Our Featured Guest for January 18, 2026 is Dr. Danielle Dick

What if the traits that drive success, risk-taking, and resilience aren’t learned—but coded into your DNA? In this eye-opening episode, internationally renowned behavioral genetics researcher Dr. Danielle Dick, author of The Child Code and co-founder of Thrive Genetics, challenges everything you think you know about behavior, parenting, and entrepreneurship. From why some people are natural risk-takers to how genes shape personality, addiction risk, and leadership potential, this conversation reveals how nature and nurture collide—and how understanding your genetic wiring can help parents, founders, and leaders make smarter, more compassionate decisions.

Dr. Danielle Dick is the Director of the Rutgers Addiction Research Center and a Professor of Psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, as well as Principal Investigator of the Rutgers Translational Psychiatric Genomics Lab. She is also a distinguished Commonwealth Professor of Psychology and Human and Molecular Genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she directs a research institute focused on behavioral and emotional health.

Her research examines how genetic and environmental influences shape patterns of substance use and related behaviors, including childhood behavioral and emotional challenges. She focuses on how this science can inform prevention and intervention, integrating developmental and clinical psychology, behavior genetics and twin studies, and statistical genetics. A particular area of interest is impulsivity and behavioral and emotional regulation.

Dr. Dick is internationally recognized and award-winning for her work on genetic and environmental influences on addiction and human behavior. She directs the largest addiction research center in the country and is among the most highly cited researchers across all scientific fields. 

She is also the author of The Child Code: Understanding Your Child’s Unique Nature for Happier, More Effective Parenting, published by Penguin Random House. The book presents a science-based, provocative approach to parenting that challenges the idea that parenting techniques alone determine a child’s outcomes. Instead, Dr. Dick emphasizes that every child is born with a unique genetic “code” that influences traits such as fearfulness, impulsivity, emotionality, and happiness.

Rather than trying to mold children into a predetermined ideal, she explains how adapting parenting strategies to a child’s natural wiring can reduce stress, improve family dynamics, and support authentic success. Each chapter combines behavioral genetics research with practical, individualized strategies parents can apply immediately. The core message is reassuring and empowering: a parent’s most important role is to help children become who they were literally born to be.

Dr. Dick is also the co-founder and Chief Sceintific Officer of Thrive Genetics, a company that partners with medical providers to enhance human performance and well-being by identifying addiction risk early. Thrive Genetics combines genomics, behavioral psychology, and technology to deliver personalized, science-based guidance that supports early detection, targeted intervention, and long-term resilience.

With more than a decade of research and over $50 million in U.S. grants behind it, Thrive Genetics aims to bring transparency to an individual’s genetic and behavioral predisposition toward addiction while providing proactive, actionable plans for healthier outcomes. The company’s vision is to help providers refine care strategies, improve outcomes, and reduce overall healthcare costs through personalized, data-driven decision support. Read more at: https://www.danielledick.com/ and https://thrivegenetics.ai/

Our Entrepreneur Presenters:

Neil Senturia is the co-founder and CEO of AskTuring.ai and a classic serial entrepreneur with a career spanning technology, real estate, venture investing, and entertainment. AskTuring.ai is a private AI workspace designed for secure collaboration and precision-driven decision-making, giving teams instant, cited answers from their private documents—never from public internet sources—while maintaining total data privacy and compliance.

AskTuring: AskTuring is built for professionals who cannot afford to guess. The platform delivers private, context-aware intelligence generated exclusively from a firm’s encrypted data, with verified citations for every response. It supports multiple AI models through a single secure workspace, automatically routing each question to the most capable model. AskTuring also enables secure collaboration, allowing insights to be shared safely with colleagues, clients, and compliance reviewers, and includes the ability to publish a controlled public-facing chat powered by verified project knowledge.

The platform is used across high-stakes, regulated environments, including law firms, financial advisors, consulting and advisory firms, compliance teams, operations and HR, and CPA and accounting firms. AskTuring helps these teams surface precise clauses, policies, research, and precedents instantly, with audit-ready citations and enterprise-grade security. Built with patent-protected RAG technology and a multi-layer privacy architecture, AskTuring encrypts every file, operates within strict data boundaries, and never trains on customer data.

Venture Investing & Blackbird Ventures: Beyond AskTuring, Neil is the CEO of Blackbird Ventures, a small venture fund focused on very early-stage technology companies. Blackbird Ventures is run by Neil and his wife, Barbara Bry, and works closely with entrepreneurs who are passionate about the relentless pursuit of their dreams. Neil brings his hands-on operating experience to each company Blackbird supports.

