Speaker 1: And so that was really where my life. Like the
Speaker 1: moment I got that call, I knew nothing was ever
Speaker 1: going to be the same again. You know, I've had
Speaker 1: lots of bad calls in my life, but they're all savable.
Speaker 1: You could save a big client that left you, you
Speaker 1: can make another sale, you can get a bigger house,
Speaker 1: you can go to the gym. You can't bring back
Speaker 1: the dead. And that to me was as a control freak,
Speaker 1: as an alpha male, as somebody that always was able
Speaker 1: to manipulate my environment. Death is so permanent that I
Speaker 1: struggled a lot, you know, with that idea that I
Speaker 1: can't And that's you know, a lot of guilt and shame.
Speaker 1: Like where was I when when Seth was struggling? What
Speaker 1: was I doing? Was I focused on making money? Was
Speaker 1: I worried about what people have thought about this dad
Speaker 1: whose son was struggling. I didn't know anybody that had
Speaker 1: a son and died. When the teachers told me to
Speaker 1: take him to the doctor for his lack of focus
Speaker 1: and attention, that was the beginning of the end of
Speaker 1: my son.
Speaker 2: This is Wake Up with Marci, a space for honest
Speaker 2: conversations about healing, recovery and women's wellness. I'm Marcy Hopkins.
Speaker 2: Take a breath, You're safe here. Let's begin. How do
Speaker 2: you keep going when your world falls apart, when you've
Speaker 2: buried your child, when addiction steals the people you love,
Speaker 2: when the life you built no longer exists. Most people
Speaker 2: think grief is something you eventually get over. But what
Speaker 2: if healing isn't about getting over it? What if it's
Speaker 2: about finding purpose in the pain. Today we're talking about addiction, grief,
Speaker 2: mental health, and the extraordinary strength that takes to choose
Speaker 2: hope after unimaginable loss.
Speaker 3: Welcome all to.
Speaker 2: Wake Up with Marcy. I'm so grateful you are here today.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Marcy Hopkins. I am an author, TV host,
Speaker 2: motivational speaker, mental health advocate, and a woman in long
Speaker 2: term recovery. And on wake Up, we have honest com
Speaker 2: conversations about mental health, recovery, and relationships and self discovery
Speaker 2: and what it really takes to rebuild your life. In
Speaker 2: today's conversation resonates with you. Please like, comment, subscribe, and
Speaker 2: share this episode with someone who may need to hear it.
Speaker 2: These conversations save lives, and together we can help break
Speaker 2: the stigma surrounding addiction and mental health. Today's episode is
Speaker 2: one that will touch every parent, every family, and every
Speaker 2: person who has ever loved someone struggling with addiction, or
Speaker 2: any parent or anyone that has suffered loss. Because addiction
Speaker 2: and loss don't just affect the individual. It impacts everyone
Speaker 2: who loves them, and sometimes it leaves behind unimaginable grief.
Speaker 2: My guest today is Jeff Johnston. Jeff spent more than
Speaker 2: three decades building a successful investment firm, managing over eight
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars in assets. By every outward measure, he
Speaker 2: had built an extraordinary life. But in twenty sixteen, everything
Speaker 2: changed when his twenty three year old son Seth died
Speaker 2: from fentanyl poisoning after what began with a prescription for
Speaker 2: adderall Then just five years later, Jeff lost his wife Prudence,
Speaker 2: to alcoholism. Instead of allowing those heartbreaking losses to define him,
Speaker 2: Jeff dedicated his life to changing the conversation around addiction, grief,
Speaker 2: and mental health. Today, he is the founder of Living Undeterred,
Speaker 2: the host of the Living Undeterred podcast, author of This
Speaker 2: One's for You, and the creator of Brighton, a new
Speaker 2: mental wellness platform designed to help people recognize emotional struggles
Speaker 2: before they become a crisis. Let's meet Jeff Johnston. Jeff,
Speaker 2: welcome to Wake Up with Marcy. I'm so grateful you're
Speaker 2: here today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited to have this conversation. It's quite amazing
Speaker 1: what has transpired in my life the last ten years.
Speaker 1: But I'm trying to really reframe it as an opportunity
Speaker 1: to become a better person, not a bitter person, as
Speaker 1: I like to say when I share the story, because
Speaker 1: we all have a story, right, we just need a
Speaker 1: platform to share it and to pull each other up
Speaker 1: from these tough times that we're all in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you've gone through some really unimaginable times and.
Speaker 3: That's what I want.
Speaker 2: I want to start with and why this work now
Speaker 2: is so important for you. So before you even became
Speaker 2: an advocate for addiction and mental health, you were a
Speaker 2: successful financial advisor. Everything looked really good from the outside,
Speaker 2: but then your entire world changed. Can you take us
Speaker 2: back to that time and what was happening for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, to put it in context. So I'm sixty, I'm
Speaker 1: sixty years old this year, and I'll go back ten years.
Speaker 1: That's kind of where you know, for lack of a
Speaker 1: better way to say it, where really this all began
Speaker 1: for me at that particular on that particular day. It
Speaker 1: was October fourth, twenty sixteen, to be exact. So I
Speaker 1: was fifty years old, happily married to my lovely wife
Speaker 1: Prudence for twenty one years. We had three boys. Seth
Speaker 1: was our oldest, twenty three in Roman and Ian were
Speaker 1: fifteen and thirteen. I was running a wealth management firm
Speaker 1: that I started in my car out of college in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. You know, no internet, no cell phones,
Speaker 1: just knocking on door selling insurance to start. And by
Speaker 1: the time I was fifty, we had we had raised
Speaker 1: or amassed about eight hundred million dollars of assets under management.
Speaker 1: So we had a very thriving boutique wealth management firm
Speaker 1: here in Cedar Rapids, IOWA. I had a TV show
Speaker 1: for five years, Sunday Morning Investment Hour, and then I
Speaker 1: did radio for about seventeen. Our show was still running
Speaker 1: even though I'm not in the business anymore. But from
Speaker 1: all circumstances, like you said, from the external, you know
Speaker 1: I was rotarian. I was you know, I was active
Speaker 1: in the community. You know, everything looked perfect, like I
Speaker 1: had the perfect life, and as you find out, you
Speaker 1: know behind the veil. You know, a lot of times
Speaker 1: these foundations are built very fragile. And you know, on
Speaker 1: that particular day, I got a call that every parent dreads,
Speaker 1: and you know, to call you become a fast member
Speaker 1: of a club you didn't ask to join in when
Speaker 1: you can never leave. And our oldest son, Seth, was
Speaker 1: found dead in a hotel room, just like in the movies,
Speaker 1: a CD hotel room, you know, little room chair in
Speaker 1: a corner, and he was slumped over with the needle
Speaker 1: in his arm. And what Seth had done is he
Speaker 1: had run into fentanyl. And I never heard of fentanyl.
Speaker 1: I knew it. Drugs and addiction were because Seth had
Speaker 1: struggled since he was given adderall at sixteen. In the
Speaker 1: minute that adderall hit his body, he was never the same.
Speaker 1: And you know, I can say all this in hindsight now,
Speaker 1: but in the middle of the fire, you don't realize
Speaker 1: all this stuff because there's all these other other things
Speaker 1: pulling at you. And you know, eight years later, everything
Speaker 1: in between, from drunk drivings and breaking and enterings to cocaine,
Speaker 1: you know, and prison, even he was in prison and
Speaker 1: was released and then had met somebody that introduced him
Speaker 1: to heroin, and so that was really where my life.
Speaker 1: Like the moment I got that call, I knew nothing
Speaker 1: was ever going to be the same again. You know,
Speaker 1: I've had lots of bad calls in my life, but
Speaker 1: they're all savable.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: You can save a big you could save a big
Speaker 1: client that left you. You can make another sale, you
Speaker 1: can get a bigger house, you can go to the gym.
