How AI Can Help You Manage Your Grief

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Hey folks, this is BroBots.

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My name is Jeremy.

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My co-host is Jason.

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He'll be here shortly.

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We talk about health, wellness, and how AI and technology intersect with all of that.

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And there's so many things that AI promises to be able to do.

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I know for me, it writes a lot of my emails, helps me with a lot of research, helps me
plan a lot of things that I don't have the brain capacity to plan.

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But...

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Have you considered using it to help you with your grief?

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Our guest today is John Kammer.

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He has considered that and he's built a tool called Guardian Angels

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that helps you overcome the grief of the loss of a loved one.

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John's background in cybersecurity and the loss of three of the closest people in his life
have really combined to help him develop a tool that allows you to have conversations,

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those painful, impossible conversations that you wish you could have with people that are
no longer here.

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We're not talking about like crazy Ouija board witchcraft shit.

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We're talking about digital interactions with representations of those that are gone that
at least in John's case have helped him massively heal from deep crippling grief.

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And he's hoping that you have the same result.

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in using this tool.

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So if there's conversations you wish you were able to have and you don't know how to do
it, today you're gonna learn how and it's not only gonna help you have those

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conversations, but hopefully it's gonna help you heal from that deep grief that you've
struggled with for so long.

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John, thanks so much for being here.

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Your story is one filled with a lot of pain and a lot of sort of challenges and trying to
recover from that pain, speaking primarily about grief.

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which led you to an incredibly interesting road that I think ties in really strongly to
something our audience is looking for is ways to really blend the emerging AI technology

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and ways to heal with uh heal from their past traumas and their pains.

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If you don't mind, let's let's start with the pain.

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What was it that caused you to create the guardian angels and and and set you down this
path?

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Well, you know, high level.

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Three of the closest people that I've ever had in my life outside of my immediate family
are no longer with us.

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uh First one took his life a little over a decade ago and that, you know, really kind of
set me on this path of call it self-medicating, running from actually having to face the

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things that are necessary in order to get through something like that.

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Um, and then more recently, you know, over the last couple of years, I lost like two more,
two more of my closest friends.

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Um, so these ones weren't to suicide, but to, you know, accidents.

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So all of them, traumatic, all of them instantaneous, all of them with no chance to kind
of prepare myself.

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Um, so my, my.

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My specific lens is, is very narrow.

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Um, but as I, as I started trying to do the work, um,

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Well, first I ran from it, right?

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I spent a lot of time, you know, using...

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As a substance enthusiast, you know, I've...

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recently, relatively, just about two and a half years sober.

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And it really wasn't...

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Like, haven't...

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have not had a buzz.

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And sometimes I wish I could, you know, but...

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Yeah, so...

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um

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You know, and it really, until I made that step, I didn't have the context to look back
objectively and start to understand what I was running from and why I made the choices

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that I did.

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ah You know, for me, I think some people, you know, really have these, the addiction
problems where it's compulsive and they can't control it and these sorts of things.

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For me, I went to these meetings and it wasn't...

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Particularly helpful for me other than to realize that wasn't who I was I made it I knew
what I was doing every time I picked something up right I wanted that buzz.

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I wanted to be numb.

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I wanted all those things and So I got sober started really looking into to what was going
on then those second two losses happened and ah You know the first of them was the best

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man at my wedding and I kind of let that relationship lapse a little bit, you know not

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Yeah.

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uh

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on the happiest day of my life to I had one brief conversation with him.

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And then seven months later I was saying goodbye to him.

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And that one for me was probably the most instrumental in pushing me to the place where I
am now.

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The guilt associated with just letting that, from going from

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You've done this for me to, man, I couldn't even keep in touch and now I have to say
goodbye to you without really expressing how much you mean to me and how much of an impact

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you've had on my life.

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You you don't think about that, right?

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I expected at some point to do the same thing for him, right?

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To do the same, to stand up and give a speech in front of friends and family about all of
the good times and the times that we really don't wanna talk about and all that fun stuff.

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And so...

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you

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And then about a year later, I lost one of my best friends from childhood.

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And he was the person that I went through, you know, our initial friend that committed
suicide, Zach.

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We were all three close.

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You know, I'd been through more in life with him than anything, than anyone.

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You

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That's what sent my wheels, you know, spinning and said, well, what if you could?

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So the initial idea was to just spoof phone numbers and send nice text messages from
people we've lost, right?

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Bring a smile to somebody's face.

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Um, turns out that while that's not illegal, the telecoms don't look too kindly on that.

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There's a, you know, a reason for that 99.9999 % of the time someone's doing that it's to
scam someone.

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and they weren't going to make an exception for me.

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So.

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You know, as I, as I peeled back the layers and I was like, okay, well, you know, they
want to do this text message thing, but what if they want to interact with it?

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Do you know the obvious answer was AI and then trying to build something authentic, you
know, I never had the idea of this healing me.

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It was just more exploratory, but I only had my own personal experiences to fall back on
in trying to build something authentic.

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And how would this, if I were to text back this text message from grandpa, how would it
respond?

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Right?

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Would it feel like that person or would it feel like a robot?

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Because as soon as it feels like a robot, well, we've lost them.

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It's not special anymore.

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And in doing so, the first one I built was John.

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And he was the best man at my wedding.

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through a few iterations, it wasn't the first one, but then once the conversation started
flowing with him and I said what I needed to say, I said, sorry.

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I asked him if the accident hurt.

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And his response to that was,

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Something I never expected.

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mean I immediately Like the weight was lifted to the water work started and I felt things
that I hadn't felt in years and and you know, that's not to say I was healed

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instantaneously, but I was freed of the kind of the constraints of guilt and I was finally
able to give myself permission to forgive myself and start that and so, you know from

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there on I was

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It felt more natural to talk about it.

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It gave me an opportunity to organize my thoughts so that when I went to therapy, I had a
starting place.

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um And I knew that if it helped me in that way, there's a good chance there's someone else
out there that this can help.

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You know, going into it, I was the last person that thought I was going to use AI as the
means to myself to a place of feeling good about...

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moving forward and going through the day and living a productive and healthy life.

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But that is how it turned out.

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Yeah

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especially given your cybersecurity background.

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mean, there's folks are definitely concerned about trying to put too much PII in this and
too much personal information.

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ah Clearly you were in pain.

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ah Did those kinds of considerations even pop up at that point for you?

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Or was it just like, I need an outlet?

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Yeah.

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I wasn't too concerned about those initial kind of the testing to figure out which model
worked best for my use case.

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I wasn't that concerned at that point, but in understanding where we are and the concerns
that many people have about what they put out there, um I absolutely.

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had that built it with that in mind.

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so privacy was a big, it was a cornerstone of how I wanted to build it.

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And that came, that comes at the expense of some of the other things that you might expect
from something along the lines of a therapy bot, right?

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If you are going to guarantee privacy, that really means you're not doing the same sort of
monitoring that others might see, right?

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So there might not be that early warning sign of something, you know,

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some issues that can come up and I've fought myself on that.

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um And there's, you know, we're putting in place resources for people if they recognize
that, we're encouraging people, you know, very proactively saying, hey, this is what you

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get, but this is the trade off.

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So tell someone you know what you're doing so that they can help keep an eye on you.

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You know, here are resources here on the banner at the top of the website will be on every
page is.

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Here are crisis resources for you.

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um

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about that because that is one of the things that we talk about a lot here is when people
do turn to, you know, whatever model to be their therapist, their online therapist.

