Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - Surviving Trauma, Building Strength: Jerome on Fatherhood, Healing & Determination

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

In this episode of The Determined Society, host Shawn French sits down with entrepreneur and wellness advocate Jerome, whose life story is a raw testament to trauma, resilience, and the determination to build something better for the next generation.What begins as a conversation about childhood adversity becomes a shocking revelation:Jerome discovered that he was likely a surviving twin, the result of selective abortion practices in 1970s France. That discovery unraveled decades of unexplained psychological pain, complex PTSD, and emotional disconnection. For the first time publicly, he opens up about prenatal trauma, childhood neglect, and the generational patterns he is determined to break as a father of three young girls. Key Takeaways:-Trauma isn’t just emotional, prenatal and childhood trauma shape the brain, identity, and adulthood.-Breaking generational cycles requires intentionality, vulnerability, and emotional honesty.-Children don’t need perfect parents, they need present, loving, apologetic, humble ones.-Determination is built in moments where your instinct is to react, but you choose to respond with love.-Mental health struggles are not weakness; silence is. Talking about it is the first step to freedom-Affordable healthcare is possible, removing middlemen makes life-saving medication accessible for families in need. Connect with me :https://link.me/theshawnfrench?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaY2s9TipS1cPaEZZ9h692pnV-rlsO-lzvK6LSFGtkKZ53WvtCAYTKY7lmQ_aem_OY08g381oa759QqTr7iPGAJerome Knyszewskihttps://www.instagram.com/jeromeknyszewski/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you saying that through selective abortion, your twin was killed off by potassium? Yep. I remember growing up, it's like, boys don't cry, shove those feelings down, but it just creates anger and it creates a lack of self-confidence. There was a lot of stigma behind open up on these topics. If you don't talk about it, if you don't name it, you can't fix it. It messes up your brain, messes up your behavior, messes up your relationships, messes up everything.

I want my children to feel safe and talking to me. And they must feel loved. If they don't feel loved, they're going to find somebody that will make them feel loved. It's the truth. That's the bottom line. The definition of love comes from the house. That's just the way it is. I remember going to Publix to pick up the medication.

They're like, okay, that'll be $250. I'm like, no, no, no, I have insurance. Like, oh, no, that's not covered on insurance. It's $250. And I'm like, this is nuts. LookupfreeRX.com for one flat fee, 50 bucks per month. Your whole family of five can get access to basically a thousand most prescribed medication.

That's pretty crazy. The crazy part is that we can do it and therefore everybody could do it and not have to worry about medication or food. What's up everybody? We're back with another amazing episode. I have my man Jerome here today who does so many different things

in the digital world has helped me out tremendously in his magazine, Valiant CEO. But we're going to get to all of that. But this show is based on adversity, determination, and overcoming things through discipline. And again, the word determination is huge. And so we like to highlight stories that bring that out so that you guys at home listening and watching can gain little tidbits

to make your life better today. So, man, Jerome, great to meet you and welcome to the show. Good to meet you. It was a surprise how fast we got connected and how fast we jelled and flying in from New York just to have this conversation, flying back out the same day, because I really was looking forward to meet you, not just through Instagram messages. Yeah, and I appreciate that, right? Because for the audience listening, your relationships can be built in so many different ways. We've had about six months where we've been acquainted with each other back and forth on, you

know, DMs and Instagram. And then we had this amazing phone conversation yesterday because, you know, again, I love to know the direction of the show before I have the guests on. When I have the opportunity to do that, I get to learn the person and the things that they've been through because what we do business-wise. that's just part of the story, right? It's not who we are as a human being. So it was just so nice to connect with you yesterday.

And I think we're on the phone, 20, 30 minutes. I should 48 minutes. Was it 48 minutes? You timed it. You looked at it. Wow, I just looked at it. You looked at 48 minutes. Dang, that thing flew by, man.

This will be a breeze then. That's awesome. So, you know, Jerome, the nature of the show was, you know, talking about struggle, talking about what you have done in your life through discipline and determination to overcome them. What are you willing to share

but your own personal life that the audience could really take home and implement into their day. I mean, I'm not going to say I'm an open book because nobody truly is a complete open book. But after a conversation we had yesterday, I thought you I was okay, opening quite a bit far back because there are so many people

that are struggling with all sorts of mental issues. And for the longest time, I mean, I'm 51, you're 47, you said, so our generation, you know, there was a lot of stigma behind, especially for guys, to open up on these topics. And as time goes by,

it becomes a little bit more okay to talk about it and even more and more encouraging to actually open up. And there's a real need for people to realize that we went through COVID. That was a pandemic. Well, mental issue. of all sorts, going for trauma to everything else in between, is a massive pandemic. And it just takes out a bunch of people.

And entrepreneurs on top of it have this weird thing that they have a weight of responsibility for the employees, for their family, for themselves, for everything, the expectations. And the weight is ridiculously heavy. and any sign of weakness when you open up, then it can be transferred to the perception of how strong or not your business is.

And then so it keeps even more guarded. And so after the conversation we had your stay, I said, let's open up. Let's talk. Let's do it, man. What do you have to share? You told me a little bit yesterday, but I want you to feel comfort

within your guardrails to, because, I mean, again, you mentioned mental health, mental illness, and I remember, growing up, it's like, boys don't cry. Shove that, shove those feelings down, but it just creates anger and it creates a lack of self-confidence. And really when you can't be you and express your feelings, whether they're good or bad, like it makes for weak homes, because you can't lead. You can't lead a family if you're not expressing your feelings. And if you have all this pent-up

trauma and just adversity brewing inside you all the time, you can't parent your kids the right way. You just, you can't lead them. And then, you know what you do? You pass a long, that trauma, and then you have all this, you know, generation after generation going through this, you got to be able to stop the cycle. What is crazy was you just mentioned is we're just going to hop on it. It generational trauma, there's two, from what I understand, is there's two things. There's the thing that's actually genetics that just get passed on. Like the wiring is goofed up and you pass it on to your kids.