Speaker 1: You can't bring back the dead. And and that to
Speaker 1: me was as a control freak, as an alpha male,
Speaker 1: as somebody that always was able to manipulate my environment.
Speaker 1: Death is so permanent that I struggled a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: with that idea that I can't And that's you know
Speaker 1: a lot of guilt and shame. Like where was I
Speaker 1: when when Seth was struggling? What was I doing? Was
Speaker 1: I focused on making money? Was I worried about what
Speaker 1: people have thought about this dad whose son was struggling.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anybody that had a son that died.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a there was no there was
Speaker 1: no comparable story. I didn't know anybody, you know, It's
Speaker 1: just it doesn't right.
Speaker 2: That's why one. It's so important that you are sharing
Speaker 2: your story and thank you for your strength there. I
Speaker 2: can't imagine anything worse than losing a child. I want
Speaker 2: to go back though, you said that he was prescribed
Speaker 2: after all, So I mean there's a lot of people
Speaker 2: out there, a lot of families, you know, our children
Speaker 2: are being prescribed medications. We're thinking nothing like this could
Speaker 2: happen to us. You know, these are things that happened
Speaker 2: to other people. But what do you what do you
Speaker 2: wish parents would really understand?
Speaker 1: Great question. I appreciate the question. First off, I'm not
Speaker 1: a doctor. I'm just his dad from Iowa. That I
Speaker 1: tell my story and people can extract from it what
Speaker 1: they want. You know, I'm not here to tell you
Speaker 1: to get your kid off adderall. I'm sharing how my
Speaker 1: son got started. The gateway, the doorway that was cracked
Speaker 1: over for him was his abuse of Adderall. And it
Speaker 1: started by going to parent teacher conferences at our local
Speaker 1: high school here, and the teachers are my wife and
Speaker 1: I would come in like you do when you have kids,
Speaker 1: and you sit down and you know a lot of
Speaker 1: times they're very good. But with Seth, it was struggling
Speaker 1: in school. So that just didn't really fit into that
Speaker 1: standard of memorizing tests and all that stuff. He was
Speaker 1: great athlete, he was popular amongst his friends, but he
Speaker 1: just struggled academically. And I did too. I'd never made
Speaker 1: out oferall in high school ever, And I think attention
Speaker 1: deficit is a convenient label. When I was younger, they
Speaker 1: just called us, you know, hyper or your spas or whatever.
Speaker 1: But we didn't have these labels now that we just
Speaker 1: hand them out like their skittles. And so the teachers
Speaker 1: are like, you know, Jeff, you need to take your
Speaker 1: son in to get him looked at. And I'm like, why,
Speaker 1: He's a fifteen year old, red blood American boy, and
Speaker 1: I don't see the problem, Like, well, he's disruptive in
Speaker 1: class and he's not doing well in school. So the
Speaker 1: first mistake I made was believing them. I'm his dad,
Speaker 1: I'm around him more than they are. They bring cognitive biases,
Speaker 1: teachers due to school. They have other kids that distract
Speaker 1: him too, So it's like it was unfair to label
Speaker 1: my son that. But at the time, I was just
Speaker 1: like focused on other things, and I thought, I'll just
Speaker 1: take him to the doctor. Well, a couple doctor visits,
Speaker 1: and we walked out with this real convenient label on
Speaker 1: his forehead. Attention deficit disorder. We named it. We can
Speaker 1: tame it for you, mister Johnston, and we'll tame it
Speaker 1: by this prescription of this drug called adderall. It's watered
Speaker 1: down meth amphetamines. That's all Adderall is. I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. My dad's a doctor. I should
Speaker 1: have consulted him, but I didn't. I just handed my
Speaker 1: son the bottle, which was a mistake. But I didn't
Speaker 1: even realize that you could take three or four. I
Speaker 1: thought he would just take one, like I told him too.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so you know, I guess the first mistake,
Speaker 1: and people want to throw me under the bus. I
Speaker 1: don't really care anymore people think about me. I gave
Speaker 1: him the bottle. I shouldn't have done that. I didn't.
Speaker 1: It didn't dawn on me my dad. I took prescriptions
Speaker 1: over my lifetime, and I always just took one and
Speaker 1: never even consider taking two. But he got abusing it
Speaker 1: and selling it at school, and then it just that
Speaker 1: opened up the vaping and the alcohol and everything else.
Speaker 1: And so no, I gas my parents when I keynote
Speaker 1: all of the country. You know, where do the start
Speaker 1: because everyone wants to relate it to their own children.
Speaker 1: And I have to say it was when the teachers
Speaker 1: told me to take him to the doctor for his
Speaker 1: lack of focus and attention. That was the beginning of
Speaker 1: the end of my son.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean what I feel from you telling the
Speaker 2: story that you feel some sort of guilt.
Speaker 3: I don't want to assume your feelings, but no.
Speaker 1: I do. I do and I always will and I
Speaker 1: respect him Now. I don't fear the guilt. I don't
Speaker 1: fear shame. I'm using them as a superpower for me
Speaker 1: to make me do what I do. Now, I have
Speaker 1: to have some element of guilt and shame. I mean
Speaker 1: if I took a pill, if you came to me
Speaker 1: and said, Jeff, I have a pill to get rid
Speaker 1: of all your guilt, shame and everything you have, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't take it. Yeah, I'd sit on my couch and
Speaker 1: watch TV all day and be two hundred pounds and drink.
Speaker 1: I need to have this to drive me. I need it.
Speaker 1: Not recommending it for everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But what what I was going to say is
Speaker 2: that we trust the teachers and they're around children a lot,
Speaker 2: and so we believe that what they suggest is truth.
Speaker 2: And then you went to the doctors and really, you know,
Speaker 2: you're your child, like we all respond respond differently to drugs, alcohol,
Speaker 2: whatever we put into our bodies, right, and I myself
Speaker 2: and I've done recently this, I mean, many young people
Speaker 2: have their drugs for ADHD, which, like you said, I
Speaker 2: mean I think probably one in three children have.
Speaker 1: Been or more adults. More adults take adderall now than children.
Speaker 2: Well well, right, but my point to this is is
Speaker 2: that we in our minds would take one. We can't
Speaker 2: imagine taking.
Speaker 1: More, Yeah, cross my mind, right, But you know.
Speaker 2: Like for me, I'd drink a whole bottle, and maybe
Speaker 2: for someone they would never think of drinking more than
Speaker 2: half a glass. So it's hard to get in the
Speaker 2: mind of someone that responds a certain way to a drug.
Speaker 1: And you're also looking at a child too. The prefrontal
Speaker 1: cortex is not formed. So this wasn't like a forty
Speaker 1: year old man that you were giving adderall too. This
Speaker 1: was a child that didn't understand addiction, didn't understand this
Speaker 1: stuff of course. So again I think the system, at
Speaker 1: some point a doctor or somebody should have said, hey,
Speaker 1: mister Johnston, make sure that you give him one to
Speaker 1: day instead they have give him you know, no one never,
Speaker 1: no one told me even to consider not giving him
Speaker 1: the bottle. I just that's what I did. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to add one every day. But if someone said, hey,
Speaker 1: this is something that could get him in trouble, you
Speaker 1: need to give him one a day, I would have
Speaker 1: done that.
Speaker 3: I I can relate to that.
Speaker 2: And as far as uh, someone in my family is
Speaker 2: on bybance and they have abused by bance in certain
Speaker 2: situations because they think if one is helping, then more
Speaker 2: is going to help more. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, and it's
Speaker 2: right right, So it made him feel good, you know,
Speaker 2: it made him, yes, And then we also mentally convince
Speaker 2: ourselves like we can't do better, well, you can't do.
