. I'm like, huh, yeah, I need to work from home two days a week just because I need my balance. I'm like, yeah, get it somewhere else. Yeah, well.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: And you know, how do you, how do you balance some of that now? Because there's no way. Well, I'd say there's no way. Do you just, do you just draw a line and say, this is, this is how it is and this is how you must function in some of Your companies or are you, are you obviously pivoting some way with the culture? Because obviously we can't keep hiring people that are older and older and older because it runs out eventually. We've got a. What is the, what does the pivot look like? What does the compromise look like? What does the educational process on your part look like in trying to understand the new generation of the workforce that are coming up?
[00:12:19] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I don't compromise.
I mean, it's very simple.
If you want to make a lot of money, you will work hard here.
If you want to not make a lot of money, you will not work hard here. And if you want to get fired, eventually you'll work less and you'll get fired. Yeah, but we have a culture in all the companies we have that are. It's, everybody's got to work hard and we pay them well and reward them well and they have a lot of fun together. I mean, if you take a look at the core companies, international services group, which would be college works, painting and empire works and home genius exteriors and perennial construction, that's the core of what I do.
There's 3,000 employees and we do a lot of fun things for those people. And we have trips to Mexico and Hawaii and this and that. And all just for the top performers. Right. We celebrate top performers and the top performers earn a lot of money. They have a lot of fun and we make sure they have great lives and we show them how to enjoy their lives while they still work.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Right. And we're also, I don't, I don't care if you got to go visit your kids thing on a Wednesday at 2:00, go have fun. But if you got to work till 10 o'clock at night, some nights, so be it. That's life.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: So that is, there is work life balance. There is involved that just, you just have to have the investment up front like we all did.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Well, we're not an investment bank where they come in, they work 18 hour days and never leave the office. Right. That's not what. And those guys don't have work life balance. But you can work 50 hours a week and still have a great life. Yeah, right.
And a lot of times when people say that they all they do is work, it's not accurate, it's not that, it's not real. All they do is think about work maybe, but that's on them. That's on me.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: Or mismanaged time.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not my fault. When you go home to have dinner you're still thinking about work. I'm not bugging you. You're thinking about. That's in your own head. So not my fault that you're not present with your kids or your wife because you're thinking about work.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: You're not working. When you're thinking about work.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Is there anything that you coach, since you're, you're not only a multi business CEO, but you're a CEO coach, is there anything that you coach into people in terms of establishing culture in a lot of those businesses? Because there's probably people listening now that are like, that sounds amazing. How do you, amidst this societal culture shift, how do you establish that once you've got something already running, what are some of the things you've experienced?
[00:14:53] Speaker A: You know, I, I think that the. You have to put culture first.
If you put culture first in people first. And I, yes, we drive people work really hard, but I've got people been with me 10, 15, 20, 25 years, and there's a lot of them because, yes, they work hard, but they know we care.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Right. So you got a family issue, you got a problem, you need someone to talk to, we're there for you. Right? You need some time off. The deals, whatever you got to do, we're there for you.
And that creates loyalty, that people will go the extra mile for us and we don't skimp on. We pay them well and reward them well.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: Right. So they're not looking to go anywhere else.
And we kept the people who don't fit that mold.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Is pay the primary incentivizer these days?
[00:15:49] Speaker A: No, it's that loyalty. Right. It's like, it's that they know that we care about them and we're going to learn a lot. They're going to make a difference in the world, in our little world, and they're going to be heard. And that's important. Right.
But then you've got to top it off with proper pay, of course. Otherwise they're going to look for another job.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I still think it starts there, but they want to be paid. But there's so many other aspects of that balance that people aspire toward. And you're.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: We're trying. I mean, we're not doing everything right. We do. We do some stuff. Right.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
Interesting. And so how does somebody, when you say you run, how many companies are you running now?
[00:16:31] Speaker A: So core businesses are the ones I just mentioned. I have a tennis court business called More Sports in Florida which I own with my partner down there, and we build tennis Courts and that kind of stuff. That's great business. And there's probably five others that are smaller sizes that I'm involved with.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: So how does one. I'm just. Just to wrap your mind around that. Because when people, we started one place and say you need to put in 48 hours a day to get a company started, you do nothing but focus on that, blah, blah, blah.
And then you end up in a position where you can run multiple companies. How does, how does that, what does that look like?
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Well, I wouldn't suggest you just go start multiple companies, of course, because it's like, I mean, I have a very unique situation. The fact that I had been in business for 37 years now, or whatever the heck it's been. Right. 38 years. And I have amazing people that run all of our organizations and they're rewarded with equity. So if you take a look at all these different companies I mentioned, if you run San Diego for Empire Works, which is Michael Cena, Michael owns 20% of that business. He wakes up every day and runs that business. And then you take a look in the same thing with all of our businesses, the key leaders all have equity. So the first thing is I don't hold on to stuff. I've got lots of my core partners and we have all our other partners. So people want to be here because they can see the future for themselves. That allows me the freedom.
That allows me the freedom to focus on what I want to focus on, which is hopefully making them better every day. If you look at my email signature, it doesn't say CEO. It says builder of people is my job. Every day is everybody I touch. I try to make it a little better.
But yes, I have multiple businesses, I have multiple projects, I have a lot of different things, and I get to have a wonderful life. Now that wonderful life starts at five in the morning and I am going constantly till seven o'clock at night. And I do that seven days a week.
That's the choice that people don't want to do.
I don't sit around and watch tv, I don't sit around and I don't go play golf for five hours. I'm productive pretty much all.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: And at some point in your life, if you did that, I also see that that's an underappreciated disposition. Also for people that say, this guy started this company and this company's making all this money and he doesn't even do anything.
You know, it's a super ignorant look at how that company started and the impact that it makes and the people that are involved and everything else. So I was just curious. So you're still a visionary, but you have even handed some of that in terms of business building to the leadership that has stake?
[00:19:25] Speaker A: Well, we want our leaders to have ownership. We want our leaders to try new things. Yeah. We want our leaders to fail at stuff, right?
[00:19:33] Speaker B: To an extent, yeah.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: I have a website that you can go to called jtoldyou so.com go check it out when things don't go well. And I told you we probably shouldn't do that. Yeah, I just send you that website.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. I'm going there.
