Navigating Mental Health: A Personal Journey

0:00 Table, super happy to have Sean with us today. In fact, we've known each other for I don't know, maybe 15 years at some level. Yeah. And you've had a really interesting journey even since we've known each other aside from the beginning of all that, you know, prior to this. So thank you for being with us today. Really super appreciate it. And I'm looking forward to having this chat. If it's OK with you. Let's just start at the beginning and tell us how all all this came about. The real charge me a little bit. That'll be great. Sure, sure. So I'll start with a little bit of a background. So I live in Atlanta, but originally from New York. And then work wise quick the resume after school I did 15 years, I did international institutional equity sales. So sell a stocks to banks overseas and then in 2007 with a partner Co founded the first impact investing investment bank, did that for 16 years.

1:02 So we'd raise money for impact and sustainable companies, raise money for impact and sustainable private equity funds, put on different investor convenings, had an online investor portal about 1000 LP's and 10 GP's at any one time. And that's where we were overlapping in the past. And then there's the, you know, what happened? Where are you now? So then there was the mental health story and I'm happy to give you a little snapshot. So it was an interrupt me anytime you want to. It was September 22. I was depressed, had trouble eating, had trouble sleeping. I lost 40 lbs which is wonderful. People be like, you look amazing and I'm like, I never felt worse. Yeah, you look amazing, but I don't feel so shit, right? Yeah, I feel like. Shit, but you look amazing. Like what are you doing? I was like, I'm not really eating, but I don't really tell them that.

1:44 And then the depression was growing and then it was a it was this December 19th. And I think especially when you're not really eating and sleeping, of course I was eating and sleeping, but but not well, the system gets weak. So it was December 19th. I was on a Zoom called like LPGP call. Have like a full mental breakdown. Not fun, can't speak, pretty much suicide. I'm telling my wife I don't want to be here anymore. It's also observing what how you're thinking and not thinking that your mind is not always your front. Your brain is a machine that's just creating all kinds of things. So it's lying to you a lot. So if you see those things, then you can be like, OK, I believe this. I don't. Not everything your brain says is correct. Hello, welcome everybody. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Arthur's Roundtable. Super happy to have Sean with us today. In fact, we've known each other for, I don't know, maybe 15 years at some level.

2:34 And you've had a really interesting journey even since we've known each other aside from the beginning of all that, you know, prior to this. So thank you for being with us today. Really super appreciate it. I'm looking forward to having this chat if it's OK with you. Let's just start at the beginning and tell us how all all this came about. The real Charge me a little bit, that'll be great. Sure, sure. So I'll ask the mix. I'll start with a little bit of a background. I live in Atlanta, but originally from New York. And then work wise quick the resume after school I did 15 years, I did international institutional equity sales, so sell U.S. stocks to banks overseas. And then in 2007 with a partner Co founded the first impact investing investment bank.

3:20 I did that for 16 years. So we'd raise money for impact and sustainable companies raise money for impact and sustainable private equity funds put on different investor convenings, had an online investor portal about 1000 LP's and 10 GPS at any one time. And that's where we were overlapping in the past. And then there's the you know what happened? Where, where are you now? So then there was the mental health story and I'm happy to give you a little snapshot. So it was an interrupt me anytime you want to. It was September 22. I was depressed, had trouble eating, had trouble sleeping. I lost 40 lbs, which is wonderful people be like you look amazing and I'm back. I never felt. Worse. Yeah, you look amazing, but I don't feel so shit. Yeah, actually, like shit. But you look amazing. Like, what are you doing?

4:00 I was like, I'm not really eating, but I don't really tell them that. And then the depression was growing and then it was a, it was this December 19th. And I think especially when you're not really eating and sleeping. Of course I was eating and sleeping but but not well the system gets weak. So it was December 19th. I was on a zoom called like LPGP call have like a full mental breakdown not functioning can't speak pretty much suicidal telling my wife I don't want to be here anymore. Please freaking kill me. So, you know, most wives don't want to hear that, Arthur. Some. They don't want to hear that and you say it. With some mites, Some mites, right. Some mites. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So my wife didn't. So that's that's a keeper. Yeah. So there you go. So we don't know what to do.

4:43 Yeah, it's very opaque. So we're here in Atlanta. So we went to the emergency ward and they basically rolled someone out that telemedicine. They asked you all these questions. Then they said, do you want to get checked in to the psych ward? I don't know. I don't. I have no idea what that means. I saw one who flew the Cuckoo's Nest once, but I don't really remember it. But I'm like, yeah, all right. So. Right. Yeah, I wasn't sure what I, I vaguely remember the movie, but then I was like, all right, fine, I want to go somewhere. So packed up my sound machine, my IMAX, my computer and went over there the next day. And 1st we checked in, there was this lovely older woman. She seemed like a second grade teacher to me. And then the next room there was a lovely police officer.

