Episode 197 – Finding Confidence and Building Mental Fitness with Iuri Melo

spends a spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends spends This is Dr. Ossess. I'll leave it with another episode of the Weed of College Podcast. And when I created the podcast, I did so because I wanted to share stories. I thought it was important to share the stories of professionals out there because I wanted students to see that very few of us have a story that happens in a straight line. Their countless twists and turns and setbacks and challenges and how we respond to those challenges often dictate where we go and whether or not we're successful. And even challenging notions of success, what does it mean to be successful? And so one of the wonderful things I've enjoyed recently is folks that have reached out to me to talk about the resources that they've created for students. Because I think for a lot of us, right? I think if you work with students, if you work with young people, you see a need to provide guidance to provide support and certainly to provide information. And so I'm excited to have today's guests on. But as always, I want to allow my guest to introduce himself. So, here you go. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners and viewers out there. Man, I'm Hi, Jose. Thank you so much for the invitation. I am interested just like you this year where we will kind of end up and swerve in and out of. My name is Yuri Mello. I'm a married man. I'm a father of five. I've got one teenager left in the home and the other ones are kind of flying the coop. And I became a grandpa just this last year. So that was super stellar. Thank you, man. Yeah, thank you, man. But I've kind of been a licensed clinical social worker for the past 20 years. That's when I got my masters in and have spent a good chunk of that time really in private practice like as a psychotherapist. And in between those, I've kind of tried some different little businesses or even ways to kind of augment my practice a little bit. And about seven years ago, really as a result of seven suicides that happen at seven student suicides that happen here in our community. And Jose, I got to tell you, man, we live in just a beautiful, ideal, and kind of idealic little community, man. We're in Southern Utah in this little pocket of just beauty surrounded by the Grand Canyon Zion National Park, Bryce National Park. But seven years ago, man, yeah, we lost seven middle school and high school students here to suicide. And a good friend of mine who was a principal who I feel is a real innovator, real thinker reached out to me by then I had written a couple of books and had done some work at his school even and he reached out to me. He had lost two kids to suicide. In fact, two of my girls were going to his school at that time. But, and he just kind of felt like all that he really had at his disposal were tools that were a little bit more reactive, right? He, I remember him kind of describing himself, I feel like this kind of fire extinguisher on the wall, right? Kind of passively waiting for crisis to happen and then you kind of got to break the glass and right and try to react to that. And he wanted to do more. And those discussions in addition to other things that I then kind of ended up partnering up with my, with the other co-founder is what led us. It was kind of the genesis, right, for what school pulse became then. And now over the years, you know, as I've just met with other educators and administrators and superintendents and state departments and we've really tried to create kind of a systemic solution for schools. That's proactive, it's truly preventative and that's meant to kind of just provide students with the kind of mental fitness to really help them to just excel in whatever area that is that they choose to kind of pursue. That's a little bit about me. Gary, thank you for joining me today. You've been up. You know, and thank you for the work that you do with all of my guests. Now I always, I always ask if you had to identify a starting point for your own educational journey, what would that starting point be for you? Great. You know, I, so I grew up in Portugal, Jose and my parents divorced probably around 11 or 12 and then I had a, I was, I'm the youngest of three, so I had kind of an older brother, older sister. They came to America, right, and they were both going to school. I think at BYU, at that time and my sister married and honestly, I think my mom was wise enough to recognize that there was some opportunity there for me in Portugal. I mean, like they're obviously opportunities and people are successful. But I think my mom was just kind of able to recognize that there was not a lot for me there. It was not a lot going on for her and she suggested that I actually come and move in with my sister here. So I did. And I moved in with my sister who was going to BYU. She was married. We like lived in like married student housing with her and her husband. And I was fortunate enough to just, you know, make a couple of friends. I finished up high school. And then honestly, I mean, went to college in part because, I mean, that's what my older brother and other sister were doing. That was almost kind of like just a clear expectation of like, you know, this is what's going to happen. And so I went to college for a couple of years and then actually followed that up with kind of like a, like a religious service mission for a couple of years there as well. And then returned and went back to college and finished up my bachelor master's year. But there's really, I mean, I'll tell you mine. I feel like I'm a bit of, I'm a bit of a chameleon in a way. I'm kind of an adapter. I kind of just adapt. And interestingly enough, I started my