Hello. They ride that, listeners. I am so excited for this episode today. My guest on this show is my friend Stephon Waits. Stephan is the CEO and founder of a company called Jets and probiotics. He's a seasoned executive, an angel investor, a rad dad in just a GN awesome person to be around. If you're looking for a high energy conversation about family life, education on how to be in control of your life, this is for you. Well, let's talk about life. Yeah, well, really.

We can talk about anything, anything that you find important. You know, it's ah, right. That is about parenting. But it's about life and about how those two work together. It's so, you know, we talked about your daughter, your work, your divorce. Ah, all those things. So is there anything that you most passionate about out off everything that happened to you? His appearance?

Oh, man, I am most passionate and at the same time, conflicted and at the same time terrified about helping my daughter live for her best and happiest life, which is I'm sure it's no surprise to any father out there, but I struggle every single day with the fact that I'm probably screwing up daily with my daughter, a divorced parent, our only halftime as well. So, really, my opportunity to both do well with her and screw up with her is in some cases magnified. Because if I screw up with her and then she goes away for five days for Mom's house, am I able to recover quickly? So my point, my passion these days is trying to provide her with scaffolding that allows her to make the decisions that will ultimately make her happiest and happy to be to find any way you want it to find it. I don't care. Circus Clan.

I don't care if she goes to Harbor, and I care if she goes to one of school that isn't Harvard. I don't care if he wants to start a company. I don't care if she wants to go be a mine in Paris streets and annoy tourists from around the world. But I wanted to be happy and fulfilled, and that comes to me with it. A real stressor because having again being able to make those choices is all about having optionality and to have Optionality, you need to set yourself up at a fairly early age, in my opinion, to be able to make those choices on your own. So I was telling, for example. Look, I don't care you to go to school. I don't care if you go to Harvard. I don't care.

I don't care a pick a place she loves Yale. So I'm gonna go to Belgrade. I don't care where you want to go, but I want you to be able to make the decision as to where you get to go the second you take a certain action in life or pick a certain course in life that prunes one of those optionality paths. Then suddenly the decision is made for you. So if you decide that you're gonna be a 2.0 g p a student of lakeside for the next four years, you no longer have the option to say I'm going to Yale because you will decide for you that you're not. And so the the challenge for me as a dad and I have not figured us out is to work with my daughter to focus on Optionality with something we focus on away too much I'm sure and help her understand the actions shootings to take to maximize that Optionality without being an insane father and same person and stressing her out about things that had 13 year old shouldn't have to think about. That's our passion is helping her kind of explorer, this notion of optionality and how she can make sure she has many pad This is possible so she could do whatever she wants to do.

That's a great way to think about it,

and I don't know. It's that's

That's how I think about. But then a lot of parents would say, Well, I know you can be a mime in Europe and annoy, you know, tourists because that doesn't really pay. Like, are you concerned with the fact that she may not be able to make a living or and then you're gonna have to support her? Or is that something you just prepared to do? If that's the case,

well, so maybe I'll revised my statement. I actually care if she's a mine in Europe or in Paris, not because I don't think that she will not be happier. It looks show she'll always figure out a way to make a living. It might not be the way she's always lived, but she'll figure out a way to make a living. When I say I wanted to be fulfilled, I want her toe, of course, have a life that that filter was with joy and whatnot. But there's gonna be meaning and purpose as well. So the mime in Paris probably isn't the thing I really be proud of her for, because it is frankly well, I shouldn't say pointless, but I struggled to see the broader meeting and benefit to society of that life choice. My point.

If she wants to go work as a nonprofit as an NGO in Africa, making sure water gets delivered to the appropriate villages to reduce water, more diseases and make 16,000 bucks a year knockers about. That's great because you're doing something that you leave this place better than when you got here. That's what I want her to go figure out that passion to go do so, giving her that kind of scaffolding. I guess what it's about, but t give the scaffolding to me is where it gets interesting, but I wish I had had a better way to do it brushes versus lecturing her, which that's that's what I do know. It's a lot of lecturing. Uh,

well, let's talk more about this. So how do you do it? Like sharing? What do you mean by lecturing? What goes into this? How do you prepare a kid?

Yeah, well, for me, I I think back to when I was her age. And I think back the things I wish I would have known when I was 13. You know, my parents were were in or amazing parents. We have drums of coffee being batted around here. That's amazing. They were They were and are wonderful parents. And the time in which I grew up is a 13 year old. We didn't have, of course, the internet. We didn't have access to the global community that we have today, So it was different path, right?

You basically you went to school, you got good grades. You did extracurriculars. You differentiated yourself in high school, you got into a good college, and then you did that and you got a job and you're out off the races on. That was kind of the path and there wasn't There weren't a ton of examples of people who didn't follow that path. Now, of course, that's all that's all changed. And so I I I look at what I see now, through all my connections and friends who have taken different paths and I analyze them, I had How did they get to where they were? You know, how did How did my friend if Turaqi get where he is? Which is a nun,

believably brilliant and successful by any any measure person out there are How did Jeremy Johnson and L. A. How did he get to where he was? Or his wife, Kathryn Minshew with the muse. How did she get to where she is? And I kind of look at all these. These people live considered to be just world changing, amazing people. I start to kind of divine lessons and say, What did they do differently than me and how? And there these are all of the younger time, which helps, you know, because they have a different, different access for things.

