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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 - 00:00:01:18
Speaker 2
What does it mean to be a good friend?
00:00:01:18 - 00:00:04:12
Speaker 2
to me, what it means to be a good friend
00:00:04:12 - 00:00:09:10
Speaker 2
one, I'm willing to do things for you that I'm not willing to do for other people,
00:00:09:10 - 00:00:15:21
Speaker 2
what true friendship is, is like telling someone the truth and telling them a hard truth, telling them that they have shit in their teeth.
00:00:16:01 - 00:00:19:08
Speaker 2
even if it's, you know, hard to hear because I want you to get better.
00:00:19:08 - 00:00:31:17
Speaker 1
think that Christianity is one of those things that it's your own culture. And so if you grew up in it, understanding some of the beauty of that message is really, really difficult.
00:00:31:18 - 00:00:35:16
Speaker 1
And are they excited about the future or are they afraid of the future, or what do you think.
00:00:35:18 - 00:00:51:15
Speaker 2
About the future at all? so probably afraid. Afraid of what they don't understand. but yeah. No, they're just there's no thought. There's. And it shows by their actions. So you're not doing anything to move forward
00:00:53:07 - 00:01:00:06
Speaker 1
I am Caleb Danzy, a precision addict specialist living in Aurora, South Dakota. And you are listening to the Vance Crow Podcast.
00:01:00:06 - 00:01:23:02
Speaker 1
Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we sit down with Jack Milliken, the producer of the Vance Crew podcast. I met Jack shortly after he turned 21. He was a college dropout with a charismatic smile, and was so good at asking questions that I actually tried to hire him to work for legacy interviews. Instead, Jack started a company that helps people publish podcasts.
00:01:23:04 - 00:01:43:13
Speaker 1
And what started out as a single client has grown into the largest podcast publishing company in Saint Louis. I sat down with Jack to talk about what it's like to be a fit 25 year old growing a company in 2024. We talked about what young men are being told by modern culture, who has influenced him and what the dating world is like.
00:01:43:15 - 00:02:02:09
Speaker 1
We're going to get to that interview in just a moment. But first, I wanted to talk about an opportunity that is just for you. Last year, a client hired me in the Legacy Interviews team to come to his childhood home during harvest season. There, we captured the life stories of six individuals and couples from his family in operation.
00:02:02:09 - 00:02:14:00
Speaker 1
Recording these stories illuminated not only family stories, but the history of something bigger than all of them. The farm. This is something that they will pass down to great grandkids.
00:02:14:02 - 00:02:37:04
Speaker 1
Harvest season is the perfect time to record your family's stories and capture footage of your equipment and farm. In less than a decade, your family will be grateful that you created a priceless family heirloom. If you're interested in this special service, go to Legacy interviews.com and hit the contact page so you and I can discuss how we can bring legacy interviews to your farm this harvest season.
00:02:37:06 - 00:02:41:11
Speaker 1
All right. Without further ado, let's get to the interview with Jack Milliken.
00:02:41:11 - 00:02:44:05
Speaker 1
Jack Millican. Welcome to the podcast.
00:02:44:07 - 00:02:45:12
Speaker 2
Thanks for having me, Nance.
00:02:45:14 - 00:02:53:10
Speaker 1
So you are a 25 year old fit guy that runs his own company. How is dating life like?
00:02:53:12 - 00:03:15:01
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's, there's like two avenues, I guess, for it. You have the online and you have the in-person, and I have a preference towards the in-person. but if you're paying attention to, like, a lot of the messaging right now, you would probably say it's terrible. And, and like, hopeless, especially for young men. But I don't really agree with that.
00:03:15:01 - 00:03:23:20
Speaker 2
I think it's like you get in shape and you're charismatic and working on yourself. dating is not difficult. It's just a numbers game.
00:03:23:22 - 00:03:25:08
Speaker 1
What do you mean, a numbers game?
00:03:25:10 - 00:03:44:21
Speaker 2
It's just like sales. It's like, you know, if you're or you're batting average in baseball, if you have a 300, you hit three out of ten. You're like an excellent, you know, baseball player. but, you know, it's it's there's a ton of different types of people out there and there's a ton of different messages being told each of like, men and women.
00:03:44:23 - 00:04:02:17
Speaker 2
and so you're going to get like a really diverse grouping of potential mates. And if you know, you know what you're looking for, then I'm going to have to go through a lot of different dates with women to, like, finally be like, oh, this is this woman fits the archetype of what I'm looking for.
00:04:02:19 - 00:04:08:12
Speaker 1
What do you think the messaging is that most guys your age are being told?
00:04:08:13 - 00:04:31:16
Speaker 2
I think, most guys my age are being told, be emotionally available. you know, the old way of thinking as far as, like, what a relationship or romantic relationship relationship looks like is toxic. and, you know, like like we need to do better. It's really. I think it's really negative.
00:04:31:17 - 00:04:39:21
Speaker 1
What do you mean, like. So you're saying things that seem so foreign to me. So, like when you say the old ways of dating are toxic, what does that mean?
00:04:39:23 - 00:05:00:08
Speaker 2
yeah. Like even even holding a door open for a woman, like these things that are, like, all of these old ways of chivalry or we're being told, you know, this is like, not the way to do it. I can open the door for myself is, you know, what? Like the women are being told, right? and so I think there's just a lot of confusing messaging of like, well.
00:05:00:13 - 00:05:11:02
Speaker 1
Yeah, what are the norms? How should I how should I behave to show her I'm interested and I'm willing to make sacrifices to to demonstrate to her that I'm like there for her.
00:05:11:03 - 00:05:11:18
Speaker 2
Right. 100.
00:05:11:18 - 00:05:15:00
Speaker 1
Percent. And what messages do you think women are hearing?
00:05:15:02 - 00:05:35:19
Speaker 2
women are hearing. Focus on your career like that is what's going to fulfill you. And and you don't need a man, and you don't need someone to protect you. You can protect yourself. And, you know, you know, don't start dating seriously until you're in your 30s or, you know, it's like like, focus on yourself for a while.
00:05:35:21 - 00:05:37:12
Speaker 2
that's what that that's what I think they're being told.
00:05:37:16 - 00:05:42:00
Speaker 1
And so when you hear these different kinds of messages, how do they resonate with you?
00:05:42:02 - 00:06:07:12
Speaker 2
I'm very, very traditional, like extremely traditional. And, I just, like, look at the relationships that I want to one day have with my parents or or, you know, my uncle and my aunt like these relationships, and I just look and follow what they are, and, they're very traditional. Like, the man is the man and the woman is the woman, and everyone has a role, and no one role is better or worse than the other.
00:06:07:14 - 00:06:14:23
Speaker 2
But like, this is how it operates. And this is why our machine is working. Our family is like doing well.
00:06:15:01 - 00:06:20:08
Speaker 1
And how do you think the women that you're going on dates with, how do they respond to that?
00:06:20:10 - 00:06:45:21
Speaker 2
it depends like which ones are going on. Like there's I think if you're finding like a more conservative Christian woman than like they respond well to that message and that's what they're looking for. if you're going on with more generally like liberal and progressive women, then that's like, that's just not what I'm looking for. So like, if I'm going on a date with them, I just that's not going to be something serious.
00:06:45:23 - 00:06:49:21
Speaker 1
So how are you introduced to the women you're going on dates with?
00:06:49:23 - 00:07:08:13
Speaker 2
I like I, I'm extremely social. And so like, if I'm at a coffee shop, I go to the same coffee shop every day. I'm meeting women there. or just, you know, creative ways, like. So I used to have a dating show that we read. I think I've told you about this when we at a dating show, it was a double dating show, and I need a message.
00:07:08:13 - 00:07:25:00
Speaker 2
Girls on dating apps or, like, meet him out in public in a bar and like, hey, do you want to come on this? Like, you know, show where we go on dates with women and and two girls and two guys and it's like, you know, who can be more compatible or whatever. It was, with my buddy who was a comedian, and he was the host.
00:07:25:02 - 00:07:40:04
Speaker 2
And like, that was one way that I would meet girls, you know? but, yeah, mostly I go out in public and build a rapport with them. I don't really ask girls like cold approach. First time. Hey, do you want to go on a date? Like, I like to talk to them and interact with them on a few occasions.
00:07:40:04 - 00:07:43:11
Speaker 2
And like to where we're both comfortable with each other and, yeah.
00:07:43:13 - 00:07:45:02
Speaker 1
Use dating apps.
00:07:45:04 - 00:07:55:15
Speaker 2
I have. I'm I've actually never been on an actual date from a dating app. but I have it, you know, it's more of like an ego thing, I think, than anything else.
00:07:55:21 - 00:07:56:16
Speaker 1
What do you mean?
00:07:56:18 - 00:08:18:19
Speaker 2
Like, how many beautiful women are interested in me? You know, and, like, this is like, a real way to quantify that. Oh, this. You know, I have 20 beautiful women that are messaging me. I didn't like that. Just build your ego up and boost it up really well. And I can also on the opposite end of that, I think it like really hurts a lot of people's, confidence being on there.
00:08:19:00 - 00:08:24:04
Speaker 1
Because they're sitting there saying, yes, I would match with you, but nobody's matching back with them. Yeah.
00:08:24:06 - 00:08:47:02
Speaker 2
That's and that's like the that's much, much more so for young men than women. Like men. They're, they're saying yes to all kinds of potential options. But women they have if you imagine, like if you have 100 people saying they're interested in you or you're only going to maybe only find ten of them attractive, so there's 90 other guys that are being left out.
00:08:47:04 - 00:08:50:18
Speaker 2
if there's just a total mismatch of of interest on dating apps.
00:08:50:20 - 00:09:09:08
Speaker 1
I would imagine that if you're in the the male group, whatever the top of the distribution, the 20% that's getting 80% of the attention that a dating app could become like a drug for you, that it would be able to just suck you in and you could just be like new experience, new experience, new experience as much as possible.
00:09:09:08 - 00:09:11:06
Speaker 2
100%, 100%.
00:09:11:08 - 00:09:15:20
Speaker 1
What do you think that does to the people you've seen have engage in that way?
00:09:15:22 - 00:09:22:04
Speaker 2
the ones that have had success on their. Yeah.
00:09:22:06 - 00:09:52:05
Speaker 2
It I even notice it with myself. Like, you know, these, these potential matches just become numbers in a way. And just a quick hit of dopamine and then like, that's that's it. what does it devalue the way you look at other human beings? I don't. Maybe because it's, it's like first glance, like, is this person attractive? you know, swipe right or left, you know, right being.
00:09:52:05 - 00:10:10:06
Speaker 2
Yes, I like them, but they know I don't like them. yeah, I actually do think it it will add to, like, devaluing other people and like, just putting them as, like a quick flash of the pan thing of whether they have value to me or not.
00:10:10:08 - 00:10:31:13
Speaker 1
I think for me, I was like, maybe six months. I, before I got married, is when dating apps became a big deal. And I think it would have radically changed my life because it would have been algorithms telling you who to meet and how you're getting connected. And there is virtually no chance that the apps would have put me and my wife together.
00:10:31:13 - 00:10:47:10
Speaker 1
And I'm thinking even more of like, the eHarmony or whatever, like matching on your dating profile, let alone like, would we have collided based on like, do we both find each other attractive, like no chance that that relationship would have occurred based on algorithms.
00:10:47:13 - 00:10:48:13
Speaker 2
How did you how did you guys.
00:10:48:13 - 00:11:07:02
Speaker 1
Meet a blind date? So it was like, person that she knew and a person that I kind of knew said, oh, you had to go on a date with this beautiful woman. I think you two would be a good match. And like, there's no way on paper we, you know, she was an aerospace engineer and like, a hardcore athlete, there was a Peace Corps volunteer that worked at the world Bank.
