97: Mental Health Talks, A Special EdUp EdTech LIVE with NBA's Kenny Thomas & Neolth's CEO Katherine Grill

Holly Owens (00:01.978)
Okay, we are live. Welcome everybody to EdUp EdTech Talks. My name is Holly Owens.

DaNadia Johnson (00:10.053)
And my name is Nadia Johnson and we're your hosts.

Holly Owens (00:13.554)
And we are super pumped tonight here out on the East Coast, but our guests are out on the West Coast. We have Katherine Grill, who is a CEO of Neoth, and we have Kenny Thomas, who does tons of different things besides being a former NBA player. They are here tonight to talk to us about, in this afternoon, about mental health. This is a very important topic. Welcome on in to the show, Katherine and Kenny. Thank you for being here.

Kenny Thomas (00:42.806)
Ladies first. Come on, Catherine, you know this already.

Holly Owens (00:44.186)
Oh. Ha ha ha.

Katherine Grill (00:45.908)
Thanks, Kenny. Always a gentleman. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be back for the third time on your podcast.

Holly Owens (00:55.748)
Yeah, yeah, we're like old friends now.

Kenny Thomas (00:55.786)
Man, I'm really, that's awesome. Thank you ladies for having me. I'm looking forward to chopping it up with you today.

Holly Owens (01:04.718)
Yes, 100%. So we definitely want to know, I could sit here and give great introductions about both of you, both have tremendous bios, but I want you to tell the audience about you. So tell us about yourself, your journey into where you are now. Give us all the details.

Katherine Grill (01:22.687)
Alright, I know Kenny's gonna say ladies first, so I'll go first. I'll just be quick. I'll be quick because I've already been on here and I'm so excited for Kenny to share his story, but...

Holly Owens (01:24.511)
Yeah, I was gonna say...

Kenny Thomas (01:24.904)
I'll just...

DaNadia Johnson (01:25.517)
I'm not becoming.

Kenny Thomas (01:32.251)
And you're gonna help me be able to think of some stuff to add.

DaNadia Johnson (01:36.265)
Hehehehe

Holly Owens (01:36.273)
Hahaha

Katherine Grill (01:38.08)
Gosh, you know, long story short, I was somebody who always grew up, I grew up a little bit outside of Manhattan in New York, in a low income family, there was really serious mental illness and the inability to access proper healthcare. So that was something that got me interested in mental health and trying to figure out how could we make the system better. So I went to school, I became a therapist, I worked in patient care for a little bit, but pretty quickly found that.

The good care was given to the people who could afford it. And that just didn't sit right with me. So I wanted to figure out, you know, how do we get over some of these huge care inequities that we have in the mental health system? I went back to school, I did my doctorate in neuroscience, and I wanted to learn how to build and validate new evidence-based health interventions that just made things more accessible for people.

So long story short, I got into adolescent health. I was doing NIH research, these big clinical trials, and my kids kept asking for digital because that's where they were. And about six years ago, I moved out to California. That's where I am now, I'm in LA, and wanted to see what we could do with technology to make healthcare more accessible, and we ended up building Nia.

Holly Owens (02:46.846)
Great story. And you're so right about that access to mental health and resources. And sometimes it feels like we don't have the access that we need to help us and support us in some of these. Life is very much trials and tribulations to get through, especially the youth of the world, absolutely.

DaNadia Johnson (03:07.745)
And kind of also helping to get rid of that stigma, because there's so much, and I think that's super important. Okay, Kenny.

Holly Owens (03:15.624)
Yeah. Your turn, Kennedy, woo!

Kenny Thomas (03:17.566)
Breaking that cycle is huge, especially coming from a minority perspective. I'm from Douglasville, Georgia. I was raised military. I was able to go to a couple of different places. I was able to go abroad from like five to 11. I lived in Germany. But then my dad came back to the States and we ended up in El Paso, Texas.

DaNadia Johnson (03:17.889)
Thanks for watching!

Kenny Thomas (03:45.262)
There's a lot of different challenges and a lot of different things growing up from my perspective. Being an only child and being in a situation to where I have to travel and leave my friends and different things like that behind and then start all over. That that was a huge. It had a huge effect on me, especially when it comes to a mental health component. And then being able to go to college and play basketball, people think it's easy, but it's really not.

And then being blessed to be able to go to the NBA and standing in the NBA for 11 years, it was a hard grind. And there's a lot of mental aspects that I wish I would have Catherine's app to be able to cope with different things. And hearing her talk about all the different ways that her app, Neal, has affected so many different people, not with just kids. I felt like this is a great opportunity for me to be able to partner up with her.

I'm trying to create opportunities for more kids, especially in markets where I have a significant visibility, like New Mexico, because I played college ball there. And then Sacramento now, I work for NBC Sports California, and I do TV. And Houston, trying to go there, and then at the same time, probably creeping to Philadelphia, another place that I played. But being able to be a part of this and continue to spread the knowledge and...

It's okay to talk about mental health because there's not a lot of people that are comfortable with it. I know I wasn't, and I'm still adjusting myself to this day.

Holly Owens (05:24.018)
Yeah, I think we all are. And definitely, it took a toll on our country when we talk about COVID and the mental health. I think it's released some of that stigma because of what happened to us with the pandemic. But also too, it is very difficult to be comfortable in yourself and talk about different things that have happened in your life. But I think that's where the human connection lies. And what Neoth does is really brings out the best in people, but it also gives you that support. And you...

you don't feel like you're alone, you know, you have that support.