associate's degree at Ricks College. He used to be called Ricks College. And now I think it's BYU Idaho. So it's a school in Idaho's lovely. And I was studying computer information systems, which interestingly enough at that time, that probably, probably doesn't resemble anything to what it is now. But that was something that my brother was kind of interested in. And I think you're about to see a pattern here. And I kind of did that and, and wasn't very successful. I'm sure I could have enjoyed that field a lot. But just wasn't very successful. Honestly, because I just was having a wonderful time in college, man. It was just fabulous to be amongst like young people. I honestly can't imagine just a most, a more exciting environment. And then kind of went and like I said, spent some time kind of doing this religious service mission, where I really was just engaging and interacting with hundreds and hundreds of people all the time. And that kind of became a little bit of a trajectory change for me, where I really just thought, man, I just really enjoyed people. Like I just like them. I like being with them. Like their craziness and scandal didn't scare me. I wasn't really like, I just wasn't very rigid with people. And so I enjoyed that. And at that point, my sister at BYU was studying to be a psychologist, a school psychologist. So I come my bachelor degree. I came back and enrolled back in school and sure enough pursued psychology. So I think maybe you can see the track there kind of going, my brother was doing this. I kind of tried it. My sister was doing this. I kind of tried that. And that one stuck. That one stuck. But people actually ask me all the time, you know, you're, you know, what led you to like pursue this like this, this helping profession. And honestly, it just is not that deep for me. I don't think it came as this like deep hunger. Like man, I just want to like serve the world. It was just kind of this fit. I kind of tried a couple of things. And psychology was a really wonderful fit. And it still is. Yeah. But I'll be honest. I can honestly look at like my friends' lives there, like medical professions or business perfect. And I just see so much enjoyment there. And I can look at that and go, man, that would be incredibly fun and fascinating to do. So even though I've kind of began down this road and have kind of stuck with it a little bit, where kind of mental health is, is where I live. A big portion of psychology is where I live, a large portion of my life. There's just so much out there that I think would just be incredibly enjoyable, like an exciting. So I think sometimes we become a little bit enamored with this idea of like the one thing, right? Like what is the one purpose of life, the one thing, and the reality is, man, there's just a multitude of even if we're psychologically speaking, right? There's so many purposes of life. And all of them can kind of align and mesh well with each other. But I think sometimes we just want the one. Like give me the top three, right? And I'm thinking, wow, there's probably more like top 10 or top 20. And so anyway, for me, it's been, I've assimilated, tried to adapt, tried out a few things and have landed upon something that for me kind of lit me up. Like there was a little bit of a spark there. And I fanned that thing and it turned out like a pretty good flame. I really enjoyed that. You know, I love your story because I think your story, I think, is so, I think represents a lot of the same story for a lot of young people, right? They're looking for that one thing. And a lot of the students that I worked with were our first generation students. So somebody, nobody before them and their families typically have gone to college. So like you, maybe they latch on to what they've been exposed to, what they hear about or what mom and dad see is like that's a sure pathway to maybe some financial freedom or some financial stability, right? Maybe there is a family member that like the older brothers sister that they're pursuing that. So I'm going to do that. But I think, I think like you, and I can definitely relate to you because I'm the type, I'm the same type. It took me a while to figure out what I was going to study. And then even then, I could see what people were doing. And still today, I see folks in different sectors and I'm like, Oh, that looks like a lot of fun. I could do that. And I think I'd enjoy that. Or this is, this is fun. And so I think like you where you talk about the relationship to the work you're doing now, is I found my way here and that's the space that I operate. But then I think, I think depending on when you ask me, I do a lot of different things just to keep, because I, so many things interest me and keep me engaged and integrated. So so thank you. Thank you for walking me that. You're welcome. Thank you for for sharing that with those experiences because I think those are, I think helping people see that that you're right. There's probably definitely not the one. And it's probably more like anywhere from a handful, from five to 10, they were like, well, we could really sort of throw ourselves into. But you were, you found yourself into this space. Tell us about what it was. And you know, you said you, you, you like people. You liked being around people. But was there anything that where, because as you said, you, you, you see a lot of different things and you find them interesting, you could see yourself doing a lot of these things. But to continue down this path and to continue to evolve and grow within this field, what is it that has kept you involved in this field? Yeah, I, I, I've actually had this conversation with a lot of other professionals who kind of do a little bit of what I do. In fact, I'll tell you this