The Mental Funny Bone
Welcome to "The Mental Funny Bone", hosted by hilarious siblings Chris and Sarah.
Our mission is to create a safe and entertaining space where listeners can explore mental health topics, find solace, and enjoy laughter. The podcast aims to destigmatize mental health discussions and empower individuals to approach their own well-being with humor and openness.
The Mental Funny Bone is not your typical comedy podcast. It's packed with hilarious tales from the 80s and 90s, courtesy of two irreverent sisters, who dive deep into the wild world of mental health, sharing personal stories, insightful discussions, and of course, plenty of laughs along the way. These sisters aren't afraid to peel back the layers and share their struggles, triumphs, and everything in between.
From anxiety to depression, therapy sessions to sibling rivalry, no topic is off-limits for this dynamic duo. Chris and Sarah offer a fresh perspective on the challenges we all face when it comes to our mental well-being.
Through their witty banter and candid conversations, they shed light on the complexities of mental health, proving that even in the darkest moment, sometimes the best therapy is just sharing a laugh with the ones you love. So buckle up for a rollercoaster ride of comedy, chaos, and courageous conversations about what it means to be human.
Disclaimer: While Chris and Sarah are not licensed mental health professionals, they offer their perspectives based on personal experiences and encourage listeners to seek professional help when needed.
The Mental Funny Bone
Bare Bones Banter with Derek Crager
How to find mental health help when you're struggling. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists
https://washingtoncountyhumanservices.com/agencies/behavioral-health-developmental-services
https://www.alleghenycounty.us/Services/Human-Services-DHS/Publications/Resource-Guides
Apps - Just search mental health where you get your apps.
EAP programs are a great place to look for help!!
Additional Resources (Sports Related):
https://globalsportmatters.com/health/2020/12/04/mental-health-resources-2/
Uh, welcome to another episode of Bare Bones Banter with a Mental Funny Bone. Today we have a guest. His name is Derek Crager. Derek is a neurodivergent, entrepreneur and visionary behind Practical ai, a company committed to reshaping how organizations teach, train, and troubleshoot in real time with Def decades. Experience in industrial training and a lifelong ability to spot systems others overlook. Derek Developed Pocket Mentor, an AI powered voice support tool that turns your best employee's knowledge into an always available mentor. Under his leadership practical AI is equipping manufacturer's o. OEM integrators system. Bingo.
What's his name though?
Chris:Ant filled service providers to eliminate downtime, retain knowledge, and accelerate onboarding without head count or hardware. Whether you're solving workforce shortages or future proofing your customer support, Derek brings a compelling vision and practical roadmap for embedding AI into. Real world operations. I had to say real world like that because I, that will work. It, it screws it up. Anyway, I got through it. Welcome Derek. Thanks for joining us.
Beautiful. Thank you for having me. You, it, it sounds almost like I wrote it, Sarah.
Chris:It's amazing.
It's amazing. How much did, did I pay you to read that? Like that?
Chris:I mean, if you were paying me, we would've been doing this interview a long time ago. I, I should also warn you guys that for some reason the air is cut off in this room and it is currently 90. Degrees outside. And so I will be turning beet red and sweating by the time we're done.
Alright. Just so you're aware, challenge accepted.
Chris:Okay. Alright. Awesome. Well, Derek, how about, um, we just start pretty basic. Why don't you give us your story, introduce yourself to our audience.
Sounds great. Yeah, no, uh, no expectations, Derek, just tell us everything, right? Yeah, just give, I
Chris:mean, give us a little, you know, your elevator pitch, is that what we call it?
Well, sure. Well, that'd be, uh, I think what, 30 seconds or less. But yeah, thank you for the opportunity and, and honestly, ladies, it is a pleasure being here. Uh, it's, uh, uh, it's, it's a reprieve from all those stuffy interviews that I've had. I had one gentleman, he actually said, let's map this out so I know what you're saying and you know what I'm saying. So it was like I was reading a script and so far in advance. So just for the benefit of everybody here. I have no idea what I'm gonna say today. And I, I feel the, the feeling's mutual.
Chris:Yeah. Our listeners are all about it.'cause we never know what we're saying.
They're,
Chris:they
embrace it. Yep. So, uh, I think Carl Sagan said, if we're gonna start from the beginning, we gotta start about, uh, you know, the Big Bang. And I, I'll go from there. But, uh, zoom, zoom forward a little bit, uh, outta high school, I, uh, went to college. I didn't say university, but I went to college and, uh, apprenticeship at the same time. I ended up sticking around the, uh, the industrial side. I was an industrial construction firm. About five years I moved into automotive manufacturing. I worked from the floor up to engineering, up to process engineer, and then eventually a company, company went to the learning team. I was diagnosed at age 50 and I'm 58 today. So I think I got a couple or 12, 15 years. I knew ladies at the minimal and, uh, but when I was, I was diagnosed at age 50. Yeah. What were you diagnosed from Derek? Um, well, I had a cold. No, I was diagnosed autistic, A DHD, and dyslexic. So, you know, one might ask, how did you not know until you were 50 that you're dyslexic? But you know, that's a topic for a different podcast. But at age 50, I, I was working at Amazon at this time, my first year there, and so I actually embraced this. I guess the code term now is neurodiversity and I leveraged that to, uh, build at the time Amazon. Well, and still it's, uh, reigning chant and King, Amazon's highest rated employee training program in company history. So that's the feather in my CAPAs. Where in one nice. And that brings us to the day. And on the professional side, I, I took what I learned and built that knowledge. So I have a learning company today. We leverage ai. We're not an AI company. Anybody that tells you they're an AI company, they're just blowing the smoke. No such thing as really a true AI company. You might use AI as a tool. So we're leveraging AI to facilitate one-on-one learning. You know, we're trying to get away from the one to many that this country was built on. Your country was built on, every country was built on, and now we're getting down to the value of the individual. And that's what we're speaking to at that realm. The ability for, uh, our training and onboarding, uh, for companies and even nonprofits too. Be that one on one. One size fits one scenario. So that's where we're at today, ladies. So how, how are you?
Chris:That's awesome. I mean, that feather in your cap is a pretty big one, I would say. So. That's a nice feather. It's a nice feather. Yeah,
for sure. Can you help me turn that into a trillion dollars though? Million?
Chris:Well, no. If we could, if we could turn feathers into a million dollars, they would rate fairy tales about us.
My goodness. No chicken would be safe.
Chris:Seriously. I have a, I have a duvet on my bed. Gone.
I hate those. I live Indiana. We call it a duvet.
Chris:Oh yes. That's also what I call it. I don't even live in Indiana. My goodness. Derek, my question, um, and of course I planned on going through a list of things and I'm gonna go right off of it. Don't roll your eyes at me, Christine. Sorry, carry on. Super excited. So how exactly did you get diagnosed with this trifecta here? Did you, was it something particular that happened that sent you looking to get di Like did you, were you advocating for yourself? Did you feel like there was something going on?
Well, uh, the comedic response was I was in a straight jacket and I had no alternative. But, uh, the real life answer is kind of similar. Um, I, uh, I grew up being the, uh, the weird kid and, uh, I was always misunderstood. I, I, I guess,'cause my answers always spoke to the question ask rather than the answer expected. So, um. I, I honestly grew up, I remember specifically when I was 14 and I don't know if the year went by where I didn't step outside of the self-help aisle. You know, that, that virtual self-help aisle that started out in libraries and went to bookstores and, and we can explain what books are in a, in a later podcast, I'm sure, but for those that that don't know, but it's kind of like a Kindle, but, uh, thousands of them. Um, wouldn't that be cool? A dedicated Kindle of one book and we just put'em all on a show. Um, now I lost track. See, that's why, that's why I was the different kid. So this, we love it. We embrace
Chris:it.
Well, uh, fantastic. The reason for my pursuit was that, well, I didn't find an answer in the self-help file. I followed all of the, uh, the, the leaders and, and this is how to make yourself better, and this is how to produce a thousand percent a day and this is how to connect with people and this is how to. Speak with people and, and on and on and on. And I don't know if your show's long enough to go through the list, but, um, I, I got to the point where this internet thing came around and which is a sharing of information, and I just started listening in like a fly on the wall to, I don't know, groups of other screwed up people. And, uh, we kind of, uh, I, I said, that kind of sounds like me a little bit. So I, I kept zooming in and, and jumping from room to robe, and then I felt. My God, I had the confidence to actually speak up and say something and, and I didn't get judged. I thought, whoa, whoa, what is this? You know, my episode of the Twilight Zone, I said something, I didn't get judged. So, um, we started sharing and it's like, wow, that story, my story too. And it eventually got to the point where, these are my people. So I diagnosed myself just saying, these are my people, but anybody who's autistic, until you get the certification. You're still wondering, like, is there a chance that you're just really screwed up? So, um, it, uh, I got, I spent about 10 years in that friend zone with autism, and, um, I, uh, eventually just got diagnosed and because I wanted to know, I, I just, you know. After 50 years, I'd reach my limit. I wasn't gonna wait any longer. And it was, it wasn't to like sit in and you get diagnosed. Um, so the autism is kind of like, uh, it's a professional behavior diagnosis that takes repetition to understand. And for the psycho psychotherapist, psychologist, therapist, uh. To map out the A DHD. On the other hand, were you aware ladies, that they have a computer program? You just grab a mouse and you sit down for 20 minutes and you click the mouse and it will tell you if you have a DHD.
Chris:Christine, did you do that? Is that how you got diagnosed? Uh, Olivia had it, Liz. So my daughter got diagnosed first and I was like, wait a second. Hang on here. This feels really, really familiar. She's like, yeah, I mean, you see me, mom, I don't have trouble. Like I, I'm not a troublemaker in class. I'm not talking out of turn much. Uh, but here's the all the things. And I was like, oh my God, I am looking at the test and I'm like, I am also all of the things. So yeah, you just click it and they're like, oh yeah, dummy. This is what's a sweatshirt thing is, can I do that for free? Yeah. Yeah. Really. I did not know about this. I mean, you can do it for free. The doctor that's gonna diagnose you is gonna make you do it twice. So
no, I don't wanna go to the, I don't wanna go, I don't wanna talk to, to a real doctor about it. I just, I'll diagnose, of course not myself and we'll move on.
Chris:And Derek, I'll mention that. Sarah's self-diagnosed herself with bipolar, I think at 19 or 20, maybe 22. She was like, I know what's wrong with me. It's bipolar. She wrote it down. Set
expectations. We live up to'em.
Chris:That's when Noble,'cause we still weren't really into the internet that big. Um, I, I think maybe just the beginning. I think around that time I had just gotten my first email address, but I was spending a lot of times in Barnes and Noble because that had just started and that was cool. And that's where I did most of my self diagnosing. It was great. It was a bookstore, but they also had coffee and other people. It was
amazing. Like you could go there. I love Barnes and Noble. Oh, don't get me started. It smells, smells
Chris:so good.
It does on a Saturday. It's killer.
Becca:It's killer. You could spend
Chris:like literally an entire Saturday at Barnes and Noble drinking coffee and diagnosing yourself with whatever Uhhuh,
irr, bowel syndrome. You can talk yet.
Chris:Right, exactly. Exactly. IPS. Yes. Irritable bowel syndrome, bipolar, whatever, all of it. A DH, adhd, I mean, whatever. But yeah. So, I'm sorry, Derek, we interrupted you.
I, uh, I think I was following up on the question why did I get diagnosed and then led the diagnosis. Um, I think I was through.
Chris:And so all of that, like just starting with the first diagnosis, it kind of stumbled into the the A DH diagnosis, A DHD diagnosis, and then into the dyslexia diagnosis.
Yeah. Yeah. It is really all connected over. Over a series and say, Hey, if I'm broke, just tell me how bad.
