“Suicide is a symptom of hopelessness.” Aaron Burgin from Suicide Sucks joins us to talk about his brand Suicide Sucks which is geared toward “rocker teens,” and the need for messaging designed for the audience. He is taking the communications side of suicide support head on using prescriptive analytics, demographic appropriate branding, and sharing the importance of intentional connection.
www.suicidesucks.com
The Illuminate Recovery Podcast is about Mental Health, Mental Illness, and Addiction Recovery. Shining light on ways to cope, manage, and inspire. Beyond the self care we discuss, you may need the help of a licensed professional. Curt Neider and Shelley Mangum are a part of Illuminate Billing Advocates. They are committed to helping better the industry and adding value to the lives of listeners by sharing tools, insights, and success stories of those who are working on their mental health.
Transcript (no grammar): suicide is a symptom of hopelessness aaron burgin from suicide sucks joins us to talk about his brand suicide sucks which is geared toward rocker teens and the need for messaging designed for the audience he is taking the communication side of suicide support head on using prescriptive analytics demographic appropriate branding and sharing the importance of intentional connection his nonprofit is doing a lot of good please reach out and lend your support enjoy welcome to the illuminate recovery podcast we shed light on mental health issues mental illness and addiction recovery ways to cope manage and inspire beyond self-care we will discuss you may need the help of a licensed professional my name is kurt neider i'm a husband father entrepreneur a handyman and a student of life i avoid a i deflect with humor and i'm fascinated by the human experience and i'm shelley mangum i am a clinical mental health counselor and my favorite role of all times is grandma i am a seeker of truth and i feel like life should be approached with tremendous curiosity i ask the dumb questions i fill in the gaps so i'm excited to kind of hear what this journey's been like for you um aaron and and why why you picked why you picked suicide prevention or you know suicide awareness um maybe that would be an important question that to ask is how did you get into this well um so i was serving a mission for the church of jesus christ in washington i started getting emails from my little brothers 15 months younger than me he had joined the military and had left and um i didn't really see him much but by the time i left out on my mission and i started getting these emails from him which i was so excited about each week i'd come you know just so excited to get to my computer to hear from my brother and um he started saying some things that you know back in the day there was things that happened to us you walked away but i got stuck and you know i i started thinking i hope he's okay and that's the extent of my thoughts so i hope he's okay and it wasn't long after and i found i found out that he had taken his life and i felt so surprised and so shocked at the this whole experience and not being home for the whole experience was just really really difficult and it took a few years of just trying to really empathize with him i had to get into his mindset and just think of all the memories i had had with him growing up like where the paths could have deviated because suicide's never crossed my mind it's never been a challenge but our parents did go through a divorce and our family didn't always have the greatest you know experiences and we didn't do a very good job of taking care of each other and and then all that weight just felt like it was just always on my shoulders and so for me to go figure out where he was was important so i started googling how do i kill myself and google's responses were well you could shoot yourself you could cut yourself you could jump off a bridge there's all these articles teaching me how to die teaching me how to do it faster or slower more painful or less painful and it was just disgusting honestly and i was at the time i was just angry about that right it's 2015 targeting products were already following you around the internet everywhere you go and the marketing technology that wasn't being applied was just disgusting to me and so i looked around and i tried to find a non-profit that was applying marketing technologies to find people that are asking for help as they type in their suicide message and there was no one doing it so i decided to start the nonprofit and uh eventually left my career like i mentioned left my production career management career and to go start the nonprofit went full time for six months attended the state prevention meetings the county prevention meetings just got as deep as i could into what prevention was and what i saw was what you mentioned people in the profession are are vested they're in invested and they're interested in preventing it but the thing that's happening is that people are being surprised by their loved one killing themselves and they're not being aware of what's going on so there was a disconnect um so ultimately i started you know postulating what does technology look like in 10 or 15 years and and what will that do for our prevention efforts and i you know ultimately came down to almost gene learning and data will actually tell us so much there was a couple of professors out of florida and vanderbilt that actually created an algorithm based off of clinical questions standard questions a doctor would ask to 5000 patients and they predicted based off of those questions a 93 accuracy who is going to attempt to kill themselves in the next seven days right and that's a pretty short window of time but that's a ton more time than most people get right um and then they actually had an additional study that said within two years we can predict that within 84 83 accuracy and so i thought you know if we can get that accurate from just clinical data what if we had all of everyone's online data what if we all the data that they're being tracked anyways for marketing what if that was actually applied to prevention in a way that we could actually find people before they died right