Terribly Unoblivious
Dive deep into the realms of the unconventional with "Terribly Unoblivious" – a podcast where norms are challenged, thoughts expanded, and openness cultivated. This is not your average dialogue space; it’s a confluence where curiosity meets a willingness to listen to diverse opinions. Every episode is a journey that untangles the threads of conventionality, exploring the world through lenses unfettered by the ordinary. Join us as we engage in enlightening conversations that ignite insights, foster understanding, and provoke thoughtfulness beyond the visible horizons of societal expectations. Get ready to transcend the ordinary and embrace the extraordinary with "Terribly Unoblivious."
Terribly Unoblivious
Shitty Gear, Stronger You
Ever notice how the promise of “better gear” turns into a respectable way to procrastinate? We start with light banter and land in a deeper pocket: grief, loneliness, and the quiet work of rebuilding routines when life changes. That flows into a theme we kept circling—how durability and simplicity create momentum. A heavy, pink Schwinn becomes transport and training; old leather boots outlast the trend cycle; a ruck that’s beat to hell still gets you out the door. When your tools are reliable, you stop obsessing over them and finally focus on the doing.
On the field, we break down what actually keeps kids engaged: safety first, games over lectures, and a standard of intensity that reveals the real gaps. Honesty isn’t harsh; it’s a relief. Give a young athlete trust without the asterisk, and watch them rise. We talk psychology of taking the shot—why permission to fail produces courage—and how resilience beats perfection in golf, soccer, and cycling. The greats don’t tighten up under pressure; they keep the same mind on hard days that they have on easy ones. Miss a shot, make the next one. That’s the edge.
We also challenge a popular myth about passion. Instead of forcing a career around something you like in theory, follow your strengths and let passion grow where competence compounds. It’s a pragmatic way to protect your energy while still leaving room for art, sport, and adventure. The through line is clear: don’t let analysis masquerade as progress. Choose tools that last, build habits that travel, and act before the perfect plan arrives.
We close with a question meant to stick: what is lost in giving up? Consider the exact shape of what would disappear if you stopped—skills not yet built, teammates not yet inspired, a steadier version of you not yet earned. Enjoyed the conversation? Follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review with your answer to that question.
This is the Terribly Unoblivious Podcast.
Speaker 3:Yep. I said it before, and I'll say it again. Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.
Speaker 1:I just pressed it. Do it. Do it.
Speaker 2:Do it. Do it.
Speaker 1:Do it good.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No.
Speaker 1:I was really excited to keep going on.
Speaker 2:No. I don't like that when that when songs like that pop into your head in random conversations in a really inappropriate place. Like, no, no, we can't start that one. Oh, pop locking and dropping in front of it for everybody's ears to hear.
Speaker 1:I mean, we because we are the most G-rated podcast out there.
Speaker 2:No, but I mean, I mean when it actually comes up in conversation. Oh. It's it's one of those. Shannon does it a lot. I think she actually has some of those neurodivergent things happening. It's or is it self self-preservation? No, it's just neurodivergent. Yeah, it's it's something that comes up in in conversation, a phrase, and then she belts into full squirrel Broadway musical notes.
Speaker 1:That's when we should get on here, is we should get squirrel on the old soundboard. What's that? Like uh up, that's where the dog is talking and he's like squirrel. Yeah. I took my dog to Home Depot today.
Speaker 2:How did how did he do? He yeah, he loves it.
Speaker 1:Okay. Yeah. What did you guys get accomplished at Home Depot?
Speaker 2:Uh he met two Brown Labs. Ooh. Yeah. They were buds. I like it. They're like, what are you doing here? I don't know. I was gonna ask you the same thing. I don't know. I don't know what we're doing. We're just we're just looking at stuff. I gotta sit all the time. Sometimes I get treats. I can't pee on anything. Rude. Walk down the mailbox aisle and I was like, what the fuck is this? Largest lap dog, largest lap dog in the history of lap dogs. He is.
Speaker 1:He's a good boy. Yeah. Yeah. So what's up? Anything new? Is this episode or is this season like four or five? No. You're just gonna I knew you were gonna fucking do that where you're just like, oh, what's going on in your life? Such a cunt. Nothing new is happening. Not much, man. Just a lot of just a lot of regrow. No, not grow. You can't re-grow.
Speaker 2:Rebrand?
Speaker 1:I don't know if I want to go as far as rebrand.
Speaker 2:Uh I could use a new business logo. I think. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. What would you do?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I follow this guy on TikTok that d designs logos. And uh I'm like, oh, that's cool. Are you gonna stay with your Greek Atlas theme still? No, no, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1:No. I still I don't think I have my BPC shirt anymore. I did, dude. It was the one of the best ever. Yeah, you do. It's somewhere up there. It's like the most comfy, cozy. That's when American Apparel was making really good tri blends. Did have you seen the documentary on it? I haven't, but I heard that CEO was psycho wild. The designers were living in his house, and yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:How intertwined was American Apparel with CrossFit. What do you mean?
Speaker 1:I mean that tri they they popped at the same time. That Triblend shirt like put them on. It wasn't just the shitty Gildian, yeah, Gildan, Gildian, whatever that brand was that you were like, this thing is stiffer than my socks after 14. Yeah. Um, and maybe maybe it wasn't like CrossFit the corporation. No, but they definitely they had very similar life cycle timing wise, yeah. Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:But definitely a lot of those shirts made it into the CrossFit era. Yeah, Triblend was great. Something. Yeah, more of like a quattro blend now.
Speaker 1:Is that a real thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I like that. Yeah. ESPN. The Ocho. Audi Quattro blends.
Speaker 1:So yeah. No. Um just uh navigating this thing called life. Uh couple couple missteps. I don't know. Missteps, couple hiccups in the past few months on a personal level and trying to figure uh trying to figure that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. A lot of text therapy sessions lately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah. I don't really trust anyone else. Um the brown boys are gonna listen to this. They're gonna get really mad that I said that. Yeah, I don't you can't say what?
Speaker 2:Well, it's it's literally like the group name. What is it? What, the brown boys? Yeah. It's my buddies. What's brown? Oh, I see where you're going with this. What? Nothing. Like college?
Speaker 1:No, that'd be really cool though.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:None of them are in the league. None of them. Okay. Yeah, I know. Rude. Yeah, you know. Prom, Mike, Alex, Jeff. Good to good to hear. Good to come on.
Speaker 2:Come on, what? Come on. I'm sure one of them's smart.
Speaker 1:They're all really smart.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:They just they got their education from a library. All of good Will hunting. I'm trying to think who would be Will in that group.
Speaker 2:Uh, I was Will today for Shannon has this pumpkin blow-up thing for Halloween. And we put it out front and a little extension cord from the garage. And then that night she's like, this can't be here because it's setting off the camera all the time. I was like, well, you could, you know, just fucking turn the camera off, but it's not an option, I guess.
Speaker 1:What camera? Uh camera outside. You get don't you have like a like a like a zone system in there so you can just like circle that thing and say don't don't trigger? I don't have it on my phone. Uh okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't fuck with I don't fuck with you. So she was gonna move it to the front door. And she goes, Do you think I can just shove this extension cord under the door from inside? I was like, Well, the door doesn't open now as it is with with no extension cords, so I I don't think so. And I just keep hearing these sounds out there, and then just like uh fucking so she was you know how fucking easy this is for me? That's what I was thinking in my head. Like, what?
Speaker 3:Do you know how easy this is for me? Do you have any fucking idea how easy this is?
Speaker 2:What was she trying to do? Just run an extension cord from somewhere.
Speaker 3:I really am because I wouldn't have to fuck.
Speaker 2:I didn't say it to her though. I just said, what do you need, honey? That's you're smart.