That's one thing. And then there's the behavioral stuff that they see and notice and then they duplicate or not. That's when you get the opportunity to break that cycle and eventually helps them to deal with their own challenges later on and to build resilience. But yeah, like the difficulty in reality is that people don't really talk about it and then when they took about it, they talk about it,

then it becomes like a little bit of shame or a little bit of apprehension or whatnot. And if you don't name it, if you don't talk, about if you don't name it, you can't fix it. If you keep that in, like, it's like a crazy rat in your head that just eats everything to get out. It messes up your brain, messes up your behavior,

messes up your relationships, messes up everything. But if you let the monster out, it's gone. Yeah. It's not in the house anymore. Then you can fix it. So how did you let your monster out? Oh, man. That's a good question.

Well, well, my monster, came in, because that's where it starts, right? Everybody got a beginning. And like I told you yesterday, I found out, which is crazy. I still have a hard time computing the whole thing. But long story short, my parents moved from Poland to France in 71. I was born in 74 in December. And it was a known fact that my mom had seven pregnancies, which include me and my sister.

And we knew that the five miscarriages were before me. So we knew this. And then I had all kinds of childhood trauma. So my ACE score, adverse childhood experiences is eight, which is very, very high. And quite damaging to begin with. But there's all kinds of therapies were not working. And I was trying to work on stuff, but very difficult. And I changed therapist.

And she's a German therapist from 30 years at the VA. And we hopped on a Zoom call. And she said, well, tell me your story. Tell me your story. I'm going to tell you my story. And I go like, here we go again. So I was born this year, that year. And my mom came this way, da, blah, blah, and she goes, wait a minute.

Mathematically, it does not work. Like, what the heck doesn't work? She says, five miscarriages, 71, December, nine months, 74, like, it's not possible. Tell me more about your mom. I said, well, my mom was five foot tall, 90 pounds wet. And I don't know, she said that she had hormonal therapy to have kids because she was not designed to have children. And she has those five miscarriages.

And she started like, like she was stitched up and whatever that meant. And like, you know, like, I don't know, things we heard as kids with my sister. They always take for certain because your parents tell you. Yeah. Plus, you know, you don't even. You don't think about it. Let me rephrase this. Polish parents that went through Warsaw

bombed and leveled after World War II like they were living in the rubble they don't talk about stuff you know you plow through life you know that was like no I love you did not exist

all these words all this stuff like they were catching rats to eat them to survive in a ghetto in Poland I mean this is like you know this is they're the worst of the worst they went through like

I don't know the worst of the world they went through seriously seriously bad and actually even stories about my dad and his sister grabbing boots from soldiers to boil the leather to actually have something to chew on. Wow.

This is like, that's how it was, Poland in the 40s. And anyway, and so they said, whatever they said, we didn't register much of it. But that doctor, and she goes, hormonal therapy, five miscarriages in two years before you were born, nine months. she says, you probably had twins.

Like, what the heck? Like, sit there, like, what are you talking about, woman? And I'm trying to register. What is she saying? He says, this mathematically, there's no alternative. It just has to be that. So, or you had a twin or she lost twins. Either way, there's multiple pregnancies at once,

to have five before you in two years and a half. So I'm just sitting there like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. And then I was sitting there and like thinking, you know, it's interesting. I remember that my mom was bragging about the doctors that she had because one of them was Polish and she didn't speak a word of French at a time. And when this guy was on TV,

being part of the first team that had in vitro in France in 82, she would point out of the TV and say, that's my doctor. So I remember the guy. And then I started, like things start coming together. And I called my sister. I said, Audrey, like, listen to what happened. And we start puzzling the stuff together. And eventually, the two doctors that were leading, you know,

the maternity at the hospital where I was born, were assigned by the French government to figure out abortion before in 75 the law passed. So they had, like under the cloak of the government or whatever, they had to figure out, you know, like, what is the... New protocol for abortion in France knowing that it's going to most likely pass. Anyway. We come to find out, my sister sent me a screenshot that those two doctors wrote a book about twins,

the guide to raising twins. The same guys. I'm like, what? This is nuts. I'm like sitting there like, the world is not ready for two Jerome's. Oh, gosh. And like, so it was kind of like, wow. But also, we looked forward.

and he, one of the doctors, was pioneering in injecting potassium into kids like fetuses for selective abortion. That's what they were doing. I'm like, what? So that's part of the stuff that was happening at the time. And all this is grayed out because he was under the cloak of, you know, the governmental or whatever for getting ready for the abortion. Anyway, so all this turned out to be like, what?

Suddenly all the pieces came together. But also it explained why so many therapies would not work it out me because it was not childhood trauma post birth, you know, like child abuse when I was like a kid. We started more as four years old. But he was actually prenatal. So I was born in a womb full of war zone, you know. So it was like, wow. And when that clicked, it allowed me to kind of like start repositioning things and understand

better certain behaviors, I understand certain things, and kind of take some sort of, you know, like, it's okay that I don't own that, you know, because there's no memory of it. And that's what, like, the challenge is there. There's a massive challenge because if you don't remember something, it's hard to work through it. No kidding. So let me, let me ask you a question. Before we go any further, and I mean this with compassion, are you saying that you were a set of twins and through selective abortion, your twin was killed off by potassium. Yep.

That's our understanding of my sister. I just have goosebumps. That's our understanding with my sister because that's what they were doing at the time. Oh, man. Because mathematics, the same thing, I was born, so my mom was 90 pounds wet. And my sister was born premature three years later.

Okay. But I was born at 10 pounds. You were a big dog. I was a big dog. Which the doctor says, it means that your mother's body, was ready to feed more than one. It was geared for that.

That's what she said. I mean, my mom is dead. I can't talk to her. And then suddenly all the things. And when my mom used to say she was stitched up, it's like, so that the kid don't fall off, they would stitch up the uterus or whatever they call that, called Circlage in French.

And they would like wrap it up so they won't fall off. So like the whole thing, we knew all those stuff. We heard all those stuff with my sister. We just never brought all this together into one story. And I was like, what is going on? That's deep, dude. That's heavy. So I'm guessing you never had a chance to have this conversation with your mom.