so long story short i thought you know what that's out of my league to go build an algorithm guaranteed google and facebook will come out with something here soon took six months facebook hired three thousand suicide prevention and detection employees 3 000 is so many um but there was at the time there was 10 suicides broadcasted live right i don't know if you remember those those stories but live features had just come out and there was at least 10 across youtube myspace facebook that had killed himself on camera for millions of people to watch um and so you know for me it was like they're gonna build the technology but once they do what that what then you know the next level of of analytics is first you can have descriptive analytics describe what's happened in the past then you can have um a predictive analytics based on what's happened in the past we predict this is going to happen and then after that you can actually have a prescriptive right so if if somebody is going to actually attempt to hurt themselves can i prescribe them a message that actually helps them feel differently think differently and it was first publicly used in obama's presidential campaign and that's actually what they credited his victory to was using prescriptive analytics find the right message for the right people and you convince those people that you know that life is worth living in our case so i went and got a master's degree in communications so that i could figure out what are the different communication strategies what are the ways we could reach out to people and use marketing technologies to then go find someone that's struggling and then use the right message and that's where we are today really we got to figure that out and all the organizations whether you're in therapy or your addiction recovery every one of us should have some sort of inbound process and that should include using messages to reach people that are struggling to bring them in to give them that community and that support whoa that's pretty powerful stuff that you're talking about i mean my head's going a million miles an hour thinking you know they're talking about doing artificial intelligence as therapists to kind of hold a space for a therapist because right now they're all overworked and so it would be really interesting to be able to target somebody that that evidence shows they are thinking about suicide and even open up a artificial intelligence for them to talk to you know it kind of distances them because so often they want to isolate and they want to be away but you know they're willing to type to a computer they're willing to engage in other ways so that's pretty powerful and when you talk about um this algorithm that was did you say 93 percent successful in in predicting somebody's desire to to attempt to take their own life yeah yeah so so 93 accurate in predicting the self-harm attempts that's incredible i mean most most research is after 40 or 50 accuracy 93 accuracy is huge that's ginormous so when we can i mean definitely we have to do something with that kind of information yeah and that's that was five or six years ago and and what they've done since then has has just really been incredible may of 2020 there was an article posted that there was a group that just wanted to scrape twitter feeds and they actually took 35 000 tweets and they you know were able to successfully teach an algorithm what suicide looks like on twitter right and imagine if you had the power of google all the searches all the clicks all of the views all the behaviors then you have the power of facebook and the comments the likes the music they're listening to imagine compiling that data to give them give us an idea right we don't know necessarily what are the inputs that lead to suicide but if you had all the data then you could start to figure that out and the machines the the the algorithms get smarter and smarter you know giving us more time and what it always comes back down to though is what are your connections who are your support you know who's your or do you have family that's there to help you um and is someone there that can guide you through this process because ultimately if if you're in that the state of mind where suicide is the only and best option for you there isn't a lot that's going to convince you otherwise right so hopefully we can get messages in front of their inspiring that are relevant you know i've always thought you know i would never want to give a firefighter that's 30 years in the business seeing the gory and the and just the trauma that they go through i would never want to show them a video of a you know a teenage girl who has overcome being abused or raped right that's not relevant and it would be it would be a kind of an icky feeling you're right to mismatch that message to that audience so it's pretty critical that you get the message to the person correct well and what you said is true you know i talk about ai and connecting and and my first thought is just how do we start to get them to talk but what you said is really important and and probably one of the most vital pieces of information because they need connection they need to know somebody cares and that their life matters because the truth is if we want to talk about the way the brain works right is their prefrontal cortex that part of the reasoning rational executive part of their brain is offline they are not in a good state like you said to be able to think and to make good decisions their only way out of pain is to end their life and so thinking of ways that we can engage with them to help to shift that to help regulate some of that distress that they're feeling is going to be really important part of that yeah for sure i mean the stats today are pretty astounding in adolescence you know as we're really a lot of my focus and research has been you know they're saying 12 to 15 hours a day or being spent online and if we're not creating strategies amidst that those you know with the 12 to 15 hours whether it's snapchat or facebook or i don't know if kids use facebook anymore tick tock probably you know if we're not creating those types of content strategies we're not going to get their