What about AI? How. How is that affecting your businesses now? And how do you think it's going to.
How can you implement things like that? And what would you recommend for people in terms of embracing it or shunning it or caution, et cetera?
[00:20:12] Speaker A: So I am involved in AI to a point. I'm trying to understand it better.
I part of an organization called AI Mavericks that we put up, you know, events for on AI.
But I'm not an expert in AI, so I can tell you that I have people in my organization who their. His only job, Stephen's only job really is to search AI, figure out where AI can be of use in our stuff. All of our leadership team is using, trying to find ways to use AI or whatever it might be in the business. There's so many different tools out there now. You know, from learning tools, LMS systems where you can have chat bots that are speaking, things like that and all the stuff you guys probably already see. I think it's fascinating. I think it's super interesting. I'm glad it can't be the house or build one because that means I'm not going to lose my job anytime soon yet. So. But I mean, I'd be fearful if I was in certain jobs.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Do you feel like it's a crutch in a lot of cases? Because even in some, I mean if you use spell check has been around forever, but now they have something that'll convert your paragraphs into something significantly eloquent. And I see, you know, people that apply that say I have a master's degree and blah blah, blah, and they still can't spell their T H E I R over T H E R E and they just don't get it. Do you think some of what AI is going to do will make your people less smart and potentially harm the businesses in the future? Or do you think there are enough things to Kind of COVID up some of that.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: I think we've been sliding for years.
You think about how many people can write incursive.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Oh, they don't even teach it anymore. I don't teach it anymore.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: How many people can even write?
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Not many.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Right. How many people can really spell? If they had to write something and spell it without spell check, can they actually do it?
How many people do math in their head? Simple math in their head?
We've been sliding for years.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: This is just the next step.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Well. And that's what I mean. And a lot of the slide has come from technology. Yeah. It's still AI based stuff. It's just been a primitive version of such. And now we're. We're at a point now where we've seen the slide. We see people coming out of colleges that are less educated, unwilling to read long excerpts versus, you know, seeing a video, which there are pivots to do in order to feed the information. But there's such an information overload that I feel like people aren't retaining real information much anymore.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: And we've lost our ability in some cases to critically think.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Right. Because people take what they see on TikTok or wherever it might be and they take that as gospel.
I think we're living in a world where more people believe in conspiracy theories than ever have.
I know people who literally believe. And they're smart people. I like them.
I love them. They're great people. But the earth is not flat. They think it is.
We've never gone to the moon. Okay.
And they. It's fun to have those arguments. Yeah. But they absolutely believe all the stuff they see.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: I think that's the. Been. The political discord is born of all that too.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: I think we even get into the political part. It was like, you know, I don't care who you voted for. I honestly don't. I mean, I.
I think there was no perfect candidate. And we'll see what happens.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: Right. But it's a crazy world. Yeah.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: I totally agree. So with your. With your coaching. So you have CEO coaching International and you have clients that call in. Do you do video zoom sessions or do you visit? How do you.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: So I've definitely trimmed down my coaching. I used to coach probably up to 20 people, but as our companies have gone, I really taken off. I have. And I'm also just one more time in my. Slowing down a little bit.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: So I probably coach eight clients now. And they're just clients I've had for years. And we talk mainly on the phone because they don't like doing video chats. Yeah, I don't, I need a pace generally. Right. So I'm a, I'm a pacer. So we're generally on the phone and, you know, I talk to them three or four times a month and they're friends that, you know, it's fun to catch up with. And I've got one guy, Jake. It's every, every Saturday morning, Sam, Jake and I, they'll go for a walk on the beach and we talk, I talk to Jake.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: That's fantastic. So what are with the experience of having so many high level people calling in? What are some of the typical issues that most CEOs have? Because I think the perception of a CEO is a grandiose position. And you and I both know there are Grandiose levels of CEOs also, but they also share a lot of the same problems. What are some of the typical things that you've seen?
[00:25:23] Speaker A: I would start by saying that never put somebody on a pedestal because they have a CEO title, because that doesn't mean anything really. It means they got the job. Right. What I've seen and I coach some amazing CEOs, but all of us have the same challenge, including myself. We're just hoping nobody figures out we're making it up along the way.
Right. I mean, that's, we're all doing the same thing. Do you think anybody's going to catch that? Made that up? Yeah, because they did. Right.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: But you're leveraging more experience along the way too. Right? You have.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Absolutely. But you're still, you know, when you, when you're a $10 million company, you're making it up and then you become a $50 million company, you're like, I've never been the CEO of 50 and 100 and 300. Whatever you get to. Right. You're like, I've never met here before. What's going to be like, yeah, but what challenges they have? It's all the same challenges. It comes down to the right people in the right seats. All the cliche stuff you've heard about, all the good, the great stuff you read about every business book that can still be distilled down into three pages, it's all people. Like, if you have the right people in place and you give them the right ideas in the right direction and you let them do what they need to do and they are the right people, your business will grow. Right. If you have the wrong people in place and you try to micromanage the crap out of them or let the wrong people go and make decisions they shouldn't be making, your whole business falls apart. So as a CEO, even myself, it's all about, do I have the right people in place and do they know what they're supposed to be doing? And then let them do it. Right. And that's the hardest thing that everybody has, is the. It's. Their exec team is not someone they can generally trust.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: And they. And they feel like they're doing all the work themselves because they have to go in. And I mean, what I tell them all the time is like, I do all this stuff, and you all wonder how I can do it. It's because I have amazing people. I don't step in and do anybody's job. I don't need to.
You, whoever it might be, are stepping in and doing all these three people's jobs instead of your job as CEO.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
Especially for grunts like even myself that started without entrepreneur experience. Build a company, and then as you build it from yourself and start hiring a staff, then it's difficult to figure out when you're still doing someone else's job because you've started out doing everybody's job because you were the only one.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And then you feel like, I can do it better than everybody else can, and it's quicker if I just do it myself and training somebody else how to do it. And that's the trap you fall into because you keep doing the work.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: And I see it all the time. Right. People call me up and they're exhausted. I'm like, I'm not exhausted. And I have a lot more going on. Yeah, you're exhausted because you're doing everybody's job.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Fascinating. That's a great. That's a great answer and something I can appreciate myself for sure, too. I'm checking myself all the time.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: So with all these companies going on, you're. You're raising a family and you're still trying to balance all that. All that kind of stuff. You've had a. A successful life. I would say you've had certainly a successful life. I think you would deem it that you're a renaissance man. You've got. I hear you have black belts and you've Iron man runs and all kinds of stuff.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: A lot of things over the years.
