June 17, 2025 • 35 mins
Luke Wendlandt joins Craig and DeAnn to discuss Cadre, a mental health platform inspired by social media, aiming to support employees' mental well-being. He highlights that 83% of employees have experienced a depressive episode in the past year. Luke shares personal stories, including missing a job opportunity, which led to a transformative role at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. He emphasizes the importance of addressing stigmatized topics like substance use and mental health through community support and preventative care. Cadre integrates mental health and substance use, offering content, live streaming, and community features to foster recovery and well-being.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
DeAnn Knighton (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome back. Craig and I are
here today with Luke Wendlandtof CADRE. CADRE is a first ever
platform inspired by socialmedia, but for mental health.
It's kind of like going toYouTube, Tiktok, Instagram, and
only seeing videos and contentfrom trusted sources on grief,
loss, mental health,professional development,
(00:22):
anxiety, depression, yoga andmeditation. Luke, I hope that
sounds familiar, because thoseare your words I stole right off
of another interview you did.
I'm so glad you're here today.
Luke (00:33):
So glad to be here. DeAnn.
Craig, thank you so much. DeAnn,is right on the money that quote
is accurate. We always kind ofsay it's like if Instagram,
Tiktok, Twitter, Facebook had ababy that would be born, would
be cadre, and ultimately, ourgoal of CADRE is to truly take
my tagline on LinkedIn just makethe world a better place.
Employees are struggling. Weknow that 83% of employees have
(00:54):
had at least one depressiveepisode in the last year. I
don't know exactly whatdepressive episode means, but I
imagine, I think I know what itmeans. But with that being said,
there's a lot of work that wecan do for organizations and
their teams. A lot of people goto work every day, and we're
struggling, so we just want tohelp. That's what we're all
about. Love it. Okay, well, soI'm going to quote you back to
(01:16):
yourself again, and I'm hopingyou can give me a little more
context on this quote, becausewhat it says is, I love the
gutter life. I believe that iswhere the magic really happens.
If I would go back and I wouldlook at the three most pivotal
moments of my life, all of themwere sprung through quote,
unquote defeat, right? So I'llgive you an example. I'll give
(01:40):
you one example. I was atThomson Reuters, great company,
fortune 700 organization, on ourbackyard here, of Minneapolis,
St Paul. And I rememberinterviewing for a role that was
to be a field consultant, afield executive consultant. You
know, my pay would basicallydouble. I thought I was a shoo
in MBA. Everything said, been atthe organization now for XYZ
(02:05):
tenure. I knew the hiringmanager. I was like, This is it?
This is my next step. I was eventelling my wife, I'm like, we're
going to move to Oklahoma City.
And I'll never forget the emailon that Friday at four that
said, you know, Luke, I'm sorry.
We're we've moved on with adifferent candidate, basically.
And I was completely defeated,absolutely defeated. But then I
(02:28):
look at and go, it is completelychanged. The entire trajectory
of my life, right? Like beinglow and missing has turned me
into the opportunity to say,let's go seek out what's
available, what otheropportunities might be there.
And I ended up at the mostmagical place in the world for
me, which was Hazel and BettyFord Foundation. And I will
(02:48):
never forget the email from thatmy dear friend Roxanne vold,
that accepted my bin or whateveryou want to say, the accepted
the interview. And I got thatemail, and when I received that
email, I was like, interestingHazel and Betty Ford. So I
started doing some research,looking at it, and you realize,
like, holy cow, 13 years laterthat no and Miss changed the
(03:10):
entire trajectory of my lifeover these last 13 years. What
if? What if I would have becamethat law firm consultant in
Oklahoma City, I would havenever done the things I did.
That's just one example of,like, the gutter of life. I am a
firm believer. And we tell ourkids all this all the time. You
(03:30):
know, there's do hard things,but we do. We actually, really
do. You know, we set goals onthe weekends for each other. So
it's like daily goals, weeklygoals, yearly goals. I think
I've told you both about themusogee, something so big each
year that you go after thatreally pushes you. That is the
gutter. Like you'reintentionally going in the
(03:51):
gutter to, like, make a bigchange in your life. And what
you'll find is, for example, in2023 I did 107.6 miles straight
around White Bear Lake over andover and over again for the
107,660 that lost their life in2022 from opioid use disorder.
And when I did that run, I wasalone, and I was I, you know,
(04:12):
call it like in the gutteragain, and I'll never forget it.
At mile 50, my wife brought myson, my 10 year old son, and
some of my friends that arrived,and it's like you go from alone,
nowhere, nobody hurt, stressed,to completely inspiration, like
you have all the inspirationworld, like there's no way I'm
(04:33):
not going to finish this last 47miles, but it's because you were
in the gutter and you knew howbad that felt. And then when you
get out, you're like, oh mygosh, this is unbelievable. And
I want to see this last I wantto see it go so I believe some
of the best things in the worldcan be spurned from some of the
worst.
DeAnn Knighton (04:53):
I love that. So what about the CADRE story and
how you landed there? Is it asimilar type of Story,
Luke (05:00):
I wish I could say yes, but a little bit of yes and no.
So I personally have generalizedanxiety disorder. I went through
panic attacks for years andyears. I was that employee that
I talked about, about the 83%like I what I meant by the 83%
have had a depressive episode. Ijust don't know how they define
depressive episode, but that wasme like, that was me at work,
(05:24):
like I was depressed, I was low,I was binge drinking, I was
doing anything that I could tofeel better about myself, trying
to figure out my identity, youname it. You know, mid 20s,
early 30s. What am I doing onthis planet and why so? Yes,
there's a part of cadre that isabsolutely looking into my inner
child in her 20s to say, how canwe help that next, Luke, I know
(05:49):
that you both probably may havehad your own issues or stuff
that's went on in your life, butcould just imagine if we had a
tool that we could help ouryounger self and find clarity,
quicker, cleaner, faster, moreefficient. That's my dream, of
my goal. Like, that's like theethos of it. The reality is, I
(06:10):
was sitting in the pandemic withmy wife, and we were riding
peloton bikes a lot next to eachother. And we were riding bikes,
she would pick somebody, I wouldpick somebody. She would listen
to somebody. I would listen tosomebody. And it was great to
exercise. But was really awesomewas to listen to the individual
speaking and try and, you know,motivate you, pumping you up,
doing things. I'm like, what ifwe took, like, a mental health
(06:32):
and wellness approach to thisand talked about grief,
depression, loss, and, yes,there's yoga and meditation,
etc, but what about the all thethings that are stigmatized that
we want to bring forth, evenwomen's health, menopause, Men's
Health, fertility, lack thereof,right? Like, let's, let's talk
about it, and let's formcommunities where people can
(06:54):
show up and go, me too, me too,in a very positive, enlightening
way. So that's, that's just whatI believe, is one of the like,
what springboarded it, if youwill. But at the end of the day,
you know, I'm always trying tolook around corners, like,
what's next? Where's it going,what's happening, and why in so,
(07:15):
you know, organizations now aretrying to kind of, quote,
unquote, keep up for theiremployees, mental health. And
it's like, this is always whatit's been for me, like, for the
last, however, many years. Like,how can we give employees the
best experience possible intheir eight plus hours that
they're giving to theseorganizations to be their best
self? That's That's my hope,through cadre.
