Episode Transcript
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Welcome to the We Are Chaffee Podcast where I have conversations of community, humanness and well being with amazing people who are rooted in Chaffee County, Colorado. I'm Adam Williams. Today I'm talking with Matt Allen, DDS. He's a formerly practicing dentist who now is the CEO and co founder of DifferentKind, a tech venture focused on making healthcare more human. Of course, he's much more than that too. So we talk about how Matt, having been the valedictorian of his high school class in Prescott, Arizona, almost dropped out of Pepperdine University only months later to dive full time into his band in la almost.
We talk about the relatively safe choice of becoming a dentist like his father and then the risk of leaving it behind to start a tech company.
We talk about the life changing experience he had while in Spain and the church like experience of being a Liverpool fan. We get into the wisdom of Father Richard Drohr and other philosophers and talk about the two halves of life concept which I love and also which gets us to talking about how we see our roles as parents.
By the way, as a pseudo correction here. Later I described Richard Rohrer as a Franciscan monk. He's actually a Franciscan Friar. There is a distinction. You can google it, but for all intents and purposes here you get what I'm saying. Matt and I also talk about motivational interviewing, which is a compassionate approach that lies at the heart of his dentistry and different kind. He's also one of only three dentists in the world and the only one in the US with this specific training expertise. We talk about how he sees his company as a force for good in our community. And Matt tells us about the one thing he misses now that he's no longer actively practicing as a dentist.
The We Are Chaffey podcast is supported by Chaffee County Public Health. Go to we are chafeepod.com to see show notes with photos, links and a transcript of the conversation. You can subscribe to the monthly email newsletter there as well and you can see more photos and connect with the podcast on Instagram at We Are JPOD now here we go with Matt Allen.
You grew up in Prescott, Arizona and I've heard this name a number of times lately. Actually we've had a couple of other people on the podcast. They went to college there. I get the impression that Prescott is known for a particular kind of vibe and it's related to the college. Do I have that right? Like what? What is that vibe? What is it that it has a reputation for? That would reach me.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think that there is, for people who would know the college, it has that element, for sure, which is really cool and certainly was something that, as a young person growing up in that town, certainly, I think, shaped me in a way that, you know, like, go to the natural food store and, you know, whatever. And Prescott has a very big contingent of retirees, and especially at the time that I was growing up there, a lot of people moving from California because California was getting expensive and, you know, whatever. And so there's this really dichotomous place in terms of, hey, like, you have a lot of old people who, you know, for lack of better terms, are like, pretty strong NIMBYs in a lot of ways. Right. Like, just, I want to be by myself. I want to do my own thing. Like, you know, not very interested in maybe community or, you know, some of. Of that kind of, you know, life. I would say they're just like. Want to be in a relatively warm place that's relatively safe and, you know, whatever at the end of their life.
And then you have, yeah, this kind of very liberal kind of element with the college there that creates. Yeah, some really interesting ways that people interact with each other and who can show up there, you know, and kind of feel at home and whatever. So I think I probably relate to that in some ways just in terms of. I feel like I can be at home in a lot of different places in terms of different groups of people and whatever. And so for me, it was fun because it had different elements that I appreciated about growing up versus a very uniform kind of town of, like, everyone does the same thing.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it's such a fascinating idea, the way our environment shapes us and to come from a place that has a particular vibe and it has a reputation that people go there for these particular reasons. You said it shaped you. And that's kind of a question I was getting to is, well, how does it shape a kid who grows up in that kind of college town? You mentioned going to the natural food store or things like that. Because there's that element of, well, I don't know, is this old hippies from the 60s and 70s coming in and saying, this is. We want to make this kind of place. What else? What are some other things? How do you think it influenced you as a kid who's witnessing these people coming from all over and maybe especially because of the college and I guess you're saying retirement.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, I think. Well, I mean, I think most people probably know it now for anyone who's in the mountain bike community. Right. There's the whiskey 50 off road, and there's, you know, some, like, pretty big endurance, you know, type of events that are down there like that. Right. So I grew up doing that stuff as well. I grew up mountain biking. I grew up, you know, doing a lot of that hiking. And so, um, I can definitely, like, see a lot of those different elements that I think come into play in terms of how it shaped me. And I think about it a lot from the perspective of Prescott's not small. Right. So Prescott was, you know, 30, 000 people when I was growing up. And it was certainly kind of growing in the way that Boulder's growing. Right. Cause Prescott itself is kind of in the mountains itself. Right. Like, it's different than some of our topography here in terms of, like, there's a lot of mountains, like, within the city limits almost, you know, kind of almost like more like an east coast town in the Appalachian Moun, like that, where you just have a little bit more rolling topography and so. But so it's growing on the outskirts in the same way that Boulder does, right. Where you're like, oh, you know, Lafayette and Erie and whatever. Those weren't places. Right. When people who were growing up in Boulder in the 70s, right. Like, or 80s, you know, we're experiencing. And so it was changing. But I think about it from the perspective of I certainly appreciate growing up in a place where there was one high school, people knew my name, you know, at the coffee shop when we would go, you know, and you would. You would just kind of have this sense of, like, oh, there's a shared understanding, I would say, in terms of, you know, how life looks almost in a certain way. Because, yeah, it is a little different in terms of some of the different flows that are coming into that overall river, let's say.
But, like, we all kind of understand what those all are. Right? Whereas, like, if you're in a big city, you can isolate yourself to a specific section or whatever. Right. You always hear the stories of people who live in New York City who are like, I never go seven blocks past my house or whatever. And that's just, yeah, like, you can really isolate yourself in that way. So I think about it, raising kids now, where I'm like, man, that did something to me. It put something in me that made me want to, after going to college and outside of LA and then, you know, living in Denver, to be able to say, oh, like, when I first came to this valley, it felt a certain way to me. And that resonated, and it almost felt like home. And it made it really easy for me to move here and now to raise kids here, to say, I hope that they, you know, whether they leave or not, which, you know, we can talk about whether, you know, how we're hopefully creating opportunities for people to stay here and not have to leave if they don't want to. Right. But that, you know, hopefully it's building something into them that they don't even recognize right now that they'll recognize later in life when they show up in a small town or come back here and be like, this is an amazing place. Because, you know, I grew up in this way that shaped me that I didn't even realize at the time you.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Did leave to go to school. And I wonder if that was because at the time you didn't recognize there's this specialness here. Were you. Like, so many of us, where we're like, I've got to get out and see something different.
And I just, you know, for kids who grow up there, like, is it. Was it expected, do you think, or common at least, that you would have stayed there and gone to college and was that something that you're like, no, I've got to get out, or what led you out to the LA area?
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I think for me, like, I wasn't. I never felt super known in Prescott. It's almost like the. To me, I always say this and, you know, apologies for people who love Prescott, but it was the worst size of town. Right. Like, it's not a big city. So you didn't have the big city amenities. You didn't have the, you know, like concerts. Right. Like, we drive to Phoenix to go to concerts and things like that. Didn't have that, but it didn't have the real small town kind of community feel in terms of, you know, what it is here in BV and what it is in Salida, where you're like, oh, you just kind of show up and you see all the people. You don't have to make plans and, you know, whatever. So it was kind of just that, like, in betweener, you know, you're like, oh, man. Like, I wish it had been one or the other in some ways, you know, like, it still gave me glimpses of what a small town could be compared to a big city, but. But it wasn't one. Right. And so I think for me, there was a lot of. It felt like there was a lot of people who never wanted to leave for the wrong reasons, you know, and by the wrong reasons. I mean, just kind of like, oh, this is comfortable, and it doesn't challenge me and, you know, whatever. And I don't feel that ever here. Right. I feel like there's a lot of things that are challenging people and a lot of things that people are striving for here. It felt just kind of like the SAF default option. And so for me, I didn't apply to any schools in Arizona.
I didn't even want to, you know, go to ASU or U of A or nau, where it's like, people that I knew were close. I was like, I just want to go out and experience the world differently. Right. And so for me, that was how. How I approached it. And I do think that there is some of that just in young people in general. Right. Like, you want to go explore and you want.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: For sure, you want to see the world.
