Guest Celebrity and Superstar Nick Nanton of www.NickNanton.com

Oh, so hello everyone. I just— Nick, it's Candid. I did not sleep last night. Um, I didn't sleep because I knew that I was having a chance to talk to Nick Nanton. This is not just a guy that lives in Winter Park, Florida. It's not like that's not a big deal. This is the Nick Nanton. Nick, can you, um, can Can you just introduce yourself? Tell us— I put a little bit on the bottom scrolling, but tell us who you really are, because this is so exciting to have a chance to talk to you.

Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm a regular guy who loves people and loves sharing stories. I have a family, a wife of 18 years. I got 3, 3 kids that are growing way too fast, uh, and I've been blessed to spend the last, you know, 15 years helping entrepreneurs and nonprofits all across the globe share their stories through all types of media. The last 10 years, I've really specialized in documentary filmmaking, and, uh, it's been a blast, uh, meeting and working with some of the, you know, some of the people who we've all had on— well, most people, I mean, have had on their sort of wall of fame for a long time. It's been unique to see how that's all unfolded, but it's been a lot of fun.

Your wall of fame includes Mark Cuban, right? Like, your Wall of Fame is, is huge. Did you interview Jack Canfield?

I did the documentary on Jack Canfield's life on Amazon. I did Rudy's story, the football player. I've done Brian Tracy's story. I've interviewed Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, Will.i.am, Tony Robbins 3, 4 times, Jay Abraham, Lisa Nichols, uh, Glenn Beck, Anthony Scaramucci, and we go on forever. But yeah, lots of interesting people.

It is. It's, it's— and I— and now you're giving me an opportunity. So this just shows your heart that you are actually giving little Adrian an opportunity to talk with you. And I really— I— that really is— means a lot to me. By the way, my third son is named Rudy.

Oh yeah.

And yes, there's a part from my grandfather— my great-grandfather was Rudolph. But that movie is unbelievable. And when I saw it, I just— I, I was like, I have to have a child to call him Rudy. And thank God that he came out. He wasn't a duty, he was a Rudy. So it was a good thing. So Nick, I really want to talk about the social dilemma. You have children, you said. Do you have ones that are like in the— what, you know, are they using their phone?

Yeah, I have 15, 13 this weekend, and then 9. So 2 boys and a girl. And, uh, somebody told me one time I heard, uh, and I think it's valid advice, and I'll tell you why I even bring it up. Let's say you're in your household, if you have children, you're as old as your oldest and as young as your youngest. So you're constantly trying to figure out— the youngest is getting exposed to things they wouldn't have been if they were the oldest and they were that age, you know, when they were that young. And the oldest still gets held back some by what's appropriate for a kid in the youngest age. So it's an interesting mix. But so yeah, I have been very pro-technology with my kids since iPads, I mean, 3 and 4 years old, 5 years old, because I feel like they are just a much more immersive way of learning and growing. And then those, of course, all evolved to iPhones. And so I think my daughter had a— she's my 9-year-old— she had an iPhone, I think, at 5. And so my boys certainly have their phones. It's very— we've made it very clear that those phones are in my name, not yours, so they can go and come at any time. We check them all the time. We check— we let them know we check your text messages, which is because it's not because we're overbearing, but it's for your safety. And because part of Part of raising a child is learning together and teaching you when you make a misstep or when you don't see something coming. Then also, from all the work I've done in human trafficking all across the globe, I'm also aware that giving your child a phone is giving them access to everything in the world, like literally everything. There's nothing you can really keep away. There's certain softwares and stuff which they'll all figure out how to crack. To me, just to get back to it, the issue of a phone or social media is a heart issue. It's not a technology issue. It's a heart issue. And so our job as parents is to work on the hearts while knowing, uh, they're going to make mistakes, and that's part of the— that's part of the learning process. So that's sort of where I begin from. We could go anywhere you want with that stuff, but that's where I start from.

I love that. So I have a 14-year-old, so I guess I'm 14, active most of the time. I am, um, I'm her proud secretary of her phone. She has named me that because she actually I have all of the apps on my phone, but she, she wants me to have it. For her, it becomes a protection. And then she'll say, like, sometimes she'll come out, Mom, can you respond to that message? And I'll be like, okay. So like, she really uses me sometimes, but it's because we really ran into it. We had the, the picture sent to her. We had a friend that we had one of her male was going out saying horrible things to all these girls. And then the minute I read it, I realized it wasn't him. He was being hacked. And so we stopped the hacker, we saved his reputation, and, and now he's like, Alana's like bestie, because he's like, oh my gosh, she really is careful. But it is serious. And the problem is, if we can have the great relationship, I worry about the children that you can't even touch their phone to look at it. You try to take it away and they absolutely freak out. And that to me is kind of that addiction. It's going on where they can't live without it.

