Julian Dorey Podcast - 🫣 #88 - The Kids & The Pandemic | Don Palmucci

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

(***TIMESTAMPS in description below***) Don Palmucci is a therapist, counselor, homeless liaison, and former Internationally-Ranked bodybuilder. ***TIMESTAMPS*** 0:00 - Intro; The negative impact of Virtual learning on kids; The “Lost years” of the Pandemic; Missing Memories; Bad Habits forming during the Pandemic; Abuse victims and Homeless students 32:56 - What made Don get into therapy; Don talks about addiction counseling; Working with sexual abuse victims and suicidal patients; The problems with the criminal justice system; Don talks about an old company he had 56:32 - Post career struggles (pro-athletes and military as examples); Sitting alone with your thoughts; Don talks about tough love mentorship and tells the story of a kid who surprised him 1:18:45 - Don talks about growing up and what got him in weightlifting; Don recalls his career an a bodybuilder; A story about going out to California on a whim; Arnold Schwarzenegger was a beast 1:38:14 - don talks about the afterschool alternative detention program he invented (this is awesome); Growth mindset; Creating energy for your environment; The overkill of “motivation in modern day culture; Weightlifting and the discipline it instills 2:10:17 - They locked the gym for a year  when the Pandemic started; Masks in school; The psychological impact of the iphone on the kids during the Pandemic; Lack of social interaction for kids right now 2:28:39 - Atilis Gym and their pandemic fight against Governor Murphy; Learning a lot about people watching how they work in the gym 2:38:26 - Mental Health problems for kids in the Pandemic; Kids’ growing problem of coping with any stress/struggle/confrontation; Cyberbullying; The resources schools need right now; The School Shootings problem; the long term mass population effects of lost time for the youngest generation’s development ~ YouTube EPISODES & CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0A-v_DL-h76F75xik8h03Q  ~ PRIVADO VPN FOR $4.99/Month: https://privadovpn.com/trendifier/#a_aid=Julian   Get $100 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover: https://eight-sleep.ioym.net/trendifier  Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey  ~ Beat provided by: https://freebeats.io  Music Produced by White Hot... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I just see how much it's affecting our society in general because I see it from an everyday basis, from the school system to somebody that's in a gym to somebody that coaches college soccer to somebody that's a father. And what I can tell you as an American, I know what's going on is wrong. And I'm just like, wow. i say to my kids i said good luck good luck because this is this is all going to fall apart at some point you're gonna the chips have to be cashed in at some time what's cooking everybody If you are on YouTube right now, please hit that subscribe button. Hit that like button on the video. And as always, if you have a second, would love to see you drop a comment down in the video comments section as well.

To everyone who has been leaving likes and comments on these videos, I say it every week. It's a huge help. Let's keep it coming. You guys are awesome. To everyone who is listening on Apple or Spotify right right now thank you for checking out the show there if you haven't already be sure to follow on either one of those platforms and if you have a second leave a five-star review as well and i look forward to seeing you guys again for future episodes now i am joined in the bunker today by mr don palmucci and this is an episode that even in some public comments, but especially in DMs, people have been asking for the topic. And that is on the state of kids in this pandemic and everything that's been going on. Obviously, society has been flipped upside down. The youth, I would argue, is probably the most affected by that as far as their development with education and different social norms and stuff like that. And I've felt awful since the beginning of this thing for anyone who's still in any level of school,

whether it be college kids who missed out on their college experience, all the way down to kindergartners who are trying to integrate themselves into a social environment for the first time. And so Don, Don does a lot, but Don's trade that he's had for a long time is he's a therapist and specifically he's specialized in working with kids. And so he's also been in charge of a million programs within an actual school district as the therapist and a bunch of different titles. And I loved, absolutely loved some of the things that he even did long before the pandemic, as far as like leadership and and mentoring kids and and stuff like that so he was a perfect guest to bring in we had a great

conversation around kind of where things stand with the effects of the pandemic and how it looks in the schools and where we're going with some of the restrictions now seeming to come up knock on wood here and we also talked a lot about i mean he's a great storyteller so we talked a lot about different things that he's done over the years in the schools and just this was an episode all about the kids so hope you guys enjoy really really loved having don in here and that said you know what it is i'm julian dory and this is Trending. Let's go. This is one of the great questions in our culture. Where is the news? You're giving opinions and calling them facts.

You feel me? Everyone understands this, but few seem to do it. If you don't like the status quo, start asking questions. Gym boys. Chain shot. The school gym? The school gym. start asking questions the gym was a chain shot the school gym? the school gym because no kids were allowed to train isn't that nuts

that in the pandemic where we knew pretty early on like any other disease or virus, whatever the less in shape you were the less equipped you were to deal with it and yet the things that we shut down so heavily that we then continued to put all these restrictions on, including like you had to wear masks to go there and everything, are like the places where you fucking work out.

Yes. It's insane. Yes. Goes against any common sense. Like as it, because you're're not you work in the administration where you are we're going to talk about everything you do today i'm sure i'm very excited to do this but the politics of having to deal with that to speak up and try to let's call it what it is make the most of a difficult situation where especially the first three four months everyone's scared because

you saw how society was even if there are people who kind of warmed up two three weeks in there's still a lot of people watching the news every day listening to social media oh my god everyone's gonna die and you got to sit there and be like well someone's gonna have some common sense in this room to have this conversation I guess it's got to be me so like how does that even go well what i can tell you is when you have a strong superintendent which we do that's good and his first comment to the cabinet was that i don't want to hear what you can't do i want to hear what you can do and what do you need to do it and that resonated to everybody and that was the very beginning of the pandemic he said that at the very beginning he said that at the very beginning and you know dr broswick is just a a very innovative cutting-edge guy I came in when he came in and anything I needed I

just had to show why I needed it and what the purpose of it was and if it was for the kids and it was for the good of the kids I got it and awesome you couldn't work at a better place than that when you got somebody that is willing to hear you and support you and support kids i mean that that's what it really came down to and i you know i would imagine that you know when when this came along it was you're right everybody was scared to death you know including me i was like starting a question oh yeah people actually up here yeah you know you're i was like starting to question oh we actually up here yeah you know you're at home depot and i'm like do i have the right mask on like he's a little close to me and you know your little anxiety sets in so um but you know in the same time you have to

educate kids and the best way to educate kids is not you know online it's proven no i mean kids were struggling struggling bad who was paying attention well i mean i i think i think i think the schools had the best interest but then i I think the political side came in. And then when the political side got involved, then you had, you know, it became gray. The area became gray. And now you're fighting the political side of it, you know? And overall, I mean, what's best for the kids?

Let's figure this thing out. What's best for the kids? And I will tell you, I mean mean we were only shut down for two weeks and i think it was just because that the the county cases had risen not because of the school cases it was more because of the county and the commitment was that we were going to be in-person learning. Wait, you guys two weeks into the pandemic were in-person? Oh, we were in-person pretty much the whole pandemic. We're one of the only schools. In New Jersey? In New Jersey. I mean, there were some others, but a lot of schools went virtual where we stayed in-person. Wait, I'm sorry. I did not know this.

We did not talk about this when we were going through some of this stuff i thought in new jersey this wasn't even a question i was gonna ask i thought in new jersey it was like a law i mean i don't have kids in school so i'm not in it i don't know i thought it was like a law that for the rest of that 2020 year that i guess 19 20 year when the pandemic hit in march they had to all be virtual. I didn't even realize that some of these schools were still doing it in person. Well, so what our administration did, you know, with starting with our superintendent, he decided that he wanted to send out a survey to the parents and find out what they wanted. Did they want in-person?

Did they want virtual? Did they want hybrid? And so I thought it was genius. That's amazing. Genius. You know, put it in their court because they're the ones that are going to be affected the most. Yes. They got to find daycare, babysitters, whatever they got to do because they still have to work.

Yes. And normally their children are in school while they're working. Now if you send these kids home to do virtual and they got to go to work, who's going to take care of them? And from a mostly blue-collar town, which is Pensville, you could see that most of those people understood. Truck Month is on at Chevrolet. Get 0% financing for up to 72 months on a 2025 Silverado 1500 Custom Blackout or Custom Trail Boss. With Custom Trail Bosses available, Class Exclusive, Duramax 3-Liter Diesel Engine, and Z71 Off-Road Package with a 2-Inch Factory Suspension Lift, you get both on-road confidence and off-road capability.

Dirt road ahead? Let's go! Truck Month is awesome! Ask your Chevrolet dealer for details. Good that I got to make a living in this whole thing. Otherwise, I can't pay my rent. I can't pay my mortgage. And so the majority, and I forget what the statistics were, but it was pretty much, you know, sided towards they wanted kids in person yeah and again they they were in jobs too where a lot of those you know we're talking about essential frontline type jobs it could be anything from even plumbing and stuff like that where they got to be out on the road you can't do that virtually no no so they understood priorities yes that is really interesting you know that your your superintendent did that.

You don't hear these stories, especially from New Jersey. A very strong individual, I would say. I would say that, like I said, he does his research, you know, and he doesn't go, in my opinion, with what others are saying. He wants to know himself what's working, what's not working. I mean, I've had some great conversations with him. And I remember at a football game, him talking about, you know, his research, his thoughts and what he thought about, you know, where this thing was going and what he could do best for the kids, you know, and I knew he was going to stay strong. And, you know, what I can tell you is our kids were learning when a lot of kids may have been struggling yeah you know um with the virtual now in my opinion pull that mic up just a little bit yeah in my opinion i would say that

the higher end of of the spectrum of intelligence and and kids that are doing well in school could handle virtual because they can self-teach. I would say the middle line and anybody that needs more support was going to struggle. And if you looked at the statistics, that's what you saw. You saw these kids that they needed that one-on-one talk. They needed that teacher to come over and show them in person, this is what you need to do. That's really hard to do virtually. It's really hard to do. It's not possible.

Yeah. And, you know, I would say that this for education was a big disaster in my opinion big disorder um because we didn't we didn't educate kids like we're supposed to educate kids for probably up to a year and a half it's been we're at two years now coming up on two years yep so it's like the end of February now and I guess I hit March 13th 2020 so that's now you're talking two full years of school. And when you extrapolate that, you're not just looking at like critical years. All years of development are critical. Yes. So the 11th and 12th graders who lose their 11th and 12th grade years, I say lose lose but let's say have severely less value out of

those years are now far ill or equipped i don't know if that's a word but they're not great going into college yeah the 9th and 10th graders never got a chance to adjust to high school yes the 7th and 8th graders aren't gonna be ready for high school the 5th and 6th graders they don't even know what middle school is yeah and all the kids below that who are developmentally i don't know what word i'm looking for but when you are say below the age of 10 especially when you look at the science kids are all about learning from their environment around them and specifically the environment of what faces say to them when they're saying things to learn social cues social cues so now forget the education and it's it was hilarious to them when they're saying things to learn social cues social cues

so now forget the education and it's it was hilarious to me when they were doing like virtual i i had friends who were teachers and they're teaching like kindergartners on virtual forget that yeah these kids aren't together they're alone at home so down to the lowest levels we're now we're getting a generation of what's going to be like COVID babies or like the COVID era who are going to be far less equipped to deal with their fellow human being, which feels almost – feels a little sketchy to me when you look at it and you see where our world's going. And as I was telling you on – I think this was off camera before, but like it's tough for adults. God damn. For kids, I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine being stuck in the middle of this. Yeah. And I think you hit on the point,

the social cues and those early years are more important than anything because the frontal cortex is just wanting to take information in there like little sponges, you know what I mean? And they learn so quick. Um, as you older, obviously, the learning curve slows down a little bit. And listen, it was K through 12 that struggled in this pandemic, literally K through 12. I think what more important was is you got to the social part. There was no socialization whatsoever. Now, as you go to middle school and high school, there's no clubs activities.

There was no sports. There was no proms, dances, all the things, the fabric of America that makes us such a strong nation is gone. I mean, my fondest memories are high school. College was great great i love going back to my my town my my former town and riding my bike every year i do it once a year where'd you grow up i grew up in a town named marsville marsville pennsylvania it's another river town kind of like pensville got it um i i just you know, small school, loved it. Probably didn't love it as much then as I do now looking back.

Funny how that works. Yeah. And just the experiences I had in that small town. You know, you played both ways in football. You know, the wrestling team i had my one buddy came out to a big tournament that my son was in sat with me all day watching my kid wrestle then two weeks later i was all the way up in the Poconos area and another buddy flew in, watched wrestling all day.

Here's a guy, guys I wrestled with, God, 30 years ago. Literally 30 years ago. But we built those relationships through being on a team and being together and going through battles with other, which these kids lost

that you can't replace. You can't get it back. That's you can't replace you can't get it back that's a good point you can't get it back yeah like when someone was seven and eight years old they're never going to be seven or eight years old again yeah so all the things and i like how you pointed out that it's exponential meaning like i i don't know if that's the way to explain it but you were saying at a younger age the the the curve ends up flattening out or something like that as you get older like that's why for example when you teach a kid another language at age three and four yeah it sticks yeah right whereas when you try to teach them at 15 it's harder when you teach them at 25 good luck yep you know so they're the the learning ability

has been ripped from them assuming that they lost most of their opportunity through virtual learning and through not being around people. But the not being around people goes so much farther in the education and goes to that whole interpersonal relationship building. And you bring up something simple like relationships you built from where you grew up, the town grew up in and your friends you played sports with and i would say that's that's been a generational thing across every american generation from the 20th and 21st centuries now we're looking at a generation that is going to be the first one that has an enormous disconnect from their fellow person and the the scary part about it is the comfort of what it provides because it's almost like what's that one quote rogan says it all the time it's like many many men live lives of quiet desperation right yeah they don't know why they're miserable well they do they they they're They don't know why they're miserable.

Well, they do. They're sitting on the couch and they're miserable and they don't remind themselves it's because they're sitting on their couch and not doing anything with their life or not going after their passions or seeing other people, simple things, right? It doesn't just have to be about like

how much money I'm going to make. But they get stuck in that because that's the easy thing to do. They get up, the couch is right there. The TV's right there. You do it one day, you do it it two days you do it three days you do it a week a month a year boom you're not getting out of it yeah now these kids they got used to getting up opening up i guess like the laptop or whatever maybe they did it on on an iphone too ipad whatever and going to virtual class not paying attention and not really getting graded hard because teachers – there's only so much teachers can do, and they want to be fair too.

Everyone's dealing with it. And now they're told – and this didn't happen with your school but a lot of schools. Now they're told, oh, you've got to go back in person. Oh, you've got to talk to people. Oh, there's going to be a dance this weekend. You've got to ask that girl to dance. You've got to be okay failing too. Good luck with that. Yeah. And I think you make a good point. this weekend you got it you got to ask that girl to dance you got to be okay failing too yeah good

luck with that yeah and i think you make a good point you talk about habits you know there's good habits and there's bad habits and in that situation there was a lot of bad habits that were basically brought into you know kids lives waking up whenever you want to. Kids not showing up for virtual learning because mom and dad weren't home. If they're a little bit older, who's watching over them? Who's going to make them wake up and get on the virtual learning class? You know, there's a lot of those habits that were formed when the brain is still developing, which is now not a good thing because that's kind of ing way beyond what they need to do to be a good teacher, staying afterwards, talking to kids. I got one situation where one of the kids in the school, he got in trouble.

He had a pretty rough upbringing, and he got in trouble down in Wildwood. And the one teacher drove all the way down to Wildwood to be a character reference for him. And you know what? The unique thing about him is that he ended up turning out really, really well in life. He's doing great now. Those are awesome stories to hear. Yes. And this individual, he's also part of the weight room, the afternoon weight club that we run.

We're going to talk about that. Yes. I love what you're doing with this. Yeah. And he's just a compassionate teacher. And you know that he's going to see the things in certain kids and ask the good questions and show empathy and show that he cares about them. And I think a lot of those teachers, you know, because the teachers were vilified there for a little while.

