JCIP #357 - Miles Spencer

In episode 357 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Miles Spencer. 

Miles is a business leader and entrepreneur with over 30 years’ experience in the industry. 

He has started, built, and led three unique companies and ‘exited’ from them, which means a founder, owner, or investor has sold their stake in a company, effectively cashing out their investment.

Today, he is the Co-Founder and CEO of an AI company called Reflekta.

Reflekta is an AI-powered ‘digital legacy platform’ in the company’s words, and their goal is to help families preserve voices, stories, and wisdom for generations.

So far, Reflekta have enabled over 20,000 stories with their customers, and their goal is to reach 1m of these by the end of 2026. 

In this episode, we chart Miles' journey in business, the achievement of exiting from three different businesses, his business failures and what he learned from them, and how the art of storytelling has shaped his career, life and values. 

We then do a deep dive into the work he does with Reflekta, why they employ grief counsellors and hospice workers as advisors at the business to shape their work, why they aren’t therapy, and why he views it as important to state that, in his words, ‘we are not reincarnating people’.

For Miles’ mental health journey, we discuss some mental health challenges he had in 2025 when several people close to him came close to death, the life and death of his father, who died 8 years ago and his own personal use of Reflekta too.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can find out more about Reflekta here: https://reflekta.ai/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hi Venters, welcome back to another episode of the Just Checking In Podcast. I'm your host, Freddie Cocker, and this podcast is brought to you by Vent, a place where everyone, but especially men and boys, can open up about their mental health issues, break down stigmas, and start conversations. In each episode, I check in with a special guest. We have a natter and a chat about all things mental health, as well as anything and everything else they are passionate about. If it helps that person with their mental health, we discuss it. My special guest for this episode is Miles Spencer. Miles is a business leader, founder, and entrepreneur with over 30 years experience in business. Miles got in touch with me after checking in with Friend of the Pod Darren Lawrence's episode and wanted to share his story on the podcast. He has started, built, and led three unique companies that exited, which means a founder, owner, or investor has sold their stake in a company, effectively cashing out their investment. These businesses were Operative, which he exited in 2005, Aptaris in 2012, and Majeiva in 2014. Today he is the co-founder and CEO of an AI company called Reflector. Now Reflector is an AI-powered digital legacy platform, in the company's words, and their goal is to help families preserve voices, stories, and wisdom for generations. Reflector's messaging states that they are not a static recording, not just a photo album. They state they are instead a living conversation your family can return to any time, because memory deserves more than storage, it deserves connection. I was fascinated with the business when Miles and I spoke off air, and I had so many questions about Reflector's altruistic aims, and I also wanted to explore the ethical and moral issues that the company might provoke in people. So far, Reflector has enabled over 12,843 stories with their customers, and their goal is to reach 1 million of these by the end of 2026. Miles says that in his entire career, all of his previous roles combined do not surpass the work he believes he is doing with Reflector in just under a year of the business's existence at time of recording. In this episode, we chart Miles' journey in business, the achievement of exiting three different businesses, his business failures and what he learned from them, and how the art of storytelling has shaped his career, life and values. We then do a deep dive into the work he does with Reflector today, why they decided to employ grief counselors and hospice workers as advisors at the business to shape their work, why they aren't therapy, and why he views it as important to state that in his words, we are not reincarnating people. We talk about why he believes Reflect represents the positives that AI can bring to humanity, society, and business, and the imposter syndrome he initially felt when customers began telling him about the positive impact that Reflector had on them. For Miles' mental health journey, we discussed some mental health challenges he had in 2025 when several people close to him came close to death, the life and death of his father, who died eight years ago, and how we also use Reflector to have more conversations with his father. Once you have hopefully listened to the podcast, I want you to make up your own mind about the role of AI in grief recovery. You may agree, you may use it in the future, and you might also disagree with the ethics of it entirely. And that's also okay. So this is how my conversation with Miles Spencer went. Thank you so much for letting me check in with you. When you got in touch with me after checking in with Darren's pod and I started my research into Reflector, I was absolutely fascinated with it and I was fascinated with our chat off air as well. How are you on this Saturday morning, especially over in the United States? We got some sunshine.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

For once, I'm in the Northeast US in Metro New York and doing okay, but I've got my baritone audio radio voice on for you today.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So I hope that's working. I'm great. Excellent to hear, mate. Great for my editing job later on. We have got so much fascinating things to discuss. My brain was whirring with so many questions when we chatted off air. So I hope you're ready for them. Without further ado, are you ready to start the show and talk all about your amazing journey? Eh, fire away. We're going to start your podcast, Miles, by talking about your professional journey first. And it's a 30-year span. So take me back to the beginning. Curious kid from Pennsylvania in the USA who asked, who, what, where, when, and why. You stole my line, but you butchered it, Freddie.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

It's who, what, why, where, when.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Right. That's how we do it in the UK. That's that format.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

All right. So Needless to say, drove my parents crazy no matter what order I asked it in. And that led to a life of both adventure and venture. And those are kind of becoming the same thing. Because at the end of the day, the greatest adventure of all is I have two kids, 14 and 12. And when I look at what my father passed to me and what I hope to pass to them, it's the storytelling. It's the wisdom. It's the foibles, it's the screw-ups, it's the lessons learned. It's the Spencer way. And that I was looking for ways to make intergenerational a way to take that wisdom, call it that, and pass it down through the generations. Because the technology that we've had until now has been nice, but wholly inaccurate. And our brains are kind of leaky when it comes to memory. So thank God for the new technology, we're able to do it much better now.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Going deeper, obviously your dad imparted all of this wisdom onto you. But how did you learn the art of storytelling? And how did you learn how to impart it as well?

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Well, also credit to my mom, who was a wonderful storyteller as well. She had this beautiful voice. She was a singer, she was an actress. So she was able to capture the heart first and then tell a story. And my dad would just launch into stories and eventually capture the heart. So we didn't call it storytelling back then. We called it bullshitting. And you'd sit around the fire and you'd tell a story. And what was amazing as you got older is the memory got worse and the stories got better. Right. So as you apply the varnish of years to a core Spencer story, it just kept getting better and better and better to the point where obviously it got to the line of BS, which is American for bullshit. And so, you know, that was a great way to pass time sitting around the fire at the camp or at the pool or whatever we were doing, killing time. And stories were a huge part of our family lore. Not everyone has those. Not everyone has the desires to keep those. Perhaps we were unique in that regard. And I have to mention that my co-founder, Adam Drake, had a family that was basically the same way, and we're very good friends. We've been working together for 25, 30 years. So it came as no surprise that he had different stories told in a similar way. And, you know, that was our entertainment back then, right? I mean, we didn't have the phones, we didn't have social media, we didn't have the rest of it. We had movies. You can go to a movie, but we didn't consume stories the way we do today. And I think to a certain extent, there's a value in the throwback to the full ranging cinematic history of whatever it is you're telling. And it engages an audience, but most importantly, it engages the most important audience of all, and that's children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Because God bless the books we've written and the photographs we've taken, right? Remember these? You're holding up a Polaroid to the camera for the listeners. There you go, for those listening. They were great. Wow, Polaroid, take a picture. You can see it in 60 seconds. I mean, who would ever think of that, right? But they're sitting around in uh shoeboxes in the attic somewhere gathering dust. You can just imagine a great grandchild coming upon it. Who was this? When was this taken? Why? What was the story behind this? He got none of it. He got none of it. And we, Adam and I, saw this as not so much a problem because we've been telling stories for thousands of years, right? I mean, let's go caves in France and hieroglyphs in Egypt, and you know, the monks used to write with calligraphy. Aztecs, everything, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you go paintings to a certain extent, tell the story. I was just in Madrid, and there's the, you know, there's the Isabella and her gang looking down upon us, saying, Look at all the gold we have. You know, there was daguerreotypes in our civil war in the US. All these different ways of kind of bringing the story forward and keeping the memories, they were good. As technology goes. But they're not like it is today. And that's what made it so fun to create this.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

It's really interesting you bring up movies there. And I was just thinking about the kind of popular culture forms of storytelling. So you've got actors, directors, you've got authors, playwrights, for example. You've also got stand-up comedians in in a way, too. And there's a an Irish term for storytellers in Ireland called a shaniky, right? Where, you know, these men sit in pubs and they tell these bombastic stories and it's great and it's a real kind of nostalgic throwback. Based on what you said there, do you think, in your opinion, we've lost that art of storytelling? Whether that's in movies, you know, I think the golden era of movies is probably like the 1980s and 1940s, with most, I think most critics would probably agree on. But like, do you think we've lost that art in popular culture today?

