A Journey of Growth and Collaboration
Welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention. I’m your host, Jake white. And today’s episode is going to be a short two parter. The first part is we’re going to talk about delegating, and getting volunteers to help out with all the great things that you’re doing. And then part two, is a challenge that I’ve received from a student who was in one of our sessions. She’s really into drawing. And so she asked to draw my light. And this is a project that basically she’s going to take a two and a half minute, script or sound, sound bites of what my life is, and then she’s going to attempt to dry it, and make it into a video where she sketches out everything that we talked about. So to help me with this episode, I have my amazing wife, Emily White here, and we’re getting ready for bed. So she’s like, I don’t want to be on camera, but I will help you out by prompting you with some stuff. So the first thing to cover is, is this my challenge for you, my challenge for you this week, is to find or ask someone new, to help you out with your mission. Because if you’re in education, or if you’re in prevention, you’re wearing like 10 hats to do one job. And I know how overwhelming it can get. And there’s sometimes what we don’t realize is that there’s a lot of people out there who do really, really want to help, but we just haven’t asked them yet. And the struggle is we don’t want to feel like a burden. We don’t want to feel like well, this is my job. So I have to do it alone. But it can feel like that sometimes. And so what I’ve recently learned, number one, just being around awesome people, to getting a coach to help me realize some of my shortcomings in developing, you know, this platform of Vive 18 and spreading this really cool cause across the country is I cannot do it alone. There’s no way and whenever I tried to, I stumble, I falter, I go really, really slow. And then whenever I’m reminded of the power of community and the power of people helping each other, it just accelerates and goes really, really quickly. So I’m gonna have, I’m going to share something intimate with you. And then I’m gonna have Emily talk for a little bit. So if you’ve worked with me, you might have caught a glimpse into the fact that I am terrible with details. I, when it comes to organizational skills, and and details, I will drop the ball. And I know for a fact this year, I have wasted thousands of dollars of my own money on making simple stupid mistakes, of not getting the details, right, I have booked the wrong flight multiple times. One time I booked two rental cars for one trip. Other times I booked multiple hotels or Airbnb ease, because my organizational skills and my details were lacking. And so that was the first area that I needed help with. The second area I needed help with, is when it comes to numbers and business forecasting. My personality is all about like action, doing really cool and really fun things, getting young people involved in our movement and involved in prevention, speaking like all the fun stuff that I really love. That’s where my brain goes. And I have all this creativity and passion for doing it. The business side, behind the scenes, the numbers, the details, I drop the ball. So some really cool news is that my wife is actually going to be joining the Vive 18 team soon in one month. And she’s excited, I’m excited. A lot of people we’ve been telling are really, really pumped for us because I’ve been gone like five out of seven days pretty much every single week since the beginning in September, or even August before that. And so something I’m excited about for our marriage is we’ll get to spend way more time together. And she’s gonna get to help me out with a lot of stuff that she’s strong at, and I’m not. So first of all, Emily, maybe can you share how it came up? And how I asked you for help? I don’t think people are going to take notes in this section, but just like how you figured it out. And then what you’ve been helping me with so far?
Yeah, I think I can’t remember is definitely one of the times where something was screwed up with your booking and that you bought a flight to it was the wrong city. It was the same name, but the city was in a different state. I like wait, I’m going to the totally opposite side of the country. So we’re like we got to come up with a system, a spreadsheet, a Google calendar template. So every time you get a speaking gig, this is the calendar template we’ll use, we’ll make sure everything’s filled in in that spot. If it’s not filled in, that means it’s not booked yet, and just coming up with system. So we’d have a Tuesday night, date night, work night, and we’d get everything done, we book everything for the upcoming month and make sure that everything was squared away so that we wouldn’t be ending up paying for flights to the wrong city or rental cars we didn’t use.