I actually, you know, I wrote seven books, and I think I've sold eight, so I was.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Well, that's okay. And you're. I mean, you're producing films, writing multiple books. I mean, you're super busy.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I like to try stuff.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: And you still have a family that, that you spend a lot of time with still somehow, right?
[00:29:10] Speaker A: I do.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: And obviously a. A linchpin in your story is where your son Ryan, at 14, had an incident. And obviously that's a significant part of the way you carry yourself now and the trajectory of your goals in your life. You want to give the rundown and if some people have heard this story. Yeah, but you know, there's going to be a lot of our listeners who have not heard the story. So at least understanding a little bit of that before we go into some other questions I might have about where that is.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: I think it's. It's easy to look at someone's life and go, well, all this stuff happened. Your life's so cool. And all this kind of fun stuff you do and all that kind of stuff. And, and if all you did was look at my social media pre Ryan's issue or even post a lot of times, look at Chase, got a great life. Because when we just sat here and I explained to you my life, it sounds pretty. It is. It's awesome.
But not every part of life is awesome.
And so March 2018, my wife and I were out on vacation celebrating her birthday, and our youngest son sent us a text and said goodbye, and he took his own life that night.
And the reality is their lives are never the same.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
And it's unfathomable as a father, but I can't imagine, even for someone who doesn't have kids, to imagine something that traumatic happening. And it was completely unexpected, Right?
[00:31:04] Speaker A: No, still, I mean, I didn't.
I had four kids, Ryan being the youngest, but four teenagers. And I thought, you know, if I was stacking, rocking, stacking my youngest, all my kids back then, he was the least grumpy of all the teenagers him and I would have, you know, when I was in town, which is, you know, three, four nights a week, we'd have dinner and then him and I would down and watch a show together. Right. And we talk and I, you know, he didn't exhibit the signs that I saw or knew at the time that.
But looking back now and understanding better, there were some signs I just didn't know what to look for. I didn't ever have a conversation about mental health with any of my kids because I didn't think I had to.
And I missed.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Well, we come from the generation where you rub dirt on it, too. In your defense, I mean, that's the way we were raised, with just Dealing with it. And it's not that some of these issues didn't exist, which is why I find it interesting in this day and age where it's so much more acknowledged you still have mental health issues and depression and anxiety in the 50s, but it wasn't something that anyone was proud enough to bring up.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: It wasn't as extreme.
I mean, the world has changed so much.
So, yeah, it's.
It's interesting because it was, it's coming up on seven years. Right. And I go through life and I have fun, I have great days.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: But that, that never leaves the vision you have. Yeah.
And, and you know, I mean, he was seemingly such a.
He was such a otherwise funny kid and he was a great kid.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Engaged. No one saw. It was, it was just a. And that's the thing that people don't understand about mental health. So since that happened, I've dove into the world of mental health, especially for kids. So I started an organization. It's now called tell my story.org you can go to that website. And I did a TED Talk right out of the gate, which was very raw. I did another TED Talk called Hot Lava Talk, which compares living as a 14 year old kid, myself versus Ryan. I'll get into that in a second.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: We did a movie called Tell My Story, which you can see on Amazon.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: And it's fantastic, by the way.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: Thank you. And we did a more recent movie called what I Wish My Parents Knew, which is a program we put into schools across the US and across the world. We actually, we had 17 showings in Panama two weeks ago by the Catholic University down there. And they did a study which was really interesting. I'll share with you in a minute based on the movie.
And we're doing a new movie for kids that we're going to shoot this first quarter. So we have five people that are spending time getting this in front of parents, this message in front of parents that you have to own your kids mental health. And the message in front of kids that you have to share how you feel with your parents.
Right.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Easier said than done, right?
[00:34:26] Speaker A: Oh, it's. None of, it's easy.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: Do you have any advocates that are kids that can talk to kids?
[00:34:31] Speaker A: We have kids that, you know, that will go and push this film under their schools. The biggest challenge that we have is everybody's so busy and nobody wants to pay attention and everybody's afraid.
So if you take a look at stats, right. I mean, 40% of kids, depending on what statue you want to believe, have had some Kind of depression, anxiety issue in the last year.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: That's a huge number.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: And parish the same.
So we're all dealing with self love. Right.
And if you look back as to why, and I didn't understand any of this until I've been in the space now for many years. I've been in it.
When that phone rang when you and I were growing up, like we said, it was attached to the wall.
Dad answered it. Dad decided if you were able to talk to that person, usually stood there while you're talking to the person. And until you go, I'll just see you school tomorrow.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: And you yell at your father near your room.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Right. Our bullies. I was bullied constantly. I was a sickly kid.
I was bullied constantly. But my bully stayed at school. Home was a sanctuary. Well, in my case, it was kind of a sanctuary, but it was a sanctuary.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: Interesting sanctuary.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
But I wasn't paying attention to the world. I didn't have like. I didn't read the news. There were only a couple TV shows I watched. I didn't watch the news. I didn't. I don't remember growing up, with exception, it was the Cold War. So there. We joke about putting going under the table for a nuclear attack, which none of us understood. Right, Right.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right. Life context was kind of relative.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: And I need to go play with my friends. I'm going to ride my bike. I want to go fishing. I want to build a fort. That's life. Yeah, right.
These days it's so freaking different. People want to blame social media, but it's not just social media.
It's the fact that these kids know in fear that there's going to be an actual nuclear war.
They're worried about what's happening with Putin in the Ukraine.
They're worried about what's happening in the Middle East.
They're worried about who's going to be elected and what's going to happen when that person's elected. Both sides doesn't matter. Yeah, right.