[00:10:17] Speaker B: Right. Even if the place that you grew up in happens to be the most amazing place in the world. We'd literally drive down County Road 140 every day and look at, you know, Shavano and Tabawash and whatever, and you're like, this is the most beautiful place in the whole world.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Teenage angst is just like, this place is so boring. I can't stand it. It doesn't matter where you are. Totally right. And. And I think there's good in that, too, that we want to get out and we want to experience something else. And it sounds like that you now, in reflection, you know, looking back on this, you're like, you know, there is something special about that place. And it did shape me. And that's something that even if you never go back and live there again, you are carrying with you, and you have that sense of. Of yourself and understanding about, you know, what that part of your life meant.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: Let's talk about where you went to college, because you went to Pepperdine. Now, you say that was outside of la. It's in the Malibu area. I had no idea where it was. I knew that I recognized the name of it, and probably just from watching men's basketball and, you know, college NCAA tournaments or something over the years, I think I would have put it on the East Coast. And in looking it up, I'm like, wait, Malibu? Like, that's an extraordinary sort of place location to be able to go be a college student. So I'm curious about the change from Prescott to that area. And yeah, it's within reach of la, if you want to go do cool things there, the big city stuff. What Was it like going there and how did you decide to go there? What drew you there?
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I think for me it felt like I applied to a lot of schools that were small liberal art schools. From the perspective of I was from a smallish town, it didn't feel like a huge university, that I might have more kids in a lecture class than were in my whole high school. Felt like something that I really wanted to do.
I didn't want to put myself out there in that way. So it was kind of known, but unknown, I would say of, oh, this is still relatively small. I kind of understand how it is, but it feels very different than, you know, where I was. So, yeah, I mean, I looked at like University of Portland and University of San Diego and, you know, a lot of places on the west coast because it was like, oh, they're close enough, I could get home and, you know, see family and whatever without feeling like I'm, you know, a big plane flight away or something. So those were some of the things that I was looking at. And yeah, I mean, it's hard not to be a 17 year old kid and show up on the Pepperdine campus for the first time and just be incredibly wowed, right? Just like, holy. Whoa. Like, this place is amazing. It's incredibly beautiful. I mean, talk about the most beautiful places in the world, right? Like, I always think back to, you know, Edward Abbey's desert solitaire, right? And you think about like the part in that book where he talks about the mountain people versus the ocean people versus the desert people, you know, Definitely feel a very desert person growing up in Arizona in a lot of ways, even if I wasn't in like the real desert. But it's hard not to like go to the, you know, stand on that campus and to be impressed by the vastness of the ocean standing on, you know, these mountains. And it's very beautiful.
It's a really interesting place though. And I think even just talking to you right now about it, it's interesting because I don't know if I've ever thought of the through lines for some of those things. Of Prescott was this place that, you know, didn't. Didn't quite have the community that I would say that I was looking for from the perspective of it was just a little bit too big. Pepperdine felt like this really weird place. It's in Malibu. They were gifted this land, granted, this land. It used to be in like, you know, terrible part of LA. They moved in the 70s, I think, and Malibu hates it. Malibu hates Pepperdine. Right. So you always felt like an outcast. You always felt like I never fit in with the community there. And the community there is weird, right? Because it's all these, like very, very rich people who talk about, like, you know, they've got gates on their, you know, driveways, and they don't, they don't want to interact with you in any, in any way, shape or form.
Pepperdine, the community itself there is like, pretty decent in some ways, but I also feel like California in general just has like a different vibe, you know, like, it's cool and it's laid back and it's west coast in a lot of ways, but it's very, at least in my, you know, experience of it, right. As a 18 to 22 year old, was. Is very showy, you know, in a lot of ways. Obviously, people, you know, buying expensive cars that they can't afford. Right. Like, you gotta look a certain way and whatever. And the, the analogy that I always used to highlight that was you could be having coffee with someone at a coffee shop and somebody comes in the door and everyone looks to see who that person is. Is that a famous person? Is that somebody that I should be talking to? Is, you know, whatever. And that just kind of feels you. It's this unconscious thing that you feel less than in a certain way because maybe there's somebody else that person would rather be interacting with.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: That's interesting.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And so that just whole kind of vibe, right? Like you can be the most like, hey, I want community, I want all those things. But you show up and you're like, well, why don't I drive a nice BMW? And why don't. Yeah, maybe I should do that. You kind of just do those things because you're in that environment even if you don't want to. Right. And so it's interesting that all of my friends that I still stay in touch with, we have a lot of really great friends in Denver that we still see, like multiple times a year and whatever, from Pepperdine, but none of them are from California. They're all either from Colorado or Washington for the most part. And so, yeah, it's. It's an interesting place in a lot of ways. And I think, again, it just. Prescott taught me something of what I didn't want and gave me glimpses of maybe what I did. And Pepperdine also taught me, you know, some of more of what I didn't want, as well as maybe giving me glimpses of what I did.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: Oh, and that's what so much of our early years I think really are for in hindsight, I think these learning opportunities now, I probably didn't understand it that way when I was younger, but I've been up and down the Pacific coast highway many years ago.
I don't recall there being a town per se of Malibu that I drove through. Not like a downtown or as some place to park and walk around. Did I just miss it? Is it off the coast highway or what?
[00:16:31] Speaker B: No, it's right on, it's right on the coast highway right there. And yeah, you didn't miss it. I mean like, Pepperdine is kind of the thing there, right? Like it's the, you know, if you've driven through Malibu, people are like, oh yeah. Like I remember seeing Pepperdine up on the hill. You know, there's. There is a little kind of commons area, you know, that used to like when we were there, at least it was kind of cool, you know, it was a whole bunch of famous people with, playing with their kids on the playground and Pepperdine students, you know, just there was a little place called John's Garden and it was kind of hippie and so it reminded me of Prescott and you know, whatever. But now it's like super high end stores and whatever. So if you go there now you're like, oh, I don't, I don't.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: I've never stopped there, I don't think. I think I've only driven through and just kind of thought, where's the stuff?
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Totally.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Maybe, yeah, but.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: Or if you go up to like north, right? Like you're at Zuma beach and you know some of those things and you then you recognize like, oh, all the commercials are like any beach commercial is filmed up there, right? Like, you just start to recognize those things. But yeah, for the most part there's very little in terms of like, if places shape us, which I totally think they do in a lot of ways, right? Like, that's a very strong example of like there's no community gathering place in Malibu really that you know, would lend itself to like a whole bunch of people knowing each other that way.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: It seems like it's a place where the elite of Hollywood and you know, whether it's models and actors and whoever with a lot of money that are drawn to or even if it's just to participate because their life and career and creativity comes from that area of LA that they get something that's extended outside of it a little bit, maybe a little more solitude and the beauty and the whatever. I think maybe they just want quiet.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: 100% right which is a great thing to want.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: They're not wanting me to stop and look for a sandwich or necessarily a bunch of college kids.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Totally. Yeah.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: So part of the reason I brought up Pepperdine is because I know that faith is important to you and it is a faith based university.
And not to connect dots where they might or might not be.
I'll ask you, was that a reason that you went there? Was there some sort of interest in that sense of community and why you chose Pepperdine ultimately over something like University of Portland or wherever else?
[00:18:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think for sure. I mean, a lot of those, you know, schools have a, have a, you know, faith based background. Right. Small liberal arts schools often do.
And so, you know, yeah, University of San Diego is Catholic, some, some way associated with, I don't know if it's Jesuit or, you know, whatever, but Pepperdine is Church of Christ. I'm not Church of Christ. And so there's some very interesting things about that. Right. Like, the most interesting thing that people know about Church of Christ is that they don't use instruments. So it's all.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: What do you mean by that?
