Uncut Spanking, ADHD, & Raising Strong Kids – Dr. Edward Les – The Briefcase and The Barn

August 20, 2025

Uncut Spanking, ADHD, & Raising Strong Kids – Dr. Edward Les – The Briefcase and The Barn – Ep 57

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Ed Les: [00:00:00] There's a guy, uh, Mike Homan, who was a legendary, uh, emergency physician in Calgary. Okay. He's a, I think he was, that's where you did your residency in Calgary. What's that? That's where you did your residency in Calgary? Yeah. And so I did three years of pediatrics and then two years of emergency medicine after that.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Okay. As a fellowship. Oh. What's the difference between emergency medicine? What? Emergency medicine? That's just more just like, uh, like, like, um, focused on, uh, I guess the emergency, like my life. That's, that's where I work, right? Yeah. So I work

Ed Les: just in the emergency department at the, at the children's hospital.

Yeah. So I, I just see emerging cases, although,

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: but there's a specific stuff you learn so about people in emergency when they're in emergency.

Ed Les: Right. You, you learn how to run, run like trauma codes and that sort of thing. So anyway, Mike, Mike was almost certainly on the autism spectrum. I think he had Asperger's.

Alright. He worked only nights. Okay. And he worked, uh, so he, he, and he was a, an what I call an adult trained emergency physician, but he did pediatrics as well. So he split his time [00:01:00] half between the Foothill hospital and half the children's hospital. Oh yeah. And he worked in a, in a 365 day cycle, he worked 363 nights a year.

Wow. Right. You wanna talk about work life balance. There was none with Mike. Did he have a family? Yeah, he had, somehow, somehow he had a, he had a wife and he had a child, but he never saw them. So he, like, he worked every night and his life was governed by precision. So, you know, so we used to have a shift that ran from 11:00 PM until.

7:00 AM Yeah. And uh, you could just about say you were watch by when Mike would show up for work. So he showed up at 10 15. The door, the door to the emergency department was fling open. And Mike would come with his military bearing. Right. Brilliant doctor. And 10 15 he'd show up. So we all knew that if you could somehow impress Mike as a trainee, then you could do no wrong.

So, you know, people like me, we made it our mission to try to impress Mike. So Mike showed up [00:02:00] at 10 15, so I worked as much as I could with Mike 'cause he is a great teacher, a great mentor. So I made it my mission to show up at 9 45. So Mike had to work. I already had seen a couple of patients, had 'em teed up and ready to go.

Or, or, or managed or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he loved that, right? He's like, man, this guy gets to work before me. And then at the end of the night, so he'd work all night long shift over to seven. I'd be like, Mike. Because he would, he had a, he kept an apartment across the street from the foot of his hospital where he'd go and sleep for a few hours and he'd get up and have this little afternoon routine and he would sleep again.

And then he'd come to work at 9 45 again. So I would, you know, I would get there early, work all night, and then we'd send Mike home to sleep and then he'd stay and wrap up. So when it came time for me to get a job at the end of my fellowship, I didn't have to apply for a job. It was just implicit that, oh, yeah.

It was understood that on June the 30th, it was understood that on July the first, I, I'd be back on staff. I didn't have to apply for a job. I didn't have to interview for a [00:03:00] job. It was just understood that nice. Mike spoke for Ed. So he's good.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. What, what, uh, amount of, um, doctors going into or like residency are, uh, hardworking?

Like is it, given that they're all kinda hardworking because they're academics and, and, and going through this field, or is there a lot of guys that just like, they don't.

Ed Les: I think by definition you have to be a hardworking individual because, because the, uh, the, uh, ready? Sorry. The, uh,

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: no, just keep talking a bit.

Ed Les: Yeah. The bar for getting into medical school is set so high. Okay. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. That's good. Yeah.

Ed Les: The, the, the, the bar for getting into medical school is so high. So you have to really put in a gargantuan amount of work just to get there in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And, and then, and then medical school is intense.

Like, there's such a huge volume of if you're drinking from a prior hose of information. Yeah. And then residency is even more intense. So you have, you know, it, it's not as Okay. [00:04:00] Yeah. As it used to be. But, um, residency used to be, you know, particularly surgical rotations. You'd work 36 hours in a row. Oh, wow.

And then you'd have a, that's still today, that way. So the surgical res, the surgical rotations are still somewhat like that.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Oh, wow.

Ed Les: So you'll go to work at eight o'clock in the morning, but then if you're on call, then you stay all night and then you stay again the, the whole next day. So

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: do you have a chance to rep, you do have a chance to get some sleep though?

'cause I'm assuming doing surgery when you're awake for 24 hours, you're probably, so you're

Ed Les: awake the whole time.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Oh, okay. Yeah,

Ed Les: pretty much.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: And that's, that doesn't affect that levels of surgery. Surgery you're able to give. Well, you would think.

Ed Les: But you're young. And when you're young and you're a lot tougher, it gets harder when you get older.

You know,

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: these guys aren't popping adderalls all day. Yeah. How's your back, by the way? It's terrible. I finally got a, so I was gonna, I contacted that clinic Yeah. And, and got, got everything going to do private surgery. Yeah. Found some funding for it as well. And then my, uh, doctor who recommended me to a neurosurgeon, um, that neurosurgeon finally called [00:05:00] me and said, yeah, actually your case is priority.

Yeah. So we're gonna get surgery in the next three or four weeks here, so

Ed Les: Oh, yeah. So

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: definitely surgery. 'cause it's not settling down. No, it's not. It's been three and a half months now. Yeah.

Ed Les: Your MRI's pretty obvious. It's

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: bulging up. Yeah. I, I mean, I have the result. I'll show you later, but yeah, it's, uh, yeah.

Yikes. Yeah.

Ed Les: That's not fun. No, it's, what'd you do?

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Did you like, were you lifting something or? No, I was just all of a sudden just banging. I think it was 10 years of sitting on my butt. Never stretching. Yeah. Flying a lot. And then I did a lot of running and stairs didn't stretch. I think apparently a lot of your trauma is stored in your show as.

Yeah. Muscle. And, uh,

Ed Les: so like the work that you did before you were in the firearms industry. Firearms industry, was that a lot of desk work?

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Traveling and desk work, huh? Like, like two out of every four weeks I'd be gone. I'd be like sitting in plane all the time.

Ed Les: Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Huh. Yeah. So yeah, one day just like shooting temp pain down my leg and, and uh, it was quite bad, so I got chiro and massages and stuff like that, try to [00:06:00] get it down.

It was starting to go down a little bit and then all of a sudden, like four weeks in, it just got super bad. Yeah. So now it's about wake up at 3:00 AM two, 3:00 AM and I don't, it's like really bad until about 7:00 AM and then I kind of just stand all day. So I'll feel this for about an hour afterwards And,

Ed Les: huh.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. Yeah. It's not, not fun because you can't play with your kids. You can't run, you can't, no. Can't do anything. Well, surgery

Ed Les: will be transformative. The surgery's not complicated. Yeah. They just

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: cut some bone away or something. Yeah.

Ed Les: Go in and, you know, and get the, get the offending. You're gonna feel like your life is transformed.

I can't wait. Yeah. I can't wait. And so that neurosurgeon is in Abbotsford? No, uh, Vancouver. I

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Vancouver, Dr. Bri Brier. Brier. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. So

Ed Les: cool.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: You ready to go? Yeah, I'm good. There's your water there. Thanks. Um, have you watched any briefcases of the Barn episodes? You know, I have watched, yeah, I've

Ed Les: watched

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: a few.

Okay. It, welcome back guys to another episode of The Briefcase of the Barn, a series of the Furious RIA show where we talk [00:07:00] about business, life, Christianity, and more. Today we have special guest pediatrician Edward Less. He's a pediatric emergency physician, former veterinarian father, writer, and cancer survivor, and was on episode 30 of The Furious Show.

If you wanna check that out. Um, and on that episode you talked about writing this book Cloudy with a Risk of Children, straight Talk from the pediatric er. And so I said, Hey, when you write that book, when you publish it, come back on, we'll chat about it. So welcome back. Thank you. Um, get any feedback on, uh, the episode we did together?

Ed Les: Yeah. With, uh, good feedback. You know, uh, in my, uh, circle in, um, Calgary, I don't think your show is as well known as it is around here, but a few people have watched it and feedback was positive. Okay. How about, uh, on your end?

