Transcript:
https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/50634680Speaker 0 (0s): It looks like I have a beautiful boy.
Speaker 1 (21s): Why doesn't he sing more often? That guy should be on American idol, maybe star certs with ed McMahon. Go up against the comedian. You know the guy with the puppets. I'd probably crush him. Listen. Ready? That. Okay. I know it's horrible. Come on, man. You think? I don't know. That's horrible. Hi, it's Friday. We made it my friends. I want you to take your right hand and just reach over your back and just give it a couple of pads.
Just to Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, or maybe take one hand in front of the other and not give yourself a high five right there. Hey man. Thank yourself. You've been going around telling people. Thank you. I think you should thank yourself. You've been crushing it. Congratulations. You are amazing. And I am happy to have you. I am so happy. You're taking a few minutes to hang out with me, man.
I thought we'd do like a little Friday wrap up. Why not? Why not do a little Friday wrap up. Just kind of go over some thoughts. We've been thinking about ideas for the week and try to give you a little something to chew on for the weekend. How's this COVID treating ya. You guys getting any restricted? Are you wearing a mask right now? <inaudible> I can't do my podcast with a mask on sound.
All muffled. Yeah. COVID pretty nuts. Pretty nuts. I've been thinking like I've seen a lot of side effects. I got a little, didn't have the COVID, but I was sick a little bit. This week. I had a bit of a stomach bug or I think I I'd probably just eat too much junk a body's not used to it, but okay. Let me, let me just stop right there for a minute.
Did you hear that? Where I used the word, but shouldn't use that word. Shouldn't you use, you shouldn't use or, but funny story in my house, I noticed a lot of my family members, my lovely wife, however, mostly my young daughter was saying the word in order to correct that habit. My and I, we made this jar like a big glass, pickle jar.
And on there we wrote the word and awe and anytime someone in our house says that you gotta put a dollar in the jar. The funniest part about that is for the first few days, my daughter said it five times. However you know, who says it way more than my daughter, her parents, I think I have like 30. My wife has 20.
So here I am trying to correct this behavior in my daughter. And now she's pointing it out to me. Hey dad, you just said the onward and I gotta tell you it's really annoying, really annoying. I thought I was doing her a favor, but she's corrected my speech. I guess I should be thanking her. However, it's a great project. If you can incorporate it into your family life or just put it on the kitchen table or on the counter or something, it will definitely bring attention to your speech patterns.
And it's something that I have found to be incredibly helpful. Okay. Back to my COVID story, there's a quote that says, if you want to know, I think it was Voltaire. If you want to know who rule, if you would like to know who rules you then think about the people you're not allowed to criticize. If you want to know the truth of COVID think about what you're not allowed to talk about.
I know it's an election year. However, I never got too deep into the five G rabbit hole yet. It seems to me like a lot of the side effects of COVID could be radiation poisoning. I have noticed people with a lot of rashes. I have noticed people swollen lymph nodes. I have noticed people.
I have a friend who's a dentist. And he had mentioned that there's been a lot of people coming in lately. I could also be radiation poisoning. The 5g rollout is worldwide as is the COVID rollout. The areas that are hardest hit California, New York, Australia. These are all places where the five G rollout would in fact be almost impossible to put up.
If it had attention on it, the ramifications of 5g are not known. If you look at, if you look at the discussions that were had in Congress, the question was posed to the senators, how much money has been spent in the ramifications healthwise of five G and the answered zero.
There's been zero studies on it. We have no idea. Also we've noticed that the tech industry has been called to the Senate and called to the house of representatives multiple times under the guise of monopolies, under the guise of political campaigns, they could just easily just as easily be going up there to answer questions about five G, right?
If you look at all the new tech coming out, it's going to be in five G the internet of things relies on five G. If they would like to have this system up and running, they must put in the infrastructure. If the infrastructure causes hazardous conditions to the biological organism and the people were aware of that, they would not be able to put in this infrastructure.
You could also make the case that the vaccine could have the chip in there. The vaccine could make us all transmitters. All you need is a small RFID chip. Then each person would be able to transmit the signal from phone. Each person would in fact, become an antenna which would make communications lightning fast. It would also make it possible for you to be a red flashing dot on a grid in a, in a, on a computer screen.
The more that I think about it, it's, it's possible. You know, if, if you look at again, I think it was bill Gates, who, when he released windows 95, they did zero troubleshooting. They went up with a new business model that said, we're not going to debug it. We're not going to troubleshoot it. We're going to release it to the public. And then we'll allow the public to go out there, find the kinks, send them to us, and then we'll fix them. It's a better business model.
