Ep. 15 The Man Who Remembers Every Day Since Age 6 with Frank Healy

What would it be like to remember every single day of your life for the past 60 years? Frank Healy, one of only 20 people in the world with hyperthymesia, doesn't just remember every date since he was six years old-he remembers the weather, the day of the week, what he wore, and most importantly, how he felt. This rare neurological gift has shaped his entire career as a licensed professional counselor, giving him an extraordinary capacity for empathy that helps trauma survivors heal from their deepest wounds. Frank's journey from viewing his perfect memory as both blessing and curse to transforming it into a healing superpower offers profound insights into resilience, emotional regulation, and finding purpose through our most challenging traits. His unique perspective on memory, trauma, and healing reveals why some people get stuck in painful moments while others learn to override bad feelings with intentionally created good ones.

Contact Mark Astor:

Website: https://mentalhealthaddictionlawfirm.com/

Phone number: 561-517-9405

Email: mark@astorsimovitchlaw.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markastor

TikTok: Mark G. Astor (@astorsimovitchlaw) | TikTok

Contact Frank Healy:

Website: https://www.healyshealing.com/
Email: healysheal1@msn.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I remember every day of my life since I was almost six years old, and now I'll be 66 in a couple of weeks, May 21st. That means 60 years worth of daily memories. Having my memory used to be both of a blessing and a curse. Sure, it's fun to remember not only my first kiss, but every kiss, every vacation, every date, every detail, all the fun stuff. But can also remember bad days at work, bad days at school growing up, and all the negative things.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

It's the journey with drug and alcohol attorney Mark G. Aster. Welcome to the journey with Mark Astor. I'm your host, Mark Astor. I spent a lot of years sitting across the table from people during some of the most challenging moments of their lives. As an attorney, an advocate, and as someone who understands that the road isn't always straight. What I've learned is that success, recovery, and growth rarely look the way we expect them to. There are detours, hard conversations, and moments that change everything. On this podcast, I talk with people who are willing to be honest about their journey, what worked, what didn't, and what they wish they knew sooner. Today I am joined by perhaps the most interesting guest I've had yet. Welcome Frank Healy. Yes, it's a pleasure to be here. So Frank is to say that he's extraordinary, I think would be almost disrespectful to him. He is one of, I think, is it 20 people in the world who has what's known as hyperthymesia. Did I get that right, Frank?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yes, hyperthymesia.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

What hyperthymesia basically is this anomaly. It's a gift, although maybe Frank will tell us it's a curse, and basically he remembers every day of his life since he was about six years old. Not only just does he does he remember every day, but he remembers the feelings that are associated with it. And that makes him really interesting to talk to. But more importantly, Frank has tailored this gift. He's a clinician, he's written a bunch of books, he he's really quite amazing. So for our audience, tell us what hypothymesia is.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

It's a specialized kind of memory. The popular term is a superior autobiographical memory. I remember every day of my life since I was almost six years old, and now I'll be 66 in a couple of weeks, May 21st. That means 60 years worth of daily memories. And it includes what day of the week every date was, the weather where I was at the time, and news events, as well as personal experience. Now, what Mark said about remembering the emotions for the personal experiences, that's as big a part of it as any. And for that reason, I studied psychology and have worked in the field my whole life. Having my memory used to be both of a blessing and a curse, because sure, it's fun to remember not only my first kiss, but every kiss, every vacation, every date, every detail, all the fun stuff. But can also remember bad days at work, bad days at school growing up, and all the negative things. I studied psychology because maybe I could learn, like I knew I was not going to let go of the memories, but maybe I could let go of the feelings from the bad memories every time they pop up. So that was the was why I studied psych. Because many people have said to me, Oh, you're good with numbers. Maybe I should have been an accountant or an economist or something. And I said, I discovered when I was studied at the University of California that it has less to do with being good with numbers and rote memory, such as where you say something out loud a few times and hope it sticks, and more to do with remembering events in my life.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Okay, let me slow you down just for a second. I want to know when did you first say, hold on a second, I can remember that particular day, the day of the week, the weather, how I felt.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

