Hi and welcome back to Tell Me What Happened, the podcast that features
folks from all walks of life telling us one true childhood story and how that event, that
experience, has impacted who they are today. I'm your host Jay Reaac and like you, I've
had my share of childhood experiences. Some of them painful, some of them quite pleasant,
but I'd like to think that everything that's ever happened to me has made me who I am today
and I'd like to think it's made me a better person. Now that may not be true, but that's
what I'd like to think. Anyway, Tell Me What Happened is sponsored by Sidelining Publishing,
publishers of quality books including Susan Salazar's classics I've Got Peace in My
Fingers and One Little Act of Kindness. All right, today I have as my guest Caleb Frankel.
Caleb is a longtime family friend, but also co-founder of a financial technology company,
Early Bird, which helps parents, family and friends collectively invest in a child's
future, starting at the earliest age. Welcome to the show, Caleb.
Thanks Jay, I'm really happy to be here. And then I am so happy to hear too, I know you're
a busy guy, I know your business is booming and you're working all the time, but what
I'd like to do is just ask you to tell us the one story and then when you're done, I'm
going to ask you simply one question. How do you think what happened to you as a child
has impacted you as an adult? So you ready to tell your story?
I'm ready.
All right, take it away, Caleb.
So I am a native Chicagoan, born and raised on the north side across several neighborhoods,
which is part of my story actually that I'll get into. I am the older brother of Gabe
Frankel, my youngest brother, and then I have a step sister, Lisa of the Clay Pool. My dad
is gnome and he grew up in Detroit, Michigan. My mom is also a native Chicagoan, but born
and raised on the south side in Hyde Park. And my story really is about both the importance
that family as a whole and what can happen when family is uprooted or there is a change
in the nuclear family, especially as a young child and the impact that that can have both
in the immediate for your kids and opportunities that it presents for those children in learning
from that and creating survival mechanisms in order to become brighter, bigger, stronger,
more resilient human beings. And that's really how I look at my story. So when I was a young
kid, I had a very loving, traditional Jewish family. I remember very vividly being the older
brother, sorry, the first child and not knowing that I would have a younger brother and really
receiving all the love from my parents, my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles. When my little
brother came in order to make sure that I knew he loved me and would I'd still be appreciated
even as now a second child entered our family. They had gifted me roller skates courtesy
of my younger brother upon his arrival and that was amazing. But my story really turns
south as many kids unfortunately do. When my parents got divorced, I remember somewhat
the trajectory from ages probably four to seven. But once my brother was born, he was
three and a half years older. So I remember arguments being had, I remember across the
board, I remember grabbing my brother and running down to the basement and making sure
he didn't hear what they were saying. And we sort of had fun and played games while
they were maybe arguing or working on something. And it was, I don't remember the pain, I remember
being so much more a protector and feeling a responsibility and identity tied to this
is normal parents fight, adults don't know how to communicate. And I am my younger brother's
protector. And that felt really special to me. But I always thought that that I remember
thinking at that age that everything would work out that this was normal. And this is
part of a traditional family. And then at seven, that changed. My mom, who definitely
supported my dad as he sort of was working and my mom was more stay at home taking care
of the kids. She stuck up for herself. Something that I learned much later in life. She was
unhappy in the relationship and wanted more wanted more respect wanted more to feel empowered.
And she asked to split up with my father, not asked she demanded and they ended up
spanking up. But my the real aspect of the story that sort of changed my life and that
I share often with people of sort of what what has impacted you at the age from age
seven to about age 12, I moved 20 times within a one mile radius in 20 different houses.
And so not only did I not so divorce is very common. But for many children, maybe there's
the stability of you know, one parent being there or there's stability of sort of two
houses that you can call home. Unfortunately, and I don't know if this was a logistical
mistake on my parents part or prioritization of self and selfishness on their end. In some
ways I'm still reckoning and therapy with some of this, we sort of followed along. My brother
and I followed along as my parents sort of moved from house to house and it wasn't a
finance necessarily a financial issue. This was sort of we what they wanted to be close
to each other they wanted to still be in the city. They also wanted equal access and time
to their kids. But that caused sort of the complete instability of not having a centralized
home. And so I remember not having any of the clothes or school work that I needed at
the house that I was staying at. But what also happened is towards the end of that time period,
after my mom had moved several times on her own, she ended up moving in with my grandparents,
both her mom and her dad who have been divorced as well, and lived with and we lived with them
respectively. We also started spending a lot more time with my dad's parents. And so the
sort of immediate family close to us, we were absolutely supported by and welcomed in in
a way that I don't think is often seen. And so I think I saw love and support from others
outside of my family. And that goes for our relationship day, you know, our mutual connection
as family friends, the boyers were also part of that network of people who welcomed me
in when I didn't have stability at home. And so I started to spend a lot more time with
friends, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and really found respite comfort, support,
and peace in other nests that I didn't necessarily wasn't blood related to wasn't born into,
but was able to use that as a survival mechanism in to find happiness and to receive love and
stability that I didn't have. And so that's my story. I thought you might tell that story
or part of that story. I wasn't privy to all of it at the time. I did know that you hung
out a lot with the friends of mine, mutual friends of mine. And subsequently I realized
because I know you're both your folks that they got divorced, etc. But I didn't know
that you'd traveled or moved around 20 times and that you had all those experiences. And
I feel bad for you and Gabe because I know you both. The good news is from my point of
view is that I know you now as adults and you guys are both highly successful and you
seem both seem happy. I think you are. So whatever happens to you back then, I'm sure
you still carry it as you mentioned, but I'd like to think that you came out of all right
of it, but I'm not going to. That's not for me to say. I am now going to turn it to you
and say, how do you think that what happened to you as a young man as a maybe a seven year
old or seven to 12 year old? I mean, you know, 20 times you moved and everything else. How
do you think that has impacted who you are today as an adult?
