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The Vance Crowe Podcast is a thought-provoking and engaging show where Vance Crowe, a former Director of Millennial Engagement for Monsanto, and X-World Banker, interviews a variety of experts and thought leaders from diverse fields.
Vance prompts his guests to think about their work in novel ways, exploring how their expertise applies to regular people and sharing stories and experiences.
The podcast covers a wide range of topics, including agriculture, technology, social issues, and more. It aims to provide listeners with new perspectives and insights into the world around them.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:06:16
Speaker 1
over time, governments kept power by controlling the information, and they could tell people what they wanted them to know.
00:00:06:16 - 00:00:09:20
Speaker 1
now that's changed. And the truth is everywhere to see.
00:00:09:20 - 00:00:21:08
Speaker 3
And she in there was like, oh, there's two people, Tommy Robinson and Candace Owens, and they're bad people. And the first thing I do when somebody tells me, don't listen to somebody is go find them, right.
00:00:21:10 - 00:00:36:07
Speaker 3
And so I wanted to go see what they had to say. And I have to say, like Tommy Robinson had never really paid attention, but I was like, guy's got some interesting points. If those things were happening to me, I'd want to know, how can we stop people from, having grooming gangs in my community?
00:00:36:07 - 00:00:43:05
Speaker 3
I've almost entirely quit drinking. I think you have entirely quit drinking. What prompted that?
00:00:43:07 - 00:00:46:01
Speaker 1
You know,
00:00:47:19 - 00:00:54:05
Speaker 1
I'm Bruce Figure, a veterinarian living in Sylvia, Kansas, and you're listening to the Vance Crowe podcast.
00:00:54:05 - 00:01:11:22
Speaker 3
welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. My good friend Dave Helland returns to the podcast. Longtime listeners of the podcast probably remember that Dave came on and talked all about construction before. In fact, I've had a lot of my friends say, where's that construction guy, your construction friend?
00:01:12:00 - 00:01:38:06
Speaker 3
The reality was, when I got done with that podcast, I went to lunch with Dave. That was the first time we never met, and I was horrified to realize just how little of his wisdom and experience that I had tapped into. Dave is actually a mountain climber, a prolific hunter. He has all these thoughts on the internal dialog in your mind, and so when Dave offered to drive back down to Saint Louis and do another podcast, I was elated.
00:01:38:08 - 00:02:03:22
Speaker 3
What you were about to hear is maybe one of the most wide ranging podcasts I've ever done, where we talk everything from the internal dialog to why we've both given up drinking, to the taking of a life of an animal and the indifference of nature with you. This is a fantastic conversation that you are going to love. And I assure you, no matter who you are, there are parts of this where Dave's wisdom is going to resonate deeply with you.
00:02:04:00 - 00:02:30:19
Speaker 3
We're going to get to that interview in just a moment. But first, I wanted to talk about legacy interviews. Listeners of the podcast know that in this studio, I recorded people telling their life stories so that future generations have the opportunity to know their family stories and history and where they came from. I know that personally, I have had a chance to hear some of the stories that people have talked about that are who they are as a family, what makes them up, what are their values.
00:02:30:21 - 00:02:55:11
Speaker 3
And I am so grateful to be a part of passing these values on this story of who we are, what we tell ourselves about what makes us a family are so critically important. And if your parents are not able to be around your kids and you want to make sure the things that they taught you are passed down, if you want to make sure that your kids understand why you are who you are because of who they are,
00:02:55:13 - 00:03:09:10
Speaker 3
Then consider having them record a legacy interview. If you're interested in having me sit down with your loved ones to record their family stories, go to legacy interviews.com. All right, without further ado, let's head to the interview with my good friend Dave Helland.
00:03:09:10 - 00:03:19:07
Speaker 3
Dave Helland, welcome back to the podcast here. So you are in the high end home construction industry. How are high end homes doing right now.
00:03:19:08 - 00:03:55:16
Speaker 1
Well so we do a broad a broad variety of things. So you do custom homes do a lot of remodeling also. And basically like I've described to people, I just say that I'm, I'm a mercenary that basically will do anything small jobs, big jobs, whatever. But you niche towards really nice work. So you know, in about the past five years, we've always had big projects kind of piled up waiting for us, and now we're working through all that, and we don't have big projects in front of us right now, which is good in a way, because we can take care of more people.
00:03:55:18 - 00:04:16:12
Speaker 1
But things are changing a little bit. So obviously interest rates have to have something to do with that. Though my clients are, you know, not so worried about that, but I'm sensing some changes. And I know that my, the production builders in the area, there's a lot of things change and they just got a lot of inventory.
00:04:16:12 - 00:04:17:05
Speaker 1
Now.
00:04:17:07 - 00:04:21:05
Speaker 3
Have you had to up your prices in order to meet with how much materials cost?
00:04:21:05 - 00:04:40:08
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, the way I do it is basically like I, I'm an open book on prices. Like when I meet with people and I say I put together fees that I'm going to charge for a project once we have a good handle on the scope and of course, figure out our carpentry labor, but then everything else they see my costs, they pay what I pay.
00:04:40:08 - 00:05:06:15
Speaker 1
There's no markup hidden in there or anything. So those have just marched upwards. you know, when we get into these times that seem like a downturn, you know, we're not quite there yet. People think, hey, or price is going down. I get asked a lot like nothing's going down, you know, now, if you have a homes that are a commodity and the builders are sitting on a bunch of them in the neighborhood, and obviously those can be affected that way.
00:05:06:15 - 00:05:12:04
Speaker 1
But everything that I'm touching is just getting more expensive, just like everything else in the world.
00:05:12:06 - 00:05:19:19
Speaker 3
And how are your competitors or other people in the in the industry doing? Are they all full work? No, no slowing down.
00:05:19:21 - 00:05:48:11
Speaker 1
Means that are just tilted towards, you know, up against, high quality work. Got plenty of work, lots of it. but there's there's trouble coming for, you know, production builders don't know how much trouble nobody knows. it doesn't seem like it's going to be another 0809 kind of a situation just because of the, structural triggers for that event don't exist now, but but it's definitely going to change.
00:05:48:13 - 00:06:05:13
Speaker 1
you know, my wife had there as a realtor, and she's just seeing the moon change out there to everything. Used to get, you know, multiple offers, and everybody's fighting to get the houses bought quickly. it was over asking price. And that's just it's just all changing, and it needs to change, you know, that's just the cycle.
00:06:05:13 - 00:06:11:00
Speaker 1
Once you get old enough, you've seen it a few times and you know that this is just the way it has to be.
00:06:11:02 - 00:06:29:15
Speaker 3
Yeah. And housing is a weird thing now relative to like, if you're using the same lens that you saw in 2008 with, it's just not going to work, because not only are interest rates totally different than what they were, but like the the seems like there isn't enough housing stock, right? So there's a whole bunch of people out there trying to buy, but eventually.
00:06:29:17 - 00:06:49:14
Speaker 1
There's not all the adjustable rate mortgages out there that blew up that first time around, you know? So that structural thing has changed. and then the other weird part right now is just like, okay, so my little sister is 25 years old. She bought a house at 23 and she's in a mortgage that's, you know, 3% or three point something where she can't go anywhere.
00:06:49:18 - 00:07:13:06
Speaker 1
There's no moving up to the next house because she doesn't, of course, have the funds to swing in at 6% or 7%. So that's that. That's the glitch in the whole program. Now there's not the the move up fires. That's just not happening. So, you know, and I'm not super tied into all of that, but because I don't, you know, sell 50 houses or 100 houses a year or anything like that, everything I do is custom.
00:07:13:08 - 00:07:22:08
Speaker 1
But that seems to be the thing that's kind of like, you know, jamming up the wheels of the whole program is people can't get out because the mortgages to.
00:07:22:09 - 00:07:46:09
Speaker 3
I don't have enough, like time frame of reference, but it does feel like an unusual time in our economic history in that everybody feels like something's about to hit a tipping point, and it never seems to quite hit it. And so is it that we're being propagandized to believe this, or is it that we all know that something should be happening, but somehow they're keeping the the whole boat afloat?
00:07:46:09 - 00:07:47:03
Speaker 3
What's going on.
00:07:47:03 - 00:08:03:23
Speaker 1
There? I don't know, because you know how it is. Like, if all you got to do is get on Twitter and, and and you can feel pretty dark in just a matter of minutes. Right. And but then I think, like, how many years have they been predicting that it's all going to collapse, like it's going to be every man for himself.
00:08:04:01 - 00:08:24:23
Speaker 1
And so you can't process things like that and you really can't even protect things like that. So, you know, people pretend like you're getting prepared for everything to fall apart. And it's like, man, but all you can do is keep yourself healthy, have some powder dry with some money in the bank, and just hope for the best, because if it gets really bad, we're all in trouble, you know?
00:08:24:23 - 00:08:44:22
Speaker 1
But I just don't see, I don't know, even like the idea of higher high interest rates. I mean, the first house I bought in the year 2000, it was a 7% interest rate. And, you know, my dad was like, oh, wow, what a great opportunity that is. You know, because I mean, everything was coming down from the 18, you know, all the way from the 80s.
00:08:44:22 - 00:08:54:11
Speaker 1
So and now we're at six something and it's then the end times. You know, I think people get used to whatever it is out there and life just keeps going.
00:08:54:13 - 00:09:15:21
Speaker 3
It's definitely true that when older people so do all these legacy interviews and people talk about going through the 70s and 80s with the savings and loan crisis and the amount of interest that they had to pay on things being wildly higher, you know, 20, 22% like crazy things that people had to do. And, but there seems to be something.
00:09:16:00 - 00:09:17:07
Speaker 1
Really.
00:09:17:09 - 00:09:24:23
Speaker 3
That that's like, hard to see. I mean, inflation is is certainly like even if it's slowing down, it's still going up. And like.
00:09:25:01 - 00:09:39:06
Speaker 1
And we're at a time where it's just like the, you know, the, the things that we used to trust that were sturdy government institutions, universities, whatever.
00:09:39:08 - 00:09:40:16
Speaker 3
News, the news.
00:09:40:18 - 00:10:06:03
Speaker 1
I mean, the things like you watch the news and you, I mean, I people have complained about bias for a long time, but it was never so easy to see the bullshit, right? No I don't there's a book by Martin Geary, The Revolt of the public, and it's really fascinating because he just talks about how, you know, over time, governments kept power by controlling the information, and they could tell people what they wanted them to know.
