Are you avoiding this one conversation that could completely shatter your family?

Are you avoiding this one conversation that could completely shatter your family? 🛑

In this emotional and eye-opening episode of Surviving-ish, we sit down with Jermaine Ee, a tech founder who built a groundbreaking app after a devastating personal loss. Now, he’s calling us ALL out for our biggest, most dangerous habit: completely avoiding our wills.

If you think you’re "too young" or "not rich enough" to plan for the end, you are making a massive mistake. 😳

From the host's raw confession about how surviving an attempted murder still didn't get him to write a will, to Jermaine’s terrifying updates on his girlfriend's family navigating the war zone in Kyiv, this episode pulls zero punches. We dive deep into productivity hacks, overcoming the toxic urge to work 24/7, and how to stop letting fear control your legacy.

Don't wait until it's too late. Click play right now to find out why your avoidance is putting everything you love at risk.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome back to Surviving Ish. This is the show where we dive into some messy, complicated, sometimes surprisingly beautiful ways to make it through the day. And I'm really excited about the guests we have today. It's our first time meeting, but I've I've been checking out websites and products and podcasts and all kinds of things that Jermaine E is involved in. Um, how are you? What's going on?

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Great, great. I know it's uh we're recording at the end of the week here, but I feel like a Monday today. I'm so behind on things and I want to keep catching up on it.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yeah, you know, I I worked a few hours today, but um going into the office tomorrow on Saturday to do uh uh some things. And so yeah, it feels like I'm starting right back over. I had the conversation earlier, it was like I'm so over Mondays, and I feel like today is yet another Monday. It's been like a week of Mondays for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Yeah, and sometimes that's a good thing, but it's like I I love my Mondays mostly because I feel like I can now really just pour all my energy into work. Um, it it for me it feels like a Monday only because I spent all day yesterday at a conference and I feel like it was like just talking and it was by the beach in Santa Monica. So yeah, so it's my first day back in the office. That's why it feels like a Monday right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Gotcha. Yeah. You know, I I actually had a conversation on here one day with how, especially when I was in like corporate America, like Mondays weren't always fun for me. I got off the weekend, I was excited, I'm a social person, so I liked like uh going into work and seeing my work buddies and having coffee with them. Tuesdays sought. I hated Tuesdays, but but when I say that this feels like a Tuesday, it doesn't seem to have that same impact on people for them to relate and be like, yeah, I hate Tuesdays, so I had to go with the Mondays. But in my head, I mean Tuesdays.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

I've actually been playing around with this concept, you know, since you've seen some of my podcasts and things I put out, I've been playing around with this concept of like what does a perfect Tuesday look like? Because it's like challenging myself to think, you know, what time does my energy level go down? For example, I know one thing about me, which is around this time, so it's 3 p.m. Pacific in LA right now, and normally my work energy goes down. So if I'm sitting in my office working on an ad optimization, looking at meta ads and trying to figure out the data, that's the worst kind of work I can do. But if I'm talking to someone because I'm an extrovert, it kind of energizes me, right? So, you know, I'm trying to think like, oh, what how can I actually plan every day to be like the best Tuesday ever? Like make sure energy management is right, you rest well, you focus on things you want to do, people you want to talk to.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah, when you learn that, share your secret, I will pay for it. Create a course or something. But you know, it's I I'm a very social person, so I love talking, I love podcasting, you know, like this was meant for me. However, I never knew this about me to the extreme that it is, but I am a pacer, I love to pace back and forth. And if I'm on the phone, I have to walk up and down my driveway until I'll get my steps in, you know, and people can tell, like if they call me, they're like, You're sitting down, aren't you? And I'm like, Yeah, and they're like, Well, I can tell because you're not very active, you're not really into the conversation. And we're just getting, we're finally like getting into like summer versus winter here in the south, um, which I hate. I hate summer, but I hate the heat. But I can actually get back outside now and pace back and forth. I've just got to find a way to do it while podcasting where I don't look ridiculous and run out of breath on camera.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Podcasting's definitely harder. I think one of the things that I realized the last say a year or so is I don't like giving up my 8 a.m. because 8 a.m. are like putting out fires, jumping into the email. So I've started to realize this because I had a few 8 a.m. meetings like last year, and I realized I'm so antsy. I'm like not present, I'm not really like giving this person or whoever that meeting is like my full attention. And I think that self-awareness kind of comes from practice optimization a little bit. Maybe that's not the right word, but just like kind of thinking to yourself, like, ooh, that meeting at 8 a.m., that was not good. Maybe we should not do that. And so, yeah, so I think I guess that's what I meant by like having a really good Tuesday, right? Which means like I'm planning my day around like the right energy flow. And I talk to a loved one at the end of the day, pacing, hopefully, you know, like walking around. Um, I do realize there's one thing you can do while pacing, which is uh practicing for podcast stuff. I love prepping for podcasts while walking in a threat mill going uphill.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Oh wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah. So the heck is like if you get your heart rate to like zone one cardio, you're kind of like in a brisk walk, basically, and and you your elevated heart rate, so you're kind of like in a performance. Yeah. That's something I learned recently.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, I love that. And you know what? Like, I actually just recently learned this. It's probably common knowledge, I just didn't know it. But I was uh I'm a Swifty, I like Taylor Swift. I was watching her one of her documentaries with my friend's daughter, who's crazy about Taylor Swift, and they were talking about how like when she was getting ready for this tour, she would have to sing while running on a treadmill because that that would help her like learning how to breathe and where she could still carry the tunes. I never thought about that. I was like, Holy crap, which I'm not a singer, but I'm never on stage. So I guess I really have no reason to do that. But I thought that was really interesting. So when you said that, it reminded me of that. Yeah, I think there's a reason why the pros do that.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Yeah, it's it works, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah, well, okay. So I am excited to hear before we get into the big topics. I want to hear about your ish. And I want to preface with this. You had, I always send out a little email, you know, giving an outline of what the show is, and people can email in, like, you know, kind of what they're thinking about what their ish may be. Sometimes it changes, sometimes they stick with the ones that's in the email. But I loved what you said. You said that uh it made you have to do um in the middle of the day, you had to do some self-evaluating, but that you loved it. And I and I never really thought of it that way, but I was like, yeah, like when I start to do like before I uh uh get on a podcast, I always like to have an idea of what kind of ish I want to talk about and if I need to do any research with it or whatever, you know, or think about one of my funny stories, and it never fails. I I have to dive deep into myself a little bit and think, why am I pissed off about the person in the elevator, you know? And so so I really appreciated that comment.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yeah. Did I talk about the to-do lists? Is that what it was?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Yeah, do you do you remember? I had them in front of me in case you know.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