brief story. I had a good friend of mine that I, that actually kind of went and did master school with. And you know, as I was finishing up my school year, I was kind of doing my internship. And I happened to find kind of a local, a local individual that was doing private practice and, and kind of did my internship there. And then my work just kind of grew from that. And I kind of stayed in that place. And I just liked that I liked that there was a little bit of a double-edged sort of it. There was a lot of freedom in private practice. But of course, you know, once you put your name on a door and you are like the business, that is, it's a mind-shifting. There is a little bit of pressure and stress that's associated with that. And it's probably good stress to be honest. Like it's, it's probably a good push. But I was talking to a friend. I would say maybe, maybe seven or eight years ago, who was working. He kind of went the same way. He got the same degree that I did. But he kind of went a little bit more towards, he was working at, at kind of a mental health agency, like a, like a state mental health, mental health agency. But there was just a lot of, how should I describe them? There was a lot of paperwork and requirement and audits. And so they were kind of Medicaid, Medicare-type facility, providing wonderful work. And I remember him having this discussion. He called me and said, hey, Yuri, do you think I would, do you think if I came out into private practice, like into the community, do you think I could be successful? And I said, well, of course. You know, when I was just saying, like, hey, let's do lunch. Like, let me help you. Let me show you kind of what I've done over the years. But this institution that he had kind of associated himself with in his words had literally kind of just sucked the life out of him a little bit. And so I want to say that even within our profession, right, I feel incredibly fortunate and blessed and I kind of went, I kind of lucked out, really. But I kind of began this work with people that was really, like, there was just a ton of freedom in it. Like, if I was interested in something, like, I would just go learn it and apply it. And, you know, and if I needed to, like, write clinical notes, like, I would write only things down that I felt were clinically significant as I met with these people. And I didn't have to go through all of these audits and I didn't have to, you know, put all of this information and spend hours doing that. And to this individual's credit, right, he's like, man, you're, yeah, there's no, I love meeting with people that's so awesome. Now, all of this other stuff, man, it's just like graining me. And so he wanted to kind of exit that system, right, that was still within our profession, right. That just honestly made life a little bit miserable for him. And in a way, he was doing a lot of work that didn't, that was just not meaningful. It was not significant. Loved the people, loved that work. But man, this other, like, administrative stuff that he had to deal with was just killing him a little bit. And so, anyways, long story short, right, I was kind of helping him to kind of make a transition into the, into the private world and kind of away from this. I would say perhaps a little bit more challenging work. And even as I work with schools now, I mean, and I have two daughters who've graduated school now. One is just about to start as kind of a special educator. And then the other one graduated was also looking to do some elementary education. But I know as I've met with lots of students, I'm sorry, with a lot of teachers. And I feel like that complaint is very similar. Like, they just want to teach, they want to spend time with the students. But they're just encumbered and shackled to just administrative stuff. That I don't know if it's that effective. And I get the whole idea, yes, it's got to be evidence based. We've got to track everything. We've got to have data. We've got to make sure that we show the outcomes and all of this. And I understand of that. I just think that we become a little bit obsessed with maybe the wrong thing I wonder. And I'm speaking totally ignorant here, ignorantly here because I have not been an administrator. I have not been an educator. I've indirectly been involved with education off for the past eight years. But I can't, I really can't speak. I can't walk the walk. I can't speak the lingo because I haven't been there. I've just happened to have met with so many school counselors, administrators and teachers. And I hear this similar vein that's running through where it's the teaching profession has become less appealing. And I think, man, I think we ought to listen. I think we ought to listen to what these people have to say because I don't, yes, kids are struggling. There's behavior issues. The mental health crisis. There's all of these things that we're all aware of. But I actually don't think that that's the problem. I think the problem is we're just, we're making it hard for these teachers to do their job. Yeah. So anyways, that's probably a little too opinionated, but just not thoughts. No, no, I think that's, it is always welcome. I think folks, they're opinions. My guess opinions are always welcome. But I think to your point, you know, I was in full time in higher ed for 20 years. My last years, I had a position where I was an administrator and faculty member. And so I think from my perspective, I get, I get there was, there was a lot of administrative, there were a lot of administrative things or responsibilities that I had that made it difficult for me to teach. And even as a faculty member, you know, there were administrative things that we had to do, you know, again, accountability measures that I