Dr. Lori Ochoa, PhD, Life by Design joins us to talk about her work as a Personal Development Coach #behavioralanalysis #persondevelopment #coaching #personalcoach #lifecoach #ochcc #octalkradio
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OUR COMMUNITY: Dr. Lori Ochoa, PHD, LIFE BY DESIGN
[Music] Hey, welcome back everybody. It's time once again to meet our community. The Hispanic business community here in Orange County, powered by the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Orange County's only community radio station, OC Talk Radio. With Mr. OC himself, the man who knows everybody, John Gutierrez. Hey, welcome everybody to our community podcast show, powered by the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. I'm your host, senior vice president, John Gutierrez here at the Orange County Hispanic Chamber. And thank you, Mr. Paul Roberts and OC Talk Radio again for having us. And thank you all to our listeners for tuning in and watching. Again, you could always listen to us at the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Facebook also there. Click on the link and you can watch the show there. We have another special guest with us today, Ms. Dr. Lori Ochoa, who's life by design development, personal development coach. And we'll go over BCBA-D, what that is. Welcome, Dr. Lori Ochoa. Thank you for having me. Such a pleasure to be here. Awesome. Yes, Paul? Before you go too deep into her conversation here, I wanted to do that intro. She was practicing it before. I was going to let her do the intro to the show. Let her take a whack at it. Go ahead, Lori. All right. Welcome to the OC Talk Radio with the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. She's trying to take my job. What's going on? It's a good audition. We'll keep that as an audition. For people that don't know, Dr. Ochoa and I go way back with the chamber. I want to say about six, seven years ago, at least when we were both on another podcast show here at UCI also, which is was the radio station is the radio station, right? Here at UCI, K-U-C-I. So that was our first time we got to sit down and we were interviewed by our friend, Ash, and it was really neat experience, right? That was a fun experience. And fun fact, I'm actually a UCI alumni, which is cool here. So it's always fun to come back on down there. So you do that whole little, what's the little hand-teater? Fun fact, UCI is our host. This is, if you don't guys don't know, if you turn into this podcast, our offices are here for the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which is a beautiful building here at UCI, right? A flight innovation. If you've never been here, you definitely got to take a tour. I like to give all of our guests a tour of the place because it's definitely a lot of research, right? Paul, a lot of research in here. And a lot of startups, one company just raised $200 million here. $200 million is a startup from in here? Yeah. Wow, we got to go knock on their door. Wow. First and foremost, thank you for being on our show. And we're going to get into a great event that's coming up, of course, this Saturday, where you're going to be one of the panelists and one of the special guests on our event, which is, of course, our emotional wellness fiesta, which is happening this Saturday, June 29th, with an amazing speaker, Mr. Trent Shelton, who's not only just followed by millions all over the world, but he also wrote a great book, right? Protecting your piece. Protect your piece. Yes, great book. And thank you, Mr. Trent Shelton, for coming out and doing this event with the community because it's all about, obviously, emotional wellness, mental health, all these things that we're going to talk about, which, of course, you specialize in. Yes, I do. Yes. And I've actually seen Trent Shelton speak live, and he is phenomenal. So I'm really also looking forward to not only being in attendee, but also being on the panel. Yeah. I've seen his podcast or was it, I don't know if it's a podcast, he has pieces of podcast and just different speaking engagements that he's done on his social media. And very inspirational. Yes. Great energy. He's a family man. I think he has a wife and two children or something. Let's get him on the show. Yes. When are you arriving, Trent? Yes, let's make it happen. Right. Let's have him come to the show, right? So it's really exciting because this is an event that is going to really touch to the heart of what we're facing a lot today. Coming out of the pandemic, would you say there's been a lot of children, right, and a lot of people that are battling some of these issues, right? I think all of us go through struggles, right? We all are facing adversities. And so it's really about learning the tools and the strategies on how we can be more resilient. And that's what I coach. I coach on teaching people to be more psychologically flexible. So I love the sign here, ride the wave. And I commented when I walked in because that's what I'm all about is we're going to have waves in our lives. Some of them are going to feel like tidal waves. And rather than drowning, we're going to learn the skills and the tools to more effectively ride those waves. So we can continue to thrive in life despite some of the adversities or challenges that we're all facing. That's interesting. You say that my father would always say in Spanish. Which is interesting because also Bruce Lee, we're always talking about that, right? The flow of water. And so it's interesting that you notice the sign here, ride the wave. I've never noticed it, Paul. That's because we're riding the airwaves. But see how a doctor would notice that right away. A whole different interpretation. Yes, yes. I really want to get into a little bit about yourself, you don't mind. A little bit of your history, we're going to definitely get into more into the