Speaker 1:Is there anything I can help you with? You're a smart man. I never figured that one out. It's probably why you hear you. Probably why I'm in the predicament I'm in. Well, you gotta you know I don't know. Take small arms fire instead of mortars. I guess. Yeah. Write that down. Small arms fire. New quote. Not mortars. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2:How do you prevent mortars? Uh well some people would say move around a lot. Pivoting? Or just not I mean, just you know, don't hang out for too long. Triangulation's a real thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So So just aloof enough so that people can't pinpoint you? Yeah. Does it allow for just reduce the connections? Mobility, improvisation. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Not as a unit, just as an individual. I mean eventually we're all on our own, anyways, right? Yeah, that was very very apparent Dubuque today when I was up there. Uh it's crazy. My, you know, my grandpa passed away a couple months ago, and my grandma and him were together for 71 years, and I, you know, right now I'm 34, and it there are times that I feel incredibly lonely, you know, just kind of getting out of previous relationship. But I can't imagine being with someone for 71 years and then all of a sudden you're on your own and for the rest of your life. It's like I you're not you're not remarrying at, you know, 90. You're not. I don't know. I've heard some stories from the I mean that'd be good from the homes. Yeah. The problem is that she's so against the homes right now because there's such a negative image. But if anyone's ever been into a nursing home recently, you probably will realize there are some unbelievable resort communities out there. Yeah, there's also some real shitholes. There's some real shitholes, but I I think my grandma would be okay. I think she'd probably be in one of the resort style ones, and I think it'd be really positive for her. But um it depends on the people. Yeah, I felt bad leaving her though. It was like it was like leaving your dog, it just it felt wounded puppy-esque. You could just tell, I mean, we had a great day, she's super social. She hadn't been. I I just found out it was the first time she'd been back to the Eagles club since my grandpa had passed, so she just didn't feel right to go without him. Yeah. And they commemorated him with um, they named the bar after him, which we thought was really cool. Well, he built it, and then they needed a new top for it because the only thing he didn't build in the bar was the bar tops, and those started to fail, and so they um they would did new bar tops and commemorated the bar in his honor. And uh yeah, it was an emotional day, it was cool. Uh but yeah, now she's sitting at her house by herself. Yeah. Yeah. Some people wait 71 years to do that. To what? Just sit at home by themselves. That's true. Yeah. Uh she's needy though. And I mean that, like, she is like needs constant stimulating, and my grandpa, I think, uh provided a lot of entertainment for her, so it's also very just the consistency of the of your norm, you know, that just isn't gone. 71 years of just being on the go. And in until my like my grandpa was super mobile at the end, until he had a stroke and died. But Jesus. Yeah, you want to tell the story or do you want me to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's like, remember when you left me? Remembering you left me here, and nobody gave a shit. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Actually, I did, I gave two shits, but you're with that person night and day for almost your entire life, and you have to your point, all these routines, habits, nuances, iterosyncrecies, and it's just poof. I mean, half of you is gone at that point. I mean, that's you literally are become a I mean, the word couple, you're not really an individual after a while. It's a joint, it's a joint venture. And so you lose. Yeah. Which is weird. There's a lot of weird. We talk about we talk about individualism, we talk about relationships, how you still have to, you know, it's not about growing to be someone for someone else, it's about allowing each other to grow how each other need to grow and still being accepting of that. But I feel like there is a point for like some of these older style couples where it's like, well, nope, we're just we are a we. We're not there's not an I. There's not a singular organism here, there's a we to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Uh not all the time. No. I think it really depends on the couple and generation change. Yeah. Two, I think.
Speaker 1:I think we're seeing a massive shift in relationships now where it's I mean, at what point are we going to be in those? You know, we talk of there's sleep divorce now, which is an interesting concept to me, which I don't disagree with, by the way. Some people just don't sleep well together because somebody's really a toss your turner or somebody's hot, and sleep is such an excuse me. Jesus, cat. Sleep isn't such an important part of your life. It's like, well, if I don't get good sleep, I'm gonna be grumpy, which is going to hurt this relationship tomorrow. So I I noticed you have a Matthew McConaughey book there. My mom bought that for me, and so it's just in my stack right now.
Speaker 2:And a quote I saw from him recently was that him and his wife share a queen bed, yeah, so they can get closer. Yeah. And uh he's like, Trust me, it'll save your marriage. I'm like, Yeah, or it'll fucking ruin it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wherever you're going. Uh, my buddy uh Jay, aka Kenny, has a great quote, and he said, Every relationship should be required to buy a tandem bicycle because he's a big biker. Own it. You have a bike, you know, you have a tandem. Yeah. And he said, You need to ride together. And he said, Wherever your relationship's going, you're gonna get there a lot faster. If you were destined to end, it'll end faster. If you were destined to be together, it'll you'll get there faster. And I feel like there's some merit to that because there's just that I haven't been on the back fineness, but Shannon's not loving it. Yeah, I think that you know that's a telltale sign. I think that's a metaphor for the rest of the toboggan down a hill.
Speaker 2:She's like, I don't like this. I was like, don't fucking lean. Just just let me do my thing, just pedal. Yep. She's like, I don't like staring at your back.
Speaker 1:Like, fucking, I don't always like staring at yours either, but uh we have a couple friends, a couple, a couple of couples that ride tandem during Rag Bride. It's really fun um to watch them just m muck about together.
Speaker 2:My favorite video I've watched in the last couple months is was a New Zealand couple that built a tandem downhill mountain bike.
Speaker 1:Oh, you showed me those. Those are nuts. Yeah, yeah, that one. I don't think I'd like that.
Speaker 2:That's some real trust and relationship. I don't think I'd like that. Because if if we rode that thing every day just around town on the road, we would eat shit for sure. A hundred percent eventually. Yeah, these guys are doing shit that I would not do on a regular mountain bike. Uh which is not not a lot because I'm not very good, but you add in double the length and another person body weight shifting, leaning. It's a lot.
Speaker 1:You get, yeah.
Speaker 2:So props to them. They will definitely stay together until they die. Or one of them won't build the bike and they'll just run. I mean, I don't know what that's gonna be.
Speaker 1:I did hear an interesting story about uh a guy knowing how him and his wife met, and she was engaged before they got together, and she is a an elite triathlete, and the guy she was engaged to get married to was an elite triathlete, but they both didn't make they didn't qualify for something, or they both I don't remember what happened, but basically their kind of triathlon careers were over and there and then they realized that once they were done, it was like we actually don't have a lot in common other than training for this triathlon, and so that's how uh they didn't make it. I thought you were gonna say she was gonna be a quattro athlete. Um, I I think that's a good theme. We're gonna be in fours today. Every message and theme in this in this podcast is gonna be fours. It's easy to count. One, two, three, four, five. Oh, six books though. Sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two of them are shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. Maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure about that. Yeah, I don't know. You have your book. What do you got? You got Zen with you? What's going on there?
Speaker 2:Nothing.
Speaker 1:Why?
Speaker 2:I just like carrying it around. It's like a little stuffy.
Speaker 1:Like a was it? No, Mr. Mom, my Wobby. My Whoobie. My Whoobie. I think I just like to take a moment to myself. I think Annie just sneezed all over me. I think she did.
Speaker 2:Um she was fine. Yeah, I don't know. I I haven't been reading it lately. Oh. Can I I'll do a little uh advertising.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Uh I probably talked to you about this last Christmas, because it was this was a Christmas gift. Your Christmas trees are back out? No. Okay. Uh it's a magazine called Mountain Gazette. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I've seen their ads on Instagram.
Speaker 2:So it's a biannual magazine, and it's they only do two a year, really. Two a year, a winter and a summer edition. And they're big.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They're something like 12 by 18. They bought that. They bought that, right? That was an old magazine, and the guy reached it. Yeah, it's been around for a long time, and then I I don't know if it was Cohen South or if the guy that had owned it for a long time just did you know didn't want to do it anymore.
Speaker 1:I don't remember.
Speaker 2:But essentially they they sat down and and made like a napkin deal uh to take it over and buy it. And I was like, that that just it just seemed like a cool thing. Like, oh, there's all these big stories and you know, little articles and the photography, and it's super cool. And it's just so you start in field gazette. It's just this big field, just you know, it's a beautiful thing. Yeah, you just fucking sit around. But I've actually been reading it off and on to Corbin, like bedtime stories. Okay, so we'll pick something that's not uh super long, or we'll break it into chunks. Or do they have just like stories? All kinds of shit. Okay, just like there's some tiny things in the end that are little one-page articles, and then there's there's some big like 20-page uh like in this most recent one. This guy went back to uh a family member that survived Auschwitz, and what they like recreated this trek from their homeland to Auschwitz to whatever. No shit. Yeah, I mean, I haven't read the whole thing, but it's a big long article. Um did they escape or was it like I don't know. Okay, I haven't okay, I haven't read it, but so there's all funny things, serious things. Uh in one of the first ones, can't remember the guy's name right now, he started taking photographs of acorns. He would make these little acorn people. I don't know if you've seen them on Instagram at all. But he he would just take acorns and then start putting legs and arms and and all these kind of things on him. It just kind of started out as something fun for him to do, and then he starts taking pictures of them and animals reacting to them, so he's setting them in in nature, and then they're interacting with animals essentially, and so just with with that life-like thing being next to a real life thing, it starts taking on a story type type deal. So uh I think his stuff's actually in a like a big commercial or two, or something. I feel like I've seen that recently. So there's all kinds of things in it, but it uh I like it, it's kind of out of the norm because it's not video or audio. And their their tagline is print ain't dead.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think they actually have a book coming out uh that they're pre-saling right now. I don't know if it's just think they'll have an audiobook. Ooh, I don't know. I don't think so. And especially it's all mountain related. So it's skiing or climbing or hiking or backpacking or mountain biking or anything like that. And so the photography that goes with it, it's gorgeous. Yeah, you you don't really get that in an audiobook. So it's kind of hard. Yeah yellow leaves here. Yeah, and uh because it's the photography is amazing, and then you have these giant mini posters basically where they're just taking up multiple pages. There's you know, you might have eight to ten pages of just full-size pictures.
