THROWBACK THURSDAY: Analyzed with Certified Behavior Analyst Christian Sawyer

Listen up, PBN family. If you want a viable alternate emergency communications method, every Sunday, 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, we will be conducting a radio check with the community. You will need a POC-capable radio from Skycom PTT. These radios will come equipped with the Preppers National Radio Network talk group. Our radio checks will be in said talk group. Come 9 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, the Intrepid Commander will lead off with a radio check. Bring yourself. Bring your Skycom PTT radio. Bring a dad joke. And join the Prepper Broadcasting Network Emergency Comms Group. Visit Skycomptt.com to get your radio. And look for the PBN button on the left under Shop so we get credit. See you Sunday night. Good evening, folks. James Walton with the I Am Liberty Show. File in. Come up underneath the tent tonight for another great show, another great episode of I Am Liberty. Looks like we're filing into the chat room a little slower than usual. I'm not sure what that's about. Is it a busy week? What's the deal here? People out buying Easter baskets or something? I'm not sure. Tonight we're going to carry on. Listen, let me give you the back story. We dyed eggs tonight. We had furniture delivered to the Casa de Liberty. I had about an hour and a half with the father-in-law, which was a lot of fun. I always like hanging out with my father-in-law, one of those lucky guys who has a cool pop-in law. And it's been a nonstop day all day. I'm working double time to try and get some time off. So I wanted to tell you, the show's going to be great. We've got an incredible guest with us, but on a personal level, I had about 15 minutes to get in the right state of mind to do the show tonight. About 15 minutes, and then I had to battle some blog talk issues also. I'm convinced that there are these cameras all around the world. Everybody who uses blog talk radio, I think they install a camera in the corner of where you record, and I think that they watch you and they laugh. It's the only thing I can figure out. because they hit you with some stuff that you can't even understand. But we're here. All right? We're rising to the proper altitude, and before long, you'll be able to put your Wi-Fi on, and you can enjoy the flight. We've got an extended flight, two hours. This is the third installment of the two-hour I Am Liberty show, and it feels so good. I mean, it feels like it should have been this way forever. Now here we go. Now we're filing in. Now the crew is coming in. Al's here. Jay Fergie's here. ZTA's here. The crew is filing in for their weekly dose. We've got a big one tonight. Alright, we've got a big one. We've got an old friend who I realize now in hindsight I probably should have had at least one phone call with before doing this show just to catch up. Just to catch up in general. So we may do a little catching up on air. Okay? And that's fine. Right? We may do a little catching up. Oh, Dane from the gunmetal armory in the building, ladies and gentlemen. Watch your step. So for those of you out there listening, just listening, PrepperBroadcasting.com is the website. You can go there and join the live chat room. PrepperBroadcasting.com. There's a whole other world in the live chat room. Right now it's all about hellos and how you beens and all that type of thing. So we're going to continue down this path tonight of what I am really trying to do in creating sort of a super-sized podcast or a supercast. Not with really any agenda whatsoever, other than just really trying to explore the whole picture of of this school shooting, mass shooting situation that we're dealing with here in America. You know, the whole purpose of this and this collection of podcasts that we're doing, which is probably going to... I mean, we're probably going to reach the peak at about six to eight hours worth of content. And hopefully, we at least scratch the surface on what this is all about. Now, This exploratory sort of version of the show is the direction that we're going, and I want everybody to understand that. These big sort of supercasts is really what I want to do. It's the content I want to put out. I spent a long time creating podcasts that were 30 minutes long. When I first started, they were about an hour long. My next phase in this podcasting game, I think, is to put out collective shows That may be six hours long, you know, four or three, two hour shows in order to really, I mean, we have an opportunity here, right? All of life is about recognizing opportunity, in my opinion, and we have an opportunity here to do what television networks and radio hosts cannot do. We have an opportunity here, sort of like Dan Carlin, right, in a way that we can take six hours to really recognize. Hammer a topic from every angle that we can. That's what we have the ability to do here. So I think that's the way we go. We're going to do it. We're going to do these longer exploratory podcasts. I think we could do a six-hour bug-out podcast. I'm going to be honest with you. I think there's so much information in something like The Bugout that we could do a six-hour podcast on just the whole process start to finish. And there's other topics to explore as well. And what I really want to get to, and I don't want to make this a big, long monologue, but what's wrong, G-Man? Why am I killing you? I'm not getting the joke. Did I do something? What'd I do? What I'd really like to do is to start to get topics from you, the listening audience. You know, so you pick this topic and we just... We just absolutely molest it, for lack of a better word. Right? We go into all its secret parts. We go into all its parts and open it up and find out everything we can find out about. And I'm excited about that, guys. And I appreciate it. I appreciate you hanging around for this change and I appreciate you being here for so many years... What can I say? Guys have changed my life in the biggest way possible. So, wow, look at the calls. Cool. We got a lot of callers in today. Callers in, go to the chat room. I see Jay Ferg's up there. Cool. All right. So here's the deal. Tonight, we have on a good friend, Christian Sawyer, board-certified behavior analyst. Again, This is an unbiased look at a problem, right? We're not here to sell one way or another way. There's no skin in that game for me. I'm not a politician, right? I'm not trying to push anything crazy. But we are here to sort of sit down and really look at this thing. And it deserves looking at it. It deserves looking at it in a way that they can't do on Fox News, in a way that they can't do in a 15-minute segment, or in a way that Someone like a Rush Limbaugh can't do because he's like a jackhammer, you know what I mean? And I want to be more like a scalpel and bring the right people on who can help me be that scalpel. You know, there's a level of this problem that is not gun or drug related. Many people are pointing towards lack of morality, lack of religion. I just really want to look at human behavior and, you know, how it leads to a person leaving their home with guns or bombs or knives. And then they're outside of a school door. And we all know what happens after that. So, without further ado, let's get our guest on tonight. And let's have ourselves a conversation. And whichever way it takes us is the way that it takes us. So. Christian Sawyer, ladies and gentlemen. Are you with me, sir? I am. How are you doing? I'm good, man. I'm really good. How about yourself? I'm doing good. Really good. I do really appreciate you doing this for me tonight. I don't know if this has any benefits for you whatsoever. I don't know if you get any kind of any kind of thrill out of doing this sort of thing or not so I really do appreciate you bringing your expertise onto the I Am Liberty show it's a big deal. It's my pleasure man I listened to the podcast last week and I'm actually pretty excited to get into it because I think you touched on a lot of things I want to talk. About awesome are you are you able to talk closer into the phone you sounded a little bit Is it a little muffled? A little bit, yeah. I've got a cell phone, so this is a little bit, this is all I can do. I'm going to try and get near, I guess I need to find a better room. The data here is far away. It's kind of far away-ish. All right. Let me see if I can find a better spot for this then. Okay. I'm talking right into it. No problem. I mean, I don't think it's terrible. It's not terrible or anything. I was just looking to see. We usually do about five, ten minutes prior to the show, but I couldn't get signed up as the host, and it was, It was a mess, but anyway. So, not to get too personal, but how was life, man? I mean, how are things? Things are good. I mean, life's gotten more complicated, but work's gotten busier, but I enjoy what I do, and I enjoy talking about it, so it's been fun. Yeah, I only get to see snippets of it, but you're always smiling in the snippets, so that's usually a good sign. That's good. Can't complain. Can't complain. I'm not going to mention anything about where you live or anything like that, but I know that area very well. I used to go fly fishing there with my dad. It's an awesome place, man. It really is. Yeah, it's beautiful up there. Yeah, I always loved it. I always loved it. We would go up there. We only would go up there a couple times a year, you know, because we never had good cars. And that was kind of a hike from Markasook. But we'd get up there, we'd drive through the battlefield, and Yeah, it was, what's it, the French Creek, yeah. Yep. We used to fish the French Creek there. But good stuff, man. Yeah. It's good to have you on. It's good to hear from you, really. Yeah, my pleasure. It's good catching up. It's great when you have friends who are doing good. You know that? I totally agree. I'm sure you see it more than anybody else, or more than most people, but. You know, you have, I don't really have many friends, period. But when your friends are doing well, it's such a better life. There's nothing worse than having that guy who can't get off the runway. You know what I mean? And it's like, oh. Yeah, it's true. I mean, you want to see the people you care about succeed. That's one of the greatest joys in life, right? No, most definitely. Oh, you know what, Chris? To put aside any issues on audio, I think my volume was down a little too low. That might have been my fault. Okay. Yeah. I think we're much better now. Yeah. We're good to go. All right. So yeah, this whole thing came to be, I explained it to you just briefly, but this whole thing came to be just out of wanting to sort of explore this topic a little more with a little more detail than I think most people are doing in the media or in blog world or in article writing. And, uh, Obviously, what you do plays right into it as far as I'm concerned and as far as being the right person to sort of dig into this thing. I feel like I have a pretty good grip on what it is you do, but I would like for you to just sort of give a sort of a briefing on what it is that you do and what being a behavior analyst is all about. Sure. So what behavior analysts do is it's a type of therapy. It's a type of behavioral therapy, which is very close to most psychological ones. It's focused on individual behavior and patterns of their behavior. So whereas some therapies focus on, like, sitting on the couch and talking to a problem, behavior analysts are more focusing on what's actually happening in someone's life. What are the actual patterns going on there? So we can see. we can sort of get our hands on what is actually going on as opposed to what we wish is going on or what we think is going on. Does that make sense? No, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. I think what's cool about that, I'll tell you what is most cool about it, what made me think of you right off the bat. One of the things that I'm into in life right now, sort of in the peripheral, and