Latest / Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza / Ep.60 - Tom Kersting Exposes Screen Time's Hidden Harm | Teen Mental Health | Digital Detox | Parenting Tip

Transcript

Ep.60 - Tom Kersting Exposes Screen Time's Hidden Harm | Teen Mental Health | Digital Detox | Parenting Tip · Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza

0:00
Tom Kersting, thanks for joining today.
0:03
Well, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
0:05
Really excited to hear from you. Can you start by introducing
0:07
yourself and your work to our audience?
0:09
Yeah, sure. So my name is Tom Kersting.
0:11
I am a licensed psychotherapist. I have a private practice up
0:14
here in New Jersey. I'm the author of two best
0:16
selling books, Disconnected, How to Protect Your Kids from the
0:21
Harmful Effects of Device Dependency and Raising Healthy
0:24
Teenagers. And I and I lecture, you know,
0:27
throughout the country to parents and schools and so forth
0:30
on on screen time and something I call mental, mental wealth.
0:36
Give us a rundown of each of those books if you don't mind.
0:39
Yeah, so disconnected. So I'm, I'm, I may be one of the
0:41
first pioneers in this territory.
0:43
We hear about screens and mental health among teenagers and, you
0:46
know, sucking up all their time, affecting them academically.
0:49
I actually started lecturing on this topic in 2009, so 7.
0:54
I think that's about 17 years ago.
0:56
That's really early on. Yeah, so the book really goes
0:59
deep into, you know, the psychological impact of too much
1:02
screen time, brain neuroplasticity, social
1:05
implications, the family issues, developmental issues, all the
1:10
above. And then, you know, provide
1:11
strategies and tips. A lot of research in that book.
1:15
Well, 2009, though that's even before or around the time that
1:21
Jonathan Height says is the beginning of the of the crisis.
1:25
So, yeah, Jonathan Height, yeah, he's, I've, I've, I've met with,
1:30
spoken with him online and so forth.
1:32
Yeah. So, you know, his his new book,
1:35
The Anxious Generation I Saw and I was jealous because because
1:39
his book, I'm jealous because his book was the number one
1:41
times New York bestseller, which is the Creme de la Creme.
1:44
And this is the stuff that I read his book.
1:46
It's a lot of stuff I've been talking about for many, many
1:48
years. But he's a great researcher, you
1:50
know, great professor at NYU. And you know, we have definitely
1:53
have a lot in common in 2000, you know, 2012, around that year
1:58
is when, you know, the mental health epidemic among kids
2:01
really began to escalate. And that's consistent with when
2:04
smartphones became mainstream. So what?
2:08
What are the main arguments in the book Disconnected?
2:12
Well, you know, I start off by talking about something called
2:14
acquired attention deficit disorder, which is not an
2:17
official term. So the way I got into the reason
2:19
I got into this was I was working in a high school back
2:23
in, you know, from 95 until five years ago.
2:26
And around 2008, we started to get an influx of students that
2:29
were teenagers being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.
2:32
And what a lot of people don't realize is that ADHD is a
2:36
neurological condition you're born with and the average age of
2:39
diagnosis is 8 years old. And if you have a child with
2:42
ADHD, by the time your child's five, you can't, you can't not
2:45
notice the symptoms. So here we're in our, this
2:47
committee, I had called the five O 4 committee we were fielding,
2:50
you know, every week a new 14 year old recently diagnosed with
2:54
ADHD and we'd never seen that previously.
2:56
So that that's what led me to the research.
2:58
I came across some research by a renowned physician named Gary
3:02
Small and one of the researchers on his team coined a term that
3:06
he referred to as acquired attention deficit disorder.
3:09
And when you meant by that, it is that they estimated that
3:12
roughly 70% of kids that are, you know, older like 131415 that
3:18
are diagnosed with ADHD likely don't have ADHD.
3:21
They have the symptoms of it. What they have is a brain
3:23
instead that has been so used to being stimulated 8 hours a day,
3:26
constant stimulation from screen time, that when the kid sits in
3:30
the classroom, that brain is all over the place trying to find
3:33
that that stimulation and therefore it affects the
3:35
executive functioning part of the brain, which is necessary to
3:39
focus and retain information. So that's how I got into it.
3:41
And then the book goes into something I call acquired
3:44
anxiety disorder. And just so you know, so much
3:47
just technic all these other things.
3:51
OK. Well, that that distinction
3:52
between acquired versus, I know what you'd call it, natural.
3:55
AHD that's really helpful because you're saying that's it.
