Mental Health & Substance Use: Key Lessons You Need

[0:00]  about using substances to mask emotion or to not have to feel that's extremely powerful I've worked with a lot of people who are terrified of being sober they they don't feel they're bright if they're sober they don't feel like they're interesting or they're sexy or they're able to talk with people and so substances are this magic in quotes way of of letting them connect with people and letting them feel as if they're suddenly this sexy interesting approachable person who they really are but they don't feel that connection unfortunately we'd rather you not shoot up if you do we'd rather you use clean needles um having naram is so important that can just save so many lives also they recommend things like if you're going to use hallucinogenics make sure you have what's called a babysitter like don't just go out with 500,000 people

[0:47]  and your first time decide to use a substance and good luck you want to have somebody there who's sober and again we not promoting that behavior but if you do harm reduction would say what can we do to keep you as safe as possible and to keep you alive during those situations all right guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast now I'm incredibly excited to have Dr Annie Butler here with me today now specifically she is a professor and the former interim Dean at the school of hospitality at the Metropolitan State University of Denver now Dr Annie also has run a private

[1:37]  practice for 20 plus years so huge congratulations to you that is now focusing on substance use education for students now you being located in Denver this is going to be a very interesting conversation because of legalized marijuana we're also going to touch on some areas around like artificial intelligence the higher higher education landscape how it's changed over the last couple years we're going to talk about Mental Health and Social connection Innovation the future of work and loyalty we're going to be all over the place today Dr Butler welcome to the show thank you I'm delighted to be here you know I really want to start with kind of your process of starting a private practice 20 plus years ago and the innovative ways in which you were reaching Youth and trying to help them deal with substance use in some different ways so let's kind of talk a little bit about your background and

[2:24]  let's see where today's conversation goes sounds great yeah I actually started working in a group home for young women I worked in day treatment center I ran a day Treatment Center I work with a lot of folks who were court ordered so I had a lot of experience before I started my private practice I actually ended up having a boss who was not fabulous so I decided I would rather work for myself at that point so um there was a school district who was they were changing their policies at the time from I don't if you remember the three strikes in you're out but school districts used to have that terrible policy so if a student was using um going to school drunk or had something in their locker they were expelled and that was really negatively impacting students especially students of color we call it the school to jail pipeline so I wrote a curriculum for a program and

[3:13]  pitched it to one school district and it quickly caught on and and we've served a number of different school districts in the metro Denver area over the years and it's really a way to expose students to better decision-making and to educate them about the negative consequences of substances but in a way that's fun and that's not lecturing because I don't know about you but I didn't respond well at the age of 16 to somebody saying you know you shouldn't use drugs they're bad for you whatever I just don't connect with that so we do a lot of games and it's engaging and so students can come back and say okay now I understand that makes sense I have questions and their parents are involved which is really important because sometimes we miss that aspect of it and the family strengthening is a really important component of the cre culum that we've

[4:00]  embedded in this program so very proud of that I think it's beautiful to talk to people with respect like they are adults you know me in fifth grade one of my core memories is standing up in front of my elementary school because I was the winner of my fifth grade class dare initiative where we talked about how we were going to abstain from using drugs and we were going to do all this type of stuff but one of the things that I recognized is a lot of that stuff was really fear-based right there was never really a connection between why the long-term impacts of this but also talking about these things in a relatable nature there was always a lot of demonization that came in that and I guess that comes from times of the past right with Nancy Reagan and the say no movement and things like that that we experienced but when we talk about the changing landscape of our communities

[4:47]  today here in Las Vegas and in Denver marijuana is legalized so it's become a big part of culture so how have we kind of seen the the changing landscape if you will of substance use trans from your perspective and how are they kind of impacting your world what's really been interesting is how open people are about their use so back in the day I had parents that would use with their students but they'd lie about it it was you know you could tell that it was part of the family Dynamic and they'd go to Great Lengths to hide it and kind of publicly shame their kid and you knew it was all a front and then fast forward a few years things are legalized and then I had parents who were very defensive and very public about I have a card and I use with my kid and there's nothing you can do about it type of dynamic and my goal is not to go in and tell parents

[5:35]  what they should and shouldn't do and what kind of parents they should be uh our goal is to really help kids again understand here are the consequences here are things to look for if you're at a party these are the kind of things you want to take notice of because marijuana is not the only substance out there obviously we have a lot of opiate use a lot of fenel and different drugs prescription drugs things that are kids are really getting a hand their hands on and it's extremely lethal so having an awareness and helping them with better decision- making is is just so important being informed helps us navigate the world better right I mean I think about um one of the major music festivals that is here in Las Vegas every single year is called the electronic Daisy Festival EDC concert 500,000 people come to the middle of the

