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Up Your Average is the “no nonsense” podcast made for interesting people who think differently. Learn to navigate your life with unconventional wisdom by tuning in to Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve every week.
Keith (00:03.042)
Doug, good morning. Word up. It's a great day to be alive.
I wonder if anybody says word up anymore besides me.
I never said, don't even know what it means. So I just smile and act like that. What, um, what would you say if I asked you the question, what is the American dream?
Well...
I think the American dream is being free to do what you're inspired or what you want to do.
Keith (00:39.404)
This is what it is to you.
Well, you're asking what I think the American dream is, and I think that's what it would boil down to for anybody who dreams.
Yeah. You hear people talking about it. Like you're all different kinds of things about what is the American dream. And I think this whole conversation was just sparked by how fun it was to have Matt join us a week ago, A little kid laying in the picture on his book was a little kid laying on the grass dreaming. And many years later, he's
Yeah. Yeah.
Doug (01:12.973)
Right?
Keith (01:17.772)
flying arguably one of the coolest airplanes ever. And one of the coolest uniforms ever. Like it was a flashback, that conversation was a flashback to me as younger days. And I thought of having a guest join us today, but she must've been too busy. But some people would say the American dream is getting a house, right? So my...
No doubt about it.
Keith (01:44.142)
My daughter Casey and Kevin today, they're moving into their house and I thought if she had time, she'd come talk to us about what that meant to her and the enthusiasm of having that house. Like I've been watching it build up with them and it's a lot of fun having a house.
Goodness, it was a dream of mine.
Yeah. And so when I was thinking about our conversation today, I had asked you to think about past dreams at different ages you had. I thought, I thought I would talk about not only dreams at ages, but dreams at different roles that we fill in life. And I broke those three roles down to a physical dream, a faith kind of dream and a financial dream, because those have all been dreams of mine over time. And
And I don't have as many physical dreams that I like. Man, if I could just, if I can just get that, whatever that is, um, that that's not so much, but I'm so excited about tomorrow. And I think dreams in my own life, when I was thinking about this, were you, were you, uh, old enough to get a Sears wish book?
Yeah.
Doug (02:55.258)
No, no, I mean, I remember the Sears catalog. Yeah, that's what it was called. OK. They had a nice Christmas section like toys and stuff in there.
kinda wishful.
Keith (03:05.39)
Yeah, and then Christmas man, that thing was about that thick and it would come and everybody like they get there. I think they didn't use Sharpies. They use flares back then.
Yeah, yeah, we my sisters and I would do that. Yeah
So like as a little kid that might have been my American dream. It's like man if I could get there's probably had to do with Hot Wheels for me. I know about you.
So stuff, if I could get some stuff, that was the dream.
You know, it's weird about it for me. And I realized this as a young adult is I was almost always disappointed Christmas day because I didn't get as much as what was in the wish book that I hoped that would. Isn't that weird? Yeah. And I think that affected me. I just don't need more stuff today as an adult. I I found that whatever cool stuff mom and dad got me, didn't.
Doug (03:56.302)
to them. Gotcha. Yeah, gotcha.
Yeah, I had to be a punk to them. they had that. It was like, he's not very excited.
These homemade toys we made for Keith, he's the
that excited? Well, I was the youngest grandchild, so I was always getting other people's stuff rewrapped. Like a toaster. All my cars, all my cars and that father's raw beef. This is my cousin or brother, age even. That's good. Yeah. Funny stuff. So, so when you think, about dreams by age, do you have any dreams that come to mind to you? Like how far back do you remember having something that really stoked your soul?
Yeah, as a, as a boy and my friend, Gabe Green could attest to this. we would set up our hot wheel cars and we'd set them up in dealerships and we would wash our hot wheel cars and wax them and line them in straight lines. And it seemed like every day, I don't know if it was or not, but, but we would line these cars up and then Gabe and I would do dealer trades back and forth with each other. and those
Doug (05:08.248)
trading days of cars, this car.