[00:36:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: They're really upset.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Do you think some of that is handed down? I mean, I hadn't. I had a scenario without diverting too much where we had a vote in second grade on the Carter and Ford.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: You know, I was the only kid in my class. I was in Austin, Texas at the time as the only kid in my class that voted for Carter. Everybody else was for Ford. And I thought, that's interesting. I'm sorry, it was reversed. I voted for Ford. Everyone else had Carter, which now is Completely flipped, you know, in terms of red or blue. It's completely flipped. But at the time, the experiment was nice and show you how the process goes. But obviously the kids are just going home and having a conversation with their parents and then coming home, coming back to school with the answer. Do you think some of that is transferred from the parents who are now feeling more extreme in terms of.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: I wouldn't even blame the parents. I mean, maybe in some cases I would just see the access to information. They're coming up with their own decisions. Right. And if they're not worried about that, then they go to, well, what does it all matter? Because global warming is going to destroy the planet and climate change is going to destroy the planet in 10 years. Why are we even here?
So the anxiety levels are much higher. Education.
I got into college because my aunt worked in the admissions office.
That's the only reason I got in college. I was, I was, you know, I barely made it out of high school.
Right. My business partners went to UC Santa Barbara. They got in with a 2, 9 or a 3 one, you know, 30 years ago. You can't get into UC Santa Barbara right now without a 4 or 5 and a whole bunch of other stuff that's, you know, you're not getting in.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: So these kids are like high anxiety to get good grades. High anxiety because of the world. High anxiety because they see their friends on social media out there having fun and they're not there and then they're failing in their minds. And I'm not blaming parents because I don't think parents are doing this to me. Parents are like, they're confused on their own, but they're like going. Their kids are just like, just. I have to perform. I have to perform.
We did this study in. Well, I didn't do it, but someone took our stuff and they took the film. What I Wish My Parents Knew in the Panama and the Catholic University asked questions that we can't ask in the States.
And they asked these kids. 500 different kids responded. And they asked them, have you ever thought about killing yourself in the last year?
[00:39:24] Speaker B: How old? How old? Do you mind me asking?
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Middle school life.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Middle school, high school.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: 56% said yes.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: Insane.
[00:39:35] Speaker A: It's off the charts. And we can't ask that. Like, when I look at the questions we ask in the States, we can't ask that question. Maybe you're not going to want to ask that question.
But I mean, I want to ask that question, but schools don't want you ask that question because then they have to deal with the outcome of it. They don't want to do that. They're afraid of it.
[00:39:56] Speaker B: Yeah. That's a giant catch 22, though. Again, it's like, hey, I don't want you to assess the risk that I have on my person, because if I find out, I'm gonna have to do something about it.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Well, and we've had, you know, we've had schools that have shown what I wish my parents do to kids, and they've done it the way we asked them to do it, where they're prepared. They've got therapists. They have people lined up because kids are going to come out and go, I need to talk to somebody now.
And it goes well.
And then we have schools that show up without being prepared and no therapists around. And it's been a mess because the kids are now freaked out and they don't know, no one to talk to.
[00:40:31] Speaker B: And most schools still have a counselor there. You're just talking about somebody at a higher level.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: When you really start picking at that wound and everybody starts talking and you find out there's three or four kids are actually in crisis right now and you didn't know about it, you have to have people talk to them. Yeah. Now you could say, well, then we don't want to know that, which some schools say. And I would say, well, then what are you waiting for that child to make a really bad decision.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: Right. Statistics are going to catch up to them eventually.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: So it's tough. So here's a question for you. What do you think the number from our latest study, what do you think the number one reason why kids are feeling anxious or depressed is.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: They just. I don't know, they don't know what they want to do, but they feel pressured to do something, achieve something.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: A lot of people will say, like social media. Right. It's got to be social media. Is the reason why they.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: The number one reason facilitator, for sure.
[00:41:29] Speaker A: Number one reason we saw in our latest study was academics.
The pressure to perform with 39% of the kids responded. The pressure to perform with academics was causing them to feel the way I feel.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: That's. That's almost confusing to me. I would have. That would have been the last thing I would have thought.
[00:41:51] Speaker A: I know I was shocked myself.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: I know there was pressure on us coming up, but it was always relative. You know, I had a sister that outperformed me, that was younger than me, that still took the same classes as me and outperformed me. But my parents would Incentivize my grades based on other things.
But, and I know there are different cultures. Has, have they talked about going somewhere like Korea or something like that?
[00:42:16] Speaker A: You can definitely see culturally there's differences in how kids are growing up and how they're pushed for academics. But again, I'm not blaming parents for this one. Kids are trying to achieve at a level because they feel like they have to.
Right. School's expensive. I need to make sure I have a scholarship.
School wasn't expensive when you and I went to school.
[00:42:40] Speaker B: Well, it was to me, but had I known what it cost now, I would have thought it was a really good deal.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: I would, you know, I dropped out when I was in Canada, but I remember it didn't bother me to pay what I was paying.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It took me forever, but not because it was so large, just because I took forever to make any reasonable money.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, but it's, it's a different world, I think.
And I don't like talking about, you know, Ryan's suicide as much because, you know, I hope that doesn't happen to anybody.
And it happens. And yes, it happens more than we want it to, but there's a lot more kids that are dealing with depression, anxiety that we need to get.
It's not, it's like we got to get those kids help, support.
[00:43:32] Speaker B: What are some of the ways that you've seen. I know when you first came out with a lot of this stuff and were gathering the information, a lot of this was the onus was on the parents to have to start these conversations because again, and I concede also, if my parents had talked to me about suicide when I was a fourth grader, I'd been like, huh, Like I, it's like nothing that ever even entered my mind. It would have just been far fetched. It was as far fetched as the sex talk was at the time.
[00:44:03] Speaker A: I don't think that what.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: Huh. So.
And I think just like you said, the influx of information and the fact that it's even presented at all and puts the idea in their, in an immature mind is kind of part of the problem. Are you seeing anything now that they've, they've, I think this active shooter overreaction where you have all these schools spending inordinate amounts of money to have all these different programs and having drills and it's, you know, 1 in 600 million chance that this is going to happen to you. But they're, do. They're taking all these precautions. It's been so long since they've had a fire, but they do these fire drills, and yet it's more likely to. You're still going to die in a fire. But they're now associating a lot of that active shooter stuff with mental health.