attention right and so if you're if you're a brand today that is interested in serving this audience you've got to find those people that stand out as hopeful or as that have overcome their unique challenges and share their stories on these platforms so that those kids that are stuck scrolling have that bright spot every now and then as they're scrolling through their screen and i think that's one of our most critical and best opportunities today is insert positive hopeful content amidst all of this strictly entertaining or strictly you know negative material well that's a little incredible to me that to think of a teenager sitting in front of a computer for 10 or 12 hours a day which i know they're doing it but it blows my mind right well yeah it's right it's on their phone and i look at my phone and go i cannot read you i need a computer screen the generations are definitely there's a gap there's a little bit of a gap but but to think that that's how much time they're spending in front of a screen and and our solutions are are still when we look at technology as a solution the real solution is we need to connect with people right we need to get out we need to move we need to exercise oh you know and covet is just amplified that a hundred fold i'm wondering aaron have you seen what have you seen or do you have data on the shift pre-covered to covet and how that's affected people's um you know suicide levels yeah um i don't have any data to reference uh just the research i've done obviously there's way way more cases of anxiety depression the isolation is just obviously done wrecked a lot of havoc and people have stayed inside way more right so but all across all ages right since you're talking about the working class the the adolescents that are figuring out how to survive a social scene behind masks and you know the whole the whole world has been turned upside down in terms of our mental health so it just comes back to being that much more critical critical to what you've said how do we how do we create experiences but more importantly for people that are willing to create social and connection socially connecting experiences and and generally are more extroverted if they don't have the opportunity introverts aren't going to do it you know and so introverts are often the ones being taken care of because somebody else is reaching out and saying hello first right um and if that opportunity never comes then both of them are suffering right the extrovert doesn't get there i need to get out i need to say hello and the introvert doesn't get someone to notice them and actually appreciate them as you know as the unique individual that they are right so we need each other um but we're going to have to figure out different ways to to incentivize and motivate each other to go out and make it happen there's a couple things that i've been doing with work and outside of work is just scheduling zoom calls or scheduling a google meet or with with friends with strangers you know and just having a 15 or 30 minute conversation and honestly every time i go and have that conversation with somebody else i feel lighter i feel lifted i feel connected and my mental health improves right but and all it took was hey you want to chat for a few minutes let's just book a call you know but that's not something we as professionals think to do it's not something we would think hey maybe my teammate could use a quick 15 minute call but if we were to do it it would sure make a lot of difference wow i know the idea of getting on a zoom call is it has a little bit of a distaste in my mouth for connecting but if that's the only avenue that we have is to to get on and see somebody face to face and talk to somebody that we care about or that we know cares about us um then it does it makes a huge difference it's not the same as meeting face-to-face but it certainly is an in-between while we you know while we can't meet in groups and while we can't get out there and while we can't be as active as we'd really like to be so i love that i love that approach and also i hear you say something about uh you know i hear sort of this responsibility you know for me as having you know having people that i work with i might have a little bit of a responsibility to pay attention to people's moods to pay attention to some of the things they're saying or how they're doing and check in with them um and that might be a new thought to people out there in the workforce right now yeah i don't i don't think everyone starts with that level of selfless concern right i think i have an advantage where i've already lost my brother and my heart literally just like gets crushed every time i hear somebody else's story there was one this weekend someone losing their hands to suicide and it just makes you so aware that everyone has their own story everyone has their own struggle and if you're not going to be the one that reaches out with any sort of caring or empathy or you know mercy while they're angry or frustrated or short or snappy if you're not patient with that and can still build a relationship through that then who will you know and ultimately i feel like any anyone that has any level of concern we do have a level of responsibility and duty to help people feel that connection and feel like they have a safe place in us that's what we in mind i think is doing a really good job and nick's daggie and that group of they're just pushing forward this this community and this culture of it's okay to be not okay and it's okay to share your story we're gonna actually rally around you and we're gonna lift you up and we're gonna strengthen each other um and that's that's something to celebrate that's something for sure that we need more of oh so much more of because the i think the stigma and the you know the negative stigma around you know being depressed or having those depressive symptoms or feeling you know feeling suicidal or having suicidal thoughts it has such a negative stigma and it it it really keeps people in shame and and not reaching out so organizations that really address that very first piece of it's okay to talk about this it's okay to feel that way plenty of other people feel that