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Like during their, like singing portions of their services, like musical instruments? No instruments. Okay, no musical instruments. So all of it's acapella, which is really interesting.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: So like when the, the congregation is singing a hymn, for example, there's no one playing piano or organ or something like, wow, okay.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's kind of like what they're known for.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: I would say I've been out of the loop.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, if people know Church of Christ, that's generally like the one thing they do know. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, for me, again, I think it was shared enough to the perspective of, oh, you know, people who generally have a similar worldview probably than I do, but it wasn't like, oh, I'm showing up with a whole bunch of people who have the exact same beliefs that I do necessarily, or the same experiences or whatever. You get a lot of, you know, a lot of folks from Church of Christ, like in Oklahoma. There's like some big schools there. So you have, you know, very Midwest kind of vibe to some of, you know, what the culture, you know, would look like for, especially those kids. Right. So, yeah, I mean, for me it was a great opportunity to explore some of that and kind of figure out like, okay, this is different than what I. I grew up Catholic and, you know, I'm now Anglican. So, you know, the kind of through line there for me of figuring out what was important to me and how I wanted to think about both the theological side of the faith as well as the practical applications of what that looks like and whatever. Pepperdine gave me a great place to do that where I didn't feel like I was just like, oh, yeah, everyone else thinks like me here, so I think that's important.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: I realize it's maybe odd that I ask you that question when it's a faith based university. The reason being I went to a liberal arts school and like, you just reminded me, oh, yeah, that's faith based. Because so many of them are. And if. If our seats were reversed and you were asking me, oh, did you choose that college in relation to. It never would have occurred to me for my own story, because I didn't. Yeah, I just went there because I went there for reasons, you know, people in my family had gone there. I went there for sports. I. Whatever.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: So, yeah, it's funny because I. Once you started talking, I heard that question coming back to me in a way that I hadn't thought of it before, which is lovely.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Right. I love, I love that you know that that is how these conversations go. Right. Where we're. The experience. I mean, I just said to you earlier, right. Of, oh, I hadn't even put the through line, maybe through like the community development in Prescott and the community development of Pepperdine and like, ultimately like what I've sought out as an adult. Right. Um, so it's amazing to have these conversations and what you realize, you know, both as, you know somebody who's maybe asking more questions, but even, you know, just in asking questions, asking good questions teaches you a lot about yourself. Right?
[00:21:54] Speaker A: I love questions.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: You're a great question. Ask.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Well, thank you.
You became a dentist. So you went to school for dentistry at UC Boulder. Right.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: It's in Denver. So Anschutz, the medical campus is in Boulder, so. Okay, sorry. In Denver.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Is it part of the University of colorad system? And then I put onto it Boulder.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: Boulder, yes. My wife, who's an attorney, who also went to University of Colorado for law school, got to go to live in Boulder for four or for three years, which is a beautiful place and whatever. I was in Aurora.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Much different vibe.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: How many years is that? Is that a four year?
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Four years. Yeah.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: So you had four years at Pepperdine, then four years to come out as a doctor.
How do you say that?
[00:22:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Doctor of dentistry.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, yeah. Where my degree is a Doctor of dental surgery, which I actually think is pretty indicative of what most dentists think of Themselves as they think of themselves as surgeons and not primary care doctors. Which I think is a disservice to most people from the perspective of, you know, we, we, we could get real deep into the weeds of like non surgical treatment for dental caries and why that's better and whatever. I just visited my friend in San Francisco last weekend and he has a whole dental practice where they don't have any drill at all and still treat some like pretty, you know, difficult cases without drills. And you're like, oh, it's pretty cool. So anyways, my, yeah, my degree is a DDS degree, so Dr. Of Dental Surgery. But yeah, most people just say dentist.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: I did not even realize that's what those letters stood for.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: And yet that's so commonly what follows the name of a dentist. Okay. I'm curious why you chose dentistry as your profession and what might have been the influence there. I mean, is that a family thing? That was your mom or your dad or whoever or, or what led you to want to work with something that is so specific. And as a layperson on this, I'm like, oh, you might see some gross things.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: 100%. Yeah, it's a great question. I almost dropped out of Pepperdine after my first year or after my first semester even because I was in a band at the time.
And my buddy who was a model and whatever, he's the typical front man for a band in the early 2000s. He was good looking and, and whatever.
So he had moved out to LA too. And we were, you know, playing some shows around LA and you know, had some like, oh, we could do this. And so I was like, sweet, I'm gonna drop out of school and be a musician. And like, you know, whatever. My, my mom had framed a, an article like when I was in high school or an ad from a magazine, you know, that had like a bumper sticker that said, you know, my kid finishes his homework so fast, I'm worried he'll start a band.
And that was like, totally me, right? Where it was just like, yeah, school was not hard for me, like, whatever, you know, I was exploring other things. Right. So it's like, sweet, I'm going to drop out.
And it's interesting because, you know, my dad is a dentist, so that is like, I knew what that looked like. And a lot of my story, you know, involves me choosing things that were uncomfortable but not necessarily foreign. Completely foreign. Right. Like there is some recognition of what that, you know, like what that thing was. Right. Whether that's where I went to School or, you know, faith or whatever it might have been was different, but not different. Not too different, right. And I think the choice of being a dentist, while still one that I'm very glad that I did, was probably one of like the safest choices that I guess I made. You know, it was like, either I'm going to drop out of school and do be a musician, which is, you know, that would have been like bananas, right? I was like valedictorian in my high school and my parents would have freaked out and whatever. Like, I think a lot of people would have freaked out in my family if I had chosen that route. And it was like, oh, I'm just going to be a dentist. And I think that that was like, pretty safe.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: This gives a good life, it's a good career, it's respected in society. It's all these things that feel safer.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. And I think, you know, I wanted to help people, right? So there was still that like element of cool, I can help people doing this job and whatever. I would also say like my best friend who I just mentioned growing up, you know, amazing dude, but like, he was always, you know, kind of the, like the front man, right? He was the front man of our band and he was the good looking one and, you know, whatever. And I was kind of just like in the back, the smart one, right? That was, you know, the songwriter. But it was, it's interesting to kind of like look at some of that and I think some of it was like, oh, I wanted, you know, I hadn't had a girlfriend ever and you know, whatever. I was like, I just, I want to like, do something where I'm not going to like, put myself so far on a limb that, you know, like. Yeah, like, it wouldn't, it would be hard for me to.
Yeah. Like, I guess I just maybe didn't want to put myself beyond like, you know, what I thought he was or whatever, you know, Whereas like, differentiating myself from that or something would have been too hard. I don't know. It's this really interesting, I think, kind of time in my life for sure. But then, you know, like, I studied in Spain in college and, you know, had like a pretty life changing experience just by like dating this Mexican girl that I met there who I was like, man, she's so beautiful and I'd never had a girlfriend and it was like, she likes me, you know, And I was like, whoa, what is going on? You know, like. And I think that really changed my perception of like what I was Capable of, you know, So I think in some way it was like, oh, yeah, I can do things that are just very different and. And then I could kind of take ownership of that, you know. But I think the dentistry thing was kind of still like, yeah, it's just.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: You know, the safety net.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Yeah. It's just like, it's a good job. And, yeah, like, you. You know, I'm not going to be on call and I can help people and, you know, probably have a good, good life and a nice wife and whatever. Right. And certainly.
[00:27:28] Speaker A: Which is all true.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Which is all true.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: I mean, that's the way it's turned out.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Totally. But those are not things that I think I. You know, like, if you look at the decisions now that I'm making in terms of, like, starting a company, you know, building a software company, whatever, like, after being a dentist and not getting paid for two and a half years doing that and whatever, like, I've taken some pretty big risks. I would say that, you know, I had to have, like, realized, oh, these safe choices aren't maybe the best expression of who I am as a person. You know, I don't think I would be happy with life if I was just continually making safe choices.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: I understand that. And I wonder if.
If you look back on the decision to not have pursued something a little bit more, at least with the band, do you feel like.
Do you have any regrets on that? Do you feel like you should have or wish that you had tried that more then? Like, do you kick yourself for that? Or do you think. Let me put it this way. What I have learned over time was eventually I would get so sick of myself for not doing the thing that I felt so compelled to do, that eventually I learned. And my window of suffering that pain and not liking myself about it, it got shorter and shorter and shorter because I got practice with being quicker to say no. I know. I want that. I've been down this road before. Last time, I'll just make up numbers here. It took me 10 years to get up the courage. Okay. Then it took me seven years on something else. Then it took me five. Now it takes me two months or whatever. I've learned what that feels like, and I've learned that I can confidently step out there and try this thing. And, you know, I don't have regrets about it, but it has taken me a lot of those lengthy periods of my life to be like, go for it.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
I mean, I think that I look at the band specifically, and I actually think I made the right Decision in a lot of ways because I look at a touring musician and I'm like, man, that's a hard life. And I don't think I had the deep love and passion for it. I think I have always needed a creative outlet in whatever I'm doing. So whether that's in dental school, I started a wedding photography business, right. And it was doing that. And so I've always needed this creative outlet and way to. To have something to be a part of the creative process.