Oh, sure. You know, just that whole environment too. Like they get paid, you know. You got to understand a lot of these teachers got $150,000, you know, college debt. Oh, yeah. And, you know, you start at $45,000, $50 45 50 000 you're not going to pay that debt off for 20 25 years i mean you know it's almost like the system is set up to fail them yes no it's it's the stories like that i love to hear and i'm curious how many of them we've been able to get in the past couple years and so many places because how do you build a relationship with your new class when it's just you're on zoom yeah you know and the other connotation there that

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it's a full mattress but i use the eight sleep pod pro cover i love it use that code trendifier with my link at checkout get a hundred dollars off and change your life today you point out that in that story the one about the kid in wildwood you know he didn't come from a from a great home and a good situation you know things that a lot of us can simply take for granted and in this pandemic you know at any public school private schools too depending on on where it is like you're dealing with sending some kids to now not have the one environment that's their escape that fills by the way a lot of their time and and gives them a positive influence overall in their life and instead you're now saying no you have to go and live in your situation at all times and I think about the kids and you and you and I were

talking off-camera about this but I think about the kids who you know are at home where there's people using drugs around them or who don't give even child abuse don't give a shit about them and now they don't even have the reprieve of the outside world just to pretend that they're normal for eight hours a day yep i mean listen it's not only educational stability i call it social stability it's the one environment where they're safe they have that social environment where it's positive in many ways from interacting with other students with interacting teachers like I just talked about that care about them as well as I mean think about how many kids that may

have been abused that weren't even, you know, identified because they're in the environment. They're not at the school. Where is it detected most of the time? In school by a nurse, by a teacher, seeing something, going, asking the tough questions. Are you okay? Or, you know, there's something wrong there. You know, could you tell me a little bit more about that? And then that's where you dig and you find out maybe something's not right there.

And so you took away the protection of the other environment, which was the school, which is, you know, people don't realize it's the best interest of the child. We're trying to educate them. We're trying to socialize them. We're trying to do a lot of things. How many of those do you get a year oh you know because i'm sure you you get notified of all of them you know believe it or not i've been there a long time we don't have many issues along those lines we really don't so that's more rare i i would say our issues are more just um you know i'm also the homeless liaison.

So we have kids that are either transient. So in other words, they're either living with relatives, they're sleeping on other people's couches or, you know, maybe dad died, mom's struggling and those type of things where, you know, we have to help them right away, get them education stability, make sure they stay in our school, make sure if they're living in the town next to us that we get them bused back to our school so it stays stable. We're not sending them to the school next door,

which now it's all new friends, all new teachers. Everything has to change for them. No, we keep it stable. Bus them back. And that's called the McKinsey-Vento law. you know, everything has to change for them. No, we keep it stable. Bust them back, you know, and that's called the McKinney-Vento law. And through the federal McKinney-Vento law, it's our obligation to, first off,

eliminate all barriers. So these individuals can now get their education no matter what's going on in their lives. Whether there is, you you know a domestic what's that law called it's called mckenty vento yeah mckenty vento um you know that's another um area that i'm the mckenty vento coordinator or homeless coordinator um that when i took it over it was oh it was a lot of work sure and um had to get streamlined and you know it over it was who result there's a lot of work and um... had to get streamlined in you know it's it's a

i think it's a great law because think about it these kids don't have a and we just talked about that they don't have any stability in our lives the house burnt down or you know parents got divorced and

they got shipped to grandmoms oh so it's also you're trying to with this law you're trying to keep track of not just oh a kid's living in the town next over now wherever he's going to go to school there we want to stop him from going to school there it's also like well is he going to go to school at all or is he going to be lost to the system and you want to make sure that doesn't happen? Yes guys. So this law because you said yeah, I got to pull it up here, but you said it's Like who does it punish does it punish high schools that don't follow up on this type of thing? Well, it really doesn't punish anybody that the big issue is you do something wrong. I mean, um, the big issue is it the school that is responsible for the kid going homeless.

So in other words, say they went homeless from Pennsville and they end up in Penns Grove. Penns Grove, if they decide to stay in the Penns Grove, they charge Pennsville for the tuition. Yes, it's interesting. I like that. Let's put it this way. There was a lot of money when i when i took it over i'd never done homeless before when i took the job because that that was a title that just kind of got pushed down to my desk you know it's interesting um but probably my

biggest job when i first took over the position um you know sometimes 400 500 000 moving from place to place you know you're talking about half half a million how many kids when i took it over we were close to 100 105 kids we're down about 26 27 because i think i've identified them better and i also think that um i just think that people are doing a better job of placing them or finding them homes and stuff like that. But going back to that, when a kid comes from out of state, like say a kid comes from Florida and they're living on a couch of grandmom or relative. Now, we charge the state for the tuition. So the state picks up the tuition.

It's just an interesting thing financially there's this whole financial background of it that nobody knows about it that i do because you could lose a lot of money if you're not on top and i'll give you i'll give you an example we had a kid that went homeless in in another area in the state and the school told me that it they if they stay in that town for a year they become a resident of that district and then what happens if they're sleeping on a couch even if they're sleeping on the couch it takes one year it's 12 months residency criteria so they go there they sleep on the couch at that one year mark we no longer pay now it becomes their responsibility to to basically educate pay for everything that type of thing now if that kid then goes somewhere else and is homeless now

they pay that other school so it's it's very's an intricate little system, but here's the thing. Sometimes schools, like the school told me, oh, they had moved from the hotel on this date. Well, I checked, I called the hotel and, um, and I was in contact with those people and said, oh, we left this date. So we weren't really responsible for that. So we would have been responsible for that debt for another year when it really wasn't our debt. And that's tough too because you're trying to do what's in the best interest of the kids and there's so many different ones to unfortunately to have to keep track of and where are they? And a lot of them through no fault of their own in that situation probably aren't like the greatest students either because they're not in school sometimes. It's like a whole – it's kind of a cynical way to say it, but it is true. There is a business in this country with everything.

And school is no different. You got to pay for it. You got to make sure that you can hire the teachers to be there and set up a good you had you got to pay for it you got to make sure that you can hire the teachers to be there and set up a good enough environment for people to learn and that does require attendance it requires a population in the school so you know when you talk about laws like this i've never heard of that i'll have to look more into that but you know i i think the the spirit of it is is very good because you're trying to create accountability for not letting kids slip through the cracks and fall through the system pretty much. I think what's unique about it too, through the McKinsey-Venter law, you can provide counseling, in-home counseling, and everything's paid for. Through our region, they set up certain counselors that we can call and

send out on off hours. There's tutors, there's a number of things. We're provided with like backpacks and clothing and food and those types of things if they need them as well, which are very supportive. And I think the biggest thing with people that are surfing on couches and stuff like that is the stigma of it. And so when they feel there's a stigma where they're going to be asked too many questions, oh, where are you living? I need a bill, blah, blah, blah. Now that's a barrier. And when that barrier goes up, guess what they do? They just don't come back to school. Yeah, they shut down.

They shut down. And the goal is not for them to shut down. The goal is to get them back in school, stabilize them, have the one thing that's constant in their life, your same teacher that says hello to you every morning, that asks you, how are you doing? The guy in the hallway, the administrator in the hallway, good morning.

You think they're simple things, but to a kid like that, it's more than simple. That's the one thing in their life that's normal. And it goes so far. And I just think it's a wonderful law. And it's done wonders, I think, for a lot of these kids that have had rough lives moving from place to place and just trying to help them get back on the right track as well as then have them be productive human beings later on in life. And so they put that – you said you didn't have experience with homelessness, but they put that on your desk and reading through everything you do, you're're wearing every hat here so it was only natural they were going to give you this one too yeah but what what got you into this because we're going to talk about i do want to get to that thing you mentioned about the the system you put in place for i guess like the the opposite of

detention for detention in like a very good way very cool stuff but it's very clear that a guy like you who's not a teacher but a face that kids see at school you've been a a major source of confidence and comfort in them throughout this entire pandemic especially and so leaders like you who are in schools around this country there's a lot of great people yeah we're working at schools and working with kids but sitting in your kind of seat and seeing all these things and it being your job not as the teacher but as like the evaluator psychologically sure how everything's going it's that that's a heavy burden to carry and it's got to be someone who's passionate about it so i you know when did this become a thing where you're like you know i want to work with all these kids and this is what

i want to do i i think it it all started with coaching coaching you know because you're constantly mentoring you're leadering you're a leader you're you're trying to make people better not only just in the sport that you're coaching but as human beings i mean you understand that they're not going to play soccer for the rest of their lives or they're not going to be a wrestler for the rest of their lives. So, you know, you have to teach those values and those morals that when they step over the line, that it's more than the sport. That's why there's consequence. That's why you may have to sit a match or you might sit a soccer game because you didn't do the right thing.

I think, you know, because when I originally got my master's degree, I did a grad assistantship with the wrestling program at the college of new jersey and i had an unbelievable mentor coach there named dave eisenhower um in the wrestling hall of fame won over 600 dual meets five national championships he was a mentor of men and just even you know when he passed away was you was hard on a lot of people. A lot of people blogged about the things that he taught. And listen, I was not the perfect assistant coach. I can tell you that.

I mean, God, I won't do that again. And just remembering conversations from him to this day. And going back every year to sit in his office. And it's like I was know yesterday with him still teaching me about life and um and just just a wonderful experience because i kind of wanted to be how he taught right you know i wanted to be the same mentor he was um and then obviously you know you know it morphed from there and then then And then I went out into the real world. And then eventually, because my degree is in counseling, personal services.

Oh, really? Yeah. So with this emphasis in drug and alcohol. So with the therapist background, that whole nine yards. Did you, I'm curious about that, just a sidebar on it. Were you, so you majored in that with an emphasis on drugs and alcohol? Yes. Was there a specific reason you wanted to do that? And she had anorexia and bulimia, and she used to confide in me a lot.

Not that I thought I was great at it at the time, but, you know, I was a good ear for her to sound. I was a sounding board to her. And so she kind of was like, you know, you're really good at this. Maybe you should be a counselor. You know what I mean? And I was kind of, you know, I wanted to be pre-med the first two years. I struggled. It just, you know, I was always a good student,med the first two years i struggled it just you know i was always

a good student but i just didn't think it was for me and yeah you got to be so interested in that yeah and not only that and if you're you're an athlete and you're trying to do sports and you're lifting weights and you're doing all these other things it just it it wore me down to the point where it ground me up and that's what they try to do you know you really can't do anything else but be a doctor you know no that's and that's how it should be too because like if it's not think about it if you go into a doctor's office and everyone's got different personalities yeah but if they don't love what they do yeah do you want to go to that doctor no no they better love they love they better love every mitochondrial whatever cell there is in there that i can't i just definitely butchered that but like that that is a good it's a good way to put it it's

it's a good way to sift the people out who really want to do this yeah so i mean so with that that that kind of pushed me into that arena arena and then i said you know what i'd like to specialize in drug and alcohol and the crazy part i didn't have any drug and alcohol in my family. That's interesting. So it wasn't one of those things. And I will tell you, they were hard on me in my master's degree because they felt at the time, like things were different then. You're talking about in the late 80s, early 90s when I did my master's. Don, I thought you were 35.

Oh, yeah. I wish. So the whole premise back then was that you needed to experience being an addict in order to be able to counsel addicts. So I used to get that a lot when I was doing, you know, the mastery in classes and speaking up and it was always like, well, you don't, you never felt the way they felt. And I never agreed with that whole philosophy because I always felt that if you followed the principles of counseling and you were empathetic and you were good at what you do, you didn't need to be an addict or a former addict, I should say, to be a good counselor in the drug and alcohol world. It's kind of like saying maybe this isn't a perfect parallel, but if you're a cardiologist, you need to have had a heart attack. Yes.

Think about that. Right? Like your job is to listen and study and learn over time, right? Like the first day you're an alcohol an alcohol counselor you're probably no good you gotta you gotta actually see like okay and it sucks because it's like well well they fucked up we won't do that again and as people but that's that's a part of like developing into the job so that's that's weird that that was the attitude i i don't know is that that's not as much the attitude today you know because i wouldn't have thought because i i you know when i finally went back to being a therapist i i didn't

go in that arena i didn't really enjoy that arena because here's what i'll tell you so if you're a baseball player and you play on a baseball team and you lose 80 of the time do you really like knowing baseball? Drug and alcohol counselors lose a lot of battles re Relapse is constant. Um, you're constantly losing battles. So if you're competitive You're like I'm competitive. I'm like wow, I'm losing this battle I'm not winning this battle and it was hard for me to understand because you put a lot because you invest time, effort, empathy. And a lot of times that doesn't work in that career.

And so I kind of said, you know what, this isn't for me. And it was interesting because an older guy told me. So you intern and the old guy goes puts me aside he goes you know you can't believe a damn thing they tell you and i'm like oh okay they lie and i was like oh okay so i mean he's trying to educate me on the back side of now here's an older guy that had been doing it for years and years and been through the wars and but he was committed to it that was going to be his life he was committed to it me i was like my eyes were wide open i'm like i don't know if this is for me you know and so

i originally then i mean at that point then i started going towards the other the other way which was more a therapist child child adolescent therapist which i really enjoyed because going back to kids can change oh yeah and they can change quickly and they can train change drastically whereas i wasn't i didn't i wasn't a therapist or counselor counselor for the adults. I was the only child and adolescent therapist. I had over 100 kids on my caseload. And I was really good at it. Was that through like a school system? No, that was actually through just a counseling agency in Salem County.

And you're young. You're 20, 24. Well, that was when I was a little bit older. That's what got me back to where I am now. Got out of the private market and got back. And what happened was Pensville was sending a lot of kids my way. And then when I interviewed, that was kind of like my in. Like, listen, I know what's going on in the town.

I know where you need help in that type of thing. So that kind of parlayed me in that I heard there was a lot of applicants, over 100 applicants for my position. You had familiarity. Yeah. And believe it or not, having the wrestling coaching background, like all these things, they help. They saw, you know, the College of New Jersey, five national championships. You know, that comes off the page, you know the college of new jersey five national championships you know that that's that that comes off the page you know and um my time being a child adolescent therapist was really interesting because the question you know you have to do an intake interview and there was always what do you

mean so you do an interview where you got to get all the background information on this this child or adolescent and you got to ask tough questions you know sexual abuse and you would always go down and you're getting to that you know what question that is question 28 and you know you're you're you're looking up going oh please please tell me no you know what i mean and then when the kid says yes and you're like wow here we go now my case has become that much harder that's not how do you deal with i'm i gotta ask you about this how do you deal with that when you get the yes right away where does your mind go my mind goes to sadness that that that because you know having kids you know of my own and knowing that that poor child, what they've endured and then trying to not fix it,

but make it right and, and be the person in their life that can actually take them to a better place. That was, Ooh, that, that, that was the hardest part about that. You know,

the kids that come in that may, may need it to be more social, simple. simple let's let's work on being more social let's work on raising your voice let's work on the techniques are simple the techniques aren't simple for that kind of thing if it's if it's actively like if they tell you yeah it's happening right now is that where the law i don't know what it's called but the whole where this is where you can report it yeah you have to break you could that you know the things that you break confidentiality for are is if you tell if that person tells you they're going to harm themselves or harm others or abuse they're actively happening yeah that's actively happening

and at that point now, confidentiality, and that's, and listen, that's the thing you explain right out of the gate. You introduce yourself, you know, obviously everything's confidential. You go right down the line, but if this is going on or that's going on, or you tell me this, then I have to break confidentiality and notify, you know? So. But I think that the big thing, going back to more of the positive side of kids is when you're good at what you do and you care and you want to help them, they can change. Amazing.

I remember seeing kids later on after I helped them for over a year, you know, seeing me at the supermarket. Hey, how you doing? I was called Mr. Don, you know. Mr. Don. Mr. Don. Hey, Mr. Don, how you doing? You know what I mean? And parents being grateful for what you did, you know.