Speaker 3: Well without it and all of the things.
Speaker 2: And so with this loss again, an unimaginable loss. I
Speaker 2: can't even imagine what happened for you after that. How
Speaker 2: did that affect your life? I mean, I can't even
Speaker 2: imagine being able to get out of bed.
Speaker 1: Well I didn't for a while, but the day that
Speaker 1: Seth died, I knew I had to tell my wife
Speaker 1: that he died and I remember coming around the corner
Speaker 1: and we were going to a golf tournament. Our middle
Speaker 1: son was in a tournament that day, and my wife
Speaker 1: had all the orange and black on for the high
Speaker 1: school and she had a cup of coffee and talking
Speaker 1: to him and her mom on the phone. And I
Speaker 1: come around the corner in the bathroom and I'm just trembling,
Speaker 1: and she can instantly see something bad happens, and I
Speaker 1: just say the same thing I heard on the phone,
Speaker 1: Seth is dead, and oh my god, yeah, she yeah,
Speaker 1: Obviously she was never the same after that, and we
Speaker 1: both just hit the ground and I don't remember anything.
Speaker 1: And then I thought that I got to tell the
Speaker 1: two brothers next. That's like the next thing I got
Speaker 1: to do. And so when they got home, I had
Speaker 1: to create this narrative, and so I had I had
Speaker 1: all day to think about what I was going to say.
Speaker 1: Talk to my dad and he gave me some good advice.
Speaker 1: My dad's amazing, and he said, just tell them the
Speaker 1: truth and then shut your mouth, Jeff, because you like
Speaker 1: to fix everything. You like to talk. You're a salesman,
Speaker 1: you know you like to you know you're not going
Speaker 1: to fix this, Jeff just tell them the truth. And
Speaker 1: so I did. And when I told him, I said,
Speaker 1: I have some really bad news. Your brother's dad. And
Speaker 1: my middle son, Ian said, how do he died? Dad? Drugs?
Speaker 1: He's fifteen? Yeah, And I said yeah, And then I
Speaker 1: didn't say anything. And then something happened to me. And
Speaker 1: I don't know where it came from, but I didn't
Speaker 1: really want to plan on what I was going to say.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be very spontaneous and be authentic and genuine,
Speaker 1: you know, and be be a leader, right because that's
Speaker 1: what dads try to be, you know, parents try to
Speaker 1: be leaders. And I just had this feeling in me, like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is this is go time, man, This
Speaker 1: is like these dad moments you get, these husband moments,
Speaker 1: these son moments you get maybe like honest to god,
Speaker 1: you get like five in your lifetime where you have
Speaker 1: this moment in time where the spotlight's on you and
Speaker 1: the arena is full and you have to pick up
Speaker 1: the microphone and you got to say something to get
Speaker 1: people to just run through a fire for you. And
Speaker 1: so I said, I said, boys, we have one of
Speaker 1: two roads to go down now. We have one road
Speaker 1: of anger, despair and hatred and we'll become alcoholics and
Speaker 1: addicts ourselves, or we have a road of love, hope,
Speaker 1: and inspiration, and this could be the single greatest moment
Speaker 1: in our lives to make a difference in the lives
Speaker 1: of others. I asked you to join me, and they did,
Speaker 1: but I didn't. The next year and a half, I
Speaker 1: stayed home and my wife and I got drunker every
Speaker 1: single day. I'd been a full alcoholic since eighteen so
Speaker 1: most people didn't know that. And I stayed home and
Speaker 1: lied to everybody that I was doing good. And my
Speaker 1: boys were out raising money and doing fundraisers and talking
Speaker 1: about their brother and doing interviews, and you know, I'm
Speaker 1: doing that too, But behind the scenes, my wife and
Speaker 1: I are just drinking, drinking, drinking. And then, fourteen months
Speaker 1: after Seth's died, my wife walked by me at ar
Speaker 1: condo of Florida and I just looked at it and
Speaker 1: I thought, man, this she's gone. She's defeated, like nothing left.
Speaker 1: And then I went in the bathroom and looked in
Speaker 1: the mirror and I said, you pathetic piece of you
Speaker 1: know what you are. You don't deserve to be alive.
Speaker 1: You are You are just the most lowly human that's
Speaker 1: ever been born. Here's your son died, and you drink,
Speaker 1: and now your wife's dying and you're drinking. And so
Speaker 1: that day, on December twenty fourth of seventeen, I poured
Speaker 1: my glass of sandio Vs down the drain and I've
Speaker 1: never had a thought of alcohol nine years imming. Well,
Speaker 1: that's I thought I could quit to help Prudence. I
Speaker 1: really thought I could quit to help Prudence. But I
Speaker 1: realized quickly how I was one hundred ninety pounds. I was,
Speaker 1: you know, puffy. I was not healthy, but I noticed
Speaker 1: I was getting healthier very quickly. And a week went by,
Speaker 1: two weeks went by, but it didn't help Prudence. And
Speaker 1: on June twenty nine of twenty one, one day after
Speaker 1: our youngest Roman turned eighteen, to the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: the day after his birthday, you know, my wife drank
Speaker 1: herself to death at age forty six. She weighed eighty
Speaker 1: eight pounds and was in a wheelchair when she died.
Speaker 1: And so the moment I told her coming across that
Speaker 1: bathroom hallway on October fourth of sixteen, that's when she died.
Speaker 1: But she actually left the earth, you know, on June
Speaker 1: twenty ninth of twenty one, and so here again, you know,
Speaker 1: death knocks on my door. Hey Jeff, you know, don't
Speaker 1: get too don't get too confident yet. I'm going to
Speaker 1: take someone else you care about. What are you going
Speaker 1: to do about it? What are you gonna do about it? Well,
Speaker 1: And that's that's what death told me to do. And
Speaker 1: so I made a lot of changes in my life.
Speaker 1: I wrote a book, I did my podcast that I
Speaker 1: enjoyed doing. Still, I bought an RV and drove around
Speaker 1: the United States for ninety five days, twenty two thousand
Speaker 1: miles and the greatest odyssey in my life with my
Speaker 1: two boys. And we did thirty five presentations in like
Speaker 1: thirty two states, trying to raise a million dollars and
Speaker 1: give it all to give it all to charity for
Speaker 1: nonprofits for recovery. And but I only raised forty five thousand,
Speaker 1: and I put over three hundred thousand of my own
Speaker 1: money into the project. So here I am sitting at
Speaker 1: the end of the tour feeling like a failure again.
Speaker 1: You know, I failed, my son failed, my wife failed
Speaker 1: as an advocate. But there was just something in me
Speaker 1: I can't I can't turn off that I'm just going
Speaker 1: to keep failing forwards like I'm going to keep when
Speaker 1: I do fall, I'm going to fall forward. I don't
Speaker 1: want to fall backwards.
Speaker 3: If that's something your son.
Speaker 1: Said to you, yeah, he did. Roman said that to me.
Speaker 1: At the time, I thought of the app, the bright
Speaker 1: app that we have. Now he said, you know, Dad,
Speaker 1: one thing about you man that I respect you, is
Speaker 1: that when you fail, you fail forwards. At the time
Speaker 1: he said it, he didn't really resonate with me. I
Speaker 1: almost thought it was a criticism in a way. But
Speaker 1: now it's I'm going on and I look at my
Speaker 1: quote failures. I didn't fail set as a dad. I
Speaker 1: did the best that I could. I didn't fail my wife, Prudence.
Speaker 1: You know, they both made their own choices. I didn't
Speaker 1: put the needle in his arm. I didn't pour the
Speaker 1: alcohol down her throat. You know. I and so I
Speaker 1: harbor some guilt and shame, but I don't think that's bad.