5:25 And you can't have any of those things there, right? You can't even have a string in your pants. So it kind of became, yeah, real very quickly to be in that situation. So I was in that place for yeah, I was in touch. I was in there for for two days. I'm happy to get into it. But then, then, but then I went out. I, I, I, I went home and then I wanted to go back to work at the company I Co founded. And I had two partners in the firm. And sometimes things don't work. Our partners. This is a, a normal situation. So the partners ended up buying me out of the firm. That's great. I got some money. We had probably didn't have to work for a year. That's it. But the company was my whole identity, my whole life, my whole existence. So when that happened, I felt deeper in depression. I started shaking.

6:11 It was kind of wacky. And then another dude came into the story. His name is Brett. Heard our kids played Little League baseball together. And then he was friend also friendly with my wife. Not too friendly, but he was friendly. So my my wife basically texted Brett and said, hey, Sean's in a bad place. He came back right away and asked him all the right questions. Is not a therapist or anything, but is he in a safe place? This has happened to a lot of people, especially guys. So something similar happened to Brent. So Brett became now what I call my mental health sponsor. So think of Alcoholics Anonymous and you have a sponsor, basically a buddy, right? So walking, talking, hanging out. And then I went away to two treatment centers, one in California, one in Florida.

6:56 I was gone for about 70 days. They take away your phone. I was in therapy all day. And then I got back and how the real started. I got back a little bit over two years or so. And me and Brad, we were talking on the phone and we're like, dude, you know that that was serious. That was real. I said, yeah, man, that was real. I said that's what we're going to call it. We're going to call it the real. And then he said to me, well, what is it? And of course I said, I said, I, I, I have no idea, but I know there's a lot of men, women and families that are suffering and I think we, we've learned some stuff. I'll stop for a second. There's a chapter 2 and what we're doing, but that that's the intro. So, and you don't have to answer this if it's too personal. I'll answer anything, I don't worry. Yeah, no, I'm totally cool and I expect that, but I just want to give you an out if you want it.

7:42 Yeah, go ahead. Is the, you know, some you joked about it, but some spouses would say, wow, finally got rid of him. He's too crazy for me. Let's let him just sort of drift away and move on with my life. But you sounded like you got somebody that really cared, right? No, my wife is the hero in the story. She had to take care of everything. Life goes on when you're in that treatment center and she. Has to deal with. My mom yeah I got AI got a 18 year old and my son's almost 17 so they were a little younger before but not much so it's about 3-4 years ago whatever life goes on yeah it's not and and she has to report to everybody oh it's the.

8:25 Caregiver, that's a tough position. And and there's I've heard lots of stories now where exactly what you're saying, where I speak to a lot of people and some of them where the person on the other side wasn't that I can't, I don't, you know, every circumstance difference. I'm not blaming anybody, but that's just that's you never know. Yeah. So here's another private question. Did you get to the bottom of the reason that you were depressed and this and whatever caused this, were you able to get to the bottom of that on some level? Sure, I don't know if there is a bottom, but I can tell you that I was depressed from time to time these 30s forties.

9:06 It would come, it would go. I knew I was depressed because I'd I'd lose weight. It was a great diet. And I also say, you know, I was at a 10/1 time. That's a bad place. But every human is at a two or four or six at one time. If you're breathing, this kind of shit's going to happen. Maybe not to that extent, but it happens. So in this specific situation, it was a combination platter. So I had COVID right before. I'm not blaming COVID, but I think that weakens the system. Couldn't have helped. Right. No, it doesn't help. It doesn't help. It's all about weakening the system. And then it wasn't anything that no one else is going through. It was a combination not sleeping well, not eating well, getting older. Who am I?

9:47 What am I? OK, challenges with work. It just felt like it was kept on getting the bricks on my shoulder. So that's, that's what it was. But to look at a different way and OK, that's terrific. Then how do you come out of it? To me, it's more looking at things differently now, basically kind of having different lenses in the glasses, looking at looking at the world differently. Not have to go sit on a mountain. You can sit on a mountain if you want. And of course I had a therapist that help you help, but I think it's just how I was looking at things. There's a, an obvious and omnipresent trend now to see what trauma happened in your life or in your lineage that may cause you to need healing on some level. And I'm being facetious on some level on purpose, but I'm, and I'm not making light of it.