Chris:And I mean if I can't imagine anyone ever calling you broke just in the what, 15 minutes that we have talked. I am like, yeah, you're not broke. So we're best friends. Look at the shit you're doing. Like this is pretty amazing. So on that note on shit you're doing, talk a little bit about Pocket Mentor, where it started. What's going on with it now, where it's going?
Well, certainly it's, I believe that knowledge is key to everything. There's, uh, um, research out there that, uh, that shows, whether it be the New England Journal of Medicine or in Psychology or, or many other ones, but there's research out there that shows and, and it's, it's anecdotal. We can see it at War two, that when humans have access to education and knowledge, knowledge is the result of education. It's one path to that. They have higher quality of life. They live longer, and their health is better. So it's knowledge can do that. And there's also correlation that, you know, the more informed, uh, people are, the fewer controversies, there are the fewer wars. If we really want to go out on the, on, like the macroeconomic scale, I'm not saying I was pursuit, uh, of, uh, world peace was my goal, but, uh, if this was Miss America, that would be my answer. But, uh, it really extends to, uh, my passion for being a teacher. I'm not a K through 12 certified teacher. I'm certifiable, but not in the teaching. But I do take, uh, spare time that I have and, and I do, uh, substitute teach at at the local schools wherein when I can. So part of it was, uh, seeing the opportunity in the K through 12 system. And the other part came from my history in industrial manufacturing. Industrial manufacturing. There's headlines out there that say, Hey, you know. Why go to college when you can go to an apprenticeship and, and make 120 grand a year, you know, after you get outta the apprenticeship that you, you're making money instead of debt. So the reason those headlines are out there is because skilled trades has been a shortage since the nineties. You know, that's 30 years. So, um, I've been on. Production floor. I've been on the operations floor and and worked. I've been a frontline worker. I've worked with those frontline workers. I've been responsible for training those frontline workers. And what we see a lot of is that there is such a brain suck and the industrial realm that manufacturers can no longer hire people with the knowledge. They even, they gave up decades ago for hiring people with knowledge because it's such a competitive landscape for one. But the other is that, uh, they just, there's not enough. We've been scraping the bottom of that proverbial barrel for decades. So they, they hire. Employees to fill these frontline roles and, and their skilled roles, or whether they be skilled trades, you know, where people work with their hands or, or operations, which still needs, uh, skill to run the machines and in manufacturing environments. So they hire'em with the, uh, promise that they're gonna train them. So it's a promise between the company and the employee, but because they're already short staffed, they don't have the extra people power to be trainers. Stand by them. So these frontline workers do two things. They stand with their hands in their pocket or twiddle their thumbs, or they stand in line behind their manager or a subject matter expert, and they wait in their turn and say, oh, how does this machine work? Or, oh, how do I diagnose a uh, A-V-F-D-A POWERFLEX 5 25 series VFD, and get this motor running on the production line? The people end up as, uh, like flashlight holders. Like, you know, like when I was a kid, my dad say, hold the flashlight type of thing. I, uh, and Christine have, have you been that sun before? Been on the flashlight?
Chris:Yes. Yes. I, I, it, it, it wasn't that I was doing it wrong, it was just that he was angry about the situation.
The light's not bright enough. Christine.
Chris:I know Dad.
Well it, this all connected and on the, uh, on the K through 12 side, there's, uh, I think the ratios that are important when people grade schools or give them a grade of such is the student to teacher ratio. And we all know that unless it gets down to one-on-one, every student's learning is, is just a fraction of what it could be. And I think even when you hit the 20 25, 30. Student to teacher ratio. It's, uh, the student barely has any time to give feedback. It's, it's really just sitting there with your. Jaw on the ground, your mouth open and go, uh, Uhhuh. So for those two scenarios where individuals, where we can't scale the human trainer or teacher to give support for the individual, I saw an opportunity using, well, I'm creating mentors. So think of, uh. I, I haven't built an app. It's not internet based. It's not wifi based. It's a telephone call. So imagine Sarah if I called you on the telephone and I said, Hey, that looks like cool Chapstick. You know, talk me through how to put on Cool Chapstick and then. You could tell me. Yeah. Well that's Carmex, Derek, and, and I start with the bottom lip and I go left and right. Okay. So talk me through. It is the basis for my entire company and our flagship product pocket mentor. It's a human, uh, I think the cool term is anthropomorphize, you know, all the cool scientific. Wow. Kids are giving thumbs up right now. He said that anthropomorphized voice I actually have would be awesome. An AI that, uh, it talks through just it, and it sounds human. We don't try to pass it off as human, but it sounds human and that human factor breaks. Down the barriers of understanding. And so we have conversations with our earbuds in and it's like, all right, pocket mentor, I'm here folding an airplane. Talk me through it and I can add, I can, I can go off script. Because that's the difference between following an operations manual or an SOP, or for that matter, a YouTube video. You know, I love YouTube videos to get out there. Mm-hmm. Hi, this is Jimmy, and we're changing breaks today, and. But my car doesn't always know what the steps are. So what happens when I get to step three and Jimmy's a cool guy. I mean, that mullet is still rocking and, and I'm out here and I look at step three and I don't have the piece that he mentioned. Now what do I do? I can't. Contact Jimmy and get that one-on-one. But I can give, make a phone call with my earbuds in hands free and go and hold the tools or the typewriter or the book, or the manual or the measurement. Stick the laser. Even the flashlight, Christine, I could have that in my hand and have a conversation and says, Hey, how do I do this? Okay, I got to step three, but that spring isn't blue, that spring is red and it's short. It's not long. Oh, well you must be on the. 2022 model Derek. And, uh, here's how we adjust the breaks on, on the 2022 model. So it's conversational and in the K through 12 scenario, when the, the child leaves school and it's after hours or on the weekend, they can actually call pocket mentor and talk about, I don't know, seventh grade history for, uh, maybe English class or go over their Spanish or, or maybe geography and they can dive into, um. If you've met one neurodiverse person, you've met'em all. It's kinda like they get you in a conversation and they don't talk. But when they engage, and I'm one of them, when I'm enga, I'm, somebody's showing me like, I have worth enough. They, they give me the time of day and now I'm gonna talk your ear off. And so all those situations where the teacher doesn't have time to talk to the student in class. They now have the ability for a telephone call with a mentor, a teacher, that, that is a, is a proxy and, and basically that emulation of, uh, of, of the teacher that they can ask all kinds of questions, go down rabbit holes, and then come back Monday with a way to, uh, build a new light bulb or a better bread box.
Chris:This is so great. I don't know if anyone on this call has done, uh, math homework with a, with an eighth grader before, but, uh, particularly maybe a, maybe a little, uh, spicy brained, uh, eighth grader. Uh, it is a hoot. It is a hoot. Olivia, uh, you have 11 yellow bikes. You got 14 green bikes. How many bikes do you have? She's like, why are we adding bikes? Don't, no, I'm not gonna engage in that. Why? Just add them together? Just add them together. And she's like, well, where were, where are the bikes going? No, no. That's not the question that we need, hun. Just 25 is the answer can. So if I would've had somebody else to be like, can you tell her why we're adding the bikes?'cause that would be great. Can you. Steer in the right direction.
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Christine, you've got that on point, right? Is it still cool to say on point?
Chris:For our podcast? Yes. Okay. Alright, cool. Yes, we have absolutely no clue what's cool. Listen, we, we have Becca with us and she will direct us down to the college age. Uh, like below that. We're gonna have to get another, like elementary school intern in here to say stuff like Riz or yt or what is that? Riz. I don't wanna know. I don't wanna know. YI actually don't wanna know. Okay, cool. Well, the ye Yeah. No. Mm-hmm. No. I don't want to,
Hey, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned these younger generations. Um, I'm gonna take my Superman classes off for this one, but the younger generations, there's uh, um, they don't like to be told what to do by the man, but they love to get things done. They love, uh, accomplishment, but they like to do it on their own. Now, I'm, I'm quoting my daughter who's a psychological PhD and, and she said, this is the way it works, dad. So don't blame me if I did it wrong. Sorry. Bus. Um, so there's, um, is millennials and Gen Zs, that's not even, well, I mean, we have like alphas and betas now, right? They're even younger in the workforce.
Chris:I don't even know what I am. I have to look it up online every time. I have no clue. Guess Becca. I can. She
Becca:did a multimedia journalism project about all the generations. So you guys, I believe are Gen X.
Chris:Gen X for sure. Sarah's Gen X, but she's like a, she's like a subdivision, like right on the right on the edge, right at the cusp,
Becca:right on the edge, right on the cusp. Because my boyfriend was 98 and he is one year after.
Thats an old boyfriend. Right.
Becca:Well,
Chris:she's, she's going for the life insurance. She's doing it right. He must have game. Your mom's gonna be so mad at me. Your mom's gonna be so mad
Becca:at me. That
Chris:is so funny.
Becca:That's so good. And then I was born in 2002, so we're both technically Gen Z, but we're more towards like the millennial side. So it's like a weird, it's you guys, gen X, millennials, and then Gen Z, and now it's, I know Gen Alpha, but.
It sounds, Becca, it sounds like you're throwing us all into a category. Yeah, I'm not sure.
Chris:I don't like it. I don't like it. I, I won't be put into a box I don't like. Can you tell me which box I should go in though?
Hey, we're human. We want to know and, and that's another good point. Uh, you say your boyfriend is born, I assume in 1998, and you were born in 2002. So the internet has always been around for you. And so you're more familiar with technology as a generation and, uh, as stereotype, we're gonna stereotype you as a gener. So because you're more familiar with technology and you grew up, you know, punching phones with your thumbs and all that, you would rather talk and, and correct me Becca if I'm wrong here, but you would rather talk to an AI than you would a human, especially a 58-year-old white guy, right? No, in all seriousness,
Becca:in all honesty, I would,
I don't like talking to people.
Becca:If I, it really just depends on the mood. Like there's some things where I'm like, if I just need a quick answer, that's fine. But if I'm, like with the car situation, I have no clue about cars. I'm gonna call a human for that.'cause the AI's gonna tell me something and I'm gonna be like, I have no clue. I need, I need human, I don't know. Cars.
Derek:Yeah. Well if it, if you called our ai, our AI is trained specifically on what, what you're working on. So it doesn't give those, you know, dreamy hallucinogen. Answers. Now why I say hallucinogen that way, and I'm thinking mushrooms, for some reason, our AI doesn't take mushrooms. But, uh, it should. It's, it's actually trained specifically to, to act just like a human. And it's, it's, it's that, it's that we don't wanna be judged. And being on the spectrum myself, I don't like to be judged either. Yeah. Sarah, you said you don't like people? I don't like people because I feel like I'm judged all the time. So what do I do? Let's get on a podcast. Viewed my millions, and then just put yourself out there.
Sarah:Yeah. I don't like talking to people here I am doing interviews, getting ready to start my own coaching business. I mean, if I know what I'm doing, I love talking to people when I don't know what I'm doing, like ordering a pizza. I don't like to talk to people. I go to ordering the pizza.'cause I just can't. If you, if there's no online ordering, I won't order food from that place. That's ridiculous. But
Derek:I'm with you. I'm with you. I, I will sit outside the parking lot at Taco Bell and I will punch in my order and just wait, rather than just go up to the drive through, legit.
Becca:Mm-hmm. Across from my Taco Bell back in my, um, college town. And my friend will be like, just order. And I'm like, no, I'm going through the app. I'm like, can I just walk up there? I say my name and then give it to me. I'm gone.
Sarah:It's great. Yeah. It's it's great and ridiculous at the same time. And I love that. I'm not the only person who does these things, but Yeah. And that's exactly what my holdup is with talking to people. If I'm confident what I'm talking about, if I know what I'm talking about, Christine, you will, uh, attest to the fact that I won't shut up. But if I don't, then, and here we, here we are today. Well, you're not even in the same room together. We never are. She's stuck. She's stuck in Newark and yeah, we never are, so it works. Alright, so Christine, you're taking notes. I, I think you're taking notes, drawing. Did you have any questions? Which is a, um, A DHD, uh, way to stay focused is drawing while somebody else is talking. I forget the exact name for it, but I do it all the time. Diddling, I mean, it's called doodling, but there's an actual like. Fancy name. That sounds, I don't know. You're doing great. Smart. Yeah. Smart. I used to knit during teleconferences because that's how I would pay attention.'cause if you can keep my hands busy, then I'm not like clicking all over the internet, right? Like I'm not
mm-hmm.
