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Welcome to the Behind the Shield Podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and I am so excited to announce that this is episode
1000.
Now, I put a teaser out that I was going to have a very special guest coming on to mark
this absolute benchmark and I can't think of anyone more special than my son, Ty.
We did an interview with my wife and then my stepson, my bonus boy, Ethan and Ty six
years ago and he was only 11 then I think.
So, now we sat down, he's 17 years old, he's graduating in the summer and I wanted to bring
him on for two reasons.
Firstly, selfishly of course, I want to get this conversation, this moment in his childhood
before he kind of flies the nest but also he's been through a lot.
He struggled academically when he was young and now he's in AP classes in senior school,
in high school, excuse me.
He has had some incredible highs in his life but also some deep lows.
One of the ones as I'm sure any of you that's kind of been following this community for
a few years now was when there was an absolute epidemic of our school children being Baker
acted, 72-hour psychiatric hold, anytime they had any sort of kind of crisis and he was
part of that absolute catastrophe.
So we talked about that, we talked about the ripple effect and how much damage that was
doing.
The laws changed and then we talk about that too but at the time I had no idea this was
going on.
I was talking about mental health and my son became part of this horrendous, horrendous
abuse of power.
So I think the real value for this is obviously his parents listening to one of our school
children but then hopefully even some of your children or grandchildren out there, this
might be a value for them to listen to.
He's had such a kind of nuanced journey through school, JROTC, he's been a varsity athlete,
he's also been hurt as a varsity athlete.
There's that kind of identity crisis.
There's so much in there that I think people can take away from and his absolute love of
Lego as well.
So without further ado, I introduce to you my son Ty Gearing.
Well we are sitting here for episode 1000 and I can't think of anyone I would want to
be my guest more than my son Ty Gearing.
So Ty, I want to welcome you, which sounds so weird, isn't it?
Yes, welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thank you.
So I was trying to figure out how we would start this conversation so I'm just going
to send the same questions to you that I do my other people to start it.
So for people listening, tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your
family, what your parents do, how many siblings?
I'm from Huntington Beach.
My dad's a firefighter, my mom is a nurse but she used to be a trauma nurse now she's
specializing in cancer floor in Marion Hospital.
I have one stepbrother but he's just Ethan to me because he comes and goes sometimes.
So yeah.
So yeah, we were living in Huntington Beach, you were born in Hogue Hospital, Newport Beach.
Yeah.
So I was trying to think again, like how can I because I know there's some things I want
to talk about but I don't want it to just be like go into these topics.
So interesting question for you, what is your earliest memory of anything?
What is the youngest you remember?
So I mean, this is kind of getting very personal.
I mean, one is really cool of when we skied in France or when my mom cheated on you.
So I mean, that's kind of personal.
But you remember?
I remember we went to his party because the divorce was like when I was four-ish, like
early four.
So I don't remember the time zone but that's probably my earliest memory of skiing in France
when I was four or going to that party with my mom.
Okay, and for the record, obviously, your mom and I both moved on, I'm remarried, life
has happened.
But with that, there are so many families out there that are, the parents are divorced
as you know, even mine, my mom and dad.
So talk to me about just that because everything has a good thing and a bad thing.
It might be more bad than good.
What was the, you know, if any good that came from those two separate homes, those two separate
paths and then what is the negative?
What is the bad?
I mean, I feel like personality just changes between siblings and non-siblings because I
get a lot, oh, that makes sense that you're only a child.
So I feel like the pros is you're very peaceful.
I feel like you're very quiet and I mean, that's not a good thing but like you're patient,
I feel like because like you had your way, you don't have to fight and you think it's
just you.
So I feel like that's pretty good and you are set for the real world because you're
by yourself in the real world.
I think you're kind of used to being lonely and kind of being used to realistically just
being by yourself.
And I think that's it.
And just like I said, just being in a more quiet home, I mean, that's not some people,
but at least our home is pretty quiet, pretty chill, I guess you could say.
The cons is like you have to make your own friends.
Like you have no one to rely on besides, of course, your parents, but you're by yourself.
So I think that's a huge pro and a huge con.
But yeah, and especially, I mean, I feel like if, I mean, I'm lucky I have no siblings because
I feel like with divorced parents it'd be kind of tricky and I don't know how that'll
work too.
So but that's how I am.
Yeah, because as you know, I was the opposite, I was one of five and I've described us recently
as feral, meaning like wild animals.
So we were on the farm.
But yeah, when I look back, I had friends, but a lot of my playmates were my brothers
and sisters.
And you know, Uncle Tim and I, you know, we didn't play well together.
He tried to murder me once.
But yeah, if you can hear that in the background, it's my dog being a complete weirdo.
But that's a single child.
What about the going from home to home, having the divorced parents?
What are the good and what is the bad?
I mean, start with the bad, just having shit step dads.
For I think Dean was kind of abusive, I think, to my mom and having bad households.
Then Adrian, he was a cheating crap dude.
That's probably the bad.
Just having to move, get something, I mean, it's time consuming because you have to go
to the house and you can do something else.
So it takes time and just not fun.
It's not at all.
But I think the positive is you have a peace house, I guess, if you're lucky.
Not everyone does, but at least for me, I have, you're my peace house and everything.
So yeah.
I think that's an important part of the conversation, isn't it?
Sometimes moms and dads stay together and they think they're doing the right thing for
the child, but it would be worse because I think we've talked about it.
You remember when your mom and I would argue and it was terrible, wasn't it?
It's not good for you at all.
And the child feels scared and they don't feel safe.
It wasn't like it was a violent argument, it was just shouting.
I remember just walking up to you guys, he was always in the driveway, you guys, you
saw him.
You saw him walk out of the car and just stared at you.
Then you usually want to stop it, not my mom.
Yeah.
I mean, I hate arguing, but I mean, you know, it takes two to argue.
So I'm not saying I was blameless, but yeah.
So the thing that's important for people to kind of think about is that sometimes when
there's a reason for divorce, whatever that is, you feel like it's going to hurt the children
and it is, but staying together could be worse.
So yeah, I agree.
Because I have friends that are like that and having divorced parents is way better
than parents that argue all the time.
So we're seeing as we've got a complete nutcase German Shepherd trying to ruin this interview,
let's talk about dogs.
So as you were going through this and you know, obviously, you know, you've got this
relationship issue with your mom and dad.
Stop moving the microphone.
Talk to me about Nini, our first German Shepherd.
How important was it for her in your life?
Just it helped my life, just helps me my loneliness.
I still remember a time when I got hospitalized, when the cop took me, I remember crying on
her for and just they took me away and I was hugging her.
So I remember that and she just helps me all the time.
And that's one thing that losing her was one that helped me strengthen the goal of becoming
a veterinarian and make me thriving, taking all these college classes to get better education
to go to college.
But it hurts so much and she's my only friend, like a true friend.
And she's the only thing I cried for.
I don't cry with grades.
I don't cry for girls.
She's the only thing I really cry about.
Well you saw me, I cried like a baby for like a month, I swear to God, when we lost her.
But yeah, she just, the innocence, the no, not the corruption, I think that's what makes
them so amazing is that they can show emotion without being corrupt.
Absolutely.
So what about, let's talk about sports, the youngest that you remember, because I mean,
you played so much.
So talk to me about, you know, soccer, jujitsu, all the things you remember from early life
and again, what they did for you.
I mean, I'm pretty sure I did soccer or football, I guess you could say.
Football.
I'm so used to like changing it.
It's good that you're bilingual though.
But I'm pretty sure I did football first and jujitsu too, but that was at five years old
and I just remember having that brother and sister and of course Bill as my father figure
until he passed when I was in fifth grade, fourth grade.
So I knew him for a while before he passed luckily.
But it just helped me.
I mean, for early, I don't really remember most of it.
I just remember having father figures for the first time.
And I think that's what really helped me in earlier times.
Do you remember any of the suffering because you were small in jujitsu?
You know, we went to quite a few competitions and there were times where obviously you had
grappling sessions where you got your wind knocked out of you or it hurt.
But you kept going back, you kept training, you kept doing other competitions.
So what do you remember as far as the toughness that it created?
One thing I remember, I mean kind of like toughness is just hiding the jealousy.
I think that's when I started to have a fake smile.
I'm not like a true fake smile, but like clapping when a person beat you or clapping when I
was at school and people got the attendance reward or A's and B's.
Like clapping and just showing, like hiding their jealousy.
So I think that's one thing I do remember a lot.
I mean, it's kind of different subjects.
Well you said about not winning the attendance awards and this is something that you and
I have talked about.
So why will you never win an attendance award and what are we doing instead?
I never won the attendance award because I'd probably miss at least a week or two of school,
like straight.
And it's because we're seeing family.
And I think that's way better than having full attendance because it's just a paper.
You're not making memories with that paper.
So where are our family?
Where did you end up going when you were young?
France, England, Oroport.
So as, because I mean, I've talked about this, I think in the past on here, but of course
being present at school is important.
Of course not missing too many classes, so therefore it affects your grades is important.
But there's a lot to be learned from traveling too.
So what are some of the things you remember from trips when you were younger?
I mean, you mentioned skiing, for example.
Skiing I remember a lot.
I remember going to the, well, the stones are very popular in England.
Oh, Stonehenge.
Stonehenge, of course.
I remember that and having that delicious sausage roll and learning the culture there.
I remember just hearing all the different languages and seeing, just seeing how actually
diverse we are.
It's fascinating just seeing, hearing all of them.
Language, especially in London, where you think it's such a city and just hear everybody
and it's so fascinating just hearing different cultures, different styles, how they wear,
just how they present themselves.
I think it's still very fascinating.
Especially now I just see it.
