You can't handle the truth.

Podcast Summary — You Can’t Handle the Truth

In this episode, Tom Baldwin strips away excuses and tackles one uncomfortable reality most people avoid: personal responsibility.

Using real stories from parenting, health, work, and everyday life, Tom challenges the reflex to say “I can’t”—and exposes how often it’s really “I won’t.” From raising six kids outside mainstream systems, to owning his own health struggles, to confronting hard truths about discipline, sacrifice, and consequences, this episode is a blunt call to stop blaming systems, circumstances, and other people.

With trademark Redneck Wisdom, dark humor, and zero filters, Tom argues that change only begins when you stop playing the victim and start owning your decisions—past and present. It’s not comfortable. It’s not polite. But it’s honest.

If you’re tired of feeling stuck, resentful, or powerless—and ready to be the cause instead of the effect—this episode will challenge you, piss you off, and maybe move you forward.

Warning: This episode isn’t gentle. But growth rarely is.

Transcript

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Dad, dad, I can't, I can't do that. I can't, I can't go over his house and tell him that I hit the baseball and it broke his window. I really can't. You can, you can do it. I can't dad I really can't. It's too hard. I'm like You can, and you will do it. Hey, welcome to the podcast, Tom. Actually two weeks in a row. Yay. Let's have applause for Tom Baldwin. He has been MIA dealing with emotional issues. Sounds like a freaking faggot, right? Tom what? Self-deprecation. I probably shouldn't do that. I, you know, I say something like faggot cause I'm far from that. I'm, I'm a horny bastard. I mean, those assholes have no attraction for me at all. Who would ever be attracted to a male ass anyway? I mean, yeah, women obviously, but other guys, it's just like, Oh man. Talk about the truly stinky hole. And wow. Yep. This redneck podcast, it gets red, more redneck by the day, right? You're just like, oh, we're going to have to start putting a sensor rating on that sensor crude crass. Yes. Are the filters leaving? Yeah. Something like that. As I deal with these emotions, I, I feel like the filters and maybe it's cause they were plugging me up or something or gone anyway. Hey, you part of my tribe, you're just like, ah, I'm not sure I want to be a yes, you do. Okay. Right. We're all about performance and we joke about these issues and we have some fun talking about it. Yes. And we probably cross the line and step in some gooey smelly shit. Right. But it's, it's all in fun and helping us get down the path. You got to have a little fun down the path. One of the early mentors and was our premarital counselor for Adrian and I just said, if you can't laugh about it, you're never going to deal with. And he didn't say shit because he was a pastor, but he probably said crap, which you're never going to be able to deal with this stuff in your life. And so one of the ways that I've been able to deal with it is to add a little humor and it does just take the edge off as you're facing. And let's be real. Some of this stuff is real daunting and emotions are daunting and you know, for women and men, but I feel like for men, it can be even a little more intense. And so, hey, we are a tribe here. We are about becoming higher performance, better members of our community, encouraging, helping each other along, getting to be better performers. And as we all get to be better performers and we get rid of our crap and we're nicer to each other, we create a better society. That's fun to live in. And I'm all about fun. And so you are those people that look inside and deal with your stuff and looking for the edge. And so let me just say my deepest appreciation to you and your efforts that you put out. You are amazing. Keep it up. Don't just get discouraged. I know in the season, I've got a little discouraged and we can deal with a little discouragement. Just don't give up. If your head's down, you can still see your feet and you can still move forward. So even if your head's down, keep moving those feet forward. Your head will eventually lift and those hard seasons will end and they will change. But let's keep that effort going. Who said it? Was it Teddy Roosevelt or Winston Churchill? When you're in hell, keep walking. Don't stop. So don't sit down. And if you're processing hard stuff and difficult stuff like me, you're moving through a shit field. Just you got it. You got to keep moving because you don't want to get stuck there because those fumes of methane and ammonia will eventually overcome and you don't want to die in a pile of shit. Oh, yeah. Welcome. It is a cold, rainy day here in Montana. It is honestly the first real day off I've had in a very long time. And when I realized I had some outside work today and it was just pouring rain, I'm just like, I'm not going to do it. And when I realized I had a day off, I was almost paralyzed. I'm like, oh, my gosh, is it really true? And then what floods in? Yep. All that extra stuff that I could be doing, you know, the cleaning of the tools, the cleaning of the truck, the putting away of stuff, the organizing of the pile of paperwork that's on my desk. And I was just like, I made a profound decision today to say no to all that stuff. And I'm like, what really brings me happiness? And you'll kind of laugh. It's a toss up between this podcast and throwing axes. I have a newfound love for throwing axes. I went to a little men's retreat thing when I went to visit some soon to be new family in Canada, my son-in-law to be family in Canada. And we went to a church thing, which I generally hate men's church things. And honestly, I hated this one, too, because it was cheesy, like all the other ones. And, you know, there's the one guy that shares and then everybody is asked to make a comment. And, you know, there's 