DeAnn Knighton (07:35):
How about the name? Is there a story there
again?
Luke (07:37):
I wish I had something better than this, but, um,
specifically, the definition ofCADRE is a group of individuals
skilled for a particularpurpose. It's a military term.
But the reality is, the way Itake it as is, individuals
who've been through and I hope Ican say this, individuals that
have been through shit know howto get through shit together.
And I believe that with all myheart and when, when, you go
(08:00):
through something, people wantto gravitate towards somebody.
So it's like my cadre, mypeople, my team. So that's how
it came up. And I just I did,like, literally, the old Google
of like, what would be, anothersynonym to what would be, you
know, a definition of what wouldbe. And I just kept looking and
looking, looking. I remember,reading in this one book. It was
(08:22):
David Goggins, can't hurt me,and he was talking about his
cadre of teammates and the NavySEALs. And I was like, Oh,
that's awesome. I love how hereferenced it, like my team, my
cadre, my people. And that's myhope. Is, when people come to
cadre, they feel like it's theirpeople. I think that's a great
story. Oh, I also, yeah, one ofthe things, and I think the
(08:44):
reasons that we're talkingtoday, and that I love about the
product that you've created, isthat it does integrate mental
health and substance use, and Ireally appreciate that so much
of that work lives sort of onthese two parallel roads out
there, particularly things thatare marketed to, like employers.
So that was definitely somethingthat kind of drew us to having
(09:06):
this conversation with youtoday. Is there any thing that
you could tell us, just sort ofabout the inspiration, about
integrating substance use intoyour work? There's a lot there.
I think there's my personalstory, which I kind of touched
on briefly, but I would alsolike to add, there's a story
specifically of a dear friend ofmine I just want to share. It's
(09:27):
just take a little bit of timehere, if that's okay, my dear
friend, I'm going to say hisname, because I know he would
not care. My dear friend, Ted,was working with Thomson Reuters
with me, and I was there withTed every day, right? I saw him
at lunch. We worked together.
Sometimes. We'd do happy hours.
We would do all the above,right? And nothing stuck out to
(09:50):
me that Ted had a problem.
Nothing did like he was funny.
Laugh a minute. Great guy.
Family married all of it. And.
Uh, one day Ted was gone fromwork. He was gone. He was
literally gone. And it was dayone and day three, day seven,
when day 10 hit. I texted hiswife, Casey. Was like, Hey,
(10:12):
Casey, what's what's going onwith Ted, and where is he? We
haven't seen him. I'm worried.
And she replied back to me thatsaid, he'll be back in a little
bit, and he'll I bet, I thinkit's best for him to explain to
you where he went. And so I waslike, Okay, I have no idea what
this means, but when Ted cameback, he was gone for 90 days,
and he went through inpatientresidential treatment at Hazel
and Betty Ford Foundation, andthen he had a 60 day outpatient
(10:36):
stay at, let's call it a halfwayhouse, a sober living
environment. And then heincorporated himself back to his
family, his children, you nameit. And then also back to work.
And when I saw Ted come back andthis new Ted, and how he showed
up in what he was doing and whathe was participating in, and his
boundaries and his persona, hehe said something else. Never
(11:01):
forget, he's like, I was justliving a fake life, and and
like, when he said that, he'slike, I was just living a fake
life, I was hiding everything.
And he was just telling me allof this. And he in mind, you we
had spent countless hourstogether. So, you know, you just
look at that's one example, oneexample. And I bet you, when
(11:24):
somebody hears this, they'llsay, I've had that talk. I've
had a conversation with acolleague. I've connected with
I've done the same thing.
Alcohol is still as stigmatizedin the workplace as ever. People
are worried about losing theirjob, right? I mean, Ted said it
to me, it's like I was worriedthat I was going to have to
resign or I'd be fired. And howgreat was it that the
(11:47):
organization showed up and said,you can take this help, and
we're going to offer you help.
Please take it, and you did. AndI know many more organizations
are, you know, taking thatapproach too, which is
commendable, and I love it, andI thank them for doing that. But
we need to educate and informnot only the individual
suffering, but the leadershipand those individuals that are
(12:09):
overseeing those individuals. Ialways say, Nobody comes to work
and says, I want to be terribleat my job. I want to come to
work and I want to be wreakinghavoc. I want to come out to
work and I want to be chaotic,that I just believe in my heart
of hearts. And nobody wakes upevery day to do that. They wake
up and they want to do theirbest self. But there's stuff
(12:31):
getting in the way. And our jobat CADRE is to ensure that, you
know, the recovery, theSubstance Abuse size, is
normalized, that we can talkabout it, and that managers can
go look up and Google ask typeof search or work with the chat
GPT version of our cadrecompanion to be able to learn
things and listen to videos. Andwe have a specific day all set
(12:53):
up. Sunday is our recovery day,which covers everything from
substance abuse to sober livingto helping individuals that need
help. What do we do? How do youdo it? Why do you do it? So we
have 1000s of videos inrecovery, and I think it's so
very important that thatconversation continues in the
workplace. Because not only doesit cost organizations hundreds
(13:15):
and hundreds of millions ofdollars, it's also caused
costing humanity. And that'swhat I'm more concerned about,
is the wife who's struggling,the husband who's struggling,
the son who has something goingon, like, let's give them the
tools in their toolbox to dowhat they need to be the best
version of themselves.
Craig Knighton (13:33):
So Luke, what I like about what I see about
cadre, is that it's notnecessarily about waiting for
someone to find the gutter rightand to bottom out and to have to
go through the worst of thepossible recovery processes, but
seems instead to be appealing topeople that might just be mental
(13:53):
health, curious or sober,curious or are just starting to
feel like they're losing controlor losing their grasp on having
the life that they want to have,and maybe helping to prevent
those things from happening inthe first place. So is that part
of the thinking that byproviding the kind of content
(14:13):
that you have, that you might beable to help prevent these
things from happening in thefirst place?
Luke (14:18):
Preventative Medicine is not sexy. The orthopedic
surgeon, that's, you know,repairing your ACL, MCL, doing
the surgery for your lower back,etc. Those, those are the big
surgeries, taking somebody atthe acute one to one level. This
is health care, you know, right?
It's the triangle, where youland on the top of the triangle,
(14:40):
and then you figure it out afteryou receive the one to one
services, our thought processhas always been especially with
like my past life of runningresidential treatment programs
is where individuals have landedconsistently on the top and by
top, I mean most acute level.
How do we get individuals. Toactually land on less acute
(15:02):
levels and prevent things. Andyou know, we talk about
prevention in our schools. Wetalk about preventative
medicine. The reality is, weall, me included, wait till it's
too late. We wait till it's toolate. And what we want to
normalize is, let's not wait.
Let's Let's learn. Let's havethis like amazing tech. Let's
(15:24):
use Tech for Good where we canhave these amazing content
contributors, vetted peers andprofessionals that share on
topical areas. Consideration tosay, you know, maybe the pre
stage diabetic that I may be,let me try to change that. Maybe
I am having that second andthird glass of wine at night,
(15:47):
and I don't know. Why am I? Am Istaying home one or two days a
month from work because I'mdepressed or anxious or low? Am
I? Am I coming to work, and I'mvery, very nervous about my
performance review every singletime, and I don't know how to
share that with my boss,professional development, right?