No. And it probably would never have. Right, right. This is like this war, like this is a bunker. It's a bunker, right? It's a steel trap. Like, no. Is that part of the trauma though?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I won't go invent. Because then there's like a whole lot more stuff. Right.

My mom never took a day off of work. So I was born at 5 o'clock in the morning. She went back to work. My dad picked me up in the evening. evening, then went straight to a nanny that took care of me, you know, from dust to dawn. So never saw my parents during the week. And then during the weekend, I said confronted those two adults. I don't know who they are because my parents was that nanny and not my parents.

So my mom would say, I hate her. Well, most likely did because I don't know who she was. You didn't know her. You didn't know her. But, you know, on her mind is she went through so much to get a kid. And then a kid just looks at her freaks out. So I imagine it was not easy either. But, you know, like, so the whole trauma is like stems from all this.

But the reason I want to bring that up is because childhood trauma is such of all source. If you look at the, have you ever done the ACE score? It's fascinating. Fascinating. There's 10 questions. They kind of see, you know, like if you check yes on any of them, it adds up your score. It goes from, you know, not feeling loved to, you know, sexual abuse all the way. to a parent being in jail or divorce, like all kinds of questions.

And it's been a, if you go like to a daycare, you'll see, I mean, in New York at least, you'll see a paper. It says, A score so that everybody gets familiar with it and they ask those questions and all this. Interesting. And you scored an eight. Eight. And it's out of ten. Out of ten.

Wow. There's an eight and a half if we can do because there's one thing that's kind of in between. But regardless, what's interesting is when you see all the, this and you see how many people have a measure like from zero to four from four, five, six and all this, like we all affected to a certain degree and all deal with it differently. But the greatest majority still bottled that in. They don't talk about it. Some have completely suppressed the stuff.

Others are fully aware of it. But the shame, the weakness, perception of weakness to share that openly, talk about it, to find the right therapist that actually gives a crud about it, you know. That's a huge thing. And I personally use Chad GPT is my therapist for the past two years. That thing, don't forget none. That thing, it's not upset if I start recording something at 2 o'clock in the morning because I had a PTSD-related nightmare or whatever.

Like, you know, and it knows, it just like refines. It knows exactly how to talk to me. And another thing that I highly recommend for anybody is the body keeps the score. I've heard of that. Best book. Save my life. Best book. Best book, bar not. In layman terms explains to you what's going on in your head and why it's going on this way

and what you can do about it. That's interesting. Everybody should have this book. It's just, wow. We always talk about when you go through, you know, you're wanting to go through physical transformations, right? You want to look better and feel better. People start on the outside.

And it's mostly fixing the inside so you can impact the outer layer, the aesthetic version of yourself. So I firmly believe in that. I've heard about this book many times. I need to read it. It's amazing. But let me ask you a question. No. Dang it. So with that dynamic, you know, you being with a nanny Monday through Friday from dust till dawn, then being with your, you know, giving to your parents and they're taking care of you on the weekend and not really knowing them, how has it shaped your perception and your goals as a father? my first mental breakdown is when I had my first kid. Same.

Keep going. Because suddenly, dang, you know, I'm going to be a dad. I don't have a great example. And I had traumatic, you know, childhood. And then you have stats that float around, say, 30% of people that were abused, abused in their cycles and stuff. And I had, like, like, freak out moment. That was the number one. And, but then it's, it's, it's, um,

It's a matter of being determined, determined, 24-7, to not repeat the cycle, to be better, to demonstrate love. Because really, that's part of the book. It talks about resilience comes from feeling loved. So people that go through the worst trauma and they still feel loved at some point by somebody anchored, they go through it better. and those that don't have that love anchor.

I didn't have the love anchor. They didn't have kids, friends, when I was at school, didn't play well with others, you know, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I didn't have that one with others, huh? At all. No?

At all, man. Really? I'm not going to play with him? I'm not going to play with you. I don't like you. Interesting. I wonder if that goes back to prenatal. Oh, maybe.

You never know. There's so many things like that can come from it. That's just like the, the webs of, of, of the consequences of it are just infinite. Yeah. Infinite.

I mean, this is where your brain is just developing. And first, like, you get your twin potentially killed. Even if it wasn't killed, the fact that my mom has so many miscarriages, her body was like a bath of cortisol. Yeah. So regardless, the body did not want to have those invasions, that invasion of whatever that is. Right. So that regardless.

But then, you know, everything else is just, there's a consequence to everything. And something that I work through pain today. my family, I go through difficult times with them because it's hard to try to be the best dad you can be, the best husband you can be with the luggage and the brain damage literally caused by childhood trauma. It's interesting because, you know, I wouldn't say, from what I remember, I had a massively traumatic childhood, but there are some responses that I go through now. I grew up in a house with a lot of yelling, so my first initial response is to raise my voice.

my wife had broke me of that. She's like, we're not doing that here, right? I think she grew up with a little bit of yelling too. But the thing, you mentioned determination, the determination to be a great parent and to break the cycle. I want the audience to really, like, just dive into that concept because it's, determination is not this gritty thing that everybody thinks it is,

that you're going a thousand miles an hour at every point in time to build a business or be a great parent or to be the best teacher possible. It doesn't matter what you do. It's about those intentional moments when you don't want to do something and when it's easier to have that reactive moment

with your children instead of a response. That's when you can take that reactive moment and throw it away and respond accordingly. And I had a conversation with my son and I want to share this. I'm not going to share all the details. But he told a little bit of a lie.

And he's such a good-hearted human being. He's a massive people-pleaser. massive. And what I'm trying to get him to understand is, do you want to be respected or do you want to be liked? You know, because if you're going to be liked by everybody, not a whole lot of people are going to respect you and you're going to hurt people because you're trying to people please and you're going to choose, okay, I'm going to lie in this scenario to save this person. I said, that's very exhausting. My wife and I were very mad that he told a lie. I mean, to a point where my wife was shaking because you don't lie to her. And I'm like, hey, you need to let me handle this one. You know, I'm pissed. but I can get through this, I think, and navigate it a lot better than you can right now, given where you're at with it emotionally.