That's a home run. Yes. When the parents are on board with everything you're doing to help their kid, that's a home run yes parents are on board with everything you're doing yes help their kid that's a home run i will say one of the saddest times was i did have a few adults that got pushed onto my caseload when counselors left um and i had an individual then that took his own life the you almost feel guilt like what did what could i have done what could i have done to help this individual see clarity and see that the world's a great place not a bad place a great place and his situation was very very interesting with um walls and. And the noose got tightened on him.

Like, you know, from a standpoint of that, he felt like he can get out from underneath the laws. And he couldn't eat the laws. So there was laws that kept getting put on top of them because of, you know, probation and that type of thing.

He, he didn't see an out. He didn't see a future. He didn't see that he could live a normal life because every time he's trying to like he has to report can't get a normal job because he's got a report like in the middle of the day like how's a guy supposed to work a normal job it's another it's another topic but we should go with that for a second because it is i think about this a lot now we have a society where we call these places departments of corrections right i don't do a lot of correcting

there that's not that's not the that's not the idea and then when prisoners come out look someone goes in there and they're a serial killer they're never coming out right you know they're they are a clear danger to society and they're they're incorrigible or whatever the term is but like you know people they they go they serve their time that's their debt so to speak in quotes and then yeah you you paid your debt yeah and we have set up a system now that makes it and and i don't have a good answer for all of it because like there's certain things of course like you don't think i would have wanted to know jeffrey epstein was was a sexual predator of course i wanted to know that sure there's certain things where this does not apply but you know people who do some normal shit sometimes i don't want to say

normal but like you know they fuck up once and then they can never get a job they're followed their whole life even if they're off probation probation, there's background checks and all this stuff. It's normal parts of life. But like, you know, we don't, you become a convicted felon or whatever, and then you're that forever. Yeah. That's, that's archaic. You have that label that labels there, and you have to put that on your job application.

Yeah. Do you think they're really going to hire that person after they check that box? Yeah. Of you think they're really going to hire that person after they check that box? Yeah. Of course not. I mean, listen, I think we fail from a standpoint of, you know, we're shipping jobs here or there. Why couldn't we have jobs set up already where we're spending tons and tons of money with our government? You're telling me we can't provide jobs for these individuals. Going back to kids and going back to homeless,

they just need stability. Yeah. They need hope. They need to have a normal life when they come out. The problem is there's no normalcy because they can't get the basics, which is a job, which you need a job to make money,

to have an apartment, to buy food. So what's it do it pushes them back into criminal behavior yeah because you don't have nothing else you know it's and it's the system it's not hard to figure out but you have to put the money in the right things you know yeah and the shitty part is it's also this is where it gets into like anything in the world. There's downsides to everything, and this is where you get to one of the downsides in capitalism. I always say I think capitalism is the best system in the world.

I don't think socialism is a good idea at all. I don't think any of that shit is, but it has its flaws, and when you look at free markets and you talk about incentivizing setting up stability and jobs and stuff like that, this is a global world. Am I okay with the fact that our iPhone was made with slave labor? No. Do I own an iPhone? Yes. Do I feel a certain type of way about that once in a while? Yeah.

Do I think that's good? Absolutely not. It's a horrible horrible thing but that's an extreme the the less extreme is where yeah people who aren't slaves might make something for three dollars in guatemala or something and you know it costs eight here yeah how are you setting up you're a businessman your job running your company is especially if you're a public company sure i mean these people are brutal the the investors and everything like they got to report quarterly to all these people and there's screaming in the media people sending out tweets now in the modern day yeah about their company it's like well they gotta make it over there yeah and and the the incentivization for them to do it here yeah is so low it sucks yeah i mean so i i mean to answer your question

i mean there's been so many different avenues that took me to where i am today you know from the background and and and you know i honestly think that you know if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. And you take paths because they're the paths you're supposed to take. And I think it starts with just good people around you. I always say you hang with a bank robber, you become a bank robber. Yes. You hang with people that are successful and positive and good human beings, you will be a positive, good human being. What's that quote? Birds of a feather flock together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, for instance, that individual that was telling you about great human being Mark Moore, you know, me being his mentor. That was another thing. I mentored him at a young age. That was another thing that kind of professional relationship. That was, well, I forgot this one piece. So when I got out from the master's degree, um, I started this company called program for results term pro results. And my whole premise was that back then nobody did it. It literally, my son goes, you really screwed up. I can't believe you gave up on that. And so the whole premise was that athletes, you know, athletes that come from bad backgrounds,

when they had too much idle time, they were going to go back to the old school roots. They were going to go back to the bad influences and they were going to get in trouble. Which, if you looked, a lot of them did. But if you built their pie of life that was more positive.

So, take the pie of life here. Boom. Sports. Making lots of money. They're training every day, morning, night. They're watching film. They have time to go

and do really dumb things right a couple of them do yeah yeah some of them find a way right so now you go yes you build the other pie of life where they donate time to a charity so now you're starting to complete the pie then you get them to invest in a new company where they got to constantly be there in their off season where what what what is their passion you find out what their passion is and you build that piece of the pile so now instead of going back to the old town going back to the old city where you know bad things are happening they're too busy to do that. And so ProResults, Program for Results, it basically set goals on a daily, weekly, monthly basis and where you had to check in with me.

And we went over it every week, whether it was at the time there was no Zoom, but there was starting to get technology somewhat like that, cost a lot of money. And I actually- Yeah, I was going to say you were holding the Gordon Gekko phone people yes yes I mean it was crazy I mean I was kind of ahead of my time so though like again going back to so this individual I was talking about this Mark Moore young young man he was like my first client I did him for free met him in the gym he was a I would say Mark was 16, 17. Oh, so he was still a kid. Yeah.

He still follows the program. He's got the book. And he still follows the program. He's, God, he's in his 40s now. And he'll tell you, I changed his life. I didn't think I was doing that much at the time. So I finally, you know, I take him and I had a kid that was, I say kid, he was in his twenties. He was playing for the Philadelphia Phantoms, which was the minor league

for the Flyers. Well, I do well with him. He gets me in for a meeting with the Flyers. I literally go to the Flyers arena. I meet with one of the top guys and I was close to getting in. And I just, I plugged away for a while and I just couldn't get my foot in any door and I abandoned it. And it's kind of like how I was when I was younger. I was kind of just jumping around trying to find the right things to make money or what I felt. Don't have to. Yes. And, you know, I just, maybe I should have followed the book, you know what I mean? And stayed committed to the one thing, you know? But what I will tell you later

on in life, it all came back. I mean, cause that's how I coach now. That's how I teach kids in school. That's how I mentor all that stuff that I, cause I, when I say I sat and read books for over a year, I read all Tony Robbins books. I read all the motivational books that you could actually imagine that were out there. Bought them, you know, went to Barnes and Noble, bought them all, read them. I took bits and pieces of what I thought was good from each one. And then I said to myself, you know, what's wrong with all these books? You you know what's wrong with all these books? You know what's wrong with all these motivators? They have books that are 500 pages long. Do you really think somebody's going to read that 500-page book and then execute all that stuff in there? condensed version to make it easy to make it where the one percent of gains was happening all the time you gamified it too yes you basically set it up where it's it's it sounds like it was more of

like a making it a communal effort with you yes you know where it's almost like this is business yes life and and i don't mean this in like a stereotypical bad way like light we're gonna make life a fun business yes our business is where do we spend our time well we gotta spend our time on being a pro athlete because that's a lot of time but what about this time of day when i'm not a pro athlete what about that time of year when we're in the off season and then suddenly it's like you you fill that with with something to do and it's not even from like a mental perspective you talk to athletes who have retired i've talked with some over the years of varying degrees of happiness afterwards to a man the ones who didn't

have something else that was at least on their mind while they were playing which by the way isn't their fault either because they're you know some of these guys were great players and they had great long careers you know they're retiring and they're 35 years old sure they got their whole life in front of them yeah and they've been they've been basically call it full time in whatever sport they're in for the last 20 years since they since they got to high school yeah and this is this has consumed their life and you know if it's football they've been watching films since forever and this is all they know and and if they make it to the pros in the pros there's so much shit going on everything is done for you yes you show up here at this time yep you go to this thing at this time we booked the hotel you go to the bus at this point

everyone's moving you you're moving in 12 different directions and so you need people to manage that yeah and then suddenly it's over yeah and you go home and you're like what do i do now yeah and i heard a line in a show like a decade ago boardwalk empire where great show by the way if you're if you're a Jersey guy but boardwalk Empire was Arnold Rothstein in the show said the hardest thing and it's not his quote someone else said this but the hardest thing for a man to do is sit alone in a room with his thoughts and be okay and man we could apply that to a lot of things just while we're talking about this right now I think about like the dudes like tom brady right now is going home to like five businesses he started during his career even him i wonder those two hours in the day where normally that was never a thing he's sitting there

going what the do i do you know you're so intense for that long it's hard yeah i'm sure you saw a lot of that yeah you know and I think that applies to the military too. I mean, these guys, they go and fight in these wars and they're kicking doors down and they're relying on the guy next to them. Because if that guy doesn't do his job, he dies. That's their family. They know more about each other than probably some of the brothers of the brother would know about them. I mean, that's deep. And then we ship them home and they honorably discharge or they retire.

And they saw a lot of shit too. And listen, they need help. Going back to the whole mental thing, the mental thing it's it's huge in all arenas you know and then you expect them to just live normal lives when they've seen stuff that no human being should ever see um that's tough that that's another tough one you know um and and listen that program will work for individuals like that too really would absolutely you know think about it and them checking in i think i think that's the big thing. And you don't have the stigma of, oh, it's a therapist. I never wanted to sound like I was,

even though that was my background and I built it to be therapeutic, but at the time that was a very stigma, shrink therapist. Oh God forbid somebody found out you did that, you know? I mean, they would think you're crazy, you know? When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill.

When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. When you needed help, you know, and I think that's kind of eroded over the years now i mean people i mean even in the military like that was kind of forbidden at one time if they they knew you were you needed a therapist or whatever they would try to kind of push you out now it's just part i mean listen they've finally come to understanding that what these people are seeing and what these people

are going through is traumatic to a person's psyche. Love how they didn't have that figured out in 1945, you'd think, you know? No. I don't, it's a balance, you know? And military is the extreme example, but it's a very real one. We had a lot of, I don't even know the number of active military we have, to every single thing's a problem yeah every single thing like you can't do anything without without consulting on it so you don't want to go there yeah but what i see is that we get those two camps too often where that's what

it is someone says shut the fuck up and deal with it the other person is like no no you had oh oh my god you just ate your breakfast sucked you should talk to somebody about that yeah you know and and i think i think it's kind of on everyone and i'd say their environment around them too having a positive environment of people to understand the critical time to be like hey i i need to talk about things yeah this this is real you know versus also then knowing like, you know what? Today sucked. I'm going to fix that. Yeah.

I can do that. I'm a human being. I have a capability. Yeah. I can do that. And I, I struggle with this because I never want to, I never want to appear judgmental of anyone. I don't know what's going on in their head.

Yeah. But sometimes you have to be like hey you're gonna be all right like like you you are underestimating yourself a little bit and i'm curious like in your seat how often you give a little bit of that i don't want to even say like tough love but like a little bit of that dose of reality to kids where it's like hey i'm helping you with this this and that yeah we got focus on that that's real but like this stuff over here here's the plan go execute yeah no i would use the word tough love i really would i didn't know if you would want to but no no i mean listen kid if if you talk to kids about me they would say that he's hard on me but he cares about me. I think that's what I would say, I would say majority.

There's always a few that you don't get through to. And it's so sad because you're like, why didn't I get through to that? They weren't ready or nor did they want to seek help or get help. But I think what's interesting that I think you have to be tough in order for them to change. Because like you said, you can't go one side or the other side. But I think the only way you can be tough, and what I realized is over the years, is that you have to build the rapport and trust first. Once you build the trust and rapport first, you're able to then be tough. I've been tough in the beginning where I really

didn't get to understand that individual or that person or a human being. And it bit me because that's how they know you. Yeah. yeah because because now they don't trust me yeah because they don't see me as caring and and and that's what i try to explain to a lot of individuals teachers like you got to understand what they're going through first to understand where they're coming from and and listen behavior there's it's not an excuse to act out. But it is the reason why they're acting out. So if you can understand that and just say, listen, they're less likely to act out in your class as a teacher if they know you care about them. And you see that with the teachers that go a little above and beyond to talk to kids after class, after school, or they're involved in their clubs or activities

because these teachers spend time in different clubs, activities, or they're a coach. They're less likely to act up in those classes than they are the classes where they feel the teachers do not care about them. And so going back to my role is, you know, once they realize how much I care about them, I can start changing them. You know, I'll give you an example. There was a kid, a pretty unique individual.

I opened the door from the office. I'm in the main office, so I'm an administrator. So it's the principal, vice principal, and me, the student assistant coordinator. So I opened the door. I knocked this kid's iPhone, going back to the iPhones, into the air, onto the ground. Didn't break. He MFs me. Literally.

On purpose, you knocked him? No, no, no. No, I opened the door. He happened to be walking by. The doors go out. You know what I mean? Oh, dude. the door he happened to be walking by the doors go out you know what i mean oh dude he was he was a kid that transferred uh in from florida and uh had a pretty rough go and uh it hit him he mf'd me

and i i was like i was kind of hot i was ready to roll but you know i'm like i can't do this and so the principal comes up what's going on don i like, he just basically told me to go, you know, F myself and all that. I said, but you know what? That's okay. And we worked through it. So I went to my office and I said, you know what? I got to be the bigger person here. I got to get through to this kid.

You know, I got to do a better job of finding out what's going on in his life to act like that. And he didn't, you know, he had transferred a few times. So this was a new environment to him. He didn't know nobody. He was kind of a tough guy, kind of remind me, you know, he's a tough guy, but I had a good upbringing and I did everything the right way. And I stood up for the kids that were getting bullied, like where he may be the boy. I don't know. So I see him. I go, you know, I had a, it's called a super strength leadership group. So it's this group of just males. We get together and we just talk and we do team building and we do all these great things.

And then I get them to go to the, to the afterschool weightlifting club. And so what we work on is we invite leaders. We invite captains of the football team. We invite band members. We invite at-risk kids. We invite kids that are antisocial. We invite kids that are in special education that may not even be able to talk, maybe in a wheelchair. You're part of the group. We mix out everybody because the goal is to get everybody to get to know each other

on different levels that, you know, the band members like, wow, the football player is a pretty cool dude. He talked to me. And so what I do is I do team, but, and you're with a different group. Like you may be with the band members with the football player one time, and they're on a team and they got to do this team building exercise and compete against others. So they get to know each other. They talk and it's once a week, you know, for eight, eight to 10 weeks. And there's exercises. And then at the end we have pizza parties and then I do the new group, you know? And so I said, you know what, let me, let me ask this kid if he wants to be in my super strength leadership group. He's probably going to think I'm crazy because he basically wanted to fight me.

I said, you know what? So I see him in the hallway and I go, hey, Alfie, could you come over here? You want to come to my office? He goes, okay. Did I do something wrong? I go, you didn't do anything wrong. I said, everything's cool, man.

I'm good, man. I said, you know, let's just talk. And I said to him, I said, so where are you from? He tells me he's from Florida. I said, what know, let's just talk. And I said to him, I said, so where are you from? He tells me he's from Florida. I said, what's going on? I said, you know, tell me a little bit about your life. I said, this is who I am. I said, you know, here's some pictures of moi.

I said, that's my daughter. That's my son. So I give him a little background of who I am. He starts going, wow, he's human. He's not this administrator looking to get me suspended and all that and put the pressure on me and then He sat my office for over an hour and he tells me about you know, Florida and then Believe or not starts telling me like deeper things and I'm like, whoa. I don't think it would go this deep this quick It's more of like a therapy session, you know, they made him comfortable and I made him comfortable and I said listen I said you know you got to go back to class i said we'll talk more i said you can come down anytime

come down and just bullcrap with me you know i said doors will always open i said just tell teacher you need to see the mr palmucci come down and he goes i go i got this leadership group i go it sounds crazy i said it's nothing it's not like a cold or anything like that i said we just to get to get together we eat food i go and we do team building exercises i said you would be great he goes me great i don't know he goes i'll do it though i said okay i said when you hear your name on the uh on the announcement come down he ends up being my best leader ever in the school he ends up speaking at the end of the year to the whole school about what the leadership group and the and the weightlifting club did for him so i get to know him better and i said so what's your goals in life i said you know what

what do you see yourself he goes i, I want to be a Marine. He goes, I can't pass the ASVAB. The what? The ASVAB. It's the test to get into the military. I know that's what it's called. It's called the ASVAB. Yeah.