DaNadia Johnson (05:56.905)
Yeah, absolutely. So you kind of talked a little bit about your journey, but can you give the audience a little bit of an overview of Neel, then kind of like what the app does for users?

Kenny Thomas (06:11.374)
She could go on forever with this. That thing does everything.

DaNadia Johnson (06:12.914)
I'm gonna go.

Holly Owens (06:13.888)
Yeah, I put a link in the chat too, so people can go out to the website and check it out.

Katherine Grill (06:14.392)
So yeah, be careful what you ask. Yeah, I mean, so, Nadia, like I said, I was working in, I was at Children's National, it was a pediatric hospital in D.C. and I was working with lots of teens and they kept asking for digital. So I was really interested in getting their perspective instead of just being kind of a doctor and coming in and saying, you know, this is what you need. It's like kind of asking the kids what would work well for you.

DaNadia Johnson (06:16.221)
I'm sorry.

DaNadia Johnson (06:20.469)
Yeah, exactly.

Katherine Grill (06:40.851)
And that's really how Neal was built. We've had about 500 young people now work with us and co-development and making content for the app and all these different things. And what we decided to build together was a self-guided mobile app. And it does a couple of things, but there's a lot of educational content about mental health because we know they're going on their phones, they're searching social media and like YouTube and other stuff. So we want Neal to be a place where they can search and get their questions answered. There's a lot of stigma reduction. So there's people...

Like Kenny, there's so many young people, they're sharing their experiences with mental health and we just know how important that is and that makes you feel less alone. And then there's a lot of different life skills, things built by therapists, so they can build up emotional awareness, better communication skills, healthy relationships, all of that. So it's really a self-guided journey. We personalize the content for them. And then we also have an AI system that can do crisis monitoring, which is really awesome, and flag kids who are struggling and connect them right away to a crisis counselor.

Holly Owens (07:39.274)
I love that crisis piece of it and incorporating the AI in that situation. Because if things are happening and or somebody's typing something or there's something out on social media, because we, you know, I'm not saying we're old, but we didn't really have to deal with social media. We didn't have to deal with social media back in our day. Back in, you know, we had the phones with the, the put the minutes on the phones, no texting, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Oh yeah.

DaNadia Johnson (07:41.045)
Yeah.

Kenny Thomas (07:54.101)
I'm not.

DaNadia Johnson (08:03.884)
Oh, oh my goodness.

Kenny Thomas (08:04.962)
Remember the dial, remember the turn on the phones? Catherine's like, what? She don't know what that is.

Holly Owens (08:08.488)
Spin around, spin around.

Katherine Grill (08:13.569)
I grew up with my grandparents and my grandma had that phone so I know exactly what you're talking about.

DaNadia Johnson (08:17.021)
Yeah, I'm not that far back, but okay.

Kenny Thomas (08:17.929)
Right.

Kenny Thomas (08:21.534)
Oh my bad, Nady, I should've said you. Ha ha ha.

Katherine Grill (08:23.616)
haha

Holly Owens (08:26.86)
So it's really great you're meeting the learners, the students, anybody where they're at in life, and I just love that about the app as well, and then incorporating the AI and not being afraid of that to identify those crisis type situations. Yeah, it's really, exactly.

DaNadia Johnson (08:33.355)
Yes.

DaNadia Johnson (08:42.229)
I'm a personalized learning person. So anything that's tailored to the user and is like personalized, I'm all for. Because everybody's needs are totally different. And I think when we can tap into every user, every person, at least in some capacity, that's awesome.

Katherine Grill (08:58.595)
100%. I mean, you see this. Go ahead, Kenny.

Kenny Thomas (08:58.966)
Yeah, and then I'm like, no, I was just gonna say, I like the fact that you're able to do it within your own privacy to where there's not anybody around to where you can feel comfortable expressing and doing whatever you need to do. That's all I was gonna say. Now take it over from an educated perspective, Kathleen.

Katherine Grill (09:12.831)
Yeah. No, that's huge. No, I mean, you all should be salespeople. I mean, you just said it all, but I think you hit on a couple big things, definitely being able to do it in the privacy of your home because we know that there's so much that happens before a young person would walk into my office as a therapist. And a lot of that is digital and they're not comfortable just, oh, I'm struggling. I'm going to talk to an adult. I'm going to walk into the therapist's office. So

Holly Owens (09:17.701)
hahahaha

DaNadia Johnson (09:18.05)
Hahaha

Katherine Grill (09:40.119)
being able to have that kind of stepping stone to clinical care is so important and that's really what this can be. And not having it disjointed, I think there's so many different things in the behavioral health system that are just fragmented. Especially when you think about things like SEL and these self-guided, you know, mental health curriculum is not connected to clinical services. But that's the perfect way to identify kids who are struggling before the point of a crisis and then connect with them so something bad doesn't happen.

So having that kind of integrated systems and connecting the, we call the tier one, tier two, and tier three support, so like prevention, clinical and crisis services, I think that's really a key component to what we do.

Holly Owens (10:20.942)
Absolutely. And, you know, yeah, plus one plus one. So, Kenny, you talk when we were in the we were in the waiting room, you talked a little bit about your ties to, you know, Mexico. Can you tell us a little bit more about the various like organizations and things that you work with around New Mexico and in Sacramento? I know, I know it's a podcast. We can have a conversation. You can you can be lengthy. It's all good. We want to hear about it. That's why you're here.

