Justin's Podcast
Dive into the captivating world of extraordinary individuals with "Interesting People," the podcast where host Justin Wallin sits down with some of the most intriguing personalities from all walks of life. Each episode unravels the unique stories, challenges, and triumphs of guests who have made remarkable impacts in their fields or led fascinating lives. From trailblazing innovators and inspiring artists to unsung heroes and enigmatic personalities, Justin brings you candid conversations that reveal the human spirit's endless capacity for wonder and achievement. Tune in for thought-provoking interviews, surprising revelations, and a celebration of the diverse tapestry of human experience.
Justin's Podcast
Civic and Eco-Literacy with Charles Ellison
Can understanding civic literacy really transform our society? Join us in a compelling conversation with Charles Ellison, an award-winning public affairs expert and educator, as we unpack the formula of protest plus politics plus public policy equaling tangible outcomes. We dive deep into the necessity of grasping how government functions and the pivotal role of good governance in ensuring societal well-being. Charles sheds light on how civic education can bridge divides, boost civic engagement, and the critical importance of self-education to nurture a well-informed and proactive citizenry.
But that’s not all. This episode also tackles the profound impact of eco-literacy on urban communities. Through personal stories and eye-opening observations, we explore how tree cover and green spaces can drastically influence public safety and livability, especially in marginalized areas. Highlighting the disparities shaped by historical and current public policies, we discuss how environmental initiatives in cities like Philadelphia can enhance quality of life and curb violent crime. We also emphasize the importance of effective communication in galvanizing community engagement and driving policy changes. Don't miss this episode packed with insights on creating safer, healthier, and more equitable urban environments.
Welcome to Interesting People, the podcast where we delve into the lives and stories of fascinating individuals from all walks of life. I'm your host, justin Wallen, and in each episode we bring you inspiring, thought-provoking and sometimes surprising interviews with people who are making an impact in their fields and communities. There's only one common thread that the world is more interesting because of them. Get ready to be inspired, entertained and enlightened as we spotlight the extraordinary. Let's dive in. I am joined today by my good friend, charles Ellison.
Speaker 1:Charles has a long vitae and I'm going to go through some of it, but the reality is there's just too much good stuff to cover it all. But Charles is an award-winning veteran public affairs expert, clients for mayors, state legislators, members of Congress, and he's principal and chief strategist of BE Strategy, his own firm 2024 awards finalist, based in the DC region. Founding publisher of thebenotecom he's got a whole litany of awards. He's a 2023 Emerson Collective Climate Pivot Fellow. He's a senior fellow at the Smart Services Coalition, naacp's Leadership 500 Award, top 40 Under 40 at Washington DC Award recipient. Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists Print Journalist of the Year nominee. And he has a lot of years on top of that behind him in radio broadcasting. In fact, that's how we met. I had the distinctly good pleasure of joining him several times on Word Radio on his show Reality Check over the years, and it's a great pleasure to have you on today, charles. Thanks for joining.
Speaker 2:Hey, it's a pleasure to be with you, justin. Thanks so much, really appreciate it. I'm honored.
Speaker 1:Well, we've got a whole bunch of things to talk about today, but we have two kind of big themes that I wanted to dig in, and the first is civic literacy, which I know are core to you and your work and you personally. So I want to talk a lot about that a little bit, and starting off with what is civic literacy and why does it matter, you know it's a good question and, starting off with, you know what is civic literacy and why does it matter?
Speaker 2:You know it's a good question and we're at this major inflection point, right, as a country, as a society, you know, especially as we're going through this really contentious, caustic election year, and so I don't think that there's enough conversation about the amount of civic literacy that we have in our community or in our collective community as an American nation, right, and so civic literacy to me is, I like to describe as a formula of the three P's equals O. You know it's a combination of protest politics, public policy and outcomes. I have this mathematical formula that I like to use and I like to recite quite frequently, particularly to my students P plus P plus P equals O. You can't have any real outcomes, any tangible outcomes, functional outcomes to make a society work, unless you have a combination of what first starts off as that protest demand plus the political action to kind of bring that to fruition. You know you've got to elect, you know, certain candidates, you have to elect certain people who can carry out those demands and then, once they're elected, folks who can shape and form public policy, to then get you those tangible outcomes. And those outcomes are all about, at the end of the day, Justin, governance, I mean.
