The Life-Giving Power of Communication | Neil Rogers

Matt Edmundson [0:13 - 3:14]: Well, hello and welcome back to push to be more. I'm your host, Matt Edmundson. And today we've got another phenomenal conversation about what fuels this thing we call life. And joining me today, I'm really looking forward to this. Neil Rogers, who is the author of the phenomenally entitled book Bar Tips: Everything I Needed to Know in Sales I Learned Behind the Bar, which has some insanely good reviews on Amazon. Not gonna lie, we're gonna be diving into his unique life experiences, the hurdles he's had to push through, and the way he recharges his batteries. In other words, push to be more. What does that look like? Now don't forget, you can find all of the detailed show notes and complete transcript of our conversation at pushtobemore.com. and whilst you're there, if you haven't done so already, sign up to the newsletter. And every week we send you the information from the guests, the links, the goodies, the notes. They go straight to your inbox, which is totally free and totally cool. It just keeps you on top of things. Let me give a big shout out to Pod junction, the company that helps you build your business with podcasting. Because they have sponsored today's show. They are the magic behind the scenes that lets entrepreneurs and business leaders like you and me amplify our voices, own new and very interesting marketing channels with our own podcasts. But you might be thinking, why on earth would I want to do that? Well, let me tell you, podcasting is phenomenal. My journey with it has been exceptional. I'm not going to lie. I've just loved every minute I get to meet amazing people like Neil. So it's a great way to reach out. It's a great way to network. It's a great way to market. It's a great way to build community and connection, all of that good stuff. And if you want to understand it more, if you want to find out about it, if you don't know what strategy, I mean, all that sort of stuff, you know, where do I begin? Matt? Go to podjunction.com. it's a lot easier than you think to run your own podcast, and you will be amazed at the results. So definitely go try it. Podjunction.com. now let's talk about Neil. Neil Rogers is an author, speaker and marketing guru with 37 years of experience turning sales into success stories. He's a master of blending old school charm with new school marketing strategies to drive revenue and deliver results. In his book, which I mentioned, bar tips, everything I needed to know in sales I learned behind the bar. He spills the secrets he picked up while bartending, showing how those skilled helped skills helped him become a business leader. Whether he's shaking up sales or stirring up marketing magic, he knows a thing or two about how to keep things flowing. Neil, welcome to the show, man. Great to have you. How are we doing, Matt?

Neil Rogers [3:14 - 3:21]: I'm doing fantastic. Thanks so much for having me. This is wonderful. From across the pond, across the east.

Matt Edmundson [3:21 - 3:25]: Love technology that enables us to do the whole across the pond thing.

Neil Rogers [3:26 - 3:42]: Dude, I'm such a simpleton. I still marvel at it every, every time I. And, you know, I'm just emailed my admin in the Philippines and I'm talking to you in the, over in England, and it's just. And we're looking at each other. So it's.

Matt Edmundson [3:42 - 4:21]: Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? I was talking to. We had some people around the dinners. I have this thing, Neil, that wherever possible, we always eat dinner together as a family. Right? Just one of my little things. We also have a couple of people that live with us. We call them lodge. You know, they live in our house. We have some spare rooms, so we have people come live with us. And we would sat around the dinner table last night talking about using the phone, right? And I was like, oh, I made some phone calls. And if I need something doing, like today, before our conversation, I needed to check in with somebody I'd never met. So I just called them up and said, tell me about what you do.

Neil Rogers [4:21 - 4:22]: Right?

Matt Edmundson [4:23 - 4:37]: And everybody under the age of 25 was having palpitations with the idea of picking up the phone to call somebody. It's like, no, I don't want to do that, especially if I don't know them. What do you mean? I have to call them. And it's really interesting, isn't it, how technology has changed, how we communicate.

Neil Rogers [4:38 - 4:42]: Do you know the comedian Gary Gilman? Gary Gallman. Excuse me.

Matt Edmundson [4:42 - 4:43]: No, try him.

Neil Rogers [4:43 - 5:39]: He's got a bit. He did one of the things he says, you know, I've got this app on the phone. It's very, very. It's the most unused part of the, part of the app on the phone. It's the phone. Yeah. So I've got. I've got some customers, too, that I'll, you know, I. I've got one. One in particular. I call her at times. You go and she answered the phone. I said, you're my favorite millennial. You answer your phone. The value of a conversation back and forth. Even my son, who you've experienced as he booked us with you guys, and he sent me something yesterday, I said, dude, it's. It's time for a chat. Yeah, we need. Yeah, this is just. I am lost in what you're sending me, so you may be able to decipher this. I cannot. So get off my lawn. Right.

Matt Edmundson [5:40 - 5:42]: Yeah, totally. Totally.

Neil Rogers [5:42 - 5:45]: By the way, did you hear that? Did you hear that? Lawn.

Matt Edmundson [5:45 - 5:45]: Lawn.

Neil Rogers [5:46 - 5:47]: That's Boston lawn.

Matt Edmundson [5:47 - 6:00]: Yeah. Boston's a beautiful part of the world. Slightly envious. You lived there. And I do like that Boston accent, you know, where you draw words out like that. It's quite stunning.

Neil Rogers [6:01 - 6:04]: And believe it or not, this isn't even close.

Matt Edmundson [6:04 - 6:06]: No, it gets a lot stronger, doesn't it?

Neil Rogers [6:06 - 6:22]: Oh, so I actually. That's Massachusetts right there. But I live in New Hampshire. It's just over the border. I'm about 35 miles outside of Boston. When you get down there, pal. Bro, it's a whole nother deal. Dude. Dude, I'm telling you, just, you know, you just can't believe it.

Matt Edmundson [6:23 - 6:29]: Very good. I should learn to mimic that one day, but maybe for another show.