00:10:06:05 - 00:10:28:18
Speaker 1
And that's the they were the source. The people had to believe them. Well, now that's changed. And the truth is everywhere to see. And you can see the government story and you can see a mainstream story, and then you can get on the axes. And that was a lie. But they're still acting like they can control it. And so that's where the censorship comes in.
00:10:28:18 - 00:10:31:00
Speaker 1
And like the desire to do so.
00:10:31:02 - 00:10:42:01
Speaker 3
And the super weird thing where they say things that you know, they know aren't true and they just keep walking forward and like, they don't even bat an eye. And it's so bizarre.
00:10:42:03 - 00:10:51:20
Speaker 1
And so, like, have it. Have they always lied? Yes. But it was just never so easy to tell when they were lying and things. And maybe that's what's messing with their heads because nothing makes any sense.
00:10:51:23 - 00:11:17:11
Speaker 3
Well, I think so many narratives are breaking down that even ones that maybe should be stable are up for grabs. So just last week, I had a woman named Claire Fox on I really respect the late Claire Fox. And she in there was like, oh, there's two people, Tommy Robinson and Candace Owens, and they're bad people. And the first thing I do when somebody tells me, don't listen to somebody is go find them, right.
00:11:17:13 - 00:11:41:09
Speaker 3
And so I wanted to go see what they had to say. And I have to say, like Tommy Robinson had never really paid attention, but I was like, guy's got some interesting points. If those things were happening to me, I'd want to know, how can we stop people from, having grooming gangs in my community? I go to listen to Candace Owens, and and I have no idea if she's right or not, but she is rocking my world with, like, oh, you thought you knew who Sigmund Freud was.
00:11:41:09 - 00:12:07:22
Speaker 3
No. You didn't. Oh, you thought you knew how we got into World War Two. Well, did you know this and this and this? And they may be wild conspiracy theorists, but the very narratives that I thought, these are foundational narratives. Everybody knows them to be true. Now, those are even shaking. And I'm a man in my 40s. So what happens to a society when the stories that you've told yourself about who we are, about who are the good guys and the bad guys, what did we accomplish?
00:12:07:22 - 00:12:12:14
Speaker 3
What did we learn from all that? All that starts disintegrating? How are we even a people?
00:12:12:17 - 00:12:50:13
Speaker 1
That's the that's the real question. And I think like, throughout the T word, the Trump phenomenon is to some degree like do we value and respect our history and the people that built what we have? Or do we think they were all racist, evil capitalists that had created this nightmare that now we've got to solve? And it's like, you know, I think that, you know, we grew up being told that, you know, American America was exceptional and you heard the stories about Seattle in the West and all the hardship that, people went through to get us where we are.
00:12:50:15 - 00:13:12:03
Speaker 1
And I think those stories are important, and I think that you can desire to change something. And you can see, hey, there's this problem right now, and we want to fix it and make life better. But I think it's so important to not just denigrate what everybody before you has done. Right. And that's like, you know, it's just like the food production system, too.
00:13:12:03 - 00:13:32:20
Speaker 1
It's like we get so much food sloshing around now that we can say, you know what? I don't like the way he's doing that, and he's doing that and they're doing that, and I want to be picking great. We should seek to make it better. But it all got to where it is with very sensible systems that led to everybody not having to worry about starving.
00:13:32:20 - 00:13:52:20
Speaker 1
Right. So let's just say, okay, that's why we got here. They're not bad people making all these decisions that got us to this point. Now let's try to do something different and just think they want to castigate everybody that came before. And I think that that's a real thing that's messing with people's minds, because how can a kid feel good about anything?
00:13:52:22 - 00:14:11:09
Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, and if you don't have a story, I mean, how we decide that we're a we is based on what is the story that we tell ourselves about who we are and how things work. And if we can't come to agreement, then there is no we. There's just me and you and, and totally separate communities.
00:14:11:09 - 00:14:32:13
Speaker 3
And so, you know, there's some, like, balance between you don't want to be let's create narratives that aren't true, but also like, what happens if all your stories are breaking down? Something is going to come to fill the void, because human beings will not go without having a clear description of where we came from and what our purpose is.
00:14:32:13 - 00:14:37:08
Speaker 3
And without it, it makes you very vulnerable to soothsayers and.
00:14:37:13 - 00:15:01:04
Speaker 1
You know, like the like the Tommy Robinson thing with the with, England's immigration issues and our immigration issues, it goes right to that. It's like, you know, are we a coherent country with borders, with laws that it's kind of a club that we decide who gets to come in or not? or is it a free for all?
00:15:01:06 - 00:15:27:20
Speaker 1
And like, you know, people in general clearly want it to be some order to the system. Right? And now there's arguments on how many immigrants and how few immigrants and what type of people. And that's those are all great arguments to have. But the idea that it's open and people can show up at the border and just claim amnesty and be let into the country in their system is so crappy then that we can't deal with that.
00:15:27:22 - 00:15:46:01
Speaker 1
I think that it further breaks down this idea that we are a that we are a coherent country that can be defined. And I just think that's one more thing that's messing with everybody's mind. Right? What's the who are we? What are we doing and what's the point of it all.
00:15:46:03 - 00:15:51:11
Speaker 3
Can you have that without having religion? Can you answer those questions without having faith?
00:15:51:13 - 00:16:19:03
Speaker 1
That's a great question. And I. So I grew up in in with a very religious, very religious upbringing. And then I, I turned away from it. Yeah. I'm getting back. and, and that's probably just the normal trajectory of a lot of people in life. But I do think that there's something, people like you just said seek something to believe in.
00:16:19:03 - 00:16:43:23
Speaker 1
A higher purpose, a higher meaning. And if you don't have a religious underpinning, something fills it. And that something now appears to just be that, like the wokeism or politics on either side, where it's just like, this is the thing that's going to consume our minds and define our identity, and that we're going to spend all of our time talking and arguing about.
00:16:43:23 - 00:16:58:08
Speaker 1
And it's not making anybody happier. We know that. Right? And so I think religion I don't think it's 100% necessary, but I think most people need to make sense of the world.
00:16:58:10 - 00:17:22:03
Speaker 3
To me, it seems like there is a massive resurge of Christianity in the United States. So you have Tucker Carlson, who's the number one podcast on Spotify, and Apple. He's talking about Christianity. All the time now. I hear it from all different directions. I mean, Dave Smith, the libertarian guy, was talking on Candace Owens podcast, and they were talking about God.
00:17:22:08 - 00:17:51:03
Speaker 3
And there's now an infusion of a language in Christianity that I never heard when I was growing up in small town America, growing up Catholic, which is the talk of demons and, and like, you know, dark forces and evil. And this is really coming up into our culture in a way that is, bewildering to, I don't know if it's like Irish Catholics from small town America just didn't talk about demons, but this was never a part of the language parlance.
00:17:51:03 - 00:17:51:21
Speaker 3
Are you seeing this?
00:17:51:21 - 00:18:07:05
Speaker 1
I'm seeing it, too. And so there's this. There's a weird thing happening where like, so Tucker Carlson, for example, he's bringing on even given a platform to, like, some bad guys, like in, like, the Andrew Tates.
00:18:07:07 - 00:18:10:02
Speaker 3
Now we're going to have to go listen to Andrew Tate.
00:18:10:04 - 00:18:41:11
Speaker 1
Right? So the crazy part is, so they're talking about Christianity, which is good. And the message that comes through some of these things, like the Andrew Tate said in an interview with, Tucker Carlson, was like, it was amazing. It was one of the most amazing interviews I've ever listened to. And just talking about masculinity and standing up for yourself and your family and your country, and how it's critical in any culture that that men are in power in which you can you, when you can break the men, you can break the culture.
00:18:41:11 - 00:19:03:19
Speaker 1
And so really fascinating. So there's bad people saying really powerful things that are good and bringing Christianity into the conversation. I my mind cannot handle it because you can't compartmentalize them. So I'm hearing all the same things you're hearing, and I'm encouraged. On one hand, I'm troubled on another hand, so I'm just trying to make sense of it all.
00:19:03:21 - 00:19:09:08
Speaker 3
Well, you said, Andrew Tate, bad person. Is it pretty? You've said it multiple times here. Why do you say that?
00:19:09:14 - 00:19:32:01
Speaker 1
Oh, he's got, I mean, just a lot of. So he's in DC and, Romania and he's, you know, getting prosecuted now for, He is what it was. And so and he had, like grooming girls for OnlyFans pages and then taking the money and doing all that stuff. If you look at some of his old stuff, it's really, really horrifying.
00:19:32:03 - 00:20:07:03
Speaker 1
Now, he could have changed, but he also, he's got this. You mix the, you mix the religion, and then the pursuit for, material wealth and it just gets kind of ugly, you know, even though there's good messages in there, I just, I don't know, you know, I don't know, it's just these are such imperfect people that are being put in front of this as, like, this counter the counterculture against the woke ism that it's hard to find something you, you really can get behind fully with a lot of these people.
00:20:07:03 - 00:20:12:02
Speaker 1
Just like like Trump thing, you know what I mean? The fighting on one side. But like my God.
00:20:12:03 - 00:20:12:10
Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:20:12:10 - 00:20:15:06
Speaker 1
And and the things that I think are terrible.
00:20:15:09 - 00:20:25:08
Speaker 3
In order to cheer for somebody, you have to like just kind of close one eye or look, you know, not not pay attention to or be like, well, that was the way they were, but now they're not that way.
00:20:25:08 - 00:20:43:06
Speaker 1
And I, you know, come to realize, like, we're all guilty of this, like, once you decide, like one of these people is kind of generally has the idea that you have for the world, then the things they say just kind of wash over you like a cool breeze, and you don't need to pay any attention to it. But then other people on the other side are like picking out each thing.
00:20:43:08 - 00:20:58:02
Speaker 1
So what about this one? But this one about this year, like, well, you know, get a look at the whole picture. Well that's what a good leader should be able to articulate a vision that they can actually stand behind everything that they say.
