Human Up - S1 Ep 2: Breaking Stigmas: Mental Health, Sex Therapy and Priesthood

This is a transcript of Human Up Podcast Season 1, Episode 2 with Nicholas Neubauer which you can watch and listen to here:

David Marlon: Hi and welcome. I'm Dave Marlon and this is the Human Up Podcast. I am so grateful that today's guest is fellow clinician and dear brother and friend, Nicholas Neubauer LCSWACS.

Nicholas Neubauer: That's correct.

David: Alright, welcome. I got a little intro I want to do. Nicholas is a native Las Vegas, which is kind of rare and he serves as the clinical director of both Neubauer Mental Health Services as well as the clinical director of Vegas Stronger. He's a husband, father, business owner, advocate, and priest serving in the Episcopal Church. Nicholas cares deeply about and is heavily involved in the community and that of its collective residence. As a licensed clinical social worker and therapist is providing clinical services to the Nevada community for over 17 years. Most of that time he worked within the community at his agency to establish one of the largest private outpatient behavioral healthcare organizations in Nevada with offices in Las Vegas, Henderson, Reno, and rural Nevada. Nicholas has served as the clinical director and supervisor of multiple behavioral healthcare organizations. Within those roles, Nicholas worked with various social service, accessible mental health and behavioral healthcare across multiple populations. He's a graduate of UNLV where he earned his bachelor's in the arts of Psychology, his master's in social work and also Nicholas is a board certified sexologist.

Nicholas: That's correct,

David: Nicholas. Well,

Nicholas: Hello and thank you very much for the well-researched and warm welcome. It makes me feel old, doctor.

David: Not at all. You are a vibrant person with some formidable experience. Could we start by telling me what made you choose to get into the behavioral healthcare field?

Nicholas: Well, honestly, I will say that if you time travel, take a trip with me back in time, it was actually the mid to latter part of the 1980s. We had a beta video system, if you remember Beta and VHS, the old CA film. We had the movie Clue. We had rented it from the local video time I believe it was, and in the video clue, it's just like the board game except for the character Professor Plum played by Christopher Lloyd in that movie who look didn't have the best character in that movie, but he was a practicing psychiatrist, psychologist in the movie. I was awful young at the time. I had no real understanding of what that was, but it sounded cool to me at the time. So I remember that my aunt had a psychology book from college in one of the rooms that she had stayed at while she was at her house, and my mom had kind of told me what it was about and I remember thumbing through that book and it was actually that moment to where that planted the seed and psychological emotional behavioral health, basically the tripod of thinking, feeling behaving.

I remember it catching my interest just about in the same time period that I started to listen while I was at church. So both the gospel as well as the field of psychology I was introduced to at that time. And you know what? That seed that was planted, it never left my mind. And I did explore some different majors when I started college, but my mind was always on psychology. I never left that major and it just ultimately led me to where I am today. So a quick trip to the video store in 1987 brings me right here.

David: I'll never look at Professor Plum the same way.

Nicholas: Me neither. I actually just played Clue the other night with my daughter and I was Professor ple.

David: That's adorable. And how lucky many people go through their whole life wondering what's their God-given talent and how amazing that you had an aha moment where his plan was unfurled.

Nicholas: Absolutely. Without a doubt and honestly, like I said, the only real space I ever tried to stray from was I was going to go pre-Med with a dual major psychology being one of them. And as I got into the 300 level chemistry classes, because I was dead set on being a psychiatrist at that point, I went to the very first course, it was in an auditorium. The professor was only reviewing the syllabus very first day. I got maybe 45 minutes through that and they were drawing formulas on the board and this, that and the other. I literally grabbed my books and I said, psychiatry is not going to be for me doctor off I went. At that point, I was all in on becoming, actually my goal was to go into psychology and academia when I had applied for graduate schools. Upon leaving UNLV, I had done all the things that you're supposed to do.