Like, so I've always been very observant person and now it's just so cool seeing the diversity
and how we're not just one, we're many into one.
How did that, because there's a phrase and I can never remember exactly what it says,
but Twain has a quote about basically like travel is the enemy of prejudice.
So when you travel, you start to see that we're all very, very similar with different
cultures and all that stuff.
When you look back at all the traveling you've done, how has that shaped the way that you
look at things here in America?
I think it's my thinking is not limited because I've seen things because there's a joke that
British people aren't real and all that stuff.
British people aren't real?
Yes.
I think I've heard a joke about that.
Like what, like ghosts?
Because of our accents, how they speak.
It's fascinating because like, just about English, there's so many different Englishes.
Like English, there's American English, there's Jamaican English.
I don't know what it's called, of course.
I forgot, but there's so many different diversities of just our own language that we don't know
of and it's just fascinating how we can learn so much.
And as you know, if you were traveling, they just think honestly, just what their parents
think because that's how our teachers think.
But when you travel, you know what you see.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right.
Well then let's go to middle school.
So yeah, I know you're, so just to be very clear overall, you know, I'll ask if you agree
with me, but I think that your schools that you've gone to have been amazing and you've
had some incredible teachers.
But one or two bad people can make a very, very negative impact on a child.
So if you have wherever you want to go, lead me up to that day and you say as little as
you want to say, but we'll definitely obviously talk about the centers and the negative impact
of that.
So tell me about that.
I mean, at first I just want to talk about like how my mental state was kind of weird
like in sixth grade, like I tried to act cool and I don't know, it's weird just thinking
about how embarrassing it was.
I started cussing.
It was very stupid.
I mean, because of course I do now, but it was like overly, you know, my English was
good.
It was very stupid.
And I don't know why, because I didn't hang out with bad people.
My friend Groove has always been pretty good.
But for some reason I started acts weird and it's just only three months changed because
school ends in May.
In August we go back to school.
So I don't know why I thought the way I thought I did.
But I remember it was, I think the first time was February, I think.
So I just remember when was that?
Oh, I remember actually no, it's the second time.
First time I remember, the only thing I remember was someone was talking crap or something
and I was having a bad day.
He just kept on bugging me and I said, I wanted to kill you or something.
Because he was like, I think he was actually physically touching me.
And he reported it and then I went to the centers.
And I remember just like being paranoid because it was like a jail and I just heard people
and I was like very quiet back then.
So I was like very wanting my peace and it was just like blah, blah, blah kids like screaming,
yelling, like being angry.
And I was just saying like crap, what am I doing here?
And it was hard sleeping.
The second time I remember strongest because I remember just so many things like made my
mental straight because I remember in the morning I got like my fun of like someone
like hit my breakfast on my hands and got all my clothes.
Then like school, school, horrible.
Then I remember in the bus, I like my music wasn't working or something like that.
So my thoughts, I was just hearing all the loud stuff on the bus.
I remember someone threw a water bottle at me and it hit me and got my clothes soaked.
So I was like feeling disgusting.
And I remember I just kind of want to kill myself.
Then I walked and then like people called on me again.
Then I remember the strongest memory I have of that is just like holding the same daddy,
I want to go home.
That's the strongest or I was the first time, but that's what the strongest memory I have
of the centers, I want to go home and just hear a new cry.
Well let's go back to the first time because what the teacher said is that you weren't
even threatening anyone.
You were in tears at your desk and you were having that thought in your head of kill,
kill, kill.
And so she asked you what's going on and you told her that.
And what should have happened, and this is per protocol, this is by the centers themselves
saying this, is that then that should have been a phone call to me and it should have
been a phone call to the centers who would have sent a team or a person to come evaluate
and based on all the protocol, they would be like, okay, this child is already going
through some stuff because as you mentioned, this is about the time with relationship issues
in your mom's house, wasn't it?
And so you were already going through some stuff there.
You're already seeing the counselor.
So you already had a relationship, but she wasn't there at that moment.
And instead of calling the parent and calling for this mobile crisis team to come and evaluate,
who then would have said, no, he just needs to go home with his parent per this protocol.
They didn't call me.
And it's funny because I just came across the police report and she lied on her police
report.
She said she made the principal have called me.
She didn't remember I called you trying to work out where you work as you were missing.
And then I had to call them again to find out that they'd even sent you, but they Baker
acted you 72 hour psychiatric hold.
You didn't actually threaten and put your hands on anyone.
He didn't say that time you're going to hurt yourself.
You were having intrusive thoughts.
And I would say to make it parallel, you've seen me drive when someone almost makes us
crash.
If you climbed in my head, what do you think I want to do to that person?
Beat their ass.
Yeah.
Does that mean I need to go to a psychiatric facility?
You know, how old were you then?
Eight years old, 10?
No, a little bit older than that.
12.
Yeah.
So do I need to be put in a straight jacket?
No, of course not.
This is what happens when someone, you know, is in a certain place, especially if they've
had people picking on them.
So now I don't get a phone call.
I find out that you have been sent because the principal and the SRO school resource
officer who's an absolute piece of shit rather than do the right thing.
Not only did they send you to this.
What do we see when we were there?
I remember seeing some of my friends, I didn't know they had those problems.
Like several, and you're there for 72 hours, so in three days, several other Liberty School
middle school children were going in there being sent, sent, sent, sent, sent.
So this is the thing is that, yes, of course you were going through some emotional issues.
You weren't actively threatening people.
You know, they will ask why you upset and you said, this is what's going on in my head.
This is per your teacher.
And then, you know, they didn't follow the protocols.
They didn't contact the parents and they sent you off.
So this was why it was so negative.
This is why I was so angry and upset is that they kidnapped my child.
And as you know, since then, the laws changed and those two people will be in prison if
they did what they did now.
But they're still teaching and working as police officers, which is disgusting to me.
But that's a separate thing.
So if you can remember, because again, I know it's a while ago now, you're already having
emotional challenges.
Then you get sent to a psych facility for three days.
Did that help your mental health?
Did it make it worse?
Made it worse.
Like, yeah, they made it worse because the second time it made it worse by facing like
remember that whole year's face smile for the second time.
But so I didn't want to go back.
I remember my mom threatened me saying if I go on back, she'll do something.
I don't think I ever told you that.
But the first time I just didn't help.
I don't really remember what else I was thinking.
I just remember I'm glad to be back home.
And that second time, like you said, you had that bad day.
You said you're going to kill yourself.
I applaud your friends for calling and, you know, because that's the right thing to do,
because that time you had said you were going to hurt yourself.
But then the police officer comes here.
I've come home by that point.
So this time we're together.
You're already in a good place.
Now you tell me what happens.
We explained to the police officer.
The police officer was actually going to be like, OK, he's safe with the parent.
You know, he's he's he's good now.
But then he checked with his supervisor and the supervisor again, coming from this not
checking protocol, just told him to take you and off you went again for another 72 hours.
It was only a day.
Well, initially, a 72 hours.
Yeah.
But the consenters were like, why are you back?
You know, we already did this whole workup on you.
So twice in what it was a couple of weeks, I think probably I think it was like March.
OK, yeah.
So yeah.
So then obviously, like I said, fast forward, it's changed now.
The laws changed.
You know, it'll be handed differently because this was the ripple effect of the Parkland
shooting and Marion County just lost their mind or at least that school did.
And rather than have the guts to actually find out what's wrong with the child, they
just kept sending you guys into that.
So it's you know, it's an important thing to talk about, because as you remember, when
I started talking about this, I had teachers coming out saying, I'm so glad you're talking
about it, because there are children that go to the centers and their parents aren't
speaking up about this.
This is happening all the time.
So you know, like I told you, as brutal as it was, as horrible as it was, you going through
it, ultimately you were one of the people that helped stop it so that your friends would
not have to go through this anymore.
And so like I told you, it didn't it nothing but negative.
But if you're going to draw positive from it, you were a part of the change.
I was wondering, because I remember my mom told me after she said I should have lied
to the car.
I was sort of about like saying what I said.
No, I mean, the cop, the cop, like I said, the cop that came to the house did everything
right.
But the problem is you have this, oh, I'll get sued, you know, let's just and we have
it in the same and as a paramedic, or just take everyone to the hospital.
What if what if that rolled ankle is actually a brain bleed?
It doesn't make any sense.
You have to be a big boy and make decisions out in the field, you know, and if a parent
is, you know, talking to you and you can see now that the child isn't upset because I've
said I'm going to kill myself.
I remember that when I was young running out into the farm.
No, no one heard me except sheep.
But I remember that, you know, this is something that teenagers say.
And yes, you have to take it seriously, you know, but if a parent then is, you know, with
them and they're obviously not upset anymore and they explain, look, someone just made
me upset on the on the bus and I didn't mean to say it was just what you told them.
You said I said it, but I didn't mean it.
That's a different conversation completely.
You can't just lock up every child that gets upset.
So yeah, I agree.
Well then moving on.
So so, you know, obviously that wasn't the most fun of your entire schooling, you know,
journey so far.
Let's talk about high school.
We'll talk about something funny.
So what were you hearing about high school when you were in middle school?
That's export, that was a nickname, there was a lot of sex, but it's more like vape
for in drugs more, I guess, because I see a lot of AP, a lot of like pens, I think it's
called something.
But so that's actually a huge problem, but not a lot of shagging.
Yeah.
And then fighting too, wasn't it?
Yeah.
You heard that it was like a gang warfare zone.
And so I just remember laughing because I remember you telling me that.
I'm like, don't think it is.
Ethan went there and I don't remember him talking about much.
He punched a couple of people, but they were asking for it, from what I understand.
So then let's kind of get into high school level.