40 guys in a room. Everybody's like, no comment at all. And I have led these things. So I've been on both sides of them. And it's like, I don't know how to get around the awkwardness. And awkward isn't bad. But this was like, I don't know. I didn't have any vested relationship with anybody there. So I'm just like, let's get the hell out of here. And it took forever to get out of there. But the fun part of this thing is we threw axes at the beginning. And it was definitely a rigged system because the guy that hosted the party, he had set the distance for himself and his axe throwing. And if you know anything about axe throwing, the major variable, and you can become a really good axe thrower really fast if you get the distance for your natural throw. And so as you throw axes, you kind of get about 10 feet away. And then you start moving forward and backwards till you can stick the axe. And then you can almost stick it every time, you know, as long as you're not throwing it in the ceiling or on the ground or something like that. And so this guy, he had totally rigged the system. But that's all right, because axe throwing was still fun. And it was in this old barn and this chicken and this bunny kept running around. And in front of the axe throwing, you know, we're all like, ooh, you know, and the anticipation of possibly like taking the head off that cocky rooster. We didn't do that. But you know, just the thought of it brought some pleasure. Anyway, and I had previous that probably eight weeks earlier, went on a trip with some, I'm just going to say, and if you guys are listening to this podcast, Rich and Tim, you're so lame. We went on a cigar trip and there was an axe throwing place by the cigar lounge that we stopped. And yeah, I did give up cigars. I smoked like a small one there. But for the most part, I gave up cigars, but I committed to this trip. So I went on this trip with my friends and I was determined to do some fun things. And so next door is an axe throwing place. And so I drug them in there to throw axes. And what did they do? Like any good friends? They didn't throw axes with me. They sat there. Lame-o. And they're like, it's too much money. It was 27 freaking dollars. Okay. I tell you, both of them had him. One of them bought like $300 of fireworks on the way home, but he wouldn't pay to throw axes. We won't mention any names, Tim. Yeah, you can see I have a little angst. And you know, I'm to the point now where I'm letting out my emotions because I thought that was lame and I told them. And so this is no surprise. They were lame and they were lame friends. But I threw axes, okay, for 45 minutes while they watched. And one of them really wanted to throw axes, Tim. And so I just stayed the whole freaking 45 minutes to make it as painful as possible for him as he wanted to throw axes with me. And by the end, I was sticking two axes at a time. So one right hand, one left hand. Okay. I was feeling pretty good about myself there. And so I've kind of got into that. So what we've combined today and after this podcast is over, I'm going to go buy an axe. I was throwing axes outside and the ones we have are alright, but they're kind of lame-o. And so I'm going to get one that's more and you're like, what's a throwing axe? Well, basically, it's really technical. It's an axe that you throw. I actually got one of the big long handle ones. These are more hatchets, I guess it'd be hatchet throwing type. I don't know. Anyway, but I got a big long axe and tried hucking that. That's a little bit more of a challenge. So I'm doing some of both today. I'm doing some podcasting, doing some axe throwing. So super, super fun. And I'm looking forward to going to get that axe and then later on, maybe we'll do some rucking and there will be a podcast coming up on rucking. It's a newfound love of mine that we'll talk more of. But as you've gathered, you are the Yup! Podcast, home of Redneck Wisdom, Tom Baldwin, who has lots of formal education, but has no degrees, but has a ton of life experience. I have raised six awesome kids all the way to teenagers and we sailed through the teenage years. And so, yes, I have some experience married to a fiery, sexy woman. And so I have some marriage experience and have managed to keep the flames alive, even being a fat guy for a large part of that. And you're just like, how do you do that? Well, as I've discussed in previous podcasts, it has to do with your fingers and your tongue. I'm being an asshole, right? Yeah. So if you didn't get those references, you should maybe go back and listen to all my podcasts and you will thank me later as you get things figured out. It's not about the stick. It's about the lick. Okay. Where do we go? YupDotSolutions is the website where I hope you can donate money. I haven't tested the link in a long time. And obviously I don't think anybody has given in a long time because I don't know if they even work, which is not the reason I do. Some of you have given in the past and I so appreciate that. It is. It is great. And I haven't exactly been consistent with this. And yeah, I don't really do this for the money. At some point, yes, I love to support myself, but at this point, that is not the goal. And I continue to do it because I love podcasting and I love any advice that I give that it helps somebody out there. And the listenership is growing. And so either you pity listen or you're actually getting something, probably a little bit of both. I'm okay with that. And YupDotSolutions is also a great way to share the podcast because you can link up with most major players. And if you rate me on Apple Podcasts and Pandora, give episodes thumbs up. Super helpful to just like making the podcast more visible. Obviously, as there's more input and things around the podcast, it is super helpful. So just taking your time to make quick comments about podcasts that you like, you know, and yeah, I don't really