The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Boy Who Could Smell Warming by Patrick Fleming

The Boy Who Could Smell Warming by Patrick Fleming https://www.amazon.com/dp/1963844572 There was always something exceptional and different about ten-year-old Reuben Otis O'Brien, but no one, including Reuben Otis himself, can figure out quite what it is. All that he knows is that he can smell something very strange that no one else can, and sometimes it makes him sick. The Boy Who Could Smell Warming is the story of Reuben Otis's quest to discover his special ability and its purpose. Since, as he describes himself, Reuben Otis is a "nerd in a cool guy's body," he does his own scientific investigation and finds out that he possesses a very unusual superpower which is vital for the whole world and will make him a true superhero. As he starts to use his superpower with the help of his family and two neighborhood friends, he learns he can change things vital to his hometown and to the entire planet. This gives Reuben Otis a newfound pride and a whole new direction to his life. About the author Patrick Fleming, M. Div., L. C. S. W., C. S. A. T. is a psychotherapist and spiritual coach in a private practice in St. Louis, MO, Double Rainbow Counseling, Coaching, and Consulting, with his wife, Suzanne Lauber-Fleming. He is the principal co-author, with his wife and other colleagues, of a trilogy of books on psycho-spiritual trauma recovery. He has also authored a number of articles on psychological, spiritual, recovery, and social issues for a variety of national and international publications As a psychotherapist, Patrick specializes in the treatment of abuse and trauma, sexual addiction and compulsivity, couple counseling, and the integration of spirituality and psychology. He has been a hospital chaplain, a hospice counselor and a psychotherapist for over thirty years.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now here's your host, Chris Voss.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Hey, I'm Chris Voss here from the ChrisVossShow.com.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Ladies and gentlemen, I think the iron lady there had a little bit of font on her voice. So she didn't quite get the full thing there. Let's see if we can't capture that again. I don't know. It's on a fade out. So maybe sometimes her voice doesn't work as good as mine, or sometimes vice versa. But she probably needs more support and you free her for your family, friends or relatives. So she feels love enough to have a wonderful voice on the show. Go to ChrisVoss.com, LinkedIn.com, Youtube.com and Facebook.com for all those crazy places in there. Today's featured author comes to us from BooksToLifeMarketing.co.uk. With expert publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book's success. Today, amazing young man on the show, we're going to be talking

• 1:28Speaker 01

  about his book and his insights and some of the wonderful things he's been up to writing. The title of his book is called The Boy Who Could Smell Warming by Patrick Fleming. We're going to get into it with his book and find out the details of what he's been up to with many of the books he's written as a multi-book author. Yeah. He is a retired psychotherapist, international speaker and consultant, award-winning writer of self-help books, including his most recent Soul Light for the Dark Knight Daily Meditations. He has written four works of fiction, Gaia's Revenge, a fantasy novel about global warming, Miriam the Christmas Cow, a children's tale about their first Christmas, La Vaca, Miriam la Navidad, the Spanish edition,

• 2:13Speaker 01

  and the illustrated children's book, The Boy Who Could Smell Warming. He and his wife, Sue, share 10 grandchildren, as is writing, five great grandchildren. They live outside of St. Louis, Missouri, surrounded by wonderful animals and neighbors. Welcome to the show. How are you, sir?

• 2:28Speaker 02

  I'm great, Chris. Thank you. I'm really honored to be with you today.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  We're honored to have you, sir. We're honored to have you. Can you give us dot coms, websites, anywhere you want people to find you on the interwebs?

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, my website is DoubleRainbow.com. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. DoubleRainbowBooks.com.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Okay, Double Rainbow Books. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside your new book?

• 2:52Speaker 02

  The Boy Who Could Smell Warming is a children's book aimed at children from about eight to 13. And it's, it's about a young man who is a little bit different than other kids. He has Asperger's Syndrome and he struggles a little bit with social skills, especially at school. But he's very bright and he calls himself a nerd in a cool guy's body because he's very bright and actually adept at sports, but just struggles with some learning disabilities and with, with social interactions. However, he has, he has discovered this very unusual

• 3:32Speaker 02

  sensory experience in which he smells things and sometimes those things make him sick. And he's not sure what it's all about. And finally, when he was about 10 years old, he and his mother have a discussion and she says, why don't you, you're a good scientist. Why don't you do a little research on yourself and, and you figure out from what you're experiencing and about what you smell and where you smell it, about what this might be. So he goes through a week-long process of seeing where he smells this particular smell, what it smells like, and when it makes him sick. And finally, at the end, he goes back to his mother and