Firstly, let's talk about high school sports, because you did that almost straight away,
didn't you?
So let's talk about kind of, you know, cross and then and then track, like, you know, as
far of all these things that are good and that are good.
Oh, my God, can't even talk that are healthy for you that you enjoyed versus some of the
stresses. How important was sports for you?
It was distraction, I guess.
Like it helps me just have more friends.
Like I used to be very shy my freshman year now, not at all.
And I think it just helps me grow better.
It showed me discipline.
It showed me dedication.
Like if you want to do this, you have to work.
You have to put the work in.
And I think it was just amazing.
And I don't really remember freshman year, but sophomore year, I remember dedication,
dedication, you have to work, you have to work.
So that's when I was getting more notice, especially during track when my coach actually
noticed me and started investing in me and everything.
But the worst thing is like, especially because I think it was last year was when I was very
investment, like Davis coached my event single handedly and he made me get pressure and pressure.
And that's when I had my knee injury and I couldn't run anymore.
I still haven't ran since then.
So talk to me, let's go back.
How important was it for people that weren't your parents to be like mentors, to be the
father or mother figures, whether it was sports or teachers or Jiu-Jitsu coaches?
I think it was really important.
I mean, I was kind of blinded by my own drive.
I didn't care what anyone thought.
I don't care if someone said good job.
If it wasn't good for me, I didn't want to care about their opinion.
So I think it was really helpful, but also I was very blinded by my own.
And I still am.
I still am the kind of person I am.
If I'm not satisfied, I don't really care what anyone else says.
Do you remember when that was almost unhealthy though?
Remember when you were succeeding really well and you wouldn't let yourself acknowledge,
you always say, oh, I should have run faster.
I had left stuff left in the tank.
So it can be a good driver, but it can also be negative if you're never happy.
You know what I mean?
So it's a kind of dangerous place in one way, isn't it?
So what about earning Davis?
So Davis was your track coach.
Talk to me about him not paying you any attention and having to earn his respect and then how
that shifted.
Like I said, I don't really remember freshman year, but sophomore year I remember I won
races.
The first race I won, I think that's the most aerosol smile.
It was amazing.
But one thing I always do is after like hard work, I would just only go out, like make
eye contact with him or like kind of like glare at him, but not like a mean way, but
show him like I did that.
Notice me kind of thing and he'll look back.
And I think that's one thing I did is like I showed him like I'm doing something like
acknowledge me kind of thing.
But in each show that like I put in the work, I did a miles, like I always proved to him
I did something like morning miles I had to do.
I showed him that I ran my weekly miles.
So I was probably like 55, I think weekly was my mileage.
So I just made him notice me.
And then what about the teams?
I mean, I think I said this to you across country and track and that, you know, obviously
volleyball will be the next thing.
I am so impressed by the sportsmanship and the camaraderie, you know, the support of
the teams that I've watched you play for.
When like you obviously you were a one miler.
So a lot of the short events went first, be at all your teammates would be there waiting
for you and watching and cheering you on.
So talk to me about that team element that you found in some of those sports.
I think especially during track, like it was very like social because it was just like
16 of us maybe like, man, probably a little less like 12.
And we were all talking like because especially like sophomore year I was talking to everybody
because we all knew each other.
Cross country wasn't as social because it was more people running because it's not just
it's one event, just a 5k.
I remember varsity and junior, but I think of one thing that was like, well, we do is
like if you disapointed us, we lie.
So like I remember one kid, he was being very mean.
I said, oh, like I'm very bad at this sport.
I'm like, good luck though.
Then I beat him.
So I lied about my like, ability.
Yeah.
And it's funny because you see him.
It's like I saw him because I was just like staring him when I ran back because that's
one thing I really had.
It was a good kick.
I mean, after 400 meter last, I'll just sprint and it hurt a lot.
But that's one thing I used to do.
Well, also, I mean, I remember as well, the sportsmanship between your team and different
teams, you know, and you see some adults, you know, just fighting in sports stands and
being complete a-holes to each other about sports teams or political parties or whatever.
But what I witnessed usually is all you guys at the one mile is all like, you know, slapping
hands and then at the end saying good job.
So what did you find as far as the interaction of other schools when you were competing?
Yeah, like I said, like I think it was Bellevue, Forest, the other high schools in Marion County.
We all talked.
We all talked to each other because we're all kind of like rivals.
We're all kind of equal.
I think I was ahead by a couple of seconds, but they were way better at two mile because
they all did cross country and I wasn't as good, even though it was varsity.
Wasn't my favorite sport.
But especially in the mile, it was just fun and everything.
And like talking about like that thing, I think it's baseball is the worst sport with
that thing I heard.
Like such like travel and everything.
But one thing I think is this sport isn't for the pity.
Like we are fit.
We are active.
We are mentally breaking sport.
And so if someone talks crap, go get them like she was run.
You can't like this kind of way we think.
Well speaking of that, I watched, you know, you cross country and then track and, you
know, like I said, kind of working your way up.
But then there was a shift from a parent's eyes watching you where the talk began to
be all about scholarships all the time.
I've got to get this.
I've got to get a D1 scholarship, D1 school.
What was the good thing about chasing that scholarship?
But then also let's talk about the maybe the extra stress or the, you know, the too much
stress of the scholarship versus enjoying the sport itself.
I mean, I think the scholarship was mainly just like, so say UF is probably the best
track team, one of them at least.
And I think it's just so cool just seeing how much is travel and just like that brotherhood
and sisterhood.
So I think that's one thing I was writing for a scholarship.
But main reason was, of course, just money because you guys still carry me long enough.
I didn't want you guys pay at all.
And I'm still thriving for scholarships just for academics and non academic scholarships,
like clubs and raising that, which I found already.
But I just it was an unhealthy session.
Like, I mean, because I still like the sport, but I think such after my injury, it was like
a chore.
And it hurt so much because it's not a fun sport.
You don't have fun.
You work out and it hurts.
I remember crying sometimes because one of the hardest workouts I ever done was my repeats
for three times and it was five thirty mile.
Some people can't run that for once.
You're sitting across from one.
Yeah, I can do like a seven mile maybe, maybe on a good day.
But yeah, we went like five minute rest.
I remember it was hard.
So then let's talk about that.
So you have this in your your mind.
Obviously there was that mental tug of war like I like running, but I hate the pain and
you know, and then obviously if it's an external motivation, meaning a thing outside of yourself,
it's a lot harder to train and be good than if it's something like burning in your heart.
Like I want to be the best, you know, because I want to be the best, not because of a scholarship.
So what started happening happening physically and then talk to me about not being able to
run anymore and what that did?
I mean, just physically, like my knee gave out on me.
I remember one time at my mom's apartment because it's a two story or like the one you
had to go upstairs to go to the second thing.
My knee fell out and had to crawl upstairs with my arms because my knee wasn't working
and I couldn't go up.
I fell doing like a 10 mile because my knee just gave out.
That hurt a lot.
I remember just like I started crying and punched my knee and like, God damn it, why
I'm only 15 years old and I can't run or like 16, I guess.
It was just it was mind blowing because my body is like broken.
I'm only still a teenager because I overworked myself because the distance crew, we probably
do the most with my little Jilly.
I mean, that's a fact, like I said, we ran 55 miles or I did 55 miles a week morning
and afternoon and destroyed my body.
Yeah.
I mean, this is what I'm just talking about this day on the podcast and I wasn't really
aware of the overuse because you think of it more as you know, like baseball throwing
and you know, basketball jumping and you know, those kind of things.
But you know, when you think about it, running is a very natural movement.
But yeah, I think it because it happened right when you had your growth spurt, didn't it?
So I don't think that your body was ready for that volume of training when it was going
through that growth stage.
Yeah, because they didn't see anything.
Like I think it was your tightness was in my foot, but it's because I have a higher
arch and so it was like a little leak in my foot, I think from just like the overuse of
my foot from running and not having the right platform, insoles.
But my knees, they've probably growing pain and I hate it because I was doing that.
That's the only probably the only reason or biggest reason why I stayed in track cross
country because I was good at it.
I had a purpose in it.
I mean, you had about a sub five mile, didn't you?
451 was my time.
So it was awesome.
I invested in it, I worked hard, didn't miss practice rarely, even ran sick and it hurt.
I couldn't breathe sometimes.
Yeah.
So, so talk to me about that.
Now your, your legs start hurting and your foot starts hurting to the point where you
just can't run anymore.
You know, you physically can't.
And it's funny because we're sitting here and as you know, I'm getting ready for my
first and only marathon and my knees have been playing up and I know exactly what you
talking about.
It's just brutal.
So you fought so hard to be on this team.
You fought so hard to, you know, to perform well for your team.
You were thinking about scholarships to colleges and then you can't run anymore.
What was that like having, you know, gained the respect of Davis you admired?
Like what impact did that have mentally on you as you, cause you are identified as a
varsity runner for your school for a couple of years?
I think I don't know what the word is, not delusional, but maybe like blinded.
Like I was telling Davis like, Oh yeah, I'm ready.
I'm ready.
But I wasn't.
And I was acting like I didn't care.
I mean, that was so jealous when I saw like the Instagram post and, or just hearing the
races and I was smiling, but inside I was so frustrated and so tired because the thing
about my knees, I was probably fine with my lungs.
Like I trained so much that my breathing and mental thing was amazing just to hurt so much.
And I think that was so frustrating that these runs weren't hard.
But I, of course, some of them were, but like long distance ones, it was fine.
But he wasn't letting me be the runner I was.
So what about, let's go to ROTC.
So firstly, I think this is a really important point.
Talk to me about why you started ROTC and then we'll talk about, you know, again, the
good and the bad, the bad of the shoes, the shoes, which is one of the reasons why your
feet weren't doing so well running.