And so I look at that. And so then I create these stories. Okay. What? What did they do that I wish I knew to do at age 13 and I tried to impart that to my daughter. And, of course, it comes off as you know, crazy Dad, imparting this bizarre set of distilled wisdom that he thinks he's figured out over the course of talking to his hundreds of friends who have made impacts and differences on the planet. And so I think, I'm sure it comes across as very luxury. I know she rolls her eyes on me. We get into optionality discussions or when we get into differentiation discussions or finding your passion discussions or these things. But again, if you look at the a lot of the commonality of people who have had world changing impact is the ability for them to create a very strong networks and connections and in many cases,

as an example. If you think about college, the university that one attends, oftentimes build connections that last a lifetime and depending on which college, university or secondary education institution want to go to, those networks can be either very strong and bountiful and powerful in the broader world or not. So my point there was always like I have a lot of friends who went to great schools, and they're the ones who seem to be able to do create things because they can call a buddy who's now managing partner of Goldman are managing partner at whatever coolly and have access to things that that other folks don't have access to do. And it's a great Oh, gross meshes ascend because you're really saying that the meritocracy is kind of not functional on that. You're saying working hard isn't enough, But that's what I'm saying.

So do you have any friends who don't have connections there, didn't have connections

and were able to build it? Absolutely. That's what it is. There's always this, and I tell her is absolutely there are many people find that many? Yeah, there many who have. But oh boy, Oh boy, The amount of of either persistence or luck or timing you have to have to achieve that level of impact without those things is a lot higher than if you do have those connections, which is awful. And this is so gross to think about. This is how I think. But this

is how I think I think it's true. Even out of my network. You know, I remember the other day just still on Facebook, like once a month or something. And I see this picture of one of the guys playing golf in the rich neighborhood. I'm like, Oh, I remember meeting him. Smart guy, You know? I wonder what he does. And then I look in that he's managing family fund that's been around for the last 100 years. You like? Oh, well, that's why he's just playing golf.

You know, most people are not so, But I asked that question about getting the connections and make an impact in life when you don't have the money cause I'm thinking, you know, and 99% of people listening to the podcast not gonna have the resources, right? So do you. Can you think of anything your friends have done that help them that, you know, enable them to make a world changing impact where they didn't have as much resource as

everyone else? Well, I mean, there's certainly which is one thing. I'm trying to tell my daughter often the public common threat I can think of for those who have bootstrap themselves toe and again, we shouldn't think about this only financial. It could be whoever I wanted to find it. I mean, I have friends who just amazing nonprofit work, too. We'll never be flying on their own plane, but have probably had more impact the planet than 10 people who will have their own plane. So we should not think about this is money by any stretch of imagination. Yeah, the commonality, I would say between among those who have done very well without connections is this willingness to just to risk it all. These are risk takers.

They are getting out there. They will fail. They will lose it all. Got a couple of buddies who have literally been worth on paper. 60 off the 13 billion went down toe, you know, 10 back up to two billion. 10 million. Sorry about how to Billy and then down to bankrupt. In probably about time that they're done, they'll be worth 10. Who knows? I have no idea. But that's not the game for them, right? It's It's more like that.

It's rolling the dice. It's putting everything out there. It's it's taking on the crazy ideas don't want to go do. It's just it's being scrappy. It's kind of it's betting in many cases, you know, those the ones that I tend to see without the benefit of connections do the rest.

I'm curious. Have any of them been able to maintain a family and like a functional family while doing this?

I mean, most. I would say no. Either their no family parents, obviously. But no kids, or I see a lot of divorces. Yeah, not not not. Not a time. No, no, I don't see a lot of I'm sure. I'm sure there are dozens of examples. I just don't know them. Yeah,

I'm sure people would. Well, well, you do have a big network. So But I'm just wondering, you know, what can parents do? Because I know this is something my wife and I struggle was to write. Like, you really want to be with your kids and you want to give them best. Especially right now. Like to me? I say we go on the playground, Then we go on a swing, even though my oldest is three years old. But it's the perfect time. I can teach you about pendulums and fish.

Yes, absolutely. And you know, if there was a nanny there instead of me unless I found a nanny with a PhD in physics. Do that like no one else would be teaching her physics on playground, but at the same time, like there's kind of an age to go and start something new and exciting and make it bigger, et cetera. Right. But how do you do that without screwing up your family? That's a very kind of challenging, exciting question. Then I wonder if anyone's

been able to do that. I don't know. I'm sure if I actually sat down and thought through by public could think of some people. But

I know we'll get them on the podcast if I if I can

think of one you know, a guy I can think of, which be interesting. Yeah, there's a way we could have got off line is a guy I don't think I'm now actually, who has remarkable on many. I'm actually quite jealous of those to figure that have figured this out there. Very few of them. I know on bright talented, but I'm with you like there is that even an early age with my daughter and we would I'm sure again, I'm sure at age 30 should be in therapy talking about this, but but same thing, whether it's dry ice that comes in the Amazon fresh box, or whether it's swinging the pendulum with the teeter totter and force and same thing, like asking the questions. She asked me a question. I asked a question back and have her give me her hypothesis for why something was certain way and how piano worked and how sound travels and their waves and particles.

And so we would do the same thing. And it was just curiosity. And I think that's paid off as she is now almost 14 years old, she used innately curious, And she will be. We were dinner last night and we're talking about more. Call it WAAS, but neatly, she pops her phone out and starts in the at the restaurant, asking the Internet the questions to figure out the answers, This particular problem none of us could figure out on our own. So I think I think it's great, I think that, But how do you How do you balance that? I don't don't know. You have to have a partner who's all in with that.