I had gotten published Western Psychological Associations. I was really involved in the psychology lab, the physiological psych, the statistical health lab, as well as cognitive psychology lab with, gosh, Dr. Allen was there at the time and I did, they coached me through, I took my GREs, I applied to PhD programs. I essentially got into my safe schools. My GRE math wasn't what it could be, but my safe schools I got into to pursue a PhD as a fail safe. I also applied to the U-N-L-V-M-S-W program and the safe schools that I was in, and I got acceptance letters from three places including UNLV. And when it came down to it, I couldn't pull the trigger on moving out of state and ended up choosing UNLV and that's ultimately what led me here as well.

David: Wow, that's awesome. Now it's quite a jump to deciding to be a social worker to building one of the largest private outpatient practices that you ran. What inspired you to build Neubauer mental health services?

Nicholas: Well, I say this with all love and gratitude. What you are observing in that achievement is more so me painting myself into a corner, if you will. The best that I can articulate is that doing the way that my career has played out was never really how I anticipated it going. It started off more so as far as how I thought it would go, but then the people that I had done my second practicum with during graduate school at UNLV, it was a Dr. Miles Morgan, unfortunately who is deceased now and his wife on Joe Morgan. They were both my mentors. He was a psychologist and a doctor for the Desert Regional Center, the state, and that's the state agency that provides supportive services for persons with intellectual developmental disabilities. His wife, the co-owner in the agency was called Red Rock Psychological Services at that time she was an LCSW, she was my board supervisor and she specialized in sex offender rehabilitation and in supporting persons who had experienced sexual abuse and sexual trauma.

I had worked for them for two years, or I did my last year of practicum with them my final year of graduate school. They were kind enough to offer me a position upon graduation. I stayed at that agency and did my CSW internship through them. I then stayed on for a year and I was very involved in all of the programming they had ultimately connected me to. I was doing quite a bit of individual therapy group therapy and I worked in the high intensity homes on the Desert Regional Center campus off of Charleston and Jones as well as I ran much of the sex offender program, the adult one. I started a juvenile program while there, and then also too, I had the fortunate opportunity just the way that the systems were set up. They were somewhat in their infancy at that time, but I was able to work with the FBI local law enforcement agencies as well as my supervisor on Jill Morgan to develop specialized programming for persons with specific sexual fetishism and specific deviant sexual proclivities.

So I did a lot of programming involved in that and kind of nerded out on that stuff for a while. Unfortunately, Dr. Morgan had become ill around my third and a half year of being there and they had decided that they were going to sell the practice. At that time, I was about 28 years old. I was expecting my first daughter and I just wasn't in a position to buy an outpatient behavioral healthcare practice. They maybe had 12 clinicians at the time, and although I was familiar with the program, the business side of things really scared the GS out of me. So I balked at that and I chose to go out on my own and open new environmental health services and that's what led at least to the foundation of Environmental Health Services in April of 2010. Now, anything that's growth related, I would say that being very active in the community, the persons having been born here, having gone to school here, having relationships with people here, it was, and plus the springboard that I had from Red Rock Psychological Services with the sex offense community, the courts and the Desert Regional Center through Dr. Morgan, I was able to establish some pretty strong legs as soon as I did open and hang my own shingle.

And from that, just with the insurance company credentialing, with having strong referral sources, those things, essentially everything that's built after that has just been a response to referrals volume. In the beginning, I thought it would be great because I would lose the opportunity to work with certain people because they wanted to work with a female and not a male. So my initial response to that was to hire and bring in a female clinician to support the population that specifically wanted to work with females. And then everybody else beyond that has just been more so of needs space to where we get full, we can only handle so much, and then we have this much capacity. So then we bring somebody else on and it's just staggered its way there. I've had a lot of bumps and bruises over the course of the past 15 years, but nothing that I haven't been able to heal from, learn from, grow from, which I think has not only made me a better clinician, I could say that was certainty, but it's also made me a better business owner.