You could argue that that same business model is being implemented with five G. Yeah. There's going to be some people that have radiation poisoning from this particular frequency. However, once we find the hotspots, you know, we'll turn it down or we'll fine tune it, but we have to use the only way to get the system out there is just to go out, release it. And there's going to be some people that die from it. There's going to be some people get radiation poisoning. However, as we fine tune it, we'll get it to the right frequency where it doesn't hurt people that bad.
I think that's what we're seeing. Or at least it's plausible. Again, it's worldwide. It's worldwide. It was an outbreak in China. You could say that they were the first to install 5g. Another point I was thinking about was the, the great reset people are talking about. Everyone knows that our economic system is on the way out.
Everybody knows that the stock market is rigged. Everybody knows that the dollar is probably going to collapse in the near future. You can't print trillions of dollars and have the value of that currency state. The same. Everyone knows that we're not being told about the bailouts that are currently happening in our government. Everybody knows we're not being given the true nature of BlackRock taking over the federal reserve.
I think there's an aspect to COVID in the de dollarization of the world. You know, it provides pretty good cover for the people in positions of authority. If you, I know most of you probably remember 2008 and how many bankers were getting death threats. How many people were calling their congressmen? How many people were calling their senators and they still passed it. They still passed it because the politicians are paid off.
I think it was John Dewey who said, government is the shadow cast upon people by business and anyone who thinks that it's not big business writing the laws and then is handing them to the senators to read on the floor is out of their mind. The last real Senator we had was probably Jim trafficking and he was ran out of, he was ran out of the government.
So I just want to give you guys that positive message on Friday to keep his smile on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about that. Would you want me to do, we're talking about COVID or talking about the situation. It's not, it's not that happy, but I'm happy and I think you're happy. And I think you have to try to find ways to remain happy. Excuse me, I'm sorry. You have to find ways to keep yourself in the right frame of mind, because well, what you think is how you act is what you portray is how people perceive you.
So you must find, and look, you must look and find that silver lining is there. It's there somewhere that there's better eye contact. You guys notice that when you're wearing the mask, you have to look at people in the eyes. I have seen such beauty and I'm telling you, I think that there's a deeper connection when you're forced to stare at someone for that long for the entirety of the conversation. I think it's beautiful.
And I hope that's a positive part of COVID. I think it can be. I think it can be. I do worry about the longterm psychological ramifications of our children. I think I may have spoke on this previously, when you think about the widening wealth gap, the widening wealth gap comes from, or is a derivative of the widening education gap.
And there is never been a bigger gap in education than there is. Now, if you read the research, if you talk to the teachers, if you talk to the, I hate using this word, but the experts they'll tell you that the majority of the widening gap in public schools comes from summertime. So for example, that say two first graders go in and they're, they're both B students, or they're a Brown equal on a cognitive level. And then summertime comes and one of them goes and travels to Europe and the other one stays at home and they come back the next year, the one that traveled will probably have been challenged.
We'll probably have seen new things. We'll probably have had a richer learning environment. And so they will either maintain the level they were when they left or will be exceedingly higher while the child that stayed home, whose parents are both working and having a difficult time, or a lot of times it's a single parent. Then that child will either remain at the level they were when they went started summer, or they will fall a little bit lower because they haven't been reading.
They haven't been challenged. They haven't had any sort of high level engagement. And one summer is not that bad. But when you string that along from first grade to eighth grade, now you got eight summers, right? If almost you have over a year of non learning of forgetting what you learned during the school year. And another child has another year. And not only do they have that other year of learning through summer, but they've come back the following year and learn and absorb more and applied to the new year, what they learned during the summer.
And that's one reason, a lot of people think that the widening gap in education leads to a widening gap in wealth later in life. So let's apply that to COVID. Now, how many kids are going to a public school where the work for the child's semester is available online, not by a teacher, but on a website that gives them a list of assignments to do.
And that you may or may not turn in those assignments and you're not going to be graded. Well, if two parents are working, even if one parent is out and one parent is at home, assuming it's a two parent household, I can tell you from experience that if your home and your child is in first to fifth grade, and they're trying to learn over the internet, you're not going to get a whole lot done at home, at least in the beginning, because the child's not really internet savvy, as far as understanding how to navigate a zoom, a meeting, or a Google meets meeting, or, you know, when they go to class, they have an instructor there that gives them their attention.
