00:00
Eric Mulvin
Welcome to the Unfinished Business Podcast. I’m your host Eric Mulvin and this is a show where we interview CEOs, visionaries, leaders and creatives about what they’re doing in their organization today, what they’re doing in leadership and creativity to help shape and change the future. So it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve accomplished, there’s still some unfinished business out there that you want to be able to tackle. And so we explore those stories today on Unfinished Business with Eric Mulvin. 

00:25
Theme Song
Unfinished Business where people in tech connect to amplify finish business Human intelligence plus AI new shot goals that launch you high. Listen close and you’ll learn why. 

00:49
Eric Mulvin
This episode is brought to you by Pac Biz Outsourcing. At Pac Biz, we help transportation software SaaS companies outsource their customer support and back office tasks with a powerful team in the Philippines that are dedicated to you as remote employees, helping your business improve, support scale faster while grow while keeping costs in check. For example, we even helped one client save over $600,000 a year of payroll costs by using dispatchers from Pac Biz Outsourcing. So if you’ve ever thought about outsourcing or taking on a virtual Assistant, go to pac-biz.com or give us a call at 480-771-3009 right. Without further ado, I am very excited to introduce to you guys our next guest. He has he is the Chief Executive Officer of Solari Crisis and Human Services, a nationally recognized leader in crisis continuum services and organizational leadership. 

01:43
Eric Mulvin
With over two decades of experience across behavioral health, human services and child welfare. He has served as an executive, Behavioral health administrator, systems designer and direct service provider. His expertise spans the development of sustainable and efficient healthcare programs, system wide transformation efforts, and innovation in crisis response and care integration. He holds a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Arizona State University, Go Devils. And an MBA from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Duke University. He is a licensed Master Social Worker in Arizona, a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality, and a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. 

02:29
Eric Mulvin
He currently serves on the National 988 Center Committee, the Board of Directors for the International Council of Helplines, and is the former Board President of Lifeline International, reinforcing his commitment to advancing global crisis response systems. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome Justin Chase. So welcome Justin to the show. 

02:48
Justin Chase
Thank you. 

02:49
Eric Mulvin
Thanks for having me Eric. Awesome. And now I know that’s a wordy intro because there’s a lot that you’ve done. But why don’t you break it down in your language and your words here. Tell everyone in the audience what do you do here at Solari, and tell us about Justin. 

03:02
Justin Chase
Yeah, so I’m a social worker by trade, so I am just passionate about human interaction, human innovation, and really being able to help people wherever they need help. And, and so I’ve had a journey when it comes to leadership really focused around mental health and substance use needs and suicide prevention. I, I didn’t set out to be a CEO. I just set out to make a difference. And, and that’s really, it’s worked out for me and being here and with Solari, it’s been, I’ve been here almost 12 years in my role as CEO, and it has been a wonderful adventure that entire journey. So I’m honored to be able to work in with an incredible workforce, doing meaningful work every day. 

03:46
Justin Chase
I get to get out of bed every morning and know the, that the team that I support is saving lives every day, man. 

03:51
Eric Mulvin
And that is incredible. You’re one of my favorite people just because of what you guys do here at Solari. But, you know, like I said, you guys are one of my favorite companies because of the impact you guys make, not just here in Arizona, but, you know, like in other parts of the country as well. And I have a hard time. I was thinking about it, like, who do I know that has made such a difference in the world personally? And so, and I can’t think of anybody that’s made such a big impact. But maybe explain for people who aren’t familiar with Solari or the work that you guys do. Tell us more about that. 

04:24
Justin Chase
Yeah, so we’re a nonprofit organization. We’re headquartered here in Tempe, Arizona. We’ve been since 2007. We were created to be a suicide and crisis hotline, and we supported Maricopa county initially, the greater Phoenix area. And we’ve grown over the years and really this intersection of data, informed services, from individuals facing their worst day to the soft and squishy side, I call it, of clinical intervention to be able to support individuals and families again that are having their worst day. And it is a powerful thing we’re now doing. Over 600,000 calls per year come into the crisis hotline that we manage. We’re now providing 9 and 8 suicide and crisis lifeline work in three states, Arizona, Oklahoma and Colorado. We have just been awarded a contract in Arkansas. 

05:17
Eric Mulvin
Congratulations. 

05:18
Justin Chase
Thank you. 

05:18
Eric Mulvin
So we’re four states soon. 

05:20
Justin Chase
So soon to be four states. And we’re excited to be able to ramp that up. So that’s been really exciting. And from when I started, were about $15 million. It’s about 145 staff and today we’re 94 million in revenue and 780 employees. 

05:34
Eric Mulvin
And for you guys listening at home, you talk about growing a business that is crazy to be thinking about because like, I’ve been trying to grow my company to. It’s funny when I like. So Justin and I have some history. We’ve gotten to know each other over the years. Obviously both run call centers, so we got some things in common. And I’ve always been chasing him like, I’m going to get my call center bigger. And it’s hard because you keep growing too. But it is so much work to scale up a company, an organization from, you know, smaller team to bigger team. You don’t just go out and hire a bunch of people. Like there’s your entire business has to change. Right. 

06:09
Justin Chase
It’s, it’s fundamental to, you know, the concept of what got you here isn’t going to get you there. I really have to own that and take that on. For the team that we have that got us from one to our board of directors to our workforce is very complex. You know, you mentioned I got my MBA and I reached a point that my software work degrees just weren’t keeping up to the complexity of business that I really needed to be able to tackle. And so as we got more complex, I was able to go back to school through Covid and, and really tackle that. And I’m learning every single day something new and needed. It continues to be more and more complex. 

06:52
Eric Mulvin
Cool. And I want to get into this here because I’m really interested to learn more about how you got to where you’re at because there’s a theme on the show here where we get a lot of people on who didn’t expect to be in the position there. I think a lot of business leaders, for the most part, at least the ones I try to surround myself with, we kind of started from scratch or like either in our career or business and we didn’t have a big vacuum, didn’t have a bunch of funds to go out and start something. And like here it’s hilarity. Even though you didn’t start it, but you had to take this organization and grow it. 

07:26
Eric Mulvin
Talk to me about, like, when you first started getting into social work, how did you end up Getting into this role now leading the organization? 

07:35
Justin Chase
Yeah, that’s a, it’s a great question, Eric. I, I started out after my undergraduate, I was working at child welfare. So I was working, I was a child protective services investigator and the state. So that’s tough work. I’m guessing it was very tough work, very heavy. But I learned quickly that there are so many passionate people about doing the work of saving kids and doing what we can to keep family units together whenever we possibly could. But the administrators in these roles were clinicians that reached a certain point that they were promoted into leadership, was out. 

08:08
Eric Mulvin
Familiar in business and they weren’t given. 

08:09
Justin Chase
The tools and resources they needed to really succeed and they weren’t passionate about leadership. And so I committed myself when I went back to grad school was that my goal was to help the helpers. And if I can, I don’t, I think in a macro way. I like policy, I like systems thinking. And so being able to apply that got me out of bed in the morning was being able to help the people. And as a clinician, I’m not going to help a few thousand people in my career and that’s really impactful. But if I can help a few thousand clinicians who then help a few thousand clinicians, it grows exponentially. 

