How To Fail At Everything and Still Succeed

How To Fail At Everything - Benny Boy Strasser

Jim Hladish & Matt Outerson Season 4 Episode 5

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Jim and Matt get to the root of KickBack (Real Mental Health Stories) and how to host a most excellent event with Ben Strasser of All Day Breakfast: The Creative Agency.

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SPEAKER_02:

Red light is on.

SPEAKER_04:

Alright. I am Jim, and I failed at a lot of things in life. Join me and my co-host Matt as we discuss what went wrong and we speak to people who appear to have done those things right. Join us as we discuss how to fail at everything and still succeed.

SPEAKER_01:

A division of the Otison Press Digital Media Company.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to episode Ladies and Gentlemen podcast fans across the nation. This is the moment you've all been waiting for. Broadcasting from the beautiful city of Brent. Ontario, Canada. This is the Oters and Press for the Clash of Conversation, the duel of Digital Media Corporation. The heavyweight bout of friendship. In the blue corner, standing tall behind the counter of Caffeine Dreams, the master of Mocha, the captain of Cappuccino, the co-host with the most. Jim Cava Juggernaut, hulas. Owner and operator of your favorite Bradford Cafe, Altitude Coffee Roasters, and in the Red Corner, he serves breakfast all day. Greatness never sleeps, the brunch boss, the sunny side up superstar, the organizer extraordinaire of events of all types, the host of Kickback, the six hour. Is it six hours? Maybe longer? Six hours. Of mental health special. On Rogers TV, airing on Monday, January 19th, 2026. Ben the Breakfast Baron Strasser, co-owner of All Day Breakfast, and a champion for the community. Podcast listeners. My name is Matt Oderson. Are you ready? Let's step into the ring of conversation. Touch gloves, be respectful, and let's get ready to talk.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, wow. AI was really good. That was a good prompt that you gave AI. Wow.

SPEAKER_02:

It took the all-day breakfast prompt and kind of like made it think it was about breakfast. Which we get a lot, I assume, but yes, yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_05:

Thank you for that. That was probably the most incredible opening I've ever received. Thank you. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_04:

That was good, man. Yeah, we got our our one of the Bacon brothers here, Ben. Ben the Bacon. Last heard with us uh last year at our uh New Year's Eve check-in or whatever. It's been a year already. Christmas check-in or whatever. Yeah. And we wanted to uh interview you because of kickback, which is why don't you tell us about kickback?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, just jump right. Or do you want to pass yourself or anything? Everyone knows who Ben is. We have like six people listen to it. That's true. They've heard us talk to Ben.

SPEAKER_05:

I don't know. After that intro, I think everybody knows what they need to know. I guess that's true. You're a bad thing.

SPEAKER_04:

Tell us about yeah, yeah, our good friend Ben, the Roadrunner Extraordinaire.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, there was a Roadrunner Store. And you were on that episode, too. Yeah. It was four episodes you broke into from Las Vegas.

SPEAKER_04:

I think the the most appearances by a guest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Because you have four episodes. Can I have a plaque? Plus, we should have a lot of. Yeah, we're gonna have to get you a plaque. This will be six appearances, this one. This is our six, so pretty crazy. Thank you for having me back. Yeah. This is your intro music. Longer than I wanted. All right. All right, let's get down to Ben.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, let's get down to business. You're here because of the really cool initiative that you started over a decade ago. Why don't you tell us about Kickback, why you started it, and why you continue to work at it even you know after 10 years? What keeps you motivated for it?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, those are all great questions. And I'm gonna need you to remind me of this second too. I always get there. Uh but yeah, kickback is a mental health initiative that uh myself and a buddy started. Uh this will be our 10th, uh, 10th broadcast coming up in January, Monday, January 19th, 2026. Um, and it was started because we just wanted to create conversation around mental health, and we wanted to kind of normalize and work against the stigmas that existed around mental health. And so at the time we had a show on Rogers TV called Think Millennial. So we'd already kind of had that in, yeah. Um and they they trusted us some. Um and then uh we just were I remember we were sitting at Sociable, Aiden and myself, and we're like, what can we do? What does this look like? How do we and then we're like Blue Monday? Yeah, Blue Monday. That's uh that's a thing, and so it's supposed to be the most uh darkest, depressing day of the year. It's like three weeks after Christmas, and all the bills that come in after that. Deepest point of winter, exactly. And so then and then we found out that it was a marketing ploy, and it was it was created, created literally to sell like vacation. Um and so then we're like, you know what, we're just gonna keep rolling with it. We're just gonna keep rolling. You can just dive right in and make it about what you needed. Yeah, and so like the the theme was uh or the tagline is like struggling if you're struggling with today, spend it with us. And so in the beginning it was 12 hours of content, mental health conversations with I which I think in that first 12 hours I hosted 10 of the 12 hours. Oh, and like talk, but I just recently learned and now I'm forgetting what it is, but it was like vicarious um like grief or like stress or like because you're like basically you're taking I took all of it in and I didn't realize.

SPEAKER_02:

How many people did you have on that first like in that 12 hours? How many interviews, how many people?

SPEAKER_05:

Eight minutes we had two guests on. Oh wow, and so it was yeah, it was wild. It was it was wild. Couldn't believe that they all said yes. I think the uh station manager at the time when Patty pitched it to him, he was like, Well, you they want to do what? Yeah, do they know what that involves? And we didn't, and we showed up and we did it. Um but yeah, so it there's uh probably close to a hundred people, if not more, in that first um year, as far as guests um go. And then you think about all the people behind the scenes that make that possible too. Um yeah, it was it was really cool, and then it just snowballed from there and continued to create those conversations, and then now uh we're we're 10 years, 10 years in.

SPEAKER_02:

What made you kind of like what the mental health, like where did that what made you guys think of that?

SPEAKER_03:

You already fucking told us I don't remember. No, not totally man.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, no, yeah, that of it. I mean, but what made you go that road? It's all good, yeah. We like to becker. Well, that's all good. Keep it going. Yeah, keep it going. Yeah, like what kind of like do you have other ideas for a show and then you're like let's go to the show?

SPEAKER_04:

Because we had show ideas that we we actually wanted to host our own radio program and we had dreamed about basically everything that you've done with Rogers and Kickback and all that. It's kind of like our our dream.

SPEAKER_02:

Like we want it to be that was for the outer outers and press was our we did we did a newspaper in high school called the Outer Some Press because I had a computer.

SPEAKER_04:

We used to yeah, we printed it out on a dot matrix. It's in the time capsule in your bats back there.

SPEAKER_02:

I do have some other ones in some bins at my house.

SPEAKER_04:

And we used to mail them out to all our friends in high school over the summer to stay in touch, and we made up stories about all our friends. Yeah, and then we would uh like just silly, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it was usually like a big headline about Jim and I being legends and superstars and like cool stuff we did. Yeah, and then we'd kind of make fun of our friend Charlie, and then we had a classified section with like junk and just hilarious stuff. So that sounds amazing. I think one there's a drunken bear that walked in once, it was all liquored up and it came into town, and there's a story about that and stuff. So that's where we Yeah, that's that was I think you guys should chase that down again. We yeah, it has we've discussed how to like take this Outers and Press digital media company that we I kind of made up for the podcast outro, and like is there a way to turn that into something more? But yeah, we don't know yet. So we don't know. We'll we'll chase that down. Yeah, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_04:

So but back to you, yeah. Back to you, yeah. We'll we'll interrupt you. Yeah, this isn't as formal anytime I go on your shows, like you have questions for me, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

No, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04:

And it's so thoughtful and like laid out and structured, and and I prepared so much for your interview. You sent me the questions, and then I sat downstairs and I thought about them. I chat GPT'd the questions and I cross-referenced them with what I had written up. Right. And then when I was talking to you, I'm like, oh, I thought I don't remember what I I don't know. Yeah, I couldn't remember anything that it because of it. Like I was so excited that I was part of your the camera, the live audience in the cafe while you were filming.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, yeah, yeah. And that's something I have to constantly remind myself of too, is like when I get anxious and nervous, it's because I'm like excited and I care. Yeah, I care so much that I'm really screwing up.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. Like you're into the whole, like, oh, this is gonna be great, and you forget something.

SPEAKER_04:

But you do a great job like making people feel comfortable and everything. So it's like you're a natural, you're a natural host, I think.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_04:

But yeah, okay, back to the mental health. Why like why did you stick with that one? Or was it just an opportunity and then it snowballed, or was it like, do you have a backstory, or like a reason?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, and so it was so Aiden was the one that came to me, and he was more so he had a very personal um story and things that he struggled with with his mental health. And so he approached me. And at the time, I had zero um knowledge of anything inside of that field, and I was like, okay, I just people at that time would come to me with things that they wanted to do, yeah, and things that they wanted to see in the community, and we had the Millennial Network group going, and we had like an army of volunteers, and like we could make cool things happen. Right. And so then that was what happened. And for me, like getting involved with that was more so from seeing like friends and family that I knew that struggled with their mental health, yeah, and maybe net didn't necessarily do anything about it, or felt that they were alone in that. Yeah, and so that was kind of my way to be able to say, like, look at all of these other people that are despite what they're dealing with, you're not the only one struggling in the world. Look at all these things that are out there to help you.