So if you, as a parent are trying to, if you have, what, if you have two kids or three kids and you're trying to get stuff done at home, and you're also trying to navigate the educational course of three children. It's almost impossible. I think, excuse me, for the cough, you know, and you're, you're seeing more and more and more of that. And the gap is widening and widening and widening, and it's going to continue to do so. So I don't know what can be done about that.
I think that it is a problem. I think that it's going to cause a widening gap just the time that we have off. Now, I guess if there's any sort of resolution or if there's anything you can do, it is to focus on your family first and then on your community.
It's also interesting in that if you have a young child right now, what are they learning? Their social skills? Will they learn them at school? Where do they learn their level of competition? And where do they learn their level of social order? Will they learn it at school? What happens when they're not subjected to those particular sets of rules?
I don't know. I know some homeschooled, children that are brilliant really well rounded. Maybe it's better. Maybe the stuff that they're learning in some of the schools is what's keeping them, keeping them down. You could make that argument. I guess it's sometimes I feel like we're just in this huge social experiment where maybe right now, where we are, someone has flipped over the table and all the board pieces fell over and all the cards fell down and the board collapsed and now we've got to get up.
I had to put the board back on the table, we've got to shuffle the cards, set everything up. Start over. Might not be a bad thing. Might not be a bad thing at all. However, I think history shows that ultimately we end up in the same area, but if we are starting over, where do you want to be?
If indeed, this is a reset, how do you set yourself up for the future? You gotta read your history. What is it right now that you are doing to reinvent yourself? Are you learning some new skills? Are you learning a new language? Have you done some meditation? Have you sat back and realized, okay, look, I can drive this truck all day long.
However, what else can I do to make my life better in the future? What can I do to bring value to my community? What can I do to bring value to my family? Can I reach out to some old friends? The older you get, the more you need, the people you knew when you were young, is there some people you could reach out to and reconnect with right now to reinvent yourself?
Are you at a stage in your life where your kids are a little bit older and you have some free time? If so, what are you passionate about? If so, what can you provide for the people in your community? What can you provide for yourself? What's a skill you've always wanted to learn because now is the time. Now is the time I would say this.
There's something you are a good at. There's probably something you're better at than most people, you know, and you should be figuring out what that is and trying to teach it to other people. I think that that is a plan of action. I think that is something not only beautiful, but it is something that you can find meaning in. I think it's something that you could find yourself in, and it's a way to redefine yourself.
The world is changing forever. Education is changing forever. Where do you fit in now? What are you good at? What do you want to be good at? What is the change you would like to see in the world? And how do you create that? Gandhi comes to mind. Wasn't he? The gentleman that said be the change you want to see in the world. I got to tell ya, I've talked to so many of you via my, my Facebook blog or my Instagram or my podcast.
I've gotten so much awesome feedback. Even the negative feedback I get is, is good feedback because it helps me understand the message I'm saying. Or sometimes I'll put something out there and then someone will say something back to me and I'll be like, Oh, you know what? If that's what people think. Then I failed in putting out the message that I wanted to. So I need to go back and rethink that. I hope if you're listening to this, you understand how important you are. I hope if you're listening to this, you know that you are part of the solution.
It takes all of us. It takes all of us. Did you make somebody smile today? You tell them a joke. That's an easy one. That guy, when I get down, sometimes I try to make other people smile. And when I, if I can do that, it kind of snaps me out of my funk. Even if there, regardless if they're laughing at me or with me, if they laugh, I feel like it's a big win.
I feel like it's a positive moment. I think there's a lot we can do. I think that we're at a pivotal time, but it's a magical time. And that whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you, can't either way. You're right. There's new leaders being born every day.
Like there's new industries being born. And even when I worry about the future of education, sometimes I hear beautiful things. Let me tell you a quick story about something. My nephew Valentino's said he was talking with his mom, my sister, and he he's a very bright little boy.
And he says, mom, I don't understand why people are so stressed out and their work. You know, they're, they're spending all their time away from their home. Why would they do that? So my wife, he's 10:00 AM I? What? I'm sorry. My sister says, well, you know, people have to pay their bills. They have to make a living and they have to go out and, and our system is set up. So people go and they, they work and then they make some money and they can pay their bills and provide for their family.
And they can also build a community. You know, their people's place in this world is usually determined by what they can provide for the community. So people want to work hard. People want to go out and be the best they can be and be compensated for it. And Valentino says, well, it seems like people are really unhappy. Why, why don't people just, why don't the places that hire people?
Why don't they hire like twice as many people. And then half the people can work half the year and the other people can work the other half of the year and half the time they stay with their family and half the time they go to work. But when they do that, my sister said, she's almost started tearing up. And she's like, you know what? That's a beautiful idea. Why don't they do that? So I have great hope for the future. I think that the children of today, the children that are under the age of 20, the children that are under the age of 15 shoot, the children that are younger than me.