It started, I was homesick from kindergarten for a week with the childhood disease, chicken pox, and too sick to even be up playing with toys. So my uncle Billy down the street had just given me a calendar for that year, 1966, from his business. And so I entertained myself by looking at each block of each date and picturing what would be on primetime TV that night and played the coming-on song in my head. And in that day, in those days, the TV lineup was Batman on Wednesday and Thursday, Flipper on Saturdays, Wonderful World of Disney on Sundays and so forth. And I distinguished between the Wednesdays and Thursdays by picturing Batman on the Wednesdays and Robin on the Thursdays. And so by the end of the week, I realized that I know this entire year, most of it hasn't happened yet because this was Monday, February 28th through Friday, March 4th, 1966. Since I knew that year, my birthday, May 21st, was going to be a Saturday, that the American holiday of Thanksgiving was going to be November 20th, and 4th of July would be on a Monday that year and Christmas on a Sunday. And from that week onward, throughout my life, I'd make mental notes about what day it is as each day went by. And ironically, I didn't understand until a few months later that this was an unusual thing. I was talking to this man on Saturday, October 22nd, and I said to him, Yes, I remember on Thursday, August 4th, we were in the resort town in New Jersey, Seattle City, on a vacation. My dad took my brother and I out in the bay in a rowboat, and at one point we dropped an oar. And he said to me, You know, that's unusual. I don't know what I did on August 4th. And so then I realized that I was unique with this. Does anybody else in the family have this gift? I have an uncle who passed in 2022 who was a corporate lawyer in DC. And he he remembered all his cases and he remembered the dates of storms at the Jersey Shore. So he probably came the closest to having what I have. And then my sister, Jennifer, she always remembered all the events when she was in college and what she wore and what all her friends wore. So I have some close approximations, but no one does it as much as I do. When I was studied in California, they gave me tests of dates, which of course I got them all right. And then we took a little break out on the quad, even though it was February. It was sunny and warm in California. And then we came back and they gave me some everyday regular memory tests, which I did maybe average on, like a bunch of faces with names attached, and then faces without the names, what's the name? And so I did average on that. And then they did an MRI. And I was the 12th person they studied in California. And with each of them, and the actress Marilou Henner, I think, was number six. What they found was that the parts of our frontal lobes where we do most of our direct thinking are about almost twice the size of the average persons. And it's interesting, with me, they found that my hippocampus and amygdala were also considerably larger than most. So that probably accounts for my remembering the memories as well as the actual events.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Okay. So it sounds to me like, and correct me if I'm wrong, so that there are certain things that obviously you're very gifted at in terms of memory, but there are other things that maybe not so, right? Because you said they showed you photographs with and without names, and some of them you remembered and some of you didn't. So if you for instance, when I was in college, I had a girlfriend who had a she said she had a photograph at memory. She could read something once, studying for an exam, and she remembered it. That was it. So is that the same as what you have?

SPEAKER_01 8:20

I would say that's different in memorizing the facts. I can read something and I wouldn't be able to say it back verbatim, but uh I'd remember the main points and I'd also remember the date of it. Ironically, they asked me things at the university from from a journal that I had sent them, and as well as some historical events, and I'll give you a hint of how my memory works in that respect. They asked me, when was the Beatles' last concert in the United States? And I said, Yeah, Monday, August 29th, 1966, at Candlestick Park in San Fran, Cisco. And then Dr. McGall asked me, Did you know that then? And you were only six years old then. And I said, I didn't know it then, but I can tell you the date that I learned it. It was Friday, October 6, 1978. I was a freshman in college, LaSalle University in Philadelphia, and I bought a book from the college campus store, The Beatles Forever. And that's where I memorized all these facts about the Beatles.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

So on the day that you were asked whether about the Beatles, do you remember the weather?

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yes, it was it was sunny and high temperature in the mid-70s in Irvine, California, where I was. And when I got back, I heard that it was cold in New Jersey, where I live.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

What other historical events, for instance, like the Watergate scandal, the day that President Nixon resigned, do you remember that day?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah, I remember it very well. Friday, August 9th, 1974. I was 14 years old and I was up in the Pocono Mountains at Boy Scout Camp. And the only connection we had there with news was that one of the leaders brought his box radio that later became known as Boom Boxes. So we heard about it there, and it was sunny and seasonably warm up there. And then the next day, August 10th, we came back and my mom she knew I'd be interested. So she saved all the newspaper clippings about his resignation.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

When you look back on your life, is there one or two memories that really stick out? And you say, wow, that was something that just was over and above. Obviously, I don't think we were around for the Kennedy assassination, but obviously the Nixon resignation and other things that happened politically and world events. So what sticks out for you?