Neil Rogers [6:29 - 6:40]: Well, I'll give you one more, and then let's move on. But if you go to another youtuber, go to Seth Meyers, the Boston accent. It's priceless.

Matt Edmundson [6:40 - 6:45]: Seth Meyers making a note with an old fashioned pen and paper.

Neil Rogers [6:45 - 6:47]: How about that? Imagine that.

Matt Edmundson [6:47 - 6:52]: Imagine that. I can still write. Yeah. So I've got Gary Coleman, and I've got Seth Meyers, the Boston accent.

Neil Rogers [6:53 - 6:56]: Gary Gullman with a G. G U L L. Okay.

Matt Edmundson [6:56 - 6:59]: Gary Gullman. Very good.

Neil Rogers [6:59 - 7:07]: And they're all from the area. Myra's is from Manchester, New Hampshire, which is halfway up there, and Goldman's from mass.

Matt Edmundson [7:08 - 7:10]: Okay, there you go. I will check them out.

Neil Rogers [7:10 - 7:16]: There you go. Enough of my nonsense. Let's move on. Matt, you run the show now. Now that I've taken over.

Matt Edmundson [7:17 - 7:21]: Thanks, Neil. Appreciate that. Just to send the reins back now.

Neil Rogers [7:21 - 7:22]: Back to you, Matt.

Matt Edmundson [7:22 - 7:43]: Now back to our reporter in the UK, live in the UK. Okay, let's start off with a question we ask everybody. Neil, I'm curious, especially curious, for your answer. If you had a podcast and you can have anybody as a guest on your show, past or present, that's had a big influence on your life, who would that be and why?

Neil Rogers [7:48 - 8:06]: This is going to be an emotional answer. Okay. I would have my non speaking son with apraxia who can communicate now using this program we found called spelling. To communicate.

Matt Edmundson [8:06 - 8:06]: Right.

Neil Rogers [8:06 - 8:14]: I'd have him on. Why? Because we've just discovered this program, Matt. In the last two years. He's 33 years old.

Matt Edmundson [8:14 - 8:15]: Oh, wow.

Neil Rogers [8:15 - 8:18]: We've never heard from him. Never.

Matt Edmundson [8:18 - 8:19]: Wow.

Neil Rogers [8:19 - 9:20]: He's been trapped inside his own mind for 30 years. 30 plus years. And he knows everything. Everything. It staggers me. So you wonder why there were behavior problems. Well, why he flapped, why he chinned and all that. He's trapped inside his head. He knows so much. And they're trying to teach him simple math and he can solve for X. Yeah. Wild. So, so that's been our life for the last two years. And it's changed it completely. And it's completely to the positive. Incredibly positive. It set us, it set us in a different direction about what we were hoping for him. Hoping for him now, but what we hope from him then. Safe, secure environment. Now he wants to graduate college.

Matt Edmundson [9:20 - 9:21]: Oh, wow.

Neil Rogers [9:21 - 10:01]: He. If we, if we wind up hooking up personally on. I'll get you hooked up. He's blogging, he's posting to Facebook and Instagram. We, you know, he writes it. Someone else has to type it just now, but he will get to a point where he can. He'll be able to put it right in. So it'd be amazing. So, it's matter of fact, my wife currently is on the radio downtown here with, with a, with a spelling communicate expert, you know, trying to spread the word. And I hope we spread the word here to the world that anybody that has got a non speaker, which is about 30% of the autistic population.

Matt Edmundson [10:01 - 10:02]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [10:02 - 10:15]: Check it out. There's, there's something there. And you'll have my contact information, people out there, and you can. You can email me, call me, do whatever you want. I want to sing this from the mountaintops because he would, no doubt.

Matt Edmundson [10:15 - 10:16]: No doubt.

Neil Rogers [10:16 - 10:29]: I'll give you a quick little example. So you read age appropriate lessons, right? It's not. We don't treat them like a child, you know, it's not Craigie, this. It's Craig. He's a 33 year old man. We presume competence.

Matt Edmundson [10:29 - 10:30]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [10:30 - 11:16]: And. But the model is you have these lessons that are prescribed, and then there's questions that you ask in the body of that, from content, from the body of the lesson. So I read him a lesson on cells. So in the paragraph was molecules and DNA, the acronym. And then I finished up, and then I asked the requisite questions. And at the time, I had this coach with me who's actually on the radio with my wife right now. And I said, so, beth, what do you think? I can I ask him? She goes, go ahead, Craig. What is the acronym DNA stand for? Deoxyriblaic nucleic acid.

Matt Edmundson [11:17 - 11:18]: Stainless craze.

Neil Rogers [11:19 - 11:51]: Huh. Then there was another lesson shortly thereafter, I don't know exactly when. And it was. There was a picture of Muhammad Ali. I don't know why he was on there, because it didn't reference the story, but whatever. So again, at the end of the end of the requisite questions, I asked Beth again, she goes, give it a go, Craig. Who's that in the picture? Muhammad Ali, my friend. Hold on. It gets better.

Matt Edmundson [11:51 - 11:52]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [11:52 - 12:00]: Craig, what's his real name? Cassius Clay.

Matt Edmundson [12:04 - 12:05]: Wow.

Neil Rogers [12:07 - 12:28]: Recently, I've been doing. And here's another one. We'll move on, if you'd like, after this. But I'll give you this. I'll give you this one. I think this kind of ties into what the theme of the call is. But he. Recently, I've done a lot of research in certain areas that, about, you know, the what. What may or may not have caused this. Right.

Matt Edmundson [12:28 - 12:29]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [12:30 - 13:14]: And, uh, he told my wife one day, you know, through spelling, dad's been on a rant. Ask him to calm down. He has never. Matt. He's not heard me say he know. He know from my energy, and he doesn't even live with us. This is like, I don't. You know, there's something else in play here that's, like, unbelievable. I get the way. I get the fact that his senses are so heightened that he hears everything, he absorbs everything. I get somewhere, some. Some way, I might have said, cassius Clay is Muhammad Ali's real name.