08:44
Justin Chase
And so I just owned that at the time and I was able to work on policies, able to work with the state and managed healthcare and really be able to make an impact. So the people that are passionate about doing the direct service work, the one one interactions with individuals and families get to keep doing that. We really brought that philosophy here to Solari where we’re like, you do what you need to do and what you desire to do. If you want to grow within the company, great, let’s create a pathway to do that. 

09:10
Eric Mulvin
But if you want to keep doing. 

09:11
Justin Chase
What you’re doing every day, let’s embrace that, let’s own that. So that was kind of the mentality that kind of got me to where I’m at with the organization. This organization was flattering when I came in and we did not know if it was going to survive. 

09:25
Eric Mulvin
Oh, wow. 

09:27
Justin Chase
My wife was very upset when I took this job that, you know, we thought it was a sinking ship. I thought I might be able to save it. And she thought that ship had sailed and that were, I, I’m going to go down with it, my reputation along with it. We’ve been able to put the right team in place, had a wonderful board of directors that supports us throughout this journey. And, and we are where we are today. 

09:48
Eric Mulvin
Wow. And so, incredible story on how you got here. When did that shift happen for you? When did you realize, like, I, I could make a bigger impact if I really changed what I’m doing? 

10:01
Justin Chase
Yeah, it was. It’s harder to find the switch moment. It was, it was a culmination of these experiences of really bad supervisors and leaders that were just not. They didn’t have their heart in or they’re jaded and they were giving up on the why. And for me, it’s. It’s intrinsic to want to help people. And if we lose sight of the people that are in need, there’s something broken. And so that was kind of the switch and the pivot. And so I was able to really focus my social work skills and harness those to administration and then policy. I became a policy wonk. I never wanted to be a politician. I still don’t want to be in politician. 

10:44
Justin Chase
But I understood them and I understood how to sell and market the services to those that needed to make key decisions across the aisle in a complex world and getting more complex every year in that space. And so I, I didn’t know again, where it would go, but I knew I was going to be able to make an impact, and I wanted to make an impact and, and create an environment where staff can thrive on the front line. 

11:14
Eric Mulvin
Awesome. And you mentioned, you know, when you first started here, you talked about your team and that one thing I also like to talk about, it’s one of our core values at my company is teamwork. And I like, there’s a lot of business leaders out there, and we both know this. Like, that we forget either like we have a team and we forget to use them or don’t use them appropriately or we don’t have the right people on the right team. Talk to me about how critical it was to build the team around you to help get you from when you came here and that was a sinking ship to now you’re looking at entering your fourth state. 

11:46
Justin Chase
Yeah. It’s having the team to surround you that has a common goal and understanding of the mission. And being in the nonprofit space, it’s a little easier for us in this sector because the mission drives everything. Bottom line is mission first now. No margin, no mission. So we have to maintain a healthy margin to achieve our outcomes. But building that team and kind of breaking it down, to me, it was not. It became all about the why. Why are you here now, whether you have the skills yet or not if you don’t have. We had to be able to build trust. And so we worked through. The Speed of Trust was an early book for us to work through as a team and really be able to assess. 

12:23
Justin Chase
And an incremental process of a team member got us from one stage to the other stage. But then they may not have been the best one to continue on and they may have moved on and there maybe have been somebody else going up and taking us to the next direction. And I’m not naive to think that I don’t want this company to live and die with me and where we are today. I don’t want to get the, you know, the founder syndrome sets in with companies so many times. It is. There’s going to be a day where this company is bigger and growing beyond even my skill set. 

12:57
Eric Mulvin
And there may be a day that I. 

12:58
Justin Chase
That the board decides you’re not the good fit for this. And I will be okay with that when that day comes. But I’m going to do my best to progress this organization that it continues to live in perpetuity far beyond my time and tenure here. But it really comes down to building trust, understanding the why. And then my philosophy with the leadership team is I hired my weaknesses. So as a social worker and a clinician at heart, you know, I’m a bleeding heart that’s just my thing. But I live in the gray. I’m not a black and white thinker and it’s so I like to find wins for everybody and how do we balance it? 

13:30
Justin Chase
So really being able to have that opposite on the team and then we build around that to make sure that we’re filling all the gaps and acknowledging where my weaknesses are and complimenting that today, we have an exceptional executive team that supports. I’m the second youngest as in tenure on my team being here almost 12 years. 

13:49
Eric Mulvin
That’s crazy. 

13:50
Justin Chase
Our CFO joined us just a few months ago. But apart from that, the rest of our executive team have been here 13 and 14 years in a variety of roles within the organization. And so our president who was able to. I was able to split my role two years ago from president and CEO to CEO and then was able to promote our chief operating officer to the president role. He’s an attorney, so he is the black and white thinker. 

14:14
Eric Mulvin
So he stands probably butt heads a little bit sometimes a dynamic tension. 

14:18
Justin Chase
But we hold each other accountable and we’ve grown together. And I think that polarization of perspectives that we come from the why is the same for us. The why and the mission is paramount to us, but we balance each other out in such a meaningful way. And I think without having those opposites stationed throughout the executive team, we wouldn’t be where we are today. 

14:40
Eric Mulvin
That’s some great leadership advice there, bringing in people that are your weakness. Because I think too often in business we look for people that are like us. And what do you have? You have a team of mini me’s that all have the same weaknesses. And you probably get to see that out in the real world too, with different organizations. And so it’s just really fascinating, you know, that you’re able to apply that here and build such a strong team because I, I know that’s just one of the battles we’ve been going through in my company. I think, you know, every company struggles with that, but it’s, it’s comfortable. 

15:09
Justin Chase
We have to kind of humble ourselves down and own our strengths and weaknesses and how to be power, empower others to fill those gaps. And it’s so hard when we’re. As a leader, you think you have to be everything to everyone and being able to acknowledge this is what I’m good at and then this is what I’m not. I’m only the first one. I hate confrontation. I want to find a win for everybody. But there are times that we have to have difficult conversations. And my team knows that when I have those conversations, it’s reached a critical point. But being able to have the self awareness and commitment to it’s not as comfortable. And there are days we have really difficult conversations and we have a lot of transparency within the organization and it feels like a family at times. 

15:48
Justin Chase
You always say no, call your staff. Calling a team versus not a failing. Because families are all. Every family is dysfunctional to a degree. Yes. But I embrace that. We bring our authentic self every single day to it. And, and there are times we bicker like siblings or we have hard conversations like a parent to a child, but then we have some incredible wins as an organization. Our ability to celebrate. That’s where the soft and squishy part of me, the emotional kind of comes out. Because, you know, we’re doing more than a simple transaction. We are saving lives every day and we can never lose sight of that. 

16:22
Eric Mulvin
Yeah. And you know, you talk about your bleeding heart and you know, you put your emotion out there and I think a lot of business leaders, a lot of times they show a different face in front of their employees. Right. And they put on this mask of who they are because they don’t want their employees to see that they’re vulnerable. But what has that done for you in. In your career and your leadership, being more vulnerable in front of your staff like that? 