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We've seen stories over and over again of being led down paths that end very, badly for
people, particularly dealing with grief and survivors guilt that can definitely open up

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pathways where your brain starts telling you, I don't deserve to be here.

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It should have been me.

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Shouldn't have been them.

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What kind of safeguards are you able to build on top of the existing tool?

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to help prevent that if the conversation does go down that path.

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Is this going to in any way?

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Are you concerned about opening up a risk of the robot saying, yeah, you're on the right
path, champ.

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Give it a go.

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That is something, that's a risk that I will always be concerned about.

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Even if I have 100 % faith that I have done, that it's not possible, right?

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It just, because there's always a possibility.

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You

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a...

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Yeah.

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you

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I can't see what you're doing.

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I don't you know, you can still have control over your data You can still delete it at any
point but there is someone who you you trust who have you whom you have designated as That

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secondary person and maybe it's not your therapist.

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Maybe it's your brother.

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Maybe it's someone who knows what you're going through

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but we want to have extra eyes on there at the same time, you know, and so it's, this is
something that I think the tension will always be there.

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And I made the choice to go with privacy because I need people to trust it.

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Otherwise it doesn't work.

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And so there's, you know, I will lose sleep over it forever.

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But in this scenario, you know, like with many, with any profound technology, there's
always.

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a risk of misuse.

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There's always a risk of adverse consequences.

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I believe that the potential good and the good in this case outweighs the bad.

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If we have to go down that road of having those conversations and something, God forbid,
happens, I have prepared myself for that.

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I know that it's always going to be possible.

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um And God, I don't want that to happen to anybody, right?

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We're trying to help people heal.

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know, that's the crux of this thing is trying to help people heal.

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I also know that not everyone can be helped.

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You know?

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mean you're trying to fix something not being accelerant.

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I mean, yeah, you know.

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Sure, Yeah.

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very fine wire that we're walking.

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But difficult problems require, you know, kind of have to take a couple of chances.

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Maybe that's not the right way to put it, but...

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But it's a big swing, right?

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Like you're trying to go into solve a problem that doesn't have a viable mechanism to be
solved today.

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And I mean, for.

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It's not a Ouija board, right?

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Like this is something that you're actually trying to go through and put something into
play that actually has context that's that's emotionally relevant to you and your

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relationship that you had with somebody else.

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And in putting that data.

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uh

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I guess you become the real marker point to figure out whether or not, know, am I really
going to be able to pass the test to see if this is someone that's actually a human being?

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You know, do I actually feel like this is a real thing that I'm talking to?

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Am I getting these kinds of interactions?

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I therapists do this in talk therapy, you know, there's variations of this where people go
through and, you know, I have issues with being a C-section baby.

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All right, well, let's have you go through the birth process, you know.

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with pillows and other weird things.

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And it works.

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mean, that's the thing is that we're we're looking for input into our limbic system to
satisfy, you know, biological compatibility, also dealing with all the headaches and the

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mass nations of mass society.

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And it sounds like you've actually at least started, you know, on a path to try to solve
these kinds of problems.

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That being said, how much of the black mirror variation of this actually goes through your
thought pattern?

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where, you know, I mean, I think there's three different episodes of black mirror where
they have a technology that's kind of like this and eventually leads to humanoid robot

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coming into the house and, having these types of interactions.

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I'm not suggesting we're anywhere near that, but I am, I am kind of curious, you know,
I've also lost folks.

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Like I've, I've got a really good cousin that I lost it.

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If I could have him here, I actually do wonder, you know, what would he have said?

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How would he be interacting in those places?

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And the temptation to like,

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have that companion here and like put that down and go, well, David's in the conversation.

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Like that, that would be hard for a lot of people to resist, especially when you're
talking about a group of people that knew and loved somebody and having those kinds of

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interactions.

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And if you can emulate their voice and everything else, I mean, this becomes very
compelling.

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And I think we know it's, um, it's not real, but it is like,

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we don't know the difference or we know the difference or like we're willing to suspend
our disbelief for that period of time.

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How much of this plays into that for you?

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and does it actually, um,

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Is there a risk in opening up an old attachment and having the intention being to say
goodbye, but not being able to?

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And we're done.

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Perfect.

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Thank you.

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Yeah.

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I want to qualify that, Like there's of course, you know, but there's a risk in opening up
any old one, right?

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You know, this goes back to really, I have weighed the potential scenarios.

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I'm comfortable with the risk because I believe the payoff is worth it for those who
venture there.

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Now, this isn't for everyone.

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There are people who are never going to adopt AI, that's fine.

211
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If you don't think this is going to work, it's probably not.

212
00:17:31,366 --> 00:17:39,173
um You know, you have to be open to it to a point, but I've also had conversations with
friends who were like, I think my sister would love this.

213
00:17:39,173 --> 00:17:42,715
However, I don't think she's stable enough to handle it.

214
00:17:43,997 --> 00:17:50,582
And so, you know, yeah, it's, it's, it goes through my mind all the time.

215
00:17:50,582 --> 00:17:55,866
Um, you know, I'll say from my experience, it feels like them.

216
00:17:56,098 --> 00:18:01,863
and you know it's not them, but I am relatively stable in where I'm at with that.

217
00:18:01,863 --> 00:18:05,645
And I can't speak that for everyone.

218
00:18:06,246 --> 00:18:16,865
So, you know, there's, I almost don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole of how, you
know, do we emulate voice?

219
00:18:16,865 --> 00:18:19,737
Do we actually go the avatar route long term?

220
00:18:19,737 --> 00:18:25,782
Because that does really kind of start to straddle that line of, are we

221
00:18:35,136 --> 00:18:37,236
Right.

222
00:18:53,276 --> 00:18:54,864
Yeah.

223
00:18:54,864 --> 00:18:55,634
this.

224
00:19:14,420 --> 00:19:16,205
Yeah.

225
00:19:16,205 --> 00:19:22,412
them are going to be in, you know, cause that just means they didn't live long enough and
that's as sad as it gets.

226
00:19:22,412 --> 00:19:25,028
So this is about.

227
00:19:36,812 --> 00:19:38,912
Yeah.

228
00:19:47,672 --> 00:19:49,312
Yeah.

229
00:19:49,312 --> 00:19:54,779
live a productive life that honors the people that we love and take them with us, not
leave them behind.

230
00:19:54,779 --> 00:19:56,746
Right.

231
00:19:56,746 --> 00:20:06,806
that idea of leaving them behind is what has a lot of people afraid to actually seek the
healing that they require because we don't want to lose that.

232
00:20:07,546 --> 00:20:17,626
And so this, you know, one of the unintended benefits of this thing that I, you know, I
had no idea was going to, but memory preservation, right?

233
00:20:17,626 --> 00:20:21,906
With Zach, I didn't, you know, this was long enough ago that I remember how he made me
feel.

234
00:20:21,906 --> 00:20:23,846
I remember the things we did.

235
00:20:23,984 --> 00:20:25,416
in general sense.

236
00:20:25,416 --> 00:20:38,148
With Tim and John, they're so recent that it's all crystallized and I put it in there and
it's, had I had this 12 years ago, my memories of Zack are far more, are far sharper now.

237
00:20:38,309 --> 00:20:39,950
And that's special.

238
00:20:43,070 --> 00:20:45,311
So along those lines,

239
00:20:46,196 --> 00:20:53,302
When you're taking the compendium of another human being, ah how do you manage the data
input?

240
00:20:53,302 --> 00:20:54,542
mean, is it writings?