• 4:16Speaker 02

  he says, Mom, I think I've got it. It seems like I only have this smell when there is something I'm exposed to that's connected to global warming.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  When I'm in a gasoline-powered automobile. I get, I get really sick when I go to the gas station. When I was in my friend's ski boat and it's gas-powered, I got sick. But when I was with my other friend, Kobe, she has, her family has an electric car. I didn't get sick. Their house is powered by electricity. I don't get sick there. And so he finally figures out that he somehow can smell anything that's connected to warming the planet. Whatever is carbon-based and is creating carbon dioxide or methane and warming the planet. So that's

• 5:10Speaker 02

  the gist of the story. And then it's, it's his process of discovery of himself and this superpower and then how, how he experiences it and applies it to a situation in his neighborhood.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so that's gotta be annoying because I think everything's pretty much poisonous for the environment right now.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  Yes, very true.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  It sounds like, it sounds like when I had a friend during COVID and for a week, everything she ate and smelt smelled like cat piss, but extreme cat piss, you know?

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  You ever smelled cat piss litter that hasn't ever been cleaned for weeks at a time or something? Really intense. I'm like, that has really got to be hard to eat something and it smells that way.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  That's, that's what Ruben O'Leary, O'Brien experiences.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  I feel for him.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  I feel for him. Don't let him near the White House. He's going to have lots of smells in 2026 because we're disabling everything that's good for the environment, I guess. Putting all the science and all that stuff. Now, you, you've written how many books? I want to highlight that you're a multi-book author.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  I've written seven books.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Seven books.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  And then is there a theme of talking about the environment, global warming, at least with one or two more books? Or is that throughout all of them?

• 6:29Speaker 02

  No, it's not throughout all of them. It's really just the latest two, The Boy Who Could Smell Warming and Gaia's Revenge. They're about global warming. The other, the Christmas book is just a sweet Christmas tale that, that I created. The previous three books, Broken Trust, Shattered Soul, and the Soul Light for the Dark Knight Daily Meditation Book, those all come from my work as a psychotherapist in healing trauma and abuse. And really what's happened in my, in my personal and professional life and my writing life is I've spent most of my life of 35 years working as a psychotherapist, healing individuals and families and groups

• 7:14Speaker 02

  and, and especially healing trauma and, and abuse. And in these later years in my professional and personal life, I really felt a call to, to work to heal the planet and our relationship with the planet and help to motivate people to really do what they can do to help heal the planet.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. We're starting to see some really crazy, just crazy stuff with the planet. Recently, I was just watching homes, I believe in Long Beach, falling into the ocean. The ocean is getting more and more and more powerful. And it's just crazy. And yeah, it's, it's pretty wild how, how everything is going on. We're seeing some of the worst theaters of atmosphere and weather. I think we're going into one of the worst El Ninos there ever has been, ever. And it's, it's a little hard to cover your ears of, of everything that was predicted that waters would rise in places that are close to sea level or below sea level

• 8:18Speaker 01

  would fall into the sea. And yeah, it's, it's really hard to deny at this point, I think.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  I really, I really think it is, Chris. That's, I think when this first started, we were looking at global warming. They predicted a lot of stuff for the future. And I think we expected that it was not going to happen for some decades. Actually, it's really starting to become very clear that it's, it's, it's already happening now. The effects of global warming are already hitting us in big time ways. Huge horrible heat waves, really extreme storms, extreme flooding, and all of it's, some of it's the natural weather cycle. But, but all of it seems ramped up beyond what is normal. And, and that apparently is attributed to global warming.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was watching a show, I think it was in North Carolina, or it was a news thing in North Carolina, and they were showing homes again, just recently falling into the sea. And the water, the water is below them. I, I don't know if that's a high tide or whatever. But so they showed, they took pictures from the homes that showed where the tide used to come up to. And it was like, it was like way, I don't know, maybe a hundred yards away, like a football field at least.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Really?

• 9:41Speaker 01

  From the house. When this, and this was, I think the house was built in like the 60s or 70s.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  And they showed the advancement from the pictures that the people had been taking of how close the water kept coming up, moving close to the home. And it was just crazy to see because the home actually sits up on a riser. And, and yet you see the home today and it's, it's basically the, the footings are underwater. It's in, it's in the, it's in the ocean.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I saw that also.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you just sit there and you just look at it and you go, my God. And it, it moved faster over the years. Like it, it started like, it was like 30 years, a little bit of movement. And then all of a sudden it's just, we're gonna eat everything on land.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's a big deal. And, and now this book is targeted towards youth. What, what sort of ages or people is it targeted to?