00:20:58:04 - 00:21:29:15
Speaker 3
It's been weird, particularly in the conservative world. I don't know about the left world, but in the conservative world there have been these heroes that have run way up and become really important and then somehow fallen off. So, I mean, Jordan Peterson would be a great example. You know, the the run up to that, where he went from, you know, total obscurity to interesting guy to watch to somebody they tried to cancel to the most important public intellectual in the Western world to benzodiazepine, you know, addiction and then coming back up, but being in a different format.
00:21:29:17 - 00:21:51:01
Speaker 1
Kind of weird now. Like he's just so angry. Like if you look at his of his old videos when he was a professor or wonderful stuff, powerful, you know, but, he seems like a guy that's just kind of become a victim of his own. I don't know, his own, you know, he just he got elevated too much, and then that changed it.
00:21:51:01 - 00:21:58:04
Speaker 1
It's just seems like to me. But, you know, you read his books. God, his books are so deep and turn your brain inside out. But there's good stuff in there.
00:21:58:06 - 00:22:26:01
Speaker 3
Yeah, I get to meet him before. Before he became, like, really famous. I went to his house and at the Farm Bureau, but that really, that was my first experience of being canceled. There's something about, the speed with which people become famous. They're. It's, like, not stable. And, Rob long, who I had on the podcast not long ago, he had something to say that keeps ringing around in my head.
00:22:26:01 - 00:23:00:14
Speaker 3
He's like, I don't really want to listen to or read anything that somebody didn't hammer on for weeks or months or years and then read it like I want them to have written it down and then ripped it apart and written it again. And only then do I want to put those distilled ideas in my head. And when I think about these people that are really alluring as mob leaders, whether they're Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson or Joe Rogan, anybody, they're very clever people, but they're clever in a very fast and somewhat fragile way.
00:23:00:18 - 00:23:08:00
Speaker 3
And it's probably a good rule of thumb to be like, maybe I should only be reading things that have been distilled over a long period of time.
00:23:08:02 - 00:23:30:01
Speaker 1
Well, and then and then that touches on like, yeah, the reading of books, like a book that's on paper that it was written, high quality, high quality work that's been around for a long time has stood the test of time. Like there's value in bringing that stuff in your mind, right. But that's so much harder. It's so much harder than just, like, you know, scrolling through and, well, you.
00:23:30:01 - 00:23:33:20
Speaker 3
Don't get the like, ooh, what's going on? Like, ooh, that feels good.
00:23:33:22 - 00:23:52:22
Speaker 1
You know, just the, the just the drawer that, that only has to do when it's just even on. Right. It's like, it's got to be awful or in another room or else. Like for me, reading. Reading is hard. You know, I got to have I just got to say that I'm not touching this. It is away from me.
00:23:52:22 - 00:24:14:19
Speaker 1
And I'm reading a book, and then you can get the focus you need, you know? And I think that's just so to your point, everything's happened so fast and there's so much content and we're really taken in way too much like what's the right amount of news and information or, you know, commentary on acts to take in like you want to you want to know what's going on.
00:24:14:21 - 00:24:32:08
Speaker 1
You and you can't just be that first glance together, then have some context around it. But then somewhere there's a line that you cross where it's like you take and you got into, you took in too much and now you're more confused. Then when you started. So stopping at that sweet spot is to even, I don't know.
00:24:32:14 - 00:24:49:12
Speaker 3
Well, and I don't know that there really is that sweet spot because doing the AG Tribes report now, once a week, I'm trying to put together news stories and saying, all right, what's really going on here? And now I've hit the point where you're starting to do a story on milk pricing right? And you're like, oh, this is going to be simple.
00:24:49:12 - 00:25:10:00
Speaker 3
How much does the farmer, how much milk does the farmer produce and what price are producers willing to pay for it. Oh no way. Actually it's way more complicated than that. They're regulated and the government chooses how much money the producer owes the milk. farmer based on. Did you produce cheese or whey protein or skim milk, like.
00:25:10:00 - 00:25:40:19
Speaker 3
Okay, well, where did this system come from? And you start falling down into how complicated any one individual story is that trying to articulate that to an audience, which is just a game of telephone. So my description of what's going on is bullshit, because it would take years to understand this whole system. And then somebody hears it on my podcast and tries to relay that into the rest of their world like it's a it's it's it's a never ending thing of abstraction on a point of abstraction upon abstraction.
00:25:40:21 - 00:25:42:16
Speaker 1
There's really a paradox of choice.
00:25:42:19 - 00:25:44:03
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:44:03 - 00:26:00:21
Speaker 1
You know, it's our choices are supposed to make you happy, right? But then what it required, you know, back when there was the phone company and you pay the phone, did you have to research anything? That's like, if you get a phone and you're paying these people once a month, well, now there's so many different choices, which requires expertise and all these things.
00:26:00:21 - 00:26:22:10
Speaker 1
So now you're taking up your bandwidth, trying to learn about all these different things. Right. And so we do that, for our media. Well you can't you can't do it. So when you do you have to then default to some of the bigger names. I'm gonna, I'm gonna listen to what this guy says, and that guy might just might, you know, be a guy on X, or he might be a politician.
00:26:22:12 - 00:26:45:19
Speaker 1
And then that same thing where, too many of these things are then packaged up together in this political persona that I just said, where we were saying, well, I kind of know that this guy kind of wants what I want, so I, I'm not going to pay attention to the details of this, this and this. And then now we're being led around by demagogues all the time because we really don't even know what they're doing.
00:26:45:23 - 00:27:06:23
Speaker 1
And are they even changing anything? Nothing seems to change. Like everything, you know, no matter what administration you've got, we've got the same things we're fighting about. So what does that mean? And so this is why we're all so crazy. Because we think you can change it. But nothing ever changes. And where does that lead us? Why care at all?
00:27:07:00 - 00:27:23:06
Speaker 3
Yeah. And what is there to know or believe in or. Well, one thing that's changed for both you and I is that, both of us have. I don't know about you. I've almost entirely quit drinking. I think you have entirely quit drinking. What prompted that?
00:27:23:08 - 00:27:39:04
Speaker 1
You know, So I've been, you know, for years, just like I'm gonna. And slow down, you know? And so you slow down for a little while, but then you got a social nanny with friends doing this and doing that, and all the habits kick in.
00:27:39:06 - 00:27:41:09
Speaker 3
And when you say slow down, what do you mean, slow down?
00:27:41:12 - 00:28:04:01
Speaker 1
drinking. so, you know, when you drink it, it sneaks up on you. So back you start drinking it in college, let's say. And it's just for fun. Well, then it's, you know, you start drinking just in the evening, just have a drink to relax, and then pretty soon you're having to. And then it gets to be, you know, you're drinking every day and you're drinking more at social events.
00:28:04:01 - 00:28:23:01
Speaker 1
So just a lot. So from a health aspect alone, you think like, well, this is bad. And so I'm going to try to do that first wave and try to do it just for money. Like like I'm not going to spend money on that. That's stupid. but then I just kept falling into drinking too much at events.
00:28:23:03 - 00:28:31:10
Speaker 1
So then I had a wise idea that was somewhere in my 20s that you drink too much at these events. We need to drink more often.
00:28:31:12 - 00:28:33:16
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:28:33:18 - 00:28:42:17
Speaker 1
So that seemed like a good plan. Well, that that didn't work. And so I just drink more often and then still drink too much when I got together socially.
00:28:42:19 - 00:28:47:15
Speaker 3
And, And when you say drink too much, you mean you wake up the next day and you're like, why did I say that?
00:28:47:16 - 00:29:18:06
Speaker 1
You don't feel good? And then that, you know, the what really got me is. So you're out late, had drinks, have a lot of fun, wake up the next day and just, you know, not feel very good about that. So then when you, you talk to the people that were, hey, you know, when is a good time last night and you just try to feel everybody out and see if you did damage and then cover yourself with the laughter and the good stories and then everything's fine again.
00:29:18:06 - 00:29:44:22
Speaker 1
Right. But there was just kind of an anxiety. It just developed in me that just never went away. so that was the first piece and then the health aspect. you just started getting into fitness and health, and I remember talking to a guy who was just a beast, an absolute specimen of fitness. And he, like, didn't want to take aspirin, didn't want to take anything.
00:29:45:00 - 00:30:07:03
Speaker 1
But he drank a lot and I thought, so that doesn't even make any sense to me. Right. And it seemed consistent, even though the guy looked great like this can't be that good. And then right about that time, Andrew Huberman, you know, Huberman Lab podcast had a podcast talked about on the cellular level, what happens to alcohol. And it's an unavoidable thing.
00:30:07:08 - 00:30:31:17
Speaker 1
This is actually happening. And they talked about the anxiety that comes from drinking, even moderate drinking that comes I'm like, I was listened to like, yeah, all of those things so bad. And then at sun at 15 at the time and then just like, how do I tell him that he shouldn't when I'm drinking? So basically I just decided to quit, announced two full years ago.
00:30:31:19 - 00:30:49:23
Speaker 1
And yet for the first, year and a half, you can ask my wife. I complained about it like almost all the time. I mean, it was my choice, but I was still just mad about it because there was so much of my life was associated with alcohol, just the, you know, all the fun things, every event. And,
00:30:50:01 - 00:31:00:11
Speaker 3
Yeah, you begin to find out that you didn't realize, which it's very difficult to distinguish which events were fun or which ones weren't based on alcohol, but you can't see that until you've had a long time away from it.
00:31:00:12 - 00:31:16:02
Speaker 1
Well, and all of the social stuff in is it's fun memories. But, you take away the alcohol and it's like, you can't just be talking to people for four and five hours, you know, you can do it. Can't sustain it. Well, you.
00:31:16:02 - 00:31:17:01
Speaker 3
Can't I.
00:31:17:01 - 00:31:20:01
Speaker 2
Can't.
00:31:20:03 - 00:31:42:04
Speaker 1
It's just not that interesting, you know. And so you realize that. Okay. so that's, that's and that was to me an awareness, like, okay, I feel differently now. This is not as great as it once was. And so alcohol just kind of masked what was valuable and what was bringing value. I could I just it made everything seem valuable.
00:31:42:06 - 00:31:52:19
Speaker 1
But it was really the alcohol that I was seeking. And so now, you know, do less, but it's just higher value stuff for me.