16:45
Justin Chase
Yeah, you know, I, I go back to the Brene Brown the Gifts of Imperfection. It’s a great book for folks to kind of open up it. I had a. A personality assessment early in. In my time here, and it was your natural style versus your adaptive style. So who you are when things are good and with your team, you put on a front here, and then when a crisis hits, your natural anxieties and other things come out. So the team. So teams struggle in times of stress, but the team learned, and I learned everything with the assessment. I’m the same. I’m a terrible liar. And so it is just a. I am who I am. 

17:22
Eric Mulvin
Going back to the early days, you’ve been here 12 years, and when you first came in, things weren’t so great. Now, what was a moment when you realized, this is. This is gonna happen, like, we are going to turn this around? I mean, I know you knew from the beginning, but, like, what did. What was it that you actually saw when I was like, this isn’t gonna happen? 

17:39
Justin Chase
You know, when. Before I came into the organization, I had some optics just from my other roles in the space and in the community, knowing the mission was solid, the frontline staff were solid, but the philosophy from a leadership perspective was where it was flawed. We had A, you know, 12 years ago, millennial surge into the workforce was. Was happening at that point. And it was just the. How you manage staff was different than. And then the leadership team, not malicious or anything else that they just applied kind of a. A Gen X or model of management or of management that was more, again, more transactional. And, and millennials wanted purpose. They wanted meaning they wanted. And so I came in and that’s where. Coming in with a why? And so it’s not. 

18:24
Justin Chase
They didn’t want to be told what to do and just do it. And then if there’s consequences if you don’t, they. They wanted to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And so being able to come in with that, I’m like, the mission is solid. The frontline team is solid. We’ve got to tackle that. So I went straight to the front lines, met with the staff for a few months. We had a staff challenge. And like, there are things like, you know, with our call center that you weren’t allowed to walk through the executive suite to go to the bathroom. It was perceived you had to go down the hall and kind of come around waiting to go to the restroom. And I’m like, why? Like, well, you know, we didn’t want to be disturbed. You take the shortest path, we possibly. 

19:02
Eric Mulvin
Well, and plus, you probably start calculating as the leader, like the cost of everyone walking around. 

19:08
Justin Chase
Exactly, exactly. So it like, logically doesn’t make sense. And then culturally it doesn’t make sense. And they have things like, could you eat at your workstation? So. And what you war or a contact center. I don’t really care what you wear. I want you to be comfortable. If bunny slippers are the way you want to go, that’s great. 

19:23
Eric Mulvin
Don’t, don’t show my team this interview. We have a dress code now. That was like the early days, but it was the. 

19:30
Justin Chase
What I put in front of them was empower the staff to write the policies, empowering them to make some big decisions and. 

19:37
Eric Mulvin
Cause you could have just rolled it out, said, hey, this is what we’re going to change. But you made a choice to say, let’s get them involved and have them. Cause you probably already know what they’re going to say. You know what they’re going. You talked to them. You didn’t make that choice ahead of time. You sat, you got down with the front line, which, again, more advice for leaders. Talk to your front line. Talk to the people who are doing the actual work and get their feedback. Because what were you hearing from them versus leadership? 

20:02
Justin Chase
It was one of the executive team members. When I came in, were having an employee with some large feelings, but trying to make things better and, and was expressing them more emotionally. And this executive goes, let’s just cut them off. Let’s cut them loose. We’ll take the risk of a lawsuit, but let’s get rid of them, because employees are a dime a dozen. I said that phrase. 

20:24
Eric Mulvin
Oh, they said that phrase. 

20:25
Justin Chase
They said that phrase to me in, in a meeting. I said, this isn’t going to work. This, that philosophy right there is no, I can’t change that. I can’t pull that. Making a statement like that, that employees are expendable. And so I parted ways. That was the why. 

20:40
Eric Mulvin
We were never going to. 

20:41
Justin Chase
It was clear as day to me at that point. I was trying to figure out, can we work together? Can we. Are you going to come along this pivot in this journey of change? And it was clear that they weren’t so like, let’s call what it is. We’re both going to be successful. They left. They went to a competitor and. But it worked out for us. And so being able to. To meet the staff where. Where they are now, middle management was the hardest to change because I wanted them to give up what they perceived as control, empower and find power in the frontline staff. I went straight to the frontline staff. I said, what do you want? What do you need? And middle manager was like, I’m the filter. I’m supposed to be jumping over. 

21:14
Justin Chase
And I lost a large portion of our executive. I know of our middle management in that first year, but that must have. 

21:20
Eric Mulvin
Been some stressful nights. So with your wife, like I told you, this isn’t going to work. Now you’re telling me another person quit. Don’t you meet them? 

21:27
Justin Chase
It was hard. A lot of lost sleep and tech systems were strained and stressed. We were coming off an audit then that the company had been falsifying some data reports before. And so I had to go like to our funders and be like, look, these great reports that you’re putting out publicly, the data’s not right. There’s a flaw, there’s an issue. And so really had to come in with humbly and repair relationships and had to say sorry and ownership. And I learned then that it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do it. I wasn’t even here. But all of it fell on my shoulders at that point. It was my job to fix it. And owning that blame goes nowhere else. 

22:03
Justin Chase
You, you allow your frontline staff to take more of the credit than they deserve and you take all of the blame and you wear that. And so I continue to harness that even today. 

22:12
Eric Mulvin
That’s incredible. So there’s so many awesome lessons. Thank you for sharing all that perspective because, you know a lot of people listening. We all need to get better as leaders. And there’s some great examples here that you’re sharing. So appreciate that now you are. Twelve years ago, when we first met, it was like around the COVID era, which was a crazy time in your career. And I remember when I first there was a business group were part of peer advisory group Vistage. We’re both pretty young, but like, I built this company from nothing. I joined this group. There’s all these CEOs in there, and then Justin is over here talking about, oh, I’ve got to take a call from the governor. And you’re like, dealing with the COVID hotline. 

22:52
Eric Mulvin
So how did you guys go, you guys went from like you came in here and fix things up to in 2020, earning the trust of like the governor’s office calling you for help for things. Because I don’t know if that would have happened if you guys were in the state you were when you first came in. 

23:08
Justin Chase
No, it definitely wouldn’t have happened. I’ll come back to theme earlier is trust and repairing relationships and vulnerability and transparency. What really did it for me working with the governor’s office was, you know, to be that, to be on speed dial of when something breaks and something’s going wrong. I need to call Justin, I need to call Solari and get. They’re going to be part of this solution. And I didn’t say no first. That’s, you know, we start with, how do we. That sounds hard. Let’s figure out how to make a win here for everybody to succeed. But it was this trust building. And so part of what we did, and I made the call early, was that we had the data issues or the data integrity was in question. 

23:50
Justin Chase
I said, you know what, we’re going to fix the data and we’re going to publish it. And so we put all of our contact center metrics on our website and it updates every night automatically. It’s running 30 days. You can see how many calls we took, what our abandonment rates were. You can see all the statistics, why people are calling. I said, it’s going to set itself. It’s going to run off our software in the back end. Nobody’s going touch it or manipulate it at all. And it’s going to tell the story. Good or bad, it is the story quickly. It’s built trust to the point now that at least monthly, the governor’s office pulls our data off the website and presents it to the governor as here’s how the crisis line is operating in your state. 