00:11:07:02 - 00:11:23:18
Speaker 1
Like, very, very different people, different like interests that we would have written down. You know, she had just competed in an Ironman, and that would not have been something I'd have been interested in doing. And like, there's just there's just no way. And so it took like, human intuition to find that match.
00:11:23:21 - 00:11:32:10
Speaker 2
I think it's a human. Yeah. Do you think that most like, relationships if you on paper don't work?
00:11:32:11 - 00:11:55:02
Speaker 1
I don't know, I mean, like, my parents are another example that, like, likely would never have been match together. That worked really well. But I mean, I know quite a few people that are married now because they found each other through algorithms. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I just think it is a bizarro kind of Gattaca like world when you know the algorithms are what are choosing our, you know, breeding selections.
00:11:55:03 - 00:12:21:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, totally. And I think, circling back a little bit like the other I think the issue with algorithms and the issue with these online dating things is like it takes away the initial, like, risk that it takes for a guy to go up to a girl. you know, when you have that online interaction, first of, of messaging a little bit first and then we go on a date, it's like, okay, you just patted that.
00:12:21:04 - 00:12:38:01
Speaker 2
Oh, potentially really hard blow of getting denied right off the bat. And I think there's like an inherent sense of recognizing that in the men and in the women of like this interaction, this relationship did not start off with risk. It started off with.
00:12:38:03 - 00:12:54:03
Speaker 1
We at least knew the barrier was down, like we at least put our card up. That said, yes, I'm I'm open. Whereas in the world, pre-digital, like, you know, the the most signal you had from a woman would be like, does she make eye contact with you? And even then you could be like, am I reading this thing wrong?
00:12:54:03 - 00:12:56:03
Speaker 1
Am I? Am I not like.
00:12:56:05 - 00:13:05:07
Speaker 2
I am the I have the really unfortunate delusion of like any woman that looks at me isn't interested in me. which is pretty funny. I mean, I.
00:13:05:07 - 00:13:26:21
Speaker 1
Think that's actually most people. I mean, I think there's like an evolutionary, like, positive thing to have you believe. Yeah, there's this is this has a potential to go somewhere, right? Like, better that you have confidence that you'll go and make more attempts then. No, she probably wasn't looking at me. Right. That's you know, he who hesitates need be left along the side of the road.
00:13:26:21 - 00:13:27:08
Speaker 1
Right. Like.
00:13:27:11 - 00:13:29:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. That's right.
00:13:29:08 - 00:13:36:00
Speaker 1
And so, like, how long into dating have you gotten? Like, have you dated somebody for a long period of time?
00:13:36:02 - 00:13:42:12
Speaker 2
No, I've never had a serious relationship. I've, never dated someone for a long period of time.
00:13:42:16 - 00:13:46:07
Speaker 1
What? What's the longest you've dated to me for.
00:13:46:08 - 00:13:47:11
Speaker 2
maybe, like a month.
00:13:47:13 - 00:13:54:03
Speaker 1
Wow. And you're 25. Does that feel like you're behind?
00:13:54:05 - 00:14:20:20
Speaker 2
sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. Like I an extremely particular and who I want to have a relationship with. And I feel pretty confident in being picky right now just because I'm on an upward trajectory in my life. And like I as a human being, I'm only going to get better. I'd like to think. and I've also noticed that I interact really, really well with like 30 year old women and 32 year old women.
00:14:20:20 - 00:14:37:01
Speaker 2
And like, there would be a genuine romantic connection there if I pursued it. so, I'd like to think that just I get along with, with more mature women. and so as I get older, like, that's that number goes up.
00:14:37:03 - 00:14:46:14
Speaker 1
What do you think the difference is between a 25 year old woman like yourself and a 30 year old woman?
00:14:46:16 - 00:15:00:03
Speaker 2
I'm debating in my mind whether it's it's simply time, like just experience in life or if it is even in that five year gap, there's been less of a messaging punched in to these women.
00:15:00:05 - 00:15:02:21
Speaker 1
Oh, that. There's just that there's a different culture. They come from a different.
00:15:03:00 - 00:15:10:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. yeah. Less confusing messaging maybe five years ago for women that are that age like that could be it. I, I really don't know.
00:15:10:13 - 00:15:29:05
Speaker 1
I think there's something that humbling that happens to really anybody that's beautiful. But I think for a lot of women where from the age of 18 to I don't know when, but they go up to the bar and the bartender stops talking to whoever they were and focuses on them and gives them attention and says, what do you want to drink?
00:15:29:05 - 00:15:47:19
Speaker 1
And other people give them attention. And that goes like a rocket for a long time, until all of a sudden it doesn't. And your experience of the world in that way would be that everyone is nice. Everyone gets to the head of the line, and then all of a sudden you're dealing with the world where things aren't as easy for you.
00:15:47:19 - 00:15:59:17
Speaker 1
And like, all of a sudden you either look around and say, the world is changing, or you say, like, what happened to me? And the deflation that that must be, must be catastrophic. I think in a lot of people's minds.
00:15:59:22 - 00:16:18:19
Speaker 2
Catastrophically a way to put it. And like, I think that also the world is changing and damn the world. The world is wrong for what it has done to me now. Not with like the inability to reflect on why you were getting these things. I think pretty privilege is like vastly underestimated, pretty privilege.
00:16:18:19 - 00:16:20:17
Speaker 1
So it has an Im pretty privileged.
00:16:20:17 - 00:16:20:23
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:16:21:02 - 00:16:21:20
Speaker 1
Okay.
00:16:21:22 - 00:16:30:20
Speaker 2
I don't think people recognize like when we talk about privilege and the world, privilege is probably amongst the top privileges you could have.
00:16:30:22 - 00:16:54:02
Speaker 1
Yeah. And like, you would never even it would be completely indistinguishable from from the rest of reality if you have it. Because and that's what privilege is, right. It's, it's an advantage that you can't even see in yourself. And I wonder like how that then changes relationships. And, you know, I know for me, when I was younger, I was told when I was in college, like the biological clock, that's a myth.
00:16:54:02 - 00:17:13:02
Speaker 1
Like, that's not real. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. When particularly when you get to college, you're like, this is just a I mean, I don't know that people were saying sitting me down and saying that's a myth. They were just like, this isn't real. You know, you should pursue your career. You should. So a lot of the things that you're talking about, we were definitely told and I bought hook, line and sinker.
00:17:13:02 - 00:17:32:01
Speaker 1
Right. Like I was in no hurry to get married. In fact, the only reason I got married was because when I met and I was like, there is no one of this caliber that is ever going to find me interesting. Like, I'm, I'm like batting way out of my league. So I'm going to marry this woman. But like, if you had asked me, you know, right before I met Ian, how many more years until you get married?
00:17:32:03 - 00:17:52:12
Speaker 1
I said 5 or 10 years. And then on top of that, after we got married, we were like, we should be pursuing our careers, we should be traveling. We should be getting everything set, not realizing, like, no, there is a very like, serious reality about time. And you may not get pregnant as early or as easily as you think.
00:17:52:14 - 00:18:12:05
Speaker 1
And so we waited a long time and then, and then things weren't easy. And that was my, like, coming crashing into reality where all of a sudden you're like, you're staring out at a world where you say, I had never thought about whether I really wanted to have children, or I'd kind of put off that thinking. I just didn't put myself in that position.
00:18:12:07 - 00:18:31:00
Speaker 1
And now all of a sudden you're faced with, but what will my wife be if I don't have children? If I can't, you know, will I stay with this woman? Does am I, like, morally obligated to try and find somebody that could have children with me? Is it her? Is it me? Could she leave me to try and go have a child?
00:18:31:02 - 00:18:59:12
Speaker 1
You know, like. And what will this mean for our lives? And that was something that I feel like anybody that was telling me that I was not listening and that and, but that most of the messages in our culture were the opposite of that. So I see your age right now where as as wild as somebody like Andrew Tate might be or, or is like, you know, grading is as some of these other people are, they're telling you something that was not told in in my age.
00:18:59:15 - 00:19:04:14
Speaker 2
I'm, I'm like really grateful that I came across Andrew Tate.
00:19:04:16 - 00:19:05:05
Speaker 1
Wow.
00:19:05:07 - 00:19:17:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. he's he's probably the reason that Benjamin and I, like, formed our very own group or the reason that I at least initiated towards that. I think there's this what's called the red pill movement right now. And are you familiar with it?
00:19:17:16 - 00:19:19:05
Speaker 1
Well, go ahead and describe it.
00:19:19:07 - 00:19:40:17
Speaker 2
it's basically like, you know, in The Matrix, you can take the blue pill and, like, stay in reality or saying this, you know, facade, or you can take the red pill and jump into reality. And so this movement that's the red pill movement is talking to men, basically saying like, here's the dating dynamics and the men and women, the intersectional dynamics that you have been told all your life, and we're breaking those down.
00:19:40:17 - 00:19:59:02
Speaker 2
And one of those is like, you can't negotiate desire. And and what that means is you might watch a Disney movie or you might watch like a show like friends and like the guys like, well, we would make a really good match. Like, why don't we, you know, maybe if I do all these nice things for this girl, then she'll be attracted and desire me.
00:19:59:04 - 00:20:19:03
Speaker 2
And the red pill movement kind of kind of came in and was like, well, no, like, you can't negotiate that. It's either you're desirable or you're not. that's like the main message that at least I took away from it. and so, yeah, I'm, I'm grateful that I came across that because I was like, totally bought into that, that way of thinking.
00:20:19:05 - 00:20:42:08
Speaker 1
Yeah, I, I probably was myself as well. Like just the like, oh, you know, I mean, I wasn't getting run over, but I was definitely the nice guy. I was definitely trying to be, you know, if somebody wasn't that interested in me thinking about, like, what is the grand date that I could take this person on that might change their mind and, you know, fortunately for me, like, the path just worked out.
00:20:42:08 - 00:20:58:18
Speaker 1
But I could imagine that if you are not being successful and you keep thinking, I'm just going to nice guy harder, as opposed to I'm going to go become somebody that that a woman would be attracted to. You could get really stuck in a vortex until the world passes you by.
00:20:58:18 - 00:21:19:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. The, 100%. And, I think like a good, healthy balance of wouldn't that is like, okay, the nice guy when you say the nice guy finishes last, it's like, well, if you dig a little deeper into that, it's the person that doesn't set boundaries. Finishes last. Right? Like, I think that there's a really healthy way of looking at that.
00:21:19:21 - 00:21:34:05
Speaker 2
And the asshole gets the girl, right. We all we get like the bad boy getting the girl. but it's really it's it's that the core of that, it's if you have principles that you stick to, then you're going to come off as an asshole sometimes. But.
00:21:34:07 - 00:21:52:07
Speaker 1
Well, that's the very thing that you said before about, like you, the asshole thinks every girl is trying to give him attention and goes ahead and ask her out on a date, and he might be wrong, you know, seven out of ten times. But if he takes that many more at bats, he's going to do a lot better than the person that's like, I don't know.
00:21:52:07 - 00:22:14:11
Speaker 1
She probably wasn't talking to me. What do I have to offer here? So, I mean, it totally makes sense why the person that is more confident, or at least more aggressive is going to they're going to get more at bats and they're going to get more hits. And so when you talk to women of your age group, are they satisfied with where the dating world is or are they like, are things good for them?
00:22:14:11 - 00:22:18:00
Speaker 1
What do you interpret is going on with women your age?
00:22:18:02 - 00:22:46:22
Speaker 2
yeah, no, I don't I think that they look at that in a very cynical way of like back to back to the idea of like the messaging being confusing. a lot of these women that I talk to personally are like, you know, these guys are asking to go 50, 50 split to pay me painting, you know, payment on the first date or, you know, they're just like weak men or they're not strong, but they don't know how to articulate it in that way, that it's more over.