Yeah, my story really impacted me in several ways that I've sort of reflected on over the
years. The first being comfortable with the uncomfortable and the unknown. Now, I wouldn't
choose this for my own children, but the lack of stability forced me at a very young age
to never rely on anyone else to find peace and find comfort and that it was on me in
the world as a whole in any situation, not just at home to find that comfort. And if
the situation was uncomfortable, there's nothing I could do to necessarily change the situation.
I could change my attitude towards that situation or I could go elsewhere to a situation that
was different. And that gave me a sense of control over my being that I applied in all
social settings in so many professional settings. The second was around confidence. It is one
thing to have the endless love and support of your parents. And in some ways I had it
in many ways I did not or I didn't know it and I still at times struggle remembering
and still appreciating their full love. But what I got instead was a bigger community
that told me that I was special, that I was important, that they loved me and that I was
capable of anything. And when you have a constant community connected to you that puts food
in your mouth, that spends money on you, that creates memories for you, that's life changing.
And that was in so many ways a catalyst to the company that I started, Early Bird as
well. And the last point and thing that I think I really took away from this story and
period of my life was simply resiliency and how much I actually do have in me. I think
I'm in many ways, I'm my harshest critic, but I can look back now on what I had for
many years deemed a very normal childhood and recognize what I overcame and how much
I've created from what was never an easy situation and my ability to navigate uncertain waters
to create something really special. And like I said on the first point, it's incredibly
empowering to be able to have a sense of who you are and where you came from and use those
as tools to create a different future or a better future for yourself and for the family
that you want to create. And that's kind of where I'm at now in my life, both as an adult
and a loving husband, soon to be father and a founder of a company that's mission is entirely
dedicated to supporting children from traditional, but more making it a norm to collectively,
financially and emotionally support the children that we love, because we're all required and
we all can make a difference, whether we live in the same city or we live on the same block,
a child picks up a lot from the people, the adults that are around them and carry deeply
and forever the memories that are created when you spend the time with them.
Well, you know, the thing about you, Caleb, that you may not know, but I think you do
is that I was a school teacher and I knew you in school, in your high school, you went
to the same high school that I taught at, but I knew you before that I thought this
is the most confident successful guy I know in the sense of young people because you never
seem stressed about anything, you know, in terms of just the way you present it. I mean,
obviously it tells us that. Yeah, find me the night before an exam in high school and
I was not a confident young guy. Yeah, yeah, I'm saying, trust me, when I say that I realize
that we all wear the veil as the poet says, is that we don't really know fully what other
people are going through. I mean, I would never have imagined in a million years that
there was any storm in your life at all, you seem to have like a, the golden touch in terms
of the way you appeared. I'm not saying it was true. I'm saying it appeared that way.
And I think Gabe also, your son, I hear son, Gabe, your brother came across quite confidently
and I like that about both of you guys in the sense that I knew you and I'm happy that
you're both doing well. But yeah, emotion of community, I think you really did hit it,
which is not only is it your parents, but in your case, you had your grandparents helping
out and then you also did have family friends guiding you or, you know, providing some sort
of stability or deeper understanding of the value of you as a person, reminding you of
it or reiterating it to you. And maybe that's why you seem like one of the most confident
men I've ever met and young men that I've ever met. Again, you appear to be that way.
I'm not saying that's really who you are. I realize that I don't know you well enough
to know how deep, you know, it goes, but you always struck me that way. I've known a lot
of the boy or friends and other friends, young men that you're my daughter's age, by the
way. So I knew you as a consequence of my daughter being in your class, your high school
class. But anyway, you know, you always appeared that way. And I do think that there's you
really hit on something, which is we need a larger community. It's not just about mom
and dad even, you know, in your case, you had the grandparents. That's, that's pretty
cool. Yeah. And friends, parents are just as important. I think what that positivity
from my broader community created was a sense of eternal optimism. And that no matter how
hard stuff got, I always could find a light. And that I have a lot to think sort of continuing
to grind and find the next thing that would help me find the light or the next person
that would help me find the light. And that's sort of how I approach relationships. There
is there's a give and take in all relationships. And hopefully I can be a light to my kid,
of course, but other kids and to other people in my family that when things get tough, everybody
needs somebody. And it's not just blood. And it's not just familial. There's different
times and different places and different people. And I've been fortunate enough to have built
and found the community that's helped me get to where I am. And I hope to do the same for
others. I love it, man. I love the concept. You know, I've always liked your concept of
early bird, but it is more than just financial. Trust me, I do understand that intellectually
the idea that, you know, we build, we build this community. And I really appreciate you
coming on this show because I know you're busy as I said, and I got some insights today
that I didn't know. But a big fan of your optimism too. It's a funny thing because I
was raised and nobody got divorced or anything like that. But I'm not, I'm nowhere near as
optimistic as you are. So I respect you so much.
There's always silver lining.
That's beautiful. That's genius. I wish I had it like you have it. But anyway, thank
you for coming on the show.
Of course. Thanks for having me, Jay.
All right. Well, that's our show. I'd like to thank once again, Caleb Franco for coming
on the show telling us that sad, powerful, redemptive story. And so until next time,
this is Jay Rehac asking you all to please stay safe out there and try not to hurt anybody.