it's not a project or anything, but it's just, there's something to be said, I think it's because we have so many people, we have so many educated people in the world, that there's something to be said about, like, just finding the expert and plugging them in, you know, I mentioned at the beginning of the show that I was talking to my father-in-law about gardening, and he's become something of, like, a gardening, well, an expert, you know, and when you have that level of expertise, and you plug that into a certain issue, it's I don't know. It's just there's something more there. You know what I mean? So that's why this idea came to be. Now, I just want to figure out how to broach this thing the right way. It is tough. It's a tough topic. No, it is. And that's why I'm taking the time that I'm taking with it, Chris, because all the time we see the thing happen. One of the things I've explained on the show a lot is that we have this big emotional response, and I think that's fine. I think that's perfect. I think that there's a certain level of humanity that you can't deny. You wake up and you see that a bunch of kids have been shot and killed or a bunch of people have been shot and killed, and it's horrible. And that emotional response, I think, is warranted. But once that wears off, it really is a big undertaking when you sit down and think like, okay, can we do anything about this? What can we do about this? Even more important than those two questions, where do we even start with something like this? When I get wrapped up in all that, you really get to this idea that, man, this is a huge thing. This is a huge topic that really needs to be opened up and explored. I'd love to know from a personal level, sort of, what are the initial things that you feel when you see these stories from, from, from a mind that's been crafted in the way that your mind has been crafted? You know, what is your initial response when you see these and what is your, you know, your later, your latter response? Oh, I mean, as, as a human being, the first reaction is always shock and then pain and then horror. I mean, all the initial reactions then have that first reaction. Um, but I think taking a step back, like you said, There are things that we can't... I mean, no one really knows the entire idea of what's going on. We see certain types of kids do certain types of things in certain types of directions, but it's not always a recipe that we can mail down and say, oh, this happened. This kid is going to do A, B, and C. It just doesn't happen that way. There are different tolerances people have or different abilities to cope that people have that we can't really mail down to these without getting to know them. So I think that's one direction to start in. In my personal practice, I deal with a lot of clients that have issues with aggression. So these are sometimes teenagers who have issues with mis-bite. They may not so much be aggressive on that scale, but interpersonal things, they'll start to engage in mis-bite, things like that. And a common thing for that, we're looking at breaking that down, a common thing we see is usually aggression comes up when communication fails. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. No, totally. That's a massive line. That's one I should write down right now. That makes a ton of sense. I mean, when you, you know, one of the things that I try not to do is like, well, but then again, I don't want to say that I try not to do it, but I mean, there's something to be said about bullying playing a role in this. And when you bring up a statement like that, it kind of, it kind of reinforces that idea, right? The idea that these people in some way, and of course, they have to be labeled as monsters because of what they've done and the path that they've wound up on. But when you bring up a statement like that, right? Aggression comes when communication fails. The first thing that comes to mind is, you know, the average outcast high school experience, right? Someone help me, please. I don't want to be in this place. I got to go in here and I get picked on every day and That's a powerful line, right? It is. I mean, what you're saying right there is, I mean, what's interesting is that you brought up a very good point right there. So you're seeing someone, but I mean, I can't assume that every mass shooting or every shooter is a, is a bully person. We can't jump to that conclusion, but we can see a lot from that sort of lead up of, so you often see people who have a history of being, um, targeted in schools, so they feel socially neglected, maybe they're socially awkward, things like that. That's a common theme, but not like a total one. But on the same line, it does seem to come to a situation where if they have no way to engage with their peers in a way that's functional or easy for them, in a way that they can actually feel like a part of a group as opposed to seeing them as the others, that might be somewhere that we can start looking in this direction. So I can't tell you for sure, but I see that being a common trend in standard aggression in schools. So when there is that breakdown of you can't talk your way through it, maybe the softening is happening, but it's not working. It's not done the right way. Maybe the social skills aren't there to say what you want to say. You have to go towards something else to get that same reaction. Does that make sense? Yeah, sure. No, definitely. Definitely. It brings into question the idea of what we all would be without friends, right? Because, I mean, I knew you growing up, you knew me growing up, and a lot of dealing with, and this is, this is, you know, a high school experience that wasn't really that bad, but a lot of dealing with high school, I think for most people comes down to friends. You know, when do I get time to go see my buddies and curse and scream and do things that are illegal and talk about how God forsakingly stressful this thing is. And when you start to talk about, you know, that sort of, There's no one listening. There's no one to talk to. Yeah. Right. I can see the path coming together, you know? Yeah. And I think... And this isn't true for all individuals. I mean, there's a lot of kids out there who are on the outside but never actually act on it. Sure. Yeah. We still can't understate how difficult it is. I mean, every teenager has been through this. There's always a moment in a teenager's life where they don't feel like they're fully accepted. And that's painful for everyone. Some people adapt. Some people cope very well. They figure it out. They make new friends. Or they fix things with their current friends. Or they start a new hobby. There's different ways to adapt and cope. But when you find an individual who does not have those coping skills, the ability to adapt, you might see some of those In the field, we call them maladaptive behaviors. They're behaviors that are reactive, they lash out, but they're not going to help long-term. Like hitting someone, for example, in the moment, they're going to let anger out. But down the line, there's consequences of that that don't help. So, I mean, from a therapeutic standpoint, those are the ones you'd want to target. If you saw a kid who had a history of violence or aggression, you'd want to target those to see where is the communication breaking down? Where are their social skills breaking down? Right? So are those coping mechanisms something that maybe deserves some time from, you know, because what you're talking about, I think, is something that can be valuable to anybody, especially a teenager. You know, those coping mechanisms, you hit it right on the head. Some of us figure out how to do it. Some of us don't. And even the vast majority of people who don't, they just, make it through anyway you know it's we're talking about i mean that's the tough thing about this thing chris is we're talking about the minority of minorities right you know. So these are the margins we're the people that are on the very end. Yeah i mean we're literally talking about a handful of people in total you know and maybe that's that that's something that i haven't even really thought about out loud until right now it's just that yeah i mean i can count the amount of mass shooters that have been high school kids probably on both hands I don't have the information right in front of me, but I think it's around 10 or under. So it's one of those. No, you go ahead. So it's one of those... No, sure, go ahead. You go ahead. Sorry, I just wanted to pop this in real quick. What's the trouble is we can't really... Most of the teenagers that are men and most men in general can't be studied after the fact because they usually commit suicide. So, I mean, there is no way to know for sure. That's where the research is missing. That's where we can't ask these people, what were you thinking? What were you feeling? You can look through their writings, what their friends say about them, but there's really no way to be sure. So, I mean, that's where I think researchers are trying very hard to figure this out. And that's one of the biggest hurdles. Like, there's nobody left, aside from one recent example, left alive to talk to, to even see what the issues were. Is it? There's probably not even one issue. There probably is a whole lifetime of issues packed into one situation. There's no doubt about that. You know, and the other thing, those formative years of your life are so secretive. You know, there's so little that you let people know about what's going on. One of the things that comes to mind when you start talking about the studying of these people is that, you know, how many kids... took a gun to school and didn't use it, you know, or how many kids sat up all weekend writing out their plan to go into the school and shoot people and just didn't go through it and just threw it out and said, you know, I'm not doing that. You know, they'll never know. In a lot of cases, they'll never know. And that makes it hard to learn from. That's very hard to learn from, right? That makes things all the more complicated. Yeah. So. So it's one of those, I mean, I think we touched on the fact that what I find really interesting, let me go this direction instead. What I find really interesting is that when I start talking about this thing or when I start thinking about it on my own, one of the paths that I inevitably find myself going down is, and it's, I mean, it doesn't sound right coming out, and I understand that, but I'm going to say it because it's just what I do on this show. There's a level of sympathy that you have for the shooter. You know, of course you have sympathy for the people who lost kids. Of course you have sympathy for the children who were killed, and it's a different thing. But when you really start digging into it, it could just be me, I'm not sure, but I can't help but sympathize for a person who has been driven to that level. You know, because like I said, we're talking about 10 people. You know? It's such an extreme case that you think, man, what happens if someone can be pushed to such an extreme level? You can't tell me it's just he didn't fit in or he didn't, you know, he got picked on. You know, we've all been in that position. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's the big question. I think that's looking at it as a big picture, too, because, I mean, of course, sympathy is an all-director, but if we, if we try and like push off the, the situations as, oh, they're just bad people and they were given a tool to do bad things with, and that's all there is to it. We sort of missed the point, I think, in how to prevent it in the future. I think prevention is a bigger, is a bigger thing we should look at over trying to, um, I don't know, pick apart the, the after effect, if that makes sense. No, most definitely. Uh, So, Chris, this is what I have in mind. We're at about 9.30. I usually run a few commercials at the halfway point. What I want to come back to when we get back is I want to kind of step out of the isolation of this small minority of shooters. I mean, we're definitely going to get back into it, but I wanted to ask a question about sort of if you see this in your practice, sort of this bridge between And you mentioned it a little bit, but I think you probably have more to say on the topic. This bridge between personal hardship and actual physical violence, right? And, I mean, let's knock this commercial break out, and then we can get into this as soon as we get back. But that's kind of where I want to go next, if you're okay with that. Absolutely. All right. Then that's what we'll do, folks. Hang tight. We're going to pay a few bills. We'll come right back with more of the I Am Liberty show after this. And, yeah, Christian Sawyer with us tonight, folks. This is going to be a good one. Talk to you soon. Your prescription is ready. Oh, you don't have a prescription? This is not you back up antibiotics, leglazine, amoxicillin. Are you sure? Doxycycline? You don't have backup antibiotics. Well, here's the good news. SurvivalScripts.com has a brand new website. You can get all the backup antibiotics you might need. They also have an incredible new add-on section. Don't leave this up to chance. Visit SurvivalScripts.com today. We're hanging out tonight with Christian Soy, a board-certified behavior analyst, good friend, probably the best resource I have to come on and talk about what we're talking about tonight. We do have a call info, number 347-2020-228 if you'd like to get on the show probably prefer if you have a question on what we're talking about come to the chat room prepperbroadcasting.com and send me a pm private message me right right click my name and send me a pm that way i know you want to get on the show outside of that folks we're going to keep the ball rolling here all right we've got ourselves a great guest and uh Yeah, that's what we're here to do tonight. We're here to take full advantage of the time we have with Christian. Before the break, Chris, we were talking about, or I was asking rather, do you see in your practice, maybe not the actual acting out of violence, or maybe you do, I'm not 100% sure, but one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot is how the bridge between hardship and violence works. sort of builds itself over time? Is it a long process, a short process? Does it depend on the person? You know, just sort of your insight on that idea. Well, I mean, in terms of aggression, that's something I see quite a bit. I would say I've worked almost in hundreds of cases, and even the ones I see day to day, almost two or three times a week, engage in some form of aggression either towards peers or towards adults or even towards me sometimes. It happens, and it's part of a It's part of a process to work through. And to answer your question, it is very... What I do is I study individuals, and I prefer it that way because to try and group people together, you sort of miss things that way. I much prefer individuals. So I would say, out of all the people I have seen, it's always been... Maybe there's similar reasons, but they're not always the exact same. You're never going to see the exact same series of lead-ups to an aggressive incident for every single person that you come across. I'm trying to think of a way to bring up an example that would be easy to express. So when we're looking at aggressive behaviors with an individual, we want to look at two big things, what you talked about already, the lead-up. So what factors build up or happen before the incident? And then also we want to look at what happens after, right? So did that aggressive behavior get what it wanted? Did that person get what they wanted by aggressive? Or did they not? Because that'll matter too. Does that make sense? No, definitely. Yeah, sure. All right. So when we're looking at what happened before the behavior, that's what's called like an antecedent. Generally, it just means a trigger. And the mindset is all behavior really occurs for a reason or to escape them. Does that make sense? Yes. Most definitely. I can relate. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, we would say all behavior in general either accesses something or escapes from something, right? It gets someone somewhere or it gets them away from something, right? That's a general way of looking at it. So when you're trying to look at a situation, analyze the situation, you want to take a look at, okay, this behavior occurred, but what set it off? And if that doesn't give you the answer, what did it get or get away from? Does that make sense? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So you can isolate just by knowing that those two things are basically where all behavior comes from. You can pretty much pinpoint why anyone does anything to a broad point. To a broad point. It takes pattern. So one incident, maybe not. But if you see someone getting to fight every single week at school and the same triggers occur and they get into the same problems and they get out of, or let's say they're really bugged by someone They aggress, and that person leaves them alone for a while. Then they come back, and they have to aggress again. The person leaves them alone for a while. You start seeing patterns that, although aren't too, I mean, they're not very socially worthwhile to do, are getting something. Does that make sense? Most definitely, yeah. All right. So the way you treat that is basically, oh, did I strike you off, of course? No, you're good. Go ahead. Keep on rolling. All right. But basically the point of it, if you come across someone who has these issues or these patterns, the only way to really stop them is to teach a better way to access what they want. So you find out what the behavior is doing. You find a better behavior to replace. So if their social skills are low, but their aggression is high, you build those social skills up and that'll stop the aggression. So social skills plays a big role in it. A lot. You know, I mean, I don't know if this is something that you can speak to, but how tough is it to reprogram somebody like that? I know that there are people who are just introverted. You know what I mean? Is it something that you can do? From your perspective, do you feel like it's something that's possible to teach a person, look, we're going to build on your social skills. It's going to have a positive effect. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would say that's 99% of what I do in therapy. It's putting people in situations where we can work on those skills. So if I find that the client is having issues in situation A, where they engage in aggression, I'm going to put them in situation A again, but then work them through it so they don't engage in aggression and try something else. Does that make sense? So it's all practice. This form of therapy is all practice. I mean, it takes more than talking sometimes. No, I get that. I think that makes sense. One of the big things that is coming to fruition in my mind just in this conversation is the idea that what you do and what kids need is a massive, there's a massive gap there. Right? So like you have, it sounds like you have the tools, which I pretty much knew you would, but you and the people in your line of work have the tools to sort of outfit maybe every kid a little better. You know, maybe there's very, I think there's very few children who are in the high school or even junior high experience who wouldn't benefit from social skill. One of the things that I harp on all the time, and the reason I'm bringing this up is because I always harp on this crazy, just this crazy curriculum, this ancient curriculum that we have in our schools today. And I'm always thinking about what could be added. You know, I have a great sense of what could be taken away. And I think anybody who went through high school has a great sense of what could be taken away. But I'm always looking for these, like, what are the critical or core or my service is not the right word, but what are the core things that we really need in a high school, not just to deal with mass shootings, but just to get people out after high school that can make a difference, that can make a living, that maybe don't need to go to college to make a living, that type of thing, and what you're talking about. Now, that probably comes from the fact that you– Weren't you a school counselor for a little while, or did you study school counseling? No, I was. I was. Oh, you were a school counselor. I was a school counselor for a while. I switched over to behavior analysis because I found I would be a little more effective, at least for me. I was much more effective doing this when I wasn't that. But I find that, like, especially in the situations in schools where you have maybe one or two counselors for an entire school, it's very hard to see everybody. And the people that need the help don't always ask for help. So, I mean, that's an issue there in the school. Like, on the same wavelength, what you're talking about already, the classes might need changing also. The way we look at mental health might need some changing as well. But imagine this, man. Let's see. Imagine if you took it from a different angle. So instead of saying, instead of saying, which is tough, right? I think if you say, hey, Christian, I can see you're struggling here in high school. I think you should go spend some time with the counselor. You know, like 99% of people are going to be like, dude, I'm not going to the counselor. I'm here to put in my minimal time and get the hell out of here. That's exactly what happened. Now, imagine if instead of that, right, you brought in a Christian Sawyer or maybe just had a teacher on site or maybe used the school counselor to teach a class to high schoolers on behavior analysis. You know what I mean? So instead, I don't know if it's a little sneaky or I don't really care what it is, but I feel like you give the kids the information in a class because you realize, I mean, how much more important is it to understand and know how to manage your own behavior than it is to go to gym, than it is to go to gym class? Yeah. I mean, isn't that the overarching goal? Yeah. I mean, that's one of the most massive goals. And to your point, you're not going to get people to go to the counselor. Having the counselor on site, cool. The way you get around it is teaching the kids exactly what it is we're talking about, you know, so that they can recognize those signs in themselves. Because I'm sure there's... I'm 100% sure that there's homework that you give your clients, right? In some sense. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's really the end goal of everything. You don't want someone dependent on another professional to get through their own life. You want them to develop their own skills. And that self-control takes a lot of work. I mean, this is sort of common knowledge, but self-control is not an easy thing to hold on to for very long. Sometimes kids don't have it to start off with, not a lot of it, really. It takes a lot of practice to get to that point. I think self-control can cover almost all bases if you look at it that way. I mean, if you can control yourself in setting yourself up to succeed, you won't need to engage in problem behaviors at all. It's easier said than done, but, I mean, self-control does come into it. Oh, it's huge. I mean, you, I don't know your whole situation, but I'm in a situation that I think you're kind of similarly in, in the fact that we probably don't have people who talk to us every day about what we need to be doing professionally right we probably don't have a looming boss that's like you need to be in the work on time you need to get this done today you need to get that done today and the reality of owning your own business or your own practice is you have to be able to control your behavior you have to be the guy who says all right dude you gotta you gotta get off video games and go to bed because you got a big work day tomorrow you know it's it's such a critical piece right It is. It is. I mean, I think that covers almost all bases, really. I mean, self-control is the beat. I mean, there are many words for what self-control is and a lot of different philosophies. Even some self-help books will have different words for it. But the point of it is, if you can make a choice for yourself and stick to it in a way that will benefit you in the future, not just right now, but it will benefit you one week from now, a month from now, a year from now, that's what you want. That skill is worth ten times a good choice made on a whim. Yeah. What's coming out of this? Go ahead. Do you have something? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. No, no, no. This is what I'm seeing more than anything, man. What's already coming out of this, and we're just two episodes into this thing, and I'm looking to do maybe four, but what's coming out of this thing is exactly, not exactly what I thought would, but what I think... I was having a conversation about this earlier today, which is funny, but... What we're seeing is the focus tends to go on the children all the time, right? So if we're talking about how to stop these situations, which are terrible, but they are also a severe minority, we always wind up back at, at least I do in my mind, now I have done it last week and I've done it this week with you too. I had last week, you heard last week's show, I had Dane from the gun metal armory who is, you know, he's a gunsmith, great guy, certifiable, great dude. But you guys, you two are very different people with very different skill sets. And I think it's interesting that we wind up back on this topic of, which is to me, probably the most important topic there is in the world. And it is how, who's gauging what the experience of the next generation is. You know, what are we, who are we, who are we raising? Are we raising people that are going to do the right thing, that are going to, you know, be better than the people who are raising them? And that's kind of the whole goal. I just find it fascinating that here we are again, talking about the kids, talking about looking at how the kids are coming up and what we can do better for them. Yeah. I mean, that's really the only thing we can do. There's no... In my... This is just an opinion. But I don't think there's any one way to know how or when. The terrible situation is going to come up, or which children are going to be. I don't think there's a stamp that you can put down on a piece of paper that says, oh, yes, this kid is going to do A, B, and C. It never works out. I mean, even as a behavior analyst, it's fairly obvious that people are not easily predicted. There are patterns, but you can't predict what a person is going to do without a lot of, a lot of effort and a lot of looking into what they're actually doing day to day. So, I don't think there is going to be one large answer, but I think the biggest thing we can do is set the kids up for the optimal amount of success. How can we make a system where the majority of them succeed and get to a place where they want to get? I think that's the best goal we can get to. I think that is a massive... I just want to tell you about the conversation just real quick because I think it's interesting. I think it's pertinent and I think it's worth talking about because it touches on a part of the problem. And it's a part of the problem that people are probably going to say, yeah, no, it's been that way forever. But I think that's the idea, right? It's been that way forever. When I see swaths of children engaged and walking down the street over an issue like gun control, it It makes me wonder... No, it doesn't make me wonder, but what am I looking for here? It's surprising to me that we haven't had a march like something like that just to discuss what it is that's going on in schools outside of the shooting as well, or what is going on in the teen experience, you know, the life experience, and how those things can change. And maybe it's because they're young and, you know, When I was in high school, I definitely wasn't thinking, man, how could I make this place better? I was thinking, how the hell do I get out of this place and never come back? So that could have a lot to do with it. We've created a boogeyman in the guns. But let me just tell this story real quick because I think it's funny and pertinent. So I'm driving in the car with my father-in-law. And we were joking back and forth about an incident that he had at a restaurant. Because here in Virginia, they instituted a sales tax some time ago. I'm sorry, not a sales tax, a meals tax. So when you go out to eat at a restaurant, you pay a sales tax and you also pay a meals tax. And they just raised the meals tax. And they raised the meals tax for the reason that most taxes get raised because it's a reason that you can't argue with in the same way that you can't argue with a bunch of kids marching over gun control. they raised the meals tax to provide more money for the schools, quote-unquote. So the meals tax goes up again. My father-in-law saw it on his check. He's a very opinionated man, and he was not happy about the meals tax, which is now more than sales tax. So we have a sales tax, which I think is 6%. We have a meals tax, which is now 8% or 10%. So in that conversation, I said, you know, well, He got into it with a waitress because the waitress said, oh, yeah, this is great. It's a meals tax. It's for the kids. It's going to help the schools out. And I think, you know, if you're not living in a dream, you know that what happens with tax money. Tax money is never accounted for, very rarely accounted for. I shouldn't say never, but very rarely accounted for. And you never really get an idea of where my money went. So we pull out of the spot we were at. We're driving back down the road. And he tells me, you know, in the 1980s or 80s, early 70s, whatever it was, they brought the lottery to Virginia. And they brought it under the same idea that we're going to bring the lottery into Virginia and the money that is raised is going to go to the kids. It's going to go to the schools. And here we sit like all these years later and we're sitting here going, man, I think we need more money for the schools or we need to pay more attention to the schools and the kids. I don't, you know. Yeah. The sad thing about it is there's no backer for these kids. You know what I mean? They're so screwed up and so confused that they're marching for an issue that I don't think is really going to help them. I mean, I agree. I think they are. I mean, on the basis of it, from what I understand, it seems like they just want the solution. And they want the quickest solution possible. And if you were in danger, you'd go for the first thing that was obvious to you. And there's no way to say one way or the other if it works or not, but you can see why they would choose something like that. I mean, it's easy to understand. I mean, it's not complex. And I mean, that's a simple answer. You can see why they'd go for it. But it's a complicated issue. And I don't think there's any one expert out there. I don't even think many politicians really know what's the true direction to go in? Because it's not a one-shot problem. It's a very messy web of things that have built up for, I guess, a very long time affecting a very few number of individuals. And that's very hard to study and very hard to understand. Yeah, but what I think, Chris, is that we're, at least in my mind, and listen, I don't have the pool, I don't have the audience to make much of a difference, but What I think we're uncovering in all the time spent thinking about this, for those people who can actually think, for those people who aren't so far to the left that they think we've got to take the guns away would be good, and for those people who aren't so far to the right that they think don't touch the guns no matter what happens. you know what i mean and that's where the that's where the thinking stops those two sides are so useless it's unbelievable they can't explore a topic they can't think right they're just religious they're religious about the guns and then they're religious about you know what i mean but for everybody in between i think there is an overarching maybe it's not a solution to this or maybe it is but What we're finding, I think, is that we need to look at the experience in school on a whole. You know, I really think that we need to gear our schools more towards entrepreneurship and more towards management. And this is an idea that just came to me thanks to you, but management of self. You know, because we all can agree. One thing we all can agree about is this. Parents ain't what they used to be. some for better and for worse, right? You know, it's just, you can't have a parenting situation where you come home, mom's at home, she's going to talk to you about school, she's going to do your homework, help you out with your homework, and then you guys are going to do something together, and then you're going to go your separate ways. Sort of, parenting has changed. A lot of kids come home alone. And I think that instead of I just think we have to answer to that in school. We have to answer to that in how we raise and how we prepare kids. And I think we're preparing kids for the 1950s instead of preparing kids for the 2000s, the 21st century. And maybe that's what comes out of this thing. Maybe that's one of the things that comes out of this thing. Yeah, I definitely agree. There are some very entrenched... of the education system that they aren't pragmatic anymore. They don't really help kids out. Kids are studying things that they never used. It's not tailored to what will benefit them. And like you said, if they don't have a support system in their school, socially, if they don't have friends, and there's no support system waiting for them at home, they have no one to talk to, no one to relate to, it's just them. It's just them dealing with the situation. And I don't know who you are, but that's tough. It could be anybody, and that would be a situation that no one would want to be in. It'd just be too much dealing. Yeah, no doubt about it. And I think, you know, the problem is there's so much denial. That's one of the biggest problems, I think, is there's just so much denial about what's really going on. And if we can just get through the doxy, the daily doxy, the Twitter doxy, and just say, what's really going on? Good or bad, you know what I mean? And if we can say, The kids are on their own. Like the kids are on their own and that's just what it is. And some kids are going to make it on their own and be great and some kids aren't. And maybe we just need to spend more time on understanding that the parents aren't around. Nothing we do is going to bring the parents back around. You know what I mean? For most kids, I think it's they're on their own and they need to learn how to manage themselves on their own. And maybe that's the focus that we should take in school. I mean, it's super controversial, and people are so scared of change that it'll probably never go anywhere, but it just seems like that's what it takes. It takes being honest and saying, what are we failing at, and can we be better at it? I think those are the big questions. I think those overarching questions can affect an entire life in a way that we can't understand. I think maybe even the need for violence, maybe even the need for... leaving a school system and being totally unprepared for the world are really the same number of questions. Maybe it is a matter of setting up, because, I mean, we do have some great educators out there, some great teachers, and they want to do their job well. They're amazing people. And there are parents out there who want to do the best they can. But there's time restraints. There's money restraints. It seems like there's a lot of people out there that want this to happen, but we're not setting things up for it to make sense yet. Yeah, it's like we're still living under this veil that this is the way we've always done it, so it's the right way to do it. And living under this veil that times have not changed and parents have not changed and kids have not changed. I mean, if there's anything consistent about the 21st century, it's going to be inconsistency. You know, it's going to be the changing world. Technologies affect the whole thing. I just can't imagine, Christian, waking up. I mean, what are you going to think about this world if you wake up and you're 50 years old and your kids or, you know, the people that you know, I guess, you know, kids would be out of school at that point, but if the school system is still running on the same curriculum that it ran in 1950, how can that work? And how can that not be questioned by now? I think those are very good questions. I think that's Those are the big questions. I think that's what that is. I think there are systems in place that are not pulling their weight anymore and they're not prepared for what kids these days are dealing with. There's not in any way at all. And I don't think there's a push for progress in that direction or even to answer those questions or even ask those questions. So I think it's a bunch broader issue than just a few people on the edge do. I think it's an overarching effect that's detrimental to a lot of kids in a lot of ways, but we can't fully see that. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a spectrum. I think that's what we're really unveiling. We're unveiling that what, in a way, the mass shooters are helping to unveil this spectrum of how kids are dealing with high school and how kids are dealing with life in the 21st century in general. And there's a spectrum of people who, like you said, have the coping mechanisms built in, maybe have a better, more solid base at home, and they can deal with it. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, at the most extreme level, you have people who are so desperate and so lost that they do these crazy things, you know? What from, I mean, using your expertise, right? What do you think maybe not something as advanced as a behavior analysis class, but do you think that the skills that you give to your clients, what do you call your folks, clients or patients? Clients, Mark. Clients, okay. So some of the skill sets and some of the knowledge that you give to your clients, do you think something like that could translate you know, into a one semester school year or one semester of the school year or into a class? You know, is that something that would translate? I think that'd be, I mean, I think to teach the self-control methods or to teach analyzing yourself or understanding your own pattern would take someone maybe junior high to high school. But there is some good news out there. There are classes for elementary school And a little earlier than that, preschools even, that do what's called positive behavior support. And those are very similar to what, well, actually they are based on behavior-oriented principles. And they basically, they do the same thing, but it's still very difficult for one teacher to pull off that same level of interaction with a classroom of kids. So I'd say the roots are there. Like, it's still, I think people are learning new ways to figure this out and that an individual look at kids is a better way and maybe a systemic look at the entire school system is a better way of looking at it, but it's not quite there yet. Does that make sense? No, most definitely. Most definitely. I was wondering, you know, I really like the idea of rather than telling kids what to do, teaching them about the topic and letting them discover it in themselves because that's always worked for me, even when I was young. You know, even when I was young, I always found that if you got in my face and wagged your finger and told me what I needed to be, it was an automatic shutoff. But if you taught me about other people who might have similar problems and told me how they might deal with a similar problem, it always translated through that tough teenage section of your life where you're like, I already know everything. I mean, I'm a master of this world. That's what we all are. I think that's a... I think it's a great way of teaching. I think that's actually a much better than a rote, learn this and do a test on this. I think that form of teaching can get the same results. I mean, assuming that the actual material is covered. But I think it can get the results in a way that makes the student interested. And that's the biggest thing you want. One level of interest. You want to force things down. You want the student to engage in the material in a way that makes sense to them. in my opinion. No, I think you're right. I think you're 100% right. Do you deal with medications at all in what you do, Chris, or no? Well, I don't diagnose medications, but I do deal with clients who are heavily medicated in a lot of situations, yeah. So I had you on once before, and we talked about a similar subject. It was years ago. What I don't want to do, and maybe you can help me. If you can dig me out of this hole I'm about to climb into, great. If not, no big deal. We'll move on. What I don't want to do is go down the ugly path of, because I think we've already established what most people who've thought about this topic have established, and that is there's no puzzle. to mass shooting, right? One of the things I used to teach mass shooting core, how to survive mass shooting courses at my job. And one of the first things in the, you know, how to respond, how to respond as an office, you know, run, hide, fight sort of curriculum. And one of the first things that I would teach is that mass shootings are highly unpredictable and they happen, you know, without warning and they evolve quickly. I mean, that's sort of the basis of of when you're teaching someone, you know, what is a mass shooting and, and how do they happen? We don't know how they happen. We know that when they happen, they're usually over pretty quickly and, uh, they're going to evolve fast. And that's sort of what they are. But what I, what I don't want to do is go down the path of blaming something. Cause like I said, we've already sort of taken this thing apart and figured out that there's no puzzle. You know, there's, it's not a bunch of pieces you're going to put together and say, ah, that's it. Okay, if we do X, Y, and Z, it's not going to happen ever again. That's just not something that we're going to do. Maybe a question about... Like I said, I don't want to point the finger at medications in this thing, right? Because we know it's not causal for the whole of the issue. Right. Maybe this is the question. Are we doing... are we doing the right thing for the majority of the population who are on these drugs? If you can answer that question. This may be out of your wheelhouse. If so, that's okay. That is... You know what? On this one, I'm going to say I'm even less certain than the last time we spoke. That's fine. No, I get it. I mean, that's a tough one. It's not causal. I would say I really don't have a good idea... of what is helping and what is not helping and how that's not helping and how it's not helping, if that makes any sense at all. You know what? That may be the best answer. That may be the best answer because what I've read and what I've listened to from people in the field is very similar to what you just said. It's very similar to what you just said in a way that you. And that's a scary thing. thing in and of itself right this idea that we don't know if it helps we don't know if it doesn't help we do know I mean I do know personally people who depression meds have helped and I'm sure you do too right there are people out there that they help but there's also no denying the fact that there's got to be some level of over prescription going on right I mean I can't say I can't say with full certainty but based on My experience with doctors, you know, that's one of those things. You know, it just seems like it could be something that is going on. Again, not an effect, not an overall effect of what's happening, but it's just an outlying thing that I think we need to bring up, especially when it shows up in so many kids who have committed these situations, right? I think it's a factor, yeah. You talk about patterns. You know, that's one of the few things that is always in these situations. I mean, I think there were one or two that were not. Right. I wonder what the statistics are on kids on meds. I wonder how many kids are actually on meds nowadays. Yeah, I mean, and then not to derail this or make it more complicated, but then you have to know, did they actually take it all the time? Did they take too much? Did they take too little? Was it controlled? Yeah, that's a big one. Was it dosed right? That's a That's a whole number of variables that can throw a wrench right into any easy understanding of it. Yeah, it's weird. You know, what's really weird about it, and I'm not a ban guy. I'm definitely not a ban guy. You know, things got to be really, really in my face to talk about banning. But one of the takeaways that I always come away from a conversation about these mental medications, particularly with children, is, I seem to always wind up in the same boat that I'm in with you right now, which is when you start laying out questions like dosage, who's monitoring, you know, we had a big discussion about parenting, who's monitoring whether or not these kids are taking them, how many they're taking, are they taking the right amounts? You just, you wind up going down that path of saying, like, going to help some people, no doubt about it, but can we do this? Like, are we at a point where we can do this the right way with kids this medication thing you know it's just one of those weird another one of those weird topics that people don't want to broach they don't want to say what's really going on and give it the time or the thought that it deserves you know. I mean and then there's then there's the then there's the concept that uh is the medication just covering something that could be fixed through experience could be fixed through therapy or practice Or is it much easier just to get a prescription and take a pill? I mean, we know some of that's going on. Right, right. Maybe not depression itself, but there are certainly others that do fall in that category. And I think there might come a time where there is a shift towards those other forms of treatment, but right now it's still a mix as far as I can tell. I think you're 100% right on that one. I'm just taking a look here to see. You know what? We're going to knock one final breakout, Chris, if that's okay with you. Yep. And I'm going to do a few more commercials here. We'll come right back, and we'll keep carrying on as long as you're cool with staying with us. Absolutely. I think we've got plenty more to discuss, and we'll just keep hammering down this aisle, see what more trouble we can get ourselves into, I guess. All right. So, folks, we'll be right back after this. We've got much more to talk about with Christian. And, yeah, hour two. Hang in there. We're coming right back. Second hour of the night, folks. Another intro to the wonderful Prepper Broadcasting Network, guys. Thanks so much. Gee, man, you keep this thing alive. You float this thing every week. I know it's not an easy task, but... Without you, I'd have to spend more money to broadcast, so I appreciate it. Also, I wouldn't link up with my community here, man. I got into a long conversation about the importance of touching base with friends and with a community that you can jive with. I started thinking to myself, with my busy schedule, I was like, man, I don't have any time for friends. Then I started to realize that there's incredible benefits from this group here in the chat room that you talk to every week you know they make a big difference so we're going to get into the second half of the show here again we're with christian sawyer board certified behavior analyst if you didn't miss the first if you didn't catch rather the first half of the show it was big all right it was exactly what i was looking for christian i can't thank you enough for coming on i mean that I don't know that it could go as well as it went in that first hour. I was reading some chat room while we were running through ads, and one of our listeners, Jay Fergie, was talking about her son doing therapy, and I think it brought up a great sort of topic that we can touch on in the second half of the show. And Chris, I just want to let you know, Two hours is a huge commitment. I appreciate it. If you're stressed on time or anything like that, just let me know. You know, we can... Okay, great. That's all I wanted to know. I'm a little... I'll tell you one. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm a little uncomfortable about taking two hours of someone's life. I have not settled into this yet. I'm serious. I always tell the people who listen to the I Am Liberty show that I am blown away that anyone... would listen to some kid from Marcus Hook talk for an hour every week and dedicate an hour of their life to listening to me for an hour out of their week. I think it's an amazing thing. And now it's two hours, which is even more incredible. With all the entertainment and everything, you get the kids and the wife and the job and everything. It's an amazing honor. So when I have somebody on and they're on for the second hour, I'm a little insecure about it. It doesn't happen to me in life very often, but I'm a little insecure about it. Stealing people's time. Now, what I read in the chat room, again, about one of the fans of the I Am Liberty show, a regular here at Prepper Broadcasting, was talking about therapy. And it brought something to mind, Christian, that I think needs to be discussed, and you're the right guy to discuss it with, obviously. Therapy has had, like, at least growing up, the way I grew up, and around the people that I grew up, which I have to assume were pretty similar to the people that you grew up with, though we didn't know each other in our very young years. We grew up insanely close to one another. And there was always this air in my household. And, you know, it's that old school weakness sort of situation. And I think that there's a little bit of it still in the country where people look at therapy as something that rich people or weak people do. I mean, do you... You know what? I see that a lot. I really do. And, um... Go ahead. I would say sometimes take the item you're up to. But when I meet a parent coming in, you might just see, like, one of them have either an opinion or an expression that sort of hits right on that topic, where they see this as sort of a... There's a stigma to it. It's either a weakness or something that doesn't need to happen. They'll just grow out of it. They'll be fine. And.... It sort of sees therapy as an unnecessary addition where it doesn't need to be done. And in some cases, that may be the case, but I'd say in a majority of cases, the benefits way outweigh the stigma. Yeah, I mean, again, it's one of those weird things. It goes back to a reoccurring theme in this show, which is human beings not being... that are not willing to admit what's really going on in the lives of other human beings. And I think one of the big things is something I talked about in my last book, which is incredible levels of isolation in our nation. Like, incredible levels of people who have a lot to say and absolutely no one to say it to. Now, there was a... I made a really big mistake at work one time. And. I actually was ordered. Not too many people know about this. My wife, Lady Liberty, she was not at all happy about this situation. But I made a mistake at work. And part of my punishment for that mistake was I had to go talk to somebody. And I was going into it completely open-minded, like I do mostly everything in my life unless I'm annoyed with it. And I wasn't annoyed with this. And I remember sitting on the couch talking to the therapist and really saying, this is incredibly beneficial. You know, and what I did at work was something that I did not need to go and do this therapy for. All right, just, you know, I don't want to go into it because I don't even know what the legality of it is and stuff like that with the company. But it was something I really didn't need. And it was kind of a running joke around the office once the management level found out what happened. And, you know, they were kind of laughing about it because I was kind of like a good employee there and that type of thing. But despite all that, I remember getting in there and talking to the therapist and saying, oh yeah, I could definitely see. What I came to the conclusion of is this is helping me and I don't really feel like I'm a guy that needs a whole lot of help. And I said, there's some power here. Like there's some real power here. And I think I think it's something we need to change in the nation. Like, intermittent therapy may just be part of the human experience. I mean, what do you think about that? Well, I think there's something to it. Now, see, there's a lot of different types of therapies, but we can't just say all therapy works for every single person. True, true. I apologize for that. No, no, I don't think you said that, but it might be a misconception now that that's the case. I would say... If you're going for therapy, make sure you have someone that gets what your issues are and can actually help you with it and not just run the clock out. Because that unfortunately tends to happen without anyone actually knowing what's going on. And the way I do therapy is a little different from some versions of talk therapy, but I also did talk therapy when I was counseling as well. So I've seen sort of both sides of the fence in different areas of how therapy can work with different individuals. But yeah, there is a huge benefit... to getting some perspective on your life, because I think everyone falls for this situation where they think they have a handle on what's going on until they actually sit down and explain what they did that day. So, what did you do today? Oh, I did this, this, this, and this. And then you forget, oh, wait, a big part of that's not really helping me out. A big part of that was actually holding me back, or maybe it caused issues with my family, or maybe it caused issues with my friends. You sort of discover things that you sort of overlook and if you didn't bring it up. Does that make sense? Most definitely. Yeah. What's interesting about it is that anything else in life except managing our mind, we have no problem paying for and we have no problem asking for help. You know, that's one of the most wild things to me. And one of the things that's really stuck with me after that incident was that, you know, if I'm overweight, if I'm out of shape I have no problem going to a gym and paying someone to get me back in shape. Personal trainer. Cool. Make me work hard. Make me eat right. Cheer me on. Help me conquer this goal or whatever. And that example runs the gamut in the human experience, right? No matter what it is. You want to learn something new. We have no problem going to college, paying somebody a million dollars or multiple people. Paying a university a quarter of a million dollars to teach us about that. Right. And there's a big problem with people with this idea of therapy where they think like, man, this is not something I should be doing. I've had those feelings myself. It's like sort of self-righteous or something, isn't it? I think everyone has in some way or another. I think most people who have been confronted by the idea of going to therapy have had at least one little thought in the back of their mind saying, I don't need this. I could be fine with that. I'll just get through it. I'll get over it. And that's a hard thing to overcome, but it's also much easier once you actually start. Like I think your experience does too as well. Once you actually get in there, you see, oh, wait, this isn't actually what I thought it was. It was actually something that actually is helping me. It's sort of like your example with personal trainer. It is the exact same thing, working through something towards a goal and having someone there to help you through. It's crazy because our minds are the most unique thing. To what we are. You know what I mean? Like, we have an animal body. You know, our bodies just, you know, aside from being erect, we have an animal body. Yet we seek out help for that body more than anything. Right? We'll plastic surgery it. We'll do all that. And then we will openly admit that it's our brains that set us apart. And we do so little. And we even look like, look at getting in a room, because there was, I'll be honest, Christian, there was a liberating feeling. And I do a podcast like multiple times a week. I talk. You know what I mean? It's not like I don't have people to talk to. You know, I have a great wife that I can talk to. You know, a great family that I talk to whenever I want. I pick up the phone. I know I can get somebody on the line. I'm not one of these isolated people by any means. But there was something very liberating and something very nice about someone who wasn't intimately connected with you, asking what I thought were pretty revealing questions, and then kind of what she did, and I don't know if this is right or wrong, but what the therapist did for me is she kind of put me on the spot with certain questions, too, that, you know, they made me think. They also made me a little uncomfortable. It was a very different experience. You know, even I think people who have a great relationship with someone as close as their wife, you know, you feel like you have a, I have a wife who I can talk to about anything type of relationship. There's still just a, I mean, I don't know what it is. You could probably explain it better than me, but there's a different dynamic there compared to a therapist. Absolutely. I mean, I think, I think you can be open and honest with somebody else and be able to share everything with them. If they're not asking the right questions, the conversation doesn't really lead to the direction where, I mean, the gist of it is, if you're going in for therapy, if you knew all the answers, there'd be nothing for you there. If you knew what questions to ask yourself, there'd be no answers there. You'd already have worked through them yourself. So it does take someone, I guess, in the cognitive therapy type of way, to present you in a situation that maybe it is a little uncomfortable. Maybe those are the questions that need asking. Maybe at that point in the time, those are the issues that are actually going to help you. And you didn't even realize they were there. I mean, it takes a different perspective than just a receptive listener. It's sort of like a probe, and then someone there to sort of guide you through the process of helping yourself. That's how I put it, at least. No i like that i think that makes sense yeah it's a navigator in a way for sure uh what is it what happens christian when you because i know it has to happen maybe you know correct me if i'm wrong but What happens when you're talking to someone and they hit a wall where maybe they're aggressive or maybe they're unwilling to really look at an issue? What do you do about it? What I'm getting at is because I know people who are so dead set on certain issues or certain instances or certain things in their life. You want to help these people out as a normal human being, but you know that even if you go down that path, It's a firestorm, and I wonder what a professional does in a situation like that, because I know you get to that point, right? You ask those questions, and you run into that firestorm. Yeah, I think the root of it is, I mean, I'm sure you've heard this phrase before, they have to want to change, and that's really the issue. If someone comes in for therapy and they don't want to change, there's nothing a therapist can do about that. There really isn't. It's a one-sided relationship at that point, and