Kenny Thomas (10:21.922)
whatever she just said.

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

DaNadia Johnson (10:26.72)
Right.

Katherine Grill (10:27.094)
Up for it.

Kenny Thomas (10:41.564)
Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

Hehehehe

It's, it's, okay, where do I start? Well, when it comes to New Mexico, this is my foundation. This is kind of like where everything kind of started, especially from the age of like 12 and on to where taking basketball to the whole next level was being put in place because I was a part of an AAU team that we were on a national level and being able to come out of my shell.

at such a young age playing on a significant high level and against some amazing guys that I ended up playing against in the NBA has been unreal. Right now in New Mexico it's always been one of those things that's been a passion for me is giving back. The way I was raised you have to give back because you're supposed to and then two in order to receive any more blessings you have to give back.

Kenny Thomas (11:50.99)
Those are a couple of models that I try and follow. I just do it just to give most of the time anyway, to where I'm not necessarily receiving something. Right now I'm on the board for ALS New Mexico. I'm not on the board. Excuse me, let me rephrase that. I'm actually an ambassador for Make-A-Wish New Mexico. So I do some things with them when it comes to raising money. I'm on the board for...

the University of New Mexico Black Alumni Chapter, which is us helping the black alumni and you don't have to be black, of course. Obviously, if you're an alumni, you can be associated with the university chapter. That's been two years. I was on the board for ALS for two years. I'm not on the board for ALS anymore. There's a lot of different things that.

were being done in New Mexico as far as like that whole disease and the muscles and all that. I was happy to be a part of that. Just had a golf tournament for the Boys and Girls Club up north where it's an underserved community and it's not as big as Albuquerque. So I went up there. It was through a senator of mine, Senator Leo Ja Mijo.

who's a good friend of mine and he's from Espanola and he was actually a cheerleader at the time when I was playing at UNM. So we got to reconnect and kind of, we're just building this relationship and connecting me with different community, community people or programs that we think that fits with my brand and promoting different things.

Holly Owens (13:36.039)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Thomas (13:38.59)
I'm also on the African American Chamber here for the state of New Mexico. I'm on that board. But there's this variety of different things that I have going on. And there's always multiple people trying to come at me and wanting me to do stuff in the community. And then majority of the time I just do it, especially if it fits in my schedule. And yeah, those are some of the things I do here. But let me add this city year.

Sacramento, I'm on that board. So I do some stuff in Sacramento as well when it comes to the kids. And Catherine, we were doing some stuff with Neil and City Year right now. And City Year is an organization that does stuff with kids as far as housing and some other stuff as well.

Holly Owens (14:24.274)
Well, you're one of the humans is the reason I started this podcast is the way that you're giving back and wanting to tell people's stories because I don't think enough people's stories are told and how they got to where they're at and how, you know, especially when we're talking about mental health and how we connect as humans through the trauma that we've been through and what that looks like. So thank you for

Kenny Thomas (14:32.034)
Mm-hmm.

Holly Owens (14:49.91)
giving back and doing that within your communities that you're involved in. We love what you're doing. And I've read a lot about you since we first heard you were coming on the show. So thank you for that and sharing that.

Kenny Thomas (14:59.41)
Oh, thank you.

Thank you. See, I try to attack the places where I played because I have a brand name. And then here in New Mexico, the nice thing about it is we've got Colorado, we still got Texas right there, and we have like Arizona. So if I'm able to branch off and do things and just kind of stay in the forefront of the areas that have done so much for me, and then just trying to build those up.

DaNadia Johnson (15:03.846)
Absolutely.

Holly Owens (15:10.311)
Absolutely.

Holly Owens (15:15.893)
Yep.

Holly Owens (15:29.254)
Yeah, the sports part of me is trying not to ask you sports questions because I love sports. I know, no, I'm not, not yet. I'm going to wait a little bit longer. I was in the, I was in the queue this morning. I'm a huge Orioles fan. And I was in the queue this morning for about an hour trying to get playoff tickets. And I managed to secure two to the ALDS and the ALCS. So I am pumped.

DaNadia Johnson (15:33.854)
I'm out.

Kenny Thomas (15:34.134)
Just ask me, go ahead.

I'm already used to it.

Kenny Thomas (15:53.742)
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Holly Owens (15:55.698)
I'm so pumped, but I'll ask you, I'll wait to ask you questions. We really, we really, this isn't about me. This is about, you know, talking about, talking about mental health. No, no, we're just, we're just, we're not in the title. We're not in the title, but it really, like as a former athlete and seeing what you all are doing and what you're bringing together.

Kenny Thomas (16:03.778)
Yes it is, this is your podcast. It's both of you guys, Nadia and Holly's podcast. Even though it's not named that.

DaNadia Johnson (16:06.689)
I'm going to go to bed.

Holly Owens (16:24.422)
It's really uplifting, so thank you.

DaNadia Johnson (16:26.781)
Yeah. And, and since you, since Holly kind of prefaced bringing together, I'm kind of interested to know how did this amazing collaboration happen? Like, how did you guys meet up? How did you guys collaborate on this? Can you give us a little bit of the story behind that?

Kenny Thomas (16:47.178)
head stud.

Katherine Grill (16:49.317)
Oh, me, alright.

Holly Owens (16:49.713)
Hahaha!

DaNadia Johnson (16:49.794)
Thank you for the rest of the week, have a great day.

Kenny Thomas (16:53.358)
I'm smart. I allow the women to talk. I'm smart.