24:28
Justin Chase
And that level of trust and transparency, I think went hand in hand to be able to build that over time. So. But I’m all about the win, you know, it’s. You can’t present me with a problem that sounds impossible. And then how do we do it? So. 

24:42
Eric Mulvin
So you rose to the challenge. I rose to the challenge. 

24:44
Justin Chase
And, and Covid’s a great example. We got a call from the governor saying we need, we have this issue with COVID hitting us. What do we do? And we need to connect people to. Especially when the vaccines started coming out. We need to connect people to the vaccines and how do we get them supported they asked me on a Saturday, and by Friday, we had a whole new contact center up and operational running. We had six days. 

25:11
Eric Mulvin
In six days. 

25:12
Justin Chase
In six days, we turned that hotline on. 

25:14
Eric Mulvin
It’s crazy what you could do in times of pressure like that, because I bet you if you were given that task from the governor’s office and you’re like, we, you’ve got six months to prepare, you probably would have taken all six months and probably made perfect hirings and then all this stuff. But instead, six days. 

25:30
Justin Chase
Six days. And it was the. I’m trying to transition all of our staff. You know, as a contact center, were all in office. Like, I had three remote staff at that time. And we had to transition all of them home. And switching from desktops to laptops. And laptops were scarce at that point because everybody was transitioning to work from home. And so me and the executive team were driving to every Walmart, Target, Best Buy in the Valley, some even further. I remember us going down to Tucson and trying to pick up laptops wherever we could to put this thing together in six days. 

26:00
Eric Mulvin
So you cleared out the state’s supply of laptops. 

26:02
Justin Chase
I’m sorry. I’m sorry that we took them, but we needed them at that time. 

26:07
Eric Mulvin
Was. Was there anything that really shaped, like, how you are a leader today from going through that experience that changed you at all as being a leader? Like. Cause you mentioned you are who you are and you know, that’s what you bring every day. So maybe you didn’t change. It worked out that’s who you are and you thrived in that environment. 

26:24
Justin Chase
You know, I. I’ve learned. I’ve learned a couple really important lessons. One was, just because I can do something and we can do something as an organization, doesn’t mean we should. That was the right call. But there are other projects where I get the calls and the pressures from political leaders that have carrots that they want to dangle and I have to come back to mission. And we’ve done some projects that were really impactful. Yes. But we’re pretty far off a mission for us. So trying to line that back up, yes, we could do it. Yes, this is what you need. I’m not certain who else could do it if it’s not us, but I also have to acknowledge sometimes that’s not my problem. 

27:03
Eric Mulvin
There is a great parallel here in business, right? Like, how often in business does business owner. The shiny object syndrome, right. Where you see something, you’re like, our business needs to be able to do this. You know, right now it’s AI, but there’s always something like that. You want to integrate in your company or pivot or change. And so how do you determine as a leader that this isn’t part of our mission? Like, because you get yourself really committed into these things. I mean, as a business leader too, you bring on clients, you start offering a service and you realize this is losing us money. Like, we can’t keep doing this. We’re gonna have to talk to people and end services that they were trusting. So how do you as a leader navigate through that? 

27:47
Justin Chase
Yeah, I know myself and I can fall victim to bright shiny objects and fixing critical issues in moments of crisis. I come to solution for focused. So part of it was giving up control. So new business opportunities come. We have a committee that I’m not levously in. They look at it first. They do a snapshot, they’ve got a scoring algorithm to it and a matrix that looks at those features. Yes, let’s wait. Who called and asked for us to do the service that’s important, that has weight, but also is it going to be profitable and what’s the timeline and can we pull it off? And so I’m away from the days of saying yes to the project and yes to the timeline that others set and then go to the team and say, you’ve got to bend over backwards. 

28:29
Justin Chase
Give up nights and weekends to make hit this deadline that was set. There may be days that we have to do that, but I try and make them as far and few between as possible. And so I’m really focused on work, life balance. And we take on business when it makes sense. And being much more disciplined. I turn down, yes, we’ve grown going into our fourth state, but I turn down way more business than I accept because it’s not mission aligned or I know the consequence is going to burn our team and it’s going to hurt our flagship, you know, our core business. What got us to these opportunities to take on new states or new business opportunities is our core service. 

29:04
Justin Chase
And I’ve been a part of organizations that take their best performers and go send them out to set up new business, send them out to do that, and then the flagship that got you there starts to suffer. And so I’ve got a great partnership with our board of I’m allowed to grow. I have that permission to grow the board, which is great, and to innovate and to be curious. But the flagship can’t suffer as a result. And being able to have that check and Balance from. I get it from the top, from the board of directors, and then it’s this new business committee that I’m not allowed to be a part of on the other end. It’s kind of a buffer. 

29:36
Eric Mulvin
That is great advice. And I think for me, I could say something similar with my business, too. Like, my. One of the things I’m weak at is, like, dealing with pricing. I just don’t like numbers like that. And like, oh, you have to pay this much in that month because, I mean, there’s. At the end of the day, you know, like you said, profit. You know, we have to make margins. Otherwise there’s no mission. There’s no business for your company not making margins. And so I had to remove myself from that process. And that was so freeing like that. Not be involved with increasing pricing, changing pricing, giving the quotes. Like, a whole team does that, and I don’t even present it. I’m like, that looks good. So great advice for people out there. 

30:12
Eric Mulvin
So if there’s something in your business like that’s a roadblock, how can you delegate that to another team member so that someone else can have that as their strength? 

30:20
Justin Chase
Absolutely. 

30:21
Eric Mulvin
Now, I printed out an article here that you guys were in recently, and. Because I wanted to talk about the state of the world a little bit, because what you guys are dealing with, you’re dealing with it on a different level, but in some way, we all are in our businesses, no matter what. And so the article here, this was from abc15, and there was. It’s. Arizona mental health programs react to federal funding changes and reinstatement. 

30:46
Justin Chase
Right. 

30:46
Eric Mulvin
And so this was when you guys had. There was 2 billion in grant funding that was slashed and then brought back. And I feel like that thing that’s happening, like. And I was talking about this with my leadership team yesterday. You know, we just approved an extra, like, $3,500 a month in fuel incentives. Incentives. Just bonuses to the staff for the people driving to the office, because the fuel cost has gone double to triple in the last 45 days in the Philippines. And, you know, we’re like, man, we’re trying to plan for, like, a fuel shortage in the Philippines, but how do you know what could happen tomorrow? Like, all of a sudden, everything would be fine, but then there’s a new crisis. So how did you. How do you guys navigate this world, like, and try to frame it in a way where. 

31:32
Eric Mulvin
Like, where people are dealing with this back and forth? Yeah. And, like, how do you plan and think about the future when it’s like you have, there’s so much uncertainty. Not even on a month to month, but on a day to day basis right now. 