Chris:Doing, doing the stuff I usually do. Um, no. Here's my thoughts. Where, yeah, there's always, there is always a fidget toy. So Olivia and I both have a DH, ADHD and we're both working on relationships. So we go to, uh, we go to therapy together. The two of us are sitting there and at like our introductory little therapy thing. And we're talking about something or other. Olivia is her daughter, by the way. Derek, right? Just sorry. I don't know if we covered that, but go ahead and, and uh, and before we even get to the a DD part, the therapist hands us both like tiny little fidget toys. She's like, here you go. I think you're both going to need these. And before you even have to say it, I have your a DD diagnosis written down already. I was like, we have been here for five minutes. Five minutes. So. Exactly, exactly right. So I, I think the best part that I can think of about having a pocket mentor, somebody to, to call up and, and interact with and be like, Hey, I got to part seven and now I'm done paying attention. Like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna look at these instructions anymore. I have a, I have every, I have every booklet from IKEA for putting together furniture. I get 80% of the way done. I have 14 screws left. I'm like, I'm just gonna hit over the hammer until it goes together. We're, we're fine now. So this is, this is. Amazing. I love it. I am, I am all in on it. Mm-hmm. And I know that Olivia would be too, if she ever had to put anything together because I, I, I like it at the beginning. I'm like, yes. And that is, that is like, also the hard part for me is like the idea of putting together IKEA furniture super appealing. I'm like, let me lay out all the bits and pieces in their little rows. Let me get all ready for it and let me look through the instructions up until step five and now, um, now I'm bored. I get bored. I get bored easily. Yeah, like same thing like super excited about net, my new IKEA furniture, and I actually don't make it past, like setting out all the pieces' like cool's. Why? That's why you have me. That's awesome. That's why you have me. Yeah. True, true. Yeah. I think my question would be how do you, how do you see, do you see the pocket mentor growing? How do you see it, it evolving over the, over the next couple of years? Are you looking to do more of sort of the industrial education? Are you looking to do more of, uh, more of the workplace? Are you looking to do more of elementary math, uh, applications? What, where do, where do you see it being the most useful and, and where are your plans for taking it there?
The, um, just the, this voice interface, it speeds up the response so much faster than typing at a keyboard. And, and if I had to pull out my phone and find the app and, all right, chat, GPT, and I'm typing right? And well, now I gotta go back and all the correct, you know, all the frustrating barriers that we have, but this, we're really at a singularity point where we can just speak. Have a conversation with a human. And I tell everybody that our technology is 50,000 years old. What? Yeah. Our AI technology is 50,000 years old because we train it like we have for 50,000 years through storytelling from human to human to human. And the uh, the difference now is our human doesn't. Take a sick day and doesn't go on vacation and doesn't retire and take their knowledge with them. So, um, that's the process and it feels like, uh, I invented either a paperclip or paper and the value is not in the paperclip itself or the paper that you have, but in what you do with this. So I've been avoiding that, answering that question now for about 38 seconds. But I see it as a, uh, in the United States, there's a push to increase manufacturing, get back to the 1960s where we're building a lot more. And if we're short skilled trades right now, uh, what, how are we gonna grow manufacturing if we're already short? Qualified employees. So I see pocket mentors being foundational for that growth. On the teacher education side, I just looked at a graph that's, and I'm not saying it's authentic, it, it looked authentic'cause it was cool. It had lines and it said, yeah, I love those. 1980, the, uh, national education system. There was like.$20 billion a year spent. But in 2022 it peaked out at$634 billion. And in the next page there was another graph that said, reading comprehension, lower math comprehension lower. And we're not solving problems by throwing money at it. Um, I think we really need to get down to that one-on-one scalability and. When I substitute, I'm kind of checking out the ages of people'cause I need to know what cabinet I fit in, right? There's those that have been teaching for 20, 30 or 40 years, and then there's the ones that have been there one or two years. But in the middle there's not a lot of, uh, age representation in or. Experience in the middle because so many people that you know from the time they're six years old, when I grow up, I wanna be a teacher. And then they go through college and they get their certifications and their degrees, then they step foot in a public school system. They're appalled. They, I wanna teach, oh no, you can't teach, you gotta do this for, I want to teach. And so that light bulb that's been on for 20 years now suddenly goes off. And so we have a brain drain in on the teacher realm. So I think that, and I think Pocket Mentor can give that one-on-one attention to the 90% of the classroom that needs one-on-one attention and do it without. Impacting that teacher.'cause those teachers, even though it's a seven and a half hour day, depending on where you're at, um, in school day, those teachers are working 12, 13 hours a day. They start before school. They're after school and they're stretched thin. And so they're barely getting by in their own classroom. So they definitely don't have that extra bandwidth to train other teachers, mentor. Other teachers. So I had us interviewed on a teacher podcast and, and they said, Hey, can you see using this to help onboard teachers at school system? And I went. I hadn't thought about that. How great, how great is the world that they just offer and identify opportunities for making our life better? So in that round, it could help the teacher out, uh, on their year one, year two, et cetera. And it gives that one-on-one with the students. So the future I see is that we all have the information delivered to us. What we need, when we need it at the speed of light. And I, there's so much value in that versus my, you know, think back, yeah, think back when you were young, Becca, when the US Post, you know, rode horses across the country and, and delivered letters that took, you know, uh, a month and a half. So it's that, it's that iteration ability and, and we're at this crescendo, and it's the true singularity point where we can iterate immediately instead of. Backtracking through technology typing. I got a prompt engineer a question just to get the answer I'm looking for. So how long does that take? So let's say, even if it's a minutes versus instant and then back before that, well, let me wait till Monday and I'll, I'll call Christine and say, Hey, how, talk me through this again. How do I do. So now we're talking a day or two or three. And then let's go back even further before the internet and let me write letters. And now it takes weeks at best to go across country or across the world. So if you can only iterate once every two weeks, your iteration is, is success is gonna fail. Whereas if you could iterate, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, go off on a tangent and iterate, boom, boom, boom. Imagine a Einstein. Could, uh, soundboard with himself or Nicola Tesla could soundboard with himself, how much more they would've built. I just think, I think that's an incredible future, right? And I wanna be, I wanna help that vision. Yeah, that's
Chris:amazing. Like to the point where I might have goosebumps because that's. I love this so much. I absolutely love this so much. Yeah. And a lot of, uh, sorry Sarah. No, go ahead. Go ahead. A lot of, a lot of what we talk about on the podcast is, uh, recognizing that not every brain works the same and, and being able to say to other people, Hey, uh, I have this, or This is how my brain works. And. Being able to tailor a response, being able to work with a pocket mentor and have that pocket mentor understand and you know, recognize that I'm not gonna ask a question the same way Sarah's gonna ask a question. I'm gonna ask it completely differently. And if I'm Olivia, I'm gonna wanna know why there's bikes in my math question. And we're gonna have to get through that before we can get to anything else. And I think if we can, can tailor. The education to the individual in a way that makes it make sense. Then I, I think, you know, then you've really, you've really, and improved a broken system. Like right now, we just give everybody the same education, the same words, the same book, the same. The same. Same. And being able to kind of take it from, you know, where Sarah and I are coming at sort of mental health is you have to be you and you have to do your individual thing. And being able to apply that younger and younger and have the expectation be that somebody responds to that, not with, Hey, that's a great idea. Here's your assignments for next week. Go home and hassle your parents into helping you until they want to murder the people that are there to take care of'em when they're old. So I, I, again, uh, I mean, I think that the more that we can fit things for purpose and the more we can recognize that every brain isn't gonna be the same and every brain isn't going to be able to ask the same question the same way, every brain isn't gonna be able to come up with the ideal AI prompt as I'm typing it in. Like, this is awesome. Make sense?
Yeah. You see the vision? I, I love that you were bought in and you mentioned, you know, the differences. Our brains are different. There's a, uh, I was actually just speaking with her today, um, and throw this in your SEO for your type script. Um, but the Dr. Nancy Doyle is, she's outta London or nearby London. US Americans are geographically challenged, but I figured London's close enough. She actually built something called Genius Within, and it's genius within dot, and she has a page called What is Diversity? What is Neurodiversity? So on that page she talks about the spiky profile. So we are all different, and even those of us that are autistic or A DHD, that doesn't make us mirrors of somebody else who's autistic and A DHD. We are truly individuals and mm-hmm. Dr. Doyle is, uh, double D. Now, this alliteration is in my mind and is Bango Spectro Gadget is, I guess is where I went there. But, um, she came up with a spiky profile and it shows an, an XY axis in this graph is. Average people or normal is what we call'em. They're average. They have this slightly up and down on every skill set. They perform slightly above average, slightly below average. Nobody is average all the way across, or that's probably is one person and he's really boring. But in the spiky profile of the neurodiverse, and they're starting to say even a DHD autism, that they're starting to get away from individual naming structure and just saying, Hey, we got box A or box B. Which island of misfit toys do you wanna be on? So she shows that on certain skills, like, uh, I don't know, reasoning and analytical, maybe, uh, somebody, uh, with autism is at the 200% level. Compared to, you know, the, the norm or the median, I guess. And then, but on communication and social, uh, prowess, they might be on the negative 200% or they just fail. So, Hey, Mr. Tesla, you just built, uh, you know, wireless electricity, why don't you speak at our event? And then they get fired, right? And I've, I've been, uh, I've, I've fallen on that ax a number of times. Um, you know, praised for all the. Cool things I did in production, I did. But then, uh, you know, next week that was all forgotten. I, I said something wrong or somebody misunderstood what I said. And, and no, we gotta, we, we, we gotta get rid of you. You're just not. Part of the culture we're like in here. So because I ask questions, I'm sorry.
Chris:That is, that is the best part of the, of all, all of the, the focus on, uh, mental health, all of the people kind of going to the internet being like, hang on a sec, I'm not weird. I'm just, uh, a little bit, uh, spicy brain, just like everyone else in this particular chat room. So, and having, having employers recognize that as well, that, you know, just because you have an idea of this culture, um, and that, that's a big thing, oh, everyone likes to play like ping pong or whatever. You know, everyone really digs this slide in the kitchen. Instead of making the investment there, maybe make the investment in something that actually does get the sort of neurodivergent. Included in what's happening. Maybe that's a, maybe that's a better way to define and, and recognize a culture in a company. I just love this so much and I feel like it's way more than I was thinking it was when we first got on this call and I did learn. I didn't know what an OEM was. I don't know it. See, it's on my screen here.'cause I had to look up what an OEM was. So I learned that before we got on this call. Not a freaking clue why I just went onto that anyway. Yes, this is much more than I originally thought it was, and I think that what you are doing, Derek, and your brain and the way it works, is an absolute gift. And I love it so much. And I think the vision that you have is incredible. And I know, I'm pretty sure I speak for all of us. Not that we have huge reach, but we are gonna do whatever we can. To help you and get your message out there for sure.'cause it's, um, it's extremely inspiring. So thank you for that. Yeah, yeah. I do have more questions. That wasn't just wrapping us up, that was just me. I was like, we're not done yet. Sarah, thank you so much. But
yeah, please,
Chris:please continue. I've,
I've got all night.
Chris:Yes. I'm kind of hungry. So, um, my next question is about the clients that you have. So I actually didn't. No, that before we got on this call, apparently I didn't do enough research. I didn't realize that you were in the realm of education as well as, um, industrial manufacturing and whatnot. I didn't know that you had a reach into both of those areas, and I think that is amazing. Since you have started this, what, what have your clients seen in return? With the pocket mentor, what type of feedback do you get? I'm assuming someone like you wants to look at data to see what's going on. So what are your clients seeing?