SPEAKER_04:

There's a lot of people that when they see the stocks, they're like, Oh, kickback. Yeah, like they know about it. Oh, cool. They don't necessarily know it that it's you, though, which I like a few people are like, Oh, that thing on Rogers. Like, the guy's in here almost every day. It like works and it's over there. Like on a taco. So I thought that was cool that you've made such an impact on that. So that's that's awesome that like you have a bit of a personal sort of connection and with your friend Aiden. Is Aiden still involved with that?

SPEAKER_05:

No, he shifted into other things and just felt like it wasn't a part of his uh part of his journey anymore.

SPEAKER_02:

But um, so we've Do you have another somebody that you work aside like side like or is it just you take this whole thing and go with it?

SPEAKER_05:

There's there's a bunch of people that are like integral pieces of making it go. Um but like the the main components now are me. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And you're a registered charity this year.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, we are officially not for profit, which is cool. And so it's uh it's this is the big year because all of the other years it was uh this is the first year where we've taken on sole production of kickback, which means all of that. Yeah, well maybe no, it is really cool. Like the no, that's okay. The uh it is really cool because they're on you now, yeah. Right, but then we were able this year because of taking that on, we were able to go and seek out sponsors and advertisers. So and so we had put that out there, and then um you don't really realize what like 10 years worth of like being out there doing stuff does. And I think you can almost not realize how many people are actually watching or how many people care, yeah, and you can get lost in that. And last year, I almost didn't do it again. Yeah uh because it just felt like I wasn't moving the needle. I felt like I was like it was the same, the same stories kind of coming in, the same guests, which are all great, and I'm super thankful. But then it's like, are we really are we really creating that change that we're we've set out to do?

SPEAKER_04:

All just in the same spot we are a year later. Right.

SPEAKER_05:

And so is it is it a big like what are we doing? And it takes a huge amount of time away from uh like my family, yeah, uh to be able to do this, and it's so it's yeah, it's a huge undertaking, yeah. Yeah, and so being able to yeah, and so doing that, it was like, okay, oh you know what? I'm gonna do it one more time. We're gonna see, we're gonna make this go offense, yeah. And then we got back into it, and like for the first time ever, like men came out in full force, which was always kind of a struggle to get men to open up and be vulnerable and share their story. And so all of a sudden I just had men reach, and it was the first year where I had people reaching out privately, yeah, where they were like, Hey, this is when I don't wanna I have I have no I have no desire to be on camera and sharing my stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

But I just want I need to tell you what I'm dealing with, and like I think therapeutic when you open up to someone and you finally kind of disclose like that you're going through shit, I think.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, you're like you say, yeah, so many people are, and so many people either hide it or they don't want to share what's going on in their lives, or they just function.

SPEAKER_05:

They think it's like weakness, maybe, or like something, but it's you know, you gotta yeah, it was actually this gentleman here, Jim, sitting beside me, who was the first guy that kind of opened up to me as uh as like as a dad, um, who opened up to me.

SPEAKER_04:

I asked you about your dad dick growing in. Yeah, is that what it was? Yeah, exactly. Sorry back then.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, it was exactly that.

SPEAKER_04:

That's what led to the Rogers TV brother.

SPEAKER_02:

Sorry, is it in the middle of the street? That's what that's what led. Yeah, yeah. And it was like I was so thankful to say yes.

SPEAKER_04:

Finally, finally here. Finally, oh my dad's dead. Sorry, Ben. I'm really sorry. No, that's all good.

SPEAKER_05:

Um Google Dad Dick. But it was you that opened up and shared the stuff that you had uh like navigated and struggled with, and um and had sought out there before, and like navigating that that was the first time where it like really clicked for me, and I was like, oh crap. I I've been in this for nine or eight or nine years of talking to other people about their stories and what they're dealing with, and all of a sudden it started to click for me of like, oh no, I'm dealing with all of this stuff. And a big piece was was grief. Yeah, and I had no idea that like grief wasn't just death and or like the loss of a relationship, right? Like it was also like grieving the relationship I had with my wife before Theo came into the world, yeah, and like shifted everything. And then now I'm very clearly grieving my relationship with Theo because Benny came into the world, and it's like yeah, it's interesting too. Like once you're aware of that, yeah, it shifted my it doesn't make it any easier, no, but it shifted my mindset to be like, okay, I can put it in this box right now. It's not just like this. Know what I'm dealing with, yeah. And kind of can seek out help to like navigate those things.

SPEAKER_04:

So I always found I tried to ignore like mental like I'm like, I know what's wrong and and I know how to fix it. So I'm going to I'm fine. I'm fine. I could fight through this, like I could beat this. Oh, I know I know I know what's wrong and I know what's causing it, and I know what I have to do, but sometimes you can't just do that independently. And or like that's why I think like kickback's so awesome because you're you're out in the community, you're talking about things, people are sharing their experiences.

SPEAKER_02:

To hear somebody else gonna have the same experience, but yeah, it's even if somebody's like I they have a similar story and it's like oh shit, like that's something I can relate to. Or just to normalize it, yeah, just to um yeah, that's well, and even for like Ricky's a mental health triage nurse at um BGH, my wife, and like she's been doing mental health nursing for 20 years. And even for me though, until like I mean, I just you know, I knew what she did, yeah. But even recognizing it in myself too, like, oh okay, like there's like she does this all day and she deals with this all the time, and like I'm just kind of like uh like you said earlier, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

But like you pick up things, like I'm sure Ricky has to deal with a lot too. I when I worked in like mental health and like addictions and like everything, uh like uh people with disabilities and that, like you I burnt out because like you said, you take other people's like things and you hold it or you carry it, your your body's like you experience it. You don't realize it, like you're like feeling I don't know.

SPEAKER_05:

So yeah, well you you carry that, right? And I I've had numerous people like describe it as like a backpack.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

You're walking around with that backpack, and that backpack gets so heavy, yeah, you don't realize you're wearing it, but you're carrying all of this stuff, right? Almost all of it, not yours to carry. Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And then it weighs you down and it slows you down, and it also could take away from your own, like you're dealing with that, thinking about that, and not thinking necessarily about yourself too, in a way. Maybe it's gonna affect it.

SPEAKER_04:

So you one thing I noticed too, like you got the uh dads group that you had going on. It are you like kind of is that part of kickback too? Like the the dads drop-in? Are you trying is that kind of what inspired, like is kickback inspired the dad group, or vice versa? Or like just you being a great guy kind of did that? Like is kickback gonna be right into it, yeah. Yeah, is kickback going to be like a a year-round sort of thing, or is it like the once a year big push for something, or are you gonna try to like you know are you doing more? Like what's the other thing?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, so kickback is gonna be a year-round thing, which I'm excited about. It's gonna be the first year that we're actually going to be able to uh to continue it through the whole year, which is gonna be fun. And one thing that's different this year from past years is because we have we're doing like the production on our own, right? Now we have the ability to do long form interviews. Um, because with Rogers, we need to meet um their criteria between commercials to be able to do that, right? And so like nine and a half.

SPEAKER_04:

Remember the first year we uh had a great interview and then my mic wasn't on or something, and then we had to redo it, and then you're like, I'm out of time, sorry. And it was like that first one was great.

SPEAKER_05:

Um we had it. Yeah, we had it, it was in the bag. Um, but now we're gonna be able to do it where we recorded the interview like that first nine and a half minutes, and then we pick it back up again and we say, Okay, what else, what didn't we cover? What else do we want to talk about? And so on Rogers it'll be here's this interview, but then it'll say for the full interview, go to YouTube and get this, and you'll be able to get the full interview. Okay. Um, because like there's nothing worse than like having somebody like that's pouring their heart out and sharing like their deepest, darkest things, and then in my ear it's like, wrap it up, wrap it up, and it's like how do you find that time to be able to do that? Yeah, and so then being able to now like offer that space to be to like actually give people that full like here's your whole experience, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

The whole year-round, long form, any other sort of things that you'd be doing.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, so there's gonna be audio only interview because something that's come out as well is that there's individuals that have reached out, like we talked about earlier, where they reached out and they're like, I have no desire to be on video and share my stuff. And then so there's people that have reached out that have said, Would you be open to doing like an audio thing without any names attached to it? Yeah. Let's just talk and do this because I I I don't they're not ready. They're not there yet. And there's all the stigmas around that and um those things. And they're like, I just I'm not ready for that, but I really want to share my story to be able to put that out there. So we're gonna do audio and then we're also gonna do written content as well. Wow. Which is gonna be fun. Um so it's gonna be kind of all different angles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And is any like uh are you I don't know how to say it, do you just target a certain audience of people? Are you like reaching out to schools? Are you doing any like anything else? Like, or is it just kind of your network that you've created first and then let that expand, or is there like a target audience that you're trying to uh reach or interview?

SPEAKER_05:

So it's it's mainly like right now, it's mainly my network, yeah, and then that put it out there and say, I'm looking for these stories, and then we get people. Um more and more we're getting people that have reached out that I don't know, yeah, which is cool and exciting to like to see that grow. Um, and so I'm hoping for for more of that too. But then there's also there's so much like just locally to be able to talk to, and there's so many people that specialize in things that you don't realize are like like specialties, and it's right just amazing how somebody can be so educated and be able to like in one specific thing, yeah. One like one particular form of something that people struggle with.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, right. Like they're so yeah, they're dedicated to a certain yeah, that kind of stuff is always like how do you yeah, yeah, how do you get that much knowledge of one thing in your brain and be so yeah in tune with that?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, what like what what are some of your goals then too? Like we heard like long form audio written stuff, like are there any other like big things attached to kickback?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, definitely. So what I want to do is uh have a like a do a live audience um event. My that maybe is May for like mental health week, potentially doing something like that. We'll see. Um, but then maybe like for sure for next year, I would love to do in January Benovision, yeah, right. Yeah, do basically what we do with the pre like the pre-recorded uh interviews, but do them on a stage with an audience and be able to do like QA and bring people in from all over that kind of talk and share, and yeah, do round tables and panels and think you're gonna could you do stage uh interview?