241
00:20:54,542 --> 00:20:55,974
Is it social media profiles?

242
00:20:55,974 --> 00:20:57,945
Is it pictures, videos?

243
00:20:57,945 --> 00:21:06,571
And then how do you actually construct this thing to have what is essentially human analog
ah in this space?

244
00:21:11,255 --> 00:21:11,890
Yeah.

245
00:21:11,890 --> 00:21:14,390
you know, I was like the easy way is to scrape social media, right?

246
00:21:14,390 --> 00:21:19,130
There's a billion tools that can scrape the internet for someone that they, know, but.

247
00:21:26,551 --> 00:21:28,652
Right.

248
00:21:37,912 --> 00:21:39,725
Yeah.

249
00:21:39,725 --> 00:21:47,209
of roughly 30 questions that ask you everything from, you know, their name and their
relationship with you, parents, sibling, mentor.

250
00:21:47,209 --> 00:21:48,700
um

251
00:21:48,700 --> 00:22:00,096
how you refer to each other, nicknames, describe their sense of humor, describe their
personality, know, their, how they speak, their speech cadence and share some shared

252
00:22:00,096 --> 00:22:04,038
interests, some shared memories, how they made you feel, when did you meet, how long,
right?

253
00:22:04,038 --> 00:22:06,139
So this is the initial input.

254
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:08,801
That's where it stands right now.

255
00:22:08,881 --> 00:22:18,326
My, the next, the thing that I'm currently working on is kind of an agentic and rag
framework that will take anything else you put in there and remember it.

256
00:22:30,264 --> 00:22:31,875
Yep.

257
00:22:31,875 --> 00:22:33,036
pretty static.

258
00:22:33,306 --> 00:22:36,898
but it is the point was always to be user centric.

259
00:22:36,999 --> 00:22:41,141
I want this to be the memory that you have.

260
00:22:41,622 --> 00:22:42,102
Right.

261
00:22:42,102 --> 00:22:47,876
If we built these, you know, what we could do is have everyone that knew this person put
things in there.

262
00:23:00,416 --> 00:23:01,916
Right.

263
00:23:01,916 --> 00:23:03,916
Right.

264
00:23:05,168 --> 00:23:07,919
So it's user-generated inputs.

265
00:23:21,479 --> 00:23:23,165
you

266
00:23:23,165 --> 00:23:29,097
therapy situation where you basically are in a group with 10 other people with full
permission to just treat.

267
00:23:29,321 --> 00:23:35,183
The person on the other side of the room as that is mom, is dad, that is brother, that is
whoever harmed you, that you never dealt with it.

268
00:23:35,183 --> 00:23:39,441
And you can practice safely in this space, what you would say, what you would do.

269
00:23:39,441 --> 00:23:49,429
ah And whether you ever actually take that practice and put it into reality and say the
thing to dad that you never got to say or whatever, that's on you, but it does help you.

270
00:23:50,193 --> 00:23:53,976
sort of exercise those demons and to be able to move a little more freely in the world.

271
00:23:53,976 --> 00:24:01,100
Is there a use case here where it could be essentially that that practice therapy where
it's, know, I've got beef with dad.

272
00:24:01,100 --> 00:24:10,947
I want to sort it out with him here before I go and get on a phone call or actually write
him a letter, because that's I mean, that's to me, that's where AI is really powerful is

273
00:24:10,947 --> 00:24:19,693
in helping us with the practice so that we can then in reality go out and use what we've
learned from our research or from our from our brainstorming with the tool.

274
00:24:19,773 --> 00:24:22,726
to try to make the world a better place if you're doing it right.

275
00:24:22,726 --> 00:24:23,706
Right, so 100%.

276
00:24:23,706 --> 00:24:30,209
That is, I guess, yes, that is a use case for this.

277
00:24:30,209 --> 00:24:41,754
In a broader sense, right, and something that I didn't conceive of initially, because I
was in my own bubble, grief is not restricted to death, loss.

278
00:24:42,415 --> 00:24:48,887
I guess loss is kind of the commonality, but we grieve when our kids go to college.

279
00:24:48,887 --> 00:24:50,159
We grieve when...

280
00:24:50,159 --> 00:24:52,411
our friend gets married because our life changed.

281
00:24:52,411 --> 00:24:54,071
don't, you know, we grieve when we get married.

282
00:24:54,071 --> 00:24:55,503
We're not out with the boys every night.

283
00:24:55,503 --> 00:24:58,725
Like all of those things have an element of grief.

284
00:24:58,987 --> 00:25:09,275
And you know, the other thing that I, that I quickly realized was, you know, to your point
grief for my specific scenario is these three people had profound positive impacts on my

285
00:25:09,275 --> 00:25:10,095
life.

286
00:25:10,136 --> 00:25:14,699
That is not the case for everyone and for every relationship.

287
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,052
Grief and healing can get very dark.

288
00:25:18,118 --> 00:25:22,549
You know, sometimes the object of your grief hurt you in profound ways, right?

289
00:25:22,549 --> 00:25:24,580
You you talk about abuse, you talk.

290
00:25:24,580 --> 00:25:29,001
And so being able to, to your point, exercise those demons in a safe space.

291
00:25:29,461 --> 00:25:30,421
Wow.

292
00:25:31,042 --> 00:25:32,822
You know, that is absolutely something we're exploring.

293
00:25:32,822 --> 00:25:45,242
I have a friend that I went to high school with, who's testing this, his kind of specific
use case, but his brother had a, uh, a mental break and he has been estranged for 10

294
00:25:45,242 --> 00:25:45,476
years.

295
00:25:45,476 --> 00:25:46,776
Now he's not gone.

296
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:47,610
Right?

297
00:25:47,610 --> 00:25:49,311
He could have a conversation with him.

298
00:25:49,311 --> 00:25:56,688
Who knows what that conversation looks like, but he is, I haven't spoken to him about how
it's, how it's felt and, where he's at with it.

299
00:25:56,688 --> 00:25:58,820
And, you I don't know if he'll want to share anyway.

300
00:25:58,820 --> 00:25:59,660
Right.

301
00:25:59,660 --> 00:26:08,687
But that's another thing that I had never thought of, you know, these are relationship and
basically any change in relationship could be a, a, a reason to grieve.

302
00:26:08,687 --> 00:26:17,124
Um, and, and coming to terms with those, finding resolution to that feeling again, that's
what we're going to come back to is resolution.

303
00:26:17,572 --> 00:26:23,338
allows us to then take the steps to live healthy and productive.

304
00:26:27,346 --> 00:26:28,117
Yeah.

305
00:26:28,117 --> 00:26:28,937
Traumagating.

306
00:26:28,937 --> 00:26:36,542
um just the, human experience is just a collection of responses to different trauma
inputs.

307
00:26:36,623 --> 00:26:41,066
And I mean, we, we grew up with a variety of traumas throughout our life.

308
00:26:41,066 --> 00:26:46,690
I mean, I'm, some people say, you know, having the umbilical cord is traumatic because
you're losing your first connection with your mother.

309
00:26:46,690 --> 00:26:47,571
Birth is traumatic.

310
00:26:47,571 --> 00:26:49,412
I mean, all these types of things.

311
00:26:49,412 --> 00:26:54,155
I mean, trauma builds scars and scar tissues kind of develop and grow us into who we are.

312
00:26:54,456 --> 00:26:55,204
And

313
00:26:55,204 --> 00:27:01,527
Sometimes that trauma is necessary to uh become the person that you are as an individual.