00:22:46:22 - 00:22:51:21
Speaker 2
Like just a feeling of like, these guys are just, like, not up to scratch.
00:22:51:23 - 00:23:11:18
Speaker 1
I just want to be friends, but they don't actually, like, clarify down. Why is it that they're not attracted to them as a partner? And if they're not able to articulate it, how well do they understand it? And so they're just hit with a barrage of over and over again, going on dates with people that either just not interested in or like really don't, don't match them.
00:23:11:18 - 00:23:19:04
Speaker 1
And so then they end up saying, well, maybe I'll settle, or maybe I should focus on my career life or whatever or whatever.
00:23:19:06 - 00:23:44:14
Speaker 2
yeah. The settling part really easily and both men and women, it's just really terrifying to me. Like, I have people that I'm very close with, like I've seen like, oh, you you settle for that person and like, that is one of the core fears that I have of like, being a person that this woman settled for. and I think about that, and, like, that is not what I want at all.
00:23:44:15 - 00:23:45:12
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:23:45:14 - 00:24:09:11
Speaker 1
Yeah, that would be a horrifying thing, right? Like to to be that, on the other hand, even if you're not the person that they settled for, like, the reality of life is, do you become the man that they were hoping that you would become and that is a bar that's, you know, when that you want a woman that will have a high bar for you, but not one, that the bar is so high that you can't attain it.
00:24:09:12 - 00:24:37:09
Speaker 1
And the reality of of life is there are going to be times when you are not achieving that level like you are not good enough. And how patient is this person and how much are they? Like, hey, I said, till death do you part? And I mean it because to me that actually in the marriage vows when you're taking them, you don't really have any idea just how like how much those things could be tested.
00:24:37:11 - 00:25:04:22
Speaker 1
And not because either of you are doing anything wrong, but because, like, life gets hard, right? Like my wife and I are very, very close for for eight years, you know, we didn't have any children. And, and in that we had all kinds of good things happen in tough things and things you got through. But it isn't until you've both been up for 72 hours and it's 3 a.m. and she's so tired she can't stay awake.
00:25:04:22 - 00:25:31:17
Speaker 1
But you have responsibilities the next day, and you have this fight and it's you're both being irrational that the next day you come back and there's not a question of, are we going to leave or not? Because the the vow, if you find a person that takes that vow really, really seriously, it allows you both to like pull on that chain so much more than you ever could have imagined, because every experience you had leading up to that while you're dating is not that.
00:25:31:19 - 00:25:45:16
Speaker 1
It never requires that level of pulling. And so it's so funny because you take vows that you couldn't possibly understand. I couldn't possibly have understood when you're taking them. And then they become really important at 3 a.m., 12 years later.
00:25:45:18 - 00:26:02:00
Speaker 2
That's it. Yeah, I think nowadays, like for younger people, marriage in those vows is like more just like marriage is the new dating almost like. And I think we have the statistics to say that of like what, 50% of marriages end in divorce.
00:26:02:02 - 00:26:28:00
Speaker 1
That statistic is a little bit weird though, because it actually factors in people that have been married two, three, four times. And the odds that if you get divorced once, the odds that you'll get divorced again are a lot higher. So what I see is that people just aren't getting married. I saw some crazy statistics. I mean, it's like, you know, more than half of women over the age of, of 40, I think are unmarried and don't have children.
00:26:28:00 - 00:27:02:14
Speaker 1
Right. And so they are unlikely to get married. And even if they do get married, they won't have children. This is something that is just not happened in the in the history of civilization. And I think a lot of that comes to them not wanting to settle or thinking something better is going to come along, and then getting to a point where the, like you talked about the pretty privilege, like where they aren't necessarily the person that people are like, oh, she's, you know, interesting and new and and excited about life because a, I mean, all of us men and women in their mid 30s, all of a sudden you start realizing like, oh, wait,
00:27:02:14 - 00:27:14:08
Speaker 1
the good guy doesn't always win. Oh, wait, you don't always get the right thing happening. And that wears on you. And you know, somebody that's young and impressionable doesn't have all that. All those life scars.
00:27:14:10 - 00:27:36:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, totally. And what you said about the the like, settling or it's so much easier for women to be like, afraid of settling now because they have the social media has just like opened up all of the I think this guy has this experience. I could be on a boat somewhere and, you know, Dubai or whatever. Like they have all of these.
00:27:36:21 - 00:27:57:01
Speaker 2
All of these, opportunities or experiences that they're looking at that they could have, you know, with all these different men, and the other thing, too, with like, dating apps and social media, is it used to be like, if there was a girl in a small town and she was the prettiest girl in the small town, well, she'll just find, you know, the best guy in that small town.
00:27:57:01 - 00:28:05:22
Speaker 2
Now, the prettiest girl in that town is getting messaged from a prince in Dubai saying, come out, come out here. And you know, let's hang out in my penthouse and on my boat.
00:28:06:00 - 00:28:09:06
Speaker 1
And is that real or is that just something? I mean, I see it.
00:28:09:07 - 00:28:38:01
Speaker 2
100%. Yeah, 100% real. Like, if you go on these, these dating apps, you know, the most, you know, traditionally beautiful women or, you know, boob jobs or whatever, right? Lift jobs, all this stuff, like they'll put it in their bio, you know, like take me on your boat or like, they're signaling I'm looking for someone with money, and they're signaling that because it works, because, you know, they they're actually getting these opportunities.
00:28:38:03 - 00:28:57:23
Speaker 1
Yeah. I have to wonder if it's in part social media. And then this comes back to my belief that the root cause of many, many of our problems, if not almost all of them, is inflation. And and that when I was in Kenya, I saw that a lot of young women that were living in these villages would pick up sugar daddies.
00:28:57:23 - 00:29:15:01
Speaker 1
And the reason that they did was it was they needed somebody to compensate their income in order for them to be able to live, in order for them to be able to, like, make it in the world. And, I think it was harder for families to be able to support their children in the later ages. They weren't getting married until later.
00:29:15:03 - 00:29:44:00
Speaker 1
And so I think that that is a cultural thing that is happening to us. I think that the value of the dollar isn't going as far. I think people are, definitely being told that there is way more, upside to being fabulously wealthy with toys and trinkets and, and traveling and things. But I also think that, there isn't as much stability in being married as there once was.
00:29:44:00 - 00:29:48:02
Speaker 1
And so people are seeking out that stability in other paths.
00:29:48:04 - 00:30:00:13
Speaker 2
That's interesting. I don't know if I would agree with that. Like I look around and, you know, more women are going to college than ever before and more women are getting into careers than ever before you.
00:30:00:14 - 00:30:14:06
Speaker 1
But think about what that did to the economy. Right? So what that did was it doubled the workforce, but it did not double wages. In fact, it increased the amount of people competing for jobs. And so it actually drove down the value of labor.
00:30:14:08 - 00:30:16:02
Speaker 2
Okay.
00:30:16:03 - 00:30:36:06
Speaker 1
By 50%. Right. Because we like we we genuinely like if it was mostly just men working and doing legacy interviews, I hear a lot more young women worked than what we kind of have the impression of. Most of them were secretaries or teachers or nurses, but they were. A lot of them worked for the first few years that they're they're born.
00:30:36:06 - 00:30:59:14
Speaker 1
But when they're adults. But a big thing happened to our economy was that we increased the the labor supply so much. But we didn't that that didn't it proliferate out all of a sudden. Now you have two incomes, but we didn't increase the amount that people were being paid. In fact, the government started printing money and taking away the value of those hours that you were putting there.
00:30:59:19 - 00:31:08:09
Speaker 1
So now it is very, very difficult for a one family income to be able to work. And two people have to work now.
00:31:08:11 - 00:31:32:20
Speaker 2
that's interesting. I, I think that could be the case. I still think it's more so around, like the status of it and like being able to signal that if you want a sugar daddy, you're giving yourself the ability to signal that you have these experiences that other people can't attain. And so, like, I was in the Big Brother program, for instance, and, my little brother, you know, really solid family.
00:31:32:20 - 00:31:50:23
Speaker 2
You know, his dad was in prison, but had he had financial support, he's going to a good private Catholic high school. you know, just doing well. But he would he was selling drugs also. And I'm like, well, why are you selling drugs? He. Well, I need the money. You know, it's like, you know, you're 15 years old.
00:31:50:23 - 00:32:10:07
Speaker 2
You at this point in time, you do not need this money. This is like a sexy thing to you. you know, you feel really cool and dangerous when you're selling drugs. Like, I know that's why you're doing it. You're not doing because you need money. You have Gucci belts and you have an Xbox and you have all these things that you do that money could bring you.
00:32:10:09 - 00:32:29:18
Speaker 2
and I think that's probably the same with like, women that are like seeking sugar daddies. I don't think that they're I don't think that they're, they're the lifestyle that they want is requiring a sugar daddy. And a lot of that lifestyle that they want is because they see it so much on social media, maybe.
00:32:29:18 - 00:32:57:05
Speaker 1
I mean, I don't know, like, I think that that's entirely possible and could be a large explanation of a big part of it. But I think that what is happening is people are entering that age of sexual maturity, and they're looking at it, their options. And whereas it used to be, because I have hundreds of people have sat in the chair that you're at where the husband was going to be able to contribute, let's say, 70% or, you know, 80% of what the income of what the family would need.
00:32:57:11 - 00:33:20:23
Speaker 1
So a woman marrying him could see the future in that. She could see there is stability here. There is a future. This is a future that, I understand it's coherent to me. Whereas now that's not the case. And and it may be that we're looking at women and we're saying, you're taking the easy way out and, you know, if you're doing OnlyFans or you're becoming essentially an escort that that may be that.
00:33:21:04 - 00:33:43:17
Speaker 1
But I think that the I think that there is a lot more going on there that's underneath the surface. That has to do with the fact that human labor, the value of it, has been stolen by our government and people will always seek to find, the highest likelihood that they think that they can get stability, that they can have, a life where they can be predictable.
00:33:43:19 - 00:34:02:07
Speaker 1
And I also understand that when you're in your 20s, you're not thinking forward that one day you'll be 45 and and things will be more difficult. But there's I don't think people have changed so much that they don't want stability. I think that's what people are seeking. Almost all of them just.
00:34:02:09 - 00:34:17:10
Speaker 2
You know, it's like the the sugar daddies thing is interesting because it's like, I don't I think these women that I because I know you multiple women that have sugar daddies and like I don't think they see like this as like a future forever.
00:34:17:12 - 00:34:34:09
Speaker 1
well in Kenya, what they do it for and, and I don't know, I, I could not honestly say I know any women with sugar daddies in the U.S., but when I was in Kenya, I did. I knew, and they were doing it because, hey, this is a way for me to get an education so that that way I can get a job, and that way this other thing can happen.
00:34:34:15 - 00:34:45:07
Speaker 1
But they weren't they they knew that the sugar daddy had like, you know, some kind of a timeline. They weren't expecting them to marry him, but it was an effort, a path to be able to get where they needed to go.
00:34:45:09 - 00:34:57:22
Speaker 2
That that makes sense. That that makes sense to me. Yeah. I, I totally agree with you on like, the, the, the projection of what stability looks like in the future is like what the most up in the air that maybe it's ever been.
00:34:58:00 - 00:35:05:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's actually a great question. What do you think the world will look like in five years?
00:35:05:23 - 00:35:26:03
Speaker 2
Gosh, I, I, I don't even know the answer. I don't I don't even know what I could say to that. Like, I just know that I will be doing. Well, I that's I can almost have to take like a really solipsistic approach to it and like, I'm going to be doing fine and like, that's all I can really wrap my mind around.