Well, there's, uh, there's. Pushback, depending on the, uh, you know, the personality and, and, and the realm. Honestly, it's, it's something like, uh, I, I taught at Amazon. It's, it's change management is, there's those that are early adopters. Um, and same thing goes with AI right now, you know, worldwide, there's the early adopters, then there's the, you know, the Luddites that are out there. It says, no, no, no, that's evil, that's Satan. And then there's a lot of people in the middle that we could say are on the fence. So, um, once, once they understand. Stand it. To be honest, I, I feel I've articulated it better here. This, uh, in this room today than, than I have in the past. And getting past that articulation, like how do you define what paper is, what's the value of paper? Well, you can write stuff up. I've got my cave wall. I, you know, that stuff burns and it will blow away. Paper will never make it so that, that's part of a wall of change, that knowledge or articulating the value around. But those that have got to it, there's some pushback and then there's others that jump right in and it's like. Wow. It's, it's, it's like I'm talking to a human and I don't have to get Jim out of bed at 2:30 AM on a Saturday morning.'cause Jim's the only person, or Janet is the only people that have the answer to that. So in the industrial setup, it's like, uh, well. Can't get ahold of Jim or he is on vacation, so let's just shut the line down. And in production we talk about downtime is a cost of the company. So if a machine or a line or an operation goes down and it's down for hours and especially days depending on the manufacturer, they could be losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour. When it's down, so it's important to get back up. Um, on the, uh, on the school side, I don't have any official contracts with, uh, K through 12. We have some experimentation going on. Okay. Every school has, uh, at least one, if not two, of those techno nerds that, uh, that's just wanna play with every toy that's out there. So we're, uh, we're, we're dabbling and enjoying and with a li this, I don't know, a limited beta, I guess you you'd call it. Mm-hmm. At a couple schools, the feedback is, Hey, I like it, but can it do this? Hey, I like it, but can it do that? So there's still the understanding of the value, and so every bit that they learn, we're learning too to make the product better because this. What we're doing here. It's not just, you know, saddle Chat, GPT with a microphone, speaker and role. We are actually training, got some secret sauce of our own right in the, in the back end. Mm-hmm. We're training it on only the specific information that needs to be trained on, but now that the information is there. How do we interface most efficiently? Um, it's like train the trainer and you can teach a trainer or a soon to be trainer, Hey, here's the information, but you also have to train the trainer on how do you handle situations when you know you've got the negative Nellie and the know-it-all NEDs out there, or the ones that just won't participate or, or they push back here. You have to handle that psychological and social. Interface. So we train our AI the same way, so it's about 60% psychology and only about 40% true ai. Um, but then it's, it's those answers. So the closer we get. And we're doing pretty good now, we, we can usually line in tune that voice response to the personality that, um, that the client or the school or the teacher wants it to represent. Some say talk slow, some say talk fast. Some say add humor. Some say let's just, you know, go without humor. But it's, it's still a big experiment right now. But even though there's so much success and, and positive feedback for those that have actually. Indulge that, uh, that, that there's positive growth here. And I, I look forward to, uh, to connecting. There's a lot of K through 12 schools out there. I, i, I wish I could connect to them all. So if, if anybody's out there that just wants to experiment, no cost, let's just play around, see if we can build a future together.
Chris:Yeah. That's awesome. I think that's amazing. And like I said, we were, we're gonna push this one out as much as we can for sure. And I know I have a shit ton of teacher friends, um, because on a daily basis I'm saying, you're underpaid. You could pay me enough to do the shit that you do. So I'm gonna push this out to them as much as we can. Absolutely. I do have another question. So when you have a new client, uh. Coming on board, I guess it would be like onboarding. How, how does the process go with a new client? How does it work when you're just building that relationship and getting started with, um, the pocket mentor?
It, it begins with understanding the problem that they wanna solve. And, uh, too oftentimes somebody is selling a, a, a solution without identifying a problem. So I, I truly believe that, uh, for every hour we should, you know, thinking about a problem, 55 minutes of it should be on the problem on why and, and what the goals are. And then the other 5%, the solution just rises to the top. So a typical, uh, intake. Of a new client is, uh, first of all connecting with all the SMEs, the subject matter experts. I almost said subject wrong, subject matter experts, uh, SMEs. So yeah, throw some acronyms out there. Um, SMEs, SMEEs. Yeah, I love them. Uh, it's identifying who they are. So it's, it, it becomes a project at this, at this point. And I am, I'm a certified project manager and there's certain steps and expectations. Derek, as a project manager know you have absolutely no power and except influence. So, um, even when we have a. Uh, a paying client, there's still that barrier of can we connect to everybody and can we get that initial information to identify what the problem is that we're solving for? And then once we solve for that, uh, give us the data, the knowledge, whether it be manuals or books that you use to train your trainer. That's our starting point for training our trainers. So the process is that normally takes up to 30 days. I put a window on that because I want them to have a deadline, right? Because we can't do anything really until we get that knowledge. So 30 days there and then there's 45 days. We put out a uh, MVP and they know what MVP stands for.
Chris:Um, minimal viable product. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's a, you're such a nerd. Yeah, sure am. Yeah. A hundred percent total. I was like, that's super easy. It's the most valuable player. No, it does. It has nothing to do with sports, statues or anything. Shit. Okay. Or
naked tats or juujitsu. I get it. I love it. I love it. Uh, to close out, go ahead. I'm sorry. To close out so we can listen to the pretty people here in a minute. We put out the MVP and then there's a, uh, a trial, uh, internal trial. It's not publicly released inside the company, but we just go back and forth and it, it's just cism and, and, and relationship and communication and tell, it's tuned just right. Sometimes we hit it right out of the gate and they're up and running within 45 or 60 days. We've even had somebody up and running in seven days from where we started. Wow. So I don't wanna set that expectation. Um, I was taught to under promise and over deliver. Chris, you know, that one too. Okay, cool. Cool. Um, so, and that's the way it works. Uh, we just iterate as a team until they get the solution. So our work is really heavy on the front end, uh, working with the client and, uh, and the knowledge. But once we get the knowledge there. It pretty much goes automatic. Now, we, we throw in some CFMs customer feedback mechanisms. I learned that while it ends on CFM customer feedback mechanism, so on an ongoing basis we can improve the process and improve the, uh, the conversation. But, uh, by the time we get to this point, we're really 95% of the way to, uh, what somebody might call perfection.
Chris:Um, sissy, Becca, do you guys have any other questions? I mean, I'm, that's, that's it for my questions, so if you guys have anything. I, I mean, I will, I will say that I work in a heavily, heavily regulated industry and all, all that, all that these guys are talking about now, like the people who provide technology for clinical research, all anyone is talking about is ai. Oh, we gotta do ai. What are we gonna do with ai? I'm like, well, what are, and if I had a nickel for every time, I said, well, what problem are you solving with ai? Like, what are you, what's the, what's the challenge that you think we can do? And what are we doing right now and how can we do that? Right? We're solving everything. We're gonna solve everything. It doesn't matter, Christine, as long as it's ai, it
doesn't matter. We're gonna solve it. I
Chris:was like, well, okay. Yeah. I mean, I could think of four problems right off the top of my head, but Okay. Yeah. No, we'll throw, we'll throw an a eye like getting your sister to shut up while you're talking like. These are gonna be tough to prob to problem solve with ai. But I mean, yeah, I don't know. I mean, we definitely could work on it. I mean, it is literally the only thing people are presenting, like, and if you don't have an AI related topic, even if you have a topic that is, uh, important to the industry, you just throw and AI on the end of it. To get, to get someone listen to, to listen to you. Like, you know, we're, we're, we're talking about better ways to, you know, cut an orange. I'm like, oh, using ai. We'll just put that at the end and then we can talk about how we just asked Chad TPT how many sections should I cut this orange in? And then we're done. But it is a, it is a wild time to, uh, to, to kind of watch people try to. You know, just, just throw AI around to get stuff done, and it is kind of refreshing and really, really nice to hear somebody say, well, what problem are you trying to solve? Like straight, straight. Outta the gate and have someone who understands that. Yeah, like the knowledge is the, is the core of it, but the interface and the way you get people to interact with it is gonna be the way that you change the world. Like, and I know you're not going for world peace or you know, whatever, but mm-hmm. That is how you are going to impact the generations down the line. We've got plenty of knowledge. We've got plenty of Internets and instructions and manuals, and what we really need to work on is how do we, how do we get the interface to interact with? People in a, in a better way and starting, starting with education and starting with the two applications where there's this huge disconnect between what people want their world to look like and what it looks like now. Like, wanting to go back to make America great and, and kind of get all the industrial pieces in place, but not having the, necessarily the background and kind of the infrastructure to do that. And then looking at the little babies who don't understand why there's a bike in their math problem. These are two great ways to get into it. I'm so excited to see what you guys can do in the future. Like, I can't, I can't wait. I'm pumped. And it has given me, honestly, like a little bit of hope that everyone isn't just kind of tagging AI into something that they're actually mm-hmm. They're actually thinking and considering, you know, what's gonna be the, the thing that really changes how we, how we work with it. And it's not gonna be. It's not gonna be, uh, getting better knowledge or eliminating data processors from, from an equation. It's gonna be the way that we talk to it and the way we get what we need from it. So, thank you. Congratulations. This is amazing work and I can't believe that if somebody conned this guy into being on our podcast, that's awesome. I know, right? This is like, wow. I, I'm, I am extremely impressed in my ability to get someone on. I actually think Derek might have, he might have initiated it because we're seriously funny. Um, I searched
out only the highest rated podcast with the highest quality content
Chris:that's us with the, the funniest chicks on it. That is a hundred percent us. We're changing the world. One little opinion about neurodivergent people at a time. We win a. Derek, I do have one more question, not so much a question, but for our listeners, let them know where they can get in touch with you if they're interested in learning more.
Oh, certainly. Uh, if you grab my name on LinkedIn, I'm, I'm one of very few people with, uh, with my name. Uh, it should pop up readily on LinkedIn, and if you're looking for our web presence, uh. I think I have it if the label shows up on the video screen. Practical ai.app. A PP. So it's kind of ironic that our, our company is practical AI do app like Apple, Paul, Paul, but our solution is not an app. Yeah. So we're. We're self ironic. How would we phrase that, Becca? We we're ironic of self. I don't know.
Becca:That's interesting because it just is, it's sounding more like a piece of software versus like an actual like application that you can, don't say that like it's a bad thing. No, no. I'm excited because. Well, in all honesty, like I just graduated college. This sounds incredible. Like thank you I, this sounds like something that would've helped me with my stats versus me crying over it and begging the lady and be like, please just pass me. Please. I'll be out of your hair. I'll be gone. I'm very excited to see where the conversational aspect goes because I feel as though AI is necessarily used as replacement and not a tool when it comes to my generation. Mm-hmm. Which sucks and I think that's why I struggle so much with it. So I'm really excited to see like the conversational aspect that you were mentioning, but I would say it's more of a system than an app.
Thank you. Thank you, Becca.
Chris:Nerd Becca. I love it. Thank you. Thank you for joining our team, Becca Nerd. Well done. Well done nerds. All right, Derek, is there anything else that you wanna share with our audience?
You know, uh, sincerity. Thank you very much for having me here and, and being entertaining and, and entertaining my presence. Um, oh, by the way, did I tell you that, uh, in, uh, that there's one way to get a promotion When you work at Amazon, you just shave your head like Jeff, and it gets guaranteed to give you one level promotion. I went from a a L five to an L six just because of this.
Chris:Wow. I can pull it off.
You
Chris:can, I mean, I have a, I have a Please don't
shave your head.