And listen, it's pretty hard. And so I said, all right. I said, last period, you're going to study with me every day. I said, I'm going to pull up tests, you know, and you're going to go over them day I said I'm gonna pull up tests you know and you're gonna go over I said we're gonna talk about it and we're you're gonna pass this time oh is this that thing you're gonna get like a 34 on yes yes I had a little twin on here he's like I I got there I was taking the test I thought I wanted to do this I'm like fuck I want to do this he sits down and and i handed it in and i got a 33 and i'm like i'm out so he failed it four times and this was going to be the fifth time and i and it was more of

just confidence he didn't believe in himself i think that was the big thing and i you know and obviously he prepped we prepped him for it you know we got you know it's easy you just go on the military website they give you all but it's consistency, repetition. We kept doing it, doing it. He passes it with flying colors, becomes a Marine. I got to tell you. So he knew he had to go to bootcamp. So that summer he trained with me all summer in weightlifting. I had a bootcamp.

Getting ready for bootcamp. Oh, that's awesome. And he's like, normally he wasn't the best trainer in the weight club but he saw the goal and he had the objectives he knew what he had to do i never worked so hard that summer he's like mr palmucci we gotta do more than this i'm not gonna be prepped we gotta go run now we gotta do push-ups this that i'm like okay whatever you want i'm here, man. And he ends up going away. He reenlisted. He did four already. He reenlisted for another four.

He said, I might make a career out of it. He wants to be a cop now maybe. So I made a couple phone calls to some police chiefs that I know from being in the whole, you know, school arena. And, you know, at least he knew what he had to do to become a cop but he goes they gave me like a big huge bonus so i re-enlisted i said perfect so every time he's on leave comes into town we go to lunch we talk sometimes i'll come back in the afternoon i'll lift in the weight lifting club it's it's just amazing to see And he speaks to my leadership group whenever he comes back. That's awesome.

That's awesome. You know what I mean? Starts on the wrong foot and then boom. The crazy part is he wasn't there five minutes and he kicked the kid out of my leadership group because he was disrespectful. I was like, Alfie, I go, it can't be that strict. So I had to somehow get that kid to come back mean i said and then you know so i had to somehow get that kid to come back but he's like you're not gonna disrespect mr park get out and i was like

oh my god what just happened here you know but it was interesting watching him grow as as as a young man and and just doing great and and it's just a wonderful feeling to know that yeah you're not going to change them all and you're not going to impact all of them. But the few that you do, do really, really well. Really well. It's kind of like, and it's, I don't know how I would deal with it. And I do think about this like in seats like yours or like you talked about when you were helping out people and someone killed themselves or back in the beginning like people in substance abuse it's like you can think of it as you lose some people and you're human you do you want to you want to help everyone you want them all to be better and go kill it and be a billionaire and have a great

life and give it all back you know like that's but that's not real yeah there's people who make it and people who don't and i think the the hopeful way to look at it is instead of just like, all right, well, we didn't get through to those four. Hey, this one we did. Yes. What do we do well there? And if you're evaluating that and it's clear with your life's work here, like you give a shit. You do all different things for these kids and if you look at it that way and then see these successes continue to happen and then you you have

relationships with them far beyond them ever being in school yeah and they make these lives that they can all point back to like this one thing yeah you know like wow that day yeah you knock my phone out of my hand and it changed my life you hear stories like that that's that's a beautiful thing yeah and that's like if i were you i hope that's how you focus on it because i'm sure it's hard to you know when when you take some l's but yeah when when you see the kids like is alfie's his name yeah alfie when you see that it's got to be like damn we're really doing something here um he was one he was my biggest surprise i would say because i I didn't know he would be that kind of leader. But I didn't pick up on the cue that wants to be a Marine.

Marines are leaders. Yeah. So I didn't equate the two at the time. But, man, very, very strong in his values, even though he came from a rough rough background but he did have core values that he that he believed in and he stood and he stood by where do you think he got those you know I really couldn't tell you I mean he did suck up the ideas that we were putting into the leadership group like he was one that oh that makes sense.

I like that. But you're saying before that even, he had some sort of- And you know what? Maybe it was his grandfather. He did talk about his grandfather a lot. That happens a lot. Might have been his grandfather. I know that one.

There was, you know, what you see a lot of times with those type of individuals, grandparents are really important. Yes. Really important. Sometimes they're picking up all the mess that's been created. And sadly, by their own children, they're picking up the mess that their own children. Such a wild thing. Yeah.

And you think about that. But then they're great with the kid. But it's their grandchildren. So they're trying to take care of them but um yeah he was a great leader there was another one that had a speech impediment that um people used to he was a huge individual too like six foot something probably weighed two seven he could literally make fun of him people used to make fun of him and he would always say mr bramble john i'm gonna punch that kid's face in and that sounds like a death wish and i would say you can't do that you can't do that you might kill him and and and my first thing with him was i it was a behavior transition group we don't have them no more but that was one

of the things when i first got there and it was all your transition behavior transition group we don't have them no more but that was one of the things when i first got there and it was all your transition behavior transition group so they're trying to transition their behavior to better behavior so they were in a in a in a separate room where separate teacher where they went over certain things and i would come in and work with them and i would have them sign in and he said oh i'm not signing it and i go oh you oh, you're signing in, dude. And he goes, nope, not doing it. I said, sign the paper. Like that to him. And, you know, same thing. Started off a little rough.

But I wore him down. Wore him down. Love him to death. His pictures on my wall. They're all the big six. I got pictures on my wall in my office. And he's been gone for a long time. And I heard he's doing well.

And, oh, oh god the stuff that he endured was you wouldn't want a human you know human being to endure some of the things he endured and i i look at that wall and i go wow he was so fun to be around so fun to be around another great leader become became a great leader And he ended up getting this nickname. And he went from being somebody that nobody knew to by his senior year, people were chanting his name in the hallway when he used to walk down the hallway. And he was just like, I love high school. This is great. But the nickname was developed in the super leadership group, which we had a great leader a young man

named Frank Wyshynski he's a police officer in Pensaville great wrestler one of the most outstanding leaders ever to go through Pensaville and great family mom would would help me out with the drug and alcohol and and you know promoting you know good healthy behaviors in the town. Dad's a great human being. His influence on this individual was amazing. And he learned from him. And like I said, you want to mix these groups with all types. You want that good leader in that group

because you want them to learn from him. To go, wow, I would love to be like Frank. Look at him. He's built great know he's got everything going on and he cares about me cares about me and this was a weekly thing you did a weekly thing so where does it tie in to this program you have with the kids with detention that we alluded to because this is awesome yeah so what i'll do is i'll take you back okay so the whole weight lifting thing came about when i was like 14 so rocky movie comes out the one-arm push-ups cracking the eggs you know throwing them down protein protein and you know i was a skinny at the time it was 102 pound weight

class and i'm like oh i can't stay 102 pounds which my son ended up wrestling 106 as a freshman yeah how tall was he then my son was only five three five i was bigger but i sucked down there because i wanted the spot i wanted to get a spot on on varsity. Because he's like 5'11", though? Six foot? He's 5'9", now. 5'9", 5'10". He looks tall. Yeah, he's pretty tall.

And so I said, you know, I got to do something because I'm scrawny. I'm weak. I'm losing matches. So I got to get into something. And I got into just picking up some weights upstairs. And my dad was in the Navy. And my dad lifted weights and showed pictures of him looking great. I'm like, I want to be like my dad.

I want to be like Rocky. I want to be, you know, and then. You didn't go straight to the steroids? So I go, wow, Arnold Schwarzenegger was big at the time. You know what I mean? He was an icon before. He was an actor too. Yes. Like as a weightlifter yeah and and if you get in weightlifting you you would

that's who you admire you know what i mean charismatic that type of thing so i start lifting my record goes through the roof from one year to next obviously i go up three or four weight classes and i said you know what this i i there's something about this sport that I love. So I met up with another guy. I played baseball. So I played football, wrestled, and played baseball. Baseball disappeared because I meet this other guy named Rich Bonda, another weightlifter, good pitcher.

We're out in the outfield looking around. Nats are flying by. He only pitched, and I played outfield. He looks at me and goes, you want to quit baseball? Lift weights? All the time? I go,

that's a great idea. Next day, we don't come back. So you got right into weightlifting. So I go right to his house. You're what, 15 now? Yeah,

about 15. Yeah, 15. And you go to his house, he's got the Arnold arm blaster and we're we're throwing curls in there and and we finally come to the agreement like after about three or four months like we need more so oh did that go oh no i got it now it's back it's back yeah okay so we decide you know

what we're gonna go to a uh hardcore gym and we decide to go to this gym in trenton called man's world of all days man's world and so my dad goes you're crazy that's in the heart of trenton you do know that you might not come home every day and we're like whatever you know i'm like whatever dad sure enough my car was broken into probably five times six times um stole my radio every time stole my dashboard one time that used to be a thing they'd go in and they'd rip the radio out yep so they literally ripped the whole radio and then they got the faceplate thing see i got the faceplate thing where you you took the faceplate with you so they wouldn't steal the radio no more because you needed the face plate oh yeah

so that's some chestnut checker shit oh yeah but they did steal the dashboard i don't know why they stole my whole dashboard they ripped the whole dashboard out it was gone and you know it wasn't the best of area but that is where i met a very different environment of people. I had different races, Puerto Rican, black, Asian. So you had all these different races, nationalities, religions, and everybody had a common cause. It was to lift weights, be strong, and get big. And that's all everybody cared about.

And everybody supported each other. And when you went in a bodybuilding show or a powerlifting show, they all came out and supported you. They didn't care whether you were white, black, Asian, Puerto Rican. You were family. And guess what?

A lot of these individuals, I saw a guy get arrested in the gym one time. He's doing flies. They come in and they handcuff him. He's like, they're like, gym one time. He's doing flies. They come in and they handcuff him. For what? We're like, oh, my God. Joe just got arrested.

You know what I mean? He's in the middle of doing flies. Like, come on. Let the guy finish his routine. You know what I mean? What was he getting arrested for? You know what? Nobody knew. No one knew.

But what I will tell you is the gym owner had what he called the wall of shame. So when you got arrested, he cut out your picture and he put you on the wall. He still loved you, but his premise was... Well, at least that guy had to fly on there while he was on the wall. He had the best picture of all of them. So, I mean, you know, his whole idea was, I'm going to shame you to be a better person. But what I will tell you, he would give people money when they needed money. He would let people sleep.

He had apartments over top of the gym. It was in a house, by the way. This was a dungeon. Oh, it was in a house. It was in a house. Literally a house. And you'd walk across the floor, and he would just throw a carpet over a hole that went down into the crawl space. And you'd twist your ankle. And then I go crawl space. And, like, you twist your ankle.

And then, like, I go to my bike, I go, you know, Rich, I go, what is that? He pulls it back. He goes, oh, the floorboards. There's a hole. It goes down to the, you know what I mean? He goes, he just threw the carpet over top of it, right? And everything was, you know, he always seen them out there. He had his little toolbox.

He was fixing stuff on his own. And, you know, always seeing him out there. He had his little toolbox. He was fixing stuff on his own. And, you know, stuff was pretty dilapidated. But what I will tell you is the equipment is all you needed to be big. What it came down to is if you trained hard and you had good people that trained hard around you and everybody was motivating you all the time and screaming and yelling and telling you you could do more, you were going to get big no matter what. You didn't need that, you know, planet fitness type thing where everything's perfect you can't scream you can't have chalk come on don't they have like the alarm yeah they ring the bell

or the alarm and come on that's the worst it's so far against what that's not what it's lifting's about and and fitness is about and so going there i learned a lot about just life i learned a lot about different people and so i just i fell in love with lifting so when i got out and got into you know um to college and then i decided you know towards the end of my first you know degree my bachelor degree, I said, I'm going to compete. I'm going to be Mr. New Jersey. I didn't know you competed. If you're looking to search the web privately and not have all these websites track you when you leave, check out my friends over at Privato VPN.

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You will get your privacy, you will keep your speed, and you will love it. So check it out. Yeah, so I competed 23 times in a three-year period. And I got to tell you how hard. I mean, listen, we worked hard. This is bodybuilding. Bodybuilding, yes.

I didn't really do power, even though I was pretty strong. I mean. Bodybuilding is torturous. Torturous. I mean, the pain you have to put yourself through. So me and this guy, Rich Bonda, he loved bodybuilding too. And I ended up winning the New Jersey in 88, win the whole new jersey and it was just it was in atlantic city amazing thing i'd work so i lost the first year went there took second i'm like i'm

coming back i'm winning this thing and you just know you start you're looking at pictures or watching film you're like well my legs need to get bigger. I need to squat more. I need to do more reps. I need to do more sets. And that's what taught me about discipline. Setting goals and objectives and working for something. I mean, sports did too, but this was kind of like, it was very similar to wrestling. It was an individual thing. Yeah, you had a partner, but the partner wasn't helping you out there. It's not their body up on the stage and and the body once you got up on stage was produced earlier right you had to produce that all the hard work that was just what was left on the body when you go out to compete and so starts when you wake it's everything yeah i mean down to the water intake and oh and counting every single macro i, it's everything. Yeah. I mean, down to the water intake and,

and counting every single macro. I mean, it's, it is intense, intense shit. Well, what I will tell you, I was training two hours in the morning, two hours at night, six days a week, one day recovery. Now, what would you, would you do three days a week, like heavy in the morning? And then like, just basically shaping exercises at night with some cardio. What happens is when you get to competition phase which is three months out everything changes the heavy weight goes out the window and you start you're going higher reps as you get towards the show and then obviously the diet change it reminded me of wrestling and that's the part that i really didn't love about wrestling was cutting weight weight. I mean, I cut from 195.

I wanted to make middleweight because I knew I could win that class. And then by the time you weighed in the night before, by the time the night show came, I was back up to about 190 pounds. Oh, yeah. So I put 15, 18 pounds on. So I'm not a middleweight anymore. I'm in the middleweight class, but I'm not a middleweight anymore. Crazy how that works. Yeah.

I mean, and you know what? You get the idea from being a wrestler yeah so wrestling boxing like like yeah boxers do the same thing my one buddy will he's six three yoked pro fighter fights it now he might fight it the 167 or i think the 167 168 but every fight he's done has been at the 162 it's 161 or 162 and he doesn't he's a genetic specimen he has no problem that last week getting right to it and not going crazy to do it the last 24 hours is tough just because you can't really drink yeah but when he fights 14 pounds more the next night yeah and he didn't eat shit at all you know it's just like your body puts it on when McGregor fought Floyd yeah you remember they had the way i think they also had the way in and maybe it was like 161 162 mcgregor fought him at 174 the next day you know that's it's kind of

counterintuitive to me yeah you know so it's the one thing about it is even though i think a lot of that shit especially when it comes to fighting, which is different than bodybuilding, it's not good for you. Wrestling, it's not good for you. Not to say it's good for you with bodybuilding, but at least with bodybuilding, once you do it, it's strictly like so you stand up there and do your show and make the moves. You're not sitting there ripping someone's head off or something like that. Your life's not in danger. Yeah, you're not getting brain damage or anything like that and stuff like that you know um so you were mr new jersey though that was a great i still got still got the trophy down in my my weight room my son looks at it all the time

it's kind of funny um i took second in the mr international that year which was kind of disappointment because i actually thought i could win that mr international international which was a big skip the mr skipped the Mr. National? Well, they had Mr. USA, and then they had Nationals, and you could turn pro. But I knew that was a whole other environment. That's a whole other story, you know what I mean, of just chaos. It's not really long. Correct me if I'm wrong here with your opinion, if it's different.