00:35:26:05 - 00:35:29:20
Speaker 1
Because you're confident in your work ability and your.
00:35:29:22 - 00:36:02:08
Speaker 2
Yeah. And that's why I, I'm very cynical in this regard. But like I look at. The fact that these women don't have, they can't see stability in male partners. And I'm like, you know, everyone, I guess everyone can't be an entrepreneur. But like, if you just work as hard as you possibly can, develop a skill project into the future, have savings, it can be okay, I, I don't I don't, and I'll be curious what you have to say about this, because I know the government definitely plays a hand in like the inflation and but raising that right.
00:36:02:08 - 00:36:19:20
Speaker 2
But at the same time, no one my age knows how to save money for the future. Like they're not even planning for it. They don't even, you know, and if that would be at least be some padding to inflation and understanding how to properly use your money. But we aren't taught that, and we aren't worried about that.
00:36:19:22 - 00:36:25:00
Speaker 1
Well, when you think about saving to protect yourself against inflation or whatever, what does that mean to you?
00:36:25:06 - 00:36:49:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I to me it's I think it's unique and like my version of saving for the future is developing skills right now that are needed by other people. and that potentially could always be needed by other people. but I guess like maybe like a more general view of it for most people around my age is like, well, you're putting your money into a 401 gain.
00:36:49:09 - 00:36:58:03
Speaker 2
You're putting your money into Roth IRAs and then like these generic kind of understandings of it. but yeah, that's.
00:36:58:05 - 00:37:25:22
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, my belief is that, like, you know, with the economy, certainly savings where you're like going to a bank and you're putting it in a savings account is essentially worthless. Your money will be worth less than it is that you're putting in. But even the stock market, right, like this is being heavily manipulated and not just in terms of, the the way that the government keeps printing money, but it also has to do with the way that corporations are so incentivized by the government.
00:37:25:22 - 00:37:51:08
Speaker 1
So if you're a large corporation, one of your largest clients, I'll take Monsanto, for example, which doesn't exist anymore, but one of their largest clients was the US government. And so they were always going to do whatever the US government wanted them to do, because the US government bought glyphosate from them and used it on all of the train tracks in the United States or all around, you know, different utility stations, that or government facilities.
00:37:51:08 - 00:38:09:02
Speaker 1
Right? So there's no one single buyer that would ever come along that would be more important than the US government. So what that means is all of their, all of the ways that they view corporate, you know, the thing, if the government wants you to have some kind of corporate opinion about something, you're going to have that opinion.
00:38:09:04 - 00:38:32:11
Speaker 1
And when the government eventually runs out of their ability to buy things with, either taxpayer money or printed money, many of those corporations are going to fall because their largest purchaser is the government. And so if you're putting your money into 401 K's and you're trying to set yourself up in this way right now, it's one of the best options you have.
00:38:32:16 - 00:38:48:21
Speaker 1
But that can collapse way faster than I think most people realize now. I'm not trying to like, Be a Dumber here, but I think it's I think that most people don't realize that many, many, if not most large corporations, their largest client is the government.
00:38:48:23 - 00:38:56:17
Speaker 2
and so is the solution. Libertarianism in the sense of like, making something to where the government isn't allowed to.
00:38:56:19 - 00:39:14:15
Speaker 1
Well, I think that the first thing that you described is really important, like your skill set is the thing that will matter. And finding as close to a job that exists, whether or not the economy is good or not. So funeral homes, you know, like housing, you know, trash. Any of the things that you're like, this will definitely be around.
00:39:14:19 - 00:39:34:17
Speaker 1
But I don't think the world is only going to be made up of those things, right? People have other desires and they'll be coincidences of want that'll be different than just, you know, the the bare minimum. you've heard me talk a lot about Bitcoin, but this is like a key thing that we can see now, like after the last four years.
00:39:34:19 - 00:39:52:19
Speaker 1
I remember. So I was talking about Bitcoin eight years ago ten years ago. And when I would talk about inflation people would laugh at me. They would be like, we have to have inflation. We have to have 2% inflation, otherwise how could the economy grow? And then my whole position was always like one. It's never 2.5% or whatever they're telling you.
00:39:52:19 - 00:40:07:00
Speaker 1
It's much worse than that. And once it starts rolling, once it starts going, there's no way to pull it back. So all of the things that you hear about in the news about like, oh, we're going to be able to get a soft landing. Oh, we're going to be able to bring that down. It's not true because.
00:40:07:02 - 00:40:07:15
Speaker 2
It's.
00:40:07:17 - 00:40:27:01
Speaker 1
Well, because, right now the way that they have tried to slow down inflation is that they've increased the amount that it cost to borrow money. So the the interest rates, right. They artificially move that up. It's not what is the market saying it is. It's it's basically the Federal Reserve saying we'll loan you guys money, but we're going to loan it out to you at this rate.
00:40:27:06 - 00:40:57:21
Speaker 1
The problem is the US government has so much debt, but they have to pay the same interest on that debt. And so the amount, so 75% of all of the federal income taxes that were collected this year went towards just paying this year's interest on that debt. And it's going faster and faster and faster. And the and the credit card, like the, the amount that people are paying, you know, when somebody gets behind in their credit cards, just imagine that at the trillion dollar level, right.
00:40:57:21 - 00:41:17:10
Speaker 1
You just can't keep up with it. And so now they're in a position like if they drop the interest rates, well then that means they're shoving more money into the system, which means that you have inflation because there's more dollars going after the same amount of goods. So then if they raise that interest rate now all of a sudden they have such high interest rate payments that they can't keep up with it.
00:41:17:10 - 00:41:24:17
Speaker 1
So they're in this vicious cycle of which me and people of my tribe would say, it's not possible to get out of.
00:41:24:19 - 00:41:28:04
Speaker 2
Bitcoin as a potential way of like.
00:41:28:06 - 00:41:33:10
Speaker 1
Fixing that. It's a way of having an asset that you can store value in.
00:41:33:10 - 00:41:44:20
Speaker 2
So like so would you say like it's a restart, almost like we can't fix the inflation that we have now, but we can start using Bitcoin as much as possible to eventually replace that.
00:41:44:22 - 00:42:04:07
Speaker 1
Yeah I don't know. I mean I think what I would say, whether it's a replacement or whether it's just, you know, like a side chain, whatever you want to call it. What it does is it allows you to store value in something that can't be replicated. It can't be produced in mass, and we just don't have that.
00:42:04:07 - 00:42:25:10
Speaker 1
Even the stock market right now. Right. Like if you buy, you know, Nvidia or you know, Alphabet or Apple, they can go out and print more stocks that you don't have any choice in there. Right. They they're can almost everything that you can own is an asset can be printed infinitely. There's a couple things that can't right. Your house you know farmland can't be printed.
00:42:25:10 - 00:42:46:16
Speaker 1
There's a few things that are very, very tangible that once you have, once you own it, then if the amount of dollars to buy it goes up, you're floating with that. But, Bitcoin is one of those rare things because what they did was they created digital scarcity. You created something that you can say, well, I it's digital, but it can't be replicated infinitely.
00:42:46:16 - 00:43:05:06
Speaker 1
So I can own this thing. And someday in the future other people might say, well, they already do. Right now they're willing to pay, you know, whatever it is, $66,000 for one bitcoin. And, you know, that's going to float for a long time. But it's a way the way that you can store value a lot more likely than you can if you had it in U.S. dollars.
00:43:05:06 - 00:43:07:21
Speaker 2
And why can't it be replicated infinitely?
00:43:07:23 - 00:43:30:13
Speaker 1
Well, the way the code is written, it's that if you if you want to transact on the miners that I'm using or the the system that I'm using, you have to agree that the code says 21 million. And if you're somebody that comes in and says, well, I want the code to say, you know, 22 million, well, that's fine, but everyone else that's running the code that says 21 million will just say, well, Jack's bitcoins don't count.
00:43:30:13 - 00:43:33:14
Speaker 1
We're not using that in the system.
00:43:33:16 - 00:43:37:17
Speaker 2
Okay. All right. That's nice. Yeah. That's interesting.
00:43:37:19 - 00:44:11:06
Speaker 1
So for me, I guess, how we got here that we won't avoid the, the, the, the fall of the system. And I have no idea. Does the fall of the system happen in ten years or 20 years or tomorrow? I don't know, but when I think about being 25 years old and having like a look out at this world, I guess I'm probably thinking I hope it comes sooner rather than later so we can start rebuilding faster, as opposed to waiting until you're in your middle age and have it collapse where all those things that you've built collapse and you have to restart.
00:44:11:08 - 00:44:21:23
Speaker 2
I yeah, I, I'm probably in the latter of that. I'm like, I hope it comes later. So I could have I also like I've acquired wealth land and cattle was like what I'm trying to work towards right now.
00:44:22:01 - 00:44:27:22
Speaker 1
Is that your aspiration and the land doesn't matter where that land is?
00:44:28:00 - 00:44:32:22
Speaker 2
preferably in Missouri somewhere. Yeah, but but,
00:44:33:00 - 00:44:35:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. And why cattle?
00:44:35:11 - 00:45:02:07
Speaker 2
just cattle is like, seems recession proof. And it seems it seems like proof of all of these things. If it came down to it, I need land, shelter and food. and so it's kind of a doomsday approach, I suppose, but cattle can be an asset that I can sell and, and, so my, my uncle, he was very wealthy and he passed away a while ago, but, he bought he was kind of a doomsday prepper in a sense.
00:45:02:07 - 00:45:20:18
Speaker 2
And I recognize that when I'm like, oh, he invested heavily in land, ammunition and guns and cattle and, it just made sense to me like, oh, yeah, if the world if the value of the dollar to drop to zero tomorrow and there's a zombie apocalypse, what would I need? I would need, yeah.
00:45:20:18 - 00:45:36:22
Speaker 1
Those things. Yeah. And cattle puts you at the top of the food chain. You know, there there was a time when our food system was very different than it is now. And people had the idea of keeping pigs right. Pigs are actually kind of hard to keep, but like, people would keep them in their pastures and chickens as well.
00:45:36:22 - 00:45:55:15
Speaker 1
Now we have such a vertically integrated system like, do you know any pig farmers? Guaranteed. There's there's guys right now scooping shit in a in a pig barn right now listening to this. But, there used to be that, that people, even if they had cattle, they'd say, oh, we have a a, a milking cow or two.
00:45:55:15 - 00:46:21:03
Speaker 1
We have some beef cattle, we have pigs in our pasture. And they had this like, collection. And so I think it's very interesting that your model is I want beef cattle. It's great. And there's no no criticism there. It's just an interesting thing that it's, it's just modeled after what is today. Because really, cattle is one of the only systems that people have that are still sovereign because pork and chicken and eggs are all very, very vertically integrated.
00:46:21:03 - 00:46:30:18
Speaker 1
So people can have like, their backyard chickens, but you don't see very many like I'm providing chickens for me in ten of my neighbors, the way that it was more frequently done in the past.
00:46:30:20 - 00:46:31:14
Speaker 2
Gotcha.
00:46:31:14 - 00:46:43:04
Speaker 1
you mentioned earlier our shared friend Benjamin Anderson. And, when I talked to him about having you on the podcast, I said, what should we talk about? And he said, ask Jack about what it means to be a good friend.
00:46:43:06 - 00:46:46:02
Speaker 1
So I thought that that was a good question for you.
00:46:46:04 - 00:46:53:06
Speaker 2
What does it mean to be a good friend?