(16:08):
Like, how do we learn to be ableto, like, take these things and
actually roll them into life androll them in to learn and
develop and grow, and thenprevention, I believe actually
can be sexy. It can be the sexything where people want to go to
and want to learn and want todevelop. You know, we talk about
doing the work, right? And a lotof people, I still don't think,
(16:32):
know what that really means. AndI think what it really means is
just looking inside yourself tosay, am I my best self today? Am
I my best self today? And if theanswer is no, me, the answer is
no, well, what can I do? Is itmy mom and dad are aging, and I
know I'm going to lose both ofthem, and grief is something I'm
scared about. Maybe I want totune into Thursdays to listen to
(16:55):
everybody talking about griefand loss so I can prepare myself
for that event. So when it doeshappen, I can be, hopefully, a
better version than otherwise,what it could be for me. So I'm
just using that as one examplethat I think, you know,
sometimes, like, derails a lotof human beings, and we don't
even know it is grief. So I hopethat helps crack. Yeah, I love
(17:17):
what you said about, you know,kind of that concept of hiding
in plain sight with your storyabout Ted, and I think that I
also love the use of the wordnormalization. That's something
that we have talked about a lotaround here, in particular with
inclusivity for people who arein recovery in their workplaces,
because there is such a culturalphenomenon of happy hours and
(17:41):
drinking and having to explainwhy you're not drinking. And you
know, there definitely is amovement, I think, in that
direction which is reallypositive, again, happily not
using abstaining from alcoholicbeverages. I would userecovery
loosely with my lifestyle, likeI do not attend meetings, I do
(18:03):
not do those things, but I amvery intentional about how I
live my life and why I live,live my life, and those
individuals that do participatein meetings and that works
awesome, and I love it, and I'mso happy for you, and I commend
you. That's just not for me, butto teach their own, right? But I
will never forget going golfingafter I was, like, six months
(18:26):
without and normally, you know,the guys would get together,
we'd golf, and there'd be somealcoholic beverages and all the
things. And I'll just neverforget, like, being on, you
know, the 14th, 15th hole withmy friends just going, I can't
wait to get off this. Course, itwasn't even fun for me. You
know, there was the samenormalizing alcohol where it got
(18:46):
to the point where definitelytipsy and not, and behaviors I
participated in for years andyears and years, not not
knocking them. It was just whathappened, you drank a little bit
too much. And, you know, you yougo from not talking at all the
first few holes to talking alot, and then, not only talking
a lot, maybe using words andjargons and language you
(19:08):
normally otherwise wouldn't use,talking about stories from the,
you know, 20 years old. And Ijust, I just didn't want to do
that anymore. And so I had tofind a new group of friends that
when I did golf with, you know,we talked about maybe sauna,
cold plunge, what did you foryour wife on Mother's Day? What
did I do for for my wife? Like,how could you get back self
(19:30):
care, you name it. And so Ithink you have to find a group
that ultimately you want tochange with, and people you want
to change with that, you cannormalize this new way of life
and feel really confident inyourself. Because if, if you go
and you're consistently worriedabout the same thing, like, do I
(19:50):
fit in? You know, this isuncomfortable for me, I
encourage you to find a newgroup, because there are people
that will. To absolutely takeyou in like a sponge and want to
grow with you, and want to seethe new season of life change
through their changes thatthey've made. So that's one
encouragement I just want toshare with the audience, is
(20:10):
don't like don't dwell on thosemoments that it maybe didn't go
good for you. You know one timeor two times back after that, or
you know, that work happy hour,and you've said no, no, no, and
the one time you go, someonesays, Well, why aren't you
drinking? Luke, and then youcan, you know, just kind of
like, politely excuse yourself,and then you might find a
(20:31):
different event at work.
Craig Knighton (20:38):
Luke, maybe I could tie the your conversation
about community to your producthere a little bit, and maybe
what is it's happening andcoming, part of the big ideas of
what you're building. It occursto me that the world has been
trying to solve this problem.
People have things they surviveand need to recover from, and
people look for other peoplelike them in that process, but
(21:01):
there really isn't a way, andGoogling is not the answer to
that question. There isn't a wayto find that new community, that
new group of friends, at leastnot in a way I see that as being
one of the keys to preventionand to avoiding the hard bottom
right by starting to make somesubtle changes like that early
(21:23):
is that? Is that on the roadmap?
What are you doing, from thepoint of view of not just
building content like you arerelated to these things we share
as problems, but but to enablingthe recovery process and the
building new friendships and newcommunities, is that part of the
vision?
Luke (21:42):
Oh my gosh, my best friend. We just did a podcast
yesterday. Her name is Jengaraly. She is amazing. I love
her. She's founder of theMindful Drinking Movement,
sober, curious. That works allof it. I love her and her
concepts in the conversationaround workplace, normalizing or
(22:02):
lack thereof of alcohol, whenthe workplace, I think, is, I
think it's ahead of its time.
Like I told her yesterday, itsaid you're Tesla, everybody
else is going to haveElon Musk,like him. Hate him. I'm just
saying like you're Tesla. You'rethinking ahead on the electronic
battery. And, you know, runningelectronic vehicles, you're
doing the same thing with soberworkforce recovery, workforce
(22:24):
normalizing the lack of alcohol,normalizing, you know, non
alcoholic happy hours, likeyou're there, you're just ahead
of your time. And so she, sheknows that she's doing some
wonderful things, yeah, andyou're probably still very much
in the phase where you're notreally worried yet about how
you're going to make money,because you're mostly trying to
(22:45):
drive engagement. Buildcommunities. Build these, these
groups, right that that find andstay engaged and stay there for
each other as a community, andthen the ways to make it a
business emerge from that.
Craig Knighton (23:03):
But is there anything you want to say about
what you think is going tohappen there, or is it just too
early to tell?
Luke (23:11):
Yeah, bear with me for one second. So when we were we were
building cadre, we were talkingabout, truly the problem, right?
Like, what really is theproblem? You know, they always
say, like, build the problemyou're trying to solve. Dot,
dot, dot. But first of all, whatreally is the problem? And the
problem is, you're driving onthis road, and you're either
going to take a left or a right.
The left is, I'm going to googleit, and the right is, it's a
(23:34):
little too late, and I need oneto one acute services for
whatever this might be, right?
So you're off to the left or offto the right, what you find is
there's this big, big space inthe middle that nobody has
really had that drive straightahead yet. And what the drive
straight ahead for us is isalways been okay. Let's start
with content, live streaming,pre recorded content, and then
(23:58):
as of I think, three months ago,we built in now all the
different community features. Sowe have 12 different communities
that are public communities. Sowhen you join cadre, you
actually select the communitiesthat you want to be involved in.
