Hello and welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Ross. For a variety of reasons and not always understood, there's been a pretty significant increase in diagnosed rates of anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions in the US, and even in other countries over the past decade. Some of it may have to do with better systems of diagnosis, and some of it is still a mystery. But what we do know is that access to mental health care here in the US is not always easy. For starters, there is a shortage of providers. For black Americans, the challenge is even more acute. As of 2020, only 4% of psychologists in the US were black, which means it can be particularly hard for black patients to find mental health providers who can relate to their experiences. Lorenzo Lewis saw this crisis firsthand while working with young incarcerated boys and men in Arkansas. So he decided to find a way to help black men and boys talk about depression, anxiety, and trauma with someone they could trust. And Lorenzo realized the best person for the job might just be a barber. Lorenzo founded the Confest Project, which trains barbers in predominantly black neighborhoods to become frontline therapists. The project has now trained thousands of barbers across the country, and Lorenzo is getting ready to expand it even further by partnering with insurance companies. For Lorenzo, this isn't just a social enterprise. It's personal. He was literally born in a prison. Both of Lorenzo's parents were incarcerated at the time of his birth. And as a young boy, he suffered from undiagnosed depression and anxiety. Born to an incarcerated mother in jail, my life stepped in. Is your aunt Daisy, right? Yeah, yeah, my aunt Daisy. So I stepped in and from there I lived rest of my childhood and younger adulthood in Little Rock, Arkansas. With Daisy and her husband T, right? Yes, T-royus, yes. And so basically they were like your surrogate mom and dad. But from what I understand, even as a kid, I mean, you probably didn't realize it as a kid. You only realized it as an adult. That, I mean, just that upbringing took its toll. I mean, you were depressed and anxious as a little boy. Yeah, yeah. And I was really lost and I was confused. And also it really tampered with my self-identity and who I was, you know, not knowing you're having the closest relationship with your mother and father, truly. And I believe rupture your own identity. So all of that to be said, it deaccombs early stage depression simply because of grappling with the challenges as a young person. I read something that where you described how when you were a kid at school, they would, you know, have like parents day or show and tell and parents would come in and or they'd ask which your parents did. And it was always like a moment of shame for you because you, you were raised by your aunt and uncle and you felt like, you know, you didn't have a mom and dad to talk about. Yeah, yeah. And it was, it was always a interesting experience because my uncle were pretty well-loved business owners. And, you know, I had this like very confused and imagery of myself because one side of me was, you know, a kid that was full of life. You know, you got to imagine I went home and there was always a cook meal that never went without, you know, water, lights. You know, I didn't live in pure poverty, gratefully. And so my uncle did a really good job of, you know, being in a, it's time of a middle-class family that I think they provided and worked hard. But on the other side of this was, you know, I also knew that my mother and father was not in the picture. And the story that heard of them was not the best stories. You know, my mother had been on drugs, you know, my father was in another gym and they didn't have stable jobs and they didn't have college degrees. Or rather, they didn't have a story of building businesses or any type of accolades that I could break on. So it was the other side of me that looked at myself as a failure, you know, as a kid because of how I viewed my mother and father, you know. And so there was always a very confusing connection between how could I explain, you know, who my parents are and where do I come from. And so I think that in itself was, you know, put me in a, truthfully, in a depressive state. I'm just reading about how just kids were teasing you or, and then you found out your father had died when you were in third grade. And there were all these things happening in your life. And so, I mean, not surprising, you were acting out, but you were identified as a kid who was like a troublemaker essentially. And that by the time you got to to high school, you'd been, you know, skipping classes and there was a basically an incident when you were in high school where I guess a friend of yours got beaten up by some other kids and you decided that you wanted to go take revenge and you actually had a gun and you were ready to go. What happened? Yeah, you know, at the time I always said it was my friend's battle that he had with a gentleman that, you know, we was tied into local gang stuff and, you know, he had got jumped on weeks prior at a basketball game and, you know, obviously had got embarrassed. And so it was like, it was revenge and it was wanting to take them out. And, you know, myself being new to the gang life, wanting to prove myself, wanting to, you know, show up in that moment. I literally showed up in that moment and