Speaker 2:And so having good civic awareness and civic literacy.
Speaker 2:You know, knowing how government operates, how we as a society function, how all of the different luxuries, all of the different amenities we enjoy, how you know how we're able to put food on the table and roofs over our head and clothes on our back. You know that's all as a result of just governance and good, functional governance. And so, in order to get to that point of good governance, you got to know how all of that works. You have to be aware of it first, you have to be educated in that and I think, beyond this crisis that we're having in terms, you know, there's a lot of conversation, Justin. You and I have had this before. You have it a lot. There's a lot of conversation about polarization and red versus enough literacy, about civics not knowing how civics operates and not being. And then, when they're not knowing how civics operates, when they're not understanding how good governance functions, how we as a society functions, they're not really being civically engaged, and then suddenly we start seeing a breakdown in the way that we communicate and relate to one another.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think you're absolutely not that I'm the arbiter of all things brilliance, but I think you're absolutely dead on target. You're an educator of all things uh, brilliance, but I think you're absolutely dead on target. Um, you're, you're an educator, uh, you. You teach people. You have taught people over the course of your career.
Speaker 1:When you, when you're talking about this, what springs to mind is is, when we're thinking about that particular kind of education, about civics, is, what is it to study and who to study? Because you, a number of us, have been fortunate enough to have education in civics from here to there, and those are in schools or in otherwise classes, and that's fantastic, it's tremendous. But there are other ways to educate ourselves. Right, we can educate ourselves independently about what we read, about what we ourselves to. If, if you were to spend a couple of minutes with someone who has the drive, you know they're, they're, they're driven for change, and that's a beautiful thing, being driven to take action, but it but principled action, action that one you know is based through, through thought and reason and and all the noble things, even if we disagree is based in the things that matter, right and to good effect. What would you point them to in the what and the how?
Speaker 2:Thank you for that. So first, I think it pays to be an avid reader. To be an avid reader, you know, one of the reasons why we have such low levels, or dangerously low levels, of civic literacy, justin, is because we also have such dangerously low levels of reading literacy in this country. A lot of people aren't aware that the majority of Americans can't read. This is the majority of American adults now cannot read beyond a sixth to eighth grade level. This is like 55 percent of Americans.
Speaker 1:I did not know that, I had no idea.
Speaker 2:That's a big problem, that's a crisis.
Speaker 2:You know we often talk about. You know there's often a lot of conversation about well, you know there's there's obviously a STEM crisis. We need more people in the math and mathematics and science, and you know we need more people in those fields. Well, they're not going to be able to operate in those fields. They don't know how to read first, and so, you know, people aren't aware of how to access that information because they can't really independently function in any way when it comes to just reading beyond a certain level, beyond a certain grade level. That's a problem. So one you've got to be an avid reader. So in order to be in, you know, to be the type of person who's able to collect this type of information, this type of sophisticated information on what's happening in the public affairs arena, in the political space. You've got to be able to read and access all sorts of information from a variety of sources. You and I both know that, particularly in the type of business that we're in. But you don't have to be a public affairs professional or political practitioner to do that. But you know, you don't have to be a public affairs professional or political practitioner to do that. And then, being an avid reader, plus being a good neighbor, you know, being someone who loves to engage your local, it comes really down to your local community and you know, trying to find out exactly. Okay, this is what's happening in my community. This is how I can engage in it better, this is how I can make it better, this is how I can make it a much more livable space.
Speaker 2:And getting to know those neighbors and getting to know those different organizations, particularly on the grassroots level, that are doing that kind of work on issues that are important to you, whether those are issues surrounding public safety or issues surrounding the state of schools and your local community, or organizations working on the state of the environment, for example.