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh no.

SPEAKER_05:

But I just think that that would be the kind of like the next step would be able to get people there and do that and offer people the chance to be able to share their story. And uh it always blows me away just that how many people reach out that have like been in like the darkest of dark things, yeah, and like their first not their first reaction, but like very soon after is how do I help other people avoid what I just went through? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um and it just always finds so cool that that's like they've learned something about themselves that they think, hey, maybe I can help other people.

SPEAKER_04:

I think a lot of times, too, what's good about like more conversations about mental health is you don't realize how bad it is.

SPEAKER_00:

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SPEAKER_04:

Like everyone's ex experience is different, but it's like me, I didn't realize how like messed up I am I was. I know what you have, but I read it in the other. You just bully me all the time. Like that's I'm gonna be able to do that. You don't realize like the um how serious things are sometimes until like it gets normalized, and it's like, eh, well, it's not bad to talk to a therapist and you explore things with the therapist, and they're like, Oh, you should talk to your doctor about medication or whatever, and it it's just weird. Like, I didn't realize how um I guess just personally, like with mental health, how much I was struggling and like what why I'd like I like I said before, I knew why and like how I was struggling, but I was just like, oh I got the solution right, and but I was like in denial and and like probably ashamed or like embarrassed of of like what I was dealing with and that I couldn't even though I knew what tools I needed and how to do everything, and because I help people with the same struggles. Right. I know what I need to do to fix or whatever, whatever you want to say about it, but and now like now that like I'd I I've seeked therapy and like different medication and stuff, like I wish that I found out about this a lot sooner because like at a different point in my life, it might have been easier, like it might have been an easier journey than like what I'm on right now.

SPEAKER_02:

But I mean you've done it now.

SPEAKER_04:

Hopefully, hopefully what you're doing will like hit younger guys or like networks like with that dad group. I think that's awesome that you can get together and talk with dads, and and there's guys there that are probably really young and older guys with all with different experiences. Yeah, and it's like fuck, maybe you can be a positive like influence on one of those dads, and they don't have to have the same type of experience that like other guys have had to go through.

SPEAKER_02:

People go through just like well, parenting is such a like oh my god. Like stuff that like I never thought I would ever have to think about or do or like be, you know, like a witness to or like whatever you want to say, like it's yeah, three kids and it's like holy shit, like well, and then you don't know too, like I hate uh social media because you just see the best of everything, right? So if you find yourself comparing yourself to other families, like you're like, oh my well, I was talking to Rob, the old drummer, and I was just kind of like, hey, like we just got talking about what's going on, and we were complaining about social media, and I'm like, yeah, like I his daughter plays softball or baseball, and like she's in like winter like training mode and all this. I'm like, man, like I see your pictures, and I'm like, I'm like, I don't know if it's jealousy is the right word, but it's like my kids aren't like hardcore sports or hardcore. It's just like I don't know, it'd be cool to see that level of passion, but it's like, I mean, I love my kids, like they're gonna do what they want to do. But I said to him, I mentioned that, and he's like, Oh man, if you only knew what else was like, you know, all the other shit were like this is like this one brief sort of like it's that snapshot. Right. This is social media, here's my best. Right. I'm not posting the picture of me crying about like this or that, about what my kids did, and like, you know, I got all of whatever. Right. But you're just seeing that good, you know, here's here's my my my highlight reel, right? It's like, well, fuck, how do you yeah?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, and that's so hard too. That's something that Bernie and I talk about all the time at all day breakfast is like the you put that out there, yeah. Like the best, but you also want you all you want it to be real, yeah, and you want like doing stuff like this is uh like and doing like the live show that we used to do, yeah, uh was probably the easiest way. I miss it too. Yeah, um, but like the doing it, I know it could be so Wednesday mornings early.

SPEAKER_04:

I know Bernie woke up early. Sorry, yeah, right. Going on surfing interfering. I love that.

SPEAKER_05:

It was so good, yeah. It was so good, but it gives you an opportunity to like share like real stuff, yeah, yeah, right? And like navigate those things where like those posts, it can be hard to like post something super negative, but then you also don't want to be that whiny person that's always putting doom and gloom out there, and it's hard to find that happy medium.

SPEAKER_04:

And then I I just I hate social media, like I don't I don't want it at all. You're gripping that mic a lot tighter. Oh my god, just hurt it. Could you quit it? I want to, but I'm like, oh some people reach out through the business. I I I wish that for some reason, you know what actually works just being here, and like people finally get fed up when they don't hear back from us, so they just come in.

SPEAKER_02:

Now they're a customer in the building, right? And it's a good strategy.

SPEAKER_04:

But what I always tell people, I'm like, if you're looking for a donation or anything, just come in and we'll give you something. Like chances of me responding to your message are like zero. But if you come in here and ask, yeah, yeah, you're gonna be here. 100% of the time, you're always gonna get something from us. You need to remember that for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just hate um yeah, the social media for that reason because I think it it sets people up for like disappointment in life because they're measuring themselves. Like, you know how we used to take the ruler into the bathroom together?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and then how disappointed I would be when yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

You you you were more of a disappointment because you're talking about it.

SPEAKER_03:

No, like we could do it right now, there's no videos.

SPEAKER_04:

You just see stuff and and you're like, oh man, and then if you know the real story, you're like, oh, that's that's not what's really happening with this person, or they're going through this.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, there's something like social media too. It's like, you know, you're on there to see what your friends are doing or your family, and more and more it's just like there's like you know, people or like um what do you call like artists or like digital creators or all this other shit? People you have no clue who, yeah. Like, okay, and then I get stuck in this loop of watching nonsense or people falling downstairs or arm wrestling or Transformers videos, yeah. Yeah, Pokemon cards now, yeah. The casino win, and I'm like, why can't I win at the casino? Like, what the fuck? Like, yeah. And so more and more, I'm like, I don't even see the people like signed up on here to see.

SPEAKER_04:

It's also uh false, like it makes you feel connected to people. Like, oh yeah, really, other than you coming here, we don't hang out anymore. Like, we used to hang out more, like yeah, yeah. Remember that time that we had mimosas one morning, and I puked everywhere in Brantford. But uh like I mean it it's we're at different points right now. Like, that's before we had the cafe and that, but like airport breakfast or like drop-ins and check-in, where I'm like, oh yeah, my my good friend Ben or like Bernie, and I'm like, I haven't seen you guys other than like you guys stopping in here, and then it's busy, and we don't really it's never a hangout, it's just like hey, yeah, well, okay, well, good to see you. Like us, like we barely need to like hang out, but I'm like, oh yeah, my good friends who I'd I message every day or like I see the picture your pooper in the morning or whatever bats or you get those too.

SPEAKER_02:

Check this bug out that I saw it.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh man, look at this bug I killed. But yeah, I I hate that. That I just feel like I'm like, oh yeah, I'm good. Like there's no real like checking people, yeah. Meanwhile, it's like, oh it's good, or uh like oh yeah, so and so I'll see people come in here that I haven't seen in a while, but I know what's going on. I'm like, oh you just got back from a trip. That's great. Yeah, that was your trip. It's this false sense of community, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, where I'd like I miss I miss like the days where like we got together, or like when we were doing the um CRFC news team videos and uh like just hanging out, being silly, yeah, doing fun stuff with I always thought that would make a good live show.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, like the trivia thing. I don't know if it has to be like you know, but like a live trip.

SPEAKER_04:

We gotta find two other hosts, but yeah, but like you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02:

Like I always thought yeah, yeah. That was a lot of fun though doing that stuff with you guys. That's how I came to know Ben and Brandon, too, which was cool. And that was in all the now we're here holding hands. Holding hands, measuring things and dad dicks.

SPEAKER_04:

I got three kids, so it's talking about what were we talking about?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, this is I think I've noticed too, like with social media, right? Like the what I'm being seen, like shown, yeah, it's all like it's almost like it's really wild how like it could really like if you don't realize how it works, it can really screw you up. Oh yeah, yeah, and like what it shows you, and and you like um you almost need to get uh to go to something else and like type in like sunshine and rainbows or like hockey highlights or something. Alter that to get out of all the other stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Somebody should have just stumbled across on like Instagram or wherever, and I'm like, how am I seeing somebody get hit by a car with some crazy shit like this?

SPEAKER_04:

Or like how did it lead to that?

SPEAKER_02:

How did it lead to that?

SPEAKER_04:

Like, I don't know your brain. I didn't look like your brain.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I didn't ask for this. Yeah. And then I keep watching them and watch no, I'm just kidding. But yeah, do you talk about social media on kickback at all?

SPEAKER_05:

Like, does that we've we have a few times, yeah. Talked about like just how it affects like um I'm more worried about kitting my kids with their phones. Oh my god, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, my kids have phones now, they don't have they have Wi-Fi on their phones, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So they're Clara has a phone, yeah, and like for like you know, she's got Snapchat because oh, her friends have it. Right.