event. So anybody who's listening or watching, if you're interested in the event, make sure you leave a comment. We'll send you the registration link because there's only a few tickets left. It's a free event thanks to all of our sponsors and supporters. And we want to give big shout out to John Amador, who's part of our chambers, helped organize this event with Maria Case. So shout out to them for putting together this great event. But I'd love to get into a little bit about yourself and your family. We know you love golf. Yes. Something you fell in love with the last couple of years. You're just telling our president CEO. But tell us a little bit about how you ended up in this industry. If you don't mind sharing about yourself and how you ended up in this industry. Yeah, thank you for asking. Interesting. Now I'm back on campus, UC Irvine, and I was an undergrad student. And I fell in love with psychology and understanding human behavior. And I fell in love with understanding the science of psychology and behavior. But specifically on how we can utilize that to enhance and improve human behavior. So I specialize in working with children, specifically children with developmental disabilities. And that was back in, and I know I'm going to age myself, but back in like 2003. So I've been in the field for almost 20 years now. Wow. And so I ended up working with children with developmental disabilities, pursuing my graduate degree in psychology with an emphasis in behavior analysis. So that's what the BCBA is. I'm a doctoral behavior analyst. And through that journey, I really enjoyed understanding, like I said, the function of our behavior. But rather than treating the diagnosis, it's all about how do we arrange the environment and look at the variables that are going to help this child or help this individual thrive. And learn the skills to be more, improve the quality of their life, to have behaviors that are going to be more adaptive, more functional. So long story short, I ended up doing that for years with my husband. We started a company, Bloom Behavioral Health, which is a behavioral health company specializing in working with children with developmental disabilities. And that's actually when we met before the pandemic. Yes. Yes. So I was co-founder and I still own that company with my husband. And we're still here in Orange County, serving primarily the Latino population, families who have children with developmental disabilities and implementing behavioral intervention and behavioral therapy. A full circle moment that I had was when I had my two boys back in 2012 and 2014, my second son was born profoundly deaf. And that was a real shocker. So when he was born, they said to us, my husband and I, your son is not mild or moderate, he's profound, and he might have other developmental disabilities. So now imagine I've already been in the field for 10 years, working with families, understanding the system, getting families resources, implementing interventions to help families. And now I'm literally in their shoes. Wow. Yeah. Was that a life changing moment for you? 100%. So where I'm going with that is that moment. On the one hand, I felt very empowered because I knew how to help my son. I knew how to get him access to services and resources where a lot of families don't know how to navigate that. On the other hand, I personally was struggling, not only as a new mom, but with grief and stress and anxiety and burnout. So I was struggling in my own experience as a new mom and as an entrepreneur. And I realized I need to turn back to my science and help myself. So I need to learn these tools and these strategies, how I can be more psychologically flexible. So when I say psychologically flexible, it's for me about how do we be more open to our emotional experience? How do we learn acceptance? How can we learn to be more present and be more mindful with our experience? How do we connect to what truly matters? So through that process, I started to learn and adopt these tools and these strategies and realize everybody needs these tools and strategies. A lot of us are not taught, especially in our Latino community, we're not taught how to effectively cope and process our pain. We're not taught how to be mindful of our thoughts and our experiences. So I really, because I love the science so much and realize that I can not only utilize this to help the clients that I serve, but I can utilize this to help myself. And I can also utilize this to help my community and individuals who are suffering, who are struggling, who need these tools to be more resilient. Yeah, it's interesting you say that because even though I've worked my whole life in hospice, my wife and I, my sister, right, and we've owned a hospice company, when my dad died, I felt like I was like, oh, this should be easy for me. No big deal, I'm always around, unfortunately, people dying in hospice, but it's not true. I wasn't ready. It hit me five years later, very hard. I went through those seven stages of grief that a lot of people may not know about or really don't know the history behind all that. And I remember it hit me hard five years into it, because I hadn't dealt with a lot of the stuff that my dad was so much older than me. And so we just didn't connect the same age way length. And so it's interesting how you mentioned that even though you were in that industry, it was like, yeah, I had all these tools, but were you really prepared. Right, now it's a different, now it's you, the mom, it's not me, John, OC hospice, the owner, the business guy, now it's no man, now you're in the trenches, your dad just died of cancer. Now you deal with it. What are you going to do with it? How are you going to survive this? While building my business, we just started the business at the time, so it was like, it was a lot going on. So how did you, how were you