Chris:Well, I don't wear, I don't work for Amazon. Sta Well, I don't, I just, I, I saw it for a second and it was making me nervous and Daddy has explained what your head looked like when you were born. It might be my sleep paralysis
Becca:demon for the night am like trying to fall asleep and I just see. Chrissy with a bald head. It's not pointed anymore. It's not pointed anymore. No, but that's,
Chris:that's still the story I have in my head is daddy tapping on the glass and looking at the nurse and saying,
listen, it's fine. They had to, what's wrong with her head? They had to grab me with little hooks and it made my head a little pointy, Derek. That's all I mean. Yeah. Don't shave your head. Okay, fine. I won't. Fine. I won't. Okay.
Chris:All right. Well we're gonna go ahead and wrap up. We will hit stop re Well, Christine will hit stop recording because that's what she's in charge of'cause I always hit the wrong button.
Sounds great. Thank you. Alright, thank you. Thanks.
Sarah:Uh, welcome to another episode of Bare Bones Banter with a Mental Funny Bone. Today we have a guest. His name is Derek Crager. Derek is a neurodivergent, entrepreneur and visionary behind Practical ai, a company committed to reshaping how organizations teach, train, and troubleshoot in real time with Def decades. Experience in industrial training and a lifelong ability to spot systems others overlook. Derek Developed Pocket Mentor, an AI powered voice support tool that turns your best employee's knowledge into an always available mentor. Under his leadership practical AI is equipping manufacturer's o. OEM integrators system. Bingo.
What's his name though?
Chris:Ant filled service providers to eliminate downtime, retain knowledge, and accelerate onboarding without head count or hardware. Whether you're solving workforce shortages or future proofing your customer support, Derek brings a compelling vision and practical roadmap for embedding AI into. Real world operations. I had to say real world like that because I, that will work. It, it screws it up. Anyway, I got through it. Welcome Derek. Thanks for joining us.
Beautiful. Thank you for having me. You, it, it sounds almost like I wrote it, Sarah.
Chris:It's amazing.
It's amazing. How much did, did I pay you to read that? Like that?
Chris:I mean, if you were paying me, we would've been doing this interview a long time ago. I, I should also warn you guys that for some reason the air is cut off in this room and it is currently 90. Degrees outside. And so I will be turning beet red and sweating by the time we're done.
Alright. Just so you're aware, challenge accepted.
Chris:Okay. Alright. Awesome. Well, Derek, how about, um, we just start pretty basic. Why don't you give us your story, introduce yourself to our audience.
Sounds great. Yeah, no, uh, no expectations, Derek, just tell us everything, right? Yeah, just give, I
Chris:mean, give us a little, you know, your elevator pitch, is that what we call it?
Well, sure. Well, that'd be, uh, I think what, 30 seconds or less. But yeah, thank you for the opportunity and, and honestly, ladies, it is a pleasure being here. Uh, it's, uh, uh, it's, it's a reprieve from all those stuffy interviews that I've had. I had one gentleman, he actually said, let's map this out so I know what you're saying and you know what I'm saying. So it was like I was reading a script and so far in advance. So just for the benefit of everybody here. I have no idea what I'm gonna say today. And I, I feel the, the feeling's mutual.
Chris:Yeah. Our listeners are all about it.'cause we never know what we're saying.
They're,
Chris:they
embrace it. Yep. So, uh, I think Carl Sagan said, if we're gonna start from the beginning, we gotta start about, uh, you know, the Big Bang. And I, I'll go from there. But, uh, zoom, zoom forward a little bit, uh, outta high school, I, uh, went to college. I didn't say university, but I went to college and, uh, apprenticeship at the same time. I ended up sticking around the, uh, the industrial side. I was an industrial construction firm. About five years I moved into automotive manufacturing. I worked from the floor up to engineering, up to process engineer, and then eventually a company, company went to the learning team. I was diagnosed at age 50 and I'm 58 today. So I think I got a couple or 12, 15 years. I knew ladies at the minimal and, uh, but when I was, I was diagnosed at age 50. Yeah. What were you diagnosed from Derek? Um, well, I had a cold. No, I was diagnosed autistic, A DHD, and dyslexic. So, you know, one might ask, how did you not know until you were 50 that you're dyslexic? But you know, that's a topic for a different podcast. But at age 50, I, I was working at Amazon at this time, my first year there, and so I actually embraced this. I guess the code term now is neurodiversity and I leveraged that to, uh, build at the time Amazon. Well, and still it's, uh, reigning chant and King, Amazon's highest rated employee training program in company history. So that's the feather in my CAPAs. Where in one nice. And that brings us to the day. And on the professional side, I, I took what I learned and built that knowledge. So I have a learning company today. We leverage ai. We're not an AI company. Anybody that tells you they're an AI company, they're just blowing the smoke. No such thing as really a true AI company. You might use AI as a tool. So we're leveraging AI to facilitate one-on-one learning. You know, we're trying to get away from the one to many that this country was built on. Your country was built on, every country was built on, and now we're getting down to the value of the individual. And that's what we're speaking to at that realm. The ability for, uh, our training and onboarding, uh, for companies and even nonprofits too. Be that one on one. One size fits one scenario. So that's where we're at today, ladies. So how, how are you?
Chris:That's awesome. I mean, that feather in your cap is a pretty big one, I would say. So. That's a nice feather. It's a nice feather. Yeah,
for sure. Can you help me turn that into a trillion dollars though? Million?
Chris:Well, no. If we could, if we could turn feathers into a million dollars, they would rate fairy tales about us.
My goodness. No chicken would be safe.
Chris:Seriously. I have a, I have a duvet on my bed. Gone.
I hate those. I live Indiana. We call it a duvet.
Chris:Oh yes. That's also what I call it. I don't even live in Indiana. My goodness. Derek, my question, um, and of course I planned on going through a list of things and I'm gonna go right off of it. Don't roll your eyes at me, Christine. Sorry, carry on. Super excited. So how exactly did you get diagnosed with this trifecta here? Did you, was it something particular that happened that sent you looking to get di Like did you, were you advocating for yourself? Did you feel like there was something going on?
Well, uh, the comedic response was I was in a straight jacket and I had no alternative. But, uh, the real life answer is kind of similar. Um, I, uh, I grew up being the, uh, the weird kid and, uh, I was always misunderstood. I, I, I guess,'cause my answers always spoke to the question ask rather than the answer expected. So, um. I, I honestly grew up, I remember specifically when I was 14 and I don't know if the year went by where I didn't step outside of the self-help aisle. You know, that, that virtual self-help aisle that started out in libraries and went to bookstores and, and we can explain what books are in a, in a later podcast, I'm sure, but for those that that don't know, but it's kind of like a Kindle, but, uh, thousands of them. Um, wouldn't that be cool? A dedicated Kindle of one book and we just put'em all on a show. Um, now I lost track. See, that's why, that's why I was the different kid. So this, we love it. We embrace
Chris:it.
Well, uh, fantastic. The reason for my pursuit was that, well, I didn't find an answer in the self-help file. I followed all of the, uh, the, the leaders and, and this is how to make yourself better, and this is how to produce a thousand percent a day and this is how to connect with people and this is how to. Speak with people and, and on and on and on. And I don't know if your show's long enough to go through the list, but, um, I, I got to the point where this internet thing came around and which is a sharing of information, and I just started listening in like a fly on the wall to, I don't know, groups of other screwed up people. And, uh, we kind of, uh, I, I said, that kind of sounds like me a little bit. So I, I kept zooming in and, and jumping from room to robe, and then I felt. My God, I had the confidence to actually speak up and say something and, and I didn't get judged. I thought, whoa, whoa, what is this? You know, my episode of the Twilight Zone, I said something, I didn't get judged. So, um, we started sharing and it's like, wow, that story, my story too. And it eventually got to the point where, these are my people. So I diagnosed myself just saying, these are my people, but anybody who's autistic, until you get the certification. You're still wondering, like, is there a chance that you're just really screwed up? So, um, it, uh, I got, I spent about 10 years in that friend zone with autism, and, um, I, uh, eventually just got diagnosed and because I wanted to know, I, I just, you know. After 50 years, I'd reach my limit. I wasn't gonna wait any longer. And it was, it wasn't to like sit in and you get diagnosed. Um, so the autism is kind of like, uh, it's a professional behavior diagnosis that takes repetition to understand. And for the psycho psychotherapist, psychologist, therapist, uh. To map out the A DHD. On the other hand, were you aware ladies, that they have a computer program? You just grab a mouse and you sit down for 20 minutes and you click the mouse and it will tell you if you have a DHD.
Chris:Christine, did you do that? Is that how you got diagnosed? Uh, Olivia had it, Liz. So my daughter got diagnosed first and I was like, wait a second. Hang on here. This feels really, really familiar. She's like, yeah, I mean, you see me, mom, I don't have trouble. Like I, I'm not a troublemaker in class. I'm not talking out of turn much. Uh, but here's the all the things. And I was like, oh my God, I am looking at the test and I'm like, I am also all of the things. So yeah, you just click it and they're like, oh yeah, dummy. This is what's a sweatshirt thing is, can I do that for free? Yeah. Yeah. Really. I did not know about this. I mean, you can do it for free. The doctor that's gonna diagnose you is gonna make you do it twice. So
no, I don't wanna go to the, I don't wanna go, I don't wanna talk to, to a real doctor about it. I just, I'll diagnose, of course not myself and we'll move on.
Chris:And Derek, I'll mention that. Sarah's self-diagnosed herself with bipolar, I think at 19 or 20, maybe 22. She was like, I know what's wrong with me. It's bipolar. She wrote it down. Set
expectations. We live up to'em.
Chris:That's when Noble,'cause we still weren't really into the internet that big. Um, I, I think maybe just the beginning. I think around that time I had just gotten my first email address, but I was spending a lot of times in Barnes and Noble because that had just started and that was cool. And that's where I did most of my self diagnosing. It was great. It was a bookstore, but they also had coffee and other people. It was
amazing. Like you could go there. I love Barnes and Noble. Oh, don't get me started. It smells, smells
Chris:so good.
It does on a Saturday. It's killer.
Becca:It's killer. You could spend
Chris:like literally an entire Saturday at Barnes and Noble drinking coffee and diagnosing yourself with whatever Uhhuh,
irr, bowel syndrome. You can talk yet.
Chris:Right, exactly. Exactly. IPS. Yes. Irritable bowel syndrome, bipolar, whatever, all of it. A DH, adhd, I mean, whatever. But yeah. So, I'm sorry, Derek, we interrupted you.
I, uh, I think I was following up on the question why did I get diagnosed and then led the diagnosis. Um, I think I was through.
Chris:And so all of that, like just starting with the first diagnosis, it kind of stumbled into the the A DH diagnosis, A DHD diagnosis, and then into the dyslexia diagnosis.
Yeah. Yeah. It is really all connected over. Over a series and say, Hey, if I'm broke, just tell me how bad.
Chris:And I mean if I can't imagine anyone ever calling you broke just in the what, 15 minutes that we have talked. I am like, yeah, you're not broke. So we're best friends. Look at the shit you're doing. Like this is pretty amazing. So on that note on shit you're doing, talk a little bit about Pocket Mentor, where it started. What's going on with it now, where it's going?