3:59
It is possible that ADHD is a legitimate diagnosis, but most
4:05
of what people call ADHD now is just a matter of how they've
4:09
been trained due to what they've been exposed to for many hours a
4:13
day for years. Yeah, and again, you know, so
4:15
like ADHD is a it's not something you get.
4:17
So when I hear adult ADHD, right?
4:20
Oh, I got ADHD when I was an adult.
4:22
That's not how it works. Now you can have the symptoms,
4:25
go to a doctor and get prescribed a medication and you
4:27
know, you look at big pharma and they ran out of Adderall a
4:30
couple years ago. So then you know, they're not
4:32
likely to come back and say, hey, wait, maybe these people
4:34
don't have ADHD. We could, but they could treat
4:36
the symptoms of it. Whereas if what I tell parents,
4:39
if I get a call to my office and a parent tells me that their 15
4:43
year old recently started demonstrating symptoms of ADHD,
4:47
what I tell them is as best you can, try to disconnect and
4:51
unplug them for about for about 30 days and see what happens.
4:54
And likely the executive functioning part of the brain is
4:57
going to return to action. How many parents have you worked
5:01
with who have actually done that 30 day screen fast?
5:04
Very little, very little. Because it's, it's much easier
5:10
said than that. I understand that, you know, if
5:13
you, you know, there's, there's another element here too, Johan.
5:17
So in my recent book Raising Healthy Teenagers, I talk about
5:21
oppositional defiant disorder. All right.
5:23
And what that is, is, is a a kid teenager even younger, that's
5:27
just defiant and oppositional to an authoritative figure, namely
5:30
the parent. And that has begun to really
5:33
escalate in recent years in my anecdotal professional, you
5:37
know, experience and every time I have.
5:40
So if I tell a parent. This.
5:41
Well, it didn't even exist a few years ago, so it doesn't.
5:45
It's been around, but you don't really hear much about it.
5:47
Oppositional defiant disorder. So if a parent were to unplug
5:52
their, take their kids phone away even for a day or two or
5:55
their Xbox, they're going to exhibit oppositional defiant
5:59
behavior. I've had parents coming to my
6:00
office call me, tell me they're 11 or 12 year old, you know,
6:03
curses at them, punches holes in the walls, gets physical with
6:06
mom. And in the common denominator in
6:08
every one of those cases is that the parent has removed the
6:12
stimuli, either the phone or the Xbox, whatever it might be.
6:15
And the reason for that has to do with dopamine.
6:18
All those things target the pleasure seeking part of the
6:20
brain. So kids are literally walking
6:22
around with an endless IV drip all day long.
6:25
And when a stimuli is removed, there's a crash and a
6:28
withdrawal, just like if you took drugs away from a drug
6:30
addict. But you know, but the mind is,
6:33
is craving that dopamine and the crash and withdrawal manifests
6:37
itself, you know, behaviorally, physically, verbally, all of the
6:41
above. So what should a parent do in
6:43
that situation? Deal with it.
6:46
Yes, yes, you would be like some sanity.
6:52
No, I mean, we got a parent here, but that's the reason why
6:54
parents. Don't.
6:57
My gosh, this is so surreal. Talking to someone who has
7:00
common sense and you're a therapist is that you're a
7:03
psychotherapist? I can't believe this.
7:04
Yeah, yeah. License.
7:06
Yeah. So, you know, I mean, also,
7:08
that's the only thing you can do.
7:09
Like you're if you, if you have a kid that is constantly on
7:12
their screen and then you all the sudden remove it from them
7:15
for a day or two or whatever, they are going to freak out.
7:18
And that's the reason why a lot of parents don't do that.
7:21
So if a parent were to commit, you know, to say what we're
7:24
doing this for 90 days, Johnny's going to have a meltdown like
7:28
you've never seen before for the first couple of days.
7:30
It's going to be nasty for the first week, still a little bit
7:32
nasty Week 2. And by week 3, Johnny's likely
7:35
to all of a sudden start back, starting to return back to
7:38
planet Earth. And by Week 4, your Johnny may
7:40
be back. So have you actually experienced
7:43
that? Have you seen that habit?
7:45
Well, yeah, yeah, many, many times.
7:47
Sure. Yeah.
7:48
OK, so the parents just have to stay firm with this will be no
7:52
screens would would that be the intervention here?
7:54
Yeah, I mean, I think the intervention of starting point
7:56
would be to gravely reduce screens.
7:59
So you know, like I'm going to be giving a lecture tonight to
8:02
100 something parents and community members at at a
8:05
school. And you know, the, the number
8:07
one most important tip that I'm going to give to the parents is
8:10
that that your child's phone should never, ever be in the
8:14
bedroom with them at night, period.
8:17
So that right there is a really good starting point.
