F3 Podcast - Faith, Family, and Finance
A Gaddis Premier Wealth Advisors Podcast.
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F3 Podcast - Faith, Family, and Finance
Cody Maynard | Episode 11 | Finding balance in life as a husband, politician, and a father
What inspires someone to step into the challenging arena of politics, especially during a global pandemic? Join us for this riveting episode as Cody Maynard, Oklahoma State Representative for District 21, shares his transformative journey. Cody talks about the profound conversations with his wife and the introspective moments during the COVID-19 lockdown that led him to pursue public office. By overcoming initial hesitations and leveraging his background in accounting, Cody found the courage to run, driven by a vision to impact future generations positively.
Balancing the demands of legislative duties and family life is no small feat. Cody opens up about his strategies to ensure he remains present for his family, highlighting the importance of planning intentional family time. Our conversation delves into the rapid cultural shifts over the past two decades, tackling controversial topics like the role of religion in education and the influence of the transgender movement on parental rights. Through these discussions, Cody offers insights into preserving traditional values and the broader societal implications of these changes.
The episode takes a deeper look at the role of government and religious institutions in shaping moral values, particularly as parents navigate mature themes with their children. We reflect on core values such as integrity, personal responsibility, and the importance of lifelong learning, drawing inspiration from historical figures like Viktor Frankl. Cody shares personal anecdotes and family traditions that reinforce these values at home. Finally, we explore the complexities of national and state financial responsibilities, the implications of fiat currency and inflation, and the hard choices required for economic stability. This thought-provoking episode is packed with valuable insights that will leave you contemplating the future of our society.
One of the reasons I even ran was during COVID we did the whole lockdown thing. We're sitting out there with a lot of reflection time yeah, we're all at home and just had a moment of reflecting of, you know, my grandfather. He'd served in World War II. He had moved away by 2020. But I was just kind of you know, role playing in my head. I'm like what would he think if he were here right now? And I just thought he would be shocked. He, if he were here right now, and I just thought he would be shocked. He would be shocked at the state of our country. And it really gave me that moment of reflection.
Cody Maynard:As my kids are running around, I was like I wonder what it's going to be like when they have kids. Or again, when I'm died and passed away and it's 80 years down the road, what's the country going to look like? And I didn't like the images I had in my head. Honestly, how honestly, if, how I imagined our, if our country kept his current trajectory. It wasn't good, yeah, and so um, for me, I was like I can either bite the bullet and and do the hard thing right now, you know, or I can live. I can live out in comfort. You know, things probably won't be that bad by the for me, my kids or grandkids. I think things aren't going to look so good and it kind of came down to going I would rather pay the cost myself so that they don't have to.
Derek Hines:Hi. My name is Derek Hines. I'm the managing partner for Gaddis Premier Wealth Advisors and I'm very excited about our guest today. So today I have with us Cody Maynard, and he is a state representative for District 21 here in Oklahoma. Thanks for joining us, Cody.
Cody Maynard:Hey, pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
Derek Hines:Yeah, appreciate it. So this is your first podcast. How many podcasts have you?
Cody Maynard:done, this will be number two.
Derek Hines:Number two. Nice Well, I'm. I'm sad that we're not number one, sorry, is this the first video you've done? No, not the first, oh man, sorry. Strike two yeah, all right, let me. Let me get back to my notes here. Shift questions. Um so, Cody, if you wouldn't mind, just give us a little bit of your, like, personal background.
Cody Maynard:Yeah, so I mean basically, I moved into Oklahoma in 2010. So I was born and raised in Texas. I went to school at Abilene Christian University that's where I met my wife and then, shortly after I got my master's in accounting, we moved up to Durant and started our family here, and so my background is in accounting. As I said, I'm a CPA and then, after several years living in the community here, I made the crazy decision to go run for office. You can obviously tell that that worked out because I'm a state representative and you were successful. I was successful. But again, I don't recommend that on anybody unless you really feel called, because it is a long road and a lot of work. But I am very, very pleased to be able to serve my community this way.
Derek Hines:Yeah, so what, like what made you decide to run for office?
Cody Maynard:Oh man, that's a long story. We've got plenty of time. We've got time. You know, I would say it was probably a series of moments over a number of years. So I had just maybe a number five six years ago where I first kind of had that random thought pop in your head, you know, like maybe I should run for office someday, and you know that first thought, you know I was kind of like that's way out of my comfort zone, I'm not going to do that. Told my wife about it after I got the courage. That's probably the first mistake. Yeah, it was it that told my wife about it after I got the courage. That's probably the first mistake. Yeah, it was. It was the first mistake. Uh, cause her first thought was hey, I think you'd be great at that. I was like absolutely not.
Cody Maynard:But um, through, kind of just praying about it. You know, the weird thing was had that thought and um had a sense of peace about it, but through praying about it. You know we just had our first kid. So I have three kids now, so 11 year old, nine year old and seven. But at the time I think I had just one child at that time and so kind of put it on the back burner, you know, really praying through it, like I think I am called to do that someday, but that may be 10 plus years out in the future. So, yeah, we kind of put it on the shelf years out in the future. So, yeah, we kind of put it on the shelf and so uh, kind of roll forward number of years later. Uh, in Oklahoma, cause if you have listeners outside Oklahoma, we have term limits. So in Oklahoma our state representative hit his 12 year mark, so he was term limited out.
Cody Maynard:Uh, one of my friends called me up and she asked if I would consider running, which my first response was absolutely not. Yeah, wasn't in my current plan. Like still in my head. That was 10 years plus. I was thinking maybe when my kids are out of high school, college, then I would consider that. And even in my head it wasn't at a state level necessarily, it was just office of some kind, maybe, maybe local, something like that.
Cody Maynard:But she asked me if I would pray about it, which is, you know, my second dangerous mistake is like, sure, yeah, I'll pray about it. That's kind of the thing you say sometimes just to get them like I'll, I'm not going to do it, um, but through about six weeks of prayer, uh, me and my wife really had to take it to the Lord, cause it was a the hard part for me. The thing that kept me from being able to say yes was realizing that I would be moved away really for about four months of the year. Uh, in Oklahoma city, which is, I mean, for Durant, is a good two and a half hour drive, so I'd live up there, you know, four, four or five days out of the week.
Cody Maynard:Uh, and I knew that'd be hard on my kids, so I had, you know, a five-year-old was my youngest at that time and, uh, that was a hard decision. I even talked through it with with my oldest, who was nine, you know, old enough to kind of understand what it's like. And, uh, one of those really sweet moments as a, as a father, but also really hard was seeing my son actually take that really seriously to the point of like one. You know it's always before bed when they talk to you Of course.
Derek Hines:Yeah, everything happens right before bed.
Cody Maynard:As emotions are high, he said Dad, I really don't want you to leave, but I know you're supposed to do.
Derek Hines:Yeah.
Cody Maynard:And so he knew the sacrifice even at the time. And those were those very special moments where you kind of watch your kids have to process sacrifice, and it has been. I'll tell you, it's been hard every time when we step into session and I I go to the Capitol. It is not an easy process on the kids yeah, it usually they get used to it. About the time I have to come back, yeah, but that's kind of been a little bit of just the process of how I got into office. Obviously there's a lot more detail behind all of that, but that's the high level version.
Derek Hines:Yeah, so so tell me more about your kids. I know we have, you know our. Our sons are the same age, so Yep, so my, my oldest, aslan.