Speaker 1:What's the yearly subscription? Not cheap, but like a hundred, hundred and twenty bucks, something like that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so like sixty dollars in a dish. Maybe. Wow, it might not even be that much. Let's look it up, but uh yeah, for what you get. Like I said, I've I have two now, and that's when we're coming up on a year, and I'm still kind of reading things now and then. Because it's one of those you just sit around, and then every once in a while you pick it up and you you read something, and uh last night when I was reading to him, I had a real nostalgic moment. You ever do that? Like you you have a memory that just pops in and you just think, oh, I used to really fucking like that. And what what was that memory? So the article was something along the lines of shitty gear saves lives. Oh, okay. I like that. Actually, that's a good that's a good, yeah. I I read it to Corbin and he's like, hmm? I was like, that's catchy, isn't it? Make me think. Yeah, it makes me want to read. Okay, so what was the premise? Uh essentially it had a little bit to do with just how oh, what's that that one Instagram page that you uh sent me? It's all like 70s, 80s dudes with mustaches and fucking jean shorts, and they're just doing badass shit. I don't know. But you know what the page I'm talking about. So it kind of starts off with saying his parents were kind of outdoor enthusiasts, but not really any spectacular to anything. But they essentially had like a basement closet that had stuff in it, yep, you know, old shit. Like I have a room downstairs that it's just that's the storage stuff. But once you buy certain things, you just kind of keep that shit. So like I have all my climbing gear and I have camping gear and a stove and backpacks and and things like that. And if we start doing it again, I probably am not gonna go buy new shit. But it kind of leads into that's where people go. So for the longest time, you kind of had so let's say early 1900s where everything was super primitive, yep. And then you might have hit like the 60s or 70s, where there weren't really an advance, but maybe just manufacturing made things a little bit more available or or something like that. But it was still big heavy leather boots with red laces, uh giant backpack frames that you know everything weighed you're carrying 60, 70, 80 pounds for a weekend. You just gotta hook up, yeah. Yeah, just things like that, or a big stove, or it it didn't really the the adventure was what the people were after, not the shit to to have the adventure. And I've definitely been down that road. It's it's easy to go down the gear road. Yeah. In in a lot of things. So you really like the gear or do you like doing the shit? What like do you spend more time researching and buying and testing and and doing all of this stuff with your gear than genuinely using what it's for? Um so and there there's there's a necessity to some of that to start out with, obviously.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, do you need a 20-degree sleeping bag or a zero-degree sleeping bag? Yeah, but it's like in shit we've talked about before. Um sometimes the old ways are the best ways.
Speaker 1:I I I have a true appreciation for like the gr the people that have the spreadsheets, but the grams, the ounces, you know, that are true. I did that. And I have learned that at some point it just doesn't. And it's like, okay, just okay. It's an extra five pounds.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna do it though. Yeah, but what's funny is even if I had the spreadsheet and I was gonna do a big backpacking trip, guess what, bitch? Your legs aren't even gonna fucking handle that. Because you haven't been training, you've been researching, like you ain't doing you ain't been doing shit. I know it's are you trying to make this easier or what are we doing the adventure for? But to be easier, yeah.
Speaker 1:Um it this is kind of gonna be a an interesting story, but it I was at a wedding, uh one of the one of the guys that I was with, that uh all there was a couple of guys that got thrown together. None of us knew each other, but all their wives and girlfriends were in the wedding, and so we all, you know, we all kind of got put together, and it was a lake wedding. We had to get kegs down to the dock, and in this area, it was down in um Arkansas. Why can't I think of the name now? Table Rock. It was down table rock, and basically, no, you you don't go out to like lake level. There's always where all the docks are, it's all like a drop, a face drop, and you've got trails down to your dock, basically. Yeah, and you got we pulled them down the hill. We've got the side by sides, and we get them to the top, or we get to like the the the trailhead, and then we're like shit, how are we gonna get these kegs down there? And one of the guys we were with was is actually a Navy SEAL, and he just throws the thing on his back and he's like, I was just gonna hook it down there, yeah. And to and I was laughing because I'm like, it's so simplistic, but yeah, we all can absolutely handle this, and so yeah, we just like throw the keg on and go down. But you know, it's you spend so much time trying to figure out the efficient way when you've just you just missed the point. The point is like we gotta get down this down and set up, but if we're gonna sit here for a half an hour trying to figure out how to get it down, it could have been down already and we can move on to the next task, and so yeah, it's are there better ways? Yeah, but are we gonna repeat that? No, so just it's there's context, there's context to it. Now, if you're that guy that's gonna go spend 180 nights out in the wilderness, you might it might be worth it for you because you're just gonna beat the shit out of you, you know, every extra pound is gonna beat the shit out of you every day. Yeah, if you're doing but for us that are gonna be like, oh, we're gonna go out for 20 miles and back, it's like okay, this doesn't matter. This really doesn't matter. It's the people reg ry that I've seen I see oh yeah extremely heavy people on ten thousand dollar carbon, all carbon super light bikes. Yeah, and yeah, there's some ratios that get thrown around about like one human pound is like 10 bike pounds. I don't know what I believe, and I haven't done enough research to even understand the conceptualization of that, but it's still like, why don't you just go lose some weight? Same in the flying community, small general aviation. Everyone, you know, as I'm building the this this airplane, people are like, Oh, I can't believe you put that modification on your plane. You know, you just lost 20 pounds of your useful load. And the guy's like, Yeah, well, I'm 160 pounds and I don't fly with anyone, so I don't care because I still can't, I still have full fuel and I still can put my backpack with me in it and it won't matter. And he's like, Now, yes, will this airplane work for somebody else? No, who you got full family, you got a full family? Yeah, I just lost some valuable weight there, but yeah, we kind of get wrapped up. I get wrapped up in the tech so hard sometimes where I have to pull myself back. It's almost like uh Charlie in uh uh you know when he's going crazy and uh always sunny in Philadelphia, he's got the red line. Yeah, it's like that. You're just you know, you're going full.
Speaker 2:I got Pepe Silva everywhere.
Speaker 1:You know what? I went and checked. No Pepe Silva. No Pepe Silva. Yeah. It's so and then it it that article led into just the you know what, this this pair of boots that might be heavier than this new a new waterproof Hoka hiking boot. It's gonna last.
Speaker 2:It's gonna last a long time. I mean, I wear like the boots I've worn in here, those are over five years old. Still, still kicking it. The soles have now broken, uh, but I could have them resold, and I wear those every single day. Almost every single day. Now imagine a pair of hiking boots that you fucking don't wear every single day, and yeah, that realistically could last you a lifetime. If the leather's not gonna wear out, you might have to resole them once or twice in your life, depending on how many miles you put on them. But that's it. That's all you need. And I like that aspect of it. But he kind of ended with he he kind of lost a job and and went through some relationship things and ended up in a kind of a small little kind of mountain town, like an outdoorsy town. Yeah. And And he didn't have like money to fix his car and shit. And so one of his buddies in the town had an old like 1950s Schwin bike. And it was spray painted pink and had stickers on it and had a little coaster braid. It was heavy. It weighed uh weighed a lot, and it kind of went in the direction that you wanted it to go, and it usually wouldn't stop very well. And he goes, I I just wrote it. I rode it everywhere because I didn't have transportation. I just fucking rode it everywhere. And every everywhere is a hill, essentially, in this place. So I'm I'm just riding it up and down hills all the time. And he goes, cut to six months later, and people are asking me, Hey, uh, you've been working out a lot? Well, just puffing this fucking 50-pound bike everywhere. And because it's been around for 65 years, and I used it, and I gave it back to him, and hope you know it's gonna go to another somebody and get somebody else through sometimes. And and you know what? I actually got in really good shape by using something that wasn't super high tech.
Speaker 1:Uh so now I get the I get the article. So basically he was just through a really tired hard time in his life and in you know this old piece of gear. Yeah, I just I just did it. It worked.
Speaker 2:Did it work as amazing as everything else? No, but the benefits of it in the end out white outweighed what a bike a new bike should be able to do. If that makes sense. The transformation in him was bigger with a shitty old bike than it would have been if he would have had a brand new.
Speaker 1:I think this goes back to I well, I guess we could take it back to Zen if we're it's it's very relatable. It's value, you know. We talked about its values and quality. What do you define quality as? And I do I see a lot of this gear conversation, like you're saying, as it's no different than people wanting cheat codes for working out and oh, this biohack for this, or this hack's gonna make your life better for this. And it at the end of the day, just putting in the work is the hack. Like just do the work, it'll it'll all solve itself. And it will it be on your timeline? Probably not. And I think that's something that I struggle with on my own, is I'm a super impatient person, so it's just understanding that the journey, not the destination. The journey is what's gonna the journey is what's gonna get you to where you want to be. It's not the destination is a byproduct of the journey, but it that that'll come and go. The journey will always be there. And so to this point, do you want to go? Are you doing a through hike? You're doing a through hike. So do you you want to do it the easiest way? And I'm not saying through load your backpack up with 50, 60, 70 pounds of bricks, but or can you just go bricks are uh bricks?