00:46:53:08 - 00:47:25:19
Speaker 2
to me, what it means to be a good friend is like, one, I'm willing to do things for you that I'm not willing to do for other people, that that's, like, really important to me, actually, I realized in a friendship, otherwise, it feels like we're just acquaintances. it means telling me. I think what true friendship is, is like telling someone the truth and selling them a hard truth, telling them that they have shit in their teeth.
00:47:25:21 - 00:47:49:18
Speaker 2
even if it's, you know, hard to hear because I want you to get better. like an example of a friendship that I have that has gone downhill is one where it's all about positive. We can't tell each other the truth. We have to like, oh, you know, he thinks that we're really good friends because we say so many positive things about each other, and, like, that's that's like a.
00:47:49:20 - 00:47:54:14
Speaker 1
Seems like you have to be more nuanced than that. Like, you didn't not become friends because he was really positive.
00:47:54:16 - 00:48:14:19
Speaker 2
Totally, totally. That's that's just it's absolutely more nuanced than that. but yeah, I would say, like, I want you to be better. And so, like, I'm going to do what feels right to me of, like, what makes you a better person? and you tell me the truth, and I tell you the truth.
00:48:14:21 - 00:48:33:07
Speaker 1
I read something not that long ago about, people in your age bracket. But as you get older, it gets worse. Saying they have, like, you know, not even two people that they would call their good friends. Is that really true? That's going on in the world that that young men don't have good friends?
00:48:33:09 - 00:48:57:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, I would say absolutely. Like either they're drinking buddies or they're people that don't have friends, or maybe they have just people that are online friends. I think there's like a really large part of the world of young men that we don't even see or hear from or know anything about because they're sitting inside, they're playing video games and they're talking to people online.
00:48:57:22 - 00:49:00:07
Speaker 2
yeah, I, I think it's absolutely true.
00:49:00:09 - 00:49:20:20
Speaker 1
It seems it's very difficult for me to like, comprehend that. Right. Like, I, I've had friends since I was in kindergarten, and certainly you cycle through friends, you have some friends that you stay with, but like to imagine a life where you couldn't say, I have two good friends is like, mind bending. But I was in an Uber not that long ago.
00:49:20:20 - 00:49:38:14
Speaker 1
I was given a talk in Tennessee, and my Uber driver was asking me about back home, and I mentioned my friends and he and he brought up was like, that's the reason I became an Uber driver was to make friends because I don't have any friends. And I was like, wow. And he was like, what advice? You know, because I was like, I struggle to imagine that.
00:49:38:14 - 00:50:00:17
Speaker 1
And he said, well, what advice would you have? And I'm like, I don't even know. That's so basic to the human existence that it's hard for me to imagine. What would you do? However, I, I remember I lived in Denver for a period of time where my, the guy that I moved there with, we bought a house and we were renovating it together, and he would leave for a few weeks at a time, and I didn't really have friends there.
00:50:00:17 - 00:50:05:06
Speaker 1
And it's hard to break in to make friends. But you figure it out and you do it.
00:50:05:08 - 00:50:24:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, I, I've, I struggle with that one too, because I'm so social that like, if I were to go to another city right now, I could go in and find a friend group. You go to a run club and then you show up consistently, and then you invite someone out for a drink or something. You know, it's it seems really intuitive, I think, especially to people that are like, extroverted, like us.
00:50:24:19 - 00:50:28:14
Speaker 2
yeah. I it's hard. It's that's that's tricky.
00:50:28:14 - 00:50:57:14
Speaker 1
Like when you get older, the challenge becomes, if I am going to sacrifice in order to be able to make time for this friend, the sacrifice either comes out of my work or out of my family, and that becomes really difficult. And for somebody like me that had such a rich set of friends all the way, way well into my 30s, now all of a sudden to be like, I haven't gone out and seen my friends, you know, in, in a long time.
00:50:57:14 - 00:51:16:08
Speaker 1
That's that was pretty tough. The only way around that for me was to set up and like I have Thursday night, that is my night. To see my friends that my wife treats, that is like sacred. That's just what I do. But without that I would go a long period of time without seeing my friends. And that's just the price you pay when you have a four year old and a two year old.
00:51:16:09 - 00:51:24:02
Speaker 2
Yeah. If you had no friends right now with a with, you know, two children and a wife, how would you, and try to make friends?
00:51:24:04 - 00:51:45:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like, I have the benefit of this podcast, so, like, this podcast is a gravity well and people reach out to me and they know a lot about me and they often share a lot. I have a good friend named Jay who who just the other day got in his airplane and recorded him talking to me while his plane was taking off and flying around in the air and then coming back.
00:51:45:15 - 00:51:55:01
Speaker 1
So with the podcast, I get that without the podcast, I don't know what I would do. like start a podcast. I don't know.
00:51:55:03 - 00:51:58:21
Speaker 2
A podcast or like a cheat code for life. I realized when I started.
00:51:58:23 - 00:51:59:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, tell me more.
00:51:59:23 - 00:52:17:07
Speaker 2
Like I, I'm a, you know, I, I would sort of podcast and for instance I would like I brought a psychologist on and like told them all my problems. You know like I just got a psychology session for free, right. or, you know, I, you just, I could talk to, you know, there's a business owner that I respected, and he was a millionaire.
00:52:17:07 - 00:52:32:12
Speaker 2
And, you know, maybe he would have, like, gone down and just, like, had a coffee with me, but he had a reason, you know? Instead, I invited him on on my podcast. Like, he had a reason to really come on and talk about it. So, like you said, a gravity well that you can just create of anything that you want.
00:52:32:14 - 00:52:49:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. And there's something else about the podcast. It's not just the fact that you have it, which is what I used to think. I was like, I have this thing. And then but there's something about it. And it's a concept that comes from Bitcoin that I really like called Proof of Work. And it's like, you know, a fit body is proof of work that you work out.
00:52:49:04 - 00:53:13:22
Speaker 1
Right. And and having a podcast is proof of work that somebody thought that it was worthwhile to have conversations with you. Right. There's you have a a list of these conversations and you want me to be among them. There's some kind of evidence and proof of work is one of those things that, is a it's been a great concept for me to like, be for me when things aren't going right, you know?
00:53:13:22 - 00:53:31:01
Speaker 1
And I'm like, oh, that's not fair. I wish that was different. I always look around, I'm like, where's your proof of work? Right? Where is the thing that you did that tells you you should have this thing? And 99 times out of 100, it's the proof of work is lacking. Not that the universe was unfair to me in some way.
00:53:31:04 - 00:53:52:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, I love that. I really love that. That's like, that's the best thing that my dad ever did in raising me was like, from right off the bat, you don't make excuses like, you know, have proof of work. and I think if you were, I think you can teach me nothing else. Other than that. And like, he would have done his job as a father, because.
00:53:52:13 - 00:54:11:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, so, so many people are just just entitled for whatever reason. Like they, they think that they can ask for a raise without proof of work, you know, and that concept is like, very clear to me. Even if I went to a corporate job, I think I would get raises pretty fast because I would know to track my proven work and track.
00:54:11:09 - 00:54:18:05
Speaker 2
This is how much value I provided to you. Can I have a little bit more value in exchange? You know, it seems really simple.
00:54:18:07 - 00:54:36:13
Speaker 1
We mentioned before you ask the question like, how do you know you can't make 21 mil any more than 21 million Bitcoin? Well, part of the mining is this thing called proof of work. You have to have you have to have done the effort in order to be able to submit guesses for whether or not you get the Bitcoin subsidy that comes to you.
00:54:36:13 - 00:54:54:18
Speaker 1
And so there is it's more complicated than this, but like proof of work is at the foundation of it. And one of the reasons that Bitcoin requires so much electricity is that you could skip this step, right? You could say, well, why don't we cut out the the mining aspect and then we could have Bitcoin without all the energy use.
00:54:54:18 - 00:55:13:02
Speaker 1
But the energy use is what proves that the that the system is solid. It's what's required in order for you to be able to participate in the mining system. And by participating in it, it requires energy. And so this this is like one of those key features where if people are like, well, I would like Bitcoin except for its energy use.
00:55:13:02 - 00:55:19:11
Speaker 1
Well, the energy use is a foundational key part of the proof of work, which is what makes Bitcoin valuable.
00:55:19:13 - 00:55:24:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'll take some more more time for me to round everything around, but it makes a little bit more sense.
00:55:24:19 - 00:55:29:14
Speaker 1
Do people in your age group do they talk about bitcoin or are they into it?
00:55:29:16 - 00:55:42:10
Speaker 2
People my age group prob no no no no. But like Benjamin's and the Perry group. Yeah sure. Absolutely. but now most, most people my age are just talking about a whole lot of nothing.
00:55:42:12 - 00:55:43:05
Speaker 1
You really think so?
00:55:43:06 - 00:56:11:14
Speaker 2
I don't really think so. Yeah, I do, it just depends on the circles that you're in, I think. I think, like, when I think about people in my age group, in the general population, I think about the people that got their four year degree in college, and now they're starting their careers and, you know, as pushing spreadsheets, and they're going to bars on weekends and drinking like that's that's what I think of as like the general population, in my age group.
00:56:11:16 - 00:56:13:00
Speaker 2
I think that's I think that's true.
00:56:13:00 - 00:56:16:22
Speaker 1
And are they excited about the future or are they afraid of the future, or what do you think.
00:56:17:00 - 00:56:34:18
Speaker 2
About the future at all? so probably afraid. Afraid of what they don't understand. but yeah. No, they're just there's no thought. There's. And it shows by their actions. So you're not doing anything to move forward yet? Yeah.
00:56:34:20 - 00:56:38:07
Speaker 1
You mentioned him a couple of times. What is that for him?
00:56:38:07 - 00:57:02:09
Speaker 2
Is, that is so obviously Benjamin Anderson, who your audience is familiar with. he, myself and and our mutual friend Colton. we got together one day, and we were all meeting in the room right next door. and Benjamin was like, yeah, I all of my friends are in their 40s and adults with children. You know, I don't really have, like, a good friend group around here.
00:57:02:11 - 00:57:20:05
Speaker 2
and Colton's like, yeah, I feel the same. And I'm like, yeah. The you know, I feel the same. I don't have anyone that's like trying to move forward in life with serious intention. so we're like, okay, well, let's each invite one other person that we think also fits this mold, and like, come together and meet and see what happens.
00:57:20:05 - 00:57:43:19
Speaker 2
And so, there's a couple lectures in there, but we have eight guys that we meet on a monthly basis and we, we host now we've kind of developed into like hosting events for our friends that have talents and bringing as many people together as possible that also think like us. and when I say think like us, like entrepreneurial spirit, you don't necessarily have to be an entrepreneur, but you want agency over yourself and the people around you.
00:57:43:21 - 00:57:50:06
Speaker 2
you know, you want to live a healthy life. You want good things to happen. And so like, but you're actually taking the actions to get there.
00:57:50:07 - 00:57:54:08
Speaker 1
And you said you host events. What is that? What does it mean, host events.
00:57:54:10 - 00:58:15:23
Speaker 2
so, you know, we've been meeting for like almost two years now. I want to say, it started out as what we do on a monthly basis get together. Let's talk about our challenges. How can we help each other? and it's slowly developed into I have a friend who has a talent of some sort. So the first event that we ever hosted was a jazz event for our friend Elina.
00:58:16:01 - 00:58:34:22
Speaker 2
you know, Reynolds daughter and, like, well, let's, you know, Lena wants to sing. She she loves to sing. She doesn't have an audience that could do that. You know, eight guys that. I think we have an influence that we could each get ten people that come to something and give her the audience to, you know, sitting in front of, like, give her that experience that she's never had.
00:58:34:22 - 00:58:51:22
Speaker 2
And so we did that and, we're like, oh, this was freaking awesome. We just gave someone that we care about the opportunity to do what they want to do, right? Give agency over themselves, like give them a little taste of agency. and so now we're like, well, let's do that for more of our friends and continue to do so.