that's not going to really help. When it comes to really hot issues like that, sometimes if they don't want to change it, you can't, as a therapist, you can't really do much with that. So maybe you back off, redirect to something else, and come back to it later. It's an easier topic to broach, but if it's that brick wall, a brick wall is a brick wall. And I think a lot of therapists, especially ones that, there's a great, I wrote some books on this, his name's Carl Rogers, and he sort of summed all that topic up. So I mean, the concept that someone has to want to change the things It's the gold standard, really. It is how you approach that topic. Makes sense. Makes sense. I want to talk about one thing real quick because I like this idea of, and I don't know, how does it work? Is it a, when it comes to these types of things, I feel like the, one of the problems might be that With therapy, I think people feel like it's a long process. I think people are under sort of this idea that I have a problem, and I think I can work it out with a therapist, but I don't want to go to a therapist for a year. Right. Can therapy be effective, or you can speak to your practice in general, can that be effective in a short time? You know, in a way that we talk about sort of managing the human body with a personal trainer and managing other parts of our life with those types of things, do you think that's something that your services could benefit? I can't speak to every issue that exists, but I do know that there are certain fields of therapy that do take a very long time. So if you're talking like the very old psychoanalytic stuff with Freud, it's a long process. And that's the one most people think about when they think about therapy. There are different types of therapy. There are the older versions like that that are still very relevant. There are the more talk therapies. There's the cognitive behavioral therapies, which are a little mixture of talking and a little bit of homework, which are a little faster. So, I mean, there's a broad range of different types of therapies. It all depends on what the problem is and what type of therapy is needed for that situation. If you have the time to really dig into your path and your fears to go through it, you can get some benefits from it. If you have a short-term problem that needs to be done right now and you need to work your way through it, let's take marriage counseling for example. You can't spend years working through that. That's a great one. Very quickly. So that would be more of a cognitive behavioral approach. It takes a little bit of talking through. It takes a little bit of homework. But the mixture of both is a much faster result. So, I mean, it depends on the situation. But yeah, I think there are a lot of therapies out there that can deal with very quick, fast, one-issue problems. Yeah, I just can't help but keep going back to this idea that technology is having an effect on us. It just is. There's no getting around it, and it's only going to increase. And I wonder how much the human race would benefit on a whole if they looked at therapy a little little more accessibly you know if they looked at it with the idea that it's just something that we do you know if i run into an issue and maybe even even i hate to keep using the word therapy because i know it's like saying uh i don't know it's just way broad yeah it's just way broad but i think you know what i'm getting at about it being more accessible and being maybe it being inherent in the human experience itself. Maybe there are some people who don't utilize it, but maybe the vast majority of people do, and even for small issues that they can work out. It just feels good to me when I think about it. I think about it and it feels like this could be something. Maybe it should be something that we do more often. I think you hit it right there. I think that would be the ideal. I think the concept that therapy is this far-off thing that not everyone needs is a little outdated, but it also assumes a lot about what's being overlooked in everyday life. So, I mean, everyone has issues, and a lot of people can cope with those ranges of issues, but there's also certain things that aren't very apparent right now, but they're still there. They're happening every day. They're building up, and one day it'll come out. If you don't catch it early, you haven't given it the results. So there is a benefit to taking a look at yourself in a different perspective, which I think therapy. Can do for you. Yeah, I think it's an interesting thing. The timing is really interesting to me, Christian, because I, and I want to bring this, it's a little personal, but I want to bring it up because I want people to understand that sort of the way I look at it and the way I've looked at it lately, it has nothing to do with your makeup as a person. It has nothing to do with a deficiency. You know, I think that's what people look at it like, right? Like there's a deficiency there. I'm deficient. I have to go do this therapy thing. But on a personal note, I've been, I've got sick a few times in the latter part of 2017 and once in 2018 and I had been going through this weird sort of, I don't even know if it's a thing that exists, but through this weird sort of sickness, depression, where I get sick, I get helpless, and then I get into this sort of hole. Now, it's not a huge deal. But I have the foresight to say, you know, one day I'm going to be old. One day I'm going to be real sick. I'm going to probably be sick a lot, because that's how old works. And to be honest with you, Christian, I've been thinking about... an issue that's as small and as little as that, but having some foresight on an issue like that and saying, you know what, it's probably worth going and talking to someone and just, just explaining the situation to them, you know, that, that I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of something that could be bad in the future. You know, it's only something that really turns up when I'm weak, that might speak to something. And, The reason I bring it up is because I want to give an example of something that's not the end of the world, right? My marriage isn't failing. My kids aren't driving me crazy. It's just a small issue that I think a therapist could work out. Right. And I think it's important. It's why people, sorry to interrupt, but going on that idea before I lose it, it's a lot like going for checkups with a doctor. Maybe you're not sick now, but if you catch something early and you get rid of it early, that problem's gone, at least if much better off than it would have been if it was let go. So, I mean, in your situation, exactly, it might not be a huge deal now, but if you can see it being a huge deal in the future, when ailments come into it and all that, why not get, why not get it helped early? Why not get it fixed a little sooner than it could have been? Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think it has, I think it's an accessibility thing. I think there's a, and you know what's funny? So many people have insurance and I, I'm not sure of the billing of it all, but I'm sure that insurance covers these things, right? I mean, do you deal with insurance in your practice? Quite a bit. In most cases, I mean, you can check with your provider. I don't know every provider. I don't know every billing code. I don't know everything like that. But if you call your insurance provider, they'll let you know what can be done and who's in that work and what hours are available. They'll give you everything. They'll give you even your first appointment. Like most health insurance companies are very good at helping out. Yeah. I mean, the information is there. Man. Yeah, I think there's something to that, Chris. I really do. Can we have a little fun as we get to the end of the show? Sure. One of the things I wanted to talk about with you is, but it was just, you know, it's not the right time, but it's a question that I did. I just wanted to see for the way we are as preppers, right? And I know that's a broad statement. That might be as broad as saying therapists, right? Preppers and therapists. But this idea that we all follow some patterns, I think, right? We all follow these patterns of, thinking, these patterns of actions. I mean, what do you think about. Preppers? Just be honest. I mean, like you said, it's a broad group, and I'm sure you've met a lot of people in your audience that are no tour alike. So it's a big thing. But I think there is something to be said for a person's ability to look at an unforeseen future or an uncertain future and plan ahead for it. I think that does speak to some level of maybe pre-coping mechanism, maybe some preparation mechanism where there's a mindset where, okay, this could happen in the future. Let's prep for it now. Let's get prepared for it now. I think it shows forethought. I think it shows some thinking ahead and maybe long-term planning skills. How about fear? All adapted in my mind. How about fear? Well, I mean, fear is healthy, right? Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. Imagine if you walked in this world fearlessly. Imagine if you were never cautious or never afraid. Nobody would last long. They'd walk out in traffic. They'd do dangerous things every day of life. I mean, fear is healthy. When it becomes anxiety that overtakes an entire life, that's very different. That's a whole different situation. So if you're planning at the cost of your present life, that's where the adaptation sort of falls off. That's where it becomes a little tricky. Um, but there's no harm in, there's no harm in looking ahead and saying, oh, I better plan for that. In my opinion. No, I agree with you. I agree with you. I just wanted to, you know, it's always good to get an outside look from, you know, of what, what people do with their free time and someone, it's something as extreme as what we do. Not that I personally, I don't think it's extreme at all. In fact, I just think it's, I think it's ahead of the curve to be honest. I think, The earth is showing us that what we've been doing for a long time is what it's probably going to take to get through. I mean, you guys up there, you had Nor'easters every week in March, didn't you? Yep. I think this is the only week you didn't have a Nor'easter. That's a crazy thing. That is a crazy thing to say out loud. We have weekly Nor'easters. So the final thing. This just came to me while we were talking today, but I think it would be a lot of fun. You had, and just stop me if you're getting uncomfortable with any of this, but you had, this has nothing to do with behavior analyzing, this has nothing to do with mass shootings, nothing to do with prepping at all, but I think it would be a whole hell of a lot of fun. You had what was one of the best husband and wife photos I've ever seen. And I commented on it today. That was a few days ago. That was a phenomenal picture, and it's such a good picture that this is what came to mind. And I'm not trying to put any work on your plate or anything like that, but it has the power to infect that photo. And I would love to see people try to duplicate it in the way that some popular social media photos get duplicated, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Are you following me? Like, it would be really cool. I mean, to give some backstory, just having some fun on the road, my wife jumping on my back, pumping her arms in the air. It was a fun moment, and it happened to be caught by a photographer on the street. So it was a lot of fun. It was pretty candid. But I would say if that photographer didn't take it, I wouldn't have that memory of that. Really cool moment that doesn't happen very often coming up. It was a lot of fun. Well, what I really liked about it, man, is when I saw it, the word marriage just immediately came into my head. You know what I mean? It's the position of two people, right? It's like the wife on the back cheering on the husband who's carrying a load. Not that it's that way in