Speaker 2:Don't do a lot for camping, yeah.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't recommend it, but just you know, like okay, you got a couple extra pounds, it's gonna make it a little harder, but you're gonna be really satisfied at the end of it all. Also, I'm saying don't don't don't not go and you know try to find some gear that's gonna make your life a little easier, but don't obsess about it, you know, to that point, which is don't let it get in the way of the actual thing. Yeah. And I think we use it now. The good stuff should last. It just should. Oh, dude, I've got some Nemo stuff, like and I as I talk about this, I've got some Nemo stuff out in my garage that will last me forever. Good stuff doesn't have to be heavy, it's not the lightest stuff though.
Speaker 2:But is the super light stuff as durable?
Speaker 1:See, I've I've gone always I've gone for comfort. So I got like the I've got the four-ply Nemo, like the really thick boy uh Nemo inflatable pad, and the wide body cruiser two. I got the wide and the thick because when I'm I love I love camping. I don't like when a root is up my ass when I'm sleeping. Yeah, and you know what? Like I feel so refreshed coming out of my tent every morning, and I'm willing to carry the extra half a pound or whatever it is because that's my luxury. Yeah, that's not every but then some people like they're like I know some people carry a handle of vodka. That's that is a must.
Speaker 2:That is a non-negotiable. I mean, it does get lighter, it does, you know. I would recommend plastic bottles, not glass. But it's better, yeah. That's just me, you know. But yeah, the the comfort thing too is if if you're gonna do this and you you don't want to be completely miserable, you you do actually want to enjoy your time. Yeah. So the I think there's a trade-off. Everybody, it everything's different, but in the sense that if we go looking for new shiny shit that's gonna be make everything easier, you kind of lose out on overcoming the challenge that is had by something that is uh maybe not as fantastic as you want.
Speaker 1:I think we also use analysis as an excuse for procrastination, which it's just a sexy way of saying I'm procrastinating. It doesn't it doesn't have the negative connotations, but it's I read I read an interesting quote earlier today. I don't know where I'm passing, but basically it was like you know, as you get older in life, you know the right decision, you're just choosing not to basically you've you got enough life experience at some point. Yeah, you don't need to analyze, you just need to make moves. And I think there is some truth to that.
Speaker 2:No, and usually if you're avoiding the move, it's I would say in some sense comfort related. Yeah. Maybe not physical, but mental or psychological, spiritual, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think that's part of that is my journey in the past few months, is realizing that even to starting to understand that you today was not you yesterday or you the day before, and it's shedding that previous version of yourself. It you're still you, but you're not you.
Speaker 2:Is this the whole like if I blink you don't exist?
Speaker 1:No, okay, no, no, I'm not going down that path.
Speaker 2:Can I try it?
Speaker 1:Do it. Fuck. Still here. Sorry, man.
Speaker 2:Damn it.
Speaker 1:I know. I do that to a lot of people. But it, I think, you know, you make big changes. You simulation is disappointing. You learn, you lose a part of yourself, you know, a former version. You know, you used to do these things, you don't do them anymore. That was still a fun part of your life, but they're not essential to the next part of your life.
Speaker 2:No. But they do form your life. They and that's it.
Speaker 1:That's it's an accumulation of things that got you to where you're at now. It does. We'll have to do this. I miss my routine a little bit, but I'm getting better about it now. I think that's probably the biggest miss in the past few months is like the routine. But that's that's more, and again, it's that's comfort. Um we like routine. But then I then I remember that I don't like routine, and it's kind of fun actually.
Speaker 2:Self-improvement is masturbation. Now self-destruction.
Speaker 1:Capitalization?
Speaker 2:No, that's fight club quote.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:I think a young male generation might need to go back and watch that. Um what values and licenses do they need to learn from that?
Speaker 1:Stay away from the cornflower blue ties. Of course. There is just that sense of simplicity.
Speaker 2:So as we sit here, we both have uh a go-ruck version near us. I've got three. Yeah, and so four. That always that always kind of brings me back down to a center. Yeah. And if you're feeling really out on the fucking fringes, just put a bunch of weight on it and put it on your back, and just walk for as long as you can, and you will come back different.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's just that simple. And can other things do that? Yes. But this is 13 years old already.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:This one.
Speaker 1:We're talking about backpacks right now for anyone that's rucksacks essentially. So if anybody's just a backpack, shameless plug for a go ruck, we don't make any money off. It's dude, it's the best backpack. I I can't I can't find a better one.
Speaker 2:I I'm sure for very specific things, but I don't know. It just works. It just fucking works. Yeah. It's always and it and it can be you know, I use I use the bigger one for traveling almost kind of exclusively. Like that's my suitcase now. Yeah. And I carry I went, I did Vietnam a month with uh with their, yeah. So was it the 42 liter? Is it something, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I that's a week. I can pack a week in that. And yeah, it makes you I've got the it makes you think about what you actually want to take.
Speaker 1:You gotta get you gotta get creative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not you're you can't be excessive with it, but it'll hold everything you need and keep it, you know, relatively sorted, and it can get super fucked up. Yeah, it's gonna be fine.
Speaker 1:I it'll work. Speaking of that, I went to so I did Vietnam for a month back when I was oh god, in my early 20s. Seems so long ago. It was a long time ago. I know. Um I did two pairs, two pairs of shorts, six pairs of socks. No, I had four pairs of socks, four pairs of underwear. Ooh, I went with two. I had two t-shirts, two long sleeve, like I brought two PFG, like long sleeve like fishing shirts, two short sleeve shirts, one pair of pants. Were they zip-offs? They were zip-offs. Were they? They were, they were actually zip-offs. So I haven't owned a pair of those in a while. So actually, actually, I think I only had one pair of shorts, one pair of swim trunks, and one pair of zip-offs. Can't remember. You know what, you know what was but I so I did that for a month, you know, on the motorcycle, riding to a new town every day, kind of just ad hoc in life. Yeah, which was again talk about simple. I don't think simple's good in the grand scheme of things either. I don't think there's I don't think you solve your problems running away and doing shit like this. I was in a good place in my life, and so it was just a fun adventure. Um, but uh I went to I had to go to when I got back, I was back in town for two or three days, and then I got back on a flight to London to go to like Ben's sister's wedding and I packed for five days. It's five days, and I had major suitcases, and it just was embarrassing because I went from having a backpack for a month to oh, we might be doing fancy dinner here, or we might be doing this, or we might be doing that. It's different, it's just different. I know, but it just it was silly, and in the grand scheme of things, it's like okay, well, you can wear your suit pants to the nice dinner without the suit jacket, and then you can wear your suit pants again. And so there's ways. The problem is, is I'm an extremely messy person, and I'm kind of like a bull in a china shop. So, like the chances of me ruining the clothes I'm in at any given point are very high. So when I had nice things to do, it's like I I gotta bring secondary and tertiary options. Me and Corbin have a saying, yeah, this is why we always wear work clothes. I like that saying, actually.
Speaker 2:He he drops everything, yeah. Literally everything that's in his hands ever is gonna fall out of them. Really? Just before I came over here, I was sitting at the table, having a snack, drinking a beer, and he we have the lock and lock containers, so the locks on all four sides. He goes, Oh, dad, I want some chicken. And I was like, Oh, I'll heat you up some chicken. He sets it right next to my beer and then proceeds to try to uh peel these things open, and in doing so, whank just smashes my beer over. He gone.
Speaker 1:Dude, he just excited to help out, man. Why? He's not thinking, I mean he's just why because he's excited, he's on the sp he's on the neurodivergent spirit.
Speaker 2:And then I and then I look at these kids and you yeah, these are why laws were invented because you would 100% have industrial accidents. You can't you can't work here at 10 or 11 years old. I mean, that's that's you killed everybody. There was a little bit more responsibility back then. They've yeah, they had to. Oh, yeah. Here, carry this molten lava. No, you you're just gonna swing it around like now you make it. You're gonna do some stupid TikTok dance, you're gonna hit a guy in the face with it and then drop it on the floor, it's gonna roll under your foot, and you're gonna step on it.
Speaker 1:Well, this is you and I've talked about it. I mean, I'm I'm coaching 11 and under flag football, and these kids are wearing eye watches and checking their checking their eye watches while we're in the middle of a play. What are they checking them for? That's what I'm wanting to know. I'm like, what are you what are you looking at? You can't wear watches. No, no, you let them wear watches? Not anymore. This was like the first two practices. Hey, bitch, check your heart rate. It's about to go up. Ready? Ready for that? I gotta tell you, I like I so I am coaching U11, uh uh flag football. And I text Brad one night and I said, We got a lot of talkers, we got a lot of kids that don't pay attention. You know, you've been coaching. What's your uh what's your advice? He goes, push-ups, can't talk when you're out of breath, and that's been awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just do something until they they can't breathe properly. Yeah, they'll shut up. Yeah, breathing will become more important than talking.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It doesn't have felt that yesterday and yesterday's game. I was like, uh, I need to just I need to conserve energy at all costs right now. Yeah, let's not talk that much.