Well, certainly it's, I believe that knowledge is key to everything. There's, uh, um, research out there that, uh, that shows, whether it be the New England Journal of Medicine or in Psychology or, or many other ones, but there's research out there that shows and, and it's, it's anecdotal. We can see it at War two, that when humans have access to education and knowledge, knowledge is the result of education. It's one path to that. They have higher quality of life. They live longer, and their health is better. So it's knowledge can do that. And there's also correlation that, you know, the more informed, uh, people are, the fewer controversies, there are the fewer wars. If we really want to go out on the, on, like the macroeconomic scale, I'm not saying I was pursuit, uh, of, uh, world peace was my goal, but, uh, if this was Miss America, that would be my answer. But, uh, it really extends to, uh, my passion for being a teacher. I'm not a K through 12 certified teacher. I'm certifiable, but not in the teaching. But I do take, uh, spare time that I have and, and I do, uh, substitute teach at at the local schools wherein when I can. So part of it was, uh, seeing the opportunity in the K through 12 system. And the other part came from my history in industrial manufacturing. Industrial manufacturing. There's headlines out there that say, Hey, you know. Why go to college when you can go to an apprenticeship and, and make 120 grand a year, you know, after you get outta the apprenticeship that you, you're making money instead of debt. So the reason those headlines are out there is because skilled trades has been a shortage since the nineties. You know, that's 30 years. So, um, I've been on. Production floor. I've been on the operations floor and and worked. I've been a frontline worker. I've worked with those frontline workers. I've been responsible for training those frontline workers. And what we see a lot of is that there is such a brain suck and the industrial realm that manufacturers can no longer hire people with the knowledge. They even, they gave up decades ago for hiring people with knowledge because it's such a competitive landscape for one. But the other is that, uh, they just, there's not enough. We've been scraping the bottom of that proverbial barrel for decades. So they, they hire. Employees to fill these frontline roles and, and their skilled roles, or whether they be skilled trades, you know, where people work with their hands or, or operations, which still needs, uh, skill to run the machines and in manufacturing environments. So they hire'em with the, uh, promise that they're gonna train them. So it's a promise between the company and the employee, but because they're already short staffed, they don't have the extra people power to be trainers. Stand by them. So these frontline workers do two things. They stand with their hands in their pocket or twiddle their thumbs, or they stand in line behind their manager or a subject matter expert, and they wait in their turn and say, oh, how does this machine work? Or, oh, how do I diagnose a uh, A-V-F-D-A POWERFLEX 5 25 series VFD, and get this motor running on the production line? The people end up as, uh, like flashlight holders. Like, you know, like when I was a kid, my dad say, hold the flashlight type of thing. I, uh, and Christine have, have you been that sun before? Been on the flashlight?
Chris:Yes. Yes. I, I, it, it, it wasn't that I was doing it wrong, it was just that he was angry about the situation.
The light's not bright enough. Christine.
Chris:I know Dad.
Well it, this all connected and on the, uh, on the K through 12 side, there's, uh, I think the ratios that are important when people grade schools or give them a grade of such is the student to teacher ratio. And we all know that unless it gets down to one-on-one, every student's learning is, is just a fraction of what it could be. And I think even when you hit the 20 25, 30. Student to teacher ratio. It's, uh, the student barely has any time to give feedback. It's, it's really just sitting there with your. Jaw on the ground, your mouth open and go, uh, Uhhuh. So for those two scenarios where individuals, where we can't scale the human trainer or teacher to give support for the individual, I saw an opportunity using, well, I'm creating mentors. So think of, uh. I, I haven't built an app. It's not internet based. It's not wifi based. It's a telephone call. So imagine Sarah if I called you on the telephone and I said, Hey, that looks like cool Chapstick. You know, talk me through how to put on Cool Chapstick and then. You could tell me. Yeah. Well that's Carmex, Derek, and, and I start with the bottom lip and I go left and right. Okay. So talk me through. It is the basis for my entire company and our flagship product pocket mentor. It's a human, uh, I think the cool term is anthropomorphize, you know, all the cool scientific. Wow. Kids are giving thumbs up right now. He said that anthropomorphized voice I actually have would be awesome. An AI that, uh, it talks through just it, and it sounds human. We don't try to pass it off as human, but it sounds human and that human factor breaks. Down the barriers of understanding. And so we have conversations with our earbuds in and it's like, all right, pocket mentor, I'm here folding an airplane. Talk me through it and I can add, I can, I can go off script. Because that's the difference between following an operations manual or an SOP, or for that matter, a YouTube video. You know, I love YouTube videos to get out there. Mm-hmm. Hi, this is Jimmy, and we're changing breaks today, and. But my car doesn't always know what the steps are. So what happens when I get to step three and Jimmy's a cool guy. I mean, that mullet is still rocking and, and I'm out here and I look at step three and I don't have the piece that he mentioned. Now what do I do? I can't. Contact Jimmy and get that one-on-one. But I can give, make a phone call with my earbuds in hands free and go and hold the tools or the typewriter or the book, or the manual or the measurement. Stick the laser. Even the flashlight, Christine, I could have that in my hand and have a conversation and says, Hey, how do I do this? Okay, I got to step three, but that spring isn't blue, that spring is red and it's short. It's not long. Oh, well you must be on the. 2022 model Derek. And, uh, here's how we adjust the breaks on, on the 2022 model. So it's conversational and in the K through 12 scenario, when the, the child leaves school and it's after hours or on the weekend, they can actually call pocket mentor and talk about, I don't know, seventh grade history for, uh, maybe English class or go over their Spanish or, or maybe geography and they can dive into, um. If you've met one neurodiverse person, you've met'em all. It's kinda like they get you in a conversation and they don't talk. But when they engage, and I'm one of them, when I'm enga, I'm, somebody's showing me like, I have worth enough. They, they give me the time of day and now I'm gonna talk your ear off. And so all those situations where the teacher doesn't have time to talk to the student in class. They now have the ability for a telephone call with a mentor, a teacher, that, that is a, is a proxy and, and basically that emulation of, uh, of, of the teacher that they can ask all kinds of questions, go down rabbit holes, and then come back Monday with a way to, uh, build a new light bulb or a better bread box.
Chris:This is so great. I don't know if anyone on this call has done, uh, math homework with a, with an eighth grader before, but, uh, particularly maybe a, maybe a little, uh, spicy brained, uh, eighth grader. Uh, it is a hoot. It is a hoot. Olivia, uh, you have 11 yellow bikes. You got 14 green bikes. How many bikes do you have? She's like, why are we adding bikes? Don't, no, I'm not gonna engage in that. Why? Just add them together? Just add them together. And she's like, well, where were, where are the bikes going? No, no. That's not the question that we need, hun. Just 25 is the answer can. So if I would've had somebody else to be like, can you tell her why we're adding the bikes?'cause that would be great. Can you. Steer in the right direction.
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Christine, you've got that on point, right? Is it still cool to say on point?
Chris:For our podcast? Yes. Okay. Alright, cool. Yes, we have absolutely no clue what's cool. Listen, we, we have Becca with us and she will direct us down to the college age. Uh, like below that. We're gonna have to get another, like elementary school intern in here to say stuff like Riz or yt or what is that? Riz. I don't wanna know. I don't wanna know. YI actually don't wanna know. Okay, cool. Well, the ye Yeah. No. Mm-hmm. No. I don't want to,
Hey, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned these younger generations. Um, I'm gonna take my Superman classes off for this one, but the younger generations, there's uh, um, they don't like to be told what to do by the man, but they love to get things done. They love, uh, accomplishment, but they like to do it on their own. Now, I'm, I'm quoting my daughter who's a psychological PhD and, and she said, this is the way it works, dad. So don't blame me if I did it wrong. Sorry. Bus. Um, so there's, um, is millennials and Gen Zs, that's not even, well, I mean, we have like alphas and betas now, right? They're even younger in the workforce.
Chris:I don't even know what I am. I have to look it up online every time. I have no clue. Guess Becca. I can. She
Becca:did a multimedia journalism project about all the generations. So you guys, I believe are Gen X.
Chris:Gen X for sure. Sarah's Gen X, but she's like a, she's like a subdivision, like right on the right on the edge, right at the cusp,
Becca:right on the edge, right on the cusp. Because my boyfriend was 98 and he is one year after.
Thats an old boyfriend. Right.
Becca:Well,
Chris:she's, she's going for the life insurance. She's doing it right. He must have game. Your mom's gonna be so mad at me. Your mom's gonna be so mad
Becca:at me. That
Chris:is so funny.
Becca:That's so good. And then I was born in 2002, so we're both technically Gen Z, but we're more towards like the millennial side. So it's like a weird, it's you guys, gen X, millennials, and then Gen Z, and now it's, I know Gen Alpha, but.
It sounds, Becca, it sounds like you're throwing us all into a category. Yeah, I'm not sure.
Chris:I don't like it. I don't like it. I, I won't be put into a box I don't like. Can you tell me which box I should go in though?
Hey, we're human. We want to know and, and that's another good point. Uh, you say your boyfriend is born, I assume in 1998, and you were born in 2002. So the internet has always been around for you. And so you're more familiar with technology as a generation and, uh, as stereotype, we're gonna stereotype you as a gener. So because you're more familiar with technology and you grew up, you know, punching phones with your thumbs and all that, you would rather talk and, and correct me Becca if I'm wrong here, but you would rather talk to an AI than you would a human, especially a 58-year-old white guy, right? No, in all seriousness,
Becca:in all honesty, I would,
I don't like talking to people.
Becca:If I, it really just depends on the mood. Like there's some things where I'm like, if I just need a quick answer, that's fine. But if I'm, like with the car situation, I have no clue about cars. I'm gonna call a human for that.'cause the AI's gonna tell me something and I'm gonna be like, I have no clue. I need, I need human, I don't know. Cars.
Derek:Yeah. Well if it, if you called our ai, our AI is trained specifically on what, what you're working on. So it doesn't give those, you know, dreamy hallucinogen. Answers. Now why I say hallucinogen that way, and I'm thinking mushrooms, for some reason, our AI doesn't take mushrooms. But, uh, it should. It's, it's actually trained specifically to, to act just like a human. And it's, it's, it's that, it's that we don't wanna be judged. And being on the spectrum myself, I don't like to be judged either. Yeah. Sarah, you said you don't like people? I don't like people because I feel like I'm judged all the time. So what do I do? Let's get on a podcast. Viewed my millions, and then just put yourself out there.
Sarah:Yeah. I don't like talking to people here I am doing interviews, getting ready to start my own coaching business. I mean, if I know what I'm doing, I love talking to people when I don't know what I'm doing, like ordering a pizza. I don't like to talk to people. I go to ordering the pizza.'cause I just can't. If you, if there's no online ordering, I won't order food from that place. That's ridiculous. But
Derek:I'm with you. I'm with you. I, I will sit outside the parking lot at Taco Bell and I will punch in my order and just wait, rather than just go up to the drive through, legit.
Becca:Mm-hmm. Across from my Taco Bell back in my, um, college town. And my friend will be like, just order. And I'm like, no, I'm going through the app. I'm like, can I just walk up there? I say my name and then give it to me. I'm gone.
Sarah:It's great. Yeah. It's it's great and ridiculous at the same time. And I love that. I'm not the only person who does these things, but Yeah. And that's exactly what my holdup is with talking to people. If I'm confident what I'm talking about, if I know what I'm talking about, Christine, you will, uh, attest to the fact that I won't shut up. But if I don't, then, and here we, here we are today. Well, you're not even in the same room together. We never are. She's stuck. She's stuck in Newark and yeah, we never are, so it works. Alright, so Christine, you're taking notes. I, I think you're taking notes, drawing. Did you have any questions? Which is a, um, A DHD, uh, way to stay focused is drawing while somebody else is talking. I forget the exact name for it, but I do it all the time. Diddling, I mean, it's called doodling, but there's an actual like. Fancy name. That sounds, I don't know. You're doing great. Smart. Yeah. Smart. I used to knit during teleconferences because that's how I would pay attention.'cause if you can keep my hands busy, then I'm not like clicking all over the internet, right? Like I'm not
mm-hmm.