way let's get together and support each other i love that idea i think that's super powerful yeah there's some cool apps right now that are coming out you know they help create events that are kind of spontaneous and whatnot but i think as far as some of the technologies that are coming out are really cool um one of the one of the articles that recently came out with a prescriptive analytics mechanism basically they were they were saying there's so many layers to your mental health there's so many different diagnos diagnoses that you can get but we usually kind of lump those together and then give them this lump sum response right so um really the people over at spring health is the is the benefits company they're they're taking this effort to go create a machine learning algorithm that takes in your a questionnaire or takes a blood test or it gives you multiple inbound diagnoses right and then out of 200 different different uh diagnoses that you could potentially have what's your makeup right what are the significant different difficulties you're facing and then we're going to pair that up with 200 treatments right and we're going to make sure that the right treatment to the right issue is being taken care of right and that goes back to feeling connected and feeling like the person you're expressing your vulnerabilities to is not only compassionate and and empathetic but is also relevant in what they have to say in return well that is such an important concept and and although we talk about it in in recovery and in treatment all the time right we talk about it all the time but the the reality of matching a recovery program with an individual and making it unique to that individual is a whole lot more challenging on the face-to-face one-on-one um you know when you're in a program with other people then maybe what we what we really say that it is right was we want to make these unique programs we want it to be specific to them and i think a lot of them are don't get me wrong i think a lot of programs have very specific treatment goals to each person i think where we lack is the documentation is not supporting it right what they put down on paper does not send the message that this is a unique program for this person in this situation and and your example of a firefighter versus you know a young girl overcoming trauma you know there's a wide variety of people and experiences out there and i think you're absolutely right we have to address those specific needs and the goals right someone's goal might just be i want to be able to sit at home all day long and play games without feeling anxious and that might be their goal and we can't we can't put our expectations on top of them and somebody else's goal might be you know to be the governor of a state or you know something that we might consider as fairly you know run a company or something fairly you know that that that takes a lot of more energy um and and being very specific as to what is your goal what do you want and fit those to it i'm curious there's a lot of people out there and i suspect a lot of our listeners um aaron you know they've kind of you've got their attention where would they go to i know you talked about we are mind does a really good job talking about it what are other resources if they want to get a hold of you or if they want to get a hold of other resources that can help them or a loved one what would you recommend um you know candidly i haven't done as good a job as i would have liked to this whole time of pulling those resources and creating that as a landing landing page right but ultimately i think there are some really good resources with the afsp.org the american foundation suicide prevention the trevor project ultimately the va right that there's there's a number of non-veteran-based non-profits i don't think there's one good resource other than google to figure out your audience and your need suicide sucks mission really is pushing this this this this potential capability that we have if we just connect the dots the right way and i i haven't ever focused on being the resource but i focused on really spreading the message that technology with empathetic and compassionate communication will have the power to prevent suicide if we as organizations go about it the right way so i'm happy to chat with anybody too directly um and maybe we can post an email or something after this but aaron at suicide suicidesucks.com is the easiest way to reach out to me i love that and and i think it would be you know important also to mention that there is a talk line for people who want no more information whether you're having you know suicidal thoughts or if you're a family member concerned about somebody i think it's important to mention this line that they have people that will answer your phone calls and answer your questions and help bring you to resources too and that number um is hundred two seven three eight two five five and that's a number that i try and keep um handy at all times when someone's really suffering and and struggling and i'll even get on the phone with somebody sometimes and just say let let's just talk to somebody let's just talk to somebody that can maybe you know give us some thoughts or some direction that's going to help improve this situation and um so anyway i think that's a fantastic number to know as well and yeah i think i think with that um i hear from a lot of moms that a lot of parents a lot of dads that that are dealing with a manic depressant or bipolar or they're dealing with a child or someone that they love frankly that is going through a mental health crisis right and they're asking me what do i do right and my best response to that is if i could turn back time i would have moved more mountains i would have done more and my only message to parents is don't be on my side of the fence looking back with regret everything you can right take it serious if someone is mentioning i'd rather i'd be better off dead or i'd prefer not to be here anymore or if they're giving any signs or indications that suicide is a potential have the conversation don't be afraid to ask are you suicidal are you thinking about suicide do you have a way