Do you think that's going to potentially be a way to move the needle a little bit about? Because it seems like that's. That's the cause. The active shooter is the result of something else that you're trying to patch up, whereas what you're describing is what we really need in schools. Is there a way to tweak programs or something in there?
[00:45:13] Speaker A: I don't. So what I tell people, and I'm not saying I'm absolutely right, it's my own opinion, but if you're waiting for the schools and you're waiting for the government and you're waiting for your doctors to fix your kids and save your kids, it's not going to happen. Yeah. The schools are overburdened with everything from active shooters to probation to, you know, kids not coming to whatever you. You named. Not probation. What's it called? And they don't go to school skipping class and. Yeah, yeah. But all the stuff they have to deal with. Right.
[00:45:46] Speaker B: Alternative school stuff.
[00:45:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's. It's too much. Right. The schools don't have the time.
You have to be the one to save your own kids. And that's a lot of pressure. But there's not enough therapists to deal with all the kids out there.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: Right. And because it has to be the right therapist, too.
[00:46:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:05] Speaker B: You take a kid to a therapist and they hate the experience. They're. It's going to be hell trying to convince them to go to a different one in the first.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: You might. It might go through five therapists, find one they actually want to connect with. And they might, like you said, quit after the first one anyway.
[00:46:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: So you have to be the one. And I know it's a lot, man. I know, I know it's not fair. Right. But you have to own your kids mental health the way you own your kid's physical health. And what I mean by that, if your kid breaks their arm, you're gonna go, all right, I know what to do. I'm gonna teach you the er. I'm gonna do this, do that, make sure you're okay. You know, if your kid has a stomach ache, they come to you Monday morning, a stomachache. You're like, no, you don't. And like, show fever. Oh, you have A fever? Oh, it's in the. Right. Okay. We go to the hospital, right?
[00:46:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: We know what to do.
But your kid comes to you and says, I broke up with my boyfriend and I don't feel like living anymore.
And we go, that's crazy talk.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:47:16] Speaker A: He's an idiot. You're the most beautiful girl on the planet. Don't. You can't listen to that. Don't even. That's stupid. Don't do that. You know?
[00:47:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: We just go in and become stumbling fools.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: Right. And we have to get better at being able to have the tough conversations with our kids. And I can tell you, I can give you what I know. I'll boil it down what I tell people really quickly. And I hope it helps. All right. And that is that you have to think of it this way.
I know you've got a lot going on in the world. We all do. So the kids issue that they have that they're hung up on, you're like, this is simple. I can fix this. Two seconds. Right. But in their little world and even your spouses world, it's like, it's not little. In their world, at that moment in time when someone is depressed, that's the most important thing, the only thing that matters to them.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:09] Speaker A: So I view it this way. Look, it's in Southern California, which you love now.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: There's not a cloud in that sky.
Right. That I can see right now.
If we were sitting here with someone who's depressed, they would only see clouds.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: And there's nothing that you or I could say to convince them there's no clouds in the sky.
[00:48:32] Speaker B: It's similar to having alcoholic parents who you try to. You don't use common sense to speak to somebody who's not in their right mind. Doesn't work that way. Right.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: You can't convince them. So all you can do is ask them to talk about the clouds.
Tell me what your clouds look like. Tell me how they make you feel. Are they always there? Do they come and go? Are there good clouds and bad clouds? Tell me. And then resist with every fiber of your body to fix the problem.
Because the minute you go into fixing the problem mode, they shut down. No one talk to you.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And you're the only one that thinks it's fixed.
[00:49:17] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not fixed. You're not fixed.
[00:49:19] Speaker B: That's a dude thing too. Right. Isn't this something we should do thing.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: Right. Our wives say it to us all the time. I just want you to listen to me. I Don't want you to think I'm like, then don't talk to me.
[00:49:28] Speaker B: Appreciate my problem.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: I'm all freaking day with people calling me with their problems. Fix them. And then I get home and you don't want me to fix anything. I'm supposed to see you like a dummy. I can't do it. Yeah, but you have to do it with you. If you're talking to someone who has a mental health issue and you try to go into fix it mode because you're scared. And we are scared. We're scared that our kids are gonna do something stupid, so we're gonna say, no, no, no, don't do that. Because, no, tell me how you feel, and then promise me that before you make any bad decisions, you're gonna come find me.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: What about a lot of the parents who, I mean, you ironically have a position where you have open communication with your kids and had good relationships, and even some parents with decent relationships with their kids because they're kids, the kids don't actually share stuff. Even as you pry. Are there some tricks or anything that you've run across during your research where parents have, at least over time, developed a way to kind of open communication about the crazy stuff? I mean, it's an insane conversation to sit down and talk about suicide, for instance, or a breakup that you think might result in something significant when the kids doesn't want to talk to mom or dad.
[00:50:44] Speaker A: Most kids don't want to talk to you, right?
[00:50:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: So you kind of have to trick them into talking to you. So I'll give you a couple of things that we feed them up.
Just the tools are just basic tools. First of all, there are times, and you all know this, when your kids will talk to you, Right. They will suddenly open up and want to talk.
You've probably seen that with your son, right?
[00:51:06] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: It might be only once a month, but it happens.
And when that happens, you want to lean in and just ask more and more questions. Tell me about this. So what's going on at school?
Everything's good. It's just tell me. And then the more they open up, the more you can open up. The second thing is that. So you gotta find that time. Like, is it going for a walk? They like that. You're maybe you're going playing ball. You're playing a golf. Playing golf. You're cooking with them. I don't know.
[00:51:31] Speaker B: Turn into a positive experience.
[00:51:32] Speaker A: And the positive experience that allows them to be open to chat with you.
[00:51:35] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: They need to know that no matter What? And then this is the hard part.
If they're gonna come clean with stuff, you can't punish them for coming clean.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: Right. You may not want to hear they were out doing drugs or drinking on Wednesday night, and they're 16 years old, but if they feel like you're going to punish them for it, you're never going to hear about it.
[00:51:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: And you need to know about it, because that's a problem.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: And I found, too, I don't know if you had this experience when someone would bring up something as outrageous as, I broke up with my girlfriend and I'm thinking about killing myself, it would almost elicit an angry response. Like, I don't want to hear that kind of talk out of your mouth. Blah, blah. Right.