• 10:34Speaker 02

  From about eight to about 13. I think younger children, it could be read to if the parents also explain the story a bit. But, but that's, that's the basic audience that, that I was shooting at.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. You gotta be careful, I guess, maybe, you know, this is your future, kid. You're gonna be living as a scuba diver 24/7 and welcome, your world's going to shit. Think that for leaving this great place.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Are you gonna have, are you gonna have to wear a personal air conditioning unit around you all the time?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm there now.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Or there, or, or as one of, as one of my, my character says, because of all the plastics that are now in the system, in our systems, he said, are we gonna someday poop plastic?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Evidently it's in our sperm. I, I was just on TikTok earlier doom scrolling and some, I, I don't know this is a fact, folks, because it is on TikTok, right? So let's question everything on the internet first. But they were saying that the, those microplastics, those microbeads or whatever they are.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  They're finding in our sperm. So like, we're gonna have kids coming out with, I don't know, microbeads.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Well, we had a new species coming of.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't know what, what that's gonna cause, but actually it's scientifically established that, that the microplastics are all over our body, including in your sperm.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  When, when girls call me fat, I just go, no, honey, I have plenty of muscle. It's just the extra microplastics that have formed in my gut. Yeah, that's, I'm not, I'm not really fat. I'm just wearing lots of microplastics.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Well, Chris, what I, Chris, what I tried to do in the book was to, to help, help young people to be aware. Okay. And to, to show them the reality of what is happening and what, what probably is gonna happen in the future. But I wanted to also give them a sense of hope that, that there are things that, that can be done about this. The process can be slowed down. It may not be reversible for, for some centuries, but at least it can be slowed down and moderated considerably if we do the right things. And, and that, that the things, we already have most of the tools that we need

• 12:50Speaker 02

  to, to actually stop burning so many fossil fuels and putting them in the atmosphere. We, we already have them. They're scalable. They're economical. They work. And some nations around the world, not us, not the US, but some nations around the world are doing probably really pretty remarkable things along this line. I just read about like a third world country like Morocco, set up this giant solar energy farm. And they're, they're producing enough energy to provide all their electricity and sell some to Europe.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  So it's, it's doable. And I also wanted the young people to, to know there's something that they can do. Ruben, Reuben Otis discovers that he has a superpower and that he can do something about global warming in a very powerful way. But everybody has some kind of gift or superpower. And they can, they can use that to already begin to shape their future and change our relationship with our planet.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. My superpower evidently is being lactose intolerant. And I won't, I won't describe for you what weapon I use.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  No, your, your, your superpower, Chris, is, is your, your voice, your presence, your, your questions, your searching.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  My, some girls say my superpower is being just extremely ugly and annoying. So that's, evidently that's something that powerfully works or doesn't work for me. Now, so what do you hope people come away with when they read this book, The Boy Who Could Smell Warming?

• 14:32Speaker 02

  I would like them to come away with that, that there is a reality to global warming, that, that it will have a major effect in the future. It's already having a pretty major effect now. Okay. However, I'd like them to go away with hope and a sense of agency that there are things that they can do, even young people can do to, to change our relationship with the earth and we start to reverse global warming and shape, reshape our future.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  It's their future too. We're, we're pretty old, so we, we kinda used up the planet, pissed all over on it.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, we did. And, and we're, we're, we're being affected too, but, but the bigger effects are gonna be for our kids and grandkids.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they're the ones that are gonna have to live with the mess.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  They're the ones, it's their future that they've gotta deal with. And yeah, so the, and, and hopefully they'll care about it and be better with it than we were. But there, there's the thing. So let's talk about some of your other books and get a plug in here for them. How do we, I'll let you lead off with whichever book you wanna plug away.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  The, the one that I'm, I'm most interested in plugging these days is, is the adult book novel on global warming, Gaia's Revenge. It's, it's a, it's a unique book. It's, it's a common combination of fantasy, science fiction, climate science, spirituality, adventure, and suspense. And you could say mythology, I suppose. And, and it's basically, the premise is that Gaia, who is the, the Greek goddess name for the earth, Gaia is like a person, a personhood. There's a personality to the earth.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  And she has become tired of what we've done to her and to her other creatures. And so she has decided to challenge us and has begun to, to show that she can take revenge.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Oh, revenge.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  If we don't change. And she, she can worsen what's happening now, even already from global warming. But she, she, even though she's very angry, she loves her human creatures enough that she wants to give us a chance. And so she, she gives a message and a vision to four different individuals. A, a Catholic nun, a Hindu priestess, a gay Protestant minister, and a marine biologist who is a clinkit woman as well. And they're given this secret message that they have to deliver to an Irish, young Irish woman