like the negative content comments. And well, and who does? And, you know, they're kind of unfairly represented on like Apple and those other ones. The negative ones hurt much more than the good ones help. And so, yeah, if you got negative comments, you know, just keep them to yourself. And, you know, six and stones may break your bones, but words, words are even worse. So if you keep them to yourself, you'll probably have like toxic things happening in your life. No words of death. Tom, stop. Stop. Anyway. And you can contact me and tell me it's like, if you don't appreciate what I have to say, or you do appreciate what I have to say at 406 Big T at gmail.com. Let's get back to the intro. True story. One of my boys was outside. Hitting a baseball playing with one of his brothers and hit it and great pop fly, you know, went out there a ways and came down on the windshield of the neighbor's truck and the neighbor comes over and talk to the one that didn't do it who quickly threw the one who did do it under the bus. And, you know, there was a preceding conversation that, you know, you need to go talk to him. He's like, I can't do it. I'm not going to do it. I thought it was a it was a great segue into what I want to talk about today. And that is basically about taking responsibility. I've heard so many excuses for most of my life because Adrian and I have operated outside a lot of the systems. We've operated outside the medical system. We've operated outside the school system, you know, of recently we're operating and beginning to move, although it's a lot harder outside the food system. And, you know, the matrix foods that are out there on the production line, you know, we've operated outside of the food system. We've operated outside of the medical system. We've operated outside of the school system, you know, of recently we're operating and beginning to move, although it's a lot harder outside the food system. And, you know, the matrix foods that are out there on the production line, you know, we've operated outside of the school system. We've operated outside of the medical system. We've operated outside of the school system. You know, of recently we're operating and beginning to move, although it's a lot harder outside the food system. And, you know, the matrix foods that are out there on the production line, you know, we've operated outside of the school system. You know, we've operated outside of the medical system. You know, a lot of the food out there is processed foods, processed foods and the garbage Minutes, I'm going to do coming up, talks about USDA organic, which measures nothing about heavy metals and toxicity. And we're getting so many organic foods from China that are just loaded with lead and mercury and toxic metals. And so moving out of that matrix. And so often, and I've heard this over and over and over again, I can't I can't, I'd kill my kids, if I homeschool, I can't quit my job, because we need healthy food to insurance because of this and this and this and this and there's always a reason and there's always an excuse and always blaming it on somebody else and in my last podcast I talked about me being fat and yeah could I blame it on my parents and could I blame it on the dysfunctional family I grew up and the habits I developed well actually I can't because I'm a firm believer in personal responsibility and yeah was that a crappy lot for me absolutely it was and what would I love to go back and change it well yeah but it could be worse because there are people in work I we assume if we go back and change it it would be better but not necessarily and so taking responsibility for that and it has taken me a long time to you know work through some solutions and some answers but I've never blamed anybody else for the situation that I'm in and taking responsibility and so what what are the consequences of those issues that I got like not being able to deal with stress and to eat needing to eat food the consequence is that I gain weight and that it puts stresses on my system you know for a lot of years I painted and wasn't very careful you know with safety and painting and wearing masks and all that what are the consequences of that well one of them is being exposed to a lot of toxins I now have Hashimoto's could I blame that on the paint companies and the fears well supposedly I could but that's not who I am and that's not what this podcast is about because I believe in this podcast the way that you move towards a solution is taking personal responsibility and some of it it's really freaking hard I know growing up and my parents divorced and had to deal with the issues of divorce but my dad remarried into a family where I had two sisters and my stepmother and you know neither one of my mothers are gonna listen to this podcast and I want to respect them but neither one were great mothers honestly and as I look back and you know there are a lot of mistakes made and I certainly have made a lot of mistakes and you know it's kind of hard looking back but one of the things I remember as I was out of the house and you know my stepsisters were there and my stepmom was going to see a counselor because she was having a lot of problems with my sisters and my sisters are great now okay they've they've adjusted and they've taken a lot of personal responsibility like I talked about here but one of the things that counselor says it's like you have to take some responsibility for the way that you raise them and your lack of discipline she refused to take responsibility and so nothing ever changed and so possibly in their lives if she had changed she could have probably saved them a lot of pain by instituting some discipline and talking about things and okay we're not necessarily talking about beating your kids because discipline with that isn't effective and just you know spanking your kids just doesn't work you talk and you find discipline that's