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah, it was good. Yeah. Usually I don't get the negative. I usually only get the positive, but yeah.

Ed Les: Yeah. Um, yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Would, would anything specific people have said to you or,

Ed Les: uh, let, just think about that? I think, uh, speed a [00:08:00] bit, but, uh, I think the one, one comment. Um, was that, uh, the, the, the, the two of you are both good storytellers.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Oh, okay.

Ed Les: Which, which is, uh, you know, and that's how I tried to write the, the book as well, you know, uh, when you're trying to make an argument or, uh, uh, you know, illustrate a concept, it works best if you can wrap it around a, a real life story or a story that you can, even if it's not real life, make it Yeah.

Based on real life. Yeah. Parallelisms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Cool.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah, I really like the book. Uh, I didn't read the whole thing, but what I really appreciated about it is that there's not, uh, like five chapters that are, you know, 20 pages long, but that there's 25, 30 chapters that are two pages long.

So you can, yeah. They're short, get through different topics. Was that intentional or did that happen to be just

Ed Les: intentional? You know, so I've been writing, um, let me think. Uh, I've been writing quite a bit since about 2018 or so. Okay. [00:09:00] And, uh, one thing I've learned in that time span is that, uh, people's attention span, um, probably compared with the pre, uh, internet age is, uh, shorter than it used to be.

Hmm. And the, uh, the sweet spot as far as getting people to read your stuff, like when, like I I, I read a substack and the, the sweet spot. The sweet spot as far as getting people to read and digest. What you write is around 750. 850 words.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Okay. Interesting.

Ed Les: And I, and I find that myself, I don't know how you are Kyle, but, uh, when I, when, you know, I, I, I follow a lot of different people.

Um, if people, if people are long-winded, I tend to read half of what they've written. Yeah, yeah. Or I skim to the end. Skip it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because there's so much, there's so much information out there, there's so much to read and so much to digest that the, the longer stuff just doesn't get read. Yeah.

Yeah. And this is the feedback I've had on the book so far, which is pretty much what you've, uh, said already, which is that the, uh, the chapters are short. Yeah. Easy to read. Um. Two or three or four pages. Yeah. I, [00:10:00] I, I do carry on a little bit in a couple of chapters. Yeah. Because I, I've written a lot about the, uh, gender transition Yeah.

World in the past on my substack.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: So I, I have, uh, a, a lot of, uh, history in that, uh, on that topic. And so that chapter's a bit longer, for example, because I I did it. Yeah. Yeah. Because I

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: just, I'm gonna start a, I just started a newsletter that I'll send out every week. Yeah. Um, you don't have a newsletter, right.

You just do it on substack only and on and on social media. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I, um, that's good to know about the 150 words thing. Yeah. I saw

Ed Les: your first iteration, so you, you're gonna do that every week? Yeah. Plan. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: yeah. I'm not exactly sure what I'm gonna write about, so I'm kind of nervous about it, but I told myself I'm just gonna send something.

You gonna send

Ed Les: that out by email or like, did you have Yeah, help me through

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: my, um, I use HubSpot.

Ed Les: Oh, HubSpot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Just write, write it on there and, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ed Les: Cool.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. And they created email list and people could search signing up and,

Ed Les: yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. What was your favorite chapter that you wrote in the book here?

Ed Les: don't really know that I have a favorite. Um, you know, the, the book has, if you've, uh, flipped through it, it's divided into two sections. And [00:11:00] so the, the first half is more garden variety, just pediatric topics for parents who are, have questions about fever or colic or sleep training, that sort of thing.

And then the other half is, uh, reading more my opinions on social and cultural issues, which is more. Kind of my wheelhouse. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so, you know, I, I, I, I think I enjoy writing that stuff a bit more. Yeah. Um, yeah. But it's all, it's also the stuff that's a bit more controversial. Yeah. Uh, I had, I, you know, the book is self-published in the end because I got tired of, so I, I sent it off to traditional publishers.

It's a combination of, um, waiting and, and rejections essentially. I, I had a publisher in hand in Toronto.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: What's a good, what's a good, uh, app? Parallelism for that? Waiting and rejections. Yeah.

Ed Les: Um, I had, I had the book in the hands of a publisher in Toronto, for example, um, who, uh, initially looked at it and said, oh, this looks really interesting.

And, uh, they were interested in publishing it. And then I think one of their people sat down and read the whole thing. And they happened upon the chapter on gender. Yeah. Yeah. And that was dead. And then it [00:12:00] was dead.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: What about your colleagues know that it is published? Or like, have people reached out to you and said, Hey, like, I, like I'm kind of pissed off.

You wrote this, or? Well,

Ed Les: they, in general, they, reception for book has been quite good. Um. But, you know, I wrote a chapter on divorce and I wrote a chapter on gender. Um, I wrote a chapter on child discipline, like these are sticky topics. And so of course people are going to read what I have written and disagree with what I've written.

Hmm. So, I, like, I, I have a couple of colleagues, uh, who are parenting transgender children. Yeah. Who are gonna

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: be Yeah, yeah. Long

Ed Les: time colleagues. And I count them as friends and I respect them greatly, but of course they don't agree with what I've written about gender in my book. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: But would they respectfully disagree or are they any of Oh, they're,

Ed Les: they're, they're respectful enough.

Okay. Um.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: But how, how do you deal with criticism that you do get, do you, is your initial reaction to whip back even harder, at least in your mind, or do you, uh, tend to like think about the criticism you're getting when, um, [00:13:00] articles? Yeah,

Ed Les: I mean, I, I think it's, it's uncomfortable, you know, particularly when it comes from, um, as I said, people that I've known and respected as colleagues for a long time.

So, you know, I, I process it. But you know, it, it's difficult when you, when you, uh, put yourself out there in the public square with your opinions, um. You're, you're going to get criticism. Yeah, for sure. That's just, that's just part of it.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Same with the show. Yeah. Yeah. So I, it's interesting you wrote in the, in the preface there that I, uh, I kind of chuckle that the content of these pages isn't highly academic.

It re represents my opinions, and I won't pre pretend they're all correct. As Australian comic Tim Michen it correctly noted in 2013, addressed to university grads in Perth opinions are like assholes in that everyone has one,

Ed Les: but the, the back half of that, of his quotation is just as important. Right?

Opinions differ from assholes in that your own should be constantly and thoroughly inspected.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yes.

Ed Les: Right. So [00:14:00] ha ha ha. Yeah, that was a great, if you ever get a chance to watch that commencement address, it's on YouTube. Okay. It's really good. It's

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Really good. Okay. I, um, I'm gonna go through, uh, some of the chapters there and have some questions about that.

But first I wanna share a quick story of a client of mine. Uh, Travis Decock. He's owner of, uh, centric Manufacturing and co-owner of, uh, pristine Actions in Southern Alberta. Uh, if you like guns, by the way, check out, uh, pristine Actions. They, uh, got some good stuff. And when Travis first reached out, he was running two businesses, working crazy hours and feeling the pressure both at work, at home, managing people was exhausting him.

And the weight of it was also spill into his marriage and his family life. And so that's when I came in. And so this is what he wrote about working with me, working with Kyle Furious. The Curious Coaching has been transformative. He's helped me break through the mental barriers and limiting beliefs that were keeping me stuck.

His honest, insightful approach has given me clarity and momentum I didn't think was possible. So if you're listening to this and you feel like you've built something, uh, that looks successful but feels heavy and like you're winning on paper, but losing where it matters most, uh, let's talk. [00:15:00] Um, you can book a call with me through my website if furiously curious.

Do co or just text me directly at 6 0 4 7 0 3 9 0 4 5. No pitch, no pressure, just a conversation to get some, uh, clarity and see if I can help you. So, okay. Some questions. Uh, I wanna go to chapter 21, spare the Rod, spoil the Child. Um, really enjoyed this chapter already piece that you wrote in it. Um, I was reared in a culture in which biblical am.

At Mission, sorry to spare the rod and spoil the child was often taken. Literally. Here's a full quote from Proverbs 1324. Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them. Historically, many Christian communities took those words as a license to apply physical correction to misbehave children, but too often those measures get delivered in the heat of the moment and stray into outright abuse, corrupting the spanking, but with love intention.[00:16:00]

As someone close to me who was subjected to this sort of thing, said, children are supposed to be a gift from God, but who takes their Christmas present and beats the crap out of it, behind the shed, and then locks it in a cellar. And Dad didn't spare the rod, but he ruined the child. I'm not adjusting that.