Speaker 1: I don't have the weight of it anymore. That pulls
Speaker 1: me down like an anchor on my you know, my
Speaker 1: my ankles, like when I cry, I talk about the
Speaker 1: weight of the tears are different. It's not my my
Speaker 1: tears aren't weighted with suffering and pain. They're weighted with
Speaker 1: gratitude and inspiration and love and and so it's been
Speaker 1: you know, a ten year fight with two deaths, you know,
Speaker 1: half my family. But now I'm sixty and there's a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of peace in my heart. Now. Then I
Speaker 1: don't chase the things I used to chase, and I
Speaker 1: don't want the things I used to want.
Speaker 2: I want, But it's it's amazing that you're you're at
Speaker 2: where you're at.
Speaker 3: And but what helped you?
Speaker 2: I know that you've found direction and you wanted to
Speaker 2: help others, But what helped you to get through that
Speaker 2: devastating grief?
Speaker 3: And I know we never get through the grief. We
Speaker 3: seen the way that we grieve. Yeah, what helped you
Speaker 3: during that time?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: Out there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, two things And I'm not recommending these for anybody.
Speaker 1: This You asked me about me, so I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you about me. I had an incident when my
Speaker 1: wife died. My mom died three months after my wife,
Speaker 1: So I lost you know, my son, my wife, my mom,
Speaker 1: all in four and a half years. My mom and
Speaker 1: I were real close, you know, just miss her immensely.
Speaker 1: Every day. But it was Christmas weekend and I was
Speaker 1: in a really getting in a dark place. My boys
Speaker 1: weren't around, so I was by myself, and I decided
Speaker 1: I was going to kill myself. And I went into
Speaker 1: my closet and got my safe and got my bread
Speaker 1: out and as a mirror right there where my wife
Speaker 1: put in the change clothes and stuff, and I sat
Speaker 1: there right in front of the mirror, and I sat
Speaker 1: there for three days. I don't remember anything. I broke
Speaker 1: my phone, broke my computer because there was nobody was
Speaker 1: going to call me and talk to me. I walked
Speaker 1: into that closet. I was either going to walk out
Speaker 1: a superhuman or I was going to be dead. There
Speaker 1: was no light coming out of there, not with unanswered questions.
Speaker 1: I was going to figure this out on my own.
Speaker 1: And I was sober, and I was not on any drugs,
Speaker 1: like no prescription. I don't take any prescriptions. And so
Speaker 1: Marci for me that three day in that closet and
Speaker 1: walking out, I know now I can handle anything. I
Speaker 1: know now that I don't need drugs, I don't need alcohol,
Speaker 1: I don't need I don't need anyone to help me.
Speaker 1: I was given everything I have, and so are you,
Speaker 1: and so all your listeners, all your followers. We're given
Speaker 1: all these tools. The problem is we just we numbled.
Speaker 1: Seth had tools to deal with what he was going on.
Speaker 1: We just gave matter all. My wife had tools to
Speaker 1: deal with what she was doing with. We just gave
Speaker 1: her thirteen prescription bottles and alcohol. It's like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that. So I eliminated those things in
Speaker 1: my life. And I was able to sit in that
Speaker 1: closet for three hellish days and countered backwards from ten.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many times you know what I'm here.
Speaker 1: I made it on your show. I don't recommend that
Speaker 1: to people, but that's what Jeff Johnston needed. I needed that.
Speaker 1: And then so the second thing that really helped me
Speaker 1: was getting introduced to Psychedelic assistant therapy, which probably has
Speaker 1: been like the thing that's kept everything together in my life.
Speaker 1: Just being able to separate me from me, being able
Speaker 1: to have grace and mercy for what I've been through
Speaker 1: and not be so hard on Jeff because I hated
Speaker 1: myself for so even when I was making money, I
Speaker 1: hated myself, hated myself, and I looked in the mirror,
Speaker 1: felt deceptive, felt like I manipulated people, like I got
Speaker 1: what I wanted out of people. And then when the
Speaker 1: universe took half my family and I realized I didn't
Speaker 1: have any control in that. But there is a there
Speaker 1: is an important part of this, and you know you
Speaker 1: know this, and I think it's important to share that
Speaker 1: how this sometimes can be a wonderful experience, even in
Speaker 1: the middle of the worst possible scenarios. Three weeks after
Speaker 1: Seth died, his daughter was born, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if he knew it was his daughter. He may have
Speaker 1: waited to see and get it, get her tested. But
Speaker 1: he didn't obviously live that long because he died three
Speaker 1: weeks before she was born, and we didn't know about
Speaker 1: her for a year. So we get a call from
Speaker 1: his best friend, and what what an unbelievable thing to
Speaker 1: have as a as a grandparent now, to least to
Speaker 1: lose a son and lose my wife and then find
Speaker 1: out a year later, I got this granddaughter. So she's
Speaker 1: ten now or will be, and her name's Brighton. But
Speaker 1: I think about I know so many parents, Marcia, on
Speaker 1: this journey I've been on that have lost like their
Speaker 1: only child, I know. I know multiple parents I've lost
Speaker 1: their only two kids. I have two of my three
Speaker 1: still here. I'm damn lucky. Man, I had twenty one
Speaker 1: great years of marriage. I'm damn lucky. I know people
Speaker 1: have lost their spouse a year and the a breast
Speaker 1: cancer showed up a year after they got married, or
Speaker 1: a car accident, drunk driver, kids drownding in pools, And
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, sure it sucks, but man, I had
Speaker 1: some great moments that I have things that really be
Speaker 1: proud of. And so even though I've let go a
Speaker 1: lot of my guilt, a lot of my shame, a
Speaker 1: lot of my anger, I need I hold onto what
Speaker 1: I need to get me the inspiration and the motivation
Speaker 1: to get to where I'm at. So I do want
Speaker 1: to keep some of that. I think it's healthy for Jeff.
Speaker 1: I can't speak for what grief does to you, but
Speaker 1: I know for me, I sit and I cry, and
Speaker 1: I cry, and when I'm done, I tell when I
Speaker 1: talk to people, I say, when's the last time you
Speaker 1: had the worst crive of your life and you felt worse? Ever,
Speaker 1: it's not possible, and the idea of impermanent means the
Speaker 1: worst of times and the best of times don't last forever,
Speaker 1: and we just believe they do. And so I know
Speaker 1: I'm going to be another phone call away from somebody
Speaker 1: in my life dying. It people are going to get
Speaker 1: the call that I died, And that's the only tragedy,
Speaker 1: is the order I guess because death is inevitable. And
Speaker 1: I practice stoicism. I meditate. There's lots of things I
Speaker 1: do to get out of my head because we can ruminate,
Speaker 1: be so negative and be it be our worst, our
Speaker 1: worst enemy, stead of our best ally. And so these
Speaker 1: are things I never did before Seth died. I never meditated,
Speaker 1: you know, I never thought about mental health. I was
Speaker 1: an alcoholic. So it's like, the real question is, Marci,
Speaker 1: why does it take so much horrible things to happen
Speaker 1: in your life to make changes? I think that's that's
Speaker 1: the right question to ask, is why does it take
Speaker 1: feeling the flames of hell literally to change your life?
Speaker 1: I'd like to figure out a way we could change
Speaker 1: our lives without these things having to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think that crisis allows us to look
Speaker 2: at life in a different way. I think that when
Speaker 2: things go well, we take life for granted. And it
Speaker 2: is through this these sometimes you know, fall to our
Speaker 2: need moments, our needs moments that allow us to wake
Speaker 2: up in a different way.
Speaker 3: And and it.
Speaker 2: Is about now the work that we're doing, about trying
Speaker 2: to help people to to create a change in their
Speaker 2: lives before something like this happens.