Next phase is now placing ourcoaches. We've had 150 people
(24:18):
that have participated indeveloping and creating content
on cadre, but now it's puttingeach one of those coaches into
each one of those communities,and they are going to be able to
provide, which I'm so jackedabout, free coaching, to groups,
to community groups, so and thenthe one to one services is,
obviously, is cost. There's nodoubt about it. But for to
(24:42):
provide those communityengagements, we do our own in
person events. We provide thosecommunal events. We've done it
virtual. We've done all of it,but to create actual communities
driven for representative nichesthat we can say, Let's use an
example, retired policeofficers. We could literally
(25:04):
create a community and haveretired I'm just using that as
an example, like you couldcreate anything that you want
now on cadre. So not only is itin the roadmap, it has been one
of those things that we've likeliterally put a flag down the
ground to say we will createcommunity, and we are going to
continue to create community at1000 5000 100,000 plus
(25:27):
individuals, and we are going toensure that the community is
driven specifically niche based,which is really important. So
back to the point of like,showing up with those people,
participating in things withthose individuals, because then
the sky's the limit from there,you can basically say, Oh, those
folks can connect on their own.
The coach could lead the group.
(25:48):
We could have representativewebinars, specific live streams,
creating content accordingly,developing work group plans. You
know, we could do all of it fromthere. So I would say we're
anywhere between three to sixmonths out to have, like our
fully communal development buildexactly how we want to, but you
(26:10):
got to live and learn throughall the development when you're
building tech. I'll just tellyou that right now. Never done
it before, but it's been anamazing process. This may sound
really crass, so I want to becareful. I have in the last 13
years, 12 years, it's never,ever been about money. And
(26:30):
having it not be about money hadallowed for an eight digit sale
of an organization that Istarted. It was never about it.
It was never about it, and it'sstill never about it. And if you
if your driver is revenue, I'dencourage you to go back to the
think tank and wonder why you'redoing what you're doing. And you
(26:51):
really have to think like, whydid we build North Star
behavioral health? We wanted tochange as many lives of those
individuals suffering fromopioid use disorder. That was
it. That was our mission. We aregoing to help as many people
that need help. We just didn'tfill a bed, to fill a bed,
right? Like, no, we're going tohelp the right person get the
right help at the right time,support those individuals, save
(27:12):
lives, do whatever it takes.
It's the same thing here, right?
Like, if the number one driver,which also is, like, why we
didn't raise VC money, why we'venever went private equity, why
we didn't race to the next sale?
No, let's do it right? Like Itold the group, like we are
going to go tortoise, rabbit,and then we'll go faster, but
like, we want to growaccordingly to ensure that we
(27:33):
can make the most amount ofimpact. And if we can't do that,
I mean, what are we doinganyhow?
Craig Knighton (27:40):
It's fantastic and it's noble, quite frankly,
that that's the case they Ithink what I'm getting at is
that is that this is the reasonthat the world and or at least
the free market, so to speak,hasn't solved the prevention
problem yet. Not only is it notsexy, nobody understands the
(28:00):
direct line to the building abusiness out of it. And I think
whether it would be thegovernment, which is probably
the wrong organization to try totackle and solve that problem,
or someone with your thinking,which is that, as long as you
just do good, the money willfollow, right? The do good, and
(28:21):
they will come. That's enough.
Luke (28:24):
One of the major issues with prevention is the abstract,
right? So I'll give you anexample.For every 7% of
individuals that become less.
I'm just going to use adiabetic. Over the next 20
years, we will save $780 millionin health care costs, blah,
(28:44):
blah, blah, blah, blah. And Ithink it's really hard to
conceptualize that, and also toprove the ROI of it, to finance
guy and all those other peoplethat you're trying to prove,
like, let's move the initiativeforward. Let's move it because,
you know, they're living intheir quarterly earnings this
quarter, right? Like they're,you know, can, can we make an
(29:06):
impact? What does it do? Thebottom line, what is this? What
is this? And like, I think, yes,I understand that, but there's a
short sighted approach to it.
When you talk about humanbeings, human human beings are a
long term investment, a longterm investment in the short
(29:26):
term investments. Cause, in myhumble opinion, ear, what's that
word error or something harm?
Help me out. You know it's wordI'm trying to say. Like, if all
you're thinking about the shortterm and quickly helping the
short term. I just believe in myheart of hearts, you will miss
the long term potential of thehuman being that you're talking
(29:50):
we prescribe to a similarthought process here. And when
we started our little venture,we always had that in mind, you
know, and it was just a Matter,some interests changing for me
in terms of wanting to go theclinical route, which I have
really enjoyed, but I'm alsolooking forward to now that I
have that exposure to maybe getback into trying to help solve
(30:11):
some of these problems. Now thatI have that clinical lens, it
felt important I got a goodproblem for you to solve with
that so in the 10 years thatI've operationalized residential
treatment programs through thestate of Minnesota. We always
talk about value based care, allright, value based care. VVC,
it's coming. It's coming. It'scoming. Number one, what does
(30:34):
that actually mean, and why doesit mean it so bear with me. We
have had probably 20 to 22audits over the course of the
years where you're evaluated forservice delivery. What you're
actually doing is trying to meetcompliance standards. That's it.
(30:55):
So you're there's never oncebeen a question ever from
insurance, from the state ofMinnesota, from the Department
of Health, from the Departmentof Human Services, that has ever
asked me in 10 years aboutquality of care, the only
quality that's defined is, areyou compliant? And if you're
(31:16):
compliant, you can bill, and ifyou can bill, you can keep your
lights on, or you can, quote,unquote, hire and grow and do
all the things. Theinterventions of every
organization are built to ensureyou're compliant, not change
lives. So if you really want tomake an impact, and you want to
talk about value based care andwhat interventions are working
(31:41):
and why, and build data andpreventative data behind it.
DeAnn, you have a gold mine ofan opportunity to make a huge
change, because those are factslike, that's not just pie in the
sky. You know, founder talkingabout these are, this is our
reality. And so I wouldencourage as many individuals as
(32:02):
possible to use technology forgood to say, are the
interventions working? Is thisan opportunity to we improve
human lives that actually havean exorbitant amount of spend in
substance abuse and residentialtreatment? Does it work? How
does it work? Why does it work,and what is the impact? Those
(32:22):
are questions we should besolving. Yes, there's
compliance, and it's important.
It is like bad actors all thethings, right? But the most
important thing is, are we doingright by the people that we get
the privilege to work with?
Craig Knighton (32:38):
I'm sure everybody by now is wondering,
how do I find out more? How do Iget my hands on this? Maybe tell
us where they should go
Luke (32:45):
first. I want to say, thank you. Thank you for
inviting me. Thank you forhaving me on. I love talking
about this. As you can tell, I'mvery, very passionate about the
space and the work. I love itmore than anything. It means a
lot to me. I am not likepersonally for myself, like,
people say, like, follow along.
I'm not on Facebook, Instagram,Twitter, Tiktok, I'm not in any
(33:06):
of them. I'm on cadre. The onethat I have to be on for
business wise, is LinkedIn. So Iam there. So if you ever want to
connect or participate in thenetworking that's available on
LinkedIn, I'm happy toparticipate with you there. Just
look me up and on cadre, you cansee, like my social journey, and
participate with me and see whatthat's like. And you're going to
(33:27):
find that there's really nothingbut good out there. And you're
learning a lot on cadre, whichis our goal, and how to do it on
either App Store, Google orApple Stores, either one. Just
literally search cadre, C, A, D,R, E, and you can have seven
days, you know what? Just useaccess code inspired all
capitals, and you can have it onme forever. So just use access
(33:50):
code inspired and with a D, makesure you have a D inspired with
a D, and then you can have cadreforever on me. And I hope that
there's some parts to it, thatif you need it one time a month,
one time a year, or one timeevery day, that is great, too.