10:40 But there's a, there's a fair amount of people that have said, wait a minute. And, and I think it was catalyzed partly by people sitting at home during COVID and saying, holy shit, I don't have to race to work today. What am I going to do? What am I going to think about? So they had an opportunity that wasn't clouded by just getting everything done. And so people not only traded Bitcoin, but they sat and thought about life, right? Is it? Is that part of what you see as well? People are analyzing it more. Is that what you? Mean, yeah, I'm saying that people have have come to the grips. I think on some level some people, I'm just telling you what I see. I don't know anything. Yeah, it's all good. It's all good.

11:21 Is that OK? There might have been some trauma in my childhood or my family and This is why I'm depressed or can't deal with certain things or go in the corner and and get all my knickers in A twist or getting the 2A knot. Is there any of that that you see happening in your world as it relates to the real or anything else? Yeah. So now I've spoken to thousands of people and then talk in front of them and, and a couple of things. This is never 1° away from anybody's always half a degree or 0°. And I can't tell you that there's so many different factors and every person's different. So sure, I think all these things are combination platters is it's just building up of different things. Sure, could be your upbringing.

12:08 It could also be, you know, what you were taught when you were older or even, hey, how society looks at these. I think it's it's not one thing and each person is is just different. All those, there's so many factors that you can you can put into the thing. I really like and appreciate what you said about changed your point of view. And it's, if you don't mind me editorializing a little bit for a second, is that it's been a regular view from the Buddhists, for example, that if you just adjust your lens, you can go back to the way you looked at it prior, but try it for a second and adjust the way you see something that might reveal a method of dealing with life in general, right? And what's interesting is they always said you go back to the old way of looking at it if you want, but if you just try and see what happens, right?

13:02 So what you were saying is that you've changed your view on certain things that have helped you deal with things. Yes, and every day I will think, OK, I'll my thinking, how I thought about this before for 50 years. You know what? That wasn't really helping me. I'm going to think about this a little differently and then I can look at it. I could kind of see it on it. It's also observing what, how you're thinking and not thinking that your mind is not always your friend. Yeah, your, your brain is a machine that's just creating all kinds of things. So it's lying to you a lot. So if you see those things, then you can be like, OK, I believe this. I don't, not everything your brain says is correct. But it's, it's a tool, Yeah. And a toolbox. And it's just always working.

13:43 But you don't have to. You don't have to agree with it, and you don't have to do what it says. Yeah, I think that if that's the only thing people get out of hearing you today, I think that's super valuable. There's just my opinion. There's a friend of mine that wrote a book, his name's MO Gaudat, and it was solved for Happy from an engineer's perspective. He was an engineer at Google, super successful guy. And at the end of the book, it basically said your mind is not you. You're the observer of your mind, so don't let it take control. So it's kind of the same thing that you're saying, right? Yeah. And, and, and this is Buddhism. This is 1,000,000. I mean, this is not like some new thing that I'm talking about from all these people.

14:26 And it's pretty, it's pretty similar. But then when you can actually, it's hard to do. But once you can do it, it's just not that it's perfect. But if you start thinking in that way, then you can look at things just a little bit differently and even the things that society teaches you. And of course, we're talking about family offices and man money. And there's that the other thing. But it doesn't even matter how much money you got, that's you might be miserable in a bigger house, but it's also how you how you look at these different things. And I'm going to be a little chapter 2 of my story that will also please permeate that. So chapter 2 was what is this? You know, I was saying me and Brent pick out the name I didn't know. So my default is LinkedIn. So I went out on LinkedIn and I basically sent a message, hey, I was in a bad place. I'm starting this thing called the real. And then I hit the button.

15:08 That was scary. I hit the button to let's say 30,000 folks. So many people came back, so many people, super supportive. And then a lot of people, I became like Brent, they wanted to talk to me and I became like a mental health sponsor like Brent was because I'm not a therapist or anything, but if you could say a man or woman, listen, I know exactly how you feel. You don't want to get out of bed, you don't want to take a shower. And, and you think I might not want to be here anymore. And then the worst thing is you think that's just never going to end, right? This is it. But I can tell them 100% I do not know when it's going to end, but it's going to end. That's, and I'm, I do that a couple times a week, almost every day talking to people because you get into this bad head where you can't. A therapist said a good thing to me. She said it's like you're a fish in a fishbowl when you're in that head and just someone's shaking the hell out of it. You don't know which way is up, you know, but one guy that hit me and you're going to know him.

16:04 So Ron Diamond, I'm sure you know Ron. So from, from Tiger 21, I don't want to, I want to, I don't want to pitch competitors, but no. So Ron hit me and he's like, hey, I didn't know Ron at all. I thought it was another person that needed help, but he goes. Can you come and speak to our group? I say yeah, sure. So this was June 5th of 23. Got on the plane, me and Brent, we went to see his tiger group in Chicago. He's got a couple. And I was telling the story like I'm telling you and 10 minutes in, the hands go up. The hands go up, right? Because everyone's talking. Everyone's it just, it's just like popcorn. You hear that it's going to pop. And all these guys and women telling the stories. Supposed to go for 40 minutes, goes for an hour and a half. You know, you have billionaire guys opening up. It doesn't matter.