[6:24]  desert right sounds crazy and they listen to electronic music but one of the things that has become a huge part of the younger culture in that environment is people often experiment with using substances and one of the things that I noticed when I went this last year was people were carrying around Naran administrators the little things that you put in somebody's nose just in case they were affected by an overdose or any type of you know opiate or fentanyl or something like that and I think that if you enable people with the right information and the right resources they can make better decisions to not only govern themselves but also create a safer environment for people around them is that kind of hitting it on the head of what your bigger mission is you're talking about harm reduction which is so incredibly important so for

[7:12]  example we'd rather young people maybe not engage in sex but if they do use a condom right that's a good example of harm reduction we'd rather you not shoot up if you do we'd rather you use clean needles um having naram is so important that can just save so many lives also they recommend things like if you're going to use hallucinogenics make sure you have what's called a babysitter like don't just go out with 500,000 people and your first time decide to use a substance and good luck you want to have somebody there who's sober and again we not promoting that behavior but if you do harm reduction would say what can we do to keep you as safe as possible and to keep you alive during those situations so I think your point is very well taken and that's an important part of many aspects of substance abuse counseling is that harm reduction

[8:00]  that's a bit controversial some people might say it has to be abstinence only there you know there's no way that it should be used at all but I I think that's not realistic for many people and we just want to keep people safe and alive so harm reduction is is really critical and I mean I think it's a part of being responsible right if you're going to make decisions like that you should be informed about what could happen you know what I mean and I went to a good example is the abstinence example I went to an all guys Catholic High School and I still remember the days in which my baseball coach Mr Walters was also our campus counselor and what he would do is he would take individual home rooms on a trip and he would preach the idea of abstinence to a whole bunch of 16 17 18y old guys and what they would use as a fear tactic by

[8:47]  showing you a whole bunch of images of STDs and infections and horror stories about what could happen one day now that was a great shock in a strategy but that did not make any of my friends less L hesitant to want to talk to girls but it gave us a misconstrued idea of what the reality of the situation was and I feel like in today's world of exposure to infinite information and perspectives it's really important to understand the facts of the situation so you can make an informed decision which gives better outcomes rather than saying stay away from this so me and you are on the same fence of that that's a great example Keenan and there was no conversation about how to use a condom how to bring up the fact that you do when do you have that conversation and then if you meet somebody amazing who has an STI the

[9:36]  image is of that terrible untreated picture not the person might be fine except in times of stress or whatever so it it really um promotes a lot of negative imagery and it it it could be a larger conversation we could almost treat kids as if they were going to become adults one day uh you used I know it's revolutionary and you used a really important word earlier you talk about respect and I think that's one of the things I love the most about working with kids and or interacting with kids and working with adolesence is treating people with respect um yeah I've got a couple stories there but we can we can go on do you want to share one sure several times it's happened to me where I'll interact with a young person or a child and I'll just get on the floor and talk to them and

[10:23]  play with them and it's it's appropriate it's not like a stranger in a park and the kid will open up and we'll have a great time play playing because it's fun and the adults will be watching like the other adults in the room I guess I am considered one at least chronologically and usually someone will say something like oh my gosh that kid's autistic they don't usually respond to somebody and there there's all this shock and awe in the room and all I did was talk to the kid and meet the kid at their level literally figuratively engage with them and if if they weren't into it that's fine I'll go back and talk to the boring adults um but I've had that reaction several times and it's disheartening to me like it I didn't do anything miraculous just it was just an interaction and I think we're we're lacking that here's an iPad kid here's a phone do your thing and we kind of miss

[11:13]  that opportunity to engage and then when they need to have the conversation later about sex about drugs about I'm thinking about dropping out uh whatever it might be you know it's harder to have those conversations if you don't start them young and I think we we don't have the luxury of fearing and hiding away from these type of tough conversations right there have been multiple times where I have had the privilege of spending some time with I guess now that I am chronologically older as well some people who are in their 40s and early 50s who have teenage kids and we get onto the topic of things like drug use or STDs and having sex when you're at a younger age and often I ask the question are you having that conversation with your kid and they say I'm not going to have that conversation with my kid that's not my responsibility and so in instantly I ask the question and