Chris:Doing, doing the stuff I usually do. Um, no. Here's my thoughts. Where, yeah, there's always, there is always a fidget toy. So Olivia and I both have a DH, ADHD and we're both working on relationships. So we go to, uh, we go to therapy together. The two of us are sitting there and at like our introductory little therapy thing. And we're talking about something or other. Olivia is her daughter, by the way. Derek, right? Just sorry. I don't know if we covered that, but go ahead and, and uh, and before we even get to the a DD part, the therapist hands us both like tiny little fidget toys. She's like, here you go. I think you're both going to need these. And before you even have to say it, I have your a DD diagnosis written down already. I was like, we have been here for five minutes. Five minutes. So. Exactly, exactly right. So I, I think the best part that I can think of about having a pocket mentor, somebody to, to call up and, and interact with and be like, Hey, I got to part seven and now I'm done paying attention. Like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't wanna look at these instructions anymore. I have a, I have every, I have every booklet from IKEA for putting together furniture. I get 80% of the way done. I have 14 screws left. I'm like, I'm just gonna hit over the hammer until it goes together. We're, we're fine now. So this is, this is. Amazing. I love it. I am, I am all in on it. Mm-hmm. And I know that Olivia would be too, if she ever had to put anything together because I, I, I like it at the beginning. I'm like, yes. And that is, that is like, also the hard part for me is like the idea of putting together IKEA furniture super appealing. I'm like, let me lay out all the bits and pieces in their little rows. Let me get all ready for it and let me look through the instructions up until step five and now, um, now I'm bored. I get bored. I get bored easily. Yeah, like same thing like super excited about net, my new IKEA furniture, and I actually don't make it past, like setting out all the pieces' like cool's. Why? That's why you have me. That's awesome. That's why you have me. Yeah. True, true. Yeah. I think my question would be how do you, how do you see, do you see the pocket mentor growing? How do you see it, it evolving over the, over the next couple of years? Are you looking to do more of sort of the industrial education? Are you looking to do more of, uh, more of the workplace? Are you looking to do more of elementary math, uh, applications? What, where do, where do you see it being the most useful and, and where are your plans for taking it there?
The, um, just the, this voice interface, it speeds up the response so much faster than typing at a keyboard. And, and if I had to pull out my phone and find the app and, all right, chat, GPT, and I'm typing right? And well, now I gotta go back and all the correct, you know, all the frustrating barriers that we have, but this, we're really at a singularity point where we can just speak. Have a conversation with a human. And I tell everybody that our technology is 50,000 years old. What? Yeah. Our AI technology is 50,000 years old because we train it like we have for 50,000 years through storytelling from human to human to human. And the uh, the difference now is our human doesn't. Take a sick day and doesn't go on vacation and doesn't retire and take their knowledge with them. So, um, that's the process and it feels like, uh, I invented either a paperclip or paper and the value is not in the paperclip itself or the paper that you have, but in what you do with this. So I've been avoiding that, answering that question now for about 38 seconds. But I see it as a, uh, in the United States, there's a push to increase manufacturing, get back to the 1960s where we're building a lot more. And if we're short skilled trades right now, uh, what, how are we gonna grow manufacturing if we're already short? Qualified employees. So I see pocket mentors being foundational for that growth. On the teacher education side, I just looked at a graph that's, and I'm not saying it's authentic, it, it looked authentic'cause it was cool. It had lines and it said, yeah, I love those. 1980, the, uh, national education system. There was like.$20 billion a year spent. But in 2022 it peaked out at$634 billion. And in the next page there was another graph that said, reading comprehension, lower math comprehension lower. And we're not solving problems by throwing money at it. Um, I think we really need to get down to that one-on-one scalability and. When I substitute, I'm kind of checking out the ages of people'cause I need to know what cabinet I fit in, right? There's those that have been teaching for 20, 30 or 40 years, and then there's the ones that have been there one or two years. But in the middle there's not a lot of, uh, age representation in or. Experience in the middle because so many people that you know from the time they're six years old, when I grow up, I wanna be a teacher. And then they go through college and they get their certifications and their degrees, then they step foot in a public school system. They're appalled. They, I wanna teach, oh no, you can't teach, you gotta do this for, I want to teach. And so that light bulb that's been on for 20 years now suddenly goes off. And so we have a brain drain in on the teacher realm. So I think that, and I think Pocket Mentor can give that one-on-one attention to the 90% of the classroom that needs one-on-one attention and do it without. Impacting that teacher.'cause those teachers, even though it's a seven and a half hour day, depending on where you're at, um, in school day, those teachers are working 12, 13 hours a day. They start before school. They're after school and they're stretched thin. And so they're barely getting by in their own classroom. So they definitely don't have that extra bandwidth to train other teachers, mentor. Other teachers. So I had us interviewed on a teacher podcast and, and they said, Hey, can you see using this to help onboard teachers at school system? And I went. I hadn't thought about that. How great, how great is the world that they just offer and identify opportunities for making our life better? So in that round, it could help the teacher out, uh, on their year one, year two, et cetera. And it gives that one-on-one with the students. So the future I see is that we all have the information delivered to us. What we need, when we need it at the speed of light. And I, there's so much value in that versus my, you know, think back, yeah, think back when you were young, Becca, when the US Post, you know, rode horses across the country and, and delivered letters that took, you know, uh, a month and a half. So it's that, it's that iteration ability and, and we're at this crescendo, and it's the true singularity point where we can iterate immediately instead of. Backtracking through technology typing. I got a prompt engineer a question just to get the answer I'm looking for. So how long does that take? So let's say, even if it's a minutes versus instant and then back before that, well, let me wait till Monday and I'll, I'll call Christine and say, Hey, how, talk me through this again. How do I do. So now we're talking a day or two or three. And then let's go back even further before the internet and let me write letters. And now it takes weeks at best to go across country or across the world. So if you can only iterate once every two weeks, your iteration is, is success is gonna fail. Whereas if you could iterate, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, go off on a tangent and iterate, boom, boom, boom. Imagine a Einstein. Could, uh, soundboard with himself or Nicola Tesla could soundboard with himself, how much more they would've built. I just think, I think that's an incredible future, right? And I wanna be, I wanna help that vision. Yeah, that's
Chris:amazing. Like to the point where I might have goosebumps because that's. I love this so much. I absolutely love this so much. Yeah. And a lot of, uh, sorry Sarah. No, go ahead. Go ahead. A lot of, a lot of what we talk about on the podcast is, uh, recognizing that not every brain works the same and, and being able to say to other people, Hey, uh, I have this, or This is how my brain works. And. Being able to tailor a response, being able to work with a pocket mentor and have that pocket mentor understand and you know, recognize that I'm not gonna ask a question the same way Sarah's gonna ask a question. I'm gonna ask it completely differently. And if I'm Olivia, I'm gonna wanna know why there's bikes in my math question. And we're gonna have to get through that before we can get to anything else. And I think if we can, can tailor. The education to the individual in a way that makes it make sense. Then I, I think, you know, then you've really, you've really, and improved a broken system. Like right now, we just give everybody the same education, the same words, the same book, the same. The same. Same. And being able to kind of take it from, you know, where Sarah and I are coming at sort of mental health is you have to be you and you have to do your individual thing. And being able to apply that younger and younger and have the expectation be that somebody responds to that, not with, Hey, that's a great idea. Here's your assignments for next week. Go home and hassle your parents into helping you until they want to murder the people that are there to take care of'em when they're old. So I, I, again, uh, I mean, I think that the more that we can fit things for purpose and the more we can recognize that every brain isn't gonna be the same and every brain isn't going to be able to ask the same question the same way, every brain isn't gonna be able to come up with the ideal AI prompt as I'm typing it in. Like, this is awesome. Make sense?
Yeah. You see the vision? I, I love that you were bought in and you mentioned, you know, the differences. Our brains are different. There's a, uh, I was actually just speaking with her today, um, and throw this in your SEO for your type script. Um, but the Dr. Nancy Doyle is, she's outta London or nearby London. US Americans are geographically challenged, but I figured London's close enough. She actually built something called Genius Within, and it's genius within dot, and she has a page called What is Diversity? What is Neurodiversity? So on that page she talks about the spiky profile. So we are all different, and even those of us that are autistic or A DHD, that doesn't make us mirrors of somebody else who's autistic and A DHD. We are truly individuals and mm-hmm. Dr. Doyle is, uh, double D. Now, this alliteration is in my mind and is Bango Spectro Gadget is, I guess is where I went there. But, um, she came up with a spiky profile and it shows an, an XY axis in this graph is. Average people or normal is what we call'em. They're average. They have this slightly up and down on every skill set. They perform slightly above average, slightly below average. Nobody is average all the way across, or that's probably is one person and he's really boring. But in the spiky profile of the neurodiverse, and they're starting to say even a DHD autism, that they're starting to get away from individual naming structure and just saying, Hey, we got box A or box B. Which island of misfit toys do you wanna be on? So she shows that on certain skills, like, uh, I don't know, reasoning and analytical, maybe, uh, somebody, uh, with autism is at the 200% level. Compared to, you know, the, the norm or the median, I guess. And then, but on communication and social, uh, prowess, they might be on the negative 200% or they just fail. So, Hey, Mr. Tesla, you just built, uh, you know, wireless electricity, why don't you speak at our event? And then they get fired, right? And I've, I've been, uh, I've, I've fallen on that ax a number of times. Um, you know, praised for all the. Cool things I did in production, I did. But then, uh, you know, next week that was all forgotten. I, I said something wrong or somebody misunderstood what I said. And, and no, we gotta, we, we, we gotta get rid of you. You're just not. Part of the culture we're like in here. So because I ask questions, I'm sorry.
Chris:That is, that is the best part of the, of all, all of the, the focus on, uh, mental health, all of the people kind of going to the internet being like, hang on a sec, I'm not weird. I'm just, uh, a little bit, uh, spicy brain, just like everyone else in this particular chat room. So, and having, having employers recognize that as well, that, you know, just because you have an idea of this culture, um, and that, that's a big thing, oh, everyone likes to play like ping pong or whatever. You know, everyone really digs this slide in the kitchen. Instead of making the investment there, maybe make the investment in something that actually does get the sort of neurodivergent. Included in what's happening. Maybe that's a, maybe that's a better way to define and, and recognize a culture in a company. I just love this so much and I feel like it's way more than I was thinking it was when we first got on this call and I did learn. I didn't know what an OEM was. I don't know it. See, it's on my screen here.'cause I had to look up what an OEM was. So I learned that before we got on this call. Not a freaking clue why I just went onto that anyway. Yes, this is much more than I originally thought it was, and I think that what you are doing, Derek, and your brain and the way it works, is an absolute gift. And I love it so much. And I think the vision that you have is incredible. And I know, I'm pretty sure I speak for all of us. Not that we have huge reach, but we are gonna do whatever we can. To help you and get your message out there for sure.'cause it's, um, it's extremely inspiring. So thank you for that. Yeah, yeah. I do have more questions. That wasn't just wrapping us up, that was just me. I was like, we're not done yet. Sarah, thank you so much. But
yeah, please,
Chris:please continue. I've,
I've got all night.
Chris:Yes. I'm kind of hungry. So, um, my next question is about the clients that you have. So I actually didn't. No, that before we got on this call, apparently I didn't do enough research. I didn't realize that you were in the realm of education as well as, um, industrial manufacturing and whatnot. I didn't know that you had a reach into both of those areas, and I think that is amazing. Since you have started this, what, what have your clients seen in return? With the pocket mentor, what type of feedback do you get? I'm assuming someone like you wants to look at data to see what's going on. So what are your clients seeing?