16:52 It. Doesn't matter. You gave permission. Yeah, because they feel comfortable and some of them were my old clients. Whatever, it's it's it, it's fine. So then what happened was Ron was like, that was great. I said, yeah, no, it just just happens to, you know, it's it's it's normally this is a human condition. So of course decided to go on a roadshow. I don't know why, because I always go on roadshow with my Old Firm. So that that summer we went on a roadshow. We did Nantucket, we did Martha's Vineyard, we were in Greenwich, all kind of investor places. Because I'd done that before. We didn't have, well, we didn't have a, an ask. We didn't have a like now there's a there's a for profit, not profit, but we just had a story and people be like, well, what are you at? Well, like I.

17:32 I don't know, this story is just resonating. And I also think just going around telling the story that that also helped me a lot. But people would be like thank. And they would be like, thank you. I don't know they would do it for you. But I like it. Yeah, for me. But they were they were like, thank you. I don't, I don't know what you guys are doing, but I really like it. I want to help you. So I was like, OK, wonderful. Well I don't mind saying to you in awe of every time I see a post or see some activity from you, it's another 13141520 people stepping up and wearing hats and saying I'm doing this. And I also don't mind saying I don't know what the fuck it is that you're doing, but I'd like.

18:12 To tell you that's good, because now I have to call here. So, OK, so then I was telling you we went on the roadshow and then it kind of formed eventually it there's a fourth, there's a foundation and then there's a for profit. I'll give you the foundation. And also if you can go to the website of the foundation, it's the real dot care. So the foundation is, is based on the power of conversation and community. Yeah, because that mental health complicated A lot of pieces, but that, that helped me a lot, you know, conversation community. And I think that community is, is, is the medicine. So the foundation is based on three CS. It goes conversation goes to community goes to change. And soon you'll understand all these posts conversation. So the talk that I gave at Tiger 21 and we did the roadshow, I call that the real talk, right?

19:01 And now I've done that 2030 places and it's a conversation. It's like we're doing right now. It's a conversation. I'll stop talking. People start telling their stories. I don't ask them to, they just do. And when you have that and we have those conversations breakdown the stigma, people feel more comfortable because everyone thinks like you're saying, gives them permission. So the idea there is one guy telling the story is wonderful. But how about 10? How about 100? How about 1000? So our goal, one of our goals is to help 10,000,001 men with their mental health by 2030. So think of the talk like, like it's a Ted talk, right? With a certain look, a certain field. So 10 finance guys, 10 marketing guys, 10, whatever kind. Yeah. Because I think people associate with people that are similar.

19:43 And think of that like, like a library of talks so that people can watch those. And you know that a music video has been watched lots of times, a billion times. So this is how you get in front of a lot of people. So that's one is the conversation. That's the first C and the second C is community. Yeah. So I was talking about my friend Brent. But there's so many people that came out of the woodworks and I had stories of people coming out of the strangest places. But we have, you'll see on our website, we have these ambassadors. So our goal is to get to 1001 ambassadors by the end of 26. We have our close to 500 now and they're all over the all over the freaking planet. It's around 30 countries, 6 continents and all kinds of guys, all kinds of guys there.

20:28 Tons of fam, there's family office guys, there's finance guys, but there's all all kinds of folk there. So what are we doing with them? So one is we're working on an app. It's still early, but here's the basic idea. I don't know if it's be internal or external. Give guys a safe place they could talk about this stuff, not feel like they're judged, you know? 2 Brent was my mental health sponsor. Be a mental health sponsor. Find a mental health sponsor, help somebody out. Yeah, three. I don't think I should have went to the psych ward, but me and my wife, we didn't know who to talk to. People always hit me for advice or for their kids or for their moms, their dads. Not that I'm giving out medical advice, but at least I have some experience just to help people on this journey because it's super opaque. No one knows where to go, what to do. It's just very, it's hard.

21:10 And then people are interested in different modalities, yoga, mindfulness meditation, psychedelics. I think these, all these things are super interesting. But I, I'm a sales guy, you know, in general, but, but I would have learned it from other people in the group. And then now I'm going to get to the pictures and the ambassadors and what they do. So the ambassadors and again, we got a close to 500. What do we do with them? Every 3rd Saturday of the month? We do this thing called speed friending. So what is that? We had about 100 guys on the call last last month and we get on a call and then we break up into groups, 246 we do some rotations, you know, 8 minutes or something. What are we talking about? Are we talking about mental health sometimes? Are we talking about nothing sometimes? Does it matter?