[12:00]  challenge them and say so if your kid is on Instagram or Tik Tok somebody else is going to have that conversation for you because you don't want to have that one-time conversation and you want to avoid it how do you feel about that and their almost always answer is well I don't want somebody else having that conversation I think there's an element of accountability that we have to take as the people who are bringing up this younger generation to be able to help them navigate these tough conversations by having it one time rather than avoiding that conflict or that that uncomfortable situation that can result into bad choices later that's a great Point another response that I hear from parents is oh they know so for example they might tell me they their kid is great or they love their kid and I'll I'll ask have you told them that oh they know or we'll have a conversation about substance use or drinking and

[12:48]  driving and is it okay if the kid calls you you know an adolescent to get a ride there may be consequences or may be a discussion but can they call you is it safe oh they know have you talk to them about that do they know that they can call you um so I agree with you it's important to have those conversations at a young age when it's an age appropriate too is really important you know if a seven-year-old over hears a conversation or sees something on the news and asks a question at a seven-year-old level answer them at a seven-year old level don't make it a joke don't disregard it don't talk about it as if they were 15 so meeting them where they are is is really important and that involves being in tune with with the a child I want to use that term of in tune to be able to transition into something I think is

[13:35]  really interesting so you also have had some history in different spaces that don't exactly align with your early career in you know substance education I know that you have had some I would say experiences in a brew lab but you've also done some cannabis work as well so let's kind of talk about that experience and your unique perspective that you brought to those environments yeah I joke that I went from teaching addictions counseling to running that Brew lab and cannabis studies it's it's kind of hilarious uh very very interesting both elements are very important it's important that we have places to teach students how to brew and how to run a business it was not how to grow or smoke cannabis it's how to run a business and how to be an entrepreneur in that area which is really interesting

[14:24]  and and that's important and it's important to teach people how to do that responsibly how to have good School management around those different Endeavors and to know what to look for in terms of potential abuse for their employees for their customers and for themselves so that we work ourselves out of a job in addictions counseling which sadly will never happen but um yeah so it was a very interesting career Spectrum there to be able to do both it was quite an honor to work with both groups of folks I enjoyed them both imentally you know in our previous conversation I talked about some of my worries when we live in states that have legalized the use of marijuana so one of the things that I grew up in was a family culture my father is black my mom is white where things like cannabis were freely used and often they were used as

[15:13]  coping mechanisms for some of the stress and the other mental health struggles that we had on my father's side I always saw my aunts my uncles my other cousins who were older than me everybody would be smoking marijuana and that was something that that side of the family did but it was never really explained to me why when I got older and started my own business in the mental and Behavioral Health space I started recognizing that we use a lot of these tools and substances as ways to cope with feelings of inadequacy or stress or deal with trauma from the past when we look at our economies specifically in Las Vegas Nevada and in Denver Colorado we see a lot of medical marijuana use like you talked about a little earlier with those parents we see recreational use as well do you with your experience in substance use education worry about the big effect of constant consumption of things like

[16:02]  marijuana on your motivation things like focus our overall mental health what's your kind of your two sents on a society that says go ahead and use this stuff but let's also not be prepared for the impacts of using those substances well I want to start by saying I I think it can be used appropriately by many people so I I don't think we should ban it I'm also thrilled that people are not getting charged with possession for marijuana anymore it was such a racist policy We There were so many negative ramifications of the criminalization of marijuana and if you look into the roots of how it became illegal it was political um economic and racist I mean it's just a fascinating reason why it was ever absolutely made illegal having said that I agree with you that a lot of people use that and to use alcohol additionally to not deal with emotion or

[16:52]  to to numb that or as a as a coping me mechanism and there should be a lot of tools in the tool belt kind of an idea when we're having to deal with anger with stress with loss with grief we don't talk about that a lot I think people use quite a bit to to cope with grief so there's this wide range of emotions and many of them are really uncomfortable and a lot of the folks that I've worked with in private practice use substances marijuana and again alcohol I've got I've got to put that in there to to numb those feelings and after a while it's really difficult for them to even sit with those feelings if they're sober so it's a complex issue I'm not sure if I addressed your question but yeah there's so many facets to that I mean there really are I might have mentioned in our previous

[17:40]  conversation together so you can tell me key and I've already heard this or not there's a a book out there called indistractable the author of that book talks about our prevailance on people feeling more distracted than ever in our current environment of society on the habits that we have built and the inability for us to regulate our emo while you were talking there about distracting ourselves from uncomfortable situations we see this prevailing in in society much more often than I think people really give credit for and I want to give everybody an opportunity to pause think about yourself in a grocery store think about yourself in any public situation whenever there's a lull in activity or people are just standing around often what do you see people doing often they're looking at their cell phone so one of the things that I really worry about in the world that we