think too often did not necessarily detract it from our teaching, but it, I think sometimes made it difficult to stay focused on what our job really was about or is about. And I think at the end of the day, we're teachers and building those relationships and addressing student need and teaching and not something that I felt like there was too, the focus, I think a lot of times it was on that administrative side. I think there is a place right for both for that administrative part, but I think sometimes the focus becomes solely on that that we lose sight of, well, you know, my title is a teacher and I want to teach and I want to be able to do that well and give them myself to my students and not spend so much time on that administrative side. So, but I think and we can see that in a lot of different fields, for sure, where folks are like, but I'm supposed to be doing this, but this is really where all of the emphasis is. And so, and I appreciate the conversation because I, you know, I live in a world where, or I operate in a world where I still teach part time and I still talk to students and kind of make them aware of sort of all of these different aspects of work life. And I think too often and we can, we can get into this because I'm sure this is something that you see where a lot of the young people that I work with are so enamored by a salary, but don't understand what are, what are all of those expectations that are tied to that salary. And I may be making a great salary, but I may hate my job. And I might not find any satisfy right? Because to see you and to hear you, here you speak glowingly about the work that you're doing and the amount of, you know, I think enthusiasm and joy that you get from it, right? Whereas maybe you, again, you meet folks who maybe don't find as much joy or like you said, that the joy has been taken out of them because of other responsibilities and expectations. So no, I think it's timely. I think having this conversation is perfect. And yeah, we can definitely go down this road, especially as we begin to think about and talk about the work that you're doing now at school pulse. Yeah. I will have another little piece there too. As you ask me the question, it's actually a really wonderful question. But I honestly have not thought about a great deal, which is why I stayed in that field. And number one, really because I guess in a way, I really do feel fortunate because I really do enjoy meeting people and kind of getting into the nitty-gritty of their lives a little bit. It honestly is very exciting. It's very exciting. The other part that I would say is obviously there is a financial compensation side that was sufficient, right? It was sufficient. It was good for me and my family. It's still as good for me and my family. And then another piece I would say, and this is something that once again, private practice really allowed me to do, is I feel like there was a lot of growth and evolution and freedom to expand in my job. And I feel like that has kept my life feeling pretty fresh, right? So all the way from just kind of diving deep into psychology. So I think for me, not just kind of doing my continuing education hours, which is fine. But I think really looking at whether it's cognitive behavioral strategies or Eastern philosophical, Eastern philosophy strategies that I think have kind of become a big as well, all the way to positive psychology, to growth mindset, to dialectical behavioral theories. When you dive in and I feel like you nurture this thing that you're investing in, I think we find joy. And in fact, I always kind of jokingly say that when our life is flowing like a river, it's wonderful. And when we're stale like a puddle, it's we're not super happy because I feel like we're just these beings who are made to evolve and grow physically, emotionally, spiritually, et cetera. And when we're doing that, we're absolutely happier and when we're not, right? And sometimes we just enter some of those kind of plateaus and I feel like that's fairly normal. But whenever I can find a way to just kind of keep slowly progressing, I just find that I'm happier, right? And not just in my personal life or my family life, but I would definitely say professionally as well. So that's one of the things that has kept me all the way from just digging deep into just an incredible amount of information that's out there about psychology and motivational strategies all the way to, like for example, for me, adding this piece to my therapeutic practice, which was adventure-based therapy. So I live in St. George, Utah and a lot of people don't even realize, but it's like a little rock climbing mecca here. I mean, there's just like world-class climbing everywhere within just a few minutes of town. And it's quick. You don't have to climb a mountain to go rock climbing or boldering or like it's just really accessible. And so I started to take, you know, really started to take kind of young adults, like teenagers, with kind of an foster care agency and just thought to myself, this is just awesome. Like it's so good. And so my practice, I've kind of developed this adventure-based therapy is kind of what I call it, right? We're even during like a one-hour session. I mean, we'll rock climb, we'll boulder, we'll repel. We can do canyoning adventures. And in part, it's because I just happen to live in this place that has that just everywhere, right? But that's been another thing once again, right? That's kept my work, right? Not just, you know, face-to-face need-and-e in the office, but man, like when we're up at the rock, like it's like magic there, it's just brilliant. And so, anyways, I would say that that's an important piece to answer your question of what's kept you there. And I would say a