8:20
You know, I give an example in my book and at at my lecture I'm
8:22
going to give tonight that when I was working in the high school
8:25
before I retired five years ago, that final year, I asked a
8:30
question to 100 students. I did a little survey.
8:33
And these are all kids that knew me and trusted me.
8:36
So it was sort of like over the course of a school year, a kid
8:38
would show at my office. And I said to them, listen, I
8:40
have a question I'm going to ask here.
8:42
Just answer it honestly. It's not going to leave this
8:44
room. I'm not going to call your
8:46
parents. And the question I asked them
8:48
was the following, What time do you go to sleep on school
8:50
nights? And 92 or 93 of the 100 students
8:55
told me that they went to sleep between 1:00 and 4:00 AM every
8:58
night of the school week. And their parents had no idea.
9:02
And that's because the phone's in the bedroom.
9:04
So as a result, what your listeners might not know is we
9:06
have a sleep deprivation epidemic in America right now
9:11
among teenagers. Sleep centers are bursting at
9:13
the seams. And just that alone, you take a
9:15
tired and exhausted young person that is a non functioning human
9:19
being, they can't learn optimally.
9:21
They can't be in a good mood. They can't form relationships.
9:23
They can't have, you know, solid relationship at home with their
9:25
family. So that's, you know, that's a
9:28
non negotiable, you know, tool that I give to parents.
9:33
Well, sleep is the the number one factor for physical and
9:36
mental well-being, no? Question.
9:38
No question. OK, so you know one thing when I
9:43
give, I give kind of similar talks.
9:45
I'll be curious actually to hear one of your talks to see how we
9:48
how we are similar differ. But my take away at the end is
9:53
first of all, I'd say like the solution is no smartphones,
9:56
never give your kid a smartphone.
9:58
There's no reason to. And then even things like other
10:02
toxic forms of screen use, like social media and video games,
10:06
that's just not going to help your kid.
10:07
It's not going to do more good than harm.
10:10
But what are the challenges to following through on that plan?
10:14
So in my experience, it's anxious moms and weak men like
10:18
that. That's why they don't follow
10:20
through on the plan. It's not that they don't know
10:22
what to do. I, I can get into that.
10:24
I can explain that more. But I wonder if you have any
10:25
initial reactions to that? I like that.
10:28
So the anxious mom part, right? So, you know, I, I, I'm a big
10:35
advocate of phones not going, not being allowed in schools
10:40
period. We're seeing some movements with
10:41
that. And I know, you know, Jonathan
10:43
Hate is big on that as well. So when I bring that up at a
10:47
lecture and we, when we get to the Q&A, there's always the
10:50
question, well, what if there's an emergency?
10:52
You know what I mean? So the, the, the fear anxiety.
10:56
So parents have become we, we, it's become the umbilical cord.
10:59
That phone is the umbilical cord between child and parent, right?
11:03
So the fear that's sort of festering in all of our minds is
11:07
not necessarily based on any reality.
11:09
It's based on what we see. So everything's caught on
11:11
camera, right? Nowadays there's a camera in
11:13
everybody's pocket on every street corner.
11:16
You know, parents are afraid of a kidnapping.
11:18
Even that right there, you hear, you know, I, I see this when
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I'm, you know, in the morning, you know, parents in their SUVs
11:23
with their 12 year old in the past year seat when it's 75 and
11:26
sunny out and I know they live 3 houses down.
11:28
They're afraid to let their kid walk it because I know what
11:31
they're thinking because they're afraid of kidnapping, right?
11:33
So why would, why would they be afraid of kidnapping?
11:36
What they people don't realize is that kidnapping is at an all
11:40
time historic low and has been for many years.
11:43
The difference is if there is a kidnapping in the middle of
11:46
rural Kansas, you and I now know about it.
11:49
It funnels right to our whatever we're looking at, whatever
11:51
screen, and we immediately see that our brain soaks that in,
11:54
right? And we have this idea that
11:55
there's probably kidnappers floating around here, and we
11:58
create this sort of mass hysteria, which is what our
12:00
society is sort of bundled up in right now.
12:02
Yes, yes. And that hysteria, that anxiety
12:06
gets gets transferred to our kids, right?
12:09
So it's very contagious. So you look at the, you know,
12:12
the anxious epidemic, anxiety epidemic among kids.
12:15
It's a lot of that and more. And as far as the weak dads, you
12:21
know, I'm an old school blue collar guy, right?
12:24
I came from, my dad was a Vietnam veteran, but a real
12:27
humble Catholic man, police officer, Irish Catholic family.
12:31
So I came from a real strong Catholic, Irish Catholic family.