SPEAKER_05:

And I'm I didn't realize how big Snapchat is. Apparently, it's the big one.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. I talked to her, yeah, and then but it's weird because Snapchat also has like these videos sides to it, and I've just kind of like she'd be in a room for I'm like, what are you doing in here? And she's just doom scrolling through these videos on Snapchat, and like I don't even know what you're seeing on there. This isn't good. Yeah. So like I s like I mean, we bought it for her just to have like when she's walking to school. Right. And if you need to call us or text us, so I know where the hell you are, yeah. And then it just became this like yeah, this other device where it's just like you know, she wakes up and comes out of her room with it.

SPEAKER_04:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and so I turned it off between like I mean you get to use it during school hours and it's off all the other times because I'm like, I don't need you turning into a fucking zombie and that's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_04:

I should do that.

SPEAKER_02:

Like I just I kind of hit this point where I'm like, I don't like I don't like turning into this, like I know how I get lost in my phone. Yeah, and like I grew up in a time when we, you know, played outside and you just rode your bike to your buddy's house and knocked on the door, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_04:

The shit that we were doing at their age, like what we were getting into, or like just living life. My kids have never experienced like right the other day. Eloise walked from here to BCI with four of her friends. Yeah, she's eleven now. When I was eleven, we were canoeing down the river by ourselves, taking the bus downtown, taking the bus, like going everywhere.

SPEAKER_02:

Dad gave me 10 bucks. We go down to watch a movie. Right.

SPEAKER_04:

That was the first time she ever like walked uh like she walked alone, not to the park across the street from our house. And I'm just like, okay, like yeah, that's awesome that she's doing that now, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

I just started walking to school like in the last couple years, and then they even like the thought of them riding their bikes to school. I got like, I won't be with them when they're riding their bikes. Right, right. Is this gonna be alright? And it's like, of course, yeah, they'll be fine. Like, I've I've taught them how to take a fall when you wipe out. No, I didn't, I just always hurt myself. At least they're sticking sticks in their wheels. But then they, you know, like make sure you lock your bike up. You know, I don't want your bike getting stolen because I've had mine stolen and it fucking sucks many times. And growing up in Eagle Place and stuff, so it was always every other week was getting a bike, so then we started stealing bikes to replace those bikes. Yeah, it's just a vicious cycle. Bike pink pens, right? Yeah, no, but I just yeah, like stuff like that where it's like they aren't experiencing all that what I think is you know real life like we had when we were kids. Like what year were you born? 91. 91. So like you grew up without the internet. Yeah. I remember dial up. Yeah, dial up showed us. We didn't get internet until cable internet came out at my house. That was the thing. And like Rogers finally had cable fast internet.

SPEAKER_04:

Like we'd ever had to have to go to the library to download pictures of Pamela Anderson and it would take forever and would be like you'd watch the bar, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, the loading. Or we'd go to a friend's house who had dial up and sit on their like tie up their phone line for 12 hours. Right. Well, I remember that. You can't, yeah, you couldn't make a phone call if you were on the internet. Yeah, hang up the phone, whatever. We're talking to people on ICQ here. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_04:

How um how important is like how do you incorporate like do you like does up yoga? It's a very like um yoga. It's a yoga studio studio, but it it seems very calming every time I'm in there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Do you guys incorporate like mental health stuff through the yoga studio? Like, is the I obviously it's a big thing because you and your wife own this. Yoga studio and it says you probably do it, but are you able to like is is yoga part like part of kickback? Like, do you incorporate like mental health stuff into the yoga studio? Like is is it a safe place for people to go to? Definitely.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, I I mean with uh kickback, that was part of my uh courting of Rachel. Yeah. Was I got her to come on the show and I'm like, you you need to do I know you need to do yoga. We're gonna do these little uh like exercise breaks, and Rachel come on and like let's go. And um, and then yeah, she I I've got like the footage from back then. Wow, and you're just staring at it.

SPEAKER_04:

This guy jerks off the videos of his wife. This guy's jerking off the videos of his wife. Finally, we met one of them. We finally met one of them. Finally met a guy that jerks off to videos of his photographs.

SPEAKER_05:

Got a dark room in his basement. Yeah, it's it's a dark basement, it is. That's true.

SPEAKER_04:

So, like like the studio, like you guys do things there for like mental health initiatives. Do you ever do like I don't know, like drop-in mental health checks? Yeah, well, there's uh wellness checks.

SPEAKER_05:

Um we've hosted um there's different sem like we held a uh a weekly thing called uh No Stupid Questions. Yeah, um, and so basically the different practitioners and experts that operate outside or like inside of the studio um or people that are just part of the community there came in and held these no stupid questions seminars, which is just in the cafe where we serve sweet, delicious altitude coffee. Cool question.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you think Jim and I could come up with stupid questions that they'd be like, Why the fuck are you here? Get out, like would they kick us out?

SPEAKER_05:

No, you know what? I think that that would be an interesting challenge just to see. We should probably edit this out and then have the then bring it back for a second one. Yeah, uh try to outstoop at each other. All right, well, yeah, let's just see what happens, right? Yeah, um, but it was it was neat to be able to see the response to those because oftentimes people do hold back their questions, right? For fear of looking stupid stupid.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you don't know what, like, you know, yeah, like, hey, do you want to measure your yeah? And they'd be like, Oh, that's that's stupid. Oh shit. Sorry, man. We thought we were friends. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, hey, hey. Um, but yeah, so I think the mental health piece is kind of weaved throughout um all of what is there.

SPEAKER_02:

Um I mean, yoga is it's designed it I mean, I don't know, I've never done it, but like it's there as mind and body connection. And that helps with your mental health, I would I would assume. I'm not a practitioner of not an expert at the yoga thing, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, my understanding of it is that it's supposed to calm you and like provide you that space to deal with that voice in your head. Okay. And to be able to navigate that and help work through that. Um and like personally, I've I've experienced that.

SPEAKER_02:

You do yoga often? Not often enough. No, no, you can acupuncture there. They do, yeah. I tried that once. I didn't realize it had it there, so I'm sorry for not going there. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, there user benefits there. Go for massage, yeah. There's great osteopaths.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. All the things. Acupuncture is it's it's weird, but like it was relaxing.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I had uh numb toes. Um and I went and I saw Claire and Claire helped me deal with that and got rid of that. And yeah, it's it's pretty cool what's out there as far as like non um like standards. Yeah, like the not going to just the doctor's office, right? And um it's neat to see what's out there and kind of attack the the problem instead of like masking it. Yeah. Um, but that's cool, yeah. But yeah, the mental health piece, it's it's really weaved throughout. And since um launching kickback this time, the amount of since I'm there a lot more, yeah. Um the conversations that I've been having at the studio have just been incredible of people opening up and sharing.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, you know, people can talk to you about this in person. Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_05:

And like the uh the community piece that you were talking about about how we really don't get to hang out that uh much, is more just in passing at random bits of like we have to throw an event to hang out together.

SPEAKER_04:

You gotta book out the whole shit in the cold plunge again. Clog the drain up with all his chest hair. Um yeah, I I don't know. I I I was checking in on you on social media and just seeing like you were at Bernie's doing interviews, you were here doing interviews at the yoga. I'm like, that's so cool that we have all these cool spaces around town. I I was really proud today when I was thinking about all my friends and their businesses and you too. Yeah, I don't yeah with your band. Oh, yeah, I got a band. Yeah, I got a really awesome band, and you have a career, a very good career, and you support your family.

SPEAKER_02:

I um I share your posts, I don't come to your store.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. I should I I thought, how lucky am I to be connected to like when people talk about kickback or like people come in with a lost bandit hat, and it's the same hat that I'm wearing, and I'm like, that's my friend. I do love seeing that stuff out there. Tiff Streets or like so-and-so shop 31B. Oh, oh my god, yeah, you know, well, we we have stuff of theirs up north, uh, whatever, and they're like, Who did this? And you know, so I'm really proud of like all my connections that I or going to that award show, and you guys are playing there, and you know, and and I'm like, Oh, this is like a networking event, that's why I should. Well, you kept telling me to go, and I'm like, I'd better go.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm glad you went.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah, I'm glad I'm glad I went too. We ended up winning too. I won an award that's hidden behind our seasonal drink menu because we didn't have any other frames. So once once the season's over, yeah, the award comes back out. Yeah, yeah. It doubles as a menu board.

SPEAKER_02:

The entry to the stage is pretty awesome for your yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I was hoping that you'd play the ultimate warrior theme, like the we had known ahead of time.

SPEAKER_05:

You just stormed the stage, yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_04:

It was um majestic. Yeah, I thought that was cool too because it was a lot of the people that I hang out with that I find were like-minded. Yeah. Like the um Pure Impact and like the 20 Performing Arts Academy, that's the group Eloise is part of. Or like 123 supply of the twins, and like that one kid, the volunteer kid.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, he was like, what, 15? I'm like, he's a better person than I am. Like really fucking.