Speaker 2:So you know, all depends on kind of what your wheelhouse is or what your own personal or familial concern is. Like you and your family have sat around the kitchen table or the dining room table and have discerned or determined hey, this is what's important to us. And so, after determining that, you know, then you know you become that avid reader and that avid researcher you know, then you know you become that avid reader and that avid researcher. And then you also become that avid neighbor, you know, that person who you know is one always looking forward to treating their neighbors well, but getting to know their neighbors better, getting to know their community better and learning ways in which to engage that community in really constructive ways. And I think that that's really a formula community in really constructive ways. And I think that that's really a formula. That's a beginning or a starting formula for success and how we transition from civic literacy, which is awareness about that political space and that public affairs arena, to civic, to really good, constructive civic engagement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think sage advice there's two things has a lot to unpack there. But two things leapt at me. One, the importance of a curious mind and twin to that is talking to people. Right, you're just actually speaking to folks, your neighbors and so forth, and when those things are entwined and and you know I'm I do view the world through rose tinted glasses.
Speaker 1:I am an optimist, but I'm an avid believer in talking to everyone, including the people that you really don't agree with and, in fact, people that you may think just reflexively, distastefully about, because I found and this isn't universal, I mean, sometimes you walk away and you're kind of like, huh, you know, my hunch was right, but a lot of times you come back and you think, you know, I still don't agree with their conclusions, but I understand what's going into the sausage, I understand why they're thinking, why they think and and it opens my eyes and I realized I didn't actually understand the situation and there's more to it and I think that's valuable, right, what do you think? I mean it's it's you know we talked about, we started the conversation talking about the polarized world and it's increasingly polarized, but there's opportunity to talk in between those things, right?
Speaker 2:There is. There's all sorts of opportunities to first, like you said, to be curious. I mean, so we should be infinitely curious, always curious about the world around us. I mean, it's such a fascinating, complex world, right, and there's so much going on with it, good things and bad things, so you know what's stopping us from learning more about it. So you know, the more we learn about it, the more we learn in terms of how we adjust to it and then we adjust to changes in it. But you know one being curious.
Speaker 2:But you know two also communication is really key here.
Speaker 2:Two also communication is really key here, you know, and so, like you're not going to be able to be as engaged as you'd like to be or as you think you can be, you're not going to be able to navigate effectively in this kind of space or in this kind of world if you're not learning how to communicate, or if you don't know how to communicate, or if you're having all sorts of problems, or if you have a problem due to once again we go back to that lack of literacy, that lack of engagement you're having problems.
Speaker 2:You're having problems interacting or interfacing with people who come from a different background or who come from a different perspective, such as you. So, and I and you know the. The other thing is reconciling the. The literacy problem helps us. It helps us not just learn more about the complex world around us and learn more about different perspectives and different cultures and different backgrounds, but it helps us to, to, to better engage them and to and to, and to get into constructive collaborations with, with them, which which leads us to being you know once again, which leads us into building a better community and a better society.
Speaker 1:The other theme and there's a couple of things to talk about. The other big theme that we were going to cover today is eco-literacy, and I have a suspicion that a lot of folks don't know what that is. I don't know, as I know exactly what it is. I do know that one of your articles that I read it's a couple of years old but it resonated with me in the number of different places that I've lived and you're making a distinct point about it and I really would love to hear the elaboration on it.
Speaker 1:But one was tree cover in an urban environment and how that has a distinct impact on a community and even the harder edges of things in a community.
Speaker 1:It can have an impact on things like murder rates, really challenging hurdles that communities have to deal with and that typically are viewed through the lens of law and order. And you know, when I read that article it resonated with me because I'm a human being and, like all human beings, I immediately associate it with what I think. I'm fallible, like everybody else, but having lived in a lot of places in my life, I've seen a distinct change between distinct differences between very similar communities. When there is a dearth of vegetation, especially trees with cover Right and those that have really comprehensive tree cover, and it is remarkable, they can be the same to all intents and purposes they look the same, the population construct is the same and so forth, but there's a different feel and it may be just one very small aspect of echoliteracy, but that really stuck with me and I want to talk a little bit about that and how it became important to you.