But I don't think that I, you know, I deeply love music and it shapes me as a person and, you know, how I listen to it and, you know, all of those things. And I love playing. Now my sons are playing music and it's fun to play with them. And so I still do music in certain ways, but I just don't think that the, like, actual expression of being a touring musician, you know, would have been a good fit for me. So in that way, I actually think I made the right decision. But I totally agree with you from the perspective of, yeah, like, you want. I, you know, I definitely feel like now I have been able to take risky decisions with. From the perspective of, I will regret this if I don't do it. You know, if I don't do it right. Like, I want to go down this road, even if it's hard and challenging and whatever, and I will regret it if I don't do it. So let's go now how I learned, you know, to go from like, oh, I'm going to maybe choose a safe career in dentistry to like, hey, here's a very risky decision that I might be making that, you know, I don't know. Yeah, Like, I don't. Maybe mine isn't as linear as yours, you know, description is here in terms of. And maybe yours isn't super linear as well. Right. But just the, like, oh, yeah, like, this time it took me 10 years. This time it took me seven years. This time, you know, like, I don't know if maybe there is that through line and I just haven't explored it yet.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: But I think what I grew up. I grew up in a very vanilla, straight, lace, narrow focus sort like that was the upbringing for me. There was no risk. There was no, like, it was the whole thing of go to church, go to school, go to college, get married, have, like, there was nothing exciting about that. So I had no model showing me, right. Live these amazing dreams, take risks. It's okay. Live the unconventional life. It's okay. So it took me a Long time of probably stifling that and saying, I know you want to do this, dang, Adam, but just don't. Just don't. Because you can suck it up and you can live this straight and narrow and everything's going to be great, but it would eat at me. So it took me a really long time to gain experience and age and all these things, to be like, there's a reason this keeps eating at you. And the one model you were showed is not the only one. It's okay. And so it just took me time, I think, to experience a willingness to heed the call, to heed those feelings and be like, man, you can't just eat it yourself the rest of your life for whatever it is.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. And I think that we probably share a similar experience in that. Right. Of. Yeah, my childhood looked pretty normal in a lot of ways and not a lot of risk and. And, you know, whatever. And I didn't have a lot of great, I think, mentors and models in that. And so the fact that, you know, I think I was able to find those over the course of time and to see. Yeah, like, it is okay. And then to ultimately be that for other people as well. Now, whether that's my kids or, you know, other people. Right. As well. I mean, I look at a lot of my friends, and maybe. So there's a Richard Rohr book who's a. He's like a. Are you.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Now I'm familiar.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: So Richard Rohr, for those who might not know. Right. Is based in New Mexico, is maybe a spiritual guide, let's say. Right. Like, that's probably the best way to, like, describe Richard Rohr.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Well, he's a Franciscan monk. Right. But to me, he does feel like it's much broader than this religious context. He is more of this philosophical spiritual leader.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Yes, for sure. And so he has a concept in one of his books. I think it's called falling upward. I actually don't remember the term.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: It is falling upward.
[00:33:29] Speaker B: Yeah, falling upward, where it's like, the first half of your life, you build a box, and the second half of your life, you can deconstruct that box and go outside of it, essentially. And the first half of your life, you build the resume. Virtues, if we're talking in David Brooks language. And then in the second half of your life, you build the eulogy virtues. Right. So all the things that you want to be known for. And so I think there's some normalness. Right. Whether we just felt it was like, well, Our childhood was normal, and then we got outside of that, or that's just the natural progression of humanity. Let's say that we would figure out who we are so that in the second half of life, or, you know, whatever, we can eventually deconstruct that. I think it is, you know, to me, that is an important construct, I think, in a lot of ways to say, like, who am I? And I think we've lost some of that in our culture. Not to, like, you know, pontificate here, but I do think we've lost some of that in our culture. From the perspective of, like, throughout all of history, human history, right? Like, kids were growing up learning from a small culture, a small clan. This is who you are. This is your name. This is, you know, let us tell you. Let us build into you who you are. And I think some ways in modern culture now, it's like, well, you know, who do you want to be? And it's like, that's actually. I think that's stifling for kids, right? When you're like, oh, you. You don't have any place on which to base. You know, you don't have walls to take down. You just never have walls to begin with. And so you're like, I don't really know, like, you. To me, it feels like it creates a lot of wandering without, you know, maybe a direction and, you know, some of that.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: So do you think that's tougher than this idea? Let's say, okay, you grew up in Prescott. I grew up in this rural town in northern Missouri and wanted to get out, wanted to experience more in the world. The framework of the way, like, I just described this very vanilla. My parents were teachers and preachers, and it was all very conservative and very narrow, and everybody was doing the same thing.
That gave me a basis to then say, well, I want something different and have that comparison, contrast sort of experience.
If we are teaching our kids, for example, my parents wouldn't know the concept of falling upward. They wouldn't know the two halves of life, right? So they did not mentor me in this idea of, as you move forward in your life and you explore these spiritual questions, you're going to discover who you are really, and you're going to carry that for. Right. Nobody gave that to me, but now I have that language like you and I are talking about, so I could be, and probably to some extent do speak to my two sons in that sense. And what you're suggesting maybe is that by trying to instill in them, when I think I'M giving them this great mentoring, right? This great coaching. As a father, what I really might be doing is not helping them build the walls that they then have the foundation to go against maybe.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: But I do think even in some ways to say like to have that framework of like, hey, you're like we're going to construct something, right? And I think that there's just kind of like the like the modern conception of our role as parents, right? Like to me like my job as a parent is to like form my child in some way that eventually they're going to like push back against, right? Because that is a differentiation, perspective and whatever. Like they're going to have to push back against something.
But that's, you know, when you like, you need an equal and opposite reaction to kind of push, right? Like if you're pushing against nothing, you fall over, right? And so I think about that from the perspective of I'm a huge Liverpool fan, right? We watch games together and to me it's this kind of quasi religious thing, right, where it's like you're singing these songs. You go to Anfield, it feels like this big church, right? This like outdoor church, right, where we're all having this shared communal experience, very church like. And a lot of the original soccer teams, right, like were came out of like Bible studies. Actually like think about, you know, you probably heard of like Sheffield Wednesday. That's cause they met on Wednesdays to have like Bible study. And that's just like where their team came from. So to me like you know, essentially saying to my kids, hey, you can choose whatever soccer team you want to choose to like doesn't feel as helpful as we are Liverpool fans. You are an Allen and that means that you are a Liverpool fan and that means that you will forever be a Liverpool fan. And to me they might eventually go, you know what Dad, I like Chelsea. And I'll be like, man, that's a bad choice. But even if they do that, I won't feel like I've failed. It'll just feel like I've given them something to push against in a helpful way to kind of create their own box. So I think to that end you're a very intentional person. I think you're doing that with your sons probably in a lot of ways, right? But just the kind of do whatever you want, be whoever you want to be misses the mark. I think in some ways of like, who were you meant to be? Like who were you like, you know, how can we call that out in you as adults and like, it feels almost lazy in some ways to be, like, be whatever you want to be. And it's like, well, that just means I don't know you as a person, you know, as a child, especially as my child. Right. Because I know your unique characteristics and qualities, and how can I curate and cultivate those in you so that you can be the best version of yourself that you could ever want to be?
[00:38:28] Speaker A: I think that's interesting nuance, and this is definitely something that I'm going to take away and kind of think about. And, you know, I have the good fortune of getting to play back and edit and work with this stuff, so I get to get more intimate with these conversations, actually, than probably anybody else does.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: Totally.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: This is great stuff for me. I'm also going to have to acknowledge that the only thing I really understand about soccer is. Comes from Ted Lasso and welcome to Wrexham.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: And I love both of those shows. One being a docu series, one, you know, a scripted. And that's how I've learned about Sheffield Wednesday.
So very cool. I feel like there's a Slumdog Millionaire kind of thing for me sometimes, if you're familiar with that movie where these incidental experiences in life and then later, I didn't know I was going to ever have any use to understand Sheffield Wednesday. And here it is.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: And there you go. Exactly. Yeah. Today. Now. Now you do. So I love it. It's. It's a fun. To me, it's. It's. It really is the, like, quintessential sporting experience. Like, I know a lot of people. So I went to Pepperdine, right. Like, we had water polo. Like, who. You know, no one's going to. We have a football team. Right. So I had no experience of going to a stadium with 60,000 people or going to, you know, to the big house in Michigan. And, you know, it's like, you watch that and you watch them sing Mr. Brightside and, you know, all of these people together. Right. I think that's probably why people love college sports, is because this is, like, very communal experience, whereas pro sports, to me, seem very soulless in a lot of ways.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: I agree with that. Yeah. And, well, in watching what you're talking about with English football teams and stuff, and. And that's one of the things I keep commenting on, you know, the family at home and whatnot. It's like, I love that they sing together. Like, I would love to be in that crowd. I want to go to Wrexham, Wales, now to participate, because there is such a communal experience. I Also would love. And I'll never get this experience to be one of those players that has an entire stadium chanting for you in a way that feels different than the way it happens with, say, NFL, you know, football games here in the US and so on.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: 100%. And yeah. So if we, we have a great, you know, youth development program here in JV County. Right. JV County United is really wonderful and great coaching and great, you know, all of that stuff. And one of, one of my big wishes for Chaffey County United is that we just sing more songs, you know, just because it is like, the best part for me of football, like, you know, in that way is just the, like, let's sing together.