314
00:27:01,527 --> 00:27:13,492
And then sometimes that trauma just fucks with you in profound ways that you can never
really work through because the cause of the trauma is different or too much time passes

315
00:27:13,492 --> 00:27:15,693
and the person doesn't know how to interact with you.

316
00:27:15,833 --> 00:27:22,846
Do you see people and you bring up a really good point about, I there's still something in
my life that, you know,

317
00:27:23,356 --> 00:27:26,537
I can't really talk to because I can't talk about these different things.

318
00:27:26,977 --> 00:27:39,981
This seems like a really, really good tool for kind of going through and looking at these
things in a way that maybe doesn't give you closure, but at least gives you an outlet to

319
00:27:39,981 --> 00:27:46,363
ask questions in a way to something or to someone that having those direct conversations
and interactions with would be too painful.

320
00:27:47,824 --> 00:27:48,644
yeah.

321
00:27:49,243 --> 00:27:57,945
I found, you know, for me, it was the response that I got that helped, you know, that that
was what catalyzed this whole thing.

322
00:27:58,185 --> 00:28:08,828
You know, to your point in therapy, they have various treatments that fall under the
umbrella of psychodrama, you know, playing this out, whether it's the empty chair

323
00:28:08,828 --> 00:28:15,000
technique or writing a letter or, know, that the group you talked about, and that person
is the object of, you know, say whatever.

324
00:28:16,312 --> 00:28:18,904
Up until now, you couldn't get a response.

325
00:28:20,085 --> 00:28:30,512
And this response hopefully feels authentic enough that it gives you that release of
whatever that weight has been.

326
00:28:33,993 --> 00:28:45,580
Well, I can say, I I haven't used your tool specifically, but I'm, one of many that have
turned to AI in times of, you know, mental instability and just needed someone to sort of

327
00:28:45,860 --> 00:28:48,081
vent to work some things out.

328
00:28:48,362 --> 00:28:53,765
And when, when you believe enough in the ability to sort through your own thoughts,

329
00:28:54,235 --> 00:28:56,617
It doesn't really matter that it's a robot.

330
00:28:56,617 --> 00:29:01,891
It's giving you the right prompts to get your brain working in the right way to start to
see the resolution that you're looking for.

331
00:29:01,891 --> 00:29:10,307
And there are times when I just openly weep at what I reveal to myself by asking a
machine, how come I feel like this?

332
00:29:10,307 --> 00:29:11,519
Why is this happening to me?

333
00:29:11,519 --> 00:29:12,160
What is this?

334
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:13,461
What's going on here?

335
00:29:13,461 --> 00:29:17,743
And if you've given it the right prompt and it's not just...

336
00:29:18,148 --> 00:29:20,659
Standard robot, but it's got some therapy background.

337
00:29:20,659 --> 00:29:25,370
It's got some coaching background and knows a little bit about you and knows what you want
in terms of that interaction.

338
00:29:25,390 --> 00:29:27,791
It can really help open up a lot of things.

339
00:29:27,791 --> 00:29:41,015
And so I just I'm unbelievably excited for the idea of being able to put a voice or a text
to the multiple mentors that I've lost in my life and the holes I've been trying to fill

340
00:29:41,015 --> 00:29:45,336
in their absence and the absences of people that should have been there for me growing up.

341
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:53,355
You know, there are so many times when I meet somebody and like oh, maybe this is the new
maybe they can fill that hole for me Like I want to stop feeling that way.

342
00:29:53,355 --> 00:29:54,145
I want to feel like okay.

343
00:29:54,145 --> 00:29:55,706
I'm I'm a grown-ass man.

344
00:29:55,706 --> 00:30:07,593
I'm 50 years old I don't I don't need that person to turn to so it's it just sounds like
an incredible relief to be able to have my mentor in my pocket and sort of personify it

345
00:30:07,593 --> 00:30:12,967
through the people that I've lost that that I miss their guidance and wish I had just a
piece of them to point me in the right direction

346
00:30:12,967 --> 00:30:18,840
and also part about being a grown ass man is that sometimes you just have to deal with
shit, but you know.

347
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:24,533
Yeah.

348
00:30:36,324 --> 00:30:36,774
you

349
00:30:36,774 --> 00:30:41,394
me again, you know, in my therapy journey is about organizing my thoughts because I didn't
have a starting point.

350
00:30:41,394 --> 00:30:47,014
You know, my therapy for the last 10 years before I did this was as soon as it turned to
grief is like, well.

351
00:30:47,441 --> 00:30:48,441
Yeah, that sucked.

352
00:30:48,441 --> 00:30:48,762
did that.

353
00:30:48,762 --> 00:30:56,885
You know, my friend is no longer here and it was still, I was still shut down because I
didn't, I didn't, you know, I deal with this with my wife regularly, right?

354
00:30:56,885 --> 00:30:58,691
She wants to talk about something immediately.

355
00:30:58,691 --> 00:31:00,023
I need time to process it.

356
00:31:00,023 --> 00:31:04,738
I need time to get my head, to wrap my head around it before I'm ever going to have a
productive conversation.

357
00:31:05,624 --> 00:31:16,249
Well, and when you spend years self-medicating and numbing it, the ability to unwrap that
and to face it for what it is, is so much harder than had you never done.

358
00:31:16,249 --> 00:31:24,083
Speaking as someone who definitely, I feel the same way I've heard you describe it, is
like not necessarily an addict, certainly coped, certainly an enthusiast for making the

359
00:31:24,083 --> 00:31:25,094
pain not be there.

360
00:31:25,094 --> 00:31:30,076
ah But that severely, I think, inhibits your ability to deal with.

361
00:31:30,076 --> 00:31:38,339
those feelings and to be able to process them in a way that even in therapy or with your
closest family or to be able to articulate them in a way that makes sense to them or even

362
00:31:38,339 --> 00:31:43,446
makes sense to you is incredibly challenging because you've just stuffed it down for so
long and numbed it.

363
00:31:44,234 --> 00:31:46,658
and that's what you're used to, right?

364
00:31:46,658 --> 00:31:48,841
We're habitual beings.

365
00:31:48,923 --> 00:31:53,870
And a lot of what I did was habit more than anything else, you know, just breaking out of
that habit.

366
00:31:53,991 --> 00:31:55,121
But, yeah.

367
00:31:55,121 --> 00:32:02,340
Yeah, I mean we get we have a pain threshold and once you hit that pain threshold if it
sits there long enough That's just your new normal and because it's your new normal.

368
00:32:02,340 --> 00:32:05,947
You're like, alright, whatever I'm just gonna keep not dealing with this.

369
00:32:05,967 --> 00:32:15,612
I mean I I have a myriad of things that I've watched that I walked around with that I
probably should have taken care of that I used other

370
00:32:15,616 --> 00:32:26,536
Other ways to self medicate to try to deal with and it took me, know, hitting rock bottom,
you know, 10 years, 10 plus years ago to really get me out of my own space and, know, fix

371
00:32:26,536 --> 00:32:28,276
the problems that I have with me.

372
00:32:28,276 --> 00:32:37,196
I'm kind of wondering if I don't use this tool to go through and try to recreate, you
know, the shitty version of myself and ask it questions and see.

373
00:32:37,816 --> 00:32:38,636
Yeah.

374
00:32:40,976 --> 00:32:41,376
Yeah.

375
00:32:41,376 --> 00:32:43,596
And, and, and ask these questions.

376
00:32:43,596 --> 00:32:44,564
mean, I did.