Corporal physical punishment routinely goes overboard, but especially if delivered with overheated emotions, physical correction sets par on a dangerous slope. Um, what made you write this chapter?

Ed Les: Well, it's because it's controversial. So, you know, I'm drawn to topics that are a bit more controversial, I suppose, like a moth to a flame.

Okay. Uh, interesting. You know, and, and, and so in my work in the emergency department as children's hospital, you know, we see these sorts of things crop up from time to time. So we'll have a child come in with an unusual pattern of bruising. So, for example, if a child gets, if you, if a child gets hit by a parent with an open hand, then that leaves a, like a striped pattern of bruising on their torso, for [00:17:00] example.

So for us, that's a telltale sign of physical punishment, and we're trained and taught to flag that and ask the uncomfortable questions around that and involve social work and that sort of thing if we think a child is being physically hit. Right. And, and, you know, and, and I grew up in this community, Kyle, where, um, um.

That text from the Bible, I think, at least when I was growing up, I think most families took that text as literal instruction, that when children are misbehaved, they should be spanked, for example. Mm-hmm. And I'm not, I'm not at all trying to say in what I've written that corporal punishment, um. Maybe it doesn't have a place, like I think in certain circumstances, certain families and have delivered

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: in a, in a well in love, I think is the key thing.

Not when you're not, when you're angry issue, not when you're angry. The issue is when people, but

Ed Les: it's so easy to deliver that sort of punishment when you're angry. It's just a natural human inclination when you're [00:18:00] angry to strike out. Yeah, right.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: I was, it's not interesting. The word discipline comes from the word disciple.

Yeah. And to disciple your children is a lot different than to like, hit 'em. But what I'm curious, what impact can overheated and angry physical discipline have on someone into adulthood? Like if you're, if you're, if that's what your experience was as as a kid, what, what impact does that have? Why is it so damaging?

Ed Les: Well, it's, it's damaging when that kind of punishment is delivered in anger, right? Because, um, you know, the, the, the, the parenting role, you, you, you want to raise your children in a. Loving manner and with nurture, and it's, you lose that love and that nurture when you are subjected to, um, physical injury delivered in the heat of the moment in anger.

So it damages that relationship and, you know, and, and then what's the other biblical quote? The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. So it falls, it, it, it spools down through the generations because [00:19:00] you tend to, we have a tendency to raise our own children in the same way that we were raised.

Yeah. There's one model. Spawns the next one. Yeah. So it can have, uh, impacts that reverberate. Into the next generation of children. Right. Because, you know, um, we tend to model the relationships, um, that we, um, yeah, were exposed to ourselves. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Not what they said, what they did.

Ed Les: Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. Okay. And beyond that, beyond like that, it becomes a generational thing, like into adulthood.

How can this have an impact on someone that they were, like, disciplined in this way growing up? Does it, how does that, uh, affect relationships or how does it affect, does it affect, do you think, self-esteem? Have you, have you thought much about that and

Ed Les: Yeah. I mean, you know, the, the example I used in that chapter of the, um, of the individual who said, you know, he, he, he, um, didn't spare the rug, but he spoiled the child.

So it has a toxic effect on the [00:20:00] relationship and what I think happens, um, just simplifying it a bit, but one of two things happens. Um, that person grows up, has children of his or her own, and then. Uh, um, delivers discipline in the, in the same kind of damaging way, or the pendulum swings completely to the opposite side.

And then you have a parenting style that is overly permissive and no discipline is applied at all. Yeah, right. And, and so, and, and this is what we have in increasing in our culture where, um, there are not clear. Boundaries. Yeah. Being set for children, which is also damaging because, you know, the, the, the, the biblical dictum actually does hold true, spared the rod, spoil the child.

Children need correction. They need discipline. They need to be taught, you know how to behave. Yeah. And how to govern their actions. They actually do better in that environment. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: Right.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: And you actually talk about that in the, in that same chapter as well about soft parenting and, and how that the [00:21:00] kiddo almost rules the house.

Mm-hmm. Uh, what does good parenting look like? Like, like you talk about that in some of the suggestions, but Yeah, you can just share that.

Ed Les: Yeah. So I, I, I, I said in that chapter that I'm not an expert and I, this is just your

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: opinion. Okay guys,

Ed Les: just, just my opinion. But, and, and I listed a bunch of books that, that parents can, um, look to.

There, there are, there's oodles and oodles and oodles of ink spills around this topic.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: Um, so, you know, setting clear boundaries for your children in, in a way that doesn't necessarily involve physical punishment, I think can be done. Um, people do it all the time, um, so that children grow up understanding what the, what the, what the limits to their behaviors are, what good behavior looks like, and, and modeling for your children in, in the way that you live yourself, um, is very powerful.

Um, and.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Personally, I like, love what you said there. That's like, one of the things that's had the biggest impact on me is realizing that, that like, if I want healthy kids, [00:22:00] I need to be healthy. Yeah. Like, like, and, and not just like physically healthy, but like emotionally healthy. Mm-hmm. Or you know, and just everything and more and more that I, what I was saying, just didn't Yeah.

Really have an effect. It was like how I was showing up was, you know, if I was anxious all the time, I was gonna get anxious kids. Yeah. You know, if I was gonna be impatient all the time, I was gonna get impatient kids. Sure. Or if it comes to contentment, you know, like always wanting more, they're always gonna be wanting more.

Ed Les: Yeah. But it's difficult, right. Because we're all imperfect. It's, and we all mess up and we all have times when we're anxious or

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: we have a tendency to try to fix them and not fix ourselves.

Ed Les: Right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's a complicated topic. Yeah. But the, the, but really the simple point I was trying to make, and hopefully I made it, was that, uh, assaulting your children when you're angry is not a good thing.

No, no. Right.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. I think that's, yeah. Clear. But I think it's good to just, yeah. I thought it was a, a good chapter. So, um, I also, uh. What I enjoyed about the book as well. Um, and I'll point this out from chapter five. Was that [00:23:00] just your humor? You're actually kind of funny, pretty funny. Um, I, I found some of the chapter titles kinda, um, hard to understand what they meant, but, um, bonged up, uh, which it means gets constipated.

Yeah, yeah. Um, uh, so this is that you set the chapter with a quote from Bob Hope. I grew up with six brothers, and that's how I learned to dance, waiting for the bathroom. Um, and then you say, like, Bob Hope, I grew up with six brothers, but unlike Bob, I had five sisters. Dancing was frowned upon as the devil's footwork in an ultra conservative boyhood home.

But if nature called the bathroom was occupied, believe me, we performed all the moves.

Ed Les: Yeah, quite true. Yeah. I thought it was

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: good, but I mean, that's throughout the whole book, so I, I mean, I would definitely recommend, uh, um. Um, if you're interested in it to, uh, to buy it and read it, it's, it's enjoyable.

But a couple more chapters here. Um, chapter 26, you talk about a DHD. Um, I don't have any specific quotes that are pulled out here, but what would you say to parents right now regarding A DHD? I mean, it's seems to be like more more of it. Yeah. Um, [00:24:00] um, Gober Mate says it's tied to trauma. As a kid, I don't think that's your opinion as, as much, or you I didn't read that part, but no, I, I I don't

Ed Les: disagree with, uh, Dr.

Mat Matte, uh, at all. And, and, and certainly the premise of that chapter is not to, uh, disparage a diagnosis of A DHD in any kid necessarily, but the rates of diagnosis have skyrocketed.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: And it's become the, it's become a go-to diagnosis, not just for children, but for adults as well. There's a huge number of adults now taking, uh, uh, A DHD medications because they have a DHD and, and, and part of that is diagnosis creep in the sense that, um, um.

We've, uh, enlarged a definition of the disorder so that it can be applied to variations in human behavior. I don't think that normal variations in human behavior should be medicated in general. And, and as I, uh, lay out in that chapter, um, many kids are diagnosed as a [00:25:00] DHD already in kindergarten, in grade one, and it tends to be boys, and it's become political, cultural heresy to say this, but.