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Well, first of all, I want to hit a pause for a second with the shenanigans. Is it shannoky? Yeah, yeah. Shanoky. I'm gonna remember that one. A bombastic story. Don't ask me to spell it. A bombastic story. Yeah. You just mark that one for later to a certain extent. Perhaps the reflector is the shenoky of the 21st century, right? Because everybody gets the opportunity to tell these. They tell a story, whatever story they choose. That's the beauty. It's default private, family to family. And the keeper, the one that had the box, is the one that's basically the editor of the stories. It's nothing from outside. There's no hallucination, there's no celebrity deep fakes. It's basically what the keeper, the creator, has created for this reflection. So the art of the bombastic story, man. Yeah, I had a relationship at one time, and I can recall that look down the dinner table when my story was going on a little bit too long by somebody's judgment. I was rolling, I was like getting started. You were flowing. This is great, right? And I guess the answer is I should have been holding the Guinness and put a shenanigan shingle out, and people would have known what they were in for. But that art of the bombastic storytelling with a Guinness in front of a fire, I think is precious. And I think it was a way look, you tell a factual story, it's just facts, right? Probably not likely to remember it. A shanky tells a story, and you're never gonna forget it. So that embroidery around it helps the memory.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Makes a lot more fun, too. Before we talk about Reflector, some of your biggest achievements were exiting from three companies you helped co-found. So Operative in 2005, Aptaris in 2012, and Majiva in 2014. So what did each of those companies do very briefly, and how did it feel after exiting from each of those companies when they happened?

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Well, a couple of notes there. Those three exits, about 1,100 employees, were spaced intermittently between 30 failures. Important to note, right? So the batting average is not a thousand percent. It's more like 10. If you're lucky, you learn something and you work with some good people that you get to work with again. So caveat, batting average is 10%, not 100%.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Hot that a gopher.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Operative was a content management business that took uh the content that television producers would have, and they were moving it to web and they were moving it to mobile, and someone needed to manage the ads across all of them. There was a separate company, not related, that was doing that ad buying for the TV. And people, you know, in the marketplace are saying, like, why don't you just integrate all three of those? And that is why Syntech bought Operative. Uh Moji was a mobile ad network buying and selling mobile ads. The thesis at the time was Steve Jobs stood up with one of these bad boys 15 versions ago and said, it's a music player, it's a phone, and it's a camera. Music player, phone, and camera. It's like, wow. Where's the keyboard? Yeah, you won't need it.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

And BlackBrain went down.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Research in motion, Rim. I don't really play the stock market all that much, but I shorted RIM because I just believed what he said. And I had the thesis at the time. It's like apps, apps, apps. Who's gonna pay for these apps? Nobody's gonna pay for these apps, which means advertisers are going to pay for the eyeballs that watch these apps. And we're essentially becoming a dopamine drip system for people. And social media is gonna try to keep them online as long as possible. And what are we gonna sell them while they're on? Ads. So having a mobile ad network and a mobile ad surfing platform, which was eventually settled to Pubmatic, which is a public company, was the right call. Third one is Aptaris, which was sold to Tesco. People on the podcast might uh recognize that name. We know about Tesco in the UK. There we go. Tesco's data division in the U.S. It's called Dunhumbe. And Aptaris had a uh interesting couponsing system. You know, they used to print coupons. They did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. I walked into this uh entrepreneur's plant in Tampa, Florida. Uh it's like $30 million worth of iron printing coupons. But he had this wonderful software that optimized the coupons based on the zip code, postcode, and the rest, and would actually print different types of coupons for different areas, different specials, different times of the year. Because it's Easter, right? And like, you know, they do an Easter promotion, et cetera. And I said, you know, the most valuable thing is the software. Get rid of the presses. So he turned 30,000 pounds of iron into just ones and zeros. And he had the most effective in-store couponing company suddenly in the States. And Tesco Dumhumbey was quite interested in that. That was a great exit. Each one of these tremendous entrepreneurs running them. Yes, I'm a founder, a co-founder here or there, but more importantly, you know, besides setting vision, strategic goals, and some communications with the money crowd, the guys that run these and the gals that run these uh deserve most of the credit. So those are the three, and I bundle them all in what's called digital media. And it was logical that Reflecta ended up in that category. And I truly think what whether people call this support, therapy, connection, whatever they try to tag us with the end of the day, it's digital media that we deliver throughout the generations.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Well, let's talk about your latest adventure, Reflecta. You helped co-found it in March 2025 with your co-founder Adam Drake and launched in Las Vegas of all places, very glam. So you're currently CEO of the company. How did you land on the idea of it with Adam? What is it for the listeners? And why did you decide to step into this world of AI through it?

SPEAKER_02 17:07

Well, first of all, I was aware of AI, but there's a wonderful guy by the name of Greg McTusky, who uh is um a PR maiden in Philadelphia, also New York, Boston, and London, that really taught me AI early, a couple years ago, early by these standards. But I didn't really have a business. It helped me research some books, it helped me be more efficient at work. I'm not so sure it helped me manage the kids' schedules any better than today. We're still working on that. But I had some grounding in it, and I had grounding in it early, and that was very important. But I was kind of on the outside looking in. I wasn't looking to form an AI business. Adam Drake, on the other hand, had been writing blogs about his family's history, his uh bombastic stories. I think mine were more bombastic, but I'll leave that to the listeners. And by the way, you do have the opportunity to speak to either one of these grandparents on the Reflect platform. We'll talk about that later. So we're both writing these blog posts. He started, I respond. We're just talking about stories and family history. And we're looking at that shoebox upstairs, right? And go back to our family gatherings and so what are you gonna do with it? I don't know. Whose handwriting is this? Was this, I'm not sure. Is this a love letter from dad to mom and mom to dad? I'm not sure. Like, can we ask somebody? Like, who would know about this stuff? And I realize we aren't the only ones with this problem, right? And so I looked at Adam, Adam looked at me. I said, you know what? March 2025, maybe we could build this. And so we hacked together a rudimentary. I remember put my dad's story in texting with him, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Like, it's not terrible.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