But it's not really. Like, if you go to be a professional bodybuilder let's say you put in like 15 20 years of that there's no way that's good for you no no no listen the wear and tear and the amount it's a different environment today i don't even follow it no more because i think it's kind of grotesque i thought physiques were actually pleasing you know arnold's physique was a pleasing physique because he didn't look abnormal he just looked different well they what doesn't help is like the the like brown tanning oil they put on every i mean you it's kind of weird looking yeah like i look at him like yeah okay yeah all right that's that's enough thank you but yeah back in the day and i guess arnold he was he wasn't just

bodybuilding he was also he was setting records as a weightlifter he was a power lifter yes i mean that was him and franco colombo yeah that was his main quality card and he was like before he was the actor i mean so many people apparently don't realize this but he was like the thing yeah like he was the guy yeah so you looked up to him big time. You know, I always admired the things that he did. He was able to reinvent himself. That was an amazing thing of what the guy did from different genres

going right up the line. If he put his head to something, he was going to do it. He was going to change people's minds on how they saw that. Like, he literally was the reason why movies changed

and Stallone got what he got. And then The Rock is living through basically the pathway that Arnold started with Conan the Barbarian. They wanted a big guy. And then most of the action movies used big guys at that time. It was a different time. So that was something I really enjoyed. And then I can still remember when I finished my master's, I wanted to treat myself.

So I didn't have no money. You know, my dad was a construction worker, mason, block bricklayer guy. And he worked very hard for the things that he had. And college is expensive. And I bought a flight to California, to Muscle Beach. I had no place to stay. So I jump on a plane as my present to go out to California by myself. Don't know nobody out there. I call my buddy at the airport. airport i go your ex-girlfriend still lives out there you think i can stay with her and he goes oh we broke up she moved to san francisco i go what oh no i'm like who am i gonna stay i didn't really have money for a hotel like i didn't even

in my mind i was young i was you know 24 years old i'm like i don't know nothing about you know booking hotels and all that and you didn't have online pre-internet yeah and i'm like so he goes you know what she has a an older friend that lives out there that may put you up and i'm telling you she you know i was 24 at the time yeah 24 because i finished a master's and i had to do the internship so i was 24 and i didn't know this this lady Adam, right? And I could still remember it was the Olympics, there was Olympics that year, and the summer Olympics, and I stayed on her couch. She went to work every day.

I had a key to the house. I could have robbed her house. I could have done anything. I could have been some crazy person. And I came and went as I wanted. I had a rental car, and she didn't charge me. I left her a hundred bucks and a bouquet of flowers, and I never saw her again.

And so that was my whole where I stayed, which was bizarre because I'm sleeping on a couch. What's this? How long was it? How long did I stay? Yeah. Five days. All right, so it wasn't like two years. No, no, no.

No, listen, only a five-day trip, right? I couldn't afford to do anything else. So I go to Venice Beach. So the whole premise was, I really care about the Hollywood Walk and all that stuff. You know what I mean? You wanted to go to Gold's Gym.

I wanted to go to Gold's Gym and train at maybe World's Gym. And I wanted to see Arnold. And believe it or not, Lou Ferrigno was training for his comeback. There's a throwback. Yes. For his next comeback to the

Olympics. And I can still remember him on the leg press with like 12 45s on each side. He couldn't even put any more on just screaming at the top of his lungs, pushing that weight. And the crazy was a guy from Mansworld Gym that was kind of like, I would say that he found trouble a lot. And he moved to LA. And I ended up seeing him and I ended up training with him. And so New Jersey's in California. I go there. I'm experiencing this wonderful thing.'s to me that was everything at

the time i'm experiencing gold's gym pumping iron all these things i end up meeting the owner that owned gold's gym at the time end up just picking his brain because he owned multiple gold's gyms across the country he ended up selling it for multi multi millions of days name was ed connor really good dude ended up um i almost end up doing a franchise with gold is that what it is that that's a franchise they had franchise at the time it was really big he he ended up selling it doesn't it's not you know because there's so many other copycats now um but i remember him because i picked his brain about business i i was one that i wanted to know why people were successful and i wanted to know how you became successful successful with the gym is a good place to start that's hard to do and and he did a great job and he kept telling me don you can't you your your square footage can't go over this because that's where you're paying the money you're paying

for square footage and your numbers have to be this. And you know that this many people are going to sign up and they're not going to come. So that was just, it's just a wonderful, you know, five days of my life going out there and seeing Muscle Beach

and experiencing it. And by the way, the water was cold as shit. Oh my God. Oh my God, that water was so cold. What time of year? Oh was cold as shit. Really? Oh, my God. That water was so cold. What time of year? Towards the summer.

Really? It's not the warmest out there. Believe it or not, the water is not real warm out there. I've never been west of Pennsylvania. So that's like a foreign country out there. It was a great, great trip. And that whole thing, that started my whole love for lifting and loving it and i said this is going to be part of my life and and by the way everybody's much fitter out there

than they are oh yeah yeah let's let's bookmark that we're going to come back to that yeah different very different miami same thing you go down there i love miami yes it's a beautiful place yes and so that was what transitioned me into my rest of my life. I knew I was always going to be involved in some form, some way of lifting. I love the discipline about it. I love that it made you feel good. When you felt bad, you had a bad day, you go to the gym, you feel great. It's the greatest stress relief ever. Yep. Endorphins. You're releasing endorphins. You know what I mean?

And just all the little things that I took with me through life. You know, you're studying. You're stressed out. You got this exam. Well, I'll go hit the gym and come back and study again. Changes the way you feel while you're studying at nighttime. You feel you accomplished something. It's positive.

And I kept saying, I'm going to take this premise and I'm going to take this with me for the rest of my life. And then everything I ever did, I always somehow pushed weightlifting, fitness from my soccer teams, my college soccer team that that i coach i would hope with that yeah of course yeah yeah but believe it or not you know because you know soccer is a lot of running not so much upper body the fitness but the general theme though yeah um but going back to then that's what kind of like when i get to when i finally got to the school system and I've been there 11 years and leaving you being a therapist you can only help them within that one half an hour or hour depending

on what your therapy session is you know obviously the longer the therapy session is and the more therapy say the quicker that you're going to change behavior right so some kids I only had them every two weeks because I had too many kids I I was the only child. You're not on the ground with them all the time. Now you're on the ground. Yes. You're saying with this. So with going to the school, I said, you know, I really, because everything is sourced out. Like I don't have time to just do counseling sessions all day.

That's the guidance department. And they're not, a lot of them aren't really therapists. They're guidance counselors. They brush on the topic of issues in their lives or family issues or mental health. And then we source out to a place that I worked, you know, like the healthcare commons place. And so I said, so where can I have more exposure with these kids and where can I change them? And that was through leadership groups that was through the after-school gym the after-school gym happened to be the the biggest changing agent i think than any of the other things that i did and so you would do if i understood this correctly when kids would get in trouble and it's something you do actively now, you give them the alternative that instead of going to detention, they get to come lift with you.

Yes. And let me back that up a little bit. So the vice principal handles discipline. I do not. My job is to change behavior through the school, all five schools, which are from K through 12. So what she does is she brings them down and they have infractions. And so they have detention after school. You can go sit in a room and do nothing and really not better your life at all, in my opinion, which is fine because that's part of a consequence. Or you can choose to come to the afterschool weightlifting club

where I'm going to teach you values. I'm going to teach you discipline. I'm going to teach you how to work hard and I'm going to put you through the hardest workout you've ever been through. Yeah. And you know what's interesting though, in a way, I'd almost give it more credit than that. It's not so much you have to teach them that. Of course, you're teaching them what to do. Yeah. Someone goes in there, they have it lifted.

You're going to show them exactly here's how a workout works. Here's what we're doing. You're going to push them and all that. But once they get used to that or if they've done it before and now it becomes a habit and something they like, the actual environment that you cultivate is what teaches them because it's not you know you got a bunch of kids in there you're not standing over every single one at all times you're building this place for them to come as an escape and this escape is not netflix and chill no disrespect to netflix but like you know yeah you're getting only a certain amount of whatever out of that this you you are chemically affecting your body and also affecting your physicality how you feel your confidence how

you carry yourself like i sometimes i i don't know why people don't think this way it seems very common to me and i imagine be very common to, but the idea of like having limbs and not using them. Yeah. I do not understand this. Like, you know, just stick me in a wheelchair. Yeah. Like, I was given arms to lift. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And you get that. Yeah, it's hard. It's sore and whatever, but you actually learn to love that. Mm-hmm. You learn, like, it's probably one of the few healthy addiction type things yes that you can do because also with this addiction your body can only take so much of it right so you kind of have you have that night in my case 90 minutes two hours a day where you're fucking in there and

then you know when you're done now you're like oh i can get on with my day now yeah and these kids you're teaching them this at 14 15 16. yeah you know like i really picked up my first way for real like for real for real when i was 20. yeah i'm like i'm gonna do that again yeah you know i wish when i was like 15 if there i didn't get a ton of detentions but i wish like even with something else there was like oh yeah yeah if you're not on the football team you still want to go do that yeah that's so cool yeah and i think the interesting part is this is where first off once they come in i'm like so what'd you do you know and very nonchalant. Like, what'd you do? Oh, okay. All right, gotcha. All right. You understand you're not supposed to do that, right? And we talk.

Kind of like more on a comical side, like, you know, back and forth banter. And then, you know, as the day goes on, I start asking questions. Like, only when I know I can get in and get the right answers to build that relationship, build that trust, all that. And then that's where I start to understand them. And they start to, it's the craziest thing, but they see me as just another person, just somebody that's there. They don't see me as a person with a dress shirt on. They don't see me as an administrator. And then they're going, oh, my God, he could do this kind of weight like dude this guy's crazy like

and so they feel comfortable around me they got to respect that too yeah and they just feel comfortable and they and after that i'm telling you they say hi to me in the hallway all the time most of them come back. Yeah. Or they get in trouble again and they're back down there again. And that's just, like I said, habits are built through constant doing the same thing over and over again. We get them back again. And then I say, like, dude, or in the morning when I'm always out there in the hallway in the morning and I say, good morning, everybody.

It's one of my things. And that was one of the things, one of my goals I wanted to do when I first got there. I wasn't, when I first took her, I wanted to be more active in the body while they're moving around and stuff like that. So now I literally go, yo, you coming to the gym today? Or I call people over right to me. I'm like, come on over here. Like, where you been? I haven't seen you in the gym.

And it's almost they're disappointed. They know I'm disappointed, and then they end up showing up. But I have to constantly beat on them from a standpoint, not literally. I have to constantly beat the drum saying, you need to come. You need to come, you need this. And I've learned more about what's going on in the town from a standpoint of what kind of drugs are being used, what parties are going on.

They tell you this in the waiting room? Oh, yeah, they tell me everything. Tell me, actually, they tell me everything. And listen, the party thing, obviously obviously that's everywhere right yeah but you know the big thing my message for them is to be safe no matter what yeah there's a huge difference between you know some giant like ecstasy ring going on and some kids you know having some good saturday night parties and that that humanizes it too you know when you get that and and what they have to understand is that yeah obviously i'm i'm not promoting that they do any of this stuff but they're some of them are going to do it

the most important thing is that they don't drive why they're not an influence they don't they don't make decisions that are going to uh their lives, completely change their lives. You know what I mean? And so that's where I start to educate them about rights and wrongs and how you should do things and when you should do things and when the right time is. And they respect that. They really do. They respect that. I'm not talking down to them. I'm talking with them. And that's a big difference. I'm not talking down to them. I'm talking with them. And that's a big difference. I'm not talking down to them. I'm talking with them. I like how you said it like that. Yeah. And I want them to converse with me. There's times where we went back and forth and they may disagree with something. I'm fine with that. But hear me out.

And then I come back to it. You know what I mean? Where I try to educate them in a more positive way. Where the way they're seeing it isn't reality. They're seeing it as a kid. I'm trying to make them see it as a more mature adult. And it's just interesting that literally they trust me. It's just, it's an amazing environment.

And I tell them like, listen, I'm here to make you a better human being. Understand that. And, you know, every Wednesday, I talk about a certain individual in the world. Like the topic may be Kobe Bryant and how Kobe Bryant lived his life with sports like in the weight room you're talking yes yeah so you know the joke right now is because everybody's watching you know

Netflix and my whole thing is Cobra Kai and so they all call me sensei palm uchi oh yeah I said you know everybody we call it falling in so so everybody falls in and they go yes sir sensei palmucci you know so we relate things to movies you know we make everything good you know it's so good yep and and uh you know we have we have certain sayings um you know i make them chant i can i, I will, I must, things like that. That's the Eric the Hip Hop Preacher. I can, I will, I must. I say that to myself. I love that.

And so I try to educate them every Wednesday on a certain value or topic, whether it's, you know, one time I talked in real life for 15 minutes on growth mindset, on how you harness growth mindset and how you do it and how you change your life. When you say growth mindset, can you tell people what you mean? So growth mindset is somebody that's always open, opening their mind to get better. Most people, when they see things, they think they know everything about a topic. And listen, I got players that literally just don't, they don't get better because they don't open their mind to learn that position at another level, maybe from a level of being a coach where then that changes the growth mindset and so my whole thing is what you think you know

is really usually not what you know right and and so my whole premise is if you just open your mind and listen to me somebody that's 55 years old that's been there done that made mistakes i made the mistakes you're going to make i already made those mistakes and you open your mind up to just doing this this way instead of that way and see how you feel and it's just that it's just i'm curious though i'm sorry to cut you off but on on this point do you some of it's very common yeah yeah like you've been because you've been there yeah yeah yeah but do you also find yourself on the other end of that sometimes where you're like you know what i don't know what an example would be but shit that might actually maybe they're doing this better than we did it oh no doubt see that's good you know what's amazing

because you know with i do groups and everything i do i do groups even with my college soccer team and they'll bring up stuff and topics that i went but one time they go we should change the formation i'm like to what and they're like we want to play a four two three one i'm like well we don't have the clientele for that they're like we feel we can play it and we can play it better than four three three so i went to head coach i said you think we could try to four two three one just do it in a scrimmage game they played phenomenal we never stopped playing that formation rest of that that's cool And we won game after game, but they saw it, they felt it. But to me, if I didn't have a growth mindset, I'm staying with the hardcore Don Palmucci,

head coach Jeffs, 4-3-3, we know best, you can't tell us. And we don't grow as a team that year, right? But going back to that, I mean, another topic was um you know i had everybody in the in the group read the energy bus and how to harvest energy i'm not familiar with that oh you got to read it the energy bus wrote that um gordon last name gordon and um so the whole premise of the energy bus is about a guy that's a negative guy and he has some bad things happen to him. He's not doing well with his marriage.

He's not doing well at work and his car breaks down. So he has to take this bus. And this older lady is just, she keeps pushing about being more energetic and positive. And he starts to change his life. She explains to him why he liked that. And so he ends up changing his life to energy, being more energetic, being more like just attacking things with energy and being more upbeat.

And, and his whole life's changed. So, so that's basically the, the, the small short of the story. He ends up becoming a better husband. He becomes a better,

you know um supervisor in his job those type of things and it just changes his life um yeah so we we read that so i'm trying to teach them little things that may seem small but could change your life drastically you also got to put it in a way that makes them want to hear it yes you know like you see a lot of this motivational burnout with stuff because guys get on there they post the same you know 30 second clip on instagram every day it's like all right we get it bro yeah you know what i mean like there's so much in your face but a lot of the themes that you'll see from people who are reputable i'll say at

least and know what they're talking about it's very real like i'd love that i'm gonna check out that book i i'm such a believer in that stuff you know i'm not one of these guys sitting there lighting sage when there's negative energy in the room or anything yeah i'm not like that but shout out kairi irving but i am one of those guys who looks at it like the way you project is what you will get back. Not the same way you do it. Everyone's different. Yes. But like, I mean, look at the job I have to do.