31:46
Justin Chase
Yeah, it’s, I’m typically afraid to open up the news some days because I don’t know what’s coming. And the hardest thing and the piece that we felt this past year a lot was kind of this gut reaction and we’re going to make a big cut here and just kidding, we’re going to fix it. And sometimes it’s like if you’re going to cut it, let’s, and then let’s work our way through the issue. One of the blessings that we have as an organization is our hyper focus on a limited scope. We don’t own buildings, we don’t have a lot of assets that we have to maintain the COVID And so we’re very liquid. 

32:24
Justin Chase
And so in the event of a crisis or a program gets cut, we can shift our funding strategy in such a way that we can modify cost to make sure the organization as a whole continues. And so that’s okay. Not everybody has a luxury to manage. So we don’t have a lot of brick and mortar and we have exit clauses in our leases. And so making sure that we’re planning for the worst case scenarios because we’re dealing with so much government, federal and state money that is, is finicky at times. And so being able to pivot quickly. 

32:54
Eric Mulvin
You’re saying that it actually this is an, this is a normal scenario for you guys almost, maybe not this extreme, but this whole back and forth thing, you guys plan for life to be like this in your environment. 

33:08
Justin Chase
We plan for 21st cycles and so our contracts come up for bid and we have to rebid on a periodic basis. And so it’s not or our funder gets changed. And so now we have a new funder or they want to see a change so we have to renegotiate on a routine basis the change today that goes into effect that we had. I coming out of that article example was we got notified at 10pm Arizona time of an effect that took place at midnight Eastern time. 

33:39
Eric Mulvin
So yeah, right as it happened it. 

33:41
Justin Chase
Was an immediate thing. So it’s one thing to say like we’re going to cut a program, we’re going to cut funding for a program in the next 30 days. I can respond to that. But people were having, companies were having to make decisions. And so when that happened people were laying or were laying staff off and modifying programs by 10:00am you know, we. 

33:59
Eric Mulvin
Were talking about six days earlier is crazy. You’re talking about 12 hours. Not even 12 hours. Like less than 12 hours. 

34:04
Justin Chase
And so many companies in our space are running on such thin margins that, and not planning for those what if events. And so being able to balance, it’s hard in our sector because we get caught up in the mission and the purpose and so we want to put any, every penny back into it and we take risks financially and we just have to have balance. There’s. 

34:25
Eric Mulvin
Well, thanks for sharing that. And maybe there might be some nonprofit people watching. My brother works at a nonprofit out in Richmond, Virginia and it’s kind of opened my eyes to how many there are out there doing little things all over the country. What would you say to the people out there that they’re all having their many crises right now and they don’t have like. But I know my brother, their team, I think they got maybe five or 10 people in their nonprofit, you know, couple million dollar budget. They don’t have all these people to delegate to. And you know, you cut a team member, that’s a whole part of your function of your leadership or something. 

35:01
Eric Mulvin
So what advice would you say to those people dealing with that right now that may not have some of the luxuries that you guys get to have? 

35:07
Justin Chase
Yeah, I think first is to plan for the worst case scenarios and you hope for the best because when something happens, you can’t freeze because these things are coming so drastically and significantly. You have to act and so, so many times. That’s what we’re seeing is probably at a heightened level in the nonprofit sector is like, well, mission and purpose and continuity of services and consequences. I’m like, I get it. And, and we get it. But it’s, we have to pivot fast and we have to be okay with that and be comfortable with the decisions that we’re making because they’re not our fault. Yeah, it’s not our fault that we’re in the situations that we’re facing, situations that we’re in. 

35:43
Justin Chase
And frankly that the, in honesty when it comes to innovation and when it comes to swift decision making, the for profit sector is getting it right. The nonprofit sector is not. There’s not a whole lot different in tax status as the extent. But I view our organization as a social enterprise and in making sure that we’re functioning. So we have, and we get accused this at times too of looking more like a for profit entity, but we happen to have nonprofit Status, I’m sure. And that’s reasonable. And that’s how we’re. We are in the position that we’re in right now is to be able to. To create that space. And everything for us is about the mission, our why we never deviate from that. But if we freeze, then we start to lose our mission. 

36:25
Justin Chase
And so we’ve got to be able to pivot fast. 

36:27
Eric Mulvin
And I think even if you’re not a nonprofit, you’re a for profit, which probably a lot of people watching are. This is great advice. Like, we’ve been talking about what’s going on in the world right now. I remember when, for going back to Covid, I was fortunate enough maybe to talk to my wife, unfortunate enough to have my family there in the Philippines as the lockdowns were starting. And I remember meeting with my team In February of 2020, when the lockdown started in March. Now, I will say, interesting fun fact. If you go look up Covid, the first person that died outside of Wuhan was in our tiny little city, Dumaguete, where our call center is based. So we had the world’s first lockdown in January 2020. And I still brought my family out to developing. I didn’t know what a lockdown was. 

37:10
Eric Mulvin
Like, what’s a virus like that? Like, so we didn’t know. So I brought up, I went out there, but I remember meeting with my team saying, look, it’s not a matter of if this happens, this when, and we need to start preparing now. And we started planning work from home in February, when most people weren’t even having that conversation until a couple weeks later. We were buying up the laptops in February while you guys were like, oh, we still got our desk. 

37:34
Justin Chase
Yeah. 

37:35
Eric Mulvin
But it is really great advice for right now. Like, if you’re not having those conversations about, like, what do we do if something happens, if there’s a change, like, if our customers all of a sudden can’t fire our product, or you can’t get the product to sell to your customers, or your staff can’t even get to the workplace because there’s no fuel out there. Like, there’s crazy scenarios and maybe not happening here in the US but in other countries right now, those are conversations that are happening. So make sure you’re having those conversations with your team so that you can prepare, because if they hit you and you haven’t, you don’t know, you haven’t talked about what to do, how to handle. Handle that situation, you’re not going to go into it. 

38:10
Eric Mulvin
Most Importantly, you talk about data, you know, you need to gather those data points and figure out where you’re at and what changes to make. So thank you for sharing. Now, I am curious too, you know, because you guys and I, it’s all public data, so you can go on the website and you could see the stats yourself. But are you guys seeing any shift in society? You know, uptick of calls, like what’s happening in the world? How is that impacting your guys? Because if all of a sudden there’s 20% more calls, like, you probably have to staff up more or you have to do, you’re gonna have to do something. You can’t just sit there and be like, it’s another week. 

38:47
Justin Chase
Right? Right. No, it’s. There’s a lot happening and a lot changing. So we have kind of two things happening at the same time. It’s kind of a chicken and egg. We really can’t figure out what’s causing what. We just know demand is going up. And so with the 90 day suicide and crisis life lot that we participate in, we’re addressing stigma as a society. Mental health is becoming more part of our narrative every single day and at work and at home. And so as awareness is growing, people are more willing to reach out, which is a very good thing. On the flip side, we have a much higher level of anxiety. And so we may see in our statistics will show it over time is suicide risk is kind of leveling off. 

39:27
Justin Chase
And what’s coming up, the new call volume is really tied around anxiety. Our highest call volume day ever in this country, all crisis lines included, was Trump’s election in 2016. Election night. 