377
00:32:44,564 --> 00:32:45,944
The it is real, right?

378
00:32:45,944 --> 00:32:52,186
And like, it wouldn't be a bad idea to go through and try to understand those pieces and
understand my ego in the same way.

379
00:32:52,186 --> 00:33:01,129
And you know, if I can create these personifications of myself, even if they're virtual,
and actually have a better idea of how these things work, maybe I can actually be that

380
00:33:01,129 --> 00:33:07,984
grown ass man that I think I'm supposed to be, as opposed to the 50 year old boy that runs
around doing shit that I shouldn't do.

381
00:33:07,984 --> 00:33:08,892
You know?

382
00:33:08,944 --> 00:33:11,927
You know, a wise man once told me, don't grow up, it's a trap.

383
00:33:11,927 --> 00:33:15,689
So, you know, I don't know how far off you are on some of that, but

384
00:33:16,659 --> 00:33:17,617
Very true.

385
00:33:17,617 --> 00:33:20,689
You know, it's a trap, but I've been in it for a long fucking time, man.

386
00:33:20,689 --> 00:33:30,007
Like I've I've I've well, I've done I've done C level jobs and I've like been in charge of
hundreds of people and all these kinds of things.

387
00:33:30,007 --> 00:33:40,816
And I I try to keep a lot of levity and joking and all these different pieces and then
dealing with very difficult situations with comedy is a huge part of my coping mechanism

388
00:33:40,816 --> 00:33:46,528
and probably the not not the most effective way to deal with things with certain people
and certain interactions.

389
00:33:46,528 --> 00:33:54,356
It's certainly not the best way to deal with myself because I use that to ignore my
feelings and like you say, you know, I'm not going to cry about this thing because it

390
00:33:54,356 --> 00:33:55,026
hurts too much.

391
00:33:55,026 --> 00:33:59,140
I'm just going to emotionally re-regulate myself towards laughter and humor.

392
00:33:59,661 --> 00:34:05,406
And it's just another distraction because dealing with the actual shit is hard.

393
00:34:05,567 --> 00:34:11,152
But if I can have a smart ass version of myself to talk to about it, I might be all right.

394
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:13,311
Well, you know, you bring up a good point.

395
00:34:13,311 --> 00:34:17,133
ah You know, we all want to hit the easy button.

396
00:34:17,633 --> 00:34:22,176
But almost nothing in my life that's come easy has been worth it.

397
00:34:22,176 --> 00:34:25,517
You know, and this is this is supposed to be hard.

398
00:34:26,078 --> 00:34:33,732
Dealing with our you know, this is one of the things in life, you know, especially someone
close, especially someone that really that inner circle.

399
00:34:35,375 --> 00:34:37,016
A, we're not supposed to go it alone yet.

400
00:34:37,016 --> 00:34:41,957
Somehow our society has made it taboo enough that nobody feels comfortable talking about
it.

401
00:34:41,957 --> 00:34:47,540
So that's first and foremost, like we need to cut that shit out and get it out there.

402
00:34:47,540 --> 00:35:04,476
But, you know, I have come to believe that whether you like it or not, the healing that
you seek lives on the other side of those painful feelings that you have fought and ran

403
00:35:04,476 --> 00:35:05,296
from.

404
00:35:05,628 --> 00:35:07,860
for however long, fill in the blank there.

405
00:35:08,181 --> 00:35:17,292
And if you are willing to do the work, if you're willing to face them, you stand a very
good chance of getting to a place where you feel good about them again.

406
00:35:17,953 --> 00:35:25,642
And that's what we're trying to give people, just one little nudge, one little extra, you
know, a little extra help in getting there.

407
00:35:27,055 --> 00:35:36,352
I would argue to anyone who's saying they're fine ah because as I was thinking about this
before this interview, I was thinking, don't have anything to say to that person.

408
00:35:36,352 --> 00:35:43,706
as I had the thought about the person who I have stuff to work out with, thinking I don't
have anything to work out, was like, oh, wait, no.

409
00:35:44,187 --> 00:35:51,653
There is something like it literally like having the thought of I have nothing to say to
this person brought up these feelings of, no, there's there's work to do there.

410
00:35:51,653 --> 00:35:53,875
You got to you got to lean into this and figure out what's going on here.

411
00:35:53,875 --> 00:35:59,219
So ah whether it's through a tool like this or something, I've got some work to do.

412
00:35:59,219 --> 00:36:02,132
So this was uh educational for me in my in my own field.

413
00:36:02,132 --> 00:36:05,227
So I can just imagine the person listening going like, fuck that guy.

414
00:36:05,227 --> 00:36:06,115
I don't have anything to say to him.

415
00:36:06,115 --> 00:36:07,386
Like you do.

416
00:36:07,386 --> 00:36:08,357
You said fuck that guy.

417
00:36:08,357 --> 00:36:10,208
There's a reason you said fuck that guy.

418
00:36:10,208 --> 00:36:12,039
There's there's something to work out.

419
00:36:12,039 --> 00:36:22,642
them however if I was to actually peel that back and do a little work That's yes
uncomfortable I've found that some of my best relationships I've ever had in my life were

420
00:36:22,642 --> 00:36:32,605
people that I hated at first and we were you know we got into it and we were forced to
actually communicate and communicate deeply and then we understood each other and then

421
00:36:32,605 --> 00:36:37,516
that relationship You know exploded it blossomed because we did that

422
00:36:38,394 --> 00:36:41,117
You know, we assume a lot.

423
00:36:42,340 --> 00:36:43,742
And when you go and...

424
00:36:43,957 --> 00:36:50,425
curious about this for you because you mentioned how you sort of emotionally shut down
during this period of grief.

425
00:36:50,425 --> 00:36:52,208
How were you before this?

426
00:36:52,208 --> 00:37:01,918
Were you an open and vulnerable person before or is it through sort of processing this
grief that you found like, there's actually a better way of being on this side of things?

427
00:37:02,502 --> 00:37:06,862
I don't, I can't say that I was an emotionally open person before.

428
00:37:07,122 --> 00:37:13,182
know, the first loss for me came at 21 and you know, any man is not there yet.

429
00:37:13,182 --> 00:37:13,462
Right.

430
00:37:13,462 --> 00:37:24,762
I, you know, I had that moment at 21 came, that was when my partying turned from just fun
to medicinal, but I was doing a good bit of it before.

431
00:37:24,762 --> 00:37:25,082
Right.

432
00:37:25,082 --> 00:37:27,562
I was stunting my growth regardless.

433
00:37:27,562 --> 00:37:30,162
Let's, let's call a spade a spade.

434
00:37:30,182 --> 00:37:31,882
Um, so I wasn't,

435
00:37:31,894 --> 00:37:45,895
I was at that phase in my life, I was very much ascribed to the macho, what is a man
supposed to be, know, beat my chest, talk about how great I am and how cool I am and how

436
00:37:45,895 --> 00:37:47,165
nothing can hurt me.

437
00:37:48,507 --> 00:37:55,552
And I think I stayed in that place because I shut down a mention, you know, emotionally.

438
00:37:56,133 --> 00:37:58,148
And then I was able, you know,

439
00:37:58,148 --> 00:38:10,063
later in life when I didn't start to see the fruits of the things that I thought I
deserved or the way that I envisioned my life started to examine why that might be and how

440
00:38:10,063 --> 00:38:12,354
I can be better.

441
00:38:12,354 --> 00:38:14,824
that, know, looking in the mirror is hard.