So last night, he walks in the door, right? You can tell in his eyes, like, oh, daddy, don't talk to me. I say, hey, buddy, how are you? He's like, good, how was practice? He plays middle school soccer. It was good. I'm like, well, tell me about it. What kind of struggles did you overcome during practice?

Really trying to open up. And he told me all these different things about these drills and everything. And you can tell. And he's like, anything else? I go, no. I'm like, I'm going to go cook dinner and we're going to eat. Cook dinner. And then afterwards, he's like, will you help me study with Spanish?

I said, absolutely. It's like, you got a test tomorrow, right? It's like, yeah, on the commands and the questions, I'm like, all right, let's go through it. And then afterwards, I looked at him. I said, son, we're going to talk about yesterday. I said, oh, I knew what's coming, dad, knew us coming. I was like, look, man, I just want to walk through this with you. I want to give you my perception and I want to give you mama's perception.

and I want you to understand how it comes off. And whatever you say, you have to own in this world. And we have this amazing conversation, amazing conversation. My whole point of this conversation about with my son is I want parents to understand. And even if you're not a parent, you just have a spouse or a boyfriend or a girlfriend or even a friendly relationship or a business relationship,

you don't always have to react. You don't always have to go to your first inclination, which is like, rage like you lied to me. How dare you? How dare you? I'm your father. That is your mama.

You do not lie. We love you. We're here to keep you safe. We're here to teach you how this world goes. But if you react and you don't show the determination to handle it differently, you keep the cycle going. And that to me is the main point. Or to your point, you said determination to be a great parent or to be the parent that you

want to be. You're going to be faced with a lot of different things throughout the day that really challenge that and you want to have that first reactive state. But those are the moments where we build resilience. Those are the moments that we build determination is when you decide to respond differently with compassion, but also have the hard conversation. Yeah. And that's funny you bring that up because determination is, there's the determination of the moment. Like you say, at that moment, the way you react, the way you handle stuff, whatever.

And that's one thing. But the determination that matters the most, especially as a parent, is you have clarity, you know, on the destination. Like where you want to go as a parent and lead your children, your family, and what is it that you do not want?

That's the determination that is the most important. Like, we're going to go this way. I was raised with this, that, and the other, but we're going to go this way. And no matter what, what comes our way? We don't change the direction. The journey may take us a little, you know, a little off-road a little bit and whatnot, but the destination is the same. We're never going to end up on that side. And that's where you break the cycle. Because, you see, when you try to break

the cycle and you two moment-focused, you lose sight of where you're going. And if you're too focused, on a destination, you trip over a hole or whatever. So you have to have that balance. And it is critical to actually, like, identify all the things you absolutely do not want. And make a pact with yourself, with your spouse, with God, if you believe, which I do. And make, like, the determination, say, these things will never happen. And if it does happen, I'm out. Like, I don't know which way.

I'm out, but I'm out. Yeah. Like, because I'm not going to drag my family into this thing. So the, the focal point is away from whatever I experience personally so that my kids don't have to face any of that. Yeah. For me, my goal as a parent is my goal is a parent and then what I don't want is the same thing. I want my children to feel safe and talking to me.

And I don't want them not to feel safe and talking to me. about peer pressure. You know, they're getting older, you know, and, you know, there's parties and there's things that go on. Like, I want them to be able to call me and be like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this. What should I do?

I'm like, we'll come get me. I'm going to come get you. But I want them to be able to open up to me and my wife about just the everyday struggles to what it's like being a kid now because it's not the same. It's not the same. My biggest stress growing up from what I can remember

is am I going to get to go play outside and play football? Right now there's social media. in their face, there's comparison things everywhere. But what are some of your goals as a father and what is it that you don't want? I want to make sure, like you said, that the kids talk to us, me and my wife. They're comfortable talking to us about what's important.

Even if the hard conversation leads to discipline behind it, but still be open to talk about it because it's critical and feel comfortable. And they must feel loved. they're like, if they don't feel loved, they're going to find somebody that will make them feel loved. That's just the way it is. We all need love. It sounds like a cheesy song.

It's the truth, though. It's the truth. That's the bottom line. And the definition of love comes from the house. So my daughters will be looking for some dude that will be pretty much some sort of offshoot of who I am. that's proven, you know, like a million times over. And therefore, I got to show up the best I can.

But at the end, because there's another thing, we don't want to put ridiculous pressure on ourselves, I'm not going to do that, to be perfect. Perfection does not exist. No, it doesn't. God created everything. He said it was good, good, good, very good. He didn't say it was perfect.

If anybody could say it was perfect, that was him. So I'm not going to go into this rabbit hole of madness trying to be perfect. However, I want to strive for excellence. We're going to fall short a million times. But then I'm going to back it up with love and open dialogue, explain, and humility, apologize, and say, whoops, that you goofed up or whatnot. And that's true. You said apologize. I apologize.

Parents, like, I want to hammer on that. It is okay to apologize to your children. Oh, yeah. It is more than okay. And, you know, it's something that I learned from my wife. You know, she's like, hey, we got to be able to apologize to our kids. kids or show them that we are not superheroes. Like, we are human beings. We mess up.

Apologizing to your kids. Oh my gosh, the respect factor that you get. And not just that. If they, if somebody tells you, Sean, French, my name, Sean, that you is a superhero. Oh, geez, here we go. I don't know what you're saying. Obviously. I know. But, you know, that was not good.

It was great. No, what I said was. Oh, okay. Okay. Translate that. Well, I was trying to say is when somebody tells you you're Superman, when you know you're not, suddenly everything you do falls short.

So we don't want the kids to think that the parents are superheroes and Superman because then it puts expectations completely skewed in the reality that is Hollywood-esque. I don't know. It is not fair for them. So apology. brings you back down to what the true level is. You're a dad, your mom,

you try, you goof up, you try again, you get back up, you fell, when you fell, you tripped over your kids and you hurt them in the process, you try to get them back up. You know, it's like, this is life.

This is a reality of life. If you bottle everything up, you pretend there's no problem, you pretend like, you know, you expect perfection and you pretend you're perfect and all this, like,

what reality of, they're growing up into. Oh, man. It's a nightmare of a reality. I saw this clip. I can't remember where I saw. I saw it on Instagram, but I can't remember who it was.