12:34
And you know, I had a strong male role model and you know, my
12:38
dad used to say to us, if if we were, you know, be saying, come
12:41
on, let me do this, let me do that, blah, blah, blah, you
12:43
don't trust me. He would say, God didn't give
12:47
you to me for me to trust you. He gave you to me for you to
12:50
trust me. So the I always say too Johan,
12:55
that the number one word in the parental vocabulary has to be
12:57
the word no. Dude, you're a real man.
13:04
I mean, it's just so refreshing talking to someone who's
13:06
actually a man. Well, it's just, you know, I
13:09
love, I have kids, you know, they're older, my son's 21, my
13:12
daughter's 18. And there's, there's no shortage
13:14
of love being flown, you know, thrown around.
13:17
But there's accountability, right?
13:19
If they're if, if they break the rules, there's accountability.
13:22
And you know, you want to get to a, you want to get to a point as
13:24
a parent where that if your kid does something wrong and they
13:28
will, and you find out that they feel bad and they feel bad
13:32
because they let you down the parent.
13:35
Yeah. Any other gems in the teenager
13:39
book that you wrote? Raising healthy teenagers.
13:42
Yeah. I got to get something.
13:43
I have it in front of me right here.
13:45
Let me see what we got. Yeah.
13:47
So, yeah, I want to talk to you about something very important.
13:50
So, you know, we hear all over about this stuff now, you know,
13:53
screen time and, you know, the epidemic among kids.
13:55
So one thing that nobody's really talking about except for
13:59
me, I believe, is, you know, we, I call, you know, the, the, the
14:03
smartphones, the modern day weapons of mass distraction.
14:06
OK, people are distracted all day long.
14:09
But here's something I've been, you know, pumping into my
14:11
lectures for a couple years now. Is that what our children, US,
14:16
us adults included. But let's focus on the children,
14:18
our kids, what they're ultimately distracted from is
14:23
self. Yes, right.
14:26
Self. Leisure and contemplation.
14:28
So you would love this like so if you were there tonight.
14:31
You know, I if I was speaking to kids tonight, I get to this part
14:35
of my lecture called cyber self esteem and I'll ask a kid in the
14:39
front row. I'll say, who are you?
14:41
And and I know what their response is going to be.
14:43
It's predictable 100% of the time.
14:44
They tell me their name and I say, hi, John, how are you?
14:46
And I go to the next kid. Hey Susie and hey, Paul.
14:49
And then I ask one of them to ask me who I am and they say,
14:52
who are you? And my response is I am not Tom
14:55
Kirsten. And then I pause and they look
14:57
at me like I'm crazy. And I go on and say that's just
15:00
the name my parents gave me. Now let me tell you who I am.
15:03
Who I am is a loving, joyful, caring, spiritual, powerful
15:09
human being. And then all the kids look at me
15:11
like I have two heads again. And the reason why I share that
15:14
is I explained to them that every single kid in this room
15:18
that I'm speaking to is every one of those things and more,
15:22
but they can't know it because they never tune into self.
15:24
They're always tuned out from self.
15:27
Kids today are constantly, almost constantly on a device,
15:30
right? So they never get to know the
15:32
true nature of self, which is the rest of the iceberg.
15:34
They're living in the 10%, the external world, the feedback,
15:39
the the likes, the streaks, the followers, the photos, the
15:42
Instagram, the TikTok. They never pause and learn how
15:46
to delve inward. So I teach them how to do that
15:48
for like 5 minutes a day. It's something called attitude
15:49
of gratitude. You know, you just pause.
15:51
It's a good starting point. And just, you know, for four or
15:54
five minutes, just take inventory of everything that
15:56
we're grateful for. And I predict that if every kid
15:58
in the country was to do just that every day for a month or
16:02
two, that the mental health epidemic would go down by 80%
16:05
just from doing that. And that's only the tip of the
16:07
iceberg of the depth of the rest of the iceberg.
16:10
Are we doomed? Or at least, is this generation
16:13
doomed? The young generation.
16:15
You know, I don't like to think, well, I, I, I don't want to
16:18
believe that they're doomed, but I think, you know, this
16:20
generation has been, you know, greatly stunted.
16:22
You know, I was looking at some article today.
16:25
I didn't read the article, but you know, like this generation
16:28
of young men, like, like testosterone is down 50%
16:33
compared to, you know, the same age men in the 1950s.
16:37
And I think all a lot of this plays into it because it's less,
16:40
you know, there's a lot a lot of young men now that are literally
16:43
going on only fans and that's their relationship with women.
16:47
And they have no interest in forming relationships with
16:50
women, whether it's emotional or sexual.