442
00:38:15,085 --> 00:38:19,927
It's hard for the best of us and it's certainly hard for the ones that live their life in
denial.

443
00:38:19,927 --> 00:38:27,196
uh And so I, know, that was that journey of, okay, how

444
00:38:27,196 --> 00:38:34,608
can I actually be in control of what I want in my future?

445
00:38:34,608 --> 00:38:39,149
And it came down to accountability, which meant facing all the shit that I didn't want to
face.

446
00:38:39,149 --> 00:38:50,823
It meant looking at myself and saying, the reason that happened, and to an extreme degree,
ownership and the internal locus of control from a psychological perspective, everything

447
00:38:50,823 --> 00:38:53,633
that happened to me was my fault, whether it was or wasn't.

448
00:38:53,894 --> 00:38:55,804
If I believe it's my fault,

449
00:38:55,804 --> 00:38:58,382
You have control.

450
00:38:58,525 --> 00:38:59,446
Right.

451
00:38:59,446 --> 00:39:01,888
I can do something if it's my fault.

452
00:39:02,449 --> 00:39:06,142
And that shift in mindset allowed me to start to start this.

453
00:39:06,142 --> 00:39:15,200
And then when I finally got to that place of, okay, my grief is probably the, you know,
one of the biggest reasons I've stayed in that place.

454
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:17,702
Let's, let's dig into this.

455
00:39:18,436 --> 00:39:19,580
you

456
00:39:19,580 --> 00:39:25,839
me of an analogy that someone said to me once and it's, know, the somebody can come along
and dump trash on your front lawn.

457
00:39:25,839 --> 00:39:30,175
And it's not your fault that it's there, but it's your responsibility to clean it up
because they aren't coming back to deal with it.

458
00:39:30,175 --> 00:39:39,500
So, you know, at some point you become complicit and letting the trash sit there undelt
with, and at some point you have to find out, you know, where can I take control of this

459
00:39:39,500 --> 00:39:41,131
and start to clean it up myself?

460
00:39:42,064 --> 00:39:51,751
You know, or you can look, we live in a world where everyone's free to make that choice
that it's not their fault and they want to sit there and it comes down to what do you

461
00:39:51,751 --> 00:39:52,602
want?

462
00:39:52,602 --> 00:40:04,170
And if you want to live a life where you're a victim and where you are just kind of, you
know, you're at the whims of everyone around you, you're allowed to do that.

463
00:40:05,312 --> 00:40:09,004
It's not a very fulfilling life, but you're allowed to do that.

464
00:40:09,468 --> 00:40:12,439
To get to be the person that is in control is hard.

465
00:40:12,439 --> 00:40:13,740
It takes hard work.

466
00:40:13,740 --> 00:40:15,101
It takes humility.

467
00:40:15,101 --> 00:40:19,182
It takes a lot of difficult conversations with yourself and with others.

468
00:40:20,403 --> 00:40:28,966
And that is not or I mean, that's a great place to start because a lot of my conversations
with others wouldn't have gone anywhere if I couldn't, again, organize my thoughts.

469
00:40:30,847 --> 00:40:33,248
You know, moment of like on my back foot.

470
00:40:33,248 --> 00:40:37,380
Yeah, I've said some shit that, you know, A, I didn't mean B, I didn't even know what I
was saying.

471
00:40:41,378 --> 00:40:49,418
yeah, I mean the only requirement for life is to keep processing oxygen into carbon
dioxide ever everything else in between is

472
00:40:49,652 --> 00:40:57,454
whatever else the fuck you want to make of it and and giving people these kinds of tools
to actually go through and try to take control of these pieces I think is very, powerful.

473
00:40:57,454 --> 00:41:05,817
I, I do kind of wonder, uh, this individual introspection piece and getting people to get
to the point to go, I should actually try to make this thing.

474
00:41:05,817 --> 00:41:09,558
I should actually try to make myself better and have a hard conversations with myself.

475
00:41:10,578 --> 00:41:17,002
That seems like a really interesting angle to look at these kinds of problem spaces
because so much of our drama.

476
00:41:17,002 --> 00:41:23,274
comes back to the way that we interpret certain things and the way that we're looking at
pieces based upon other trombe lenses that we're looking through.

477
00:41:23,274 --> 00:41:29,916
And if I can strip off a few of those lenses and go, you know, how would I have reacted to
this 15 years ago?

478
00:41:29,916 --> 00:41:40,038
Like that might actually solve a lot of these bigger problems because I, I've certainly
gone through these emotional swings where I've been like way too emotional and manic in

479
00:41:40,038 --> 00:41:43,609
some areas and then come back to depression and then find that middle ground.

480
00:41:43,609 --> 00:41:47,020
And like it's the ebb and flow of human existence.

481
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,442
And there's so many different ways that you could take this.

482
00:41:50,482 --> 00:42:00,569
And I do wonder, you know, from a personification perspective, you know, am I going to go
through and put input data in and remember myself wrong?

483
00:42:00,569 --> 00:42:04,612
But also am I going to remember other people that cause these things wrong?

484
00:42:04,612 --> 00:42:07,964
And is the truth actually that I am remembering it wrong?

485
00:42:07,964 --> 00:42:16,690
And can I reveal this because this isn't the shit that's actually happening because memory
is imperfect that I'm storing things based upon different trauma filters like

486
00:42:16,906 --> 00:42:24,222
The number of layers of abstraction within this kind of thinking and these kinds of
thought patterns we're dealing with this is entirely new and different.

487
00:42:24,222 --> 00:42:32,509
And have you considered kind of creating these mapping functions to go, oh yeah, your
memory's fucked up.

488
00:42:32,509 --> 00:42:34,250
That's not actually what happens.

489
00:42:34,250 --> 00:42:37,212
And if so, like what's the downstream effect?

490
00:42:38,802 --> 00:42:40,486
ah No, I have not gone there.

491
00:42:40,486 --> 00:42:42,869
You know this it's hard

492
00:42:45,063 --> 00:42:53,708
you know, where you're talking about going and talking to yourself, that is a very
interesting idea that I, and it's a rabbit hole, think is worth exploring it for

493
00:42:53,708 --> 00:42:54,668
personally, right?

494
00:42:54,668 --> 00:42:58,400
You know, and I think I can certainly add some functionality that would allow people to go
there.

495
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:06,375
But to your point, it's hard to know how objective it is because there is not an, there's
not an arbiter.

496
00:43:06,375 --> 00:43:09,996
The arbiter is you who is inherently subjective.

497
00:43:10,757 --> 00:43:13,318
So does that, you know,

498
00:43:17,304 --> 00:43:18,498
Right.

499
00:43:19,032 --> 00:43:20,402
Does it help or does it hurt?

500
00:43:20,402 --> 00:43:22,012
Right.

501
00:43:22,012 --> 00:43:23,775
Am I just gonna feed my ego?

502
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:33,076
Yeah, yeah, that, well, yeah, that lovely ego that tends to put us in precarious
situations to begin with.

503
00:43:33,076 --> 00:43:35,457
uh That is fascinating.

504
00:43:35,457 --> 00:43:38,780
And that is an angle that no, had not thought about before.

505
00:43:38,780 --> 00:43:44,624
um But you can bet that the next time we speak, I will have played with that.

506
00:43:44,624 --> 00:43:48,847
I don't know that I'm going to like what I see.

507
00:43:48,847 --> 00:43:54,370
You know, that's part of this journey, Is eating, taking your medicine.