effective that gets across what you're trying to help prevent or save your kids from and so hold another podcast there but discipline that's properly applied is highly effective in affecting change and a lot of people just like beat their kids out of anger and that's not at all what I'm talking about or lock him up or leave him home alone or whatever that's not discipline discipline is an incredibly integrated method of affecting change that actually takes a lot of strategy and a lot of implementation that a lot of people aren't willing to put in and she obviously didn't want to take personal responsibility and I'm so tired you know the realm that I operate in you know I interact with a lot of religious people okay some of them believers some of them just religious people and yes as I'm getting older I'm much more of a cynic a little bit like Jesus when he says you know the way is narrow and hard to find and I think a lot of people feel like they found it and they haven't they found a form of something that brings them comfort but they haven't found the way and so they're immersed in religious and tradition activities but they're they're not in as I would say so in this realm you know it's a more conservative round Rome obviously and if you're not have that been that's alright but for the sake of me sharing here we've homeschooled six kids and yeah my wife has done the majority of it but I have been the support and often you know stepped in and gave her a break for you know very short seasons but we've homeschooled our six kids and our kids are absolutely amazing and people are like ah you're so lucky your kids turned out the way they did fuck you uh-uh uh-uh deliberate strategic made painful sacrificing choices many of you have a fat retirement because you and your spouse worked I don't and I don't care because I have frickin awesome kids I don't have kids that are confused about who they are or what their identity is or need to be on Prozac or depression medicines because their little snowflake hearts are got hurt by something I made a early on I decided with Adrian that we would take full responsibility for the raising of our kids I'm like nobody else is gonna raise our kids and that came with a lot of sacrifices and the one thing we never said is I can't and I hear it again and again I could tell you I've heard it a thousand times for people that look at my kids and say I could have never done that we could we to kill each other's bullshit you can do anything you want and you proved it again and again in your life you're just a selfish son of a bitch that cared more about yourself and your own comfort than your children out it hurts probably pissing off a lot of people and you know it because you're bearing fruit and your kids okay have I made a lot of mistakes and made bad decisions my health is a key thing and I was forthright with that I'm front and I'm dealing with it and if somebody doesn't start saying this shit like I'm saying now and I'm saying it not so you can hear it but so your kids can hear it so they're gonna make the change because at some point we got to quit pretending that our sis that our decisions didn't lead to this crap we're now dealing with my obese body is an absolute direct consequence to my decision you not educating your kids and having a hundred percent of the input into them teaching them how to pray teaching them your worldview not letting the other ones in is a hundred percent your responsibility so what you got now in your kids is your fault one of my biggest regrets and I'm facing this right now with one of my kids as as they're getting older for a lot of years I was a control freak and I was very honest about that and I have tried my best to walk that back apologize to my kids talk about my issues talk about how they've affected them but one of them gosh I have to say at times it's a spinning image of me and it makes me sick to my stomach as it probably makes you sick to your stomach as you're realizing some of your decision and how they played out in your lives and makes me sick to my stomach so we all make decisions but at some point we gotta look at him and say that was a mistake because that is the point of hope okay because when we admit it we have the ability to change and I'm a firm believer that it's never too late your kids may be grown up but you can change right now and say you know what I did some things wrong and I'm granted at this stage in the game as far as kids are concerned it's probably gonna be a lot freaking harder it probably is you know one of the other things that Adrian and I did is that we have operated outside of this medical system so like our kids never had antibiotics can I tell you what kind of immune system and how often they get sick never and they have bomber immune systems if you're the parent that runs to the doctor every time and you're perpetually giving your kids antibiotics and you and yourselves are on antibiotics you have possibly well not possibly you have I was gonna say irreversibly but I think there are things you can do compromise your immune system if you've got vaccinations you've injected heavy metals into your body every vaccination has aborted fetal tissue you have aborted fetal tissue in your body and my parents vaccinated me and I didn't have a lot of control over that and I do too but once I could have control over that said not for me and not for my kids and so my kids don't have now not one of them made a choice that I don't agree with and you know it was their choice and they yeah it's a hard subject we're talking about but we have to talk about it because until we take responsibility and just making excuses like I can't do that because it's too hard is bullshit you do hard things your whole life and you're just let's be honest you were not willing to make those sacrifices whether it has to do with your medical health whether it has to do with your weight