It feels very special and very cathartic and, you know, it feels like something we all need.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: We talked about you being a dentist a while back.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: That's the best compliment anyone ever gives me. Like, I didn't. I would have never known you're a dentist. I'm like, great. Like, that means that I'm not just, you know, very pigeonholed into talking about that. So that's. Yeah, we did talk about that a while ago. Let's go back to it.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: Well, you clearly are so much more. And I had no idea about being in a band in la, and I really would love to pull on that thread and unravel some things and talk. I mean, I didn't even ask what, what do you play? Band or what did you.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: Guitar, piano, harmonica. And I was like.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: And you still play songwriter.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: All of that, more or less. And I would love to talk about that, but I am going to carry us forward here because you. You did become a dentist and you were at some point here, director of dentistry at. Was it a health center?
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: In Denver. And that was for a particular population. Right. I mean, what particular needs? What. Describe that for me. And you talked about wanting to be of service to people with these skills and this knowledge. So it seems like there's a big overlap there.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So. Yeah. In, you know, federally qualified health centers are essentially the safety net. Right. Of.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: Is that. Is that basically a public health, like government public health?
[00:42:12] Speaker B: It's not government necessarily. So there's like government grants that go to those specific organizations. So we have one here in bve. So Valleywide has a dental clinic here, I think a medical clinic as well. And that's a part of a bigger federally qualified health center that's based out of Alamos. I think their headquarters is down there. But yes. So they, you know, like, they have to take, you know, by receiving this grant money from the federal government. But they're all just essentially nonprofits. They have to take public insurance, so Medicare, Medicaid, those kinds of things, as well as have to have a sliding fee scale for folks who can't, who don't, who don't have any insurance. And so you're generally seeing a lot of, of underinsured and uninsured people and that, you know, in Denver, North Denver, Boulder, large Hispanic population. So I was speaking Spanish 75% of the day, probably, you know, and we had clinics up in Boulder and whatnot too, where they had a much larger homeless population. So, yeah, definitely, like, for me, that was a huge, you know, decision. I did want to work when I was in dental school. I was like, I want to work for Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, which is an amazing clinic down in Denver. The world, you know, had other plans for me, which was great. And I love the organization that I was at. It was called Clinica Family Health. And really great leadership and had a lot of great mentors there that have certainly led me to where I'm at now. But it was always, you know, kind of built on, I want to go and serve people that really need help. And it's interesting because I think I learned so much more about myself, right? You always talk about that when people, like, go, you know, serve somewhere, you know, across the world or whatever, and they go do some trip to build houses or whatever it is. And like, I got more out of it than, you know, I left. And I think that that's totally true. I think I learned way more about myself getting to sit in those situations with people who had really challenging lives that, like, I've never, you know, had to experience, but got to sit face to face with and, and share, I would say, in some of that difficulty and ultimately joy, right? There was so much joy in their lives. And then, you know, those interactions as.
[00:44:08] Speaker A: Well, the people that you are helping, just the gratitude for your being able to help them, help them feel better, deal with a toothache, deal with whatever they were dealing with.
[00:44:17] Speaker B: Totally. I. So my specific expertise is in something called motivational interviewing, which is a evidence based communication methodology that helps people make behavior changes. So it started in addiction therapy and kind of came to primary care. So I'm one of three dentists in the world who's a member of the motivational interviewing network of trainers. And so it was, you know, doing a lot of consulting and not helping dentists learn how to communicate more effectively with patients.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: I'm sorry, how many did you say? In the world?
[00:44:41] Speaker B: 3.
[00:44:43] Speaker A: That's not very many.
[00:44:44] Speaker B: That's not very many? No.
[00:44:45] Speaker A: Wow. Okay.
[00:44:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So the. You know. But when I was using that clinically, like, I had. You know, I. One of my favorite stories is I had this person who, you know, said to me, like, this feels better than therapy. Can I come here every week? Right. I'm not doing anything. Right. I'm not taking a tooth out. I probably was. I don't remember exactly what we were doing, but, like, this person, this woman, felt heard, felt listened to, felt seen, right? In a way that I think, especially in dentistry, right? There's this kind of very normal, like, oh, yeah, it's pretty transactional. It's like a lot of surgery.
It's not like, something where my dentist goes and listens to me.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: Well, well, there's a stereotype that it's a bad experience, whether it's physical pain or for whatever. All the reasons are this. For someone to say this was therapeutic, it was cathartic. I was listened to. I felt like there was a human connection. Sounds extraordinary.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So for me, that's, you know, that is something that when people ask, because I don't practice clinically anymore, like, if I miss it, right? Like, that is the big thing that I do miss is having those conversations in that way where it's like, oh, yeah, I just kind of. My.
My person, right, Would. Would drift away in those moments, right? In terms of. In the best way, right? Where you're just like, I'm a total mirror for this patient, and they're seeing them themselves in a new way, and we're guiding them somewhere, but I'm not thinking about myself at all. Right. And it's. It is really cathartic for yourself to like, oh, I. I showed up to work today and didn't think about what I need or, you know, any of that stuff. I mean, we've talked about listening and, you know, how. How important that is and asking good questions and all of those things. And I feel like when you get to do that well for somebody, it is so freeing for yourself because you're like, oh, man, I didn't have to think about my insecurities or my garbage or, you know, whatever I'm worried about. I just got to be present for somebody else and what a thing that is.
[00:46:30] Speaker A: I'm always curious about motivation, and so I'd like to understand a little bit more about why it was so important for you to be of service in this way. And to choose these opportunities.
Because I also think of, and this is no shade on the dentist my family sees on the Front Range.
But as a matter of fact, the guy that we see and we appreciate and he's very kind and he also is very clearly into the stuff that his career affords him and his family. And that includes, you know, my boys are. Each time we go, what car is he going to have now? Because it might be a Ferrari, it might be a Porsche. It's all about cybertruck.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: My kids love cybertrucks. Right.
[00:47:16] Speaker A: It's all the fancy external sorts of accomplishments that he takes pride in. And again, no shade on that. But I'm using that as a way to establish contrast with someone who really says, let me help the people who need the most help, who might not be able to afford this and who maybe given the therapeutic nature of listening.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: Might need you on a level that the typical patient doesn't.
[00:47:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
Shoot.
In terms of motivation, we could unpack some of that in terms of, you know, where that goes back to and whatever. Right.
I think for me though, the.
Wherever that motivation comes from and honestly, like, I don't have like a specific moment in time where I'm just like, oh, this is, you know, just always been a part of who I am and whatever. But I would say what I look at are, I'll give you a story maybe to kind of explain at least where I am. I'm kind of tended to.
So there's a Catholic theologian, his name is Henry Nouwen. That's a very anglicized version of it. He's I think Belgian or I think he's Belgian, but he. So it's probably Henri Noen or something like that, right.
But he like, incredible theologian, incredible thinker, writer, Right. Has all these books and whatever.
He spent the last years of his life and a significant chunk of them at a community outside of Toronto called Daybreak and is part of these communities in general that are called larch communities, if you've ever heard of those. Essentially it's where people that are pretty disabled can come and actually live in a community and not just be taken care of, but actually participate really in the community. And. And it's a very beautiful kind of communal way of life. Right. And so he takes care of this guy at the end of his life who essentially is non verbal, you know, whatever. And you're like, man, like your, your whole life led to you just being in a one on one relationship with this guy in this community and you had so much to give. It felt like. Like now you're at the pinnacle of, like, a writer's career, right? A theologian's career. You've spent all of your life, like, synthesizing. Now you can really give back. Right. And for him, like, it was, you know, the giving back ended up being this one unwound relationship with this guy. It's a very beautiful book, the Road to Daybreak. All that to say, you know. He also has another book called Jesus in Downward Mobility, which I think is a really interesting concept.
