Joseph Garcia AWP Final Fri, 8/7 11:49AM 1:00:53

SUMMARY KEYWORDS people, , sign, families, book, baby, void, world, dads, child, life, work, signing, called, deaf, learn, words, joseph, products, parents

SPEAKERS

Paul Zelizer, Dr. Joseph Garcia

P Paul Zelizer 00:05 Hi, this is Paul Zelizer and welcome to another episode of The aware Peters podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things conscious business, social impact, and awareness practice. Each episode I do a deep dive interview the thought theater in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience is already transforming a special guest to you today and topic super excited about it. Before I introduce him, I'd like to just ask if you could go to iTunes or whatever app you're listening to the show on and do a ratings subscribe to a review, it helps tremendously. Thanks for considering. Today I'm thrilled to introduce you to Dr. Joseph Garcia. Our topic today is supporting diverse families with baby sign language. Yes, you heard that right. Dr. Joseph Garcia is the grandfather of baby sign language. He's one of the world's leading experts. He's worked with over 5000 families Community Hospital and National Education Program. He's written seven, several best selling books and curriculums on the topic, including the well known sign with your baby in 19. Navy. Joseph also has had a big impact on my personal family. We heard about this work with my daughter who's about to turn 20. When the show goes live, we did it with her. So we're talking quite a few years ago, and it had a tremendous impact on our family. She had vocabulary of 120 signs, literally 120 words before she could say a verbal word and open the , our sense of connection. She's an honor student and nationally known program has done incredibly well academically. In Dr. Joseph, you've had an incredible impact in my personal family in my life. It is such an honor to have you on this show.

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 1 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai D Dr. Joseph Garcia 01:52 Well, thank you. It's an honor to be here with you and I must admit and confess that every time that my son made a soccer goal Did anything great in his life? I would always say it's because he signed when he was a baby I still

P Paul Zelizer 02:04 flasher the I Love You sign 20 years. Yes, I hear you. So we're going to get into designing with your baby and diverse families and what the heck are you people thought we'll get there. But just before we do that we're called the we're printers. We'd like to get to know somebody a little bit in this way asking about a wellness or an awareness practice that you personally do Joseph to help resource yourself and stay resilient. You've been doing this work for a long time, what helps you stay resilient and show up with enthusiasm even when you've dealt with some pretty hard issues over the course of your career?

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 02:43 Well, you know, I, I think just the the, the thirst for life and the and the hunger for new things and to grow and to learn each day is really kind of something that that's it's always been inside of me. So I like to learn music and do things And you know, ski and snowboard and I can, you know, stay active and learn to speak new languages from time to time and just do things to keep my brain active and to keep my body active and keep going, you know, as long as I can.

P Paul Zelizer 03:21 This is a more professionally oriented podcast and but we can't divorce the person from the context that they grew up in and came of age and you to understand how you get even came up with the idea of teaching baby sign language. I think it's helpful to share a little bit about your personal journey where you grew up and growing up in a place where you look different than a lot of the people around you and some learning challenges you face all of that combined to kind of like set you it wasn't easy, but it kind of set you up to think of this body of work that is incredibly innovative. tell our listeners a little bit About how did your personal experience contribute to this body where?

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 04:04 Well, you know, it's a really complex world because I'm, I'm a Heinz 57. First of all, my name is Garcia, Susan spaniel, last name, but I'm not Hispanic, I'm African American,

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 2 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai Native American and Caucasian sort of a Heinz 57 combination of things. And Wisconsin, they call us an other, you have either a black white or other on your license application. So I've been in other most of my life, I was the only person of color my old school. So I was always, you know, kind of the outcast or the odd person. So I kind of I also was a really terrible stutterer. So I couldn't talk very much. And I was put in the back of the classroom with the, you know, kids who were kind of making it but it was a parochial school. So one of the people in the back of the classroom or the back of the bus, as we used to call it background. We're talking back in the 50s now, so a lot of racism going on back in the day. Those days, there was a deaf child too, because there was no special education programs. So the we were in a parochial school, a Catholic school with nuns, and they put all this special kids in the back. So the deaf child was next to me and I was always you became friends. And we tried to sign with them as best we could play little finger games with them. But I think that had an impact on me because when I grew older, I never had a fear of sign language or the deaf. I had a curiosity, and maybe that's what helps. So I met some deaf people. When I became older when I was getting ready. It was in the military get ready to go overseas, in 1970, actually, and they befriended me some deaf people in Houston, Texas, actually, and they were on a deaf reunion. I tried to sign with them a little bit, but I remembered from being you know, first, second, third grade, so it just kind of rekindled that desire to sign and when I did start to Learn more sign and start to associate with my deaf friends. I noticed that their babies were communicating and sign long before traditionally developing hearing babies were learning to speak. And as a result, that's kind of what kind of ignited that and the fact that I was also got a chance to become friends with the signing chimpanzees and I had a dog sled team in Alaska that you signed with and I had a lot of signing experiences that led me to see how important sign communication could be a benefit and value to my life. But when it came to having my own children, and I started to sign with them, and they had vocabularies of 150 200 words before they could speak their first word, you know, that is what really sort of is a toasted my bread.