Whatever you need it for, wehope it works and it supports
(34:11):
you and your own journey.
Hey everybody, welcome back. Craig and I are
here today with Luke Wendlandtof CADRE. CADRE is a first ever
platform inspired by socialmedia, but for mental health.
It's kind of like going toYouTube, Tiktok, Instagram, and
only seeing videos and contentfrom trusted sources on grief,
loss, mental health,professional development,
(00:22):
anxiety, depression, yoga andmeditation. Luke, I hope that
sounds familiar, because thoseare your words I stole right off
of another interview you did.
I'm so glad you're here today.
Luke (00:33):
So glad to be here. DeAnn.
Craig, thank you so much. DeAnn,is right on the money that quote
is accurate. We always kind ofsay it's like if Instagram,
Tiktok, Twitter, Facebook had ababy that would be born, would
be cadre, and ultimately, ourgoal of CADRE is to truly take
my tagline on LinkedIn just makethe world a better place.
Employees are struggling. Weknow that 83% of employees have
(00:54):
had at least one depressiveepisode in the last year. I
don't know exactly whatdepressive episode means, but I
imagine, I think I know what itmeans. But with that being said,
there's a lot of work that wecan do for organizations and
their teams. A lot of people goto work every day, and we're
struggling, so we just want tohelp. That's what we're all
about. Love it. Okay, well, soI'm going to quote you back to
(01:16):
yourself again, and I'm hopingyou can give me a little more
context on this quote, becausewhat it says is, I love the
gutter life. I believe that iswhere the magic really happens.
If I would go back and I wouldlook at the three most pivotal
moments of my life, all of themwere sprung through quote,
unquote defeat, right? So I'llgive you an example. I'll give
(01:40):
you one example. I was atThomson Reuters, great company,
fortune 700 organization, on ourbackyard here, of Minneapolis,
St Paul. And I rememberinterviewing for a role that was
to be a field consultant, afield executive consultant. You
know, my pay would basicallydouble. I thought I was a shoo
in MBA. Everything said, been atthe organization now for XYZ
(02:05):
tenure. I knew the hiringmanager. I was like, This is it?
This is my next step. I was eventelling my wife, I'm like, we're
going to move to Oklahoma City.
And I'll never forget the emailon that Friday at four that
said, you know, Luke, I'm sorry.
We're we've moved on with adifferent candidate, basically.
And I was completely defeated,absolutely defeated. But then I
(02:28):
look at and go, it is completelychanged. The entire trajectory
of my life, right? Like beinglow and missing has turned me
into the opportunity to say,let's go seek out what's
available, what otheropportunities might be there.
And I ended up at the mostmagical place in the world for
me, which was Hazel and BettyFord Foundation. And I will
(02:48):
never forget the email from thatmy dear friend Roxanne vold,
that accepted my bin or whateveryou want to say, the accepted
the interview. And I got thatemail, and when I received that
email, I was like, interestingHazel and Betty Ford. So I
started doing some research,looking at it, and you realize,
like, holy cow, 13 years laterthat no and Miss changed the
(03:10):
entire trajectory of my lifeover these last 13 years. What
if? What if I would have becamethat law firm consultant in
Oklahoma City, I would havenever done the things I did.
That's just one example of,like, the gutter of life. I am a
firm believer. And we tell ourkids all this all the time. You
(03:30):
know, there's do hard things,but we do. We actually, really
do. You know, we set goals onthe weekends for each other. So
it's like daily goals, weeklygoals, yearly goals. I think
I've told you both about themusogee, something so big each
year that you go after thatreally pushes you. That is the
gutter. Like you'reintentionally going in the
(03:51):
gutter to, like, make a bigchange in your life. And what
you'll find is, for example, in2023 I did 107.6 miles straight
around White Bear Lake over andover and over again for the
107,660 that lost their life in2022 from opioid use disorder.
And when I did that run, I wasalone, and I was I, you know,
(04:12):
call it like in the gutteragain, and I'll never forget it.
At mile 50, my wife brought myson, my 10 year old son, and
some of my friends that arrived,and it's like you go from alone,
nowhere, nobody hurt, stressed,to completely inspiration, like
you have all the inspirationworld, like there's no way I'm
(04:33):
not going to finish this last 47miles, but it's because you were
in the gutter and you knew howbad that felt. And then when you
get out, you're like, oh mygosh, this is unbelievable. And
I want to see this last I wantto see it go so I believe some
of the best things in the worldcan be spurned from some of the
worst.
DeAnn Knighton (04:53):
I love that. So what about the CADRE story and
how you landed there? Is it asimilar type of Story,
Luke (05:00):
I wish I could say yes, but a little bit of yes and no.
So I personally have generalizedanxiety disorder. I went through
panic attacks for years andyears. I was that employee that
I talked about, about the 83%like I what I meant by the 83%
have had a depressive episode. Ijust don't know how they define
depressive episode, but that wasme like, that was me at work,
(05:24):
like I was depressed, I was low,I was binge drinking, I was
doing anything that I could tofeel better about myself, trying
to figure out my identity, youname it. You know, mid 20s,
early 30s. What am I doing onthis planet and why so? Yes,
there's a part of cadre that isabsolutely looking into my inner
child in her 20s to say, how canwe help that next, Luke, I know
(05:49):
that you both probably may havehad your own issues or stuff
that's went on in your life, butcould just imagine if we had a
tool that we could help ouryounger self and find clarity,
quicker, cleaner, faster, moreefficient. That's my dream, of
my goal. Like, that's like theethos of it. The reality is, I
(06:10):
was sitting in the pandemic withmy wife, and we were riding
peloton bikes a lot next to eachother. And we were riding bikes,
she would pick somebody, I wouldpick somebody. She would listen
to somebody. I would listen tosomebody. And it was great to
exercise. But was really awesomewas to listen to the individual
speaking and try and, you know,motivate you, pumping you up,
doing things. I'm like, what ifwe took, like, a mental health
(06:32):
and wellness approach to thisand talked about grief,
depression, loss, and, yes,there's yoga and meditation,
etc, but what about the all thethings that are stigmatized that
we want to bring forth, evenwomen's health, menopause, Men's
Health, fertility, lack thereof,right? Like, let's, let's talk
about it, and let's formcommunities where people can
(06:54):
show up and go, me too, me too,in a very positive, enlightening
way. So that's, that's just whatI believe, is one of the like,
what springboarded it, if youwill. But at the end of the day,
you know, I'm always trying tolook around corners, like,
what's next? Where's it going,what's happening, and why in so,
(07:15):
you know, organizations now aretrying to kind of, quote,
unquote, keep up for theiremployees, mental health. And
it's like, this is always whatit's been for me, like, for the
last, however, many years. Like,how can we give employees the
best experience possible intheir eight plus hours that
they're giving to theseorganizations to be their best
self? That's That's my hope,through cadre.
DeAnn Knighton (07:35):
How about the name? Is there a story there
again?
Luke (07:37):
I wish I had something better than this, but, um,
specifically, the definition ofCADRE is a group of individuals
skilled for a particularpurpose. It's a military term.