[00:49:55] Speaker A: Yeah, sounds like it.
[00:49:56] Speaker B: Right. Of, you know, what is success, Right. I think for a lot of us is up and to the right and downward. What does downward mobility mean? And, you know, why might that be actually something I might want? And so I think for me, like, a lot of.
Not that I don't want to have a nice life in some ways and be able to ride mountain bikes and take my kids on fun trips and whatever. We're doing a lot of that. Right. But I think there's just this pull for me, and there always has been there of, like. I think there's something that's really successful for me that is outside of the realm of up and to the right. And so I want to. I want to really wrestle with that in a lot of ways. And I think there's a lot of beauty in that. That's very countercultural. And so, yeah, I don't. Whatever the motivation is, maybe that just kind of gives some explanation to, you know, how the things that. At least I'm drawn towards.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: I guess maybe we are always on this course to that second half of life, like you referred to from Richard Rohr, those of us, you know, because not everyone ends up being aware of it as he writes about. Not everybody figures out that there is a deeper meaning. And I wonder if it's just sort of ingrained in people either maybe feel it from an early age. You can't identify it, but it's there. And I guess I'm feeling the connection here, too. When you want to do something that is of service and something of greater value to people and it's not just all about me, me, me and stuff, it seems like you were on that trajectory even without knowing it from very early on.
[00:51:30] Speaker B: I think so, yeah. And to, you know, like, why. Why we would want to do some of those things or how that, you know, gets instilled in us. Like, I wish I could.
I don't. You know, maybe I haven't gotten far enough into the second half of my life to, like, you know, finally, like and kind of firmly pull that thread through, but maybe a good, a good conversation for therapy. Right. So.
[00:51:50] Speaker A: Well, and I feel like, to be clear, that the second, the first half, second half of life idea to me is conceptual, Right. It's not based on numbers.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: So you could be 80 years old and maybe it first half clip of your life.
[00:52:03] Speaker B: Totally. Yeah.
[00:52:04] Speaker A: And maybe you're 10 years old and you're I mean, if we think of, oh, I can picture the girl, isn't she Swedish, the one who's been leading school strikes for climate.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: Greta Thunberg.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. You know, at such a young age that she clearly is destined to be something more in this world.
[00:52:23] Speaker B: Totally.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: And it would seem that maybe figured out a second half of life thing rather than just taking the structure and the walls that were built for her and staying in that.
[00:52:33] Speaker B: Totally. Well, I think Richard Rohr and I'm not going to go deep into this because I've read about it, but not deeply grappled with it. Eight stages or nine stages of spiritual development essentially of like most people get stuck, you know, at like stage three. Right. Which is still a very me, me, me kind of. You know, we all need that. Like, that's how we all grow up. Right. Like, no baby is coming out, being like, I'm going to give back. Right. Like, that's, that's, that's not what babies need. There is some linearity to that, you know, to a, to a degree. Right.
But yeah, you can have, I think, you know, to be at, you know, one of the higher stages of that kind of spiritual enlightenment, spiritual development, you know, spiritual formation. Right. Like, you know, you, you generally, you have to walk through all those other stages first, and it takes time.
[00:53:17] Speaker A: Let's talk about how you carried this forward. It's the collection of everything we're talking about because it is this interest in service, it's the motivational interviewing and of course, your dentistry. You end up leaving that community, the health center, and you start this tech venture, different kind. What is that about? And why did you make that kind of shift?
[00:53:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it is a kind of combination of a lot of things that we've been talking about from the perspective of I think I always need a creative outlet. And so I think the true entrepreneurial spirit is one of creativity, right. It's one of solving a problem kind of ex nilo out of nothing. Right. And it's not never out of nothing. It's out of experiences and whatever. But you're like, no one's Ever solved this problem before. So let's try to go solve it, right? So I think doing some of the. So as I was at the health center, I started a consulting business where I was doing motivation interviewing consulting for like large dental insurance companies to help them understand, like, hey, how do we teach dentists this so we can actually incentivize this in our healthcare system? And I just continued to kind of get this, like, how do we measure this? How do we, you know, I think that, you know, there's lots of business wisdom in the like, if you can't measure it, you can't improve it, you know, type of idea. And so I think for me, I saw this opportunity to say, hey, my goal ultimately and I think the through line of the service, right, of whatever that looks like is how do I help make healthcare in general? And not even just dental care necessarily, but how do I make healthcare in general be a more human place? If you could show up at your dentist, I would feel like I would be successful as a human, right? If I show. If you show up at your dentist at some point in your life and it's a better experience from the perspective of yeah, sure, he has a Ferrari, who cares, right? But like you feel seen, heard, understood, right? Whatever that might be. There's a different level. I say this to people all the time. There's a different level of someone like actually listening to you, caring about you, being curious about you, than there is about them just being nice, right? And I think that, you know, a lot of healthcare providers are nice.
I don't actually think a lot of them have curiosity and, and good listening skills and whatever because they have this very like, oh, my job is to fix. And fixing is different than curiosity, right? Fixing is about having the answers and like just doing that for somebody. Often being curious is about being like, maybe I don't have the answers and maybe I can help you discover the answers or maybe we can discover them together. But it's this, you know, it's a much more open handed disposition, I would say. So different kind of thing came from that perspective of could we solve this problem and could we do it at scale? And that's. It seems real weird to be like, we build software to help make healthcare more human, right? Like that's a weird reality. But it is interesting to see in the data when you have essentially patients who are voicing their experience with their dental practice and being like, this was not good and you hear that again and again and then you're able to go to this practice or to this dental insurer and say, how do we help this practice? Or how do we help your network of providers in general become better listeners or more empathetic people, or involve you more in your decision making?
[00:56:31] Speaker A: It's such an interesting idea to me that people need to be taught, especially those who are in a care profession, that presumably a lot of these people like you, they weren't in it just to get that car and just to get the fancy clothes and the title. Most of them, at least I would imagine, are, I want to help people in some way, 100%. And yet they're needing to be incentivized and guided and trained and encouraged and just maybe just reminded, yeah, be human, listen, take time. So that it's not such a transactional experience.
I feel like, and this is a conversation within my household that often with healthcare professionals, we are expected to sit there, not talk, take the fix, trust in it 100%. And we're saying, well, we have thoughts and brains and research capabilities too. We know what we're feeling. That part you don't know. Can we have a dialogue and maybe seek out, explore possibilities together? And we annoy doctors sometimes when they're like, just do what I'm saying, just do what I'm saying and go away. And we're like, but we want to.
[00:57:44] Speaker B: Talk about this, man, 100%.
And I get it. Doctors have all this crazy time crunch and all these things that the system has built that makes it really difficult for people to, you know, do that in some ways. And it doesn't take a lot. And that's what I try to talk to people about all the time when we're talking about reflective listening and talking about empathy and whatever. Right. There's research that suggests that even one reflective listening statement in a healthcare encounter improves your sense of autonomy support. So I feel better about my ability to go manage my disease even if you just listen to me for one sentence. Right. In our interaction. Right. And so there's so many little things that people can do. A specific example of this, this. My son a few years ago had Kawasaki disease, which is a problem with the heart. And it was probably a post Covid, you know, kind of complication. Right. So he's in the hospital. Pretty scary. You're like, this is not. He's not doing well. Right. And it can have lasting complications. And luckily it didn't. But there was a moment where we were in the hospital and the nurse was in and she, you know, this is such a normal thing. Do you have Any questions? And we've been trained to say no, Right. Like this is the answer. That's the like, polite way of going out of the room. Do you have any questions? No. Okay, cool. See it right? Like, that's just the. The normal way. I had a lot of questions. And so she said, do you have any questions? I said, no, because I was just like, oh, that's my default response. And then I was like, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Actually, I do have a lot of questions. Can I give you some feedback? Right. So here I am coaching this nurse who, you know, whatever. I'm like, when you say this, here's how I respond. And I'm guessing most patients will respond to that if you just ask the question a little bit differently of what questions, if any, do you have for me and show just a little bit of curiosity that maybe like, you would want to know. Any questions if I did is going to change, like, my whole perception of our interaction. Right. And so that, you know, it can be really small things that I think change our perception of how, you know, our healthcare experiences. Go.
[00:59:38] Speaker A: I'm guessing she does not know your background.
[00:59:41] Speaker B: No.
[00:59:42] Speaker A: And that she did not respond super well.