to kill yourself do you have a plan when are you thinking about doing that get into the details because if they're thinking about it and they've actually planned it you know you could be within 24 hours of losing your your son or daughter and you don't you don't want to be on this side of the fence looking back thinking i should have i could have and the worst one i would have right if you would have then do it now that's that's powerful advice aaron and and you know having having experienced or having close people that have died myself or have taken their own lives i often will say i don't care how much the hospital costs take them there now take them there right now because saving their life is far more important than the cost of what it might take to get them the help that they need do whatever you have to to get them help because this is preventable but you do have to take action so super wise instruction um and just get help you can't overdo it right because the hospitals will assess the hospitals will and not that they're not they're not that they're always right but they have resources um there are resources out there and you have to do something as opposed to and recognize the signs so the awareness is huge is to recognize there are things that people say that give you clues they're not doing well and they are thinking about it and so learning to recognize those things is important um yeah and most counties have a list of trainings that you can get right like a qpr training would be incredible if you're going to get deeper and get an assist training which actually goes to practicing responses and how do you communicate with someone that is actively suicidal and how do you de-escalate a situation like that safely and help you feel more comfortable in those in those circumstances so if you're like me that preparation really helps you feel a lot more confident going into those circumstances and especially if you're dealing with someone that you love in those active circumstances any training or any insight you can gain into both what we've what we've learned as a community a society of what they're going through scientifically medically um but also emotionally and up with how do you empathize with that what they're going through so that you can communicate the right way and that's what it always comes back down to right how do we communicate our love and our insistency that their wife is worth more alive than if they were to die right and that's the thing that's most misaligned in their thought process is i'm better off dead my family will be better without me right and that's where their brain is misfiring yeah absolutely misfiring i love that you bring up the idea that talking to them about their plans and their thoughts of suicide is not going to cause them to commit or take their own life it's just it's not we we're afraid of that a lot of people are afraid of that i know before i had education around you know suicide prevention and understanding it better i would go i can't talk about this because then they'll go and act on it and that is a myth that's not true so i love that you bring that up thank you for bringing that up and um and aaron thank you for being so passionate about something that is life changing and that really does make a difference and that affects i think it affects everybody i don't know if too many people have not been touched by you know someone taking their own life at some point in time particularly people close to them so i sure appreciate what you're doing and the efforts you're making i love to hear you say i quit my job so that i could figure out how to do this better and and the jobs that you're taking are absolutely focused on learning how to make a difference in this field that you're passionate about so i love that it's huge and i honor you for doing that yeah thanks for having me it's been a pleasure and ultimately it's just one of those things that i can't let go of so if anyone's going to be joining this crusade with me more the merrier because you know our reach has to get to that next person to prevent it right it's one person at a time and and only one of me can only reach so far so the more of us the better what's your ideal you know suicide sex future um so ideally i actually have a pretty strong vision in terms of how do i take those data inputs and understand basically do some descriptive and predictive analytics based off of if i could get current death records and actually figure out what are some of those inputs that have led to suicide in 100 confirmation right and then actually teach an algorithm correctly how to identify suicide my ideal future would be to go start up a technology firm that then enables organizations and employers to then have some insight and indication maybe not in the individual cases or you know knowing someone's personal identity and their their struggles but to have more insight into the total mental health of their organization right as a business leader i would 100 percent want to know if thirty might percent thirty percent of my organization is severe depression to suicidal right um if if there's any way to get you know um both insurance companies involved and employers involved and get more power to the parents and family members of those that are struggling through technology i don't know exactly what that looks like but i would i would love to go down that path and start a technology company that creates a tool that's both protective of privacy and individual rights and empathetic to people that are struggling and empathetic to people that don't want other people to know that they're struggling but still be able to provide some level of additional support and and and even escalated support when those emergency crisises were were coming up yeah the technology you talked about at the crisis level is fascinating the power of change that that could potentially have on the same wavelength you know if you can keep people from getting to crisis level that would be it that would be a bigger win how do we just enable all people to have the tot the either emotional or mental tools to help know that they're a little off right how do you how do you