Cody Maynard:He's 11. He's about to go into seventh grade, which is a huge step. I don't even think I'm ready for that. I only have a few more years with him at home. Yeah. Then my, my daughter, aurora. She is nine and she loves being nine, so she's having a good time swimming. And then my youngest son, Anakin. He is seven and he is counting down the months to turn in. Yeah, let me know how close his birthday is every single month. But yeah, yeah, there there are tons of fun. You know, we just did soccer together. Our kids had soccer for the summer, so that was Anakin's first.
Derek Hines:Yeah, you're signed up again. Have you signed up yet? Okay, so, soccer, soccer, signups are coming.
Cody Maynard:Yeah, we did do, we did do soccer camp. Yeah, uh, that was a another big jump for him to camp, but uh, did you guys do the one in Duran, or did you drive to?
Derek Hines:We drove to. Okay, so did we.
Cody Maynard:So, but it was really great. He had a good time, got his custom shirts. It felt super cool. Yeah yeah, he's liking soccer.
Derek Hines:Yeah, did I tell you. So, Jesse, you know, Jesse hurt his foot. Did I tell you this? You didn't tell me that.
Cody Maynard:I did see him at church, though.
Derek Hines:He was on crutches, so he's just like. I mean, you understand, you have a almost eight year old boy and they're just, they're out of control. I mean there's no like, there's no governor, no speed limit, and he was playing and a you know like a table or something fell over on his foot and you know he was. He was starting to process the fact that his foot was hurt and he wasn't going to get to play soccer and he was like but daddy, this is my kicking foot. I'm like well, son, maybe you should learn how to kick with both feet. But yeah, he's, yeah. Needless to say, they're excited about soccer season. Not the kick, yeah, not the kicking foot, oh man. So what are some of the ways like? What are some of the ways like, what are some of the things that you have done to, I guess, mitigate that impact or prioritize family while you're in session?
Cody Maynard:Yeah, so I mean some of the things while you're in session, it's I just try to do my very that when I'm home. I'm home, yeah, I can't do that perfectly, but uh, for me, yeah, I can't do that perfectly, but for me that's where, when I'm in session, I usually I'm I'm working and reading bills from 7 am to 10 pm when I go to bed. That way when I get home I can be present. In the summers we schedule family vacations. I've even already got it blocked out of my calendar, like I just block out sometimes, like this is a family day, nothing gets scheduled on. Yeah, so I try to put multiples of those calendar so that we can be intentional to make sure that we have family time, because one of the reasons.
Cody Maynard:I ran was for my family. Yeah, yes, I know I didn't talk about this earlier, but one of the reasons I even ran was during COVID, we did the whole lock down thing. We're sitting out there with a lot of reflection time. Yeah, we're all at home and just had a moment of reflecting of, you know, my grandfather. He'd served in World War II, he had moved away by 2020, but I was just kind of, you know, my grandfather, he'd served in World War II, he had moved away by 2020, but I was just kind of, you know, role-playing in my head. I'm like what would he think if he were here right now? And I just thought he would be shocked. He would be shocked at the state of our country. And it really gave me that moment of reflection.
Cody Maynard:As my kids are running around, I was like I wonder what it's going to be like when they have kids. Or again, if I, when I'm died and passed away and it's 80 years down the road, what's? What's the country going to look like? Yeah, and I didn't like the images I had in my head. You know, honestly, if how I imagined our, if our country kept his current trajectory, it wasn't good. Yeah, and so um for me. I was like I can either bite the bullet and and do the hard thing right now, you know, or I can live, I can live out in comfort. You know, things probably won't be that bad by the for me.
Derek Hines:Yeah.
Cody Maynard:My kids are grandkids, I think things aren't going to look so good and uh. It kind of came down to going I would rather pay the cost myself so that they don't have to, uh, or or so that they don't have as much of a cost to pay. I think no generation gets away without having to pay a price for your personal freedoms and your liberty. But if you put it off, that leaves one generation having to pay all of it on their own. Yeah, I didn't want that to be on my watch. I wanted to go to the end of my life and say I did what I could to give them the best chance possible.
Derek Hines:Yeah, that's good. Yeah, those are. Those are difficult thoughts. I mean it's really hard to be that. You know that, uh, to get that perspective, you know to think about what would you know our grandparents or grandparents think about our current culture, and what are we doing to impact and influence that culture?
Cody Maynard:Yeah, Well, and it's just, things have changed so rapidly. You know, even in just I'm 38, so just for perspective, 20 years. You know, I got out of high school at 18.
Cody Maynard:high school and 18 um the changes we've seen in our culture just in 20 years, I don't think any of us would have even imagined, yeah, could be possible when we were in high school or when we were kids, and the pace at which we are losing traditional moral, that country is really kind of astounding.
Cody Maynard:You know, right now, and and I'll just kind of bring a little uh current events in so in oklahoma our superintendent of education has issued some rule that he wants, uh, the bible, not religion taught in schools, but the history, the role of the bible in our country brought back into our curriculum, which that really shouldn't be a controversial issue Like.
Cody Maynard:If you go look at, you know, the Mayflower Compact, you're going to see Christianity and God talked about in that document. If you go look at our founding fathers, if you look at the quotes that are not edited, they very frequently talk about the impact of God, religion or, as George Washington would often say, divine providence. The providence was at work, and so our country is full of history of how the religion of our founders impacted them and drove them even to fight for their liberties, and so the fact that this is a controversial topic to bring up in our country or state kind of astounds me, to be honest. I bring that up to say, just in 20 years a lot has changed, and if you rolled back 60 years, nobody would blink an eye at it.
Derek Hines:Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the other like cultural hot topics or or cultural issues that you see on the on the horizon?
Cody Maynard:I mean obviously. I mean a hot topic one is is as the transgender movement or LGBTQ plus? Um, we just had a recent ruling come out of California where they passed a law that that schools don't need to inform parents anymore If kids are are struggling or are making gender transition decisions, which is a huge affront to parental rights, because parents need to know that kind of stuff. But I would say that's one of the other main hot topics besides religion right now is the transgender movement and how do we navigate that as a culture? How do we navigate that as a culture? So I mean, again, I'm watching.
Cody Maynard:There are areas in Oklahoma where we're seeing, again, you're still having drag queen shows with little children in it, which to me, drag queen or not, we would never have allowed a child be present in front of any kind of show that would have sexual display in it. Yeah, you know, just that alone is groundbreaking. Yeah, much less you know us saying it's acceptable to bring kids to that kind of stuff. So we need to protect the hearts of our kids from just overt sexuality. And that's what I kind of see is, um, I'm having that conversations with my seven-year-old that I never thought I would have to have at that age. Yeah, the the age of discussion is having to meet back from when we were kids and, I'm sure, from when our parents were kids. Um, having to to have that conversation earlier and earlier, and they're not able to process that. They don't fully understand. Yeah, and and that to me is a big struggle.
Derek Hines:Yeah, I mean, if you think about, I think about the communities I grew up in very small community, you know, 5,000 people, Northern Oklahoma. I can't even remember when I was first exposed to that thought. If I was to guess, it was probably college.
Cody Maynard:Yeah.
Derek Hines:So late early 20s.
Cody Maynard:Yeah.
Derek Hines:And our children are having to process this at seven, oh yeah.