Speaker 2:You know, it's really interesting how you pointed that out, you know, and not just a different feel either, but different results and different outcomes for residents in those communities. Different results and different outcomes in terms of life trajectories, in terms of where people end up, and this is all the result of bad public policy. And so what another colleague or another friend of mine, he likes to term as ecological apartheid, that's happened over decades of just bad public policy designing. You know that started off with actual legal segregation, particularly in the South. You know it's a history we don't often like to bring up or broach, but it's something that we do have to acknowledge, is something that happened in America and we want to make sure that we don't want to go back to that particular history. The structuralization of particular communities based on their race, and then, you know, confining them to different areas or displacing them into areas based on the, you know, based on their race, but, you know, in areas or specific parts of a city or an urban core that aren't particularly livable, and I had to live through that. I actually lived through that experience, actually, and this is why this topic of ecoliteracy is so important to me, because I lived through that contrast and that was why I started to get into that particular topic quite a bit.
Speaker 2:As over as over the years I started remembering as a child and then as a teenager, and I got this opportunity while I grew up in North Philadelphia and I was going to Philadelphia public schools for a while, which was a terrifying experience. But then I got this opportunity to go to an elite private school predominantly white private school right outside of Philadelphia. Got a full scholarship to go to an elite private school, predominantly white private school right outside of Philadelphia. Got a full scholarship to go there. But I had to take mass transit from my home, from my community, which had issues and challenges that it was dealing with every day. But I take mass transit from that community every day to that elite private school and this wealthy upper middle class to upper class, predominantly white Philadelphia suburb, tree canopy, also all sorts of you know, very disturbing urban planning and design that was happening in my community that was forcing people to live a certain way, but it was viewed as acceptable by policymakers and even, to a degree, by the people who lived there.
Speaker 2:Well, this is just the way we live, this is just the way it is, and then going out to those suburbs where that school was and where there's plentiful, bountiful tree canopy, it's green everywhere, it's clean, the housing is also spacious, they're able to keep cool during the summers, they're able to keep warm during the winters, it's a livable environment. It was also a balanced environment and that was viewed as acceptable. And even to this day, you know, you still have those contrasts in place, those stark differences, and I just believe that there is something fundamentally wrong and twisted about that. You know an environment or the type of environment you know should, you know that people live in should not determine their life trajectory. And you know also, you know there are ways to fix those or reverse those types of bad public policy decisions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely right. Environments make an enormous difference, right, they just do, and when we think about them, it makes sense, and I encourage anyone who hasn't traveled throughout their particular community to do so. Drive around, see what the differences are between different parts of the community, and there are usually commonalities that seem simple, right? A lack of tree canopy, a lack of tree cover, a lack of parks, a lack of gathering places like that that are natural and encouraging of interaction with your fellow man. These things matter, and the absence of them makes a profound effect on the folks who live there.
Speaker 2:And what we're finding too. This is actual research that's went into this, justin, and what we're finding is that these you know these types of issues eco-literacy, or issues surrounding the environment or surrounding climate they intercycle with other issues that are important to people. So you know the amount of tree canopy, how green a space or community is, the amount of parks, the number of vacant lots in a particular area that determines the level of public safety or not in your community. That can determine how much crime you have in the community or not. So if you have excess tree canopy, you're actually going to have much less violent crime.
Speaker 2:You know, if you're able to eliminate all of the vacant space or vacant lots in a neighborhood and turn them into urban farms or green spaces this has been scientifically proven you're actually you're not only creating educational opportunities for young people to. You know to be able to like okay, well, hey, I can learn how to like farm, or I can learn how to grow food in an urban environment, vacant lots, and build those green spaces, but that's also another way, another approach or another model to use to dramatically reduce violent crime. Or you know to you know to take any available, any available residential roofing space or available abandoned commercial roofing space, and you know create it. You know create it into an opportunity where you can build community solar panels on top of those roofs that are available too between the tree canopy. Also the removing vacant lots and turning them into green spaces and also creating green spaces, et cetera.