16:52
And that's a problem. And you know, you look at like
16:54
you know. They're addicted to pornography,
16:56
you mean? Yeah, yeah, that, that kind of
16:58
stuff. And, and they haven't really
17:00
developed the ability of what it takes to approach a young lady.
17:04
And, and you know, the confidence that's necessary for
17:07
that because, you know, socializing is a skill.
17:09
That's not that's not something you're born with, something you
17:11
develop and get better at by use.
17:13
And when we look at this generation, that's, you know,
17:16
there's very little face to face interaction compared to breeders
17:19
generations. And it just makes sense.
17:23
Yeah, I mean, one another objection I get from the anxious
17:25
moms is, hey, my kids are not going to have any friends if
17:28
they don't have a smartphone. And the way I think about it is
17:31
if you, if you need social media to have friends, you're a loser.
17:33
And you just don't have friends to begin with.
17:35
And those those people are not your friends.
17:38
Yeah, I know. And it's, it is difficult
17:40
because you know, you look at like, for example, I talk about
17:43
this in Raising Healthy Teenagers play, you know,
17:46
outdoor play is down 70% in recent years, right?
17:51
And every time a child goes outside and plays young kids,
17:55
it, it activates something like 1000 genes in the cortex part of
17:58
the brain, which is what shapes them socially, right.
18:01
So, you know, starting at a young age, you got like like
18:04
here's a perfect example. My my gym partner, this guy I
18:07
met about a month ago, we work out together every day.
18:09
Great guy. He's a few years younger than
18:12
me, but he's got a real young child.
18:13
He has a 2 1/2 year old daughter.
18:15
His mother-in-law is in from Russia.
18:18
His wife is originally from Russia.
18:19
So she's been here for like 4 or five months.
18:21
She's going back in the middle of April and we meet at the gym
18:24
at 7:45, eight, 8:00 AM every day.
18:28
So he was telling me last week that what he's going to do is
18:31
bring his daughter. They have like a child care area
18:35
like, you know, for with babysitters and stuff at my gym.
18:39
And he's, he's terrified of doing that.
18:40
And I explained to him, I said that is the best possible thing
18:43
for your daughter to have her interacting starting at this age
18:47
with kids that are her age, maybe even a little older.
18:49
That's how you develop. You know, if somebody takes the
18:51
doll or the ball away from her and she tries, that's how you
18:54
develop, you know, the ability to overcome adversities, right?
18:57
If she falls and scrapes her knee, that's how you developed
19:00
it. You know, the ability to
19:00
overcome things like that. So that stuff right there is,
19:04
you know, is is critically important, you know, starting at
19:07
a young age, making sure our kids are interacting and playing
19:10
particularly outside with other kids.
19:13
Exactly man, we need to go on a speaking tour together.
19:19
Yeah, you do the same stuff, huh?
19:21
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've gotten just more
19:24
and more raw and authentic and just really speaking my mind and
19:30
and more, what do you call it? I would say straight in terms
19:34
of, yeah, just never give your, your, your kid a smartphone just
19:38
based on my experience and also reading the research.
19:41
But I think I found that at least the audiences I speak to,
19:44
the parents, actually most of them really appreciate it
19:46
because no one else is saying it.
19:48
You're not hearing this message. But it is a reality, you know,
19:50
like if you know the, you know, it's not, it's kind of a
19:53
reality. So for the parent, if your child
19:56
is like the last one that doesn't have a smartphone, you
19:58
know, the average age now is like 10 1/2 when kids get
20:01
smartphones. What I used to do at my
20:03
lectures, you know, and I don't do this anymore, so I don't want
20:05
to put people on the spot. I used to say raise your hand to
20:09
the audience, let's say to the 100 parents, I'd say raise your
20:11
hand. I think it's smart for an 11
20:13
year old to have a smartphone. Oh my gosh.
20:17
Never once has anybody ever raised their hand.
20:20
And then I say, OK, we all agree that it's a bad idea.
20:23
Yeah. Well, what would you do if I
20:26
told you that the average age of of first smartphone issuance is
20:29
10 1/2? And even though all of us agree
20:31
it's a bad idea, the majority of us in this room have gotten one
20:34
for our kid, even though we know it's a bad idea.
20:36
It's a form of social conformity.
20:38
Yeah, yeah, man, what do we, how do we help the parents?
20:43
Because again, it's, it's not, it's not a matter of information
20:48
like there's if it's if you're, if you're an anxious mom, like
20:52
you need help to know how do you, how do you process negative
20:57
emotions, which is a skill that you can learn.
20:59
And that's what I specialize in. Yeah.