It turns out the boys and girls are different. And, and, and, and boys, when they're five years old, they have a much harder time sitting still and paying attention to goal oriented tasks than girls do. Hmm. And so, because they can't sit still because they're constantly getting up out of their desk and prowling the classroom, they, they have a higher tendency of being labeled as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than girls do.

And so then they get put on medications. And those medications, they, they work because it calms them down and they sit down and they're able to focus.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Well, they're little zombies. Actually, it's interesting that you bring this up because, um, Malachi, uh, my oldest, when he was in kindergarten, he came home one day and he was said, dad, I'm stupid.

I'm like, why are you stupid? Mm. And he's like, well, I always get in trouble. I'm like, well, why do you [00:26:00] always get in trouble? And he goes, well, I can't sit still. Yeah. And I gimme flashbacks to when I was a kid and I couldn't sit still either. Right. And I was always getting in trouble. And that label, you know, started.

Statistic and, you know, it grows and stuff like that. And so we did homeschooling and uh, it's really interesting. He does the best work when he is laying on the, um, living room floor now. Yeah. Um, and uh, also some cool things is that, uh, like earlier this year, he wasn't doing very good at math, and so we switched the curriculum to a more physical curriculum.

Yeah. He could. And now he likes math. Oh, yeah. Um, and so you, you just see that I'm not saying people shouldn't get, send their kids to school. Homeschooling isn't for everybody, but Right. Yeah. Um, you, you know, it has, you know, very practical things can be done often about these things.

Ed Les: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, for sure there are kids who meet the criteria for, uh, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder who would benefit from medication.

I'm not at all trying to say that that's, that's not the case. Uh, pardon my list. But sometimes my, my, uh. Tongue gets a bit that, that tumor I live with [00:27:00] is, is squeezing my, um, hypoglossal nerve that the, the nerves that controls your tongue. So Oh, that's

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: where the li Lisp is from?

Ed Les: Yeah, that's where it's from.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Oh, fascinating. Didn't So, and

Ed Les: it comes and goes. So if it sounds like I've been drinking at eight o'clock in the morning or whatever time, it's nine o'clock in the morning, I promise you like Peter, it's like, no, it's, it's,

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: I

Ed Les: haven't had, I haven't had a case of your before I came into your studio today, Kyle, but, um, anyway, so, so the, the, the point is not that a d ADHD doesn't exist, the, the point is that we've gone, in my opinion, way overboard with labeling many normal.

Um, children's behaviors as pathological and re medicating them. Mm-hmm. And the difficulty is once you put kids on medications, they tend to stay on those medications, um, for significant periods of time. Easy to put them on. It's harder to take them off.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. Yeah. It's also interesting how I, I mean, I was a kid, I was on Ritalin, Zoloft, and Risperidol, and I was like, yeah.

Made into a zombie. Yeah. But that, that wasn't actually the issue. Um. Or, or like [00:28:00] that was the, the fix. But I actually, what I needed was time and attention and, and, and, you know, um, um, um, love. Sure. And I can imagine too though, as a doctor, when you're talking to a parent, uh, they just want, you know, the problem to be fixed and to tell, to tell them that, hey, you need to, you know, stop what you're doing at home and actually spend some time with this kid is a lot harder to tell the parent than, Hey, here's a, a

Ed Les: pill.

It's always easier as a physician, as a pediatrician, it's always easier to reach for a prescription pad and stroke out a prescription than it is to spend the time, um, trying to educate parents around good parenting strategies and that sort of thing. You know, the analogy is with antibiotics, right? I have a chapter on antibiotics as well.

It's, it's, it's easier to reach for a prescription pad and write out a prescription for amoxicillin than it is to spend the 10 or 15 minutes explaining to a parent why taking antibiotics for a viral infection, it's not a good. Hmm. Right. Yeah. So in the A DHD [00:29:00] space, um, you prescribe these medications, they, they, um, by their very nature, they, they seem to work.

Yeah. Um, because it does change their behavior. Um, so then the, then the, the, the child is on the surface at least doing better. The parents are happy. And so there's a natural inclination to prescribe these medications to children who can't sit still. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: How much of this, like, the issues in kids are just more cultural, um, issues of them not being prioritized or, you know, having no parents at home, um, things like that.

Or even just the culture of like, the engine light goes on in your car instead of dealing with your engine used, bang out the light and so then the problem is fixed.

Ed Les: Yeah. Well, we, we, we, I think we live in a society that, um, maybe it's always been the case, but I think it's more now where, uh, we look for, um.

Quick solutions to difficult problems. And so if there's an easy [00:30:00] fix, um, I think it's just natural inclination to want to avail ourselves of that and, and then move on. We have, you know, despite all the modern competences of life, we're busier than ever. Yeah. And despite the fact that people have less kids than ever, they see families seem to, um, have less time for their kids than before.

So, like I grew up in a family of 12 children, unheard of these days. The average family size now is not that people have fractions of children, but the average, the fertility 1.7 or something down, it's, it's down to 1.3 now in Canada. So people have one or two children. That's

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: crazy. You have a chapter on that Chapter 33, the risk of No Kids.

Yeah. What is the risk of no kids?

Ed Les: So, you know, we, so in Canada it's massed by the fact that we have a lot of immigration. So people are, are having, uh, children at less than the replacement rate. The replacement rate in order to have a stable population is 2.1 [00:31:00] because not every child grows up to become an adult.

So you need, you need to replace the mom and the dad. You need a bit of extra. So the replacement rate is 2.1. The fertility rate in Canada is one of the lowest in the world, um, at about 1.3. In some countries it's even less than that. Um, countries like Japan have, uh, after a long period of, so Japan has, uh, Japan's a country where people live.

They have one of the, uh, highest, uh. Uh, longevity's in the world. And so the, their, their, uh, population, um, decline was masked for a long time by the fact that people weren't dying. But now people are dying and Japan now is shrinking fairly rapidly in population and Japan doesn't have a lot of immigration.

Yeah. So Japan is a, is sort of like the canary in a coal mine, so to speak, as far as what will happen in the world.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: What impact has it having on Japan right now?

Ed Les: So, so for the first time last year, this the, [00:32:00] um, in Japan there were more adult diaper, adult diapers for adults sold than diapers for children.

Right. But, but you have a, an inverted pyramid. So you have a, a large, uh, elderly population and, uh, the, the neuro port of the triangle is the younger people. So you have less young people working to support, uh, an an older population.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: And what happens when that older population is. Not there anymore. Like will it,

Ed Les: so, so eventually you'll get to a, a, a turning point where the older people die off, and then you'll have a much smaller population.

Okay. And, and the implications of that are complex. Um, we'll, we'll have, we'll have a fairly, this will happen in Canada too. Um, once immigration slows down here, the, the largest source of immigration to Canada, do you know, is from, uh, India. So that's the largest source of our immigration. Even India, the most populous nation in the world, even India's population is flatlined now because fertility raising in India are [00:33:00] plummeting as well.

So eventually that, that flow of immigration to Canada will, will slow. It will never stop altogether, probably. Um, and then you'll have the older people die off over a period of 30 or 40 years and then we'll have rapidly shrinking population. Yeah,

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: yeah.

Ed Les: And, and, and we don't, and it's really hard to imagine, um, what that's going to.

Looks like, like I won't be around to see it, but my kids will, they'll live in a world where, where there are, um, uh, far fewer people, there'll, there'll be an uncomfortable period where, um, we'll have people living in retirement for, you know, people retire at 60 or 65, but then they live, live for another 20 years and they'll need to be supported with Canada Pension Plan, for example, social security benefits and so on, and all of those, all of that money has to come from somewhere.

Yeah. [00:34:00] So it's going to have to come from a combination of the wages of young people. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: I mean, you've seen that in the last election how much people voted for the liberals and the conservatives. It was like majority young people were voting conservative. Yeah. And majority old people voted liberal because they're gonna get, they're getting the handouts.

Yeah. Um, and uh,

Ed Les: Stephen Harper, when Stephen Harper was in power, uh, you might know this, but Stephen Harper actually raised the retirement age from 65 to 67, and then Justin Truder rolled it back again. Right? Yeah. That was, I mean, he did all the hard work to get it passed and, and really should the retirement age, the official retirement age really should be elevated to 70 probably.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: Because initially when it was set up, um, you know, the Canada Pension plan benefit and so on, it was set up at a time when the average person could expect to live to be maybe 75. Yeah. But now it's, you still think

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: you should run for office?