Cody Maynard:I mean we're asking a ton of, in a sense of, I mean even the thought of, like you know, pick your gender, like at five, it's like, yeah, what I want for lunch today, much less any, and so, anyway, that's a very hard conversation to have with kids. So I just I bring that up in the sense of our culture is in a very progressive place, very, we're moving away from traditional values and that, to me, we're watching, if you look at polling numbers, the decline of Christianity and just, I would say, organized religion at large, not just Christian.
Derek Hines:Yeah.
Cody Maynard:Other religions also have very stringent set of moral codes and moral standards. We're just watching those be abandoned. Yeah, so the impact that's going to have on the future generations, I think, is it's going to be a myth.
Derek Hines:Yeah, so what do you think I mean? What is the role of government in helping us navigate this?
Cody Maynard:Well, I don't know that that is government's proper role. Okay, to be honest, really, with our kind of government, now, other governments across the world can't speak.
Derek Hines:When you say our kind of government, you are specifically speaking of like United States government.
Cody Maynard:United States? Yep, we don't have a democracy. We have a constitutional republic which has a form of democracy, yes, but a pure democracy. Right is just 50 plus one percent, whatever they vote. That's what happens, uh. And I republic, you elect a representative, and what those representatives vote is what happens. So it puts a little bit of distance, I would say, between pure democracy, uh, and what I would say a representative form of democracy yeah, um, but so so it makes.
Derek Hines:So let's, let's talk about this real quick. So so it. It differentiates, differentiates between the two. Um, but what is? What is the strength in our form of government? Why do we have constitutional republic?
Cody Maynard:yeah. So the strength in it number one is it's hard. Like our government is set up to be hard to change. Yeah, that's on purpose. Now, that can frustrate many of us. It frustrates me some. However, our founders were very, very smart. They studied the different governments that had taken place in the world and they came up with a new form right what they called a constitutional republic. Up with a new form right what they called a constitutional republic, and so in that form it's hard to change, which is actually very, very helpful because it insulates us a little bit from just the whims of new fads that come up in culture that our government should be stable, and that's one of the things it does provide.
Cody Maynard:The other thing that you'll see in a pure democracy is people learn very, very quickly that they can vote for themselves to have benefit, and so I'll just use minimum wage as an example. Most average people are like, hey, would I like to be paid more, of course. Well, if a vote's going to come up to get me paid more, the answer is always yes. I mean you know from working in the finance industry. Yeah, if you do that, there's ramifications, and that means every business has higher cost. Now they have to charge more and what ends up happening is inflation goes up. There's a a whole cascading effect. So very similar scale.
Cody Maynard:You can vote for yourself. Well, for fair benefits, so anything you can vote for yourself. A benefit, a benefits, so anything you can vote for yourself. A benefit, a pure democracy. People figure out very, very quickly. They can do it. Yep, in a constitutional republic, in a republican form of government, you have a little bit of distance, where you have people representing not just their constituents but also making sure is the government viable, is it going to be sustainable? And so it sometimes gets people voted out of office. But I would say the flip side is you do have that a little bit of a check and balance for you get to weigh out those decisions and not just have. If I get a benefit, I'm voting yeah.
Derek Hines:Yeah, yeah, so, so, yeah, that fantastic answer. So how do we? So? It's not necessarily the role of government to help our children navigate these issues, but how do we help our children?
Cody Maynard:navigate these issues. That's a great question and that's, to me, is the role of what I would say. I'm a Christian, that's the role of the church? Yes, there is. And if you're not a christian, if you're listening to this, then that's the role of your own religion. Right? But uh, the government was not set up to be the moral arbiter. Yeah, the people.
Cody Maynard:And now it doesn't mean I've heard a lot of people talk about. They'll say, well, you can't legislate morality. I understand the heart of what they're saying. I can't pass a law and change someone's heart. A hundred percent agree, can't do that.
Cody Maynard:However, every law we pass up there is based on someone's set of right and wrong. You know we have a law that says you can't murder. Why? Because generally we as a population agree that is not that's wrong, that's wrong Right. So we have a law. So that is a form of legislating morality. So I tell everybody, like someone's morality will be legislated, you just need to decide who.
Cody Maynard:Again, a law passed can't change someone's heart, but we will put in place laws that reflect our beliefs, and that's why I think it's very important that you understand, when you elect somebody to represent you, that you know what they believe and what they stand for, because when they go cast votes, they will vote based upon their set of values and beliefs, unless they're just a disingenuous person. Again, coming back to whose role is it ultimately? It's the role of parent when it comes to teaching kids moral. That is a father and mother's role and job and it is their primary responsibility, nobody else's. The state does not raise your kids. The state does pay for education, but that does not abdicate a parent's personal responsibility to raise their kid.
Derek Hines:Yeah, that's good. So what are some of the things that you and your wife do to be intentional about how you're raising your children?
Cody Maynard:Yeah, so I mean, obviously for us we have regular rhythms of going to church every single week. That's a hugely important just rhythm of being in church. For me it comes down to you know, it's just little things you can do that it just builds in a culture and habits that, like when we drive to school, the kids know as soon as we pull on to the street, off the driveway, it's prayer time, and so each one of them will pray over our day. Same thing when we come home as soon as we leave, it's time to pray. On the way home, when we go to bed, it's prayer time, you know. So it's just having some rhythms in place like that.
Cody Maynard:You know my kids don't always like it, but when they do something wrong I usually bring up the Bible verse and if they really push back, it's like well, you get to write the Bible verse out, Congratulations, Congratulations. You can transcribe it. Yeah, so I mean you can do different things like that just to even ingrain those things. But they will come back to your memory when you're an adult, like you will remember those sayings that your parents yes those things that you were told over and over.
Cody Maynard:I have them run through my own head frequently. You know you most people have heard, you know, can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, right, uh, the golden rule, you know treat others how you want to be treated. So usually I just say the first half. It's like if you can't, you know, or if you have nothing nice to say, I just leave it blank and they'll fill it in. I'm like, all right, yeah, should you have said what you just said. So it's just constant coaching, constant training, and then I would say, putting in rhythm.
Cody Maynard:Yeah, kids need to learn that they're not the center of the world, that's right Sometimes. And my, they're not the center of the world, that's right. Uh, sometimes and my kid said it this week I don't want to go to church. Guess what? I don't want to go to church this morning either. I'm tired. But we're going to do it, yes, and so you have to. We have to be trained that our emotions, our feelings don't get to run our day, even though that does that feel nice sometimes. Yeah, but if you don't let principles guide you and guide decisions, you'll get pulled all over the place by every change that happens in life.
Derek Hines:Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I was thinking, oh man, I think when we get to a certain place, my son just knows that's where the seatbelt comes off. We should probably be more intentional about that. Yeah, what are some of the guiding principles that you have to? Just you know, manage your day-to-day, manage your life, manage your family.
Cody Maynard:Yeah, man, I wish I could say I'm super consistent with it. I'm not always. Yeah, many guiding principles, though. For me is often, if I have to sit down and just ask what Jesus were here, how would he behave in this moment? Yeah, because often I find myself not behaving how I think he would. So that's a good heart check of just you know. I had that conversation with my kids just just the other day of you know they're having a fight, like okay, let's just pause. You know I had that conversation with my kids just the other day of you know they're having a fight Like, okay, let's just pause. You know, if Jesus was in the room, what do you think he would say to your brother or your sister?
Derek Hines:Yeah, would he have pinched him Would he have punched him?