21:01
Oh, OK, cool. So one other thing to that
21:02
point, you know, So what I, what I write about in the book and
21:06
what I talk about is starting a new social conformity.
21:10
Yeah, I call it the phone free school pledge, right?
21:13
So imagine, imagine like a kindergarten parent, right?
21:17
And they get the, you know, the first time they get that packet
21:19
of stuff information from the school over the summer, all the
21:22
forms you got to fill out. And right in there is a form, a
21:25
pledge that says, I agree not to purchase a smartphone for my
21:29
child until late adolescence, right.
21:31
I'm betting that any parent that has a kindergarten is going to
21:34
look at that and say, yeah, duh, that makes sense.
21:37
And then they're going to talk to their friends in the
21:39
community and say, did you get that form?
21:41
I got it. You going to sign it?
21:42
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So starting then you could start
21:44
a whole new type of conformity because if all of a sudden you
21:46
had a group in a community where all of the parents are on the
21:49
same page, and then they go through first, second, third,
21:52
right through middle school, and the majority of kids still don't
21:54
have smartphones. Guess what?
21:56
Kids don't want stuff that nobody else has.
21:59
They only want stuff everybody has.
22:02
Yeah, I think ideas like that are really interesting.
22:07
Anyways, I want, I want to move towards more of a
22:10
entrepreneurial phase now. So I'd just be curious.
22:14
OK, You were, you're a psychotherapist.
22:16
You wrote two books. How did that happen?
22:18
What was that process like? Oh.
22:19
That goes way back, you know, So what happened for me is I, I, I
22:25
had done this doctoral program in clinical hypnotherapy, right?
22:28
So I have a, it doesn't count, it's not recognized.
22:31
So it's not, not what's the word it's, it's not.
22:34
It's considered holistic, an alternative.
22:36
It's not like accredited by the APA or something.
22:38
Like that. Exactly.
22:40
So, so I don't use the doctor term because it's in violation
22:43
of the bylaws with my professional license, which is
22:45
at the at my master's level. So, but anyway, I have this, you
22:48
know, Doctor of the Grand clinical hypnotherapy and I, I
22:51
use a lot of hypnosis as a supplement in my office.
22:54
It's phenomenal. So I had to do a dissertation
22:56
and there were two formats I could have done a research or
23:00
manuscript. So I decided, yeah, I've always
23:02
wanted to write a book. So at that time, back in 2000, I
23:06
don't know, when it was 2003, I was seeing a lot of people
23:10
helping them lose weight, you know, through hypnosis, which is
23:12
a whole nother, a whole nother podcast.
23:15
So, you know, so I wrote a whole manuscript, a book format, and
23:20
then, you know, and, you know, it was approved and all that for
23:22
the, you know, I, I, you know, defended myself with the
23:25
dissertation. Then I had to learn about the
23:28
publishing industry, right? So the, and you know, so I'm the
23:32
kind of person or if somebody says you can't do this, I'm
23:35
going to say yes, I can. Because whether you think you
23:38
can or think you can't, either way, you're right, according to
23:40
Henry Ford. So I started, you know, I
23:43
started really pursuing, I had wrote a whole book proposal.
23:47
I got an agent that was interested, etcetera, etcetera.
23:50
And I couldn't get anywhere with it because in non fiction
23:53
publishing, to get a traditional publisher, you have to have a
23:55
platform like a million view, you know, people on on social
23:59
media, TV stuff. So I kept pitching it and
24:02
pitching it and pitching it got rejected a million times, almost
24:05
gave up. Then I reminded myself that Tom
24:07
cursing doesn't quit. So I kept pursuing and pursuing
24:10
and a small publisher in Washington was interested and
24:13
they went for it. And they published that book
24:17
back in 2008 called Losing Weight When Diets Fell.
24:22
They hired they because they're a small publisher, they didn't
24:25
have their own in house, you know, PR and publicity.
24:27
So they hired an outside agency. So then they started first time
24:31
I ever did any media, they had me on radio, blah, blah, blah.
24:33
Then they had me go film something in New York City, a
24:36
taped thing that might have, might or may not have been used.
24:40
And the woman with the camera afterwards says to me, she goes,
24:43
have you ever done any TV before?
24:45
And I'm like, no, why? And she goes because you're a
24:47
natural on camera. And I'm like, I am right.
24:50
And I, I came to realize what that was and it was just me
24:52
being me. And that at that point is when I
24:55
started getting a lot, you know, some, you know, media interest
24:59
and going on TV. And I haven't stopped and I've
25:00
been on national TV hundreds of times.
25:03
You know, today show fox, Tucker Carlson when he was on Jesse
25:07
Ward is all of them. And then I so I kind of built a
25:10
platform for myself, you know what I mean?