21:54 No, because. Because it's building community and conversations and guys are meeting other guys out there and just feeling like they're part of something which which they are. And if they need support, this guys in there that are going to help them because they can associate work, marriage, whatever every topic someone has experienced and and they can talk to you about that if you want or or not. So that's one thing we do. And then the second thing that we do is we do this thing called the real walk. That's where you see all these hats. So the real walk happens the third side of the every month. And now it's happening close to 500 locations all over the planet. So in essence, the guys wear the hat to get the hat or not the hat, it doesn't matter. And then they go for a walk.

22:35 Or why? Because there's a lot of isolation, there's a lot of loneliness. There's also a lot of division. I go for a walk with a guy named Bob every Thursday. Bob, me and Bob couldn't disagree more on any subject ever. Literally, we are fighting on any subject. I'm on one side, he's on the other. Who cares when we're done, Bob? OK, brother, love you. I'll see you next week. It doesn't matter. And then even doesn't have to be a walk. It's interesting people interpreted differently. I saw one guy, he's doing hot yoga, another guy he's smoking cigars with his friends, another guys golf. It doesn't matter. It's just being part of something. And they and they do with their wives, their ex wives, their dogs, their cats, 10 people, one person, 100 people, whatever. That doesn't matter.

23:23 So that's, that's, that's when you're seeing all the hats and stuff. So we have the ambassadors. Then I'm talking about this. So this is not this, I'm talking about guys. But this isn't a guy thing, right? But guys, guys meet shoulder to shoulder. Women meet face to face. They just talk about stuff differently. Guys in general are loners and they don't want to talk about this stuff. But what do women want? I'm not sure what they want, Arthur, but I know one thing they want is healthy guys, OK? They want to have healthy husbands and sons and uncles and grandfathers. So we have these incredible women right now, about 50 or so that are the allies, right? And most. Most women that you want to be associated with in one way or another aren't looking for somebody who, when a crisis hits or just daily life, that they're going to crumble in the corner.

24:12 And I'm not saying that that doesn't happen and it shouldn't be addressed. I'm just saying that's not the profile, right? Of the of the Allies. Of the woman About what a woman's looking for, right? Yeah, but you know, these things happen in life, OK. And you got the better for worse, all that stuff. So and every situation is different. I can't speak to every relationship, but yeah, people are going to struggle. That's that's a guaranteed. So you whatever that's that's Yeah. So but you'd want someone that's going to support you. And if you don't, you know, that's maybe you get a new one. I don't know. But these are right these things. But these women, these women are helping. Yeah.

24:53 So we have the ambassadors, we have the allies, and then we have embassies. Because I thought that sounded cooler than chapters. So now we have guys, a bunch of guys in New Zealand getting together, guys in London, a bunch of guys in San Francisco, wherever, because we have them all over. That's that's that's one side of it is the foundation. So that goes conversation, goes to community, goes to change. Does that make sense? Yeah, it totally makes sense. And the women are involved because they it resonates with them. Yeah, they want to help their their mothers, their, their wives, their sisters, they, they and, and it's a Ying and a Yang because if you help a man also helps the family.

25:35 It helps them too, though. There's a lot of one, one goes together with the other. This is not two separate things. I I put it like this though. OK, so women and men, I'll just talk differently. So I had one of the women who was an advisor to the firm to the, to the real. She's like, the real is about men talking about her feelings. And when she said that I want to throw up because guys don't talk like that. Guys say I had some challenges. I went through some shit. It means the same exact thing, but you have to talk in different languages, different languages. So, so they both want the same thing. So it's not, it's not, there's no, there's no tug of war here in, in terms of that. So super interesting. Like I said, I am just in awe of how many people. That's more, that's more, but I'll get to that pick you going? Yeah, please.

26:20 Yeah. No, no, I just want to, I just want to give you a heads up that I just what I'm looking at, I'm going how the hell is he doing this? And why is it so important? And, and look how many people, people that I know are stepping up, sure, who don't have time to do their priorities are stepping up. I mean, I'm not saying that there's there smart busy business people that I know and they they are carving out the most valuable asset they have, which is their time to put your hat on and at least pronounce that they're involved. I mean, that's impressive. Yeah, sure. And I also look at the real a little bit like a sports team.