Cody Maynard:Would that have happened? Probably not. So that's always a good guiding check. Another thing is just we kind of have some family core values laid out. Is just, we kind of have some family core values we laid out. So ours I'll just lay them out here was responsibility, so that we're going to be a people that we take personal responsibility for what goes on in our life. So, yes, there's outside forces that can happen, but we get to choose how to respond and so I'm responsible for the outcomes in my life.
Cody Maynard:Integrity is a big core value for us. We're going to do the right thing, even when nobody's watching and when no one will know. So, personal integrity we always strive to be learners. So just because you know something doesn't mean you know everything. Yeah, so always be ready to learn, to be quick to research and to be curious. You know, curiosity really is extremely important, that it keeps you flexible, where you don't just think I know everything about somebody. It's like I'm curious, ask them questions.
Cody Maynard:And then the last one is enjoyment. So you have to keep everything in balance. Some people live just for fun and enjoyment. That's why in our family we put that at the end of you know, get your stuff, your work, done first, but don't forget that God made you to enjoy life. You know you're not here as a robot, You're not here just as a worker. You're here to enjoy everything that God created. And so we make intentional time, you know, to make sure that we are enjoying nature. We're enjoying uh, you know family friends, that we take time to do that as well. So those are just some of the high level big principles we kind of lay out there to help guide what we do and how we yeah, how did you, how did you come up with those?
Cody Maynard:Uh, it was a a pretty good a couple of hours sit down session with me and my wife or we. We were just like you know what we need to lay, lay down kind of what, what are our family rules like, what are those unspoken things that we tend to? You know, whether you say like you might get onto somebody if they violated, or when you get upset, why'd you get upset? Like what, what value do you hold that they got violated? And so we kind of use some of those questions of like okay, when, when something bothers you, why did it bother? Yeah, and we kind of landed on these four things of like well, maybe, uh, somebody wasn't taking personal responsibility or it showed a lack of integrity, they lied or whatever, and so we kind of use those things, the those questions, to help find some of those values.
Cody Maynard:But it was hard to get down to four. My goal with my wife was like we don't need to have five or less. Yeah, like can we? You know we had a bunch, we had a whole page twin. You know we started grouping and consolidating like these two really go together. Uh, so that was kind of the main process of really trying to get down to those so that we could also tell our kids. But that was the other thing is trying to make it simple so our kids understand, like the, the reason that bothers us. It violates a family value of ours.
Cody Maynard:You know we're going to be people who are, who are learners. We're going to be people who are, have integrity. We're going to be people who are have integrity. We're going to be personally responsible. You know our kids love to complain. You know they get in trouble. It's like no, my sister did it, like, but what are you responsible for? And always bring it back to that, because there's a lot of stuff that can happen in life that you have no control over, and I never discount that. But that's a very victim mentality. Of course I live from that perspective. I want my kids to be empowered. They can always ask the question yes, that happened, but what can I? What am I responsible for, what can I have influence over? And then you're responsible to do that.
Derek Hines:Yeah, have you ever read, uh, Viktor Frankl's man's search for meaning?
Cody Maynard:Yeah, that was a. That was a hard read. It's a, it's a very emotional read and just being faced with the darkness of humanity of where, where can like, how evil can humans really get? And I mean he saw it. But that book, I have read through it and I think one of the one of the quotes I may not quote it perfectly from it, but he basically said that the best of us never came back out the trend for those concentration camps because they were the ones who gave up their food forever. So for him his perspective is like a lot of the people that have the best characters, never Shabbat, yeah, uh, because they did. They took care of others first and that was just anyway that I did a holocaust museum tour recently in dc and that was also hard, just to go to go see, see it and you know, see the look at the videos of the stuff that happened.
Derek Hines:So yeah, I just got through reading, uh, I think it's the, the killing of general patent, okay, and a nominal book, but again, very, very it's the same. You know world war two, same era, and you know, in the end of the book they they get into kind of some of the things that were going on in in Nazi Germany and the um, just the atrocities that were put on those people, and it's it's difficult to read, like it's hard to understand that society and even some of the things we're talking about today, like degradation of society, degradation of culture, and you know a lot of these things they, they happen. You know I love the, the core value.
Derek Hines:You guys are learners, you know, because a lot of these things they they start with a thought yeah or an idea right, and then that thought or idea takes root, and then it it manifests in our culture.
Cody Maynard:Yeah, and that's where we need to be aware of our own thoughts and, honestly, a lot of us today aren't deep thinkers. Well, I mean we. We think we're the smartest generation because of how much information we have accessed yeah but information and intelligence are not the same thing.
Cody Maynard:It's not enough. I'll just tell you. You know, I've taken a little bit of a journey of just reading through some of the writings of the founding fathers of our country since being elected and I have come to the conclusion that not a single person I know that's elected in office is anywhere near as smart as any of them were. Their depth of thought was just off the charts. Yeah, when I look around at our just you know culture today, we think we know a lot, but we really don't have depth of thought.
Cody Maynard:That's right and a lot of things go.
Derek Hines:Yeah, we have access to so much information, but we have no depth of understanding.
Cody Maynard:It's almost too much information. I agree it's like information overload. When we go to schools now, you're taught on such a wide breadth of subjects that you really don't become an expert in anything. And some people do, they'll go down master's and doctorate and they really do dive into it. But I would say by and large we don't have a lot of depths, we have just a lot of breadth of knowledge. Yeah, and even at that, that's only those that choose to apply themselves. Uh, there's a lot of people out there that I watch youtube videos. If people get asked questions, you know, if I cut a pizza in eight slices or 12, which one has more, the answer is neither and I watched them say the pizza with 12 and that just alarms me yeah but yeah that that's a whole other conversation I'll, uh so.
Derek Hines:So Friday night at my house is pizza night, okay, right. So we, you know, we have rhythms and things we've put in in place as well to try to, you know, influence the culture of our home, and Friday night it's pizza and a movie. Yep, so every Friday night, you know, we, my kids, don't get pizza. I mean, they're going to. There's going to be a small revolt in my house.
Cody Maynard:We have donut, okay. So Saturday morning is donut day, so I almost never miss. You know I get up early and go. We I can usually get one of my kids to get up and go. We go to the donut shop pick out donuts, so we we kick off Saturday. It's not a healthy habit but it is, you know, for the enjoyment factor. Of course it's a donut.
Derek Hines:Yeah, yeah, I love the exercise that you and your wife did, very similar to Carol and I. Uh, there was a there's a thing called the uh legato legacy and listen to a podcast and this guy was. He was basically talking about um, I forget the guy's name, his name was not legato, I don't know how they got to the to the legato name but very successful businessman, but he I forget what his core value was that led him to uh, to do this. But they lived in like the slums, like a very poor part of the of their community, and his children had no idea that they had money. Oh, wow. And his friends approached him and said hey, I don't know if you know this, but this will not end well, like you just hiding this. Oh, entitlement he did not want his kids to be entitled, and so they didn't know he had any money. Wow, and what he did was the Legato legacy was sort of the manifestation of how he decided to teach his children how to be successful human beings, and so they put certain things in place, milestones, and one of them was you know, it's great to be eight day.