Porsche 911 was always a dream. And I love, I have a romantic worldview. And so it's not really the car. I wouldn't have been able to tell you that until probably recently. I always thought it was the car, but really what it is is it's the spirit of adventure, great engineering and quality.
craftsmanship that goes fast, that really intrigued me. That was the dream. I couldn't explain it like that. I would just say it's a Porsche 911 is the dream, but no, that's not it. It's all of those things that you can do inside of something like this. And that attitude is still alive and really healthy today.
You know, like I don't, I didn't really ever aspire to something like a car. don't think I can't remember anything that if I could just have that it really, but the same idea was prevalent in me. I, I recall probably learning from cleaning up my uncles and my grandmother's estate things like that during the depression era, people did, they couldn't aspire to.
a Porsche or something. So they collected little things, odds and ends, and they collected coins and stamps were what they collected. They would steam them off of something, but that would consume their time and their imagination and give them something to build that camaraderie. And, and so they got me a penny book. They were like little blue foldable books that you would put the penny in that you had and collect, you know, 19
Keith (07:01.39)
57S or 57D or whatever.
And what a appropriate thing to talk about this week. Didn't they do away with the penny?
I need to bring that in. Yeah. The penny is no more. No Moss. Yeah. So, so when, when I was filling it and it would tell you, it would tell you supply and demand on there. like it's how many of that coin was minted. And as I would look at it, the very top left corner, there was one called the 1909 S VDB.
Nice.
Doug (07:35.022)
That was the top dog.
I don't remember how many were minted. It wasn't many. And I just knew there's no way on the planet Earth I'm ever filling that spot on that thing because those things are expensive. And as I accumulated some financial success in life, I bought each of the kids one of those for an emergency fund. they wouldn't appreciate it as much as me, but it was, I've arrived. can fill that top.
Right?
Doug (08:04.366)
How cool is that?
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. so, so there's just all kinds of things that can stir our soul. And I was curious what you thought about two words, like how you mesh those two words together. Um, so you've got dreams, which the wish book is a form of dream, but, but, and we're not talking about, woke up, I woke up this morning and had a dream last night. We're talking about what you see for your future kind of dreams. And so, so you've got dreams over here.
And then you've got passion. How do you envision those two words mixing together?
Well, I think it starts with someone else paving the way for you. And so when you can see someone who is doing something big, bigger than normal, or maybe they have the Porsche or maybe they have the penny and you can see that, okay, it's possible to have something like this. You can start thinking about it. And if it stirs your soul and it's something unique,
about yourself, then that's where the passion starts happening. And you'd be willing to suffer in order to go for that dream. think passion and suffering go really well together because it's blood, sweat, and tears to get to your dream. Like our friend told us last week, he said, don't give up.
Keith (09:29.41)
Yeah. And, and man, I thought a lot about some of the words that Matt talked about. And he got a little teary eyed when he was talking about believers, cheering you on because if you're going to jump out there and take a risk and go do something that is a dream, there's a, mean, if it's a dream and you could fail at it, it could just be a flop.
you're going to. Yeah. Yeah, that's the if you have a dream, you're going to fail at it. And then you're going to get there. Yeah.
And so there's all kinds of people. I told you so I knew you wouldn't do it. Like who can believe you can get over that hurdle? And those are few and far between. And, and for me, like starting a business was never a dream. Like it just happened. and then all the blood, sweat and tears to get it going. I, I'm not, personality wise, one that complains about things. So I wouldn't.
I don't even talk about all that stuff. was just part of the fuel that I had to learn to navigate through. But having something, even if it wasn't a dream that you accomplished, does something to your soul that very few other things do.
Yeah, it's funny. Being a part of a small business was a dream for me. That's cool. And it's because of my grandparents, my dad, my uncles, they had small businesses and I could see myself in a small business. I didn't really know what that meant. I knew I didn't want to be in a big business and I knew I didn't want to be solo, but a small business was a dream.