• 17:18Speaker 02

  who's a leader of an ecological anti-global warming movement based in Ireland, but it's international. And, and she is to get this message to then give to the rest of humanity, to, to give us another chance before, before she really wreaks revenge.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  So that's, that's the basis of the story.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  We kinda need that right now.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, what we, but we, we need the science that we have. That's very important. But we also need two other things. We need a spirituality that motivates us and inspires us and, and helps to incorporate all the science and helps to motivate it in a particular direction of healing. And we also need stories that we, that we can tell ourselves and share with each other to help us get a deeper meaning about what's happening to our planet.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  It, it's up to us. We're all stewards of this planet. We're all, we all speak from it. We need to give back to that environment and make sure the world, what's the old adage? Leave the world a better place before all that. And that's, it's a big deal. And fun is fun. Fun is fun. And then that, that's targeted towards adults to try and maybe help them see examples of, of global warming.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Yes, it is.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Let's see. Now, any other books you wanna profile before we go out?

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, one of my, my favorite books is, is our meditation book called Soul Light for the Dark Night. Daily Meditations of Healing from Trauma and Abuse. And it's, it's based on our, our work. My, my wife and I wrote that with another friend and colleague, Vicky Schmidt. And Sue, Sue and I and Vicky had the, the idea that we wanted to share our experience of recovering from heal, from trauma and abuse ourselves, but also with Sue and I, because we're both psychotherapists, our experience of working with clients who've been traumatized. And to give them a daily inspiration and activity to help their healing process.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  And the, the daily meditation, and then there's some action to take from each of the daily meditations.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Ah, the meditations to stay focused on and all that good stuff. Now, on your website, are there any offerings of speaking, coaching, consulting, any of that stuff?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Available at least online for, for, for speaking and coaching. I'm not able to travel at this, at this time because of my, my wife's health, but, but online I'm available for that sort of thing.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  All right. And so people can reach you there. Any of the other books we wanna plug while we have here?

• 20:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. The, our first book was Broken Trust, Stories of Hope, Healing, and Pain from Clerical Abuse Survivors and perpetrators, clerical perpetrators.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  And, and this was, this is our first book and launched us into the field of writing and, and also aided our career as, as presenters around the world. And it's, it's what we discovered, we started to work with, first of all, with survivors of, of different kinds of abuse, including clerical sexual abuse.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  And then we were called to and answered the call to to work with clergy who had perpetrated abuse against minors, which was quite a leap of of faith. And it actually worked out that we we really were able to discover not just what they had done to to their victims, which was horrific, but also their their core humanity, which was wounded in themselves and their own behaviors came from their own woundedness.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting how hurt people hurt people, right?

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yes, exactly, exactly.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you see a lot of that in today's world. And it just it seems to be just to pass the hurt on to somebody else. And that's like that pay it forward only. It's what's the old adage? Maybe if you honk at somebody and ruin their day on the freeway, and then they go cut someone else off and ruin their day and that person.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's that's very true. Yeah.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's a lot of that. But yeah, trauma is a really big thing. I really wish I constantly have this conversation on the show, but I really wish that we would teach identification of childhood trauma in high school or junior high.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And I wish we'd talk about how to resolve it, how it might impact you for the future. Because sadly, most people in in you, you deal with these folks more than I do. And so maybe I could be wrong. But it seems to me, a lot of people create a lot of damage through life before they finally realize they have trauma, they're exhibiting it, and it's a problem. Sadly, there's just a lot of destruction that takes place. And I'm speaking from a point of me after 50 years, looking back on my life and going, maybe it's me. All that stuff dragging through the through the dirt there. It could be me. And yeah, it's something

• 22:40Speaker 01

  you got to, you got to look at and go, what does it all mean? And but we should teach that in school. I didn't need to learn.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  I agree very much.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  I didn't need to learn trigotometry, if anything, biology, that that that may just kick the shit out of my self esteem and made me feel worse. There's people that they need that. Yeah, I mean, there's there's people that are going to go on to be scientists. They're gonna love dissecting frogs and that shit. Let them do that. Electrical class, I don't know, that's great for electricians, but they should really have a thing. I don't need six months of a class to figure out that I'm never going to use whatever this course is in life. Seriously, I don't know about you, but when I grew up, we had wood shop, leather shop, and metal shop. You know how much I've ever used any of those three skills?