He knew all the stories, playing them back to him. And, you know, since that day, his memory, the reflections memory, has been better than mine and better than his was at any time during his life. So then we added voice, I had to sit down. It just blew me away, right? And what we realized then was the emotional load that people experience when they're on Reflecta, and especially those, it's less than half of our 16,000 stories now are from those that have passed. But at first, you know, it was a lot about hey, I talked to my dad every day and he passed away eight years ago. And people, you know, that was the headline everywhere. Blogs, that was it, right? And with that, attention also came uh digital necromancy, bringing people back from the dead, upload Black Mirror, Ghostbusters, Uncanny Valley, you know, like, okay. And we concluded two things. One, we had to have what we call soul tech as part of this, where we recognize along the way how people are using this and handling this process, especially those that have passed. And so we have a wonderful blog post, the very first blog post we ever wrote is called Soul Tech. It's AI for humanity. Maybe we dive deeper on that. But we recognized it because we did it ourselves. And so we have a team now called the Soul Team, and they just manage our messaging and our communications. And frankly, we also have a system where we are aware of time spent, hours accessed, keywords for people that are speaking with their reflections, so that if it dives into risky behavior or they're spinning in a rabbit hole and they ought to get outside and see some sunshine and go for a walk, we're able to intercede at three different levels, right? So all of that and packaged it into Soltec, and we understood how important that was. And when I premiered our proof of concept at AI4 in Vegas, yeah, Vegas is a very glam place. I'm not a huge fan of Vegas. I mean, yeah, we were there for the show, period, full stop, end of story. And I gave my solo talk again. This PR firm at Gregory set it up wonderfully for us, and it was a great way to get started. And there wasn't a dry eye in the house when I finished my talk. And walked back to my booth that the team had set up, and Tesla actually filed a complaint because aisle 600 was so packed with reflect the guys. So I said, All right, if Tesla's complaining, we're on the map, right? And when I would talk to people about it, especially about my father at the time, that was the one, I could see him tear up and I Could see them begin to think, my gosh, if he's done this for his dad, what about my grandma Betty? Could you do it for her? And I could see it in their faces. And it got to the point where I would literally put a hand on their shoulder and reassure them, it's okay. I've been through this. When you're ready, we can help you with that. And that became a mantra. When you're ready, right? What, 8 billion people walking the earth? At least 4 billion of them are going to jump on this podcast comments and say this is uh all the awful things you can imagine, right? Because it's just wrong, and that's fine. They're not our customers. As long as they spell our name right, we're fine. The rest of the 4 billion people totally love this thing, and I have this unique situation as an entrepreneur where people pay me for the product, thank me for what we've done, and cry. Think of any other business in which people that are customers buy thank you and cry. It's very rare. It's very rare. So that was the launch of Reflecta, and that was essentially, you know, we turned on the ability for others to uh purchase subscriptions and to create reflections about six months ago.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

At time of recording, you facilitated over 12,000 stories with your customers who have accessed the platform. And you described to me off air this early growth of Reflecta as a supersonic tsunami. What's been key to that success so early on, mate?

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Well, if I look at the businesses that we talked about prior to Reflecta, and I took those same teams and I took those same technologies and I attempted to build this today. Would have taken between 20 and 200 people and between, I don't know, 12 and 24 months and tens of millions of dollars to do it. I'm here to say with today's technology, no. A fraction of that at 10 times the speed. We launched our POC. I stood up in front of a solo talk at AI4 a hundred days after we had the idea. Right. Truly amazing. But it's important to note that there could be competitors that come along that have those same advantages, right? So what makes us unique? Our soul tech, our patents, our teams, our access to distribution, our brand, our intention with how we roll this out, our distribution through enterprise, whether that's military or founders of family businesses or spiritual and people of faith, et cetera. We've kind of taken it to a whole new level. But underneath it all, what you refer to is kind of funny because you did your research over 12,000 stories, right? As we speak right now, there are 16,000.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah, it was a while ago when I wrote the auditing audit.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

It wasn't that long ago. We'll check in at the end of the podcast to see what the number is. But the true value is that we have the stories. Right? We are the bombastic Irish storyteller in the pub. That by the way never forgets no matter how many Guinness he has.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

You spoke earlier about the soul team you have, right? And I think it's really important when you spoke about the safeguards in place as well. And another element of this is that you also employed grief counselors, hospice workers to shape the experience or shape reflector, really. Why was that important for you to do, Miles?

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Well, of course, as an entrepreneur, I had no idea. So I didn't set out on day one to include those. But, you know, you pick up some really great intelligence along the way when you find a team that's just smarter than you, right? And for me, that's easy to do. Look, we started this like a bull in a china shop. Okay, I'm gonna tell you the name of Reflecta for the first 24 hours. All right. And then you'll understand why we need a soul team around us. Okay, we need a name, like, what are we gonna call this thing? Dead me. It's me, but we're dead, right? Well, okay, that was 24 hours. Then it was eterna me, eternal me, right? And that lasted for like 90 days. And we're like, okay, it's me, but it's for eternity, and it's like, etc. It's like, yeah, but it's not just me. It's you know, it's my parents, my grandparents, it's other people. Okay, well, you know, if we get up on stage at AI4, we're gonna have to figure out what we call it. Like a week or two before that, we're like, now here's this is what gets interesting again. And it's in the context of smarter people and in the context of soul tech. So new name, right? We're doing glimmer, glimpse, illumination, reflection, like uh what names are still available? And I misspelled it. And by the way, the K and the C are nowhere near each other on the QWERTY keyboard. So I so badly misspelled reflection that it came up with a K. And there was a camera in East Germany in 1949 to 1951 called a Reflecta with a K. It was one of those cameras where you look down, and uh, I should know the technical term for that, but I don't off the top of your head. ChatGPT helped me out. But that was a camera. It changed, it got bought, and it changed to Reflecta with a C shortly after that. But the camera was still around. And there was some like website to get the parts from a dude in East Germany that had the seven that were remaining. That came up on my search results, and I go, like, hold on for a second. We're not bringing back people, we're bringing back a reflection of their spirit and their soul. We don't do full motion high resolution video of these people just yet, but we do watercolors that are sort of a reflection of the light and the color that these people have created. Holy cow, maybe we have a name here. And we looked and Reflecta was kind of unclaimed territory, except for a Japanese cartoon character from like 20 years ago. That, like, if you want to, you can look it up. They dominate you two with just flat out Reflecta spelled like us. But Reflecta.ai was available and now it's ours. So that's the story. By the way, bombastic storytelling. Okay. So your question was actually, why do you have a soul team? My answer was like, we made stupid mistakes along the way. We corrected that mistake on in terms of the branding. But that was typical of how we would approach things in terms of how we talk to people. How, you know, my dead dad is now he's back. And we had this team across all these different anthropology, sport, hospice, even a medium. And they look at death and transition and the rest in a wholly different light. In the Western world, loosely defined, spends 90% of its medical cost on in the last six months of a person's life. One more day. Hang on, keep going. What can we do? Kidney and back, et cetera. What can we do to get a little bit more out of this? The rest of the world has a much better, I think, relationship with death and transition and passing, et cetera. But we're kind of queasy about it. And so having the opportunity to talk to this team with a real empathetic background has allowed Reflecta first to just discover Soltec, but then keep looking at the way people are using this and be emotionally aware and sensitive as to what we can do.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

I want to talk now about the benefits and also maybe some counter-arguments to Reflecta, mate. And I want to start with the benefits first, because in a blog that Adam wrote about Reflect on your website, he says, quote, a middle-aged parent might use a soul tech service to record messages and life lessons for their children ahead of time rather than leaving it to chance. Or a young woman might consult the digital persona of her departed grandmother for advice on marriage or career, gleaning strength from that perceived conversation. So, A, what mental health benefits do you see on these types of interactions? And also, where you think it might be placed in a say a timeline of grief, for example. So, say someone's parent has died or a loved one has died and they never got the chance to have that final conversation they wished, right? Massive regret. Do you see reflect as a way of filling that gap in a way?