Speaker 3: But you know, addiction is a disease.
Speaker 2: I would ask you, through helping people out there, what.
Speaker 3: What are you see?
Speaker 2: I mean, how are people needing emotionally?
Speaker 3: What are they needing?
Speaker 1: Well, I think we have everything that we need, We're
Speaker 1: just not aware of it. And I'll give you a
Speaker 1: really good example. I'm a certified scuba diver, so I
Speaker 1: like to dive, and I haven't dove in a few
Speaker 1: years because of my advocacy right now, but I've got
Speaker 1: close to two hundred dives. My wife was a diver
Speaker 1: and we dove in the Caribbean and stuff, and we
Speaker 1: were my son and I. After my wife died, I
Speaker 1: got my youngest son certified. He's a great diver. And
Speaker 1: we were in Saint Lucia diving on a night dive
Speaker 1: and we were down about eighty feet on a reef
Speaker 1: with like I don't know, fourteen of us or something,
Speaker 1: and it's not as scary as you think. Actually, you're
Speaker 1: signing lights and when you dive, you just don't you
Speaker 1: don't think about things like that. You just look at
Speaker 1: your in awe of the beauty of the of the ocean.
Speaker 1: And we were told beforehand that our dive master would
Speaker 1: flip his lights a few times on our ascent and
Speaker 1: we would shut our lights off for a few minutes.
Speaker 1: And you know, so here you're going to be in
Speaker 1: the ocean, you know, half a mile out on a
Speaker 1: reef at night, shutting your lights off pretty cool. And
Speaker 1: so we did it, and we did it, and you
Speaker 1: know what, you know what happened. M Once I shut
Speaker 1: the lights off and I couldn't see, I could hear
Speaker 1: the whale sirens. I could hear the whale sirens in
Speaker 1: the water, and when you turn the light back on,
Speaker 1: you couldn't hear them. And it dawned on me that
Speaker 1: there are whale sirens around me all day long, and
Speaker 1: there's some beautiful things going around me.
Speaker 4: But I run around like this, so focused on me
Speaker 4: and me and this and that, and I want this car,
Speaker 4: and I want this shirt, and I want this and
Speaker 4: I want this from somebody and it's like it's me,
Speaker 4: and it's like that's the spotlight.
Speaker 1: When you're under the ocean and you're looking at everything.
Speaker 1: You're so absorbed with seeing everything, and then a minute
Speaker 1: you can't see your other senses kick in. And so
Speaker 1: for me, it was profound for me because now when
Speaker 1: I go through my life, I think about the whales.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm at target or I'm at a park,
Speaker 1: and sometimes I'll close my eyes even when I talk
Speaker 1: to people and just think about the whales and just
Speaker 1: absolutely one of the most profound moments in my life.
Speaker 1: So I missed that opportunity with Seth and Prudence my spotlight,
Speaker 1: you know, and I missed it. And so I think
Speaker 1: moments like that when you can be present and really
Speaker 1: be present with all your sensories, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: just one thing. Again, I've learned that I need to
Speaker 1: be a lot better at that in my life.
Speaker 2: You know, we all need to learn that because we
Speaker 2: are all disconnected from our higher power source. To me,
Speaker 2: like that's nature, like you you are connected at that time.
Speaker 3: And I mean, this is what we learned from a
Speaker 3: young age.
Speaker 2: You know, grind push, you know, keep moving and you
Speaker 2: don't take the time, and you don't just stay still
Speaker 2: for a moment and connect with yourself right to You're
Speaker 2: always looking for outside validation.
Speaker 3: If you will.
Speaker 1: I told that story because you asked about, like, what
Speaker 1: did what did I need? And I think I think
Speaker 1: the first thing I needed to do, the very first
Speaker 1: thing I needed to do, was have a clean mind
Speaker 1: and body before I could handle suffering and grief and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. So that's like stopping alcohol was like
Speaker 1: the greatest decision I ever made, because if I'm in
Speaker 1: that closet, I'm drunk. If I'm in that closet, I'm drunk,
Speaker 1: I kill myself. Or if I'm taking Zolaugh or all
Speaker 1: these different anxiety pills and stuff Lexaprona, I probably kill myself.
Speaker 1: The fact I could actually appreciate, not endure, the suffering
Speaker 1: and the pain I was going through, And I think
Speaker 1: part of that comes from a book I read, Man
Speaker 1: Search for Meeting by Victor Frankel, which I think is
Speaker 1: the greatest book I've ever read in my life. For me,
Speaker 1: he was an Auschwitz survivor and talks about pretty much
Speaker 1: how he made it through it was changing his attitude
Speaker 1: and actually almost at some point having empathy for the
Speaker 1: guards that a lot of them weren't there because they
Speaker 1: wanted to be there. They're there because they had to
Speaker 1: be there their families to be killed, and so he was.
Speaker 1: He just reframed his whole situations as love, which is
Speaker 1: just mind boggling. You think you could just get randomly
Speaker 1: murdered in any given day and you're you're you're trying
Speaker 1: to develop empathy towards these people. It's it's it's it's forgiveness,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's what again, we have this ability, Marcy,
Speaker 1: but we don't utilize it. We have so much anger
Speaker 1: and hate, and we watch videos that people road rage
Speaker 1: and yell at each other. It's like, I don't get it.
Speaker 1: I don't get it.
Speaker 2: But at one point you you were living life that way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was profound moments that happened for you that that
Speaker 2: changed it for you. So it's like, Okay, so we're
Speaker 2: out there and we're scrambling and we're not paying attention
Speaker 2: and and and but what can we do to switch
Speaker 2: that for ourselves or help someone that that is in
Speaker 2: that darkest grief and they feel like they can't get out, Like,
Speaker 2: how do you start pulling yourself out.
Speaker 1: Well, first off, nobody's broken. I'm I'm I don't need fixed.
Speaker 1: I'm not broken. I don't need someone to come in
Speaker 1: and give me some solution to make my life. I
Speaker 1: have everything inside of me to do that. Yes, I
Speaker 1: think everybody does. Everybody has the gifts inside of them,
Speaker 1: but we're not We're not utilizing them. So it's like,
Speaker 1: why aren't we utilizing the gifts? When I say gifts,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about even pain and suffering, and you know,
Speaker 1: discipline and motivation, those are gifts as well. I think
Speaker 1: it's expectations as well. I think it's like, what what
Speaker 1: do you really expect on this eighty year journey in
Speaker 1: your lifetime? Like do you expect it to be rainbows
Speaker 1: and butterflies and all that stuff and unicorns, Well, you're
Speaker 1: going to be You're going to be very much disappointed.
Speaker 1: Or do you expect it to be like The Odyssey
Speaker 1: the movie I just watched Matt Damon in it where
Speaker 1: it's like every corner around the corner, something's trying to
Speaker 1: kill you. Well, that's not a great way to live either.
Speaker 1: So there's got to be some balance and harmony, Like
Speaker 1: you have to be able to prepare, and you have
Speaker 1: to have realistic expectations. And so for me, my daily preparation,
Speaker 1: my food, I eat, the fact. I don't drink, don't smoke,
Speaker 1: I don't have toxic relationships. I read, I write. I'm
Speaker 1: not on TikTok. It's like I'm not on social media.