00:31:52:19 - 00:32:10:08
Speaker 3
I, I quit drinking, I don't know, about two years ago, I think. I think you and I were about the same timeline last time we talked. And there's a couple of times when I've had drinks, it's almost exclusively been when I'm with older guys like, you know, my father in law or whatever. And the next day I wake up and I'm like, I feel horrible.
00:32:10:08 - 00:32:31:17
Speaker 3
And that sense of anxiety where you're like, what did I say? Or did I do something foolish? And you start getting further and further away from that and you're like, I don't have to wake up every Sunday morning and be like, oh man, why did I do that? Which I had for decades at that point. Right? And you start being like, man, life is a lot better.
00:32:31:17 - 00:32:47:04
Speaker 3
I didn't have the like, it's not hard for me to not drink. That was, but, you know, like, there are other vices that I took on as soon as, as soon as I cut alcohol out. Right now, I'm, like, shoveling ice cream in my face and eating crackers. Still no end.
00:32:47:06 - 00:33:06:12
Speaker 1
You can just quit and not have to be a thing. That would be great, but I just I just loved it too much. And and because of all of the behaviors that I connected with it, you know, one by one and broken. And then, you know, I've got really good friends. And at first it's weird to like, you know, nobody knows what to do with you for a little while because you just you're the guy that's changed.
00:33:06:14 - 00:33:08:14
Speaker 1
But now it's just.
00:33:08:16 - 00:33:22:20
Speaker 3
Well, it's this is another thing. Just like Christianity that's coming up, giving up alcohol has definitely increased in volume. There is a lot more men, I think, that are quitting drinking than ever were ten years ago.
00:33:22:22 - 00:33:42:02
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I just, you know, I wonder I wonder what's driving that. you know, I mean, 20, 22 just kind of blew up. Now, I don't know if you've seen the stats. I don't remember the numbers, but the, the the alcohol consumption in the country in 2020, it's like, oh, off the charts. Oh really exploded because everybody.
00:33:42:03 - 00:33:49:20
Speaker 3
You know, that was the first time I'd ever had a friend call me during the day as an adult, being drunk and being like, whoa, what's going on here? Right.
00:33:49:20 - 00:34:13:11
Speaker 1
Like, so, you know, I don't know if that just was a blow off top of the of the whole cycle of everything. And people start looking around and like, yeah, gotta make a change. And once a few more people are saying that they're talking to each other, then that drives a movement. But, you know, I it's it just takes simple a lot of bandwidth of your life just chasing the, the chase and the social events that are related to alcohol.
00:34:13:11 - 00:34:22:20
Speaker 1
And so Heather and I, both of them, we're done with that. And and glad to be done with it, though I still I still I still miss it.
00:34:22:22 - 00:34:40:18
Speaker 3
So there are drinks I like, you know that I, you know, I'd love to have a good, you know, scotch whiskey or something like that. But outside of that it's not. It's I'm. But I also discovered that the biggest reason alcohol impacted me is that it impacted my sleep. And if I don't have, I don't have to have a lot of sleep.
00:34:40:18 - 00:34:59:13
Speaker 3
I need about 6.5 hours, but it's got to be high quality. And if I've messed it up by imbibing or smoking or doing anything, I would even say eating junk food. Now I've come to the realization, now that I've gotten my arms around that, that having a bowl of ice cream at night impacts how deeply I sleep, which is really been surprising to me.
00:34:59:15 - 00:35:27:06
Speaker 1
I think it's great when you get older and like you can actually say to people how sleep is important to you. I mean, for so many years it's like, oh, I don't need to sleep, and you're just an idiot when you don't get sleep. And and you know, my friends and I, we're not just talking about this the other day, you know, for all of our hunting trips that we drive all night, you know, to get there, you think you're going to be able to just go, well, everybody's grouchy, angry at each other and angry at the world because we were tired.
00:35:27:06 - 00:35:32:14
Speaker 1
Right? And so now, you know, good night. Sleep on. A friend is built into the plans.
00:35:32:15 - 00:35:34:20
Speaker 3
What's a good night's sleep for you?
00:35:34:22 - 00:35:46:18
Speaker 1
I'm. So go to bed. Nine out of bed at 430. A little bit of reading when I get to bed. So you're talking. The alarm goes off at 4 a.m.. Snoozer. Haven't worked out.
00:35:46:23 - 00:35:52:00
Speaker 3
Oh, those are bad people. Snooze. These are.
00:35:53:02 - 00:36:10:00
Speaker 1
Six and a half high quality hours in there is good for me. But if I get, like, interrupted sleep, it's like. It's like it goes, I don't know, somehow you lose a little sleep in the middle of the night, and that has a super sized effect on me. So yeah, I'm about the same as you.
00:36:10:02 - 00:36:26:22
Speaker 3
Yeah. Sleep is one of those things that if I. One of the questions asked during legacy interviews is, you know, if you could go back in your life and give this person some advice, what would it be? And I heard this old woman say, I tell him how important sleep is. That's what I would have told her. And you're like, actually, that's probably the best.
00:36:26:22 - 00:36:34:07
Speaker 3
If I could go convince myself all these years, like focus on sleep, there's a whole bunch of problems that would have work their way out on their own.
00:36:34:09 - 00:36:37:18
Speaker 1
You're not up late enough to get yourself into doing.
00:36:37:20 - 00:36:40:04
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's right.
00:36:40:05 - 00:36:59:03
Speaker 1
You just like staying up watching the same damn movie, you know? And then and that was another thing that alcohol that just kept me up later. And you just can't stay up doing something stupid. So. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So a lot of people say like, wow, when I was younger, I could recover better, right? And like, okay, maybe there's some truth to that.
00:36:59:05 - 00:37:32:21
Speaker 1
But also just think, when you're older, you know what feeling good is and you want to feel good. And so like when you don't feel good, you know it. And then you can identify the reason why you don't when you're younger. I think it's just all, you're just not focusing in on all those things, and you're living your lives and you're thinking you can stay up till two and be up at six and feel good and so are we actually more that much more resilient for a lack of sleep when we're 20 or do we just like, we just know what works now and we want to implement our plan?
00:37:32:21 - 00:37:34:20
Speaker 1
I think that's what it is for living.
00:37:34:20 - 00:37:50:11
Speaker 3
Your life is this one. That's as soon as you say that, I'm like, ooh, I did a lot of living wise in in your 20s and you're like, you can. So easily lie to yourself and and be like, nah, that's not that big of a deal. This isn't going to hurt me. And, you know, you know, the whole time you're doing it.
00:37:50:11 - 00:38:09:00
Speaker 1
And that's the thing everybody knows is dying, exercise or whatever. You know, what you need to do is not a secret. Now read a book and like, oh, I get my new motivation and these are great points. And then you get on a program, you do all these things, but everybody knows what they need to do. But it's so freaking hard to do it.
00:38:09:02 - 00:38:17:11
Speaker 1
And so you seek these other things just to, I don't know, just add a little bit of weight on the scale, hopefully Tiffany in the right direction.
00:38:17:13 - 00:38:35:21
Speaker 3
Well, I think that like, you know, what you're supposed to do, it comes down to that dialog in your brain, right? That that like, I need to get up. No you don't. You can go back to sleep. It might be better for you to get more rest now. Instead. Or you hurt your toe and you don't want to hurt it more by going out and going for a jog.
00:38:36:01 - 00:38:38:10
Speaker 3
Do you have that inner voice that you talk with?
00:38:38:15 - 00:39:00:04
Speaker 1
Oh yeah, my inner voice. Is that. And I end up being a harsh, I say a lot of harsh things to myself, which they say is bad, but it's like sometimes I get a beat down like, you know, no, you know, you just kind of, I mean, it is really, really hard to do the things that you're supposed to do every day.
00:39:00:06 - 00:39:32:20
Speaker 1
I think that's the first thing that people just, you know, if you're trying to into self-improvement, you just got to accept that. Like, it is hard. It is. It is not complicated, but it is very, very difficult. And so there's two things often don't go together. Right. But so because it's so difficult when we seek all these complicated solutions, you know, just look at like workout programs that people get into like ran off the streets, you know, where to get, you know, a 60 day program and you're going to, you know, do this, this, this and this.
00:39:32:20 - 00:39:58:20
Speaker 1
And people can just brute force them will do that for a short period of time. But you can't sustain that. Right. And so you gotta find something that like is something that fires you up, that you actually look forward to do, and then you can get some results reasonably quickly, but then just ease into it for like the whole culture of, you know, tell people like, hey, don't expect anything for the first year.
00:39:58:22 - 00:40:01:07
Speaker 1
Oh, we want to get started.
00:40:01:09 - 00:40:17:02
Speaker 3
It's going to be a year down the path. so one of the things that I, my wife and I don't fight very often, but even this morning, as I was walking out the door, we had a little dustup. And like, I was really frustrated. And I left afterwards. And I'm driving to work and I'm like, why is this difficult?
00:40:17:08 - 00:40:33:20
Speaker 3
And really, the core of the disagreement came down to you. She was checking that the answer that I gave to her before was the answer I still wanted. Right. So she had asked me a question before I we had talked all our way through it. I had given her an answer and she's like, do you still want this answer?
00:40:34:02 - 00:40:50:09
Speaker 3
Now for me, if somebody opens up a question and says, do you still want this? It means they want something else. And so they're trying to convince me of it. But my wife's actually not that way. If I think about my wife, she can bring up a question, explore it again, and then set it down and then explore it again.
00:40:50:09 - 00:41:14:01
Speaker 3
It's just the way that in her nature, me, the way that I stay on the path of of the righteous and good, narrow is I make a decision and then I don't ever deviate. Because if I deviate now, I'm way over here. I'm going to go down the wrong path. And if I have to have that dialog with my inner self, my inner self, my inner bitch, whatever that is wins a lot of the time.
00:41:14:03 - 00:41:17:21
Speaker 3
And so I make decisions and then I don't fuck with those decisions.
00:41:17:21 - 00:41:43:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. Because so then there's some like that revisiting stuff create creates doubt. Like so with customers who clients, you know, like Bill choose a countertop and then like countertop company and we chose said this is our selection. And then somebody fire some back just confirming that this is your selection.
00:41:43:08 - 00:41:44:03
Speaker 2
okay.