lot of investment has kept me here. I could really have nurtured that ground. Well, it also sounds like, you know, on Mayan, it sounds like, like you're the type of person you find yourself in this space, but also how do I continue to evolve? And how do I continue to build on my relationship with this work that I'm doing? Because I think for a lot of people, a lot of, you know, I remember a conversation out with a student once who was majoring in education. And one day I come into class and he says, sir, I'm going to be a teacher. And is that it? Is that all I'm going to do? And I think you could ask that question of almost any career, but for those of us who find meaning and success, we, I think we tend to invest in ourselves in that space. We continuously learn. We continue to grow. We continue to progress. And so for you, it sounds like you've absolutely done that in this space, in the mental health space. And, you know, I, I don't know that we have time for this, but, but man, the, the taking young people out, you know, because I've thought about it. And the, the, yeah, taking young people out, you know, in an adventure therapy sounds just so exciting, exhilarating. Wow, I'd, you know, I'd, I'd love to learn more about that. But I think, you know, just, you know, what you've shared is you can see that you've stayed in the space, but you continue to grow. And you continue to see how can I make my practice better? And how can I provide more services or really, you know, push maybe some of my clients and create these different experiences to get it, to, to address some of their mental health issues? What is it that, and you talked about this, I think at the beginning with the unfortunate, you know, loss of life, right, for the young people in this community. And, and is, is that, was that what led you to school posts? Yeah, that, and this conversation, right, that I kind of began to have with this principle. We would meet early in the morning, and honestly, kind of just brainstorm like, what, what could we do, right? Like, what, what can we do to address this in a proactive way? And then later on, I brought this to the other co-founder of school polls, Fred Staley, who's a software engineer, who's really interested in building technology for good. And as I kind of talked about, like, hey, we, we got to do something with schools, right? And we kind of just built our, I guess our, our areas of interest together, right? Where he kind of was, he came in with the software expertise, and I came in with, I was kind of the psychology behind the project. He was the technology behind the project. And we kind of married those. And then we, we began to create school posts. And initially, part of our idea was, how can we, what would be the best way that we could proactively, proactively engage students? And we decided that text would be the easiest way. And so we actually created, I mean, the very beginning of our service was, we would proactively text students once a week, right? With just a little questionnaire. And then they would just respond with the number. And I had created these little can responses. I mean, that's all that it was. And now, I mean, we've evolved to, we proactively text students who opt in. And, and you can see this, I mean, if you're watching this, you can see this little QR code. We just put these throughout the school. And kids just walk up, they just scan that. There's no, it's not an app. They don't have to download anything. There's no user names, no passwords. It just opens up to their text. And it just basically would, like, hey, like welcome to school posts. It's super easy. And from that moment on, we text them every Tuesday. We've created now the most comprehensive mental health resource for teens in the world. And I know that that can sound like really, really like in the world. Please say to say, right? But it really is. Like there is nothing out there that is more robust or complete than our, than our, the list of resources that we've created for teens. And they receive that every Tuesday, these little student videos, these activities that are awesome. And then on Friday, we provide a mixture of some of our questionnaires plus other inspirational content. And now you don't just get back these little canned responses anytime that these students text back and they do by the thousands. We have a live team of individuals, not artificial intelligence, live individuals that provide support all year long through the summer, through the holidays. And it's just one of our ways to really come to the rescue of schools who say, we're totally overwhelmed. We can't match the need that's being, you know, that students are, whether it's mental health or behavioral needs or whatever it is or, or everybody's trying to like figure out how do we, you know, prevent student suicide? How do we prevent some of this behavior? How do we prevent student apathy? And we're proactively finding a way to do that via text, which is that was kind of where we started. That was the baby. And now we've built these other kind of a suite of tools as we've spoken to schools, right? And we've tried to identify like, what's the problem? Like what are you looking to solve? What do you need additional resources in? And as we listen, right, we've now created this really wonderful framework, right? So we, I always tell schools, we're an MTSS solution or a multi-tier system or framework of supports where we try to reach all the students, small groups of students who maybe are looking for a little bit of support and then all the way to the individual, right? Which is kind of our text-based support. And so we've really just created a very unbelievably, ridiculously affordable and powerful solution for schools and so. But