39:42
Eric Mulvin
Election night. 

39:43
Justin Chase
We got hit. We took over a thousand calls that night. 

39:46
Eric Mulvin
How did you guys were able to handle the call volume? 

39:49
Justin Chase
We, we planned for an increase. We were able to ramp up staffing and at the 11th hour to get through. And so it was a. People were afraid. People were afraid at the time. And it’s not a political statement, it’s just that’s what the data shows. There’s a heightened level of anxiety around uncertainty. And uncertainty is a huge predictor of mental strain and emotional distress. Your two biggest indicators of suicide risk is feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. And so we are seeing increases in, not that there’s things happening around us in the world that we can’t change. And so helplessness starts to settle in and that will never change. Philosophy is hopelessness. And so those risk factors are Real. And we have to be ready to step up to it. And the workplace is really where it’s starting right now. 

40:40
Justin Chase
And so we’re seeing a ton of work being done in workplace mental health and. And then high risk industries. Construction is a very high risk industries. 

40:54
Eric Mulvin
I’ve heard about that. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow. 

40:57
Justin Chase
But you have. Agriculture is being impacted huge right now. And so how are we supporting our ranchers and our farmers and in rural areas where we have a lack of resources? And so my fear in our industry right now isn’t so much that 988 and other crisis line services aren’t going to be around because I do think we have plenty of bipartisan Support to continue. 988 Which is great is the other services that we depend on to refer people to and to connect people to those are getting cut and that impacts our effectiveness. 

41:33
Eric Mulvin
You get to see visibility on society that not too many people get to see. That’s got to be tough to not start thinking of a thousand other things to do to try to fix all those other things that you’re seeing. It’s just interesting that you’re in that role and. But all right, how do you like you’re in a position where you could impact policy. You know, you’re talking to people where you’re like hey, we need to do this and that. But you have to stay within your mission. Otherwise you. You’re going to dilute the effectiveness of what you’re doing. But what do you like if you could change something in the world, what would it be? 

42:07
Justin Chase
That’s a great question. 

42:08
Eric Mulvin
I didn’t know where I was going to go. I don’t see where I appreciate it. 

42:11
Justin Chase
I think it’s. It’s valid. To me it is. If I were to change one thing from a policy and a practice and a philosophy level, it would be mental health and substance use are treated equally as general healthcare. We don’t talk about people with cancer as you know, we talk about them as survivors and strong. But when we talk about suicide or mental health, we talk about weakness and we talk about giving up and we talk about somebody who dies from cancer. They. They were strong to the end. They’re a survivor. Somebody dies by suicide, it’s like that. They quit, they gave up. They’re weak, they couldn’t handle. 

42:46
Eric Mulvin
That’s. 

42:46
Justin Chase
That’s not true. None of the. And there’s so much research around there when it comes to risk around suicide. It is. They want pain to stop. Is. Is what they’re wanting and it. We have to start changing the narrative around this. And so for me, it would being able to treat mental health and substance use needs as the health conditions that they are and breaking down the stigma barriers. 

43:10
Eric Mulvin
What do you think would need to happen for that to happen? 

43:14
Justin Chase
To me, I think it comes from the top. I think it comes from policy is making sure that we’re funding it appropriately in ways that it is equitable across the board. But then you have the resources that need to come with it. We’re retiring more psychiatrists and social workers than we are bringing in, and yet. 

43:34
Eric Mulvin
We’re trying to expand mental health access. So how does that seem to be in contradiction with each other? 

43:39
Justin Chase
Yes, we had a. It was about a decade ago, and I don’t know current data on it, but I remember about a decade ago, Arizona graduated one psychiatrist in that year,. 

43:47
Eric Mulvin
What, 10 years ago? 10, Like, in this, like, modern era. 

43:52
Justin Chase
And, and they went straight to private practice. Yeah, don’t blame them for that. But man, that’s pretty abysmal statistic there that we are not graduating and bringing people into the workforce. And so it’s not viewed as a desirable workforce for many when it comes to healthcare. And so how are we embracing it? What is the narrative around it? And I thought were making, we make headways and then policy comes and kind of shifts. And so we just need to continue to keep the pressure there that it is equitable. 

44:20
Eric Mulvin
All right, so we’re talking here about like, less psychiatrists. Less, less people out there to help. Even though. And it, you know, if we’re looking out into the horizon, I’m looking at the younger generation and I’ve got a lot of concerns about their, you know, they grew up in Covid. They have levels of anxiety that we did not have growing up, it seems. And the big thing out there right now is AI, right? Like, and you could talk to AI and that’s your therapist. And you know, and that’s a whole other episode in of itself. But let’s just focus in on the use of AI in your space because, you know, like, it’s one thing for someone to use it themselves and, you know, try to walk, work through their problem. 

45:03
Eric Mulvin
It’s another thing when an organization like you decides to put that technology in place to maybe help. When you’re like, hey, we got a thousand calls coming in right now, we can’t handle it, we’re going to throw some AI in there. How are you guys navigating the AI? Shift, especially in call centers. You know, we’re getting hit left and right and I’m sure every meeting you get, I bet you’re meeting with people in government. Why don’t you just put some AI in there and handle the call volume? Can we bring the cost down? So how are you handling all this? 

45:31
Justin Chase
No, it’s. AI is a hot topic. We’ve been kind of preparing for it the last few years and we just put together a position paper we submitted to Congress about two months ago. And Solar’s taking a really hard stance that our focus is how do we enhance the human to human interaction. And so what redundant tasks do we have that could be offloaded to AI to make sure that our staff have more time and more presence with the caller or the texter or the chatter on the other end. We are not interested in putting bots on the front end to do screenings and assessments or we’re going to be talking to a bot not knowing if it’s human or not. Our job is, our focus is to focus on the human to human interaction. 

46:11
Justin Chase
And then what behind the scenes can we gain efficiencies from? And so real time dictation, quality, oversight and management. And so we’re able to write progress notes in the documentation we need for regulatory purposes. How do we do use AI for training for simulation? Training for our staff is a huge value. You know, we’re taking, you know, over half a million calls a year. It’s hard. You know, we have a quality team that’s reviewing a percentage of those. But I need AI in place, which we have now, to listen to every call, to be able to draw out performance metrics and then flag what we need the human to go in and review further. And so what we’re trying to do is shorten the time after in between calls where you’re doing busy work that nobody signed up to do this work,. 

46:57
Eric Mulvin
Notating the account call like it’s. 

47:00
Justin Chase
Administrative, the administrative burdens. How do we shorten that so you have one more time in between to process what your, the challenges and the calls that you’re on. But also being able to move more calls per hour through our workforce and so getting efficiencies because states are coming to us and going AI’s here, you should be cheaper. And how do we lower the prices? And we know competitors are coming in to say that we could do it with a bot on the front end. And we’re drawing a hard line as an organization that we’re not going to take the bait there. And so there are those that want to use it and want to go that route with bots and they’re more than welcome to. 

47:33
Justin Chase
We’ve set an ethical standard for us as an organization that we’re going to use AI on the back end as an asset tool to improve the human to human interaction but not replace it. Awesome. 