You have to kind of train the kids, too. I think to a certain extent, that life is a is a discreet set of temporal chunks, and sometimes it's gonna be a lot of fun. And sometimes it's gonna be living in a one bedroom apartment on Denny. And that's the game. I think the biggest risk we have nowadays there's probably nowadays is that majority of young Pete. I'm short. I know that's probably complete, accurate, but a lot of young people that I either mentors or see or just even my daughter's, some of his friends, their reality and their definition of success is defined by cardi B and buy these vapid and vacuous YouTubers and and, uh, instant models.

We have 20 million followers who will this year clear $45 million for, in essence, just prostituting out of their bodies of their brains. And I think that sense of a relieve, dysfunctional metric of success in a lot of young people's minds right now. And I don't think we have that. We were young, I didn't have them. There was this that there's mean Ricky Schroeder was. The guy was like, that guy's killing it back on silver spoons. You know, but But there was a talent there. One could argue, but talent there that doesn't necessarily exists. Except,

I guess, for a great photoshopping skills and filtering skills on instagram with today's kind of people that a lot of teens respect. So getting him out there to things like Girl Up, which is the U. N. Woman's rights organization for young people, is greater. We day in, which is not the greatest thing that comes through really making sure they're surrounded and the people that they are brought up to respect our people that aren't just posting selfies on Instagram, and it's modeling to obviously right since had who are people I respect? And who do I talk about when I'm at dinner with her? And who do I read in the paper? Who do I read it? But books do I read in this? I'm not reading, hopefully and Coulter,

despite whatever you think of her politics, just your logic is just completely unsound. Ivory, David Brooks and again, I'm probably definitely more left another books, but the books is like phenomenal brain and talk about these things and so helping her kind of respect then be excited about in the left and excited about discourse and debates. Champion, those those people. You know, when Stephen Hawking Daddy watch, We just watched this film right after he died and its ashes when it came with a summary. Most would be actually get to go be in the building. You know where he has his op had his office, and that's what I wanted to kind of aspire to be, not a rapper with 444 word vocabulary

with How do you? And this is something I guess I struggle with personally. Maybe not struggle, but question Because, yeah, a rapper with the forward vocabulary, you know, can get there to millions of dollars. Absolutely. And if you measure success of millions of dollars, that's the quickest path of getting somewhere, absolutely all and yet at the same time, just the meaning of. And that's partly why you know, we're doing this on the podcast and not a YouTube show, because, um,

yeah, it's like That's not gonna get millions of viewers, but neither doesn't need Thio. The impact of this show is very different from just pretty pictures on the Internet, but at the same time, like I was Justin Trudeau this morning. And if you look at Twitter thought leaders quote unquote, I swear they must have a list of 1000 tweets that are going to get likes and they just bounce it back and forth and retreat because the stuff that gets like after a while, you look at it. It's all the same if you start to see patterns literally, all the same, like appeals to the same audience some blah, blah, blah right? And just like but But that's the easy way. And that's like the 99% of people that gonna go in consuming they're gonna go that way.

So how do you steer you still? I mean, in your case, it sounds like you do it with actions like you read the book saying we wash the things that you think are important and she absorbs that. Is that

Is that the case? That modeling is kind of my better half? You know, she's an educator. So for her, modeling is the way you do this right, You model behaviors, and you hope that the child sees those and correlates that with how we define success and therefore he or she is like, Yeah, I should do that more often. I shouldn't watch nail videos or hall videos on YouTube for seven hours at a time. I should, you know, maybe watch something. Ah, whatever might be. There are plenty of interesting things that aren't my cup of tea on on YouTube,

but there actually are very valid, um, pellets of funny words. They're they're they're a very therapist. Before this was unimpressed. Be saying something's Ballard on about, but there are many things that have value to certain people on YouTube on Twitter. To me, it's It's more like they need to at least exercise the brain. That's we all know that without exercise, the brain atrophies and becomes a a piece of gray goo. So at least even if it is, something is, in my opinion and name as how to do Ah, cool swirl on your fingernail, using some viscous fluid and nail polish and some glycerin,

you know. Is that a name to me? Absolutely. Can somebody find a text Mackenzie? Can a young person or an adult find? Can I get inspired to understand fluid dynamics as a result, that, like, how does that happen like what is it here to your nail? Is Is that What is carrot in? And how does character Nak is? A porous? It's not for us. How does it get me all those things to me? It's I guess it's more about asking the question beyond the obvious. We're asking the next question.

That's what I think we have to tell our kids to do. Is is not be satisfied with just the one thing you see, But then ask Why do I see that? What? What's making the thing that I'm seeing possible? You know that the whole thing's terrifying May. Every day I wake up in a cold sweat.

Uh, social media. It's

no I I don't know that I didn't that I have. I have pretty much I've been on Twitter and I don't know how long. Even Facebook these days I rarely go there. Instagram I have never go to excite don't understand pictures. I've kinda reverted back to o p m l know little days about Rs s readers. That's that's where I'm spend most of my time is curating a great opium l so I can go and find the source is that. I think you're interesting.

Next thing you know, you

have a flip phone, Dude. I mean, I I still get the paper on paper in the mornings. Yeah, I know. I like a crotchety old man these days. It's amazing.