you're right. Like in speaking of professionally, that, right, I'm definitely still, I'm, I'm, I'm still within my field. I think that there's definitely been a reinvention for me. As I've, you know, pretty much have been managing this business. And that's been very interesting. So I'm definitely, I mean, I'm still doing therapy kind of part-time, but, but this is, yeah, this is a, a whole different animal. Like I'm not riding a horse anymore. This is like something else. Like, yeah. I'm just like a hybrid, right, an authorist, elephant, and I'm just like, whoa, what, yeah. But it's been super cool. But also we incredibly challenging. I have to say so. Well, and, and thank you for that explanation. You've been for, for that description, you're, because to that student that, that asked, am I just going to be a teacher, right? So a, a psychology student then goes and gets, it, it goes into counseling and, and becomes a licensed professional counselor or even beyond that. Am I just going to be a therapist or am I just going to be a counselor? Well, I mean, here we are. Well, not if you continue to grow, right? And not if you continue to push the envelope into ask, well, how can I do more or how can I maybe a, a provide service to, to more people or maybe there is this great, right? There, I think in every industry right, there's a, there are countless questions. Oh, yeah. That how can I solve, right? Or, or problems, how can I solve this problem? And so, we'll, congratulations to you and, and for continuing to push and for continuing to ask those questions and to identify problems and then provide solutions for them. You're in my next question is how many, how many students, do you know how many students are using school posts? Yeah. I mean, we've, over the past seven years, I mean, we, we probably have over a hundred thousand users with like thousands of pretty critical interventions over the years. And, you know, all the way from, you know, students who report to a side of ideation, the kids who are self-harming or who report physical or sexual abuse or, you know, who are reporting shootings at their school or even homicidal ideation. The stuff we've done on our text-based platform, it's, it's like Nobel Prize winning stuff. It's seriously amazing. And it's, and it's honestly because kids are just stellar, like they're just amazing. And, and that's just a portion of what we do. Like I said, the texting, it's kind of where we started and now it's certainly grown into, you know, our email campaigns, our school based resources, our restorative practice activities that we provide for administrators and school social workers and saying, so it's, we've definitely grown. And we continue to grow. We actually just, I mean, the state of Idaho is fabulous. I think they've identified a huge need. Really, here kind of in a mountain west, there's just this, we just consistently rate a little bit higher in student suicides than other places. So all the way from Wyoming, Montana, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, it just is. And so I think a lot of these schools are definitely interested in, and how do we prevent this, right? Because the fallout, right, of, you know, a student taking their life or a school shoot, I mean, those things are just dramatic, right? And they can dramatically impact the culture and the atmosphere in the school and ultimately of students do, right? Which is what schools are there for, right? How do we provide wonderful education and help these students to succeed academically? We just happen to answer that question, right, from the psychology side, right? We want to come in and provide students with an extraordinary mindset that we know will yield an extraordinary life, right? And I know that that's simplistic, but the research is actually fabulous, right? All the way from, you know, positive psychology strategies, obviously, to more like a growth mindset type strategies, and they just work. Like when students think better, they do better, they perform better. When they're happier, they are more successful. And that's the kind of Copernican revolution. I think that we try to bring to schools, right? It's not that, you know, happiness revolves around success, but it's the other way around, right? We're happier. We're just more patient. We're just, we just last longer. We perform better, especially in stressful situations, instead of kind of just exiting out. So, that's what we try to do is we just, once again, not passively waiting for crisis, proactively, directly engaging students with content that is not cringy, that is good, that's relevant to them. And that's where we live. And we love it. And for me, right? I love it. The part that I love the very most is the content creation part for me. Like, I love that. So, I do, I do all of these videos. I'll share the links with you that you can share with your listeners, but all of our videos, everything that we do, I just get to develop that. I get to participate in that. And that's, I think, my favorite part. The running of the business is more difficult for me. But that's the reinvention part. Right? That I'm, you know, it's, you know, what do you do in a startup, right? Well, you do whatever it takes is what you do. And that involves all the way from accounting to payroll to all of these other things. So it's been a, I know for sure it's been a good ride. It is a good ride. But also a little spooky. It's a little scary sometimes. Oh, yeah. No, as a, as a founder myself and as a small business owner, I know exactly what you looked like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that reinvention, that reinvention is tricky, but it's exciting and scary at the same time. So I absolutely hear you. If, if there are school