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Another difference between myself and most people are most of us remember events that were of high emotional significance, for better or for worse. But for me, it's like I remember every date as if it were like my wedding day or a graduation or some big event. And certainly there's a few memories that's memories that stand out. Certainly my wedding day, Saturday, September 26, 2009, and my graduations. Remember my graduation from La Salle, Sunday, May 16th, 1982. It was a sunny Sunday with the high near 90. It was unusually warm that day. People tend to remember both the good and the bad events because they had high emotional charge. Again, the other day, Thursday, April 30th, I was determined to have a good day because six years earlier, in 2020, on that date, the last time it fell on a Thursday, I was let go of from a job I had for 10 years, and it was really asinine situation. I work in a counseling center near the Delaware Bay. So I went out, took a walk on the bay, and a man had a telescope, and I got to look at an eagle that was there on the bay. And later on, I took a 12-year-old boy, one of my clients, down to the bay and watched a great sunset. So it's like the negative sometimes, and I write about this in my books of Heal Your Memories, a self-help trilogy. You can override the bad feelings with good feelings by doing this meditation exercise.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

And I'm going to talk to you about that in a little bit. You've really taken your gift and you've used it to help people. And it's amazing. When I went to your website, there's a very nice photograph of you with Mary Lou Hanna. Now I only know her from taxi, but you met her when you they were doing this research. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Sometimes she comes and is in a play at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania. And so that day, Saturday, August 31st, 2013, I had I was determined to get to meet her in person. So I found her business manager on Facebook and friended her. And then she told me about this and she invited me to come. And uh I'd have to buy my ticket, of course, but come and see the show and then have lunch with she and her gang. Actually, actually, that was before the show. We had lunch and then they did the matinee, the tale of the hour, just wife. And so I got to meet her and talk to her a little bit. What was the date that you met her? It was Saturday, August 31st, 2013.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Okay, do you remember the weather that day?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Yes, it was sunny and seasonably warm.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Sounds like she was very nice.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Yeah, she was nice, as dynamic offstage as she is on. She was very nice, even the fact that I was allowed to come and she introduced me to her husband and her sons, and very and then posed for the photograph, and we discussed our books a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

So she also has that the same gift as you, right? She can remember every day.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Yeah, she can remember every day. And she's eight years older than me. So her memory goes a little further back than mine just because of age.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Okay. Interesting. Have you stayed in contact with her or no?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

On Sunday, June 9th, 2024, her manager invited me to another play she was doing at Bucks County. So I went to see it. But I think since I wasn't part of the entourage that day, she didn't have time to talk to me. But I was told she was thrilled that I was there watching.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

That was certainly very nice of her to do that. So let's talk about how you've taken your gift and you've used it to help people. You are a clinician, is that correct? Yes, that's right. Licensed professional counselor. When you say you're a counselor, who are you helping? How do you help them? Tell us about a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Okay. Since my memory is so good for any time I felt a certain way, it's also, I think, given me an incredible capacity for empathy. I can know how someone feels, and even if they haven't had the exact experiences I have had, I can link it to something. And I'm able to help people with post-traumatic stress disorder, they kind of seek me out because of my memory. I figure, like, if somebody maybe had rape or incest or any kind of abuse in their life. So I'm able to empathize, but it's interesting. There's a term empath where they say they empathize with people so much that they can wear themselves out. I do have a professional guardedness against that. It's like I'm there totally with the patient when I'm talking to them. But then as soon as I'm out the door at the end of the day, I can put it out of sight and out of mind.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

So you're telling us you can you're done with work, you go home, you shut it out. That's right. How are you able to do that?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

One of the skills I teach my clients is mindfulness, meaning staying mentally in the present moment. And so I practice that when I go home. Go out to my car, and it's I'll chat with a coworker, or if I'm going there alone, immediately I'll think, okay, what's the traffic going to be like? Yeah, and I think about being with my wife and what might be on TV that night, and or if I'm going to get some work done online. But uh I think mindfulness helps a lot, staying right in the moment mentally.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

I know you've written some books too. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

I started out where about 21 years ago I decided, hey, maybe I could write a memoir on what it was like living my life with this memory. And with my busy schedule, it took a couple years to write with what little time I had. And of course, I've gotten better with time management, so I've been able to write a lot more even with less time since I got married. So I wrote what it was like and about people asking me dates, even my entertaining at parties and the negative side as well. So I published my first book. It came out October 25th, 2007, a Thursday. And it's interesting, my my first date with my now wife was the next night. And it was ironic. What was the date you met your wife? I met her way back on May 28th, 2006, at a Memorial Day weekend picnic, a Sunday. But we started dating Friday, October 26, 2007. It was a rainy day, and it's interesting that I came home from work after our first date, and there was a big box wrapped in plastic because of the rain of copies of my first book. I saved it for two days and didn't open it until the 28th, so I could do it with her.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Do you remember how you felt when you unwrapped the box with the book with your wife?