Matt Edmundson [13:14 - 13:15]: Yeah. Yeah.

Neil Rogers [13:15 - 13:57]: You know, but I guess they. I guess the. I guess the. The question would be, does he know what Kareem Abdul Jabbar's real name is? And that can be a whole nother. But. But, yeah. So it's like, it's so unexplained, and it's so unexplained, you know, that. That routine right there with the feeling, my energy and. Because I was really. I mean, I literally, the weekend before, had taken a look at him in this beautiful picture of him and my two other children, young, you know, they all, you know, cute and young and all that. And I looked at him that was just in my bedroom down in our place in Plymouth, mass. You may recall that place. And I just broke down.

Matt Edmundson [13:57 - 13:58]: Wow.

Neil Rogers [13:58 - 15:01]: I said, did this really have to happen to him? Because of these things that I had been researching. So, anyway, so I think all that. And he just felt it. So I've been trying. He'll probably even know about this conversation. I should probably cut it off right now. So. But, yeah, so that's. That's the. That's who I would have on that. I mean, if I. You know, I think. And I think he'd be so intriguing, you know, be. It would be unbelievable, you know, to. And then, well, you know, especially once he gets to a point where he can use the keyboard, because just real quick, we use a 26 letter stencil board, because the whole thing is his front motor cortex is not firing signals down to his fine motor skill. So, yeah, lips, your tongue, etcetera. He doesn't write very well, but he can point. He has gross motor skills. So we give him, um, you know, we use the chopstick because it pokes through the stencil of the letters. So, you know, which. Which letter he's spelling. So. So it's. So it's accurate. So. So, yeah, he'd be my. There's my guest.

Matt Edmundson [15:01 - 16:04]: That's Neil. Thank you for that. I. I've asked this question many times, and it's, you know, I. I'm always intrigued by the answer. No one's ever given me a bad answer to that question, because every answer is deeply personal. Right. And the most common answer, I think, is, I should probably check. But my anecdotal gut feel would be most people would answer their dad, Jesus, or Tony Robbins right to that sort of that question, which is quite an interesting trio we've had. People mention things like Dolly Parton, which is, you know, I found fascinating. But to the best of my knowledge, no one's ever said their son. And the fact is, such a powerful story, isn't it? You know, your son's got all of this stuff and now actually has found a way to start to communicate. I mean, going back to talking, you know, communication and telephones and things. But to find a way to communicate what's inside him. I mean, what a gift to be.

Neil Rogers [16:04 - 17:32]: Able to participate in his decisions. So we went for years. Years. We're very natural people here. You know, we don't. You know, we. Right now, for the month of October, I'm completely plant based. As an example, I meditate, I go to yoga, I do Pilates, I do all these mindful behaviors. And it was a bad day when we had to put them on meds. And it was a. He was well into his twenties, but it was just. He was uncontrollable. His OCD was off the charts and whatnot. But all because of this. In my view, it's because he couldn't communicate. And he's being, you know, I mean, I started a program here, and this is Nashua, New Hampshire. I started a program at first of its kind for intensive needs classroom in a community college. He got kicked out. My kid got kicked out of the program I started, in retrospect, as I see this now, and I've actually shared some of his blog posts, his most recent blog post with the people that now run the program that I just. I founded it. It was my concept, I should say. They do all the work. And I said, this would have made a difference five years ago. You know, he wouldn't have been. The way he wouldn't have been is, you know, not unruly, but, you know, just off.

Matt Edmundson [17:32 - 17:32]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [17:32 - 18:10]: So now what? Now. But now with his. The advent of the program where we upticked his exercise, we've got it. We've got a. I found this great kid in one of my Pilates, my Pilates studios who's training to be an MMA fighter. Okay, right. Cool guy, though, you know, in his thirties, you know when you meet somebody and they, you know, you're having a conversation and, you know. I'm Kyle. I'm neil. Hey, hey, have a good workout. See you next time. And then when you see him next time and he says, hey, Neil, how you doing? Hold on. Did a 30 something. Just remember my name.

Matt Edmundson [18:12 - 18:14]: Quick, sign him up.

Neil Rogers [18:14 - 19:35]: I think I might have something. So later on, I asked him, I said, kyle, what is it you do for to sustain yourself? He says, I drive Uber. I said, wonderful. I love a hustler. You've got a vision, you got a passion. You want to be a mi fighter. I get it. I don't want to get, you know, but I said, how's driving Uber? On Saturday and Sunday afternoons? He goes kind of quiet. I said, don't tell me now, I don't want to put you on the spot, but would you consider working with my 33 year old son with autism? Take him to the gym, take him on hikes, whatever. He goes. So he came to me afterwards. He goes, you know, Neil, I think I'd like to give that a try. He's been with him for five months. Every weekend, twice weekend, he sends us texts before he picks him up, and he says, it's going to be another great day. Then he'll send us a text afterwards of some feat that Craig did that he's never been able to do. Like, you know, step ups on box. On blocks, on boxes. I don't know if you guys do. If that's a part of your personal training over there. But so, you know, he goes right, right, right. Then he shifts to left, right, which you and I can do. The drop of a hat. That's motor planning. That is never. That he's never seen.

Matt Edmundson [19:35 - 19:35]: Right.

Neil Rogers [19:36 - 20:20]: But because of this newfound. I think because of this newfound confidence being heard, I've got this kid. I've got a kid who's my age, 34. Craig's 33. And he's, you know, Craig wants to look like him, too. I want abs. I mean, he tells Lord, I want abs. I want to be in good shape and all that. And it's happening. He's got a diet. He's got a french fry problem that I'm not so sure we can crack, but he is trimmed down. And the other thing that is. So he then back to how he participates in his and his care. Laurie brings him to the psychiatrist to start weaning him off the meds. So we're weaning him off the meds. And he says, when?