But the reality is, the way Itake it as is, individuals
who've been through and I hope Ican say this, individuals that
have been through shit know howto get through shit together.
And I believe that with all myheart and when, when, you go
(08:00):
through something, people wantto gravitate towards somebody.
So it's like my cadre, mypeople, my team. So that's how
it came up. And I just I did,like, literally, the old Google
of like, what would be, anothersynonym to what would be, you
know, a definition of what wouldbe. And I just kept looking and
looking, looking. I remember,reading in this one book. It was
(08:22):
David Goggins, can't hurt me,and he was talking about his
cadre of teammates and the NavySEALs. And I was like, Oh,
that's awesome. I love how hereferenced it, like my team, my
cadre, my people. And that's myhope. Is, when people come to
cadre, they feel like it's theirpeople. I think that's a great
story. Oh, I also, yeah, one ofthe things, and I think the
(08:44):
reasons that we're talkingtoday, and that I love about the
product that you've created, isthat it does integrate mental
health and substance use, and Ireally appreciate that so much
of that work lives sort of onthese two parallel roads out
there, particularly things thatare marketed to, like employers.
So that was definitely somethingthat kind of drew us to having
(09:06):
this conversation with youtoday. Is there any thing that
you could tell us, just sort ofabout the inspiration, about
integrating substance use intoyour work? There's a lot there.
I think there's my personalstory, which I kind of touched
on briefly, but I would alsolike to add, there's a story
specifically of a dear friend ofmine I just want to share. It's
(09:27):
just take a little bit of timehere, if that's okay, my dear
friend, I'm going to say hisname, because I know he would
not care. My dear friend, Ted,was working with Thomson Reuters
with me, and I was there withTed every day, right? I saw him
at lunch. We worked together.
Sometimes. We'd do happy hours.
We would do all the above,right? And nothing stuck out to
(09:50):
me that Ted had a problem.
Nothing did like he was funny.
Laugh a minute. Great guy.
Family married all of it. And.
Uh, one day Ted was gone fromwork. He was gone. He was
literally gone. And it was dayone and day three, day seven,
when day 10 hit. I texted hiswife, Casey. Was like, Hey,
(10:12):
Casey, what's what's going onwith Ted, and where is he? We
haven't seen him. I'm worried.
And she replied back to me thatsaid, he'll be back in a little
bit, and he'll I bet, I thinkit's best for him to explain to
you where he went. And so I waslike, Okay, I have no idea what
this means, but when Ted cameback, he was gone for 90 days,
and he went through inpatientresidential treatment at Hazel
and Betty Ford Foundation, andthen he had a 60 day outpatient
(10:36):
stay at, let's call it a halfwayhouse, a sober living
environment. And then heincorporated himself back to his
family, his children, you nameit. And then also back to work.
And when I saw Ted come back andthis new Ted, and how he showed
up in what he was doing and whathe was participating in, and his
boundaries and his persona, hehe said something else. Never
(11:01):
forget, he's like, I was justliving a fake life, and and
like, when he said that, he'slike, I was just living a fake
life, I was hiding everything.
And he was just telling me allof this. And he in mind, you we
had spent countless hourstogether. So, you know, you just
look at that's one example, oneexample. And I bet you, when
(11:24):
somebody hears this, they'llsay, I've had that talk. I've
had a conversation with acolleague. I've connected with
I've done the same thing.
Alcohol is still as stigmatizedin the workplace as ever. People
are worried about losing theirjob, right? I mean, Ted said it
to me, it's like I was worriedthat I was going to have to
resign or I'd be fired. And howgreat was it that the
(11:47):
organization showed up and said,you can take this help, and
we're going to offer you help.
Please take it, and you did. AndI know many more organizations
are, you know, taking thatapproach too, which is
commendable, and I love it, andI thank them for doing that. But
we need to educate and informnot only the individual
suffering, but the leadershipand those individuals that are
(12:09):
overseeing those individuals. Ialways say, Nobody comes to work
and says, I want to be terribleat my job. I want to come to
work and I want to be wreakinghavoc. I want to come out to
work and I want to be chaotic,that I just believe in my heart
of hearts. And nobody wakes upevery day to do that. They wake
up and they want to do theirbest self. But there's stuff
(12:31):
getting in the way. And our jobat CADRE is to ensure that, you
know, the recovery, theSubstance Abuse size, is
normalized, that we can talkabout it, and that managers can
go look up and Google ask typeof search or work with the chat
GPT version of our cadrecompanion to be able to learn
things and listen to videos. Andwe have a specific day all set
(12:53):
up. Sunday is our recovery day,which covers everything from
substance abuse to sober livingto helping individuals that need
help. What do we do? How do youdo it? Why do you do it? So we
have 1000s of videos inrecovery, and I think it's so
very important that thatconversation continues in the
workplace. Because not only doesit cost organizations hundreds
(13:15):
and hundreds of millions ofdollars, it's also caused
costing humanity. And that'swhat I'm more concerned about,
is the wife who's struggling,the husband who's struggling,
the son who has something goingon, like, let's give them the
tools in their toolbox to dowhat they need to be the best
version of themselves.
Craig Knighton (13:33):
So Luke, what I like about what I see about
cadre, is that it's notnecessarily about waiting for
someone to find the gutter rightand to bottom out and to have to
go through the worst of thepossible recovery processes, but
seems instead to be appealing topeople that might just be mental
(13:53):
health, curious or sober,curious or are just starting to
feel like they're losing controlor losing their grasp on having
the life that they want to have,and maybe helping to prevent
those things from happening inthe first place. So is that part
of the thinking that byproviding the kind of content
(14:13):
that you have, that you might beable to help prevent these
things from happening in thefirst place?
Luke (14:18):
Preventative Medicine is not sexy. The orthopedic
surgeon, that's, you know,repairing your ACL, MCL, doing
the surgery for your lower back,etc. Those, those are the big
surgeries, taking somebody atthe acute one to one level. This
is health care, you know, right?
It's the triangle, where youland on the top of the triangle,
(14:40):
and then you figure it out afteryou receive the one to one
services, our thought processhas always been especially with
like my past life of runningresidential treatment programs
is where individuals have landedconsistently on the top and by
top, I mean most acute level.
How do we get individuals. Toactually land on less acute
(15:02):
levels and prevent things. Andyou know, we talk about
prevention in our schools. Wetalk about preventative
medicine. The reality is, weall, me included, wait till it's
too late. We wait till it's toolate. And what we want to
normalize is, let's not wait.
Let's Let's learn. Let's havethis like amazing tech. Let's
(15:24):
use Tech for Good where we canhave these amazing content
contributors, vetted peers andprofessionals that share on
topical areas. Consideration tosay, you know, maybe the pre
stage diabetic that I may be,let me try to change that. Maybe
I am having that second andthird glass of wine at night,
(15:47):
and I don't know. Why am I? Am Istaying home one or two days a
month from work because I'mdepressed or anxious or low? Am
I? Am I coming to work, and I'mvery, very nervous about my
performance review every singletime, and I don't know how to
share that with my boss,professional development, right?