It's made me understand the entirety of the healthcare industry a lot more firmly. And again, these are all things that I had no expectation of when I first got out of school. So I'm grateful for all the bumps and bruises. I'm grateful for where I'm at now, and I could not be more grateful that I am the clinician that I am, that I am the clinical director that I am, and that I have the agencies specifically newby Mental Health Services, pinnacle, and that I have the opportunity to be the director of the clinical director of Vegas stronger. So again, unintended consequences. I couldn't be happier with those in this case.

David: That's amazing. It sounded a little bit like serendipity, but to me, I often say, boy is that good luck and the people who get good luck are the ones who keep working hard. Absolutely. So you've been working hard through it and you just keep getting this good luck.

Nicholas: Absolutely. And I would say this, there's somebody that I would want to give a shout out to. Unfortunately, this person is deceased as well. We could just call him Eric for privacy sake. But during my internship, I had never clearly sat down with a patient individually. My supervisor on gel had decided to give me my first individual client. And when I went into the office to greet this person to do my first ever session, this gentleman had a very intimidating look, an enormously large frame. All that I had knew about him is that he had several felonies, one of which was murder. And I found myself alone in a room with him, and he was an older gentleman, and I just remember being about as afraid as I've ever been. But he had been in counseling for some time. He had been in groups for some time, and he really was my first patient. I worked directly with him one-on-one for several months before I took any other patients on, and saw him at a pretty good clip, and I learned about as much from him as he learned from me. But it definitely took the edge off as far as my comfortability having the kinds of discussions we have. So I felt as though that there was definitely, we talked about serendipity earlier. Earlier, I am forever grateful that Eric was the first person I ever sat across from.

David: Oh wow. That's really cool.

Nicholas: He was an amazing man.

David: Now, speaking of amazing man, you seem to have done all this, but at the same time you wear another hat.

Nicholas: Yes, sir.

David: So you're an Episcopal priest. Yes,

Nicholas: Sir.

David: Can you tell me what that entails? I do want to later talk about how the two dovetailed together.

Nicholas: Yes, sir. And

David: Then I want to ask you a couple trick questions.

Nicholas: Yeah. So if I'm going to explain my role as a priest in the Episcopal Church, a priest specifically within the Episcopal church consider us kind of the as not to be offensive by any means to anybody who might be listening. This has sensitivity to it, but it's almost as though that we're the mc or the host of the liturgical of the worship services to a certain degree. So we come out and we lead the congregation through the liturgy, which is the prayers, the sermon celebrating the Eucharist as the centerpiece of an Episcopal church service on any given Sunday. So I lead the Eucharist or often referred to as the mass, the closing prayers, the blessings, baptisms, weddings, funerals, all of those kinds of liturgical things. So that's what it looks like practically, especially if you're a member of the lady. But beyond that, there's no shortage of administrative duties, no shortage of planning and organizing. And I think that this is where it might dovetail into the other is that my major role as priest is what's referred to as pastoral care. And that is basically serving as a counselor, a support, share times of joy, share times of suffering, difficult moments, happy moments. But also too, that's one of the more remarkable and fulfilling components of being in that role is being able to share in that relationship with my church family.

David: That's amazing. Speaking of dovetailing, I recognize that recovery is kind of the centerpiece of my life, the linchpin. And to me, the spirit is the keystone of recovery. So the fact that you are a therapist, but you also happen to have this training, it really makes you uncannily positioned to be able to be of maximum service to humankind.

Nicholas: Well, I appreciate that, and that is a rather big compliment that I assure you I will jot down when we get done talking and I will pray on that because that sounds like an awful lot of responsibility. But I feel as though, especially as I get older, I look back on myself 13 years ago when I got into ministry, and I think of a young guy who had no business wearing a collar, but through the support of the Episcopal Church, the clergy that have surrounded me during my own journey, all of the wonderful members of my congregation, the community, my family, and clearly Jesus, again, I feel as though that I've surprised myself because I now believe in my heart that I'm a very good priest.