create and maintain connection before you get to the point where you're at crisis yeah that's a great question i know it's amazing that's amazing that's the question right how do we get proactive about this how do we not have crisis um and i think that comes back down to how do we support and build up families where parents are involved and are supporting their kids and and where siblings are enabled and empowered to to ask questions of their siblings that you know that would dig into their to their deepest parts of them and actually pull it out and say you know my brother mentioned to me in these emails i got stuck and i've done things that i feel are unforgivable and and you know i wish i could reach through the screen through time and and strangle them then right like nothing is insurpassable and nothing is insurmountable when you have family and you have a support system right i mean and if that family support system isn't internal but it's external so a friend a co-worker a boss doesn't really matter but we have to have someone in our corner when we go through a trial or experience that we can't get through that we can rely on and expect that our reputation and our future still has hope i think that's the hard part suicide is is a results and like you mentioned before it's a symptom of hopelessness and whatever that is that breaks people's hope of a brighter future than today their hope of a less painful tomorrow than they have today whenever that hope is fully broken that's when we lose people and so it really comes a matter of how do we get proactive well what are the things that build hope in a brighter tomorrow than we have today and like we've mentioned that that honestly comes back to our our connection our relationships but also our education both into our own health and our mental stability as well as resources tools activities to do we just need to get more invested in taking care of each other well you're on an amazing path thanks for taking time for us today hopefully you know some of these conversations can spark positivity for individuals right maybe some empathy from family members um you know i think i think you're probably not that far away from getting the kind of support that you need for the program right where you know you can really take these skills and this passion and dive into it full time and i'm optimistic about the journey right i'm sorry to hear about your loss it's tragic and at this point all it can do is become a message of hope for other people right like you're saying like let's take let's take that and who your brother was and make changes in people's lives who still have hope because like you said there is there's always forgiveness right there's nothing that's unforgivable there's always a life after or whatever whatever an individual might think is insurmountable at this point there's always something right there's always a future so yeah kudo kudos to you and everything that you're doing i appreciate it thanks so much for letting me on today i i i'm pretty embarrassed that like the quality of the website and the resources you know i don't i wish i have done a better job of that but i at one point i put 10 15 videos of people's stories and just scroll through them on on website but it would take 10 seconds to load and people bounced off so fast i was getting two or three visits a day and i thought this is this is not gonna work so i took them all off and anyway i just i haven't had um that resource to just like get a good website with quality and so the less attention to that the better is that is that time you know on your behalf and getting those things right or is it money what's the resource that's sure um mostly time and most and and if i were to pay for it to have to be done what started this whole conversation the audience is that's really been a hard thing for me because i built suicide sucks with the brand and the imagery to go after like teenage rocks rock rockers like my brother was you know he would resonate with this like edgy looking brand that was that stuck out right and there's a lot of guys that wear the shirt because they love the design right and it's just it fits that audience but everything that i'm doing preventing technology this whole road map of what stages need to be accomplished in order for us all to be more successfully preventing it's not really that brand so i've basically i've needed to split the brand and create a new version of this is my prevention stuff and this is my i'm gonna we're gonna build a community around rockers yeah yeah you kind of need the professional level that's the holding tank right and then kind of audience intuitive brands like you're talking about right yeah yeah i ended up buying like eliminate suicide.org at one point and uh yeah i thought about doing a whole site for that but yeah so it's just been time and money it's been both at this point yeah well you know my hope would be that somebody hears it and they think this doesn't sound expensive you know i think some of those things can be bridged pretty easily by you know a donor where it's when you're trying to pay your bills with your regular job and do this on the side it's you know a lot more challenging because that's yeah i've we own a bunch of different websites that don't generate income and those those fees add up right the registry fees and the monthly fees and hosting and all that kind of stuff it just adds up over time so yeah to me to me it feels like a little could go a long way you know helping you with that and so you know hopefully hopefully we can help create some content to get that out there so yeah that'd be great ultimately those donations definitely help you know in power i love i love going into like someone's story and like investing a good amount of money and quality into the video content because when you do a good video and it goes and it visits a hundred thousand people like my my stepdad's firefighter story hit a hundred thousand firefighters in seven days right and i just was appalled at the comments thank you for staring this captain stevens you know like this is so helpful my and the wives thank you for sharing this i'm showing this to my husband