Yeah. If you walked in here today and I'm like, all right, Dan, we're going to talk about kids. Yeah. All right, I'm going to roll the camera. Yeah. You're going to tense up a little bit. Yeah. You're going to be like, okay. And then if I'm not asking any questions and I'm not like genuinely curious or like arguing a point to be like, well, wait, what does that even mean?

You know, you're not engaged. Yes. But instead, you know, first of all, I invite people in here I want to talk with. That's a kid. That helps. And then I already want to talk with the person sitting across from me. Yeah. So now they get my energy and my energy is not going to be down here.

It's going to be up here. And there's serious things to talk about. You get lower or whatever. There's a way to do it. But you can't expect that what you think needs to happen is going to happen just because you think that's how someone's going to be. You have to create that environment. And so I think it's great that you're bringing this stuff in through the kids and i actually think when they hear it in an environment that's not just a a classroom yeah right this is not this is the

weight room after school you're the cool guy yeah in this way exactly and and you're also like for the detention kids you're you're the alternative yes we already we kind of supposedly the good altar right exactly and you're also it's not on their phone yeah just some dude on the internet yeah it's like oh wait a second maybe there's something to this and then you give them a book you give them something like go check it out if you want and now now they're like you know what i think i will that's that's important to take it even further and, and you're on to a big point. Motivation, it's almost like we've been hit with so much of it now because of social media and technology. So you're seeing it all the time.

And they got these programs where you get a quote every day sent to your email. All right. Is there any passion behind that? No. It doesn't work. That's? No. It doesn't work. That's my opinion. It doesn't work. And that goes back to when I read all these books.

So at Wilmington, so with the girls' soccer team, so we read the book, The Energy Bus. So we talked about it every Monday. We went over every chapter. So we're invested in the book. We're invested in talking about it. We're invested in feedback from each other on how we saw it, how we felt about it. And then we had to exemplify these values in the book. So in other words, in practice, whoever showed the most energy for the week got a bus ticket that they put on the back of their locker.

Right? A bus ticket? A bus ticket that they put on the back of their locker right so you get you a bus ticket a bus ticket so the whole idea was so they're packing well so the whole idea right think about it is the book is about the energy bus so oh it's called i'm an idiot so it's called the energy bus so on monday everybody would get a little piece of paper and you write the girl that on the team that showed the most energy whether it was in the game or in the game in practice, motivated people. It was basically an example of what we're trying to do in the book, right? So we count them up. It's this girl, Jane, over here.

Jane gets the bus ticket. So the bus ticket goes back or back of the door and that person i bought this um bus steering wheel on amazon got to bring the bus steering wheel onto the field you led the team out because you're you're our leader for this week you earned it you know what i mean and then at the end of the year you got the the leadership award it's like it's like what's that thing they did miami had like the turnover chain. Yes Very similar to that It's one of the football teams one of the NFL teams has the energy the energy chain now or something They're like big energy chain. I think the Sixers have it. Yeah, it is. Yeah, like yeah, I think I think that's just pretty cool

Yeah, I mean listen and and no lie. I mean I got involved in this program called what drives winning It's an amazing it's it's a lot of NFL, it's a lot of successful coaches that believe in you develop character, character pushes process, process then just gives you results. So character is the most important thing. You develop character, not only in your students, you develop character on your team. Character then pushes process, which is hard work, discipline, being a good person, being a good teammate.

And then what comes? Results. So you're not focused on results because results is just a goal, right? That you may get it, you may not. So you may that you may get it you may not so you may win the super bowl you may not but it doesn't give you anything coming to the result so how do you get to the result it's through character it's through the process of day-to-day day-to-day the grind being good people caring about each other you know um and that that's what i learned from from what drives winning and it's like i said it's nfl coaches it's um there

was this individual that i met through soccer becky burley she was the coach of florida won a national championship there she's now coaching the orlando pride pride the professional team and wonderful woman met her at a soccer conference. Talked to her. She actually shared her email with me. And we became somewhat friends. And I would share with her every year what I'm doing at Wilmington. And I'm Wilmington.

She's high-level Division I winning national championships. And she loved the things I was doing. And I was just basically learning from her. Learning from her. She was the best of the best. She did this thing called the bench cam that she filmed the bench and how people reacted when they came off the field. Like you get subbed out and the girl's all mad and she's walking down. Everybody's getting ready to high five and she's not even hitting anybody high fives.

She doesn't put her penny on to identify that she's a sub. And all the girls start talking oh my god oh my god look at her look at her oh my god so they're not focusing on the game and how they're going to impact the game when they go in they're worried about this girl over here that her behavior is not not proper right and so the bench cam was her way of bringing that girl in showing her what she did she didn't realize she did that and how she affected the whole team through her behavior in a negative way and her whole premise of why she did the bench cam was to teach her the proper way when when yeah you got subbed out. You weren't playing well, but you act professional

and then your team plays better. And it's really more, it's not just about you. It's about your team. And it's just an amazing video that just all these things. And like I said before, you want to be around successful people

that are doing great things. And she and this guy, Brett Ledbetter, who started this. That name I name I know yeah he's a big motivational guy he goes and speaks for all the you know the you know and you see his face NFL teams and stuff like that he's he's very good and um you know that's a growth mindset want to learn from them and get better every year you know as a coach as as a mentor to students you know a lot of the stuff i do with my college soccer team i do with my students or vice versa it worked with the students it might work with the with the players like wow like you're learning from different yes yeah and so

another great book that we read this year was Chop Wood, Carry Water. Don't know that one. Amazing. Amazing book. And it's another Chop Wood, Carry Water. And it's about two young men, two young boys that want to be archers in Japan. And then the one gets hurt and he's not able and the other one goes over there. And the whole premise of it is that he just wants to be this famous archer.

And the sensei is like, well, that's not how it works around here. You know, there's, you know, we're in a village and you have to chop wood and carry water because we don't have heat in the winter and we don't have water. And so he's like, I'm not here to chop wood and carry water. And that's all he does. He don't even shoot at all. He's not pulling that bow back at all. But along the way, he's learning all these life lessons on how to be a better human being and how to handle life and handle setbacks and handle things and handle that. And so that was another book that we read. And then the whole thing is, at the end of the year, one of the girls on the soccer team

is gonna get a piece of chopped wood with the leadership award on the piece of wood. And same thing, we voted that person to get the award every week. And just, you have to keep, you have to be passionate about your motivation it's like anything because if you just think you're going to motivate people by throwing a quote at them yeah i know come on those guys stick out like sore thumbs to work they stick out like

sore thumbs you know so i think you have to make them accountable for the motivation from a standpoint that they need to be invested in it. They need to digest it. They need to talk about it. They need to make suggestions on how they want to, you know, maybe use that chapter. So now they're taking ownership to it. And when you take ownership to something, now all of a sudden you remember it better, you follow it better because it's yours, right? And so that's some of the things that we do too. I mean, I just, I love that book too. And the crazy part is my son had me read that book.

My son got that book. Your son recommended that one. So my son got it from Mark Moore, who I mentored when he was 15, 16. He mentors my son and he tells my son, you need to read this book, Josh. Chop Wood, Carrie Wooder. He reads it, tells me about it. He takes it to his wrestling academy.

The wrestling academy reads it and follows the principles and the values of it. And then finally passes on to me which then i take it to wilmington university to have my girls read it and then i take it back to pensable high school for my group my super leadership group see that right there that's that's the circle of life you you see it starts with you working with your one guy, Mark. Is his name right, Mark? Yes, yes.

And he then is so – he builds that all into his life and then it eventually comes around because he's working with your son and then your son gives it to you. And like you just described, it goes to you now in the same way. And it's like you also get to learn through that. Like your kids teach you something in a way. Like, oh, dad, this book is great. It taught me X, Y, and Z. You need to check this out. Oh, shit.

Yes, it does. We're going to check that out. So like the older i get the more and more i appreciate and i've always valued this but i value it even more now the more and more i appreciate always learning something from everywhere you look yeah including from places where it's like there's not a single thing to learn from that person i'll argue that in not having a single thing to learn you can learn everything not to do you. And so being open to that and then being able to even like in your own expertise get exposed to something where it's like, oh, shit, yeah, wow, that's great. That's very, very cool.

Yeah, yeah. Gratifying, I would say. Great word. Gratifying. For sure. Yeah, and I think going back to all these little things that tie in to watching these kids transform from being kids that may not be so self-confident through the weightlifting club, through not only is that a little family that they have in there after school every day. But, you know, we're constantly supporting people or pushing them to levels they've never been pushed before. Cause they may not be an athlete. I mean, listen, we had the football players in there and we had the wrestlers and we have those types of kids, but we do have a lot of kids that, you know,

started with a five pound dumbbell and now they're up up to 30s, 35s, 40s. They're actually starting to put some muscle on their frame. They're starting to build self-confidence. They're starting to feel good about themselves. And that just goes through their whole life. Not only does it help them with their academics because they feel good about themselves. They're not sitting there. I mean, that can be overwhelming.

When you don't feel confident, it affects everything. Oh, yeah. Everything. Oh, yeah. You know, so I think that's the things that a lot of people may not see that I see. You know, and I call it the little ducklings because I always get these groups every year of about eight of them that follow my workout.

They like to train with me because it's easy. I set everything up. They just follow. It's a little duckling going behind me. I'm the father duckling, right? And they just follow me. They do everything I tell them to do. You know what I mean?

And when I tell them to go up and go heavier, they go heavier. When I tell them they're not training hard enough they listen and then they kind of they their wings start to work and they grow their own wings and they go off on their own with maybe a few that were in the group or now they're able to lift with the bigger guys you know you know what this isn't this is important i just thought of this yeah when you go from a five that example you, you gave the five-pound dumbbell to a 30-pound dumbbell. You know what that's not? What's that?

A participation trophy. Yeah. Exactly. You either could or you couldn't. Exactly. You did it or you didn't. You didn't just show up and sign your name. Yeah.

It is a visual. In this generation now, I'd love to hear you talk about and get your thoughts on this too. Yeah. Because we see it. Everyone gets a goddamn participation trophy for doing everything yeah you go in there and you're like wow over eight months i moved from doing you know repping out 15 at 10 pounds to repping out 15 at 30. yeah it's clear it's there it's black and white yeah that's a that is a huge advantage with all sports and then especially with what you're doing because it also you know the mental fortitude you have to you have to have to be a consistent lifter every day.

It's not like there's a score other than the things you keep track of over time. It's regimented. You do this. Then you do that. You break down your muscle. You come back in. You do it tomorrow. Yeah, I mean that's a great point because you know you're not going to get to that

point unless you're consistent and and that's one of the things i harp on and um some kids when they don't come all the time i get on them i'm old school i get on them i'm not going to sit there and and i pull them over and i have a conversation with you know this is going to work you do understand that, right? It's not how it works. I'm 55. Like the reason why I'm benching 250 is because I'm here every day, you know? And, you know, like the one kid,

he was coming in and I know his dad well. And he was leaving after 15 minutes. So his nickname was 15-Minute Last Name. Literally, I would turn the music off and call him 15-Minute Last Name. And now he's up to 45-Minute Last Name. And so the goal is to get him to an hour and a half last name. But believe it or not, it works. Like he just is like, dude, I don't want to be 15-Minute.

I don't want to be the 15 minute guy. But everybody in the weightlifting room has a nickname. You know, one kid, his name's Harry. So we equated him with Harry Styles. So his new nickname became Harry Styles, you know. That's not a compliment in the weight room. Not really, but he don't care. He don't care. He's a great kid he i love harry styles yeah he's one of my guys that's in my group

and he's he's he's a leader now he his job is to turn the music on every day his job is to talk to to some of the other ones the ducklings that are not in row and he gets them in row and so he's become this kid that's a freshman now, you know, because we have kids from 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, like middle scorers are allowed to come over. And obviously they don't train heavy, but they train differently, but they're getting the discipline at a young age. And, you know, they're,

the middle scorers find a way to kind of veer off a little bit and they have to be drug back. Yeah, that's and there's like the whole thing it's different for different kids based on their development but like you know a lot as a rule of thumb a lot of weight lifting kind of starts when you're like a freshman in high school you know once you pass that you're through that 12 13 14 where your body's totally changing and everything yeah so i i kind of get. I would think this would be more of a high school thing. Yeah.

But when the world shut down in March 2020, and you said they put a lock on the gym. This was a while ago. They chained the doors on the gym. I guess people were trying to get in maybe at nighttime. They were trying to work out. Trying to work out and actually get healthy so you don't die of COVID. Yeah. trying to work out and actually get healthy so you don't die of covid yeah i but i mean listen i think from our standpoint from a school standpoint it was what they had to do i don't

know if they wanted to do that but fear yeah yeah fear governmental yes oversight saying this is what you have to do um because we were the first people to open that gym up. I know. Now, when did you do that? I would say it was about a year after the pandemic. Holy shit. That was closed for a year. About a year. Yeah, it was closed about a year.

So you didn't have this program for a year? No. Did not have it for a year. Think about that for a second. Because you got to understand, a year uh think about think about that because you got to understand too we were only we were staying to 12 15 so you know we didn't have full days and then so they cut an hour or two off because of lunches because here here's where governmental oversight now because you couldn't have the social distancing so you couldn't have lunches yes so we didn't have enough room in the cafeteria so we had to cut the days where you ate lunch at home are the kids also in mass in school now we the master are going away i think

the governor um did away with it march 7th or something like that it's coming up oh thank you your highness our school made it optional so like in other words i would say the majority i would say 90 will not wear masks yeah you know what i mean now when did that start to stop what's that when did they start losing them losing them losing the masks like a lot of the kids was that something i don't know. Was that something they were about? I don't know if they ever had them, to be honest, where we're at. Really? I mean, I would say most of them.

I mean, listen. Sounds like you were in another country, man. This is awesome. Pencils are, it's a great area. I can tell you, I have never had a bad day of going to work there. That's amazing. That's what I can tell you. I love what I do.

I love that town. I love being there. I love those kids. I think what I do. I love that town. I love being there. I love those kids. I think they're, they're just great to be around. Um, what I will tell you is the kids were resilient from a standpoint. They did exactly what we asked them to do, even though it meant putting masks on. Everybody went one way down the hallway and then you had to go up to go back the other way and then obviously the rules changed as every other rule changed every other day but our rules got you know less let you know a little more

lenient as the time went on and I gotta tell you kids still wear their masks up up until they know it's going away and they're still wearing it they're they're doing what we're asking them to do. And that tells me they're great kids. But you said a lot of them aren't. No, they don't want to. They're very... Oh, so they are still all wearing them.

They're still all wearing them until the date. Because we got to wait. I think it's March 7th. So March 7th, I would say 90% they'll be gone. What I can tell you, they voiced their opinions that they really don't want to wear them, the majority of them. But they did it because they knew that's what they had to do.

And that's the thing. One of the biggest sources of lack of trust in authority, and by authority in this case i'm talking about like parents and teachers and stuff like that are when you're a kid growing up and your parent or teacher tells you to do something and there's no reason yeah there's no logic yeah they're just like you know dad's having a tough day at work and basically told you to off right yeah and what do you ask you say why and they say because i said so yeah and it's the worst answer ever and i understand i'm sure like sometimes you're like i really don't want to talk to you right now fine but like that is what we've done with the governmental meddling in schools

because we look we had data within six months of this thing started that said kids are going to be all right yeah you know of course look someone's going to just like some kid dies of the flu every year at some school somewhere you can't there's no zero of anything in a major population no one wants to see it happen but what happens is no one wants to be the first to get sued and so these schools schools, which, by the way, in fairness to the schools, they're also taking orders directly from the government. The public school system is, you know, they can't make their own decision here. But it's all being led by fear. And they start something becomes a habit.

It becomes normal. Oh, we wear a mask yeah to do this and then you know you're six months in and you start to you start to hear from psychologists saying hey this is not it's not good for a five-year-old or a 15-year-old yeah you know this is it's not helping them number one number two this is developmentally yeah a problem yeah but you don't do anything because you don't want to get sued and it'll work itself out yeah now you're two years in yeah and i'm glad to see that that i'm sorry i misunderstood for a second what you said there. I was going to say it sounded like you were living in a different country because I know how New Jersey is.