Okay, now I remember that, because that was so helpful. And what was cool is you were able to do something in one, one sitting right like an hour or two at a Panera Bread or Starbucks, whatever, we had Wi Fi, and you enjoyed doing it, you were quick at it. Whereas I would be racking my brain for hours, multiple nights a week trying to figure this out. And I hated every second of it. And at the end, you’re like, Oh, that was fun. Like, can we do it again next month? And I was like, yes. Would you want to? That sounds great. Because actually, it’s coming back to me too. I asked you for help once. Because I was feeling overwhelmed. And you did that for me. You enjoyed it. And it gave me permission kind of to say, Well, can you help me more? And I think I want to pull this out for everyone. Because if you’re listening to this, again, that they hesitation is who’s going to want to help me with all of this stuff I have to do. The question might actually be what’s one thing I’m struggling with right now? And how can I get it off of my plate? Just to see if someone else likes it? Can you take someone out to coffee? And or can you tell them how you’re struggling and invite them to see if it’s a strength that they have. And I’ll just share this quick story too, because I think it applies more to how you can benefit from other people around you at this moment. This the same situation happened again, where my coach, his name is John. And he’s just this really, really smart guy really good at business development. He can see through all my BS, and all of my shortcomings. And he gets right to the point of like, “Jake, this is what you’re doing. You’re making this excuse, or you’re doing this thing. And it’s really hurting you.” Because I wouldn’t be able to see it. I’m in the business every day. Sometimes I can’t see it. And I’d went to a couple of sessions. And I wasn’t I still hadn’t told them whether my business was even scalable. Like, can I actually make a business doing this good in the world that I see? And can my business grow? The reason why I couldn’t tell him is because I hated running the numbers. I didn’t actually know where to start. I don’t know how to business forecast. And because I didn’t know it and it wasn’t my strength, and I don’t enjoy it. I would just put it off. I would do everything but that. And in my brain. I’m thinking, Well, yeah, I’m doing the business. Why do I have to know the numbers behind it? But as you know, if you’re running grants, and you’re running programs, we all have a budget like this is super important. But because it wasn’t my strength, I kept putting it off. Finally, he’s like, “Jake, why don’t you just find someone who knows how to do this, and they probably enjoy it.” So he’s like, just as a couple people. So I remember that night, I texted about five people just saying, Hey, here’s what I’m struggling with. Can you think of someone who’s good at this, and who might enjoy helping me with it for let’s say, 30 minutes just to like, share a few things with me. Long story short, I sit down with a guy we had met once before. And the thing that I’ve been putting off for months, he had completed in 10 minutes. And not only that, like, he made a tool for me that I thought was impossible to create. He got on a Google spreadsheet. And he created this, this calculator that I input what our desire income level is how many students we want to reach, how much we have to pay each employee, each speaker, each presenter and other employees on the back end, and how many, basically services or products we need to sell to become a sustainable business. He did it in 10 minutes. And I had I delete it for months. And it was one of those moments when I realized, man doing these things alone sucks. And I always get in my own way. And I’m wondering if you are the same. I’m wondering if you have this notion that you have to do everything yourself because it’s your job. It’s your responsibility because you’re the one on the payroll, when in reality, there’s people who could probably come in for less than a half an hour and save you a day’s worth of work or who could accelerate your potential growth that much faster. So what is it? And this is my challenge, mate? Do you need to text five people? Do you need to take the thing that’s on your to do list and it’s at the bottom because you keep doing everything else first? Who do you need to tax? Can you text four or five people outline your problem and say, “Hey, who do you know who might want to help me with this?” Would they be willing to spend 30 minutes your time, please forward to anybody you can think of? And let me know how that goes. All right, this is ready for part two of this episode, let’s do the MyLife drawing. And here’s what I hope is, my hope is that Emily can prompt me with some questions. And I can start to think of the things where I could condense my life story into two and a half, three minutes. And this will probably take us 10 minutes. But I’ll kind of get like, hey, what’s the interesting parts that would fit in that’ll tell you how, you know, kid from Louisiana, I moved to Wisconsin and had these parents, these family members end up starting a movement. That’s, you know, going around the country and changing lives and where to come from? Because that’s the story I want to tell, where did it come from? And what it’s doing now and maybe trace back some of those things that led to it. So Emily, where do you want to start?
Apologies for misunderstanding. Here’s a title specifically for the whole paragraph:
From Louisiana Roots to Wisconsin Growth: A Journey of Empathy and Inclusion
Where were you born?
I was born in Monroe, Louisiana, in the hospital there. Because my parents lived in Bastrop, Louisiana, it’s like right at the top of the shoe of Louisiana. And it was 1991. I’m a 90s. Baby. And I have two older sisters, Adele and Casey. And then my parents, Pat and Claire. And then I’ll say this, we moved to Wisconsin when we were three when I was three.
What were you like in elementary school?