Speaker 2:It's and we don't I I don't do that. I'm definitely not a we're gonna run, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. I I like to find ways to play hard to to get that going. And if you can do a good job at that, and I've been talking about this a lot recently for multiple reasons, but sports are fun. Like they're supposed to be fun. When we go out and play them as adults in rec leagues, that's why we do it because there's they're still fucking fun.
Speaker 1:There's good memory, there's nostalgia, there's yeah, there's a like you wouldn't do it if there wasn't a positive impact in your life on from an early age. Yes.
Speaker 2:No, so like yeah, you're like, well, yeah, well, you get some you get some cardio response. I was like, okay, but I could go do a whole bunch of things that would do that. I'm doing this because it's fun, it's funner than just going on a run by myself. Yep. There's something else to it, right? So what is the what is the big problem that's happening? The problem that's happening is that we as coaches can make shit not fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you can try to figure out how to teach a game or implement some sort of conditioning that feels fun while you're doing it, how do you balance the fun and the discipline?
Speaker 1:Because part of sports as well is not, you know, we talk about winning and losing, and at to an extent, it shouldn't be about winning and losing until you're older in life. And even and even then, it's you know. So I like I like to do a little thing I call lead tasso. Okay. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not not led. Not lead. Uh, but where do you uh where do you draw that line and in the balance where it's like, okay, we're having fun, but we're starting to lose the discipline? Because part of sports are learning that if some you know a coach is investing in you, a good coach is investing in you, and you should always if somebody's investing in you, you need to invest back to them, which means when they're talking, I'm paying attention, I'm kneeling. So, but so what are your parameters for you know, every I mean the kids are kids, they're rambunctious, you can't control everything. No, so how do you what where's your I have your I have my own continuum of the you know, where's your continuum?
Speaker 2:I have my own set of parameters, yeah. And it will change based on what sport and what level we're coaching. So if I'm if I'm coaching baseball, it's recreational, it's little league, it's we're you know, we're trying to develop, but also we don't ever practice, so it's kind of in the moment coaching styles and and trying to learn on the fly and things like that. So first thing is in baseball is safety. We have we have hardballs, hardballs and bats, yeah, and you got little kids and little cubs. Oh PS, there's a whole lot of time to sit around and do nothing. So all of those things.
Speaker 1:But did you die?
Speaker 2:See, that's you gotta keep kids from from dying, yeah. Essentially, I mean one one kid's practicing a swing, and three others are like, well, that's what I'm I'm thinking about.
Speaker 1:I saw more I saw more severe injuries growing up playing baseball than I did in football or basketball or any other sport. Yeah, it's the hard ball. And it was it's a hard ball and it's a lack of attention, it's a lack of attention, but even even when all things going perfect, I was pitching and I threw a high and inside curve ball on a kid, and he hit he swung at it, and it hit two or three inches above his hands, and that ball went straight into his face and it cut open his eyebrow. He ended up getting like 13 stitches in his eyebrow just because it hit it the exact right way it was spinning, yeah, and it just shot. And it's again, he's got the helmet on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's you know what helped that though? Like if he didn't swing it that it probably wasn't a strike. It was absolutely not destructive, yeah. So you just gotta do a better job at playing the game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, should have been coached better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I mean you can't go for that one.
Speaker 1:I think this is pony, yeah. This has been in pony. I didn't coach in little league. I didn't I didn't or sorry, I didn't pitch until I was in pony. So my coach was like, You're gonna pitch, and I was like, I don't want to pitch. I don't I like I like being out in center field or for I played first base center field. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it it it is all different in soccer. It is we we have a hard rule, and in my younger son's age right now, they're they're not they're not real compliant with it. They're not super compliant with it. It is we don't shoot on goal while the coach is here. Okay. If you get here before I'm here and you're shooting on goal, I can't do anything about it. Yep. If you want to stay after practice and I and and your parents are here and I'm leaving, I can't do anything about it. But more people get hit in the head when kids are you got three kids playing goalie in a big goal, and you got six kids shooting balls all at the same time and and all this kind of stuff. And I it was one time last year in Phoenix's group that I kind of lost it at one point. We had a kid that had a a severe concussion from a game, and then you have kids that are just walking around just bombing balls at practice, and he's not practicing because he has a concussion, but he's there. I'm like, if if this hits him in the head, he's done. He's never playing soccer again. Yeah, he's fucking out of sports forever. Like he has a hard time completing work and dealing with lights and shit like that, and you're out here just kicking a ball for no fucking reason. Yeah, it's not happening.
Speaker 1:They don't understand the consequences, the problem.
Speaker 2:They did that day.
Speaker 1:Well, that's good.
Speaker 2:So So basically you're saying you went you went led Tasso. Yeah. Okay. And so there are some things like that, but there's also a level of if you're not paying attention, we're just gonna you can run. Yeah. And if if it becomes a real team issue in cohesion, we're all gonna suffer together.
Speaker 1:So it's contextual, is what you're telling me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's contextual, but the the biggest reason that you have those issues is because you're not keeping kids engaged. And it is hard as a coach because there are times where we have to sit down and like talk about something, something that is very specific and technical.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And there needs to be a little bit of dialogue about that. That's hard. And then sometimes the drills are hard to gamify. It just is something that you kind of have to to do on repeat. Yep. Um, and I I try to not make that very often. So I in the in the last couple years, I have tried to I there's drills all over the place, and the drills that work the best and the kids like the most the gamification are they're they're gamification, and I want something that focuses on decision-making ability. All of the drills include some sort of skills that they're gonna use during the game, so they're gonna get repetition and get better at it. But using those skills as they're making a decision, especially in soccer, where it's all I can do whatever the fuck I want to do. I can't touch the ball with my hands. That's it. Keep the ball in play. I can do whatever else I want to do. I go forward, backwards, sideways, I can fucking kick the ball straight up the air, I can pass it backwards, I can shoot. You can't jump and throw the ball. You cannot jump and throw the ball. No, you can't. That's uh that's a hard and fast rule. Uh yeah, there's a couple other ones. But once you're in once you're in play, it's like it's all decisions. It's all decisions.
Speaker 1:So Yeah, that was very relevant to me yesterday when I was three on one. I was like, I don't know which guy I need to go to right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's and and there are ways that you can you can start figuring that out, and there's statistics and there's psychology. And I just watched a video the other day of like a Sunday league kind of guy, and he gets a ball kind of crossed, and it's heading towards the goal, and he's kind of stepping over it, and the goalie's waiting for him to just punt it across, right? Yeah, and he just keeps he literally just walks it in into the goal without touching it because the goalie is so sure that he's just gonna hit it sideways into the other side that he just keeps positioning himself this way, and he just keeps walking it and never touches it, just rolls right into the goal. That's awesome, and and people watch that and be like, Oh, that's really funny. I'm like, that's a psychology of this sport that you're so sure somebody's gonna do something, yeah. And then they never do it. And it's it's this little chess match that you can start having with people, and that becomes really fun. And some of my kids are learning that right now at 11. That's cool. That's gonna be fun to watch. Yeah, especially defensively, because uh you we've been working on this a lot, and you can definitely teach kids defensively certain things that will shut down players that are much, much better than them. Maybe not shut them down, but it takes away so many options that they're used to having that it'll change the game, right? And watching them do that, and then just these kids that are maybe they're used to being really good on the ball, or they have an amazing kick, or they're just kind of used to doing whatever they want to do, and then all of a sudden, we have two girls that play on our boys' team, and they are they shut kids down, dude. They're animals. I've watched them twice this year, and they're animals. One of them is our center mid, the other one plays outside all the time, sometimes defense, and to watch uh watch her go up against kids that are literally three to four times her size because she's one of them is really small, and it's just positioning. How do I use my body? How do you know it's it's kind of fun, and then it's it's almost more fun to watch them get so frustrated. Like yesterday we played a bigger aggressive team, and just straight out of the gate, you're like, this is not gonna go well for you guys. And so the first she was in the first 15 minutes, and it was head to head, like she was just bodying up to these guys that were-I mean, she's probably maybe 60 pounds, and some of these kids were big boys, yeah. Some of them probably weighed as much as me, some of the heavier ones, and and they were they weren't knocking her over, they were like they weren't knocking her off the ball. And she comes out and I was like, You're doing great. This is what I want you to do. I want you to lean into them more hard. They because it just us being in their presence, they want to lean on us, they want to extend their arms, they want to shove. I was like, We're strong enough that we're holding up against that. Go harder, they're gonna reciprocate, and then you're gonna start drawing fouls.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Because right now we're not, yep. And bam, just like that. Drawing fouls, yeah, drawing fouls, like just protecting the ball, like you can't get the ball. And they're just like shove you in the back. All right, now we get free kick.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And then there's a level of frustration. Yeah, and they start forcing stuff, yeah. And so we had that at practice the other day, too. Um our kids are playing, our own kids were scrimmaging, and they're playing hard. And Corbin started getting super frustrated. Like, I keep getting shut down by this guy. It's like, good, yeah, good, figure it out. Yeah, yeah, you gotta quit doing what you're doing and figure something else out. Because he's you're it's not you're doing a bad job, he's doing a good job defending you. Yep, you need to do a better job. That's how we get better.