Speaker 2:That can actually dramatically decrease or reduce urban heat island effects by anywhere from five to 10 degrees, so you can actually cool your city or cool a certain space or section of a city down by five to 10 degrees. And then that helps with crime rates. That dramatically reduces crime rates. It dramatically reduces crime rates because people aren't as hot and they're not as bothered. You know, heat does, oh, does aggravate, it does trigger crime, and violent crime especially. But also it creates. It creates all sorts of educational and economic opportunities, from jobs to the creation and growth of small businesses.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. I know I'm oversimplifying it, but it's. It does sound similar in many ways to you know, the the fabric of health care and medicine. Right, there's, there's triage, and in in the world specifically of community safety, a tremendous amount of attention is given to triage, which is really public safety oriented. Right, it's. It's, it's the law and order component of, of of, you know, preventing uh crime in the immediate uh uh moment, when it's about to happen. Uh, you know, presumably solving crimes, you know those sorts of things. It's, it's the the law and order component. But there's much more to it, right, just like our own health isn't just responsive to key inflection points in our lives that can be traumatic, it's all the things leading up to it. Have we created an environment where we are best set up to be healthy? And all of those factors, as you mentioned, there are this, there are scientific uh um studies that have shown direct correlations in a community, just like there are within our bodies with uh, with the way that we uh, we have inputs there. That's right.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's fascinating.
Speaker 2:All of this is all of this is, you know, interrelated and intersecting. And, uh, you know, you know none of the it's. You know, I think that that's you know. You know none of it's. You know, I think that that's. You know something that, like you know, particularly environmental advocates or organizations, advocates, various interest groups who work on environmental climate issues, constant conversations that we're having, you know, either behind the scenes or having out in public about, like, how do you persuade the broader public that environmental issues, that issues like climate crisis, climate change, that climate, that issues like ecological apartheid or eco-literacy are really important or truly important issues? And part of the problem is is that they're not messaging it well, they're not talking about issues like that as they relate to people's other concerns, because, you know, most families are really, you know, when you think about it, at the end of the day, most individuals, most families are worried about making ends meet. They're worried about, you know, making rent or making the mortgage. They're worried about, you know, making. They're worried about food prices, right, you know they're worried about, you know how to, how to just kind of keep going from day to day. So, like, how did those quality of life issues? How did they? How are they influenced by these? You know, by these big and very crucial environmental issues, these, these spatial issues that we're talking about, and they're they are influenced in very big ways. But you know, what's been happening is that there's been this huge disconnect that's been going on for some time now between environmental movements, climate movements, and you know they're trying and rightfully so, you know they're trying to tell people hey, listen, you know there's this big crisis that's going on you need to pay attention to in terms of the environments we live in, in terms of the deterioration of the environments we live in. We need to get, we really need to put some pressure on policymakers to do something about this stat. But you know, the broader public is like well, like, this has nothing to do with me. You know, I'm just average. You know, either working class or middle class, jane and Joe just trying to get by, and so what does this have to do with me? Well, you know one thing that I did now real quick just I don't want to take up too much, I want to get to your next question. But this is a real important point.
Speaker 2:You know, I experimented with this type of messaging when I was on broadcast radio in Philadelphia for several years and started talking about environmental issues in the context of day-to-day quality of life issues that people were dealing with in urban Philadelphia, you know.
Speaker 2:So you know I didn't just talk about, oh, you need to plant more trees to, you know, to get cooler.
Speaker 2:I talked once I started talking about, you know, because at the time, that article that you read at the, the time when I was talking about the benefits of tree canopy and removing vacant lots and repairing old, abandoned homes and various approaches of that sort, philadelphia was going through one of the worst violent crime waves that it had ever experienced in its history.
Speaker 2:And so once I started talking about the, when I, when I combined all of those strategies into one and said, hey, listen, you can, you can flex here and you can reduce violent crime by anywhere from 80 to 90%, people started listening and they demanded that. They demanded that for mayoral candidates, and you know what happened the mayoral candidate then ended up winning the current mayor of Philadelphia. She immediately started instituting clean and green policies throughout the city of Philadelphia because of that demand from those audiences from that constituency who was like we want this too, because I'm like, hey, listen, they have this in some of the better, wealthier places in Philadelphia and in suburban Philadelphia, and they're not dealing with high crime rates, so you can get the same thing too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that because it goes right back to how we first started civic literacy. And how do you affect change? Well, I mean, the first thing is you have to meet people where they are right, and if you're talking about an issue, then you have to frame it somehow. You have to make that connection between this issue and people's everyday lives and the things that they're talking about around their dinner table every day. That's the only way that you punch through right.