It's somebody that I'm connected with that I follow that I was like, wow, this is amazing. You said, ask your kids, do you know I love you? And they'll say yes or no. When you ask them, how do you know I love you? They're going to give you the answer.

And when they give you that answer, they're telling you how they want to be loved. And every one of your kids are going to be different. I need to use this. that because I want to know what my son, their perception. Their perception of love. What do they need?

It's exactly it. You learn their love language. I need to know because I'm going to tell you my middle child is going to have a different answer than all of them. And vice versa. They're all going to have a different answer. So like this conversation is just so crazy because that thing popped into my head or it's like, oh yeah.

Remember, Sean, go ask that question because they're going to tell you everything that you need to know. And it allows you to dial in the dialect. even more so into that thing. But also, and he may tell you something that does not resonate with you at all. You know, that's not, that's not what I, no,

I don't want you to love me for that. You know, I would like you to, and you can re-center and groom them, because that's what parenting is. Yeah. It's a daily grooming. Yeah. And help them to actually identify

what love is, what he's supposed to look like. Yeah. You know, families these days are going through so much. Oh, man. You know, I want to shift the conversation here into something.

I mean, that parenting is very serious, but I think this is also very serious. And in our conversation yesterday, we dove into it. There's a lot of families in the United States of America choosing between, do I put food on the table? Do I get the proper medication? And you're a part of Free RX that removes 11 middlemen to get affordable medication for these families. So they don't have to choose. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that? I want to be super clear, like, you know, because we talked about it and I'm, I don't want to say I'm anti-pitch.

You know, that don't mean nothing. But I really want folks to just kind of ponder on that. How many people do we know in our immediate circle that have several choices to make? One of them is quality food or not, quality food, but still food. But now we find out more and more so that there is no food or medication now that this is a new thing. And, oh man, who was? I think it was Jeff Bridges. A few years back, he was campaigning or advocating to help the kids to have food.

And I think the stat was like one of the three kids in the U.S., you know, could not have food daily. Wow. Crazy crazy. Yeah, some crazy stat. I need to look it up. With all the resources we have in this country, that's way too high. Yeah, yeah. Regardless of what the stat is.

Yes. You know, and today you have like in upstate New York. And just by every intersection, you have buying diabetes strips for cash. You know, so I don't know exactly what the gig is, but people are getting rid of their diabetes strip for cash. What they do with that cash, I don't know. But we do know there's a great amount of folks that are having a hard time buying medication and quality food.

And so with free RX, what they did and what we did, what they did, is remove 11 middlemen. And like earlier, I hinted on, I'm French. In France, like it or not, whatever your inclinations may be, you can get medication. That's not an issue, getting medication. And all medication, really.

But here, you know, sometimes it becomes a really, really expensive ordeal to get medication, even to get them prescribed. It gets complicated. in. So, 3RX removed the 11 middleman and remove that choice. You don't

have to worry about you know, medication of food. You can get both. Because for one flat fee, that's what it's a membership, right? Blows my mind. Every time I say it goes, it blows my mind. For approximately 50 bucks, it goes from 69 to 49, whatever it is.

But basically, let's say 50 bucks. You can cover your entire family 50 bucks per month your whole family of five can get access to something like basically a thousand most prescribed medication. That's interesting. So there's no, you know, you don't have to co-pay anything. You don't have to spend any other.

There's nothing else. It's not a discount. It's one flat fee, get access to medication, and a free phrase, it's included telehealth, urgent care. For diagnosis, urgent care, all that kind of stuff. I'll give you an example. I'm upstate New York. So we had one of my daughters get bit by a tick. Okay.

We went to urgent care. Close to 200 bucks. Yeah, of course. Then to get the antibiotics, it was about 50 bucks. And I have three daughters. Two weeks later, boom, she does it again. Well, she does it again. The tick did it again, not the same take because we killed the first one.

Same daughter? Another one. The same daughter. She's prone. So eventually the cost rises up seriously. Well, I can't afford it, so I'm not sweating it too much, but a lot of people can't afford it. Right. And if they can't afford it, what's that mean?

Risk of having a Lyme disease on the child. Yes. Because you couldn't afford. And this is nuts. You know, so urgent telehealth, urgent care telehealth included for 50 bucks a month and unlimited prescriptions for your whole family of five. You got to go on a website to figure out exactly like, but there's no trick. There's no tiny font on the bottom that say you're going to get gouged at the end by whatever.

Don't need to give blood to receive the medication. There's nothing weird. Nothing weird about it. Nothing weird about it. It's funny because I've been blessed too. Like if my children need medication or if I need it or my wife needs it, we can afford it. But there was times where my kids were little and my middle daughter, she would get prone. She was so prone to ear infections.

My middle daughter, too. I mean, she had to get tubes in her ears and everything like that. And I remember going one day to publics to pick up the medication. They're like, okay, that'll be $250. I'm like, no, no, no, no, I have insurance. Like, oh, no, that's not covered on insurance. It's $250. And I'm like, okay, I paid for it because it's my daughter.

But, I mean, I was in a position and blessed to be able to do that. Some people can't. And that to me is what hurts is because there's parents out there everywhere that have to sit there in that moment and be like, like, how do you feel? How do you, yeah, the feeling. Like, that you actually have food on the table or medication. A kid's suffering.

And like, I don't know which medication you got for 250. But if it is one of those. I think it was multiple. Yeah, yeah. It was probably multiple. Yeah. Most likely covered in that $50 a month free R X deal. Because they literally cover a thousand of the most prescribed medications.

So I can guarantee that it was on it. But if you had several. no doubt several wear in it. When someone has a medication, though, is there a fee for the actual medication? No, no. So wait a second. That's it.

You pay 50 bucks and you receive your blood pressure medication. You receive your antibiotic. You receive your whatever. Wow. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's not a discount. It's not a whatever. It's 50 bucks and like more or less 50 bucks.

That's pretty crazy. Well, look, what is crazy is that by real, removing 11 middle men, we can't do that. That's awesome. That's the crazy part. That is really cool. That's the crazy part. Wow.