Um, actually, let's talk about education and maybe education of monies. Bocas the, um I saw your AA partner started her own school, and I saw you also on the board off summit school, seven schools and some of schools is actually something another parent brought up on the podcast. Jeff Ralston was talking about how, when they introduced some of schools, new curriculum, it actually great. A lot of pushback. In fact, I think it was like those a story about how the founders husband had a problem with the curriculum itself because it was so innovative and so different. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? And just like, where you see that going and why you're on the board

of that? Oh, I think it's I think this the school is exactly where schools need to go. I mean, whether or not the cricket myself is interesting, is not I think the debate it's how it's tot is what's so interesting. So we've had adaptive learning models in this country for years. People think about adaptive learning in particular ways, the way that some it really focuses, using the technology base that's derived from, frankly, a lot of guys and gals on Facebook having that technology base that can again scaffold kids up and figure out where they're falling down and figure out where they need remediation and they're learning. And you technology to augment the places with a week to get them up to the right suspect that we want them to leave the school with is so obvious that it should be done that way to me. And I'm sure all cause many people toe dislike what I'm about to say. But I was working education for a while, even if it was a Microsoft. And teachers have really an impossible task.

In many cases, if you're in a 32 32 K classroom and you've got an hour a day with these kids, say you're teaching the subjects and you're lecturing in many cases or maybe you flip the classroom, so you're doing a different model. But in any way any which have inform, unless you have that kind of granular data back on how the kids are performing almost in real time. Your ability. I don't care how the future you are, too, too, too divine that Susie or Johnny or often met or someone else is having a challenge, understanding of particular concept. And because they're getting second, a particular concept is gonna aggregate their ability to move to the next level of learning. You just can't do it by looking across the classroom. We're taking a test once 1/4 or once a week and figure out patterns.

Machines are great at patterns. Yeah, and so I would love. And again, I'm not an educator, So I'd be careful with what I say here. But the ability to give teachers even more superpowers and already have because they are doing absolutely heroics things and classrooms. But to give them that X ray vision into where a student is getting stuck or where a student is ex Elling, even in Israel, time is one can I mean that just makes hopefully their job won't be any easier, But it allowed the use of work they put into that that teaching to have a hopefully even a larger outcome than they are already you're having. So look there a lot of models around this adaptive learning that are out there whether it's Khan has some stuff is well, they're doing and and, uh, school much schools in California old school started by the guys and gals from from Google, Max Van Tele and Team.

They're pretty fascinating as well. So a lot of miles out there, I'm not saying so much the only one. But you know, the focus on having a strong adult mentor slash advisor that really cares for them. That's the way we look at our scorecard, every board meeting, and we have all these metrics around things that we think are really important. You know, things like, Do you believe that the adults in the school care for you and I are invested in your success? And we tracked that number of very carefully and we track how many kids are on target to where they should be, from a rubric standpoint around learning, not that's correlated necessarily to standardized tests, but that's correlated to where the curriculum says that they should be and we tracked that very carefully, and so we know we know it any point in the year how a student is doing and we're able to then take immediate actions if they're tardy,

if their absence, if they're true ins, if they're struggling, we know that using a dashboard and kind of real time to jump in and taken action, which again can be done the paper and pencil. But the granularity that that this digital platform gives us to really get in quickly and find areas before they can bigger problems is really exciting.

So how do you take something like that and bring it to another state? Or, you know, if I wanted to open one around here tomorrow? What you take

with the beautiful thing with the Smiths Summit is that they actually have this platform they've built, and it's it's now been deployed and get the numbers wrong. I haven't seen the most recent numbers. I want to say it's in 260 schools across the country where they've taken that digital learning platform. They even be 500. I should look, I don't recall exactly, but they are there in essence, getting their platform out to other schools, right? So it's not as easy as simply dropping and platform into a school in Irving, Texas, and saying, OK, you're good. Here you go kids going great because it requires a cultural mind chef too many cases and requires, in some cases,

different ways of teaching and different types of teachers that have traditionally been there not always can. And so it's not as easy, unfortunately, just dropping the model and saying off to the races. But certainly it's becoming easier, because now there are replicable systems that can be licensed and dropped into, ah, a school, along with the cultural transformation sword that you can transform the school's. Not everyone loves the models. I mean, there, Tony folks who think that focusing too much on testing or analysis is not the answer right for education. So everyone has. Many folks have their own opinions on again. What success looks like education, and I happen to think this one's pretty slick, but they're many of folks who have different opinions.

What got you so interested in education?

We did. I think that's a great question. I think back in 2010 now we did a project with a C A down California talent agency Davis Guggenheim, who did waiting for Superman, the film back. And I'm almost 2010 examining the role of charter schools and on and what they were doing to either improve or not improve education in the country. And that bunch of artists we get pulled together. Yosi Sergeant down in L. A. We got Mark Ecko and and the Roots, and they had this whole artist collective come together. But the idea was to basically raised level discussion, this country around education because you looked at all the numbers, like where we rank in the world. You look at that who were graduating and how many were graduating. And you look at the number of black and brown who are we're not pushing through it. It's a national travesty,

right? And when we have let this happen, frankly, over the last 30 plus years, despite the fact of London's gone up every single year for the last years, we're spending now twice as much as we spend back then we're still not getting the outcomes that we think are great. So it just seemed like an area where there wasn't a ton of thoughtful conversation happening for some sugar. People would argue that there was tons. I just didn't see it in my circles. At least we thought technology could play a role in helping a lot of it. So I did the thing back, and I guess it was called 2010 that was designed to create, along with this release about that film, waiting for Superman to create a national conversation around the state of education and get folks as angry as that as German losing to Mexico in the World Cup. You