00:58:51:22 - 00:58:52:16
Speaker 2
And so that's what we're doing.
00:58:52:19 - 00:58:54:16
Speaker 1
What other kinds of events have you done?
00:58:54:18 - 00:59:13:14
Speaker 2
we've done, a friend of mine, he's a comedian and a comedian. And so we hosted a, an event where we brought 100 people out to have a night of stand up. We had a few different comedians on, and then we give him a 30 minute set to, you know, to to do his set in front of these 100 people, which is like unheard of in the comedy world.
00:59:13:14 - 00:59:26:00
Speaker 2
If you think about the Joe Rogan's when he talks about it, he's like, you go up and do five minute sets in front of 20 people, and you do that a thousand times. And we kind of like short candidate forum to try that. And, yeah.
00:59:26:02 - 00:59:28:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. And you guys did a movie event one time event.
00:59:28:05 - 00:59:41:14
Speaker 2
For, for, Sean's brother who was, after in the film, and the director Michael, who was, you know, Sean's brother's friend. I'm getting like, but, yeah. Brought 70 people out to, like, look at these short films and.
00:59:41:16 - 00:59:45:04
Speaker 1
And everybody wears, like, formalwear and stuff, right? Like. Like they dress up.
00:59:45:05 - 00:59:48:12
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's, that's my pushing of that. Very much so. Yeah.
00:59:48:14 - 01:00:04:22
Speaker 1
I think it is amazing. Like, to me, the word agency is the right one. Right? It's like all of a sudden waking up and realizing like, oh, wait a second, the world that we want, we can just create and like, we don't have to wait for somebody else to create a club or a group or get everybody together.
01:00:04:22 - 01:00:25:16
Speaker 1
We can do it. And then as soon as you do it, all of a sudden everybody around you is like, I'm so glad somebody did this. But it wasn't somebody. It was you guys and you put it together. If people like, if somebody was hearing this somewhere far away from Saint Louis and they wanted to start their own program group, what have you learned?
01:00:25:18 - 01:00:28:11
Speaker 1
in doing this.
01:00:28:13 - 01:00:48:00
Speaker 2
in the beginning, it's going to take, you know, find a couple other people that feel the same way you do about life. It's going to take I think it starts off with rigid structure of like, otherwise it can be really easy to just fall out of that. So when I say rigid structure, I'm like, we decided, okay, the first Wednesday of each month we're going to meet and we don't know what this is yet.
01:00:48:02 - 01:01:02:16
Speaker 2
We don't really have an idea, but let's just continue to be and know that we're going to keep doing that. and then and then be very protective of like, who you invite into that initial group.
01:01:02:18 - 01:01:03:13
Speaker 1
why do you say that?
01:01:03:16 - 01:01:27:04
Speaker 2
Don't try to spread out too fast. It just the quality of thoughts and ideas will be diluted by the more people you bring in if you're not super careful. and I think like, because we've kept our group tight knit like the original eight or the original eight, still, like we are protected in that sense. Like these ideas have not been fluid.
01:01:27:06 - 01:01:31:02
Speaker 1
Do you sense that this will grow from what you guys are doing?
01:01:31:04 - 01:01:50:18
Speaker 2
Definitely. we so we we have our period and then we have our perineum expansion, which is like the extension group. Right. And so now it's like, okay, we'll do a separate meeting each month. And every one of the eight, you guys invite 1 or 2 people that you think is also and this, this same, frame of mind.
01:01:50:20 - 01:02:01:21
Speaker 2
and that feels really good to me because like, our initial period group is protected still. But now let's see how we can spread this other people and, and free agency as much agency in the world as possible.
01:02:02:01 - 01:02:03:15
Speaker 1
And what does it mean?
01:02:03:17 - 01:02:07:04
Speaker 2
equals lab for equals. Yeah.
01:02:07:06 - 01:02:10:16
Speaker 1
And so that's what brought you guys together. This concept of being equals.
01:02:10:18 - 01:02:21:08
Speaker 2
Yes. equally equally minded in the sense of, like, what our goals are and, and who we want to be as men. You know what our values are. Yeah.
01:02:21:10 - 01:02:33:06
Speaker 1
So, Jack, you've become, like, an important part of my business because you edit this podcast. I started another podcast called The Tribes Report. You're putting clips out on that. Tell me about your business.
01:02:33:08 - 01:02:51:03
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's, my business is I'm a podcast producer but you know, on the go essentially like, I can produce podcast for obviously Sean Nguyen up in Canada like I do a remote I do locally. And basically what I do is I come in and I'm like, okay, you have a podcast, let's talk about it.
01:02:51:03 - 01:03:07:20
Speaker 2
Either you want to start a podcast or you have an existing one that you want to see grow. so I'll come in and I'll show you how we do that, like what it takes to do that. And that takes like the clips, putting these clips out. so that's, that's in the marketing aspect of it. Like, let's expand your audience.
01:03:07:20 - 01:03:28:15
Speaker 2
Let's create a funnel, of of your audience. I will get into the weeds of that. But yeah, I grow your podcast, I edit it, I can produce it, and I'll distribute it. So, you know, all you have to do is show up and talk and and I take care of all the rest. I think there's a thousand, as you know, a thousand different things that go into starting a podcast and running a podcast.
01:03:28:15 - 01:03:31:23
Speaker 2
And the less you have to worry about all these extra things, the better.
01:03:32:01 - 01:03:51:15
Speaker 1
It's amazing because right now you have like a business up and running and it is like upward trajectory. But I, you know, I met you and and, you were selling like trinkets for, for, like, offices and stuff, like what you give away at booths and things. And I remember seeing your talent and being like, hey, want to come work with me?
01:03:51:17 - 01:04:05:09
Speaker 1
And you're like, no, I don't know exactly what I'm going to do, but it's something else. And now you have this, like, fully formed, very, like easy to articulate, easy to understand what it is that you do and the value you create. It's been amazing to watch you grow this business.
01:04:05:11 - 01:04:26:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. I appreciate you saying that. It's, Yeah, it's it's been eye opening for sure. Like, yeah, I, I and it all started because I started my own podcast. Like, I just, I just went out and did something different than, like, the routine of what I thought I was supposed to be doing. And because of that, I failed at it a bunch of times.
01:04:26:06 - 01:04:47:08
Speaker 2
I learned all the problems that go into starting a podcast I had. Eventually, I did well enough to where people are like, hey, can you show me how to start a podcast? Like, sorry, I don't have the time? Well, I'll pay you to show me how to start a podcast. Something up? Okay, cool. So I think as soon as I as soon as that clicked with me, I think I put my two weeks in like the next week and my job and now here we are.
01:04:47:10 - 01:05:05:03
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think maybe that is the secret of life, right? It's like trying something and and just like in anything, the earlier you try, the less you are risking, right? Like you're not, you know, the only person that you've got to make sure has a roof over their head and is eating is you. So a great time to take risk and grow.
01:05:05:05 - 01:05:23:01
Speaker 1
And, man, it's been wild to see you be successful. And then your success is then brought me more success. Like we started putting clips out and, I was very resistant to doing stuff on Instagram. I have, you know, almost no interest in TikTok. And then you're like, yeah, but we should put this out there and see what happens.
01:05:23:01 - 01:05:37:17
Speaker 1
And we just had a clip last week, get more than a half a million views. Like, it was wild. Just just like what would have been a conversation just on my podcast heard by the listeners. Now has been heard by half a million people, maybe more.
01:05:37:18 - 01:05:39:17
Speaker 2
That's right. Yeah, that's exactly right.
01:05:39:19 - 01:05:48:07
Speaker 1
What do you think of the world of, Instagram and TikTok and in this, do you like, do you have to worry about yourself getting sucked into social media?
01:05:48:12 - 01:06:15:13
Speaker 2
Not really, I think I think I think they're excellent tools. if you use appropriately, I, I don't as much. What I will say is like it's still there a little bit, but but I don't really worry about it too much. It used to be that I had my feed, let's say take Instagram for example. I had my feed of people I was following, and then once I had gone through and seen everything that the people I was following or posting, it was done.
01:06:15:15 - 01:06:35:09
Speaker 2
and so what you could do there is like what I did is I muted everyone. Which muting is like, you don't unfollow them, but you don't have to see any of their stuff. I would mute them all and then I would only follow things that were productive. You know, maybe, maybe, you know, Alex or Moses or business owners or different kinds of tools that I would follow.
01:06:35:11 - 01:07:03:08
Speaker 2
And then Instagram implemented the infinite scroll where it's like, okay, now that you've finished all the people that you're following, now we're going to start recommending you different things to watch. And so it doesn't end. and that was like really frustrating as a user that's trying to use it in a productive way, because now it's like, okay, now it's feeding me, you know, someone getting their balls cake better or whatever, like, no, I think I think it's a really big problem for my generation.
01:07:03:08 - 01:07:07:06
Speaker 2
I think people spend six, seven hours a day on there. but I'm pretty good.
01:07:07:10 - 01:07:25:06
Speaker 1
I think you can get hooked on the dopamine of it, like the like. Yeah, I'm flicking through here, and every once in a while, I'm going to see something that makes me go like, oh, I'm so glad I saw that. Like, oh, that shows me some news I wanted to hear or some whatever. And like I found it because it was in competition with my kids.
01:07:25:06 - 01:07:48:22
Speaker 1
I would come home from work and on my drive home I'd be like checking things out, seeing what's going on. And then you have to consciously be like, I'm putting this down because it's like it's it's supercharged to life. It's not real life. It's like, what is the most interesting 20s or whatever? And your kids require you to to be there because a lot of what they're doing isn't interesting.
01:07:49:03 - 01:07:58:13
Speaker 1
But like, you have to be present for it in order to be a real parent. And for me, I like I, I see that thing as like very much a drug that I have to be very careful about.
01:07:58:15 - 01:08:13:02
Speaker 2
There's no doubt. I mean, the, the, the people that are creating these algorithms know to put in three boring clips. First, they they recognize the you are not going to be interested in. So that way when that good clip does come, it kicks even harder.
01:08:13:04 - 01:08:14:02
Speaker 1
Oh wow.
01:08:14:03 - 01:08:18:02
Speaker 2
This is like calculated as evidence of this being real. Yeah.
01:08:18:04 - 01:08:44:02
Speaker 1
Yeah, I was just reading on Reddit the other day about how a guy that works for Mr. Beast said, hey, I had to leave there after a couple of months because I realized that they are sitting there using gambling psychology to grab the attention of your kids. And, my kids. I don't watch basically any TV. We watch a little bit of YouTube of like wilderness videos or gymnastics videos, but someday they're going to get on there.
01:08:44:04 - 01:09:03:14
Speaker 1
And now knowing what I know about, like how much psychology is putting in to grab the most valuable resource that any of us have, the most valuable thing that you own is your attention. And they're grabbing it, and they're using as much psychology as they possibly can. And to your point, they're even tuning the algorithms. This is a very scary thing.
01:09:03:16 - 01:09:17:04
Speaker 2
Do you think? Yeah. What do you think about the idea of Mr. Beast? Because like, for instance, you know, he'll do like, I just built 100 wells in Africa. you think that is it as simple as saying, is Mr. Beast a net negative or a net positive?
01:09:17:06 - 01:09:33:03
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think Mr. Beast is a capitalist. And I think that just like, you know, you could be mad at the guy that makes tires because he, you know, he cuts down rubber trees in order to make tires. Well, he made a bunch of tires, but at the same time, like, could is there a way to do it more sustainably?