Speaker 2:That is exactly the only way you punch through, that's the only way that you're going to get people to listen.
Speaker 2:And you know, once again, that's one of the fundamentals of civic literacy and civic engagement. So, and realizing that, you know also I mean in a really in a somewhat peculiar way, but a very practical way, I mean, we all want the same thing. You know, we just want better quality of life, we just want better living, we all want what's best for our families, for our kids. So, and that's not a bad thing, right, that's not a bad thing, right, that's not a bad thing, and that's not something that we all, at the end of the day, we all should have to compete with each other for. You know, we should all want that collectively, as a community. So we operate better and we function better as a community. So then we govern better as a community, we reach better governing outcomes. So, you know, we reach that through, you know, through that civic literacy model. So you know. So it's not just about like, you know once again, you know, eco literacy is not so much about the environment, it's really it's about like okay, it's about how do we achieve an optimal way of living, how do we achieve a better, stronger quality of life. You know, how do we achieve, how do we build, how do we sustain ourselves in livable spaces? Once you start talking about it from that vantage point, people listen. And I, you know, I, was amazed that vantage point, people listen, I was amazed by the results of that experiment and I was amazed that it was having an influence.
Speaker 2:I started noticing chatter in the city council and then I started noticing the influence, the impact that it was having on a mayoral race. And then and then, suddenly, you know, the person who ended up being mayor was first thing she, she rolled out was like I'm going to do a whole new clean and green thing in Philadelphia, cause, you know, philadelphia has that reputation for not being, you know, the most pleasant of cities. So it had, in fact it has a nickname called filthy Delphia and she's like you know no longer. And so she's like no, I'm really going to go aggressively on cleaning up. That was the other thing, that was one of those other strategies. Clean up Like just keep it clean as you're greening, clean, you know, collect all this trash. And it really resonated with the various constituent communities in that city and then people noticed, so and it, you know, and it also ended up ended up triggering some other future relationships down the line.
Speaker 2:Some other organizations were interested in that work that I was doing, so it's definitely an experiment worth expanding on and, you know, and seeing where we go with it. But going back to our original conversation, that literacy component just regular literacy is key so people are just able to, in a structured way, feed people's curiosity and help people communicate better. And then civic literacy is key, you know, so people were able to engage better as a put the type of instant and essential demands on policymakers that are needed, and so, and yeah, and that ego literacy is needed, because that ego literacy is really about, like you know, just how do we achieve better quality of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're critically important things and they can be wielded to powerful effect. I have one more question and I know you're busy and, if I may impose on one final question before we close, this has been great. You know, charles, I could talk to you for hours. That's the challenge. I have to block off the whole afternoon and I'd be perfectly happy with it the next four hours. I'm thrilled. We've been talking a lot about health, of communities. What about you? Do a million different things, plus you've got a wonderful family. What do you do to maintain your health, to make sure that you're centered, that you too are giving yourself everything you need to to be able to do all these things and to do them well and to do them healthfully?
Speaker 2:You know I learned about the importance of balance in a really frightening way and you know about this really, and this is all public information now, but I learned about it in a really frightening way. Over a year ago I had a violent seizure on air while I was on air broadcasting and found out, or discovered the hard way that I had that I have adult onset epilepsy. And so you know there were some issues, there were some challenges that I was going through that I wasn't even aware of. I wasn't maintaining or striving for enough balance in my life. You know balance between. You know like you know that fundamental balance between work and you know just relaxation, work and spending time with family. And so you know for me, you know what's really important. I mean family had always been important, but you know you always have to make sure that you're striking that balance, you know, always between work and family, always understanding that family comes first.