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had many similar useless classes.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if anything, at the risk of losing fingers, my my my metal shop teacher, God bless him, he was a he was a wonderful stern man. But you know, he had like all these missing fingers from all the grinders that and you look at him and be like, I don't really want to go into metallurgy, seeing the teacher's hands. That doesn't sound like, but it did give you a good warning that you were very careful around the grinders.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  You want to be like me, boy, with my fingers. That was pretty crazy. Or just like, yeah, I don't I don't think that's my destiny. Metal shop with missing fingers. It's a little hard to pick up the chicks with that one these days. So as we go out, give people a final pitch out to pick up your books, where they can order, where they can find out more about you. And any forthcoming ideas you're working on or cooking up?

• 24:22Speaker 02

  Oh, sure. First of all, you can you can find all of my books on amazon.com or Barnes and Noble, and a lot of other outlets as well. Or you can order my books directly from my website, double rainbow books.com. And in terms of projects, I'm also I'm working on a children's book about mental health. And it's a very personal book, because it was about it's about my relationship with my older brother, who had, when I was 10 years old, developed schizophrenia.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Okay, and the healing process that happened between the two of us is, as he I grew older, and as he went through the the rages of his disease, which eventually burned out and moderated. But

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Anyway, I'm writing a children's book about that.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be a good book. It that is such a horrific disease. I've had employees that have had children that have schizophrenia. And they would they would have to come to me and be like, Chris, I gotta go bail him out of jail again. It's it's such a horrific disease. And I think it's such a hard thing to fight, too. Even if you're on lithium and or whatever all the drugs are they have nowadays, you can still crash out, you can sometimes they don't it doesn't work for some reason, I don't know. But yeah, it's just the level of pain and and damage I've seen people go through with a loved one who has schizophrenia. It's just so hard.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's very hard.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  My brother, my brother, excuse me, but my brother Rocky was really underneath the illness, a very sweet guy. And and we and we we reconnected as I got older and around that sweetness that he still had within him. And his disease calmed down enough that we could then really have a real deep, deep friendship as brothers. And I and I want to share that that story with young people, and also the hope that was that we found even with his disease.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And and I guess you did find some hope, then. It was was a medication? Or was there something that helped him that you found, maybe?

• 26:36Speaker 02

  I think I, yeah, I think it was the right medication. And then he finally accepted that he needed to be on the medication.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that's hard thing to do.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  And and he faithfully stayed on the medication. And then the other part, I think, is just simply that that he and I believed in Rocky enough, and and he loved me enough, that we were able to reform our bond. And and he really developed into almost like a Saint Francis of Assisi.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  Guy with nature and and with his kindness and sweetness with me and with other people. And Rocky himself, I think, worked to to kind of rediscover himself and underneath underneath the illness and bring it to the to the to the surface.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've known lots of people that have struggled with addiction. I lived I lived in Vegas for most of my life. Which which do you think is harder to, I don't know, become self aware of and and and do the work on? Is it addiction? Or is it someone who has a real addictive personality? Or schizophrenia? Which do you think is harder to reconcile if you're in that if you're the first person in that experiencing it?

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Wow, that's really tough.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  It might just be similar.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're very, I was just gonna say, they're they're both similar, and they're both very tough to break through the denial about. Schizophrenia might be a little harder because the the person's brain is more deeply distorted and affected by the illness than addiction really messes with your brain. But but schizophrenia does an even worse job on your brain. And so it's a little harder, I think, for them to reason their way to accepting their schizophrenia. But I I worked mostly with addicts in my professional career. And geez, the the power of denial that I witnessed over and over again was just astounding.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have a new group of addicts in this world. Do we need to get repaired in open clinics for is people who are addicted to their phones with their dopamine addiction? We're seeing so much dopamine addiction.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  In in our dating fields, it's really out of control.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  It is out of control. But that that and gambling.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I lived in Vegas for 2030 years. I've seen that. I've had those people. You have to really be careful in Vegas. They lie. They lie and say that only maybe, I think, 10 or 15% of the population there has addiction problems. It's more like 30%. At least that's maybe I'm slighted because I just run into them all the time. But I'm you you you learn to avoid those people. If you see them in Vegas, or they want to be your friend, because they always want to be your friend, right? They need somebody to borrow money from. And but it's hard. I've I've loved people that were had alcoholism. And just like your brother, when they weren't drinking, they were just the most wonderful people. And that's what made it so hard to deal with. Because you're like, but they're