In elementary school, I think I loved playing sports being outside like most kids. I think for the purpose of identifying how I got to where I am, I think what I can remember, from my parents, you know how somebody you know, you have like an attic, and it’s filled with all this old stuff. They uncovered this cartoon drawing of me when I didn’t even know how to spell yet. And it was a picture of like a person whose face had turned green because they were going to get sick. And it said, it said being drunk sucks. I think suck was spelled s-u-x or something. K , and the K was backward? Oh, it was okay. The K was backwards. Okay. That’s what it was. Yeah, she found that. And I think growing up. I saw my uncle struggling with addiction. I saw, we already talked about it, obviously, like they were open about it. And then another thing that kind of ties into why I think maybe I began that party point o, what it started as with those drug free house parties. I had an early sense of inclusion. Like my dad, and mom would force us, if you had a birthday party, you had to invite every single person in your class. Even if there was someone that was hard to deal with, or you didn’t like, you had to invite them to your birthday party. So I remember that. And then, but that for some reason, it didn’t just stick when I was told to do it. But that even in gym, class and recess and all these things were in I was on my own, I can make any decision. I remember rotating friends of like, oh, no, you know, Andrew, I was with you last time Partnering for a gym class. I’m going to be with Dallas this time. You know, I’m going to be with this person this time. Because I had a sense of like, oh, we have to be fair, or we have to share our this person wasn’t included. So I want to make sure that they feel included or valuable. Which now I know it’s a strength of mine. But I think I discovered that that was a thing even in the beginning that maybe was instilled from something my parents made us do.
Finding Confidence and Community through School Transitions
What was the big life change that you had in your teens?
Good as good one. Life changing my teens, probably moving schools. So I’d gone through schools in Oshkosh, Wisconsin where I grew up all public schools. And I would say I I didn’t have the same friend group growing up like I seem to switch friends every couple of years. I have a new person that I’d hang out with a lot or a new group and then we switch friend groups with a new new one. And it came with different phases Right? Like when I was in Pokemon you know obsessed with that you’ve hung out with your friends that love that when I was skateboarding, that’s the thing. And then so when I moved schools, I went to a private school. And my dad made me, he actually said, Oh, here’s another glimpse into it. So I didn’t make the basketball team my freshman year, it was a huge school with like, 500 students per class. So yeah, I didn’t make the team. And my dad was worried that if I wasn’t playing sports, that I would get into trouble. And I would start using drugs or whatever stuff is like, Hey, this is your outlet, Jake. But if you’re not doing that, what trouble is going to come your way. And so he sent me to a private school called the Oshkosh Lourdes, or Lourdes Academy. And it was a small school. So I got to be on whatever team or whatever band or class a club that I would want to be on. And that was probably a tough thing at first, because I actually didn’t talk to anybody for almost a year. It was like a small school. So they all knew each other. But I was the new kid. And I didn’t have a group. I didn’t excel in sports and have a ton of confidence. And so it felt like, oh, man, I’m just dropped off here. And that was kind of tough. But that’s also where I learned that you could choose competence, because I saw this obnoxious. This obnoxious kid who, honestly, it wasn’t that nice. And this is, I’m just man, that’s me, to me to call this kid obnoxious was in high school, but I’m going back to my high school frame of mind. And I was thinking to myself, he’s not very nice, and he’s really loud. And everybody likes him. What if I was just loud and just me and I didn’t care what anybody thought of me. I just just was really loud about being who I was. And it was, that was a lot more fun. So I think I, I started off, not talking to anybody. And then a year later, was talking to everyone and started to develop confidence. I would say again, after moving schools, and it was a good lesson for me.
From Drumming to Degrees: Journey to College and Career Path
Where did you go to college?
I went to college at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. So yeah, after high school, I did sports in school, I did drums and musicals. I worked jobs. Last couple years, I worked at the golf course doing maintenance, and then had a couple of summer jobs. And I wasn’t going to go to college, actually. Because it is a fun fact about me. I’m very cheap. Like I do not like to spend money. And so I was thinking college is very expensive. And I don’t know what I want to do with my life. So maybe not the move. But after working full time at the golf course. And then I was doing landscaping for local guy in town, I was giving drum lessons. And then I was taking other odd jobs. So I basically worked all day, and then would fall asleep trying to hang out with friends because I had no energy left. And after doing that for a summer, I said, Alright, I’m going to try college. And so just, I didn’t even tour anywhere. I just went to the one in town because I could afford it. I could live at home and then you know, walk to school. And so it’s called Yeah, UW Oshkosh, one of the state schools. Around 9000 students went there. And I was undecided at first. And then I after a while I figured out I’ll I’ll just sign up for journalism school, because that’s the fastest one to graduate with. And I can make an emphasis in public relations. Because I wasn’t good at writing. But it also included public speaking, which I really liked. And I could graduate pretty fast. And then I had a minor in music industry, because I was really interested in music and like recording and putting on concerts and live events and all that stuff.
Finding My Voice: How Public Speaking Became My Passion
You mentioned choosing because you’re interested in public speaking, what kind of started your interest in public speaking.