Speaker 1:So that's a really hard thing to teach or to conceptualize with kids of that age as well, is you're not doing a bad job. They're just doing a really good job at their job, too. But teaching to your point is how you gotta learn to pivot now because you can't just do the one thing you're really good at.
Speaker 2:You gotta try to figure out another thing, or just or just trying to get across that frustration is good. Right? Like they don't want, they don't want to feel that. They want to feel, ah, I did it. Yeah, I'm good. It is it but the frustration is the growth. That's that's where you get better and learn new things. Yeah. And if you can make that more consistent, and they get no one's ever super comfortable in in being frustrated. No. But if you can be at least in a mindset where you know that it's going to do some good for you, you're more likely to stay there. It's telling you something. Yeah, if you can listen to it, yeah. Like, yeah, I'm not gonna just give up because uh we have not on my team, but I mean, you've seen kids where like Um I'm gonna go sit down. I it I'm not gonna do this.
Speaker 1:But two games ago, or the it was hard to watch because they were just the other team, only had seven kids. I don't know, is it seven? Yeah, it's seven on seven. The other team only had seven kids. We had a full like 12-man run, and they're like, Oh, they only have 12, or they only have seven. I'm like, Well, hey, we haven't even started the game yet, we don't know anything. And those seven kids ran so hard for the first 15 minutes of that game and they racked up a score on us. And I looked at the and then the ever the the team our team just shut down because they were so emotionally distraught. Yeah, they just didn't want to come back. And it's like, guys, we still have half this half and then a full half. Like, we gotta, we gotta it's it starts with one play and then it goes to two plays. Then it like, but if we can't string, if we can't even get one play, you know, it you you're you're already thinking about the end of the game. We gotta stop. We gotta we gotta reset. Yeah. And that's that one was the most interesting to me. That I've never I mean, obviously, in the professional world, I've seen people shut down like that, but it that one hit. I mean, that one really resonated with me of just watching an entire team going, I don't think we can do this.
Speaker 2:Dude, I've watched so many what people would call really talented athletes just shut down at the first sign of frustration. Yeah, and because they are talented, a lot of times they're kind of at the top of their team, or maybe somebody that the team looks up to or just watches, and you can just watch a whole team just fold, sink. Yep. And we don't have all of the best players like on our soccer team right now, but we also don't have really a single player that can get defeated and and just be like, yeah, I'm done.
Speaker 1:Most of them are like that's dangerous about having a team with a shining star, like one beacon. I I love playing those teams. Yeah, because if you shut down that beacon to your point, nobody else knows how to hold the space to be able to for the rest of the in. But if you're a team of like you're saying, where you're like, no, everyone. Just knows they have a part. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So one person's faltering a little bit. Well, one person's faltering a little bit, but the other people are still showing up for their part.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They're not being dragged down by it. They're not being and that's and that's where I'm at with this. Like, um, we have what do we have? Like 14, 15 kids on our team. We played nines. And at any given day, right now, like our our theme for the year was intensity. And so my coaching style starts going like this. You show up to practice in games, and you play with the highest level of intensity that you can for that day. And we will have a real AAR afterwards because you're putting forth a full effort. It's gonna look, and we talk about how it looks different on different days, and everybody's not gonna show up the same every single day. But what do we have?
Speaker 1:Check the box days of the gym and be like, today's not my day, but I'm here just to get through it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just gonna struggle through this one, it's gonna suck, and nothing's gonna be as good as normal.
Speaker 1:I'm just checking the box, but um but I'm gonna stay consistent.
Speaker 2:But I'm here, yep. And I'm I'm putting forth what my hundred percent is for the day. Yep. And if if you can do that, you will consistently raise your level of intensity. It goes it goes a long way towards conditioning and all other kinds of things. But it what it really does is it shows weaknesses. So as a coach, if I have nine players on the field and they are all going really hard, but we get slaughtered because nobody knew their positions. Okay, no, we need to work on positioning. Yep. All right, now you're going really hard and you're playing your positions pretty well. Okay, what's happening? Yeah, where are our gaps now? It's easy to see where that is. And you start working on those things, and then you start playing harder teams, and you keep doing the same thing. Okay, now we're playing a team that is better than us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you remove a variable that way, right? You know, you give me your you give me intensity every time, and now I I can remove the I can remove that variable from what needs to be deciphered from what's going on next time.
Speaker 2:And every team is different, too. So there was a game two weeks ago that you watched, and it was a team that we've already played like twice. We beat twice, and those are the dangerous games. Because you get complacent. Yeah, we've already done this. Kids are like, Yeah, we we can beat these guys by five goals. Okay, no. You need to beat them by let's not put a number on it, but you know you can beat them by 10. Yeah. Here's the caveat. By the end of the game, you should be dead. You should be super tired, you should feel like it was just a battle like no other. It's a grind. As if you won one to zero, right? Because that's the level of effort that it's gonna take for you to beat them 10 to 1. It's not just gonna come easy. Yeah, they're not just gonna roll over and let you score 10 goals. Yeah, you need to be able to see that I still have to play at this level to beat a team by this much. And it's not okay for me to roll back 50% and still win two to one because that's how you lose games. And the mentality is I need to go as hard as I can and do the best that I can for as long as I can, and that's how I keep getting better.
Speaker 1:And that's why I love coaching. Because hopefully that mindset bleeds into things.
Speaker 2:If I can do the best that I can for as long as I can, hopefully that bleeds into other things, and they they take some pride in whatever they do in their lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I and to it's kind of what I was talking about earlier, but also what I think you're kind of getting at too is it's it's the journey, not the destination. I think it's something that uh I've had to really kind of reframe a lot of my thinking because I've probably made a lot of decisions that have been based on well, someday I'll be able to, you know, someday I'll enjoy my happiness, someday I'll enjoy the things that I'm working for, someday, but right now I just need a grind. And it's or I need to work on this, and until I'm perfect at it, it you know, I I can't be proud of where I'm at. And it's just and I think going back to it, it's you love the season, you love the you love the sport, you love the and it's you don't just think about the end the last game you played it, uh you think about all of it took to get to where you were at the end, and it's all the memories made along the way.
Speaker 2:I think about the shifts. Like I notice the thing, some of the things that I remember are shifts both in individuals and teams, inflection points, game-wise, and they're not always wins, no, um, but they are points where somebody had a bit of a light bulb moment and started doing something different, or the team started doing something different, yeah. And it's a at this level from 9-10 to high school, there's so many changes that can happen in a sport where you plateau and then you you figure out a new skill, or you learn a new technique, or there's a new paradigm shift in what you're positioning and in your formations and your plays or whatever it is that happens.
Speaker 1:And as long as that keeps happening. That's that's the that's the real kicker, is like it. So we've been talking about how do you keep kids engaged and and things like that.
Speaker 2:I think something that m makes a good coach is honesty. That's it. Like there's nothing that says that you can't be honest with kids in a sport and suddenly that makes it not fun. Kid kids are kind of the ultimate bullshit detector, yeah, also. And yeah, they can siph bullshit better than most people. If you and even up into high school, like especially at high school, for instance, we played a game last year with Phoenix's team. It was in tournament, I think it was the only game that we lost. Uh, and they the first half just was flat. Like we just look like shit. Yep, you know. And at that time, I'm the head coach, and Kurt, who he played with yesterday, assistant coach, and I I'm used to being the assistant coach where I can kind of be like the you know, you need to pull your head out your fucking ass right now. You guys look like shit. As a head coach, you're like, it's tactical formation. We need to do this, we need to focus more on this passing. We need to work, we need to do this inside, outside. And then I, you know, I kind of gave my little two-minute halftime speech, and then everybody looks at Kurt. Kurt's like, that's the worst fucking game I've ever seen you guys fucking play in my fucking life. And he's not he's not much of that kind of talker ever. And those kids went out and just they still ended up losing the game, but they they came back and they played had a fire in their belly, yeah. Way different. I mean, that it was kind of like the it was too far to come from behind. But uh, I'm like, fuck if you guys just play like that all the time, this this is a cakewalk, you know. I go, was it really the halftime speech? And they're like, Yeah, we s we just liked how Kurt's that fuck so many times. Legit got jacked up, but it was great. Not not just that, but but the the fact that he was telling the truth, and one of them said, like, we all knew we were playing like shit, but and he and he told us that shit.
Speaker 1:I mean there's there's a little bit of that acknowledgement, and until and there's a little bit of ego there where we don't if we admit it, that means we're weak. Yeah, but okay, it's been addressed. We all play like shit. Yeah, um, so thank you for but it's it's also the pointing out the elephant.