able to like separate, you know, I mean, like the mom, and obviously the woman being the doctor, right, or being the specialist, how were you able to separate the two, or did you find that it was okay, you could do both. So I like to use a lot of metaphors and analogies. So in behavior analysis, one thing that really stood out to me and always resonates with me even to this day is think of a flower when a flower doesn't bloom. We don't blame the flower. You don't say, Oh, this flower. Is there something wrong with the flower or the flowers defective? We look at the conditions that are going to support and nurture the flowers growth. So we might give it more soil, more sun, more water. So I think that's fundamentally what I needed to do and what I teach and what I coach is there's nothing wrong with you when you are experiencing pain. Right. And just because you're not happy all the time, doesn't mean that that you're broken or you're defective or there's something wrong with you. So it was understanding like, Laura, you just went through a very emotional experience. And because you deeply care. So that's the other thing too is acknowledging like you deeply care and had a relationship with your dad. I deeply care about my son and being a mom and what that experience means to me. So it's first acknowledging and normalizing like it's okay to embrace that we're going to be going through this experience as humans because we all are going to go through those experiences where we care. We also hurt. Interesting. Yeah, where we experience love, we're going to experience pain. So it's first acknowledging that and embracing that. Okay. So that's what I did. And then two, I really took a stand for myself. I really took a stand for my well being, my mental health, my physical health, my social emotional health. And so that's why I, when Marie and I met about this event on Saturday, I was like, yes, I'm all in because if we can bring access and awareness and do this in community so people don't feel like they're navigating life alone. I think that's important is find your support system, find those resources. And when you, we might be going through different things, but fundamentally we're experiencing pain, right? We're experiencing life that are bringing us challenges. So when we can acknowledge that and embrace that, it helps us to ease a little bit of that. Oh, I'm doing this alone or I feel so broken. What's wrong with me. And then we start getting in our head, right? Oh, I'm the flower that's not growing because it's me. No, that's, it's, we need to look at the environmental arrangements that are going to support your growth and you to be more resilient to navigate and cope through what you're essentially going through. You make such a great point in that. I know I went through that during the pandemic or coming out of the pandemic, I was diagnosed with prediabetes. And it really affected the way I did things on a daily basis because I had to get on a strict diet and I had to watch my portion control, but there was times where the sugar levels would really affect me and I would get really bad anxiety and I get really stressed out. And so I went through a lot of, and I felt like you're saying, like I felt broken. I felt and I'm broken. And I'd always been this like football player, athlete growing up. And now suddenly I have this thing about me that I felt like I was broken, right? How do I fix what's broken of me? But then little by little, I started to learn to just, like you said, take care of me, right? Take care of myself. And so I started walking more and just finding ways to keep my anxiety down. Drinking a lot of like chamomile lavender tea would help my anxiety. So yeah, I started focusing more on myself and how I would help myself not get so stressed out, which is hard to do when you have so much going on a daily basis. So I find that, and I love that flower analogy or example that you gave. So now that you're doing what you're doing, what is it that you see or you hear that's most challenging for people on a daily basis? What would you say in your coaching experience or in what you're doing out there? Yeah, so a lot of what I see and here is, so I coach a lot of mindfulness. So a lot of people don't know what mindfulness is. And so I basically help people to connect and bring awareness to their thoughts and their language. And what happens is when we're not self aware of our thoughts in our language, then we are engaging in behavior or it could even be avoidant behavior, right? Because we are in maybe survival mode or just trying to like, I don't want to deal with that emotion or that experience. So I'm just going to numb out, check out maybe through substances, or I'm going to opt out, which is very common, very common. People check out and they'll use drugs or alcohol or whatever it may be. You could even check out through work. So you being a workaholic, right? Interesting. You could check out and so as a behavior analyst, we're looking at the function of the behavior. So topographically, our behavior may look different, but the function may be the same, right? So we look at what is the escape? What is the avoidance? And is that make is that leading to a narrow rigid life? Is that keeping you stuck stagnant? Is that hindering your ability to move towards a more fulfilling life full of vitality and energy connected to what matters to you? So I really help people to in some ways, I like to say, move from being in their movie to look to being a spectator of their movie. Interesting. So helping people to look instead of looking from your thought, you're looking at the thought and that is mindfulness. So being mindful is being open to your experience. So like, I am the space in which thoughts, feelings and emotions arise, but I don't need to get attached to that. So because oftentimes our suffering, basically