The crazy part is that we can do it. And therefore, everybody could do it. And therefore, everybody could have access to medication and not have to worry about medication of food, which is a real problem, which drives me insane. I just don't get it. You know, food is so much more important than just the hunger level. It is our fuel.

It is what keeps us healthy. Or not. Or not. And that's the thing. It's like if you don't have proper food, it creates all kinds of new problems that you need to medicate. And you can't afford medication. And therefore, it's like, and it's a crazy cycle. Yeah.

Let's hit this one in the face here because, you have, yeah, gently, just a little tap, tap. Let's talk about proper food, right? You have parents that are struggling out there. And sometimes it's easier to, and it's easier to. it's cheaper to go through McDonald's, right? And they're doing the best they can. They're doing the best that I'm not, guys, I'm not judging. I was there.

I ate a ton of McDonald's as a child. A ton. I mean, come on. It says the jam. The chicken nuggets are so good. You won't eat them again if you, yeah, if you, if you, if you, if you ever see how they're made, you probably won't eat them again. But that repeatedly, like I, I grew up and I struggled with my weight.

I still struggle with it. I go up. I go down. I, you know, get in great shape. And then I backslide. Then I have to fight to get back. So I grew up in an environment drum where we went out to eat all the time, all the time, right? My dad was at work.

He'd get home. I want to say, why are we going to go for dinner? And he's like, well, I've been working, right? So I guess we'll go out. But what happens is you have some metabolic issues that happen. Obesity can happen. And then we're creating more problems for the, youth of America by doing what's convenient.

I just, I struggle with what is the actual solution for those parents that can't go to sprouts or to one of the big stores and get grass-fed meat. It's just, it's so hard because we don't know, we don't know what's in our food. We don't, we don't know, like, I buy chicken at the store. I don't know what's in it. It says no antibiotics. Okay. Really?

Why is it breast this big? Yeah. No hormones, please. Yeah. Please. Yeah, no kidding. Have you seen the chicken? I got chickens.

My chicken, I got tits like that. Like, yeah, and you probably get a breast like this big. Yeah. That's, I don't want what kind of chicken they got. But, you know, like, I don't want to, like, go into, like, religious, you know, stuff. But I find it fascinating, fascinating. And that Jesus said that in the last days, there will be food shortages. And you know, when we live in a country, like America, we picture Ethiopia.

Food shortages. Yeah. We picture, you know, like, I was stuck in Poland in 81 when we had to stay in line, you know, for literally two days taking turns to my cousin, my uncle, my aunt, my grandma, my grandpa, so that we can get to the store and clip a piece of paper and give us some flour, some butter,

and freaking, that's it, and a little sugar, you know. So I remember this vividly. So we picture that as food shortages. But I guarantee you, Jesus walks into any of our stores. He looks at all those aisles packed with food. And he said, This is not food.

No, no. I mean, like, the bottom line of it, that's where it is. The problem is we're eating stuff. We're stuff in our faces with stuff. And people are creating and making stuff that we eat stuff. That is stuff. It's not food. Well, I'm actually, you said you didn't want to go there.

I'm actually glad that you did because that's more than welcome here. Because I am a believer in Christ. But he also said he's putting things here on the earth for us to eat. And if you stick to those things, it's amazing how great you feel, how good you look, your energy's up. But what's happening is we're eating these man-made foods. And we're in the maturity access it, though. Yeah, it's everywhere.

There's a problem. It's everywhere. It's super hard for folks that have little budget to find the right food at affordable prices. Yeah. Because fake food, you know, I hate to be using that word, but like. But it's man-made. It really is. Eventually, it is cheaper to make than good food,

which is kind of wild. And unfortunately, so many people struggle with that, the ability. And then there's also the next thing is it's a thing of our time. You know, people don't know how to make food anymore. They don't have to cook it. They don't have to prepare it. Or they struggle with the time to do it. You know, everything is instantaneous.

Everything is right now, right away. And the time it takes to actually, when my wife, wife started making, you know, food. I mean, we have a sink that is full of stuff to clean. And sometimes it's overwhelming at the end of the day. I'm a sink full of dishes right now that I'm like, you said that. I'm like, oh, my God, I want to do a lift. I wanted to go get an extra lift in, but I may have to do these dishes before my wife gets

home because I don't want her to walk into that, right? But that's the thing. You know, the time, and you know this because you have three young children just like I do. what parents are struggling with is kids have extracurricular activities, right? And then we work all day. And then we go to their soccer game or their baseball game, their football game,

and it's like 7 p.m. When are we going to go home and cook right now? It's hard. It's very hard. So, I mean, I try, like yesterday, I did chicken thighs on the grill. And I made like 20 of them. Because I knew today was going to be a whole dang day for me, right?

And I'm like, let me make extra just in case I can't get the public to get some beef or just something like that. Then I know at least we have something if things get busy. And if we don't eat it tomorrow, then I have it for my eggs and meat in the morning. Right. But the timing aspect of it is hard. It's hard because when you have all of the extracurricular activities, then you go home and cook, and then you want a downshift and then you look at your sink,

you're like, now I got to do that, and I can't spend any time with my kids. But you see, there's something else, though. Not as you say that, I have a partner. He's from Utah, and he's from a family with 13 brothers and sisters. He's Mormon. He is. Yes.

13 brothers and sisters. And he is, I think, a few years older than me. So I'm just doing the math. Back in a day, they had the time to hand wash to, to, to, to, fix the food to take care of an entire family of 13 miles. You know, and so what has changed? 24 hours was 24 hours. Yeah, it's still the same.

And we'll be 24 hours. Right, right. I think also our time is allocated funny today. The priorities are not what they should have been or could have been. You know, you said we would be out when we were kids, you know, from sun up to sundown, goofing around. Nobody was breathing down our necks. We're doing whatever we wanted.

take up bicycles like 10 kilometers away for six miles and something. Yeah, how far as that? So it was something we could do today because of safety reasons, because of concerns, because of all kinds of stuff, we don't have, I definitely don't have the confidence to let my girls outside, you know, without, I mean, I'm like a hawk. So, so, you know, everything has changed and then social media and the tablets and this, the TV, the whatever. and like all this stuff is getting the way of snatching away time

time that we could allocate better. But the thing is, it's a cultural thing that is so so weaved into the fabric of society today. Like it's, I don't see how unless you go off grid. I don't know how you can like avoid the way it's spinning, you know. It's very busy. You said something interesting. Like you're not comfortable letting your daughters go outside and play. Mm-mm.