SPEAKER_05:

What I just love how prepared they were, and like then there was the landscaping guy that was up there who gave us full pitch on his business card, and like that was incre I was so blown away.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I'm out of breath, and I don't know what to say. And I'm like, oh coffee. Yeah, we make coffee. Sorry if we're bad. Yeah, I remember saying that, but yeah, so I'm I'm just like trying to like think how lucky I am to be connected to so many wonderful people in the community to call friends or like Steph, uh, formerly of Kidastic, but of Clipette. She comes in daily, and like I get to see her, like the owner of Dairy Delight will stop in, or like other people that I'm just like really you just know like I'm just like, wow, this is really cool that there's all these positive people in our community. I think we can make a real change. And then like the um the night market that you and Bernie put on for the downtown business, like that's fucking cool. I hope you guys don't stop doing things like that because you guys have like these amazing ideas that make Brantford better. Oh, yeah. And like I want to ride your coattails, like I'll I'll bring the coffee to everything, but you guys gotta like come up with fun ideas like cafe in the woods, right? All these fun ideas that you guys have created. Please don't ever stop doing that because I like being like, these are my friends, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

They're they're my friends, yeah. I know running into you as a market. I was like, I look at me, kids.

SPEAKER_05:

You're a fucking idiot. But yeah, we're doing we're doing that again. Yeah, September 26, 2026.

SPEAKER_04:

It was just it, it's one of those, yeah, yeah. No, anything that you guys ever do, I always want to be involved, so always uh invite me. Yeah, yeah. And if I'm like, uh, it's just because I don't have a calendar in front of me, but count me in for every count him in too. Sounds like perfect, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

But yeah, October 8th, fantastic awards. Oh yeah, there you go. Oh, that was funny.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, I had a couple of all the staff here. We were mad that I didn't tell them about it. They're like, why didn't you tell us? I'm like, I didn't think you'd want to go.

SPEAKER_02:

Like, I just think next year is fucking massive because I figured like it will be.

SPEAKER_04:

Jason's such a guy, I finally bought some advertising. I saw it in there, yeah. Yeah, he's been bugging me for five years to spend$75 to advertise in his paper. I don't know, but yeah. So I was saying, and then him and I gotta send him an e-transfer, actually. That's I gotta make sure I do that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that was um incredible night. Yeah, that was so much fun.

SPEAKER_04:

But yeah, it it's cool, like it's cool even just knowing Jason, and I always give him a hard time um when I see him because he's so positive about Brantford and everything. Yeah, and his catchphrase is uh have a brandastic day. Yeah, and I say something like have a uh something uh a brutaful day. I'm like, oh make sure you have a brutaful day. So it's it's funny, like just seeing him and what he's doing, and just knowing all these people doing great things makes me like really happy and excited. But I want us to all do more because I think we can do a lot of good in the community, like especially with your kickback thing. Oh, definitely. That's why we're like, oh, you know, we we have about five people that'll listen to the show, yeah, but they probably don't know that you do kickback. So if that's five more people that know about kickback that uh grows our network even a little more, uh like good people that we know that listen that can expand.

SPEAKER_05:

Well the thing is like even one person, yeah, right? Like that's the piece. Like even one person hears something and is like, you know what, I that makes sense. I need to seek help. Or I'm gonna talk to somebody, I'm gonna make a ch I'm I'm gonna make a change. Yep. And then we've then we've done it. Yeah. Right. And early, early days of kickback, we had one story, and it always sticks with me, is that there was a family, mom, dad, and then maybe three kids or something like that. And they all went around, and they must have been older kids, but they all went around the table and they had us on the TV watching, and they all went around on the the table and the kids started, and then they oh, yeah, this is what I'm struggling with, dealing with this is how I'm feeling. And then the mom went and shared their thing, and then the dad did. And apparently it was like the first time ever that the dad shared something like that was personal, right? Was that was like that they were struggling with and had never really showed like that like soft side or vulnerable side every year. Yeah, exactly. Right, and so it was like that's cool. Like, where did that lead just by allowing giving him that space to be able to like that safe space to be able to do that, right?

SPEAKER_04:

Right, yeah, and stuff.

SPEAKER_05:

And so it's cool to remember that, and oftentimes you you don't see like the outcomes, yeah. Like what you do here or in what you do as well with the band, right? Like what the ripple effect of all of the things of bringing that happiness from people and like performing for them, where does that go? Yeah, right, and how far does that go? And we'll never know. Yeah, every now and again you get little glimpses of like how far that went, and you're like, Oh, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I want to bring up a neat story. Yeah, and this isn't really like it's sort of related. Anyways, a guy came out to Pub Fiction a couple when we played there last. Yeah. And he heard us on the Hamilton College Mohawk Radio. Sweet. And he's like, Yeah, I went on whatever and bought your album on there, and he bought one of Derek's like other like his singles, and then he's like, I gotta he messaged us and came out to the bar. He was talking to us, he bought like three or four CDs that night, and then like he wants to, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I don't know I don't know what like maybe someone propositioned you for sex. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And then I did it. And then right now, yeah, but no, it was just it was interesting to be like somebody was driving along, for some reason had 101.5 mohawk radio on, and that's awesome because it's just a local college station. Heard us playing, liked it enough to like do research on it, find out who we were. You should ammed us, and it's weird to think that that works with my band. But yeah, yeah, and it was just I don't know, it was neat to have him like show up and be like, your music is good, play more of your live, like your original music. And I was like, oh wow, like like this, this is actually there's some proof that this act that like that ripple that kind of came back around and the the feedback or whatever, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

It's hard. It's yeah, yeah, yeah. There's oftentimes not a lot of immediate feedback to like what you're doing, and you after a long time of doing it, right? You kind of get like burnt out and tired almost numb.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

The amount of like I'm in here every morning doing the same thing. That's the thing that I hate the most in in the world is doing the same thing. And I've been doing the same thing every day for almost two and a two years now, two and a half almost. And I'm like, I'm just getting started, like I'm just getting good at at my mornings, and like it used to be this big stressful thing. I'm like, I got it all under control. Like, I'm yeah, that routine isn't really. But it's like, yeah, like the the importance of of oh no, no, just keep going, even though you I don't have any feedback, and I'm just like it's still the same. I'm not doing anything new or exciting or nothing, it's just it's the same thing every day, but it's the ripple effect of of like just repetitively doing the job over and over and over again. Good things are happening. Like I'm people keep coming back. People are coming back. I'm hoping that I'm leading you know the people that work here and setting a good example for like what it takes to to do something like this. Like that that like the results aren't immediate. Same with kickback, like 10 years, uh like a decade, 10 years. Yeah, 10 years. Yeah, holy shit.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, yeah, and I often like people talk about um like oh yeah, it must be so nice having all that time, like being self-employed, and what's that like? And it's like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04:

Some days I spend most of my day thinking about like why didn't I just stay at my other job that I had?

SPEAKER_02:

Like why the roller coasters are like where you actually had like paycheck, somebody on the outside, like I work at Toyota, and you know, I see you guy, and I'm like, I always I don't know, like I love seeing you people tell me how much they love this place and the events you guys put on, and hearing about all this stuff, and it's like I know those guys, yeah. Oh yeah, they they're they just got all this free time in the world. They throw it together last no, yeah. They're not even trying, yeah. Yeah, just rolling money and like just like they're think they're better than you. Yeah, no, uh just a few loonies, yeah. I just no, I I I don't know. I I love I don't know. I love seeing you as an outsider, like work and put it and put your all into it, like you're here at what time in the morning?

SPEAKER_04:

Uh uh by five when it's cold.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Like I'm not even awake.

SPEAKER_04:

Are you coming into work tomorrow, Ben, or is it are you sleeping in a bit tomorrow?

SPEAKER_02:

If the if it's weather, it depends on the weather.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, yeah. It might be a snow day.

SPEAKER_02:

Are you allowed to take a snow day, Jim?

SPEAKER_04:

They end up being like yeah, they end up being busy days anyway. Like more people. I could open on Sundays and would be busy. Like, but yeah, not ready for that.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, right. You need to you need time. That's something I've since starting the kickback interviews up and like that, yeah. It's added a whole nother thing into my schedule. Yeah, and so now like doing that, I find the the break the balance that you and Bernie were talking about the one time. Yeah, and now it's like that doesn't exist right now. And like I just find with Rage in the studio, it's like really like shifting, and like the the holes that we had for like those breaks and like for family connection, yeah. Like it's like jam kickback in there and jam this in there and hang out with your stupid friends and you got it early.

SPEAKER_04:

Like I was I had to set three alarms to make sure that I made it because I went and laid down and had like a half an hour nap. Like at 6 30, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go to bed. Yeah, I'm like, oh fuck. Yeah, podcast thing. Like nine o'clock. I'm like, ah but I'm glad that and you clogged the toilet last week.

SPEAKER_02:

That's why you're that's why was that last week? Yeah, it was last week. Yeah, we had to push it.

SPEAKER_05:

Like two, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but big clog at home.