DaNadia Johnson (16:54.868)
I'm sorry.

DaNadia Johnson (16:58.319)
We appreciate it.

Holly Owens (16:58.654)
You gotta figure it out Kenny, you gotta figure it out. He is.

Katherine Grill (17:00.195)
Kenny is very charming, yes. Yeah, I mean it was just I think kind of like right time and we're both I think looking I'll let Kenny speak to what he was looking to do as far as mental health stuff but we had a mutual consultant who was kind of working for both of us and one of the big things, you know again being a clinician kind of coming from health care there were so many people who were falling through the cracks and it's usually the most vulnerable people who aren't getting access to health care through health systems.

So I feel like for so long, we've kind of thought as mental health is like this black box, like it's within the system and you can't do it in the community, you can't do it in other ways. So that's something I've always been really interested in my career is like, how can we make this more accessible? How can we reach people in new and innovative places where they feel more comfortable talking about mental health? So the schools has always been one, we've done a lot of work with Neil from the schools to reach the kids again before the point of crisis.

And sports, I think is huge because you're reaching a lot of people, especially young men in ways that you might not otherwise reach them. So this consultant you're working with is like, hey, I know this guy, he's interested in some mental health. I think you should just talk. He's very charming. Just talk. And then yeah, I don't know, Kenny, you can take it from there.

Holly Owens (18:10.454)
He's very charming.

Kenny Thomas (18:17.71)
Yeah, it was, it's me still trying to follow my path, which comes down to giving back, right? And I have a platform to do that. And being able to come into a situation where Catherine has laid out all the foundation, here I am just trying to come in and use my brand to help support her and then just continue the mission. And the mission is always trying to...

get people involved and feel comfortable with expressing yourself, especially when it comes to mental health. Because if you don't, you never know where you're going to end up. And being able to be comfortable within yourself and expressing those, I think that's key. And if I'm able to touch somebody, even if their parent tells a little kid, hey, that this guy played basketball, if I'm able to touch somebody, I'm good with that as well.

Holly Owens (19:10.942)
That's awesome. You say it so casually, you were in the NBA for 11 years. That's... I was able to play some basketball. Kenny, I play some basketball when I go outside and try to play with the younger kids on the street and they school me. I didn't play in the NBA for... Ha ha ha. You are, you are, you absolutely are.

DaNadia Johnson (19:13.685)
I'm out. What the?

Kenny Thomas (19:15.674)
I mean, I have drink.

Kenny Thomas (19:26.306)
People, please do not listen to her. I am the most humble person ever. And thank you. And I still have dreams, and especially with me doing NBA games now, this is gonna be my third year doing TV. It doesn't seem real that I did that when I'm actually watching it. Like, all the hard work and everything paid off, and I was able to provide for my family, and I'm still able to now, and it's been good to me. But now...

DaNadia Johnson (19:28.321)
Thank you.

Holly Owens (19:45.681)
Yeah.

Kenny Thomas (19:56.458)
It's a different story. It's a different chapter in Kenny's life to where I need to help others. I used to entertain, but now it's different. So if I can open up some doors and get this mental health app going, I'm gonna do it.

Holly Owens (20:10.118)
Absolutely. And I think that's so amazing. I'm just so, I'm so like enamored with you and Catherine, I talked to her, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so nervous. She's like, Kenny is wonderful. He is so chill. I mean, I just, I've never interviewed like a person of your stature, I guess you could say. Yeah. Yeah, we do. We absolutely do.

Katherine Grill (20:12.663)
Yeah.

Kenny Thomas (20:21.742)
Oh my goodness. Nervous about what?

Katherine Grill (20:24.162)
Oh

Kenny Thomas (20:31.238)
Oh, seriously? Are you kidding me? We need to change that.

Katherine Grill (20:32.188)
Seriously? That's not true.

Kenny Thomas (20:37.026)
I mean, we are now, but we need to change that more.

Holly Owens (20:39.002)
You are, you're the first, so we're happy to have you here. And one of the things I was, the questions that was going through my head and thinking about this as a former athlete myself is, and you being at the level of the NBA and the pressure and the practices and the playoffs and the championships and the money and the sponsorship and all the different things that you have to deal with when you're coming, you start out in these rec leagues and then you go all the way up to the NBA.

Kenny Thomas (20:42.594)
Thank you.

Kenny Thomas (20:54.731)
No.

Holly Owens (21:07.562)
How does that impact your mental health and how do you manage that?

Kenny Thomas (21:12.298)
It was hard. It was hard because I didn't think I was good enough to go to college. And then next thing you know, I have a great summer before my senior year and all these colleges come out, North Carolina, UConn, all the big schools. And here I am in little New Mexico and I'm playing in a high school game and they've never televised a local high school game in the whole state. And I'm playing against one of my best friends.

AJ Bramlett, who ended up going to Arizona, and I went to New Mexico. Then we ended up playing against each other in college. And then I decided to stay here in New Mexico. And it was a state championship game, 18,000 people for a high school game. I'm like, I need to stay right here. And then I ended up getting 18,000 people for every game. And then they created dots around the arena for like standing room only. It was unreal. And just...

from a mental perspective, like I didn't think I was good enough for college. I'll go back to that. And then once you get there, it's like, hey, I can do this. So it's a matter, I think it's a matter of tricking your brain to where, don't tell yourself you can't, I can't do this. And as being a professional athlete, I got to the point when somebody told me I couldn't do something, I even wanted it more. So it's the same thing now in business. It's...

it's impacting me so much because I'm so competitive. If somebody tells me no on one door, I'll go open up two or three more doors. So I think that's been hard. I mean, that's been a growing process for me because I think it was a mental component to where I just wasn't confident enough. And I think this app will allow you to be more confident to where you know you can do certain things because I'm like, what, like 2%?