27:01 So, you know, some people love the Yankees. They're going to paint their house pinstrikes and they could name their kid Derek Jeter. And some people go to won a game every three years and it doesn't matter and we're not taking attendance. You don't make every call. It doesn't matter if you don't go on a walk. Doesn't matter. It's more being part of something. But on the other side, honestly, what's more important than how you're feeling every single day? Because your brains going 20. So if you can't make time for that, do you need make time to make get more money? Like that's not going to help you. That's nice. But I so I'm just taking the other side of the coin. I mean, yeah, they're busy, But if you're not going to take time to help yourself and feel good, then why? Why are you so busy doing?

27:42 Yeah, right. For what reason? Yeah, got it. Now I'm now I'm going to, I'm going to flip it. It's kind of like back to what we're talking about with the Buddhist where they, they, and I'm not advocating any dogmatic thing over another, just to be super clear to the audience. I don't care. But it's the thing I think that was smart is they said if you don't have your shit together, you can't help anybody else. Like you can't be of value to anybody else. Yeah, they say. Right. They say if you don't put out you put on your eyes from an oxygen mask first before you help other people. That's exactly that they like to say right like on the plane. So the other side to the reel is are more on the finance side. So was the Co founder the first impact investing investment bank? I saw how that space grew from nothing 1.5 trillion or whatever it is.

28:24 So I had non compete my Old Firm and then it burnt off and I was like I got to put on an event because a lot of companies, a lot of funds and other folks were coming my direction. We put on and then one of our goals is to help move $10 billion in new capital into mental health by by 20-30. I'm not raising $10 billion, but I saw how we were helpful in the impact investing space. So we were putting on different convening. So we put on the first real summit, the intersection of finance and mental health. We did that last October at Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bank's headquarters in Columbus Circle in the city, New York City. What was it? It was one a half of it was your typical investment event. Companies, funds, family offices, the usual stuff all around mental health.

29:06 Half of it was workshops. How do you work on your own mental health? How do you become workers as a founder? How do you work with your teens? All that different stuff. And then we also interjected. We did a real walk in Central Park, people wearing the hats and stuff, and then we had people doing talks. So we did that in the city in New York, and then we did that in Davos, Switzerland, and then we did that in London and then we just did it again in in New York. Yeah, I saw that. Davos in London, we'll keep on repeating that because that's how you in my mind. And it's not just men. This is mental health in general, right? How do you bring more capital into this space? Yeah, because on the on the flip side, is there a bigger market than every human on the planet?

29:49 So that's that's one side of it. And the other side of it is how do you make the invisible visible? Yeah. So I think the real is a Bryant. So if you think of you might have seen these have these shirts, life is good. They still have them. Life is good, hats and shirts and all that stuff. Or even there's this initiative in Australia, started in Australia that's all over the world that they grow guys, grow 66 million guys, grow mustaches or even think of Nike, just do it. So now people in 30 countries all over the place, again, it's tiny, are wearing the real hat and and then there's going to be other stuff so that you're, you know, you're, you're walking in the mountains up there and you're wearing a hat or something else. Someone sees you, you see them. You just know mental health effects people. And that other way to look at it is where is there also a mental health brand?

30:35 So now we're getting looking at different, you know, kind of Co branding things with other people's. That's that's another piece to it. Yeah. So what? What would you say was different than you expected? That was a good outcome from the event in New York that you just had. In other words, what what did you expect and what actually happened? What was really cool was we had Andrew kind of out of the blue. Andrew Yang, you remember him? He ran for president. Yeah, of course. And Rick Perry, who also ran for president, kind of found us. We didn't pitch him or anything and said we want to come when we want to speak.

31:19 So that was really cool to have a Republican and a Democrat both there speaking because mental health is 1 space where there's really no one's lobbying against it. Right. So that, that was really great. And I think the other thing was it's more if you and if you, there's so many people posting and it's wonderful about it. But at the end of the day, it's a feeling, right? Because of course on one side it's you've been a lot of investment events. So by I put them on, but you're kind of bringing in the human element into this. So there's deeper conversations. Of course they're talking about IRRS and things like that, but they're also saying, Hey, what's going on with you? How are you doing?

32:01 And people are sharing their stories. So you have both sides. That was the, that was also not for this one, but the first one, it was a beta. I was like, is this going to work? I, I don't know, but there's some, some magical thing that's happening there that people like, OK, I went to this event, you know, usual investor bet you whatever you bonds with some people, you might see some ideas, but here you're creating more of a bond. I think more of kind of a following a family to, I don't know, family, but but you hear what I'm saying. And we had a lot of ambassadors there. We had a lot of allies there that they're, they're, they're super supportive of each other. So that was it was more a feeling than anything. Yeah. So I want to get to how I can help you and the companies that I have.

32:43 But I don't mind telling you that while I don't have capacity to do this often, I have a handful of family offices that I'm intimately involved with. And it starts with money, but it ends up always being something else. Of course, of course. And so there isn't been a situation where there's a super fucked up person or family member and everybody has this problem, right? No, every, every human, every family office. No, this is not unusual. This is, this is, this is the most usual situation that you don't hear about, right?