Speaker 2:You guys played like shit and you don't play like shit. Yeah, you're not shit players, yeah. We but you're doing it right now.
Speaker 1:We acknowledged where we were, yeah, but we also acknowledge that there's talent and that there's there's capability, so yeah, go show us.
Speaker 2:And so you're not alone, we're here. There are those kinds of I I like those kinds of things too. Uh, there's a very specific moment in Phoenix's baseball when it was like nine or ten and we were in tournament, and then we only had one team. Like we didn't have all-star teams, we didn't have the numbers that we have now, and so the team that you had during regular season, that's who you took, and then you played all these all-star teams. Okay. So it tournaments always about pitching. You only have so many pitchers, so we only have one team, so many kids. And uh you you go into big games or big tournaments with best laid plans, and then the pretty somebody shits on them and easily say the first punch gets thrown, and then it all goes out the window. It was funny because I got to help this year with Corbin's tournament, and the coach is like, I got this, and we're gonna line this guy up, and we're gonna throw this many pictures, we're gonna do this. And I was like, That sounds awesome. I'm 100% on board. What happens when it sinks? Yeah, because it's gonna go down. Where's the secondary, tertiary? Yeah, you know, and and that's that's the other part I love about coaching, is like you gotta be flexible, you gotta roll with like these are fucking 10-year-olds, bro. You don't know what kind of day they're having. You think a 10-year-old is consistent? The only thing Corbin's consistent in is fucking dropping shit, dude. They they ate crunchy Cheetos today, they didn't have the puffs, it's that's just gonna really fuck with their day. It's different, but I I lined this kid up. I was like, okay, if if he can throw so many pitches, we can get through this, and then I can use this guy, and then if we win this game, I'll have Phoenix for the next game. And this kid came out and he just fucking fell apart immediately. Like, not I think it was an inning and a half out of like a six-inning game. Oh, yeah, and you have like four pitchers total. Yep. And it was just like, okay, if we if we keep down this road, there's no coming back. And so I went out and I it I had I had to put Phoenix in. I was like, dude, we gotta we gotta try to win this. And I put him up on the mound.
Speaker 1:I I think there was two outs, only the second inning. And I said, I know this is just a game, but I need you to throw as hard as you can throw, or as long as you can throw.
Speaker 2:Get us the fuck out of this inning. And then walked away. And he pitched like four and a half of the fucking best innings I had seen up until I coached another kid that was a year younger than him a couple years ago, and he was gonna start pitching for us. And I said, just remember this. When you're up there, it feels like a lot. It pitching is a lot. It is, you're you're the conductor, you're standing up above everybody, you're the conducting the game, everybody's watching you every single time. It's played off you.
Speaker 1:It the the it does not start until you start.
Speaker 2:But I said, remember this is that there are a bunch of 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 and 70-year-old people in the stands right now watching a 12-year-old throw a ball. Think about how fucking ridiculous that sounds. And he threw six straight innings of what I'd seen was the best pitching for for the duration in that, and just super calm and all the way, and I'm like, dude, those are that's what it's about. Like those moments right there, it's because that hit like something registered.
Speaker 1:But I think what you did is you instilled trust. You just yeah, and I and like you can go hard, but like don't have regrets. This is fucking stupid. But you didn't, but what you didn't say, like you didn't you said uh, you know, it's basically like we need you, or like you're this is we we need you, yeah. Like I want you to do a good job, but then you didn't end it with don't fuck it up, or you know, it's all riding on you. No, what you said is we need you, and this me giving you this ball is me trusting you to do this for us, and they rose to the occasion, which is super cool. I think a lot of people get wrong in leadership from coaching at that age, all the way up through you know, um professionals, you know, in the lighting of their career, is you give someone a responsibility, but then you have some like weird asterisk caveat at the end where you leave them with some statement that says, Yeah, I'm giving you this, but it but but now I don't trust you to do it right. Yeah, even though I'm asking you to do it.
Speaker 2:But don't fuck it up, but don't you're like just that you're all I was saying was you fuck it up.
Speaker 1:Nothing hurts, nothing hurts, yeah. But it's you yeah, instilling trust, and it's and I do try and you know what you're not breaking my trust if it doesn't happen, by the way, because you've obviously shown me something to this point, yeah, and it's the position we're in, so I think that's really cool.
Speaker 2:I think giving giving kids the the ability to be comfortable in taking chances.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you didn't you didn't give them an ultimatum at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:No, you're gonna have some some bad visual. Usually when people back off, it's because they're afraid of fucking up. Fuck yeah, you know, so if you take that fear away from them, and this is not just for kids, but I've got both but uh but it's especially in kids.
Speaker 1:I've got very talented engineers that work for me that are still afraid, like should they do all day long, like really talented at what they do, they'll still like if it's a bigger client, even though they do it for smaller clients all day long, they'll be like, should I do that? Yeah, why why is it different? Sure, they pay us a little bit more money and they're a little bit more high profile, but it's not it's not different. Yeah, like well, I just don't, you know, I know they're a sensitive client, I don't want to, and you're like, ignore that noise. That is nothing like that has nothing to do with it. It's doing the job at the end of the day, yeah.
Speaker 2:And and ultimately it's just mental, right? Like, why are champions champions all the time? Because they have this ability to play in the same way in a in a finals championship game that they do when they demolish another team in a regular season game. Yep, they can stay in that mindset, yeah, and not oh, what if the fuck up? Well, Tiger Woods.
Speaker 1:Tiger Woods will tell, and so that's Tiger Woods' biggest thing, and so he tells his son Charlie. But what what what's the most important shot? The next one. So sure, you shanked your five iron into the woods. Yeah. Okay, cool. That's done and over with. Now, yeah, move on. You still want to win? Now you got to go. Yeah, sure, you're gonna bogey that hole, but let's let's just move on from the fact that this hole's over, but you still gotta get it there. You still gotta get the ball in the hole, and then you still gotta go, you gotta go do the next hole. So the next shot is the most important because that's the what shot that's gonna dictate the next play.
Speaker 2:Was it Sergio Garcia? He's was he a golfer?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember watching him like when he first came on. Uh-huh. And Young Gun. Young gun and go big or go home. And a lot of times it it it ended up behind a fucking tree. Here's a little secret. I hate Sergio Garcia. I I don't know. I mean, I haven't fucking watched golf for I don't even know when he came on the scene.
Speaker 1:I mean, he wasn't too long after Tiger. Yeah, he's a little younger than Tiger.
Speaker 2:But I I just remember early on watching him like get into some bad shit. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hit this drive to the fucking moon, and you're like, or fucking three holes over, yep, and then literally just watch him like, hey, watch me save this shit and just hit his way out of those fucking worst situations.
Speaker 1:Those are the golfers I hate playing with the most, by the way, because it's the most frustrating. Yeah, if you're playing against them, and there's there's a couple professional golfers that if you play Sevi Balesteros, he was another Spaniard that played for the European Rider Cup team that always screwed with the Americans. Because to your point, he would hit a terrible shot, but he would scramble, get up and down, and he'd make a par on the hole. Yeah, and when the competitor would have already cast them aside, I mean, like, oh, they're out, they're out of this hole. No way. And then the emotional damage you do that player where it's like no matter how bad they hit it, they're still in it. Because even when you when you you if if the other player can't recover, you start feeding off, oh, they had a bad drive. I know I have this hole, so I need to stay consistent. But if you're like, even if they do it right or they do it wrong, they're still in it with me. What am I not doing right? So you start to question what you're doing, you start to force things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it's not enough. No, it's not enough.
Speaker 1:I hit my drive perfect, and we ended up equal. Exactly. What the fuck is that about? And that is, and that's what I think is so funny when people don't get off the T and this is just golf, but it's the same thing. It's like, make a mistake, but then correct it. And actually, you can go back to being better than you were before the mistake, and that's when the your opponent's gonna be like, shit, they still fuck up, yeah, and they still make it work. And like, what happened? And then and then doubt starts to creep in. It's like, why's if they get their shit together? I'm really screwed. That means I need to start pressing. And when you press, you make mistakes, and yeah, there's something about being able to recover, but it it's okay, it happened, moving on. Yeah, it's harder.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, it's easy to say here behind a microphone, but so obviously the the mentality part of it is just what I enjoy about it, and there's a lot of uh problems, hardships with that aspect of it, and dealing with kids and adolescents and and all of those kind of things. Yeah, and and trying to teach something that's skill related and hard to do and all of those kind of things. So but they're usually teams that uh seem to not do well are teams that uh feel threatened. That they don't have kind of the freedom to to do what they want to do in order to make mistakes and and and play how they want to play. Yeah, they play tight. I mean you play tight because you're afraid. Conservative, conservative, whatever. And that's not that's not where fucking greatness happens. No. I mean it's it's just uh basketball's a perfect example, all the greats. Give me the fucking ball. Just put it in my hands. And guess what? I don't care. Yeah, I don't care what it is.