But talk to me about the origin story of you signing up for it.
Because we've been to Parents Day, what, four weeks before and you just walked right by.
I'm not rudely, but you just didn't show any interest in that program.
So talk to me about the first few weeks, PE and then how you found yourself changing.
Well, going into it is not that horrible because I just hated my PE teacher.
So it's not that really.
But do you remember what you said to me though?
Not really.
I guess this is what I'm forgetting.
This was, you know, three and a half years ago now.
You came home one day and you said, Dad, I joined JROTC.
You said, I've been in PE for three weeks now and we haven't done any exercise.
So I think that was what you were frustrated as you'd watched movies and done, you know,
like classes in PE, but you hadn't actually done any PE, any activities.
So that's what I remember as you did.
Yeah, I do actually remember that because we just did like a lot of health stuff.
It was simple.
But yeah, so I went into JROTC.
I was that freshman.
I was very like anxious and saying so sorry because it was new.
I wasn't used to getting shout out like that.
So I was like, okay.
But I followed, I was disciplined.
I practiced a lot because we had to do drill.
So faces, all that stuff.
And I get it and we won our company.
So we did like school trip, but that doesn't really matter.
But it was it was brotherhood and everybody, especially when I went to the military camp
called JCLC as like leadership camp.
And that was brutal.
Though I remember that that was the first time I had, not first time, but first time
in a long time that I had homesickness because we woke up at 530 a.m. for a week straight
doing rappelling, doing all this military stuff.
And that was brutal.
Do you remember how we prepared to get you ready for the rappelling in the heights?
We did the warrior of course.
Yeah.
What's it called?
Savage Race that was at the go rock games.
Even though that didn't help at all.
That triangle thing was like 20 feet.
The rappelling was 85 feet.
And I remember like mentally I was like, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this.
And like because you had to like loosen the grip and jump.
My grip wasn't losing.
And I was trying to.
I couldn't loosen my grip.
It was weird because like mentally I was like, yes, let's do this.
But I guess my mind was like, no.
Though I told you when we did adventure camp, I'm almost certain that I didn't even go
rappelling.
We had rappelling there.
I'm sure everyone else did it.
I didn't go over.
I refused.
I was too scared of heights.
So obviously years later I did rappelling, fire service and stunts and stuff.
So that's why I was saying, because you also climbed one of those telegraph poles, didn't
you?
The wooden poles to stand on the top.
So real like confidence course stuff.
I got rope burn from that because I fell in the burn.
Then we ate snake.
That was pretty good.
And frog.
But frog I had in France I think or something.
And snails.
But it was really fun.
We did like salad tray stuff and that was easy.
We had like a rest day.
So a pool day.
We did during that pool day and light day, we did like how to have a life vest with your
pants.
It was actually really cool.
And we did like high copes and low copes.
So low copes you have to climb little walls, do leadership things to find how to solve
these different physical activities.
And high copes was like zip lining, all that kind of stuff.
So really scary.
But it was funny because like they said, I said, sir, give me a song to sing.
And I was singing it to boost my confidence.
He said sing Barbie girl.
I said I'm a Barbie girl.
And I just shut up.
And like I'm like in the athletic high I guess because I just don't memorize.
I just remember going up the ladder.
Oh you sang when you were climbing?
Yeah.
But then I just shut up after I touched it because I was like focused or something.
And I was weird.
I'm like oh wait I didn't sing it.
I was in the zone or something.
So that was the very same.
It was the first time everyone was zip lining too.
It was really fun.
But yeah, I just remember the worst thing was just sleep.
It was so hot too.
And I didn't prepare for the heat.
I just had PJs.
So it's especially because it's the Florida summer too.
What do you remember about simply being uncomfortable?
Because I told you I grew up on a farm and it was cold and it was wet and I have to be
up, lambing sheep and feeding geese and all kinds of stuff, mucking out stables.
I was just talking to someone the other day.
It's hard for us to replicate that for you because life is very comfortable these days.
And that's a good thing.
But what we need to do then is find times where you're uncomfortable.
There's obviously a lot of families that go camping or hunting or hiking, whatever it
is.
But I would say that JCLC was one of the only times for you because we haven't done much
like that where you really were gone for a few days and you were uncomfortable.
You were hot.
There were mosquitoes.
So how important was that to realize that sometimes it does suck?
I mean, I'm especially now I'm comfy being uncomfortable.
But the thing is, it's just sleep.
I am fit now, at least.
I can go through activities.
I can push past my limits.
Like when I get home, just break.
But my sleep, I couldn't think straight.
I think that's the thing that was so strong, was like I was mentally broken.
Not like depression or anything, but like just sleep and everything.
I think that's the thing that I didn't like being comfy was like the physical side.
I loved it.
But the sleep and everything was horrible.
You know, I talk about sleep a lot.
Ever since you were a baby, when you know, mum and I were together, we put you to bed
at nine because I remember just thinking these parents that put their babies to bed earlier,
that means that they're going to wake up earlier.
So that parent wakes up at two or three in the morning.
So my whole thing was, well, if we put them to bed at nine, as you sleep longer, now you're
going to be waking up at five.
Well, five is not too bad.
I can, you know, get up and stay up at five.
But we kept it at nine pretty much until very recently, didn't we?
So just I don't know if you know if there's any way of you really observing this, but
you know, talk to me about your perception of sleep.
Have you noticed like it's harder in school if you haven't slept or, you know, because
we've kept you at that nine a.m., which usually gives you nine, 10 hours of sleep every night.
Sleep is very weird because even if I have good sleep, I'm still tired.
But I think the main difference is when I have good sleep, I'm tired in the morning,
but really awake in the afternoon.
But if I have zero sleep, I'm not tired in the morning, but very tired in the afternoon.
So that's the thing I've noticed.
But I'm always tired for some reason, even with 10 hours of sleep or with six, seven
hours of sleep.
It's usually like way over five.
Well, teenagers are naturally tired.
If you look it up, they need like a lot of sleep because you guys are growing and then
you're having all this information crammed in because obviously it's more stressful the
older you get, especially if you're thinking about your senior year and graduating.
And then you've got, at the moment, you've got your sports and your volleyball is getting
you home at what, 10.30 at night at the moment.
So that's all factoring in too.
But yeah, but I understand what you're saying.
I think I've felt rested for about 20 years now.
I've woken up.
I want to go back to another kind of important thing that you probably can remember somewhat
vividly, but as a middle schooler, what was the pandemic like?
And it doesn't just have to be school, just in general, even coming back, like talk to
me about that whole experience through, you know, because you were what 14?
Same year as Sanders.
Oh, okay.
So 12.
Yeah.
Okay.
I got that wrong then.
So yeah, so a 12 year old child, just, you know, what do you remember about that?
The good and the bad.
The good course, not going to school.
That was amazing.
But the bad, which is everything will kind of slow down.
And like, because as you know, I'm in several college classes right now.
And that's one thing I was thinking was that we haven't had brotherhood since 9-11.
It's a fact.
But COVID-19, I thought maybe we could have had brotherhood, but we separated even more,
you know, it was this national virus that we can all help each other.
But now we probably separated even more.
That's one thing that like, it's just crazy about is the news.
I think the news is probably the one, the worst thing is too, just making it more dramatic,
making it more political.
Cause that was also when the new election was, was 2020, I think.
So that was making it worth too.
But I think it just came to crap, I guess.
But yeah.
And but I think that was when I was very tired and very depressed, of course.
But I think homeschool was good for me.
I think that's one thing that actually did really well was there was right timing and
I wasn't lonely at all.
Cause I think I just needed my own space for how many months it was.
Cause it was spring break when it happened.
But yeah.
What about some of the weirdness?
I think God didn't have to experience this, but I know a lot of the fire stations, like
they had to wear masks, they're not allowed to sit down and eat together.
They have to be in separate rooms.
It got a little crazy for quite a while.
And obviously we're in Florida, so it was crazy for a lot less time than the Northwest
and New York and some of these other places.
So what do you remember as far as just being different than simply normal school before
the pandemic?
I mean, of course the mask, I think that was probably the most, not disrespectful, but
most kind of disrespectful cause they made us wear the mask and I couldn't breathe.
So I'll put the mask just under my nose.
So I would be covering my mouth, but I'll just have my nose open and they would say,
put it over.
I'm like, I can't breathe.
So I think that was probably the most I was ever disrespectful.
I never got in trouble or anything cause teachers loved me, but they knew where I was coming
from.
So it wasn't like I got in trouble or anything, but they just had to know.
So they told me like, Ty, I understand what you're saying, just like have to say it even
though.
Yeah.
You had, it wasn't even classified as asthma, but you had wheezing, didn't you?
And then you've always had a lot of kind of sinus issues too.
So I mean, I know this like previous, but cross country destroyed, I'm not sure, but
got rid of my asthma, strength in my lungs a lot.
That's amazing.
What about the pressure of graduation?
I had a high school girl, Emma Benoit, super pretty cheerleader.
You think she would be, don't pull that face.
She's older than you.
You know, but if you're on the outside looking in, you'd be like, okay, this girl, she's
going to be happy in high school.
She's probably got it all, but she wasn't.
And one of the biggest things I remember her telling me, and she'd gone through with a
suicide attempt, but she survived.
So she's in a wheelchair now and she's an amazing voice, especially for younger people
when it comes to mental health.
But one of the biggest things for her is she just didn't know what she wanted to do when
she graduated.
And it was such a stress of like, yeah, come May, you're out of here, go get a job.
And I see that there's people that, you know, like you, that have kind of already figured
out what they want to do, at least at this point.
But I told you, I wanted to be a firefighter and they told me I was colorblind.
