Rebuilding Life After Divorce: Seth Pickens’ Journey to Thriving 💪✨|| DPTSP#157 || David M. Webb

[00:00:01] Welcome back to Don't Pick the Scab Podcast, where we help men over 40 rebuild their lives with hope, resilience and purpose after divorce. Today, we're joined by extraordinary guest, Seth. Can't wait to talk to Seth, whose insights and experience are sure to resonate deeply with our audience. For over two decades, he helped individuals and organizations navigate profound change, personal adversity and transformation. Drawing from his own journey through divorce, the loss of his father, he's rebuilt his ideas.

[00:00:31] He's a man, father and a person of faith. Now happily remarried, our guest brings a unique blend of behavioral psychology, leadership and spiritual formation to help men move from surviving to thriving. He believes that healing begins not at the end of the journey, but at the moment we choose to shift our mindset. We are equally yoked there, buddy. Big time. No doubt. Ready to explore practical tools for emotional resilience, rebuilding identity and rediscovering a meaningful life. Tell us a bit about yourself, Seth.

[00:01:01] Seth, and we'll go from there.

[00:01:30] Absolutely, man. I was a seminary, union seminary, New York City, master of divinity, worked in New York for a while. 2009, I was called to Los Angeles. And then my then wife and we had one child and one on the way. 2009, I'm 31 years old. Moved to Los Angeles to be a senior pastor.

[00:01:52] Kind of didn't know what I was a senior pastor.

[00:02:22] And there's so many brothers out here with great things going for yourselves and whatever me and David can do here to help you see the light, man. What was the turning point in your healing journey after your divorce and other personal losses? Did something happen? Did it trigger? Is that, hey, let me think about this. What was your segue?

[00:02:41] Yeah, I actually had a spiritual experience before the marriage was a wrap. We were sleeping in separate bedrooms. It was a wrap. It was a few months until we actually officially moved out and separated. But I was just doing writing, reflecting, meditation at that time because I was in this low point. My father was dying of cancer. The marriage was on the rocks.

[00:03:05] I'm in my 40s realizing, dang, maybe all those dreams I had when I was a kid. I wasn't something wasn't right. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Maybe I had planned it. Maybe I had picked the wrong career. But I was in the midst of that. And just the way that I dealt with that was writing and meditation. So I would just lay still. And this is something that whatever brothers as we're all on our journey, men or women too.

[00:03:32] But I found meditation helpful and I would meditate for hours a day at that time, which is a lot for me. But in that meditation, one day I just had a spiritual breakthrough and I can only describe it as meeting a higher version of myself. And a part of it was this idea just seeing and knowing from therapy, from other things I had read and learned and experienced that.

[00:03:59] It is that that childlike nature reclaiming that has been really key to the turnaround. And it's so simple. It's not always easy, but. That was the beginning of the turnaround. And it still was a year or more of coming out of the depths of it. I saw on your on the website, you infuse humor. What role does humor play?

[00:04:28] Man, you. I'm laughing just thinking about it. So humor. I mean, everyone knows laughter is the best medicine. Humor allows you to we have to be able to laugh at ourselves. I think that's one of the first keys to be able to heal and move forward is to just take an honest look in the mirror and to laugh at it. At one of my low points, here's just a quick story to convey humor.

[00:04:55] So 2019, like I said, I'm put out of this church. I don't have a job. I have two preteen kids. I got a wife kind of staring down my neck like, what's up? And I have no income coming in. So I decide now I'm 40 years old. Doctor degree from USC. Been pastoring for 10 years. The post office is hiring. So in my grief, this is an example. All right. Because there are phases of grief. There's denial.

[00:05:25] There's anger. There's bargaining. There's depression and there's acceptance. So in my bargaining phase, it was like, man, let me just get a job. If I just get a job and busy myself, everything will be OK. I go to the post office. Christmas rush. They're hiring Reverend Dr. Seth Pickens. There's nothing wrong with being a mailman. Driving the mail truck with the steering wheel on the right side. Walking 10 miles a day. Like delivering packages. Mail. Like bulk mail and stuff for the holiday.