every marriage or anything like that, but the smile on her face, the smile on your face, it It was an amazing picture in a time where marriage is often overlooked or it's almost like a bauble of society. You know what I mean? Where we get married and we spend more time planning the wedding and the honeymoon than we do actually nurturing the marriage. And man, I started thinking about all the people that I know and all the married couples that I know and how much I would love to see... Mike and Sabrina recreate that thing. You know what I mean? And all the people that we know just try to recreate that picture. That would be something really cool. I invite them to. It's a lot of fun. Just having fun in the moment with someone you care about is a big deal. I think it's the most important thing in life, really, to find those moments. Yeah. And when you get them captured on film, that's huge. Yeah. That's huge. I may get... I may get Michelle to hop on my back and we duplicate that picture and start the ball rolling because I think that would be so cool, man. It would be very cool to see. But that's about it, man. If you have anything else you want to leave us with, I think I've taken enough of your time. I think we had a really awesome conversation. And again, man, I just really appreciate it. It was a huge show. Thanks so much. No, thank you for letting me on this show. I had a lot of fun. It was a pleasure and an honor. I really enjoyed it. Oh, I appreciate that, man. I don't know. Well, I may see you sooner rather than later. Let's just leave it at that since we're on the air. All right. All right. But talk to you soon, man. I do appreciate it, and we'll see you around. I'm sure you'll be back on again sometime. Look forward to it. Thanks. Awesome. See you, Chris. Man. This is a lot of fun. This is a whole lot of fun, I'm not going to lie. When I know things are going well, I look in the chat room. I look in the chat room and I see what's going on and I see what kind of conversations are going on. And I see these conversations that are much different than conversations that I have when I do a show that's incessant blabbering about the problems of the day. Back in 2013, I assured myself one thing in podcasting, and it's that I just didn't want to be the guy who got on for an hour and talked about how bad life was. I just really didn't want to get into that habit. Now, I know... that those guys make a lot of money, right? Those guys, they get people riled up, they get people scared, they get people all crazy. They sell books, they sell shirts, whatever it is. You know what I mean? There's good money in scaring people to death. There's good money in picking sides, right? There's good money in making sure that one side is angry at the other and you have a very clear enemy and then you can You can define the rules of battle... And you can make fun of that person... And sometimes... I'll be honest with you... Sometimes it's incredibly entertaining too... Right? Sometimes that stuff is incredibly entertaining... It can make for a good show... But I never wanted to build something like this... On the back of something like that... You know what I mean? And when you can sit down... And you can have a great guest on like that... And you can talk... As much about the issues... As other things. You know, it's a big deal for me. And I think we're headed in the right direction. I think we are headed in the right direction here. What I will say... And I guess we just have enough time to talk about what's coming. Yeah. We just have enough time to talk about what's coming. What I will say is that I don't have the next guest... For this show lined up next week. I'm not 100% sure what we're going to do next week. But it's going to be a two hour show as usual. And it's going to be a great one. We may explore a new topic. Or I may stumble into someone who's going to hop on. I'm not there yet. I do have some other big things in the works. I do want to tell you. If you're not going to the website. The IamLibertyShow.com website. You need to start going there. There's a whole slew of podcasts. at IamLibertyShow.com that are not broadcasted here at PrepperBroadcasting.com. Uh, there are shows that I do on a weekly basis or bi-weekly basis. They're probably going to be less frequent, but, um, they're there, you know, and there are shows on various topics. It's a different show. You know, I wouldn't say it's, it's whole, wholly different, but it's definitely a different vibe. I'm not live. I don't have a chat room to work off of. But I think you'll like it. So if you haven't gone to the website, listen to those shows. Go check them out. I have some new writings that are going to be going up on the website soon. What else do we got here? There is going to be a really fun show that's probably going to come out on the website. I don't think it's going to be a show I'm going to do here. It's going to be a nice long show about being a 21st century man. I think that's a topic that needs to be explored. I think I'm the right guy to explore it. I think it's going to take a long time. It might take two to three hours to really dig into it. There's going to be different levels of that show. You know, different subjects. But I think a lot of guys need guidance, man. I know I do. I seek out guidance every day. I listen to people. I listen to talks. I listen to radio shows. I listen to podcasts because I'm trying to get guidance every day. And it's weird for men. You know, there's no blueprint anymore. And I think that's an important thing to remember as a man. You know, for years and years and years, for millennia. I mean, you could say for millennia. A man's blueprint in life was pretty straightforward and pretty clear. And as we raise 21st century men, and as we ourselves are 21st century men, you know what I mean? It's one of those things where I think we have to look at it differently. We can't define what a man is by, you know, your great-grandfather. It's a different time. It's a different time. What I've noticed is that when you grow up putting those kind of expectations on yourself in a society that's not built that way anymore, you can get ugly. You can get really crazy. But that's the situation. That's what we're dealing with. What else do we got up here at the I Am Liberty Show website? Let's see what's on the top. Front and center, we've got the first show, the I Am Liberty Understanding Mass Shootings Part 1. Faith Collapse and American Responsibility. I did a great little show on the micro bug out. That was a good show. The micro bug out. That's something I learned from Dave Jones, our Friday host. I've got a bunch of shows I've got to put up on this website, huh? Yeah, I'm a little bit behind. We'll get that taken care of. We also have the newsletter available up there if you want to go sign up for that. The newsletter is going to be where shows are announced. It's going to be where you can get caught up with all things I Am Liberty. It's also going to be where we do giveaways and where we announce products and books as they come to be. Right now, I'm chewing through a sort of an omnibus style. It's sort of an omnibus style storybook. about a few different types of end-of-the-world scenarios. Some of them are very personal stories that happen from one person's point of view. Some of the stories are more broad. I'm looking to have that out in October. It's a little terrifying. Some of the books are a little terrifying, but I think you guys will love it. It's been a while since I did fiction, so I'm excited to get back into fiction. I like writing fiction. I have a good sci-fi horror base for that. We've got a lot of children talking in the chat room. That's good. That's good. If there was one takeaway from tonight's show, what was it? It was the fact that we need to figure out what... Just in the same way that I mentioned what is the 21st century male supposed to be, I think The same thing could be said about women, but I can't do a whole show on it because I'm not a woman. And the same thing could be said about children. Right? You look at all of the different charts and all of the different information and all of the different growth that we've seen. You know, we've seen technology advancements, food production advancements, population growth like nothing we could ever imagine, advancements in the sciences. With all this advancement, there's no one asking the question, what should the human do in the 21st century? What should the human be? What should the human child be? What should the human woman be? What should the human man be? What sort of things should they be learning about doing? That type of thing. Ha ha ha. Oh, man. I think we're going to wrap it, guys. I think we had a great show. I don't have anything that's incredibly important to add at this point, really. I'm talked out. I think we've done it. You know, I think we found the ruby that we were looking to find. So rather than beat a dead horse, what do we got? We've only got about 10 minutes left anyway. Probably just the amount of time we need to, uh, To knock out a good outro and maybe a lullaby. I don't know. Are you guys interested in a lullaby? I don't actually have any literature near me. I usually almost always have at least one piece next to me that I want to read. I don't always read it. But there's always at least one piece. Jay Ferg's asking if I'm going to sing. You know, I don't mind singing. But it is a very strange thing to do. I will say that. It's one of those things that I get a weird feeling about singing through a microphone on a podcast. It's something that is a little more intimate than that, right? When I said, oh, that's not a bad one. You know what? I don't have it down here. Well, you know what? There is one that I think is worth talking about. And I think it is Ecclesiastes. Just so you listening know. Jay Ferg in the chat room said open up the Bible and say something. Any verse. So we're going to go to Ecclesiastes. Who is my favorite? The teacher, the king. Was he the king? Yeah, the king. So let's see what the king has to say in Ecclesiastes 9.9. And I think we can end with this. I can't bring the blog talk studio up for some reason, so that's not good. We'll have to deal with that at a later date. Okay, Ecclesiastes 9. This may be 9.9. And, of course, you know, you bring it up. This is why I have to have the Bible near me, because when you bring these Bible excerpts up on the Internet, it's so brutal how many versions they have. Standard American, American King James, New Heart. And I'm looking for the one that I like, and I can't find it. This will work, though. New International Version. That sounds crazy, right? That sounds like a film. Sounds like a film. Ecclesiastes 9.9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun. All your meaningless days, for this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Now I can probably do a better job than that. I think I can do a better job than that. I think I have this one memorized. And the way I prefer it is, live life with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, that he has given thee unto the Son all the days of thy vanity, for that is your portion in life. That's the one. That's the powerful one. My portion is upstairs, sound asleep, hopefully. Hopefully I'm not keeping her up. But that's a line that we need to hear, just like I was talking about with the picture, with the incredible photo of Christian and his wife that just blew me away today. It's so good to put marriage front and center. You know, it's one of those things that I don't think we have enough of in society, is putting marriage front and center. But, you know, we're all so busy. We're all so busy and so distracted by our what? Our nothings. Our little nothings that get us nowhere. On that note, folks, we're going to call it. We're going to end the show. It's James Walton. It's been a great episode. It's the I Am Liberty Show. I will talk to you guys next week. Another big show. Don't miss it. We'll see you there.