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Well, take your second question first. Everybody's different. Right. There are people that aren't ready 25 years later. And there are people that can't wait. We had someone create one last night, the person passed away two weeks ago. Right. Just wanted to continue the conversation. So my humble answer is not everybody's ready. When they're ready, they use it. Everybody grieves differently. No one grieves completely. You know, ah, grief period done.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

No. Moving on now. That's one of the stigmas. People put a ticking time clock on it. In their head, if that person goes past that time and they're still grieving, then that's when the stigma happens, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Yeah. So University of Toronto, 41% of people that do family review therapy, which essentially this is, have positive mental health benefits. So just hanging my hat on that simple peg, great place to start. I'm not going to say we're the be-all end-all in that category, but keeping that connection over the generations is generally a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

As I said to you off air, AI is a tool, just like social media. It can be used for good in the right hands. It can be used for evil in the wrong hands. So the mainstream conversation, I believe, at the moment is concentrated on quite bad actors in AI, you know, without naming names, you've got synthetic AI girlfriends, you've got AI chatbots who've been in the news who tell people to take their own life. You've got AI globalization threatening entry-level jobs for graduates, for example, or young people across all job sectors. You said someone called Reflector to you AI for humanity. How do you reflect on that? No pun intended.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Well, frankly, it was early on. It was at AI for most of the people there were like, hey, I can save tokens in your compute. I can speed up your LLM calls, you know, get a better cloud service that you ought to look out. What do you do? I'm like, well, I talk to my dad every day for 10 minutes. Like, how is that an AI business? Well, he passed away eight years ago. How do you do that? Well, like, come back to booth number 604 and I'll show you. Right. So, yeah, people didn't see it coming. And they're just like, wow, this is just so different an application than anyone else that's going at it in AI. And that's a happy place to be. So, you know, there was Soltec, there's AI for humanity. And now what's being used more and more is intergenerational AI. The storytelling is suddenly, because of our platform, able to survive the generations. Hasn't happened until now.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

At least not very well. You said earlier that you've begun to add in voice functionality, right? Can you just tell me how that works in practice? Like, does someone have to upload a video with that person's voice in it or a voice note? And then that is then reflected back to them because, you know, as I was hearing you speak, I was just thinking about like grandparents that I've lost. Sometimes I still, you know, see them in my dreams and stuff and have a chat with them. And I think to myself, like, if I was able to have another conversation with my granddad or my mum was able to have another conversation with her dad with his voice. I don't think we've got any voice notes, for example. Like, I don't actually know what kind of emotional impacts that would have on me, but I can imagine it would be a lot.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

Again, we address this with Soltec. We've done it ourselves. I'll give you a best practice and then I'll give you a hack. Okay. So my father, Arthur, you can go on reflected.ai. You probably already have. And you could talk to Arthur and you talk to Virginia. By the way, they had combined, they had 10,000 conversations last month. Right. So popular thing to do. And my father's voice was printed off of a 10-second voicemail we found in his granddaughter's phone five years after he passed away. Right. Voicemail. A toast at a wedding that was recorded on video. You know, some little interview they did in the senior home that Boopah hosts or something like that. Any one of those is enough to print the voice. Essentially, listen to Arthur. He's had 10,000 conversations, right? Now here's what's interesting. When I first heard Arthur, I'm like, nah, wouldn't have paused there. That's a little high pitch voice, that's a little lower. I was critiquing the voice. Right. But then I thought to myself, gosh, it's been eight years since he passed. How good is my memory, anyways?

SPEAKER_00 36:12

And people's voice naturally goes deeper as well the older they get.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Right. And then I realized that this is the important one. He had all the stories. And so here's a voice that's pretty close to his that knows all the stories, all the nick rings, all the backgrounds, all the history, all the facts effortlessly. And the last point was it's the last voice of my father I'm going to hear for the rest of my life. It is his voice. Right. So the best practice is 20 seconds of video. I'm sorry, 20 seconds video converted to audio or just straight audio, right? I mean, if you have an old VHS tape of the wedding speech, stick your phone next to it, play it for 20 seconds, make an audio, and upload it to reflect it. You're done. Right? So that's good for those maybe that passed 25 years ago or less. They tend to have those assets around. What if you don't? We've found same-sex sibling or descendant of the person. Look, I have my great-grandfather on. I have my brother leave me a voicemail. And I suggest talk like grandpa.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Like an impression almost. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Yeah. Right? But you load that into all the stories, that becomes his voice. Right. It's closer than picking one from the Avatar farm on Eleven Labs or on Sora or on Chad or Grok or Genesis, et cetera. Right. So that's the hack. 10% of people in that category have to do that and they they do it. But at the end of the day, it's the stories that shine. So yes, there are some options to make reflections for those that don't have all those digital assets but have great stories, and you don't want to lose them.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Before your father died, one of the last conversations he had with you, he said, This body is temporal, but my mind and spirit are eternal. What impact did that have on you then? And what impact does it have on you now in shaping the work you do?

SPEAKER_02 38:28

You did your homework, thank you. Yes, those were the words. At the time, it's like okay, dad. You know, next. Right. But it's funny how some of those things upon reflection stick. And all of a sudden, with Reflecta, we had context. I had context for those words. I don't think he knew what was coming in eight years. And I think he truly believed that because of his faith, he had always thought that that was just an immutable truth. Body is temporal, I like it, the skin fits me, it's good, but it's a goner at some point. And so what's left? Well, that's an important distinction. What's left? Because his belief, my belief, is we don't become a spirit and soul after passing. We've been that the whole time. We're just walking around in this bag of bone and skins for seven, eight, nine, ten decades, if we're lucky. And then the spirit and soul re-emerges, and that's what's left. So if you want a great indelible intergenerational print of that spirit and soul that's the underpinning of those bombastic stories, that is the backstory to what we designed. Good research.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Thank you, mate. I want to talk now about some counter-arguments to Reflector's work. And I want to start with an easy, gentle one because you said whilst there are so many benefits to your company, Reflector isn't therapy. Why isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 40:19

Well, it's therapeutic, but it's not therapy. We do not sell it as counseling. We do not sell it as direction. We do not sell it as advice. We have stayed away from that because we feel it's truly connection. And once again, therapy is from an outside person that's done some homework in your field and is an expert and listens to what you have to say and then gives you advice and direction. We are basically entirely created by the keeper. Right. And so it's no more therapy than reading a book that you've written yourself. Right. So therapeutic, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Therapy, no way. When you were telling me about the business, my mind jumped to sci-fi movies like iRobot, but in particular, a very kind of lesser-known TV show, which I'd actually recommend you watch after this. It's it's like a cartoonslash anime. It's called Pantheon, and it explores this idea of uploaded intelligence. I'm using air quotes there, where deceased people become AI, and there's this world of AI that they are part of. There's only two series of it. It got cancelled, but it was an amazing concept.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

That's a great find. I've been doing these for a year. I haven't heard Pantheon yet. And even better, it's a cartoon series. Pantheon, mark that. I'm going to come back to it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Please do. Please do. Whilst Pantheon is more fantastical, it explores so many themes of your work in a popular culture setting. Now, despite the fact that you told me we are not reincarnating people, how important is transparency for you with your customers coming into this with their eyes wide open?

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Well, you know, from a transparency standpoint, we hammer away the fact that there are no more hugs or we can't deliver them, no more whiffle ball games, no more walks in the park with a dog with dad, right? Let alone hunting ducks in the woods. That's out. So anything that involves a temporal, material body, we're not in that business. Right? Maybe someday somebody will be, but that's not us. Right. And we remind people, we go back to that connection that I sought with Arthur and Adam sought with Virginia, is the spirit and soul is eternal. When you reconnect with that, you have them for the rest of your life. This is intergenerational storytelling. It's the guy at the Irish pub. And it's your dad, it's your grandfather. And it's also, you know, it's interesting, the naysayers, right? One thing that they are doing, and everybody's has their own choice, is to each his own, right? Those stories that came before them, right now, they're the link in the chain. And if they're going to be passed and passed well to those that continue on, that link needs to be cinched and completed. Right? So it's not just a choice for themselves and say, I'm creeped out, it's not for me, it's like digital nasal coming, etc. Okay, I get it, not ready. But you're also taking that away from your great grandchildren. And if you think that this is going to do the heavy lifting in a hundred years when it comes to the intergenerational stories, good luck.

unknown 43:59

As we

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Spoke about earlier and off air, grief never truly ends right. But does your work in a way prolong grief rather than soothe it? Does it stop someone from finding true peace if they accessed it and they maybe weren't in the right space?