No, no, I I got yeah, I mean I I still do this. I think I just did this today. So perfect, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I I feel like so I'm I'm in my mid-30s now. In my 20s, I think maybe it's living in LA, maybe it's being surrounded by you know folks who are very ambitious and high performance. I think my entire 20s, I just measured myself with how much production can I have? How much productivity can I have? To the point where it's almost like self-destruction, right? I wake up in the morning and before the day even starts, I feel like I'm behind. I feel like I'm behind in by two weeks before the day even started. So I got into this habit, and I think for the all the right reasons, I got into a habit of like, let's make a very clear to-do list, and it has to have things that are important but urgent, urgent and important, important, not urgent. So it's like four categories, right? Right. Because we tend to do things that are urgent but not important. Yeah. And so I wanted to make sure I have this system and I realize it's so silly, but I still do that. I already did that this morning and I wrote it down just so I can cross it off. Like I think that's just that feeling, that dopamine I think I want to get.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Yeah. And you know, I was I was thinking about that because I am the kind of person that when I, especially like when I get in the office, I make my coffee and I'm sitting at my desk, you know, getting ready to start my day, I make myself a to-do list. But I really appreciated something that you said. You said that sometimes you will put things on there that you've already done just to be able to mark it off to show that productivity. And and I do that too because I I I cannot finish my day until there's a check mark for uh on that number of thing, you know, and sometimes it's not meant to finish at all, but I want some kind of like red note beside it. So I'm where I've had my hands in that pot. But what sparks me and it energizes me and motivates me is when I start seeing like the green checks. I always use green because green means money, you know? So the good is green, right? And and so sometimes I, you know, will put something on there that I've already done that day that it was just done before I did the list. And it really and it it does, it helps change my mindset on like great. Now I've got this whole thing where I'm starting at bullet point number one, and that can be intimidating, and you just want to shove in your desk drawer. But when you already have a green check mark on there, it's you're ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah. And momentum's a real thing, right? It it's a there's a reason why there's so many like self-help gurus or even personal trainers out there that say, you know, when you wake up in the morning, put your running shoes right by your bed or something like that. Yeah. Just to like keep that momentum. I think naturally we're just all really bad at doing the thing that we know we should do. Yeah, it's like there's so many things. There's probably like 10 things in my mind right now that I know I should have done yes, like five days ago, and that it's really, really important. I think that's essentially that's my entire business right now, right? Like I'm literally trying to get people to do something that everyone says it's I know it's important, but I just don't want I just don't want to do it for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

It's so easy to procrastinate on things. And one of the things, which I don't want to get too deep into it now because I know it's gonna be one of the heavy uh like topics that we spend some time on is your business. So I'm just gonna put a pen and what I was gonna say because uh I I'll remember uh because I thought I think it's gonna open up for conversation. But I will say, and to the listener for a little bit of uh teaser, I think you might get mad at me, Jermaine. I think you're gonna have to have a talking to with me with uh your business and what I have not done. I have an idea. I think you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. But yeah, we'll we'll put a pit in that. But okay, and there was another one that you had that I so your trip. You took a five-day road trip. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

You know what's funny? I was just editing this video because I I filmed the I filmed the entire thing. So it's it's so funny. Yeah. So this is something this is a common theme. So the context is like my girlfriend, she's from Ukraine, she's like born and raised Ukrainian, and uh, we met at a conference in Latvia many, many years ago, or four years ago, when the when the Ukrainian war started. And uh she always asked me, like, why do you work so much? For one, but why do you like beat yourself up over taking a break, basically? Because I think there's a European theory, they're much better at like enjoying life and stuff. So so I I think what I wrote to you is like this trip that I went on. So we we went to Phoenix, Arizona, she had some work there, and then we had to go to a trade show in Vegas, and we saw that you know, we we could have just flown, but you know, maybe let's let's road trip, let's go to Grand Canyon. And I told myself, I'm gonna take four days or five days off and just be present, be just be with her and and look at this beautiful Grand Canyon. Day one, I'm fine, day two, I'm fine. Day three, I woke up and I'm like, I need to reply my emails. There's there's like something, something's going on. And I just catch myself constantly in this like struggle with myself of like, I need to be present, but I need to get stuff done. I need to be present, I need to get stuff done. And what ends up always happening is I get really irritable, and then I sit down with myself and I feel bad that I kind of ruined a few hours of the trip when it's totally unnecessary. You know, it's just it's just the voices in my head of this habit that I have. And I think a lot of people can relate to this.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Oh yeah. When I so when I was reading that today, so uh a little something about me is uh Reba McIntyre. My listeners know this because I don't think there's ever been an episode where I've not mentioned her name at least once, but Reba McIntyre, the country singer, is my favorite person in the world. And um, today she had a brand new single come out and it's been several years, and it's one of Reba's like powerhouse ballads that's just kicking you in the heart. You're crying with her, but you can't turn it off. You know, like the sadder the song, the happier I am. I was with a person for seven years and we've been apart. Uh, we do we separated, you know, about a year and a half ago. And so I've been listening to that song all day, and I know it by heart now. But then when I was getting ready for, you know, preparing and trying to get into the mindset with this episode with you today, and I reread your email where we were conversing and and you had told me this story, it reminded me of a time where my partner and I, we we took a lovely trip. We didn't neither one of us ever been to Boston. So we decided, you know, to go to Boston, spend a week. And there was one day I was just so pissed off at everything for no reason. And we were, you know, of course we were walking, we stayed right downtown, so we could just walk everywhere and good restaurants, coffee shops, all that stuff. And it started to rain and it really pissed me off. And so I was like, great, I have no umbrella. Um, I'm gonna have to reshower before dinner. And and I was just an ass about it. And when we broke up a few months after that, he told me, he said, you know, all I kept thinking is how I wanted you to kiss me in the rain. I wanted that to be a moment for us. And I was like, I'm such an ass. And but I learned that I've learned that lesson. But I'm not perfect by by by any means, but I know what you mean. And I'm and I'm I I'm I'm learning that lesson, um, unfortunately the hard way.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