David: Well, that's awesome

Nicholas: That I don't have room to grow and that I won't continue to. I very much look forward to that. And for example, I preached this Sunday and I had wrote a sermon, and when I got done, I wrapped it up and I ended up texting my wife, just telling her, I mean, basically testimony that man, I had the most powerful experience with the spirit putting this sermon together for this Sunday. And not only that, but it caused me to think about some other things personally. And I feel like I've found two things that I can grow in for myself and just, I really for that example in my own, my own serving, I find that I moved by the spirit all of the time. And to me, it's a magical feeling. And I do believe that that magical feeling, that connection, that closeness, that intimacy that I get to experience when I can get out of my own way and fully connect with the spirit, that's absolutely the person that I would like to be. It feels remarkable. And that's also too an incredibly powerful motivator because it's like if you go to a restaurant and you have some amazing recipe and amazing service and all of this stuff, and you're just blown away by it. Everybody you talk to for the next week, you're like, Hey, you've got to try this restaurant. You've got to try this restaurant. So having that kind of feeling and being that excited about it, that really is what's behind every act of my service within the church.

David: Oh, that's amazing. Other

Nicholas: That, and Jesus told me so, you know what I mean? So it's like, Hey,

David: That was my trick question. I was going to ask.

Nicholas: Now,

David: Jesus's mom, I think her name was Mary,

Nicholas: I believe you're right

David: Now. I think she was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus,

Nicholas: From the best of my recollection to my seminary days. I believe that the school of thought, she was around 13 years old. But again, we're talking about 2000 years ago. But yes, theologically speaking, she was a virgin. Correct.

David: Okay. Well, that's miraculous.

Nicholas: Yeah. And again, that's where typically, depending on somebody's background or whatever else it might be, that's generally where, let's just say a non-believer or somebody who's just on their own spiritual journey, no negative connotation by any means, but a lot of folks will start to try to start blending historical record or arguably science with things of faith. And I think that in most cases, that's where folks start to do themselves a disservice, is that they want scientific explanations for spiritual things to where in my mind, faith by definition excuses itself from the metrics that one would use to define science. And I think that being able to separate those two out is a wonderful thing for anybody's spiritual journey and or own personal theology.

David: Very well put, and thank you for grabbing that whole question. There was a podcast or an interview between CS Lewis and Sigmund Freud, which Oh yeah. If you haven't watched it, I encourage everybody. To me, what I took it is at the end of the day, CS Lewis was said, at the end of the day, a leap must occur

Nicholas: That's right

David: Of faith. And as time progresses and we have more facts and more science, the bottom line is at some point, elite must take place.

Nicholas: That's right. And I often think about, I think it was Indiana Jones and the last crusade going back to these old movie references, but there's this one point, Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones has to cross this crevasse, if you will, to get to essentially the holy grail. And his father had been wounded, and his motivation to get across is because he's got to get this cup because it's the healing cup, so he could save his father. Well, in any event, he reaches this cre and there's no bridge, and there's a tiny opening on the other side, and he is looking at about 30 feet of just eminent death. But he recalls from his readings that the bridge he has to cross is a bridge of faith. He literally, his character steps out into nothing, and he finds that he's on solid footing, and once he steps out and he makes contact with that, then the bridge literally appears to him.

And that has always been my experience that yes, I too, and I continue to have to take leaps of faith in my life all of the time because there's a lot of uncertainty, and it's a very difficult experience to be a human being here on earth. But I have always found that when I find myself in a fork in the road and it becomes necessary for me to take a leap of faith, and I blindly step out feeling for that bridge, that bridge has always been there. And every time that I step and that bridge is there, it only reinforces that I could always see that bridge. And it does change your perspective. It changes your perspective, it changes your heart, and if you allow it to, it changes the way you see and do everything. And it doesn't mean that you don't have to continue to be intentional about it. You do have to work it, but it's just like any other relationship that you find valuable in your life. And the best that I can say is that the more you put into it, most certainly the more you get out of it. But it does require a lot of faith and uncertainty.

David: I don't mean this disrespectful, but hallelujah. Amen. That was beautiful. And as a recovering guy, I had found the same thing where that it was the idea of me not doing drugs or me not ever having a drink again, was just impossible.