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Oh, yes, it was really a thrill to see the book there with my name on it and everything. I think every author re every author remembers that.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

And and one thing she told me early on was if we're gonna date and eventually get married, I'm not to bring up anniversary of is of arguments we may have had, and so I agreed to that.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Okay. How long did you date your wife before you proposed to her?

SPEAKER_01 18:42

About a year and a half. I proposed on Saturday, April 4th, 2000, the friend of mine who lived on the bay front. I brought a treasure chest and the ring and everything, as well as a shovel, to her house the night before. And I said, All right, you're all gonna get together tomorrow. So somebody dig a hole and put this pirate flag there, and I'm gonna take her for a walk there and we'll stumble upon it. So we got engaged with an audience. They were sitting distant enough to make it look private on the porch. What was that day? Saturday, April 4th, 2009. We'd had some thunderstorms and a storm at sea the night before. But that was a sunny day, and so we took a walk by the bay, and it was like being near the ocean. There were waves because of the turbulence at sea. So to me, that added to the effect. So then, fast forward to September of 2012, I had thought about writing more books. I was at a writer's conference in Philadelphia, and somebody suggested to me that my last name is perfect for a healer, Healy. I talked to a couple people at the conference who had been through some real trauma but were now happy and thriving. And I thought, hey, maybe I'll write a book on where I interview people who've overcome the past and are now happy and thriving. And that's how my Heal Your Memories trilogy was born.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

How many books was that you wrote about that?

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Well, that was three self-help books about healing your the emotional effects from your past, the trauma. And then I just started really getting into writing, and after that, so I've now written books on so many topics. Somatic therapy for beginners with a workbook. I wrote a book on Stoic philosophy. Many people think of Stoics as like robots without any emotions, but what it really is is about emotional regulation. And I've written books on emotional intelligence. And in fact, there's going to be a release coming soon. My latest book, Burnout Proof. It's about how to avoid burnout, like exercises and relaxation, taking time for yourself, and all kinds of things to prevent burnout. And my plan for the future is to make some educational videos about that, and maybe some more books and more videos on preventing burnout for specific populations, such as healthcare workers, CEOs, and talking to you. I'm thinking maybe for lawyers too.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Definitely a good idea for the lawyers. Yeah. Oh, I have a question. How do you avoid burnout? What's the key to that? And is burnout even real? Because there's some people say, oh, it's not burnout. That's just an excuse for not working harder. What's your thoughts on that, Frank?

SPEAKER_01 21:45

No, you can give so much effort and so much emotion to your work or to your family, so many things. And so burnout is a real phenomenon where you just start lacking motivation and sometimes Burnout can be like the movie Groundhog Day. You just see every day is the same and your enthusiasm isn't there anymore. And part of avoiding burnout is changing your thinking, cognitive restructuring, seeing the meaning in what you do, and also getting away from it and having fun and taking care of yourself. And burnout proof includes some breathing exercises as well as changing your thoughts and restructuring your life. So it includes a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

You had said something earlier about for people that have suffered from trauma, how you can create good memories over the bad ones. Can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_01 22:43

I modified this exercise, which was originally part of NLP, Neurolinguistic Programming. It's what you do is you'll get into a meditative state, relax, and then you'll uh first, before you do that, you pick both a bad memory and a good memory. Then you imagine the bad memory in as much detail as possible. All the sights, the sounds, the feelings you had, any body sensations, who was there and all. And you do that for a couple minutes, and then you switch off to the good memory and imagine that for a longer period, maybe four minutes, and keep switching back and forth. And eventually the feelings from the good memory will overshadow and drown out the feelings from the bad memory.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

So, what do you do to maintain your own mental health? Because you're obviously spending time with people a bit like us who are emotional, they've had some trauma in their life. So, what does a day look like for you, Frank?