So I think it it really started because I saw speakers come to our school. And there’s a guy John, and he is so cool. Like, he’s climbed all the seven summits, he came to our school and was just so funny. And when I saw him at orientation, I was like, dang, if I could do that one day, that would be so cool. That’d be a dream job. But obviously I’m a college student. I don’t have a story. How would I ever do that? I haven’t climbed a mountain. But my sophomore year, the school hired me to speak to all the incoming freshmen and get them involved on campus because they knew if you get involved with In the first six weeks of school, you’re more likely to graduate. So it’s it helps with retention. And so I, I remember, I was getting paid like $8 an hour to be a speaker. And then when I joined the club, and I saw how much other people got paid to speak, I was like, Oh, this is actually a real job. You can do that. And you can make a good living. And so that’s kind of what planted this seed about. It wasn’t until my junior year when I started Party Point O, that I thought I have a story now that that I could share.
Creating a Safe and Vibrant Community: The Evolution of Party Point O to Vive 18
What is or was Party Point O?
Yeah, so Party Point O, was this platform, my friend, Steven Van Den Hoven. And myself, we started at UW and we would basically throw giant house parties without any drugs or alcohol. And yeah, long story short, hundreds of students hanging out in dirty basements, you know, front yards, houses, fraternity houses, college houses, and just having an amazing time with DJs, games, sponsors and all that fun stuff. Is having fun, drug free. And we ended up changing the name. Because whenever we started working with younger audiences, just the word party has different connotations. So when you know right now, if you’re listening to this, and you know about Vive 18. It’s an extension of what Party Point 0 has started, it has kind of morphed into Vive 18.
Unexpected Encounters: A Story of Love and Faith
When did you meet your funny, intelligent wife?
That’s amazing, I met Emily Schultz, my funny, intelligent, beautiful, spontaneous, adventurous wife. When the timing is just amazing, because the two great loves in my life happened pretty close together. So the first thing I’ll preface it is like, there was a group of friends that I started to notice. And they were, they were these weird people called Christians. And they believed in like this invisible god type force in the world. And they prayed and sang, it was like super weird. But at the time, I was a student or recent graduate, building a business. And building a business was kind of a move of faith. You have to make people believe that you can do something you haven’t done for them yet. And so I was like, studying these Christian people figured out why they believe this stuff. And long story short, God showed up in my life in this insane way answering prayers, like moments after I asked something. And friends who seemed to be Christians that weren’t hypocritical, like they really really loved people. And were a great example of Christ here on Earth, and were very patient with me and answering my questions and not making me feel bad or dumb for asking them. And those were Emily’s friends. A little I mean, I would find out Emily is that type of person too. But I ended up yeah, getting friends with the guys in her group, but didn’t realize it. At the time she was part of this group. A friend invites me to volleyball at this indoor sand volleyball League, and she’s on my team. I’d seen her once before and thought to myself like Whoa, she’s super cute. She plays sports. If I get a chance, or get the confidence, I should ask her out but I only met her that one time so when we were on the same volleyball team, I had six weeks to ask her out and we started dating four months later proposed four months later married so obviously a lot happened in there but found out about the love of Jesus and my wife Emily within like the craziest year ever. And then now we have a lot more crazy years
From Nonprofit Struggles to Hail Mary Pivots
Wow, that’s beautiful. I’m so now you guys are married. What was kind of a Hail Mary moment that you had starting your own business?
I feel like starting a business. There’s a lot of Hail Mary moments. I think after I had the notion that it would be easy. I didn’t realize that running your own business would be so difficult. So I had won this competition at UW O, it was like a shark tank style competition. One of money to go test out The idea different schools. And at that time, I was running the business as a nonprofit. And the cool thing, so Emily, she taught me how to fundraise, how to do all this really cool stuff for the mission, and to run a nonprofit kinda because she was doing it with the campus ministry. But I was getting so burned out by all of the admin, the fundraising, all that stuff and felt like I didn’t have time for our mission of what we’re trying to do. So the biggest Hail Mary was myself, Emily, and two friends, Alexandre and another, Emily lived in a trailer for four months traveling the country, throwing sober house parties, at colleges across the nation. And it was insane. But for me, I was just looking for a way either out of this because I knew what I was doing wasn’t working, or a new direction, to lean further into it. And I was at a loss, I had no clue what to do. And so that Hail Mary pass, really, I think we dropped the ball, I don’t think we scored a touchdown in this metaphor. But it taught me to stay in the game and a way to pivot and run new plays, because that’s when we decided to move to Phoenix, to be near like an airport city, and some warmth instead of Wisconsin, and to go the route of speaking, and training as a way of building our business, instead of having the traditional fundraising model.