I wanted to be a doctor and I wasn't smart enough.
So I had, I was coming out of school going, I don't know what I'm going to do.
So I remember that feeling, whether it's you or whether it's what you hear from your friends,
what are the stresses for, you know, a high school senior?
I mean, I'm feeling like now because I already got accepted to college, but college applications
and common app is like a thing for a college board that like sends all these applications
and essays.
I think that's honestly the main stress because SAT and everything, that's stress and grades
of course, but I feel like after a college application is done and you get accepted,
that doesn't really matter as much.
So I think college applications and getting accepted is like the main stress because grades,
because that's all part of grades too, is grades, SAT scores is with application and
getting accepted.
Are you hearing from any of your friends that they're worried about graduating or have they
all kind of got a plan of what they want to do?
I don't know about the plan, but I mean, I'm around all the smart kids.
So they all know we all have good GPAs.
So college is pretty much where most of your friends go to?
Yeah, or military college.
But yeah.
Well talk to me about that too.
Obviously RAAF is one of them, your friends that have already graduated and gone to military,
like how well did JROTC prepare some of those kids for going to the military?
I know JCLC wasn't like, it's like 2% of boot camp.
It seems like a great thing.
Well you can't shave children's heads and scream at them for it.
Yeah.
It's got to be a little bit different.
But I have friends in the Marines, Army, Air Force, actually everywhere.
And it's kind of fascinating, but I think you know this, that the bigger people at the
like, if you look at statistics, football players and that kind of American style, go
to Army, track, cross country, go to Air Force.
It's kind of funny like how the sports go to different branches.
Water polo is the seals a lot of times.
Yeah.
A lot of those guys.
Swimming, snails.
Because especially like Air Force, I know this for sure is that they do a lot of core
exercises for the pilots because in cross country track, you have to be very mentally
strong and just not giving up and just pushing and keeping strong.
So I think that's one thing.
But I mean that's one thing that like JCLC shows is like, I don't think I can do boot
camps.
I was very strong about the military.
I wanted to go to Air Force.
I wanted to be a pilot because they are very smart, very college proven, but also military
course.
That's one reason why.
But just boot camp.
Like I was scared.
I don't think I could have done it without the lack of sleep because physically, not
hard.
Like you had to run, pull ups.
I can do that old stuff.
But just sleep.
Yeah.
You'd be surprised that when you have to, and especially if you want to, this is the
big thing.
You know, it's the why.
Like for example, when your why started to diminish in track, which kind of went along
the same time as the knees.
Like I wonder if your knees were still fine, if you'd still be running.
Because that why was starting to dwindle a bit, wasn't it?
Like you've got to, in a fire academy, you've got to really want to be there because it
sucks sometimes.
You're hot.
You know, you're scared if you're in some, you know, tight maze that you've got to go
through and you're all tangled up in ropes and you've got to take a breath.
Like if you haven't figured out why you want to be there, you know, I've seen people quit
the fire academies before because their why wasn't, they told me that it was, you know,
for their kids, for their family, but obviously it wasn't, you know, not, it wasn't deep enough.
They hadn't believed that enough.
So yeah.
So I think if you, you know, say you circle around and you decide, yeah, well, I do want
to be, you know, a pilot or whatever the thing would be.
Once that's set in your mind, because I've heard a lot of people say bootcamp wasn't
that bad, you know, but a lot of these people went to special forces selection.
So I'm sure compared to that, it wasn't that bad, but you know, it's a game.
You just got to play the game.
Same with fire academies.
I've done all probations and orientations.
I've done enough of them where you see it's, it's, you know, just yes, sir, no, sir.
You know, do what they tell you.
Understand that no matter how well you do it, you're still going to get punished, you
know, take your licks and keep moving on.
Yeah.
I mean like getting screamed at, I'm not like scared of cause, oh, female drill sergeants
are very more scary than males because they have to be cause they, cause there's guys
are ego driven and they have to show them that they are in control.
Or your mom and your stepmom scare the hell out of me.
But yeah.
And I remember like another thing is that like most of my friends that were in the military
were leadership roles or just like try to help it.
Cause I mean, I was in the leadership role.
I was exact executive, XO.
I can't say for some reason.
Executive officer.
Yeah, that's it.
So I deal with leadership.
I dealt with paperwork, stuff like that.
So I was first sergeant and there was a company commander.
So I was like the middleman and, but some of them first sergeant, some of them was this,
but we all, it's like a family, but they all showed passion.
But one thing about Jersey is the most of them weren't, I don't know how to, I'm not
in the nicest way, but like they weren't fit.
Like they might've like lift weights, but they can't run, they can't do sports.
They can't do like the simple things.
They can just carry stuff.
I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
Well, let's talk about that for a second.
Cause if you look back at the environment that you have been raised in, you know, like
your mom, you know, I mean, I know it's, it's on and off, but she's gone to the gym on
and off the whole time that you know, since you were little.
Becky was in CrossFit for a while.
Obviously, you know, we've done all kinds of stuff together, jujitsu and mud runs and
you know, all the stuff.
So you've been surrounded by a culture of movement, of sports, of playing.
And then, you know, I would like to think that the food that you have at home is not,
you know, very junky.
So with that, what do you see as far as the environment and some of your friends are in?
And let's talk about the food too, like what, if you didn't have a lunch pack for you or
you pack your own now, but you know, we used to pack it all the time.
You know, what would be your choices in school as far as food?
So I know there's like, there's a chips, there's like salsa area, there's pizza, there's like
salad area for vegetarians and stuff.
But it's very bad because it just looks like trash, looks like mushed up.
It's disgusting to be honest, to look at, to smell at.
You know, like even like the food that sometimes I eat, like I'll be like, okay, I didn't pack
as much, I'm just going to eat fries or something.
So I have it, it just tastes like plastic.
It doesn't taste like real food.
Well, just to be very clear, obviously, you know, we eat fries and burgers and chicken
nuggets and you know, things sometimes not very often, but I don't eat burgers.
No, not burgers.
I do.
You know, so again, it's not masquerading that we have some perfectly clean lifestyle,
but we don't.
But it's, I talk about this on the show.
If you build an environment that, you know, the only options are for kids to eat healthy,
they're going to eat healthy.
If you build an environment where PE is part of every day, then those kids that you're
talking about are going to be in better shape and they're going to be fitter.
But you know, we've got a culture now where PE is like optional.
You can give a note and say, yeah, little Johnny doesn't want to do PE.
Well, little Johnny needs to do PE.
He's probably the one that needs to do it more than anyone else.
So this is why I'm not, you know, I try not to sound judgy or anything about it.
It's just like, what are we doing wrong as a country that we have so many kids now that
aren't fit, that are fat, you know, because it's dangerous.
It's going to, it's going to, you know, affect their health and not when they're 70 is going
to help affect their health when they're 20 or 30.
So it's an important conversation.
Because one thing that I hated, like actually one reason why my knee was so bad, we did
company runs and we ran so slow and it's basically like doing high knees and that has always
hurt my knee because the track was very, very destroyed because it used to be in middle
school Westport was high school in Westport.
But one thing that I loved, I did a lot when I was leadership was any runs like the back
person has to catch up to the front.
Yeah.
And that's individual.
Like they say, Oh, that's very meantime.
Like, no, you gain your own group.
You go in your own groove.
You like, there's no pressure and just keep it on pace because I'm the person that knows
pacing.
I run of course.
So if you are in your same group, maybe have one person stick a little bit faster, but
have the same pace.
You can push yourselves.
But if you guys have fast people, everybody's going to complain.
The slow people are going to complain, the fast people are going to complain, everybody's
going to complain.
Absolutely.
But at the end of the day it is military style.
So I get why they have that kind of run, but I don't like it to be honest.
Yeah.
But I mean, it's the thing you did it for three years, didn't you?
You know, you did the XO position, you know, you, you mentored some people and you know,
it definitely helped.
I mean, I, you know, there was some leaders in, in those organizations, some of the students,
some of the officers, you know, that definitely had a positive impact in your life.
Let's talk about one more thing and then we'll go to, you know, where next for you when you
graduate.
Social media.
When you were very young, obviously we held off on getting your device.
I think it was when you started riding the school bus that I got you a phone, but it
was, I bought my own phone.
Oh, you did buy your own phone.
Yeah.
And you could only, I think you could use it on wifi, but there was no data.
So you could only call and text so that we knew that, you know, you got home safely and
everything.
Um, and, uh, but your mom, and this is not to talk crap about your mom, this is just,
you know, a timeline.
She let you put Instagram on for a bit when you were, you know, arguably too young in
my opinion.
So do you remember that, you know, what that kind of, how that impacted you that first
time?
I honestly don't remember like what I looked at, probably Lego, stuff like that.
But I just remember how like I try to talk to people and I was like very lonely and like,
I just realized like, Oh, I just saw how people's lives were in this compared to mine.
So just that kind of thing.
And that was very unhealthy.
And that's what you, that's what you said.
Like you saw that coming too.
Yeah.
So I took it away, you know, she said that she'd done it and then I saw your behavior
change and you were just posting pictures of yourself, you know, at that time.
Um, yeah.
And I could just see like you were getting depressed again.
So you know, we stopped it now, but let's talk about the positive thing because, you
know, as you know, I'm on social media, even though, you know, Facebook is awful and doesn't
seem to share anything I do, but Instagram, um, talk to me about how you use social media
positively now because you have it.
You've had it for a while, so when you're able to actually make it work for you rather
than be a slave to it, what do you get on your feeds now?
I mean, like I know I heard a joke saying a man's best friend's YouTube.
It's kind of like me of TikTok.
It helped me studying tips, Lego tips, just stuff like that.