P Paul Zelizer 06:50 It's pretty wild. I remember the first time we ran into a friend who think thing, you know, 18 month old, had about 180 you know, word vocabulary. could barely speak verbally, it blew my I had no reference point. And I had a master's degree in psychology, no reference point whatsoever. Even the thing,

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 07:08 yeah, I ran into that a lot when I was doing my academic research because, you know, I knew it was possible. And I knew it was common within my social group of deaf friends

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 3 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai and their . But in the hearing world, in the world of academics, you have to prove stuff with clinical studies before they're even going to pay an attention. And if you're a minority, well, then you're definitely going to have to do twice as much to get half as far as what my mother used to say, when I was growing up all the time to son, you're going to have to do twice as much to get half as five to live with that. So I did this study and proved it, you know, which is fine. But until I started traveling around the United States, Canada and Europe and making the argument I got a lot of a lot of blowback, a lot of resistance initially, of course, now it's accepted in almost in some circles, especially here in the Pacific Northwest. You're almost seen as neglectful if you don't sign with your baby in some

P Paul Zelizer 08:06 salon way you you got some graduate level training you your doctor Joseph Garcia right and see you navigated those waters and learned how to do the research and I, I hear you and I'm so sorry. And I believe you you did have to work twice as hard to go half as far I think our audience would understand. We talk a lot about diversity and inclusion and some of the structural issues that people of color face especially with our current leadership in the United States. That's another topic. It's so you, you know, you dove in and you saw this opportunity and taught it with your own kids and you started studying, studying this and somewhere along the way, you said this is the work I'm gonna do and along the way, he's literally worked with thousands of families, many Have them who, you know, don't look like the most highly profiled people on TV. Right? You work with some very diverse families. Talk to us like when you first started making this career This is at least for now, this is what to do with my life,

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 09:18 right? Well now Yeah, well, I must, you know, I don't want to have your audience feel as though I'm some sort of a filler, philanthropic sort of, you know, Mother Teresa. Actually, I was annoyed by how many people used to send me letters and asked me to give them copies of my research of my baby saying experience. I just wanted to do it to give the best opportunities to my own children. And I was kind of done with it at that point. Because you have to understand it. It'd be like I know signing was a value. My family used it. My difference you use it and that was it if the rest of the population can open their eyes and see the value. Sorry about that. What teach black people to read give women the right to vote? What I mean, come on, you know, it's we're really going through one of those kind of stages where we see sign language as a symbol of a disability whether than one have enough ability. So I must give give total, total credit to the deaf community. They are the ones who created this beautiful language that is of incredible benefit to the hearing world

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 4 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai if we could just open our eyes and see the value. So I must give credit to the deaf committee. But yeah, it was kind of an annoyance at first, but then my I was working for the University of Alaska at the time and the president told me Joseph, what you're doing is important. quit this job and go write a book. And that's kind of what I did. He At his at his advice, I quit the job I was doing at the time at the University of Alaska Anyway, it was good time to leave because Sarah Palin was coming in, okay. And he said he saw the, the tide and he gave me a kind of a severance bonus and sent me on my way. And I went ahead and went and wrote the book, just because I did get an incredible experience out of communicating with my baby, having them discover the signs. And you know, the important thing is that my child learn to navigate through life, rather than riding the roller coaster of life. They use their own internal resources to affect their environment and make life happen rather than having life happen to them. Yeah, that changed my god that changed their entire attitude about how they approach life. So yeah, I finally made that sort of transition, that I think the world needs to have this. So I stopped everything. And I wrote the book.

P Paul Zelizer 12:08 Give us the timeframe. What are we talking?

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 12:10 Oh, this is 1988 was when I first did the research. I mean, I was doing it before that, but I did a clinical research through the university in 1980 at Alaska Pacific University 1988 and then graduated in 1989, and wrote the book and then went back for my doctorate to do other research on human development, . And that's when I came with my books to help kids learn to read using tactile and muscle memory through fingerspelling to help them put letters together to words, words into sentences, etc. So I and I also studied more on the actual acceptance of signs and how that affects memory and the brain and learning and everything else. Like I said, problem solving. That's that's what I'm there's thing called a cultural imprint that every child goes through in the first three years of life. And having that kind of an influence during that cultural imprint in time is so, so important for that development of problem solving capability and the attitude of how you approach to life in general. So, that seemed quite important to me. So to answer your question, that's why I decided to stop write the book and get it out there. But it was at first and an annoyance. But it worked out. Okay.

P Paul Zelizer 13:32 Nice. So we got some feedback in our family. And I'm going to guess you probably heard

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 5 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai something like this before. But remember, let's pick my daughter's third grade teacher who came to us and said, What's going on with this kid? Now when she was in the third grade, she was reading at the ninth grade level. And, but it wasn't just the communicate, like when I first heard about baby sign, I was like, Oh, cool. This is gonna enhance our daughter's ability to grow. Communicate right on. I'm all in, right. But I didn't understand. And there's two things I want to ask you about this. Number one, for me is a man. It gave me a way to connect with my child, particularly a young girl, never having been a father before. It gave us something to do. And it gave us a way to talk. And he gave us a way to relate literally, before she had worked. And that has changed the trajectory of our relationship. Like I said, She's 20 years old, and probably for her entire life. We have a different relationship. It wasn't just the words, although certainly the words themselves were profound. So I'm going to stop there. There's nothing I want to say. But I bet I'm not the only person that's told you that.