25:12
And I started doing the lectures.
25:14
So I had a platform. I go on TVI do podcasts, I do
25:16
this and that, and that's what led to the, you know, the most
25:20
recent two books that I wrote, which is with a very big
25:22
publisher called Baker Books. Yeah.
25:26
So it's got where where did you get the time to devote to
25:29
writing a book? Because those are most recent
25:31
two books, because that's that takes a.
25:33
Lot to make you got to make the time you got to do it.
25:35
So you know, you have, you know, with, you know, non fiction
25:38
publishing, you know, they they have a whole team that has to
25:42
approve the concept first. So you have to have a whole
25:44
concept of what the book is going to be about, what the
25:47
chapters are going to be, which will change.
25:49
Everything changes. And once it gets approved, then
25:52
you have, you know, 3. It's like building a house.
25:54
You know, you put the foundation together, put up the frame, then
25:57
you start plugging in the content with each chapter and
26:00
you have, you know, I think I had AI think it may be a six
26:03
month deadline. So basically what I did for that
26:05
six months is every single Friday.
26:07
I don't have office hours on Friday.
26:09
So I literally was up in my office, in my house for all day
26:12
long just writing. Yeah, you got to make the time.
26:17
It's, you know, it's a pain in the butt, honestly.
26:19
Yeah, yeah. So what?
26:21
What advice would you give to a young solopreneur like myself
26:26
who's speaking, has a private therapy practice, has a has a
26:32
blog interviewing people on podcasts?
26:34
How would I? How would I build the audience?
26:36
Yeah, well, you know, you have to be #1 you have to be
26:39
confident with, with yourself, right?
26:40
No doubt about it. Know your material.
26:43
Know there's always going to be a few puddles in the path.
26:45
You know, it's not like boom, I'm going to do this and it's
26:48
going to, you know, explode. It takes time.
26:50
You know, it takes time. I always say that, you know,
26:52
success, whatever one's definition of success is, comes
26:56
down to two things that have to have symmetry and that is
26:59
patience and persistence. You have to be patient.
27:01
You have to continue to persist. So there's one thing you said
27:06
earlier in this conversation that's Tom Kirsten is spiritual.
27:11
So what, what, what do you mean by that?
27:12
And what is what is the underlying motivations that
27:15
drive you in your work? So there's, you know, so I am
27:17
very spiritual. I'm, I'm, I'm a practicing
27:19
Catholic too, you know, I go to church and all that.
27:23
So, you know, the thing that has always stuck with me is in the
27:26
Bible, not to get all religious with people is just my belief.
27:30
You know, there's, there's a, you know, a quote in the Bible
27:32
that says, you know, nearer is he than breathing closer than
27:36
hands and feet. So what that means is that God,
27:38
whatever, whatever, if you believe in God, whatever,
27:40
whoever your God is, if, if you're just present, if you take
27:44
a just a breath of air right now and just, you know, think about
27:47
that. God is in your presence, right?
27:50
And, and I believe that that's, you know, a guiding light
27:53
towards everything. It's something that's really a
27:54
missing ingredient in our society.
27:56
In fact, we talk about that and raising healthy teenagers too.
27:59
But you know, for me that that works.
28:01
I could sit here and tell you crazy stories, you know, from
28:05
from that being guided and you know, kind of mind boggling
28:09
stuff. Wow, OK.
28:13
Because we are, you know, what are we, you know, if Jack
28:15
Canfield, you know the former, you know, Chicken soup for the
28:19
soul. Not, not Jack Canfield.
28:21
And I can't think of a guy's name, but he died like five
28:23
years ago. But he would, he would say that
28:25
we are, we're not human beings having a spiritual experience.
28:30
We're spiritual beings having a human experience.
28:33
I like that. So you've accomplished a lot
28:35
already. Where, where are you going with
28:37
this? What's your vision?
28:40
So my vision is to keep pound in the pavement doing what I'm
28:43
doing tonight. Go, you know, go do another
28:44
lecture, reach as many people as I can, continue to do, you know,
28:48
use TV because they call me on when there's always headline
28:51
stories about screen time, mental health among kids.
28:54
You know, I continue to get my message out there.
28:56
And as I've, you know, I've been doing this for many years and
29:00
I've kind of pivoted a little bit, you know, to the point
29:02
where, you know, it's not just all about screen time, it's it's
29:06
really about helping people find a new frequency within, right?
29:10
It's there. We just have to, we just have to
29:12
find it. We just got to tune into
29:13
ourselves. All of our resources lie within
29:15
us. All that, like I mentioned
29:17
earlier, joy, happiness, power, motivation, confidence.