33:24 This is in every house, every car, rich, poor in between. This is everywhere. This is you don't hear about all the time. This is human beings. This is what happens to them. Yeah, it's really omnipresent, I think. That's just part of the human condition. It's not, it's nothing to be embarrassed of. Like it's I'm you're weak, blah, blah, blah, whatever. This is what happens to people. This is this is what happens to them. I'm not maybe not to the extent that happened to me, but it's going to happen. I was saying I was at A10, you know, 2468. That's going to that's that's that's your life or something like that's going to happen to you. I tell you, I tell you, I tell you, Arthur, I go into a lot of rooms and I say, hey, please raise your hand if you as a family member or a friend has never been negatively affected by mental health.

34:10 I've never been in a room when not everyone raised their hand. Yeah, it doesn't matter. There's a favorite author of mine that's I think germane to the subject that he says it's Joseph Campbell. He says life is full of sorrow, Embrace it. He's basically saying, look, we're all got problems, right? And we're going to have problem and it's endless. Of course, of course, of course. But but I also say on the on the flip side that I was telling my story and on one side, that was definitely the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life 100%. But on the flip side, in that moment, But now if you ask me, I might say, and I will say it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I. Totally get it. So, so, so that's that's not a necessarily a bad thing that happened.

34:56 Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like the dark and the light, right? Contrast. So. All right, so how can how can the our listeners be Family Office insights Our bevy of companies help you further this mission. Sure. So a couple of things. If anyone wants to be an ambassador, that's really easy. Just hit me up LinkedIn. And like I was saying, we're not taking attendance. You don't have to be at every on every 3rd Saturday. You don't have to go for a walk and you don't have to be on every call. That doesn't matter. It's more being part of something and then just telling other folks. And then I do a lot of just people hit me all the time and say, Hey, my buddy's not doing good and I say, OK, well, I will talk to them.

35:42 That's that's easy stuff. Of course we need dough, right? So how we've, I self funded this and it's, to start, I am a family, not a family office. So I put in about a half million bucks, which is a lot of money for me. And then we got some donations. We got like 100 grand donations in the beginning, but we didn't really have, you know, this, you only have one chance to make a first impression, you know, with your events. We didn't have everything baked. So I, I met people that I knew and they maybe they gave me some money from their death. Whatever they say. Sean, I don't know what you're doing, but I like you. And so, you know, here's some dough. But now we can't, we have these programs set up, we have the mission. We know how we're rolling this out. So right now, yeah, we're we're working on $1,000,000 raise. I'm not raised, I cause something like a company, but, but for our donations, tax deductible donations to help really roll this out everywhere and to accelerate this and also to train the, the ambassadors and the allies to, to be even more effective.

36:41 So we're doing an event in New York in the city, December 9th at A at a brokerage firm. That's that that's hosting us. Then we're doing an event in Chicago on the 10th and we're doing an event in Denver on the 11th. So yeah, we're hoping people might, might donate. And then the other side is if they want to attend some of the other events, we're in Davos, we're in London, we're back in New York. It's the usual stuff, like any events, looking for sponsors and all that jazz. What's the Yeah, we could definitely socialize those events for you. So you know, post, post this, let's talk about sure, that's easy for us to do. There's a company called Daft Share that we just hosted who basically is taken a page out of the fintech world and said, OK, matching gifts, non profit donations, all that is a mess.

37:34 There's got to be an easy way. And so I'm going to send you a link so you can, especially if you have somebody who will do a matching grant, like sure, you put it on DAF share and then all of a sudden it actually works, right? People say, oh, wait a minute, you mean I can just put my DAF money in here and I can. And so it's a fintech that basically accelerates the easy deployment of DAF money. So I'll. Yeah, I mean, Dafs are great for us. That's, you know, of course, you know, the whole story. There's whatever, a trillion dollars sitting in Dafs just sitting there. Just sitting there, yeah. Well, the, the, the reps don't want it to go anywhere because you're managing the money right.

38:18 There's a little bit of a situation there, but. Have you had any luck in Silicon Valley with some of your folks? Here's the thing, I've not really made any ass. I haven't run around. We're we're really at the point where now we're ready, right? It's, you know, it's like any other arrays. You don't have your docs in a row. Now it's like, OK, we got everything. We got everything. I mean, it's not perfect, but we got the good structure here. Now we're ready to hit the road. So I'm going to those three cities, but then I'm going to do like a nine city tour, San Francisco, LA, whatever, Miami, blah, blah, blah. So we're, we're kind of we're at that point.