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 14:43 Well, there's a couple of things that you hit on right there. First of all, yes, it does change. I think it changes the way a person approaches life. When they do this early problem solving. They develop the ability to communicate to affect their environment, based on Their own internal resources. And that gives them a different direction, a different way to approach life. And now it's not that way for every single person because we're all different. But in a majority of cases, I've heard this again and again and again that my signing child, not only once he's learns to speak, but when she does, and she learns to speak with her peers, she's saying more and more content, more deeper. aspects of things like, here's a simple explanation, like a one channel is a ball and assigning channels say, yeah, it's red, it bounces this high, and it has a density that kind of has pressure, you know, because they understand the idea of pressure because they've been using the sign for pressure for something else, and they can understand these concepts. As a result. They apply their knowledge to their outside existing world, and that affects the way they think about things the way they they. It affects the world and on the aspect of the parents. You know, a parent, especially a first time parent is quite anxious about how are they going to be a good mom or a good dad? Will I be able to be responsive to my child? Well, this gives you a feedback mechanism that allows you to get an instantaneous, sort of look at inside your child's mind, how they're thinking, what they want, what they need, they can tell you specifically what they want. So you can give specific you can respond to those specific needs, and also allows you to want to do more. You want to engage more when you have communication, especially dads, dads are great with babies once they can start to talk, you know, but before that, they're kind of these lumps of love. They could be. Yeah. Tell you what, once you start to sign with those little guys about, you know, anywhere from six to 812 months old, they're signing back to you. You see dads and I see it again and

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 6 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai again. They are right there. And as a result because they're so engaged, because they're getting that feedback mechanism because They're so in tune to their child, their child looking for guidance to the parents in a much different way than just kind of existing and waiting for them to slowly adapt and learn how to communicate. They're getting the communication, they're looking to their mom or dad, what's the sign for this? What's the sign for that? They're looking for that guidance. The relationship is different. It is a different kind of mechanism that's happening during that cultural imprinting time, and I think is further research is done. We're going to see, at one time, we knew that mother's milk gave nourishment to a baby. Then we find out there's important trace minerals and other elements that are even things that help the the, the, the systems that that fight bacteria. All that is in the milk. We didn't know that before. We're going to find out, too. I think someday that signing does things for a child That goes beyond just the communication that does things for the parent relationship and everything else that sort of the difficult things to actual, to actually sort of measure.

P Paul Zelizer 18:10 Yeah, I so appreciate. So the first thing that you just touched on there, it's like, it changes. It changed her cognitive ability, like her teachers would come to us and said, This kid is different intellectually than your peers What's going on? And we said, sign language. And they looked at us funny, because it wasn't as common back 20 years ago as major is now right. The second thing I was going to say, and you said it much more articulately than I did just it made me a better dad. And our since our topic today is supporting diverse families. You know, when we, we talk about men in the modern world, there's a lot of things Minar wish we'd be better at. I mean, there's a lot of domestic violence, we have higher substance abuse, we do higher rates of suicide. There's a lot of reasons with men in modern world and I don't want to skirt that, but also since we're talking about supporting diverse families, this is one of the more concrete strategies when a young dad comes to me and says, Paul, I wanna I want to be there for my kid. I really want to help them. I want to be a great dad, maybe I want to be a better dad than my dad was. Wish you got any suggestions? And one of the things that's on a pretty short list is teacher baby this talk to me about dads and engaging dads, particularly in diverse communities with baby sign language.

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 19:31 Yeah, I was a guest speaker at a stay at home dads conference in Portland, Oregon last year. And there was about all three or 400 stay at home dads from all over the country there. And we talked a lot about the issues that dads face, feeling inadequate, not bringing in a paycheck when the wife's bringing in the money and you're not, you know all

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 7 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai the issues that and that they face and how do I engage with my sons and daughters? And, you know, what kind of activities can I do and signing was one that a lot of the dads were starting to get into, and that you know, with their baby babies, and again, I heard this again and again, those who pay dads who signed with their infants also had better talking relationships with their babies as signing was dropped in speech began, because there was already that communication flow going so much early earlier than anticipated in a typically developing relationship. So I think there's a lot to that. Again, that's it's a real sort of a nebulous and untouchable element to try to capture and measure because you don't know what it would be like without that. So it's a real difficult thing to to really put your thumb on, but I know for sure, knowing the relationships that I have with my children who I signed with, and I've got three now I've got a 33 year old 31 Your old an 18 year old and they, the relationships I have with them, especially a teenage girl. I'll tell you what I'm sure glad I signed with her. She kicked my butt every

P Paul Zelizer 21:13 night. So let's talk a little bit about this. Like, he started down the career of like in academia. And, you know, there's a saying in the entrepreneur world, the accidental entrepreneur, you know, like he maybe wasn't quite the path he thought you were gonna take. Right? And yet, here you are, and you're like suddenly writing a book. And that led to workshops, and we'll get to all that. But one of the things from a social entrepreneur perspective of what you've done just if and what you do now, yeah, there are products. I mean, there's books and stuff, but when you think of what you're selling, right, social entrepreneurs are thinking or social enterprises. How do you help people through the process have business and exchange right? And the exchange that you made you like, what you're really selling if we could use that word is human sign language and and relationship and connection you're not like going and like printing out some plastic thing out of the machine that has lots of toxic thing and selling it at Walmart. Right? The the connection here of what's actually contributing to value is your information and your research and your experience and also how accessible highly recommend people go. Pick one of the guides here we'll talk about the specific ones you have. So yes, there are some books and some packets and some online courses and stuff. But the thing I love about this, you've impacted thousands and thousands of families, many of them who aren't in the 1% you know who are coming from communities that are sometimes under resourced and yet what you offering them as something, here's what you do with your fingers with your child in your hands, to get connected, to have closer relationships, to navigate challenges more successfully to make stronger bonds to do better in school to be closer as a family, all something with your hands. If that's not a great example of social enterprise, I don't know what well, you know,