Derek Hines:And so you mentioned the conversations that you have with your children. You know we have those conversations at eight. You know, jesse just turned eight and so we took him out and we talked about all the stuff. Yeah Right, sort of the law of firsts. Uh, you know, open the door for all of the adult conversations because you know we want to be seen as the experts on that. We don't want YouTube or a cultural influencer, you know, to be the to be the uh expert. When my son is curious about something yeah, whatever that might be. My son is curious about something yeah, whatever that might be Um, so go ahead.
Cody Maynard:And so you mentioned, you know, trying to teach her how to protect your kids from having an entitlement mentality. Yeah, so that's been one of those. I'd say it's a longstanding conversation. Me and my wife have even in in self-evaluation, right, because you know we're, I would say, in the United States. We are the most blessed country in the world. Even many of our people who are at our poverty line or below are still much better off than a good one to two billion people. Yeah, you know, when we talk about people in poverty, they still live in a home, they have a, they have running water, they have, you know, electricity, and that's not the case in many areas of the world still.
Cody Maynard:So it's always a point of reflection, of going, even in America, when we, when we think we have it bad, we still have it a lot better than a lot of people. Yeah, we still have it a lot better than a lot of people, yeah. And so how do we not lose sight of being blessed, even if, you know, maybe our life doesn't look like we would dream it to look like? But to take time to be thankful, yes, and to have gratitude for the things that you do have, yes Now. So I don't know, I'll just even kick it over to you, cause you were just mentioning through some of that. How just even kick it over to you, because you were just mentioning through some of that? How do you work through teaching your kids to be thankful and to not live entitled?
Derek Hines:yeah. So gratitude is our first core value, and that's something my wife and I have talked a lot about is how do we? Because our children, you know, I mean our children have never known poverty and thank God for that, right, they've never known poverty, but that means they have no perspective for what poverty is, and so can they be truly grateful if they don't understand what poverty is. And so my, my wife and I have decided we, um, you know so, carol and Joanna just got back from Honduras, yeah, and I believe it's through experiences like that that they gain perspective, right, and that they're not entitled, because it's not. You know, whenever we, you know, my wife and I, we didn't, you know, we, we've been very blessed, we, we work hard, um, but we have a perspective that our children don't have Right, we've been very blessed, we work hard, but we have a perspective that our children don't have Right. And so, naturally, we want to impose our perspective on them. It's like, well, you ungrateful little, well, they truly cannot be grateful because they don't have perspective. They truly cannot be grateful because they don't have perspective. And so I think the way we try to expose them to that as children are things like the mission trip, so going to Honduras, getting to serve in an orphanage, getting to build with orphans that have been abandoned, and you know, I know even in the orphanage they're they're talking about bringing in like psychologists and really trying to help with, uh, you know people that struggle with abandonment, that have been abandoned, and you know I've had the opportunity to go, I've been to LA several times and, uh, served on Skid Row and you know, really gotten to know people that are in that, in that situation, and for me, you know that that really gives me perspective and we also have to be I think we also have to be honest and humble in the fact that you know we are only one or two decisions away from any one of those situations. And I think you know, to your core value of responsibility. I mean that's us teaching our children like, look you, you make bad decisions and then other people are going to make decisions for you. Right, and that's where our legal system comes in. And ultimately it is a oh man, my wife and I, we also, you know, as you, as you raise children together, you really start to learn about how your wife was raised or how you were raised in perspective to them.
Derek Hines:And I remember the first time like one of our kids got, I mean, a minor infraction at school and I laughed. I said, well, carol, this isn't that big of a deal, we'll just have a conversation. And you would have thought, oh man, that was a. So both of my wife's parents were teachers and so there was no freedom in school. I mean, her parents are teachers, so everybody knows who she is. And I remember sort of popping off at well, like I got suspended from school several times and I kid you not, if I had told her that before we'd gotten married, I don't know if we would've gotten married. I mean, my, my wife's thought, like her trajectory is like suspension, juvie, like you get suspended. The next stop is, you know, you're a convicted felon, that's right, you're a convicted felon. And I'm like Carol, it's like it's going to be okay. So we got a bad letter sent home. We'll work on it.
Cody Maynard:Well, I can appreciate her perspective though. Yes, because too many teachers don't have parents back them up.
Derek Hines:Oh, yeah, well, yeah, well, that's a whole nother topic. Yeah, we, you know, I mean my parents were. I mean I specifically remember having a conversation with the principal Okay, do whatever you want to to me, but don't call my dad Like, let's, let's leave this. Let's, this is between you and me, right, because at home it was worse, that's right and that and that's how it should be, absolutely.
Cody Maynard:I think it's even fun talking to some cops and police officers in call towns. They'll be like you know, like 40 years ago I didn't have to send them to jail. I just said I'm going to call your dad. They'd be like please take yeah, take me to jail. I'll talk to my dad in the morning so I just it's funny the role that father. I say funny the role that fathers can play, yes, you know, in a kid's life, and I don't want to minimize anything that oh no but, uh, there is something that a father brings to the table that that is very, very needed, I agree.
Cody Maynard:So, anyway, just that perspective, I I do appreciate. Just don't call dad as much as you will, that's right yeah, yeah.
Derek Hines:Well, man, just this, just the importance. I know, you know it's. You know I'm trying to think of the best way to say this, because both mothers and fathers are equally important, right, right? So there's not a sense of inferiority or superiority in either role. However, the roles are different.
Cody Maynard:Oh, absolutely. I mean, from my perspective, is you need a kid raised in a two-parent home and with a father and a mother. Anytime you're raised without one, that parent has to do double duty to try to bring in what the other would have provided. And again, I will broadly stereotype, but males and females are different and there are things you will learn from a father that you won't learn from a mother and vice versa, and you need both. I mean you really do to to raise well-balanced children that have perspective. You need both, I agree.
Derek Hines:Yeah I, I in no way can I nurture my children Like no I.
Cody Maynard:I can't do it. I'm with you as well. I can try. But they know like, if they want to, if they want to want a hug and a cuddle, they're going to go to mom. That's right, not that I'm not there and available. I come over, I give a hug and it's like I'll lay my head on your shoulder and then I'm going to walk off and go see mom. Yes, again, she just provides the level of comfort that on my best day, as hard as I try, I can't. That's right.
Derek Hines:That's right, but at bedtime, when someone's got to draw some hard lines, that's my job.
Cody Maynard:Yeah, and that's okay. You know that's part of the role um is to teach him the good work, ethic, responsibility, self-control. I feel like part of my job as a father is to teach at least my boys self-control, because you know, to be honest, I'll just do a little biology. Yeah, testosterone is an aggression hormone. Yes, it causes aggressive behavior. That is why males are predominantly the perpetrators of violent crime and, like, my role is to teach my, my sons, as they go through puberty. You're going to develop like you're going to have anger feelings, you're going to have aggression. My job is to teach you how to control. Yes, that way you're there to protect, not to harm. Yeah, and like, you have to harness that in you. I mean you, you got boys you know. Like you got to teach him to harness I. You have to do that with yourself. Got boys you know. Like you got to teach them to harness I. You have to do that with yourself.
Derek Hines:Yeah, adults, yes, you'll have to work through of like I have to harness that and direct it in a proper avenue, proper yeah, yeah, Jordan Peterson has so much good stuff on that, on just how to you know, mainly stuff around masculinity and but self-control is is vital yeah, I'll just and I'm going to dive into um, just something going on in my head that I've been really thinking about lately is the role of really not avoiding pain in our life.