Technology & Company-Building Experience: Neil’s entrepreneurial career includes founding and leading numerous successful companies. These include Deckard Technologies, which produces highly refined real estate datasets and visual property reports; Oberon Fuels, which manufactures dimethyl ether (DME), a clean substitute for diesel fuel; and LonoCloud, a secure cloud platform acquired by ViaSat in 2013.

Other ventures include Quanlight, focused on next-generation red LEDs; Soflinx, a wireless sensor and device network company funded by In-Q-Tel and acquired by Lockheed Martin in 2004; Mohomine, a software company for managing unstructured data acquired by Kofax Image Products in 2003; and Atcom/Info, a pioneer in internet and email kiosks and high-speed internet access in hotel rooms, sold in 1999 in a deal valued at more than $80 million and now owned by Cisco.

Early Career: Screenwriting, Finance & Real Estate: Earlier in his career, Neil worked as a television screenwriter, writing for shows such as M*A*S*H, Alice, and The Tony Randall Show. From 1980 to 1985, he was an executive in the financial services industry, followed by a decade in real estate development from 1985 to 1995, during which he built more than 1.8 million square feet of office, condominium, and hotel space across Los Angeles and San Diego.

Teaching, Writing & Thought Leadership: Neil has been deeply committed to teaching entrepreneurship. He and Barbara Bry taught at UC San Diego’s von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement in the Jacobs School of Engineering. He has taught in the MBA program at San Diego State University and is currently teaching entrepreneurism at Donovan State Prison.

Education, Honors & Recognition: His honors include the Microsoft Retail Application Developer Award (1997 and 1998), the Arnie Karush Award from the San Diego Software and Internet Council, and the UCSD CONNECT Most Innovative Product Award. Neil graduated from Tufts University with a degree in English and earned a Master’s degree in film from New York University. He is also the author of three books on entrepreneurship, including I’m There For You Baby: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to the Galaxy, and writes a weekly column for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Read more at: https://www.askturing.ai/

Alan Porter is a Financial Advisor and the Owner and CEO of Strategic Wealth Strategies, where he leads a powerhouse, process-driven team of elite CPAs, tax attorneys, and financial specialists with more than five decades of combined experience. His firm operates on one guiding principle: think beyond conventional financial planning. Alan and his team focus on helping clients reduce or eliminate unnecessary taxes, fees, debt, and lost opportunity costs—ensuring every dollar is put to its highest and best use.

Alan’s journey into financial strategy was forged through decades of service, personal tragedy, and an unwavering mission to protect others. A retired Blackhawk helicopter instructor pilot with 21 years in the U.S. Army, he transitioned from military service into real estate and mortgage lending before charting a course into financial strategy. His true calling emerged after a defining family moment that reshaped his purpose and career.

That mission became deeply personal when Alan’s daughter-in-law passed away from pancreatic cancer at just 39. His son, who is 100% disabled, was spared financial devastation because of a little-known but powerful tool—the terminal illness rider on her life insurance policy—which provided access to hundreds of thousands of dollars tax-free. “People don’t know these things, and they need to,” Alan shares. That experience ignited his passion to educate families on strategies that can protect them during life’s most difficult moments.

Alan is a Certified Tax and Business Advisor and Certified Financial Fiduciary, working closely with top CPAs and tax-specific attorneys to deliver advanced, tax-free retirement strategies. His practice is strategy-focused, not product-driven, and designed to create a paradigm shift in how people think about money, taxes, and retirement. His work centers on protecting wealth, minimizing market risk, and helping clients take control of their financial futures.

A widely published authority in the financial space, Alan has been featured in over 1,500 publications and currently authors financial articles for multiple magazines. He has spoken at Harvard, West Point, and the Harvard Faculty Club, and was selected as Outstanding Speaker for the Leadership Conference at West Point. His media appearances include ESPN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CW, iHeartRadio, and CNTV Consumer News Network, where he previously served as a regular Wealth Advisor. He also hosts a national podcast.

Alan is the author and co-author of multiple international best-selling books on financial leadership, tax savings strategies, and debt elimination. His book Wealth Beyond Taxes was published in 2021, and his latest release, Tax-Free Retirement Solution, is an Amazon Best Seller. The book reflects his core belief that financial security isn’t about chasing market returns—it’s about strategy, protection, and control.

In Tax-Free Retirement Solution, Alan reveals how rising taxes and traditional retirement vehicles like 401(k)s and IRAs can create hidden financial risks. Read more at: https://www.strategicwealthstrategies.com/