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 8 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai D Dr. Joseph Garcia 23:27 okay, let's, I'd like to take it a step beyond that, actually, because this is the whole the whole foundation to what I've done. And what I'm doing now is based on what my father told me, one of the things he told me was Joseph, just fill the void. Just find a void and fill the void find find emptiness is in places in people's lives, where there could be better ways of doing things and try to find ways to do those and then offer those and if you do that, at least you'll be feeling good. Every about what you do and, you know, you're, you're really trying to fill a void when you fill a void, people will fill the void. That's, it's that simple. So like my fingers going work by medical sign language diagnostic course, all the things I've developed since then have all been based on this concept of filling a void. Now the void is deep and vast in families of diversity. The Void is deep and vast in poverty. So there's lots of voids to fill and as you fill those voids, you find those society raises and that 1% can only be there if the bottom 99% is there to hold them up. So what I am trying to do is just like you said, I don't want to dig in the earth to make to do more damage than create oil to do more damage than burn the older Creek more. I want to do something that is going to fill a void but not contribute to the sort of downward spiral that humanity is faced right now. So with me, it happened to be, I happen to be accidentally thrown into a family of disabled people who signed and I found the value in their, in their attributes within their culture and brought those over to the other culture. So you take an African American comes into the white culture shows him some hip dance moves before you know it, you dance movies coming up in the white culture, you know, you got Fred Astaire, you got, you know, you cross culture, people find voids, those are the two important aspects of social entrepreneurship that I think are the basis for everything.

P Paul Zelizer 25:44 Beautiful. So let's do this. I want to just take a pause and thank our sponsors. And then we're gonna I'm gonna ask you some more specific questions about helping diverse families, especially in this very point in time. Before I do that, I just want to thank our sponsors. Many podcasts have like meal delivery service are a website service that sponsors them. We don't have that. We have hundreds of social entrepreneurs who are in a very generous community, where we share strategies about what works for a website or who can do Facebook ads or who can do a logo or even I just got a logo from a designer who isn't in this community. What do y'all think? Take a look at our sales pages help each other find podcasts. We have a fabulous group that's helping each other learn how to use Instagram more successfully about 15 of us 16 of us in the community. It's called the aware printers community. And if you could use some more help with this kind of creative understanding diversity, equity and inclusion, and resourceful ways of doing business as social entrepreneurs go check out the aware printers community aware printers.com forward slash community. Thank you, community for sponsoring this podcast. So just a

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 9 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai few. Yeah, let's let's, before we get into the specific products and services you offer, talk to us a little bit as we're recording this. We're quite a number of weeks now into social distancing and the whole revised world that we are now living in as a result of the covid 19 pandemic. And I was just having this conversation with somebody today who said, you know, the virus is the great equalizer. Well, actually, it's not. Since our topic today is supporting diverse families with baby sign language, you know, communities of color, people who have a disability or health challenge are being impacted by this virus more, some more than others, right? It's not equally impacting and diverse families are under more challenges than ever in this current environment. When you think of somebody who wants to help, you've been helping diverse communities for decades. Kids, when you think of somebody who shares that goal, but they're earlier on in their journey, and they haven't yet caught up, found their way to be as impactful as they want, but they feel that affinity for what kind of impact you've had, what would you say to that person?

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 28:17 Well, the first thing you want to do is find out where your skill set matches up with the need and like I said, the void. If you truly want to find a direction in life, the best thing to do out there is go out there and experience life and you'll find it through that experience. You know, if you volunteer at a local opportunities center or shelter or some play doesn't have to be necessarily with the with, with the with a specific population, but just get out there and volunteer somewhere, get out there and mingle with life, see where the voids are, where the needs are. See where your skill set can really help rather than hurt you know, because a lot of young people don't really Have a lot of skill sets are unaware of the skill sets that they may have that they could even develop further and cause more hurt and more harm than good if they jump into the wrong situation. But I, again, find a void and try to fill that with the skills that you have. Or through that volunteer situation you will discover opportunities or voids or options that you can go in certain directions to do something but it takes getting out there and playing the game to find out where your options are. It's not a an intellectual discovery as much as it is a journey that you have to physically go out there and do you get influenced by those who are around you and the experiences you see the things that you experience or the way you feel about an opportunity if you go into a volunteer situation like an opportunity Council, you see there's a lot of problems with with domestic violence and a certain area, maybe you could use some of your skill sets to set up programs for transportation or child care, whatever your skill is, the idea is to get out there and get involved so that you can find out where those boys may be where your skill set can best be used.