our suffering is amplified when we are identified and attached to the language and the commentary that we're having towards our situations. Does that make sense? Yeah. Are you following me a little bit? So what I help people do is I really help them to get connected to their language and to not necessarily try to get rid of it or to avoid it or to reason. To avoid it or to resist it or to struggle with it, but you just see it for what it is. It's just thought. Interesting, because if you look at what many do on a daily basis, you're right. We try to do everything else, but fix whatever it is we need to fix. We use other ways to avoid it. I don't know if it's human nature, but we just let me avoid conflict or let me avoid that conversation or let me avoid. You're helping guide them back to, would you call it becoming more strong minded? I don't know. So I'd say it's more psychologically and behavioral flexible. So it's that flexibility, right? So it's looking at your behaviors and is your behaviors moving you toward your values and moving you towards a life that matters? Or is it moving you away from that? Is it reinforcing a very narrow, rigid way of being that's maybe impacting your mental health, your wellbeing, your ability to relate to others, your connections, your relationships? These are all areas in our lives that may be impacted when we are not aware of our thoughts and we're just on autopilot living life by default. We're not living life intentionally. And when I say intentionally, it's okay, let's first get intentional about being aware of what our thoughts are, what's showing up for us and how that's influencing our behavior. Wow. Very deep stuff. Very deep stuff. Wow. It makes sense. And at the end of the day, I think you made a valid point earlier that you said in our community, again, this is the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce podcast show. I think a lot in our community is, oh, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to go see a specialist or a therapist. I know we talked about that with Maria when she was here, what she was dealing with in her life, who's obviously helping organize this event in our community. Is that something or here often that it's difficult in the Hispanic community. Yeah, so I'm actually the personal development leader and coach for the we all grown me guys. It's a community of almost 28,000 Latinas. And I have my own circle within that community. It's about 300 members, and I do workshops every other week. And something that comes up for a lot of the women that I coach in that community is we were raised without embracing emotions. So, I know for me, even growing up, we're taught, no, we don't talk about our emotions. That's not something we openly share. We just, or I've even been told, like, just be strong. And so what do you make that mean, just be strong and make that mean, I can't feel what I make that mean that it's not, again, we label through language that it's bad to feel. So now I go through life, having a very painful emotional moment. Right. My son is born deaf with developmental disabilities. And now I'm like, wait, I don't even know how to effectively cope with what I'm emotionally experiencing right now. So we can see how, just, generationally, it's not our, it's not our parents follow her, I believe the spot is it, but it gets passed on, and it gets reinforced. Yeah, yeah, I can remember that growing up. My dad would be like, nastas yorando, suck it up. Like, just deal with it. And like you said, it's not his fault. Maybe it's just the way he was raised. But what did you make that mean? That's a good question. Man, I feel like I'm in a therapist. I hope I don't get involved. I'm going to get an invoice by the doctor, John, our podcast show. But it's true, but it's true. You make a valid point. I think growing up as a kid, you just thought this is the way it's got to be, right? You just suck it up. I'll never forget. This is a funny story. If I may share this, I was on my way to school, and I got jumped or beat up by some kids, right? And I was like all brooms and bumped and cut up. And I came home. And I remember my dad coming home, and I said, my mom said to my dad or something like, your son got beat up by the cholos. He got jumped and everything. He comes over to look at me, and I'm thinking my dad's going to be like, all over the seat, blah, blah, blah. And my dad looked at me, he goes, said, huh, and you try to get crazy with me. I'll never forget that. He looked at me, said, huh, and you try to get, he said something like, you try to get brave with me. Like trying to say, you can't even handle these kids, but you try to get brave with me, which in essence, you were saying, you know, as a father, you mouth off to me as a kid, but you couldn't handle these little kids. And I remember it basically was telling me, suck it up, suck it up, deal with it. But he was not going to be like, all over the seat though, and those things resonate. They stay with you, because now you as a person, you realize, hey, this is life. Like, I got to suck it up, just deal with it, right? But like you said, it could probably stay with you for years to come, and then you learned to cope in a different way. I don't know how different he would have, he should have handled that, but maybe he just didn't know any different. That was just the way he was raised by his dad, who was my Alleto, who was old school, Mexico, Jalisco, fought in the Mexican Revolution, very old school. So maybe that's all my dad knew, right? But yeah, and thank you for sharing that. And I think it's just to highlight that through our experiences throughout life, especially experiences that are salient. So salient means like they're very memorable, right? That's a salient experience, right? That you then were able to derive and draw meaning. So you made