47:43
Eric Mulvin
Because for me, for those of you guys listening to the show, you’ll hear this phrase repeated AI plus hi. And I really like highlighting companies and organizations that don’t just replace the human with AI or a bot, but augment them. How can we make them better? Maybe even make them not superhuman necessarily, but if you aren’t, because I worked in call centers. I worked probably six, seven years frontline employee on the phones in a call center. And I remember I always tell myself I know all the tricks to get a call avoidance and stuff but the notating all the like tedious stuff by eliminating that or handing off that you can have more human to human interaction. 

48:25
Justin Chase
Right. 

48:26
Eric Mulvin
So do you have any data that shows the impact of bringing some of the technology in, like not replacing the people, but are they handling more calls now? Are you guys able to take more call volume with less people or. We’re. 

48:40
Justin Chase
We’re still in the infancy so we’re still analyzing the data. Our first assessment so far is we are anticipating when our systems are fully active. First year we’re seeing about a 14% improvement in performance and so and then that will actually increase to 20 to 25 and we think we’ll actually gain 30% efficiency within. After about the second year of implementation. 

49:05
Eric Mulvin
Without AI, could you imagine making your team 30% more efficient? I mean if you don’t realize how big of a deal that is massive change in the company like that could change a company from being not profitable to profitable. 

49:16
Justin Chase
Oh, very fast. So for us we had to make a case to our board of directors, it takes an investment into AI tools to be able to be like we need to stay competitive. This is what we need in place. And we’re going to create a better environment for our staff for them to do more of the work that they’re passionate about. And so selling that and telling that story and mapping that out for the team, that’s what took us the longest time, the past two years here is really being able to define what is going to be our position from an AI perspective. And we have great vendor partners that have AI integration. They were ahead of the ball when AR is coming and so we don’t have to go out and buy a ton of AI tools. 

49:56
Justin Chase
It’s, their packages are already there. We’re buying the module to be able to plug in. And so we’re, we’re pretty well positioned at this moment to roll out and implement here in the short term. 

50:06
Eric Mulvin
Awesome. But yeah, you touched on some stuff we’re really working on too. And that for me as a person running a call center, I’m really excited about some of the stuff we could do with A.I. That’s, that’s like the train like hitting the work that we’re doing. Like it’s critical, it’s important, but it’s nothing compared to this. The calls, the level of complexity of what you guys are handling. So I could only imagine, you know, like it’s one thing to do a mock call through, you know, someone going through crisis. It’s another thing to create an AI scenario where it almost feels real. Have you guys been able to get to that level of training yet or is that in the works? 

50:40
Justin Chase
It’s, it’s still, it’s an evolution. 

50:42
Eric Mulvin
We’re doing more of it, we’re doing. 

50:43
Justin Chase
A lot more scenario based, but really trying to get that real field interaction. Other contact centers in our space are rolling out. There’s a couple products out there that are really doing it, but it’s, you’re really trying to shorten the amount of folks that join the organization, go through the training, are convinced they can handle it. They get on the floor, they start doing the work under independent status and they’re like this is too much, this is too heavy. And so we’re trying to kind of weed out folks that it’s not a good fit on the front end. And so that’s what we’re doing. A lot of it is simulations on the first day is simulations and you know, the. I go back to my child welfare days. My, my first day as a child protective services investigating my first day in training. 

51:21
Justin Chase
They showed the most horrific video of various types of abuse and neglect and have to bring cleared out. 

51:28
Eric Mulvin
This is like the nurses that can’t see blood or something. Right, right. 

51:31
Justin Chase
And so but it, it was impactful and it was if you can’t handle this is the reality you’re going to be facing. Although this isn’t a good fit. And so I think kind of encouraging our team to kind of get to that level of this is what you’re going to be experiencing, you’re going to be hearing and People express their emotional distress in a lot of different ways. It can feel like abuse. Sometimes it is abuse and we have to be able to work through that. You’re going to hear heavy things. And there are. In a crisis line, much like a 911 dispatch, there are times that you do everything you can to save a life. Then that call ends and you have no idea what happens. 

52:07
Eric Mulvin
And imagine what that feels like. 

52:09
Justin Chase
And you will never know because of HIPAA protections and other restrictions. And so we, you know, somebody who has a weapon and an intent to end their life, we are on the phone until police arrive to try and say the call ends and we don’t know. 

52:24
Eric Mulvin
Yeah, that’s heavy for your staff to have to deal with, which, again, I commend you guys for the work that you guys do because it’s such a needed resource. And I not necessarily question here, but I also want touch on, you know, the work that you guys have been able to do through Solari to help expand access, even outside, because I know you guys have done stuff to help get like suicide hotlines established in other countries. Right. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

52:53
Justin Chase
Yeah, it’s. I’ve been able to spend time working with an organization, the Board for Lifeline International and the International Council for Helplines, where we are taking what’s worked in more advanced countries that, for infrastructure and tackling this issue and really being able to identify where there’s gaps, where there’s opportunities. Suicide is a crime still in a handful of countries in this world. How’s that work? And so therefore, if suicide is a crime, then having thoughts of suicide is also a crime and trying to help somebody in a suicidal crisis that you don’t report to authorities is a crime. So even having a hotline to support suicide risk, you can wind up in jail and in these countries. And so we have partnered with other organizations and other systems to really be able to. How do we first decriminalize suicide? 

53:44
Justin Chase
You know, whether it’s socially acceptable or not? Is it different as cultural aspects that come into play, but legally. Start there, start there. Let’s break that down. But then we decriminalize it. Okay, well, what impact are we making? And so then it really came down to how do we then decriminalize and build a crisis line at the same time to be able to replace. We’re working and working in countries, learning about countries that are. People don’t have food, they don’t have access to clean water, they don’t Even have shelter, but they have a cell phone and they will work Interesting studies that there are places where people will walk further for a charger for their phone than they will for water or food. 

54:18
Justin Chase
And so it’s about priorities and connectivity and so being able to need for connection, the human to human connection is so natural in existence in today’s world that we have to maintain that connectivity. And so you could think that a crisis line in the third world country is not needed at this point because there’s other court needs. No, it’s not accurate. We see some significant needs there. Malawi was a country in Africa that were working towards decriminalizing and they thankfully passed the law last year decriminalizing suicide. And so how do we support that? And it’s a. They’re impacted by climate change because there are many farmers and agriculture type and ranching work that takes place in Malawi. 

54:57
Justin Chase
They’re also greatly impacted by the HIV AIDS epidemic where their orphan rate is like 40% of kids have lost at least one parent, if not both, that’s to HIV AIDS and so the risk factors are just continuing to grow there. Access to fertilizer is the primary means of suicide in these countries. And so how do we put restrictions on fertilizer and as well as standing up a crisis law as well as putting in the policy needs regarding it. 

55:23
Eric Mulvin
So that’s crazy. I’m blown away at the work that you guys are doing out there. That’s really incredible. And like I said, I really wish all of our businesses would be able to make such an impact that you guys are making. So. But honored to have you here sharing that. 