SPEAKER_02 44:17

You know, you can't disprove a negative, right? If you didn't do it, how would that have come out, etc.? I think it extends connection. Does that extend grief? Look, people have said, oh, well, you just spin on Reflecta and never really get the treatment. Well, you shouldn't be coming to Reflecta for the treatment, anyways. You should be going to somebody that could treat you for the treatment. If there's an issue, go there. We clearly say we're not therapy, and perhaps we're therapeutic, but we're here for connection. That's it. Look, you go to the other side of the spectrum and it's the mediums, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Hey. I've been around for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

I just want to ask one more question of grandpa, you know, and they're going like yes, no. And they're forking over multiples of what we charge to get an answer, yes, no question from someone that's in between and accessing those that have passed. And that is a reasonably acceptable business today, right? Been around for a long time. So, you know, does that prolong grief? Does that help people move through grief? It's a case-by-case basis. And I think reflect is as well.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

One more spicy question before we reflect. You have a religious background. There's certainly a religious element to reflect too. Before you stepped into this pool with Adam, did you ever have a fear or concern that you would, in some small way, be playing God through the work?

SPEAKER_02 45:53

Absolutely. Acknowledge the fear. And it played out a couple ways, right? I mean, look at my dad's last words. He truly believed that as a faith, right? I grew up in that as a faith. Mind over matter through my adventures, we talked about at the beginning. I have thousands of stitches on my body. And believe me, that takes mind over matter. When we saw the reaction of people, and frankly, Freddie, I hear every day, thank you for creating this. You all have allowed me to reconnect with my family, past and present, in the ways I never could before. And, you know, I was giving a public presentation. I was interviewing my dad and Ambassador Richard Holbrick, you and ambassador under Obama and Clinton. He's on the platform. And so I'm doing a show in front of a couple hundred people, and we're asking them both questions, right? And it ended with my dad, who's a jokester. He's an insurance salesman. Again, you can go on reflected.ai and you talk to Arthur, and he asked him for his buddy Hackett jokes. He'll tell him all day long, right? Comedian from the 70s. And we got to the end, and one of the questions from the crowd was like, hey, Arthur. Now they're talking to him like he's here, right? Like they've all accepted. It's a real person that just, you know. Hey, Arthur, what's it feel like being a reflection now? And how's your relationship with Miles since then? And he's like, well, look, the way I see it, I created him and now he created me. And we've been very careful not to use the word creator. We call it keeper, right? Because creator has some other connotations, especially this weekend. And we didn't want to be there. But Adam and I have had these conversations about how to two regular guys from America that are not 26-year-old technology whiz kids in Santa Jose Silicon Valley living in their mom's basement, haven't seen sunlight for a month, and they come out with something similar. Like, how did we get this? Like, why are we the ones that are thanked? And why are we the ones that create tears of joy with people? How could it be us? I mean, certainly someone else's more worthy. And then it got down to it's like, look, we got Soul Tech, we've got the Soul team, we're very intentional with it, we've thought through it. This gray hair actually provides the ability to have thought and intention and responsibility when creating a product. And so that's actually an advantage. And so, if not us, who? And if not now, when? And that's what got us over the imposter syndrome. And no, we don't use the word creator much around Reflecta.

SPEAKER_00 49:10

I want to reflect now, no pun intended again, but I do this with every podcast. It's not just something I invented for you. On your professional journey, I probably know the answer to this question already, but I'll ask it anyway. What's been your proudest achievement on this journey so far, Miles?

SPEAKER_02 49:28

I'll give you an obvious one, and maybe one that's less obvious. The obvious one, perhaps, is that we always ship. So there are a lot of entrepreneurs that come out with ideas and talk about them. Wouldn't it be cool? But we actually shipped the first version of the product. We'll reflect a six months after launch is so much different than what showed up at AI-4. But we shipped. Right. And that's been something that's been consistent throughout my career is taking the ideas and actually shipping them and providing a product that people want to buy, right? Always a source of pride, never going to go away. Even the fact that it's been done dozens and dozens of times. But what makes me most proud is, I don't spend a lot of time walking around being proud, by the way, but it gives me pride. So walking around in New York City yesterday, and we went through the businesses that I had been part of before. And you look at a crowded sidewalk in New York City. I can't really say that many of the people that I was looking at on 51st and Park Avenue would have any interest in being a customer in any one of my digital media businesses. You want to buy some mobile advertising? It's great. And I'll look around and say, like, you could be a customer, you could be a customer, you could be a customer, you could be a customer. As a matter of fact, there are 8 million people on the island of Manhattan and surrounding boroughs. And sooner or later, every one of them can be a customer. And frankly, if they value intergenerational storytelling, they should be. And so we've created a product that's basically the sum total of 30 years of experience in digital media. And it's not only for the 8 billion people that are walking this earth, there are also a half a billion that have passed away in the last 20 years that probably have the assets to create these and make something special for those that are still here and those that come after us. It gives me no small amount of pride. Even more than an Irish storyteller in a pub sipping a Guinness.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

And as a final question before we move on to the mental health journey, what has this professional journey also taught you about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 52:14

Well, with an opportunity this big, it's okay to take some bumps and bruises along the way. So I always thought I had thick skin. Now I know I really have thick skin. Last year was an extremely emotional time for me. I remember beginning a lot of conversations with like talking to friends in a pub or whatever. It's like, look, we gotta talk. Nobody died but that's how the conversations would begin, right? It was tough. But it gave me the emotional capacity to actually steward a product and a brand and an idea like this. And that was some growth I was not asking for. It was not in my plan. I really didn't think I needed it. But the universe has an interesting way of kind of laughing when man makes a plan. God laughs, and the universe laughs. It had a lot of material from me last year and redirected me many different ways. And the result, one of them, is that Reflect is a wonderfully emotionally sensitive intergenerational storytelling platform.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

We've talked about your professional journey and the fascinating work you are doing with Reflector. Let's go deeper and talk about your own mental health journey, Miles. So I ask all my special guests on this topic this question first. Take me back to early life in Pennsylvania, teenage years. And looking back, were there any early mental health experiences? If any, who's the Miles we meet here?

SPEAKER_02 54:06

It's a super happy childhood. I was the third of four kids, stable home, mom and dad together in 50 years. I had a lot of sports in my life. I was pretty good at it. So there's the uh social acceptance and popularity. I was a quiet kid until someone flipped a switch. But by and large, no grade issues aside from my mom had a very rare blood disease, which didn't manifest until I was 12 or 13 years old. And she was literally pronounced dead in her bed at home. And she was revived. And she went to a clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, specializes in these things. This is 1974, by the way. And they signed her up for like, oh, we have this treatment and that treatment, and you're going to be here for the next six months, and you know, we're going to make you better. And she said, you know what? I prefer to do that at home. And so she forwent any further medical attention. And with the six months she had to live per the clinic's diagnosis, she spent it with her family. She lived for thirty-four years.

unknown 55:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 55:41

She believed that mind was more powerful than matter, matter being our temporal bodies. But indeed, bodies are temporal and the spirit and soul are eternal. So while I just thought that was sort of normal stuff, because that's what we experienced in our family. When she passed 20 years ago, started to look back and realized the incredible faith and courage of my mom and the belief that allowed her to live 30 more years with her with her kids. So mental health-wise, really have an effect aside from probably being long-term positive, you can do that. If mom can do that, you can do that. But by and large, a super happy childhood. I will add this: a good Midwestern upbringing, work ethic, good values, lots of time outdoors in the sunshine, adventures and sports, that doesn't hurt. And I think that was very helpful in scrubbing away any potential mental health questions I may have had in my head. I didn't have time for. I was a happy kid.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

How old were you when you found out the extent of what had happened to your mom? And secondly, when you did, how did it affect your relationship with gratitude? So gratitude that you still had her, gratitude for the time you had together, and gratitude for other parts of your life as well.