hear about that every day for the last two

weeks? Yeah, yeah, we're talking about talking about high school graduation rates or very often it all on me didn't seem to care. So that's right outside. I said, Look, this is interesting. Technology can help our platform of Microsoft back then, combined with the flat from we had with celebs and musicians and artists, we could that we could kind of make this a bigger discussion. We did a lot of work that millions of millions of dollars we had tens of millions of dollars in kind donations from all these people who wanted to jump in and it didn't really work. I mean, we put it out there, we worked hard on it. We we hosted a lot of thought, phenomenal discussions and events and awareness,

raising operative events. I'm sure it helps on, but certainly didn't have the impact that I think a lot of us wanted, but that that experience have just has kept me interested in understanding what else we can do to kind of improve access to high quality education around the nation. Then my partner, she she's That was her whole thing. She graduated from college, 19 went to Cambridge, study there to get a master's at age 20 left there, came out to Chicago or travel around to 90 countries to figure education was done across the planet, came out to Chicago, where she was near because she's from Michigan and so that Gosh, I'm seeing, you know, better educational models than that in these these countries, which are considered to be Third World countries.

In some cases, then we have in Chicago, and the inequity that she was seeing in Chicago, for example, of access to a high quality education was was really stark. You know, you'd have again. You have just this tremendous number of people of kids who are just being left behind. So she went to the Board of Education three times for three years, got rejected twice, and then the third year, she finally got accepted and she formed it in the International Baccalaureate School for the school was built in near Bridgeport, which is South Side of Chicago. So 90% blow live below poverty line. 25 plus percent are our special needs students, kids who just have been not for gotten.

That's not the right way to say it, but certainly when she was pitching the school to the War of Education, there was a lot of back chatter around. Well, these kids can't learn that way. You're gonna teach them in Master about Gloria's a particular way of would have learning, and everyone say, Well, these kids aren't gonna learn that way. She's like, Why the hell not? I'm pretty sure they get learns like any other kid can learn. So, yeah, so she built a school photo Focus on Ivy Program. Healthy Nutrition's of the three Scratch me scratch made organic meals every day.

There's yoga and fitness and it brings the family as well and teach them how to cook differently and think differently about food. Because we know food has a huge impact on kids learning abilities. So anyway, so but no answer. Question. I thought Tech school. She thought different models education were cool and outside. That's all round. Adorable. That's

fun. So how do you bring money into education? Because the big problem is right. Like if you want to start something new, they're actually a lot of donors willing to throw money.

Oh, my gosh. I mean, there there's Yes, the answer is yes. There are many, many people who recognize that the current state of play is not sustainable. This is how, like, you know, the U. S aircraft lost their heads back in France hundreds of years ago. Right? You have basically suddenly have a population that's disaffected, disenchanted, and our look at the aristocrats in the elites to say something doesn't feel right here, you know?

So I'm not seconds wide unnecessarily doing it. That's how I think about it. Like way can't live in a country which basically has, you know, what we do live in a country today we're 90 plus percent of the wealth is held by 5% population and access education, of course, is becoming more and more inequitable, Right? Put it that way. Dancer question. Yes, there are plenty of donors and white donors, very, very wealthy philanthropists and organizations. I mean, of course you have one here in the state with the Gates Foundation that does a ton of work with education.

And there's the Walton Foundation. There's, uh there's dozens of organizations will fund inventive programs. The challenge is less about getting access to capital. It's more about getting parents take the risk. You know that that this new model is gonna work for their kid, even someone schools, which is literally a phenomenal network of schools. The outcomes are great, our students are greats. And if you look at that, look at the numbers. These are the other schools in the nation, and we're doing extraordinarily well. But convincing parents to send their kids to these schools in some districts around the nation around the state even is hard because they look a charter schools. They've,

you know, potentially bad reputation in certain parts of the states and convincing in many cases to first generation immigrant parents to trust us. Don't do the government school necessarily and come to this school was finally, they're all public schools. They're also public schools. But that could be a bit of a challenge with with misinformation out there. So it's much about other convincing folks that this model will work for them and getting over that hump or we've got the same thing. We were looking for my daughter at a non, very nontraditional school, and you're like, Do you want to roll the dice? This is gonna work. You know, before I had a kid, I'd say, Yeah,

man, I'll totally beta test that product with my child because, you know, the downside didn't seem very high enough. So it seems exponentially huge. But when you actually get practically into it and you spent. But I spent through Kates, you know, it's getting worse things to be. And then you're gonna roll the dice and on ah, ninth grade to say, Let's try a totally different model and hope to God it works. Yeah, I I I I hit Pause and I went more traditional so

but hold on, we're talking, Say the Chicago school, right? It took kids who were under otherwise underserved, underserved, right? So was that easier for parents whose kids were underserved?

Oh, yeah, yeah, for her. Like she stole a Elizabeth school. They have a 13 to 1 application to acceptance ratio. It's a public schools. It's a lottery, you know, qualifications other than have to live in this particular area. Yeah, just 13 or 14

toe. We're talking to more like a fluent parents who would have chosen between, you know, top 10 private schools. Now don't when I rolled the dice on potentially tub, Want better squad? Yeah,

it's a different model, right? So, like it's it's super easy to look at traditional education and say, Well, I can see the path to go from school Lex to school wide Thio. Whatever Stanford and you care about right, you can see that the public schools publicized in the materials. How many kids got into Stanford and Harvard and Yale

and 20 million. But is that the problem that you don't know how many kids out of this school will go to Yale? So it's not even this school? That's the problem is whether the Yale or whatever a school that you want to end up, we'll take your kid after this process. I don't think that

reductive. I'm not sure that every parent cares about that necessarily. But it's more just, I think, you know, there is safety in tradition and this goes back to kind of people I know who are the most successful across many facets are those who like I'm taking a risk. Yeah, I have many friends who rolled the dice and had snake eyes as rolled the dice and get out ahead, right? So I think, you know, Are you gonna do that? I have one child. I'll never have one child. I'm I'm willing to take that risk where even if I can, kind of if I can kind of de risk it or mitigate some of the downside of potentials. Is it worth it to me to take the risk on the ones I don't know.