Matt Edmundson [20:20 - 20:21]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [20:22 - 20:24]: I mean, he doesn't say it, but I mean, you know.

Matt Edmundson [20:24 - 20:25]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [20:25 - 20:25]: Communicates it.

Matt Edmundson [20:25 - 20:26]: Yeah, absolutely.

Neil Rogers [20:26 - 20:27]: And it's.

Matt Edmundson [20:28 - 21:26]: I'm curious, Neil, if I can ask you this question, because I have a. I have a son who is. Who has had medical conditions, and certainly, and I'm not comparing him because I think it's very different. But I find myself as a dad, he's in his early twenties now, and things are starting to change and look better. And if I'm honest with you, that's more on him than the medical practice. And I sit back and I look back and go, could I have done more? Do you mean. So, and I'm curious, do you have this where you. Because, I mean, you've got all this amazing breakthrough that is going on now for your son. Do you look back and go, how do you deal with it? I suppose that, you know, what was and what is, are you quite. Are you quite able just to sort of put a line and rule past it or does it affect you?

Neil Rogers [21:27 - 21:58]: So I'm giving it to. I'm actually speaking at his school or his program as the keynote speaker of their annual event next month. And it is. The title of the speech is navigating the special needs world with positivity and creativity. So we jumped in like anybody else, you know, is, you know, by the way, I don't care what's wrong with your kid. When there's something wrong with your kid, it ain't a good day.

Matt Edmundson [21:58 - 21:58]: No.

Neil Rogers [21:58 - 22:16]: So no matter what, you know, whether it's severe, not severe, I don't care. It's just not, you know, what's severe in one mind, one person's eye is simple enough, you know, so it doesn't matter. So we immediately jumped in. So, as a matter of fact, the speech is going through my head as I've started to write.

Matt Edmundson [22:16 - 22:17]: I've written.

Neil Rogers [22:17 - 23:52]: I've written the outline, but I wanted to, you know, it's from the day I was in. I was in a car in New Jersey working when Lori called me and told me that he was diagnosed with PDD. I said, what is PDD? Pervasive developmental disorder. Then you listen to all the characteristics, and you go, oh, he's autistic. But it was one of those kind of, like, make you feel good things, I think. Yeah, you know, I said, well, let me ask you a question. Is there some, can we. Can we work with them? Can we make them better? And she goes, yes. Okay. Then that's what we're gonna do. So for every step, we did not. We did not leave any stone unturned to find out how we could help him make his life better. And it's that persistent. It's. I shouldn't say I don't. I like the word tenacity more than persistence, because this is kind of the part of my business speech I give, is that persistence sounds like a pest for a reason. Tenacity is something where you do something a little more creative. Yeah, yeah. And so that's where the create positivity, and creativity comes in. That's what equals tenacity. So we just kept moving, and Laurie was tireless with her research, doing every medical intervention, you know, nothing, any. Nothing that would hurt him, but all sorts of, like, you know, vitamin therapies and whatnot. And so non real, I wouldn't call, you know, not the medical community hasn't figured this out.

Matt Edmundson [23:53 - 23:53]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [23:54 - 25:06]: And not that they're not interested, but as a general rule, we're really not. We're really not interested because I'm not so sure they're going to like what they find in the end. Right? So. So anyway, so we started with that, and then we went into, so what can we control once we got to a point? Well, we can help them get educated better. So we support. We started the foundation for special needs education that we ran for 18 years here in the city, and that that provided support to the people on the front lines. So the paraprofessionals, I don't know what you call them in England, but the people that work directly with the kids that are usually governed by a teacher, some sort of guy, you know, some sort of more technically professional person. But the paraprofessionals were unbelievable. But they paid him nothing, you know, so it's hard to keep them and all that. So we supported them through fundraising events, and then, you know, there was no. It was. And we put all the money right back into the programs so that, you know, a special needs teacher could dial in and grab Velcro.

Matt Edmundson [25:06 - 25:06]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [25:06 - 27:19]: Or other school supplies that weren't budgeted. And it started out with, it was sensory integration equipment, which we found that Craig's, and Craig, you know, to get him regulated, he needed to swing or, you know, in that type of thing. So that was the first thing we raised money for. We raised $2,500. $2,500 for that. But then it just grew. And then we did other programs. We did things like these paraprofessionals. They got paid for the time they were with the kids, so they never got, if they had meeting time like, before school went, they didn't get paid. Now, these people weren't getting paid a lot of money. We paid them, so we gave them the money to pay the. To pay the paraprofessionals to come to the meetings. So that was part a. And so we kept on doing that all the while. We're still looking for medical interventions, and, you know, we're running. Nothing was ever around the corner. Math, right. You know, traipse. Getting a plane to go to Naperville, Illinois, a five hour car ride to Rhinebeck, New York. I mean, even when we found spelling to communicate, the first practition we could find was in Rhode island, which is 2 hours from here in a car, so. But, of course, we did it. Laurie did. You know, Laurie gets a lot of. The. Lot of the credit for what's going on for Craig. So we just kept after it. And even with. And then I talked about the keeping him in a school environment, so I needed to find a way to keep him in a school environment. I did. I found a willingness. President of a local community college who got my vibe, had an autistic grandson, gave me a classroom. Boom. So he got. He got to be. He was a student body of one for, like, six or eight months. But I think we've run through, if I had to guess, over 100 kids through that program. Some of them graduated from the college, so. So we just kept involved and. But always with his, you know, always was. He was the leader in it. You know, we wanted to make his life better. And we were happy to make everybody else's life better, too, if that was possible. So. And that's kind of how it almost. We almost didn't do this spelling to communicate thing.