everything ended on me and I ended up doing going to jail and they all walked away from it. Great for me. We did not, you know, discharge the firearm. We didn't kill anyone. No one was hurt, but it was, you know, obviously being caught with a firearm under age, it did leave me the juvenile detention. And you were, and you were, I think incarcerated for about three months as a 17-year-old kid. Yeah, it was very short. After my release, I was, you know, on probation and almost a sense of house arrest for about six months to a year. You got, in a sense, lucky because I guess the judge at the time gave you a second chance that they charged you with a misdemeanor, not a felony conviction. So you were put on probation. And that was sort of a catalyst for you that you wanted to figure out how to turn your life around. What did you, what'd you do? Yeah, so, you know, I was, you know, I dived the felony conviction, you know, I think about I was one month away from my 18 birthday and going through that moment really allowed me to look outward and at the time the judge gave me a second shot. I told that I would go to college and I looked to get my life on the right track. I believe at that time I told that I wanted to be a lawyer and I was looking to go to school and explore law. And however, my path went to a different direction, but I had really great intent and I did go to college and graduated. You know, I believed at that moment being in jail, freedom taken away. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. I don't wish it on my own worst enemy. But I believe that it allowed me to think graciously about my future and it really allowed me to step into my next evolution after being a part of street life. You decided to go work with kids who had similar backgrounds to yours and who were also in an out of incarceration and in trouble and social services. And I guess this work was for the Arkansas Department of Human Services. And you started that work. What did you start to notice? What did you start to see, I guess, like patterns when you were working with teenagers and kids who were troubled? Yeah. I saw my younger self. So imagine there was some kids, 16 and 17. In some aspects, I almost went to school with them. Right. And so it was very interesting connection that I believe I was a greater impact because I could really relate. Yeah. And so the music, the fashion, I understood just everything, right. And so, but what I really noticed deeply that these young people were really hurting. Yeah. That they were facing mental health challenges. They were facing poverty. They were facing not knowing their fathers. And so that was my calling to, you know, to really work and support young men. And it led me to the next 10 years of working in the mental health field and working at hospitals and facilities. And I was really prepared to do more. When you started to see these boys, right, that you were working with, and it was clear that they were suffering from deep seated trauma. They were experiencing depression, anxiety, all related to the things they saw in their lives and what they experienced. When you started to talk to some of these boys about things like depression or anxiety, was it at first hard to crack that shell? Because these are, you know, these boys and boys sometimes girls too, but boys want to be tough. They don't want to talk about things like that. Absolutely. And, you know, I believe that, you know, what was so, so, so critical about this entire experience was that I felt that I had a way and a connection.
to their heart and who they were. And so it really, it was very difficult. There was young men there that really had a lot of deep seated issues, but you know, that it was one thing inside of them and there was a ray of hope. I felt like majority of them wanted to do right. However, their background and their experiences, but truthfully the trauma, the generational trauma, that a lot of them were connected to was the reason that some of them couldn't turn to the corner. - Hmm. And I guess what you started to notice is that the therapists and psychologists that were working with the boys might be, you know, perfectly good at their jobs, right? But they were professionals, right? But they weren't always well equipped to relate to the boys because their experiences were so different. And so the mental health services that they were able to provide there, if there were any were, I guess, oftentimes inadequate. - Yeah, absolutely. And I believe, you know, that there was a true disconnect between providers and the patient population. You know, when you think about 4% of psychiatrists are African-Americans in the United States. And so I even think about 10 years ago, 15 years ago, then, when I was first starting the industry, I was imagining that if it was 4% now, I can imagine, it was way less then. - Yeah. - And so as I became more educated about the field and the systemic challenges in the field, that's why I became an advocate and supporting young people and families and adults, particularly in the black community around mental health. - Yeah. So essentially from what I understand in 2015, you had this idea, you're thinking, look, there's very little access to mental health treatment for black men and black boys. Why don't we bring it to them? Why don't we figure out a way to get therapy to them in an easy, accessible way? And you landed on this idea of starting with a