I think I'm 45. I think while there's a lot of wisdom in those who are older than me, I think that the ideas of the future hold great promise. And those are the ideas coming from the children that have seen the heartache of the parents that have seen the hard work of the grandparents that have seen the, the, all the isms. And I'm hopeful that my nephew, my niece, my daughter, your daughter, your son, your nephew, your niece, I'm hopeful.
And I am faithful that the leaders of that generation will have ideas that we have never thought of. I think they're smarter than us. However, it's our responsibility to show them a good example. And a good example is standing up for what's right?
Even if it means putting yourself in jeopardy, standing up to authority is the example that we should be showing the younger generation. It's hard. It's very difficult to tell someone who has more authority than you, that they're wrong, but if they're wrong and you don't tell them, you're part of the problem.
I heard a great story. One time, I think it was general Norman Schwarzkopf, and they were interviewing him and asking him, what's it take to be a leader? And he says, tell the truth to the shoes, to yourself, tell the truth to the troops, get people to tell the truth to each other, because nothing ever gets better until you admit something's wrong. And if you take a moment to think about how profound that is, nothing ever gets better until you admit that something's wrong.
But none of us want to admit anything's wrong. Cause you don't want to get in trouble. You don't want to look like the bad guy. You don't want to lose what you have. You don't want to be wrong, but if it's not at the level you want it's, if it's not at the level, you'd be proud of, then it's wrong. And every we deserve to have it, right? You've worked your whole life to get to a certain spot. And rather than take the time to correct a mistake, we're willing to forgo some short term pain.
We're willing to give up the struggle in order to be comfortable. Maybe that comes from age. Maybe that comes from looking back on your personal history and understanding that the amount of struggle you will have to go through in order to correct this mistake might not be worth it for you in the long run. Maybe looking at how much the struggle is going to be and weighing that against how much you're currently making now or how comfortable your life is now is not worth it to you.
It brings up an interesting point in leadership. Are you willing to sacrifice what you have now? Are you willing to put in the time away from your family, put in the time away from things you love to correct? A small mistake that happened a long time ago. It's sort of like, have you ever been fishing and you cast out your line and there's a little, a little knot in there, but you don't realize it.
So you cast it out again and then you look at it and you bring it back. You're like, Oh man, there's a little nod in there. Ah, it's not a big deal, not a big deal. So you catch it on a few more times. And then all of a sudden you have this huge rat's nest in there and the line like won't even work anymore. But if you're just a guy that's going to cast one more time, you know what? That'll work fine. The rat's nest is not going to show up until the sixth or seventh cast after you.
So you could forego finding that little knot in there. You could forego taking the time to pull out the line and untie it or clip it. Or, you know, you forego that problem because it's not going to be your problem while you're there. You're going to hand off the rod to someone else and someone else is going to have that problem. The problem with that is the person you hand it off to is going to realize in a few casts, what you did.
And they're either going to be upset at you or they are going to say to themselves, well, this is how it's done. You just, you don't go back and fix some things. You're, it's not gonna affect you. I think that's something we all have to think about. Cause there's all, all of us have probably been in a situation where you have to make a choice. Do I fix this little small problem here?
So the person behind me doesn't have to deal with it. I hope you choose to do that. I know there's been times in my life where I chose to do it and where I chose not to do it. And I've seen the ramifications of both on the topic of leadership. I once heard a really good speech. I think it was the pre I think it was Donald Rumsfeld. The, the, I think it was Donald Rumsfeld who at one point in time was the secretary of defense during this speech.
It was after his term as secretary of defense. And he was giving a speech at a college or perhaps at the Atlantic council or the council on foreign relations. But the important point is that he was no longer the secretary of defense. So he is invited down to speak. And there were some speakers before him and they, the MC calls him up and he comes walking out on the stage and he's got this like a little Dixie cup, you know, like a little paper cup of coffee.
And he walks out and he sets it down on the lectern and everyone's clapping <inaudible> and they introduce him and he sets his coffee down, he's smiling and the crowd goes quiet and he begins his speech. He says, you know, I've learned quite a lot about defense and our country, and I've made a lot of mistakes and I've done some things that I thought were good for the country.
And we've spent a lot of time in other countries and there's a lot of things that no one will ever know about. And then he pauses and he grabs his paper cup of coffee and he takes a sip and then he just stops what he's doing. And he looks at the paper cup and he smiles. And it was a, it was the silent pause, perfected probably 12 seconds.