Matt Edmundson [27:19 - 27:20]: Wow.

Neil Rogers [27:20 - 28:01]: Because we had just. So I'm a bike rider, and so I, you know, locally, I ride with a group here, and then I group that I ride with in Plymouth, mass. And this woman came right up to me one day. She goes, Neil, have you. You've read underestimated, haven't you? She knows I have, Craig. And I knew she's got a nephew with autism. I said, no. She goes, Neil, it's an autism miracle. Hmm. Do you know, man? Do you want the last thing a parent of a 33 year old man who's been in the. So he was diagnosed somewhere around 26 months, somewhere in that range, wants to hear that there's another miracle.

Matt Edmundson [28:01 - 28:01]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [28:01 - 28:07]: All that sounds like to me is cash out of pocket and disappointment.

Matt Edmundson [28:07 - 28:08]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [28:08 - 30:07]: So the book. So. But out of respect for Eliza, about the book, put it on the coffee table. Lori walked out, looked at it, goes, had no interest because of the. Because of the tagline autism. It's an autism miracle. So she goes to see a new functional doctor, naturopath. We've had. We. We've known her from the past. She left the area. She's back. So we're back with her now. I know. Second thing out of her mouth. You've read underestimated, haven't you? Laurie goes, well, no, but I will. That night, of course, Laurie jumped in. She read it. And it's staggering, because when you listen to this, this. So it was written, written by this guy, JB Handley, and with his son Jamie. And their path was spelling with their lives and how they felt as they were going through spelling to communicate and how, you know, do they were. They had trepidation, too. They, you know, it's like, what's. What if I'm disappointed yet again? I mean, I brought it to my favorite breakfast place to read it. Dude, you don't want to see a 64 year old man crying in the middle of a. It's not. It's not a good. Look, Jeff, I said, let's close that for now. We'll come back to that. But the point of all that is so. No, I, you know, yes. Do I wish I found spelling to communicate six years ago? Yeah. But the thing is. And what my message to the people next month is going to be, stay at it. Stay positive. Find those little. Little gems, those little things that you see that make, make your day brighter that they've, you know, and those severity goes bad. You know, this, it's why it's a wide range in autism or any other special need. But if you can find that one thing that just brings you joy, grab yourself a journal book and write it down every day.

Matt Edmundson [30:07 - 30:08]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [30:08 - 30:45]: Right. Turn your, turn your, turn your mind to a place of creativity. So we, we pretty much stay in an area because we do these practices. And by the way, they're proven through this book called Happiness Advantage by Sean Achor, who studied happiness for twelve years at Harvard. And how are Harvard people not happy? Well, I mean, well, for, well, that's a whole nother. But he found these practices that raise your happiness level because you control. You control it. You control 90% of it.

Matt Edmundson [30:45 - 30:45]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [30:45 - 31:09]: The rest of it is you're out. You know, you have your car, your, your home, your money, you have. That's, that's 10%. You know, that's according to Sean. I believe him. So when I do these practice and all I can say to your listeners when I do these practices, and by the way, you can find them on our website, positive activity.net, i feel I'm better than when I don't. It's like when I talk about my book, these are the things that work for me.

Matt Edmundson [31:09 - 31:09]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [31:09 - 31:24]: Take a look at them. See if you can fit them into your day. If you can. Great. I'm just here to tell you, when I do these things, it works. When I don't do them, it doesn't work as good. Right. It's not like if you do these five things, you're gonna be, you're gonna be ten times. Please.

Matt Edmundson [31:24 - 31:25]: Yeah, yeah, stop.

Neil Rogers [31:26 - 32:04]: Another, another huckster gives me that routine and. Yeah, but that's, that's, that's moved to the point, but, yeah, so that's. I know. So give yourself some grace, Matt. You know, everybody, we're doing the best we can with the tools that we had. You know, I was the 7th of eight of a negative irish catholic family. Right. You know, it's tough. And when I started, when I started pace, parents assisting special education just back, back up. That's the kind of the parent group foundation that we had for education. The one requirement that if you wanted to be part of this group is that you left the grievances at the door.

Matt Edmundson [32:05 - 32:05]: Right.

Neil Rogers [32:06 - 32:25]: Come in with solutions, with ideas, with whatever, but don't come in whining about the school and what they're not doing. Not interested. We all have the same story. Yeah, it does nothing to progress to give us, you know, to move, to move the ball forward, as they say.

Matt Edmundson [32:25 - 32:37]: So it's a really interesting point. And, Neil, let me commend you guys because it's an inspiring story. And for you and your wife and your son, the idea that you just keep doing what you can do.

Neil Rogers [32:37 - 32:38]: Right.

Matt Edmundson [32:38 - 33:48]: We had a guest on the show called Ram Ghidamaul, who's an absolute legend. He was one of our earlier guests, and he was talking about how he was an immigrant in the UK in the sixties from India, and that not a good. It was not a good time to be an indian immigrant in the UK. I can imagine. He said, you know, there were so many things that we couldn't do, so we just started asking, what could we do? And this question sort of stuck in my head over the years, and, you know, what can we do? When faced with stuff, it's like, I know what I can't do, but what can I do? And this, let's just keep trying. Let's just keep moving forward. Let's keep trying something, staying positive, but at the same time, giving yourself a little bit of grace, especially where your kids are involved, I think, is a very powerful thing because I think it's easy to be. I think it's easy to be derailed by guilt or it's easy to be derailed by anger because you feel like the medical community in whatever that looks like, is not doing enough to solve your particular problem because the problem is not going away.

Neil Rogers [33:48 - 34:01]: Right. Right. Yeah. So there is some of that, again, nobody. Nobody. Well, is in, you know, baseball parlance, nobody bets a thousand.