Speaker 1: I am to promote the app and stuff, but other
Speaker 1: than that, I'm not out there doom scrolling, watching fights
Speaker 1: in Walmart parking lots, or people yelling at cops when
Speaker 1: they get pulled out. I'm not doing that. These are
Speaker 1: all things I can control, and I just don't buy
Speaker 1: that this stuff's I have a little bit of a
Speaker 1: philosophical difference just because and I know it's probably a
Speaker 1: great it's probably a touchy area, but I'm not convinced
Speaker 1: that these things are diseases. And if they are, and
Speaker 1: if alcoholism is a disease and I have a disease,
Speaker 1: then I'm living proof that you can you can, you
Speaker 1: can beat disease. You can win the disease fight by
Speaker 1: just stopping. I just I just stopped. So I'm not
Speaker 1: a clinician. I'm not a doctor, and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to ever get into a bait with someone over a
Speaker 1: disease or or you know, choice, because there's a choice
Speaker 1: model for addiction, there's a disease model. And you got
Speaker 1: people on both sides that are killing each other over it, literally,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, whatever pathway if you believe it's a disease,
Speaker 1: and you have to go to AA and you have
Speaker 1: to do all that, but you don't drink. If the
Speaker 1: end result is you don't, then that's great. If you
Speaker 1: don't think it's a disease and the death of your
Speaker 1: child motivates you to quit, and neither neither person drinks,
Speaker 1: then who really cares how you got there? I don't
Speaker 1: really care. So as an advocate for recovery and all that,
Speaker 1: I'm an advocate for whatever pathway is right for you.
Speaker 1: So that that's where I stand. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I've got into heated discussions with people about they believe
Speaker 1: it's a disease and that's and that's what they want
Speaker 1: to believe, And I'm like, why do you feel you
Speaker 1: have to convince me otherwise I'm not trying to convince you.
Speaker 1: It's a choice. I don't really care you don't drink.
Speaker 1: I don't drink, right that's all that really should matter.
Speaker 1: But we're starting to get these factions now on these
Speaker 1: sides of the fence, and who's right and who's wrong,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, isn't the goal just to have a
Speaker 1: healthy relationship with your body and not be addicted to
Speaker 1: whatever you are addicted to. I had a gambling addiction
Speaker 1: for twenty years. I one day just realized even when
Speaker 1: I won, I lost. Even when I won, I lost.
Speaker 1: And once that sentence got in my head, I never
Speaker 1: gambled again. I quit cold turkey. I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: anything special. I don't think i'm a I'm a dad
Speaker 1: from Iowa. I'm highly motivated to never go back to
Speaker 1: the times in my life where I hated myself and
Speaker 1: so but I work hard at this. I know I'm
Speaker 1: an addictive personality. I know that if I opened up
Speaker 1: a gambling side on my phone, put a twenty dollars
Speaker 1: bed in, I know where that would go. I know
Speaker 1: if I had a drink, I know where that would go.
Speaker 1: You know. I don't need anyone to tell me, you know.
Speaker 1: But I go to AA meetings all the time with friends.
Speaker 1: I go like every other week, so two or three,
Speaker 1: four times a month, I'm in an AA meeting and
Speaker 1: I go around the room. They'll say, Hey, I'm Marcie,
Speaker 1: I'm an alcoholic. Hi, I'm Tim an alcoholic, And I say, Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Jeff. I don't drink. I'm not an alcoholic. And
Speaker 1: the reason I say that is is I use an
Speaker 1: analogy in my book. I wrote about if I was overweight,
Speaker 1: you know, one hundred pounds, and I went to you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just not trying to hurt anyone's feelings. But let's
Speaker 1: say I went to you know, fat people, anonymous or something,
Speaker 1: and I'm around a room of a bunch of overweight
Speaker 1: people and we all go around say I'm Jeff, I'm fat. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Jeff, I'm fat. And then I lose one hundred
Speaker 1: pounds to get in shape and I'm not fat anymore.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't go to that meeting and go Hi, I'm Jeff,
Speaker 1: I'm fat. I would say, I'm Jeff, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: You know? So my relationship with alcohol is the same
Speaker 1: way as weight loss, the same way as anything else.
Speaker 1: Is I don't call myself an alcoholic. I'm not depressed.
Speaker 1: I just have long bouts of sadness. Who wouldn't be
Speaker 1: sad losing half their family. So I don't accept the
Speaker 1: diagnosis of depression. I probably am I'm probably madic depressive,
Speaker 1: I'm probably bipolar, I'm probably ADHD. I don't accept any
Speaker 1: of those terms for me. And again, it's just it's
Speaker 1: a choice. I'm not trying to say I'm right. This
Speaker 1: is the way people need to live their lives. This
Speaker 1: is the way I need to live my life. And
Speaker 1: if you want to be telling yourself you're depressed, alcoholic
Speaker 1: and fat and that, I mean, that's up to you.
Speaker 1: I care about you, but I don't care. Well, I
Speaker 1: do care at the end of the day. I do
Speaker 1: care about you. I want you to make sure that
Speaker 1: you have the best chance to have a chance to live,
Speaker 1: to be one hundred and have a good lived experience.
Speaker 1: But my point is the stories we tell ourselves, Marci,
Speaker 1: that the lies we tell ourselves, and we just allow
Speaker 1: this to happen. We're not obligating. You're obligated to tell
Speaker 1: yourself a new story anytime you want, that's a fact.
Speaker 1: You're not obligated to repeat stories in your head. That's
Speaker 1: that that's domination and that's not healthy. And I did
Speaker 1: it for a long time, and it put me in
Speaker 1: the closet with a gun in my hand, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to go back there. So I just tell
Speaker 1: myself new stories. You know.
Speaker 3: Well, so there you are.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're you're getting to a place where it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm telling myself a new story. Our brains are in neuroplasticity.
Speaker 2: We're meaning the wiring of our brains. So we're changing
Speaker 2: the thought process and we're changing the story that we
Speaker 2: tell ourselves. And yes, we are programmed when we are
Speaker 2: being raised in society and all the things, we are
Speaker 2: being programmed. Yeah, and that's when we make these decisions,
Speaker 2: these healthy choices, we start to create that change in
Speaker 2: our brain and rewire what is happening. So there is
Speaker 2: very very much so science that is behind this and
Speaker 2: creating the change. It's not just one day I say Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to feel better and I'm not going to
Speaker 2: talk to myself this way anymore, and then that's that's
Speaker 2: the way it goes. That is that is not truth.
Speaker 2: And I don't want anyone out there to think that.
Speaker 1: And that's what the manifestation people say, Oh, just manifest abundance.
Speaker 1: It's like, it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2: Now you have to put in action and there is
Speaker 2: stuff that you have to do every single day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but what I want to talk about.
Speaker 2: Now is Brighten this app that I know that that's
Speaker 2: your grandchild's name and the beautiful part that came from
Speaker 2: all of this despair your granddaughters. So tell us about
Speaker 2: how the app was born and what exactly we get
Speaker 2: from the app?
Speaker 3: How can we in our lives.
Speaker 1: So when the tour was over and I was at
Speaker 1: that campsite in Little Rock where I was, you know,
Speaker 1: my son said you fail for and all that. I
Speaker 1: he asked me, what's next, and I'm like, well, I
Speaker 1: want to help young adults like gen Z was kind
Speaker 1: of my big thing. I wanted to help young adults
Speaker 1: like Seth. And he's like, well, you know, Dad, why
Speaker 1: don't you meet him where they're at? You like, you
Speaker 1: believe in harm reduction for addicts, and you know I do.
Speaker 1: I just want people to live that extra day. Maybe
Speaker 1: tomorrow's your sober day, but if you die today, you'll
Speaker 1: never get your sober day. Maybe October fourth, October fifth,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, Seth would have stopped drinking like I did.
Speaker 1: But he didn't. He died the day before. So harm
Speaker 1: reduction is just to get people to live another day.
Speaker 1: And people that don't like harm reduction thinks you're propoting
Speaker 1: drug use and all that. I'm like, fine, you probably
Speaker 1: haven't had a child die from drugs, then that's my guess.
Speaker 1: If you had, you you would change your perspective on this.