55:38
Justin Chase
So thank you. 

55:41
Eric Mulvin
Are you seeing more anxiety out there or more like I was talking about this with one of our buddies that owns a plumbing company and he was saying when people call in for plumbing work, they’re calling in way more informed now because they are in ChatGPT or Cloud or Gemini like diagnosing what’s going on, taking pictures and now they’re like I need this and this, can you come down and do it? Versus this thing is flooding and I don’t know what’s going on. How is AI changing the calls from like the people calling in and how you guys are? Are you seeing any difference there? 

56:15
Justin Chase
We, we are and we aren’t. When it comes to AI in the more informed, much like in general healthcare, we see it in the mental health space where people are googling their medical condition before they’re reaching out for help. And so that’s it’s kind of been around for a while. They may plug in their symptoms. It’s getting a little more advanced in the intelligence aspect of. It’s like they are coming in a bit more form. But we’re seeing as people leaving the helping fields and no longer seeking help for a human and are relying intentionally on AI to become their therapist, to become their hotline, to deal with their challenges. And so we’ve seen there’s a lot of need and a lot of opportunities for guardrails to better protect folks in this space regarding AI because that’s where people are going to go. 

57:02
Justin Chase
And so we need to make sure that there’s a link between the AI self help resource that you’re using and when it crosses a threshold that we really need to encourage them to contact a human and get them connected to a crisis line or another resource. So we’re seeing a bit more informed, but we’re seeing more people stopping to call for help out the gate until they reach a certain threshold and hopefully they know when to call. And then we’re trying to work with AI organizations and then at the policy level to build these guardrails and prompt. So Google and Meta have both done really good work from suicide prevention for a long time and so we need the others to kind of come into alignment. 

57:40
Eric Mulvin
That is interesting challenge because, you know, AI and guardrails right now kind of seem like oxymorons, right? Like what guardrails, what rules? Like do you see that? Do you see any challenges? Cause I, I mean it’s hard to control the tech companies right now. You know, like it’s not just mental health, it’s politics, it’s, there’s all kinds of stuff that, I mean it’s, and in some ways social media is the one causing, you know, the mental health issues as well. So it’s this big cycle, you know. 

58:09
Eric Mulvin
But do you see, do you think it’s going to be the tech companies that are going to be able to come together and put the guardrails in or is it going to be like the mental health community coming out with their own tools saying look, we come out with this, it has the guardrails built in, you know, and maybe that ends up being the solution. Do you see any where’s, what’s possible? 

58:28
Justin Chase
Yeah, I think it’s my hope is that the tech companies and the AI providers can partner with the experts in this space to be able to build resolution. I don’t want, I want to give the AI organizations The opportunity to come to the table and help build collectively what type of guardrails need to be put in place or should be put in place that are ethical and effective. The, the other option is regulation and policy. And so we’re preparing both ways. So I was in D.C. last week and AI was a hot topic there and we’re continuing to have conversations. Minority Leader Jeffries has actually built a AI committee that he’s running. But the bipartisan issue is very polarized right now and so it really is going to depend on where Congress lands in the next election and really being able to see. 

59:17
Justin Chase
I talked to some that were like, no guardrails, period. Government has no role in AI governance. And then others are like, we need to build the guardrails. Things being government led, I’m like, all right, I think you’re both wrong. We got to find something in the middle. Yeah, right. We got to find the middle ground here. So my hope the quickest way to this is to get the tech and the AI industry to the table to work with us around this topic. 

59:40
Eric Mulvin
Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s. So I’ve been curious about that. So thanks for sharing all that. Now we’ve talked a lot of on this show and again, I probably could go into a lot more questions. There’s so many interesting things to talk about here, but with all that you’ve done here and with all you’ve done with Solari and your career and I don’t know, it’s interesting to think about where you could end up because of where you’ve come from. But for you, one of the questions we like to end the show on here is what is your unfinished business? And so for you, what is, what’s something. Is there a big goal out there that you want to achieve? Something in your career that you’re willing to share here? 

01:00:19
Justin Chase
Yeah, I, I think it’s, that’s a great question. Again, as a bleeding heart social worker, that we live in the gray. So there’s like lots of different things. I, I do hope and think that we can reach a day that put the stake in the ground and being like I helped shape permanent policy impact that continues to save lives and enhance these systems. 988 Was a huge victory from 2020 and went live in 2022. I’m very proud to be a part of what little part we play and I play in that I want to continue to see that grow and enhance is I want every individual in their darkest moment, in their darkest day to at least know what they can do, whether they use the tool or not. I can’t, I can’t force. 

01:01:03
Justin Chase
But to know that there is a way out and there’s a pathway. What I don’t want to ever see again is hear from a family member that if I only knew this resource was available when they were alive, that to me, is where I want to see the, to me is unfinished business. 

01:01:17
Eric Mulvin
Well, that’s a very noble cause. And hopefully through this show, maybe there’s someone out there that you know that needs to hear this message. And there’s some inspiring stuff that you heard today. So thank you again for sharing your story. It’s so inspiring that what you guys are doing. And again, my hope is that there’s some people out there that are in the younger generation, future leaders that are hearing this and seeing that you can change things. You know, I think for me, the frustration, like, I’m with you, I don’t want to be a politician, but I want to change things. And so for me, well, I’m not going to sit down with the governor, but I’m going to put this out there in the world and see what happens. But, but you’re out there really doing it. It’s just crazy. 

01:01:57
Eric Mulvin
So if you’re wondering how you could make a difference in the world, you don’t have to be a politician. It could be people like Justin that are out there behind the scenes making those changes. And not just here in Arizona, not just in the United States, literally globally, which is, I’m just thinking about how cool that is. Justin, People wanted to. Well, I don’t know if they need to necessarily connect with Solari, the organization itself, but if they wanted to, how would they get a hold of your organization here? 

01:02:25
Justin Chase
Yeah, the easiest way to do it is to go to our website. So solari-inc.org is a great way or look us up on social media so to follow and get connected to us. But you can access services. It’s a great shortcut to put on your browser to know how to reach Solari. And then as much as we can get the word out around Monad, it’s an available resource. Every US state and territory is available 24 7. 

01:02:49
Eric Mulvin
And if they wanted to connect with you at all, is there a way to connect with you or guests? 

01:02:53
Justin Chase
Yeah. So you can find me on LinkedIn. You can outreach me directly. Justin.Chase@solari-inc.org is my email. Feel free to reach out anytime. 

01:03:03
Eric Mulvin
All right, awesome. We’ll get the links in the show notes if you guys do want to connect. And Justin, thank you again for taking some time. I really appreciate it. I’m looking forward to this for a while. So thanks for being on the show. 

01:03:13
Justin Chase
Yes, thank you, Eric. 

01:03:15
Eric Mulvin
And for you guys watching, if you like what you heard today, if you want to hear more inspiring stories from people like Justin, make sure you subscribe to Biz with Eric on social media or look up Unfinished Business with Eric Mulvin on your favorite podcast channel and podcast platform and subscribe to us there until next time. We’ll see you guys on the next episode. Bye everybody. 

01:03:43
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