I don't know. If it wasn't for me, no more traditional end of the day, that's the challenge was education. I think right now

what I see is maybe there's an opportunity where you introduced education to the kids as opposed to the whole family. Like right now we're talking about convincing parents even then, picking and retraining and convincing teachers and the school board. It's like, What about giving education straight to the kids, All right, with YouTube and instrumental this channels that are available to us. Do you see anything going on there that is actually creating an

impact? Oh, my gosh. I mean, I think of my daughter with the language. He loves learning languages. And she I mean, at a young age, she was undo a lingo. She blew through Spanish. You blew through German, and she's now want to get into Arabic, and that's all by ourselves. I would walk away. She'd be in her room. She closed the door, and two hours later,

she went upstairs and said, Dad, I just finished. You know, Spanish 345 I'm stoked. So, yeah, I mean, there's the again the opportunities that our kids have and your kids or younger they're gonna have, whether it's a RVR, whether it's even better, adaptive learning or smarter granular measurements of how Here it's just give a daughter right now. Yeah, so how she's learning. Yeah, I think it's a massive MI I I think it's massive and sure can they Can they waste time playing Pokemon go and watching our violence?

Little thing. There's no finding Where is their minds gone? But instagram stories and whatnot? Yeah, they can. And you have to be vigilant about helping them. See. One thing I talked about my daughter again is the lecture. I roll, I'm sure, but I'm like, honey view the only thing that you cannot buy more of this time. Everyone has the same time the day now other ways to maximize your time through distributed labor. Sure that like normal human beings like don't have access to a network of 18 assistance, right? So you have 24 hours a day and every hour,

every minute, every second you're spending on an activity which is brainless or is literally vegetative. At that point is a second where you could be creating something. So on the plane back from Chicago last week, I said, Look, I want you to think about what's the right consumption, the creation ratio. Well, I consumed all while I was watch Westworld last time, right? We all need downtime. We all need time to veg out and watch succession or watch. You know, John Oliver, Bill Maher ever might be.

I'm not something like I'm always creating yet, but, man Oh, man, if you looked at my consumption that comes to creation ratio be a lot different than hers, right? So trying to get her and it will happen because she she understands these things. But getting her to use technology in a way that allows her to amplify her creativity and her passion than her in her brain and not just be a passive consumer is is, uh I think the trick because if you say no, you can't do it that eventually when you leave the house, just do it. So you have to kind of still the patterns and practices into them And not just say you cannot,

because that that'll do if you probably push it too hard and they're rebelling when I do the opposite

of it. That's what I mean. Yeah, like my investing style. Do the opposite. What I do even great.

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I've got a little bit of time until that you're British, although it's I can see that the even in my three year old when she was two years old, right? Like at some point, I put this blackboard on the wall and let him, bro. Uh, yeah, she just been two and 1/2. I was drawing just like a random stuff. It was awesome, you know, random. But And then a few months later,

one of the grandparents came by and like, shoulder out the drawer like stick figures. And after that, she wants to go do stick figures, right? You're like, Oh, Daddy, can you show me how to draw ex and I'm like, No, just pick up the marker and just do whatever you know, And that little explanation kind of broke this creativity. And so to rebuild it back into, like, get her confident about, because in the beginning,

she didn't care that you could do something with a marker. There was no constraint. There was no constraint. And somebody introduced it and then, like to undo it took substantially longer, right? So and now we're talking about all that was devices and like older kids. So it's It's an interesting problem.

She had the acid Betty think Assets asset to baste thinking mindset. Early on is a two year old, right? Cause harassed. It was a pan, and there's a whiteboard. That was it. And then they went straight was produced, which is a model that she thought she had to follow it. Now she's have a pass. Yeah. I mean, I think that's just kind of growing up too much. That's totally, totally, uh, models like this for a reason.

Right? Like you don't you don't drive on water. Doesn't work, right? Roads there for a reason. Except it exactly. I like a Volkswagen bug. Couldn't drive on water, which I actually realized that, but bugs could float. The Beatles could float. Yeah, that was a great cool concept.

There you go. You know, it must be fun to be in your house. Has there been anything else? Like it? Sounds like education's been a passion for a while in the last couple of years, right? Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember anything else about your daughter? Your family? That was, like, really exciting that you think maybe is undervalued and people should do more

travel by far again. We're talking. I may be a little careful. It's differently. A rarefied ability to just take your daughter and Goto Asia for a couple of weeks or Leopard of Chicago for a weekend. Let's go see something. But to me, Yeah, I mean, getting her exposed at agent Really A until age five or domestic kind of the tourist spots before age five. In my opinion, at least, there wasn't she wasn't gonna retain a lot. You know of what we saw a post age five. We went to live in Europe for the summer, and we lived in Greece and Germany and the Czech Republic. And,

uh, we're also go, uh, I forget now, but places for a few months on, we just live there as kind of people, you know, And I was fun. And then ever since that ever since then we've made a point to at least once or twice or three times a year head out to somewhere else in the world, that's that's either a little uncomfortable or a little bit challenging or, in some cases, just playing fun. We just want come back from Bali, which was not really challenging. Our comfortable singing sounds terrible, but that's employment to Cambodia to,

and we went out to the slums and the floating slum, some of the largest lakes in Asia, and got to see kids in school that had literally a piece of of charcoal on DSA paper. They got from, Ah, donation from from a tourist, and it makes her, you know, she lives in Magnolia in Seattle. She goes to private schools that are pretty good. Her ability to see the broader world of how 99 95% of the planet lives. You know, it's super important.