I I do think we get better at it. Yeah. You know, I I do think we're with experience, we're able to recognize this pattern of behavior that's kind of brewing in our our heart, this irritable, this annoyance that that's coming up, and and just remind ourselves. I I am like much better at it right now than I was like four years ago. Yeah, but I think that's what makes us human. It it's in some beautiful way, it's kind of like I'm with this person and she loves me for all of this, right? Despite all of this, and because of, not because of, but despite all of this. Right. And I think there's a similar version of me to her too. And and it is a beautiful thing, I think. I think that's what they meant by like growing together, where you learn about each other's little stuff that we put up with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, absolutely, because I think there are those things that are not deal breakers, but you know that that person's going to grow and and change along the way, and and maybe you're gonna be get to be a good part of that, you know, for them, and vice versa.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yeah, and I think maybe that's one of the challenges with society as a whole today is that we're so used to having exactly what we want in our fingertips that when something goes difficult, we're just like, next. Let's just like dating sucks everywhere right now. Not that I'm dating, but dating sucks everywhere because everyone's like, well, if this is not a great fit, like a 95% match, then I'm like, I'll just move on to the next one. There's somebody else out there. I think we kind of lost the art of knowing how to not tolerate, but like work, work through something that's difficult. Uh and and I'll speak for myself, like some that's something I'm trying to do all the time. I'm always improving on this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yeah, I don't think that's ever gonna be a a completed job, you know, because we're always re faced with something. I will say, be glad that you're not out in the dating world. I've been single for a year and a half. Several months ago, probably about six months ago, I thought, you know what? I'm kind of I kind of have the itch. I'm gonna put myself out there. Met a real cute guy. Um, he was uh a professor with with a doctorate. He had money in the bank, it was meaning he could take care of himself. I didn't have to, he wasn't a scrub kind of thing. Funny, we we had a great time together. He was living a double life, and everything that I knew about him job, money in the bank, everything was a lie. And I said, you know what? I'm not ready for this, so I'm gonna go back into my little hermit crab, and uh, and here I am.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah. Well, don't don't give up, you know. It's I I know it's cliche, but yeah, I hate to say that, but it's the same for me. You know, I was all the way across the world and I wasn't expecting to meet someone. Yeah, and you know, I I'm very grateful for my relationship, but I would say dating someone who's across the world at war, countries at war, not the easiest. There's a lot that comes with it. Oh yeah, I can't imagine it's beautiful on the other end, right? The bond that that you have. And she's now watched a little bit of spoilers, she's she's watched me lose my mom. Like seven months ago when my mom passed away. She sat by my mom in the hospital. And you know, going through these difficult things in life teaches you a lot about actually teaches you a lot about what matters to you and equally what doesn't matter to you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

I'm sorry to hear hear about your mom. And I want to say, I I do want to ask you a question and answer it however you want. We don't have to stay on this topic, but I know that this is a crazy time for all the world right now. And uh but your your girlfriend is here and she's safe. Is her is is her family safe? Uh is is everything okay? Is that something you can answer or want to try scoop past?

SPEAKER_01 16:15

No, no, at so at the time of this recording, she is back in Kiev because of Easter. She's been there for a few weeks, and she decided to go back. She's so close to her family. It's one of the things that I love about her, which is she's so so close to her family, and she understands this family dynamic. In fact, she taught me more about loving myself than anything could have. Because I remember that she asked me in the early on uh when we started dating, it's like, why do I feel like I need to earn my love even with family? Like, why do I feel like I have to be somebody to be deserving to be loved? And she said, you know, in my family, we're loved just because I think that's such a beautiful thing that maybe as Americans, maybe because we're so individualistic that we've kind of lost a lot of that. So she's home. All that to answer you that she's home in Ukraine right now. Missiles were flying. I lost a lot of sleep because I get notifications when when there's uh intercontinental ballistic missiles flying over, and yeah, as of this recording two nights ago, she there's like lots of videos of a few streets getting demolished by shelling by Russia. So yeah, it's still happening, and because so much is going on in the world that we get so distracted, and a lot of people are suffering.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Yeah, it's very sad, it's very scary. I will keep her and her family, you know, in my thoughts and send all that love and well wishes. And I hope that her travels are easy and safe for her. I know it it's scary, but but man, we have to do it, and um there's gonna be a light, right? Like it this is all gonna break one day somehow. And I think that I have come across people that are really showing kindness and love that I wouldn't necessarily expect. So uh I hope she is as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

It is a difficult topic, and it's also difficult for us not to venture into politics at this juncture. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

And I am trying to stay away from that because I don't want to ever make anyone feel uncomfortable, but it's almost like it's almost like not about politics anymore, it's about morals and values now.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Yeah. I mean, the the truth is that humans are we're so different everywhere. Yeah, what we surround ourselves with and who we surround ourselves with really shapes the way we look at the world. And then we add a layer of like media that is so driven with retention. You know, you sometimes say I have such close friends who have completely different political beliefs as well as reality than I do. And it's kind of crazy to imagine that we see the same thing, but we look at it so differently. But I think the one thing I tell myself is humanity's been through all these before. You know, this is relatively speaking, still one of the most peaceful times in the world, the history of the world, if we go back however thousand many years we want to. And so it's not gonna be the last war, it and we'll survive through this. Maybe a little as you still wake there.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