SPEAKER_05:

But this is like the I've I've noticed, and I think it's me coming out of like Benny's now almost a year, yeah, and we've kind of crossed over that stage of like being all hands on deck, yeah, where now I'm able to start to come out and play a little bit more and be able to do that. And so like the opportunity to come out here and like hang out with you guys for a couple hours, whatever, and like just talk, it's like that's great. And the more I've noticed too, and and I I don't know if it's like a pandemic hangover piece, right? But like the idea of like getting out there, like there's a long period of time where I didn't meet too many new people, yeah. And like if I did, it was they were clients, yeah. And and so like it wasn't it didn't shift that way. Excuse me, and now it's like now I'm finding that I'm connecting with more people, and it's it's outside of like becoming a client or like something like that. It's like a natural live, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and so it's cool. And uh you like talking to people? You got either of you guys? I mean you don't nobody's gonna tell me. No, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_04:

I love talking to people when there's no like limits, or like it's not like here, Ryan's the perfect front counter guy because he talks like he'll ask everyone, like, what are you doing this weekend? Well uh how did you do? Oh, you went there, yeah. That one stops sign three miles in from uh lake down the road there, about 18 hours up there. Oh, yeah, by uh whatever. And then he'll have this like crazy conversation, and I'll I say hi to everyone. I'm like, Hey, how's it going? Like, yeah, I hope you have a great day. You know, I'm more like just like you know, I hello, how are you?

SPEAKER_02:

There's happy face just uh yeah, prying on people, like oh what are you doing? Why are you here? Yeah, what are you doing later?

SPEAKER_05:

But do you like talking to people? Uh it depends. It depends on the day. Yeah, yeah. It really depends on the day and what I'm feeling. Yeah, we got another question for you.

SPEAKER_04:

Shoot. What got you into like so you're also a refrigeration engineer? Yeah, but what got you? I know that story, and I'll tell everyone, I'll save everyone the boringness of Ben telling it. Yeah, your grandfather, yeah, yeah. So you got into that. But like, what got you into like Rogers and like the millennial group? Like, what was that for your refrigeration business? Or were you always interested in making videos?

SPEAKER_05:

And like yeah, just so that that literally started out of um what was the first question you asked?

SPEAKER_04:

What like why what oh the Rogers piece? Yeah, yeah, like what what got you into that right kind of like marketing and like I said yes to a lot of stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

And like it's really cool to be able to look and I said yes until I burnt out. Yeah, and then that was a rough go. Slow down. Yeah, yeah. Were you just excited?

SPEAKER_04:

Was it your friends that were like into like broadcasting or something?

SPEAKER_05:

So I went to school for 3D multimedia animation and design at Humber College. Did we do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

No, I forgot. No, we were in quantum physics. Oh, right, right. That was too far above me.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, I went to Humber for that and uh like gained like the kind of like basic graphic design skills, and then it just like threw one opportunity after another. Um and I ended up doing with that, it was all like really part and like contract work. So like a job would it be a few weeks, maybe a couple months, and it would end, and then you'd have to find the next thing and keep going. And um, I didn't end up getting into what I wanted to, which was game design. I I got to work on one game. I made rock piles and books and random stuff for Bioshock Infinite, which was cool. Um, but that was it. That was it. Rockpiles, I had like stress dreams over rock pile where like I literally worked uh like yeah, worked for a company that was based in Kuala Lampur. They had been hired as a third party person, and so then literally this dream I stressed out so hard about this rock pile in a game. Like, think about how small that is. A rock pile. I stressed out so hard about this that I had a dream of uh where I was literally sitting on my rock pile and uh like uh Kuala Lampur kids were throwing rocks at me. That's all and like I it was like wild, anyways. So then you ever go to Kuala Lumpur? No. I didn't think it'd be a good time though. I think it would be healing for me.

SPEAKER_03:

Make it new rock piles and the company.

SPEAKER_05:

Right, yeah. Um and then it just didn't work out, and my grandpa ended up reaching out to me and was like, hey Ben, do you want to answer the phones? Well, I go off on a cruise and blah, blah, blah. And then that turned into him training me and teaching me. Um and so then I he ended up getting a job in refrigeration at Keep Right here in town. Yeah, um, and then um Shout out Greg Novak. Right, yeah, hey, yeah. Just like a lot of great people there. And I recognize I recognize the name, yeah. Yeah, big fella. Yeah. Um, and then I just we kind of kept going and I ended up working for uh a company called Primerica for a while. Yeah, and was like where is that?

SPEAKER_04:

We got life insurance life insurance and uh investments and I used Primerica guys as a uh funnel for my mortgage business. There you go. Like I got a lot of clients for mortgages through Primarica. America guy there.

SPEAKER_05:

And so like through that, then it was like I learned a lot of skills about people and like sales through that. Yeah. Um and then that led to starting the Millennial Network Group through we wanted to meet people.

SPEAKER_03:

Well that, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

And then it ended up just like totally blowing our minds and like expanding, and like there were so many young people looking for connection. Yeah. And then I remember like we literally we got to used to go to Bell City.

SPEAKER_04:

I used to follow you online. Yeah, right? And we didn't know each other, but I wanted I wanted to be part of it because I was like, oh fucking networking group, but I don't like talking to people. Right. And then I was intimidated by you and all your uh terrifying, right? You looked so cool in your wedding photos that you would post. And I I still remember the first time I met you in St. George, uh up in the old studio when I was bringing stuff up, getting I was bringing you guys prizes or something, but we're getting ready for the trivia thing. I'm like, oh my god, it's that Ben guy. There he is. He's so cool. Now you know me. Not so cool. Don't measure it now. But what like in the pool? How like you're you're a really good host of things. Like you and Bernie are all like we're a good team. You guys should do a breakfast show here. Please do it one morning here. Yeah. Have coffee, film alive. Like heckle your clients. So many people, so many people used to watch it like Monday mornings.

SPEAKER_02:

I'd yeah, I'd be at work while do an early morning one.

SPEAKER_04:

Just do it here one day. We don't even have to be open and just do it.

SPEAKER_05:

Yep. Do it. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Because we miss you guys. Do it.

SPEAKER_05:

We've got to convince Bernie to get the box out of the box. Yes. Be able to do that. Yes. The live stream box.

SPEAKER_04:

The live stream box. Yep. But I'm like, hey, you should get that. Oh, right. Yes. You should buy it off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Because it's it just sits there now and it needs to, we should use it sometime.

SPEAKER_04:

But um we can promote all our businesses. Live. We'll talk about that some more. Um or like the lead up to uh kickback or whatever. We can uh what whatever. But anyways, you're a good host. Yeah, thank you. Did you have any training? Think millennial. No, no, no. No, no, no. All day breakfast. Electric bacon. Like I knew it was electric. Yeah. I gotta get that tattoo of the bacon, eggs, and coffee.

SPEAKER_05:

We'll get tattooed weird five years of all day breakfast.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, we should go get tattoos together. Let's get that live stream box out, get some tattoos, and then like use it for one week. Right. Like just dedicate a week to friendship. Live live stream our breakfast at the airport one day, live stream tattoos, go see Matt at work and live stream there. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Seriously. But yeah. Anyways, how did you become such a good host? Well, and I think that goes back to like I watched you, I watched you on Rogers TV, the millennial thing.

SPEAKER_04:

I used to watch all your when you were clean shaven. Right. Yeah. And you had like spiky hair. Yeah. Right. I used to watch that. And my watch got a hold of me and then. Yeah, and it really turned you into a fashion Easter guy. You look fucked.

SPEAKER_05:

You gotta fix that. Wearing your Sears fucking sports coat. Yeah, what are you doing there, bud? Um, and it was just it literally was like starting like that, starting the Millennial Network group, then it turned into just saying yes. We're like, let's just say yes to all the things and see where this leads. And it led to so many things, like Rogers. Like I owe starting like everything that I have now, I owe to saying yes to starting uh like the Millennial Network Group with my cousin Matt. And like I didn't know Bernie before that.

SPEAKER_04:

Matt was the guy that we went to his house for the diaper party or yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04:

And he drank like 10 Guinness or whatever.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, and then uh so just saying yes to that, and then ended up uh getting to know Lucas Doogood and Laura from Octopus Red.

SPEAKER_04:

Uh Lucas's daughter comes in all the actually she left this note. Her favorite drink is an ice Nutella Latte. Um I follow this on the internet. Yeah, Sophia's bakery. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Lucas is a wonderful family. I follow him, and he's Mark LaFerrier's friend.

SPEAKER_02:

That's how I kind of came.

SPEAKER_04:

You hosted at Lost Bandit. Right.

SPEAKER_05:

And it's really cool to see I love Mark. There's a group of people that are Mark LaFerrier, sorry. Oh Ruben? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wrestling backgrounds. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know if you knew that or not. Warren Zevon fan. Him and I we've connected over our love of Warren Zev.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, he's actually uh was a guest singer in the Dusty Dads. No way.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, he sang Lawyers, Guns, and Money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I won't say anything more than that, but he sang that with uh He's not part of the group anymore, though. Was that the that that's the night that that changed, eh?

SPEAKER_05:

That was a big crowd there then. Anyways, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Did you ever see the Dusty Dad? No, no.

SPEAKER_05:

We were we disbanded before I think you should do a one more show. I've I've been trying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Kimbo's I think we should just really Dusty Dads now. I think we should just roll up to Dogeared Cafe one night when they do the open mic night. It just fucking Miles just has to bring it to they'll have a bass, they'll have guitar, they'll have everything. Miles just needs to bring his guitar. I guess he could play a guitar upside down, though.

SPEAKER_02:

That would be more impressive too. Yeah. But if he brought his own, yeah, he'd be alright. Yeah. Maybe one of those guys, though. I miss Miles too. Yeah. Show down Miles. Tell your friends you love them. Yeah. Yeah, I do I do that at work a lot. People kind of like, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Do you open mouth kiss your friends?