Keith (10:45.89)
That's right.
Keith (11:07.818)
I discovered it's where I needed to be because I worked in large businesses and realized that those kind of squashed my personality and creativity. And so it was kind of forcing me away from the norm, right? Like I had to figure out something else and, and that's a battle. That's a battle when you're, when you're chasing things like that.
When you ride in the car, like in the eighties with your mom and dad and you're driving down to Indianapolis, you don't have a phone or a Nintendo to distract you. And so I remember dreaming a lot, just looking out the window, driving up and down I-69 or highway 32. And I told you earlier this week that there are these buildings are still there at the south edge of 465 and I-69. There's two or three of them.
I can't remember. Yeah. Yeah. And I can remember these dreams where I'm looking at those buildings and thinking, what do people do in there? You know, are they making anything? They're not making anything that I know of. And so what's, what's going on in there? And I would dream and I'd wonder what that would be like to work in a big office complex like that. And,
Heritage Christmas.
Doug (12:26.134)
And now I know, now I know what they do in there. It's just, they're, they're, handling relationships. And so I think if your dream, if your wonder, if your curiosity is tied to some type of relationship connection, that that's where action can start.
I heard a quote many years ago that, made a ton of sense to me. And, and I see it to be true in my own life and that it was the highest positions are reserved for those who prepare and secret. And that secret time is usually what people would call boredom. Right? Like, like if you don't have downtime to do these things that require
preparation and I was wondering like what your thoughts are between like the enemy of dreams and passion being something like screens, like screens, how does that detract from that boredom time or that time while you're driving down the road and staring at that building and wondering like, can you see how that probably disrupts a lot of people's dreams?
Yeah, and last week I shared with you, Keith, that I took some time inspired by our friend Matt and his book cover. I literally stared up at clouds for like a half hour just looking at the clouds and thinking, okay, I'm 50. What do dreams look like today? And they are completely different today. It's not the material thing anymore. You know, it's more or less
the wonder of life, like what's Keith's life gonna be like in 20 years? I wonder about that. I stare up at the clouds and wonder that about your life. I wonder that about my kids' lives or my wife. You know, she's a school teacher. What could be her next level dream? Is she living it? And the only way to know is are you living your dream? To ask the question and then ask myself, okay, if I were to recreate a bucket list, did you ever have a bucket list?
Keith (14:41.397)
I'm such a goal-driven person that it gets kind of monotonous because I just check them off, right? and I realize I had to have something bigger than a bucket with me.
Yeah. And I'm not really a goal driven person. I've never been one. but what I've noticed and I have a bucket list, I should have brought it in. They're all checked off and it's not like I had really the ambition to check them off. They got checked off just by living life, staying curious and going for it.
Right, that's right.
Keith (15:14.392)
Curiosity is such an undervalued component of life that I don't know. I know when the kids go to school, they're taught reading, writing and arithmetic, but almost you need some coaching to keep that muscle of curiosity going. seems like.
Yeah. And I keep going back to this Porsche, but you know, my dad had one. He had a nine 11 and there's this picture that I love of my parents and my childhood home. And it's the backend of a nine 11 parked right next to a nine 14. And if you know Porsche, those are two Porsches. My mom and dad both have them in Muncie. And now this was before my dad went all Dave Ramsey.
Buffy dance. But just to see that it was possible and to see what it could look like, that's the part where I think we can really help each other with curiosity is to know that you can do it.
There are so many things I think that attack our creativeness, our passion, our dreams, curiosity in life. And I think you almost have to like decide to protect that component of your life. Like our industry, Dave Ramsey or things like that is constantly.
telling everybody to be practical. And practically, every one of us are gonna die. But practically, not every one of us is gonna live. And so I don't know how to encourage people that way, but I thought that's what this conversation would do, help those that are thinking about the future, no matter whether you're a 10 year old, a 30 year old, or a 70 year old, that there are dreams and things that can happen out there. I broke it down.