Nicholas: Understood. That's a long time. Forever is a long time

David: Impossible task. But that when I gave it to him and I relied more heavily on him, when I prayed to him, I found that I could do it. And then after a few years of me stopping relying on numeral uno and instead relying on God, not only was it possible, but the byproduct was a life of joy,

Nicholas: I would say to that. Hallelujah.

David: Right on. Now we got a lot to go through. Let's do it. We mentioned here that you, in addition to being a priest, you're also a sexologist.

Nicholas: That's correct.

David: What's a sexologist and

Nicholas: Well, if we can bring a little humor in this, I don't know who is. Yes,

David: Please.

Nicholas: Yes, I'm a priest, but priests are people too. And we have sense of humor. Some of them are dark. But in any event, a lot of times people think that because I'm a sexologist, that it means I'm good at sex. Now, whether that's true or not, I will leave that to other people to determine. But as it relates, my specific interest in human sexuality is the specialty in sexual deviancy. And deviancy doesn't mean bad. Deviancy is not a negative judgment towards anything, anybody, any behavior, any sexual preference, anything like that. And look, that's a pretty deep conversation in of itself because I do have relationships, professional relationships with many people who have exclusive sexual interest in things that certainly would hurt other people, that certainly would cause them to be in trouble with the law and many difficult metrics and consequences associated if they chose to act in those behaviors.

But I can also say that most of, if not all of those folks are outside of the things that they have difficult time with sexually. They're wonderful people. For most of us, our sex life is a very important dimension of our lives, but it is a singular dimension of our lives. And there's many parts that define in totality who we are. So that I often get asked, well, how do I work with those people? And also too, sometimes I get pulled into the category because I'm supportive of and care very much for the health and the wellbeing of those folks that I am somehow bad because I'm an advocate for and care for them very much. However, sexuality is very complex thing, specifically deviant sexuality. And again, to define deviant, I just want to throw out that that only means outside of the norm. So the sexual behavior that falls within the norm, you're thinking about even to that degree, you're thinking about heterosexual sex with typical sexualized behaviors, with anything outside of the box of fetishism, those kinds of things.

But again, in sexual deviancy, it's again just things outside of the norm that I chose to specialize in that area because in the sex offender rehabilitation work that I was doing, there was always this specific population of folks that were just simply higher risk for the areas that included their sexual interests. We're talking about phi, people with sexual attraction to what would be teenagers, adolescents, people with primary sexual attraction to people that still that do not have secondary sex characteristics. So their prepubescent, oftentimes those were where qualifications for diagnosis of pedophilia would come in, people with specific fetishism, everything from exposure to voyeurism, those kinds of things. And a lot of those folks, they would fall through the cracks because they would go in a more so generalized treatment program specific for adult or juvenile sex offense. But it really did not meet their needs because their attraction, their specific arousal patterns, the things that did cause them to become aroused were not necessarily contained in the general terms of treatment. So I chose to develop programming that was specific to those different kinds of presentations to make sure that we could get adequate support treatment and help to persons that really, really struggled innately with their sexual arousal and their behavior related to it.

David: Wow, that was very well put. Is the treatment effective?

Nicholas: Yes, it can be, but I would equate treatment in regards to that more so we would speak of alcoholism that treatment is not curative for certain persons. Treatment is something that is lifelong, their behavioral practices in order to keep themselves and other people safe. And healthy is a lifetime program that is encouraged to work like a job. You have to know who you are, you have to understand what it is that you're sexually aroused to, and you have to be able to own that even with all the judgment that exists in the world and within yourself. Because the more you have that information and the more you can say, Hey, look, yes, that is true for me. You really do cut out a lot of the denial, a lot of the bullshit, a lot of things that would be quantified as lapse behavior, putting yourself in high risk situations, realizing that certain decisions are not irrelevant, they're very relevant.