(16:08):
Like, how do we learn to be ableto, like, take these things and
actually roll them into life androll them in to learn and
develop and grow, and thenprevention, I believe actually
can be sexy. It can be the sexything where people want to go to
and want to learn and want todevelop. You know, we talk about
doing the work, right? And a lotof people, I still don't think,
(16:32):
know what that really means. AndI think what it really means is
just looking inside yourself tosay, am I my best self today? Am
I my best self today? And if theanswer is no, me, the answer is
no, well, what can I do? Is itmy mom and dad are aging, and I
know I'm going to lose both ofthem, and grief is something I'm
scared about. Maybe I want totune into Thursdays to listen to
(16:55):
everybody talking about griefand loss so I can prepare myself
for that event. So when it doeshappen, I can be, hopefully, a
better version than otherwise,what it could be for me. So I'm
just using that as one examplethat I think, you know,
sometimes, like, derails a lotof human beings, and we don't
even know it is grief. So I hopethat helps crack. Yeah, I love
(17:17):
what you said about, you know,kind of that concept of hiding
in plain sight with your storyabout Ted, and I think that I
also love the use of the wordnormalization. That's something
that we have talked about a lotaround here, in particular with
inclusivity for people who arein recovery in their workplaces,
because there is such a culturalphenomenon of happy hours and
(17:41):
drinking and having to explainwhy you're not drinking. And you
know, there definitely is amovement, I think, in that
direction which is reallypositive, again, happily not
using abstaining from alcoholicbeverages. I would userecovery
loosely with my lifestyle, likeI do not attend meetings, I do
(18:03):
not do those things, but I amvery intentional about how I
live my life and why I live,live my life, and those
individuals that do participatein meetings and that works
awesome, and I love it, and I'mso happy for you, and I commend
you. That's just not for me, butto teach their own, right? But I
will never forget going golfingafter I was, like, six months
(18:26):
without and normally, you know,the guys would get together,
we'd golf, and there'd be somealcoholic beverages and all the
things. And I'll just neverforget, like, being on, you
know, the 14th, 15th hole withmy friends just going, I can't
wait to get off this. Course, itwasn't even fun for me. You
know, there was the samenormalizing alcohol where it got
(18:46):
to the point where definitelytipsy and not, and behaviors I
participated in for years andyears and years, not not
knocking them. It was just whathappened, you drank a little bit
too much. And, you know, you yougo from not talking at all the
first few holes to talking alot, and then, not only talking
a lot, maybe using words andjargons and language you
(19:08):
normally otherwise wouldn't use,talking about stories from the,
you know, 20 years old. And Ijust, I just didn't want to do
that anymore. And so I had tofind a new group of friends that
when I did golf with, you know,we talked about maybe sauna,
cold plunge, what did you foryour wife on Mother's Day? What
did I do for for my wife? Like,how could you get back self
(19:30):
care, you name it. And so Ithink you have to find a group
that ultimately you want tochange with, and people you want
to change with that, you cannormalize this new way of life
and feel really confident inyourself. Because if, if you go
and you're consistently worriedabout the same thing, like, do I
(19:50):
fit in? You know, this isuncomfortable for me, I
encourage you to find a newgroup, because there are people
that will. To absolutely takeyou in like a sponge and want to
grow with you, and want to seethe new season of life change
through their changes thatthey've made. So that's one
encouragement I just want toshare with the audience, is
(20:10):
don't like don't dwell on thosemoments that it maybe didn't go
good for you. You know one timeor two times back after that, or
you know, that work happy hour,and you've said no, no, no, and
the one time you go, someonesays, Well, why aren't you
drinking? Luke, and then youcan, you know, just kind of
like, politely excuse yourself,and then you might find a
(20:31):
different event at work.
Craig Knighton (20:38):
Luke, maybe I could tie the your conversation
about community to your producthere a little bit, and maybe
what is it's happening andcoming, part of the big ideas of
what you're building. It occursto me that the world has been
trying to solve this problem.
People have things they surviveand need to recover from, and
people look for other peoplelike them in that process, but
(21:01):
there really isn't a way, andGoogling is not the answer to
that question. There isn't a wayto find that new community, that
new group of friends, at leastnot in a way I see that as being
one of the keys to preventionand to avoiding the hard bottom
right by starting to make somesubtle changes like that early
(21:23):
is that? Is that on the roadmap?
What are you doing, from thepoint of view of not just
building content like you arerelated to these things we share
as problems, but but to enablingthe recovery process and the
building new friendships and newcommunities, is that part of the
vision?
Luke (21:42):
Oh my gosh, my best friend. We just did a podcast
yesterday. Her name is Jengaraly. She is amazing. I love
her. She's founder of theMindful Drinking Movement,
sober, curious. That works allof it. I love her and her
concepts in the conversationaround workplace, normalizing or
(22:02):
lack thereof of alcohol, whenthe workplace, I think, is, I
think it's ahead of its time.
Like I told her yesterday, itsaid you're Tesla, everybody
else is going to haveElon Musk,like him. Hate him. I'm just
saying like you're Tesla. You'rethinking ahead on the electronic
battery. And, you know, runningelectronic vehicles, you're
doing the same thing with soberworkforce recovery, workforce
(22:24):
normalizing the lack of alcohol,normalizing, you know, non
alcoholic happy hours, likeyou're there, you're just ahead
of your time. And so she, sheknows that she's doing some
wonderful things, yeah, andyou're probably still very much
in the phase where you're notreally worried yet about how
you're going to make money,because you're mostly trying to
(22:45):
drive engagement. Buildcommunities. Build these, these
groups, right that that find andstay engaged and stay there for
each other as a community, andthen the ways to make it a
business emerge from that.
Craig Knighton (23:03):
But is there anything you want to say about
what you think is going tohappen there, or is it just too
early to tell?
Luke (23:11):
Yeah, bear with me for one second. So when we were we were
building cadre, we were talkingabout, truly the problem, right?
Like, what really is theproblem? You know, they always
say, like, build the problemyou're trying to solve. Dot,
dot, dot. But first of all, whatreally is the problem? And the
problem is, you're driving onthis road, and you're either
going to take a left or a right.
The left is, I'm going to googleit, and the right is, it's a
(23:34):
little too late, and I need oneto one acute services for
whatever this might be, right?
So you're off to the left or offto the right, what you find is
there's this big, big space inthe middle that nobody has
really had that drive straightahead yet. And what the drive
straight ahead for us is isalways been okay. Let's start
with content, live streaming,pre recorded content, and then
(23:58):
as of I think, three months ago,we built in now all the
different community features. Sowe have 12 different communities
that are public communities. Sowhen you join cadre, you
actually select the communitiesthat you want to be involved in.
Next phase is now placing ourcoaches. We've had 150 people
(24:18):
that have participated indeveloping and creating content
on cadre, but now it's puttingeach one of those coaches into
each one of those communities,and they are going to be able to
provide, which I'm so jackedabout, free coaching, to groups,
to community groups, so and thenthe one to one services is,
obviously, is cost. There's nodoubt about it. But for to
(24:42):
provide those communityengagements, we do our own in
person events. We provide thosecommunal events. We've done it
virtual. We've done all of it,but to create actual communities
driven for representative nichesthat we can say, Let's use an
example, retired policeofficers. We could literally
(25:04):
create a community and haveretired I'm just using that as
an example, like you couldcreate anything that you want
now on cadre. So not only is itin the roadmap, it has been one
of those things that we've likeliterally put a flag down the
ground to say we will createcommunity, and we are going to
continue to create community at1000 5000 100,000 plus
(25:27):
individuals, and we are going toensure that the community is
driven specifically niche based,which is really important. So
back to the point of like,showing up with those people,
participating in things withthose individuals, because then
the sky's the limit from there,you can basically say, Oh, those
folks can connect on their own.