01:09:33:03 - 01:09:56:11
Speaker 1
Is that the right way to do it? You know, is there slashing and burning done. And so you got to take the good with the bad? I think that he is definitely he is very, very intelligent. And I think that, any time Mr. Beast, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, anybody that you see that is very, very intelligent, that is become a leader.
01:09:56:13 - 01:10:15:18
Speaker 1
I am always very wary of them because, like the greatest fear that I have in the whole world is about mobs and people that are able to gather attention, that are able to garner the will and the, you know, the the popular voice of people. Those are people that I'm always very suspicious of isn't probably the right word.
01:10:15:18 - 01:10:36:16
Speaker 1
It's like I never want to be pulled into their trance. And so I, I, you know, I like to see you on musk kicking ass on freedom of speech just as much as the next guy. But I also like I want no leader, so I, I'm, I'm always pushing myself back of that. And I think the same thing of Mr. Beast like very intelligent.
01:10:36:17 - 01:10:43:19
Speaker 1
I got no problem with how he made money. Do whatever you got to do, but I'm going to be very wary of you, and I'm gonna make sure my children are wary of you, too.
01:10:43:21 - 01:10:47:04
Speaker 2
In your fear of mobs. Came from your time in Kenya. Is that.
01:10:47:06 - 01:11:07:00
Speaker 1
It's where I saw it. Yeah. And then, you know, I had read a book called The True Believer, which is by a man named Eric Hoffer. My dad, before I left for the Peace Corps, was like, here, these are ten books that I think you should read, that maybe it was more than that, but like I read them in that book, was explaining how is it that people get involved in mass movements?
01:11:07:02 - 01:11:32:04
Speaker 1
And the book was interesting and I liked it. But then when I went to Kenya and I actually saw, I not only saw a mob, I saw a man stand up as a snake oil salesman and, and get all these people to give him money. And he was clearly selling vials of water. And like I saw over and over again, I think not that they were a more primitive or simple culture, just a lot of the things that we use to dress up our own culture.
01:11:32:04 - 01:11:56:00
Speaker 1
And it's hard to see what what's going on in your own culture. It's hard if you're a fish to see water. I was able to see it there and then I was like, whoa, this is going on in the core of human psychology everywhere, and I don't want this. And ultimately, when I came back, I started to formulate, like, these very clear visions of, like, just how bad a mob can be.
01:11:56:02 - 01:12:20:06
Speaker 1
And I think that now, in today's day and age, you not only have to worry about the mob that goes and burn somebody's house down or goes and burns down a street, but look what can be done with social media to make people that don't know each other, that don't even really know the cause of the other people to flame up in mobs and and like my visions of doom, of the apocalypse are almost always of human mobs.
01:12:20:07 - 01:12:40:20
Speaker 2
That's, I imagine that's like behind the themes of the deeper meanings behind, like, zombie movies and stuff. I, you know, I bet it's like, that's interesting because my greatest fear used to be zombies as well. Like, you're very calculated and, like, trying to avoid, avoid the mobs in a sense of, like, what you put out on the internet.
01:12:40:22 - 01:12:47:18
Speaker 2
what you're putting out, it's,
01:12:47:20 - 01:13:04:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like, I think about, like, Christianity and, like, and I, I very surface level understanding of religion after you and I also talked about it, but like, that's, that's what I think true Christianity is, is like willingly confronting the mob.
01:13:04:20 - 01:13:26:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I think it's the René Girard stuff. It was a fascinating insight. And I got to see it. I read this, I did an audiobook the first time I ever really experienced him on my way to an FFA convention. So Future Farmers of America National Convention and one of the national officers had invited me to come there to say, hey, we want to say thank you to your mentor.
01:13:26:14 - 01:13:50:14
Speaker 1
So this is a woman that I really respect. She got all the way up to be international officer. You go in there, it's in the stadium that the Colts play in. So there's thousands of kids there showing lasers. And they've got loud music going and everything's pumping and they're putting the people that are the national officers up on the screen, like they're superheroes and kids are cheering, and they can imagine themselves maybe one day being on that stage.
01:13:50:14 - 01:14:11:06
Speaker 1
And so I was watching what Rene Girard talked about with this, like this temple to mimetic desire, this like, oh, these people all want whatever's on the stage. I want to be on that stage. And it really like freaked me out. It was like, whoa. And then you start thinking about it is like, well, what is the answer to that?
01:14:11:06 - 01:14:37:23
Speaker 1
Rene Girard talks about it being Christianity, but even there, I'm very wary. I'm very, very wary of pastors I like. And so, you know, part of that is me being inoculated with the using the Catholic Church, like the only real one is, is a priest that wears these vestments and a silly hat, like, I don't necessarily believe that, but like when I meet a person that says like, oh, I'm a minister, I'm a pastor, and I can help you divine the Word of God.
01:14:38:01 - 01:15:01:15
Speaker 1
This is a person that starts at a net at and a negative integer with me. Then at neutral, when you're when you're just a regular person. Because anybody that's saying I always think like if you are going to say that you can interpret the Word of God like, you better be careful because like, one, you're reaching into the trunk line of, of like human animus.
01:15:01:15 - 01:15:18:12
Speaker 1
And what is it that drives us and to be like. And let me hook it into you and let me show you how this thing works is very, very scary for me. So I would say most of the time if I meet somebody that's a minister, I am I'm probably not hostile, but I'm definitely I'm definitely like guarded.
01:15:18:12 - 01:15:18:19
Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:15:18:19 - 01:15:39:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, totally. I'm the community that like I'm heavily involved in right now is very Christian Center and like a lot of new age Christians, I find myself being very frustrated with with them, because it's to me, it's like, you know, you were one wrong personally from joining a cult as opposed to Christianity.
01:15:39:21 - 01:15:57:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. I'm, I'm just in the exact same way. Just somebody using these words and, and and for people that are Christians that have had a good minister that have been in a good church, like I got no fault for you there, I think there's this. René Girard says the Christianity is the only way out of the mob mentality, right?
01:15:57:09 - 01:16:04:22
Speaker 1
That that all other faiths, all other ways of being can't do it. And that's what Christianity is about. And I think there's some validity there.
01:16:04:22 - 01:16:07:20
Speaker 2
What is why do you think that? Why do you think there's validity that like, wouldn't you think.
01:16:07:22 - 01:16:28:23
Speaker 1
So the genius concept that Girard divined out of out of Christianity was that if you think about some of those core messages about, when Jesus was about to be crucified, right? And they show he's already just said, Peter, you're the rock. I'm going to build everything on you. And then when Peter gets challenged, right, like, why aren't you with them?
01:16:29:02 - 01:16:48:12
Speaker 1
You know, like with Jesus? And he's like, no, no, no, I'm with the mob. I'm with the group of people that are yelling at him. I don't like him. And he does it three times. And that is the Bible saying, look, this Paul can get anyone, anyone, even the rock that Jesus chose to build his church on is now being pulled into the mob.
01:16:48:14 - 01:17:24:11
Speaker 1
And really, the the idea that, you know, the mob, they always need a scapegoat. They need somebody to say, that's the reason everything's gone wrong, let's go kill it. And that Gerard was saying, well, by Jesus being perfectly innocent and having no fault whatsoever, no sin by him being killed, there's no way to escape that. They chose the wrong scapegoat, but that the fact that that God was willing to sacrifice this showed I will allow you to kill this perfectly innocent thing in order that you can understand that there doesn't need to be any more sacrifices.
01:17:24:11 - 01:17:33:09
Speaker 1
The sacrifices don't work. The only one that ever works is the sacrifice that I gave. And now you can, you know, understand this in a deeper, way.
01:17:33:10 - 01:17:40:01
Speaker 2
Because. Because Jesus was the first, like, mythical figure, two of the scapegoats that was perfect.
01:17:40:06 - 01:18:01:23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Because the scapegoats that they choose generally, like they did something wrong, right? Like they did. Maybe not even something wrong to the mob, but they weren't blameless, right? They had something go on. Right. You you maybe you, you kill a leader that, like, was good most of the time, but not good. Or you kill the the woman that wasn't an adulterous but like, didn't lead a perfect life.
01:18:02:01 - 01:18:25:13
Speaker 1
There's no ambiguity in the story of Jesus. He was, you know, according to Christians, perfectly good. And you killed him. And it wasn't the killing him that made him made it all better. It was the fact that God still can forgive you after this, which allows for we don't need to make any more sacrifices. Jesus told us not to be a part of the mob, you know, but he was without sin.
01:18:25:13 - 01:18:50:05
Speaker 1
Cast the first stone. These are all stories many, many, many of Jesus's stories are about. Don't join the mob. Be separate, be different. And I don't know enough of the other faiths to understand whether or not they have these messages in there. But that resonates very deeply with me. And, you know, I'm I'm so reluctant of mobs that I don't join clubs very easily, like, I don't like.
01:18:50:07 - 01:19:01:07
Speaker 1
And when I run a group of people, my whole thing is about, I'm going to show you how to have agency, but it's not because we're going to now run a group that like, tries to do something larger.
01:19:01:09 - 01:19:19:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's I think I think people I think most Christians like really lean on most Christians, but most what I see is like they misinterpreted the Bible in that way of like, they're missing all of those messages that I think the Bible is really trying to get across.
01:19:19:04 - 01:19:45:07
Speaker 1
think that Christianity is one of those things that it's your own culture. And so if you grew up in it, understanding some of the beauty of that message is really, really difficult. It's why I think this guy that I've interviewed on the show several times, Yoshua Bach, he's the one that I'm always like, if you want to watch one that will melt your brain, it's Yoshi Bach because he, you know, not just Christianity, even the stories of of the Old Testament, right?
01:19:45:09 - 01:20:06:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. Like he goes through and talks about these things with a level of like objectivity standing outside of the system and being able to explain it to you. So he talks about the Garden of Eden being a metaphor for childhood. And this to me, I had heard that story, read that story hundreds of times, but it never crossed my mind.
01:20:06:01 - 01:20:25:12
Speaker 1
And then once you think of it that way, you're like, oh my gosh, you are there to teach the children the names of the animals. They don't know good and evil. They don't know that they're naked. I you know, my my kids right now have no concept of whether or not they're naked, but one day they will. And when they do, they're going to start to be able to understand, actually, the world outside of the garden is dangerous.
01:20:25:12 - 01:20:47:13
Speaker 1
There are people that can hurt you, you don't have clothes on, and you need to prepare your children to leave the garden. But that metaphor was taught to me in a totally different way. And so I think that that's not because somebody was doing something at fault. It's just that Christians are so deeply embedded into their own Christian culture that I think it's sometimes hard to pull those metaphors real meaning out.
01:20:47:14 - 01:20:50:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. Which is what a minister is supposed to be doing.
01:20:50:03 - 01:21:17:17
Speaker 2
Right? Right, right, right. And then and yeah, and any organized thing there's along that way, there's going to be bad actors that that turn and that's like the Abraham and Isaac. I thought what Joshua Bok said about the Jesus sacrificing or God sacrificing Jesus. They brought him to a level playing field with man right? Because, at first it was like, how could this God ask someone to sacrifice their son?
01:21:17:19 - 01:21:45:10
Speaker 2
what I really like about the the Abraham story, though, that like I see playing out on today of like, you know, you take someone that's like, willing to stand up, in their company because there is a disincentive that their morally against. Right. the way that I see like the Abraham story playing Abraham and Isaac story playing out often is like, you have to be willing to sacrifice your job, your ability to provide for your family.
01:21:45:12 - 01:22:07:04
Speaker 2
You're, you know, willing to sacrifice Isaac for what is right, for what is like the truest, highest moral good in your eyes. and I think, like, if you look at it in that in the Bible in those terms and like, continue to look at it in these, these metaphors, you can actually really change your actions in real life in like a really profound way.