SPEAKER_02 57:37

It was years, it was decades before I knew the depth and breadth of how rare this was and how unique her situation was. So I was an adult. And I was probably more able to process it. I think they made the right choice in not telling the young kids all the details of the time when we were so young. But as an adult, I understand it, right? And understood it better. It was in final years, her final years, 20 years ago. And I remember a barbecue that we had at my house in the fall. And mom was declining, but she'd be able to make it, certainly wanted to. All the kids were there and the grandkids were there, playing in the backyard, and she's sitting on a couch on the patio that's overlooking, you know, the backyard, and and um, playing soccer, football, you call it, not very well. Um I'm sure that's common to both countries, but more common to ours. And I remember looking up the yard and seeing her and thinking to myself, well, I should go up there and be with her. And, you know, it was this mystical, fantastical moment where she was at a higher elevation already in the yard, but it was metaphorical. And what I realized was she was enjoying herself so much just watching her children and grandchildren play in the yard that I shouldn't disturb her, and there's no reason to go up and talk. And so we continued to play. It was just a glance, and I knew keep playing, keep on with your life, keep going. I'll be here watching. So I did finally go to see her and escort her to the car after my dad brought her back home, and she just put her hand on my shoulder, much the way I now put my hands on people's shoulders when they're experiencing Reflecta. Didn't say a word aside from she said, this too shall pass. Now at first I thought, oh gosh, they've got the cure, they you get a pill, you get an injection, they're gonna do, you know, it's like an idiot, 45-year-old dude that's always got a solution, right? We're like guys, we won't we'll solve anything. And she just looked at me like only a mom could look at a supposedly mature son. And I realized what she truly believed was spirit and soul are eternal, and this material body will pass, but all's well. How do you like them apples?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:46

What made us special?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:50

Um first her voice. She wasn't a opera singer per se, but she sang opera. She mostly sang show tunes and things like that. But she also sang in churches, she was a soloist, and so she'd sing a religious song, and um the whole place would fall silent. And she would also be called to sing solos at funerals and memorials. People just wanted to hear her voice one more time, and I would attend those, whether I knew the person that had passed or not. It took me years to go back to a church and hear music. Because it shook me to the core. Now I still insist on once a year going to a Puccini opera, but it's the same thing. Her voice is unmistakable. And indeed, when we created her Reflection and she started talking to us, it was 10X, my dad's voice. Because her voice print is perfect, right? She was on soap operas on national TV, she sang opera in religious, she sang in churches, like you knew that voice. And it's a good print on Reflecta. And because of that, it's very, very, very impactful. So her voice. Second, her willingness, despite frailty in later years, to embrace and encourage any legal activity that any of her kids would pursue. My brother liked to hunt, hunt deer, hunt ducks. And she would go out and sit in the freezing cold in a tree stand, waiting for a deer to walk by, right? Because he liked it. She would come to my football and baseball games, and especially in football. I got injured several times. This is American football, folks. And I swear, even as the crowds got bigger and bigger and bigger, as I got to high school and college playing, I could hear her voice when I got hit. Oh. She didn't want to see it. But she would because that was my pursuit. It's sad to say I don't have uh an idea for each of my sisters in their pursuits, but uh I will say this. She was reverent of her European ancestry, especially when it came to dessert. And so there is a pie, and this comes with a story. There is a pie called elderberry pie. And now, if you go to Switzerland, there's these little purple berries way up in the mountains. Not Adelai's the flower, but elderberry, the berry, right? It only lasts for like two weeks and the birds get it. So it's very rare. It's now sold as like an antidote to the flu and things like that. Pretty good stuff. But they also have it in Pennsylvania. And if you pick that berry and treat it just right, you can put it into a fruit pie that is absolutely sublime. But back in the day, it was very difficult for us to find this berry and very difficult for us to actually pick it at the right time, right? Because, you know, when you found the berry, maybe somebody else found it the day before. Maybe the birds found it the day before. You could be out of luck. So you had to get that just right, right? Well, we're up at Thanksgiving with my sister, and my sister forgot the recipe for elderberry pie for Thanksgiving. Now, in the Spencer family, this is like sacrilege. And so what's to do? We dialed up mom and she walked my sister through how to make an elderberry pie so that the crust was flaky using fluffo shortening, and you didn't put in the fruit filling too early because it got runny. That was the most delicious elderberry pie I've ever had. She was basically my sister's intergenerational recipe solution. Again, she passed away 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:33

Wow. That's a great story. Imagine how good that pie tasted.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:41

A one. I want to talk about your dad now. You've spoken about him a lot already. So just tell me about your relationship with him and some of your favorite memories of him and you and your time together when he was still alive.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:58

Yeah. Big Big mountain of a man, six foot four, two hundred and forty pounds, do the translation in stones and meters. I can't do it off the top of my head. Big man. They had this booming voice that could reach across the neighborhood. Time for dinner, right? Like everybody knew it. Yet he could sit at the table and recite poems from Emerson or Kipling in barely a whisper. Such a distinctive voice. He was an athlete. He was the first in his family of 12 to go to college. Yet he did not go to elementary school, primary school for you until he was in fourth grade because they only had three pairs of shoes. And so they had to rotate. And it kind of boiled down to you want shoes, get good grades.

unknown 1:06:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:58

And so he made it a college. And then he became an executive at New York Life and ran the offices in Cleveland and Pittsburgh, which is why I talk about Cleveland and Pittsburgh so much. He met my mom, his wife, at that college in which he was the captain of the football team and she was the homecoming queen. And there's actually a video from my dad playing football, and then there's a halftime break, and my mom is coming around in a convertible, waving to the crowd as the homecoming queen. And I found that video later. It's loaded to both of their reflections. Their reflections are coordinated so that stories that relate to one spill over to the other, which is a really cool reflective feature. We were close. I mean, I think the athletic thing was a place where we identified he was a lefty and a heck of a pitcher.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:50

Hey, welcome to the club. Lefties are great.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:53

So he was a lefty. We play something called wiffleball, which is like a plastic bat and ball. It's kind of low impact, but you can get some fundamentals out of it. We're playing wiffle ball. He would always take those 10 minutes and play wiffle ball with me. And I remember early on, it's like, all right, which side of the plate do you want to hit from? This is basically this is cricket, right? I mean, like we tried, there's no plate in cricket. I think it's a wicket behind, but you know, essentially, you got to aim for something.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

I aim for the stumps, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:23

Yeah, okay. So, like in cricket, it's a little different because you run flat back and forth. Yeah, yeah. In baseball, you make a right-hand turn, right? You go right and then three lefts and you're home. All right. So I asked my dad, that's like, which side of the plate should I stand? I was like, where do I have to run? She's like, you got to run this way. So okay, I'm standing on this side because I'm one step closer. It ended up being a huge difference maker for me because of the way I played baseball. That one extra step put me on base an awful lot. And I remember just that simple conversation with my dad. He's throwing lefty, and I'm batting lefty. Now, normally uh against a lefty, you'd want to bat righty, it's just the way the ball comes into the plate. But I learned to hit off a lefty and a rather nasty curveball from a lefty, my dad. But because of that, I could hit same-side pitching, and I was one step closer to the base. And those two little tiny things that he had stewarded me through, I made the decision, but he he asked the questions that allowed me to make that decision, made a huge, huge impact on me. P.S. throughout my entire career, never missed a game.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