P Paul Zelizer 30:17

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 10 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai Beautiful. I'm a big fan of a book called the lean startup. It's the best research or one of the best research books on entrepreneurship the world has ever seen. And the way they language in that book exactly what you're saying does, they would totally agree with you, they call it get out of the office, right? Get out of the efforts, right. And you know, maybe it's not quite as literal with the new social distancing, obviously be saved. But the idea of talking to real people who are dealing with challenges and going through their life and understanding, rather than trying to think your way into something without having tangible input by the people who you want to help, that's a very common path to failure versus the people who were successful in this book. They were talking to people all along the way, not spending three years developing something that they never really ran by the kind of person that was facing the challenge or that you wanted to help get out of the office earlier and talk to the people, even as you're developing it. Love that advice. And there's lots of research in that book.

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 31:21 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's an old quick story about a group of people who have philanthropists who raised a bunch of money and bought a bunch of milk and send it to Africa and give it to to a village. And they found out afterwards all the children were lactose intolerant.

P Paul Zelizer 31:37 That's a classic we want to help right?

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 31:40 Come on, let's let's do something that's going to really make an impact.

P Paul Zelizer 31:47 Well, speaking of something that really made an impact your books that sold many, many, many copies, I don't even know how many of these days. But let's let's talk about some of your specific products that give people a sense in the granular way. You're helping people you're well

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 32:02 yeah, let me say that many many copies when this happens to a lot of entrepreneurs and I want to caution them all my first contract yet my first book made $6 million for other

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 11 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai people. I saw a very tiny tiny piece of that over the eight years that it first came out Be cautious I was completely broke when I started I had no money so I had to sign a contract with somebody that they would fund everything but they got 92% of everything so just be aware of that that that's that's a problem you run into make sure that you try to stick with friends and family when you try to finance your various operations. But yes, I've got some some new products but I've been trying to keep within my same how you say value system and I'm trying to, if you look the most products are the same things are way up there and high price some over seven $800 from program, I'm bringing mine down to 1495. So everybody can have it, you know, the first product I had was a Learning Kit for 4995. And I argued with the distributor about that price for such a long time, I was just so disappointed, because new families don't have many resources anyway. So I wanted it to be down there, you know, with 995 or something so that everybody could afford it kind of thing, but it cost more than that to produce. So they had to do a little higher, but now we've got away with the Internet, and ways to produce things you like try to run with either so vastly reduced. I'm trying to stay just above the cost of printing to stay alive. And that's it so everyone can afford it. But yes, I do have five or four products on the market right now to help people and they're all very, very reasonably priced. I think

P Paul Zelizer 33:54 it's so appreciate your inclusivity not limited to you but Including through the pricing. Let's, let's talk about you, one of your newest ones, something you're really excited on it kind of builds and updates your assignments your baby was 1999. You've learned a lot since 1999. And your new product is called baby sign at 14 days. Tell us a little bit about that.

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 34:19 Well, you know, I after being all to all these research programs and giving lectures to all these hospitals and parent programs, and hearing stories from parents, I realized that the babies are like Empty Bowls of waiting to be filled and parents are the ones who are limiting their their capacity. So I found out that by offering this program called baby sign language in 14 days, it gives a program that within 14 days, parents learn at signs without any studying or practicing or that kind of thing where each day on on your handheld device. With your phone, your tablet or your computer, whatever you push day one, and it shows you the four or five signs are going to learn for that day for that activity, like changing a diaper, getting fed taking a bath, going outside, whatever getting dressed. So each day you learn one new activity, one new group assigns four or five signs. And by the end of 14 days, you will have learned and using every day up to 80 signs and that gives at vocabulary elements to your child to be able to come back with you over a period of time. And it just we've seen this we've seen parents who are just using eat milk and more as all

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 12 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai they had to now the babies are teasing them and telling them stories and putting science together and signing sentences and just all kinds of things. It was it wasn't the baby's limitation. It was the parents limitation that was holding everything up. So I just just redesigned all of our programs to deal with the parents issues. Enough the baby's issues.

P Paul Zelizer 35:58 Knife daughter's first joke in her life, or at least the first one I saw was in sign language. I'll tell you the joke. She was nursing, and her mom was holding her there nursing and she knew the sign for milk and she knew the sign for hot. She'd burn yourself or almost burn. Yeah, we were trying to teach her not to touch the stove or that it was hot when her mom when we had her in a sling near the stove. So she knew those signs that she's drinking milk, but she looked at me, and she got this sparkle in her eye. I forget how old she was eight months old, nine months old, I don't know. And you get the sparkle in her eyes. She went back to drinking the milk and she is sparkling right? And she looked at me and she made the sign for milk. And she made the sign for hot and she started giggling and nine months old or eight months old. And she did it over and over. I was howling and she was howling and her mom started howling. And this sudden she was nine months old and couldn't say a word. You know it's so So I have to say like it is like, what joking. Yeah, that's the thing and it was perfect again, it just I was able to connect with her, you know, and in high school I wasn't babysitting. I was playing football and lacrosse and studying. I didn't understand babies even though I wanted to be such a good parent. And this gave me away like suddenly make a joke and connect and have conversation so that baby sign in 14 days. What a fabulous fabulous idea what a great product.