Keith (17:13.582)
to those by role. So like your body has these dreams that it wants to accomplish and then buys soul or faith. And what are the inner things that stir me that I would love to see? And then even financial things. I kind of envisioned the financial things or the material things as a backpack that this body has fallen around. I, for some reason I started putting stuff in there. And I think a lot of times fear is why you put more in there, right?
That's exactly what I was thinking of is how to live your dream. Think about what you're afraid of and then just go do it right now.
Right. Because I haven't found too many people that haven't had the temptation to be afraid of running out of money. Like a lot of times over all the years, that's a common question. And it could happen. mean, it happened to probably millions of people in the 1930s in America. And I'm not saying that I'm forecasting. I'm just saying, historically you live in a most safe, prosperous time and place ever today's the day to fulfill those dreams. And so when I,
Um, was tying these things together and thinking about them. was, was over here rocking out all ago and I got caught up listening to music. But when I was thinking about the, the, uh, physical one, like a song that just stirred my soul is put me in coach. I'm just very good at anything. I'm sitting on the bench. I'm ready to rock and roll and I can envision a day where maybe this body isn't going to cooperate with me. And so what am going to do?
that you can put me in. And I can't remember, I'm going to say it was a friend of Bob Warren's, but I bet it was. And he would go to visit this guy. I don't know if he's in the hospital or where he was, and he couldn't really do anything. And in the olden days, they had these things called the adding machines where you'd punch the number in and pull a lever and the paper would come up and instead of just do that in the paper. Well, you might see it at a cash register or come in rolls about that big around.
Keith (19:20.01)
And then they would just, know, once all the receipts or things, put a new one in there. Well, this fellow was laying in his hospital bed and he pulled out, I think it Bob was having this conversation when he pulls this thing out. And it was a prayer list of people he was praying for. And he couldn't do much more, but he would daily have the enthusiasm to go through the list of his friends and family and just constantly pray for them. And I was like, how great of a dream is that to have the time?
to just concern yourself with the needs of others when you just, you would think most people would be just worried about themselves and he's just immersing himself with your needs.
Well, you're you're one of your close connections to you is helping a guy who wrote a song called Dreams and me being an 80s child. I love Van Halen and Sammy Hagar sang a song called Dreams and the lyrics, if you check them out, they really don't make a whole lot of sense about dreams. But the one thing that it does tie in at the end, you know, the chorus is always that's what dreams are made up. But at the end, he says, and that's what love is.
And I think the best type of dream is a form of love. And it's normally for someone else's benefit because you're going to have to be patient with it. You're going have to be slow to anger with it. You're going to have to be kind. You're going to have to be gentle. You're going to have to have some courage and, and through love, you can make some dreams happen.
And that when I was thinking about the role of my soul or faith in the dreams of that, and I was trying to tie a song to it, I was like, brother. And it kind of goes along with what you're saying. The song that came to mind was Cats in the Cradle. it's not a very interesting It's not uplifting, it just reminds, like for me, it just reminds me that I need to focus my soul on what matters and not all the distractions.
Doug (21:08.046)
And that's a rough
Doug (21:20.51)
or the regrets.
I don't live with her because of that. And song is like suicidalism, I feel.
We all get that song and it is a powerful song and we get it. But man, gosh, if you're listening and you have some of those regrets, maybe you were the guy on the plane all the time, I want to encourage you, today is your day and all those experiences you have in your past can be shared with somebody else and not to sweat that stuff.
I was, I listened to, I'm really curious about Scott Adams and his way of thinking. And so I listened to his podcasts and he frames and thinks about things differently than I do. And one of the things he talks about is reframing your brain. And so you can take events and reframe them. And one of his reframes on that was the history doesn't, history doesn't exist. You don't want like what.
Like even yesterday, what you and I perceive is not the same, even if we're in the same room. so whatever history is, is just your perception. And what his point was is forget about the history. But what I like is the apostle Paul, the apostle Paul voted to assassinate Stephen. And one of his quotes was forgetting what lies behind. I press onward towards the upward calling, which is in Christ. And so.