No, no, but no, but I mean, I think I hate toxic positivity, but I think I don't consider that toxic positivity. I think those are things that we do need to spit out into the universe and we do need to remind each other of. So thank you for having that uh moment with me and and sharing your girlfriend with us. Uh that that's really cool. And I really do hope that she has safe travels and that her family stays safe. So, with that being said, because you'll get me started on topics that uh have nothing to do with what we're here to talk about, we'll be here forever. So tell us about your business.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

So I have an app that helps people make their will. Yeah. But the way I like to describe my company is that we are a storytelling company that happens to do estate planning, right? So what happened was about a year ago, my my mom and I had this conversation about retirement. And what I realized in short is that she had this anxiety around not knowing how her savings translated to the rest of her life. So, me being the techie son that I am and and the curious son, I created like a little chat bot for her. So she used this chatbot for a few months and asked her questions about her life and what she has and her hobbies and things like that. But I realized that if I had all this information about like who you love, what you own, and what do you value in the world, that I can organize this information into a legal document for you. So that's where the concept of the app Airlight is born. What ended up happening though is like a few months after my mom passed, and I realized, you know, I'm so glad that I was building this app because through the process of building this app, I had these conversations with her. And I got to ask her about the things that were important to her. Instead of just like the day-to-day, you know, do we go through the motions and go to brunch and pick up groceries and whatever? Like those are all important life things, but we don't really consciously slow down and ask each other the important things. So I thought, you know what? All the people that look like my mom who avoided estate planning because they thought it was too expensive or too complicated or they weren't rich enough to have estate plans, all the people who just weren't catered to, you know, this um legal document, we can do that in through a conversation with an app. And that's that's what we are, that's what we built.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

That's amazing. And I am ready for you to use me as an example and to lecture me and fuss at me, uh, delete me off Facebook, whatever you need to do, because I am X amount of years old. I never say my. I'm just kidding. No, I I will actually be 45 this year. When my hate crime happened, I was 34. And the intent was to murder me. I but was uh single, I lived by myself, and no one would have had like at that point, you had to use like uh I don't think it was face recognition yet. I think it was just fingerprint or password on your phone. No one would have had any access or no even where to begin on where my bank was, what kind of password I would have if I had insurance, you know, if if I had already paid for my funeral, and I don't have I still to this day don't have a will. And I think it's one of those things where it's where mm. I went through such a traumatic event and was so close to death. That one of the things that I need to learn from it is the fact that I need to have things lined up and ready and accessible. But I feel like when I do it, I'm wishing it into existence. And so I immediately think, okay, well, we'll put this off tomorrow. We'll put this off tomorrow. It's easy to procrastinate on it, but there's not always tomorrow. I the day before someone broke in my house and raped and murdered me, I thought I had forever. Yeah, you know, well, he didn't murder me, but attempted to. I thought I had forever. I can change that quick. And but the fact that I still haven't done it, and then you pop up, I guess your PR person emailed me and I was reading about, you know, was like, here's maybe here's the sign.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Let's diagnose that a little bit. If you had to just guess, what are the top five reasons? So putting it off, I are you so I guess are you afraid of talking about death?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

I'm not necessarily afraid of death. I'm afraid of how I'm gonna die.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

What is your biggest what is it about? Is it a pain thing? It's like you don't want to feel pain.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

I yeah, I I I'm afraid uh of pain. I remember what my body felt like with being a breath away, you know, and in the recovery uh from it physically and mentally. I think that I'm afraid of something happening that's traumatic that I survive again because I don't know if my body can handle that pain or if I even want to handle that pain, and that scares me a little bit. And I'm terrified of cancer. Cancer doesn't run in my family. I uh get my regular testings and checkups. There's no thoughts or signs of anything, but every day I think I have cancer. Like it's it's like and I don't mean to be a hypochondriac with it, I don't really get my head with it that much, but it prevents me from doing the things that are important that could be uh become a burden on my loved ones on my family if I did, if something did happen to me right now, they wouldn't be able to actually just mourn me. They would have to scrape and you know, and figure out where I put passwords, where if I have a lockbox somewhere, you know, like what about my rental property and the people renting from me, you know, like and not be able to just to celebrate my life as a family. And so I feel like not doing it is selfish, and that is sparking me to do it. I'm just not fully there yet, but I think this conversation with you might do that job.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yeah. So to be honest, I think you you should definitely look into getting a trust. You have rental properties, which is something my app doesn't do, by the way. So it's kind of funny. I'm always out there talking to people, and I'm like, you should do something, and we can't do it for you, but you should definitely get a lawyer to do it because it honestly is better for you. What where we come from with the app is we're just trying to get someone who's never thought about it. You clearly thought about this, right? You've kind of considered some things. We just want to help people like start the first conversation with you. I think what resonated with me in what you said was like, I don't want to feel that pain. You know, what if I survive that pain again? And I I don't want to let's not go down that memory lane too far. But but having a healthcare directive or advanced directive essentially gives instructions to the hospital or to the to the healthcare providers to say, if I were to go through X amount of pain, just let me go. Versus, for example, for my mom, we knew very clearly she was in a coma for eight days before she passed. And like when my my siblings, the four of us, and my dad was standing next to her, we knew like if she were to keep alive on a machine, she would not want to be kept alive. And it was so clear to us, and she had a legal document that said that. But the good thing is like she communicated that to us, whereas we didn't have to fight over it because there's been many, many situations where like either parents or husbands, wives, or someone or kids fight over someone who's in a coma of what kind of treatment they should go through. And they all come from a pure place of love, right? They want them to keep going, but they're not sure what that person would have wanted because they can't speak for themselves. And so I think like the things that you know, deaf aside, like just while we're here, what kind of decision can be made on our body? That instruction is I think very motivating for a lot of people. I hate pain. I can't deal with pain. So just you know, if if it's gonna be really painful for more than 24 hours, just let me go. I've lived a good life.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