Speaker 1: Trust me, I would have done anything to have Set's
Speaker 1: heroin tested by fentanyl, but they're drug paraphernial in the
Speaker 1: state of Iowa. You can't buy you can't get fentanyl
Speaker 1: test strips because it's drug paraphernila. And that's just unbelievably
Speaker 1: naive on how addiction works.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so much naivety yet there.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's no, you can't you know safe surren sights.
Speaker 1: She's like, oh no, just promoting drug use. I'm promoting life.
Speaker 1: Drug use we can save. You can't save a life
Speaker 1: if someone's dead. No, you can get someone sober. You
Speaker 1: can't get them. You can't. You can't get them back
Speaker 1: from the dead. So shouldn't that be our first priory
Speaker 1: with anyone addict to drugs? It's just keep them freaking
Speaker 1: alive and then worry about all the other shit later,
Speaker 1: but we don't do that. Forgot where I was going
Speaker 1: with my little soapbox there.
Speaker 3: But we're talking about Brighton.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there. Roman asked me, like, what's next, and
Speaker 1: I said, he said, build an app. So I said, okay,
Speaker 1: when you have a tension deficit, you just do what
Speaker 1: you're told. So I have no tech experience. I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was fifty seven when I started this,
Speaker 1: so you can imagine my technical skills were pretty low.
Speaker 1: But I knew that I had some resources. I sold
Speaker 1: my investment companies, so I had some money up front.
Speaker 1: I knew I could go hire smart people and we
Speaker 1: could build this app. And so the idea that app
Speaker 1: really was. I did financial planning for thirty something years,
Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, if I could take what
Speaker 1: I learned in planning your finances and do it with
Speaker 1: planning your mental health, what would it look like? So,
Speaker 1: in other words, could I build the nation's first mental
Speaker 1: health mental wellness planning app? And if I did that,
Speaker 1: what would it be predicated on? Like in financial planning,
Speaker 1: there's something called diversification. You don't put all your eggs
Speaker 1: in one basket, right, your stocks, bonds, real estate, spread
Speaker 1: your money out right. Mental health you don't do that.
Speaker 1: Mental health was all your kids overweight, send them to
Speaker 1: the gym, your wife's drunk, senator rehab. He's like, everything's episodic,
Speaker 1: everything's predicated on what symptoms you have, and nothing is prior.
Speaker 1: I call that upstream and that's the title of my
Speaker 1: next book, called The Upstream Mind. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: build the first mental wellness planning app focused on three areas,
Speaker 1: like what would my human asset classes be? So you
Speaker 1: have stocks, bonds, and real estate for money, what would
Speaker 1: they be for a human? And to us it was health, wealth,
Speaker 1: and purpose. So we aim to improve human flourishing at
Speaker 1: the intersection of health, wealth, and purpose, using AI as
Speaker 1: an ally, not an enemy. That's my elevator pitch. By
Speaker 1: the way, that was my idea in the RV, sitting
Speaker 1: there in my bed, you know, at two in the morning,
Speaker 1: in tears because I'm like, what's next door is over?
Speaker 1: I don't want to just go to LinkedIn every day.
Speaker 1: I like my podcast, but that's not getting me the
Speaker 1: fulfill what I need. And so putting all my chips
Speaker 1: in the table and betting on this thing gave me
Speaker 1: a sense of purpose, and I made the same commitment
Speaker 1: I made when I walked in the closet. It's either
Speaker 1: going to be in the hands of millions of people
Speaker 1: or it's going to kill me. Same exact commitment I
Speaker 1: made walking in the closet with that gun I made
Speaker 1: when I started this app. I have no fear of
Speaker 1: going broke. I don't have a fear of going bankrupt.
Speaker 1: I don't have any fear. I'm going to make this work.
Speaker 1: I'm going to find people to believe in me. We
Speaker 1: have investors who're raising another round right now, and we've
Speaker 1: got great partners we've got. It's going great, not without
Speaker 1: its stress as a founder. I mean, I'm always worried
Speaker 1: about the next invoice, the next bill, and making sure
Speaker 1: we have enough money. But when you've been through that
Speaker 1: three day in the closet, everything else that would stress
Speaker 1: most people out. When I compare it to that that
Speaker 1: fight I did for three days, everything's almost comical. No,
Speaker 1: can't compare it.
Speaker 2: Well, there's many things you've gone through that you can't compare.
Speaker 2: But it's amazing thing now that you are like to me,
Speaker 2: I mean, do you do you have a belief in
Speaker 2: anything higher that you that that was fed through you,
Speaker 2: that you're working in any way.
Speaker 1: Great question. I've been. I've been an atheist my whole life.
Speaker 1: I made a shift after a psychedelic experience about three
Speaker 1: years ago. I've done seven psychedelic journeys. Psilocybin, mushrooms, E
Speaker 1: ketamine and five MEO DMT have been the main ones
Speaker 1: that I've used, and I realized that there is something
Speaker 1: going on. But I'm also smart enough to know that
Speaker 1: I'm not smart enough to know, Like I don't have
Speaker 1: to know. Of fact, I don't want to know. If
Speaker 1: you came right now and said, Jeff, I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you right now, I think it would stop my
Speaker 1: wanting to learn, to stop my curiosity, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I was a puppet at that point. So it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to know. I like the fact
Speaker 1: that I'm on a learning curve here. So now I've
Speaker 1: shifted to being agnostic, which simply means I don't know.
Speaker 1: But I respect all faiths. My best friends are most
Speaker 1: of them are wrong believers in God, and I pray
Speaker 1: with him. I don't pray myself. I've never prayed. How
Speaker 1: I talked out loud to God. Yeah, I did when
Speaker 1: Seth died, like talked out loud. I don't consider that.
Speaker 1: I don't ask for anything unique to me. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's a personal god. My opinion, if there is
Speaker 1: a supreme leader, he created all this and probably left
Speaker 1: and we're defend on our own. But because if that's
Speaker 1: the case, then I don't understand why Seth had to die.
Speaker 1: I don't get that part. And you could say, well,
Speaker 1: to make you a better man, but what about him?
Speaker 1: He's not here, he's got a daughter. It's like, why
Speaker 1: do you give kids cancer? Why do you have babies
Speaker 1: drowning pools? Why do you have murder suicides? I don't
Speaker 1: understand all that part. Again, I don't need to understand Marcie,
Speaker 1: because I'm not that smart. I am really comfortable not knowing,
Speaker 1: and I like the journey I'm on. But my psychedelics,
Speaker 1: I had some really amazing experiences that I felt. I
Speaker 1: felt something inside of me and next to me, but
Speaker 1: not above me.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's anything above us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I felt like you and I. I don't
Speaker 1: mean to say this, this will sound really arrogant, but
Speaker 1: I think we all have like god god like abilities
Speaker 1: in us like you're a God.
Speaker 3: We are a connection to God.
Speaker 1: We are my dogs of God, my God. It's like,
Speaker 1: what is I think you are God?
Speaker 2: I believe that we're all extensions of that. But the
Speaker 2: reason I asked that is, and that's my belief. You
Speaker 2: know that there were all this energetic, energetic connection of
Speaker 2: love and and we all have God within us and
Speaker 2: we are presence of God.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I can. I can live with that and
Speaker 1: that and that's.
Speaker 2: Just the word I think, just because the way that
Speaker 2: word has been used so many times that we people
Speaker 2: are uncomfortable using that word. But what I heard you say,
Speaker 2: and the reason I asked that is because you have
Speaker 2: no fear. And when you have no fear, you have faith.
Speaker 2: You have faith that things will work out.
Speaker 3: And that's what I have. I don't worry.