Ed Les: I never said I would run for office. I

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: know, but I, I said last I, on the podcast, I don't think I, you should, [00:35:00] I think you should.

It'd be good, it'd be good, honest, big disaster. Okay, uh, I got a few more questions, but first furiously curious recruiting. Uh, if you run a business, uh, and you're looking for some good employees, I think it can help you with my recruiting services. Um, I talk to a lot of people every week and could find someone for you, but also, uh, I would advertise it here on the podcast.

Um, and usually the people that listen here, um, have all same values I do. So if you like my values, you're probably gonna get a decent, uh, employee. So, um, also if you're a guy just looking for a good job, um, or a good company to work for, reach out and I'm able to find something for you. So if you're interested in that, reach out to me on social media or my website, or you can, uh, text me at 6 0 4 7 0 3 9 0 4 5.

A couple more things here. Um, I was gonna talk about gun rights, uh, your chapter 31, uh, bullet, bullet riled. Um, I like the fact that you are, uh, liberal on some areas and conservative in, in other areas, or if you can use those labels or whatever it is. But you, uh, Canadian gun rights, [00:36:00] um, the liberals roll it back recently and, and now even more things are restricted.

You, you think that's good? You think we should? Um,

Ed Les: well again, like most things it's complicated. Yeah, right. So, um, I'm certainly not opposed, that's a good

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: political answer.

Ed Les: Well, I'm not opposed to people owning guns, but I don't, I don't, uh, what, what I have a bit more trouble, um, getting behind is the, I, I don't understand the rationale for owning an assault weapon, for example.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: Like, like to have the equivalent of an AK 47 in your house, like. Uh, what, what exactly is the point of that? I'll go show you mine later. Yeah, sure. I'm, I'm sure you have a whole stash. So I used to live, I don't know if I told you this before, Kyle, but I, I used in the US I used to live in Mississippi.

Yeah, right. I, for four years. And, uh, it was a funny story. So I, I lived there for four years and I came back to Canada to go to medical school and met my who, uh, Sherry, my wife in medical school. And, [00:37:00] uh, I think it was at the, towards the end of medical school, we, I went down to Mississippi to, uh, go to the wedding of my friend John and Sherry came with me and we flew into Memphis, uh, Tennessee.

And I used to live in Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis, about 90 miles, uh, southeast of, uh, of Memphis. So we, we flew into Memphis, rented a car, and then we drove outta Memphis into rural Mississippi. Yeah. And we were following this pickup truck, which had a gun rack in the back window with a gun in it, some kind of rifle.

And, uh, and two bumper stickers. And, uh, the one bumper sticker said, I love assault weapons. And the other bumper sticker said, we'll kill for Amil. And Sherry looked at me and said, what are we doing here? It just, it was just so classic. Yeah. That was a gun culture in the United States. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And you know, um, as Canadians, Canadians tend to have the stereotype of the US as guns on every corner and school [00:38:00] shootings every day, it's, it's not really the reality.

I lived in the US for a total of five years in different places. Living in the US is pretty much like living in Canada, except in general it's warmer and you get to keep more of your money so your taxes are all over. Right. But they do

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: just tie that question there. Is it harder for. Canadians, Canada to retain doctors for that reason that in the us the lower taxes and, and you probably get paid more in the US as well as a doctor, I'm assuming.

Ed Les: Yeah. But the, the environment to practice medicine in the United States is quite different from a litigation standpoint. So, oh, okay. So my wife is an obstetrician, uh, practicing obstetrics in, say in, in, in a US state, your malpractice costs are several hundred thousand dollars a year. Oh, okay. Right. So, so it's a, it's a much more litigious environment.

Okay. And it's also much more corporate, particularly these days. So the, the, the, the complaints that physicians have in the US are different than the, oh, you can get sued more and stuff like that. So it's a, it's, it's a different pasture. Fair enough. But, you [00:39:00] know, it has its own problems. Go back to our gun

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: gunshot.

Ed Les: Yeah. So, you know, so the, you know, obviously there's a gun issue in the United States. What. When, when people can walk into a school and spray bullets and kill children mm-hmm. Or set up in, in a, in a hotel in Las Vegas and Moham, you know, pedestrians on the Las Vegas strip, that kind of thing. So clearly there's a gun culture problem, you know, and, and as I say in the book, um, people will say, well, it's, it's, uh, it's not the guns, it's the people.

Well, sure. I mean, people fire the guns. It's just, and the analogy I draws with pit bulls and I have a chapter on pit bulls too. Right. And people say, it's not the pit bull, it's the owner. Well, sure. But it's like having an assault weapon. Right. It's it, if you, if you banned, if you, the only thing you'd change about gun culture in the United States is if you banned assault weapons, the rate of death from gun violence would plummet.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Isn't that okay? I I, I, uh, we can get more into this, but we don't, we don't have time. [00:40:00] What do you think? Uh, I just have one question though. What do you think about, um, how a lot of countries that go towards like government controlling everything, one of the first things they start doing is like restricting the guns and nobody has guns anymore.

You can't defend yourself and of course, us as a second amendment of, of, of like fighting against that idea that the government can take over control. Uh, do you, I mean, you see that, do you think about that at all? Like in the history of, if you think of the history of peop of countries that have gone towards like, um, communism or, or like the high control of the government, um.

And, and, and the gun's being taken away. Do you think about that as, as Canada becomes go, goes more and more that way and, and becomes more and more controlling and is what do

Ed Les: you mean? You mean if you, if you restrict to firearms ownership, that gives government more control Yeah. And, and takes away citizens' ability.

Yeah. To

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: like in the Australia and New Zealand, now they're banning machetes. Like, it just like, yeah. Just keep going, going, going. Like,

Ed Les: yeah. Well, do you think there's evidence for that, like in countries like [00:41:00] say, say uh, Scandinavian countries where there are um, um, where citizens don't generally own guns.

Do you think the citizens in those countries don't have the ability to push back against government or there's some kind of conspiracy on the part of government to control their citizens and, you know,

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: I dunno if there's much a conspiracy, but as a fact that it's easier to control your citizens when they have less and less of their own, you know, like ability to fight back.

Ed Les: Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Like if you think of like, China allowed, you know, their people to have guns. You know, it would be a lot different probably in the how, their ability to control their people,

Ed Les: you

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: think? I think so.

Ed Les: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, sure. I mean, China's one example, right? Obviously authoritarian communist country, but there are many other countries, liberal democracies throughout Europe and so on, where gun ownership is much more, um, regulated than it is in the United States.

Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. I [00:42:00] think the biggest thing is like, I mean. The ability to walk into a store and, and buy a loaf of bread. And then, and, and a, you know, a rifle, uh, an automatic rifle is pr I, I wouldn't vouch for at all. I think there should be good, you know, background checks and understanding mm-hmm. Hard to, hard to buy a rifle and not just go to a gun show and be able to, you know, pick up anything.

I think that's the bigger problem. Yeah. Um,

Ed Les: but people should be allowed, you know, with, with proper background checks and so on, people should be allowed to own rifles and handguns and that sort of thing. I'm not opposed to that at all. Yeah. My, my, I, I, I guess, uh, where I come down on this issue is why do people need to own assault weapons and why?

And, and, and why do you have a society where there are not proper ba background checks for people buying weapons? Right. So we, we don't allow people to buy grenades. Mm-hmm. We don't allow people to buy nuclear weapons. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Grenades would we kind fun 'em, but

Ed Les: Yeah. Sure. But we, we don't generate, allow people to buy grenades for obvious.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, obvious safety

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: reasons. Yeah. Okay. [00:43:00] Um. More on that in the book. By the book. It's on Amazon. Last question here. Uh, I think reading is really important. I really wanna help teach my kids how to read. Um, I think it just helps 'em and, and helps 'em grow. And in understanding of what's happening in the world.

You are an avid reader and you publish your own writings of, of course, as well. How, how can you tell, teach your kids how to read?

Ed Les: I wish I knew the answer to that, Kyle, because I have four kids. Uh, I have three daughters. Uh, who are, they're 21, 19 and 17. And then I have a 14-year-old son. My girls read. My son does not.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Hmm.