So right, right, right. Yeah. Well, you know, and and what I want to remember too, uh, is something that I guess I really haven't thought about too deeply until this conversation. But, you know, when you have the DNR, do not resuscitate, this would be a way for me to what a lot of victims slash survivors say is they feel like they've lost control. This would be a way for me to have control, right? Like I'm still gonna have a say-so, whether I'm unconscious or not. So I have that control and the pressure it would take off of my family. My family did not make this decision. I made it for them and they're choosing to respect it, you know, as well as the legal form, the doctors and all that are respecting it. And because I do know of families that one person says, no, let's wait one more day. What if they come to? Well, they're gonna be a vegetable, they're never gonna walk, they don't want to live that kind of life. And then the family ends up breaking up over it because you're trying to make these yeah, and you're trying to make these decisions in a very emotional state, which is going to intensify everything, and most of the time it's not gonna be pretty.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Yeah, it's it's really sad. Now that I'm, I guess I'm in this business, in this industry. You know, I was meeting with a uh owner of a hospice yesterday here in LA, and gosh, the stories are just it's just sad. It can be avoided. And a lot of times everybody's acting to the best that they can out of love, but it's so overwhelming. Emotionally, it's so overwhelming that you know, people just don't, yeah. We there's no playbook for this. And so yeah, that's mostly what I talk to younger people about. It's like, hey, I know maybe you don't think you're gonna die, which probably is fair. You're probably like 25 years old and feel like you're invisible. But it is good to have this clarity because when you think about these things, it's kind of like writing your own eulogy. So I I'm a really strange person. I wrote my eulogy three times now. I'm 34. And my first eulogy when I was 22, 23, I wanted to be famous, I wanted to be respected and all these things, and I wanted X amount of people to come to my funeral because I love admiration, right? Right. And and it's it's all of that. And then I realized when I was 28, I wrote it again. This is during COVID, so many things got stripped away, right? The things that matter kind of shifted. And then I I did that again a few years ago. It essentially boiled down to like a few things. I wanted my siblings to remember me as a brother who was present, who was helpful to them. I wanted my friends to feel like, even if I'm not with them all the time, that when I was there, I was there, right? That I was caring. But beyond that, that's not too much more that I can ask for, right? So I think if we start having these conversations, we end up finding ourselves in a place that feels very grounded. And what I always tell people is like, how could you possibly know what is enough in your lifetime if you don't know where you are today? Yeah. Right. So that would be the financial piece.

unknown 28:45

Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

You know, I haven't ever thought about writing my own eulogy, but I almost wonder if that's something that I kind of want to task myself to. I think that would be very interesting. And and and I like how you've done it several times. You know, every few years you'll do it just to see what has changed, what has progressed, you know, have I gone from the ego side of me to the more like parts of me that I like now, you know, like what what how have I progressed, or maybe went the other direction and need to work on. Damn. Yeah, if you think about a podcast.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Yeah, if you think about podcasts, you're putting yourself out there, right? You're sharing stories, it it's energizing for you. But someone's listening to this and they connect with a story that we're talking about, and it changes the way that they think about one topic, right? That's that's all we're going for. We're trying to make a small little change in someone's life, whether it's like the way they think about it, or the way they show up as a friend to somebody in their relationship. I think like a lot of this inner work, looking inwards, is a sign of maturity. But the more you change actually in your eulogy, it just shows that you're growing. Right. It really doesn't matter what direction it grows. I know for sure it in my 20s, I wanted nothing more to be on 30 and the 30 lists. Right. And then as I get older, I realize okay, it's all paid to play, it's all PR. But all that aside, I finally got to a place where I had to like confront myself and say, why did it matter so much? And the truth is, as an immigrant child who was bullied in the teenage years, I thought that being successful would solve all my problems.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Right. And so everything that I had in my 20s was anchored to that. As long as I'm successful, I'll be loved, I'll be accepted. Right. But yeah, as and as I got older, I just realized none of it mattered. Yeah. I already have all the love that I need. I actually don't really need new friends, even though I love people. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Yeah. I and and I've noticed too that like as I get older, the friends are twinkling away a little bit. And sometimes that's a good thing, you know. Sometimes it's just because of life, but we could call each other and pick right up. But my my friend group is getting a lot smaller, but we're very strong, you know, with with us as a group, you know, as as friends. So there's a different kind of, I guess, lesson in love and respect for that because you know, I used to hear people when I was younger and you know, talking to people my age or older, and they're like, Yeah, the older you get, the more, the fewer friends you have. And it becomes a um quality over quantity. And that was terrifying to me. I was like, I don't know what I would do without 5,000 friends, you know. Um, and I maybe have two right now, and I'm totally fine with that, you know. So it's it's it's interesting to see how things change. So I really want to check out your your app. And so I know that you said that, like, I can't remember exactly how you said it, but something about like it targets maybe like a younger person or someone that hasn't done a lot of thinking about it. I feel like I have done a lot of thinking about it, but the it would be the death, not necessarily the the stuff that we talked about today with finances, you know, estates. And and so that is something that I haven't thought about.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Yeah, so so I think there's so many sides to this planning. There's the let's get a document to essentially say what you want, what you want to happen. And then if once you get that done, there's actually layers of like strategies, tax strategies, inheritance, and and things, you know, that you go into trusts and estate estate lawyers are probably better for that. Our target audience generally is anyone who wants to just like start this conversation. And the reason why, so we don't generate anything with AI. The only AI part of our app actually is the conversation that you have. We needed that because truth be told, we want to do this for Spanish, we want to do the Mandarin, we want to do it for Vietnamese, German, all the languages that we have in this country because a lot of immigrant communities don't get these services, right? They just avoid it altogether. So we want to have that conversation piece so that we can organize all that information and essentially we're helping you fill in a form through a conversation. And what makes us different from something like ChatGPT is Chat GPT will just yes and you with everything. It'll be like, oh, that's great. And what about this? But we're different because we the first question we ask you will be, what state are you in? So that we know the the probate code, the laws of your state, and it will push back on some things. But one thing we cannot do is we cannot give you legal advice, right? So if you ask us uh what's better, this or that, we we can't really give you legal advice because that's not our role. But what we can do is we define everything for you and we define everything as in probably all the best practices out there, and then you get to choose whatever you want to do and we'll explain everything as much as you want to. And crucially, what you know, what I realized when we started the app, I thought that estate planning was a socioeconomic game. I thought that people with money tend to have a lawyer. But what I realized is we have users who definitely have money and they're in their late 50s, but they don't want to talk to a human, so they don't want to go to another human, another grown adult, and say, I don't know what an executor is.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Right. Oh, so you think Black Dark Pride kind of gets in the way?