Matt Edmundson [34:01 - 34:02]: That's right.

Neil Rogers [34:02 - 34:31]: But you don't want to bet 333. I know that gets you into the hall of fame, but we want to do better than that. But 80% is, you know, if you can. If you can hit. If you can hit, if you can hit 800 with what you're trying to do, especially as it relates to your kids, you're doing pretty good. But. But, you know, and I try. We try every day. And like I said, we do these practices. I mean, my wife is light years ahead of me. You know, she grew up in a different environment. I love my family. Don't get me wrong. I have no grievances with my parents. It's just what they knew.

Matt Edmundson [34:31 - 34:31]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [34:31 - 35:05]: You know, just what they knew. You know, there was no, there was no socratic method going on in the Rogers household. I promise you. You know, wasn't like, hey, Neil, let's think deeper. What else? No, it's like, I went to my mother, I went to my mother in May of my senior year in high school and said, is there something I should be doing next year? Now we've got a mapped out from what? DNA. Right up until we're setting aside college money and all this stuff, believe me, my mother wasn't thinking about how she was going to pay for my college. I promise that.

Matt Edmundson [35:05 - 35:06]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [35:06 - 35:10]: And of course back then I think a semester was $500. Back when I was going different.

Matt Edmundson [35:10 - 35:19]: Yeah. You know, the fees my children pay for university and the fees I pay are just eye wateringly different. I feel I looked out in terms of timing.

Neil Rogers [35:19 - 35:27]: Nobody wants to talk about that. Nobody wants to really investigate that either. It's another one of those anomalies. Just kind of keep raising the rates.

Matt Edmundson [35:29 - 35:54]: Not to interfere with the us education system, but I mean, England is very different to how the US works. And I look at the US system and go, that is nuts. I mean, that is beyond nuts. What is going on with colleges. And not to be divisive, in my opinion. I'm just an outsider. I'm looking at that going, I don't understand. I don't understand how that is right in any way when it comes to education. But maybe I see it different.

Neil Rogers [35:54 - 36:52]: No, my friend, logic is the international language you can speak. There's not being divisive. My daughter graduated from Boston University in 13. It's now 24. She was a scholarship athlete and academic. So her award that year was full scholarship at $55,000. It's 80 plus now $360,000 for full tuition to send your kid to a place like that. And, oh, by the way, you could send them to. We may be going off topic here, so stop me. You could send them to the College of general Studies at Boston University at $80,000 a year. It's a community college within, basically within. Within Boston University. They could go to Bunker Hill Community College right around the corner for probably ten grand a year. Now. I don't know what it is now.

Matt Edmundson [36:52 - 36:53]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [36:53 - 37:10]: When I flunked out of there was, it was $250. That's a whole nother. That's a whole. We want to go down that path. To me it's like, so I do kick off, I do kick off. A lot of my business talks with. Okay. How many people. How many people you know that flunked out of two community colleges? No. Nobody. You met one now.

Matt Edmundson [37:12 - 37:14]: Well, it's good to have a claim to fame, I feel.

Neil Rogers [37:14 - 37:15]: Yeah, exactly.

Matt Edmundson [37:15 - 38:20]: It's good to have a claim to fame. No, I could wax lyrical about the education system, but like you said, and I think going back to what you said earlier, I consider, and I can complain, and I think there's a place to do that, and I think there's a place to protest, I suppose, some of these things with our leaders in the right way, but I think my respons. I love what Stephen Covey wrote in the seven habits book about being responsible. You are able to choose your response. That's what responsibility means. You can't necessarily choose what's going to happen to you, but you can choose how you respond to what is happening to you. And there is immense freedom and power in that simple sentence, I think, and going, well, yeah, this is all going, okay, so what am I going to do in response to this, you know, and being positive, being creative, being entrepreneurial, maybe in your approach to that, I think is all, to me, is my default. I try and work that way if I can. And I tend to be a happier person. I think, as a result, much happier.

Neil Rogers [38:20 - 39:27]: When I do that stuff. Not happy when I'm getting in beefs and arguing with people. I mean, I just. I'm not. I mean, it's not, you know, it's like, okay, that's the way you want to go, it's fine. Going to move along this way. Most recently, this is. I had a, had a conversation with, you know, this program that Craig goes to. One of the things I've been listening to Matt for years is that we can't find direct service professionals. I mean, the people that work with them, and they don't make a lot of money. It's really. It's almost paid volunteerism, you know, in some regards, you know, but some people. Some people can make it. You know, they string some things together and they get benefits from it. So it's. Yeah, they get health insurance so it can work out. I mean, don't get me wrong, but I've told them for years, you fishing in the. We're just fishing in the wrong ponds. I mean, if you. If you spread the word and you. And you empower everybody to spread the word that all your constituents, your employees, your parents, your board members and all that, we can find people to do this work. Like how I found Kyle.

Matt Edmundson [39:27 - 39:27]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [39:27 - 40:08]: In the locker room at Sweet Heat Pilates. Ask the question. Yeah, right. So I know that's my gift. That's what I do, but, I mean, I can. And then I found. So what I did was I got on a call with them. All I said, now, if you guys, don't find more people. You can't service people. You can't bill Medicaid. You can go out of business. Mm hmm. Well, yeah, so I said, here's a little, here's a little, just a little tip. Why don't the next person we bring on the board be in the staffing business?

Matt Edmundson [40:08 - 40:09]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [40:11 - 40:23]: Oh. So the next day I woke up and I said, they're not going to do any of that. So you know what Neil did? I found somebody in the staffing business.

Matt Edmundson [40:23 - 40:24]: Yeah. Well done.

Neil Rogers [40:24 - 40:26]: And we found, and we found somebody for Craig.