It would just help me or how style and everything.
It's very like kind of Google, but in video format and early for TikTok and Instagram,
it's cool.
Like I followed a lot of colleges.
I follow athletes and just like see like what they drink sometimes because that's what they
post.
Usually like Jacob don't know his last name or hike up because he's a Norwegian runner
and best actually.
Um, he posted just what he does or sometimes on sponsorship.
So I've seen like new running shoes or I'll follow Lego.
Love.
Absolutely.
So just see that.
Um, or cars because I love, um, what's my tree?
Volkswagen Camper.
Volkswagen.
Yeah, I love that.
Um, then like just countries like I follow Iceland, stuff like that, or people that hike.
I follow one person that has cancer in his leg, but he's like a fitness person.
So I'll follow actually a lot of fitness people.
They're not like by boaters, they're not like Jackson.
Have the same body, uh, lean muscles.
They're not taking a stairway.
It's not taking that.
There's some of them are kind of surfers.
Some of them are skateboarders.
So they have that same body type or some reliable too.
And I follow like a lot of like national teams, see how they play.
And I think it's very, if it's in three categories, it'd be informal for informal information,
athletics and my hobbies like piano, sport, Lego, stuff like that.
Yeah.
It's, it's so good to see cause I mean, that's exactly it now.
And you have a time you show me your phone.
It's always something full cool or you'll just send some inappropriate meme to me.
Yes.
And of course social media is to send reels to my dad and other friends, either golden
retrievers or like Dong and poop jokes.
Pretty much family guys.
Um, when you talked about Lego expand on that, you know, this, this is truly one of your
loves, you know, and ever since you were tiny, you've always loved Lego.
And as we sit here now, you're going to be grieving because Becky's coming home or her
furniture was coming home.
So it's got to go in that room.
And you had an entire room dedicated to Lego after your brother left.
He's that brother.
So talk to me about what that's done for you because you said about being an only child,
you know, what kind of therapeutic side is there for your Lego building?
I don't know if you would've said, and I think it's probably right that I didn't actually
know subconsciously is that it's the only thing to have control.
Cause as a result of the first parents, how they argue, it was the only thing that I had
control that I feels like my own little world.
And I think I wanted it to be how it wanted to be.
So I think that's one reason why I love Lego, but also it's just like, I'm a kind of person
like I don't bend rules, but I like it.
So I'm really good.
I just follow the rules, following the instructions, easy peasy.
Cause some people struggle with it, but I'm like, how?
It's so easy.
Well, you used to when you were young, you know, you probably don't remember that now,
but yeah, yeah, yeah.
So no, and then you'd ask me with my sausage fingers to help and then I'd get all wound
up.
Yeah.
I know some pieces like some like the tying size tying a knot that little string so frustrating.
But yeah, and it just, it's my own world and it's my kind of art.
Cause I can make realistic things with Lego.
I can make, I mean, of course Lego has involved with their sets and everything to make it
realistic as possible, but it's also just how I think.
And like, I know like you'll see like in movies, like kids have played Lego, but I always played
by myself and I liked it like that.
Like even when you touch it, like I hate it.
Like I'll have attitude when you break it or something.
God forbid I not went over or something.
Yeah.
Because like, I mean, cause you don't know how it is.
I have a photo photographic memory.
So if you swap something, I, it gets messed up.
So it just destroys it.
And of course I hate that because it's my Lego.
You do have a photographic memory because you haven't done it as much recently, but
certainly, you know, not too long ago you'd be like, dad, do you remember when we went
to that restaurant and then you ordered this and you were wearing this t-shirt and I had
this Lego and yeah, your memory is like, it couldn't be further from mine.
Mine is like a colander, you know, you strain spaghetti with like something might stay in
there, but most of it just comes out, you know, wherever.
So it does.
It does.
So while I remember we're obviously recording the podcast episode a thousand, um, you have
helped me or inspired me to get a handful of guests.
So I know one, you ended up meeting one of your heroes.
So let's talk about that.
Um, yeah, Bethany Hamilton.
Um, yeah, she's amazing.
One thing that I realized like, cause I'm the kind of person about perspective and I'm
not religious at all, but I want to get more knowledge on religion, just how they perspective
things.
And I was thinking like how maybe if there's a God, maybe he put Bethany Hamilton as a
situation to help inspire people to, if they have no limb or just that they can thrive
because she is a professional surfer with one arm.
And like just now I was thinking like, well, if God may go in the centers to help those
kids not get wrong with the hospitalize, but she is inspiration.
She showed that never gave it up is a way of living.
And she, I mean, Hawaii is one of my dream places to always go to and that culture of
surfing even though I love skiing too, but, um, being California kid, I guess it's my
kind of side of things, but she's just so amazing.
I remember when I interviewed her and then, you know, I told you to come in cause obviously
it was a virtual meeting, but then you sat down and talked to her and I got a picture
and I think I've ever seen you smile so wide as when you were talking to Bethany Hamilton.
I don't think I stuttered as much either.
Do you remember as well?
I forget his name is a captain hook is on Instagram, but he also is an amputee, but
he was a professional basketball player.
Yeah.
I remember cause we like sometimes during like storming days, we watched stuff like
that during PE and Liberty.
And that's one thing.
And I remember like remembering him, his name, like during school and it was hard because
like, as a doorstep, I'm like, okay, I have to remember this for my dad.
I have to remember this for my dad.
And I told you about it.
Yeah.
And I remember it was demand after you give me a guest.
Give me money.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I got one little area and then we'll go to, you know, where you're going next and
then closing questions, but you are 17 now, you know, you and, you know, you and I obviously
have been through when you were tiny with your mom and then long periods of, you know,
single dad.
And then obviously, you know, we have Becky and Ethan, you know, so it's been all these
different chapters, but the whole time until very recently, I was a firefighter.
So when you look back now through your childhood and having a dad who was, you know, working
in that profession, again, what were the good things about it?
And then what were the bad things about it?
That's funny because I actually been thinking about that is like, I don't like, I don't
remember that much of you being a firefighter.
I remember going to all the workout things like doing all the fundraisers with you, but
I don't actually remember when you're a firefighter for some reason.
Like I don't remember you coming home or anything.
I was saying like, I like, I have like fade memories saying like, hi dad, or like running
up and hugging you.
I don't remember like you being gone, I guess, but I've been spoiled and you've been retired
since fifth grade, I think.
Yeah.
Because six years ago, yeah, retired's a loose word.
I haven't been getting a pension for six years.
Yeah.
So by the way, I think, I mean, arguably like fifth, you're only a firefighter in my life
for what, 10 years?
Yeah, 10, 10.
Yep.
Like six, four of that, I didn't remember as much.
So that's probably one right, but I know that I was always happy to see you.
And I know that I, if, guessings, like I said, I don't remember, but I was probably very
lonely without you.
But also, as you said earlier, I had Nini too.
Or, I mean, cause I was actually too young, so I didn't stay at home by myself.
So I was with my mom actually thinking about it, cause I was too young to spend time by
myself.
Yeah.
The one that I, I've talked about this on here, the one I don't remember how the hell
even made it work was when I went to paramedic school as well.
So this would have been, you were only about five then, but I worked at Orange County,
so 24 hours in a busy, busy rescue, then drove straight to CF to do the medic school classroom
stuff.
And then did a 12 hour clinical the next day.
And I think it was when we did like the extended day at school and, you know, just made it
work.
But I mean that, that year, I don't know how that, I honestly, when I think back, I don't
know how we made it work.
I don't, but we did.
Do you remember when I saved the house from a fire?
I had to put on my firefighter gear and save the house.
With my forge.
Yes.
Yep.
Got you the hose and set fire to some stuff.
That's actually probably the strongest memory is just, I always want to be a firefighter.
Like I always looked up to you.
I had like all the firefighter stuff with the trucks.
I had a book.
I memorized all the fire trucks, the airport trucks to different nations trucks.
That's actually one thing I do remember a lot though, is I was a nerd with firefighters.
With the stunt side, do you remember the backyard of the old house and what stunt we used to
do?
Warcycle or a dirt bike.
Dirt bike.
What did we used to do in Bernard?
Oh, dress or like do donuts.
Do you remember one of your friend's parents calling me saying, Hey, there's someone doing
donuts in the garden.
Yeah.
And Becky's first time going out rodeo.
Oh yeah.
Screaming.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, let's get, you talked about Nini, obviously when we lost her, you know, we were heartbroken
and we don't need to go there because get you upset.
We both know how we felt about that, but you said about being inspired to become a vet.
Well obviously your grandfather was a vet resurgent.
So talk to me about what's next, you know, which college you hoping to go to again, if
we get all these scholarships lined up and then, you know, what profession are you hoping
to go into?
So I want to go to Utah State because the lady I met with, they are having a new vet
program that are building right now.
So when I graduated the building would be finished and Utah is a very active place.
So we're going to be at ski slopes and like, I know we haven't said in the same, but fitness
is all about where you are too.
So if, if you're in a beach town, a lot of people would be surfing, a lot of people would
be fit, a lot of people would be tan, stuff like that.
And ski town is going to be a lot of skiing, a lot of fitness and everything.
Not as tan, probably as white as you or my real whiteness, I guess.
Cause I'm, but yeah.
And I want to be exotic vet because I was thinking of being a regular vet, but I was
thinking what are people changing?
What do I need to change?
And one thing I hear a lot is just extinction.
And if I need to fix that, I want to, cause I hate when people say something and don't
do it and I don't want to be that person.
I want to stick by my word and fix the problem.
Beautiful.
I think you're going to be amazing.
And like I said, this is the thing about having dreams.
If you, like I had a dream to be a firefighter and a paramedic.