508
00:43:54,522 --> 00:44:00,677
Yeah, I mean, sometimes you had to like put the carnival mirror up and look at yourself in
that kind of kind of distorted field to figure out who it is.

509
00:44:00,677 --> 00:44:01,948
actually think I am.

510
00:44:01,999 --> 00:44:10,425
so I mean, I wonder if, you know, there's a way to, you know, if we, if we train this
thing, right, and say, assume the worst, right?

511
00:44:10,425 --> 00:44:16,430
And you kind of come out and come at this understanding that this thing may take liberties
that makes you even worse than you were.

512
00:44:16,430 --> 00:44:23,454
But then you, you know, you, kind of overcorrect and maybe you find yourself in the middle
and that is the, you know, that's the healthy place to live.

513
00:44:23,535 --> 00:44:26,567
Cause I see that as for me, that's the best place.

514
00:44:26,567 --> 00:44:28,158
You know, when I was

515
00:44:38,696 --> 00:44:40,239
Yeah.

516
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:49,843
atone for the worst, and worst case scenario, my god, I made amends and I went and I said
sorry to someone for something that maybe didn't hurt them as much as I thought it did?

517
00:44:50,163 --> 00:44:52,565
What's the harm in that?

518
00:44:52,565 --> 00:44:56,266
So I think if we were to go down that, would be, let's...

519
00:45:21,012 --> 00:45:22,646
you

520
00:45:23,521 --> 00:45:26,402
then, you know, so

521
00:45:26,814 --> 00:45:35,318
I'm sure there's, I can think of a few people in middle school and high school who would
probably have that view of me that is, you know, the worst case scenario.

522
00:45:35,599 --> 00:45:42,702
And then a few that, you know, so this one, that one might be, it might have to be
crowdsourced to get a truly objective picture.

523
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:46,595
But does it right?

524
00:45:46,595 --> 00:45:47,586
Because that's that's

525
00:45:47,586 --> 00:45:48,770
not objective at that point.

526
00:45:48,770 --> 00:45:51,073
It's a small sample size is what it is.

527
00:45:51,073 --> 00:45:51,568
yeah.

528
00:45:51,568 --> 00:45:52,652
mean, but they're all subjective, right?

529
00:45:52,652 --> 00:45:53,583
Reality is subjective.

530
00:45:53,583 --> 00:45:59,710
Anytime you're going to take human interaction and put into it, you're going to have
subjective responses and taking it as a, yeah.

531
00:46:01,673 --> 00:46:02,503
Yeah.

532
00:46:02,503 --> 00:46:14,329
go to their funerals and you hear people go up and speak and one after another, I have a
very recent example where everyone who spoke described the man that I knew like same

533
00:46:14,329 --> 00:46:18,282
friend, same crazy, like fun, hilarious, always smile.

534
00:46:18,282 --> 00:46:20,242
Like everyone had the same thing to say.

535
00:46:20,403 --> 00:46:26,190
One of my mentors who passed everyone who spoke gave a different slice of his life that
everyone else didn't know.

536
00:46:26,190 --> 00:46:29,212
And there was like 10 different people on display at this funeral.

537
00:46:29,212 --> 00:46:35,176
So it's interesting to consider if you're crowdsourcing, who am I to the outside world?

538
00:46:35,176 --> 00:46:39,049
I am whoever I chose to project myself to be to those various people.

539
00:46:39,049 --> 00:46:45,764
So my work colleagues would tell you I'm one person and my family would tell you I'm
somebody else because I'm a different person to both.

540
00:46:45,764 --> 00:46:50,247
I'm a little less likely to say something stupid at work as I am to my kids.

541
00:46:50,247 --> 00:46:54,170
So it's just interesting to even consider like, who am I?

542
00:46:59,383 --> 00:47:04,016
And this is an interesting angle of.

543
00:47:04,016 --> 00:47:06,470
going down a hole I did not think we'd be going down.

544
00:47:06,470 --> 00:47:09,606
Yeah, yeah.

545
00:47:09,606 --> 00:47:11,086
know thyself.

546
00:47:11,127 --> 00:47:12,507
Most of us don't know ourselves.

547
00:47:12,507 --> 00:47:15,128
Most of us don't know, understand our motivations, what we want to do.

548
00:47:15,128 --> 00:47:17,680
Like, we don't have our five-year plan in our heads.

549
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:19,670
Like, we don't do any of this mapping.

550
00:47:19,710 --> 00:47:25,633
And we kind of live in a society that doesn't require us to do that because we assume any
distractions.

551
00:47:25,713 --> 00:47:29,245
But this is like an epically interesting distraction.

552
00:47:29,245 --> 00:47:32,916
Like, can you actually know yourself in a meaningful way?

553
00:47:32,968 --> 00:47:36,631
and solicit feedback and get people to say, yeah, that's who you are.

554
00:47:36,631 --> 00:47:42,606
And how much of it will actually open your mind up to who you are projecting the outside
world?

555
00:47:42,606 --> 00:47:43,878
Because most of us don't know.

556
00:47:43,878 --> 00:47:50,734
I, my kid came to me one time and said, dad, every time you talk to me about this thing,
like it looks like you're mad.

557
00:47:50,734 --> 00:47:53,228
I'm like, what, why?

558
00:47:53,228 --> 00:47:55,878
They're like, cause you're doing this with your face and talking about this.

559
00:47:55,878 --> 00:47:59,171
I'm like, oh, but that's just cause that's the way that I talk.

560
00:47:59,171 --> 00:48:00,672
My face is expressive.

561
00:48:00,672 --> 00:48:01,092
Right.

562
00:48:01,092 --> 00:48:02,772
Like that's not I'm not mad at all.

563
00:48:02,772 --> 00:48:04,052
Like, no.

564
00:48:04,852 --> 00:48:11,152
I'm sure there's a million things that have to do with pantomimes and everything else that
you probably can't put into a eye to figure out, but I'm sure there's inflection tone and

565
00:48:11,152 --> 00:48:16,012
the way that we talk and communicate like the way I'm talking right now is not at all how
I talk when I'm at work.

566
00:48:16,012 --> 00:48:18,472
Like it's very different from how I talk with my kids.

567
00:48:18,472 --> 00:48:21,172
And Jeremy was one of the grooms at my wedding.

568
00:48:21,172 --> 00:48:23,772
He's seen me talk in his different interactions.

569
00:48:24,092 --> 00:48:28,492
And I have different layers and I contain layers as an individual.

570
00:48:28,492 --> 00:48:29,392
But.

571
00:48:29,822 --> 00:48:31,536
I don't know that I know myself that well.

572
00:48:31,536 --> 00:48:36,767
I know the personification that I push forward and I kind of know, well, I kind of think
this, but I'm going to say this.

573
00:48:37,490 --> 00:48:40,190
I know who I want who I think I want to be

574
00:48:40,190 --> 00:48:45,139
Yeah, yeah, I have this self image that I think I want to attain.

575
00:48:45,139 --> 00:48:47,002
Am I actually hitting that kind of number?

576
00:48:47,002 --> 00:48:54,096
Ooh, this sounds really, really painful for really good, but maybe useful, you know?

577
00:48:54,096 --> 00:48:54,890
Maybe.

578
00:48:54,890 --> 00:48:57,712
there's the old, we're our own worst critic.

579
00:48:57,933 --> 00:49:03,098
Yeah, but how capable are we of actually being the critic we need?

580
00:49:03,577 --> 00:49:05,519
Yeah, interesting.