leaders out there that are watching this, listening to this, and they want to get into, they want to use school posts and their schools to provide it. How would they do that? Yeah, they can just reach out to me. I mean, you can go to the, our website at schoolposts.org. You can also just email me directly at Yuri. And my name is kind of spelled weird. It's I U R I at schoolpost.org. And you can just reach out to me and let's, let's talk like we got to, we got to bring this goodness like that's, let's, I think sometimes once again, we're, we're, we get a little bit enamored. I will, I'll use that word again today with, with risk factors, right? And I, and identifying, you know, the signs of suicide. And I feel what I, what do we try to bring to school as a little bit of a shift, a little bit of a paradigm shift from, can we shift from the medical model of treatment, right? Where we're waiting for things to break and then we go to the hospital or we're just trying to identify risk instead of, can we instead focus on building the, the, the protective factors, the things that we know could insulate our children, right? From suicide, and I say that with the understanding, right, that we're not going to be able to stop everything or we can't stop suicide, we can't fully stop, you know, somebody, you know, going into a major depressive episode or dealing with anxiety, like, those things are fairly regular in life, we have to deal with them. But the evidence is actually fabulous, right, that when we have a foundational and, and cognitive base, that's reasonable, like, that's good, right? Where it is hopeful, it's optimistic that those episodes are severely diminished and that it protects us against post-traumatic stress, it protects us against suicide, it protects us against those things. And that's really what we want to bring to schools is, is actually less of a focus on mental illness and more of a focus on mental fitness or mental health or mental wellness. And I think we just, we just have a tendency to just risk, risk suicide intervention, suicide intervention versus like through prevention, proactive education, let's build the protective factors and that's what we want to build the schools. Excellent, excellent. Yuri, thank you for your time today before, before I let you go. I always, I always ask all of my guests to leave us with one last piece of advice. And so I don't know who you want to, who this advice is for, but if you could leave us with one last piece of advice, what would that be? I would, absolutely, I would love that. And I think I'll direct my comments, especially because I love the fact that you're helping people go into school, right? I've got kids doing that right now. I've got a couple that are just kind of on, on that they're just exiting that. I absolutely remember my, my university in college years and I realized that that's not always the solution for everybody. But what I would say to that crowd is, man, go, go into this world with confidence, like, go with confidence. I think so many times I feel like people are just like reaching fear, actually, like fear and anxiety and, and what I would say to you is just go with confidence, like, go with confidence that your mind and body can learn absolutely anything. Like we are the most sophisticated pieces of machinery in the universe, right? The way our mind and our body works, like I always tell people, like, your mind and body will learn to do anything you consistently asked them to do, because that's who we are. Like, it's, and I think we're so quick to just cut ourselves off and say, well, I'm just not this or that's not my thing or I'm to this or not enough of this or not athletic enough or to tall too short to this, do that or the other. And we're just so unbelievably limiting in the way that we describe ourselves and other people. And honestly, it's untrue. Like, it's just not true. And so I would say go into this world confidently, even maybe even with the idea that you could absolutely learn to enjoy and love of a huge variety of things, right? Just like so many things. And sometimes it takes time, right? I mean, not everything. You don't just learn how to play Clare to Loon or something in a weekend. Like, that's like a 10 year project, right? You don't just become a fabulous climber or runner. Like it just takes time. And so I would say go into this world with confidence. If you need help, ask for help for heaven's sake. Like, that's reasonable. And then just trust the process. There's a process to everything. Trust that process and continue on. Like, that's what I would say. Don't let fear be the driver. You got to step into the driver's seat, fear in the back seat. That's fine. He's going to, he's going to talk, but you got to be the one driving the decisions. Let your courage make the decisions not fear. That's what I would tell him. Well said. We got love the advice, you're in. And again, thank you for your time today. Thank you for your story. And thank you for the very important work that you were doing with school pulse. I'm glad this resource exists. And I hope others reach out to you after listening to you watching the podcast. And it gets into the hands of more young people because I think I think they need that. They need the tools to be able to manage and address a lot of these things. So you really thank you again. Absolutely. I want to pleasure, man. I absolutely loved every second. This concludes another episode, The Way to College Podcast. Thank you to my guests. Thank you to our listeners and viewers out there. Please remember to subscribe, great share, all of that good stuff. And give me the favorite and share the podcast with one other person. I appreciate it. Thanks and we'll see you again soon. Bye-bye.