[00:52:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And then what they do, they never tell you again.
[00:52:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:18] Speaker A: They never tell you again. So you didn't solve anything.
[00:52:20] Speaker B: That's. That's interesting. Is one of my rules with my kid was, you know, we grew up in the spank era, you know, whatever that. Whatever. You know. And the whole rule was the punishment that you're going to get is going to only be a result of lying.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: So as long as you're not lying, then we'll have a conversation, and that.
[00:52:40] Speaker A: Should be the rule.
[00:52:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:42] Speaker A: Because kids do dumb things. Because you look back on what we did, we did dumb things, and it's amazing. The parents don't expect the kids to be doing dumb things. Even they did really dumb things. Like I hear all the time. Well, they're not as bad as I was. Well, why are you so mad?
Right. You did a lot worse. Yeah. Give the kid a break.
[00:53:02] Speaker B: It's hard to have a big picture thought when you're. It's your kid. I mean, you're very myopic and in the moment and.
[00:53:09] Speaker A: But. But this is what we're dealing with, right?
[00:53:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:11] Speaker A: The other thing that parents need to realize is that the way you and I talk to each other. Right. We're 55. You're 55. 57. We look each other in the eyes. This is what we do. That means I know what you're talking to me. You know what you said to me earlier? Hey, if I'm looking down on my sheet of paper, understand, I'm still listening to you. I just want to see if I'm following all my questions. I'm like, of course. But we have conversations looking each other in the eyes.
Kids don't want to look you in the eyes.
They don't. They're scared. The crap out of you. They're scared of what you're going to think. They're scared of you. Judge them. They don't want to look you in the eyes.
Have a conversation while you're walking. You can't look in the eyes. They will talk to you in the car more often than they will talk to you at home because they know you can't look in the eyes.
Right.
They don't want to do that. So we also created a couple tools. We've got songs from the Drive Home you can see on the. On our website, which is an album that I put together with my partners. And it's got. Side A is all song. It's all mental health songs. Right. Side A is for younger kids. I'd be, for older kids, kind of a Jack Johnson. You kind of feel the songs.
[00:54:20] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: And you can listen to them in the car with your kids, and they might spark conversations about things. They might say, well, I was feeling the way that girl was in the song, or that guy, that boy. I've had those thoughts.
[00:54:31] Speaker B: Conversation starters is a great idea.
[00:54:34] Speaker A: And another deck of cards we created called the Tell my story card deck, which you can see on the website, which are. I should have brought one for you. Shoot. I should have brought one for you. I'll send them to you. Yeah.
[00:54:44] Speaker B: And as I can order them, I'll rather support the cause anyway.
[00:54:47] Speaker A: You. But they're. They're a deck of cards that have questions. You know, when was the last time you felt happy? Or when was the last time you felt sad? And you pull a card and you ask. Answer the question. They answer the question.
And they can pass not answer the question. But we have seen so many families try this. Everybody loves it because it's starting a conversation that they don't know how to start the conversation. Starting the conversation is the hardest part.
[00:55:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:55:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:17] Speaker A: So the card deck allows you to start the conversation.
[00:55:21] Speaker B: It's a great idea. You just kind of make it a habit to do it.
[00:55:24] Speaker A: Well, you sit around right before dinner. Let's try a question. Let's see what goes on. You don't have to play it for an hour. You can play it for five minutes.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So each person pull one card and answer it. And then.
[00:55:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
And that's. That's the kind of thing is because I'm constantly looking for, how do we help parents talk to the kids.
[00:55:43] Speaker B: Yeah. I still can't. Still can't imagine how you and your family have handled this, but I'm impressed. Also, I am curious how your Other kids, this would have been less appropriate, maybe at the time, but now that your other kids are grown, have they shared with you anything that. That you didn't know about, or have they shared about how they handled it? Because at the time, they were still 20 and late teens.
[00:56:13] Speaker A: Yeah, they were late teens.
[00:56:14] Speaker B: They handled something like that. Having a sibling do this, it's got.
[00:56:17] Speaker A: To be a. Yeah, we. I mean. And, you know, and, you know, the other thing is my wife and I are still married 32 years now.
[00:56:23] Speaker B: Congratulations.
[00:56:24] Speaker A: And that's 32 years this year. And that's, you know, most people don't see married to this.
[00:56:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:56:31] Speaker A: 85% of people get divorced.
[00:56:33] Speaker B: I've seen that.
[00:56:34] Speaker A: And families fall apart. They don't talk to each other.
It's hard.
And, yeah, I learned a lot about my kids after the fact and some of their own mental health struggles that they kept to themselves and I never heard about. And it was hard to hear all that.
My daughter and I didn't talk for two and a half years.
[00:56:53] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:56:54] Speaker A: Legitimately, she thought I was the devil after I passed.
So we've definitely gone through some hard times.
[00:57:01] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:57:02] Speaker A: Now we're awesome these days. And she actually. She and her husband actually live with us, which is kind of fun. I thought I'd never want the kids living with us, but I'm like, yeah, this is great. People take care of us.
And her and I are awesome. We, you know, we went up and went. Her and I took a trip, just the two of us, to Italy this year, which is fantastic.
I took Kyle and Ashlyn jet packing, which I showed you. Yeah.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: Remarkable.
[00:57:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Look up. Go Google jetpack races in Dubai.
And those are the guys who taught us how to fly a jetpack tethered. But the same guys where we went and flew with them yesterday.
[00:57:45] Speaker B: It's still unbelievable.
[00:57:47] Speaker A: So, yeah, I got a. I have a great relationship with all my kids now.
I think it was tenuous. Like, when I went out and did all this stuff right away, Ashland was very upset with me. My wife was upset with me because they're more private. And I'm like, I need to make a difference in the world. And kind of said, screw your privacy.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Because you're. I mean, everybody's.
[00:58:11] Speaker A: Save everybody's life. And. And you guys will get over it. And it was. I was terrible for doing it that way, but we were all hurting in our own way.
[00:58:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:58:19] Speaker A: Right. And.
And my wife's still very private, and my. They're all very private. But we. We as a family, we're in really good shape.