It is. And to me, that's, that's a parenting issue. I mean, you know, you have to teach your kids. So mine comes from sort of a faith-based background where I, I find my grounding there. But if you are like— if you're living in a reactive world, if you're reacting instead of responding to the world around you, then there's deeper conversations when need to have. There's also— I think a lot of parents would prefer not to have to parent because it's easier. It is, quite frankly, much easier not to have to parent. But if you've signed up for this one way or the other, and so it's your job to give that guidance and advice. I mean, kids need boundaries. I mean, I often, when I go to speak to a group of kids, I'll say, look, I know the things your parents are telling you sometimes feel like they're being mean or they're trying to be controlling. But I say, have you ever played a game Have you ever played a game where you didn't know the rules? And how frustrating is that game because you're not sure what you're supposed to be doing. And when a kid plays a game, they don't know the rules, there's no boundaries, they actually get huge levels of anxiety. As much as our human condition would desire freedom in everything we do and we can make up all the rules and we could, right, we could be God if we could just put everyone in their place the way we want, right? That's sort of what we're all after in one way or the other, however you wanna articulate it yourself based on your background. Want. But kids don't thrive in an environment like that. It creates huge anxieties because they don't know. And so our job as parents is to teach boundaries so that they understand them and they can learn, and they can learn how to thrive. If you know how to play a game, you can win. If you don't know how to play a game, everyone around you is— you're going to be so frustrated and anxious because you just can't figure out why they're winning and you're not.

Okay, thank you. That is really beautiful. So as a parent, I will tell you my biggest scare is human trafficking, and I didn't know much about it, but I got involved in a group called Sold No More out in Tucson, Arizona. It's very big in Tucson. I know certain areas, the pockets in Tucson. And so your Underground Operation Railroad hits to the core of me. As a matter of fact, this morning I said to my daughter, you do know if someone rolled up beside you and said on her small walk home, you know, oh, that's Joe's parent, or that's, you know, Sally's father, you still don't get in the car. And she's like, of course I know that, but I still feel like I have to remind her. The scare for me is, is just so tremendous. So can you share a little bit about how you felt when you got involved with Operation Undercover Railroad and then what you've seen and how other people can get involved and actually help? Because it's such an amazing program.