barbershop. How did you come up with that idea? - First off, I was very interested in seeking freedom and to be honest with you, I was seeking freedom from my corporate job at the time. And I was over the day to day of going to work from eight to five, believing in nine to nine. That's how it really started. I felt like I had so much more to give. I hadn't been empowered on how to really show up and be creative because of all the trauma and challenges I went through, no one ever told me, I could really be creative and really do more. And luckily I had a colleague who had worked in the social enterprise space and was doing amazing work and really encouraged me to think deeply about how could I utilize my story in helping young men and helping people. And I kind of blew the idea off, but however, I had an idea to really want to impact men and men that looked like myself. And I went on this journey and starting off with wanting to have one simple focus group of men to come around a table so and talk about their problems. And it was just about how do you package this? And it just started with, let's just start here. And that was a focus group at a library. We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back more from Lorenzo about how he took one small focus group and turned it into a fully flitched social enterprise now servicing thousands of black men and boys across the country. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to how I built this lab. Welcome back to how I built this lab, I'm Guy Roz. My guest is Lorenzo Lewis. He's the founder of the Confess Project. It's a company that's using the power and network of barbershops to change mental health for the better. So when you took the first step in trying to gather men and boys together to talk about their mental health, you, I guess you initially tried to get them together at a library, but not a lot of people showed up. Was it just a few people? - Yeah, yeah, just a few people. So it was definitely not the best turnout when marketing heavily, but a few people showed. And I think that in itself was the motivation behind just really taking it to a place where I knew that men really could explore in a deeper way. And so just had this wild idea about what about talking about mental health in the barber shop. And I looked up, there was a few things going on across the country, but I'm standing in deep south and Arkansas, and no one had, you know, truthfully in the southeast, I believe, had really pioneered an idea of such. So I went for it. I went to my first barber that I knew that I had a pretty good relationship with. - This is a Little Rock Arkansas. - Yes, and Little Rock Arkansas. And the first thing he told me was, man, I don't know if that's something I would want to do. I don't want my clients to get offended. - Well, fair enough, right? Because he's thinking, I don't want to get in there private lives and I don't want to like start to poke and prod and it's under my business. That's a normal reaction. - Yes, yes, absolutely. It is, but it really encouraged me when he said that because I had already seen this take place, years of working in private facilities and I knew that it was possible. You know, beyond the barber shop, I had already been hosting groups before and I knew, you know, how to start these conversations I already. And so it was just needing the environment outside of these hospitals and outpatient or inpatient facilities because one of the things that always takes place inside of these hospitals and facilities is that there's a stigma to that because of the locations involved people being seen, people not wanting to. - Being in like a waiting room. - Yeah, absolutely. You know, nobody is proudly wanting to walk into an hospital to say, hey, I'm getting help for my brain. - Yeah, I gotta tell you, in my 20s, when I used to go see somebody regularly, I was always scared that one of my colleagues would see me in the waiting room. I was always nervous about that. It's terrifying feeling like, what if something sees me and knows I'm going to seek help and stuff and obviously things have changed today. But yeah, I mean, it's like this feeling of, I don't know, right? And so here you've got this opportunity to do in a barber shop. How did you do it the first time? How did it work? Like you got this one barber shop to agree to be sort of the guinea pig. And what did you do? Did you train the barber? So did you start by you going in and talking to just people, just customers? - Yeah, yeah. So my first opportunity was in Little Rock, Arkansas with Goodfellas, barber shopping. Great barber by the name of Matt Dillon, that he was really involved in the community, giving away backpacks, doing free haircuts. I mean, he was depicting me of a community barber. And so he bought into the idea, it was like, hey, let's try it, you know. And it'd be honest, a lot of his barbers, I believe were a bit caught off guard. - It were like, I cut hair, I'm not a therapist. - Yeah. But you know, honestly, God believed the one of the things that really stood out was that I just went in and say, hey, guys, I just know I want to have a conversation about life. - Yeah. - And I just began to tell my story. That as I've told you here on this interview, I've told my story about being born to an incarcerated mother and going to jail and having family members who were strong out on drugs and interactions with the police. And you