So just certainly from that perspective sets people up a lot more for success than it does for failure. Beyond that, I can say is that you see different things. And look, churches can be guilty of this. I could name some, but I won't. But previous treatments, modalities, providers that believe that they can meet somebody who has a sexual interest in something and through various forms of treatment, and I would argue punishment and torture, that they can cause somebody to become sexually aroused by or attracted to something that they're not innately, and thinking that it's just a warm handoff to something that would be healthy or society accepted through society and culture, but our sexuality just doesn't work that way.

David: Wow. Again, well put. Boy, that was good stuff.

Nicholas: Well, thank you.

David: Well, the question of the day is I named this podcast Human Up, and I wanted to ask you what human up means to you, and then I'm hoping we could talk about it for a little bit.

Nicholas: Well, you know what? I saw that in the dialogue and the communication about establishing this interview, I looked at it two ways. I looked at it first from a perspective of human up being kind of like, I dunno, akin to, and again, not to be offensive or any keyword like that, but I kind of looked at it from perspective, like locker room talk of like man up, you know what I mean? Or woman up, you hear those kinds of things. I thought of it more so like, Hey, maybe it can mean that to where the human potential, as much as we have the ability to do all kinds of evil and all kinds of things that don't contribute to the greater good, I thought that maybe it was a nod to our capacity to do good and to be good humans and to contribute to the greater good. So I most certainly thought that alternatively, I thought, well, maybe it's not that. And then I thought, well, if it's not that it's this. Alternatively, I thought it was about lifting other people up in both contexts is both inspirational and aspirational for sure.

David: Well, I'm going to say right on point. I got sober at 40 years old, and the main frame, the reference change that happened in me as opposed to my first 40 years in life, it was like, what do I get? What money are you going to pay me? Who's gotten more drugs or alcohol from me? How am I going to get more good sex? It was all about feeding me.

Nicholas: That's right.

David: When I turned that around and I said, what could I do for you? How could I help others that it was at the same time that I was letting the spirit in, but that it really ended up being the answer to everything.

Nicholas: I couldn't more because look, when you think about the things that lead us into substance addiction, sex addiction, when we're in those patterns of addiction, everything is about us. That's all we're doing is we're feeding that disease, we're feeding that selfishness. And when we get to a point to when we're in two things that you said, if we allow ourselves to receive the spirit and begin to live into that spirit, we realize that us as an individual, that same spirit exists in all things and in all people. So it broadens us up to where it's not just about us and our needs, but it's about the spirit and the needs of the spirit, which include all of humanity and being in relationship with all there is. And that's a pretty profound thing in and of itself. But also too, in regards to the other side of you had mentioned that the drugs and the alcohol and the sex, what's in this for me?

And the reality of it is, is that when we pull ourselves out of addiction, that's the only space that we can really know who me is, because if not, we have this in our system, we have this in our brain, we have whatever else it might be. We are not a full representation of our true selves reasonable argument. We get ourselves caught up in those things because we haven't been able to deal with us. So giving up those substances, becoming sober, having to feel emotions, having to acknowledge thoughts and having to deal with them in the absence of escaping them or just putting ourselves in a condition in which we can't even comprehend or feel them otherwise, that's arguably some of the choices that help us fall into those diseases.

David: And the answer ends up being it's a human up.

Nicholas: Right? Hallelujah.

David: Right on. Any ideas on how we could get our little valley, this community to human up?

Nicholas: Well, I mean, look, there's a lot of macro meso and micro stuff involved in all of that is been unfortunate to see. And look, I think this is subjective to me, and everybody has opinions. And look, maybe it makes me sound like the old guy in the room, but I certainly don't think that civics matter anymore, civic life, people being involved in the community, I don't think that there's much of that going on anymore. I think that common decency, I mean everything from saying hello to people to how we behave in public settings, to definitely, if you've been behind the wheel or in traffic lately, you'll see it there. I think that there's just a lot more openness. I just think that there's a lot more, and I think that people have misconstrued, you hear a lot about people, well, I'm living into my truth, or whatever, some kind of thing that defines that they're doing what's in the best interest of them and that that's healthy, and that's okay.