Ed Les: And and that's, you know, we talked earlier about modeling. Certainly if, if I, if, if my son, um, if his attitude toward books was models and what he saw his, uh, his father doing, uh, 'cause I read all the time, then he would be an avid reader. He just doesn't read. And I, and I, you know, I've tried all kinds of inducements to try to get him to read.

He does well in school. He reads what he needs to at [00:44:00] school and he does well in school academically. Yeah. But for example, we spend a good chunk of our summer, uh, in Kelowna. We have a cottage there. Um, my daughter Taylor, I think she was telling me the other day, she's read 20 books this summer. Jesse hasn't read a single page of a single book.

Yeah. So like, does he have a phone? He has a phone and he spends, um, too much time. Um. You know, he, he learns a lot. So like he watches on his screens, he'll watch YouTube videos about different topics. Mm-hmm. And so, and, and they're often quite instructive and quite educational, but that's his preferred medium for, um, absorbing information.

But to try to get him to sit down and read a book, it's like pulling teeth. Can't do it. And I don't know. Do you have any insight? Like, how do you encourage your own kids to read?

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Um, I, uh, so what I've read about audio books is get 'em to listen to audio books. Yeah. As, as a way to get 'em to stimulate, um, reading, but also reading to them.

Yeah. Which we,

Ed Les: which we did. So when Jesse was small, [00:45:00] my son Yeah. When he was smaller, like, just like all of our kids. Yeah. That was a Every evening, every night. Yeah. We would read to them, read to him just as much as he read to the girls. And he, and he did not grow up to be a reader. Yeah. And the girls did.

Why? He's he's a different kid Yeah. Than they are. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: And the last one I have is rewards based, so they can like earn money or earn Oh yeah. I've tried that.

Ed Les: Yeah. And it had very limited success. Yeah. Yeah. He just

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: reward doesn't big enough or he just didn't care.

Ed Les: He's just, he just doesn't, you know, he's, he's a very gregarious, outgoing kid, very personable, has lots of friends.

Um, okay. So what would you say as a

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: pediatrician is the benefit of teaching your kids to read, regardless of maybe that method of how to do it, what is the benefit of, uh, breeding?

Ed Les: Well, I, I, I, I think it teaches you how to think, right? So if, if you read widely, um, then I, I think it, it, uh, teaches you how to, it helps you frame your IT approach to the world and your approach to other people.[00:46:00]

Now, can that happen without being an avid reader? Probably, um. You know, I, I mean, my, my bias is obvious because I am, I've always been a big reader. Um, and, and I've, and I've always been a believer of, uh, a believer in reading viewpoints from across the spectrum. Like, I remember, uh, somebody coming to my visitor, a Christian visitor coming to my house and seeing on my bookshelf book a book by, um, Christopher Hitchens, you know, the, uh, the famous atheist.

He, he died a few years ago called, uh, God is Not Great, and, and reacting with horror. How can you have this poison in your house? I'm like, well, if you don't, if you don't read, um, the viewpoints of people who disagree with you, then how can you intelligently make an argument for your own position?

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: Right.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: That's so important. I mean, when everyone thinks the same, no one thinks at all.

Ed Les: Right? If everybody thinks the same, then nobody thinks so. That's exactly right. So, um, I, I think if you don't read [00:47:00] at all. Uh, I, I, I think it's more difficult than to have deeply or, um, thoroughly formed philosophical stances and opinions yourself.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: But I don't really know that to be true because I have other friends who are also not readers, and they're thoughtful, intelligent, thinking people. Yeah. So my bias arises from the fact that I'm a reader. Does my son have to be, um, a reader like me? Probably not. Yeah. Um, would he benefit from spending less time absorbing information through his screen?

Probably. So There's a lot of talk, of course, about screen time and how. Um, smartphones have poisoned a generation. Jonathan Haight, I don't know if you read any of his stuff. He wrote a book called The Anxious Generation. And, uh, a lot of it, he theorizes this down to Smartphone Addiction. Um, kids. I do, I

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: do know.

I've noticed it on my kids. So I have, so I call the lockbox that I use all the time. Yeah. Uh, I, I'll [00:48:00] show you downstairs. It's, it's pretty cool. But basically I can put anything in there and I put a timer on the top and it locks something in there for a while. Yeah. And so I'll put the TV remote in there for 11 days at a time.

Yeah. 'cause it's as far as it will go. Um, instead of in the evenings after supper watching like, you know, some highlights for a couple hours or whatever. And the kids are definitely way calmer. Yeah. Um, the times that the thing is locked up and they're happier and stuff like that. Sure. Like, you can definitely notice that there's, and they don't

Ed Les: have other devices.

No. Like your kids don't have smartphones? No. How old? I mean, they're eight four and Yeah. They're too young. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think our, I think our kids, uh, we gave them, we allowed them to have smartphones at when they were teenagers essentially. But, but even

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: myself, like my own smartphone, I'll put that in there on the weekend.

Ed Les: Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: And for two days I won't have like 48 hours, I won't have my phone. Yeah. And I find myself being calmer. Mm-hmm. And more intentional with the kids and things like that. So yeah, there's definitely, yeah. I, I don't know the science, but anyways, if you, uh, I actually wanna ask one more question here. How, how's the cancer any updates?

Is it, is it still remission?

Ed Les: [00:49:00] So it's, uh, complicated. Uh, it's been like, I, I've been living with this thing for, and you told the whole story on, on episode three, episode 30 there, so it's the latest more than 18 years. Yeah. I had surgery last year, uh, which knocked me for a loop. We, we took, we took tissue.

I've done this once before. We took tissue last year and sequenced it, and then based on the analysis of the tumor, picked a drug and started, started taking that drug about a year ago. Um, but then, uh, and, and been fine. And I, I have, uh, scans every three months. Uh, I've had, I don't know how many MRI scans I've had in my life.

Probably a hundred. Uh, so I, I get these days, I get a scan every three months. And so I had a scan at three months, three months, three months, fine. But then my last scan, um, tumors growing again. Oh. So he hence, hence like more impact on my voice and so on. And my balance is, is great. Um, and so, so [00:50:00] now I'm on, so I, I'm still taking that drug that we picked last year, but now we added another drug through a clinical trial, um, based out of Stanford.

So I, I don't have to go to Stanford to be enrolled in clinical trial. They, they allowed me to, um, use their protocol, but I have it delivered in, uh, Calgary. So in. At the end of May, I started taking the both drugs together. Uh, one's called Pembrolizumab, it was called pemetrexed. Yeah. So I, I take the two drugs together by IV infusion every three weeks, and so that's May and, uh, June, July, I have an MRI at the end of August and we'll see if it's, see what it's doing.

So. Okay.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: How do you feel about it? I mean, that's pretty, the fact that it's growing again, I, I, I mean it, I think the last time you said you took, it wasn't, weren't able to take everything out in the last surgery.

Ed Les: Right.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Uh, like how do you, the mortality is again, in your face. I mean, it has been for a long time.

Yeah. But is it more in a conscious thought again now?

Ed Les: Yeah. I, I, I feel, uh, I, I feel a bit of the [00:51:00] pressure of it in the sense that, uh, um. I'm, I'm getting boxed into a corner to some degree. Um, because if this next scan, um, shows that the one two drug combo isn't working, then, then my options are getting more limited.

So it's living with uncertainty.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: But, you know, we all live with uncertainty. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit more in my face. Um, but that's, you know, I'm, I'm writing an article right now about, about uncertainty, you know, and about how it's a reality for everybody every day. You know, when I was diagnosed with this thing in 2007, there were plenty of people who are, you know, that poor bastard Right.

Sort of thing. Some of those people are gone themselves. Yeah. Unexpectedly earlier. I mean, life is full of uncertain, you know, the classic thing, any of us could get hit by a so-called bus tomorrow. Yeah. So, but for me it's, it's much more real in the sense that I'm, [00:52:00] you know, it's, it's, it's, like I said, it's, it's more in my face.

Yeah, fair enough. Um, you know, but, but the thing I have is a, uh, it's pretty rare.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: Has an average survival of about six or seven years. Yeah. I've lived for. More than 18 years. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: You have a great article on that too, by the way.

Ed Les: So I I, I, I can't really say I have much to complain about. It doesn't mean I don't complain because I do, you know.