Holly Owens (22:49.182)
Yeah.

Kenny Thomas (23:11.364)
3% of this nation to a certain extent to where you get a chance to go to the NBA.

Holly Owens (23:17.33)
Yep, yep. Yeah, absolutely. I was, it's just so amazing that somebody who's done what you've done and it's giving back the way that you're giving back, but how comfortable it is to be in this space and talk in this space about mental health. I think we don't talk about it enough, to be honest with you. I think it's something and that's one of the.

Kenny Thomas (23:21.902)
Yeah, in.

Kenny Thomas (23:39.832)
We don't.

Holly Owens (23:42.698)
things that we wanted to discuss here is the stigmatism around it. And especially I could think at a level of, you know, any sort of professional league, the stigma when players, you know, I've known it's been in the news, a few like NFL players or people have taken breaks because of mental health issues. And I hear people, they're like, what are they doing? Or I'm watching get up in the morning or, you know, first take and Stephen A, you know, you know, those kinds of...

Kenny Thomas (24:10.765)
I was in Philly when Stephen A started.

Holly Owens (24:14.948)
He's amazing. I'm not down to see him. I love him. He's very entertaining. But just, you know, thinking about like these players, they are humans as well. They're humans as well.

Kenny Thomas (24:17.208)
Love you.

Kenny Thomas (24:26.562)
See, people don't understand that. Like, they expect a professional athlete not to mess up. Like, the pressure and the little bit of anxiety, you have to perform. And if you don't perform, you're not gonna get that contract. You're not gonna play. Because if you're not playing, it's, well, what do you do now? Like, your whole life, you wanted to get on a stage like the NBA, and then it comes down to numbers and production, it just does. And then...

you get paid off of your upside and what they think that can be. And you even have to be in the right situation with the right coach, like on the right team. And I was just blessed to be able to do that. And I didn't play my last three years. I'll add this, like I was making a significant amount of money my last three years. And I was a guy that played in college, that's played all the way through college, gets an MBA, didn't have to wait your turn.

And then my last three years I don't play and I'm trying to get another contract. That messed me up mentally because I'm like, what am I going to do next? I wasn't a guy that took advantage of developing those relationships with partners while I was playing. That's one of the key components that Magic Johnson said, who's my mentor, that he wished he would have developed those relationships.

Holly Owens (25:45.263)
Yeah.

Kenny Thomas (25:54.326)
And he's doing it now, obviously, but it would have been a lot easier. He's with the commanders, he has the Dodgers, he has the Sparks. I think he has a soccer team. It's just a variety of different things that he's created for himself and it's all because of his brand. So it wasn't easy cuz those three years I'm like, what am I gonna do next? And I wanted another contract.

Holly Owens (25:57.382)
Well, he owns part of the commanders. So he has some.

Holly Owens (26:04.64)
Yeah.

Kenny Thomas (26:24.082)
And people don't know this, I made a significant amount of money, but when I signed my deal, I left like 15 million on the table because I thought I was going to get another deal. And I wanted to stay in Philly, opposed to going somewhere else.

Holly Owens (26:39.562)
Yeah. Well, thank you for being vulnerable and sharing all of that. You know, we were, yeah. Giving us the insider perspective. And I obviously have tons more questions, but we don't have time for that right now.

Kenny Thomas (26:43.79)
That's the least I can do.

DaNadia Johnson (26:43.805)
Yeah.

DaNadia Johnson (26:52.609)
I'm out.

Kenny Thomas (26:54.244)
Yeah, yeah, I played against Michael Jordan. Yeah, I did that.

Holly Owens (26:56.594)
Oh, no, I mean, obviously, but, you know, not I'm not gonna I'm not gonna finger out. I really want to focus more on this topic. And I always do think about that, especially when I see and Nadia, this is your time when you tell me to be quiet. When I see things happen like what happened to Aaron Rogers and what he's going through now, I can only imagine what that's doing to him mentally.

DaNadia Johnson (26:59.356)
I'm sorry.

Holly Owens (27:21.234)
And he was so prepared and ready to go and get the Jets on the map. And then four plays in, he's done for the season probably. I can't imagine what that does to an athlete at any level, you know?

Kenny Thomas (27:35.351)
Man, see, he's Aaron Rodgers. Like a guy like him, he'll get another chance if he wants. Some guys, when they get hurt, it's over. It's a wrap. And I know that he didn't want something like that to happen, who does? Because obviously he wanted to prove himself. Like, I don't need to be in Green Bay to still be good and I still got it.

Holly Owens (27:44.248)
Yeah.

Kenny Thomas (28:02.166)
at 39, right? But I feel like this is a guy that he's gonna come back. I don't think the story's over. And he has that right. And he's seen the same surgeon that worked on Kobe Bryant from what I was told. So he's in good hands and see what happens.

Holly Owens (28:22.47)
Yeah. And I'm just thinking about the different levels too. Even when that happens, when you're like a high school or college and you just, you know, you're dealing with classes and grades and parents and relationships.

Kenny Thomas (28:33.314)
Man college these kids are making 200 plus thousand to go to college Don't go there don't go there high school to these kids are making money If I was in college and we had NIL, oh my goodness. I would have wanted more years in college

DaNadia Johnson (28:40.262)
Like, nowadays.