[00:05:54] And I had to laugh at myself. But here's when I really had to laugh. So on my first day, they put me in the mail truck with another guy. And I'm helping him. I hand him the packages. He's showing me the ropes type of thing. And because I just don't look, sound, and talk like a mailman. Like I said, nothing wrong with being a mailman. I worked with that. But I just don't. And I had my glasses on too. I was going full. I just don't look like a mailman. So he thought, I don't know, you ever seen that show, Undercover Boss? Yeah.

[00:06:24] He thought I was Undercover Boss in the truck with him. And so he asked me, and he just asked me, he said, yeah, a couple of us around here, we think maybe you're Undercover Boss, and you're kind of checking this out. And you're, and I had to laugh because I was just like, I wish I was Undercover Boss, dude. I'm here with you trying to make sure my kids have Christmas. Like the fact that I wasn't Undercover Boss, I just had to laugh about it. And so when I talked, I was like, nah, man, I'm really not. That's funny though. And he still didn't believe me.

[00:06:53] So he's like, yeah, he's like, yeah, all right, all right. And then he gives me this sob story about, man, my baby mom's car keeps breaking down, man. Because it's like the show, he really thought I was going to come at the end and bless him and all this stuff. I was like, dude, I'm going to get you a new car. I'm going to get you an apartment because I'm the Undercover Boss. Yeah. It's funny. Oh my gosh. I just had to laugh at myself though, man. And that was actually, that was the beginning.

[00:07:22] It was still an uphill climb. I think about when you talk about post office, I'm thinking Hollywood Shuffle. That's all I'm thinking about. There's always work at the post office. Oh, maybe that was my thinking now that I look back. That's right. That's real. Man. So you've spoken about the invisible patterns of thinking. What are these and how do they keep man emotionally stuck? There are. We all have invisible patterns.

[00:07:51] We are taught basically how to navigate society. So here's just a quick example. So I'm old enough that, hey, you're a kid. Hey, what do you want to be when you grow up? A president of the United States, right? And so I'm old enough that I had loved ones say to me reflexively, ain't no black president of the United States. And at five, six years old, at five, six years old, I'm like, oh, okay, good to know. Check.

[00:08:20] Let me check that off the list. Because I'm learning from y'all. You're the ones that taught me to look both ways before I crossed the street. You taught me how to bathe myself. So you say ain't no black president. Ain't no black president. So we carry. That's just one small example. Until you kind of consciously unearth these things. They are the operating system, the limitations. And so ideas.

[00:08:46] So just real quick to your question, what men, a lot of it is even what we were taught and what we saw a husband was supposed to be or what we thought it was. That's kind of playing in the background of. And you can say however you feel about marriage. But some however we're however we are set up, we basically get it by eight years old.

[00:09:08] So if you're a people pleaser, it pretty much came because you learned that if you just appeased your parents, it was better for you. If you're outspoken, it's because you were encouraged to be because they laughed and they loved it. And basically all that is set by age eight. So those are the invisible things. What you saw in your parents' dynamic and how we end up often repeating certain aspects of what our parents and how their lives went.

[00:09:35] And it's almost uncanny sometimes how much we repeat them. These are all these invisible mental moments. Yeah, don't make me have to hurt you. Don't make me hurt me more than I hurt you. Yeah, that one too. How do men break free of that? I think that the answers are always within. So whatever, that's some of what this framework and what I've just my own work and my own story is.

[00:10:03] You know, brother, man, what would really make you happy. Somewhere along the way, so many of us were taught basically what would make you happy doesn't matter. You need to kind of get with the program. And I'll just speak for myself. That had become just the way of showing up and the way of doing things, even to where I was a pastor.