00:41:44:05 - 00:42:02:09
Speaker 1
Because like, first of all, I was like, I don't know, what's that you remember? This was like three months ago, we decided. And so then you I'm obligated then to go to the client, like, okay, I'm just making sure this is what you want. And then it's like, you. Well, yeah, we think so. But then then there's doubt comes in and what was certain is no doubt.
00:42:02:09 - 00:42:27:11
Speaker 1
And I tell people like, I mean, obviously there has to be a long process to get everything just right. But once you've decided if you put in the legwork on the front end, decide and forget about it and people, it will work out. Now, if you're making quick decisions and not thinking about it, bad things can happen. But people almost never regret what they choose chosen if they engage in a genuine process of discovery, right?
00:42:27:13 - 00:42:30:02
Speaker 1
But then yeah, once that's done, just be done with it.
00:42:30:04 - 00:42:49:04
Speaker 3
Well, I think of this just like the snooze bar, right? Like I cannot do snooze. I have to make a decision. I will be out of bed at this time. I'm just like, oh yeah, no. No question. In fact, I don't even set an alarm. In fact, setting an alarm only gives me more anxiety. If I set an alarm, I'll wake up throughout the night to be like, is that alarm about to go off?
00:42:49:04 - 00:43:09:09
Speaker 3
I wouldn't want to. I'm middle child of seven, so you didn't want to disturb anybody else. So the reason to be a pariah. So I'm, I'm very much like if I make a decision, then I just execute on that decision. And anytime I start making deals with myself, I always choose the easier, like bullshit option that allows me to do something dumb.
00:43:09:13 - 00:43:12:08
Speaker 3
And so I just, I just don't negotiate with myself.
00:43:12:13 - 00:43:32:02
Speaker 1
Our brain is always doing like we talked about before. It's trying to get you to do the easy thing. And why wouldn't it? Because it's easier, but it's not. It's never right. It's always wrong. It's always the wrong thing. And you know, I'll find myself. Yeah, I'm going to get up and run, you know, and then like, you know, I got some work to do and I get to.
00:43:32:04 - 00:43:35:06
Speaker 3
Wouldn't it be great if I had that time to work on other things?
00:43:35:08 - 00:43:47:11
Speaker 1
And then when I have all my stuff done and then I'll go off for my run and I'll be. But then. Yeah, 5:00, you know, I, I don't know, I guess I lifted yesterday.
00:43:47:13 - 00:43:47:16
Speaker 2
And.
00:43:47:17 - 00:44:12:09
Speaker 1
Rested, you know, it's just endless and like to me, the only way around that is a plan. And like, you make a plan and you get a plan and and you know, you can't always be when you get kids and you get things changed, you can't get weird about it. But you got to know the difference when it's an actual, when you get a good reason to change the plan and not just some weakness.
00:44:12:09 - 00:44:14:17
Speaker 1
Right. And that's the whole key to everything.
00:44:14:19 - 00:44:23:19
Speaker 3
Well, so you're a mountain climber. And we talked a little bit about this last time, but, you must spend quite a bit of time in your own head while you're climbing a mountain.
00:44:23:21 - 00:44:46:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah a lot. it's. And that's the that's the best part of it. but so like, you get, you know, there's just all these different phases. So every, every mountain climb, there's a big approach. Like my son Drake and I just went out to the Beartooth Wilderness in Montana to do Granite Peak, and we did. This Huckleberry Creek approach is what it's called, that through the forest.
00:44:46:10 - 00:45:05:18
Speaker 1
And he's winding trails, and they're not like good trails. They're just kind of footpaths through the forest. And was, I think it was 9 or 10 miles in and I forget to where we can't. So that approach is kind of this, you know, it's like you want to climb the mountain, but you got to get through this approach.
00:45:05:18 - 00:45:27:03
Speaker 1
So it's kind of just a necessary hoops to jump through. And so that whole time you're just thinking ahead to tomorrow, right. Then you get to your camp and you're going to do your summit day. And you know, that's when things get a lot more really thinking, what's the weather going to be like? What's planned from the get up in the morning, you know, home and you never know what the hell is going on.
00:45:27:03 - 00:45:47:11
Speaker 1
You're like, how many hours it's going to take to get to the summit. You just gas and you go in some guidebook and try to find out what somebody else said. and so then summit Day, you start early and it's really difficult, and you just hate life because it takes so many hours to get up to the part that you really want to do.
00:45:47:11 - 00:46:14:21
Speaker 1
And that's the summit. But and so while you're grinding through that is when, like, your mind starts to really attack you and, it just says like, what are you doing? You should stop all this things because it wants the easy way out. But then if you can just get through that and you're just going one foot in front of the other, then that's when you get in this beautiful state of mind where you just you just go.
00:46:14:23 - 00:46:19:05
Speaker 1
There's no thoughts or anything. So now.
00:46:19:07 - 00:46:21:08
Speaker 3
Why do you say that's beautiful when you don't have.
00:46:21:08 - 00:46:44:17
Speaker 1
That many times? Do you get it just, I mean, really all you're thinking about is, you know, actual thoughts. It's just your body moving forward and, like, you know, you're not worried about your working. You're not worried about your family. You're not worried about, what you're doing tomorrow. You're not worrying about anything other than, like, right now.
00:46:44:19 - 00:47:10:21
Speaker 1
Because it's so it's so uncomfortable that you can't dwell on how uncomfortable it is. You just got to think about. I always just think about, like, my own body, my feet, my ankles, my knees, and like, all the way up and just everything working together. And you just get in this beautiful flow and it's just really cool. and then, you know, if you do that long enough, you get that summit in the feeling of that is just amazing.
00:47:10:23 - 00:47:19:07
Speaker 1
and like shortly before we said that, we know that you didn't make it and you just know because you always had down all the way up to when, you know, and that's the moment.
00:47:19:12 - 00:47:21:16
Speaker 3
Because the snowstorm might come up or.
00:47:21:16 - 00:47:39:17
Speaker 1
You don't know if you can handle it. You don't know, know, thunderstorms, you know, when you're in the mountains in the summertime, thunderstorms come up in the afternoon and it's really, really dangerous. you know, this one, the Drake and I just did. It was, you know, very technical, tough, you know, climbing with ropes up the last several hundred feet.
00:47:39:17 - 00:48:01:01
Speaker 1
And you've never been there before. You don't really know how you're supposed to do. It's kind of scary, right? And, so you just you just don't know. You don't know if you're going to hack it, and then eventually you once you know for sure just that feeling is irreplaceable. And then you get the summit and then you come back down.
00:48:01:03 - 00:48:20:07
Speaker 1
Then you always have a long, grueling descent. And the descent when you're mountain climbing is actually the most dangerous. I think it's like 80% of the injuries and deaths climbing come on, the descent because you burn up all your energy. And a lot of times people think, oh, the climb is over, right? Because I've made it to the top.
00:48:20:09 - 00:48:46:12
Speaker 1
Well, you got to get back down. And now gravity is working against you with falls or more likely, stepping down. But so we had this super long summit day on this last one. And my son, who's 17, he had never had a long day like this. And we were out, we were 16 hours into the day and it was dark, and we still had several hours back to these massive boulder fields.
00:48:46:12 - 00:49:14:02
Speaker 1
Very treacherous, just dangerous terrain. And I said, how are you doing? Starting to shut down. And I said, well, we can stay out here. We had food. We had waterproof gear. We could stay up here would be fine. I want to stay out here. We got to get back here with choice. And I said, you know, what are you feeling right now?
00:49:14:04 - 00:49:41:18
Speaker 1
In normal life, you get a 0 to 10 fatigue scare, right? You're way past ten. You're in a zone you've never been before. And it can't can't be measured. And it has no context. But now you're just like muscle and bone and blood and forward. And that's all you do. And that's all you think about. And I said, and here's what I promise you will never forget this day the rest of your life.
00:49:41:20 - 00:50:07:13
Speaker 1
So we have another three hours and you made it back. And we're back at the tent at 1:30 a.m. and we're feeling great. We're eating and we're happy and we're laughing. And that's the weird part. He didn't have any energy, but you did. You just got to access it. And that's the thing I love about mountain climbing. Just be I end up digging deeper to find something that you don't get to in your whole life.
00:50:07:15 - 00:50:22:11
Speaker 3
I really like that concept of you. You know, if you were in your regular life, you already crossed ten and that would have put you in bed and everybody would have been like, oh, he's really tired and just give him a break. But you're way past that and you still have more to go.
00:50:22:13 - 00:50:42:07
Speaker 1
In and than that. So that's the fascinating part. So I've told him like, you know, so then you take that back to your normal life. And I'm not saying that you can always have this broad minded context in your life. You know, sometimes you just get crazy, but are you really that tired? Are you really are you really to the point where you can't go on any further?
00:50:42:07 - 00:51:00:16
Speaker 1
Or is it just your emotional state is such that you can't access that energy? And I just think that's a it's just a great thing to fall back on at times to just know that, you know what? It's not really is dire as you think it is right now. You got more. You can figure out how to get.
00:51:00:16 - 00:51:19:14
Speaker 3
It in regular life. I think one of the things that I struggle with the most in my 40s is I have so many things to do, I don't always know what to do. And I find, like, I wake myself up being like, oh, you just kind of walked around in a circle for the last hour and a half, like, that's not good.
00:51:19:16 - 00:51:33:05
Speaker 3
And but like when you're on a path, you're climbing a mountain, you know, that's the top of the mountain. I'm going to keep going in that direction until I get there. And that's the way back to camp. But regular life doesn't afford such a clear path.
00:51:33:06 - 00:52:05:16
Speaker 1
No, it's much more complicated. And that's again, that's like being boiled down when you're in the mountains. It's just. It's just this beautiful simplicity. Where in it really all you're, you're thinking about where you're going, and then water the food you have, you know, are you ready to I wet, you know, just those kind of just basic existence and, and you realize, like, you just don't in those moments, you don't need anything else, nor could you accommodate anything else.
00:52:05:18 - 00:52:19:00
Speaker 1
And so and just to get out of the world and all of its distraction, I just think those wilderness trips in general and climbing specifically is just so, just so good for people.
00:52:19:02 - 00:52:31:12
Speaker 3
What I hear you describing with that you did with your son, it's kind of a summer climb up a mountain, maybe a big one, but that's not you've got ice spikes on and you're like doing an ax up. You do that kind of movement climbing.