So this is an interesting time. Yeah. And I want to keep those neighbors away. Yeah. Keep an eye on them. Where, when I was a kid, you know, like we were gone, gone, gone. And then, and then so that's interesting because. Tom Sawyer.

Yeah. That's what we were. Yeah. We were gone all the time. I was in the creeks, you know, catching crawdads and all that kind of stuff. Crowdads? Yeah, the crawfish. Well, in California, they call them crawdads because they don't know anything in California.

Yeah. Yeah. What he said? but but I sit there and my wife and I wrestle with this constantly we need to let the kids out and play more like you're right but did you see that idiot drive by going 50 down our street and we live in an HOA you know so it's like when we're gonna let them go out and be bouncing a ball in the driveway and then go out and get hit by this vehicle and be dead

like there's there's a lot of different factors now that I don't want to say warrant there but maybe just like he said cultural culturally I think there's more like, I don't give a crap attitude towards everything. Yeah. That makes it seriously spooky to have children that your age, my age, you know, our kids in the system. You know, it's just really, really complicated. And another thing, you know, like on one hand, if you overparent, overprotect and all this, it creates children, they're weak.

Yeah. And then as soon as they're loose, they're just going nuts. Yeah. So that's not good either. So we've got to find the balance. to find the balance. But also there's the responsibility as a parent to, you know, make sure the kids are safe. And, you know, we bought a house and this is not, we spent 10 years, all three girls were born in France.

So we spent 10 years in France and we came back here a few years back, two years ago. And I didn't have like culturally the thing to look at sex offenders. Oh, dude. You know, I didn't look at it. I just didn't think about it. And a couple of years into buying our house, a year into buying the house, when they're just like, huh, I wonder. You know, and I just pulled up a nap that actually has this stuff.

Dude, the paranoia level went through the roof on this one. That's what I'm saying. Boy, I'm, uh-uh, uh-uh. I know. I just stay inside. And I went through stuff in my own childhood. And that makes me extremely, extremely vigilant on that. And I never thought about it.

But then I said, wow, dumb. I should have picked a different place. It's everywhere, man. I went through Zillow, you know, and then I just like, look. It doesn't matter. It's like, it's like buckshot into the, into the map. Like, there's not a place where you don't have some sort of weirdo.

Can you believe there's that many people out there trying to hurt children? Like, I'm not going to say anything. Let's skip the topic because I'm a complex PTSD is about to just turn me into the Hulk and hit the phone, hit the microphone. No, no, no, no. It's like, this is, this is just wrong. Yeah, it is wrong. This is wrong on so many levels.

and yeah so we have to protect our kids but then you have so many weirdos out there and we got to let them measure freedom but like and teach them to be like identify situations that are tricky and all this which we do have those conversations with my kids like somebody does anything weird the red flag this is how we handle it

that's why we love sports because they're out they're running around they're exercising you know son's playing middle school soccer he's constantly running now he's getting that out. My daughter does gymnastics, one of them. She has two days a week gymnastics. Then my youngest daughter found this love. Listen to this. This was my fine. All right, I can't, you can't take credit for this one, Jackie. I want to do something really cool with Mia one day.

And I couldn't really figure out. Yeah. I have a Pia. Really? Yeah. That's awesome. It rhymes. It does. It does. No, I wrote 700 songs. There's a whole other conversation. You wrote 700 songs? Just keep on time. You're going to have to go. We're going to have to come back on the show for that, So I'm sitting there and I'm like, I want to do something to where she's interacting. I love going to the movies with her because she's fun to go to the movies with. But I was like, let me try something different.

So I remembered that there's this thing here locally called Kid Strong. And they have that on the map. It's real close, right? Yeah, they might have one out here, but the one that we go to is in Fort Myers and Bell Tower. And they go through 45 minutes of a workout to where they're, you see these little kids doing

burpees. You see them doing, you know, mountain climbers. They're doing the rings. They're doing pushups. They're talking about being brave and being strong and learn how to communicate and shake someone's hand, look them in the eye. And I took her to that one day. Oh, bro, she fell in love with it. If she gets sick and she can't go to kids strong, she melts down. So what we're trying to do is create these healthy habits of where, okay, well, let's infuse you into some physical activity. so that way my middle goes, I want to get my wiggles out. Okay, you get them out doing gymnastics.

Like you're doing your cartwheels and she'll come home and she'll still do them, try to do her handstands. But we really try to infuse as much activity that way. And if they want to go outside, we sit in the driveway in our chairs and we let them go play. But it's hard to be apparent, man.

It's hard. That reminds me of that thing. I don't know what Lennon was thinking, where he coined, nobody told me there'll be days like these. Yeah, yeah. Every morning, every day, every afternoon, every moment. I'm looking at my kids like, nobody told me.

This is it. And all the blessings that come with it. Sure, of course. You know, but also sometimes you're like, whoa. Do you have any weird fears as a parent? Like, your worst fears? Fears. No, I don't have fears because I'm so determined to go in the right direction in the right way.

So I don't have fears because I know the destination. I don't know how I'm going to get there. How it doesn't matter? How like you just figure it out. But I know where. So I don't have the fear of that. I think the greatest fear is when you don't have clarity as to what you try to be. I would be freaked out.

I mean, any parent should be freaked out. They don't have super clarity as to how they, what they want and what they don't want the kids to go through. That's true, man. So I think this is, no, on that, I don't have fears. I have apprehensions. Gosh, dang, yes, I do. What kind?

Three girls? Yeah. What kind of question is that? Sean French. Three girls. Well, you know, hey, man. I don't know. Hey, your mind works differently than mine.