Well, look, we can live within the best interest of ourselves and we can take incredible care of ourselves. But I think that there's almost this space that exists to where if I'm doing this, regardless of what the consequence of it is to somebody else or anything like that, that I'm empowered because I do it for me. And the reality of it is that great, take care of yourself however you like. Of course we want that, but you don't have to hurt other people to do that. And I think that just a lot of common decency, the whole in civics, and also too just within the popular culture to where, to me, it doesn't really seem like the truth matters anymore. And beyond that, it's okay to be hurtful and selfish just in our everyday lives. It's just a lot of focus on the individual. And when you've got 9 billion people all living in the same place, the focus can't be on 9 billion individuals. We are only as strong together. And if each one of us is trying to step on everybody else's faces to be on top, it's going to hurt everyone.

David: Right, agreed. Well, thanks for the civic reminder.

Nicholas: Yes, sir. That's my civic duty

David: And the being cordial, because I always like to say, if you want to start changing things, you got to start with yourself.

Nicholas: Absolutely. And look, I get it. I mean, I make it a common practice. I would argue with discipline to take the breath that I need to take to choke back the impulse that naturally comes from me and any kind of frustrating challenge or impatient situation. And I really work hard to step back from those impulses and to try to engage a situation with patience, with positivity and kindness. And I can say that, yeah, it's a frustrating practice. It probably makes me a bit more tired than I need to be by the end of the day because I was intentional about taking that time. But I can say that when you do it over time, that one, you can see that it's infectious If you respond to persons that way, and maybe they're in their hurry, maybe they're in their impulse, and that you respond to them in a kind, pleasant patient way, or you don't take the bait.

Well, usually most people don't like to be the only jerk in the room so they respond favorably. A smile can be contagious, all of those kinds of things. But also beyond that, my own fulfillment that I get out of not allowing myself to be angry, to be resentful, to be so impulsive, to be resentful to all of those kinds of things, to where if I practice it enough, that's what my day looks like. That's how my heart feels. That's how my brain thinks. Those are the relationships I form. That's how I relate to people. And ultimately, that's how people start to relate to me. And for me, because I've been on the other side, haven't always been this way. It's just a much better life. And I mean, it might sound silly, but the weather seems nicer, the food tastes better. You have a more positive outlook, and it's incredibly motivating and it's incredibly fulfilling.

David: Boy, if I could have the 9 billion people listen to that, I think it would be a better place.

Nicholas: Hey, well listen to me. Let's build this megaphone for him. Put it out there.

David: It's interesting. It's mental health month or mental health awareness month, the month of May. And to me, could you talk about for a second, who's responsible for your mental health? Because to me, within mental health awareness, there's a little bit of are we all a victim or are we responsible for our own mental health and doing what we need to take care of our mental health?

Nicholas: That's right. So I do think that there's a delicate balance there. I would say that an overwhelming prevalence of the population is responsible for their individual mental health and just like they're responsible for their heart health or their hair health or their dental health or whatever else it might be, that is ours. It belongs to us. Unfortunately, and I can say this just over the last 20 years that I've been involved in mental health in a professional capacity, that I am very pleased and I am incredibly encouraged by just how the stigma factor alone. Because even when I first hung my own shingle, somebody going to see a therapist or going to a place to a walking into a building that said mental health on it or something like that, it was a bad thing. I can't tell my family that I'm here or my job can't know that I see a therapist or whatever else it might be to where now you almost get in a conversation with somebody, or I hear from patients now like, oh, I told my family that I was going to see a therapist.

And they said, good for you. And now there's still some cultural differences and things like that. And yes, older folks and baby boomers, and definitely for persons older than that, and again, it's still in pockets, religiosity, culture, ethnicity, those kinds of things still affect people's viewpoint of mental health. But I'm incredibly encouraged by the direction it's taken over the years. But again, to the question, each of us are responsible for individual mental health. However, I did say that as it relates to the prevalence of the population and with overwhelming majority of us are because there are, and again, it's just based on prevalence models. The statistics are out there. You get a hundred people, you're going to find X, you get a thousand people, you get X, and you can extrapolate that number across 9 billion. But ultimately, there are going to be people that through no fault or choosing of their own, have specific mental health conditions that do put them in a basket of folks that do require the consciousness, the love, and the support and the care of the greater population to care for them.