And then one day I found myself behind a microphone writing books and it didn't know.
So this is the other thing too, is having a dream.
And then, you know, if you get a year, two years from now, you're like, Oh, actually,
I think I want to be a pilot or, you know, I'm going to be a teacher or whatever it is.
Just having a plan when you leave school and then, but knowing that you're not disappointing
anyone, you're not failing if you change that course a little bit.
Yeah.
And I know one thing is my degree is going to be biology.
So I think there's like 23 job opportunities with the biology degree.
So the regret of doing what I'm doing will be a very less because the opportunities with
the biology degree.
Cause I want to be in the health profession.
I know that for sure.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
All right.
I'm going to throw the same questions that I throw everyone to close out.
First one, is there a book or are there books that you love to recommend to people or tell
people about?
The biography, is that what it's called?
Of Terry Fox, the Canadian runner that got cancer in his leg that ran across Canada,
even after his ending with lung cancer.
I think that's what killed him and Soul Surfer, the book that Bethany Hamilton published and
movie I think it was as well.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Beautiful.
What about films and documentaries?
Well, so the thing about me is that, as you know, nerd vapes, never done anything but
that, but the characters I like are kind of like high, I guess you could say.
Stoners.
Yeah.
I love surfing, but one movie I really love is Surf's Up.
It's a surf movie.
It was animated, but some quotes in it are very heavy, like everything.
It shows that because basically just saying being a nobody to somebody and known dogs,
I love.
The stories, everybody loves the underdog.
I think that's what I love about it and of course about surfing, but also just shows
that you can be.
When Cody says this, Cody says that, Cody's me.
No one else's opinions matter.
I'm me.
Give me some Chicken Joe quotes.
Oh yeah.
Chicken Joe is the stoner that I love, but he always feels it in his nuggets, so he always
has his gut feeling and he's all about perspective.
The thing about me is I just like to go for flow.
I plan my future.
I don't plan day to day.
If someone hits me up and says, let's go play volleyball, let's go play volleyball, my voice
cracked, but I like that.
I think one thing is that they're not chained down to modern society.
I think that's why people call beach bums beach bums, because they think they're bums
even though they see such amazing views.
When I skim board, when I surf, sunsets are amazing at the beach.
You know, like motorcycles, people call them a gang, but I think it's just a group of people
that want to see the world in their own way by going on road trips with motorcycles, because
that's what they usually do.
But people call them a gang because they see the movies, they see big dudes, because they
are pretty big or pretty muscular.
But I don't think they're a gang.
You don't hear in news that all these motorcycle people are fighting and everything.
You don't hear that.
So why should we call them a gang if we don't hear it?
You know, it's funny you say that.
When I interviewed Josh Brolin the very first time, he said, you know, I referred to his
motorcycle, I think they called him crew, but you know, the group that he rides with.
And he said something like you're the first person who hasn't referred to them as a gang.
So yeah, because you're right.
I mean, yeah, there are gangs that are criminals, you know, sections of, you know, the Hells
Angels and some of the other ones that are more notorious.
But yeah, most people are out there just writing, you know, I think this is a problem these
days is you tar everyone with the same brush, you know, just because one person did something
doesn't mean you got to assume that the whole group of people are going to do the same.
Yeah, I mean, that's racism with very many things.
And like, I feel like one thing that I love that I'm taking all these classes is perspective.
Like, there's so just mainly there's some reason why this is like with modern, I mean,
modern 1900s, I mean, 20th century is modern kind of right, because that's not that far
away.
Right.
Because World War One, it was the crap, what was it?
I'm brain farting.
But of course, World War One, the white people and black people, but it was more segregated
and more little because it was actually the France or the English actually had the more
minorities in their own unit.
But the great migration, that's what it's called.
But the whites were angry and racism got bigger was because the minorities took their jobs
and they fought a huge war, PTSD and raising, but it came and took their jobs.
So now they have a PTSD in the home or a horrible life.
I think I learned that I'm like, oh my God, that makes sense.
Like it's horrible.
Like lynching and everything.
I'm lynching is like a little bit later, like 1960s and everything.
That's like when it's really bad and publicized because photographs and news and everything.
But like people were racist for a reason.
I mean, of course, like white people think.
But you're right though, because if you even talk about slavery, it's not, oh, we need
to get black people to make them slaves.
They just care, we just need, I don't care what color they are.
I just want some people to work for me for free so I can make more money.
And like you said, that war, it could have been Irish people, it could have been English
people, but someone, a human being was in the job of that person had to leave to go
fight a war.
So it's not about ultimately the color.
It's about the cause of the war in the first place and poor decisions made where you put
other humans in, that should have been held for that person who came out from war.
So yeah, when you look at that, it's not like, oh, I don't like the pigmentation.
Like you said, there's an origin story for that anger.
That's not racism.
That's far deeper than that.
Yeah.
And like, I mean, danger, not danger, the servants before slavery, like they always
white people that were slaves before slaves.
They were promised grants and promised money, but the owners didn't.
And that's when Shades Rebellion came out.
And that's when they came out slaves because of Shades Rebellion and of course, Indians,
right?
Because I mean, war, they killed them all to be honest, either war, because Shades Rebellion
and how Indians were trying to give them a rights was for times gone.
But Indians, even like in across the nation, like gypsums, they enslaved their own kind.
Like as you see it with the books, how like their history and they made people build the
pyramids.
That's enslavement.
And then they get paid for that.
It's just, it's crazy.
Yes.
I mean, it's been around forever.
And again, the origin story is not the color.
It's just, it's greed.
That's it.
You know, if I can get all these people to build my whatever for free or, you know, work
my fields, my plantations, whatever, then I get to be rich and powerful.
It's not about the color of the person.
It was free labor.
And that's what's so disgusting.
And then you turn around and say, oh, this one race is responsible for slavery.
It's like, no, there's a small group of complete a holes that happen to be the same color who
were responsible for slavery.
And then like you said, you know, if you follow the chain, you've got the Americans and you've
got the Europeans and you've got the African people that were selling their own people.
It's greed of all colors and creeds.
But you know, as you said, then there's lynchings and things.
Those were absolutely disgusting and there was real racism.
But if you reverse engineer most of the horrible things that happen in history, it's a few
greedy, horrible, power hungry people that ruin it for the masses.
Yeah.
One thing I like, like I was thinking about, what do you think about human nature?
Like, what do you think that is?
So I have said recently that my perception of evolution of man is kindness, because if
you look at history, all the like horrendous stuff that people did a long, long time ago
to each other, I think overall, as we've evolved as a species, we've we've developed this sense
of compassion and empathy and kindness because you know, you don't see it in some members
of the animal kingdom, for example.
So I am a incurable optimist that think that most people are good.
I really do.
And I think the mean ones are regressing.
They're they're the ones stuck in time and the ones that are kind and compassionate,
I think of the next generation.
Yeah, I like that.
But people talk about how selfish this and everything.
But if you look at the animal kingdom, animals are selfish too.
They will kill their own kind to survive and everything.
It's just about survival.
And I think that the thing that makes us different is we can think we can evolve.
I mean, everyone can evolve like animals and everything evolve, but our minds involve antibodies.
So I think that's what's the difference is like we are overall involved involvement.
Sorry.
But yeah, and I agree like it's corruption.
It's their home life.
It's all this stuff that makes them who they are.
Absolutely.
Well, we've been talking obviously about history and you're in, you know, AP classes now.
When you were in elementary school, you struggled a lot academically and we had to get tutoring
to stop you getting held back a year.
And I told you, I was so proud of you because you worked so hard.
And then, you know, the following couple of years, you really clawed your way back to
good grades.
And but then you go through the whole student athlete thing and you're identifying that
it's your athletics that are going to get you into college.
But then I think there's been a kind of awakening with you recently where you realize that academically
you can get into college, that you're smarter than you gave yourself credit for.
And I understand it because you struggled when you were younger and you were one of
the youngest kids in the year just because of your birthday.
So talk to me about that before we close out.
Has there been a shift where you've kind of acknowledged that you're smart and it doesn't
just have to be your sports to get you into school?
Yeah, like I'm always involving like freshman year, I took one honors class.
So I was regular, regular student.
Then sophomore year, I took all honors.
So I was involving in trying to challenge myself.
And last year, I took one AP class.
And now I'm taking six AP classes.
So I'm always constantly trying to improve myself and everything.
But one thing is that like the people in my classes, they're all smart and I think they
all have straight A's.
That's one thing I don't have.
I have A's and B's.
But that's the thing is they're only smart.
Like they don't have club volleyball until 11.
They can just study and I know them personally.
So I'm not saying just stereotyping.
I know them personally.
They all want to do is study.
That's it.
So I'm like, so I think that's one thing.
And you look back, it's like I am better myself outside school and inside of school.
Absolutely.
Well, I want to go to the last couple of closing questions.
But just before I do, because I was thinking this, we know obviously that, you know, that
I talk a lot about mental health and a lot of these people tend to be, you know, firefighters
and military, but like Emma, you know, there's a lot of people listening whose children are
in elementary, middle, you know, high school now.
What advice would you give other kids as far as their mental health, as far as, you know,
if they're feeling hopeless, you know, if they're feeling depressed, you know, the how
would you inspire them to find help or realize that they can grow from this?
Just like you did when you were, you know, out of the centers and you were your lowest
music probably like without knowing them personally.
Music is probably the best thing that connects everything.
That's like pretty sick.
That's probably the thing I miss most was not my phone during J.C.
It was music, I think, but not knowing them personally, even like movies or like cushion
things like a cushion movie.
I just do it and just crying.
Like one quote, I live by it's just push past your limits.
It's simple.
And I love it so much.