SPEAKER_05:

All the time. Yeah. Right? We'll save that for later. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

All right. But no, no. It's cool that we always get so distracted.

SPEAKER_05:

But saying yes to everything led to like through uh meeting Lucas and Laura, we got them to design a bunch of stuff for the Millennial Network group. They did a logo, they did posters for things. That was cool. Through that, then they ended up connecting us to Lucas had a show on Rogers at the time. Okay. And then he's like, I want you guys to come on and talk about your millennial thing. Let's go. And so then we ended up getting that. That's how we met Patty, who was the producer at the time. The show he did with Mark, too, right? Yeah, they had a newspaper. They had the newspaper, yeah. The fuck was it? Uh Inside Brandt?

SPEAKER_04:

Inside Brandt was the thing. No, it was something different. No, that's Beacon. No.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, that yeah, what ah, wow, show the brand Beacon? No, that's a news thing. It'll come back to us. Um, but they did so much in the community, and I feel like they there's a group of them that were. I remember that. For me and like that new group of people to come in and start like like they kind of showed me what was possible to get engaged and change things and build community.

SPEAKER_04:

Do you feel like you're doing enough? Because I don't feel like I do enough.

SPEAKER_05:

There's days where it's it's really shifts and changes, and like the longer that it's gone, like now it's coming up on like 10, like the last 10 years of my life, I'm doing a lot of reflecting because we're kind of hitting like a decade, it's a long time. And so like looking back at all the things and like piecing it together, yeah. Um it's pretty cool to see where that is. And I feel like we're really just starting to kind of like scratch the surface on what we've got on the go.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and how how do you gauge your success in in this? Like, just is it are we having fun? Yeah, is that is that what it is? Yeah, because there was no until this year, like now you can get sponsors and you can do things, raise funds, and that, but like it's like, okay, how do you like know whether or not yeah, like here it's like okay, all the bills are getting paid, we don't have to put our own money into it anymore. I get a little bit of money once in a while, yeah, yeah. And I'm like in so many more months, like this will get paid off, or that will get paid off. So like I'm like just fired up for like the next six months. I'm like, I'm gonna I have like an attack plan, and I'm like, if I stick to it, whatever, right? And so I can measure it, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

And our businesses are very different in like the the overhead that you have here with all the product and everything is different than like the services that we have. And um, so there are there are different, I think we probably measure slightly different, but a big piece uh specifically for like all day breakfast, Bernie and I check in and it's like, are we having fun? Yeah, are we still enjoying this? Yeah, because the moment we're not, yeah, then it's like what's the point and I we're just getting to the point now where like um we've like almost fully transitioned into the experiences and events, yeah. And like it's next year, like we already have I think seven events locked in that we know what we're gonna be doing, and yeah, like it allows us to plan so much more and like build on these things, which is really cool. That's awesome. Um, so it's a neat place to be that we've never been before. Um, and that's exciting to be able to now like you have these events, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

You could be happy just with that too.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, and like and grow them. Like it's things that we can take and grow, it's not coming up with new stuff uh constantly and making that happen. So that's pretty awesome. Yeah, man. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Can you tell us any of the events? Or is it I guess there's the garage.

SPEAKER_05:

So in uh February, Valentine's Day, we'll be at uh the Bulldogs for the downtown Brantford BIA game day takeover.

SPEAKER_04:

I want to try to get into the new uh arena. Like I want an altitude to be the I want to have like an altitude corner in the new arena. Like this cash. Right. They need a fan selector for the game to throw uh so our friend Ben, who uh actually committed suicide because he had mental health issues, yeah, reminds us. We always talk about how you remind us of him. He was big, he was gentle. Not that I'm not trying to keep going. I'm thinking smart, yeah, yeah. He was mechanically inclined, like he was very smart, knew a lot of stuff, handsome, big guy, yeah, gentle. He was called Gentle Ben, and like everything that you are reminds me of our good friend Ben. Yeah, yeah. Anyways, his dad for the Brantford Smoke, his uncle was going to buy the Brantford Smoke with a couple other people. Yeah, Brad, yeah, Brad was gonna buy it with he owns Mattress Miracle. Cool, okay, yeah, down on the and then uh Brad Cotton, a police officer, and then Brad something, he was the head of Brantford Transit. The three of them were going to take over the Brantford Smoke by the team, smoke games, and then uh so they had our friend Ben's dad as the fan selector, and all he did was put on lipstick all over his face, wear a fat guy cap, yeah, have a fanny pack, and just throw out free frisbees and like little goodies giveaways, and he would just dance around.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it was awesome. He was a fucking legend, he was a year, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And he had like a handwritten Brantford smoke shirt, like he didn't even have a Brantford smoke shirt, it was like Ben and I wrote on it. Yeah, and then Ben and I used to sell fit uh the programs. Oh, that's so we we were like the miniature fan selectors, but we we would sell programs at everything and everything, but yeah, it looks like if you can if you can get a fan selecting is needed.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that Brantford has a hockey team again. Yeah, it's like the smoke was such a like this great memory from when we were kids, and it was always like it was a full house, people fucking loved it.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, smoke games were just like you guys gotta make the Bulldogs like the Savannah bananas. I know. I don't I'm talking like you're you're in charge of the Bulldogs, but I'm like, I don't know. That's the goal though, right?

SPEAKER_05:

We want when we do that, yeah, we want it to be like special, we want it to pop, and we want it to stand over and give people a reason to totally. And so last year what we did is we built a well, Bernie. We all Bernie builds everything. Yeah, he's a handyman. He's a handyman, and he does everything. And uh so he built a human slot machine. And so we literally brought a human slot machine to the game and it went over so well, it was so good. And then um we ended up having uh road from Brantford Blooms, we gave away roses and had Bruiser running around giving people random roses in the crowd, and then like it just was we always try and go like over the top, yeah, and just again, like, are we having fun? Yeah, are people having fun? How do we make this a memorable experience? And then that's that's crazy. Yeah. If you need fan selectors, perfect. Okay, sounds good.

SPEAKER_04:

Provide your own lipstick, free tickets, and we'll go. Yeah, perfect. Free tickets. Sounds kind of enough money to buy uh 26er vodka. Yeah, that's what we needed when we were kids too. Yeah, yeah, you gotta have a good time on a weekend.

SPEAKER_02:

26 or split and some orange juice made out of pool water. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, I don't know. We'll stop wasting your time. Yeah, no, this is great.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm loving this. Yeah, this is like we could keep going, but uh we shouldn't have to do that. Yeah, we should we can wrap it up.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, okay, so we should do uh a check-in after kickback, and you can tell us how everything went. Cool, sounds good, yeah. And what feedback, yeah, we should yeah, we should check in with Ben.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, check back, check back because kickback. Yeah, we'll get some kickback socks. Yeah, perfect. Yes, yeah, sell those socks.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and what about those socks? Ben, the quick tell all the pod father because I know Jordan Hardy will buy a pair. So we'll we'll sell one pair with this pitch right now. So tell us about the kickback socks that you're selling here.

SPEAKER_05:

So kickback socks, they're one size fits most. Um they're beautiful, kickback, they're comfortable, it's lovely. Um, but the minimum donation is$20, which goes directly to the production and promotion of Kickback 2026. Um, and I just can't wait to see all those socks out there on Monday, January 19th, 2026 for kickback. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Is that gonna be yeah? Is that gonna be like the show me your socks that day? Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah, okay. So everyone here needs to be wearing them. Okay. Totally, yeah. All right, all the stuff you need to wear them. I need to wear them. Yeah, you need to get Jay or someone to wear them. Andrew will wear a pair. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, we'll get we should get Ben Cliff, uh Ben Cliff, if you're listening.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, he won't be.

SPEAKER_04:

No.

SPEAKER_02:

You should come talk to Ben at the Toyota though about the general manager there.

SPEAKER_04:

Just be like, I know the guy is at the coffee shop.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, because he likes coffee and everything. Yeah. But I know a guy in the back, yeah, that won't help. No, okay. Okay, if you've made it this far, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

When you come back from your race this weekend, come into the cafe and buy three pairs of socks for kickback. Yeah, yeah. And you need to wear them on January 19th. All three pairs are the same. All three pairs. Yeah, looking warm. Yep.

SPEAKER_05:

Pair, yeah, two, and then both and then wear a milk bag over top of it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. At least it'll be warm.

unknown:

All right.

SPEAKER_02:

You got any other merch for kickbacks? This is you got the socks. Just socks this year. We were placed to donate as well. Like if you want to, like, can they donate to the cause?

SPEAKER_05:

So we can't officially do receipts yet. Gotcha. That's something that we're working on for like mid-2026. Okay. Um, but if people want to send uh money towards the production, right? It'll just be like, hey, yeah, I love you. Here's this. Here's this, I like what you're doing.

SPEAKER_04:

Let's go. Hey, uh, another thing just before we we wrap this up.

SPEAKER_02:

Talk to Brantford Toyota about a yeah, yeah, you should they'll donate. I feel like they would.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, send them a donation package.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I would do that though.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, I can send you the information.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04:

You can pass it along forward the message. She'll be like, yeah. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_02:

Or maybe get Andrew to do it.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, Andrew will Andrew. We'll get Andrew. Somebody will. You forward. Yeah, yeah. She's she's good stuff. What was I gonna say? One more thing.

unknown:

Kickback.