The Growth of Vive 18 as a Platform for Change
How would you say that Vive 18 has changed from your time arriving in Phoenix to now.
Vive 18 has changed because it’s not just me. That’s the biggest, biggest thing. And honestly, the biggest blessing is when it was beginning, it was myself. I met Tomas. And if you’re listening this and you know, Vive 18 You know, Tomas and the coolest guys ever. Meeting him really was that launching point of us working with younger students from now like fourth grade all the way through college. And now that we have incredible other team members, like Amanda, who was our admin, like Emily hopping on board, awesome, other speakers, we have Zion, who is emphasizing in mental health and substance use. Tomas obviously has that diversion story. It’s more for that I’m on prevention. And then we have Malaysia, and Trevor, who are new speakers as well, that are doing that prevention story and are able, I mean, we can go out to more places at once. And what I really love too, is before I thought that, in order to make a difference, we would need to speak or educate, and then find student leaders who would then create this club, where they would throw drug free events. Since that I found about the amazing whole prevention field. Like I didn’t realize that I was this tiny part of this huge movement called prevention and primary prevention, which has everything from advocating, you know, students using their own voices, creating real change in the community through laws through policies. And then also the fact of redefining social norms, and showing how students are making healthy positive decisions and how our platform actually fits into this bigger picture of positive social norms, having alternative events, student leadership, and just this whole picture. So it’s been, it’s gone from being a speaking platform, to a leadership development platform, and something that includes media and policy change and leadership development and trainings, and even a curriculum. So I think it’s turning into a real a real platform, a real change agent in like this nationwide community of prevention.
Dreaming Big: Visionary Ideas for Substance-Free Events and Leadership Development
Right, so we’re dreamers, right? We’re always like, Oh, what if we, what if we, what if we did this? What if we did that? What’s your biggest what if we fill in the blank?
Ah, how much time do you have? I have so many injuries. I’m just going to fire a couple of them off. One of the dreams that I’ve had since cool is to have a like a truck that is outfitted with a bunch of games with speakers with music that you could literally drive up to a student group and they could host a substance free event out of the back of your truck. And you’ve got everything right there and and it would be a dream dealer to travel with that. And yeah, how this whole experience because we’re all about having fun and showing students you can have fun, make friends and feel good without substances. So what if we literally had an experience? right there with them, you know, after a presentation and stuff like that, and the students got to lead the event with us. Oh, that’s huge. The other two, when we started, because we through our very first conference this year, with 100, student leaders from across Arizona, New Mexico, Washington. And it was awesome. So my dream is to have that at maybe four or five places across the country, where we’re equipping students to become leaders for mental health promotion and substance use prevention. But the final one is a new one. And you might hear about this soon. It’s a drug prevention cruise. Yeah. Okay. So the whole thing is this. It’s so expensive to go to these conferences. And it just, I mean, it makes sense thing, and hotels is expensive meals are expensive. Our Cruise is all inclusive, you get your room, you get entertainment, you get food. And oftentimes you can spend less than $1,000 to go on this cruise for four or five days, which is the time of a conference. So what would it what would it do for us financially, and how, how more, how more involved, it could be, like we’d be and sharing with each other if we were stuck on a boat for five days. Like all those moments in between the sessions when we get to know each other sharing ideas, and although like really juicy stuff, we’d have so many moments to do that. Sitting in the hot tub, playing mini golf on the cruise going on an adventure sitting at the beach, all those things could happen. And I think it’d be really memorable. So you might see a Vive 18 cruise invitation pretty soon there.
I think that’s it. You did good.
Building Community and Sharing Stories on the Drug Prevention Power Hour
All right. Well, there you have it. We’re gonna watch this and pick out the parts that we think are helpful. Send it to Adriana, she is a student who saw us at CADCA and is going to make this my life story drawing experience. We’ll post it on YouTube or Instagram. It should be two to three minutes. But yeah, this has been fun. Thanks, Emily White, you’re awesome. I can’t wait for you to join the team.
For everyone listening, this has been another episode of the drug prevention Power Hour. Don’t forget to message, text or email those friends who’d like to get involved. Ask for something, see if they’d like to help out. And remember, you don’t have to do this alone. And I’m going to make a plea because I don’t want to do this alone. If you have something you would like to teach the prevention community, something you’re passionate about, and you are just all about it. You want to share, please let me know because I would love to have you as a guest on the podcast, so that we can help educate each other. Move each others further and a rising tide raises all ships right. So let’s do this. I will see you next Monday for another episode. See you later.