39:00 Yeah, there's a group in Silicon Valley that has a lot of the wealthy people there. It's it's basically a foundation organization. And I will tell you that a lot of the dough that's sitting in that foundation is in the form of non public shares. So it's not liquid. I mean a lot of it, but there's a lot of liquid money in the foundation as well. So we'll talk about that after. Yeah. And then that's another thing. Of course, we can take real estate equity, there's whatever. It's not always just cash, whatever. So there's a lot of options. Yeah, super cool.

39:40 So what? What? What is the next step? Tell talk about Davos. How's that work for you? Davos is super cool. This will be the third time that I went. We put on this mental health day in Davos, so I don't know if you've ever been to Davos. Have you been yet? So. Many times but not. Davos. Yeah, but I'll give you because I didn't know either. So how does Davos work? So Davos, think of it as a long promenade or a long Rd. in a ski town. And that road is 2 miles long. And instead of a ski shop, this the storefront becomes Bloomberg becomes the country of Saudi Arabia, whatever Morgan Stanley.

40:25 So literally you're and then 110th of the two miles is the World Economic Forum. So that part costs you like 200 grand to get into, right? And that's where the world leaders and CNBC is going to be sitting. But really most of it is going this 95% is on this road where you're going to these different places and just seeing people. So we have a space in one of those places. So we put on the mental health day there. It was cool. Last year we had Patrick Kennedy. So he's seen him out of talk about men's mental health and then you see people on the street we saw Scare Moochie and he's now he's he, we took a picture with him wearing the real hat. So it's just another way to get the word out.

41:05 But I tell you some other something kind of funny. And I remember the first time I went and I was like, I don't know. And I went as a guest of my friend and I was like, I don't know, people going to really go for this. And we didn't have anything. I just had one hat. I didn't have lots of hats. And then I was just having conversations with people. And even that was, I would say, oh, this is a men's mental Health Foundation. And the thing that they would always say to me is 0. That's so needed. It didn't matter who it was. They would just say wherever they are on the planet or you know, obviously you have super wealthy people, whatever, it doesn't matter. That's so needed that that was always the. Well, yeah, we have a lot of people. We know they're going to Davos, of course, in the community, and so we can help you. There too. Well, you should go. You should go.

41:47 It's yeah. I'm open to go and I just, I just don't, I just don't ski anymore, even though I'm in the mountains here. We take off during the winter and go somewhere warm. But yeah, no, I'd be happy to go. It's fun, so talk about it. Yeah, yeah. So Sean, this has been awesome. Like, I'm really grateful that we were able to do this. Yeah, we did it. I'm serious about helping. We'll be we'll serving. And if you want to be an ambassador, that's a lot of pressure. Now, Arthur, you can be an ambassador like these other guys. Only think about it. Now I understand what it is. It's not a big ask.

42:27 It's not like it's not what I'm. Saying like, I tend to be on the one hand, selfish and careful with my time because of course it's just like everybody else. And then on the other hand, I want to deliver, right? So now you just explained it to me so. What is it? Do you go on a walk ever? I go on a walk all the time. Yeah, yeah. Do you have a head? You know, you know, we have a camera. Yes. What are the things that I've been doing? You're done. Yeah. 17 years is. I learned Transcendental Meditation when I was 17 as a lark, Like it was just OK, Somebody needed a companion to go get their month.

43:08 And so I've been doing that since since then. And for example, we go to the gym almost every day and we take a walk after we work out, whether it be inside or outside. And that meditation time is so valuable. It's like it's the most valuable thing great of the day. So, and I tell you something interesting about that. We have guys that look at the real, they look at it all different ways, right? Some are like this is about peer-to-peer. Some of this is about meditation, some of this, this is about religion, some of this around sports, psychedelics. It doesn't matter. Whatever they we're bringing the people together and how whatever magic the, you know, whatever works for them.

43:51 Wonderful. We're not. I'm not judging it. I'm not saying, you know, I know it works for me, but that doesn't mean it works for somebody else. So it's just bringing all the people together and they help each other. Yeah, totally makes sense. I get it. All right, so we'll help you. I like it. Thank you. I appreciate. It I really appreciate you sharing with everybody. I think that like I said, there were a bunch of stuff that we talked about. I think that independently in in aggregate would be helpful. And it's hard to see on LinkedIn. I get it. It's, it's, there's a lot of stuff. It's it's hard to understand. No, but you produce results. Like I said, everybody's going to like what is it that he's doing that everybody's is buying into, right?

44:33 I love it. Thank you, Sean, and thank you to do this thing. We'll be in touch after. OK. Thank you. Thanks everybody for being here today. Thanks. Bye bye. Take care, bye.