The coach could lead the group.
(25:48):
We could have representativewebinars, specific live streams,
creating content accordingly,developing work group plans. You
know, we could do all of it fromthere. So I would say we're
anywhere between three to sixmonths out to have, like our
fully communal development buildexactly how we want to, but you
(26:10):
got to live and learn throughall the development when you're
building tech. I'll just tellyou that right now. Never done
it before, but it's been anamazing process. This may sound
really crass, so I want to becareful. I have in the last 13
years, 12 years, it's never,ever been about money. And
(26:30):
having it not be about money hadallowed for an eight digit sale
of an organization that Istarted. It was never about it.
It was never about it, and it'sstill never about it. And if you
if your driver is revenue, I'dencourage you to go back to the
think tank and wonder why you'redoing what you're doing. And you
(26:51):
really have to think like, whydid we build North Star
behavioral health? We wanted tochange as many lives of those
individuals suffering fromopioid use disorder. That was
it. That was our mission. We aregoing to help as many people
that need help. We just didn'tfill a bed, to fill a bed,
right? Like, no, we're going tohelp the right person get the
right help at the right time,support those individuals, save
(27:12):
lives, do whatever it takes.
It's the same thing here, right?
Like, if the number one driver,which also is, like, why we
didn't raise VC money, why we'venever went private equity, why
we didn't race to the next sale?
No, let's do it right? Like Itold the group, like we are
going to go tortoise, rabbit,and then we'll go faster, but
like, we want to growaccordingly to ensure that we
(27:33):
can make the most amount ofimpact. And if we can't do that,
I mean, what are we doinganyhow?
Craig Knighton (27:40):
It's fantastic and it's noble, quite frankly,
that that's the case they Ithink what I'm getting at is
that is that this is the reasonthat the world and or at least
the free market, so to speak,hasn't solved the prevention
problem yet. Not only is it notsexy, nobody understands the
(28:00):
direct line to the building abusiness out of it. And I think
whether it would be thegovernment, which is probably
the wrong organization to try totackle and solve that problem,
or someone with your thinking,which is that, as long as you
just do good, the money willfollow, right? The do good, and
(28:21):
they will come. That's enough.
Luke (28:24):
One of the major issues with prevention is the abstract,
right? So I'll give you anexample.For every 7% of
individuals that become less.
I'm just going to use adiabetic. Over the next 20
years, we will save $780 millionin health care costs, blah,
(28:44):
blah, blah, blah, blah. And Ithink it's really hard to
conceptualize that, and also toprove the ROI of it, to finance
guy and all those other peoplethat you're trying to prove,
like, let's move the initiativeforward. Let's move it because,
you know, they're living intheir quarterly earnings this
quarter, right? Like they're,you know, can, can we make an
(29:06):
impact? What does it do? Thebottom line, what is this? What
is this? And like, I think, yes,I understand that, but there's a
short sighted approach to it.
When you talk about humanbeings, human human beings are a
long term investment, a longterm investment in the short
(29:26):
term investments. Cause, in myhumble opinion, ear, what's that
word error or something harm?
Help me out. You know it's wordI'm trying to say. Like, if all
you're thinking about the shortterm and quickly helping the
short term. I just believe in myheart of hearts, you will miss
the long term potential of thehuman being that you're talking
(29:50):
we prescribe to a similarthought process here. And when
we started our little venture,we always had that in mind, you
know, and it was just a Matter,some interests changing for me
in terms of wanting to go theclinical route, which I have
really enjoyed, but I'm alsolooking forward to now that I
have that exposure to maybe getback into trying to help solve
(30:11):
some of these problems. Now thatI have that clinical lens, it
felt important I got a goodproblem for you to solve with
that so in the 10 years thatI've operationalized residential
treatment programs through thestate of Minnesota. We always
talk about value based care, allright, value based care. VVC,
it's coming. It's coming. It'scoming. Number one, what does
(30:34):
that actually mean, and why doesit mean it so bear with me. We
have had probably 20 to 22audits over the course of the
years where you're evaluated forservice delivery. What you're
actually doing is trying to meetcompliance standards. That's it.
(30:55):
So you're there's never oncebeen a question ever from
insurance, from the state ofMinnesota, from the Department
of Health, from the Departmentof Human Services, that has ever
asked me in 10 years aboutquality of care, the only
quality that's defined is, areyou compliant? And if you're
(31:16):
compliant, you can bill, and ifyou can bill, you can keep your
lights on, or you can, quote,unquote, hire and grow and do
all the things. Theinterventions of every
organization are built to ensureyou're compliant, not change
lives. So if you really want tomake an impact, and you want to
talk about value based care andwhat interventions are working
(31:41):
and why, and build data andpreventative data behind it.
DeAnn, you have a gold mine ofan opportunity to make a huge
change, because those are factslike, that's not just pie in the
sky. You know, founder talkingabout these are, this is our
reality. And so I wouldencourage as many individuals as
(32:02):
possible to use technology forgood to say, are the
interventions working? Is thisan opportunity to we improve
human lives that actually havean exorbitant amount of spend in
substance abuse and residentialtreatment? Does it work? How
does it work? Why does it work,and what is the impact? Those
(32:22):
are questions we should besolving. Yes, there's
compliance, and it's important.
It is like bad actors all thethings, right? But the most
important thing is, are we doingright by the people that we get
the privilege to work with?
Craig Knighton (32:38):
I'm sure everybody by now is wondering,
how do I find out more? How do Iget my hands on this? Maybe tell
us where they should go
Luke (32:45):
first. I want to say, thank you. Thank you for
inviting me. Thank you forhaving me on. I love talking
about this. As you can tell, I'mvery, very passionate about the
space and the work. I love itmore than anything. It means a
lot to me. I am not likepersonally for myself, like,
people say, like, follow along.
I'm not on Facebook, Instagram,Twitter, Tiktok, I'm not in any
(33:06):
of them. I'm on cadre. The onethat I have to be on for
business wise, is LinkedIn. So Iam there. So if you ever want to
connect or participate in thenetworking that's available on
LinkedIn, I'm happy toparticipate with you there. Just
look me up and on cadre, you cansee, like my social journey, and
participate with me and see whatthat's like. And you're going to
(33:27):
find that there's really nothingbut good out there. And you're
learning a lot on cadre, whichis our goal, and how to do it on
either App Store, Google orApple Stores, either one. Just
literally search cadre, C, A, D,R, E, and you can have seven
days, you know what? Just useaccess code inspired all
capitals, and you can have it onme forever. So just use access
(33:50):
code inspired and with a D, makesure you have a D inspired with
a D, and then you can have cadreforever on me. And I hope that
there's some parts to it, thatif you need it one time a month,
one time a year, or one timeevery day, that is great, too.
Whatever you need it for, wehope it works and it supports
(34:11):
you and your own journey.
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