[00:10:27] And so as a pastor, however you feel theologically, it probably should ultimately be what God is telling me in my prayer and meditation and study and leadership and qualification should probably be the direction that we go. But an institutional church, and that's just my example with a church, but all over families, all of the systems that we're a part of. You become the black sheep of the family. Really just it's your own authenticity.

[00:10:56] So rather than be the black sheep and not fit in, let me find a way to go along to get along. But that's a direct path to that midlife crisis and all these things. Because if I'm not really being myself and living out loud and pursuing my joy and my purpose, then I'm not going to really be that much fun to be around as a husband anyway. No, I think I lost your question. What was the question? God, I don't remember, man.

[00:11:25] I was following you. Heck, I don't know. But anyway, so that got transferred to the next question. How can someone transform a crisis like divorce into an opportunity for personal growth? Something so devastating. Yeah, I think at the end of the day, life is our perception is our reality. So there's something called the Bader-Meinhof phenomenon. Everyone's experienced this. Where if I say, it's time for me to get a car.

[00:11:54] I think I want a green Jeep Cherokee. And I go to sleep and I think, green Jeep Cherokee. I'm going to start looking for green Jeep Cherokees. Within the next three, four days, I start seeing more green Jeep Cherokees, right? You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. That's called the Bader-Meinhof phenomenon. But that's true for literally absolutely anything we put our focus on. So in every crisis, yes, it's real mourning.

[00:12:22] It's real loss. It's real anger, upset, unforgiveness, self-esteem. All that stuff is real. But at some point, to turn the tide. And you can't push a river. So I'm not forcing this. I'm not telling any brother who's down, hey, get up and feel better. But at some point, it is about seeing things differently. And I guess the quickest thing I could say is that often starts with gratitude.

[00:12:52] No matter what you're going through, there's still something to be grateful for. Not making light of anything, but I work in this kind of homelessness services and response and on the research side. But I know and I've seen where just because someone is labeled as homeless doesn't mean that there's not some aspect of health and happiness and joy going on and positive relationships and flourishing. And it's all in how you see things.

[00:13:22] So there's always something to be grateful for. So if I start, so if I focus on, oh my God, this happened. Financial ruin, rejection, starting over in the dating world. What about my kids? All that's there and all that's real. But just like that green Jeep Cherokee, the more you focus on it, the more of it. Let me start with gratitude. Whatever it is. In this case, hey, at least I still, at least my job, at least the first and the 15th is still. That's something to be grateful for.

[00:13:52] Or the kids are healthy or I got a whole new lease on life. You begin to see it. But that perception is reality. And ultimately, I just have a very simple, I think they call it transitive. If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C, right? Transitive process. Yeah.

[00:14:12] So if our perspective is our reality and our perspective is our choice, ultimately it is. Then that means our reality is our choice. But it takes confidence. It takes authenticity. Because the only person, only way you can be all of this is to be that authentic you. Which is, like I said, by eight, you start finding out what the grown folks expect of you.

[00:14:42] By 12, you find out what the peer group expects of you. And then we spend the rest of our lives living into that. That is always less than the pure authenticity of who you're really born to be. Let's talk about emotional resilience. What's the difference between suppressing emotions and developing emotional resilience? Yeah. True emotional resilience. Suppression. Okay. And maybe I don't have the definitions right. But I'll work with your definition.

[00:15:11] To repress an emotion. You're a... Is it okay to say you're a dentist? Are we going to put that up? Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. I was like that. Is it a whole other double life? No, you're a dentist. So you know, you understand. There are times, okay, I'm working on the gums. Hopefully this doesn't happen too much. But let's say some blood spurts like straight up in the air, right? Or let's say the breath is just like, ugh, right?

[00:15:37] You are going to repress your... Good thing you got the mask on, right? Because they can't see you go, shit! They can't see you do that, right? So, okay, I'm repressing my emotion. I was disgusted, but in a professional setting, I repressed it. But at some point, I got to be able to journal about that or laugh about it with a friend or tell somebody. I can't totally suppress it. Because if I do, that's not healthy. So, yeah, there's times.