Cody Maynard:So pain avoidance is one of the I would. Again, I don't have a stat on it, but just from observation it's probably a leading indicator for future hardship in our life. So let's take, for instance, we'll use finances because we're you know, yes, it's easier to go take out a credit card and go buy that niche than it is to put it off and save up and wait until you have the money. There's a there's an amount of pain you endure when you don't get the thing you want right, so that delayed gratification. You have to endure small amounts of pain that I don't get what I want. However, if I go out and buy it on the credit card, I'm I'm gonna pay the principal and interest later it's actually going to grow. There will be more pain if I, if you will, that you're going to experience later when you have that bill. Yep, you paid it up front.
Cody Maynard:Same thing with working out. You're going to go through small amounts of pain every time you work out, but if you do that consistently through your life, you will be in better shape as you age and you won't experience a lot of the pain that you would have if you did not take care of your body. Yes, and so there's just those things of avoiding pain, even interpersonal relationships. If I avoid having a hard conversation with you because it's going to be uncomfortable, I might upset you. You know, whatever it might be. Those problems we put off grow, and so I really just been diving through that. You know those moments where I avoid something that would be painful. Yeah, I put it off and it it it's alone. At that point, right, it's going to grow with interest and this is how we destroy relationships. This is how we destroy our country. Like, I'll bring it back to a political space.
Derek Hines:Yeah.
Cody Maynard:We have a a rapidly mounting federal debt that if you look at it on the chart, it goes, you know, sideways it's growing a little bit and it goes vertical. We're now at the point where we're counting trillions. Somebody's got to pay that bill. It will come due. And there's going to be a generation one of our generations is going to have to make the choice to bite the bullet and we're going to have to stop the spending and it's going to hurt.
Cody Maynard:Yeah, Like, we're going to have to go through hard times where we can't just print more dollars, yep. And so to me again. I want to teach my kids that when you avoid painful things like you know working out whatever you like, be like it come due at some point and pay it up front, you'll be healthier, you'll live longer, you'll be happier, you'll have healthy relationships, yeah, so, anyways, it's just one of those things I've been musing over lately. Yeah, of like, we're all going to go through pain, but I do get to choose. Maybe when I experience some of it. You know there's some certain things that happen to you that's out of your control. There's a lot in our control that we just avoid. Yeah, we need to tackle yeah, man, the national debt.
Derek Hines:Well, we may. Maybe we'll come back to that, maybe we won't. Um, are you familiar with, uh, the book there's no such thing as dragons? No, I think it's called, I think it's by, I think mark hint, uh, that I'm by, maybe totally off on the uh, but the book is for sure, there's no such thing as dragons. Uh, Jordan Peterson and I'll send you a link to it Does a wonderful talk and it's like old school.
Derek Hines:You know, he's got like the transparency slide, you know, slide deck projector. And so the whole premise of the book is this boy. So it's a children's book, okay, and it's like, it's like that thick. But yeah, and this boy wakes up and he goes downstairs and he goes up and he's getting dressed and there's a dragon in his room, a little dragon, like a cute little baby dragon, and he goes down and he tells his mother.
Derek Hines:He says, mom, there's a dragon in my room. And she says don't be silly, there's no such thing as dragons, thing as dragons. And so he goes back up to his room and, uh, you know, the dragon walks up and he, he, he petted the dragon to start with, but now he ignores it because of course there's no such thing as a dragon, and so why would you pet something that that wasn't really there? And so, as they ignore the dragon, the dragon grows, and you know, soon enough the dragon is so big it takes up the whole hallway, and so the mom, to clean the house, has to go through the living room and out the window to clean the house because the dragon is getting larger, and then the dragon basically is as big as the whole house.
Cody Maynard:Yep.
Derek Hines:And the dragon runs away with the house, follows a bread truck down the road and the father comes home and the house is not there. And so he finally finds the house and he says he says, what are you guys doing? And he's like there's a, there's a dragon. And the mom says there's no such thing as dragons. And he's like, well, of course there's a dragon.
Derek Hines:And once they acknowledge the dragon you, and once they acknowledge the dragon, you know, once they uh, you know, do the painful thing, the dragon starts to shrink. And the dragon gets smaller and smaller and smaller until it's a manageable size. Yes, but you know how many? How many homes do you know that have dragons in them? Yeah, have dragons in them. You know families that aren't willing to have the hard conversation or, you know, discipline their children because that's what's going to be best for them in the long run. And what happens is, I mean, obviously the dragon is is a metaphor, you know, for other things. You know the things that we ignore and avoid, don't want to address, and those things, like you said, they grow and they take a life of their own and sometimes they carry your house away and I can hear my wife's voice in my head saying bring balance to this.
Cody Maynard:So here's my balance is that when you tackle problems, you have to do it from a perspective of love, oh, of course. So if you need to have a hard conversation with somebody, it needs to be for their benefit, yes, not just to make you better. Uh, so I mean any of that kind of stuff. Yeah, do things out of a perspective for others and love, and you'll you'll do well if you do that.
Derek Hines:Yeah, have you ever? There's another book, um, the stories we tell ourselves sounds well, it's familiar, because it's that that whole, that phrase has been in our culture, and when I say culture, I mean you know, like our church culture, um, it's been in our culture for a long time. But you know, we were, we were in a meeting months and months ago and you know, someone kept saying that I'm like, where, like, where do you get that language? And there was, there was no good answer for it. So I, we would just, if we would be honest and we would understand, hey, I have this internal dialogue. It might be true and it might not be true, yeah, but that for me, that has really given me language to go to some other person in love and say, hey, I just this is the situation and this is the story I'm telling myself, right, is this true or is this not true? And most of the time it's not true, that's right, right, so we have all these, all these biases in our history that we bring into these relationships.
Cody Maynard:Baggage is probably a good term for it, but yeah, we just have these stories we tell ourselves and yeah, and that's one of the reasons it's so important that you stay curious and stay as a learner, because a lot of times we tell ourselves a story. Let's say, I'm driving in traffic and somebody cuts me off. I assume they're such a jerk there, you know, whatever they may be pregnant and trying to get to the hospital. Yeah, who knows what's going on in that other car? Yeah, but we have to stay curious and we have to go. You know, there could be other possibilities that I might need to learn about here. Yeah, and if you can approach people like that, you'll often find that sometimes these hard conversations aren't so hard because you tell somebody the story you had. Going on like this is what I saw happen and it made me think this is that what's going on, and often they'll be like not at all. Sometimes they'll be shocked that you thought that.
Derek Hines:Yes.
Cody Maynard:Like I'm sorry if I even gave you that impression. Yes, and so oftentimes those conversations deescalate very easily when you don't approach them with certainty to say I can't believe you cut me off, You're such a jerk. Yeah, Instead of approaching them from well, we're pulling in you. You zipped in front of me really close and you almost hit my car. What was going on? You know that. Yeah, it's okay, or y'all tried to rush somewhere. What's happening?
Derek Hines:So anyways, anyways, yeah, have you ever I'm sure you've watched the, the this is water? Yeah, Richard Wallace Foster, yeah, very, very similar thought.
Cody Maynard:Yeah.
Derek Hines:And that is, you know, the. You know someone cuts you off in traffic, maybe, you know, maybe they have a loved one that just got to the ER and they're trying to, you know, get to the ER. But you know, we think, well, that person is trying to kill me.