00:52:31:12 - 00:53:06:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, I've done a lot of it. so, I mean, I've climbed so climbed the Matterhorn and in Switzerland, not long in France and, in Ecuador, in Argentina, and did Denali summited Denali in 2018 and then, so all of these different skills come into play on the bigger mountains, you know, the more complicated climbs, you know, the ones that you see that are popular and publicized or, the mountains are commercialized.
00:53:06:14 - 00:53:34:16
Speaker 1
and so now they're still great and people are going to put forth effort and doing super, super hard things. but then the deeper you get into it, the more skills you build. Just the, the, less commercialized and more isolated you can get in. That's super sweet. So, you know, you know, Denali is a big mountain that's commercialized on, on the standard road, but on the West Buttress route.
00:53:34:22 - 00:53:53:02
Speaker 1
But we did this west route, which is a little different. so we were able to be alone on the Norway. And so, yeah, I just try to keep going where I can. I'm trying to build all the skills necessary to do these more complex climbs, and that does not necessarily mean big mountains that anybody's heard of before.
00:53:53:07 - 00:53:55:21
Speaker 3
Are all mountains climbable?
00:53:55:23 - 00:54:21:00
Speaker 1
there are some mountains that are crumbly enough, like the glaciers have receded. And that's like on one side of it that's just crumbling is like, climbable. But, and I think every mountain can be climbed. It just takes more, you know, that's human skill. And knowledge keeps expanding. You know what was impossible 30 years ago now, like a lot of people can do, and it's happening climbing too.
00:54:21:00 - 00:54:24:15
Speaker 1
So basically there's people climbing everything.
00:54:24:17 - 00:54:32:02
Speaker 3
And when you think about the next mountain to climb, what is it that that makes you choose this one rather than that one?
00:54:32:04 - 00:54:57:02
Speaker 1
Well, so it depends on like, okay, sun's coming with what we're going to do Rainier next summer. Okay. But then I also want to go back to Switzerland and we're going to climb the Eiger next hopefully, hopefully next summer also. And so, you know, the idea is just this mountain that's super famous and, just got this just evil looking North face that is super scary.
00:54:57:02 - 00:55:23:12
Speaker 1
And it's part of climbing law. so I'm going to climb that one and then but it all depends. Like you go on to, you go to Europe and you got the Europe's crazy because like, the mountains are so easily accessible because they've got all these telephone rings that lifts. So you'd be like down in Italy, you sip and wine and have a nice dinner and then like, you know, 90 minutes later you're up and on a glacier and full alpine conditions.
00:55:23:12 - 00:55:42:11
Speaker 1
So it's like super accessible. so you can stay there and you go up and climb a lot of these peaks in just one day up and down, and then you just can hit a bunch of them in the area and you can have like, everything from easy walk ups to just like, super crazy things that are way beyond my capacity.
00:55:42:13 - 00:56:10:15
Speaker 1
So, you know, so there's that experience and then there's the big expeditions and the big expeditions be like in Denali or Aconcagua in Argentina, where you're out there for a couple of weeks or three weeks. And I like the expedition because you just it's like time changes. You're just you're like, there's rest days, you know, because basically you climb up to a camp cache gear, come back down, sleep here.
00:56:10:15 - 00:56:33:04
Speaker 1
Then the next day you move up to the next camp, stay there so you base and climb the mountain twice just to acclimate. But the the time you spend, it's just like time gets weird because you're feeling all day doing nothing at times. Like literally not just resting and stretching. Read the book. And on Denali, I was in a tent for three and a half days for a snowstorm.
00:56:33:04 - 00:56:55:15
Speaker 1
We were stuck in rain that day, three of us. And you know, you think that would make you insane. But it just it went by pretty quickly. So there's just some beautiful things about both of those lots of climbing on short climbs or just a long stretched out, expedition experience. And I just like them both.
00:56:55:17 - 00:57:06:19
Speaker 3
And when you think about your technical ability getting better at mountain climbing, you presumably have to do things you haven't done before. How do you keep going without going too far.
00:57:06:21 - 00:57:30:08
Speaker 1
And go in guides? And so I've got two different guides that I they go with and they're friends now. And you know, they just they're experts. And so you just they, you're paying them to be your friend to some degree and just show you, show you the ropes. And then you gain experience with this person who you have total trust in.
00:57:30:10 - 00:57:49:21
Speaker 1
And then you strike out on your own on something simpler than that and just build, you know, because there's no substitute for just doing it alone to have the skills built. So and I've started late enough in my life that life, I'll never be an expert at it, but I'm trying to do it as much as I can and learn as much as I can when I.
00:57:49:22 - 00:58:12:03
Speaker 3
So we went to, with the angels head in in Bryce Canyon. Right. Like where? And, my, I tried to tell my wife as we were walking up, like, I'm not super comfortable with heights like I've done mountain climbing before, but I or like, done a couple fourteeners in, in Colorado, but, like, the path was relatively like there's plenty of space.
00:58:12:03 - 00:58:26:21
Speaker 3
I didn't have to look over an edge and see like, oh, there, you're dropping for ever. You know, you'll you'll know you're going to die before you're dead. And, it holds no allure to me to be in a spot where you can, like, drop a rock off and it just falls and falls and falls.
00:58:27:00 - 00:58:44:03
Speaker 1
I just I love that feeling of exposure now. It takes it. It takes. You got to build the tolerance to it. Right? But I, I just love that. And when you know you're secure, you think of the kind of low risk, high consequence where it's like, you know, I'm secure. I'm in here. I got a hold of it.
00:58:44:03 - 00:58:49:10
Speaker 1
I'm fine. But but if you slip it down, you're dead, you know.
00:58:49:12 - 00:59:00:05
Speaker 3
Or if somebody comes by and bumps you. I think I had an older brother that gave me enough fear. Like I have, like an ever present fear that like, I'm just going to get nudged in like you're gone.
00:59:00:07 - 00:59:19:03
Speaker 1
So I've got a video, from 360 degree camera on a helmet on the summit of the Matterhorn. And it's this knife edge ridge like that, and you walk in, and now those three, six seconds make it look a little more aggressive than it actually is. Like it falls off to the end of the Earth, and you see us, like stepping around people.
00:59:19:04 - 00:59:21:23
Speaker 2
Oh, God. Yeah. It's yeah.
00:59:22:00 - 00:59:41:13
Speaker 1
It's on my YouTube page and it is and it is, it is wild. And so I just and that was one the Matterhorn like in 2017. I was scared, before like the day before I was like that was almost in tears by myself. Just like, I don't think I can do it. I don't think I could do it.
00:59:41:13 - 01:00:03:06
Speaker 1
I didn't know because I knew that knife edge was up at the summit, and it's basically, you, you know, you fall, you die kind of exposure the whole way. And then we just did it and it was great. And like, that was like this moment where it's, you know, to you have such fear and then like, have it work out like you can't not learn something from that.
01:00:03:08 - 01:00:11:09
Speaker 3
I mean, I'm sure you could learn things from, but I like there are very few things that give me crippling fear and that one gives me crippling fear.
01:00:11:09 - 01:00:30:05
Speaker 1
And that's normal. And I'll never forget the guy that he first started climbing with. So we we're going to go climb the Leaning Tower at Yosemite and, and just big rock face. That means it leans back at you. And it was the first time I'd ever done anything like that. And then I'm just walking through it, and the tight end of the rope and.
01:00:30:07 - 01:00:49:13
Speaker 1
And you realize, like, it's just the rope that's going to keep you safe, right? And I said that to me. He looked at me, said, that's climbing in a. And now I eventually said that to other people. And you trust that rope? Yes, you have to. That's all you got. If you don't trust the rope and you can't be climbing.
01:00:49:15 - 01:01:15:23
Speaker 1
And so, you know, how where does that come from? Just, I guess everybody else trust it. And so, like, we were coming down Granite Peak and Montana and there's these repel stations or we're just like a nylon strap that like, hooked around a rock and it's, you know, the size of your pinky and it's like somebody left it there, you know, guides, presumably.
01:01:15:23 - 01:01:22:15
Speaker 1
And like, that's what you gotta put in to repel down and Drake is like.
01:01:22:17 - 01:01:24:14
Speaker 3
Do you know the guy? Did he tie the knot?
01:01:24:14 - 01:01:47:18
Speaker 1
Right? Like, you know, I believe it will hold us. And it's and that's, you know, obviously there's things that are tattered or ripped and you can't trust it, but it's just weird. You end up just having this intuitive sense of like, yeah, I gotta hold, but you gotta be right. And that's the other beautiful thing about climbing is like, just this ultimate personal responsibility.
01:01:47:18 - 01:01:57:23
Speaker 1
Like, it's really not dangerous if you don't make a mistake, if you make a mistake, you got big problems. And, And I guess I like that.
01:01:58:01 - 01:02:06:03
Speaker 3
Yeah. There's something, deeply like trusting yourself about all of this and trusting the people that you're next to you because.
01:02:06:05 - 01:02:24:15
Speaker 1
Yeah. Because in your out there, like, in the in, in the mountains, like in the whole idea. They're in different. Right. Like the mountains don't care if you fall or you don't fall. And they're just being mountains and it's just something to, you know, I don't know. There's something you were just we have so much safety built around us that our normal life.
01:02:24:15 - 01:02:30:04
Speaker 1
And I guess that there's just to me, some value in just going up to me and having all that stripped away.
01:02:30:04 - 01:02:51:05
Speaker 3
But when you have like, I think there's like a profound realization that most men should marry. I don't know if women need to learn it or not. I'm not a woman. But, for me, I remember going surfing in waves that were way bigger than I should have been in. And I'm on this wave and like, I realize, like, if I fall off of this, I will die.
01:02:51:06 - 01:03:13:06
Speaker 3
There is like, there's very little chance that I'll be able to swim back to shore and, you realize, like, well, this ocean wave can't be pleaded with, like, I can't say like, oh, please don't hurt me. There's no one to help me. It's just me out in nature. And that realization humbles you in a way where you're like, oh, nature doesn't actually care about me.
01:03:13:06 - 01:03:32:13
Speaker 3
Like it's it's totally indifferent. And that indifference is like, truly horrifying if you think about it. Because it's like whether you're here or not, you'll be gone and it will continue in whatever form it's in. And that's something that like when you have that realization, you're maybe one with the universe in a deeper way. Yeah.