But I'm glad to see that there has now been enough pressure to push back on that. Because I will tell you, you sit there, you watch the AFC championship game in Kansas City a month ago, whatever. And it's, I don't know, 10 degrees out there. There's 80, 000 people in that stadium they're all on top of each other screaming yelling drinking out alcohol 30 40 000 of those people have kids who are going to school the next day yes they're all doing that in that stadium without a mask but their kids are going to school with a mask on and not seeing each other's faces yep what the fuck are we doing yeah that's crazy yep no no common sense it's not what we do anymore

it's i don't know it's power but your superintendent you had said this earlier your superintendent right away was the guy sending out the letter saying would you prefer in person or virtual yeah i mean obviously it went through the school board they sat down and decided to through the school board and you know how this thing would be written and how it would go out. And I think it was, you know, just a smart way to handle it. Yes. You know? I haven't heard anything like this.

Let everybody be a part of this, you know? And I think it worked out really, really well, to be honest. I think it was the best thing not only for the parents but for the kids, you know? And we tried to be there in person as much as we could. You know what I mean? Like I said, with a couple setbacks, but they were nothing major. And I just, looking now at, and listen, it's going to be interesting when they take the mask off okay where do we go there where's the data then from you know now from then to now and with the socialization

with the mental health issues i mean i mean that's a whole another environment um because that's that's your playing field too yes that's literally yes that's like a priority yeah that you know you're starting to see a lot more of that now like what um you know there's in my opinion and listen i'm hearing that not only just from within the school but within other parents that i'm you know friends, friends with, obviously with anxiety, depression. And when you think about it, you know, of course you're going to have anxiety when you were told people are dying and, and you, you know, kids don't process this stuff real well. They just don't, you know, and fear is not a good thing for kids, you know? And then when you start taking away friendships, you take away sports, you take away, like,

my son missed, like, team states last year. Like, they had the best team ever in Kingsway's history in wrestling, and they never got a chance to prove it. And nobody will ever know they were the best team, ever. And obviously, we lost a bunch of kids this year, and we, you know, we didn't make it to the state final this year, you know, and you start thinking about all the little things that were taken away. You know, um, my daughter is a division one soccer player. She missed a whole season, whole season. They didn't play at all at all. And you know, it it that that's terrible it's terrible for somebody that's been working since

she was five years old to play a collegiate sport at the highest level and they tell you oh yeah god you can't do that by the way it's outdoors it's not you know they're not it's not wrestling even though wrestling i know wrestling was okay because my son was wrestling across the country during the pandemic in other states he's also 17 years old he's gonna be all right and he never got sick yeah never got sick you know so but going back to the mental health thing, I think in general, this was the icing on the cake because the phone is a very detrimental thing to these kids to start with. And you could go on and talk about that for hours. Go ahead. And I'll tell you why.

Yeah. So, in gym class, you know, they get a break. And, you know, say there's 70, 80 kids. They go up to sit or maybe 50 kids. I'm not sure. They go up to sit in the bleachers on their break. There's not one kid that hasn't grabbed that phone and being like this. And they literally cannot function without.

And it's all they've ever known too. Yes. We're in that generation now. We're in that generation now. Where me? Yeah. I mean, i'm dependent upon my phone right but when i go into the gym i leave my phone in the locker room well you know the the athletic locker room um for the coaches and i don't want it because i know what's going to happen i'm going to check it my son's going to i want to just i want to get my weightlifting done.

I want to get the weightlifting club done and enjoy it. Not worrying about a phone. So you bring the pandemic into it where, okay, the only way they're socializing is through that. There's no real socialization. I mean, you don't feel somebody's feelings through a text. You don't know what the context isn't there. Or it could be faked. It could be fake. There's so many things. So you forced them to go more to the phone, more to the phone, which is already detrimental to their psyche because that's all they live by. And it just it's all about likes and this and that um and they're controlled through that and then they don't

have any social they have nothing to work for because none of them like you know you're a football player but you have no football season how many really of them went out trained not many right there's not there's nothing there's nothing to and i mean this in a positive way yeah there's nothing to compare yourself against every day yes to inspire yourself i'm not talking about comparison culture because god knows they compare themselves on the phone all the time but i'm saying like there's a thing when you're around other people you know with you they go in the weight room oh damn that dude that dude's putting up putting up 275 today yep shit i might be able to do that one day you know like okay well let's watch what he does because he is he's obviously good at this yeah i'll do that too you know you can sit there and and train yourself

or work on something yourself. And I do some of it in my job, but look what I get to do. Yeah. Yeah. I get to sit across from people who have all different types of opinions, beliefs, or perspectives. And then I get to live with that on that content. Yeah.

And so like, it's almost like for a living, I have to, I have to be in the middle of that. And then just think about kids. Suddenly they're taken away from the environment that gives them just exposure to people. Yeah. Like what do you expect? Yeah. And that's really how you learn.

Yes. I mean, you don't learn any other way. You're not learning through a phone. You're not learning through a text. Like how to react to something that's emotional or that you have to make split-second decisions on and how you should live your life like there's so many so many different you know reasons that that does not work you know that whole virtual learning thing was really not the best environment for kids to learn but going back to what you're saying like like learning from another, there's an individual in the gym and he's religious and he's massive young man.

He only lifts. He don't play sports. And he's a very, he's a leader. He's what I call a leader. He's probably the best leader in the school now. And this individual, like, God, I think he had 225 on incline the other day, just repping it out, and the younger guys are, they're, like, looking over. How old is he?

Oh, my God. He is a senior, so he's turning 18. Yeah, so he's, yeah, he loves Arnold. I got him when he was in sixth grade, by the way. Sixth grade. And he was, didn't look like that then. Didn't look like that. I had his brother before that.

His brother was a lifter. Didn't take it as serious as he did. And just an amazing young man in my leadership group. You know, he just goes above and beyond. I can pull him in my office and say, this person's struggling. Can you get to him as a peer and help him out no problem mr palmucci i got you he goes i'll take care of that today and he says hi to kids that nobody says hi to that's great and he finds out dude he comes to me

sometimes and goes yeah this person's doing this and struggling with this, whatever. You might want to talk to him. And like, he's got like major intel on people that are struggling and he's always there for people. It's an amazing, amazing thing. And listen, believe me, he's the toughest kid in school. There's no doubt in my mind. A kick a box, the kid's strong and he just doesn't, he doesn't use it that way.

He uses his power and he talks about the lord a lot and and religion and and and the word of god and and how god has you know a plan for him and to to affect people and it's just it's an amazing thing um but like i said i had him since sixth grade and i told him story and all the stories i told him many stories of my life he's one that had a growth mindset that sat in my office. And listen, I talked about building my house, building it from ground up. And he said, oh, my dad's a concrete guy, whatever. Wait, you built your house?

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. No shit. Yeah. I did everything.

I did everything from dug the hole to cut the trees down to laid the brick. Me and my dad laid the brick. Wow. The only thing we didn't do is we didn't do the roof. My dad had guys that he knew that did the roof and we didn't frame it. I got a really cheap price on framing and I was like, it ain't worth it for me to do the framing. Wow. But we did everything else.

I mean, I put the lights. That's so cool. Yeah. So another story. the framing wow but we did everything else i mean i put the lights so cool yeah it was so another story you know my dad obviously was a concrete brick block guy from italy that type of thing and um where was he from in italy you know i don't know because it's a bad answer grandpa grandpa was from there so um i'm not sure if it's calabria. I'm not sure. Um, you got to find that out. Yeah. I don't, I don't really, I don't really talk too much about, cause you know, my dad was never over there.

So my dad was an American born, but, um, so my dad had all the trades and I remember I was telling my dad, I said, I'm going to buy a lot in South Harrison and I'm going to build my own home. He goes, dude, you're, you're crazy. It's a lot of work. You'll never, you're, I don't know if you'll figure this out and I'll be end my own home he goes dude you're crazy it's a lot of work you'll never I don't know if you'll figure this out and I'll be end up doing all the work and I remember the first day I laid out the hole and I had the transom out here and and I'm calling him up on

the phone going dad what do I do now you know what I mean but he was very helpful um I was you know I'm his first son so so he taught me a lot about hard. I went to work at a very young age, laying brick, laying block. I worked my way up from mixing the cement to being a block layer to laying brick, you know, that whole nine yards. And that's another thing of just learning discipline, being in a hardcore family. Yes. Doing hard work, too. Doing hard work.

And you know what? My daughter has a lot of that she's that's good she's one of those grinders that just gets it and yeah my son's a hard worker too i mean this i got i got fabulous kids that you know i would imagine my son will be a division one wrestler here soon um that i taught him discipline i taught him you know, hard work is the only way you're going to get stuff. And I mean, we have a gym in the basement, kind of like, you know, you guys have, and they're down there all the time. Friday nights, my daughter and my son are lifting weights on Friday nights. I'm down there with them. Like, you know what I mean? And, you know, I honestly think both my kids were great at sports because of repetition we we just we believe in

repetition we believe in constantly training whether it's the fitness side of it or it's the actual technique side of it for instance my daughter you know soccer player foot skills she did foot skills since she was seven eight years old that's why she's unbelievable on a soccer ball right and then she got into the lifting and now she loves lifting and when she went to east carolina she was the strongest girl on the team and she was only 125 pounds and she killed it there like she was you know great at that my son you know kind of they followed my footsteps in the in the in the lifting thing my son loves lifting you know um we go to the gym together um every once in a while we'll go to the till's gym down down in balmar because it's oh

that's that's the dude right yeah yeah he's running he's running for office too yeah he's running for office now he's running i think he's i don't know if he's running for senator or what he's running for but yeah that's the dude ian smith who people listening you probably saw him he was the guy who went to war with with murphy like two months into the pandemic it was kind of funny yeah they kicked the doors down yeah and to his credit you know his whole point was this is a place for people to work out we're trying to have healthy people this is bullshit and you know he he's definitely loud about everything he thinks but as far as like some basic common sense i mean you needed people like that and some of the things that that they did to him they like drowned his bank account and just like took it like yeah crazy

man what i will tell you is you know we don't me and my summer go there like once every couple weeks you know and you know you don't pay pay to go there because I don't know what the whole legality thing or what's going on there. But, you know, obviously you get your temperature taken, you fill out the form, whether you have any COVID, you know, symptoms, that type of thing. I will say that is the cleanest gym. And I've been in a lot of gyms yeah i mean everything from i've been in gold's gym in california to world gym in california to gold's gym in hawaii to man's world which was in a house right in a house where my dashboard would get stolen um to you know a tillis gym where i mean everybody got a a spray bottle when you walk in and there was paper towels everywhere. So when you-

I saw a video of the system. Yeah. Yeah. It's like when it was first starting. Yeah. It was like five steps. It was pretty quick, but it was like- Yep.

And then they have some kind of hydro stuff blow that blow out. Listen, I can tell you this. I felt very safe training there. Very safe. I felt it was clean it was safe and uh when we were there we felt we felt it was uh an awesome place to be you know obviously there's some massive human beings in that place yeah i've never seen anything like it i don't even know if they were that big out in la to be honest it was really very comparable yeah you got that jersey guido juice baby it's it is

there's some strong guys i i miss my gym a lot because and i remember i didn't know the last time i went in there was gonna be the last time because i didn't it never occurred to me that they would shut down gyms yeah yeah i will never forget that during quarantine i was like well time to go to the gym and driving over and it was closed i'm like what yeah and they're like per law on on the on the window i'm just like this is crazy but you know i i worked out at an old school gym it was like it was like rocky yeah you know it was there were two types of three types of people there there were boxers a lot there were pros that worked out there there were they had the best power lifters in in the state like all the best guys like as far as like setting the

records one guy who trained me was like the state record holder and the bench and all this shit and then there were guys like me who kind of operated in both worlds sure you know and i never did i like i like heavy weight but i like making weight fly sure so instead of putting you know 450 for two reps on on the hex i want to put 225 on there and make that go for like 15. yeah you know what i mean like that so i'm like a mid-weight kind of guy like let's do some compound lifting and there were a lot of guys in there who love doing that and i just keep on hearing the theme but you know that you said something similar about that house that you worked out in or whatever it was yeah yeah yeah man's world gym where yeah you go

in there and everybody's from something different yes and you know what you can have all these problems in society going on it's a beautiful thing about gyms all all these different groups of people fighting with each other shit going on problems everywhere but you go in there and the hedge fund guy is the same as the literal trash guy yep you know me i'm the same as some 65 year old in there who somehow still puts 185 up 10 times on the bench and like we're all friends you know and we don't care where everyone else is leaving to afterwards but there's a respect that happens where when you see people in there and you know they're not like your 15 minute guy they're in there and there weren't any guys like that in there they're in there and they're working

you know and by the way that's great motivation too yeah you're doing that for the right reasons like no doubt now he's 45 minutes him or whatever but like now he's actually in my group well there And by the way, that's great motivation too. You're doing that for the right reasons. No doubt. Now he's 45 minutes, Tim, or whatever. Now he's actually in my group. Well, there you go. And you got him there. Working his tail off. You got him there. But that environment, people respond to that, and you learn a lot about a person.

I would go to guys who I ended up talking business with or doing things because I respected how they worked. My friend Rich is legitimately – I mean the guy retired when he was 41 because he was a hedge fund guy. And he got bored after like 10 months and went right back. But you would never know it. And this guy is tactical. And so I would see him go – nicest guy. And you could talk to him he's very very by the book and whatever but i would see him like in there almost like meditating between sets

and this dude i'm telling you he hasn't had a carb in 30 years like he looks he's 50 he's 57 maybe 58 i don't even know if i'm adding years to him you don't look it he looks like he's like 40 decked like his arms are like huge i'm not getting small now but you know and and every single thing is diabolical and so i i would watch him for a few months and chit chat here and there before i ever knew what he did and i i knew i'm like this dude is like that in his job i want to know what he does yeah turns out he ends up you know i'm not in the markets anymore, but that was my go-to guy. He's the best trader I've ever seen. When I had Raj in here,

Rich used to trade with Raj back in the day. You know, he took orders from celebrities on the phone in the 80s, you know, to clear their stuff. And I'm like, but he's always been like this too. So he learned that accountability doing this. And every day, no matter what, he's in there, he's up at 4 a.m., he's in the like this too. So he learned that accountability doing this. And every day, no matter what, he's in there, he's up at 4 a.m., he's in the office by 5.30,

you know, and trading in the market all day. And when four o'clock comes, cause the market's closed, boom. Now he's going to the gym and he's getting his two hours in. And there's a plan. You know, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And the discipline thing keeps coming up,

but I just, you know, bringing people together and learning about people and making everyone a part of the discipline thing keeps coming up but i just you know bringing people together and and learning about people and and making everyone a part of the same thing is is a huge huge upside to gyms and i think just the whole thing of just mental health yeah let's go back to that because we got off that i mean it's what what gyms do for you mental health wise is amazing you know it's from a self-esteem bias from you know the way it makes certain things in your body change you know what i mean when you're stressed you know it gets rid of the stress hormones and it gives you the good hormones and and that's really what it's about it's about feeling good and listen every human being whether you're an adult you're a kid

in school needs something an outlet yeah feel good about themselves and you know they could have broke up with their girlfriend you know it could be vice versa and by the way we we're actually doing a much better job of getting females in the weight room well you know we have about five or six of them in there we changed requested to have some of the equipment changed around to be more female-oriented instead of just being power racks for football players, which it's been great because we finally got a cable crossover machine which baseball players can use and stuff like that. So the goal, obviously, in the next year or two is to increase females to about 15 i mean we're about three or four percent in there right now you know i want to get them to about 15

and that's where i i i talk to them all the time you know when they're in there like you know hey how you doing you look great i'm glad you're in here you know tell a friend bring it bring it bring another girl in you know come with a Tell a friend. Bring another girl in. Come with a girl. Or bring a bunch of them in to build it from that side. I will tell you this. We are around 50 kids after school. And the gym is not big enough.