meaning of that through language, and that's what we do, because we have complex language. We are deriving meaning of our experiences, whether we realize it or not. And so through that experience, let's say, he's like, I got to suck it up, I got to deal with it. So now I look, I go through life through the lens of I got to suck it up and I got to deal with it. Yes. And now I sometimes, again, we're not aware, we project that onto others, right, where maybe we cannot have a daughter or we have a son and it's no, you got to just deal with it, suck it up. And now that's how we go through life, looking through the lens for ourselves through others or just life in general. And then the question is that workable? Is that working for you? Is that way of thinking? And now your behaviors that are influenced by that is that functional? Is that helpful? Is that allowing you to be flexible? Is that possibly perpetuating some mental health or some anxiety or stress or break? So I'm just taking that as an example. And I think more importantly, I think as I got older as an adult, and I became a father and I had a family and now I'm raising my boys, I kept thinking how different can I be with as a father to my boys than my dad was with me, right? But then I also realize, man, being a parent is tough, right? Yeah. Life is tough. Life is tough. Yeah. Being a parent is tough. Until you have kids, you realize, wow, like you think you have problems. It's a whole different world when you have the parent. And so then I realized, wow, maybe my dad just didn't have good examples either of how to handle things because now I'm coping with how can I be a good father on a daily basis or a good husband? How can I do the right things, say the right things without obviously making mistakes and try to do your best? I think what's beautiful about Saturday, again, folks, June 29th, Trent Shelton is going to be speaking the main celebrity speaker, but we're also going to have a superstar speaker and Dr. Loria Choa here, who's going to be on the panel. We're very excited that you're going to be at our emotional wellness fiesta. Again, it's Santa College this Saturday, in case you watch this show later on after Saturday, it is June 29th. We do have a few tickets left. If you wish to attend, let us know, make a comment, and we can send your link to register. It's really by invite because we can't just open it up because there's only so much space that the venue holds. But what's going to be, I think, beautiful about the event is that people like yourself are going to be there to be able to interact and hopefully anybody who attends. If you're dealing with any of this with yourself or your child or even your neighbor or somebody that you know, you found the resource like someone like Dr. Loria Choa. Obviously, yes, it's great to see Trent. Trent travels all over the world. He's here and then he probably leaves, but you're somebody local. You're somebody here in our community. You're one of our community leaders at Dr. local. How can they get ahold of you if anybody can attend, but wishes to connect with you. Yes, I'm on social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram at Dr. Lorie Ochoa. And I have a website, Dr. Lorie Ochoa.com. And also just on that note, I think it's really important to emphasize that there are going to be vendors there. Yes. So there's going to be vendors where people can access additional resources. The first one to say, "I'm not the end. I'll be all." And there's a time and a place for the coaching that I do. And I do a lot of workshops for companies that bring me in to teach on resilience, mindfulness, well-being, empowerment. And so I think it's important that people can access these resources with, like I said, local community vendors. Yeah, we're going to have some of our other partners of our chamber, Caloptima, is one of our big supporters and sponsors. They're going to be there. One of their community liaisons was just on our show last week. We also have people like Latino Health Access, one of our other partners. They're all part of our health and wellness community committee that we have here at the chamber. And so, yeah, it's a great community putting together this event. And again, it's all about finding those resources and hopefully being able to connect with people like yourself or the other resources that are there. Yes, there's going to be some good food, right? Some tacos and some good food as part of the event. Maria Chideva is performing, which is really cool. They're amazing. Yes. There's going to be a really cool car show, right? From what I hear in the morning, that's going to be really cool. Ferrari car show, not just any car show. And the reason why it's called emotional wellness fiesta is because this is like you said earlier, it's a topic that some people don't want to talk about, don't want to face. It's a stigma in our community, but more importantly, we want to make it fun where people feel like, okay, there's music, there's food, right? There's going to be prizes for raffles. We're going to make it fun, but it's also an open conversation, right? Yes, it'll be very engaging. And I think the idea is, let's celebrate coming together in community, taking a stand for our wellbeing. I love that. I'm all about that. When we can take a stand for our personal wellbeing and accountability, then ultimately that's going to trickle over to our children and to our community. So I think I love that they call it the emotional wellness fiesta, because let's like just celebrate that we're all coming together in community and taking a stand for our wellbeing. Where do they get tickets? They have to leave a comment or reach out to us. You can reach out to me directly, John, JOH, and at OCHC.com. And then I would send them an event bright link that we have. Again, it's because we're trying to manage