DaNadia Johnson (28:47.71)
Okay.

Holly Owens (28:55.194)
Yeah, yep. All right.

DaNadia Johnson (28:57.781)
Well, I'm interested to know a little bit more about the details of the projects that you're collaborating on with the Department of Health in New Mexico or any additional projects that you'd like to share, but I'm interested to kind of dig into that if you're willing to share a little bit with the audience.

Kenny Thomas (29:19.47)
for the Boss Lady on that one.

Holly Owens (29:21.562)
Yeah

Katherine Grill (29:22.996)
Yeah, absolutely. I'm ready. Now, yeah, I mean, part of the work that we're doing across the country, but in New Mexico and with the Department of Health is really what we're doing today. And like, I just want to again, thank Kenny for being here because you don't, you know, 10, 15 years ago, right? Like when we were in school, you didn't see people talking about this and being open and vulnerable about their mental health. And now imagine, I mean, for any of us as adults, but especially the kids who are watching this.

DaNadia Johnson (29:23.615)
I saw her ready.

Katherine Grill (29:50.963)
All the things that Kenny was feeling, he was talking about not having confidence, not feeling good enough, trying to reinvent yourself or decide what to do after school or after a career change. Those are things that even people at his level deal with. And I think that kids don't always realize that. Just to have somebody just come out and be open and vulnerable about that is huge. So I wanna thank Kenny for that. And that's a big part of the work that we're doing. So one thing we're doing with the Department of Health, we're real excited about this. We're gonna be in Albuquerque mid-November.

We're keynoting the DOH conference. So we're gonna be able to chat with all of the people in New Mexico, in mental health, school-based services, and really just get that conversation going and talking about mental health in general, reducing stigma, and really starting to talk about EdTech, which is, I know what this podcast is about, but some people might be surprised to know a lot of schools, yes, they're using technology, but they're not using mental health technology.

DaNadia Johnson (30:23.253)
All right.

Katherine Grill (30:47.423)
And the idea that we have mental health within the schools is still very new. COVID kind of accelerated this, but it's not like all the schools are doing this and it's so easy and comfortable and they've been doing it forever. So Kenny and I are gonna be able to go there and just talk to a whole lot of people about some of the work we've been doing at NEOS and really just talking about best practices with mental health technology to get the schools a little bit more comfortable with EdTech. So we're pretty excited about that.

Kenny Thomas (31:15.094)
I got a question for you guys. What are these numbers on this screen?

DaNadia Johnson (31:15.311)
That's awesome.

Holly Owens (31:19.506)
Which numbers? Ha ha ha.

Kenny Thomas (31:20.982)
I got like 95% on mine. And what are these numbers that are coming in and out? I've never seen this before.

Holly Owens (31:27.002)
Oh, that might be like your audio quality or your video quality that's coming in. Yeah. It's telling you how wonderful you are. You're doing fantastic. It's giving you positive reinforcement.

Kenny Thomas (31:30.984)
Oh, oh, okay, cool.

DaNadia Johnson (31:38.145)
I'm going to go.

Kenny Thomas (31:39.05)
Well, you just did a good job. You can say it again. I'm just kidding.

Holly Owens (31:47.861)
Well, Katherine, I want to talk a little bit about what when you're going into schools, and I know that it's K through 12, higher ed, like, what are some of the things that you do and what, you know, bringing Kenny in now, what's that going to do for the platform? You know, how is that going to make a positive social impact? And you know, in the larger community, because it's not just going to be in New Mexico. And you know, our podcast is international.

DaNadia Johnson (32:12.565)
Hahaha!

Holly Owens (32:14.175)
It's going to be around. So people are going to start contacting you from other countries. So be prepared. So how are you going to, you know, scale that but beyond that, what's the impact that you think it's going to have or that you are already seeing that it's having when you bring it into the schools and to these children?

Katherine Grill (32:32.967)
Yeah, I guess a couple different things. One of them is kind of going off of what I said before, is that mental health in the schools and mental health technology in the schools is still really new. And Kenny knows this from being on, I don't know how many conversations with me now and different potential partners, where it's not like, oh, we've done this before. Okay, great, let's do it again. It's really starting from day zero of what is this technology? How do we use it? What's the rollout plan? So there's so much to do there.

And one of the exciting things that we're starting to do is kind of even take a step back from implementing the technology and just having conversations like this or keynote conversations, or Kenny has graciously kind of opened himself up to speaking engagements and going into schools and different opportunities. He does so much, he's really humble. He does a lot about basketball tournaments and reaching thousands of kids in New Mexico. So having these opportunities to just kind of get your foot in the door and start to discuss mental health.

That's like a stepping stone to implementing the actual program, which, as we've seen to be implemented as a self-guided service, kind of opt-in for students or in some schools, it's even integrated into the curriculum.

DaNadia Johnson (33:39.657)
That's awesome. I love that you're kind of creating that buy-in, kind of getting them just warmed up, excited to talk about these kind of topics and making them feel comfortable around it.

Holly Owens (33:53.03)
Absolutely. I feel like it, like I said before, it's just not something that's talked about enough and you can feel like kind of isolated when you're having those kinds of issues, you know, in school and you can go to the counselor, but maybe that's not the support that you necessarily need. So bringing this to the table was really going to help a lot of people and yeah.