Well, there's, uh, there's. Pushback, depending on the, uh, you know, the personality and, and, and the realm. Honestly, it's, it's something like, uh, I, I taught at Amazon. It's, it's change management is, there's those that are early adopters. Um, and same thing goes with AI right now, you know, worldwide, there's the early adopters, then there's the, you know, the Luddites that are out there. It says, no, no, no, that's evil, that's Satan. And then there's a lot of people in the middle that we could say are on the fence. So, um, once, once they understand. Stand it. To be honest, I, I feel I've articulated it better here. This, uh, in this room today than, than I have in the past. And getting past that articulation, like how do you define what paper is, what's the value of paper? Well, you can write stuff up. I've got my cave wall. I, you know, that stuff burns and it will blow away. Paper will never make it so that, that's part of a wall of change, that knowledge or articulating the value around. But those that have got to it, there's some pushback and then there's others that jump right in and it's like. Wow. It's, it's, it's like I'm talking to a human and I don't have to get Jim out of bed at 2:30 AM on a Saturday morning.'cause Jim's the only person, or Janet is the only people that have the answer to that. So in the industrial setup, it's like, uh, well. Can't get ahold of Jim or he is on vacation, so let's just shut the line down. And in production we talk about downtime is a cost of the company. So if a machine or a line or an operation goes down and it's down for hours and especially days depending on the manufacturer, they could be losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour. When it's down, so it's important to get back up. Um, on the, uh, on the school side, I don't have any official contracts with, uh, K through 12. We have some experimentation going on. Okay. Every school has, uh, at least one, if not two, of those techno nerds that, uh, that's just wanna play with every toy that's out there. So we're, uh, we're, we're dabbling and enjoying and with a li this, I don't know, a limited beta, I guess you you'd call it. Mm-hmm. At a couple schools, the feedback is, Hey, I like it, but can it do this? Hey, I like it, but can it do that? So there's still the understanding of the value, and so every bit that they learn, we're learning too to make the product better because this. What we're doing here. It's not just, you know, saddle Chat, GPT with a microphone, speaker and role. We are actually training, got some secret sauce of our own right in the, in the back end. Mm-hmm. We're training it on only the specific information that needs to be trained on, but now that the information is there. How do we interface most efficiently? Um, it's like train the trainer and you can teach a trainer or a soon to be trainer, Hey, here's the information, but you also have to train the trainer on how do you handle situations when you know you've got the negative Nellie and the know-it-all NEDs out there, or the ones that just won't participate or, or they push back here. You have to handle that psychological and social. Interface. So we train our AI the same way, so it's about 60% psychology and only about 40% true ai. Um, but then it's, it's those answers. So the closer we get. And we're doing pretty good now, we, we can usually line in tune that voice response to the personality that, um, that the client or the school or the teacher wants it to represent. Some say talk slow, some say talk fast. Some say add humor. Some say let's just, you know, go without humor. But it's, it's still a big experiment right now. But even though there's so much success and, and positive feedback for those that have actually. Indulge that, uh, that, that there's positive growth here. And I, I look forward to, uh, to connecting. There's a lot of K through 12 schools out there. I, i, I wish I could connect to them all. So if, if anybody's out there that just wants to experiment, no cost, let's just play around, see if we can build a future together.
Chris:Yeah. That's awesome. I think that's amazing. And like I said, we were, we're gonna push this one out as much as we can for sure. And I know I have a shit ton of teacher friends, um, because on a daily basis I'm saying, you're underpaid. You could pay me enough to do the shit that you do. So I'm gonna push this out to them as much as we can. Absolutely. I do have another question. So when you have a new client, uh. Coming on board, I guess it would be like onboarding. How, how does the process go with a new client? How does it work when you're just building that relationship and getting started with, um, the pocket mentor?
It, it begins with understanding the problem that they wanna solve. And, uh, too oftentimes somebody is selling a, a, a solution without identifying a problem. So I, I truly believe that, uh, for every hour we should, you know, thinking about a problem, 55 minutes of it should be on the problem on why and, and what the goals are. And then the other 5%, the solution just rises to the top. So a typical, uh, intake. Of a new client is, uh, first of all connecting with all the SMEs, the subject matter experts. I almost said subject wrong, subject matter experts, uh, SMEs. So yeah, throw some acronyms out there. Um, SMEs, SMEEs. Yeah, I love them. Uh, it's identifying who they are. So it's, it, it becomes a project at this, at this point. And I am, I'm a certified project manager and there's certain steps and expectations. Derek, as a project manager know you have absolutely no power and except influence. So, um, even when we have a. Uh, a paying client, there's still that barrier of can we connect to everybody and can we get that initial information to identify what the problem is that we're solving for? And then once we solve for that, uh, give us the data, the knowledge, whether it be manuals or books that you use to train your trainer. That's our starting point for training our trainers. So the process is that normally takes up to 30 days. I put a window on that because I want them to have a deadline, right? Because we can't do anything really until we get that knowledge. So 30 days there and then there's 45 days. We put out a uh, MVP and they know what MVP stands for.
Chris:Um, minimal viable product. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's a, you're such a nerd. Yeah, sure am. Yeah. A hundred percent total. I was like, that's super easy. It's the most valuable player. No, it does. It has nothing to do with sports, statues or anything. Shit. Okay. Or
naked tats or juujitsu. I get it. I love it. I love it. Uh, to close out, go ahead. I'm sorry. To close out so we can listen to the pretty people here in a minute. We put out the MVP and then there's a, uh, a trial, uh, internal trial. It's not publicly released inside the company, but we just go back and forth and it, it's just cism and, and, and relationship and communication and tell, it's tuned just right. Sometimes we hit it right out of the gate and they're up and running within 45 or 60 days. We've even had somebody up and running in seven days from where we started. Wow. So I don't wanna set that expectation. Um, I was taught to under promise and over deliver. Chris, you know, that one too. Okay, cool. Cool. Um, so, and that's the way it works. Uh, we just iterate as a team until they get the solution. So our work is really heavy on the front end, uh, working with the client and, uh, and the knowledge. But once we get the knowledge there. It pretty much goes automatic. Now, we, we throw in some CFMs customer feedback mechanisms. I learned that while it ends on CFM customer feedback mechanism, so on an ongoing basis we can improve the process and improve the, uh, the conversation. But, uh, by the time we get to this point, we're really 95% of the way to, uh, what somebody might call perfection.
Chris:Um, sissy, Becca, do you guys have any other questions? I mean, I'm, that's, that's it for my questions, so if you guys have anything. I, I mean, I will, I will say that I work in a heavily, heavily regulated industry and all, all that, all that these guys are talking about now, like the people who provide technology for clinical research, all anyone is talking about is ai. Oh, we gotta do ai. What are we gonna do with ai? I'm like, well, what are, and if I had a nickel for every time, I said, well, what problem are you solving with ai? Like, what are you, what's the, what's the challenge that you think we can do? And what are we doing right now and how can we do that? Right? We're solving everything. We're gonna solve everything. It doesn't matter, Christine, as long as it's ai, it
doesn't matter. We're gonna solve it. I
Chris:was like, well, okay. Yeah. I mean, I could think of four problems right off the top of my head, but Okay. Yeah. No, we'll throw, we'll throw an a eye like getting your sister to shut up while you're talking like. These are gonna be tough to prob to problem solve with ai. But I mean, yeah, I don't know. I mean, we definitely could work on it. I mean, it is literally the only thing people are presenting, like, and if you don't have an AI related topic, even if you have a topic that is, uh, important to the industry, you just throw and AI on the end of it. To get, to get someone listen to, to listen to you. Like, you know, we're, we're, we're talking about better ways to, you know, cut an orange. I'm like, oh, using ai. We'll just put that at the end and then we can talk about how we just asked Chad TPT how many sections should I cut this orange in? And then we're done. But it is a, it is a wild time to, uh, to, to kind of watch people try to. You know, just, just throw AI around to get stuff done, and it is kind of refreshing and really, really nice to hear somebody say, well, what problem are you trying to solve? Like straight, straight. Outta the gate and have someone who understands that. Yeah, like the knowledge is the, is the core of it, but the interface and the way you get people to interact with it is gonna be the way that you change the world. Like, and I know you're not going for world peace or you know, whatever, but mm-hmm. That is how you are going to impact the generations down the line. We've got plenty of knowledge. We've got plenty of Internets and instructions and manuals, and what we really need to work on is how do we, how do we get the interface to interact with? People in a, in a better way and starting, starting with education and starting with the two applications where there's this huge disconnect between what people want their world to look like and what it looks like now. Like, wanting to go back to make America great and, and kind of get all the industrial pieces in place, but not having the, necessarily the background and kind of the infrastructure to do that. And then looking at the little babies who don't understand why there's a bike in their math problem. These are two great ways to get into it. I'm so excited to see what you guys can do in the future. Like, I can't, I can't wait. I'm pumped. And it has given me, honestly, like a little bit of hope that everyone isn't just kind of tagging AI into something that they're actually mm-hmm. They're actually thinking and considering, you know, what's gonna be the, the thing that really changes how we, how we work with it. And it's not gonna be. It's not gonna be, uh, getting better knowledge or eliminating data processors from, from an equation. It's gonna be the way that we talk to it and the way we get what we need from it. So, thank you. Congratulations. This is amazing work and I can't believe that if somebody conned this guy into being on our podcast, that's awesome. I know, right? This is like, wow. I, I'm, I am extremely impressed in my ability to get someone on. I actually think Derek might have, he might have initiated it because we're seriously funny. Um, I searched
out only the highest rated podcast with the highest quality content
Chris:that's us with the, the funniest chicks on it. That is a hundred percent us. We're changing the world. One little opinion about neurodivergent people at a time. We win a. Derek, I do have one more question, not so much a question, but for our listeners, let them know where they can get in touch with you if they're interested in learning more.
Oh, certainly. Uh, if you grab my name on LinkedIn, I'm, I'm one of very few people with, uh, with my name. Uh, it should pop up readily on LinkedIn, and if you're looking for our web presence, uh. I think I have it if the label shows up on the video screen. Practical ai.app. A PP. So it's kind of ironic that our, our company is practical AI do app like Apple, Paul, Paul, but our solution is not an app. Yeah. So we're. We're self ironic. How would we phrase that, Becca? We we're ironic of self. I don't know.
Becca:That's interesting because it just is, it's sounding more like a piece of software versus like an actual like application that you can, don't say that like it's a bad thing. No, no. I'm excited because. Well, in all honesty, like I just graduated college. This sounds incredible. Like thank you I, this sounds like something that would've helped me with my stats versus me crying over it and begging the lady and be like, please just pass me. Please. I'll be out of your hair. I'll be gone. I'm very excited to see where the conversational aspect goes because I feel as though AI is necessarily used as replacement and not a tool when it comes to my generation. Mm-hmm. Which sucks and I think that's why I struggle so much with it. So I'm really excited to see like the conversational aspect that you were mentioning, but I would say it's more of a system than an app.
Thank you. Thank you, Becca.
Chris:Nerd Becca. I love it. Thank you. Thank you for joining our team, Becca Nerd. Well done. Well done nerds. All right, Derek, is there anything else that you wanna share with our audience?
You know, uh, sincerity. Thank you very much for having me here and, and being entertaining and, and entertaining my presence. Um, oh, by the way, did I tell you that, uh, in, uh, that there's one way to get a promotion When you work at Amazon, you just shave your head like Jeff, and it gets guaranteed to give you one level promotion. I went from a a L five to an L six just because of this.
Chris:Wow. I can pull it off.
You
Chris:can, I mean, I have a, I have a Please don't
shave your head.
Chris:Well, I don't wear, I don't work for Amazon. Sta Well, I don't, I just, I, I saw it for a second and it was making me nervous and Daddy has explained what your head looked like when you were born. It might be my sleep paralysis
Becca:demon for the night am like trying to fall asleep and I just see. Chrissy with a bald head. It's not pointed anymore. It's not pointed anymore. No, but that's,
Chris:that's still the story I have in my head is daddy tapping on the glass and looking at the nurse and saying,
listen, it's fine. They had to, what's wrong with her head? They had to grab me with little hooks and it made my head a little pointy, Derek. That's all I mean. Yeah. Don't shave your head. Okay, fine. I won't. Fine. I won't. Okay.
Chris:All right. Well we're gonna go ahead and wrap up. We will hit stop re Well, Christine will hit stop recording because that's what she's in charge of'cause I always hit the wrong button.
Sounds great. Thank you. Alright, thank you. Thanks.
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