know, these guys kind of looked at me and some of them kind of stopped their clippers and nodded their head at the time. And I could tell they understood. And so I made it about life, but then it went into, well, hey, guys, I really want to talk about mental health as well. And there are some resources that are available. And there are some things that, you know, we can do to counter these challenges that we've been faced with. And that's truly when I believe the can open. And we had tons of people talking, right? I never forget we filmed it. And it was, it's like they didn't want to stop. And so it was contagious. And I felt deeply in love with it. Felt in love with it enough to start traveling all over the country talking about it. So, but that's how it started. It was just a story in the barbershop. And it was in the middle of four to five barbers and clippers are going to TV as well. And it was unscripted. It was just real. It was wrong. It led to what became the Confess Project, which is what you run now. And the idea is to train barbers in things like active listening and asking open-ended questions and giving positive feedback to their customers just to be there, just to listen, right? And how do you train them? How do you do the training? Yeah, absolutely. So it is, it's a four-tier model, four-point model rather that's focused on active listening, which is no kind of to be an empathetic validation, which is validating ones, feelings, emotions, positive communication, teaching barbers as to how to communicate with others, what are terms, link goals that can be deteriorated to someone's emotional health, what are positive affirmations that can be uplifted when talking to someone. And then the last one is still--
reduction. How do we dissolve stigma? How do we know to say, hey, their IP is not taboo and how to have conversation around it. So it's really up here intervention that barbers have between the 30 to 45 minutes of cutting someone's hair. It's like a conversation that they've been having. But now it's structured and someone that's saying that they're having a rough day, they can tap into that active listening tool. If someone is argumentative or they're agitated, they can validate their person and not argue with them further. They have tools, they have these steps. And so now it's no longer just the story. It's now a curriculum that's that we train barbers and stylists on how to have a conversation about life, family, business and politics. But at the same time, it's a tool, you know, that can be used. And that's how we train barbers and stylists on how to use this framework. Essentially how to be empathetic. Yes, absolutely. And it's a lot of them believe that they were already therapists before. Yeah. Yeah. And they're all rights they are because they've helped people to put guns down to go back and rebuild marriages to build relationships with their children. They watch people to have in children to bury their family members. And so it's a, in our retrospect, this is something that they've been doing. And so we've just provided them now to the scalable. And it's a reach will and it's very simple. I'm curious, Lorenzo. Obviously, this is a first step, right? Like if somebody really needs help, what happens if somebody opens up to one of the barbers and really is indeed of, you know, sort of a greater level of intervention? What, what happens then? Yeah, absolutely. So if someone, you know, makes a mention that I don't want to live any longer, they're able to pivot to giving their resource about 988 or, you know, call the suicide lifeline or, hey, call this therapist. So, you know, we have two real life things that happen. One piece is we had a barber in Philadelphia that, you know, had a client sitting this chair and said, Hey, this is my last haircut. When I get out of the chair, I'm, I'm going to walk in traffic and take my life. And, you know, at that time, the barber had no idea how to respond. He had no prior training. And the guy went missing. You know, he had a psychiatric episode and, and he was just lost. And up, he found the guy. Luckily, he was safe. But on the other hand, we have a similar scenario rather of a client that didn't want to live any longer, made it mentioned to the barber, but we had trained him two weeks prior. He was able to utilize the tools and was able to get a therapist to respond to the call. And so two different stories, two different reasons, very similar situations. You know, the training was able to help elevate that gentleman to get their client connected to services. And so that's why it's so important that we continue to do this. So it's like, I mean, these barbers are the first line of defense. I mean, not to take this analogy too far, but it's like, if you were to train millions of people in CPR training and they could save a life until EMT's arrived, that's essentially what this is. Correct. That's exactly what it is. And so I'm glad that you said that. God, that is the model that I had in mind as we began to grow. What's that? Anybody could, you know, go through this training and they would be an advocate, not an expert, but an advocate if someone who can help to revive in that moment and to get someone to actual therapy. So that's why I call it a peer intervention tool. Then be an advocate. We need more advocates that can, you know, have these tools because there's not enough culturally competent therapies. And so having a