[00:59:45] Speaker B: I mean, she was like, okay. You know, she was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Or whatever. And maybe I had to like, explain to her who, you know, I was and what I do and whatever. I don't remember exactly. But she wasn't like, you know, you're a jerk. Maybe she walked outside and was like, who's this guy? Who's the city idea to question me, to coach me. Right, right, right.
[01:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. The question I. We've established I'm a question asker. Right.
[01:00:09] Speaker B: A good one.
[01:00:09] Speaker A: I'm always going to have questions of anybody, anytime, anywhere.
And certainly when I'm in a doctor's office with, you know, one of my kids.
[01:00:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:00:20] Speaker A: And to feel like there's maybe even condescension rather than an openness to say, you know, and an empathy and understanding from the parents perspective or the patient's perspective. This might be scary for you. You might not have been able to take in everything that I've just shared as information or understand where it's coming from. I feel like sometimes, you know, a doctor in particular, maybe because they are the authority, like we'll see a nurse first and then it goes to the doctor. Because that's sort of the hierarchy.
[01:00:51] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:00:52] Speaker A: That a doctor expects us to take what they are saying as if it is the answer.
[01:00:56] Speaker B: Right.
[01:00:57] Speaker A: But if we just had A different doctor, totally. It would be a different answer. And that's where I think there's a gap that creates room for. Let's discuss and explore and understand something together. I don't want to just take your supposed fix, right. As if it's absolute.
[01:01:13] Speaker B: Right. Well, and I mean, there's, I think, a ton of interesting work around this. Like, I have a friend who's a mentor, who's the chief education officer at Denver Health, and he's a very thoughtful guy. Philosopher. He has an M. Div. Like, he's, you know, he's a very, very thoughtful guy. And I think, you know, they're like, we'll have these conversations about the philosophy and the pedagogy, like the pedagogical models that are, like, how are physicians trained and what does that lead to? And, you know, a lot of. But a lot of people don't question that, right? Because for physicians, right. They're just all, you know, I was the smart one and I just went and I did well on my MCATs, and then I just went and I, you know, aced the test and whatever. But I'm not questioning. I'm not asking questions of the system that's teaching me. Right. I'm just accepting it as truth. And so then I'm going out and spouting that as truth instead of saying, like, are there alternative ways to conceive about this? Right. Um, and generally the answer is no for a lot of those physicians. Right. Because they are so time crunched at that point or whatever. But I think the. The earlier on that we can introduce some of that in our medical education and dental education in general of. You might be wrong. For example, we, you know, we can. Dentistry has a longstanding history. There's some interesting stuff, too with the, you know, RFK just getting appointed as, you know, the head of Health and Human Services or whatever, and his vaccination hesitancy and whatever. In dentistry, the vaccination issue goes around fluoride, right? So, you know, if you. If you're for fluoride, then you're for science, and if you're against fluoride, then you're against science. And you see some of the kind of current stuff that's coming out about fluoride of like, maybe this has been too high in our water and, you know, maybe we should let people choose. And, you know, I think there's arguments on both sides, but I try to, you know, when I talk to people about Florida in general, like, talking to healthcare professionals here of like, like you could be wrong.
Like, you might not know it in your lifetime, but you could be wrong. Like, so, you know, like that, that ability for us to have the humility, I would say, to be curious about other people's perspective because we could be wrong. I think, you know, it's, it's been too polarized of a world over the last few years of like, you're either for science or you're against it. And you're like, but science is always changing. So, you know, it's. I think it's a lot more gray and a lot more complex than we make it out to be.
[01:03:23] Speaker A: Sometimes it is strange how much we've turned it into a black and white, absolute tribalist sort of, you're with us or against us in general across a lot of things. Right. And I think at a time when, I mean, if we look at conspiracy theories and Internet information, I can look up, I can google something and I can find polar opposite answers to my life. And what that really tells me is that we need to live in the gray area and do a lot more thinking and questioning. Not for the sake of questioning, but questioning for the sake of the interest in learning.
[01:03:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And other people. Right. Too. Right. Just from the perspective of. Yeah. Like, I don't think, I think vaccines are very good. My kids are vaccinated. I am vaccinated. Right. That doesn't mean that like somebody who's not in favor of vaccines, if they're coming into my office, that I'm just going to like, make them feel like an idiot because, like, we're never going to get anywhere if I can't try to listen and try to understand and try to help, you know, them process through that in a way that feels healthy and holistic. Right. And maybe I can. I mean, I had some people talking about fluoride. Right. Who were like very anti fluoride when I was practicing dentist. But we had, you know, years of relationship of me being like, hey, let's talk about this. Like, curious to how you're thinking about this. And here's some of the kinds of treatments we might have that involve fluoride. Like, are you interested in this? You know, maybe now, three years after we've met versus like the first time if I had just been like, well, you got to go find another dentist because you're just a anti science, you know, anti fluorider. Right. I just don't, I don't feel like that's ever going to further the conversation.
[01:04:53] Speaker A: People are not going to feel like they can trust you if they feel condemned right out of the gate, right. Like we're talking about being listened to, that is an active, maybe even aggressive opposite. If they feel condemned actively because of something that is their understanding in the world with different kind. This tech venture that you started a few years ago, which now is, I mean, it's your full time focus, Right. You said you're no longer practicing.
[01:05:19] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:05:20] Speaker A: You are. The users of this are actually the professionals. Right. Like, you're not going directly to patients. You are trying to establish what better practices for the active listening, for establishing relationships between doctors, you know, the medical professionals and clients. That's the gist of it. Is there more to say about that? I mean, as far as, do you want to be able to explain more about what your intention is there, how that's going as this entrepreneurial venture?
[01:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I think just, you know, the thing that, you know, the dentistry part of it is interesting, right? Just of like, hey, I think we can change the profession and I think that's a very noble goal of how we could make healthcare more human. But you know, I'm a huge Wendell Berry fan, right? Like place matters, right. And I want to do that here. I want to do that in a way that, you know, does something in Chaffee county that helps create jobs and, you know, helps to actually build community here. We were able to just, we won a coding prize at like a startup pitch competition and we're able to give it to a kid here as a scholarship. And not just a kid, he's, you know, almost 30, but younger than me, able to give it to someone here in the community who probably otherwise wouldn't have been able to like, you know, go do this. But it's like, hey, that could change his life and, you know, could change the community's life because he wants to start businesses in the future and, you know, do some of that stuff. So for us it's about not just doing it, but doing it in a place that, you know, is meaningful. And yeah, we're a remote first company because as a tech company, you kind of have to be in some ways. But we're always looking for people here who can help us further that mission of how do we build something meaningful here? Because if we can create three jobs in Chaffey county, it's the same per capita as creating 100 jobs in Denver. Right? And so you're like, man, that matters, right? Like, it matters if those three people can now go out and buy a house here locally. And it matters if those people who now Have a house, can actually go and you know, have their kids in school here and do all of those things and you know, stay in the community. So for us it's, it is a more of a double bottom line, triple bottom line type of idea. You know, we're a B corp, not a, not a B corp essential, but a public benefit corporation. We could go through the B corp process, but it's expensive and takes a long time. So we probably will at some point. But you know, that essentially like is, hey, we're not just here to return shareholder value, which is like what a C corp's only focus has to be by definition, which is to me that's a bad definition. Right. Like you can do good in the world and return shareholder value. Right. And I think that continues to be proven. So that is our hope that we can not only accomplish our goals as different kind and seeing what healthcare looks like for the history of human interaction with our doctors and dentists, but that we could do it in a specific place and that will matter to our community.
[01:08:06] Speaker A: This impact on community through what you just did. You say a public benefit corporation.
[01:08:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:08:12] Speaker A: So what are some of the maybe more specific or actionable items that you either have taken or you're interested in taking to benefit the community here?