Speaker 1:I might make it, I might not. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna take it.
Speaker 1:But I'm gonna take it. Yeah. And guess what? If I miss it, it's I'm still gonna want it the next time. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Again. Yeah. Fucking every time. Every time I win it. And if I miss it, I'm gonna try to do something to get it back. And that's just that's just the mentality. So um trying to build that into youth. And then my hope. I've sent you that pep, that pep uh TikTok or Instagram, right?
Speaker 1:Where he he's he's with um Man City and he got mad because somebody didn't take a shot on the goal. And he like grabs the ball, he throws it on the ground. He's like, I I cannot stand it. He's like, I cannot stand it. You train and you train. He goes, I you can miss the shot. You can miss the shot. I don't, but if you don't try, I cannot. You train, you train for this. Like take the shot. Like it is. Why do we not want the ball? Why do we not want to take the shot? And he goes, and it's true, it's and he's telling them, You guys have permission to fail. It's okay if you don't make it, but don't not take it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it it reminds me of the a couple of Super Bowls ago that when Travis Kelsey was yelling at the coach, yeah, when he came off, and everyone's like, Oh, so disrespectful, you talk to a coach that way. And it's I was like, Listen, a you don't know the relationship they have, B, a fucking top-notch player is gonna want the fucking ball if he thinks he can make a difference. Guess what? And guess what? They all want to make a difference. They do. I mean, and so that's the thing. It's like, no, any high-level athlete is gonna be like, put it in my hands, fucking give it to me. Yeah, I will make something happen. And it's yeah, that's uh I mean, I obviously soccer is kind of become my number one sport. It happens, it's just hard. It's a chess match. There's so much happening and it's non-stop. And until you kind of experience it in some manner, and the plane it gives you a totally different level of appreciation for it. You're like, ah, I'm sprinting, I'm sprinting, I'm sprinting, I'm sprinting, I'm sprinting, and now I gotta do something super technical on the ball, and my feet are like, fuck you, and your legs are like, I'm full of acid right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you too technical, I'm sprinting, and I'm also trying to think about the next three moves because I've got to get it to a guy, but then I've got to go somewhere else. And someone's trying to run into me at full speed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a chess match, and I need my ankles to keep playing this game.
Speaker 1:And this is what I talk to people about cycling is when if you on Netflix, if you watch the Twitter France Unchained, yeah, when you find out when you find out the tactics that they're playing in real time where they're trying to bait each other into racing, and it's just positioning and it's it's okay. We've got four guys over here, they've got six guys over here, they've got fresher legs, and we know they're gonna take the mountain section, but if we can hold on to the back of them, we can we know we're better down. And it's just a while they're riding at 35-40 miles per hour with their legs, your legs are just on fire.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the lactic acid is the lactic acid in cycling, is has gotta be unlike anything else.
Speaker 1:So the cycling's a lot like tennis, where the top there are two guys in cycling right now, and one guy, uh Teddy, is uh Roosevelt? No, uh Podiger, Podiger, I don't remember. Different the it and there's a different oh why can't I think of the Visma uh guy? He's won the Tour de France twice, Teddy's won it a couple times, but uh the difference between those two and everyone else is crazy. Are they the fastest sprinters? No, like they're not gonna they're not gonna win a sprint, like they don't have the they don't have the horsepower to get like up to like crazy planning speed. But if you want to talk about we're gonna go out for 130 miles and I'm just gonna drop you because I'm gonna be able to hold this for so long. Now, sure, if you're with me at the end, I'm not gonna be able to beat you to the finish line because you've got you know you're a sprinter, but by that time, the sprinter wouldn't have made it that far because the sprinter doesn't have that endurance, yeah. Or going straight up a hill where they're just like, we are gonna hold this, uh, we're gonna hold this wattage, and it is gonna be so uncomfortable, but I can hang out in this discomfort for an hour and I don't care. And it's like you see the pain in their eyes, but the difference, the difference between those two guys and the five guys that are trying to get their positions below them is like we're talking not just like one or two percent, like tens and twenties of percent better. And uh tennis is a lot of similar. There's like 10 people on either side, women's and men, that are just phenomenal tennis players, and then the difference between them and the rest of the field is just crazy different.
Speaker 2:And that that is a real testament to like just minute differences like in the physiology that can just it and don't I'm gonna liken this to mountain climbing because the people that are able to do like the 8,000 meter bulldoze about oxygen they legit process oxygen differently, they do better, they just more efficient. Their their body, their biological makeup is just better at it. Now, did they work super fucking hard to get where they're at? Yeah, they did, but genetics and hard genetics play a certain part into that. So, like with cycling, I'm assuming something has to be yeah, well, there's a whether that's mental or physical or something where it's like you are pushing the level that the guy three places below you are pushing, but your body just is fucking better. Yeah, oh it is.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's odds, there's obviously doping rumors and all that shit.
Speaker 2:So when people want to start arguing about, well, this isn't this isn't fair to this, but this isn't fair to this, and this isn't, and there's all kinds, you can make all different kinds of categories, and that's why there's all different levels of sports and shit like that. But it's like, yeah, but when you get to the very tippy top of any fucking sport, I got P. That's the whole deal. That's the whole deal. I don't want to pause it.
Speaker 1:Keep going then. Diatribe.
Speaker 2:Diatribe. So what you have is the very best of somebody based on genetics, upbringing, uh it can be training, who they trained with, uh the nutrition available to them, the place that they're born into. Like everybody is not dealt the same cards. And uh when you get to the very top of any sport, there's going to be uh situations that stand out. And all of those require pushing to a maximum level. But if you have this and this and this and this in line, you're gonna end up on the top. Now, there's probably also certain people, cyclists, for example, that have that genetic capability and they don't ever sit on a fucking bicycle. So they're never gonna reach that maximum potential. Maybe it's sitting there dormant, but it's but it's not gonna happen. Maybe there's people that process oxygen really, really efficiently, but they live in Kansas and they have no interest in mountain climbing. So is it a bit of luck? And this is what I was gonna get to earlier was just luck favors the prepared. It it does. So and and sometimes you're just thrown into luck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it it's to the cycling thing. There's um one of the one of the guys that's at the top. He's not one of those, you know, he's not one of the two, he's not um uh, but he's a top 10, top 15 guy. He was a professional soccer player, and then he just had crazy endurance, and then they got him on a bike, and he was like, Oh, okay, yeah, I can do this. And now he's which they probably bike a fair amount, anyways. Yeah, but he's like, Oh, okay, I I can be a world-class, I can be a world-class cyclist. So sometimes I think we get wrapped up into, and this is a hard, this is a hard dichotomy. There's a guy named Scott Galloway, he's professor at uh NYU. He's an NYU professor business. Uh used to be a finance guy, but he talks about how sometimes we put too much emphasis on our passions. And he is like, leverage your strengths. And I guarantee you, you'll find passion in your strengths because your strengths typically are what can make you money. And he goes, and people get passionate about money very quickly, and not saying like you need to give up your morals, your values, and other things, but really understand and iterate through different skill sets, iterate through different trials and iterate through you know the experiences you have and really think about like what was I actually good at in any of those? And is it something that I can actually kind of double down on? Yeah. Versus I really like I, you know, I I've seen this happen with people where they're like, I love this, but I don't have any formal training in it. And I was like, okay. And I've had my some employees come to me, like, I really want to learn this technology. I'm like, you so you want me to invest two years into you learning this while I lose you somewhere else. I'm like, not that I don't want you to enjoy that, but uh you're gonna still have to keep doing this because you're really good at this too. And you're gonna have to invest some of your own time in that if you want to start learning that technology, but it you can't you gotta you gotta kind of understand where you're at in life sometimes, too. And like I if you if it's not natural to you, understand that you can do it as a hobby, but as a profession, it's maybe not the best thing.
Speaker 2:True, yeah. Or if you're really good at something, monetize it.
Speaker 1:I eh. But have hobbies. I mean, Andre, I mean, Andre I didn't realize this, but Andre I guess he did not like tennis at all. He was a photographer, he hated tennis.
Speaker 2:No, he was just a spokesperson for canon. Oh yeah, yeah. Art was my real passion. Yeah, but he just was like good at it, and so yeah, sure, I'd do it. How about ending with uh this question? Yeah, let's do it. I'm not gonna expand on this. Okay, but I did in this writing. But this is the this is the question.
Speaker 1:What is lost in giving up? Are we just gonna leave the audience with this? What is lost in giving up?
Speaker 2:Think about something in your life going on right now. And if you gave up on it, what is lost?
Speaker 1:I like it. Alright. So Answers answers coming soon for nobody other than you and your your thoughts. Not you, the the audience, you, the collective you, not the collective we, meaning Brad and I.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not the wee we.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to Paris.
Speaker 2:Good to be back.
Speaker 3:You're still here. It's over. Go home. Go.