Cody Maynard:Well, probably not it's because we're the center of our own, exactly, and I I have to tell this to my kids all the time. I'm like you are not the center of the world, like there's other people around you, and make sure that you don't just think about you. And I have to, as I tell them that because I have to give myself that speech. All yes, I mean, I work in politics now and so if I'm trying to get something done, it's really easy to get upset at people for decisions they made and I just step back and go. You know what they have. They have constituents of their own and other people that they may be voting that way for that reason, yeah, and it's not about, it's not about me, and so you just have to take a broader perspective.
Derek Hines:Remember there's other people around and it works best if you put God in the center of the cultural issues that we're facing. If you have a conversation from that perspective, it tends to not escalate. If you really are curious as to how other people think, why they think the things they think, that's also giving people the benefit of the doubt. They're not, you know, just trying to destroy things. Now, some people maybe that is their objective. But you know, coming at it from the perspective of a, of a learner, or being curious, you know I really think I mean people, people do things for a reason. I mean it's, it's family history or background. Um, you know, and and us too, right, but you know, at some point you know even your core value of responsibility, like we have to take responsibility for ourselves, who we are and what we're doing.
Cody Maynard:Yeah, and one of the things I always just I think I've learned, maybe through life I don't know where I got it, but to always remember is that nobody does something that they think is wrong, intentional, really, when you, when you have behaviors, they come out of some value system in you that thinks that what I'm doing is the best thing I could be doing. Now. It's easy to judge other people when they do choices you wouldn't make. Yeah, but that's always trying to tell my kids, even though how can they do that? Like, remember they don't think that they're wrong, that's right. Trying to tell my kids, even though, well, how can they do that? Like, remember they don't think that they're wrong, that's right and you shouldn't approach it with certainty that you're right.
Cody Maynard:And I mean, I have conversations with people that we have vastly different political opinions. We have vastly different opinions on how policy should be done, should be done. But to me it's always like I'm great to have sit down, let's have a conversation, because you have a perspective and you have that perspective for a reason. There's life history. There's many, many reasons that people have different views than you. And, again, stay curious and don't assume they're a bad person. This is.
Cody Maynard:I think this is one of the things infecting our country so much right now, with red versus blue, democrat republican I mean, recently somebody tried to assassinate, you know, a presidential candidate with trump. You can't get to that spot without a certain level of hatred and a certain level of just dislike for somebody with a different. That's right. And you just have to remember, like there are people too. They have a whole life history that they came from, that formed how they think, yep, and don't write them off for it. You know, have a conversation and my favorite thing is when we can have vastly different opinions and still be friends. Yeah, you know, and that it's gonna to be hard to do, like it can be a hard thing to do, but I have people. I don't agree with that. We've learned to appreciate each other as people, yeah, and so like we just know, like we're not going to see eye to eye on this one, that's okay.
Derek Hines:Yeah.
Cody Maynard:Like we can still go do something funny.
Derek Hines:Yeah, yeah, that's good, oh, man. So this whole idea of, like, fiduciary responsibility, um, like I shouldn't disclaim that from a compliance perspective, but maybe fiduciary, yeah, fiduciary responsibility, I mean you mentioned the, the, the other growing. You know national debt. I mean, my gosh, we you know when we, you know we teach a lot on. You know personal financial responsibility on. You know personal financial responsibility. You know doing things that are smart and not just completely stupid or destructive. But yeah, it's like as a country and with we don't have the money we shouldn't be spending it yeah so is there any?
Derek Hines:is there any path forward to start to develop? You know a sense of that from the federal level, or the state level even.
Cody Maynard:Yeah, I would say. My personal opinion is that at this point I don't think there's any easy path. No, past easy.
Derek Hines:Yeah, most people, most people can't even comprehend what a trillion is.
Cody Maynard:No, I mean, I'm aware of what it is, but when you try to put it in physical items, it blows your brain.
Derek Hines:Yeah, I think. I just I wish I could remember the exact stats. I just did this. I spoke on a Wednesday night and if you take like $1 bills and line them up, I think you get to the sun like seven and a half or 17 and a half times with a trillion.
Cody Maynard:And you can't even fathom how far it really is. No, your brain really doesn't comprehend. No, it's too large of a number, yeah. So at this point, I don't think there's an easy path. Any choice we make, it is going to be a hard road and it's going to be a painful road. We have to be willing to pay that road, though, as a country, if we want to stay viable.
Cody Maynard:If you look at history, when you look at graphs like the one we have going right now, sadly in history often it's either the failure of the currency that happens or the failure of the country. Something drastic happened. You can't keep that pace up forever. So I mean, I would say at this point, we're going to have to either do something to boost the economy and and and flatten spending. Right, You've got to get revenue above expenses. That's it really is. It's simple math, but it's a hard position to get to. We've got to either hold the budget flat and get our income up, or we're going to have to cut the budget, which, from my perspective, federally, there's a whole lot of things in the federal government that doesn't even need to be there. That's right. Yes, the Department of Education. I'm talking about the federal one, not the state. The Federal Department of Education is not one of the powers left to Congress that should not exist.
Derek Hines:Yeah.
Cody Maynard:That is left to the states and the states alone. Yeah, so there's a lot of stuff that the federal government's holding that is not their responsibility to hold. They need to get rid of it and then let the states we're closer to the people we get to make those choices. Yes, we'll do a better job of it. Yeah, so I think we need to cut a lot of the federal programs and we need to re-empower the states to make those hard choices. But in Oklahoma, we have to have a balanced budget. Yeah, so it's a different perspective from the federal one, but I'll let you in on some insider baseball.
Cody Maynard:Okay, so every state that has to have a balanced budget gets to do it with federal fund, right? So when you think this through, we get to you know. Let's take education. I'm on the education budget committee so we appropriate you know roughly half-ish of what our schools use. Then about 30% of it comes from local funds that they'll get from property taxes, and then about 20% of their budget is coming from federal dollars. That's a balanced budget. If we had to cut off the federal spending of education, there goes 20% of the budget. Now the state's got to come up with it.
Cody Maynard:However, you cut back the federal taxes and let those taxes be done at the state level. And here's the thing People are responsive at the state level. If we try to raise taxes, people have the option to vote them in, but they get to live with the consequence of maybe you don't get a new road or a new bridge or school, and so that's my perspective is, ultimately we need to get it out of the federal government. Have them do what they're supposed to. They're supposed to take care of the national welfare with you know. Let's take the army, you know the military branches to have national defense. Let them do what they're supposed to do. Give the rest back to the state. Get the taxing back at the state level, where you and I get to vote on if we're going to support that tax or not and then re-balance. But on balanced budgets yes, the state has to have a balanced budget, but we get a lot of federal dollars, as does every single state.
Derek Hines:Yeah Well, I would much rather pay tax at the state level than the federal level.
Cody Maynard:Oh, I would too, because you know me as a state representative. I represent about 40,000 people. That's a lot more feasible. If you want to reach out to me, I mean, and I actually I call people back. Like, how often do you get your federal center to call you back? That's not going to happen, maybe ever, unless you're a very important person. Yeah, um, like, I call people back. So when it comes to if, if there's a tax policy coming up and somebody reaches out to me, they actually have the chance to talk with me and hear with me, so I'm with you. I'd much rather have it at a more local level where we can have input.
Derek Hines:Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the things you're working on at the state level? Well, maybe not like all of them, we probably don't have time for that, but what are just some of the primary things that you're focused on this?