Matt Edmundson [40:26 - 40:27]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [40:27 - 41:27]: And then I found, and then I further, with further, further conversations with people like you all over this country doing things like this. I found a group that actually trains you on how to internally keep the people you have and then internally recruit outside so you don't have these. I mean, the, to get Craig's latest, there was a finders fee that had to be paid. My daughter paid out of her charitable giving fund. But this other group that I found, they train you and it's like they train three people for like $1,000 a month for, I think, I think they need like twelve months with. So for $12,000 you might be able to. And they, they profess to have this rate of, you know, getting rid of your open, open applications or open, open positions.

Matt Edmundson [41:27 - 41:27]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [41:27 - 41:29]: In half in the first six months.

Matt Edmundson [41:29 - 41:29]: Wow.

Neil Rogers [41:29 - 41:35]: And they're not, they're not hoxters. I mean, they're guys that just, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna show you the way.

Matt Edmundson [41:35 - 41:35]: Yeah.

Neil Rogers [41:35 - 42:01]: And I know they exist, so, but that's, that's just another indicator. That's where you're using, you know, your ability, my ability to communicate with people to the willingness to get on and chat with somebody and just kind of dig deep in and, which just became this path that I went down. It's like, holy Toledo. And I just met nice person after nice person after nice person. And not just nice people, but doers. That's my gig, you know, like, you want to try?

Matt Edmundson [42:01 - 42:02]: Interesting.

Neil Rogers [42:02 - 42:03]: I do.

Matt Edmundson [42:03 - 43:10]: I mean, that's, yeah, really interesting, Neil, because I think that's my experience here, is you tend to find there are different groups of people, there are people that complain for whatever reason. Then you meet people who know what the answer is and they're usually quite happy to tell you what the answer is. And then there's very few people who don't necessarily complain, but recognize the complaints, who know what the answer is, but then are proactive enough to go and do something about it. And those people almost are like, you know, fairy teeth, aren't they? They're very hard to find in so many ways. And it's a bit of a shame. But that said, I think if you can, and this, I think this is one of the things I've been trying to teach my kids, especially my boysenhe, is if you recognize a problem and can do something about it, life becomes very different for you. And I think as soon as you start doing that and you have that mindset, you put yourself in that place, you find yourself meeting people in the gym, you find yourself finding these people that maybe you wouldn't have found beforehand and recognizing the opportunity, right.

Neil Rogers [43:10 - 44:36]: You attract them. It is the law of attraction, right. You're attracting, if you. The energy you're putting out, you get that. You project to be a positive person, solution provider. People want to hang. They may know, by the way, they may know where they hang with you because you're. Because they just want to whine or they want to go. Go about that. By the way, my little philosophy, my little credo about, you know, when you come to a pace event, you got, you got to keep your, keep your grievances at the door. That wasn't very popular because they just, because everybody just wanted, everybody just wanted to wine. But you know what they should be doing? We should be doing that. So we've kind of adopted around here and there are no shoulds. I catch myself with a should now and again. Whoa. I suggest like, you know, like in my business, when I talk about the positive activity side of our business, we don't coach, we mentor. Mentor is more collaborative. Yeah, we're a collaborative group. You know, we want. We want to hear your opinion. We want to hear. But we want. You ever heard of the improv technique? Yes and no. Okay, so the improv technique. Yes. And, you know, improv improvisational comedy. Okay, so that's all the sketch comedy. That's all. I mean, like movies like Spinal Tap. This is spinal Tap. Did you see that?

Matt Edmundson [44:36 - 44:37]: No.

Neil Rogers [44:37 - 45:07]: Oh, okay. Write that one down. That's one. That's Christopher Guest, that brilliant movie. And it's a Christmas guest, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara. So the same group of people do all Catherine Hera and Eugene Levy were in Schitt's Creek. That's right away for everybody. So. But it. That whole movie is improv.

Matt Edmundson [45:08 - 45:08]: No way.

Neil Rogers [45:08 - 45:49]: And it's all done. They just play off of each other. So nothing ever stops. In other words, if I say. If you say to me, I'm thinking of anything off top of my head, I'm gonna go to you. So you say, yeah, the university thing is really off the charts. Yes. And I believe they might want to look into this, that or the other thing. And you may come back. Yeah. And I thought also that maybe this would be a good thing. So the conversation goes. It's not just, yeah, no, Matt, you're wrong. That's really good. I like that.

Matt Edmundson [45:49 - 45:50]: I'm going to use that. The yes and thing.

Neil Rogers [45:50 - 46:15]: Yeah. Yeah. You can see YouTube, YouTube videos on it. You'll see it all in play. There's actually a book, a book that was written by. He does, and he goes to corporations and trains people on using improv techniques. A friend of mine wrote a book on mindspace, I think it was called using improv techniques to soft comedy skills. To improve your soft skills. Something like that.

Matt Edmundson [46:17 - 46:31]: I'll check it out. Listen, Neil, I am very aware of time is dripping away extremely quickly, so I am going to change text slightly and add to the question box, which I know everybody loves on this show, state the art graphics.

Neil Rogers [46:31 - 46:38]: Yeah. Where's that graphic? I get to see that graphic again. It's impressive to get that on fiverr.

Matt Edmundson [46:40 - 46:52]: No, I paid a tenor for it. 99 designs, the more expensive one. So I'm gonna flick through the cards. You're gonna tell me when stop and where have we stopped? That's the question.

Neil Rogers [46:52 - 46:53]: You get there.

Matt Edmundson [46:53 - 46:53]: Right there.

Neil Rogers [46:53 - 46:54]: Okay.

Matt Edmundson [46:54 - 47:04]: That was a quick one. What is. And I'll show you the question. Just so you know, I don't make it up. What is the most surprising conversation you've ever had?