Yeah, there's— I mean, yeah, there's some amazing people fighting this fight. I had no idea anything about it, honestly, until a friend of mine named Russell Brunson called me and asked me would I be willing to make a documentary on child sex trafficking? And I said, well, I mean, sure. I don't know anything about it, but I assume it's anti. As long as it's anti, I'm in. And so I got involved and got connected to Operation Underground Railroad, ended up going to Haiti and all across the country with them. I've now been with them to Haiti, Colombia, Iraq, and just seeing the way human trafficking works. And I would say there is still— in, let's talk about America, 'cause that's the easiest thing to just focus in now, but it happens this way everywhere. There was a time, and there still is some of this where there's drugging and kidnapping and all that, but if you think like a criminal compared to what you can do with a cell phone and online, I mean, getting, if I gotta buy a white van, gotta find where some kid's hanging out, gotta abduct them, this is way risky, right? If you just like, way riskier than the way they think is really what they're trying to do is a lot of times, make money, right? And they're trying to feed an addiction sometimes. And so this is way easier anonymously online. And so what I try to help people to understand of all ages is that, you know, a lot of trafficking used to happen— again, I'm not saying it doesn't happen ever— but it used to be the hotbeds used to be places like, um, uh, shopping malls and movie theaters. It was where kids would hang out. And so now kids don't really hang out at those places much anymore. They hang out online. And so they hang out in video games, they hang out on Instagram, they have, you know, they have in all these places. So where— what I want parents and teenagers, anyone to understand is that wherever people are gathered, predators will be there. And so while I could tell you trafficking happens on Instagram, trafficking happens on Facebook, trafficking happens on Fortnite, trafficking happens on Roblox, trafficking happens on Tonka video game, like Tonka Truck video game. We just covered a case of a 7-year-old, a new film I'm making, and So, but what I don't want you to think is like, oh, well, my kid's not on Roblox or my kid's not on Instagram. I want you to think, oh, well, where is my child spending time where there's any interaction with anyone, anyone else? And by the way, it could even be, um, even text messaging, you know, like group texts and family group texts. I don't remember the exact stat, but it's, it's a ridiculously high number. I believe it's somewhere in like the 75%, 80% mark. I'm, I'm, I could be wrong, but you'll get the point. Of sexual abuse and exploitation, child rape, happens with that high percentage of trusted loved ones and family members. It's someone within their network. And so it's all about learning, number one, how to think about if something feels wrong, how to identify, hmm, maybe this isn't the person who, that boy, maybe that, I don't think that kid would do that. Let me dig in a little bit more rather than just taking it on face value. And so a lot of people get, taken advantage of, particularly when it's obvious that they're vulnerable. So a lot of kids, even adults post, I feel like I'm ugly, my girlfriend just broke up with me, I'm doing terrible in school, my parents hate me, like all these things where it's like this overly emotional states. And then someone will slide into their direct messages like, oh my gosh, you're beautiful, or you're so handsome, what do you mean? How could a girl break up with you? You're amazing. And it could be an hour, could be a day, Could be a week, could be a month, could be a year. These people are predators. They fish and fish and fish. It's a numbers game for them. And eventually, look, I'll tell it to you the way I would understand it best from the point of view of when I was a young teenage boy once, right? And so if I was feeling lonely in any way, shape, or form, and I got a message from a beautiful girl, it's like, oh my gosh, anything that would make me feel good. You're so handsome, blah, blah. And eventually they try to escalate the relationship to sending nude pictures and videos of yourself. And they do it, like, if you think about the way it happens, like, hey, here's one of me covering my boobs. If you send me something, I'll send you one without it. And they just like lure you in. And then eventually, when you make the mistake of having a video or picture with your face in it, you know, or identifying marks or room or whatever, whenever they feel that they've got you, you find out, oh, wait a second, these are not— I haven't been talking to this girl. I've been talking to a 47-year-old man in Idaho, or it doesn't matter, wherever. And they say, now here's the deal, I have this all this stuff from you, and if you don't do what I tell you to do, I am going to post— I'm going to email it to your parents, I'm going to email it to everyone at your high school, I'm going to email it to all your friends. I'm like, whatever. And so of course anyone would be like mortified. I— first of all, they thought they were developing a relationship with someone who really liked them, and then you get hormones involved, you start getting, you know, crazy pictures and videos and like— and, and it's like, oh my gosh, now you're caught. Now you feel emotionally robbed. You feel duped. You feel taken advantage of. You feel exploited. And the, the last thing a kid or anyone in that situation wants to do is to go to their parents and say, I messed up. Like, I messed up. You, you were right. I messed up. And so all I tell a lot of parents— a lot of schools, by the way, won't have experts in to talk about this to talk about this issue because they don't want people to think it's happening there. If people even think it's happening there, that's really negative, which is really sad. Wrong way to look at it. It is happening everywhere. The film I'm making right now is called "It's Happening Right Here." There are boys and girls in upper-class neighborhoods with gates and parents who are CEOs and successful and who are suicidal because they're being forced to do sexual things in their rooms every day for the world to watch. I mean, there are— you can buy tickets to child rapes on Zoom. I mean, this is like wherever people gather, this can can happen, and I don't want to sensationalize it. I also don't want to sanitize it, but the whole point being, the conversation I think we should all be having with our children is, look, first of all, don't text compromising pictures and videos. Like, don't do it. But when you mess up, because I understand you're a human, I really hope you don't, but when you mess up, whenever something happens where you feel like, oh my gosh, I'm humiliated, I'm embarrassed, I don't know what to do, do not go get advice on the proverbial playground. Don't get it from your friends at school. Come to me. No one else cares about your future as much as I do. Having one tough, embarrassing conversation with me is way better than the millions of embarrassing things that are going to happen to you if you continue on that path. There's so many other ways it happens, being taken into modeling. It's the worst form of bullying in the world. It's the worst form of manipulation. The people who do it understand how to manipulate people at their weakest. If there's a girl or boy who really wants to be a model, they will place her, "Oh, you are beautiful." I have a friend who's a photographer. I mean, we even covered a story recently where this kid flew to another town and took some modeling pictures, and they're like, oh, if you really want to make it, I got a friend who needs a picture, but you're gonna— if you don't want to, you can go home, but you just got to show me some more skin. And eventually, like, oh, they like me. Oh, this is just the way the— okay, I guess I'll get naked. And then it's done, you know? And so it's just learning to think about about what you're really doing and the fact that pretty much everything these days has lasting fingerprints forever. I won't keep going, but you get the point. It's learning how to think it through, learning how to have trusted relationships in your life, and learning what the next step is to do. It's like you hope your house doesn't catch on fire, but we still have fire extinguishers because we know it's possible. You need to be that for your child. You need to be that for any child in your life. A lot of times, a kid won't go to their parent either, by the way. That's the hardest one. Be a loved one, it might be a guidance counselor, might be whatever. It's just when you really mess up, please share with me or someone else close to you, because the next decisions you make are really going to have, you know, more impact on your life than you could ever imagine.