Speaker 2: I don't and I have and that took a lot
Speaker 2: of time and work on myself, you know, and that
Speaker 2: allows me now to do the work that I do
Speaker 2: and whatever the outcome is. But I believe in myself
Speaker 2: to be able to make a difference, and I have
Speaker 2: a you know. So that's where where that came from.
Speaker 1: Have you said the word faith? Because it's a chapter
Speaker 1: in my book, my first book I wrote because at
Speaker 1: the time I was shifting from atheism to agnosticism. And
Speaker 1: I think that word. Certain factions feel like they own
Speaker 1: that word, like they have the right to define it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, I have faith that you're a
Speaker 1: nice person. I have a faith that your podcast is
Speaker 1: this is going to be a good conversation today. So
Speaker 1: I define So someone says you have faith, I mean absolutely,
Speaker 1: I have faith, but we just define it differently. Like
Speaker 1: I have faith that if I get up every morning
Speaker 1: and I plant seeds and I put bricks on a
Speaker 1: path and build my path, I have faith that I'm
Speaker 1: going to be given a choice again. It won't be
Speaker 1: a clear one. I could go back to drinking. I
Speaker 1: could I could stay sober. It's like, I think I
Speaker 1: have faith now in myself, I can make those choices
Speaker 1: when those choices will come in my life. Is it
Speaker 1: a guaranteed? Do I blindly think that somebody's going to
Speaker 1: make these choices for me? Is someone coming to save me?
Speaker 1: Hell no, they would think if they were going to
Speaker 1: save me, they would have done it ten years ago.
Speaker 1: And had my son just get high on heroin and
Speaker 1: not running the Fennol, they were going to save me.
Speaker 1: I don't expect anyone to save me. And I think
Speaker 1: that was that reliance on Jeff now at sixty years old. Now,
Speaker 1: if there is, if there is a personal God and
Speaker 1: he wants to really reach he or she or it
Speaker 1: wants to reveal itself, I'm all for it. Part the clouds,
Speaker 1: I'll see a chariot, I'm all in. I just haven't
Speaker 1: had it happen.
Speaker 3: To my brains. We can't. We can't, just like you're saying, I.
Speaker 1: Would think it was an alien. Probably if I saw,
Speaker 1: I think it was a you or something.
Speaker 3: But it's like I think it's something we can't see.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So what's three things that you want people to walk
Speaker 2: away from this interview and know about Brighton and what
Speaker 2: they'll gain from your books.
Speaker 1: I think one is my quote that I use all
Speaker 1: the time. Purpose becomes passion when he gets personal. So
Speaker 1: purpose becomes passion when he gets personal. And I think
Speaker 1: that's how I've designed My purpose in my life was
Speaker 1: to find something passionate that came from something personal. So
Speaker 1: all of us have the ability to find our purpose.
Speaker 1: You've got to start with a personal something very personal.
Speaker 1: The second thing is is a quote that Victor Frankel
Speaker 1: said in Man's Search for Meaning, which I basically stole
Speaker 1: part of it and redid it for my own terms.
Speaker 1: And Victor Frankel said, suffering will be my opportunity. That's
Speaker 1: what he said, and I rephrased it as in, pain
Speaker 1: is unavoidable, suffering is a choice. So the pain of
Speaker 1: Seth's death unavoidable. That's not a choice. But how long
Speaker 1: I endure the pain is a choice? Right, Yeah. And
Speaker 1: the third one is lead from a place of love, an abundance,
Speaker 1: not from fear and scarcity. Those would be off the top.
Speaker 1: I had three things that I could come up is
Speaker 1: that my whole life, I've had a prison built around me,
Speaker 1: bars around me, not letting people close, didn't trust people,
Speaker 1: wanted to take advantage of people. And then the minute
Speaker 1: that Seth and Prudence died and I got on the
Speaker 1: spiritual journey, that the bars just came trumbling down. And
Speaker 1: now I don't hate fentanyl. Fentanyl killed my son, but
Speaker 1: it kept my dad alive in the hospital. I don't
Speaker 1: hate the drug dealer. I'm assuming he was doing what
Speaker 1: he had to do his feet, his family and do whatever,
Speaker 1: and he probably's probably dead or in jail by now,
Speaker 1: so he had his payment coming. I don't have any
Speaker 1: hate in my heart. I mean no hate. And it's
Speaker 1: taken like ten long, hard years of daily practice, and
Speaker 1: I fully expect that I'm one minute away from another
Speaker 1: phone call. So I don't expect that there's any summit declined.
Speaker 1: There's no mountain I've conquered. I haven't won any game.
Speaker 1: I just want to live till tomorrow, and I want
Speaker 1: to live till the next day, and I want to
Speaker 1: live the next day and then my time comes and
Speaker 1: maybe I get cancer or get hit by a bus
Speaker 1: or by plane crashes. I want to be in a
Speaker 1: really good place that I could look back, if there
Speaker 1: is an afterlife and say, hey, good job, man, good job.
Speaker 3: You know I'm going to say, good job.
Speaker 2: You're doing truly amazing and the work that you're doing
Speaker 2: is amazing.
Speaker 3: And how can we connect with you?
Speaker 1: Jeff, Well, I'm all over the place. If you can't
Speaker 1: find me, you're not looking hard enough. I have two
Speaker 1: LinkedIn accounts. I have Jeff Johnston, I have Brighton. I
Speaker 1: have four Facebook living Underterred, Project, Living Undeterred, Brighton and
Speaker 1: Jeff Johnston. We're on all the social media's but I'm
Speaker 1: not really on much. But my team is like I
Speaker 1: have some gen z ers on our team that are
Speaker 1: getting me on TikTok Instagram, so you'll see me out there,
Speaker 1: but I'm not making those posts. I'm out there. I mean,
Speaker 1: my phone number is three one nine eight nine nine
Speaker 1: three four zero zero. I don't really care. I text
Speaker 1: people all day. I call. It's like I feel now
Speaker 1: that I'm here for a specific reason, and that's to
Speaker 1: really prevent anybody from ever dealing with what our family
Speaker 1: went through, but also spread love and hope that no
Speaker 1: matter what you're going through, you know, there really is
Speaker 1: always somebody out there that has it worse than you,
Speaker 1: and you have to understand it. Our stories can really
Speaker 1: help people that maybe you don't have it as bad
Speaker 1: as you, but your story can be that thing they
Speaker 1: can say, Man, you know what, if Jeff can do it,
Speaker 1: this average guy from Iowa, he's not a billionaire, I
Speaker 1: can do it too, you know. And that's really I
Speaker 1: think that's that's like that that that rocky mentality. You
Speaker 1: know that I'm trying to like show people that but
Speaker 1: also remind you that you don't have to wait for
Speaker 1: your life to fall apart to make changes. I mean,
Speaker 1: it probably makes a lot more sense to do all
Speaker 1: this stuff prior, you know, and not go through what
Speaker 1: I and so many people have gone through.
Speaker 2: But absolutely, well, thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 2: Wake Up, Jeff and helping us to move forward in
Speaker 2: our lives wherever we're at.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it very much. I've enjoyed it. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, And for anyone out there of today's conversation
Speaker 2: resonated with you, please like, comment or share this episode.
Speaker 3: That's someone that needs to hear it.
Speaker 2: And you never know who is carrying silent grief for
Speaker 2: what anyone is going through, or who is struggling with addiction.
Speaker 2: What we just need to know is that we are
Speaker 2: not alone. And if you are on your home your
Speaker 2: own healing journey, I hope you'll check out my new book,
Speaker 2: wake Up You're Not Broken, available now on Amazon. And remember,
Speaker 2: healing begins with one honest conversation and one courageous step
Speaker 2: and one decision to ask for help. So thank you
Speaker 2: so much for listening or watching Wake Up, and I'll
Speaker 2: see you next week with an all new episode.
Speaker 3: Thank you,