neighborhood barbershop, a barber that everyone knows that works with our homeless neighbors to our principals, to our city officials rather. This is someone that anyone can go to to get the resources from. And that was how we thought of this model. Do you encourage the barbers to like engage and to start conversations? Because sometimes I mean, and I've all experienced this. And I'm, you know, because what I do, I'm an interviewer. I'm always asking people questions. And sometimes I get the sense of people don't like it. You know, that they'll say, why are you, why ask me personal questions? So it's not your business. Like what, what happens? What do you, how do you advise the barbers when the customer's like, what's their business? What do you ask them all these questions for? You know, honestly, it's because it is a conversation that they're having with their clients anyway. Like they're talking with them about, how did you week go and how's your children doing the house? How's life going right? Oh, they're getting the chair and they're telling them about, you know, I had a fender bender, right? You know, like, I got a family member that's in and out of the hospital, you know, someone that's that's not doing well from COVID. They already have these conversations, right? And so these tools and this framework that I've discussed is in place to pivot and help to train them in a talking manner around supporting their clients. And so it's their to probe questions when someone makes a comment that may be detrimental to their mental health or maybe they notice, hey, this person is not grooming like they know me, what a, well, maybe they noticed that this person has just not been themselves, right? And so now they're able to assess the situation and say, okay, you know, let us reach out to the confess project and let us reach out to these resources in our local area. Because in normal aspect, these are business owners who are just trying to make a living. So in their wildest imagination is that they never have to do this, right? But the reality of it is they may have to and they will because of the amount of people that are facing issues every day that are in and out of these barbershop episode. And so, you know, I think that that's how we're really helping them to show up is that they're still having normal conversations and they're still giving a haircut, giving them a trim, putting the rays around them, you know, making them feel good. And that's when these tools are pretty used. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, more from Lorenzo Lewis, the founder of the Confess Project, stay with us. I'm Guy Razz and you're listening to How I Built This Lab. Welcome back. You're listening to How I Built This Lab. Today, I'm speaking with Lorenzo Lewis. It's a social enterprise that trains barbers and hairstyles across the country to become mental health advocates. What is it about the barbers, Cheras? I was thinking about like, um, like these experiences that I had with my barbers that when I lived in Washington DC, um, I got to know my barber well and know his life story. I mean, he came across the border and came to the US and under treacherous circumstances and, you know, eventually built this incredible business. My barber here in the Bay Area was addicted to drugs and, you know, almost dead and turns life around and now owns this very successful barbershop. And I know that because I've just gone there and we just talk and you just, there's something about sitting in that chair where you, I don't know, like, you pour your heart out to people or they tell you their stories. What explains it? Why? You know, historically, barbershops were known for so many things. So if you go deeper back, there's literature there, um, the black barbershop. And it talks about as one of the first jobs that, you know, even back as modernist, his flavor is that men were able to, you know, shave, you know, even the slave owners, right? You know, there was one of the few jobs that they could have. And so it goes as even far back as you think about the civil rights era and, you know, and the Martin brothers, and Dr. Martin Luther King and the NAACP utilized barbershops as a, um, organizing arena, voting. And as you even think about now with, you know, shots in the shop during COVID, you know, there was vaccines given at the barbershops to keep people healthy. So it's, it's been a long tenure of connection to the barber chair historically. Um, and so that's the history behind the black barbershop is it goes very deep. And I believe that it's, um, we're just taking on the, the lineage that is, it's provided for so many years and what has been providing for the public for so many years. Yeah. But it is like so intimate. You're sitting in that chair. It's just you and that person. And even though there's other people around you, you feel like there's like an invisible wall around you, where what you say is just between the two of you. Yeah. No, you're so spot on. I always tell people it's probably one of the most, you know, intimate channels, um, that allows me to get as close to them with a razor, you know, without being offended, right? So, yeah, it's a interesting caveat for sure. Yeah. How many barbershops are now part of this network of the Confess Project? You know, I've lost count. We, you know, our team is constantly trying to buy the day, but I do know as of December 31st, 2022, we're trying 2000.