the amount of people that can attend because unfortunately, you know, the venue, I mean, it holds about three to 400 people, I think. And so, I mean, we can't have thousands. And you're getting close already. Yeah. And thank you to Santa College again for hosting the event. But yes, we just trying to, you know, see whoever it is out there that needs the help. And if you see this podcast after the event, feel free to still reach out and we'll try to try to connect you to Dr. Loria Choa or anybody else. That's part of the event that somebody want to know how you spell Lori, a Choa lots of ways to spell Lori and the Choa. Oh, that's a great question. So it's L-O-R-I and then Ochoa O-C-H-O-A. Yes. Dr. Loria Choa. Dr. Loria Choa. I know time goes by so fast. I want to say thank you for my therapy session. Oh, no, because sometimes I wanted to share a little bit about what I went through. No, that's perfect. So people out there that are listening feel like it's okay to share. 100% and I actually feel that people understand through observation or examples and they can relate. They might be going through something different, but they can relate. Like, oh, yeah, I was raised that way and I have that belief. Like my parents were immigrants. I'm the eldest of five kids and I carried this way of responsibility. And now I go through life like I'm responsible for everyone and everybody's happiness. And oh, how is that showing up in my life? That was an example of coaching. Not well. So using these examples helps people to connect and to relate. Oh, okay. I can see how again, it's not my fault. It's not the flowers fault. It's just this is we're a product of our environment. We're a product of our past experiences. What do we do in our environment to now make the arrangements to now support that flower to grow? And I love that you say that as we end the show, we are a product of our environment and being the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. As much as we are all about businesses and supporting businesses, I can also attest that in the last year and a half as senior vice president in this position. I actually reported to our board this last weekend at our retreat that part of my role in a lot of this for our businesses, I almost felt like I was a therapist to a lot of the businesses, because I would go and unfortunately, they're going through tough times. Right. And I would sit there and it was is more about the person that's running the business. It wasn't about the business. It was more about themselves what they were going through the struggle the hard times. Right. And so for anybody listening, you can't, I guess you can say it can't be in denial. It's okay. Like, it's okay to accept and say, you know what, I can't do it myself. And it all starts by talking exactly did here today. Yeah, that's the part people want to talk about any of this of my business, my personality, my background. And not everybody, but not everybody wants to open up. It's very difficult. I applaud both of you for doing really seriously, because this is a very powerful show. I hope people share it with others. Thank you. Yeah, no, because I hope she doesn't send me an invoice session. And it's again in our culture, especially for men too. Yes, just being able to be emotionally open and vulnerable in space for others. Exactly. And that's again, where if we don't have the ability to hold space for ourselves to be with ourselves. Oh, yes. Then what does that lead or turn into avoidance, addiction, numbing out, opting out, I'm going to, I'm going to escape. And then that's again, what keeps people sitting in the stands and not playing on the court of their life. Oh, look at that. I love that you mentioned that about men or maybe in our culture. I can honestly tell you that my dad all his life could never tell us face to face. I love you. It was hard for him to do that, because it was just the culture thing. The way he was raised. And I remember sharing the story with my wife and my kids about how it was literally at his death bed that I looked at him as a dad. I love you. And it was hard for him, but he said it back. And that was important to me before he died. And so now I make it a point every day. I tell my kids, I love you. I love you, dad. I love you, son. You know, it's this common thing, right? Because I don't want my kids to go through what I went through. So you're right. It's sometimes it could be, again, the product of our environment, our culture, the way we're raised. And so I love that you shared all that. And I love the analogy of the flower. You got to water it. Is it a different environment? You got the soil, right? It's not the flower's fault. No. And like that. And that's how you were able to lend so much forgiveness and compassion to your father. Yes. Because he was a product of it, his upbringing. Yeah, exactly. I would love to have this going forever, but we're out of time. I got to show. So we got to go, folks. We really could go on. Folks, there you have it. Our community podcast show, powered by the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. I want to give a really special thank you to Dr. Lauria Chuff for being here. We will see you guys Saturday. Join us. It's going to be a great event. Mr. Paul Roberts, thank you for being patient with us. Take it away, sir. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you for having me. Wow. There you have another powerful reason. People really talking about what's really going on. That's all we're all about with our community to get real and to share it with the world. Right here in Orange County is only community radio station, OC Talk Radio. Streaming live from our studios here at the University of California Irvine Spiel, Applied Innovation Center. And share this with somebody. [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat music)