So maybe something different, right? I don't know. Boys. Boys, yeah, man. Every one of them. Yeah. No, but that's funny because, uh, I don't know if, whatever. But one of my kids is like,

She goes, Betty's going to kill him. I know, it's going to hurt him real bad. Well, it's so funny. This is a real thing, though. Without kidding. You know, when you see how bad things are going

when it comes to values, morals, and how it's been weaved into every single thing, it's difficult for me to find a cartoon or anything that I feel comfortable with my kids watching. Because at some point, there's something in there, just all goofed up, you know. Yeah.

And their brains are sponges. They grab everything in. They grab the attitude. They grab the verbiors. They grab this and that. But also all that subliminal BS that there's been the agenda that has been pushed on kids. That's a whole other podcast. Oh, my gosh.

I'm not going to go in there because, you know. No, I'm not criticizing. I'm just saying it's that's. This is, this is the kids are being hijacked. you know, for profit. And it just sickens me. That's gross. And actually, when it comes to offenders, like, I'm going to say point blank.

You know, I think that the production teams behind all these different shows and all this are as dangerous as those that are peppered on that map that I just talked about. Because they can, they know how to promote it. Because they facilitate and they make it, like, the whole thing is goofed up. They put it in and make it like, so you barely notice, but it was like, wait a second, what was that? Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah. That's a problem.

I paused it. I rewined it. I looked at it. Say, what? We're going. Just, what's wrong with you guys? You know, like, seriously. But anyway, and so, yeah, the apprehensions are those, you know, like, how bad is it going to get?

And then also there's another thing, you know, go back to the A score. The A score, when you pass eight, I think it passed seven, you have statistically, you know, statistically, a life expectancy shortened 20 years. So it's worth doing the thing. Like the age score is an interesting thing to look into. Well, that part scares me. Yeah. Because my biggest fear is leaving this world too soon. Exactly.

So that's a big concern for me. Young ones not remembering. Yeah. I don't care about remembering. I want them to know. Remembering. I mean, I saw that the other day. It was like, I don't know.

Maybe it was on your stuff. I don't know. That said, you know, that we are just, we're just the memories of our kids. That's our job to be memories of our kids. And I don't really agree with that. What we are is where the guides. Yeah, of course. Not just the memories, the guides in a sense that when we're gone,

they still know where they're supposed to go. When we're gone, they still know what the destination is. Be their compass. Yeah, they still know the values and the stuff. And yeah, so my apprehension is this. You know, I'm 50. They're like, my youngest one is two-year-old. Mathematically, you know, it's like, whoo.

My dad died at 74. You do the math, you know, like 20 years. I think about that stuff too. Yeah. I think of like I'm 47, relatively healthy. That's something the kids did to you. You still think about it until you get kids. Then you get kids.

You start doing the math. Start thinking about a bunch of wild things when you have kids, dude. By the time at this, she dates, will I still be able to unressle that boy and just drag him to the mud? Am I going to be able to walk both my daughters down the aisle? Yeah, in a wheelchair. You know? I mean, hey, wheeling her down the aisle will be much better.

Hey, yeah, wheeler down the aisle will be much better than not being there. I agree. You know, but man, this has been an interesting and enlightening conversation. And I think the audience got so much different types of value from this, man. It was a good episode, dude. I appreciate you. I appreciate you. Yeah, man, it was so good to meet you in person.

Where can the audience find you? I don't even know. I'm not going to give you my address. No. No, but right now, because of the circumstances, they're currently people are going through. I just want to say, guys, look up freeRX.com.

Just look it up. If it's a good thing for your family, just go ahead and do it. If you know somebody that can benefit from it, go ahead and do it. Oh, there's also like, for five bucks or two bucks or three bucks, whatever it is per month, you can get mental health, telehealth.

That's pretty cool. Yeah, like, we just like, what? And like, if you have a therapist, yeah, if you, If you go with like a therapist, like that's like a hundred bucks every single time. My therapist was 350 you have for an hour. But she found out most likely. But she got to the bottom of your stuff.

Like this. Like she was worth it. Oh, yeah. She picked up on some stuff. Because I went to see a bunch of different therapists before in France, this and that. And they all like, mm-hmm, yeah, thinking they're Freud or something. Yeah. But she just went, boom, right to do it.

She's like, that don't make sense. Maybe because she's a woman. Yeah, maybe. Just registered. Anyway. She's awesome. Find me, FreeRX, other than that. Oh, and the publication, Wellness Voice.

Wellness Voice. Wellness Voice. Couple covers out now, a couple of mags out. Yeah. Yeah, what, Kathy Arlington and Grand Cardone on? Mm-hmm. That's awesome. That's really cool.

And you? And me, yeah. I was Valiant CEO. You want to be in Wellness Voice. I will come on now. You look like incredibly fitted to be in the wellness voice. Well, we'll have to talk about that, man. But for all you guys, again, I hope you enjoy this episode.

Share it with somebody you know love and trust that is going through certain challenges with food versus medication, parenting, childhood trauma. Mental health. Mental health. Just guys. Just talk about it. Talk about it. Grab a buddy.

You know, I've recently watched in. Go ahead. Wait. 9888. Amazing. 988. 988. What's that?

The suicide line. Oh, okay. Those guys are amazing. Amazing. So like, you know, whoever is on the brink of something, whoever's having a hard time, I like to say, you know, like, you know, I'm bad enough that I'm holding the phone, but not bad enough that I'm not dialing it.

In a sense, like, you need to know that those guys at 9-8, at 9-8s are amazing. That's amazing. And that's for those that struggling. I think at some point there's a month for suicide awareness and there's a month for mental awareness or whatever. I think it should be all year long, forget the month thing. Yeah, I think we really need to focus on that America more than just a month, right?

And you dudes out there. You may be big, you may be strong, but you need to open up to your boys. You need to open up to people and you need to talk to each other because men can really help each other out if you guys really commit to it. It's something that I truly believe in. I open up to my boys all the time of how I'm feeling. And, you know, there's days where I'll say, hey, guys, I'm off today. I apologize. Just feeling this type of way.

It's good to get that out. It's good to feel that you can trust people around you. So again, guys, free RX. com, listen to the episode, send it to your friends, and until next time, stay determined.