01:03:32:13 - 01:04:04:17
Speaker 1
And it's interesting you mentioned women feel that. And I guess I'm sure there are I know there are some women that seek that adventure, but it seems to be so inherent in young males in this way. Is that just stupid stuff? Right. But so to be able to harness that stupid in something that we're, we're, you know, skill and care knowledge can, can protect you from the consequences, but you're still taking these risks like, it's this perfect mix.
01:04:04:19 - 01:04:10:10
Speaker 1
and so maybe if there was more on this, like that, meaning kids to do less dumb stuff, I don't know, maybe.
01:04:10:12 - 01:04:15:15
Speaker 3
Would you go back to your 20s if you couldn't bring your wisdom with you?
01:04:15:17 - 01:04:36:08
Speaker 1
Oh, man, that's a tough one. I don't know, twins are pretty. You know, here's what I think about the twins. I didn't realize how good being in my 20s were when I was in my 20s. You know what I mean? Like, I just kind of let that slide by and kind of fall. It's just stressing on the young man's dress and just trying to figure out.
01:04:36:09 - 01:04:37:05
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:04:37:10 - 01:04:38:17
Speaker 1
How am I going to get what I want?
01:04:38:19 - 01:04:40:10
Speaker 3
What am I going to grow up to be? Yeah.
01:04:40:14 - 01:04:57:12
Speaker 1
Now, I don't look back in my 20s and long for them more than doing the 30s and 40s now. So every decade has gotten better for me. I suppose just to get more years, I'd probably go back. But if it's just to me, if she again, I don't know.
01:04:57:14 - 01:05:21:22
Speaker 3
Yeah, I feel that same way. Like my wife has like very much a nostalgia that I'm always afraid of, not about her 20s, but like, our kids are growing up, you know, are we going to miss that? And it's just not something that I'm used to. And I think a lot about like, well, if I could go back to my 20s not being able to change what I know, because if you could go back to your 20s and be as wise as you are in your 40s or 50s, you just kill it.
01:05:21:22 - 01:05:32:03
Speaker 3
You would. But like if you had to go back in like to me, it'd be like, I don't know, I'd be rolling the dice again. I'm not so sure I'd arrive here twice, right?
01:05:32:03 - 01:05:33:21
Speaker 2
Like like, yeah.
01:05:34:02 - 01:05:53:07
Speaker 1
A lot of like, you know, I said, being dipshit. And obviously there's a lot of people in their 20s that do great things. And I did some good things in my 20s, but I just the way my brain worked and the things that I just this, you know, I just like, how do they get that those habits built in my 20s and that was it.
01:05:53:08 - 01:06:11:01
Speaker 3
Well, that alcohol being one of those ones, that's like a synthetic form of adventure, right? Where you can convince yourself, I mean, I remember my buddies and I, we were living in Northern California and, we would go out to a bar and stay out there till two in the morning playing darts and trying to catch him out of the air.
01:06:11:01 - 01:06:23:17
Speaker 3
Right. Well, that's stupid, right? But like to a 20 year old that's drinking and trying to impress girls like this is like a lot of fun and an adventure. But like, all those nights blended together and it didn't really amount to much.
01:06:23:19 - 01:06:29:05
Speaker 1
Problems that can get solved with the girls, you know, the, young men, the higher standards.
01:06:29:11 - 01:06:39:08
Speaker 3
Yeah. Right. They did think it was pretty cool. If you could grab a dart out of the air. We called it Kill Dart. It was a pretty fun game. Not everybody would play it. Sort everybody out that way.
01:06:39:10 - 01:06:40:05
Speaker 1
On darts after.
01:06:40:05 - 01:06:55:14
Speaker 3
That. Oh, man, I'm so glad lawn darts weren't around when I was a kid because I had definitely killed somebody. So you, you when we were talking before, you're like, I'm not really an expert in climbing. The thing I have an expertise in probably is hunting. When did you pick that up?
01:06:55:20 - 01:07:20:03
Speaker 1
Well, so my dad didn't hunt or anything like that, and, my cousin Steve invited me to go hunting with him when I was 14. And for whatever reason, it just grabbed a hold of me. I just. Didn't had almost no success for the first three years or four years, even. Just just muddling through. Name, Steve. Trying to learn how to hunt.
01:07:20:05 - 01:07:21:10
Speaker 1
you know.
01:07:21:12 - 01:07:23:11
Speaker 3
And what were you using for again?
01:07:23:16 - 01:07:44:20
Speaker 1
So shooting pheasants and ducks with a shotgun. And then we started, you know, in Iowa, we don't have a rifle hunting for deer. It's shotguns with slugs. So I think the first year I went in to see a deer the second year and saw deer and then shot third year, I had shot and missed. And then I think maybe the fourth year I finally got one.
01:07:44:22 - 01:08:07:17
Speaker 1
and then I started both. And then when I was 22 or something like that. but, you know, I don't it was really interesting because I, I worked on a farm in junior high and high school, and my great uncle and, my dad's cousins and so on, and so, like, had that that kind of nature influence as far as farming.
01:08:07:17 - 01:08:37:01
Speaker 1
But I didn't really have an interest in nature other than that, started hunting and then, that just blossomed into just a passion for love of nature of all kinds. Right. and then the other really interesting aspect of hunting that's been great for my life is just my friends in college were my hunting friends, and that has kept us together all these years, you know, get together and, and deer hunt in Turkey.
01:08:37:01 - 01:08:49:09
Speaker 1
And every year. And without that, I don't miss friendships. You probably still friends, but without that activity to get you together, it just seems it seems impossible to maintain.
01:08:49:11 - 01:08:55:07
Speaker 3
So for somebody that's never taken the life of an animal larger than an insect, what's that like?
01:08:55:08 - 01:09:18:23
Speaker 1
Well, it's it's really interesting. And I'll say that, you know, the first time I did it, I remember it just kind of. It really bothered me. So I would've been. You to school was 15 or something like that. It really bothered me. But then you get got over it pretty quick. Just because you're excited about doing it again, you know, kind of make sense of that.
01:09:19:01 - 01:09:43:07
Speaker 1
and then, you know, there is a phase and a lot of people go through hunting for it. It's it's kind of a bloodthirsty phase. And there's like these definite phases of the hunting trajectory and where you just trying to get stuff in and that's not good. And there's not enough reverence for what you're doing. But then as you just take in more of it and over the years and just realize how significant that was.
01:09:43:09 - 01:10:05:22
Speaker 1
I was in Colorado one time, and my buddy Matt had just shot it off with, we were out there on the mountain getting it cut into pieces, and I looked at him and said, this is fucking serious. We should never forget it. And it's just at that moment, look at us covered with blood or petting an animal farm where we carried all these pieces off the mountain.
01:10:05:22 - 01:10:25:04
Speaker 1
And then we're going to eat it like, holy, this is wild. But what a great feeling that is. You know, I remember driving away from that mountain and looking back at this thing, like we just went in there and we got to Elk, carried him out and here we are. And this is like this. Amazing.
01:10:25:06 - 01:10:27:21
Speaker 3
Yeah. Deeply primal, very human. Yeah.
01:10:27:23 - 01:10:51:06
Speaker 1
And I try my hardest to not, you know, ruin the moment, when you kill an animal by just being to, high fives and naked, just to celebratory. I mean, it's still it's something you're happy about, but, you know, it's it's a big moment. And I try to give, like, a little quiet time to just,
01:10:51:08 - 01:11:14:10
Speaker 1
I don't know, whatever you that. I'm not going to say it's a prayer, but just to kind of give thanks for the whole situation. Right. And so that's a, it's a serious it's a serious thing. I think people a lot of people would benefit from that because you just realize, you know, like when you're paying people to do the killing for you, you're still part of that.
01:11:14:12 - 01:11:18:17
Speaker 1
And just recognizing the magnitude of it, I think, would be good for people.
01:11:18:19 - 01:11:41:10
Speaker 3
I, was asked to kill a goat one time when I was in Kenya and that was, a surreal experience because I felt like I couldn't turn it down. And I felt horrible about it because I had just never done it before. And you didn't. You don't realize, like, that knife actually goes in pretty easy. It's like the the the the blood comes out, the animal is gone fast.
01:11:41:12 - 01:11:53:06
Speaker 3
And like, it zaps you into the experience of, like, life and death is but a breath away, you know, like one cut of an art major artery gone.
01:11:53:08 - 01:12:11:07
Speaker 1
And that. And that's the weird thing to, like, where you're, see these animals. And I love watching them. They're beautiful. And why would anybody want them to die? I don't want him to die. But then once you decide to be a hunter, it's just like laser focus, and. And you're all about, how am I going to achieve this, how I'm going to get this done.
01:12:11:07 - 01:12:28:06
Speaker 1
And it's like you're but you're two different people just depending on, the activity you're engaged in at the moment. And I just, I find it weird. It's definitely there's a little evolutionary switch that gets flipped. I think that brings you back to that predator prey relationship.
01:12:28:08 - 01:12:48:02
Speaker 3
Well, I think, like, I, I often think about how much our worlds have changed as human beings. Right. Like the very fact that you can sit in a room that's 72 degrees in the middle of summer is something that is almost magical. Like, you would be a wizard if you could go back to other points in history and be like, no, we just sitting there 72 degrees is perfect.
01:12:48:02 - 01:13:08:23
Speaker 3
We sleep at 68 degrees. We put blankets on in the middle of summer. Right? It's just like mind blowing. But to even go further back and to be like most Americans have never killed anything that they're about to eat. Right? And like, how much does that separate you from food and the human experience? Now, I don't I don't know how you resolve that or what good it would do to do it.
01:13:08:23 - 01:13:15:06
Speaker 3
But like we have so completely changed that are we the same humans that we were?
01:13:15:08 - 01:13:30:06
Speaker 1
That's a great question. I wondered that myself. Like, do do we still have the the ability inside us to suffer to the degree that people used to suffer, like if we had to or is that gone?
01:13:30:10 - 01:13:49:00
Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, I think about like like I think about those guys that were centers that would like spend a week underground in these tiny trenches, you know, going and prepared to knife fight the next guy to death. Right. Like, what would have to happen now in my life to make me prepared to do that for my family?