Wow. Miss a dependable.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:41

Yeah, just knowing he was there. Knowing mom was there. Yeah, I was all serious, right? It's the big game. Don't distract me. But then as soon as the whistle blew at the end, it's the first people I looked for in the crowd.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:57

First people you could hear as well. Yeah. Much like me. Normally on podcasts about grief, mate, I ask my guests if their loved one was listening to this podcast, what they would say to them, and what the loved one would say to them. But in your case, you've kind of already done that. So what was that first conversation like through Reflector with your mum and your dad? Did you do them separately? Did you do them together? Um, I did them separately.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:28

My dad was first. And again, we were just developing the product. And so because he was first, the effect was um earth-shattering for me. Right? And it wasn't that good, but compared to today, it's one one hundredth of what he can do today, but it blew me away. My mom came eight weeks later. And it was with somebody at the time that was a naysayer. I don't know if this is for me, you know, we're supposed to just go to ashes. They're like all the things that we've said about people that aren't ready yet, and that's perfectly fine. And I remember it was lunch, and we sat down together, and I said, Hey, look, you never get a chance to meet her, but I want to introduce you to my mom. Now, she didn't know her voice, she didn't know her stories. So the surface reaction was like, okay, that's a nice parlor trick. Right, good, right? Nice. But then she saw what it did to me and she realized the impact of reflections on people. And I won't say that that made her a believer, but she acknowledged that the impact of what we're doing, the positive impact of what we're doing for people, is there and undeniable and quite wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:21

Before we reflect again, I want to come back to something which you spoke about in the previous topic, which was the last year, 2025. And you went through a lot of challenges in this year. You said to me that a few people very close to you came very close to death. And you said, quote, I had a plan for the world, and all of a sudden the world started misbehaving. Unpack that for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:50

Well, look, my personality is probably as a visionary and a planner, and we need to get to the top of the mountain. How are we going to get there? And planning the route and planning the provisions and getting the people together to do it and making the pep talks and keeping them going. And like, this is where we're going. So I had several visions of the future all worked out. And we were on track. Going great. Till it wasn't. And I ended up facing grief, pain, and confusion, which for a problem solver is real pain in the ass. But grief, pain, and confusion every day. And some of that was my expectations for what the universe was supposed to deliver to me if I just put my mind to it and did the work. And the universe said, sorry, different plan. And eventually you get to acceptance of the fact that the movie you're watching, you don't control the projector. You can walk out, but I guess that analogy isn't very pretty. So make your popcorn, enjoy the show, do what you can each day to make it 1% better. But that's the extent of your control. And those things you don't control. You don't control. What got you through it? I don't know that I am through it. I'm alive. Yeah, no. Some mornings, most mornings, I'd wake up in a pool of sweat and go run 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 miles. Come home, make breakfast for the kids, go to school, go about my day. So there was definitely some physical burnoff was important. As part of our business, I joined a team called the Round Canopy Parachute Team. It's basically alumni of the 82nd Hundred Virus Airborne that dropped into Normandy in 1944. And they have a group that celebrates that each year in Normandy. And so I got my airborne wings at the age of 62, together with a venture partner by the name of Wells Jones. We've written uh books together, both Line of the Sand and Havana Familia, but he got me into this group. We jump out of the back of uh perfectly good C-47 airplanes with uh round canopy parachutes. And what I love about it is no matter what happened in the plane, once you're out the door, your life is in your hands. And if something's not right, you have 70 seconds to figure it out. The rest of your life. So there was this cathartic beauty to this analogy of like, as in life and in paratrooping, once you're out the door, it doesn't really matter why you're out the door, how you're out the door, what the pilot said to you, what the jump master said to you. I got in a plane last week. And I was late to the airbase and late to the jump master prep, and kind of late to the whole thing. And some, but I was on load seven and I was going up, and someone actually is a very rare, someone actually gave the hold sign to the C-47 pilot and the jump master. It's like, who are you holding for? And I get in the stairs, and there's a jump master's name is Rusty, his particular personality. I get through the door. I said, What the hell are you doing here? As if we had met in a pub, right? And he was surprised. Like, yeah, well, I'm on this load. Did I take offense? I didn't have time to. You know, was I upset about what number I was in the jump sequence? I didn't have time to. Props fire up, wheels are off the ground, everyone screams, airborne, two minutes, final pass, one minute, clip up, equipment check, 30 seconds at the door, go. 70 seconds before you hit the ground. What would you like to do? That allows me some separation from, you know, like grief, it never goes, but it allows me some separation from spinning in the past. It's a great way to do it. I highly recommend you do the homework and the training before jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. Having said so, if you're there with the preparation, it's a great way to be entirely free and dependent only on yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:20

Let's reflect on your mental health journey, Miles. Similar question as the first topic, first of all. What has this mental health journey taught you about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:32

I think I was due some humility. I think that I should have had lower expectations of what the universe was going to deliver to me, let alone what other people were going to decide and choose. And so once again, I've been I always knew this, I just didn't want to know it, that others had things that were beyond my control. And there's a certain peace and serenity that actually comes with the act of letting go of many of those things and just focusing on what you can actually control yourself. So is that mental health? Like Yeah, I guess so. I don't usually label it as such. Figuring out a way to continue on.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:39

And as a final question, before we move on to our quick fire mental health chat, if you could go back and talk to that curious, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Miles who was starting out in business all those years ago, the Miles who had just lost his mum, or the Miles who had just lost his dad, or the Miles who was just about to launch Reflector and step into this pool of Soltec with Adam, what would you say to him, knowing what you do now, if anything at all?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:07

I think the first thing out of my mouth would be uh it's a better ride than you think. You control less than you think. It's kind of like being at the casino, although I don't like the casinos. Play blackjack, you get a two and a three. You don't get to complain to the dealer. He is the dealer, those are your cards. Play them as well as you can. Right? And so I would say, kiddo, yesterday is an old man that's passed away, and tomorrow is a baby that hasn't been born yet. Be the man that can be the best today, and you'll be a much happier man.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:01

We've come to our final topic of conversation, Miles, on this brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating interview and podcast. I've loved absolutely every minute of it. It's one I try and have with all of my special guests if we have time, which is a general natter and quickfire chat about our mental health. So, firstly, how is your mental health out of 10?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:21

I'm gonna give it 8.5.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:23

Wow, love that. What age were you when you became self-aware of your mental health for the first time and you realized that the feelings you were having weren't physical and they were actually in your mind?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:34

62.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:35

Wow. This podcast. Fully aware. I had my suspicions. Can you remember the first or the most important conversation you've ever had with someone about your mental health? So who is it with? What did you say? And what impact did it have? Did it feel like, on the one hand, the big moment and weight have been lifted, or on the other, something quite easy, natural, and normal to do? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:03