[18:28]  deal with today is the element of distraction we have become so fundamentally proficient at taking ourselves away from any moment of distraction awkwardness uncomfortability by anchoring the habit of pulling out our device and looking for that release of dopamine or that distraction to escape from the common moment now we're talking about substances here but I would argue very succinctly that this is a substance that we consistently engaged with today and I think we have to be really aware of the effects of even how social media and these little devices that have been created by incredibly smart individual individuals Behavioral Science scientists have optimized us keep coming back to those devices and the distraction that they create from being able to regulate our emotions do you have any two sense about that

[19:15]  absolutely I agree with that I think it's affected our ability to connect with one another in a meaningful way I also think it's affected our ability for Creative thought in order to have original and creative thought you need to have downtime and an opportunity to reflect and there really isn't an opportunity to reflect if we're constantly scrolling or you know checking app and checking our different messages that kind of thing it it affects us in a lot of different ways I think Co of course exacerbated that there was isolation and even more emphasis on on kind of zoning out with social media so it's it's going to be interesting to see I was taking the light rail one day usually I would read a book and that particular day I forgot my book oh my gosh and I didn't I don't know if I had a phone might have been

[20:01]  before that um I ended up writing an entire curriculum on that train ride and it it occurred to me that I had a moment to pause and think and allow thoughts in and allow for reflection and it allowed me to be really creative and come up with some very cool new Concepts for my class had I had my book or my phone or whatever device that would not have happened and so I think it's just a profound way of saying we we need those moments and to your point about using substances to mask emotion or to not have to feel that's extremely powerful I've worked with a lot of people who are terrified of being sober they they don't feel their bright if they're sober they don't feel like they're interesting or they're sexy or they're able to talk with people and so substances are this

[20:50]  magic in quotes way of of letting them connect with people and letting them feel as if they's suddenly this sexy interest approachable person who they really are but they don't feel that connection unfortunately so yeah I think there's a lot of consequences to the choices that we make whether it's around substances or around technology I want to I want to be overly transparent and kind of be a little bit vulnerable here on the conversation I've never shared this story before but um when I was younger I was had a dream of playing baseball and it was literally my entire life from the age of five all the way up until I was a freshman in college I played every minute of every single opportunity that I had all summers Long play the game I always had a dream of going pro and I went to college and played at a school called Coastal

[21:37]  Carolina and I got hurt my freshman year right and ended up red shirting and I got into a relationship with other people around me that weren't exactly the best examples and I fell out of love with the game of baseball and I ended up not returning for my sophomore year and during that time for the first time I was introduced to marijuana and I was sitting around with everybody playing video games like a whole bunch of college kids do and one of the things that I recognized is I went through a very intense loss of identity and the one reason why I found myself smoking more and more is because it was a distraction away from me having to deal with the hurt of not playing my sport anymore and not having my identity and so over the entire sophomore year I gained like 70 pounds because there was a Sonic that was just like a quarter

[22:25]  mile down the street and so me and my friends would sit around we'd smoke some weed we go to the store go to the to the burger place get a whole bunch of food come back and do the same thing over and over again I recognized in that moment now that I have a little bit of distance and perspective that I was using that as an escape from dealing with those hard feelings and it was something that I worry about for so many other people because I never found myself being somebody who was ever using substances I never really drank but it was an easy Escape for me to get away from those tough feelings that I knew I needed to deal with and I still think about how I wish I would have had somebody who had a different perspective a different idea to how I could have dealt with those feelings because I didn't even feel comfortable to talk about those things with my parents because I was away from them out of Michigan and so it was an interesting growth Journey I'm not sure if you've heard other people Express

[23:13]  that as well but I still look back on that younger version of myself with like a heartache that says I wish I could have been better for you in those moments you know earlier we were talking about grief and about coping with loss and I I think that's what you're explaining very poignantly that it's an effective tool not a great tool not a fabulous tool but it's effective in that people can be soothed and then we all make such fabulous choices like living at the Sonic um you know I think I think we all look back on some of the decisions we made under the influence and think how how did I survive and and it's tough when it it is that effective tool but in the in the long run of course it's it's not particularly helpful so thank you for sharing that yeah and I

[24:01]  recently uh had a guy on the podcast who I like to bring on or bring up in these conversations name was Jason yusi he's a guy who is a real estate investor and his entire philosophy or his like messaging campaign on social media is called live 100 and he came on the podcast and he said you know Keenan often we have ideas of how great we could be and I call that 100 being a good friend being a good mom a good dad a good brother a sister a like you know being in a relationship ship being accountable to ourselves that is 100 but so many of us find ourselves living at 90 or 78 or 86 and we recognize that that's a comfortable place because it doesn't mean we have to put in the extra effort to live at 100 but let me tell you something later in life you're going to ask yourself what was the Delta between 91 or 86 and 100 and me living