[00:16:06] And so as a father, I still to this day, my kids are 19 and 17. And so I've been divorced a few years. So things... I speak to them in more age-appropriate ways as they get older. But there's still certain things, certain real emotions I have about their mother, my ex-wife, that I repress somewhat. Yeah, definitely. But I still... I gotta be able to tell somebody or journal or share or take it to the Lord if that's what works

[00:16:35] or commiserate with some other brothers. I can't fully suppress it. Because when I... I have to express it somehow. Then I can maintain that emotional resilience. But just to put a stiff upper lip up, which is what I was taught. One of the biggest things... This is always an important question. What do you remember being criticized for the most by about the age of 10? And so you might think about that.

[00:17:04] I would encourage everybody to think about that. For me personally, it is deep and it plays into your whole life. But so for me, it was... This is a conversation. What were you most criticizing? I thought about that. Mine was, how come this room looks like crap again? Yeah. Keeping the room clean, looking after my little brother, things like that. So my parents were big on responsibility. Yeah. Yeah. And so... Exactly. Yeah. For me, it was, you cry too much. You're a crybaby.

[00:17:35] Dang. Big voice. Yeah. Big voice don't cry. Yeah. Big voice don't cry. And really to the point just when I said, okay, I guess there's no president, right? I was like... So same with this. I was like, big voice to your point about suppression. Yeah. Big voice don't cry. So by about eight or nine, like six, seven, eight, nine, seven, eight, nine years old, I really remember, all right, big voice don't cry. I want to be a big boy. Cut this dumb stuff out, Seth. Grow up.

[00:18:05] Come on. Come on. Suck it up. Suppression one-on-one. And I can remember my parents, God bless their heart. And yours, they meant well. They were smart people. They loved you. But they could have framed, why does this room look like crap again? They could have framed that a little more constructively perhaps. But that's what it was. And you took it how you took it. But so for me, it was, you stop crying. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to stop crying. So basically by 12, I had just mastered the poker face. And I mastered it.

[00:18:35] And it's still there. I'm kind of back smiling a lot more than I used to. But from basically 12 to 40, I didn't smile. I didn't cry. I cut one of my toes off with a lawnmower when I was 15. Freak accident. And I prided myself on the fact I did not shed a tear. Because by then, that's a little sick. But by 15, you're deciding, I ain't going to be that type of guy to cry.

[00:19:00] And you're trying to step into what type of person you're going to be based off of what you've been taught. So that suppression carried over to where the marriage, a lot of it is like, one thing my father used to say, bless his heart. And I love him. And he was a loving guy, smart guy, loving, God-fearing guy. But he used to say, you got to learn to suffer inside. That was the, what did you say? That's deep. Yeah.

[00:19:26] No, but that was the John Wayne kind of be a man thing that I actually was like, all right, let me learn. Let me figure this out. And I really actually went to figure. So that led to, that's when the anger boils up. And then your wife's like, oh my God, I don't know this man. Because it's been in there since you were 12. Yep. God. And that's why men don't like to go to therapy. Three and two. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah.

[00:19:54] So what are some of the common mistakes men make during their healing process and how can they avoid them? Some of the common mistakes. We've been through them. Not in this conversation. I'm saying I've lived through them. I'm saying. So there are a few. One is there are phases of grief and there's not any timeline on it. So basically I said before, you can't push a river, which is this old way of saying you can't force something faster than it's naturally going to go.

[00:20:22] So trying to force it men very often like an ego defense or a morning reaction. Let me make as much money as I can. Let me have as much sex with as much as many women as possible is a common, just depending on other factors. Not all the time, but that's, those are common approaches. Self blame. Now self accountability is important, but really blaming and beating yourself up beyond any point of correction.