Unfortunately, Nick, I have to bring this up though. As a parent of a 14-year-old daughter, she has had two friends where I have known— caught— 100% know that their friend has been communicating with someone who is possibly, but looks like could be very much so a predator. And when I talked to the parents, their response was, I need proof. So even just enough to say, look, your child's home alone, you're working all day, that child's in the room alone, you know, I, I had access to see because someone had given my daughter the back room. Even then, so, so it's not so easy to even let— from a parent to parent— to let them know. So I just, I have to say that It's really— we just continue to have that conversation. But I want to talk a few minutes about The Social Dilemma, because what caught me about it is that people really don't know the difference between facts and opinions. And right now we have a real problem because we are politically divided. And I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Yes. So I found The Social Network to be interesting. I think I've been in this world through learning a bunch on trafficking, but I've also been to Google, I've been to Facebook, I've been in this world for a long time learning about and also just thinking through the fact that, let's be honest, they're not doing this for us. I mean, they're giving us a service, and if it's free, everything is a trade-off, right? And so I'm not naive about that. I do realize, as I thought about my kids, probably don't know, and I guess most people don't know nearly the extent, because once you understand it, you It's like anything else. I'll compare it to like if you're born with a gift, you take it for granted because you already understand that. Doesn't everyone? I would say I too lightly thought of it that I wrote it off at first, but I think it's very important. There's some very important messaging in there for everyone, but I think that some of it I don't love the sensationalization because I mean, I don't even know where the adage came from is probably thousands of years old, but just, I mean, this is not a new thing that every sword cuts both ways. Like, this is not, this is not a new thing. I mean, a gun is amazing for protection if you're outnumbered and, and someone's trying to kill you. It's terrible if you're the one trying to kill somebody for no good reason, right? It's a, it's a tool. Social media is a tool. I do think most people have been, um, I think there's been a lot of deception and misleading in the way they deliver things to you because they see what you interact with the most and they keep giving you more of that. So it really does, it really does have some damaging effects, even if you are aware of it, of news sources, opinions, you really end up living in a bubble that just continually reinforces your own biases. And so that's, I understand why that happens because they wanna engage you and they want you to be engaged. They actually want you, I think, let's just say even from a non-conspiracy theorist point of view, I think that Facebook wants you to have real engagement with people all across the globe, so they try to figure out what gets you to engage and they give you more of that. It just ends up having overarching side effects that I think a lot of people didn't realize or didn't think through. The parts of the film I didn't love are this thing like when this guy says, and then I realized, There were, you know, 13 of us are going to be determining how the world sees their email. Like, it was just this, this big revelation. It's like, yeah, you work for Google, dude. Like, you, you know, I mean, the person who built the first automobile had to stop and think, wow, this is going to change the way moms and dads are going to go to work every day instead of having— like, person invented the plane, this is going to change the way we operate. And there's great things about that. There's also negative things about that. I mean, you know, The fact that we can go, I can fly anywhere I want any day. Well, if you wanna talk about it from based on traditional values, like, well, that takes me away from my family. But like, I've gotta be the one who's smart enough to realize, okay, wait a minute, I need to have balance. Okay, so how do I have balance? Okay, so me and my wife, when I was traveling more, 7 nights a month, that's it, because I needed to be home with my family. And so I thought some of that was just annoyingly, writing down how dumb the audience was. But I think there are a lot of people who don't understand. And maybe I don't even fully understand, but I feel like I have a good grasp on the fact that, look, everything is a trade-off. And yes, they're delivering things that make you interested. And again, it all comes back to me. Where does your self-worth come from? If you allow your self-worth to come from likes and comments and subscribes, which are super— I mean, they give you the best hit of dopamine ever. Like, oh, they like me. They really like me. But you, you need to have— you have more in your life. That, that is— that can be a— that can be a healthy part of your life. It can be. But if it is— if it is your entire life, um, we've got a lot of things we gotta talk about.