And sometimes that means to make decisions leading to treatment, housing, to daily support, I mean, you name it. But there's just certain persons, again, through no fault of their own, that simply just don't have the capacity to understand what mental health is, how to care for their own mental health and to be stewards of themselves in a way that they are safe and that potentially in some cases, that others are safe from certain things that they may do in their inability to care for themselves. But also too, to expand on that a little bit, as much as we're responsible for our own mental health, I would say too that there is a responsibility in being somebody's spouse, in being somebody's sibling, in being somebody's child, in being somebody's partner and being somebody's friend to where it's kind of like, Hey, do these pants look stupid on me?

Yeah, those fucking pants. Look, sorry, those pants look stupid on you. Don't wear those pants out. So I do think if a friend is about to walk off a cliff or a family member or somebody that is important to us that we care to, then yes, we do have an obligation to human up in that context and say, Hey, not trying to offend you, not trying to harm you. It's not a tear down, but I have observed this and I want to share this with you because I care about you and I think that it's in your best interest for me to do so. Now what somebody ultimately does with that, again, that responsibility falls back to them. But I would say that there's definitely certain circumstances in which just, for example, somebody that's got a substance abuse problem or an addiction and they go get schnockered at the bar and they're about to walk out and get behind the wheel of their car, that same kind of responsibility to say, Hey, give me your keys. You shouldn't be driving.

David: Right. Well, very well put, Nicholas, you're amazing. Well,

Nicholas: Thank you very much. What a

David: Good time.

Nicholas: I'm working on seeing that in therapy.

David: My last question, what's next for you? What are you working on professionally or personally?

Nicholas: Well, I have a partner and a mentor, Dr. Dave Marlon. And I actually just had, I was fortunate enough to have dinner with him Thursday evening, and at that dinner we had talked about all kinds of things that were involved in. I was able to articulate some of my hopes and dreams professionally. He discussed some of his hopes and dreams professionally as well as some of the things that current irons he's got going on in the fire, but also too gave me something to think about by way of his own perspective as far as what partnerships could look like 20 years from now or what life could look like, a perspective of what life could look like for either one of us 30 years from now. And he said some very interesting and encouraging things that caused me to rethink of what my 20 and 30 year plan is, because what he said makes a hell of a lot of sense.

So I'm still thinking about that, but I would say that my cup runneth over. So as much as trying to maintain my baseline, there's definitely a lot of irons in the fires. There's things that I would very much like to see happen. But I think that the grand scheme of it all is that, and I will say this, that you say this often when people talk about programs and people talk about services and those kinds of things, you say, well, how many people did it help? How many people did it make better? How many people did it get clean? I've taken a lot from those that you make. And honestly, I just want to be able to help people. That's what I want.

David: Nicholas, this has been better than I had hoped. I'm so thrilled I could listen to you podcasting for hours. So thank you so much for being an esteemed guest and a friend and a business partner. Thanks so much for being on Human Up.

Nicholas: Hey, well, listen, I'd love you to pieces, I think the world of you and I can say with all confidence and with sincerity, you're one of the best humans I know, and I could not be more grateful to work with you and most especially to have you as a friend. You are a very special person. And I do think that although you have a larger than life personality, it's always unfortunate to me that your persona and your professional deeds kind of eclipse the totality and that not all persons get to see just how much you human up and how wonderful you are in very difficult circumstances to many people that you come into contact to. And I believe you to be an absolute life saver. I've seen you change people's lives. I've literally seen you save people's lives. And because that's who you are and I get to be in your company is a pretty wonderful blessing in my life.

David: Thank you, Nicholas. I appreciate you being on. I can't wait to see you soon. Human Up!

Nicholas: Thank you, doctor. I will see you soon. You take good care of yourself. Thank you for having me. Human up, brother! That's it. Let's do it.