SPEAKER_01 33:49

I think it's why you think inaction, avoidance, and ego. So yes. So with this app, basically it's like you get to ask it any question, there's no dumb question, and nobody would know if you ask it the dumb question, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Like that or 20. Like there's it's judgment free because I'm sure you all don't have your bots designed to be like, what a stupid question, and you know, and shame them for it. So good job on that.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

The funny thing is we we started off thinking, oh, we should we should kind of be like the Disney tone. We should be very positive. But then what I realized is like, you know what? No, nobody, no adult actually want to be like too Disney because we want to be real about this topics. We want to be like, you know, let's be pushed back a little bit and make sure that it's done properly. And so we we really tune it that it's not yes and everything. We we tune it to push back on things. Uh you know, somebody actually did this. Uh, and I I asked them because we so we do this testing. I get someone to sit in front of me and use the app because I want to know the user experience. And someone's like, okay, when I die, everything that I own will be put into a pool and all my friends will go drive a go-kart. And whoever wins that race of go-kart gets everything. And I was like, we have to make a decision as airlight. Do we allow that? Which we should because we're not giving you legal advice. We're not telling you it's a stupid idea, right? So then do we push back and say, Well, you have to define that all the people driving the go-kart have the same tires, have the same power in the car, and the length and the weight is equal. Do we push back and push the user to define it clearly, or do we just let them do whatever they want? So that's the fine line that we play in all the time because there's very, very fine line as to what is legal interpretation advice and what is just us organizing your thoughts for you.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

I don't think that I'm stupid, but having this conversation with you, there's so much that I just don't know. The thought that goes behind like developing something like this, I would never be like, I would never think that like the whole thing of like, well, are there lawnmowers the same? Do they have the same tires? I'm like, I would never know to think that. Like, uh, I'm glad we have people like you in the world because I can do little. I can do a little, but but definitely not that. So uh thank you. Thank you for being the brain of this operation. So, but but I do respect what you said about the Disney character kind of thing because there have been a few bots or AIs or or systems that I've been a customer of, and it was I cannot stand toxic posity. I've already, you know, kind of mentioned that to you today. And I feel like sometimes there's these bots on there, and and it's all just this toxic positivity that is kind of triggering to me to where I'm like, screw it, fuck it, I'm done. And I and I hang up. So I'm glad. I know that we're getting into a place where there's gonna be a lot of more conversations with robots, AIs, what have you. So I'm glad that it's gonna be as real as it can be versus the one-on-one person interaction versus, you know, like this machine telling me that even on rainy days, the sun is beautiful. Like, I don't need to hear that right now. You know what I mean? So so I have some respect for that.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