Fair enough.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Well, I'll be praying for you, and if you're listening here, um, uh, let's, let's pray that it, it, it goes in remission and, and I appreciate you can keep, uh, sharing for a little while longer. Uh, if you wanna get a free copy of this book, you can, anyone who shares this episode that you're listening right now to on their, uh, WhatsApp or Instagram or Facebook story in the next 48 hours of this podcast being live, send me a screenshot and I'll send you a free copy of the book.

Um, it's a, it's an awesome book. I think you'll enjoy it. So, um, anything else you wanna add before we jump off?

Ed Les: Uh, we just released an audiobook version so that there's Oh, cool. If you have a, an audibles membership, you can get the, uh, audiobook [00:53:00] version.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Okay. That's already out,

Ed Les: uh, just came out about a week or two ago.

Oh, cool.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Right on.

Ed Les: Uh, there's an ebook version of course. Uh, and then in September we're doing a Canadian print run. So we're printing, um, a few thousand copies of the book, and it'll be in all the major bookstores in Canada, uh, this fall. Awesome. So, but now you can just get a, uh, how most people get their books.

These, they just order it on Amazon. Amazon, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Yeah. But thanks.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. Thanks for listening guys. Uh, always as, uh, it's appreciated. If you share, um, subscribe to the Episo, uh, the podcast, um, share it with friends and family, um, goes a long way. So see you next time.

Ed Les: Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah, no worries. What else you got here in this pile?

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: I think you probably enjoy this one. Uh, helping people.

I think you'd enjoy this.

Ed Les: These two here. You know, I haven't [00:54:00] been, uh, I haven't been at, uh, at work. Yeah. So you're thinking I have lots of time to read and I still don't find, I have nearly as much time to read as I used to. How do you make time to read? 'cause you, I mean, you're busy

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: with small kids. I don't read a ton. I just, what the best thing that works for me.

Maybe it's my A DHD is I set the timer for 15 minutes. Yeah. And I grab my book, and then I just read until the timer goes. And that way I can actually like read every day. There's so many books, right? Like Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's, it's, it's endless. There's so many books. Endless. Yeah.

Ed Les: Yeah, yeah. And you walk into The Indigo and you're like, there's no way.

I mean, the vast majority of people who write books, it has to be a labor of love because there's, most people don't make a dime. It costs them money to write a book. Yes. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And like, I, I've, uh, I've broken even, I suppose, like I've sold enough books. Okay. How many have sold? Uh, so, so the, I've got a ways to go.

I'm not gonna tell you the exact number, but so the, to be a bestseller [00:55:00] in Canada, in the Canadian market, you have to sell 10,000 books. Oh, that's not too bad. Needless to say, I, I've got a ways to go. Okay. But I've filled in up books that are covered. The production costs of the book. Yeah. And the audio book and that sort of thing.

But now I would like to just print run. Um, so I hired a, uh, marketer, distributor based set of colon called Sandhill, uh, book marketers a distributor. And so, uh, and then I hired a, uh, uh, a printer called Frees, uh, freezes publishers or something. So they're printing, initial print runs a thousand books, but it costs me, in the end, it'll be, by the time it's all done, production costs and the book shipped.

It's about five bucks a book. So $5,000 for a print run of, so you have to, you have to sell. And so what the distributor does is she places them in all the indigo stores and other independent bookstores, that sort of thing. Um, she takes a cut. If you, if you sell a book, so, uh, the list price of the book now is 24.95.[00:56:00]

There's a 60% haircut rate off the top. 20% goes to the distributor, 40% goes to Indigo, and, and then you get the remainder, and then you have to subtract your $5 a book. So I, I, I'll make about five bucks a book that sells outta the 25 bucks. $25. This price my

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: dad has sold about, I think almost 400,000 bucks.

He sold 400,000. Yeah, he's right. He's written almost 60 books.

Ed Les: Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: All in Holland. Yeah, all in Dutch. And I think he makes an average of a dollar a book or 50 cents a book.

Ed Les: Yeah. So especially if you go with a major publisher, you're gonna get essentially nothing.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, his average, the book price is a lot lower.

There he is, like 12 bucks a book or, you know, so then of course, so that's a

Ed Les: lot of books. Yeah. And, and, and that's, that's what I would, you know, it, it's not just, I suppose it's ego driven when you, you, you, when you invest that much time and effort into putting your ideas and your thoughts into a book, of course you want it out there.

Yeah. I don't really have any. I I, it's not a money making exercise, but it's the message. It's the message, right? Yeah. So if you, if you, if you spend, [00:57:00] uh, like I spent six months writing that book a lot of time. Yeah. Banging away in my computer and then all the effort into getting it bound and published and so on.

You put it out there and it sells 10 copies. It's really, that's

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: hard. That's hard. Yeah. I mean, I live with the podcast as well, some episodes, like I really, really enjoy, like I just came out with one with Andy Harrington from, uh, yeah, yeah. Food Greens Bank and, and you know, it has like, I don't know, very low amount of downloads and it's like, what's going on here?

Yeah. Um, but like your

Ed Les: dad, um, like how did he manage to sell so many books Because of, because of his network?

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Like, uh, I think it's, I mean, there's way bigger reform population in Holland. Yeah. I think it's a publisher that deals with more reform books and, uh, he says it's because he was in Canada for a long time, and then he wrote about religious topics, but he did it in like, common Dutch, not in like.

Um, you know, religious dutch Yeah. Or whatever you like. There is like a religious English when, um, and so that it was really popular with the young people and it just Yeah. Did, [00:58:00] did that really well for, um, that reason. So,

Ed Les: huh. Yeah. But, but sold mostly through Christian bookstores, that sort of thing.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's also over the last 20 years.

Ed Les: Yeah. Still 60 books. He spent a lot of time writing.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. Yeah. Well, there were sermons. Yeah. And, and he, like, he did it at the same time, or he'd write the, I think, I don't know which way he did it, but he doubled up. He doubled down. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

He's always banged up books. Yeah.

Ed Les: And he's really lived the life of an intellectual way. Your dad. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He knows like nine languages. Crazy. He's, do you, how many languages do you used to speak? Just two. Just Dutch in English? Yeah. Your Dutch is pretty good. Yeah, it's not bad. We were in Europe, uh, June and in June, beginning in July.

Took the whole family to, uh, Holland.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: And, uh, we in Holland weekend. In France. Okay. My Dutch isn't great. And, and the Dutch I, the Dutch I absorbed as a youngster is a dialect that nobody eat. Oh. Like free or something? Or zos ese. Oh, okay. And, you [00:59:00] know, you might as well speak Greek. Yeah. You know, so, but everybody in Holland speaks English.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, you don't really, it's amazing. No. Yeah. Even in France, you know, I don't speak French. My kids, my kids are fluent in French. Yeah. Um, but it's interesting, right. Like in Paris, your kids are fluent in French. Yeah. They've been in French immersions, uh, French immersion from kindergarten through grade nine.

Oh,

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: wow. Cool.

Ed Les: What made you choose to do that? I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Whether, whether it's useful, there's an argument to be made that, that learning more than one language, uh, trains your brain in a different way. Yeah. Increases its flexibility and actually enhances learning in other areas.

Yeah. So there's quite a bit of theory behind that. Yeah. But so, so they're fluent in French, but in Paris, if you go to Paris, armed with your Canadian French, so my kids would speak French, they're fluent, they would speak French to a Parisian, and the Parisian would respond in English. They're like, that's not Paris French.

So they just [01:00:00] spoke English. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so, huh. Anyway, interesting. So

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: you're here for a couple days and then you're adding back in,

Ed Les: uh, back to Kelowna tomorrow. Yeah. My brother, uh, Frank, do you know Frank?

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: I do, yeah. Yeah. Hang out with his, uh, son Andrew tomorrow.

Ed Les: Oh, is right.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. Gonna air show together.

Ed Les: Right. Should ask

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Frank how he likes the podcast.

Ed Les: Is it ab for Airshow? Oh, yeah. So Frank's uh, he and his wife have been married for 40 years. Okay. So he is having a get together as his host tomorrow afternoon. But maybe Andrew won't be there. That's a good question. Yeah. 'cause the airshow runs all day, I'd imagine.