But in academics, like, OK, I can push my limits.
I can do this one more time, like one more hour of studying or I can push my limits past
my limits with these weights.
But not knowing them personally, music is probably the best thing that can help you
cry and help you feel inspired, just help you live your life.
We went to see NF at the beginning of the summer.
How much of an impact does his music have on your journey?
Amazing.
Like he has band issues.
So some issues I don't I mean, I don't understand or don't have or have very little of, I guess.
Because, I mean, even the death, you can say that's abandonment, like with Bill and everything.
But his music was very relatable, especially now I'm getting older.
I'm like, holy crap, that's very sad.
But I think actually this I probably it's a very happy song.
But it's like I cried to it so many times.
It's Three Little Birds by Bob Marley, because don't worry about a thing.
Everything's gonna be all right.
And that's a really happy song.
But NF was amazing.
I mean, you saw I was singing every lyric to the beat.
So yeah, because it's like anger and sadness and happiness.
And it's like every emotion you can ever think of is in his, not every emotion of course,
but there's so much emotion in his music.
How important is it for boys to understand they can cry?
Very like very important.
I mean, I think I haven't cried from my friends in a long time, because of centers.
But I think now I'm actually starting to let go of saying like no one's gonna get hospitalized
if I cry in front of people.
That took a while.
But yeah, it's very important to cry.
I cried from stress, I cried about NeNe and everything.
I mean, like I said, I never cry over girls or anything.
I just can't function, I guess.
Like compared to some other things that happen in my life, that breakup is important to me.
But I haven't witnessed real love, I guess.
I guess you can say because I've never been married.
I've never had that deep connection.
So that's probably why I haven't.
But crying feels good.
Like when you cry, those bad thoughts go away.
Like I've had times like, what if I just crashed my car?
I thought that so many times, not so many times, but I'm like, but then I just cry,
I'm like, oh, I'm better now.
Blah, blah, blah.
But if I crash my car, I can't myself when I feel that.
Yay.
So yeah.
Well, and I think that's the thing is a lot of people have, they call it the shadow self.
We have dark thoughts, all of us.
We do, which is why again, that person cuts in front of you.
As you know, I'm not a violent guy.
But as I've explained to you, as I even wrote in my books, when you've seen the horrible
things that happen in car accidents, bless you, Amber.
It makes you angry as a first responder.
So that's my thoughts.
But yeah, to be able to offload that is important.
One more thing, because you just spurred this as well.
After the centers, after you and all these other kids in Liberty were sent to the 72
hour hold for simply, a lot of them just being depressed or anxious.
What impact did that have on you trusting people and asking for help and being vulnerable
about your mental health in school?
Horrible, horrible trust issues.
Did it show motion, had a fake smile for so long.
Like, I mean, even now, like, it's funny, like, my last song was on music talk about
it.
Just like, I'm not really happy if I'm not really sad.
It's like the weird middle that like I have fun days, but also have, it's just really
weird.
And, but it was horrible though.
Like I can't show emotion.
No, I definitely showed like happiness and everything, but never show sadness or cry
in front of anybody.
It's actually probably recently I cried in front of someone because it was stress, it
was school related.
But yeah, it was iconic PTSD I guess you can say.
Like very.
Oh yeah, it was PTSD.
You were kidnapped for three days.
I mean, yeah, it absolutely was.
You know, I mean, the term PTSD, you weren't in the corner, you know, in a ball every time
you heard loud noise, but yeah, that I watched it, you know, even on me, like you were stolen
from me for three days.
So yeah, that had a huge negative impact, but I just wanted to underline that because
the police officers out there, for example, that feel like they can't say how they're
feeling that they're struggling because they might take their gun away and their badge
and put them on, you know, whatever duty.
When you have a fear based system, when it comes to mental health, you're not going to
make it better.
You're going to make it worse.
And this is important for schools to understand.
If you do what Liberty Middle School was doing a few years ago, you will damage your children,
not help them.
Yeah, I agree.
All right.
Well, then we talked about Bethany and Captain Hook, whose real name I still can't remember,
you know, some of the people that you told me to get on the show and we made it happen.
Are there any other people that you would recommend as a guest that we haven't had yet?
Elton John.
Elton John would be cool as hell, wouldn't he?
Yeah, I feel like that.
Like being an inspiration.
I mean, I watched this movie so many times.
Very sad and it's kind of like similar Freddie Mercury, how he had corruption because he
was getting popular and everything in his life and being, of course, homosexual.
Yeah, homosexual.
I was about to say homophobic, but that's different.
The opposite.
Yeah.
Being homosexual during the time and that was very still.
That's not a thing.
Hide it kind of thing.
He's such an inspiration.
He, Arabi loves him, I think that's one thing that actually unifies and people is music,
like jazz unified black people, white people back in the day because it was just how we
liked it and it still unifies everyone today.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And he's done a lot of good with this platform.
Like the AIDS Foundation, I think it is, he contributes a lot.
Yeah, he's done so much good.
I mean, he's, you know.
The Mercury program, right?
Mercury program?
I'm not sure.
Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure.
But yeah, I mean, he, you know, Princess Di used to love him because she was a very big
altruist as well.
So yeah, one day we got John Travolta, didn't we?
So maybe we can get Elton John.
We'll see.
You met him.
All right.
Well, then let me see the last question before we let people know where to find you on Instagram.
Doesn't mean that you're going to accept their request, but what do you do to decompress?
What do you do to relax these days?
Like I mean, it's known as like brain rot, but I just scroll through TikTok.
Yeah.
Like that's actually one thing that's kind of curious about is the attention span of
kids is going down by a lot.
I'm not for me.
I just watch TikTok because YouTube is kind of boring, to be honest.
And like when I'm really tired, I don't want to watch Netflix.
I don't want to fall asleep.
This is kind of like the thing that if I fall asleep on it, it doesn't matter.
I'm not going to lose anything, but yeah, I just decompress to that because video games
are kind of boring to me.
Like when I was straining my wrist during surfing, I was so bored playing video games
all day and watching TV all day.
I was like, oh my God, how do people live like this?
Not insult, but it's not for me.
Yeah.
When you say about attention span, I see that and it's not just kids.
It's us, it's adults.
But I see now that like, for example, if someone makes a, you know, might only be a 30 second
video.
Now they have like the teaser of the video at the beginning of the video to get you to
watch the other 25 seconds of the video.
And I can see, I can see this whole attention span getting worse and worse.
Oh, we can't just have a podcast.
Let me flash pictures of what the person's saying.
Like if we can't sit there and watch a video of someone talking for 90 seconds, then God,
where is it going to end?
It's going to literally end up as a film called Idiocracy.
We're literally heading that way where we're just going to be so dumb.
We're not even going to be able to string a sentence together.
And we like wallow those humans and wallow.
Yeah, Wally.
Wally.
Sorry.
All right.
Is there anything else you want to say to the people listening before we close out?
Hmm.
That's good.
That's a good question.
Time purpose in your life.
That's such an easy thing to say.
But I mean, for me, I want to live a life where I don't have to waste my time because
the thing about wasting my time is you're bored and I don't want to live a boring life.
I want to live a life where I wake up and I mean, my dream is to live in a cabin.
But that's the amazing view and have a job that I love.
Yeah, and try to do your best.
Like that sounds so simple, but that's one of the best things.
That's so simple, but it's so true.
It's do your best in life.
And if you can't, then ask your people to help.
And another thing is that don't be afraid to let go of people that you've known for
a while or don't get pushed into anything.
But yeah, I think that's the thing I can think of right now without taking too long of silence.
Well, I want to say thank you.
This has been amazing.
We talked about this for a while.
I'm going to obviously get Becky on when she's graduating from medical school as well.
But this was an important conversation because when we get to the summer, you're going to
be ramping up to possibly go to Utah.
But yeah, it's such an important perspective.
And for you being brave enough to talk about some of the low points, I hope that someone
listening out there, like I always say, if it helps one person, if there's one kid out
there, one parent who knows their child is going through it, that this will help.
Over and above all the fun stuff that we talked about, I think it's been really important.
And just know that I am extremely proud of you.
And it's going to break my damn heart when you do go to Utah.
Becky's going to have to hold me for like three months straight.
So thank you.
Of course.
I do have one more question.
Why do you think people can't hold eye contact anymore?
I think Becky was actually saying this.
She thinks that some of the meanness, and this is probably related to eye contact because
it's harder to be mean to someone when they're looking you in the eyes.
You know what I mean?
So I think it's the social media, it's the devices.
And I was talking to the guest today, a lot of the nastiness, the nastiness that you see
on social media isn't your generation.
It's my generation.
All the politics and all that stuff.
All people.
But so there isn't any accountability.
There isn't any eye contact there.
And then I think COVID didn't help because all of a sudden you're behind masks and big
plastic screens.
So everyone's going to the automated checkout instead of the human being.
So I think it's something that we have to find again, because eye contact, as you know,
is so important.
Yeah, I agree.
But thank you for having me.
A thousand, that's crazy.
I remember when you, your first one, you're in my room in a little chair or something.
Yes, the little baby chair and table set.
Yeah, so I'm proud of you.
You came so far and you have been yourself ever since.
As you know, I'm your son.
So I know if you're not being yourself, but you're being true, still passionate as ever
and you're not letting anyone's opinion push you down.
So I think that's so inspirational.
And you inspire so many people.
I don't know your audience that well.
I'm just a guess.
But the people that are listening, he's an amazing person.
And if he inspires you, then you keep listening to him because he will always tell the truth.
And I won't lie about that.
He knows what he's trying to say and he will always fight for you all because that's what
is in his blood.
And if there's God, that's what God wants him to do.
He's got me crying now.