Neil Rogers [47:05 - 47:24]: Wow. Most surprising conversation. Well, that could go in a whole bunch of directions as an ex bartender, you know that. Oh, no, no. I shouldn't say. I'm not an ex bartender. I am always a bartender. Always a bartender, always a salesman. But I think my most, one more time was the most interesting.

Matt Edmundson [47:24 - 47:28]: What was the most surprising, surprising conversation you've ever had?

Neil Rogers [47:30 - 47:47]: Most surprising. Wow, that's a tough question. That is a tough one. Surprising conversation I've had because I want to stay. Because I want to stay in my credo. I don't want to go negative. I want to stay positive. We've had such a positive vibe here. I don't want to go anywhere else.

Matt Edmundson [47:50 - 47:51]: I know my answer.

Neil Rogers [47:56 - 48:03]: Wow. My goodness. Boy, how to believe I'm stumped. I mean, right after all this ranting I've been doing for the last hour.

Matt Edmundson [48:03 - 48:09]: But I found a question that stumped up Neil Rogers. This is the first ladies and gentlemen.

Neil Rogers [48:10 - 51:23]: Surprising question conversation I've ever had. Okay, so we, we, and it was with my daughter, we, my daughter was a, you know, a good athlete, you know, a hard working athlete, you know, in middle school, which is the six, seven, eight somewhere for your folks over there grade school. And she went and she always, we had, we were not highfalutin, but we did belong to the local country club. It wasn't like, you know, it's, it sounds a lot more bougie than it is, but she played, she was on tennis. She played tennis and then, anyway, so she, she played tennis so that her sports in were basketball, basketball and tennis at that time. And she shifted in her. So freshman year in high school, she played on the state championship, Tennessee. And the, her sophomore, because of the way she played basketball, she played JV basketball. A friend of mine said, you know what? You got to get that girl on a lacrosse field, okay? So I can't do anything. She decided that that's what she wanted to do. And she wound up working with this woman, a young girl, young woman who she's still very close to before basketball practice, learning how to catch and throw a lacrosse ball. So the next, next year, she tries out for lacrosse team and was disappointed because she didn't make the varsity team after, after they told her that they're looking for athleticism. What? No, she toasted everybody in the time mile, except for the girl who was going to go to college in the scholarship for the time mile. But anyway, so there's, so sophomore year, was that her junior year? She went back and she came home one day, giddy, because obviously she's on the varsity team now. Yeah, giddy. She goes, they just asked me, where am I going to college? What did you say to him? So I didn't know. She goes, they think I can play in college. So it's like this. We had no idea, you know, again, we're back to the back, back to the thing where we've got our kids lives planned out. Yeah. You know, it's like, holy Toledo. It just, I said, I mean, it's surprising, but in the end it wasn't, it was just, we didn't, we just weren't thinking in that ring. So now Neil's got to get on his horse and get her on a travel program and get her in a strength and conditioning program. We did all that. And she wound up, they won the state championship her senior year and she went division one. Well, here, that's the top level lacrosse in the country, so. And, yeah, so I'm good.

Matt Edmundson [51:23 - 51:24]: Fantastic.

Neil Rogers [51:25 - 51:28]: You know. Yeah. On the story, what I got for you.

Matt Edmundson [51:28 - 51:44]: Yeah, that's a great story. I like that. I like that a lot. I think it's a great answer to the question, Neil. Listen, if people want to reach out to you, if they want to find out more, connect with you for whatever reason, what is the best way to do that?

Neil Rogers [51:44 - 51:50]: I would go to. Excuse me, folks. Positive, positive activity.net.

Matt Edmundson [51:50 - 51:52]: Positive activity.net.

Neil Rogers [51:52 - 52:10]: That'S. They'll see all about us. There's a link to the book there, and then my contact information is right on there. So positiveactivity.net, if you want to post cam, will give you all my socials and all that. And anybody that wants to follow, link in, whatever we do, come in.

Matt Edmundson [52:10 - 52:51]: So fantastic, fantastic. We will, of course, link to Neil's info in the show notes, which you can get along for free with the transcript to push to be more. They'll be directing your inbox if you sign up to the newsletter. And of course, I'm not trying to pull the wool over your eyes. They'll also be in the show notes on the podcast app that you're listening to. This too on, on too as well. Just scroll down and they will all be there. But Neil, listen, thank you so much for coming on, man. Thanks for sharing the story. Super inspiring. And you've. Yeah, I've just thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't, I can't think of a better compliment to pay you than what a fantastic way to spend an hour. Thank you so much, Matt.

Neil Rogers [52:51 - 52:53]: I feel the same way.

Matt Edmundson [52:53 - 52:54]: What a legend.

Neil Rogers [52:55 - 52:55]: Legend.

Matt Edmundson [52:56 - 52:56]: Remember legend.

Neil Rogers [52:56 - 52:59]: When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Matt Edmundson [52:59 - 54:16]: Absolutely love that. Love that. Well, thanks again. And what a great conversation. A massive round of applause. Oh, in fact, yeah, let me do the. Hang on. Where are we? Here we go. We can do this. Yes. There we go. Get the sound just working right? Massive round of applause again for Neil coming onto the show. Huge thanks also to today's podcast sponsor, Pod Junction. For all you change makers out there contemplating podcasting as your new vehicle of expression and marketing, definitely connect with them at podjunction.com. now, remember, keep pushing to be more. Don't forget to follow the show wherever you get your podcast from because we've got some more great conversations up our sleeve and we don't want you to miss any of them. And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first. You are awesome. Yes, you are created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. Neil has to bear it. I've got to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. Now push to be more is brought to life by podjunction. For transcripts, show notes and all that sort of good stuff. Like I say, just go to the website, push to be more.com. but that's it from me. That's it from Neil. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a phenomenal week, wherever you are in the world. I'll catch you on the flip side. But for now, keep on pushing. Bye for now.