[24:50]  to be my best self those things are the things that will regr later in life and I think it's important for everybody to kind of ask themselves the question what is 100 % of Kenan and being the best partner for my girlfriend what is kenan's best 100 for showing up and being accountable to himself because that Delta is something that I don't really want to deal with and regret when I get a little bit older if that makes sense I love that are are you familiar with maso's hierarchy of needs yeah well his his very top part of the triangle the Delta actually is self-actualization and I think living to your 100 really talks about being self-actualized and I worked with some people people who struggle with that because their family or their community may not be supportive of their success you know oh you think you're better than us now that you're educated now that you

[25:37]  have this fancy job so that can be difficult if if the support system is that kind of crabs in a bucket mentality that that can be difficult and or it might come from within you know who am I to think I can do all of these things and be this great person so working through those messages whether they're internal or external I think is really critical to be able to live your best life so I like that live 100 that's a that's a nice way to phrase it but how are we supposed to make that transition this just pulled on a heartstring of mine one of the things that's been the toughest in my entrepreneurial Journey but also as I've gotten older is recognizing that friends are in my life for a reason or often for a season and sometimes as we get older we start to drift apart from each other but I know so many people that I've come across in personal relationships or friends have a

[26:25]  really tough time in letting some of those people will go because of the experiences that we've had with them the time the sunken cost if you will of a friendship but when we recognize those people don't service anymore do you have any advice to anybody who could be listening and watching who's on that road or that journey of self- progression they're realizing that maybe they shouldn't be kind of stuck in this shell that once fit them I love the people are in our life for a reason or a season I've said that myself I love that I've known people who have actually made a list of their friends and acquaintances and see who makes the cut like they're going off to college or they're starting a grad program or they're starting a new job whatever they're having a baby their their time is limited and so they need to reflect i' I've known people who have done this it's kind of an interesting exercise and

[27:13]  in going through creating that list to see who even gets on it in the first place um and then to find out you know what this person actually is pretty toxic now that I think about it they're a huge energy suck for me they're a energy vampire Maybe this person isn't going to make my list and I I don't mean we're going to be a jerk to this person and write them a Dear John Letter but but maybe investing less energy and less effort into some of those relationships and then acknowledging wow these other people have been supportive or positive or I used to spend a lot of time with them and they're pretty great people and then I kind of just got busy maybe it's time to reinvest using that guarding analogy that you know you weed out what's not healthy for you or maybe appropriate or best for you in that

[27:59]  moment and you nurture and develop and help to grow the relationships that do support you in your in your effort to be that best person that you can be and that's an interesting exercise to do I think one of the most profound things people need to do though is to do the work to do their work and if people aren't feeling worthy of success that's something they need to work through or if they're hearing voices in their head not literally although that too uh negative messaging that they grew up with or that they heard and that's in the way they need to do that work and I think helping to clear some of those things talking with a a counselor or a friend or journaling or talking to yourself if you're driving to work

[28:45]  yourself through some of those issues what whatever it looks like painting I don't know people have very different ways of expression but it's important to do that work too to feel valuable enough and worthy enough to to live that best life this is why I love talking to leaders like yourself because you have such a unique perspective one of the perspectives that we've seen has been pretty pervasive on things like social media is the changing value of higher education now I know that since the pandemic many people have been questioning is higher education worth the ROI in our previous conversation we have talked about a little bit of the economic pressures that come along with the investment of higher education and I had shared how I've been speaking to

[29:32]  some other deans of students and Dean of admissions from Penn and Washington and Ohio State and the things we talk about is there's more parent involvement in today's higher education Admissions and exploration process than ever I want you to kind of talk about your perception of the changing landscape of higher education because one of my core beliefs and talking to other leaders like yourself I truly believe that higher education almost acts as an exposure and an enablement platform it exposes us to different ideas it helps us grow up it helps us do that inner work exactly like you're talking about so let's kind of Riff on that for a little bit all right that sounds good I want to First say that the reason that tuition has gone up so much for students is because states are paying less and it's a bit