like me maybe you've are addicted to drugs and painkillers you know a choice when you went to the doctor and he prescribed you that prescription you didn't have to take it but you did and saying it was a doctor's fault yeah maybe you shouldn't have done that but maybe you should have done your research and found out what that was like the vaccination there are so many people that I know that said well I had to get vaccinated because I wanted to go see my family or I needed the traveler I wanted to go see my sick relative no you didn't there's always a choice and now among a lot of other things okay and we're gonna talk vaccination an upcoming podcast but all cause mortality in these highly vaccinated area is up 17% that is a crazy amount 17% maybe you're not affected now but will you be next year and plus you have dead babies in your body parts of dead babies in your body how does that make you feel did you do your research before you got that no you just went and did it for whatever reason we as a society and especially as a group of high performers have to stop doing that we have to stop saying I can't now I feel all the time but I rarely say I can't there are certain things that I say I won't but I could do it absolutely I could I choose not to I won't but I could I mean my son was asking me the other day to climb this crazy high ladder that's up against this beam where it only grips on a couple inches and oh absolutely I could have done it I've done in the past but I won't do it we can do the hard things okay and for this instance with him yeah there's no consequences other than a couple cobwebs for some of you it's your kids it's your health you know one of the things so me and my friend Greg often talk about are those people that are always looking for that perfect job and they're like oh I can't do that and we look at ourselves and we do crappy things all day long of course you can do that you just don't want to do that and so this podcast is all about if you've been blaming somebody else or saying I can't or this and you're bemoaning your relationships maybe your relationships to your kids or maybe your kids are estranged probably has a lot to do with your decisions now sometimes like one of my kids did choose to get a vaccination and man did we go round and round and did we have a lot of tears okay I did everything in my power but I'm not gonna be a control freak okay but I did everything and my power to afford the change for that kid not to do that but that kid still chose to do that but I'm free and clear many of you haven't put that kind of effort in and you just kind of let things happen to you and it's like I don't know why my kid turned out this way I don't know why my kids so lazy can I tell you in our neighborhood like how many families that my kids shovel snow for where their kids are home of the same age downstairs playing video games I can tell you that never happened in my house if some kid came to the door and our show hadn't been shoveled yet yeah I'm straight those kids would be down there my kids would be down there shoveling or this would be even better I'd have the kids do it and make my kids pay for it and pay them double actually I'd rather have them do the work but what we have to realize and it's really hard because in this modern American society we don't want to take responsibility for anything and as a parent you say your kids to public school and you see what's going on with them right now it aches your heart to think that that's your fault but it is same reason I'm fat it's my fault okay there are a lot of things and everybody deals with their inputs coming into our lives all the time and we can say it was this and it was that and it was this and it was that bottom line it comes to personal responsibility and sometimes we play willful ignorance you've got a brain you've got a computer you can research you can look that that vaccine has dead babies in it right you don't want to know and some of you listening may not want to even have heard that information or like where did you get that you can find it you may have to dig a little bit but it's out there and it's undisputable you know so yeah so a happy podcast the happy thing is is once you take responsibility you can change and I feel like I actually know this okay I believe as God you can say it's the universe you can say it's some cosmic force it's it's Yoda his Buddha it's Hare Krishna not Hare Krishna he's just that's just creepy so let's well actually that no Hare Krishna leave the flowers out of this we'll meet you okay as we go to that point and we take that responsibility as hard and it hurts because we look at all the things that are attached that the consequences that are deeply close to us like in our children and even me seeing the control in my children hurts aches and I just want to rip it out of them I can't but it's there because of me and so I'm gonna do continue to have input until I see that resolved how I can and so the point of hope is and the universe or God or whatever helps us affect that change but we can never get to that point until we take that responsibility you are responsible for every decision in your life if you are letting things happen to you you have to stop things don't happen to you happen to the world around you you affect the world around you you be the effect not the affected can't let things happen to you this is a struggle for me I often fall into that victim state I have to slap myself I've take a cold shower or something that says you are the effect not the affected you are the effect not the effective so my friends go out there and affect your world take responsibility make the change now we've got to change things all right hey if I pissed you off you're welcome if I didn't I'm sorry because man I'll tell you that one of the best ways to make changes to get mad can feel change so good so hey you need to be pissed off yep