That's— you know, I always felt that filters are a big issue because I— you know, kids look at themselves and they're consistently— I can't believe even adults, every photo is of themselves with a filter. Do you all of a sudden forget how you look one day? You look in the mirror and you're like, crap. I thought I had blue eyes. What happened here? But I will tell you, it did answer a question to me, the movie, the docudrama, because I always felt like, why are people so sure of something? Or they feel a certain way and they would fight to the extreme. And then it made me realize, I forgot, and I think it's easy to forget that we're not seeing the same thing. I thought that was an interesting part, that Wikipedia was the only thing. And so I think as much as you and I, you know, are smart, we understand there's so many people out there that really— I think one of the best ways to— for all of us is whatever our belief is, to find another belief method. Like when I was— I was on a murder trial in Kissimmee, Osceola. It was crazy. It was a 3-week murder trial and we were 6-6. We couldn't come to a liking. And the judge brought us in and we sat in the courtroom and the judge scolded us and he said, said, if you think that the person is, um, is whatever the word is— oh my God, it just escaped me— but if you think that he— what's the word— is guilty, innocent, yeah, then think of him as guilty. And if he's guilty, come up and think of him as innocent. And we had to think that way. And I think people have to do the same thing because otherwise you're just feeding your own self and it's dividing us. I mean, like, have you snoozed anyone in the last, you know, 30 days, Nick?

I, I don't snooze people, but I don't, I don't choose to get my information on Facebook or, or any of these other places. I, um, I, I usually don't even choose to engage much on there because it's usually fruitless, um, no matter what you believe. But I, I mean, again, in my life I've surrounded myself with people who are— I'd say most people have very different— I mean, so I'm in the film business essentially, so most people are— I don't want to generalize, but there's a lot of people who I'm much more conservative than they are in just Christian values, family values, fiscal values, and they typically aren't. But we find common ground, like what do you like about it? What do you not like about that? What do you think works? What do you think doesn't? And the best part about it is it's okay to disagree and still love each other. Like there's certain things I'm never gonna convince you of, and that's okay. And there's certain things you're never gonna convince me of, and that's okay. If life was easy, anything that was easy, it wouldn't be an issue. The reason it's an issue is because it's complicated. We all want these binary lives of like yes/no and black/white, yellow/blue. It's not. Life is complicated. Life is in this messy soup. It's like just love people where they're at and try to be helpful. Try to serve others well. I think that's a very different message than most people are living today, so it's easy to get caught up. Up in all these things that really at the end of the day don't matter. I think if you don't have a good balance of people like that in your life anyway, there's a big reason that you probably are living the life you're living. I choose to— I don't like combative people in my life, but I welcome people who are different than me and who think differently because it makes for a much more interesting life. I mean, if you think— if everyone thought the same and had the same things, I mean, we would find a way to make it different. Like, that's, that's humanity. Like, people find ways to get ahead. People will work harder so they can get ahead or make more money. And literally, we're, we're driven to momentum. We're driven to progress. I mean, no one feels happy feeling stuck. And so we would find that some other way. But I, I would encourage you to surround yourself with people who aren't all the same.

I love it. All right, before I let you go, tell me about the Emmy, the, the nomination for Dreamer. Do you mind?

Yeah, no, so we got, uh, I got 7 Emmy nominations yesterday total. Um, 3 of mine were for Dreamer, uh, and 3 were for directing other things, whatever. So, um, yeah, so we've, we've done— we've been blessed in that for sure. Dreamer, amazing film. We're working through it right now, how the actual release is going to be. Um, but it's a, it's a film about people who— a documentary about people who were told to get their heads out the clouds. They didn't, and they changed the world. And the whole message here is just trying to inspire people of all ages, stages of life, that if you have a dream— you know, my friend Jack Canfield says, you know, he says, I quote Walt Disney, if you can dream it, you can do it. And that sounds so cliché and simple, but if you were given a dream, it is for you to accomplish. And it'll often be when you share with other people, they will try to talk you out of it. It's because that dream wasn't given to them. But if you can dream it, you can do it. And if it's been given to you, your job, your mission, if it's— if you truly feel like it is your dream, is to gain the skill sets Gain the network, gain the knowledge, become the person you need to become, surrounded by the people you need on your team to make that dream come true. Because if you don't, no one else is going to. But don't be surprised if other people, you know, will, will poo-poo it or say, oh, that— get real, get realistic. Because that's because that dream wasn't given to them.

Thank you so much, Nick. Thank you so much for your time. I really, really, really— you know what? What you did today for me, I will always remember it. So thank you so much. Thank you. This is kind of my dream. I have a face for, uh, I have a face for the internet. Thank you. Have a great rest of the day. Thank you so much for your time today.

My pleasure. Take care.

Bye, Nick. Bye-bye. That was amazing. Thank you so much. Oh, Nick, thank