[30:19]  heartbreaking to me that we don't value education at the state level and and it's that needs to shift also want to remind people that there are a lot of scholarship opportunities and a lot of ways to get funding support at a lot of universities millions of dollars go unclaimed in scholarships so just a shout out that there there is support and it's it's not just uh something for rich white people you know it's it's for everyone and it and there's opportunities there so but you're right I think higher education is so incredibly important it helps us figure out what we want to do when we grow up it helps us get a really solid foundation and a broad educational experience it helps prepare us for the workforce that's something we haven't always talked about that's a really important piece we have guest speakers

[31:06]  who come in who have industry experience we have internships that help students get real life experience and we all know we're going to more likely hire um Sally Joe who's been working in our office as an intern for the last four months we know she's phenomenal than some other person who might look good on paper we don't know them so those internship experiences are also incredibly important their study abroad experiences I've been able to take students overseas and it was their first time on a plane their first time seeing the ocean their first time in a um Subway they like all of these firsts it was such an honor to be there with them and it's such a gross opportunity I got to do a study abroad and it was the same tuition as my school so I I didn't have to outlay a whole bunch of cash I just had to get myself

[31:53]  there which I figured out um and I'm saying that because sometimes people hear those opportunities and think well that's something that's coming from privilege and it's certainly easier for people coming it from privilege but it there opportunities for everyone and it's figuring out how to make those experiences possible for a wide wide range of people but yeah education is is huge it's so fundamental to our to our personal growth and to hearing other perspectives and to critical thought that's something when I'm an old lady on my rocker bemoaning the world that's that's what I'm going to be crying about the death nail of critical thought social media has really I think hurt us in that way you know we see a whole bunch of opinions and then we assume that means it must be real it must be true it must

[32:41]  be fact and critical thought is the element of saying maybe and maybe not how do I explore that what do I think about that what could the other side of the argument be have I researched the issue and critical thought really forces us to dive in and it it's a little uncomfortable it's easier to accept information that we get that we believe in from people that look like us sound like us believe like us that's just easier and more comfortable so to be able to hold a thought that's that doesn't feel as comfortable maybe that's not true how do I feel about that I think that reflection is really important and higher education holds a very key way of um it teaches us how to do that in thought and in writing the beauty of the statement where our

[33:30]  attention goes our energy flows right one of the things that we do at my company here is in uh 2021 we developed a proactive Mental Health Solution that's based on the use of text messages in the form of an ecological momentary intervention now the psychology of an Emi was pioneered by a guy named Dr Jerome MTO in World War II he was a soldier deployed over and he had an anonymous pen pal who wrote him letters every single time he pulled into a new station they'd hand out letters here you go Jerome a message of encouragement and positivity he came back from the war so inspired by those little letters of encouragement that he started implementing them in his work in an inpatient Hospital helping people deal with feelings of suicide ideation they would discharge from the hospital if

[34:17]  they didn't want support and didn't want to access resources he said we have an address so I'm going have my nurses write these guys little handwritten letters years later they went back and looked at the data tied to any deaths or suicides people who had died by Suicide not a single person died by Suicide who was discharged from his hospital that received these hand letters phenomenal right and so in 2018 the University of Washington pioneered a program called caring contacts that use text messages arguably the modern-day Written Letter to be able to engage people in real world scenarios in real time so we took a lot of that psychology and started implementing that as a tool to support Mental Health professionals the psychiatrists the therapists the people who are working as peer support members nurses in hospitals and the one thing

[35:04]  that we found with all these text messages that we had all of our Mental Health Partners curate is people would say I can't believe that text was exactly what I needed in that moment it's like you know what I need to hear and what we talk about is the psychology of your brain looking to fit an instance over itself and say how does this apply to me and it's beautiful to think about how a simple moment our brain looks for exactly what we need and I wanted to share that because there are so many ways in which when our energy or our attention goes somewhere our energy flows in that direction and when we want to think critically about the information that we're exposed to it's so important to take things at face value but also to make judgments and our own opinions based on all the different perspectives I feel like people have

[35:52]  become so good in today's society at creating divisiveness and saying it's us vers them them but often the answer is not red or blue it's a purple it's somewhere in the middle and I think we've lost that ability to think critically so like you said when I'm older I hope that all of this exposure to social media all of this exposure to Ai and all the fake videos that we see helps us hone that question of is this real is this worthy of me giving my attention to it and if it's not maybe you can make up your own opinion and there's nothing wrong with that I love that story about the letters that's that's beautiful I think there's such a human need to be seen to be heard to be just acknowledged and the letters and the Emojis the texts that you're talking