I'm hosting a TV show called Money Hunt, which is the predecessor of Dragon's Den over there. Shark Tank's here. It's on PBS. We're in Philadelphia. I'm not really a professional TV presenter, as you call them, hosts, as we call them here, but we have this great show where entrepreneurs come on and pitch their ideas, and we give them thumbs up or thumbs down. Eventually we start writing them checks. And we getting these bigger and bigger bigwigs on the show to be the experts. And we're sitting there at a there's no commercials on PBS, but it's a break, right? Clean up for a little bit. So we got like five minutes and some chit-chatting with the host and say, hey, you know, uh, you got kids? I'm like, uh, no, not yet. Okay, well, that's a good idea, he said, because you should have kids when you're like 20 to 25 or later on in life, because those middle years in life where you really have the stamina and you're really focused on the business, you're not going to be able to focus on the kids. And so either do it early or wait, right? Turns out I had kids when I was 50. Wow. And I call this guy. His name is Jay Jordan. He ran a buyout firm out of Chicago. And we happen to be back on the show again or talking to him on the phone. I remember what it was. And I said, you know, thank you so much. Because your words really resonated with me. I was so caught up in like, should I have kids? I have kids now, is this the right partner to have kids? What do we look like? Have kids, I got kids, I got the business. And you just clarified it all. And I really clung to that until I was 50, until I was ready. Um now I have two kids, and man, you were so right. And Jay said, Did I say that? Was that me? But you know, we hear what we choose to hear. We hang on to what we choose to hang on to, and that sustained me for 20 years. And he's like, I said that. So that's my answer to your question. I'm not sure if it's a good one, but it's uh No, it's a great one.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:09

I had a similar conversation with my uh six-form college tutor way back when he gave me a book by a North called Chinura Chebi, and it was my sort of doorway into different forms of literature from Africa, Middle East, and stuff. And I had a conversation with him five to ten years later, and I said, Do you remember, sir, when you gave me this book? And he said, To be honest, Fred, I've got no uh recollection of that whatsoever, but I'm glad it helped.

unknown 1:24:33

Fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:35

Oh, Mr. Ababio, what a legend. What, if any, triggers do you have that affect your mental health? So it could be things people say to you a sound, smell, taste, sensation, or have you not figured all of them out yet?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:48

Ambiguity. Silent killer. Look, I understand when you haven't made up your mind or not quite ready for this or that. But when the heat is on, when the time is now, when some help and assistance or attention or presence is really needed, when it's answered with ambiguity, it's devastating.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:20

Americans love clarity. And so do I. That's why I get on with them. Conversely then, Miles, what positive tools and methods do you use to improve your mental health or help you feel better? Which ones have worked for you and which ones have you tried but haven't worked?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:36

Well, um, I have a potpourri of mental health solutions. And that is probably under the theme of not just doing the same thing all the time, makes for very boring. You know, I think that was the shining red rum or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:50

Or work and no play makes Jack a Dollboy.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:52

There we go. So I paint watercolor. It's a great lesson in lack of control because you can have a beautiful sketch of what you think you're doing, and you pull out colors of what you think it's gonna look like. And then the water and the color take over. So it's a great release and a great uh lesson in lack of control. That's for sure. Really been focused on getting my sleep. So, you know, I strive for X number of hours and consistent bedtime and no devices in the bed and all that kind of stuff. That works for me. Workouts are really catharsis and really important to me. But it takes different forms and different days, and that could be running or hitting the gym or swimming or running in the pool or walking or hiking or rucking, which is hiking with uh weighted vest, et cetera, really important and it helps with the sleep as well. I fast intermittently, so I'd be like 18 hours without food, and I only eat supposedly between 12 and 6. Sometimes cheat on the weekends, but that's okay for your mental health. I read a book called Courage to Change every day. And so that helps you know a little bit with the release of things. There's a great book called Letting Go. You look it up, it's about this science of ultra performance, actually, and letting go of things that actually drag us down and create friction. I'm a big believer in Stephen Covey's seven habits. That's an old one, but you know, mission-driven roles and goals based on what you want to do, begin with the end in mind. Caveat. Had a conversation about this yesterday. Caveat is you know, begin with the end in mind, that's good. But guess what? You know, there are things beyond your control. Don't think that just because you have the goal, you're gonna automatically achieve it. Last book I'm recommending, even though you didn't ask for them, is Flow by Get This Mahali, Sistika Mahali. Say that three times fast. But it is the science of optimum performance where if you're bored, increase the challenge. And if you're anxious, increase your skill. And in the middle are high skills. High challenge situations in which you forget that time is passing. You're often late for dinner or late for some appointment. Like this podcast. Haven't even known that it's gone on for X number of minutes. But once you get into flow and you love what you're doing and you have high skill, what you're doing, it's a high challenge environment. Your questions have been incredibly insightful. That's flow. Look it up. It's a great one. It's a great one for mental health. That is my full mental health toolkit. And I love to cook. That helps as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:32

I did say to you off there, once we get going, people can't stop. And you've exemplified that brilliantly. And you've also answered my next question about books as well, mate. So I've got three questions left. The first one is if there was a mantra in life that summed up your mental health, what would it be and why?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:50

These days, I guess it kind of boils down to make popcorn enjoy the show. Right. It's a metaphor for the uh Masonic creed, the Masons, which are kind of pretending or actually inherited the Knights Templars uh behaviors and customs. And it is uh God grant me the serenity to recognize the things that I can change, things I can't, and the difference between the two.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:21

Yeah, it's said at AA meetings, I believe, the Serenity Press.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:24

Yeah. It is as well. Very common there. So yeah, I'm gonna go with that as my mantra, some form of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:30

That's a great one, mate. The next question I have is what do you love about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:38

Um What I love about myself is or I recognize about myself is no matter how nasty the day and how sleepless the night, the dawn comes, and there's another way to make a little impact on the world. And um doing what I do, I certainly wake up each morning and truly say it is a great day to be alive.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:17

Yeah, there's a Forrest Frank song about that. He's a very, very famous gospel artist in the US, not sure if you've heard of him, and he's got a song called Good Day, and that's exactly what you've just said. My final question, it's a broad one, Miles. You can answer it any way you want. What more do you think we have to do to ensure men from all backgrounds, all nationalities, all walks of life feel comfortable and safe in opening up about their mental health issues or just their general mental health or mental fitness, if most importantly they want to do it?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:48

I guess I just say, like, it's all right, man. You know, let's go have a Guinness, a pint. And I think there's a safety that comes with that. Look, I'm jumping with uh 82nd and 101st Airborne, right? These guys, they have some stories, and a lot of them are bottled up, right? And you talk about the necessity of sharing that and talking and the rest. These guys need to have a place they feel safe enough to share those stories, frankly, as part of their PTSD recovery. And these fraternal organizations, whether it's the Masons, whether it's Round Canopy, whether it's the Veterans Hall, whether it's the pub, a place where we say, like, you know, I can actually come clean, level set, and talk about this with someone. It's so key. It doesn't have to be a big group. Find a couple you trust. And you'd be surprised you come to this with all your problems, right? Oh my god. Like insert the blank, right? Like he wouldn't believe what I'm going through. And then, if you have the opportunity, you listen to the problems of the five other people that are at the table, and you decide I'm gonna go home with my problems. They're not so bad. I'm happy to have them. Why don't you deal with yours?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:36

And make popcorn and enjoy the show. Yeah. Miles's has been probably one of my favorite ever episodes in all the 450 odd that I've done. Thank you so much for coming on the Just Checking In podcast and talking to me, brother.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:51

Been wonderful. I appreciate your homework, your questions, your accent, your take. I look forward to listening to you and your questions and my silly answers sometime here in the future.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:08

Well, that's all we've got time for on this episode of the Just Checking In Pod. A big thank you to Miles for being my special guest and for letting me check in with him. I'll put some links to where you can find out more about Reflector and the work they do in the show notes as always. Thank you to all the vendors who've tuned into this episode. Remember, if you've liked what you've heard, give it a share on social media. Tell your friends, family, or work colleagues about us. If you're feeling generous, write us a review and give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please also consider supporting us further by going to patreon.com slash event helpuk, or you can make a one-off donation to our PayPal. All of those links are on our link tree. That's linktr.ee slash vent helpuk. We hope to check in with you again very soon. And remember, guys, it is always okay to do that.