• 29:41Speaker 01

  so loving and so kind and so wonderful when they're not in state. But when they're in state, it's a whole other thing.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  It is. Yeah.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it's unfortunate. But I think I think we need to open people who are addicted to dopamine, attention of phones. It is insane, some of the things that we see in the marketplace. And and people, they've built their whole lives around it. I never knew how really big of a deal it was until recently, we did have a guy on who he shaped this whole he grew up in the Instagram coming of age era. So I think he was like Gen Z or something like that. Or Gen, I think it might have been a millennial or millennial cusp with Gen Z. And he talked about his self evaluation of himself and his self esteem based upon people that were allegedly killing it on Instagram, you know, faking fakeness and stuff.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  And it was really interesting to watch how deep he really got sucked down the rabbit hole, believing number one, that people on Facebook are actually who they say they are. It's not a front. And just the effect that it it shaped him as a as a man, and a young boy, that somehow he needed to become a multimillionaire if he just was going to be somebody. And, and the nightmare chase that he went trying to find himself when really he was there the whole time. So yeah, pretty wild. So as we go out, if you'll find a pitch out and dot coms where they can pick up your book and all that good stuff.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  Okay, again, you can, you can purchase my books at amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and actually a lot of other online book platforms. And also you can order it through my, my website, double rainbow books.com. And I really have enjoyed the, this interview with, with you, Chris, and

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Thank you. I have to.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  Engaging with your audience as well.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  And what wonderful books you're writing and, and this is stuff we all need to think about. And then I love the soul light for the dark light night, daily meditations for healing from trauma and abuse.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, that's actually one of my favorite books of all, all the ones that we've written.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a big deal. So many people have unresolved trauma and this world would probably be a better place if we, if we taught trauma recognition in high school and, and said, here's how you fix it. And if you don't, I remember when I was in school, they, the cops would bring in that dared, that dare dog or whatever. And it'd be like, it was, that was, this was the Reagan era where they're like, I think Nancy Reagan was popping pills on the side, but she's like, oh, we're gonna dare kids not to do drugs. You're like,

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Say no.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Just, yeah, just say no to a really good time, but it ends very quickly. And so they would bring all the drugs and we'd look at them and inspect them and smell them and they, they have all this work they would put in. And I'm like, trauma is almost worse than some drugs. If you have addicted personality, it's probably worse. But for me, someone who doesn't have addicted personality, I can tell you, trauma did more damage in my life than any of the drugs I took. And I drank pretty hard for 20 years. I had a good time. I didn't, I was an addict, but I abused myself. I thought it was, it was an easy juice at the end of the night to do some extra entrepreneur work, but, and I thought it's made me sleep better because I was an idiot. And none of those are true. And, and I did it, but I finally

• 33:09Speaker 01

  woke up after 20 years and said, and, and honestly, I was masking some trauma with that alcohol. So I was coping.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  Very, very often underneath the addiction is, is, is a trauma that you're trying to medicate.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I saw that a lot. I saw that a lot with Dr. Drew's rehab show. That rehab show and the stars would go rehab there. And I started noticing the pattern of sexual trauma and drug abuse and eating abuse, a lot of fat people overeat and, and let themselves go because they don't want to be attractive to future trauma predators. Interesting how the whole thing works.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  It is. Yeah.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it, Patrick, and thanks for sharing all your knowledge and all that good stuff and uplifting the world.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Thank, thank you, Chris. It was very enjoyable for me.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Thank you. Folks, pick up the book where refined books are sold. The boy who could smell warming. Maybe you could write a book on dating. The boy who could smell when women go cold.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  The man who could smell ghosting.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  If I, if I could figure that out, Chris, I'd be a billionaire.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Wouldn't we all? All of us men. Anyway, thank you very much, Patrick. Thanks so much for tuning in. Order up his book where refined books are sold, folks. Go to goodies.com, for just Chris Voss, linkedin.com, for just Chris Voss, youtube.com, for just Chris Voss, and all those crazy places in the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.

• 34:36Speaker 00

  You've been listening to the most amazing intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Voss Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss Show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not endorsement or review of any kind.