29:21
We can't be just floating around subconsciously all that and
29:23
access that stuff because none of that is outside in, it's
29:26
inside out. So I've been really at my
29:28
private practice, really teaching people, you know, some
29:30
very effective strategies on how to tune into that and like
29:33
literally hyper, you know, psych yourself from the inside out,
29:38
right? And the mind, you know, whatever
29:40
you're feeling from the inside, the mind, mind and emotions are,
29:43
are parallel, right? I always say that an emotion is
29:46
a symptom of thought, right? Whatever you can't be thinking
29:50
negatively and be feeling positively and you can't be
29:52
thinking positively and be feeling negatively.
29:55
So if we TuneIn and just unearth great feelings, our mind has to
29:58
be on be aligned with that. And the more we do that, the
30:01
more we're just going about our day with that as a, as just a,
30:05
you know, a spiritual, powerful, energetic, magnetic being.
30:11
What? What would you need to 10X your
30:13
impact? To learn how to use social media
30:20
better, which I'm currently working on.
30:23
That's not my Forte. Like I get people reaching out
30:25
to me all the time. Like you got so much content, we
30:28
could get this out there, but you got to pay us $5000 a month
30:30
this and that, you know what I mean?
30:33
But yeah, I, I, I, that's what I would need to do.
30:37
But again, you know, social media, like I'm not against
30:39
social media. You know, even for me, like
30:43
Facebook, I have Facebook, but I, but it serves 2 purposes.
30:47
It's just a, a platform where, you know, I could share with
30:50
people, you know, things that I've done professionally or they
30:53
have coming up like lectures, TV appearances, other studies I
30:55
see. And it's also my psychology
30:58
laboratory where I get to study people's comments and behaviors
31:01
and when watch how they unravel over disagreements with other
31:04
people. So and I don't share anything
31:07
personal. Like if I'm away on some nice
31:08
vacation, I'm not sitting there posting and saying, look at me
31:11
here in Hawaii, everybody, I'm great because, you know, I'm a
31:15
very centered person. I really work hard at not
31:17
allowing external stuff to have any impact on me internally.
31:21
OK. So it wouldn't be contrary to
31:24
your mission to use like Facebook, Instagram for
31:27
professional purposes. Well, for if I'm using it for,
31:30
you know, professionally to be able to reach people, I think it
31:32
would be a good thing if I was using it because I was seeking
31:36
attention and validation, that I'd be kind of hypocritically,
31:40
you know, preaching to people about stuff that they shouldn't
31:42
do. But I'm doing it.
31:44
Yeah, yeah, it's a it's been a question in the back of my mind.
31:48
I mean, I'm, I'm similar to you, but then or recently I'm just
31:52
thinking like, you know, to what extent is it just material
31:55
cooperation and evil to like things like Instagram that lead
31:59
people into pornography that I think intentionally like they
32:04
just the feed is populated by just images that, that are
32:10
actually advertising pornographic websites.
32:13
So anyways, it's just a debate I'm going, I'm struggling with
32:16
right now. Like is it better just to burn
32:18
the ship and and find a different marketing?
32:21
Yeah, you look at all the like, the anger and violence and all
32:24
that stuff going out there. And I think part of the reason
32:26
why there's so much more of that is because everything's captured
32:30
on camera and that and everything funnels to what I
32:33
call the arm, the tailpipe of the mainstream media, and that's
32:36
social media. So kids are absorbing all these,
32:39
you know, bad things all day long and what's going to happen?
32:42
Your mind becomes desensitized to that over time and almost
32:45
becomes normal. Yeah, yeah.
32:48
And then they they, they can get started on an addiction at a
32:51
very young age. Yeah, no doubt.
32:54
Well, this was real, man. Is there any?
32:55
Do you have any last thoughts for our audience?
32:58
Yeah, I always have some, you know, some good Nuggets.
33:03
Yeah, I do have a good thought, right, For your audience and it
33:05
and this is that it doesn't have to be about your kids or
33:07
anything, just about you Seek silence on a daily basis.
33:14
Seek silence doesn't have to be forever.
33:16
But if you can pull off 5 minutes of silence, what I mean
33:19
silence, I don't mean just like letting your mind wander.
33:21
I'm talking about tuning into yourself, focusing on the breath
33:24
of air, thinking about what you're grateful for, visualizing
33:27
what you desire. You start getting to know that
33:30
place, then all the external stuff that's going on is not
33:34
going to have any impact on you. Near is heathen breathing closer
33:39
than hands and feet. Thanks, Tom.
33:42
Thank you. It's great.
33:43
Great talking to you man.