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Well, a typical day. Like I'll start out. My wife almost every day sleeps later than me because she retired in 2019. She was an MRI in CatScan Tech. And so I'll have a couple hours, usually from about six to eight in the morning, to journal and have breakfast and plan my day. Like I'll write a gratitude list and I'll do some different things to really prepare for the day. So then I'll come up and get my shower, and when I come down, my wife's usually up by then. And we're big on our Christian faith too, although I'm not a fundamentalist. I do have faith, and that really helps a lot. We'll read from scriptures and read a daily story about someone with their faith and how they grew in it. And then I'll go to work, and by that time, I'm really ready to see clients. I'll chat with a couple co-workers before I head up to the office. And then when I see my clients, I enjoy sometimes I get a real emotional charge out of talking to someone and helping them.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Describe that for me. You say emotional charge. Tell me what that how that feels like.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

I'll get excited for them, like when they have an aha moment, or it's a combination of kind of a warm feeling of helping them, along with excitement at seeing them, hearing them do better.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

How long is a typical patient work with you, Frank?

SPEAKER_01 25:12

That can vary a lot. I have some who, after just four or five sessions, are ready to go, they're helped. But many of them cut keep coming to me for a couple years. And the challenge with them is when they are better, working on disengagement, like how they can have a support system in their life outside of me because can't just keep them forever when they're better.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

So do you work with anybody who's in the behavioral health space? Obviously, we're dealing with people who have substance issues, mental health issues. Do you work in that kind of world?

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Yes, I've seen all kinds of patients, even some with physical pain issues, along with I've seen kids and marriage and family issues too. So I've seen that, and I do a little bit with addictions, but we have other therapists there who specialize more in that.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Okay. Can we just stay on that topic for a second? Sometimes, Frank, we get a call from parents, and it's usually mom and dad calling us. And I think one of the issues that we deal with is the idea of one when you're dealing with a behavioral health issue that it's a conscious choice to use drugs, or it's a cons conscious choice to suffer from bipolar versus it's a disease. Can you share a little bit of light on that for us?

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Sometimes parents or family members will misunderstand mood disorders and they treat the person like if they had an option, they wouldn't be this way. So part of it can come into educating the parents on what bipolar is and what or depression, anxiety that might need behavior modification. Works best for younger kids where just reward and punishment, the idea of that. But for older people, even older kids, you need to get into some of the family dynamics as well as internal states. Now, parents might have their best intentions, but don't always know how to help their kid when they don't understand them.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

We're definitely working with families who have an adult child, and I use the word child because I don't know, pregnant. I'm a little bit younger than you. I'm 59, my mom's 83, and she still looks at me like I'm her little boy, and I think that every parent does. For the families that are dealing with an adult child, 25 to 45, who's got a long, long history, is there some point where it's not a conscious choice? It is a disease, because I from the research I've done and I've spoken to a lot of clinicians like you, when you start treating it like a disease, then you can look for the solution, as opposed to it's a conscious choice. So we should either throw them out of the house or use some type of stick and carrot incentives to stop using.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Treating it as a disease is good and bad. The good part of it is as you just said, you can really get into the dynamics of the disease and treat them from that perspective, whether somebody needs 12-step meetings like AA or NA, and if medication may be on for someone with an emotional problem, if it might work for a time being, but then they might need something else if they develop a tolerance. But I would say that conscious choice does play a part too, because they can choose whether they're going to get help and whether they're going to work on themselves or just continue to blame the disease. And it's important for the patient's self-esteem to make sure they don't that it's not the main way that they define themselves as like alcoholic or bipolar or borderline person. All right, let's switch gears for a second.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

I want to know what do you like to do for fun, Frank?

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Well, I live near the beach, uh, and my mother-in-law has a house right on the bayfront in the New Jersey resort of Stone Harbor. It's north of Wildwood, but south of Atlantic City. I like to go swimming, kayaking, fishing, and I like to read a good book. And uh I I do my steps on the Fitbit every day.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

What does the future look like for you? What are your plans? Do you have goals? I've written a bunch of books. Are you gonna write more books? Are you gonna travel?