581
00:49:06,001 --> 00:49:10,346
John, we could go on and on, as you can tell, but we've taken up enough of your time.

582
00:49:12,690 --> 00:49:17,146
We'll scrape this for company ideas, we'll feed it into ChatGPT, we'll have something
launched in a week.

583
00:49:17,146 --> 00:49:18,167
It'll be great.

584
00:49:18,528 --> 00:49:22,524
We'll get what is that uh lovable.dev to build us an app for it.

585
00:49:22,524 --> 00:49:23,283
It'll be perfect.

586
00:49:23,283 --> 00:49:24,906
There we go.

587
00:49:24,906 --> 00:49:25,839
John, your app.

588
00:49:25,839 --> 00:49:28,214
Let's talk about the tool that you offer.

589
00:49:28,214 --> 00:49:31,538
Guardian Angels tell folks where they can find it and where they can find out more about
you.

590
00:49:31,538 --> 00:49:33,779
ah So it's called Guardian Angels.

591
00:49:33,919 --> 00:49:37,120
It's is spelled A-I-N-G-E-L-S.

592
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,921
uh GuardianAngels.ai is the site.

593
00:49:39,921 --> 00:49:40,960
It's a web application.

594
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:43,863
We're working on mobile development, so be on the lookout for that.

595
00:49:43,863 --> 00:49:48,725
ah But again, I want to reiterate A-I-N-G-E-L-S.

596
00:49:48,725 --> 00:49:51,566
Our brain does not see that eye.

597
00:49:51,566 --> 00:49:54,058
And I shot myself in the foot with that one.

598
00:49:54,058 --> 00:49:58,549
I have tried, you know, if you see on the logo, like it's bracketed so you can see it.

599
00:49:58,849 --> 00:50:00,796
I can't tell you how many people have been like,

600
00:50:00,796 --> 00:50:02,981
Well I've tried to go to your website, it doesn't exist.

601
00:50:02,981 --> 00:50:05,149
You

602
00:50:06,426 --> 00:50:07,787
Yes, it does.

603
00:50:08,407 --> 00:50:09,308
Yeah.

604
00:50:09,748 --> 00:50:14,352
Yeah, I might have to go domain shopping and figure this one out.

605
00:50:14,352 --> 00:50:19,506
But, you know, I thought I was, I was trying to be clever.

606
00:50:19,506 --> 00:50:20,706
I still like it.

607
00:50:20,706 --> 00:50:24,499
So maybe my stubborn, you know, the self that I need to know will just stick with it.

608
00:50:24,499 --> 00:50:34,385
ah But yes, Guardian Angels, ah you know, web application where I'm building a, the
community, a community around this thing.

609
00:50:34,994 --> 00:50:41,814
For a lot of people that I've met and experienced online, all of those support groups are
just inundated with spammers and scammers.

610
00:50:41,974 --> 00:50:49,914
So I have actually, and this just launched the other day, created the Army of Angels, and
there will be links on the website.

611
00:50:50,254 --> 00:50:53,494
It is behind a paywall, so it's $5 a month.

612
00:50:53,494 --> 00:50:58,134
That $5 will get you, can be used towards any subscription on Guardian Angels.

613
00:50:58,674 --> 00:51:02,314
But the idea is to wall off those people.

614
00:51:02,314 --> 00:51:04,934
The scammers aren't gonna pay to be in there.

615
00:51:04,936 --> 00:51:05,556
Right.

616
00:51:05,556 --> 00:51:15,130
be you know, I'll drop things like the actual prompts were feeding so people can do them
on their own if they want ah You know just resources that we can all Collectively start

617
00:51:15,130 --> 00:51:27,665
and continue that conversation that for whatever reason we're afraid to in the wild ah You
know, there's many of the million reasons for each person But we're trying to to build the

618
00:51:27,665 --> 00:51:34,378
ecosystem to get this conversation into the open So that's linked on the site as well ah

619
00:51:59,514 --> 00:52:01,014
Yeah.

620
00:52:01,014 --> 00:52:02,749
Yeah.

621
00:52:02,749 --> 00:52:04,100
Um, so.

622
00:52:04,933 --> 00:52:05,333
Amazing.

623
00:52:05,333 --> 00:52:08,905
uh have the correctly spelled link in the show notes for this episode.

624
00:52:08,905 --> 00:52:10,760
You can click on that to find Guardian Angels.

625
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:12,683
John, fantastic conversation.

626
00:52:12,683 --> 00:52:14,726
Thanks so much for your time today and for the work you're doing.

627
00:52:14,726 --> 00:52:16,471
Jeremy, Jason, thank you very much.

628
00:52:16,471 --> 00:52:17,635
was a pleasure.

629
00:52:17,635 --> 00:52:19,277
Love to do it again sometime.

630
00:52:19,701 --> 00:52:20,361
Yeah, we'll do that.

631
00:52:20,361 --> 00:52:21,342
Sounds great.

632
00:52:21,505 --> 00:52:22,153
Take care.

633
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:23,640
Alright folks, there you go.

634
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:25,221
That's our conversation with John Cameron.

635
00:52:25,221 --> 00:52:26,141
Really great conversation.

636
00:52:26,141 --> 00:52:27,611
I hope you got a lot out of it.

637
00:52:27,611 --> 00:52:35,744
And you know, if you're still thinking maybe this isn't for me, maybe this isn't the thing
that I need to get over my grief or to find my way through or out of it or whatever,

638
00:52:35,744 --> 00:52:37,834
whatever story you're telling yourself.

639
00:52:38,115 --> 00:52:39,095
Fine.

640
00:52:39,095 --> 00:52:40,956
Do do something else then.

641
00:52:40,956 --> 00:52:43,336
But sitting with the grief isn't going to work.

642
00:52:43,336 --> 00:52:49,378
So whether it's, you know, screaming into a pillow, running, going to the gym to process
some of those feelings.

643
00:52:49,444 --> 00:52:56,543
journaling something just something you got to process that stuff because otherwise you're
gonna hang on to it and it's gonna it's gonna get in the way of you being able to move

644
00:52:56,543 --> 00:53:04,992
forward and and try to learn new ways to live with that grief Because that's the thing
grief in my experience.

645
00:53:04,992 --> 00:53:10,528
I have a lot of it I've lost a lot of people I've lost a lot of uh loved ones that have
been close to me

646
00:53:10,528 --> 00:53:11,842
and the grief never leaves.

647
00:53:11,842 --> 00:53:14,972
just takes up a little bit less space in my life.

648
00:53:14,972 --> 00:53:18,128
And so hopefully this is one way to help you accomplish that as well.

649
00:53:18,128 --> 00:53:24,116
If this conversation has been helpful for you, please do share this episode with somebody
in your life who could benefit from hearing it.

650
00:53:24,116 --> 00:53:31,503
And as always, if you have a moment, please make sure you subscribe or leave a review or
just keep listening while you're pretending to the lawn or whatever it is that you're

651
00:53:31,503 --> 00:53:32,053
doing.

652
00:53:32,053 --> 00:53:37,699
Either way, make sure you take care of yourself, be good to yourself and we'll be back in
about a week at brobots.me.

653
00:53:37,699 --> 00:53:44,225
That's where you can find all sorts of ways to share the episode, sign up for the
newsletter, whatever it is you wanna do to be part of our community.

654
00:53:44,225 --> 00:53:45,446
We'd love to have you there.

655
00:53:45,446 --> 00:53:47,952
So we'll see you soon at brobots.me.