Speaker 2:You know I had been on a grinding schedule up until that point of nonstop broadcast radio, three hours a day on a public affairs radio show for about seven years. That was a lot, and so at a certain point it had become, it had become less enjoyable and it had become. It had really started to become more of you know, more of a grind, and so when you reach that point, it's time for reflection. You have to be really honest with yourself. Honest reflection and understand you know one.
Speaker 2:You need to institute immediately some form of balance. You need to have sit down and have a conversation. If you have one, sit down and have a conversation with your significant other or your family about hey, this is how I'm feeling, this is what's going on, and they can help you sort that out and plan that balance, or you're going to have to walk away from it, and that's what I ended up doing. After that violence, I mean, this seizure literally almost took my life. In fact, my wife literally saved my life, rushed me to the hot sheet and my daughter just happened to be home. I was in a home studio and they rushed me to the hospital, saved my life. I was in the hospital for three weeks after that, you know, going through tests, and they finally found out I had epilepsy.
Speaker 1:So then I made that decision.
Speaker 2:It was critical.
Speaker 2:So, you know, and I made that decision after having especially having that conversation with them. You know, and you have to constantly have those honest conversations with them. You know, hey, listen, it's time to, it's time to call it quits, let's walk away from this. The other thing, too, is that I can't overstate the importance of staying healthy. You know, mentally healthy through meditation, like daily meditation, and also exercise Can't overstate the importance of exercise, like daily exercise. You know I want to do it and you don't have to go to the gym for this, you don't. I mean, I maintain a daily regimen of, like pull-ups and push-ups and crunches, like you know, and just sometimes. And getting on a Peloton, you know, doing a scenic ride, and you know, going out for walks with my wife and sometimes we will escalate that into a nice little light run. It really pays dividends to just do that and keep that really structured.
Speaker 2:Put in institute some form of daily exercise into your routine. You don't have to. You can eat whatever's comfortable for you. I typically will take a, I'll take a day and I'll break up. You know different forms of exercise at different points throughout the day. You know so and that works for me.
Speaker 2:Some other people may say you know what I'm just going to. I'm going to create a one or two hour block and I'm going to do a whole bunch of exercise, whatever works for you. But what's important is that exercise and making sure you eat healthy to maintain a healthy diet, because there's just so much. The more you can cook at home, the better. But if you can't do the busy schedules, that's OK. Make sure you do the research about what's a healthy diet, what's not, because there's a lot of unhealthy stuff out there and this is not rocket science, it's easy to do.
Speaker 2:It was very important and critical for me because I have epilepsy and so now I have to be much more aware of what I'm putting into my body. Like, for example, I used to be a big caffeine drinker. I used to drink a lot of coffee. I can't do that anymore. I can't so because it's it's a big epilepsy trigger, so it's a big seizure trigger, you know, for for someone who has epilepsy, so I had to be. I can't do cups of coffee anymore. So but that's okay.
Speaker 2:You know you find other alternatives and you know there are a lot that are out there. So you know it's really it's about, you know just balance. You know, making sure you know your family is if you have one, you have a significant other prioritizing them, planning with them, being honest with them. They can be, they're your best friends, they're your part. My wife is my best friend and you know she plans with me every day and front, and you know she plans with me every day and we um and then we go. We go through that journey together and then you know and and that exercise, and that and that diet.
Speaker 1:These things are critically important and they all take intent right. I mean they. If we allow them to fall to chance, then the realities of everyday life just simply consume our time, and those things that are so important won't get the attention they need. It's wisdom, charles. My friend, it has been an absolute pleasure stealing 45 minutes of your time. You are as always, just a treat to talk to, and thank you, my friend, it's been a true pleasure.
Speaker 2:Hey, this has been a real pleasure too, Justin, Just to catch up with you. I know it's been a while since we talked, but and this was great I really enjoyed the questions and so you actually gave me some proof of thought on a number of other things, so really enjoyed this.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to Interesting People. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast on your favorite platform, and don't forget to follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content. I'm Justin Wallen, and until next time, remember that the world is more interesting with you in it.