[36:40]  about allow somebody to to feel wow somebody saw me they heard me they reached out to me specifically there are some mental health groups that are starting to use um Bots to respond because there's such a shortage of mental health clinicians so they have Bots that are programmed to respond to adolescence and other people with some mental health issues or we just need to be seen and to be heard so while we're slamming on the so I just thought i' I'd give a shout out to something that might actually be helpful and speak to the very point that you're making so that's interesting I think that we are in a time that is very interesting in society you know I think one of the things that humans are very good at doing is forgetting about the past when I think about the prevailance of things like these Bots and artificial intelligence this feels very similar to the early

[37:29]  days of the tractor or the early days of manufacturing inside of plants right or the internet even it's very easy for human nature to say we've never seen a scenario like this this is either going to be good or this is going to be bad and I feel like unless we get enough exposure over a long enough time Horizon it's very difficult for us to be able to make a true Judgment of these things but I am a huge advocate for looking at technology especially in spaces like the mental health field to be an accelerator to increase access to good information from a trusted resource to meet people where they are you used that word a little bit earlier today and I think it's so important that we think about that through a lens of curiosity and creativity to think how can this support us rather than saying that's going to take my job or that's bad how can we use

[38:16]  these tools that we're not going to be able to ignore very much like the prevailance of everything we've talked about here today to be better for society rather than being a negative rock that we put in our sack again that's a great point and I don't know that it needs to be either or there's usually you know good and bad and everything and going back to your tractor example I'm sure that puts in people out of work it make farming a whole lot more efficient a lot more comfortable if it ran over someone's dog it's a terrible piece of Machinery when you plow Through Your Back 40 and half an afternoon it's a great invention so just to to riff off of that a little bit but we've got um yeah there's good and bad and everything and as you said using different words we get what we focus on yeah which also requires that going back to that critical thought piece too I mean we have to be able to Wade through

[39:04]  it social media might be fabulous it might be terrible whatever but what is it in my life and am I overusing it I you know I know some folks who spend a lot of time on Tik Tok like it's a real time suck for them and and that can be problematic if we're talking about five six eight hours a day is that how you want to spend your time if it is that's fine I'm not judging but is it working for you and that's kind of that therapist question there's a there's a really interesting website that I suggest everybody who's listening and watching to this episode goes and checks out it's called the lifetime screen time calculator it's a simple website go to it and if you are somebody who tracks your screen time it says put in your age now put in your average screen time and it says calculate and it extrapolates that number over the rest of your life I

[39:52]  only bring that up because the average 18-year-old based on the data that I just recently saw spends 9 hours per day on their device that means they're spending more time on screen time than they are sleeping so the digital world is becoming more and more real literally every single day but if you extrapolate out that 18-year-old n hours per day and hit calculate on that website that I just shared it says that that individual spend 24 years of their life on screen time for the rest of their life how does that make you feel as Dr Annie Butler I am rocking in the corner for those who don't have visual that's terrifying and I'm just thinking about how much time I spend answering email which also would count as yeah yeah I can imagine you know when

[40:42]  it's all over I'll look back very proudly at all the time all the emails that I responded to that's that's going to be a key moment now I'm I'm being sarcastic that is amazing I I also think we we've got to have some personal responsibility and parental responsibility and and get outside and play and find those Hobbies we don't really talk about hobbies and outside interests a whole lot as a matter of course um I think sometimes people bring it up I always ask my team on Monday what was your weekend warrior story and if you didn't do anything make something up and then we can we can talk about somebody tried a new restaurant Somebody went to a Rockies game and they probably lost Somebody went to uh cut that part out of the of the podcast uh you know then we have an opportunity to share the things we did and and if it was nothing and we just hung out at home and had a

[41:29]  nice meal with our family that's fantastic but developing that culture of support and outside interests and developing that those good stories I think that's really important too because it's easy to for all of us to sit around and be like people people shouldn't we spend too much time how can we encourage an environment that supports the way we want to spend our time that supports the development living our best life the live one 100 how can we how can we um engage that and you know support those kind of Endeavors one of the topics that I'd like to kind of Riff on is um the topic of loyalty and I want to kind of use this as an opportunity to talk about the future of work now in our previous conversation I might have mentioned this but I've been

[42:16]  messing around with a framework or a theory if you will so I grew up in Detroit right and I saw that people in my community lived for the opportunity to be a part of something bigger and in that community of Detroit that meant often working for the factories the manufacturers like Ford and General Motors I remember hearing stories to this day of people saying you don't need to go to college which is a rub against what we're talking about here but if you're lucky enough you can work on the assembly line you can make $144 an hour you can have amazing benefits and a pension that will take care of your family for the rest of the time and while you spend your 30 40 years there you're going to experience so many opportunities to invest into the community around you now over the years we've gotten away from this idea of