We had an ad right now running on Meta, and this ad is the best performing ad. So what I realized was for a very long time we were running these ads that say, protect your loved one, have peace of mind. And what one day one of my friends sat me down and said, Hey, have you seen your ad next to all the other companies' ads? If you swap out your logos, you all sound the same. And I was like, Oh, that's true. So then I realized, okay, what is something that I can say that nobody else can? And the truth is, this came out of unfortunately my mother's death, right? So I ran an ad. We have a few variations that essentially say, I just lost my mom and the paperwork sucked. To make it suck less for the people you love, do this. So I did a variation of these, and there's a few comments in there saying, I'm so sick of these companies preying on our grief, you know. And like I get it, you it's hard to please everybody, sure, but the interesting thing is that this is the ad that resonated the most. Yeah. Right. So because it's the most human and it's not Disney at all. It's like, hey, deaf sucks, make it suck less. Yeah. Right. And so I think I appreciate it. I think that's that that's the game. That's the game. We put ourselves out there, you know. It works for some people, it doesn't work for the others. And to be honest, when you go on the app, it depends on when you sign on. Our it's a varying degree of how we tune it because we're also testing to see what works better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Yeah, I love that. Like that it's so interesting. But you know, what what I have found for myself is it's like I have a pretty decent following. My show does really well, but it's like the interaction that I get is minimal. I'll post something, I'll get a hundred views and one thumbs up. And I'm like, thanks, mom, you know, like thanks, dad. And I'm but then my inbox every day is full. And it's because these are the things that people don't want to talk about out loud on a public platform. And the few things that I do get, if they're negative, I've learned that in a lot of times it's a trauma response. And and I just have to brush it off. So when someone says those things to you, like immediately I thought, like, I wonder if that's some kind of trauma response. Now, with that being said, I've really appreciated this conversation. I'm going to share all the links and anything that you all have sent me or want to send me. But before we start heading out, I want to make sure. Did we get to talk about all the highlighted points that that you wanted to touch on? I don't want I know that we had a bit of a longer intro than normal, but just because conversation happened, it was lovely. So I just want to make sure that we get that we get to cover everything. It doesn't matter if we go over.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Yeah, I'm curious, you know, if there's something I can share that would help, if a good story, um I I'm happy to share anything. I I also don't need to be pushing the app super hard. I think if the story resonates, people will go to it. This is kind of my philosophy. In fact, I even I think I just told you to go get an attorney to make a trust. Right. And I I really do think that the rising tides raises all boats in the industry and industry, I'm gonna just call it humanity, right? Like we all need this. Yeah, and I think more conversations out there, the better. Uh the the truth is, like our quote unquote competitor, the biggest one, only has so few customers and they've been doing it for so long. And I just think that we are a storytelling company because of that. It's like our can we tell a compelling enough story to get someone to do something? And my story, unfortunately, fortunately, is just the fact that I felt so I feel so grateful that I got to spend this time with my mom talking about the app, the person who's who's my rock, who's the most certain thing in my life. And because of building this app, I got to hang out with her and talk about some really deep topics that we sometimes just don't get to. And I am if Erlite, if nothing ever happens to Erolite, I'm already super grateful. But I know, I know that there's, I mean, I hear it from my users, and it one thing that really sucks about our testimonials is we can't really share the face and the story because people don't want to put themselves out there. And so I I get to like share and change the name a little bit. So if something resonated, you know, I I would really hope that someone would take a step. And it doesn't have to be a legal form today. It can actually be a journal, you know, to sit down and write down what's important to you. What are some things that makes you happy? And you'll try to do more of that. And then once you get thinking about that, once you journal about things like that, you start thinking about what do I want to protect? Yeah. And it doesn't have to be things. It's sometimes they're people, they're just people that you care so much about, and you just don't want them to go through um going to a probate court, which is like the worst thing ever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Yeah. I mean, I guess that's what sticks with me the most is if something happened to me right now, like I don't have children, I don't have a partner. Luckily, I do still have both of my parents, and I have one grandparent left. But, you know, I have a brother with some nephews, but I I wouldn't want them to have to spend time wondering, are they making the right decision? Am I rolling over in my grave, which I want to be cremated? But you know, for the for the for the saying of it, you know, like I I want to relieve that from them. And so I just really appreciate this conversation. I think that's something that I personally needed because I do think it's funny. And one thing that I do respect and appreciate about you, there was I think uh there was like three different times you're like, well, maybe my app's not for you, but you know what I mean? And so you're not shoving it down anyone's throat, you know. Um, but you I have to talk about it and promote it. But you could have told me right now, well, for $10 a month, David, give me your credit card. I'd probably be like, okay, buddy, you know, and giving it to you and charge me whatever, but just because I sometimes I'm not that smart. But I'm just kidding. But but no, I really appreciate this conversation. It really has me thinking, and and I think the thought that I did not have until today is it's another way of me to have control, which has been a battle of mine since I felt like I lost control from the attempt to murder, right? And so, so every day I think, how can I be in control of this? How can I have my voice and my say-so in it? And and so I think that has been a bit of my motivation. Now, as we both know, I am no genius, but what could be cool is I would almost like, because sometimes I do need the person that I'm talking to or the AI that I'm talking to, sometimes I need to be very matter-of-the-and sometimes I do need things to be a little cushioned, you know, like because I know that I'm emotional or whatever. I would love, and maybe not necessarily your app, but just generally, like I would love to be able to pick that option. Like, do I want to talk to a female about this that's gonna be motherly, or do I want to talk to the a female that is gonna be very headstrong, very legal, very matter-of-fact, like bitch, get up and do this kind of thing? Or do I need like a father figure and let me pick what tone I need because of the topic that I'm dealing with? That's probably a lot more though.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

No, we actually tested this. So really, yeah. The first version, I think four months ago, we when you come in, the first thing we ask you is how quickly do you want to get this done? So today, tomorrow, or I don't know, right? And I don't know, it's kind of a little bit like wandering. We'll walk you through holding your hand through this wonderland of questions and things like that. And then the today, it's just A, B, answer question, answer question, answer question. So I realize maybe this is a little bit of a stereotypical thing, but a lot of heterosexual men, to I just qualify that, want a to-do list. Like they want to see something to check off the list, right? And more women than not want to have a conversation, they want to ask clarifying subjective things. So I think it it's so that that is the beautiful thing about humans. We're all so different. It's so subjective.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Well, and I think about it too, like when you know, when when my attack happened, one of the things that Tennessee did is um I get lifetime of free therapy, right? And but I told them I cannot be locked up in a room, even though I make it sound like I'm being forced into something, but that's what it felt like kind of. And but it was like I cannot be closed in with a straight white man, you know, because that's that's who hurt me. And I and I think everyone straight white and has a penis wants me dead, you know. Uh luckily I I got past that. But we found the the therapist, the the female therapist that got me to a lovely place to where I started seeing a male therapist and ended up being a part of a sexual assault group therapy for men, you know, and so seeing that progression was so so so I I I that's why I think it's so important for us to be able to say this is the kind of person I need to speak with. And I'm not gonna lie to you, there have been times I've had to call Xfinity, and I can tell by the way someone's answered the phone that I don't want to have to deal with that I'm not gonna like them, they're not gonna like me. I will hang up and call back until I get a gay man or a black woman. When it comes to Xfinity, those are the two that I like. So that's but that's funny that uh uh and interesting that you all have already tested this out. So do you mind if I ask what you found with the testing?

SPEAKER_01 45:06

Uh you know, so it depends on what angle you come in, right? If you're a new parent, that's an ad you saw, you come into us, you have very different psychology, right? It's so, so, so different. Everybody's so different. And honestly, it's something we're struggling with. I get about one conversion every 100 demo accounts. And I there's no possible way for me to know very clearly why these demo accounts, based on demographic psychographic, are converting better with what kind of voice. There's a lot of matching of data here. So, yeah, this is something that we're continuing to iterate on. I love that. And like, even for myself, like I if I'm in a good mood, I want to talk to a different kind of person. So I had a very I had a very, very long conversation with this woman from Detroit, so Midwest, a black woman who's we just laughed about the fact that my name is Black for like, I don't know, at 30 minutes nonstop. We talked about the Jackson 5 because I'm named after Jermaine. Germaine, Jermaine is a super black name.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Right. Well, yeah, yeah. I was thinking of last name. I was like, did I mess up your last name? Because I was thinking of saying your last name is black. I was like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Yeah, and and like her reaction to my black name was completely different from somebody else. And and like a white person would never come up to be and be like, Do you have a black name? Because it's kind of weird for them to do that, but actually maybe it's not because it's it's like a 99% black name. Right. And yeah, I think Hugh that that's like our the way we see the world is so inherited by like our values or where we're from and our family and like all the things that happen to us in our lifetime that it's so hard to predict what works. And so we'll do our best, you know. What we'll keep trying, we'll keep trying different ways of getting the message across, the stories across. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