DaNadia Johnson (34:12.049)
And they're kind of spread thin too, counselors. Like, I mean, yeah, because I almost went down that road. I started my degree in counseling, school counseling, and the pandemic hit. And that kind of messed the whole, not really messed it up, because I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be. But it kind of put a little halt on the plan. So I think school counselors as well are spread thin. So it's kind of nice to have that additional support for students.

Holly Owens (34:41.934)
Yeah, absolutely. And oh, Colton's making an appearance. That's my dog, Colton. He's saying hi. Yeah, I just I have so many questions floating through my head and things that I want to talk about with both of you. And again, Kenny, thank you so much for being here. And Catherine, thank you for doing what you're doing.

and really looking forward to hearing how things go with New Mexico in the keynote. Congratulations on that. That's amazing. We hope sometime you'll come out to the East Coast to do some things so we could all meet up in person and say hi.

DaNadia Johnson (35:09.481)
Yes, that's awesome.

Holly Owens (35:18.99)
But one of the things that I do want to mention is that, like I was saying before, these athletes, these people, they're humans, they do have real problems. You know, NEO really puts it out there for people to take this journey and personalize learning and everybody needs to go definitely check it out. You know, but in wrapping things up a little bit.

Are there any other sorts of projects or things that you have coming down the line that people should know about besides the keynote that you want to share and want to get out there? We're going to share everything because this is going to become an episode as well in the show notes and out there for you know, LinkedIn world YouTube world. Everybody's going to be able to find out what you're both are doing in this wonderful collaboration.

Kenny Thomas (36:04.99)
I mean we have a variety of different things that we're working on. We just kind of brought up the keynote speaking thing because we know that that's happening. We can't talk about things, I can't talk about the things that we have going on because they haven't actually happened yet. So I don't know if you want to add to that.

Holly Owens (36:15.829)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (36:22.386)
Okay.

Katherine Grill (36:25.539)
Yeah, without being too vague. I know.

Holly Owens (36:27.678)
Don't violate any NDA agreements. Remember, that's always my thing and when I ask this question, no NDA violations. We don't wanna get in trouble, but whatever you can share.

Katherine Grill (36:37.831)
This is what I'll say about some of the work Kenny and I are doing. It's really about being creative and how do you meet young people where they are? And some of the things that I think about is, and I think we talked about this Holly, but remember those like, kind of like kitschy, like public health video series that they used to have, like after school specials, but like in their own way, as goofy as they were, they were innovative because they were on TV and they were trying to meet young people where they were.

Holly Owens (36:55.394)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (37:01.33)
And you remembered it. They did something.

Kenny Thomas (37:02.679)
Mm-hmm.

Katherine Grill (37:03.755)
So yeah, so it's kind of the same thing now and we're thinking about media and technologies and some different partnerships and maybe some video series that we're looking forward to announcing soon. But how can we bring together, you know, people like Kenny who are really role models with young people talking about mental health and just meet them in these kind of digital mediums where they are. I think that that's gonna be really exciting. So kind of keep posted before we make those announcements. But I think there's gonna be a lot more around that.

and even stuff like he had mentioned with, you know, basketball tournaments and sports and some other folks that he's working with. It's like a really great way to meet young people outside of the doctor's office. Not that the doctor's office isn't important, but there are so many people who aren't ending up there for whatever reason. So like, I don't know, Kenny, if there's anything you want to share about the basketball tournaments and all the kids you're reaching. There's so much there as well.

Kenny Thomas (37:51.134)
Yeah!

Holly Owens (37:51.614)
Yeah.

Kenny Thomas (37:54.338)
Thank you. I actually just did a tournament from Memorial Day weekend. I partnered up with the city of Belen, which is on the outskirts of Albuquerque, to where we had 18 or 19 gyms in Valencia County and kind of like in that whole outskirts of Albuquerque because we use Belen's gyms and things like that. We had 252 boys and girls from like seven different states.

So kind of like what I'm doing is I'll have a tournament in like Albuquerque and then I'll go to like Roswell, New Mexico, which is right there by Texas. El Paso where I live. And then I'll go to like Hobbs, New Mexico next year, which is right there by Texas also. And then up North, Santa Fe area where I just had my golf tournament up there. And then there's just other opportunities of other places like Houston. I'm looking at having a.

tournament there. Sacramento of course and then if I'm able to go to Philadelphia that's fine as well. In that big tournament that I had we had teams from like Chihuahua, New Mexico, like Arkansas. Now they want us to go up to Arkansas and do a tournament. The nice thing about it is in these different areas I'm creating partnerships with the cities to where if they let us use their facilities.

they get the opportunity to be able to make money as well. If it's a percentage of the door, or if it's concession or whatever it may be. And we're not charging a lot per team. We're charging like a few hundred bucks. It's not like it's like six, 700 bucks for like three or four games. And it's a couple hundred for like three to five games. And then they get trophies and then they get to meet me because I'm jumping around to all of these facilities and taking pictures and.

visibility there because with my name being attached they obviously want to see me being there. So I'm not going to be able to make them all but it's becoming a regular thing to where I'm having tournaments on a consistent basis. Like my next one is coming up in December here in New Mexico. So it's going to be around the holidays to give the kids an out during that time because they're usually on breaker day to keep them active and have them doing something.

Holly Owens (40:13.862)
Absolutely. Oh my goodness. You're doing a lot. Well, I heard Philadelphia, so that's over this way.

DaNadia Johnson (40:16.757)
Go not.

DaNadia Johnson (40:21.505)
on these notes.