The fact that you can pick up dueling will learn Spanish in the weekend, right? It's substantially different from somebody learning math, but charcoal on floor. Completely different. Yeah, right.

So getting it done to me answer. Question. Travel, whatever you can do, a surly as you think that the child can can comprehend. And you want to be careful you want again. Ladder up what they're seeing. You don't really want to go the Indian prostitute Red Light District, and she's six. That's not too hard to explain to a six year old, but certainly at age 13 can she go see these camps? Were kids were living in parts that yeah, you said, Does she want extreme poverty is important to see. It actually

kind of is How do you deal with safety sickness, sir?

No, it's really not. Maybe it should be more concerned in certain places, the world. But we go. There are people that will hire to make sure that we're safe. Certain certain places. Yeah, you will do that. But generally, not really. I mean, none of us have ever gotten sick. Traveling you never, maybe even a lot of crazy stuff. And, uh,

but we also again be careful. We also don't stay at a hostel, you know, Then we might be maybe out in the Cambodian slums. In afternoon, we go back to the Park Hyatt and right on pan in the in the evening. So? So it's not super realistic. In that sense, you will. You weigh the trade offs of life. How do you convince a 12 year old to come with you if it's gonna be held for two weeks? That's just that's not the least of my 12 year old brain. Wasn't gonna be an option. So you have to kind of balance the The toughness was with some fun. Yeah,

but travel, that's thing I just if you can figure out a way and it doesn't have to be the Four Seasons, I mean look, man, just just exposing young people, too. Conditions different than than those in which they live on a regular basis and seeing different color People in different social, gnomic social got people in different religious people. We spent time in the mosque when we were in Singapore, I think in Singapore. Yeah, we went couple hours in a mosque one day, just kind of walked through that really, and it's lovely, were absolutely brilliant. People there who were really trying convert us to Islam.

I'm like I'm in. Atheists were clear, but But they were awesome and a gay for a whole different, you know, perspective on that religion, which, as we all know in this country, has been fairly vilified recently. Yeah, which is really unfortunate

because we know you get a vilify something, you know, to make other things look

beautiful. Absolutely everyone needs a hit. Dylan, right? Unfortunately, we've now alienated a 1,000,000,000 people on the planet. That's a different conversation.

Mentions the beginning. Before I started recording that, you know, it's kind of choices and you don't spend a lot of money at home. But that allows you to say about, like, exactly spent all of

this and that Elizabeth, when she was visiting these 90 plus countries. I mean, she doesn't come from money, and there's no trust fund funding her excursions to 90 plus countries. That was scrappy $12 Ryan air tickets back in the 90 and 2000 to get from the UK to Prague. And when you're there, you figure out howto either stay in a hostel or find a friend. Or are you Now he did it with a 12 year old or 10 year old. No, you're not gonna like just wing it when you get to get to Nicaragua and hope to God you find a hostel. But But there are ways yes, that you can. You can scrap it together and take young people on amazing experiences without having to be a multimillionaire. Well, let's

see. Education is important. Travel is actually a part of education because it opens up your mind. Absolutely. See

the world cash? Absolutely. There are media is so filtered. Without big I can rent a read it, You know, no conspiracy theorist But our media is so filtered, and what's presented by our media is so eyes so filtered and designed to drive views and outrage and engagements and and an old man slowing down and actually living with people and Thailand or getting out to a remote part of Malaysia heavier. Damien believes a couple years ago with a family, for you know, it was a date or something. Let's be clear. It wasn't like we're really roughing it. But were if we were in a great flood, a small, small town on Billy's or in Mexico? Are you just getting out? And if you just watch the news,

this is These are all terrifying places, even Mexico. You watch the news and I got a text. All the times I've come from work down there and people are even my friends were educated in the U. S. Will save their life. One got my neighbor but is great. It's like Mexico. Is that super dangerous, like Wow. I mean, Chicago could be dangerous. L a coming through. The adult could be dangerous, right? I mean,

sure. Other places You probably shouldn't go as a gringo in Mexico City. Yeah, Other places. She goes a gringo in South Side Chicago. Yeah, you know, So, like, you have to just is you have to peel back the fiction from the truth and get out there. And it may not mean we have We got we got totally mugged in Buenos Aires, but he won't hurt, you know, and actually didn't didn't get anything like that. No man should get away before they got a saying, But shit happens

so far of the two people that I know you've done two bonus iris. Both of them have been.

So look what happens there. There's a violent bugging rite is two ladies were trying to get our backpacks on their backs by squirting fake bird shit on us and pretending to wipe. It is great. It's a great scam, like, good for you. Ingenuity. You get 10 points. So we got to the hotel, which is the Alvey, our palace there, and n b A. Which is one of the finest places the planet. And we walked in like, uh, sorry. We spell look like crap.