01:13:49:00 - 01:13:57:09
Speaker 3
Would I be able to do it if it was called to do it? I don't know, I'd like to think I was, but those people seem much better prepared for the level of suffering they went through.
01:13:57:11 - 01:14:10:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, just, you know, the difference. Just the how hard people used to be, you know, and and I really, honestly don't know if we've got that within us. I mean, we have honestly more than.
01:14:10:08 - 01:14:12:08
Speaker 3
You can go past ten like you've said.
01:14:12:10 - 01:14:37:22
Speaker 1
Ten. But. Yeah. Do we, do we have that ability in us anymore? I don't really know. But that's where like that was like the climbing and then the wilderness travel. it's like, I guess that's what you're looking for. You're just trying to find. Prove to yourself that you still got it says for, you know, like, we're going just less than a month, going up to Alaska and doing a moose hunt, and it's a river float, moose hunting.
01:14:37:22 - 01:14:56:07
Speaker 1
Drop us in and throw a couple rafts, and then we gotta get carry him to this river and, float 62 miles on a river to take us up on the other end. And we'll have moose that we kill and bring them on down river with us. And, like, you know, that's it's just all suffering the whole time.
01:14:56:09 - 01:15:06:04
Speaker 1
But it's just such a it's just such a great you just removed from your world completely. And I mean, you just don't get that very often. You know.
01:15:06:06 - 01:15:19:05
Speaker 3
You are taking such advantage of your ability to move your body to, to, to build things, to climb mountains, to go hunting. What would your life be like if you were a quadriplegic?
01:15:19:07 - 01:15:41:04
Speaker 1
Oh, man. You know, I've thought about that too. And you see these people that, that managed to just have good attitudes and be paralyzed. And I think that's just, I guess I'd like to think that I would make the best of whatever situation I'm in. I would like to see myself as that kind of person. but I don't know.
01:15:41:06 - 01:16:11:04
Speaker 1
You know, I can get pretty dark and down when things are good, so, it's that's the thing that's such a such a gift. It's an overused term, but, like, to just be able to choose to go do something. You know, my wife had a real back problem earlier this year and have surgeries. And when that's in doubt and you really don't know what the future looks like for somebody to fit and healthy, and now you have a problem, you don't know if surgery is going to fix it, it really got us into that state of mind.
01:16:11:04 - 01:16:24:09
Speaker 1
Like, what if what if you can't do all the things that she loves and that I do with her? Like, what is life look like? Well then obviously you figure it out, right? But, you just don't want to have to.
01:16:24:13 - 01:16:39:23
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's right, I, I had a, like, a growth on my neck, a couple of weeks ago, and I had not really taken it all that seriously. I was like, no, nothing bad ever happens to me. That can't be. I can't be bad. And then I, I was like, hey, honey, I'm going to the doctor in a couple days.
01:16:40:00 - 01:16:58:00
Speaker 3
Do you think I should show him this? And she freaked out, right. And so I had to face for a couple of nights going to sleep, being like, what if I was wrong? And this is a death sentence and like it when I was younger, when I was going surfing in those waves, you know, my parents would have been sad.
01:16:58:00 - 01:17:20:22
Speaker 3
Oh, you know, poor us that we lost our son and that'd be bad. But there would have been no real consequence to the universe. Now, if I die because I was being irresponsible. There are two children, and, And a wife that I've loved, that now their lives are going to be so radically altered that you're going to bed at night being like, oh, man, did I really screw this up?
01:17:20:22 - 01:17:40:11
Speaker 3
Is this because they spent my 20s smoking cigarets? Is this like. And that's one of those things that again, like we're talking about primal experiences, having to confront. Am I going to die like soon? Not like this metaphorical. Someday I won't be here. Like confronting that is a very important part of living.
01:17:40:13 - 01:17:59:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. It's, I think, you know, to recognize, like, I remember it was a, like, maybe in my early 30s. Right. And my first moment of, like, where I had, you know, some killer weird headache shows up just out of nowhere and just knocks me to do my knees. And so you get your brain scan, and you're wait a couple days to find out.
01:17:59:11 - 01:18:01:19
Speaker 1
And, you know, it turned out to be nothing, but.
01:18:01:21 - 01:18:04:17
Speaker 3
Yeah, mine did too, by the way. Yeah, I'm totally fine.
01:18:04:19 - 01:18:44:03
Speaker 1
You know, and I remember that was the first moment I remember I thought, like, yeah, I don't want to die. it was just that first. I never thought of it like that before, and it was real. And I'll never forget it. I remember where I was in the moment when that came to me. And so, and I think that's just part of that process of getting, you know, from that youthful confidence and complete hubris to just this sort of thought people that we are in middle age where it's just like, you just see all the risks out there and you just know too much.
01:18:44:03 - 01:18:48:02
Speaker 1
And then you start to realize, like, okay, I get why old people are the way they are. I get.
01:18:48:02 - 01:18:49:06
Speaker 2
It.
01:18:49:08 - 01:19:10:10
Speaker 1
Eventually. You're just seeing, like, all the things that can go wrong. And at some point it just wears out. Your brain and, you know, it just saps you of strength and you're focusing on all the things that can go wrong in. And that's not productive. Right? But then you see the, you know, you're 20 and they think like nothing will go wrong with that.
01:19:10:12 - 01:19:15:12
Speaker 1
That's not currently the way either. Right. And so it's just it's a fascinating process.
01:19:15:12 - 01:19:19:21
Speaker 3
And a couple weeks ago I had Jack Milliken on. He's 25 years old.
01:19:19:22 - 01:19:20:23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah.
01:19:21:01 - 01:19:39:02
Speaker 3
He was great. Right. And I was sitting there being like, man, I remember when I was like, no matter what happens, I'm going to be okay. I was like, man, I do. I wish I was back in that space. I don't know, because you're sitting there and you don't want to be like, well, Jack, you know, a lot of shit can go wrong that you don't control.
01:19:39:06 - 01:19:42:21
Speaker 3
But like, at the same time, like you want somebody to have that much confidence.
01:19:43:00 - 01:20:00:08
Speaker 1
He was he was great. He was like, you know. So that's when you can play, right? You know, how you were in your 20s and this kid's doing like he's he's doing great. He's exactly where he needs to be. And then I heard that perfect and beautiful confidence. There isn't a doubt in his mind. And I'm like, you know what?
01:20:00:10 - 01:20:21:01
Speaker 1
You need that to make it through all tough across all the obstacles. But then also, that is the thing that can undo you. And so, like, how do you make sense of that. Right. Well you can't. And so you gotta just eventually get your ass kicked enough and have enough close calls, dodge enough bullets.
01:20:21:03 - 01:20:21:08
Speaker 2
this.
01:20:21:08 - 01:20:48:04
Speaker 1
Is real, right? And so we're just and just talking ahead of this morning about, telling her son Drake is going off to college. Like I mentioned. You know, I told him sometime last night, be careful today. Be careful. That's the. That's what you tell like five year old, right? And what do I mean by that? And he's just like like out in the mountains there are there are forces of the universe that you cannot control.
01:20:48:06 - 01:21:17:08
Speaker 1
And they do not care if you live, if you die, if you're healthy, if you're happy or anything. Those same forces are around us all the time in you. Despite your youthful confidence, cannot avoid their effects. So be aware. Don't be. You know the hubris is the right word, right? Don't think you're untouchable. That's what I need to be careful.
01:21:17:10 - 01:21:35:03
Speaker 1
And that's. And it's still not going to matter, you know that, it won't matter right now. It'll eventually matter, you know? And that's like we, I think I heard you mentioned one time, in, like, injecting, like, context or whatever.
01:21:35:03 - 01:21:37:18
Speaker 3
Yeah, like wisdom or something to your kids.
01:21:37:20 - 01:22:08:07
Speaker 1
And like, you can't. And so I look at it as like, you're writing these notes down or stuff in these notes in your pockets and not reading them. And then eventually some moment happens and, you know, you dig around, they find that, okay, now I'm get with that and then helps them process it. Right. And so but that's the part you just like wouldn't it be easier if you if you could just listen and avoid the problems.
01:22:08:07 - 01:22:28:20
Speaker 3
But yeah, I could just help you if you would only listen to me. But there's but that you're metaphor there about like you're handing your child notes that they're shoving in their pockets and not reading is exactly right. And then, I mean, I can remember my dad saying time is the most important thing that you have, and you are going to feel like you have an infinite amount of it.
01:22:28:20 - 01:22:49:19
Speaker 3
And then one day you're going to wake up and you feel like you don't have enough. And I remember feeling like, whatever, old man like, I got all this time, I'm never not going to have time. And then one day you wake up and you're like, oh my gosh, he's right. All this pursuit of, you know, money or wealth or, you know, health or any of this is so that you can do with your time what you want.
01:22:49:20 - 01:22:59:13
Speaker 3
We use you can use your attention in the way that you want and it isn't. It's so finite. And those times when you just threw it out the window or gave it away to dumb things.
01:22:59:14 - 01:23:32:00
Speaker 1
Well, and like back to what we were talking about, like looking at Twitter, you know, if you call my Twitter X, you know, like I haven't made the change, but like there's the valuable amount to spend on that and then the rest of it is squandering your time. Right. And so like you think in a life that is busy is yours or mine or the stresses are piled on deep and heavy, the self-loathing I feel when I get sucked in and I just waste time and it's just weakness because I don't want to do the thing that I know I need to do.
01:23:32:00 - 01:23:57:03
Speaker 1
And this is just this thing that can kind of distract me and maybe for a few moments, feel like I'm doing something of value. I feel so it's like, what is wrong with like, that's that time is gone. It's never coming back. And what did I get out of it? And so I'm really good about like setting limits on the things that I go do, like social events and all that.
01:23:57:05 - 01:24:17:06
Speaker 1
you know, I want them to be high value. I don't do a lot of things that I don't really want to do. You know, there's some things, like you, you have to. But I don't feel my life with that. But I do struggle with the daily distractions and the technology that they one is thinking like, that's a way to get your time back.
01:24:17:08 - 01:24:25:15
Speaker 3
Well, Dave Holland, I'm so glad that you, decided that it was worthwhile for you to drive all the way down here and do this podcast with me. So thank you so much for coming on.
01:24:25:17 - 01:24:27:11
Speaker 1
Great doing it. My pleasure.