And the whole crowd is just kind of looking at him like what, what is he doing? He's just stopping everything. And he says to the crowd, he goes, you know, I had a speech planned. There was a lot of things I was going to say, however, I I've got something better to say. And you know, the, you can almost feel the anticipation of the crowd. It was really, it was really heartfelt and it's, it seemed hip.
He may have, he may have practiced it. However, it seemed to me that it was something that he thought of and it was brilliant. He says, you know, authority, all were life being in positions of power is kind of like a cup of coffee. And he holds up, he goes, do you guys see this paper cup of coffee? He's like, I deserve this paper cup of coffee and much like the crowd was thinking, you're probably thinking now, like w what does he mean?
So then he launches into a story. He says, I spoke at this exact same event eight years ago. When in fact I was the secretary of defense. I was contacted five days before the event to be told about who's going to be at the event. I was also told that I would have accommodations made for me the next day. I was called again by my personal secretary, who told me that they had made the arrangements on the day of the event.
I was picked up in a limousine from my house, taken to a private airport where I got on a private jet. I flew down here where I was immediately greeted by the sponsors of this event, who picked me up in a nice Lincoln town car. They whisked me to the event where I was flanked on both sides by bodyguards. I was brought in the back door where I was ushered into a lavish room that had breakfast and a nice ceramic cup of some gourmet coffee.
And I was brought out on stage. I gave my speech to a standing ovation. I was the first speaker. And then I was taken back to the lavish room where there were some more food for me. And I was taken back in a nice Lincoln town car to the private jet. And I flew back to my home all in the same day. And people who were in positions of authority are used to that kind of treatment, but that's not what happened today.
Today I'm here because five days ago, I made the arrangements for myself. I left my house and my car. I parked at the airport and overnight parking. I made my own hotel accommodations. I flew down here on a airplane and everybody rides. I landed at a regular airport. I grabbed a taxi. I got here. And when I came in, I asked where I was supposed to go. They had to wait and check my name off the list where I was a nice young man at the door.
Didn't usher me, but told me, okay, you're going to go down this hallway, make a left into the green room. And so I did. And when I got in there, there was multiple people in there who were all busy doing their thing. And I looked over and there was a mr. Coffee. And next to the mr. Coffee were some paper cups. And so I poured myself a paper cup of coffee, and now I'm drinking that coffee. The moral of that story he says is that when you are in a position of authority, you are given a lot of extra perks.
When you are in a position of authority, you are given a ceramic cup of coffee. You are given bodyguards, you have access to private jets. You have access to information that nobody has, because that position of authority you were in is important. That position of authority that you are in is something that is to be respected. And if you're in that position of authority, then you should be mindful of the people that allow you to be in that position.
You should be mindful of the responsibility you have to, the people you are supposed to protect. But most people don't. Most people think that all those perks, the private jets, the private airport, the ceramic cup of coffee, the ceramic cup of gourmet coffee is for you because you are important, but you are not important.
The position is important. And most people forget that. Most people think it's them. And there's a difference when you think it's you, you expect those things. You expect people to treat you a certain way. You expect people to get out of your way. You expect the ceramic cup of gourmet coffee, but life has a way of showing you.
You deserve a paper cup of coffee, because you're not that important. And if you are in a position right now of authority, where you have these things, you would do well to remind yourself, you are there to protect the people underneath you. Not to provide safety, not to provide unethical protection for the people above you.
That's not why you're there. And I thought that was an amazing speech. People in positions of authority have authority because the position demands it not because they're important. Not because they're smarter, not because they care, but because that position was designated to be a position, to look out for people underneath you, not to protect people above you, without people underneath you.
You've got nothing without the people on the bottom. There is no top. It's an interesting idea. And it's one that really changed my mind about authority and really makes you understand the privilege of being an authority. It also makes you understand the narcissistic behavior of people that currently are in authority.
And I hope that it makes you take a second. Look at yourself. If you are in a position of authority, that's what I got for today. You guys, I love you. Hope you're all doing well. Just as a quick aside, I got some really interesting stuff coming up. I'm going to do a, a series of podcasts about 1984 versus brave new world.
And what world are we most like living in today? Do you think it was 1984? You think as George Orwell, or do you think it's brave new world? Which one do you think it is? My friends. Which one do you think it is? We're going to find out we're going to get into some good, some bad, some different ideas. And then I sing music today. It's a little something to my day up. I hope keep you happy forward to that coming up. I love you guys. Hope you're all doing well.
Speaker 2 (46m 32s): <inaudible>.