01:22:07:08 - 01:22:24:18
Speaker 1
I agree wholeheartedly, I think that's a great, observation and and one that like, we don't really want to face, the one that strikes me is like Noah in the Ark seems like this, like absurd story, like, oh, you're going to build a boat. You can put all the animals on it. Like where are those animals going to come back?
01:22:24:18 - 01:22:53:06
Speaker 1
But what people are forgetting is like, no, if you believe that you are supposed to be doing something different, it doesn't matter if people mock you. It doesn't matter if it seems so outrageous, like you got to start building and you got to start building before the rains are coming. And so to me, like as a father, that's going to make you say like, I know, like the world seems like it's getting a little chaotic and I want to make these changes, but I don't want to upset somebody.
01:22:53:06 - 01:23:12:12
Speaker 1
I don't want my wife to think I'm going crazy. I don't want the world to be mocking me because I've made all these decisions that are not like what they are. And like, that's a hard lesson, but it's so well encoded into that story that if you get focused on did he bring two sets of elephants or, you know, what did the monkeys eat?
01:23:12:12 - 01:23:14:07
Speaker 1
You're not going to you're not going to get there.
01:23:14:08 - 01:23:31:16
Speaker 2
Right. Totally. And the other the other interesting thing about the notoriously emphasized quite a bit that he would walk with God and that he would, you know, walk with God. and like, I was on a walk one day and I was listening to music and I took my headphones out and like, you know what? Let's just walk and be in silence for a little bit.
01:23:31:16 - 01:23:45:08
Speaker 2
And then it kind of clicked with me of like, he was prepared for that coming, the flooding, because he was, you know, testing his conscious and he was going through and like seeing, you know, what is what is right, what is wrong, what is coming in the future.
01:23:45:09 - 01:24:08:15
Speaker 1
It is so hard to take the headphones out, right? Like it's so hard. And I heard a guy the other day referring to it as raw dogging. So like this is typically been a term for sex without a condom. But now they're saying like people are so ubiquitously using, you know, their headphones or they always have something going on that like, imagine going on a hike, but you don't bring a podcast or music to listen to.
01:24:08:15 - 01:24:22:22
Speaker 1
You're just out there. And at first I was like, oh, that'd be easy. And then you're like, I mean, I used to hike that way before there were phones, but it would be hard. Now, like you, you do want that dopamine hit of what's new, what's exciting? What are people talking about?
01:24:22:23 - 01:24:35:13
Speaker 2
I'll be in social interactions now where like, it's relatively common for people to be wearing headphones, like, while hanging out and, you know, talking. And I'm like, Holy crap, that is offensive.
01:24:35:15 - 01:24:53:20
Speaker 1
One of the things that I learn to do, because I sit down to do these legacy interviews, is if I'm listening to something on my drive in, I don't put it on one and a half or two times speed, because when you do that and then you talk to people in regular life, now all of a sudden a person that's older, that speaks a little bit slower.
01:24:53:22 - 01:25:10:11
Speaker 1
If you've been listening on two times speed and now you're talking to an older person, you're like, oh my gosh, come on, come on. When the reality is like, why are you so impatient here? So it's all these things that are done to make things easier or better. They've got big downsides.
01:25:10:13 - 01:25:17:05
Speaker 2
That's that's yeah that's interesting I think that's what's really cool about like interviews is like you have to say fully in a sense right.
01:25:17:07 - 01:25:34:01
Speaker 1
I mean it's the most present that I get to be. I we just posted a clip. You posted it, that people are really giving the last guest I had, about, she talked about teaching her kids to meditate and to be present, and people were like, you don't have to teach kids to be to meditate.
01:25:34:01 - 01:25:58:05
Speaker 1
They are already present. They're inhaling as much of the world. And, you know, they just have a different perspective. But this gets me thinking, like, I am so present during legacy interviews or during this conversation. And that is like the most amazing gift. And if there is one thing that I would love to share more with people is like, how can you have a conversation with another person?
01:25:58:07 - 01:26:26:18
Speaker 1
So that like, the world just falls away and it's easy to think about these in terms of romantic relationships, but like having a conversation with your parents, having a conversation with a person that you met on the bus or you know, some other on the plane or whatever that is, it is transformative if you can get there. And it just requires learning how to have conversations so you don't have to be nervous about asking the right next question or interrupting.
01:26:26:18 - 01:26:27:07
Speaker 1
Yeah.
01:26:27:09 - 01:26:44:20
Speaker 2
There's something that you told me a while ago of, like when I was in the podcast world is like, you know, a good podcaster is has the faith that they're not trying to think of the next question. They have the faith that because they are so present, whatever is being said will lead naturally into the next part of the conversation.
01:26:44:20 - 01:27:06:01
Speaker 1
Yes, I think that 100%. It's like if you're really sitting there with another person, don't worry about what to say. Now, just try and listen. And that question just like appears in your head and you just have it and, you know, you could say, well, that's that's just your talent or that's what you have. But I've talked with people about this and I'm like, just let go of coming up with another question.
01:27:06:06 - 01:27:24:21
Speaker 1
And once you let go, the next question just it just appears and the other person can feel it. They can feel if you weren't just sitting there being like, oh, I have this thing, I don't want to forget it. So I'm going to keep holding it in my mind as I pretend to listen to you, and it transforms the way they talk to you, to.
01:27:24:23 - 01:27:43:04
Speaker 2
That's interesting. I so we were talking the other day and like thought that I have right now is, is that the, you know, need for therapists would go down significantly if people understood how to just have deeper conversations because, you know, there's so much things like quick matching where you relate back to whatever the person is saying and you say your thing, right.
01:27:43:06 - 01:28:01:23
Speaker 2
I'm just thinking out loud right now as we're going of like, what is the, what's the benefit of the person? That's also like making those conversations happen? There's probably something very therapeutic about it, not only for the person being listened to, but for the person that's also like contributing to that.
01:28:02:01 - 01:28:28:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, it's like, when you listen to music, if the music is just kind of on in the background and you're doing other stuff, or if you're listening to music, that's great, and that's the only thing you're doing, you hear so much more in the music, and it may be a song you've heard a thousand times, but if you just stop doing anything else, not even take a walk, just I'm going to sit here and listen to music, which is not something at least I do very often.
01:28:28:13 - 01:28:49:10
Speaker 1
There's so much more inside of that. And that's the exact same thing in conversation. If you really pay attention to what the other person is saying, you're hearing inflections, you're watching where they pause. You're you're like catching all this stuff that like, they don't even know they're putting in there. But it makes that whole thing so much more interesting.
01:28:49:10 - 01:28:53:04
Speaker 2
Hearing all the separate instruments playing. And then you kind of see how it all turns into the symphony.
01:28:53:06 - 01:29:12:02
Speaker 1
Exactly. You know, that reminded me of, we started a project that I've never talked about on this, on this, podcast or anything, which is, you came to me and you're like, hey, man, I think you ought to take a lot of these communications ideas you have and record them and put them out and see what people respond to.
01:29:12:03 - 01:29:29:19
Speaker 1
So we've been doing this now for we've done six rounds of it. and I don't know how many we've put out, but that's been a fun project to like, try and distill. What does it take to be like a good listener? What does it take to have good interactions with people? How do you describe that to people?
01:29:29:20 - 01:29:51:18
Speaker 2
Yeah, ultimately, I think like, in order to have deeper, more fulfilling or profound conversations with people, it's little skills that you can pick up along the way. It's not something that's just intuitive. And so, you know, we're we're building something out right now of like, okay, you know, let's give you different scenarios that that you've had that you no doubt have had.
01:29:51:18 - 01:29:59:03
Speaker 2
It's like, what do I say next in a conversation? Or why does this conversation feel like it's not going anywhere? Or it's like staying on the surface level.
01:29:59:05 - 01:30:06:10
Speaker 1
What do I do at a funeral or what? Like, yeah, how how can I engage with people and like when I'm checking out in the supermarket in a better way?
01:30:06:10 - 01:30:25:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. And since we're putting out different pieces like that, so like the most effective one of like people that I've shown this, you know, these clips do like the one that's most profound to most people is that I've talked to is quick matching, which is like, if you were telling me that, you know, hey, Jack, my grandma just died.
01:30:25:07 - 01:30:38:02
Speaker 2
you know, I'm really upset about that. Quick matching is like, oh, my grandma died last month. And I felt really bad about that, too. And now it's like our conversation has come to a stop. It's come to a head, like, now next thing.
01:30:38:02 - 01:31:01:17
Speaker 1
You're going to. Yeah. Now it's just ping pong back instead of like, finding out what was that experience like for you? And we spend so much of our lives having ping pong conversations where if somebody, instead of quick matching says, like, how is this morning? How how are you experiencing this now all of a sudden somebody is like, well, let me tell you.
01:31:01:17 - 01:31:21:13
Speaker 1
And so much of the human experience requires somebody to ask you a question for you to be able to verbalize it, for you to be able to put it this like cacophony of experiences and things that happen to you and however it all is just a cloud of emotions. And then when you put it into words, you yourself understand it better.
01:31:21:16 - 01:31:25:07
Speaker 1
But if nobody asks you that question, you don't get to understand it.
01:31:25:12 - 01:31:46:23
Speaker 2
There's no doubt about it. That's, the using some of these tools like a conversation that I have had relatively recently, and I got down to like asking a friend of mine, his mom is terminally ill, like, are you are you waiting for her to die? You know, and like to get to that level. You have to recognize what quick matching is and like how to avoid that.
01:31:47:01 - 01:31:55:10
Speaker 2
And all of these different things that we're discussing. You can it's that serious impact on people when you take these tools.
01:31:55:14 - 01:32:19:21
Speaker 1
Well, I'm speaking of serious impact, and not to pump your tires too much, but like, I would not have done this had you not been like, let's try and do this. And it's been really hard because these are ideas that like the I just use them. And if I could share them with people, I would. But I don't, you know, but to have to get them down into 60s has been a real challenge, but also really, pushed me to be much better at communicating these ideas.
01:32:19:22 - 01:32:32:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think and, I think it's great that we're doing it this way. Like the 60s get like a piece of the cliff and it's like, okay, like, we can expand from this later and from like, let's start with recognize what is that issue that, that.
01:32:32:08 - 01:32:36:02
Speaker 1
So we started this without knowing where we're going. Where do you think this goes?
01:32:36:04 - 01:32:54:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think I think we build build out of course that's like, let's give people the freaking blueprint to this. You know, like we build something to where you learn from what you have to say about this. And now I go out to the world and like, I have a healthy relationship with my healthy relationship with my wife.
01:32:54:13 - 01:33:05:06
Speaker 2
I do, you know, talk to my friends on a deeper level. I can ask for raises, you know, at my job and like, I have a more fulfilling career. I think we take this thing all the way to the top.
01:33:05:08 - 01:33:21:13
Speaker 1
Well, I'm excited about it, and I'm so glad you, prompted me to do it. It's one of those things that I definitely don't feel like I have time for. But when we get it out, like, I'm like, oh that's fantastic. Well, Jack, this has been fun for me to just sit down and talk with you.
01:33:21:13 - 01:33:31:07
Speaker 1
We normally were like, all right what are we doing next. What's their work? But if, people wanted to find out more about noble or your company and, get in touch with you, how would they do that?
01:33:31:10 - 01:33:44:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, just just, talk to me on Instagram. That's my form of communication. That's like my business card essentially says Jack Milliken. Jack. Jack with the period. And then Milliken. Am I like and.
01:33:44:22 - 01:33:47:07
Speaker 1
All right, man. Well, thank you so much for coming on.
01:33:47:09 - 01:33:48:19
Speaker 2
Thanks for having me, Vince.