[00:58:29] Speaker B: That's great. Yeah, I'm. I'm familiar with having certain things that are exposed that impact other people as collateral damage and having to deal with that kind of fallout. So. But I think it's more than appreciable what you're doing because you've, you've. There's no measurable on the wins that you must have because they're the people that stay alive. So there, There isn't really a stat that can accommodate the type of work that you're doing and the plate that you're on. So I applaud you for that because you're. You're only going to see the stats that continue to climb where there's depression and there's people that follow through. But the success stories are rarely told because they think of. Think about suicide or almost did it or whatever is a negligible thing and that nobody really mentions and is certainly dismissed. But you could be certainly an attributed factor in somebody deciding not to do something.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: We hear the stories all the time that people saw the movie, they were on the edge of something, they changed their mind, they talked to their parents, parents decided to go talk to a kid. And then I don't.
We don't track them because there's no. It's not what we're doing this for.
[00:59:45] Speaker B: It's untrackable, kind of. That's what I mean. It'd be almost impossible to do that. You only see the losses, continual, continually add up as you continue to fight. But the winds are happening. You just. They're just invisible.
[00:59:55] Speaker A: No, we're just. We're making a dent in our own way. I mean, when this first start, I was like, I want to end teen suicide because I'm a smart guy and I'll figure that out. And I was arrogant. And then I suddenly realized there's a lot of really good people in the space, but it's just a really challenging problem. Yeah, it's just not.
I mean, the way I look at it, we struggle to get people even to show up to these school programs. Right. So we'll have a school with a thousand kids in it and 85 parents show up for the event.
And I'm like going, I know there's a lot more of you who should show up.
[01:00:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:00:33] Speaker A: Or you have some nights, six or seven people show up.
And the. What I tell people all the time. I was like, I don't. If I'm gonna go speak somewhere and there's only 10 people in the audience or five people in the audience.
I'm. I don't care, because I know that those five or six or seven people are there for a reason. They're hurting.
[01:00:53] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:00:53] Speaker A: And they need help.
And they're the most important thing.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:00:58] Speaker A: I can do for the next hour.
[01:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah. But even all.
[01:01:00] Speaker A: I wish there was a hundred. They were hurting. They were there. But it doesn't matter, because I'm gonna make a difference to those five people.
[01:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And you're creating new testimonies too. You know, the one family that does recover from whatever or doesn't have to deal with something like you dealt with, and that's the one family that will be a testimony to other families. And it.
[01:01:20] Speaker A: You hope there's a butterfly effect or a ripple effect or whatever you call that thing.
[01:01:24] Speaker B: There is. There is. Like I said, I. I know there is, so I know what you're doing is. Is remarkable.
[01:01:29] Speaker A: Well, you know, it's.
It's the. The thing that people.
I hope they. They take the mental health stuff really seriously from our conversation.
But I. I think there's another thing that people need to understand, too, is that you can look at life and go, that person's life is so amazing. They have all these different things. They do all that different stuff, and they have all that money and blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. But there's tough. There's been nothing easy about the path I've taken in life. Yes. I own a bunch of businesses. I've failed at over 25, 30. I've lost track. And how many companies I've shut down. I've lost track of how many millions of dollars I've lost doing dumb stuff or great stuff that I thought was gonna be great that turned out to be dumb or just didn't take. There's. It's not been this path like this. Success doesn't go from here to here. It goes like that.
[01:02:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:29] Speaker A: And sometimes it ends up there and sometimes end up there. Right.
And just because I can look now at 57 and go, yeah. A lot of the stuff really works out.
Every day is still a challenge. Every day running these businesses is like, I. I'm going. I thought, I've seen everything. Now this has happened.
Like, what. What the hell?
[01:02:53] Speaker B: It's real life.
[01:02:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And the problems at the size we are today, you know, it's not easier to run a big business. It's a lot harder.
It's like, it's much more challenging to have as many employees we have across the country doing as many things that we're doing than it was when we were just running a small little bit. I was running my little painting business in Peterborough, Ontario. Right.
[01:03:14] Speaker B: Of course.
[01:03:15] Speaker A: I mean, it's bigger problems, bigger wins, bigger losses, and none of it's easy. But how you choose to approach it is what matters. Here's. Here's how I approach it. I don't respect my days to be any good at all.
I expect my days to be full of a whole bunch of problems and a whole bunch of challenges and things I've got to figure out and things that aren't going to go well. That's how I wake up in the morning. That's not a negative way to wake up in the morning. It's just an expectation going, here's what you should expect. Yeah. Now put on a smile. Go fix the problems. Right, Right. Because that's what you're going to get.
[01:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah. That attitude is great.
[01:03:54] Speaker A: I'm going to get all the crap all day long. Because people don't call me with, let me tell you, the greatest thing ever happened today. Usually I. Why didn't you call me? That good thing happened. Oh, I had to call you with the bad thing first. Yeah, right.
[01:04:05] Speaker B: Of course.
[01:04:05] Speaker A: That's all my day. My phone rings all day long with people's problems.
[01:04:08] Speaker B: And of course you have all those businesses, so when things are not falling apart, they're not calling you.
[01:04:12] Speaker A: They're not calling you.
[01:04:13] Speaker B: Why? Because that's the whole point. They're supposed to be running this stuff.
[01:04:16] Speaker A: No one calls what's good. So I expect it to be hard, which most people don't.
And then when it's good, it's even better. Wow. I wasn't expecting that day. It was a great day.
[01:04:30] Speaker B: Yeah, right. That's great.
[01:04:31] Speaker A: But here's the challenge with most people these days. They expect every day to be great and easy, and when it's not, they fall apart.
[01:04:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:04:41] Speaker A: So my biggest thing when I've come in here, what am I gonna. If there's any message I want to say and get across, people's life is crappy.
Life is hard. It's not supposed to be easy.
And no matter how successful you are, it's still gonna be crappy and hard until you're retired, I guess. And you maybe have a whole bunch of money. I don't know how that works. I'm never gonna do that. But life is tough. Life is hard. Crappy things happen to good people. It's your choice and how you deal with it. Yeah. It's totally your choice. I've made my choice.