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 37:31 Yeah, well it's nice thing is that there's no shipping there's no there's no use of gasoline or you know, products like that. There's no plastic there's no packaging. It's inexpensive a downloads right onto your device and you have it forever. You know, it's a, I think it's going to be the way of the world that you like you said, This pandemic is going to change everything. I've got a daughter who graduates high school this year, she's missing prom and graduation. And I'm kind of she's kind of prepared to go back to school. Online next is going to be a sad reality. But, you know, this does change everything and like you were saying earlier, how having a, like our fingerspelling book also is a product that,

P Paul Zelizer 38:11 yeah, tell us about that I would,

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 13 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai D Dr. Joseph Garcia 38:13 oh, well, you know, about 58% of all learners are tactile learners, they're, they they like to experience things rather than just sit there and read something and want to do something while they're reading or, or experience it through, through like drama or artwork or something anyway, knowing that we make kids try to learn the alphabet by having them sing the song ABCD and then try to take that and put it together into words and those into sentences. And a lot of these letters are silent like oh you gh t IO n si when is a whole lot of that type of thing. Knock kn o ck. You know, they're things that are just make no sense at all. So what I looked at how kids learn Language, how they learn to read how they see the letters and put them together. And I said, Well, why don't they you know, put a tactile element, a muscle memory part of that process. And that might help a little bit, especially for the tactile learners, which are majority of people who learn. So I started playing with young kids doing fingerspelling games. And I went to a kindergarten and I started working with with the kindergarten teachers with kids there. Next thing I know, I came with with this fingerspelling book that helps kids learn how to put what first two letters together than three letters together than four letters together, and eventually words, but they never learned the alphabet, they only learned the letters and put them together for little words and their names, things like that. And a couple of weeks later, I get a call from the kindergarten teacher, she says, You'll never believe this during recess, all they want to do is sit on the playground, across from each other and fingers. So and a lot of the words in the book that we use Are are targeted for, you know, competency by the time they get the first and second grade. So they're actually learning to put the letters together into words and the words into sentences so they can learn to read better in there. And they say their reading capability is jumping through the roof because they kind of, kind of they don't skip, but they kind of catapult through the basic process of learning that letters form words. Because of their and especially gets to silent letters. When they get stuck on something they go to their hand and they can Oh yeah, remember, it's si o n not t IO n. And so because their hands make a different shape for that letter, so anyway, it's it's becoming an I think it's going to take over just like sign language to cover in with babies I think fingers going will take over and preschools and kindergartens as a really good tool in the toolbox to help some children especially children of our have learning disabilities and other issues can help them autistic children, those type of things can find value in signing and fingerspelling and all these other alternative methods for getting information into a child so that they can express themselves and release some of that knowledge they have.

P Paul Zelizer 41:17 And I want to give one more example as but from a social entrepreneur, if you're listening, one of the suggestions I might have is notice how Joseph there's kind of one main intent,

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 14 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai right being supportive to diverse families and there's this knowledge base about learning in particular how science can help us learn in ways that new and innovative ways in baby in the product notice baby sign in 14 days is kind of like you've got a new baby in your parent you want to be a good parent or maybe a grandparent would give that to their, you know, kids when they have their first grandchild, right. fingerspelling seem kind of basic. skill set of sign language, but it's at a different core problem, it's solving a different problem or a slightly different version of it. This is when a parent or a teacher or that same grandparent is like, Oh, I want my child to learn how to read. Right? So notice the difference there. And another example I think this is a fabulous example, Joseph of how to again, take your knowledge and skill set and everything you've built in your brand. And you have something called the medicine booking course right? Taking sign language into medical environment. Tell us about that. bodywear

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 42:36 Well, I was a medic in the US military and I was also on the ski patrol and mountain rescue program in the Alps, but when I got out of the military, I had some encounters with with the deaf community and also being around in the metal community, I realized there was a big clash in hospitals, you have people who speak Spanish and Russian and all different kind of languages, but rarely do you have anybody who knows Assign, you have to call in an an interpreter in order to get that, you know that that communication going and a lot of times they're not very many sign language interpreters available.

P Paul Zelizer 43:12 And vocabulary is different than regular everyday but Well,

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 43:17 yeah, there's a lot of issues when you're talking about interpretation of medical communication. That's a whole different topic of discussion. But a good interpreter will be able to do that, or a good signer will also be able to communicate that information. So what I did was I decided that there's also some other issues and I won't go too deep into it. But if I'm the interpreter in a town, let's say his town of Fargo, North Dakota or someplace, and I am the interpreter, so I know every single deaf person in that town, I interpret for most of them. Now, if you go to the doctor, and you have a an issue that you don't want the rest of the community to know about. How forthcoming Are you going to be to tell the doctor about that? issue with an interpreter who knows everybody other, your wife, your sister, your you know, in that town. There are some issues with even though you're supposed to be a confidential interpreter. As you know we're does get out some time. So

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 15 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai there are a lot of different issues. Also, with long stays in hospitals it's really difficult to find interpreters 24 hours a day to be able to talk to patients who are deaf and in the hospital. So my solution to that void would be online, I just created a diagnostic and everyday communication course that's focused on the vernacular use in healthcare settings, and put together a video course to teach healthcare workers so that they can communicate directly with Deaf patients when they're in hospital. And that makes sense. So I wrote a bunch of grant applications to various foundations and insurance companies and corporations pulled some money together and created this comprehensive course in American Sign Language for diagnostic communication. And we're going to run through Bellingham Technical College this spring to a distance learning course it's a video download online course. And we're going to be offering it around the country to other nursing schools and pair paramedic and EMT programs, first responders, anybody who does direct universe response communication or long term communication with the deaf community. So again, we finding avoid finding a group of people who have been disenfranchised and finding a product that will improve their condition and improve communication between the healthcare community and the deaf community.