SPEAKER_01 29:15

I'd like to keep on, probably retire anywhere from 67 to 70, but when I retire, I'm still gonna see select clients probably. I'll continue to write books and make some videos. And uh I figure when my mother-in-law passes, we'll have the shore house too. And then so probably use have that, but then we'll we want to spend winters in Florida when I retire. Well, it's not winter.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

I happen to agree with you on that one. It's too hot in the summer, but it's okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Yeah, give ourselves the best of all worlds. And I'd like to traveling. We've done a lot of traveling on vacation weeks. We were in Switzerland in 23, and we've been all over the Caribbean, and we and let's see, we've been to Bar Harbor, Maine, as well as some of the Florida and North Carolina beaches. So we've done a lot of traveling, but I'd like to see more of Europe, go on some cruises, and so there's a lot we'll do. I mean, my wife says to me, I should never retire because all I would do is swim. But there's other things I'd do.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Okay. Out of all the places you visited, is there one that really stands out? You said, Wow, this is spectacular.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

I'm one of these people I've learned to enjoy everything. So it's different places stood out as unique. Like the Swiss Alps of the Matterhorn was really awesome, and as well as the Caribbean. I like everything about it, from the heat to the palm trees and coconuts to the music they play. And so I've seen a lot. We went to Hawaii in 2019, and that was really spectacular.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Your books. If somebody wants to purchase one of your books, how do they go about doing that? Where would they find them?

SPEAKER_01 31:02

You could go to where you could put my name into Amazon and they'd all be there at my author central where they just list them. And I have a website, Healy's Healing.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Okay. So could they buy the books from there or they got to go to Amazon?

SPEAKER_01 31:18

They could buy the books from there, but if they click on the book, it would direct them back to Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

If somebody wants to talk to you about doing some clinical work with you, how would they find you?

SPEAKER_01 31:29

They could go on psychology today. I'm listed there.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

And I'm okay with giving my email uh on the show. It's H-E-A-L-Y-S, then you repeat H-E-A-L, then the number one at MSN.com. So healies heal one at msn.com.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Okay. Anything else you want to share with us? Because you've had a pretty interesting life. I probably could sit here and talk to you for two hours.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

I think one of the things, other things I'd like to emphasize is that many of when some of the people with HSAM, the first the first ones that they had on TV on 60 Minutes, and I'm not outrolling going on there someday. Some of them have talked about that it's a burden having this memory. And I've learned how to uh enjoy life and be happy, even with all these facts and figures always going on memories going on in my head. So it is possible. And I'd say for anybody who maybe has racing thoughts, you can still be happy with being grateful, using emotional regulation. I've trained myself so that having this memory is not a burden at all. It's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Yeah, it sounds like you've really done a lot of work on your on yourself. Yeah. Yeah. At some point you have to do some work on yourself. I know that I did for a long time because I really couldn't get my life together either professionally or personally. And as far as you retiring, my wife has told me that there's no way I could retire because I'm like, you I need to be doing something. I think if I go a couple of days where I'm not doing something, I don't do well with that. So I heard somebody speak, a very successful entrepreneur, and he said I would never retire, I would just rewire. I like that. And so I took that and ran with it. So I don't know if I could continue to do what I do now. I love what I do because we're helping a lot of people. Maybe at some point I'll say, okay, I'm going to transition and do something else, but I think I'd always have to be doing something. For instance, I've got a good friend of mine, uh retired entrepreneur. He's traveling the world with his wife for a month. And I said to my wife, there's no way I could do that. I know from experience I can be away for about 10 days. That's the max. So I need three or four days to wind down, and then I could have seven days where I'm either relaxing or we're siting or whatever it happens to be. After 10 days, I start to get very edgy. I need to be back in doing something. I need the stimulation. I don't do well. I once went away on my honeymoon, my first honeymoon. I went away for two weeks. I couldn't wait to get back to work. This time, on my for my second marriage, we went away for about a week, seven or eight days, and it was perfect. That was good for me. So don't retire, Frank. Rewire.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Yeah, I like that. That's really a good thing. Because that's good. That's like I said, I'll still do little things, but I like the idea of being in control of my time.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Yeah. Frank, I really appreciate you spending time with us. I enjoyed getting to know you, not just on the podcast, but beforehand. And I not only do I find you extremely interesting, but you're doing good work and you're helping people. And I think at the end of the day, isn't that what we're all here to do? We're all here to try and help people in some way.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

We are all here to help people and contribute to the world. Whether it's directly where you interact with people or indirectly, maybe an artist can make good art or somebody could use much of their money to help people. We're all here to contribute to the world.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Yeah, and I appreciate you. And for the folks that are watching this, if you wanted to learn more about what we do, our main website is mental health addiction law firm.com. That's mental health addiction law firm dot com. And with that said, thanks for tuning into this episode of the journey, and I'll see you in the next one.