[43:04]  loyalty in work like that in 2022 the Surgeon General came onto a national broadcast and said the biggest threat to American society today is not another viral pandemic but an epidemic of isolation and loneliness all the other things that we've talked about today are very interesting to me because I have a deep down hunch in an intuition that people are looking for a sense of connection in the work that they do because they are not receiving that in their personal and their social lives how do you kind of think about the future of organizations filling the Gap if you will in that sense of human connection that it seems like we've gotten away from because it's not trendy today to be loyal to an organization for more than two years without job hopping and doing other things I've have a lot of thoughts

[43:51]  about that the first one is when I was first starting the workforce I only stayed in the job for a year or so and I hopped around a bit until I figured out what I wanted to do so sometimes I wonder if we judge young people today can't keep a job when actually a lot of us hopped around until we kind of figured it out so wanted to put that out there I can relate to your background my dad a lot of my uncles worked for the steel industry and uh those were the you retire with the gold watch and you get a really nice pension days and those days are gone people don't offer pensions very often people steal from pensions and we see that on the news and how horrific that hundreds of thousands of people no longer have anything to retire on and all the money they had thought they have been saving it's now wiped out so there's some responsibility on the

[44:40]  part of those companies too to help promote loyalty right so that that that definitely has shifted but I think there are ways to help people feel engaged and connected paying them a fair wage first of all is important equity in the workplace um helping people to have mentorships and know that they have a pathway to advance one reason somebody's going to hop is because they don't see a future for themselves nobody's maybe pulled them aside and said you're really driven you you did a great job on this project so first of all I see you which is that profound thing we were talking about earlier I acknowledge your work and now I'm willing to Mentor you or ask you what are your next steps how can I help you get there and as a leader that's a great way to be more invested

[45:27]  in the development of your people than to be appearing to be invested only in yourself right so people know wow my boss saw me they recognized me they supported me or maybe the person messed up and I pulled them in and we have a private conversation not public that they didn't get fired they had an opportunity to learn from their mistake and do something differently so I think there's a lot of ways to help people feel more connected also I think common experiences and laughter are wonderful ways to equalize so if we can all go out and play together and and I always take my teams on fun outings and it might be well there's a lot of different things we've done we've done Escape rooms and we've done um ball games and we've done all kinds of stuff I can't remember art

[46:13]  art projects together um at those you know drink and craft places but those really brought us together and again it's a great equalizer we had a shared common experience and then it's easier to go back and say all right now we're going to jump in and develop a strategic plan or we're going to operationalize this particular goal or we're going to do whatever that hard work is and I think it's a little bit easier for people to feel connected if we create that environment very long answer to your to your point a beautiful answer really though and I think that that's where the onus of great leaders like yourself kind of is going to be able to dictate the future of how we perceive work you know in this world of remote work and doing this digital connection that we're doing today sitting across on the digital table there are so many

[47:00]  opportunities in which the leaders of our organizations can innovate and think about things with a lens of curiosity to be able to create that culture that I feel like many people want to be a part of but we're not seeing the execution of that ideal or those values really kind of translating into the work that we do and I know that so many people feel unfulfilled or they feel disconnected and isolated like we talked about today but I truly believe that there is a world where the work that we do can have a positive impact we have the ability to impact others we have ability to forge connections with each other we have the ability to get back to a place where we feel fulfilled and happy with the work that we do um and I hope that that's really kind of where we go in the future Dr Butler as we kind of land the plane here I have a final question for you which came from another guest this guest wanted to ask you a question I'm very

[47:48]  interested in your answer if you could change one thing about your life what would it be oh that's a profound question that requ requires some reflection my initial thought is I wouldn't change anything because the most difficult times that I've ever been through in my life have been the absolute biggest growth experiences I've ever had so while it would be tempting to say well if if such and such hadn't ever happened I wouldn't have gone through all that pain um I wouldn't be who I am today and I really mean that I think it's a an important way that I at least interpret my experience here that's a good one I lost my dog last year if I could bring him back I'd

[48:36]  do that in a New York minute that would probably be it but everything else has helped me become a better and a stronger person well Dr Butler I just want to say for everybody who's watching and listening today thank you so much for blessing the stage with me and being able to have an open and honest conversation I appreciate all of your perspectives all of your insights your unique perspective of where we've been where we're going how we're going to be able to change things the importance of vulnerability and mental health and connection and everything else we've talked on today so I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show I really appreciate it oh Kenan it's a pleasure I just love talking with you thank you so much for this opportunity