P Paul Zelizer 45:35 We'll put links to this in the show notes for all three of these products. You have other things to say. But I think people got a sense of the work. So let's, I want to bring you to a little bit about where we are. Now. We've talked a little bit about it. But just how is this current situation with the virus and many business you know, when this first hit, my clients were saying, Oh, yeah, You know, this is really hard. But you know, two weeks a month, maybe two months, we'll be back to when are we going to get back to normal, Paul? And now you're seeing, you know, articles in the mainstream press saying, worry may not be going back to normal. This may be the new normal, at least for quite some time. And even then, the economic impact of this is likely to be or be unpacking this and working to adjust as an economic planet for years to come. It's likely How is the virus impacted? Both your business and also your thinking as a social entrepreneur?

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 46:39 Well, I am very, very in a very lucky situation. I live in Washington State. We have a governor who has started social distancing long ago and he's really our infection rate up here in Bellingham. I think we had two cases last week, so we're doing fine. 70 so I've got to be careful. You know, I've got to be out there in the world. It has impacted me other than I try to do a lot for my office here at home. Most of the work I do is online now. So I have, like I said, we have a word up in Alaska used to if you look at my website, if you ever go to my website, look at the above page, you'll see there a picture of me with my dog

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 16 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai sled team up in Alaska, and a bunch with me with the chimpanzees signing with them too. It's really kind of great pictures. But when I was up in Alaska, Alaska, we have a word called choco choco is somebody who's new to Alaska, and doesn't really accept the Alaskan way but tries to make Alaska conform to their way, which is an impossibility. Alaska doesn't conform to anybody's way you know, it's like, you can't change the environment. So I want to talk with someone who's not able to adapt to the The changing environment and that's what we're going to run into is those who can adapt and see the new change. And those two tacos who will not be able to and will flounder and have a difficult time. I think it's important, especially for entrepreneurs to see the change the reality of what's happening, and use that as an opportunity to adjust the way they think and the way they present their ideas and the way that they're going to go forward and execute their different ideas. Which is okay, because it's one thing if you go into an uncertain future, you don't know what to do. But if you go into a future, knowing it's not going to be the same, you're ready for that adaptation. And you're going to think in those terms. So I would say get used to it. It's never going to be the same again, I'm not a doomsday or a pessimist. I'm just I'm an optimistic. cautionary person saying that, yeah, it's going to be different. We can adapt but it's going to be different. And we've got to adapt to those differences as best we can.

P Paul Zelizer 49:04 Yeah, that's really well said. So with that awareness and as somebody who's been helping diverse families, and I remember before we turn on the recording, you talked a lot about how generous you've been in communities that had less money. And you've been thinking about this for a long time and work with thousands of people and understand that some communities sometimes get less resources and our audience tends to have an affinity and want to be helpful there. What would you suggest to somebody who doesn't have decades of work and, you know, is is earlier in developing their social enterprise wants to be helpful to diverse families dealing with these changing economic circumstances, is committed to doing work that really does have an impact and is align with their values not just out there trying to make a buck, what would you say to that person now?

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 50:05 Well, you have to find a balance between taking care of those who take care of you and taking care of yourself. My dad used to be a red cap for Greyhound when I was growing up, it was only thing that a person of color could do for Greyhound back in those days, and he would just carry was baggage all day long, get tips, dimes, nickels, or whatever. And we had Christmas thanks to those tips. So he always told me, son when someone helps you out or does something for you always take care of them. So I like you said I was

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 17 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai very generous with my I don't consider generous. I was very human. With my neighbors. We have a neighborhood and I gave scholarships to all the kids in the neighborhood of 1000 bucks each. Because you have to remember I was making almost $80,000 in a year when I had never made more than 12 to $16,000 a year in my life. So to me, money was a tool to use to make life better. So the way to do that is to make my neighborhood my community but better than I would have a better life. So I gave away a lot of the money I made simply because I didn't need that money to do anything, but just eat and pay my mortgage whenever So, but it wasn't to get accolades or to be the nice guy in the block. It was to help the kids be able to get, you know, that little extra step forward so they could do better and then down the road, they could pass it on to someone else, you know, pay that forward and what have you. So, um, but what I would suggest people do is take care of those that help you along the way as best you can. And when you finally do get somewhere, go back and take care of them again for getting you to where you are. I do a lot of that to affect this next book. And I'll tell everyone right now, I owe about over $60,000 right now in cash. To all the people who helped me put all my books, videos, films and online presence together, because they all believed in what I was doing. So they would all work for me for either reduced pay, or no pay at all. So that when I finally did launch, which I'm launching this Monday, this next Monday, I think it's April 28, or something, April 25, or something. Anyway, um, when when we do launch, I'm going to make sure that as we see, April 20, that'll be a when I do launch. I am going to be able to take care of those people not only pay back what I owed them, but even improve that a bit. So always take care of those who help you out because you never know where you're gonna need them again.

P Paul Zelizer 52:49 Last question before I did the last question before the last question, because I want to be respectful of your time in our audience. So you've shared you're 70 years old, you just He said you, you borrowed capital, some social capital and some dollar capital to this web. By the time this episode goes live, the new website will be live. But you just put all this intention and create a new website and got this huge body of work online in these new formats. So you're innovating and moving your technology at 70 years old after however many decades you've been doing this, like talk to us about aging gracefully, or at least maybe mindfully as a social entrepreneur, right? Like Like, like, keep evolving at this phase of the of your career and staying current and not just like, leaving up the website that doesn't really take advantage of the more modern technologies, you've made that choice at 70. And not everybody does, right.