Kenny Thomas (40:21.594)
Yeah, we haven't started up there yet, but I'm hoping to get into that market with some other things that I have going on with some of my business partners out of LA. Yeah, we'll see what happens.

Holly Owens (40:31.935)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (40:36.914)
that you're doing and I'm sure that we could probably talk for hours and hours because

Kenny Thomas (40:41.294)
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Holly Owens (40:43.486)
You're just so genuine and you're just so, you are very charming and it's been an absolute pleasure having you on and putting you on this platform and expressing your vulnerability and also Catherine, you know I admire you and all the things that you've been doing and watching Neoth grow to this point is unbelievable and I can't wait to see where it goes next. So we wanna wrap up with some final thoughts, anything else that you want to say?

Kenny Thomas (40:50.445)
Thank you.

Holly Owens (41:13.46)
to share with us or share with the audience anything that we forgot to talk about because I'm just so into my sports brain right now. I blame Kenny for being a professional athlete. So anything else that you want to share with the audience.

DaNadia Johnson (41:20.894)
Nyeh.

Kenny Thomas (41:22.542)
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Ladies first.

Katherine Grill (41:31.259)
All right, well, I had... Oh, yes, and there's wine company, Kenny has so much going on. It's so cool to work with a fellow entrepreneur and really get his perspective, but to kind of bring it back to the EdTech before we jump into Kenny's stuff, because I know there's a lot of people listening and EdTech is their thing. I was just all day kind of looking through some data. We had an implementation, a big implementation with a university. I'm not going to name them.

Kenny Thomas (41:32.394)
because I'm about to pump my social media.

Holly Owens (41:35.26)
Yeah.

DaNadia Johnson (41:35.917)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (41:39.934)
He does.

Katherine Grill (42:00.447)
because they probably want to make the announcement about some of this data coming out. But we were looking through some of the data coming out. We did a large study last year with schools. And something really cool that I noticed from this data coming out is that we had worked with schools, these are K-12 schools, and they were kids with really more intense behavioral health needs. And I think a lot of times when people think mental health, they think, you know, anxiety and depression. But these were sites, and as far as I know, for the first time, where we were looking at digital mental health.

with yes, those kind of traditional mental health conditions, but also comorbid with things like ADHD or autism. So they had like a combination of developmental and mental health issues, and we were trying to support them all. And what we found is that when we use this classroom model, so teachers integrating it into the classroom, reducing stigma, talking about mental health, over 50% of the kids in these schools were what we were calling super users on Neal, they were logging in.

30 plus times throughout the school year. So it's not like they're signing up once, not interested, like they're going back and they're going back. And we're about to release some, a case study about it with like all these nice quotes from the kids where they show, this is how it helped me, that we use the crisis AI, it was able to identify a bunch of kids within 10 minutes, we could notify the schools and let them know kids were struggling. So it's really cool to start to play around with this and implement it into the classroom and see how when teachers and other folks get involved in the school, how it can just

bolster the effect of this program.

Holly Owens (43:28.134)
Yeah, absolutely. Another plus one from Kenny. Ha ha ha.

Kenny Thomas (43:28.407)
what she just said.

Kenny Thomas (43:33.48)
I can't top that. Kenny Thomas, NBA social media handle, follow me. That's all I got.

Holly Owens (43:39.042)
Yes, absolutely, fellow Kenny, he's so genuine and he does a lot of great things out in the community. I've been low-key stalking you since Katherine said you were coming on the show. Well, no, I have to research.

DaNadia Johnson (43:45.547)
Yes.

Kenny Thomas (43:49.611)
Oh Jesus, that's funny.

DaNadia Johnson (43:54.733)
No shame in your game, Holly. No shame.

Kenny Thomas (43:57.13)
No, no, don't hate. You feel the same way. It's all good.

Kenny Thomas (44:04.934)
Um, no, I was just going to say I would love to come back. Catherine, whatever you need, obviously you guys just let me know. I had fun. Thank you. That's all I was going to say.

Holly Owens (44:05.131)
Well, we, yeah, go ahead, Kenny.

Holly Owens (44:10.934)
Please.

Holly Owens (44:15.79)
Yeah, we do Where Are They Now episodes, and we would absolutely put you at the top of the list. We wanna see in six to 12 months what you are doing with this collaboration, how much it's spreading, and all the great things that you're doing, and share it with our audience, because we're all about stories, and we're all about helping people hear it at Up at Tech. So we can't thank you enough, Kenny, for your time, Katherine, for your time, and being with us this afternoon, this evening, and all the listeners out there.

DaNadia Johnson (44:17.473)
Who are they now? We wanna see, yeah.

DaNadia Johnson (44:35.393)
Absolutely.

Holly Owens (44:42.154)
This is an amazing episode. Thanks for joining us. We really appreciate it.

DaNadia Johnson (44:46.289)
Yes, totally.

Kenny Thomas (44:47.714)
Thank you guys for having me. The Ed-Up Ed Tech podcast. I said that right. Dang, I left that part out. With amazing Hollywood in that ear.

Holly Owens (44:52.124)
Oh. Woo! With Holly and Nadia.

Katherine Grill (44:53.255)
With Holly and Nadia.

DaNadia Johnson (44:53.307)
I'm sorry.

Holly Owens (44:58.806)
Ha ha ha ha h

Katherine Grill (44:59.167)
It's okay. I got you, Kenny. I got you.

Kenny Thomas (45:03.383)
Thank you, ladies.