you know like there's just so much there with that audience that you know just convinced me this is that's what we have to do we have to micro group it niche it down and we have to get good quality stories for each person that's struggling so that would be really cool just to create this whole you know like a tick tock for that you know while you were just talking about that it made me think of like uh you know the funny or die website where it's you've got these professionals who are creating content but the real intent of the site is we want like everybody just putting their content on here right like amateurs are putting skits on there improv studios are putting their stuff on there i wonder if it'd be interesting to explore creating a site like that where you're saying okay let's put let's do some let's create some of these stories right let's create some of these motivational stories on our own platform but the intent of the platform is to say put your own story on here right like everybody deals with a different issue you know what's your issue what do you use to overcome it right and and we all know people who have overcome it love to share that story right if you found a tool that works for you you know people are often not very shy about that and if you if especially if you were able to put on tools like kind of it angel has where you were able to say hey it's a place to host it's a place to connect it's a place to talk about your stories and that kind of thing but there's also some really cool tools on here where like hey if you get on we actually have an editor where you can upload you know a quick little video of yourself and will you know that the tools to edit it like a uh yeah canva or uh you know those types of tools that i think are getting a lot cheaper and easier to get to it could be a pretty cool community that would be sweet at that point i mean to build all that is pretty just capital intensive up front right so i've kind of gone down that journey and ultimately the when you start saying you know submit your own content like a user-generated platform now you're talking about so much right you're talking about spam first of all i can't i put i thought one time i put like a submit your video or your content and my inbox filled with like hundreds of emails every day from people just simply like lines of code just spamming me and i was like what is this like you can't trust anything out there because so much of the internet is just automated bots filtering websites and hitting hitting websites and anyway so that's annoying but you can build around that and then the other part is there's some liability there right and there's some actual level of both privacy as well as like when you're talking about asking for someone's story there's some risk of saying i'm the company promoting someone's gruesome graphic you know you just you have to have some quality built into that to make sure that it stays positive first of all and then also safe you know yeah it's pretty intensive but it's pretty intensive and i think when you're looking at that as like okay aaron in his living room trying to figure out this you know how do i eat the elephant it's too overwhelming it's too overwhelming right but i think i think your story and your ability could be pretty valuable to the right group right because i think i think there are those groups where you say you know you take a pretty decent size software company you take a a social media company or somebody and say if you could make that connection and have them say okay here's a guy who's passionate about this we have all of the tools for this already right we just really need to deploy it and it wouldn't take that much right yeah you know to me i think it feels like there's a tipping point a little bit there and so that would that's the part that i think to me is interesting of like okay i don't know that you know what you're doing now ever turns into this behemoth but it's really easy for me to see somebody seeing what you're doing and being like okay this is the guy we've been looking for right this is we we we want to do good this is an area where we want to spend our money and and use our technology and we need the right body to kind of spend the time running that ship to me i think that feels like a tipping point i've been looking for that group for a few years so if you just let me know well it's exposure right it's just exposure right and there's and there's how many unicorns in utah right now right i mean what you're talking about is a drop in the bucket for the right group yeah right i think it's um sorry i think um for as much as you put into something like this um you take a lot of hits you know um because everyone's story is personal you know it's personal them but then becomes personal for me and uh it's hard it's hard to maintain the energy and the you know the fuel to go be the sales guy and and network you know and do all that when i uh i have so much focus on the problem and the solution you know it's hard for me to do all those things and i've just been like you know how do i anyway maybe this is going to be one of those catalysts you know jumping points where we can make some introductions but ultimately it's it's one of those things that will not ever leave my agenda right it's going to be on my life's mission forever it's just a matter of how long it takes to find the right group and the right you know pieces to put to put together to apply all this energy to so anyway okay you need a benefactor yep i think so and there's a lot of grant money out there for this particular thing and you could join with someone like uvu who has they have money put aside just for suicide prevention and there's other organizations that do that as well and if you could you know collaborate even with google right google's huge um but you've got a vision maybe they're the right benefactors for you i don't know but but there's some there's there's lots out there so let's we'll i'll keep thinking about that again involves the schools is a smart idea it's a good idea okay well keep us posted we'll keep our eye on you and let us know if you need anything dude okay thanks thanks