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 53:52

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 18 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai You know, you say that terms when you make it sound like I'm old and I guess when

P Paul Zelizer 53:58 I'm not I'm kind of all too

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 54:02 This last season, I jumped off a couple cliffs on my snowboard and I

54:07

and I, you know,

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 54:08 I, I built rope bridges. And in my trees out here in the woods one goes up to 100 feet. And I mean I do stuff I rollerblade and mountain bike and I guess I don't, I'm 19 in 70 year old skin, and all these entrepreneur things I'm doing right now, they're just the beginning of news. I've got four grandkids, the ages from one to eight years old that I got to take care of. And, you know, I'm just getting started now. I hate to say that 70 is the new for the new 40. But when you're driven to, you know, to take care of your family and your community and you want to get these ideas out, you want to make humanity see some of the realities that are there right in front of their face. I don't think you age like you do when you're kind of waiting to die. I say that but I don't feel like feel tired at the end of the day. Yes, of course. But I'll tell you what, it's it feels good getting up every morning. And I don't know. 70 is just a number to me. I know it's just I just work as hard as I can. I'm excited about each day I wanted I can't wait to go out into the world again, one of these days and social distance myself within a small group of people together. I mean, I used to make my living going from group to group to group of parents and now I'm gonna have to do that online, which is like, what what you're doing, you're bringing valuable information to people over the internet. And I think that's right, there is an incredible contribution to our society. So I think we all need to transfer our energies toward toward towards that in that direction to do the best we can in our own communities in the ways we were able to as well as going online and using the internet. I'm an old dog learning new tricks I've learned bye for now. programs and last year that I sure didn't think I'd ever have to learn, but I did. And everybody can do it if they want to please work hard at it, I think,

Paul Zelizer 56:08

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 19 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai P Paul Zelizer 56:08 deep down for you for saying yes to that. And I was laughing when you're talking about jumping off cliffs. One of the last things I did in a large group before social distancing head was run a half marathon trail run up a mountain down the other side, turn around, ran up a mountain down the other side and came down in the top 50% of 52 years old. So anyway, deep out of you. Thanks for staying active. And I love that you're saying yes to not kind of letting the technology get in the way of sharing?

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 56:39 Well, I'm just blessed. I'm healthy enough to do those things still. I mean, I know that everyone can I realize that I'm, I am definitely privileged to the point that I came I was, you know, raised across. I wasn't raised in the projects. I was. Fortunately we lived across the street from the project. So it's made a little bit of difference. But I was raised in a big city projects, the inner city, the whole thing. And I'm living out in the forest and in Washington State. I mean, wow, I'm just, yeah, it was a hard road to hoe. But, boy, I tell you what, every day I walk out and see those trees and pray be that air and feel that I haven't heard anyone today. So I'm feeling pretty good, you know?

P Paul Zelizer 57:19 Nice, because I could chat with you for hours. And I don't want to do that to you or our listeners. If there was one thing you were hoping that we were going to get to in our interview, and we haven't gotten to it yet. Who would that be?

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 57:35 Well, make sure that as you help other people, you keep yourself strong. That that's one thing I learned the hard way a couple of times throughout my life. Don't use desperation to sign contracts with people who are going to take advantage of you. That's a real tragedy out there. And that was all that happened to me. So be careful that way. But don't let any of that stuff hold you back from getting out there and kicking some ass. I mean, I don't care how how poor you are with what prop firms you have with disabilities you have. I'm a disabled American Veteran, I've had a terrible stutter for most of my life that I finally overcame by being a radio announcer. I mean, you know, just, you got to get out there and play the game in order to even just just to feel life. So don't let anything hold you back. Go Go ahead, go for your ideas. There's always a way if you stick stick at it, you know, and, and do good, dude, do good. And if you always do good, it'll always shine through I think.

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 20 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai P Paul Zelizer 58:43 What does it congratulations on your new body of work, the new website and thank you for your decades of service, particularly to families that you know, deserve the best but don't always get it. So thank you. I really appreciate it.

D Dr. Joseph Garcia 58:58 Well, thanks for doing this. By So I think sharing the information about my work and other people's work is going to enrich the whole community and society at large. I think that's a major contribution to our whole human cycle, you know, so thanks for the work that you're doing, too.

P Paul Zelizer 59:14 It's an honor. So again, everything we talked about today, just as website three products we talked about, hopefully, I'll remember the input in the Lean Startup book. And you can also go check out where printers and the where printers community just again, a little plug, research tells us that the single biggest predictor of whether somebody is going to make changes in their life is what scientists call social support. social support is what it sounds like, you know, think of like a or group around your body and eating or getting fit in a fitness class or meditating in a meditation community, all that social support. So if you really want to have success as a social entrepreneur and have the impact and the income of a social enterprise that's working. Please, if you don't yet have that kind of really specific granular support, go check out our printers community, that word printers.com forward slash community. So for now, I just want to say thank you for the good work that you do and all the positive impact that you're having.

Joseph Garcia AWP Final Page 21 of 21 Transcribed by https://otter.ai