And going back to the support that I get and I think the students get, they're going to knock the wall through and we're going to expand it double the size. Oh, that's awesome. And it's already in the works and we're going to move. We're going to have all the deadlift pits on the other side. We're going to have bicycles, treadmills, and we we're gonna have ropes on that side and maybe one more so yeah to open it up on this because right now so many people are dead lifting in this smaller area and people are trying to do you know dumbbell benching and it's really jammed up right now and you're gonna get heavy bags in there too oh we got them in my basement and i took mine in for a little while um that would be really cool greatest thing ever that

would be that was the best discovery in my life my son hits it every night oh he's been doing it now for a couple years boxing is yeah you want to talk about getting out stressed holy go hit it go hit a bag for 12 rounds three minutes 15 seconds around in an hour you'd be all right yeah it's it's it's it's and it's and it's like what's what's the other one like when people scream in their pillow it's like in the scream in your pillow but you know you're working out too and you're not hitting somebody you're hitting a bag yeah you know this is very very important but very very cool stuff i i do want to get back to that mental health point though as i said because we started talking about the phone and that's how we got here because we started

with that and you said that a lot of kids are having you know the phone is an enemy and and in in that way because now they're just on it all day and they're sick they're more secluded than ever even in school you know because they're there's regulations and rules and they're separate from people you said they couldn't even have lunch together for a while we couldn't have lunch that's just fucking because of social distancing because you remember i think it was six foot at the time and so when you start measuring all that out yeah good luck you can't have with kids you can't have kids eating lunch down at that point you know it's so what what kinds of things like what patterns are you seeing because like i i read about it and I read different. You read anecdotal things, and then you read things that also have some hard data.

I try to look more at the hard data stuff rather than someone putting out an angry tweet. But I recognize when you can match up those tweets with the data, okay, we're onto something. But what kinds of things have you been seeing with some of the kids you work with that's really been a huge change in the last two years? I just think their ability to cope with stress now. I think that's the big thing because and that goes back to you. They're coping through this and this doesn't help you cope through this. Right. And and then I think the other thing is you're pointing at the phone by the way oh oh gotcha

so I think you know with going through a phone you that's not how you solve issues or problems in your life you can't use the phone to do that right and then not being able to see people or be around people, you know, because you were secluded for so long. I thought, I think that is some of the main causes of why they're not able to cope now because they haven't had the ability to learn through, all right, me and you got an issue. We got to work this out. Although we're not going to be friends no more.

No, instead they text back and forth and you know what happens with text and it gets worse yeah right it doesn't get it doesn't get better oh you get misread through text yeah and it doesn't get better yeah so whereas me and you if we had a problem in school we're going to meet up we're going to talk about it and we're going to work it out when they're not in school or it where the pandemic hit they're doing everything through there and and that's why cyberbullying has increased more too. That's a whole other piece to this whole thing. During the pandemic. During the pandemic, as well as I think just in general across schools, you know, with the ability to use phones and all these Snapchats and all that.

So there's no accountability when you say stuff now because you're not seeing you're not seeing somebody's emotions or feelings you just send it through a box right which is a phone and so and you're not accountable for it because some other stuff they don't know whether it's you or not right they make fake accounts that there's all these little issues that you have to deal with in a school system. Like we've really, the amount of work and the things we have to do as administrators, as teachers is enormous now. They've kind of pushed the plate over to us and said, yeah, you handle that. Oh, the family's not doing well.

You make sure you help that family out. Oh, the grades aren't good. Make sure that. Oh, by the way, they're having mental health problems? Make sure you take care of that. Oh, by the way, on weekends when there's bullying? Oh, you're responsible for that too. Responsible for when harassment and intimidation happens on a weekend.

Online. Online. We got to handle it. So you're handling it either Monday morning, Friday afternoon, or maybe it gets to the point where it gets to an administrator somehow and so it has to be reported to you obviously yes yes yeah um i mean there's those we wear a lot of hats that we didn't wear in years past and um you know it's you know i would say that you know it pushes you away from the educational part of it too. Really, the main goal is to educate. And I just think the agencies around supporting the schools need to do a better job.

Like who? I would say there's not a lot of resources. There's a lot of paper that has, oh, contact this person, and then you contact that person, and oh, by the way, they refer you to this person, and that person doesn't pick up, and then they want you to ask that person. You get a lot of that, especially when something drastic happens, you know what I mean, where it could be a custody case, could be something, you know what i mean where it could be a custody case could be something you know it just the ball just keeps rolling and you're just like what's going on here it's our cover your ass society yeah people do something to make it look like they're doing something to say that they did something and there's not really an actual well how does this work yeah what how is this going to help yeah what problem people aren't solving problems they're using square peg and putting it in a round hole and shoving it in there. And so it doesn't surprise me at all to hear something like that.

I think it's negative, though, that you have to then, like, all the resources your office has to put into it. Like, that's not even feasible. Like, you're trying to conquer a country every day, pretty much. Yeah. And what I will say is, and I don't want to take credit for all the things I do. I mean, listen, I do some good things, but the guidance department is,

the amount of work guidance counselors do is amazing. Their job is to do college prep, right? Prepare you to get in college and be successful in college. Your grades, your class, you know, scheduling your classes, and then mental health issues, boyfriend issues, family issues, sports issues, you name it. Like, that's a lot of hats to wear in a short amount of time to get it done, you know, and maybe have, you know, 150 kids on your caseload or maybe on Kingsway might even be more. And maybe they have a couple hundred kids on a counselor's caseload. That's a more controlled environment.

It's not an open school per se. You can't see as many things. I would say kids are more willing to reach out now than they have that's good to be honest yeah i think they understand i think yeah i think they do understand there's help where they could at least get led to the right avenues to find help um i i don't think they're scared to let people know that they have issues to be honest i think they're not afraid to say hey i have anxiety or i'm depressed um you know which is that barrier you don't want because that's where things can go really bad you know so i think from that standpoint that we're we are making you know headway whereas in other areas

we're not you know not so much our school but outside agencies and stuff like that and collaborating where money goes and stuff like that I you know going back to the whole mental health thing we we don't spend really any money in mental health in this country. It's crazy to think about that. Like, for instance, going back to me being a child adolescent, I was the only one. And so there was a wait list of 100 people waiting to get on my caseload. Oh, wow. You're talking about back when you were. Yeah, when I was a therapist, right?

So why is there not another child adolescent therapist right but the pay is not great the pay is really minimal you probably make more at amazon oh for sure you know right for sure and you know it just make it doesn't make sense to me if we're having problems with youth which then that then transitions into adulthood yes would you want to deal with it early be proactive not reactive you know what i mean we're not built like that no right and and and and attack it at a younger age and spend money at the younger ages and i mean listen that's that's why you have these problems with shootings and you know all these things tie into this mental

health thing yes uh um i see that kid you saw that one a few months ago the the ethan kid out in michigan the parents and all that yeah kid's 15 years old yeah now i will say this they were talking about trying him as an adult yeah i think that's anti-constitution he's 15 years old his balls have it maybe they've dropped he didn't look like he was in the weight room so you know he's probably behind the curve but like i see that and of course that's awful and like you know the the it's it's a monstrous thing to do but i don't know if you you saw he had a youtube channel when he was a kid oh i i didn't yeah i didn't and he hadn't posted on it in years yeah but it was scary like you go watch videos they're from five years ago when he was 10

years old she's a cute little normal kid yeah you know that's not a long time yeah and that the same kid went in and blew people away with a gun and you look at his other social media and the signs were all there yeah we're all there yeah and it's like okay why are we still letting something this one was obvious yes why are we letting this happen and then when it happens okay we're all mad we should be kids died like this is a huge problem but why are we not taking those prep those proactive measures at least from what I can say sure and also what what why are we? Not trying to figure out exactly how this case happened and and talk with him. I mean, he's 15 He's got his whole life in front of it. He's gonna have to pay some time here

But like this isn't someone they're not gonna end up trying them as an adult I'm sure this is someone who's eventually gonna be in society again So let's figure out how when he's in society again he's gonna be a normal kid like he was five years ago yeah you know as an adult uh yeah i i think we need to do a better job of understanding why they're doing the things they're doing i mean that that's more important than anything all right so where did it go wrong and how do we attack that part of it and change that? You know, um, you know, I don't know a lot about that case, but you know, it frightens me every day because, you know, you just, sometimes you don't know, like from a standpoint of where we're

sitting, you know, maybe a parent might know, but we don't know, but we're trying to just make sure our school safe. That's, that's first and foremost. Have But we're trying to just make sure our school's safe. That's first and foremost. Have you ever had a close call? No. That's great. No. Sad I got to say that's great, but that's great.

Like I said, I mean, just obviously being in that system, being in that environment when you hear that, because you know how close close everybody is teachers are close to the to the students students are close to the teachers administrators are close to everybody like that's a family that's like one of your family members passing away that's that's really traumatic and so um you just you pray that those type of things never happen again which you know obviously you know we haven't found an answer yet you know yeah that's got to get figured out because it's just you know there's a re you get the internet obviously isn't great with copycatting and stuff like that but back when columbine happened i was too young to understand what what went on i think it was like three or something like that but you know

that as far as i know that was like the first yeah so we went call it of modern schooling since world war ii we went call it 50 years without ever having this happen yeah and then it did and now it happens a lot yeah it's like well there there's – it's more than copycatting. Yeah. There's something in the water going on here where, you know, you don't just wake up one day and go, I'm going to blow everyone away. There is a process that gets you there. I don't know what it looks like, thank God. But at the same time, you know, I'm not sitting in a seat like yours. But if I was, I want to know what that looks like.

You know, try to imagine it. And that goes back to mental health. So I don't know these situations. I don't know what these individuals were doing. I don't know if they needed counseling. I don't know if they asked for counseling. But if they did, the accessibility to it is not easy. So my point is we need to spend more money in child adolescent therapy or

therapists. So when a kid like that has a problem, you can automatically make a phone call and get them appointments. The accessibility is, it's delayed. I was, it was involved in it. I know.

And it's disturbing when, you know i gotta have you know clients every other week because i need to get more people onto my caseload because i you know if i had everybody on a week now my wait list is in 100 it's maybe 150 170 like you know so think about 100 kids on the caseload that i mean on the wait list isn't 100. It's maybe 150, 170. So think about it. 100 kids on the wait list. Where are they going? They're getting dropped back in the society with the same issues that are not being addressed. And in their mind, no one cared enough to talk to them about it. Yep.

So, I mean, I personally think they should invest, maybe they should invest in schools and having two therapists. That's all they do. They do therapy. They don't do anything else. They don't do college prep. They don't do this. They don't do that. They don't coach. That's what they do. They do, and they're in a separate way, or I don't know. There's just got to be a better option. That's a good start. But that comes down to money. And guess what? Then that means that instead of, and I think that should be supplemented by the government, not by the town. You know what I mean?

Because then that's just more money to, the town's got to come up with, and that's what it comes from. Something's got to be taken from. And taxes got to go. I think at some point, the federal government needs to address it what it comes comes something's got to be taken taxes gotta go like it's you know i think i think at some point the federal government needs to address it and needs to put some money into it you know yeah it makes you wonder why that why some but then again it's government it's just

bureaucratic there's so many people so many opinions that should takes forever to get done if it does at all but one thing i i did want did want to ask you about before we got out of here, because we've been talking a while now, but, you know, you had mentioned you do interface with the youngest kids as well. Now, a lot of the programs you're talking about, you're doing with more high schoolers and some middle schoolers. talk about those kindergartners those first graders those second graders we we've had a long enough time now in this pandemic that we are seeing time-long studies come out to where we can see clear data that says whoa problem with x y or z and one of the things we've been seeing that we've talked about a little bit today in other contexts was that whole issue with communication you know these kids who are the youngest that even pre-k like three four five six seven we're seeing i don't have the numbers in front of me but it's significant we're seeing significant rises in speech impediments we're seeing an inability to

have basic back and forth listening and talking we're seeing i think they also and i'd have to check this but there was there's data on like eye contact or something i'm not even sure how you get data on that but you know even the anecdotal stuff from from psychiatrists and stuff talking about that you know how much are you paying attention to that and and have you personally in your seat seen a big change down there so me personally um I have not been down to that level much at all in the last year. I've been more focused on the middle school and high school. But the counselors down in each elementary school have dealt with that. You know, I don't have, to be honest, I don't have any data or just conversations just that, you know, sort of things that you're talking about that are going to be an issue probably for a while.

Because you're going to take the mask off and it's not going to just cure itself overnight. Like, you're not going to go like that, you know. So I can't really talk too much at length on that because it's one of those things i haven't really dealt with but i mean those conversations have been had you know with the with with the counselors in in the lower end schools you know the elementary schools i should say yeah we're going to be seeing it'd be interesting yeah it'll be interesting to see you know not only that i'd like to see a four year study on where these kids are at from an academic standpoint. You know what I mean? That'll be interesting.

Four years out, if you were in first grade, now you're in fifth grade. What do your grades look like? How are you responding to this? How's your English? All those little things. Was it worth it? When you look at the numbers at the end, whenever we can determine that 10, 20 years from now. Let's just say on one metric of a certain type of test score across the entire population of 100 million kids, whatever it is. Yeah. We see that the numbers for students of the same age as across the board 10 years ago, so at that point maybe like 2018, 2019, was 85.

Yeah. And now we look across the board and we see 79. That's a six-point difference to a lot of people when they look at it and they go, well, that's not too bad. You can recover from that. Extrapolate that across an entire society of 100 million of the next generation who are going to be coming into the country across everything from the private sector to the public sector. And now you have lost 6% of intellectual output. To say nothing of that doesn't even measure emotional output. And emotional intelligence.

Let me tell you, some of the best businessmen I know probably got a fucking D in school. Yeah. Right? Because they're great with people. Yeah. They learn how to figure it out. Compare that to other places that didn't treat their kids like this. Mm-hmm.

Same scores. Yeah. That's going to be a reckoning moment yeah will ever will anybody ever be accountable for it that's the problem cynically no you know that that's what really makes me sick to my stomach because the majority of these people making these decisions know this is wrong yep they know it And for political gain or political power, they go and do it. I mean, we're sinking to an all-time low with the things we do now because of power and politics. And I just, I shake my head on it.

And I was never a political person, ever. Never. Never. And, you know, my mom raised me as a Democrat you know but I don't know how much I believe either side you know really don't and and I just see how much it's affecting our society in general because I see it from an everyday basis from the school system to somebody that's in a gym to somebody that coaches college soccer to somebody that's a father and

what i can tell you as an american i know what's going on is wrong in in in so many ways and i'm just like wow like i i say to my kids i said good luck good luck because this is this is all going to fall apart at some point. The chips have to be cashed in at some time, at some point. So it's a scary time. It's a scary time we're living and the way we do things. Look, everyone has to make the best of it. And that's the thing.

You can only control what you can control. You can sit there and put up a tweet and it's not going to change anything. I know. You have to – I had another guest in here, Chris Giuseppini, who was saying the same thing. He's like, you have to change the life of the person in front of you. And that's to start with you first. And it's like that's what you can do. So I think it's a pretty great thing what you're doing and you're having an effect on a large Population like like an entire community basically and so love hearing about that

This was a really good conversation because I haven't had someone in here Who's working with the kids and and that is something that in my DMS especially but even on public comments Just even when it's mentioned in here with someone else People have an opinion on it and they're asking about it because, you know, I don't have kids, but a lot of people do. A lot of people who don't have kids are even curious about it because it's

been two years. And so, you know, I don't know how we come out of it, but, you know, keep doing what you're doing. Well,

thank you. It's a great thing. Yeah. Appreciate it. And thank you for coming in. Yeah. Thank you. All right.

We'll do it again sometime. Yep. Everybody else, you know what it is. It's a great thing. Yeah. Appreciate it. And thank you for coming in. Yeah. Thank you. All right. We'll do it again sometime. Yep. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back. Peace.