[00:20:52] A little guilt, a little bit of shame actually is a good thing in small doses because it kind of, oh dang, let me never do that again. And you can kind of turn it around, but that can be too much for too long of guilt and shame. And yeah, I think another thing that men do is not really have maybe the fullest understanding of what forgiveness is because that goes back again to the suppression. The F word, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:22] That goes back. Yeah. Not to, yeah, please. I'm talking too much. No, no, that's fine. The F word, baby. That's a tough one for men. I'll say a bit on it. Yeah. I'll just say a bit on it. So back to the suppression. So if we're taught and maybe it was a Christian circle or maybe some kind of moral thing of forgiveness means stop being angry at them for what happened. That is the definition. But again, that suppression thing.

[00:21:50] You might and see, men, we deal with all this. You might resent your parents. You might resent your mother. You might resent your father. You might resent your wife. Right. And you might be suppressing it because you think you better not. Right. So forgiveness is, yes, it's stop being mad. But the only way you can stop being mad again is to, you got to be fully mad. You got to let yourself be fully mad. So I'm okay.

[00:22:16] Because if I date again and if I'm making enough money and if I get married again, then everything's okay. Again, that's that bargaining thing. And we can try to rush that too much. Or if she sees that I'm out here dating and stuff and I'm, so I'm posting my next girlfriend on social media before the divorce is finalized. It's these are, and so we make mistakes, but these are just trying to rush it. How about you're, you faced a lot of loss.

[00:22:43] You're really miserable and disoriented right now. And it's really, maybe we could have a laugh about it. You're not the only one who's been through this and not to rush it basically. But I will say this. Deepak Chopra says this grief, like a divorce. You need to give yourself about a year. Loved ones die, divorce, major shifts in life a year.

[00:23:09] He was like, beyond a year, it's on you. It's your choice of, am I ready to step out of this yet or not? And a lot of that's what that has to be a conscious choice. But when we're unconscious, we're not even conscious to the fact that's a choice. Gotcha. So how does divorce challenge a man's sense of identity and purpose? That's really big with men too. They go from two to one, from us to me.

[00:23:39] That's a tough transition sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, no. And I've seen data where a majority of divorces are initiated by women. Two-thirds, yeah? Yeah. Three-quarters. I know I was going to say 75, 80%, 70, 70. Yeah, it's right in there. It's more than two-thirds.

[00:24:00] And so men in particular, this is just my observation, we get into marriage really thinking it's forever. I think men, and we're not necessarily perfect, but no one's perfect and we know that kind of coming in. But I think men, pretty much by the time you decide you really want to marry this woman, you are really just about ready to give your life for her.

[00:24:29] And so you go all in. And yeah, there are ups and yeah, there are downs. But for the most part, two out of three, it's not the man saying let's end this. And I don't think that's just because men are monsters or men are more violent. I'd love to see some data on that. I don't think it's because men are more violent. I don't think it's because men are significantly committing infidelity more or necessarily.

[00:24:57] I don't think it's two to one. I don't think so. I think that men and women are wired differently. So for the men, that marriage becomes your identity, the husband thing, the father thing. And anytime you identify with something and then it's taken away, it's like, who am I? You don't have an identity and it has to be rebuilt. So that's a huge challenge for men. They say that we're defined by our past.

[00:25:27] And if your past is jacked because you got divorced, how can you create a new future without allowing the past to define your identity? I think that bringing things to light is about 80% of the journey. So just to realize this is who I've been through. And give me that question one more time.

[00:25:53] Is it possible to create a new future without allowing the past to define you? Yeah. See, we see the world through the eyes of the past. Unless we're totally conscious and in the moment. All right. So just think of it this way. You're six years old and it's a really bad thunderstorm. And the thunder and lightning is just crashing. And your bones are like jumping.