Yeah, it does. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I think it's just, it gets together for Frank's brothers and sisters. Yeah. Whoever's around Okay. Kind of thing. And then I'm heading back to Kelowna. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. You should ask him how he likes the podcast. Does he watch it? I think he has listened, but I don't think he has the biggest fan of it.

Ed Les: Huh. Yeah. Well, Frank's, Frank's, um, he's fairly dogmatic, I guess [01:01:00] is the way to put it. Um, he's a, uh, a, uh, classic Dutch reformed, um, worldview that hasn't changed from how it was back in my Father's Day. Mm-hmm. Right. So, you know, it's, it is interesting in a large family how, how, how everybody sort of scatters.

Yeah. It is very interesting. Scatters along the spectrum because I, I have in my, uh, my oldest sister is deceased. Um, she passed away a couple years ago. She used to live here. She used to live here. Yeah. Uh, but you know, the 11 of us that are remaining, we have the entire spectrum of, of, uh, full left to full right.

Full left to full. Right. And from, uh, fundamentalist Christian to atheist. Right. So, or maybe not that those

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: failing get togethers must be

Ed Les: awesome. No full blown atheism, but certainly ag agnosticism. Yeah. Um, so, you know, and, and it's, it's [01:02:00] just the way Yeah. It's just the way it goes. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Interesting. Um, I, uh, someone challenged me to read, uh, the book of John, um, um, recently in a, in a unique way.

He said, read one chapter a day and read it like four or five times. And like really pray over it while you're reading it and stuff like that. And so I'd be reading it in the New Living Translation, but I had no idea that it was such a logical argument that Jesus is making through the whole book of proving that he is actually God.

Mm-hmm. Um, and that, um, and just the different things he says, it says along the way, but then at the end where Thomas, I just read this yesterday and it just like blew me away, um, where, um, Jesus raises from the dead and then he shows to his himself, to his disciples, um, and Thomas isn't there. And then later he does again.

And that I was thought that I kind of was taught growing up that Thomas doubted if he was a Christian or not, if he was saved or not, or that Thomas doubted, you know, um, uh, you know, [01:03:00] God or something like else like that. But that it was actually that, um, Thomas doubted that Jesus was God. That's what he actually doubted.

Right. And that the resurrection proved that he was actually God. Right. And that, um, it was, um, uh, written, um, so that we would also believe and blessed her, those that believe and have not seen. But what was it that he seen? He saw that Jesus was actually alive and that he was disproved. That he said who He said he was.

Yeah. And all those arguments previous to that, but it was always for me, taught growing up. Like it was some assurance thing or something else like that. Huh. But it wasn't that at all. And it just like, it really, really struck me because Interesting. So many people in history have claimed to be God. Yeah.

But only one raised himself from the dead, which is being Jesus. And there's spoof of that, of course, outside the Bible. But that actually is the whole narrative of John. Yeah. Like, I've been reading this for a long time. I believe I've been a Christian for 10 years and, and all of a sudden I, I'd never seen this.

And like, [01:04:00] but it makes everything sink in way more. Yeah. Because it's less, oh, if he actually is who he says he is. Yeah. Now everything else that he says. Yeah. Like, I'll always be with you or everything else. Like that also becomes more true.

Ed Les: Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: And it's like, I don't know, I've just been like, the last 24 hours just been like, rattled by this.

That's a

Ed Les: like a whole frame shift. Yeah. Like massive. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah. And it really helped that I read it in the New Living Translation because it's a very, it's a paraphrase, paraphrase version. Yeah. They explained that upfront. They're not trying to hide the fact that it's not a word for word translation, but it, it just, it becomes way more logical.

Yeah. And because I really took time to read each thing and understand Jesus' arguments along the way. And

Ed Les: what's your, uh, what's your opinion of all those different translations though? Because, you know, like when I was raised here

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: mm-hmm.

Ed Les: King James version of the Bible was still used in your dad's church.

Um, the, uh, opinion, the, the consensus opinion that was held was that, uh, these other translations are riddled with errors and inaccuracies. And [01:05:00] omissions. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, I

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: think they still believe that. Um, and it's, it's, and it's probably true to a degree, but I mean, they're all translations, right?

The King James version is also a translation, but what I found over

Ed Les: the years is that reading, um, different. Versions enlarges your understanding of the material. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas, you know, I agree. King Games English is, I mean,

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: it's, it's, well, let's, let's say, let's say, let's go off the premises that it's the best translation.

Yeah. Well, what if the French is the best translation? Does that mean I need to learn French? Yeah. No, like, it's, it's a, it's a. Fundamentally a separate language. Yeah. Like when someone says to me, hit Yeah. I'm like, huh. Yeah, exactly. You know? And so I think it's really important that it should just be in the language you said read today, like William Tindale, who translated the first English Bible, went to the plow boy, and, and, and asked how he talked.

Yeah. So it could be translated in a language that he understood. 'cause the point of the Bible is that anybody can have a coppa and you can understand it for yourself. Yeah. And we're almost going back to like [01:06:00] this Roman Catholic thing of like, only the priests can really understand it. Right. Which is in some form circles even pushed like, oh, well, don't read it yourself.

Like the elder can tell you what that means. Yeah.

Ed Les: And, and, and, and, and it is, and it's resulted in, in this odd and enduring notion that the only way to speak to God is to address him with thee. And thou and th Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah, it doesn't make sense, which

Ed Les: is just odd. So like, like if, if, if I was to take my children into a church service here, they would really feel like they'd been transported through some Yeah.

Time warp. Yeah. Yeah. Into a strange place. Well, that's what it's happens by aliens. Yeah. Because that's what it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: It's religion, right? It's not, it's not, uh, it's, yeah, it's not, it's not living. It's just, it's a just religion. Yeah. Yeah. I think the best translation in English is the ESV, um, from what I understand, is that right?

The English standard version, the best word for word translation, um, it's from a different manuscript than the King James version Bible. Um, that's argued a little bit too, but I find that's in an actual English, um, language. I think that's the [01:07:00] best one. It still is a little bit like clunky, but that's because it is a word for word translation.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, but you know, just like there's, um, you know, if the more reform people will use an, uh, an, um, a commentary mm-hmm. You know, of, of the Bible and that actually becomes their Bible because. That, you know, Matthew Henry said this, so now it's a hundred percent true. Yeah. Well now you're just doing the same thing as someone using a paraphrase right.

Version himself. Yeah. Yeah. I dunno. Yeah. I think the most important thing is, is that people read it for themselves and, and, uh, like just Yeah. Seek to understand it. It's, it's, it's the living word, you know? There's nothing better.

Ed Les: Yeah. I mean, simple que like my kids the other day, were talking about the origin of the world.

You know, these, these existential questions. You know, you know, if, if, if, uh, you take the Bible as literal truth, you know, we've all entertained these questions, we have these questions ourselves growing up and we entertain these questions from our kids. Is the Bible is literal truth? Are you telling me that all of [01:08:00] humankind came from.

One single couple. And what does that say? Jesse was saying Who? So, so that means that their, they had kids and in order to reproduce their kids must have had to have a relationship with their brothers and sisters. I'm like, well, the Bible doesn't say that.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: Yeah.

Ed Les: Just because something isn't said in the Bible.

It doesn't mean it didn't happen. Mm-hmm. So it can, it, it, it can both be literal truth, but not the whole truth. And, and, and, and this is, this is part of, uh, understanding scripture, I think, is that you have to back to the uncertainty thing we were talking about before. You have to be comfortable with uncertainty or be, be comfortable with.

Um, well, faith

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: is the not knowing hope, something you don't have yet. Yeah. Otherwise it wouldn't be called faith anymore.

Ed Les: It wouldn't be called faith if you had certainty.

Kyle Van Ruitenburg: That's right. Yeah. Right. But there is, but there is still like, um, it says in like the chapter 20, chapter 18 of John, this is John says in there, this is written so that you would have [01:09:00] evidence.

Yeah. So that you could believe like it is still especially John, but written in a way of like, Hey, we, there is, we're trying to give enough evidence that you would have faith. Mm-hmm. And that Jesus is the son of God and that he did really. Come down and Yeah. And, and, but it's, but it's also still faith.

Yeah. It's not like a total, you know, we're not, it's not complete yet. Right. Yeah. So

Ed Les: it's a, it is a reasonable faith, I guess is the best way to, best way to put it. Thanks again. Yeah, no worries. I enjoyed it.

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