SPEAKER_04:

I was looking at all day breakfast. No. It was uh before we wrap it up. I wanted to tell you one story.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh oh. Do you have any failure stories? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Shareable failure. Your best failure.

SPEAKER_04:

You don't have to tell us something that's just your past story or something. A failure, like something that you failed at and what you learned from. And have you moved on from it or do you carry it around? Because we want to tell you just let it go, man.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Let them let them tell us first, and we'll tell them whether or not I could something I can let go.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I've there's nothing that's like popping right to my head. That's good. I feel like the recently I've discovered that I feel like I haven't been diagnosed, but I feel like I have ADHD based on things that have like popped up in other people that are doing the work and becoming a lot of people. Yeah, right. A lot of failure. Yeah, right. And then there's uh like different things, and something that I really struggle with is like um leaving things, like procrastinating on things that and then you do them, and it takes like five minutes to do them, and then yeah, put that off.

SPEAKER_04:

The amount of brain power that that took the putting that off is there's a lot like I find stuff when I'm I get busy, that's when my procrastination kicks into full force, and then I'm busier than I should be. And um yeah, yeah, I think that's just natural in most men that are just living, like I don't know. Yeah, living in the world. Yeah, just a busy, yeah. I would say that's like normal, but not the right way to deal with things in life.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's like you just get it done, it would have been done, and it would have been better.

SPEAKER_04:

You don't have to think about it anymore. No, do you think that's not so much a DHD, but more like just uh prioritizing like tasks and like being organized?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, but I think that that's a direct piece of the ADHD is that they fight each other very much. But I'm still doing research on what that actually is. I am not a doctor.

SPEAKER_04:

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_05:

Just pull your pin at the measuring pin. Yeah, I'll take a look.

SPEAKER_04:

You got the measuring ruler out. But I uh yeah, I find that I um yeah, I always just leave things or I'll get an email and I'll be like, oh shit, okay, I gotta reply to this. I'll I'll do it later. And then three days later I'm still thinking about that email that I haven't replied to. And they've sent a second email and then I'm like, okay, I better fucking reply. And it's like usually like and myself, Thor, and Ryan are all like that. So just come in. Just come in. Yeah, yeah. We will support every single thing that you have, but I'll forget, and then I'm like, oh shit. And I don't like forgetting because that is one piece of the thing. So that that's actually yeah, I'm not gonna be okay with just saying just come in because it's up to me. Like I I used to like when I had something else to do, I'd be like one second reply. That was like my Facebook like response immediately. Right now it's like eight. I haven't checked my Facebook altitude message. I think you probably have you can see when we get messages because you're our our poster person or whatever. So you probably see the messages more than I do. Like, but I'm so focused on this. But my goal next year is to have more structure. Like, I'm I'm like, I gotta wait for the calendar to change to be like, okay, I'm going to take a full day off to do like work, like and and then incorporate like a daily sort of like uh list of things. So not just coming in in the morning, but like coming in, opening up and then spending an hour On my computer, going over the emails of the day, doing the bookkeeping for the day, and doing like all things that I enjoy, but I'm I don't have set times for that, so I feel like I'm overwhelmed with things that I'm procrastinating on and taking it. Yeah, and and it takes like my gas fireplace wouldn't light, and I'm like, I know what's wrong with it. And I tried lighting it, the pilot things all sooty and dirty and everything, right? Like the clicker thing, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take it off. I'm gonna try to clean it a little bit and try it again. And I was getting a little re and I'm like, okay, if I clean it properly, like not just half-ass, I could probably get it to work. Then I'm just like, no, it needs to be replaced. I it's been like three weeks. I've been like saying, Oh, I need I need to do this. I need to and like the other day I finally called to set an appointment, and it's in two weeks, and it's gonna be a 10-minute fix. Like they're gonna come in and just replace the one part, but I've wasted three weeks. It could have been fixed three weeks ago, but every day I see the fireplace not working and it's cold in that room, and like everything's open, and I'm like, I see it and I'm like, oh, that's a job that needs to be done that I failed at. Or our first house that Lauren and I bought, we redid the whole kitchen and that. I remember that. And I remember I didn't know how to hang the cupboards properly, so I had a gap at the top, and I'm like, oh, I need to do crown molding. I never knew how to do any of this stuff, and I just did it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_04:

And it took me forever. I I waited a year to do this crown molding because I tried it once and I ruined, I didn't know how to cut the angles and everything. It's hard. And I remember that. Yeah, and I just left it and I would see it every day and it would bother me. And then I just watched a YouTube video and then I went out to the store, bought everything, and put it up in like half an hour. Right. And that memory came up today, like, and the post was hey Lauren, sorry it took me a year to finish the kitchen.

SPEAKER_03:

Like, and it was kitchen looked good too.

SPEAKER_04:

It was like a 30-minute job, maybe. And I'm like, fuck, I wasted a whole year. Like I didn't waste the whole year. Yeah, yeah. Every day it bothered me. And I'm like, if I could have just addressed the problem, like focused on what I have a hard time focusing on what's the most important thing. I'm just putting out fire or like responding to people, being reactive instead of being proactive and having a plan, how to respond to people requesting something instead of just being like, You gotta fucking come here, and like you know, so now somebody else lives in that house. Sorry for rambling. No, that's great. Somebody else lives in that house. Yeah, that's someone else's problem.

SPEAKER_02:

Enjoy your crown molding.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you redid the basement in there.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, redid every the whole house.

SPEAKER_02:

I remember that, all the flooring.

SPEAKER_04:

I love that house.

SPEAKER_02:

But anyways, I got one of my favorite pictures of you and Clara is in that house. But no, like you're playing, it looked like you're playing a video game. Oh, yeah, yeah. And the way the flash just hit it, it looks like you're in this fucking crazy video game. Like it's like strobing, and Clara's just like baby size tucked into your hold on, or you're like more into the game. And I just I don't know. I always love that. Yeah, it's just one of my favorite players.

SPEAKER_04:

So yeah. So you're not a failure, Ben.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. You are the most successful guest.

SPEAKER_04:

You're the most successful guest we've had today. Yeah, but I've been saying that a lot lately. I I think it's my old manness coming out.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I told someone the other day, one of the kids working here. I'm like, ah, you're the best student I have working today. And she was the only student.

SPEAKER_02:

I do that too.

SPEAKER_04:

Wait a second.

SPEAKER_02:

I like telling Kelsey at work, like, you're my favorite female tech.

SPEAKER_04:

She's the only female.

SPEAKER_02:

There is another one now. Okay. She's not, she's not a full license tech yet, though. So you can still say that. I can still say it. Yeah. I tell the other girl she's my favorite express tech, female tech. And yeah, you know, it always is one of those, like, hey, wait a minute. Yeah, yeah. Is that a compliment? Yeah, of course it is. Yeah. I appreciate all my techs.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Well, Ben, you're an inspiration. Yeah. Gentle Ben. You're like a reminder of how awesome life is to us. Yep. So you remind us of a uh good friend of ours. We were called the three amigos. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's cool having a a friend that uh like you. Yeah. You're doing some cool stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Keep doing cool shit. Yeah, yeah. Keep yeah, yeah, just keep it. Go hard.

SPEAKER_04:

I like helping us. Yeah, I like your imagination.

SPEAKER_02:

Fuck this town heart. Yeah. Put it away wet. I don't know if the extent if that works. Yeah. Hopefully, nobody from the BIA is listening. And they didn't hear any of that. Like, that's a good thing, BIA, if you're listening. Yeah. Fuck this town like in a good way. Yeah. And make cool shit. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Thanks for doing what you do, man. Yeah. If you don't want us to release this, we can use it. Yeah, yeah. We'll just cancel that. Yeah, I'll let it all.

SPEAKER_02:

We went too hard.

SPEAKER_04:

That's Matt's opinion. They don't reflect mine or Ben's.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't mean fuck this town in like the mean way. Like the good, the gentle way. Gentle fucking.

SPEAKER_04:

The love-making way.

SPEAKER_02:

Alright, should have said love make this town. Yeah. With this. I don't know. I'm going to stop. That'll be the title of this episode. Love making to this town.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. No, I I think I think I love what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, we love what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02:

I think the town loves what you're doing. Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

It's actually, yeah, I get a lot of feedback. A lot of people are really impressed with kickback and know a lot about it. So that makes me proud. Cool. That's awesome to hear.

SPEAKER_05:

It's out there, right? Yeah. You don't know.

SPEAKER_04:

The feedback you don't get, right? The the uh whatever. So definitely do what you're doing. Yeah, keep doing what you're doing. Keep your pants on unless you're in the bathroom with us. Yeah, unless you're hanging with bros.

SPEAKER_02:

That's where we're headed afterwards. That's where we're heading next. Cut it now so we can do that.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, let's go measure our dad dicks.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm uh Matt.

SPEAKER_04:

And I'm Jim, and this is our friend. What's your name again?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, Ben. Benjamin Benjamin. Is it Benjamin? Yeah, it's Benjamin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

All right. All right, man. Thanks for coming on to our show. How to fail at everything. Yeah, and still succeed.

SPEAKER_03:

Bam. Bam.

SPEAKER_02:

I just do the fade out so people think that they're actually claughing and it's fade out. But I'm talking over it now.

SPEAKER_01:

How to fail at everything and still succeed has been recorded live starring Jim Halatish and Matt Oderson. And a special thanks to Derek Palenko.