Cody Maynard:coming session. So one of the, I'm in the process right now of doing two interim studies. One of them is to look at setting up a gold and silver bullion reserve in Oklahoma and make it transactional. And that's the big piece. It's not just about having a depository A private business could do that but right now the federal constitution, article 1, section 10, it says that gold and silver are left as legal tender to the states. Okay, so that's a right every state has at this moment. So what we can do is you can use gold and silver to transact business if you wanted to. However, it's really really hard, right If I were to come in here and bring you like an ounce of gold.
Derek Hines:I could do nothing with that.
Cody Maynard:What are you going to do with it? Nothing. You can't go spend it, you can't buy coffee with it. So what we can do is you set up a depository at the state level. You can either buy gold through the depository and go online and say I want to buy a thousand dollars of gold, bring your own, whatever. Uh, put it there so they, they will hold physical gold. This is not a paper market, it's physical gold being held. Do you get a certificate or something? You'll have an account with them, right, but they will have. They would have annual audits. They'll they'll. You know, you have the state auditor who would audit them. You'd also have the gold bars that be inspected and evaluated, of course. So that'll all be done.
Cody Maynard:But now you've got physical gold being held, so this is a real object there. And then you get a debit card, essentially so you can have MasterCard back at Visa card. And so you go to Starbucks and you swipe your card, buy your coffee or whatever. They deduct it from your account balance. So whenever you're ready, if you want, you could go up there and say hey, I want to cash out, you could ask for cash, or you could say I want to take physical delivery of gold in an equivalent amount.
Cody Maynard:So what you would essentially do is you make gold and silver transactional, you bring it back where it's usable again and then in America right now I shouldn't say America in the United States there's about 850 billion or so of gold that we know of in the United States. So you effectively make that amount of capital be usable for transactions. So if I wanted to now buy a piece of land, I could do so. Yeah, it's extremely hard at this point you have to go find somebody who will accept gold, gold, exchange it. So what this would essentially do is it would unlock a again.
Derek Hines:No, longer fiat, but a gold backed, if you will, currency. It's really not gold-backed currency. Gold is the currency, right? Yeah, yeah, no, and you mentioned so you use the term fiat, which I'm familiar with, but can you unpack that just real briefly?
Cody Maynard:Yeah, so fiat currency is. Literally, it is a piece of paper suggested by a government that they're saying this is on our good faith is like an iog. That's really. All it is is saying we certify that this is worth something, whatever that happens to be and I'll give a really quick history. So in the united states we used to have gold-backed currency A little. You know everybody. If you do remember, fort Knox is where we kept gold In.
Cody Maynard:I think it's 1974, it's either 71 or 74, president Nixon took us off the gold stand. Yep, when he did that, we officially became a pure fiat currency, where there was nothing backing it, which is why your government can print an unlimited number of dollars when they want to Yep, and that's what happened in 2020. You saw, when everybody got checks in the mail, those were government printed dollars. So, essentially, the beauty of something like gold is you can't print more of it. Yep, you can go find it, but it's expensive, do well, and it is hard to mine and get it attract down into a that's right, a gold bar. So, uh, essentially we're taking it back. Our founding fathers did not like paper currency. They really had lived through fiat currency. Yeah, if you look at history, states would issue it and they would go bankrupt. They'd fail. You know all these bad things happen, so if you've ever heard the fact phrase, it's not worth a continental, that was a paper dollar back then.
Cody Maynard:So anyways, that's my small tidbit.
Derek Hines:I love the whole riff on fiat currency. I mean, we could talk about that forever, Fiat currency. You know the creation of the Fed? Have you ever heard a book called Debt by David Graeber? No, yeah, so there's a book called Debt. Actually, I thought we might get into something like that. David Graeber was an anthropologist, Okay, and so he actually studied the creation of currency from I don't know. I'm going to say, is it anthropological? I don't know.
Derek Hines:Maybe Sounds good From the perspective of an anthropologist. He studied the creation of currency and, don't know, maybe a Sounds good From the perspective of an anthropologist. He studied the creation of currency and you know Econ 101, right, you're taught that currency is created to what Well it's to transact business.
Cody Maynard:That's right.
Derek Hines:Medium of exchange. That's right. Well, from an anthropological, we have to correct that out. That's probably not the right way to say it. From that perspective, history does not support that Period. But what history does support is the creation of currency for the taxation of the citizens, for the expansion of a kingdom. That's interesting, yeah, so kingdoms would create currency so they could tax their citizens and go to war and expand their kingdom. So if you look at history, that's what history supports.
Cody Maynard:Yeah, and I would say, over history, what do we see? What we tend to come back to is gold and silver. Yes, 5,000 years of history consistently is gold and silver will be the remaining item that has been used to transact business, and you know. One of the things is that you know when we had we use the term inflation and a lot of people are becoming more familiar with it.
Cody Maynard:Yes, yeah, especially the last couple of years, yeah, especially the last couple of years it's been harsh watching prices go up and I've always been rephrasing this with people like man. I can't believe the price of that went up. I'm like I think your dollar went down.
Derek Hines:That's right, and the price of your dollar went down.
Cody Maynard:That egg is still worth what an egg was worth your dollar's not worth as much, that's right. The reason I hate inflation so much is because inflation is theft. What happens is, if I have worked my whole life, let's say I stashed up $1 million and I've got it there for me, that's right, and to give to my kids. They have a legacy. When the government prints dollars, they currently they tend to distribute it through banks, that's right. And it goes to businesses, corporations. Guess who doesn't get those dollars? Who Me? That's right. So my $1 million just lost purchasing power, that's right. Yep, and so I have essentially been stolen. Yes, the one thing that you probably heard is you know, power will corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Derek Hines:Yes.
Cody Maynard:When we have fiat currency human nature we cannot apparently resist at some point printing extra dollars to get us what we want.
Cody Maynard:That's right, and so the reason I like something like gold or silver because we remove the temptation. There's a limited amount of it. It's limited, yes, and so if you have stashed your wealth somewhere like that, the government can't redistribute that unless they literally steal it, which that has happened before. But inflation is theft and we need to protect our people from it. And so I'll just kind of wrap up with she says 2020, and I'm going to just round up yeah, you've had 25 to 30% inflation, depending on where you live, and different things of that nature.
Cody Maynard:If you had held that your wealth in gold, you would have seen your wealth go up around 40 to 50%. So, on one side, you lost a good chunk of purchasing power. On the other side, you actually gained buying ability, and so the government, though it printed dollars, it could not devalue the people who held gold, and so I haven't been a huge like gold bug or gold fan my whole life. People they'll hear me talk about this and think I must be a gold bug. I'm not. Yeah, what I am for is for sound monetary principles.
Derek Hines:Yes.
Cody Maynard:And removing the ability from politicians and legislators from being able to print as much money as they want, because it's hard to say no, and that's what what we're finding is. They'll do what they have to to stay in power stance of saying no when it's best for the country. They'll say yes to stay elected, and so we need to fix that where our money is sound again.
Derek Hines:Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like that pain thing you were talking about, right, we have to do the hard things today, you know. So we don't have to do the you know, extremely hard things in the future, right? Yep, Cody, I really appreciate you coming on.
Cody Maynard:Absolutely.
Derek Hines:I thought the conversation was fascinating. We'll see what everyone else thinks, so thank you everyone for listening. We really hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you would please like and subscribe, and you can find us in all your podcast venues. Thank you very much.
