What was your relationship? Any year, any way schooling happened for you, what was it like for you?

Gosh, I mean, it changed quite a bit, I would say.

You know, early on, I was in French immersion.

And I was very ADHD.

I mean, now this is pre ADHD language, pre diagnosis or anything like that.

But now I have I do have a diagnosis now.

And so I had the classic ADHD, lots of energy, very impulsive, hard time paying attention, always in my mind thinking about more interesting things.

Like then what did that shift? Yeah.

Give me a Reader's Digest version, Jeff, of how we got from that 11-year-old to, say, becoming a PGA professional.

Well, I ended up being a pretty good junior player, had a great short game so I could get it in the hole and I could score.

Went off to play, attempt to walk on in Georgia and was such a disorganized mess that I didn't even schedule my classes properly.

I went there in the year of Herschel Walker, the year after they'd won the national championship.

So there was oversubscribed for kids attending and by the time I signed up for classes, there was very little available.

So I had like a nine o'clock, a two o'clock and a four o'clock and had not made any contact with the coach other than having seen him, you know, in previous years at different tournaments and hadn't made any, I walked into his office and he's like, well, how are you going to walk on with the schedule? So he was kind enough to invite me to walk on in the spring.

But by then college life had taken over.

you know,

Was it at that time that you were sort of studying this?

Yeah.

Okay, well, so the history, I'll just give you a snapshot.

Yeah, yeah.

First of all, I'll just roll in the ADHD as well because it's relevant.

So I think I was a kind of classic ADHD kid, impulsive kid.

my youth whatever and then i feel like it's i started to get more regulated actually with my attention i feel like i i might have been one of those people who had adhd as a kid and then it sort of got resolved as an adult however in my end of my first year university i was a i was a major party animal i um i just did a shit ton of drugs and and one night and like i was wasted too and And I climbed this tree is a Montreal.

um,

Mm.

Like, "I'm done with this.

I can't be in this body anymore.

It's too hard.

I can't be in my experience.

I'm gonna go and just check out." And your body's not actually tired.

Your mind is just like, "I've made a decision that I..." And that is where you, you were saying like all of these hindrances are kind of mixed up, 'cause there can be this like subtle, and this is what I notice, is like a subtle aversion just to staying here.

Right.

[laughs]

It's too bad, and I've been run over by the curriculum.

But it is still the curriculum, and now I just have, um, I can really feel there's been a sea change the past sort of year in my life, you know, with the intense challenges of parenting.

They're amplified by the kind of neurodivergent piece of both my wife and I being, um, having different kinds of nervous systems that get easily blown out [laughs] under the stresses of parenting.

And, uh, so there's lots of overwhelm.

And, and then to say nothing of the global situation, which has just preyed so heavily and hugely.

It's constantly on my mind, constantly on my heart.

[laughs]

How do we get equanimity around existential fears for our kids?" Jeff, just to broaden the question for those who don't have kids, you know, around anybody that you love and, uh, feel responsible for.

Yeah, I mean, it's the hardest thing.

I would say it's the single hardest thing in human life, that question.

Thanks for asking the single hardest thing in human life.

Um, it's a practice.

It's an endless life practice.

Every parent, every human with any relationship will know that, well, however old you are.

It seems to take up so much space and gets in the way of just experiencing what is."