Doug (22:50.552)
So when Paul was like, not the same dude that we know him as, he was somebody else.
right. And I assume that if he was, know, at the pub and the people are drinking a beer or something, they're like, Hey, did you ever know Stephen? Every time you hear that the temptation would be to have some regrets. But, but he was given that insight for getting what lies behind. I press onward. And so with, with whatever dreams might've got squashed, whatever you might've done wrong, today's the day.
Like today's the day to press onward and start an interview. It doesn't matter whether you're 20, 30 or 80 or 90 today's a day, something amazing can happen. I, then I, I, I put down for the kind of the financial thing was don't stop believing in and just that's that idea that if you do have financial goals and there's nothing wrong with that at all. Yeah. Like when Connie and I were married, I was a driven driven dude.
And I think almost every day, can't even tell you for how long she would say when I got home, did you make your million today? And at some point she quit saying that. And I don't think either one of us know when I did it. Like it just happened because I was chasing other grins.
Yeah.
Doug (24:06.382)
Yeah. Yeah. And, and some of those numbers are, they are worth giving each other a high five on. If you hit that number that you're thinking, I finally made it, you know, that, that is, that is really cool. Um, what I found is when you start making some money or having some money, that's where the dreams start. It's like, well, maybe I could do this with it. The temptation is, is okay. Now I need to double this. That's always the number.
Right.
Like when I ask somebody, how much do you need? And we should all know what do we need or what do we want? And it's always double. So that's the temptation.
And I would even say with that, that the anxiety that the system puts on you about that is I just remind myself too, when I was coming home every day and Connie was asking me to feed my million today, we are living in an apartment with nothing and we were living some of our best days. We didn't want for anything. And so the perception that something down the road, that that Porsche is going to make me happy. It's no more true.
When I don't have it or after I've already had it and the possibility is I might have to go back and live in that apartment. Like it's like, it's the same you, it's how you frame that situation. And I think the more you realize the stuff you put in that backpack, the more burdened you feel about tomorrow, the less stuff you have in that backpack, probably the less burden you feel about tomorrow.
Doug (25:33.172)
Yeah, or the burden you have in caring for whatever that thing is in your backpack.
Yeah, man. is a interesting journey to accumulate stuff. It's an interesting journey to accomplish things. And it's an interesting journey to kind of figure out what it is you dream about when you look to the future. And you asked me, I don't remember the exact question, something about ownership and gimbal. Do you remember that question you asked me the last few months? You asked me, why do you own it or. And I don't think.
Hmm. Yeah.
I don't think I even, I don't even think I took that. Is that my dream for me is to be a world changer and in a business, can change the world one person at a time. And that kind of, that kind of hits all those things for me. It, it fills my soul that I can change the world. It fills my pocket. What could I do? And it gives me some accomplishments that are fun that I never even knew I would see. And so.
You didn't? Yeah.
Doug (26:30.926)
Right.
Keith (26:36.75)
So my dreams kind of start at that solace level because I don't really know what I want tomorrow. And then all of a sudden I'll see, I need this done. And all of a sudden these circumstances are moving towards what I need done. And I'm able to think through it and connect those things. And they're usually unexplainable.
Yeah, engineer minded folks dream a little bit. Sales are musicians, people start doing something.
Get up and go do it. I see. Yeah, the dreams do they can't lay on the grass but then you get up off the grass and Exactly Exactly. Well, no matter where you find yourself today in the age spectrum of things we are for you and if you're struggling to figure out a dream call one of us we'll help you think through that and then if you're trying to connect any of those roles whether it's your
Get off your grass.
Keith (27:35.308)
your soul, your body, or even just the physical things. We can help you think through that as well. But we're just honored to hang out with you guys, and we trust that this week's going to be a great one for you. See you guys soon.