I'm excited to follow. I mean, I see your passion, I hear it in your voice. Um, I see the way you kind of light up when you're talking about it. And and uh, and so I love and respect that. So I can't wait to follow uh or continue to follow and learn. So okay, I have one more last question and then we can start seeing ourselves out. So when you have someone like me who would, when you first when the app first asked me today, tomorrow, or I don't know, I never pick I don't know. I would never pick today. So I would go with the happy medium of tomorrow, but tomorrow would be loosely in my mind, right? And so I'm sure it's kind of like at your own pace. It kind of just saves as you do things. I am afraid that with this topic that I would easily put on the back burner. So do you have like notifications? Do you have like things that come up and it's like you've not logged in in two days, we still need to do this. Get up off that couch and go pace up and down your damn driveway and log in and fill out this shit, David. Like, do you have little things like that?

SPEAKER_01 47:38

Yeah, we we certainly do. And one thing that you know we we don't see, so we don't see your messages, it's all encrypted, but the AI categorizes where you drop off. So let's say we if we ask you a question about a guardianship of a child and that's where you stop answering, or that's when things take a long time to answer, the AI is gonna detect that and tell us that this person stopped around the guardianship question, or this person stopped around the healthcare directive organ donorship question. Right. And so we try to figure out where you stop and maybe send you a notification to kind of bring you back to the topic. And so we're thinking about like what kind of stories can we tell to you specifically based on that profile. And these are the things that as we get more users, uh, we we get to learn more. And sometimes we've actually had a user come in and diagnose and really walk through her entire conversation with us. She's like, Oh, I want it, I want to say something about childcare. And she wanted something really specific. For some reason, we couldn't, we didn't get it right for her. And so she's like, Yeah, let's she screen shares everything. So we're like walking through all these things. So we're learning about people's behavior when it comes to this topic.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

And we try to categorize people into a few why we put it off, and because it's it is so subjective and it is also a little bit seasonal, right? Like when you come to winter time where it's holiday season, people are starting to think about family a little bit more. It's a little bit different when it comes to summer. Summertime, parents who are very adventurous are gonna go, let's say, hike Mount Everest or something like that, track Mount Everest. And we try to remember that that people with this profile of being adventurous, they may want to set up some things before they leave for the track. Right, right. So we try to like remember that. And so these are the things that are really fun through conversations. We learn about folks, and yeah, it's it's very inspiring, actually. Uh, I've I've talked to a lot of very thoughtful people about what they want, and yeah, I just feel very inspired. And I just know that whatever I'm doing now at some point is just gonna help a lot of families, it's gonna help a lot of people hold on to relationships that probably would have been difficult when it comes to death.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Yeah. Absolutely. And as we're saying goodbye, I want to say that you know, I I've really enjoyed this conversation, all of it. We we've been kind of all over the place, and I love that this is exactly what I want this show to be. But I love that your mom, you have such a lovely memory with her on building something that is gonna help so many other people, and um, and that there's a lovely memory with her attached to the success this is gonna be. I just think that is so cool. And I've really enjoyed this conversation. You made the task of what I need to do not seem so scary. Uh, so thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

You're welcome. I'm gonna send you a video that I just published. Okay. It was the time where I went back to Oklahoma with my mom. So my parents came to the US through Oklahoma, and we went back to the first place she ever had her first meal in the United States. And I'm gonna send that video to you because you know, through these conversations, I realized she really wanted to go back to Oklahoma to see how things have changed in 40 years. And so we went back, I filmed the whole thing, the video is out now, and I'll send it to you. Yeah, I would love that.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Yeah, yeah, so I would absolutely love that. Well, I'm gonna share all the links. If anything else, I always tell people that this is not a we hit end and the relationship's over. You know, like if there's anything that, you know, new or progression that comes that you would like to share with my listeners, I will always share it on my social media. Um, uh, you know, so feel free to send anything um and everything. And I can't wait to see that video. Thank you so much for being here. And do you want to tell us the best place to find you and follow for any updates or is it the website?

SPEAKER_01 51:10

Airlight is at h e i r l i g h t dot com. I am a one of one germaine e. My last name is just two E's. So when you search the internet, it is me. I don't think there's anyone else with this combo. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Yeah, and like I said, I'm gonna share everything. So, man, thank you so, so much. I appreciate you sharing all this with us and um and let's stay in touch.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

Yeah, thank you for having me. It's been really enjoyable.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

Yeah, absolutely. All right, have a great night. And um, and I will email you all and let you all know the release date and the promo videos and stuff that I put together. Um we are a little usually like four to six weeks scheduled in advance or recorded in advance. So uh uh, but I'll keep you posted with all that. And you're in Tennessee, Tennessee, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

Very cool. Okay, I don't think we're live in Tennessee yet. I we're live in 12 states right now because every state that I go to, I have a really big legal bill because I need to make sure that the output, the will, is fully compliant with the state.

SPEAKER_00 52:01

Oh wow, you're right. Yeah, so yeah, do we think about that? Yeah, I'm in Knoxville, which if you don't know where that's at, I'm I'm like two or two to three hours away from like Nashville.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

Yeah, I I know where Knoxville is. Uh my actually, my law, my main lawyer's mom lives at Knoxville.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Oh wow, yeah, yeah. I live close to the campus, so I'm down in like the university, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So very cool. Very cool, yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Well, have a great weekend.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

Yeah, you too. And I appreciate everything. We'll be in touch.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Sounds good. Sounds good. Yeah, I'll be in my office too this weekend. So if you message me, I'll be around.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Perfect. Sounds great, man. I'll talk to you soon. All right, bye. Goodbye, buddy.