We just got, you know, accosted by some women on the road. And then they were super apologetic. and beyond. Gracious. Took all the clothes I was wearing old Navy T shirt worth, like $7 they took it and they had a professionally dry, clean laundry brought back in a box. Upgrade to a room, Give us free stuff of the at the bar like it's not your fault, guys. It's okay. But, man Oh, man

made him so Yeah, I was kind of waiting for the story where the hotel took your stuff. No way,

Betty, though, that I don't think I've had any of those way. Pretend I talk about being real, that we tend not to stay in place. That will take our stuff. So well,

is there anything closer to home that you think is a great advice for kind of future parents? Young parents are maybe some friends of you, her parents, and you've seen them make mistakes it to rather than not. But you can point and say out loud. Ah, boy started

a list. Yeah. Can't actually alphabetical order of importance. I think Certainly the inequality we see around the world this very much in our own city. So getting getting my daughter out to volunteer opportunities, the food bank or today we're military Inter school to help sort rummage in the particular categories again, it's it's trying to get kids out of the bubble. You know, it's really, really, really easy in a certain income class and never think about the other. And I think that's to me locally. Just there's a ton of places you could volunteer. Funny story that we're actually looking at volunteering with refugees in Seattle and for well, Sara Elizabeth was calling down toe was the center that managed that Say, we want to come volunteer with refugees who come into Seattle Mixture there Act committed what? Not like Yeah,

love it. Thank you so much, but we have a waiting list like 1000 names long of folks who want a volunteer refugees like so Seattle. There's just not enough refugees volunteers because of me. Seattleite to want to volunteer, which is it is pretty amazing. Awesome and my love is like What the hell I can't even volunteer, But yeah, I just mean building that building those things is great. I think that's important getting out in the city and fixing things in the city. Then my daughter at last year two or two years ago actually started a program again, with lots of support from the parents but a program around getting women and girls and steam more excited about being esteem so that studies were showing that in seventh and eighth grade, especially women, drop out of the steam subjects of a much higher proportion. The men D'oh! Which of course,

results in our lack of women in leadership positions in those certain areas, which is bad for everyone, shareholders and economy and plant. So she started the program, which basically would find interesting women in in organizations across city and then would get to convince them to go host events for girls at her age to come and actually see that so small thing isn't gonna have is it's scalable. Tow the nation. Probably not because she's, you know, going in high school, but the ability for her to have an impact like that locally on. And if she even gets one or two girls who traditionally we're gonna bail out of engineering because they saw it as a dude's thing, if they got If you got to those girls to say no, I'm in this now that's a good return on investment, you know, so do not

cast off. And that reminded me Jack should last another question. So you also have a daughter, and we live in the world, which is still predominantly male dominated. Um, and for me, as a guy, it's much as I want them to be successful. It's still hard to sometimes figure out a way how you know, because I know that the world is male dominated or at least wants to appear male dominated. Have you figured out anything around that to encourage your girl to be a two over a comment and to ignore it or, you know, any channels to basically flip it around?

I think about is literally every day. Uh, I mean, part of it is just having a conversation around a quality and Mrs position, he said. Position in my brain, which is again. I'm sure I'm delusional. It's an extent, but it just making it so ridiculous in her brain that she's anything less than a guy like It's preposterous. That would just be. I want her to Little every day, and she does get up. I hope these days is no longer in the interest of ranks. For years I've just been so vocal about the fact that especially boys at her age are about the equivalent of a six year old like you. He was like, You girls are so much more advanced than boys are with their younger onto the boys somehow sometimes catch up when they get older.

But yeah, I It's more about just empowering her to almost almost laugh at the at the male sex. You're kind of like the ridiculousness of, and I have a kind of just enjoy the lunacy Onda, dunce, and look at the Confederacy of Dunces out there, uh, in Congress, for example, where it's predominantly male. Or look the institutions that over my mails on dhe, how they are failing. In many cases, you look at the institutions that have women on the Board of Management leadership positions and you run up return the return on investment over the course of 10 years and study has done, I think, by Stanford,

which showed that women cos that women on boards of leadership positions return expert much higher returns to investors and those with all men, just like you look at these like this and I differently studies and give her these stories and tell these stories. And so where it's like OK, yeah, I get the world was still kind of asked out that we used to be still are you know, Ah, super male dominated, but I wanted to just kind of continually laugh at that, have the world midst of bad decision. How she's S o doesn't even in her mind that that should be doing the way the world is in 10 years. I don't know how you do it any other way. I think teaching them boy characteristics is the wrong model, right, because we should be celebrating that. The difference is that having women in leadership positions that on boards actually provided a conversation versus having them become aggressive assholes, like many guys think that have to be to be Alfa male,

like being an alpha female. I don't think it's serving the cause very well. Personally, I'm sure you left without to, but somebody

that's okay. Everyone's gonna have an opinion

modeling boy behavior and girls, I don't think is the right model.

I think it's been great. Uh, yeah, I think in all the themes this, Ma. The idea of modeling comes through. It does right now that you've got to be the parent that you want them to become and the figure out what's important to you. It should be important for them and and work through it

and being super, honestly, make mistakes. I made a ton of mistakes and and I tell around, make mistakes. And I apologize and make mistakes that I tell her why I made mistake and and tell her how much we have heard from the steak. And that's really important to not put yourself on a pedestal. I mean, I am far from the best father, far from the best partner, far from the best ex husband. But you know the helping or see that's that's what life's about. The messy, messy messiness of

life. That's an excellent message. Thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening to another episode of the ride that show. I hope you enjoy this. And if you did, please send this episode to one of your friends who might also enjoy this. Oh, and of course, if you want to check out some awesome probiotics he confined Stefan and his company at We are Jetson dot com. You have a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next episode of the ride that show cheers.