[01:08:22] Speaker B: Yeah, So I think for us, you know, we look at some of the things from the perspective of that's going to happen through our employees in a lot of ways. Right. So it's not just, I think there's a dualism that exists in work sometimes of like, oh, my job is to like make a whole bunch of money and then just like sponsor things or give money away or whatever. And you're like, yeah, that's fine. I mean that's, that's, that is a good goal as well. Right. But what if my work itself was meaningful and what if the job itself, like, what if doing my job well was like an actual gift? Right. And you know, you don't have to an example, right? Like you could build a really successful company, give a ton of money away and treat your employees like garbage, pay them, you know, non living wages and all those things. Right. And so the nice part about being a public benefit corporation is that is built into our articles of incorporation where we have, hey, like we can contribute to public health goals as a part of our, you know, so if a shareholder ever, you know, an investor, right. Someone ever came to us and was like, well, why did you make that decision? Why are you paying this person this much money or whatever you're like, well, because it helps us accomplish our goal. So the B corp framework has, I think, a lot of really good stuff in terms of rails, right. In terms of how you think about the environment, how you think about, you know, taking care of your people, how you think about, you know, corporate governance, all of those different things, the kind of esg, you know, typical things. And for us, we have some of those things in terms of how we give money or how we, you know, do those kinds of things. But I think for us, it's. It is a. I'm trying to make it much more of a holistic versus a dualistic of, like, oh, make money, give it away, versus, like, no, like, we can accomplish the goals through the actual doing of the work.
[01:10:08] Speaker A: You took a sabbatical a while back, and I'm wondering how that might have factored into coming to this realization that you. You could provide a service and a solution. Like you said, entrepreneurially, that's about solving problems. What was that sabbatical? Like, what. What did you do at that time? And. And did that factor into this shift that you ultimately would do to le to maybe have broader reach and impact by coaching others into a more human way of caring For.
[01:10:39] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. For me, I mean, it's been transformative from a life perspective. I think about it from, like, an agricultural perspective.
If there's wisdom to be gleaned from the earth, right, Then certainly we can take that and apply it to ourselves too. Right? So you think about a field, you know, like, you rotate crops through fields to keep them healthy, and then you let a field lie fallow, you know, so that it actually has time to regenerate and actually has time to be a better crop producer. And in the same way, I think our culture has kind of always talked to us about up and to the right, and there's no time for rest, there's no time for contemplation. There's no time for resetting to ultimately produce more fruit. And so, yeah, we took a sabbatical in 2018.
And, yeah, I spent a lot of time with my family.
If anyone was ready for Covid, we were, because literally, like, we. It was like, 20, middle of 2018 to middle of 2019. And then I had a. We had a baby right at, like, the middle of 2019. So I rolled right from, like, you know, sabbatical into, like, parent, you know, parental leave, right where I was like, oh, I'm just gonna, like, raise my kid for a little while now. So, yeah. And then Covid hit and it's like, whoa, cool. We've like, already established rhythms for not working and for like, what does the world look like when I don't have, you know, to go into the office or whatever. So if anyone was ready for Covid, we were.
I did a lot of what I call soft focus time. So let's say, you know, on our yard, we have a couple acres and it was kind of overrun and unkempt, let's say. And so I was like finding these paths and taking all the stones and then like, re putting them into, you know, where I wanted them to go as building. Building paths, which I think there's a lot of metaphors that we could go into around that of what that means and how we think about success in life. Life. But for me, like, the actual doing of that work. Right. It's not super hard, right. You're like doing. You're picking up stones and. Yeah, it's, you know, using some physical strength and whatever. It's not like, very intellectually stimulating. And so that soft focus time was able for a lot of times it was just like, cool, I'm doing this thing, but I'm able to think about other things. And I definitely would not be doing what I'm doing right now had I not had that time to kind of be like, oh, there's some problems here, like, how could we solve them? Or, you know, whatever. And I wasn't. It wasn't like front of mind. I didn't go into it with like, oh, I'm going to actually solve this problem today or figure out what I'm going to do next. It was just like, I'm going to let my wine mind wander and we're going to see what we come up with. I had a people tell me this all the time. I do a lot of walking, like just around our offices in bv, right? So I'm like always walking around main street, out to bridge to bridge or whatever. And people are like, is your car broken? Like, what's going on? There's an old Greek philosopher who. There was. The Latin saying was essentially, I think it's solventum ambulare. Like through walking it is solved. And I think there's just a lot of truth in that of when we let our brain have some space that we can often come to solutions that we never would have had. We like sat there and tried to figure it out. And so that was a lot of my sabbatical was just having some space and time and letting the field. I follow.
[01:13:41] Speaker A: It's crazy. To me that we have to justify and explain and defend such a practice. Right. I remember thinking all the way back to when I was a teenager working in a fast food restaurant or at the grocery store or whatever, people were allowed to take smoke breaks and they could screw around and do nothing for 10, 15 minutes for a smoke break and they could take however many of those during the shift. But if I wanted to go out and just get fresh air or go for a walk, I was somehow being lazy. I was derelict. That had to be justified. It couldn't even be justified. Right. They're like, you can't. You're just not working.
[01:14:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:14:16] Speaker A: And I think that that still is the mentality throughout. Well, everywhere, probably pretty much here, that the idea, like you're saying up and to the right, it's always grow, expand the busyness of our day. Right. Like you need to put in 8, 9, 10 hours at your computer or your whatever, in meetings, accomplishing nothing. But at least then I know where you are and that there's an alibi for everything you're doing. Right. A walk, a simple walk. Take a 15 minute walk just even once a day. And I think for me as a creator, someone who, like you're saying, I do these creative things and that is essential to me and to how I contribute that space mentally, spiritually, to move the body, moves ideas.
That's a great way to spin a sabbatical.
[01:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that we've 100% kind of lost the plot when it comes to some of that stuff in terms of our modern way of working. Right. Which is. Yeah, it's just like glorified babysitting sometimes. You see the, like, everyone has to be in the office all the time and whatever. And I think if anything that Covid has taught us is that that's not true. And people can have good work, life balance and accomplish a lot.
And they're probably happier, right. Like in so many ways when they're not sitting in hours of traffic to get to an office that they really don't need to be in. So from that perspective, yeah. I feel lucky that I can not only do that in my own work, but that I can. Hopefully we can create a company here that builds that culture. Right. Like, I can't change the culture of every workplace out there, but I can control the culture of my workplace. And I want to do that in the most thoughtful and intentional way possible.
[01:16:01] Speaker A: There's a lot of weight of the world sort of anxiety right now and something that I keep trying to come back to is do the things that we can do. Right. I can only contribute through connection through this podcast. That might be my best way to have a positive ripple effect. Your ripple effect comes through different kinds. And you also have a podcast. You have conversations. You are using these techniques of motivational interviewing and teaching other. That's our ripple effect. And just any one of us probably has pretty little influence to actually change the world through flipping a switch and having some. I don't have a billion followers on whatever social media channel, but we all need to show up doing the things that we can do and the way we can do them.
[01:16:50] Speaker B: I think a hundred percent. And I. And it's, you know, funny when you talk about, you know, just the. The ability of going for a walk to also solve some, you know, physical problems and just, you know, like, hey, this gets. Not only does it get ideas go, and it just gets your body going. I do think I'm such a healthier person because, you know, we all feel that way to the world sometimes, right. Of this problem is too big or the. Our country's problems are too big or whatever. And then you go for a bike ride and you get your heart rate up to 185 and you're like, all right.
All of a sudden, something is happening in my body where I'm able to now go back to those problems and feel better about them, feel like they're more manageable, feel like I can just take the step that I need to take. It is amazing to me how that is also just a very big truth. And so from a mental health perspective, I think for all of us, just the ability to be in this beautiful valley that we all live in. I mean, we're so lucky, right? So many people are living in and gray skies all winter and whatever. You're like, yeah, it might be a little chilly here and a little windy, but, like, I can still go outside and see the sun and, you know, do those things. So I think we're all so lucky here to just be a part of this place that allows us to have that kind of mental health respite.
[01:17:58] Speaker A: Absolutely. You have brought some different perspectives to this podcast. Thanks for talking with me. This has been great, man.
[01:18:05] Speaker B: I really appreciate the ability to have these conversations and I appreciate you for doing the work that you're doing here to build community and tell stories here. It's so important. So thank you so much.
[01:18:24] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the We Are Chaffey podcast. You can learn more about this episode and others in the show notes at we are chaffeepot.com and on Instagram at We Are Chafypot. I invite you to rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. I also welcome your telling others about the We Are Chaffey Podcast Help us to keep growing community and connection through conversation. The We Are Chaffey Podcast is supported by Chaffee County Public Health. Thank you to Andrea Carlstrom, Director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment, and to Lisa Martin, Community Advocacy Coordinator for the larger We Are Chaffey Storytelling initiative. Once again, I'm Adam Williams, host, producer and photographer for the We Are Chaffey Podcast. If you have comments or know someone in Chaffee County, Colorado who I should consider talking with on the podcast, you can email me@adam rchafypod.com till the next episode. As we say it, We Are Chaffey. Share stories, make changes.