I deal with my crap every day. I deal with my lost, my son. I deal with all the problems in my life and the smile on my face. And I go back out there and hit it hard again the next day because that's the only choice I have.
[01:05:28] Speaker B: Do you think you would appreciate anything if you hadn't. I mean, you've had some extraordinary failures and loss. Do you think you appreciate life more because of that?
[01:05:43] Speaker A: No, I don't think losing a son you appreciate much love, to be honest, because that's just always right. So I can appreciate what I have. I can appreciate the wins I have. Can I appreciate them to the level I'd like to? No, I'd appreciate.
I give it all off.
[01:06:05] Speaker B: Yeah, of course.
Fascinating. So what are you working on now? What. What can we expect from you next? Are you in the middle of a project or just.
[01:06:14] Speaker A: I'm always a fun project. Yeah. We have a new album come out on BMG Music in January, songs for the Drive Home 2, which is, I think, a great album that we just finished up.
We're working on a new kind of TV YouTube series called Ghost Town USA, which we just wrapped up. The first shooting of the first season, which is. We did Globe, Arizona, which is one of the most haunted places in America.
[01:06:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[01:06:44] Speaker A: And I went into Globe and I actually interviewed the people who live there to tell me their stories about living with ghosts. So instead of going in and saying, okay, we're gonna see if there's a ghost here and we're gonna run out of this jail as we saw a ghost and film everything in green, I just sat there and had conversations with people. But you live around ghosts, why?
[01:07:04] Speaker B: Right. You just allow the assumption to be so.
[01:07:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And they just have amazing stories. So we're working on that for fun. Will that go anywhere? I have no idea.
[01:07:13] Speaker B: That's super fun.
[01:07:14] Speaker A: And then my big project next year is from a film standpoint, like all the work stuff is work stuff. Right. You have great plans. We're going to grow the business by X amount. All that kind of stuff. That's all happening. But the fun stuff, the more interesting stuff is the side projects. Right. So my. My big project for this year is a documentary film I'm going to do about the Indian boarding schools in the United States.
Ooh, man.
[01:07:41] Speaker B: You have to keep me apprised on that.
[01:07:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I've.
[01:07:43] Speaker B: I've been fascinated with that whole culture and the. How they're basically ignored. I mean, you'd almost, you know, discrimination is terrible, but ignoring when you start.
[01:07:58] Speaker A: Reading all the stuff. And I've been reading a lot of stuff, but, you know, Native Americans and the wars and how they were treated. It's like, it's terrible. It's really terrible. But every line we made, every treaty, we broke everything. Right?
[01:08:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:08:13] Speaker A: And then you dive into the boarding schools and you realize that we created these schools in the United States where we take a kid from wherever, usa, put them in a boarding school in, say, Arizona, cut off their hair, try to turn them into basically household servants for white people. Yeah.
[01:08:33] Speaker B: A white Christian American.
[01:08:35] Speaker A: And they didn't have contact with their parents.
[01:08:37] Speaker B: Oh, God.
[01:08:38] Speaker A: It's basically, they were stolen. And then while they were in those schools, there was rape, there was beatings, there was all this kind of stuff, and kids died and their parents didn't know. And there's. Canada did a much better job of exposing all this. And they found a bunch of unmarked graves. And yes, we did a. We found 900 graves. Well, there's. Canada found a lot more than that. And there's 10 times the boarding schools here in the U.S. and Biden did go out and make an apology for the Indian schools this year, but no one's done the documentary that people want to see or people should see. And I've be getting, you know, I get. I'm doing a lot of work on this and talking to a lot of Native American people and a lot of academics. And, you know, you get, well, it's not your story to tell. I'm like, well, someone's going to tell a story.
[01:09:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:09:26] Speaker A: And I'm not telling it to try and make you help you heal, because I can't help you heal.
[01:09:31] Speaker B: Right.
[01:09:31] Speaker A: This story is not for Native Americans to heal. This story, the way I'm going to tell it is for guys like you and I to understand that the history that we were taught is not the reality.
And when we look at the world and how we treat people and we judge everybody else for how they're treating people, we need to look at ourselves first now. Not you and I, but our ancestors and what we did to the Native Americans in this country. Because most people, most young Caucasian kids don't know what we did.
[01:10:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:09] Speaker A: It's like we're going to celebrate Thanksgiving and Columbus Day and yay.
[01:10:13] Speaker B: Yeah. We broke bread together and we sat across the table and they were all.
[01:10:16] Speaker A: And they're all happy. Look at the smiling faces in the pictures. Our history books are wrong.
[01:10:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:22] Speaker A: And I want to take it from that angle and go, we stole these kids from their parents.
And how does that feel if right now we walked into a nice little family living in a home in Kansas with their three kids and the government came in and said, I'm taking your three kids. Trust me, it'll be better for them.
And walked out with them.
[01:10:47] Speaker B: Man, I can't wait to see that.
[01:10:48] Speaker A: And you can't talk to them. You don't even know where they are.
[01:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah, they just. They just had a. An expose, too, on some of those. I'm trying to remember where it happened.
I'm not gonna be. I'm not gonna be accurate if I guess anyway. But it was in. In a different country, but we were bringing. The Catholic Church was sending folks over to similar types of schools over here from Europe.
[01:11:13] Speaker A: There's. It's.
[01:11:14] Speaker B: And there were kids again disappearing or being sold or whatever. And then, you know, too bad. So sad after the fact.
[01:11:22] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a lot. Unfortunately, a lot of churches involved, and I'm really confused as to why no one's really done a deeper dive into this.
[01:11:31] Speaker B: I love to hear it. Love to. Love to keep up with the progress on that. Absolutely fascinated. I appreciate everything you're doing, brother.
[01:11:38] Speaker A: I appreciate you. And thanks for having me on.
[01:12:01] Speaker B: A diplomatic Bas is the one to see it through.
And don't let those figures take you off your game or just let him loose. Just sit here in the front seat, baby, ain't that sweet? Take a little honey from the money be but don't pay the fool.
[01:12:22] Speaker A: An.
[01:12:23] Speaker B: Apolitical magical potion A missing piece at the end of the game a slow roll. See, the truth is, soul lotion I never found in 60 frames like five. Finding more.