barbers across 48 cities and 28 states, probably composing over 300 to 400 barbershops and schools. So we do train schools, but definitely, you know, each barber can reach up to about 100 patrons a month, and that's a new and existing clients. Let me ask you about the business side of this, because of course we're a business show, and this is a social enterprise. It's a non-profit, but you also are transitioning into a different phase of the Invest project, in part, because being a non-profit means you have to spend a lot of time raising money to finance this project, but you have a new model that you're working on. Can you talk a little bit about that and how how you're going to implement that? Yeah, absolutely. So we've formed a joint venture that will help to lift up us working with insurances and you know, Medicaid and Medicare helping to navigate people to behavioral health services, helping to get people to whether that's housing and transportation needs. We noticed in our research guide that we've done, you know, we worked with Harvard University, we worked with Georgia State University, and in our research, the barbers and the clients have stated that we can provide the services that they will come and that they will follow through better. So we're not doing that through this new model. This is also going to be a sustainable financial model. So we're pitching this, a barbershop, someone leave there, they talk to a barber, they're feeling good, they want to get help. We have a model now in which we're having interest all across the country, obviously, but we're really honing in in the city of Atlanta, where this will be our first clinic to provide these services, do care coordination and patient navigation, but it will allow us to to do billing, particularly and to be reimbursed for my time beyond the barbershop. And also we're even looking at opportunities where the barbers can be reimbursed for their time because there are selective states where they can be seen as healers because they're already doing the work, they're doing peer intervention work. So there are funds out there that allows, I see even reimbursed our barbers. So that's a longer, a longer picture that we're working on, but in the short term, this model is becoming a healthcare model, essentially, where we'll provide these case management, care management services to people that are coming out of these facilities. And it will allow us to have a much more sustainable model outside of raising for grants and sponsorships and donations. We've been grateful over the last few years, a partner with people like Gillette and really, some foundations who've given us a sustainable two to three year roles of capital, but however we know that this new model will allow us to always bill for our time. And so that's really going to be exciting, a lot of growth, a lot of people have always wondered what happens or what if the barber came made the connection where now we have people who can make the connection. The rents are in 10 years time or 20 years time. What do you want TCP to look like? What's your vision? Honestly, I see TCP being a thriving ecosystem, whether it's, whether it's not taking the road of what Kaiser may be with a thriving health ecosystem to support, you know, people of all walks of life. And now as we get into this new model, we will serve more than just people of color. You know, it obviously, you know, a lot of these different financial sources geared towards supporting more people outside of just black people. So the confessed project will continue to serve its primary audiences. But as we develop the new joint model that we're developing now, it will serve people of, you know, mental health for all and supporting people of all different backgrounds and walks of life. I'm really excited about that because, you know, as we all are better and connected, we can do so much more together as well. And so I'm really excited about providing that value to the general public as we grow. But I see there's been a pretty big ecosystem that provides value around the quality of life, whether it's housing, transportation, health, really sending people a stronger and better, but also with a very intentional connection to seeing people who they really are. And it's my story where I've come from being seen and heard and building a safe space is so important. And that's one of the the threads that I feel that's going to separate us from a lot of other models is that we will see people for who they really are, identically because of just the people that we hire and our morals and principles in our, in our organization and companies. Lorenzo Lewis of the confessed project. Thanks so much. Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for listening to How I Built This Lab. Please do follow us on your podcast app, so you always have the latest episode downloaded. If you want to follow us on Twitter, our account is at How I Built This In Mine is @GuysRaz. And on Instagram, I'm @GuysRaz. If you want to contact the team, our email address is
[email protected]. This episode was produced by Carla Estevez with editing by John Isabella. Our music was composed by Rammstein Arableui. Our audio engineer was Stacey Abbott. Our production team and how I built this includes Alex Chung, Kacey Herman, Chris Messini, Elaine Coates, J.C. Howard, Sam Paulson, Kerry Thompson, and Kira Joaquin. Niva Grant is our supervising editor, Beth Donovan is our executive producer. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built This.
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