[00:26:21] 40 years later, 50 years later, it's a thunderstorm. You and your wife are sitting in Lazy Boys next to each other. The thunder crashes. She's sitting totally still and you're still jumping. Because you have a muscle memory. The memories actually live in the cells of our body. And then as the cells are regenerated, the memories are regenerated.

[00:26:46] But with a less, a copy that has less fidelity and a shorter telomere than the last cell. But it's still the same copy. So now I'm looking at, and I've seen this as a pastor where people are looking at me, talking to me, upset with me. But they're really talking to the last pastor who died 10 years ago. Or they're really talking to their ex-husband. But they're looking at me. And so we all do that.

[00:27:13] And unless you're essentially aware, just to be aware of that, like I said, is about 80% of the way toward, you know, just breathing. Okay, I can laugh at it. I can look at it honestly. I can own up to it. And now I can really choose something different. But I can't choose something different unless I know what I've been choosing or what chose me or what I chose as a kid. And I'm living according to this operating system. I got it.

[00:27:43] If you're in the operating system, you don't even know there is another operating system. You don't even know you're on an operating system. You're just living. But if I can step back and look at it and make another, then I can say, oh, wow, I don't have to respond that way. That's what anger management, all this is about. I can actually choose something different. So it's almost like having the old system running, but you have an update. You update that system and you move from there. Yeah. No, yeah. Yes. Yes.

[00:28:12] Yes. That's a good. Yeah. I think that's a good way to look at it. Let's talk about co-parenting. Woo-hoo. Co-parenting, baby. Let's get it out there. I told you earlier that my co-parenting was crazy and I got through it where I had to love my kids more than I hated my ex. What's your views on co-parenting? And how can fathers like me back in the day handle a less than optimal co-parenting space? Yeah.

[00:28:37] Because at the end of the day, the same issues that led to the divorce, those same, you know, largely probably unhealthy dynamics are still going to play out between the exes. Now when they were husband and wife, now they're exes, but unless that growth is taking place and I can't, whether she grows or not is not really, I can't, I have no, I have no control over that. I have very little control.

[00:29:06] I had little to no control over it when we were married. Yeah. So I really don't have a lot of control over that. I do have control over where I take it. Right. So what worked for me was when back to that repression and suppression, I did vow and to this day, we're four plus years separated, divorced that, and the kids have come up like

[00:29:32] in through their teens in those four years that there's not a bad word that they've heard from me about her. I still know doing my therapist and my best friend, they've heard some, they've heard my side of the story, right? As friends and as they've heard that, they've heard my side of the story, but my kids actually have not really heard my side of the story on it because what I needed them to know and what really worked for me and my kids and everyone, whatever, my kids are great, but they

[00:30:02] are doing well. My son's in college. He's doing great biology major, really excelling. My daughter's brilliant, aspiring, I don't know, take over the world, 17 years old and my son's 19. So what I needed them to know was a few things when we were going through the divorce. One, this isn't your fault. Kids somehow can tend to take that on in that guilt and in that everything. They can take that on.

[00:30:28] My room's always messy and he's so upset when he's messy, when the room's messy. So now mommy and daddy are splitting up. I'll clean my room up better, I promise. So I didn't want him going through any of that. So it's not your fault. We both love you. And we're not. We live maybe about 15 minutes apart for years after. And still maybe now both kids are driving. So that's not even as much of a factor. We're still all in the LA area. Yeah. And so I love you. It's not your fault.

[00:30:58] And nobody's moving away was fortunate. And then, but the other thing for men, and you do have to, I would say you're probably better off repressing maybe, but still got to get it out later. But some of that stuff, some of the garbage around your kids, just keep that away from your kids as much as possible. And even if your ex doesn't. And then, but then the other thing, the deepest thing, and I'll just stop is the greatest gift you can give your kids is for you to be genuinely happy.

[00:31:28] Yeah. Not just necessarily running the streets, chasing tail, calling that happiness, but whatever you're genuine happy. No, no, whatever. I don't want to be happy. The morning. That's part of my phases of grief. That's part. Call that the whole phase. Yeah. I'm not talking true value, but anyway. No, that's right. Yeah. And that's part of the happiness.

[00:31:58] Yeah. Just to have a whole phase you never had until that'll get old too. And keep that away from your kids too. But yeah, if that's a part of it, do it. Keep that away from your kids too. But yeah, that's it. The greatest thing you can do for them is for you to genuinely be happy, genuinely, confidently happy. So we did the week on, week off. We changed on Sunday. So we get week on and week off. And I had to learn even when they were gone, I had to take care of myself. They call it the Jack in the Box phase.

[00:32:26] The kids go and the dad just sits at home, doesn't do anything. I had to figure out that I had to take care of myself even when the kids weren't there. Yeah. Man, that's big. Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's real. Yeah. You have to. And so maybe, but see, it is deep. It's deeper than the marriage, than just I was married and now I'm not. It's work that if you had, because some people don't get divorced. That's the other thing.

[00:32:56] Sometimes people, maybe they should get divorced, but they did, but they end up staying together. I would hope. So whether you stayed together or not, this is still personal mental health, personal confidence. Who am I? Identity work that you would have to do to be happy in a marriage or happy unmarried. Because just if I was unhappy married and now, if I was unhappy married, now I'm divorced. I'm just unhappy divorced.

[00:33:26] Yeah. There's still that other part of the work that has to be done. Yeah. All right, Seth, man, my men have about a half hour attention span, but this has been a treat, man. This has been so much fun, but we're going to revisit this again a little one of these days, but this was fun. I really appreciate you taking time to hang out with me. And like I said, there's so many similarities between us, even though you're just a young buck. But other than that, there's a lot of similarities, but let the people know out there where to find you on the internet. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:33:56] I'm on Instagram at guidance, D-R-S-E-T-H-G-U-I-D-A-N-C-E. That's probably the best place to find me. We're on YouTube also, Guidance Church of Religious Science in Los Angeles. I'm doing this homelessness policy work with USC. And if you just type in Seth Pickens USC, it'll all come up, all this policy research and initiatives that we're working on.

[00:34:22] And I am excited about dropping this book in the end of 2026. Unadulterated, how childlike capacities catalyze flourishing systems, which is basically an entire case that I'm laying out. A theory of change for the homelessness services system, which is the same because the system. See, don't get me started here, but real quick. Systems are people make up the systems.

[00:34:50] So if the people are depressed, it's a bunch of divorced, middle-aged, miserable, bewildered, non-identity having people that are all the social workers. Not saying they're all divorced, but these are the social workers working on the issue. The happier, the healthier the relationships, the better connected they are, the more authentically they speak, the more tapped into their purpose they are. The work will improve and the outcomes will improve.

[00:35:19] That's true for homelessness services. It's true for divorced men. So this is the unadulterated framework. So that'll be coming later, man. So when the book drops, I'd be honored or any time to come back and keep the party going. All right, man, you got one short paragraph to tell my men. What do you want to tell them? Man, you are wherever you are in life, man. Please just know that you were truly created for a purpose not to make it religious or weird.

[00:35:48] But seriously, you're here for something real. And deep, deep down, you have an idea of what it is. The numbers or the scope of what your wildest dreams are seem bigger than the realities of this divorced middle-aged working stiff. And if you're lucky, you got a good job and you're a working stiff, right? Sometimes we're struggling in that way, too. But it's real. The happiness is out there. This is a low point.

[00:36:18] I know what time's up. The low points are really the time to bounce back. And you got it, man. You got it. And so keep following David and onward and upward we go. All right. Hold on to the line. Seth, Matt, I appreciate you, man. This was so much fun. And we wish you continued success, especially with the books. But yeah, we're going to revisit this again because I think we just hit the top. Just the crust. Yeah, man. Hold on to the fold on. Don't go nowhere. We'll close it out.