Introduction to Maxim EQ

In this introductory episode of the Maxim EQ podcast, Sam and I share the story behind the show—along with a brief look into our 30 year friendship.

We reflect on how Maxim EQ came to life, why we decided to create it together, and what listeners can expect moving forward. We hope you you’ll enjoy it and tune in to subsequent episodes to listen in on engaging conversations with our guests as we explore original ideas, timeless maxims, and thought-provoking lyrics—served up in monthly episodes designed to spark reflection and growth. 

Thanks.

Mike

Transcript

The Sam and Mike Session
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Maxim EQ, where we explore the commonsensical through individual interpretation. At a time when the profound is too often reduced to cheap memes and goofy bumper stickers, we head in the opposite direction, digging deeper to examine the commonalities and the differences in our perceptions around particular adages.

In each episode, we'll discuss our guest's take on a thought provoking maxim designed to promote self reflection and personal growth for us, but hopefully for you as well. Today, we thought we would take a few minutes to reflect on how we arrived at doing this creative project together, and perhaps unpack why.

Our hopes are, after this little introduction, you may just feel curious enough to join us for future episodes, as we welcome the thoughts and ideas of some pretty interesting folks, most of whom we consider close friends and colleagues, and certainly from all walks of life. Thanks for being here. Stay tuned for a bit.

We hope you enjoy the conversation. Now, Maxim EQ with Sam Wahl and Mike [00:01:00] Baumer.

Sam: Hey man, good morning.

Mike: Hi, Sam.

Sam: Yeah. Maxim EQ. Here

Mike: I feel like we're bundled up for our respective winter realities.

Sam: Indeed, it is really not pleasant outside right now to

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam: So, um you know, I I really just wanna start by by sharing with our listeners. Um You know who we are and how we know each other and why we're here doing this Uh, and i'm just going to start by kind of sharing with whoever's listening that you know You and I met back in gosh, I mean, it's probably 94 i'm guessing.

Uh, Uh

Mike: Sounds about right. Yeah.

Sam: boston. Yeah, [00:02:00] and we were both. Um, We were both playing or singing, in respective, uh, rock bands

Mike: Mm hmm.

Sam: at the time in the, we were, we were in the scene. Um, and, uh, in, and I remember, I think the first time I met you was probably at a City This show

Mike: Yeah.

Sam: prior to them being called expanding man,

Mike: Sure.

Sam: and that would have been, probably my band opening for them at like Great Scots or something ridiculous

Mike: That sounds about right. Yeah.

Sam: Or, um, it could have been that we really came to know each other better because we were neighbors living in the Alston neighborhood.

Mike: hmm.

Sam: and you shared a house with, uh, some, some droogs that I knew and I

Mike: Mm

Sam: with some droogs that you knew. And,

Mike: hmm. Mm hmm.

Sam: young men, we were playing in rock and roll bands.

We, um, um, We're kind of all batting for the fences as individuals and and trying to trying to make [00:03:00] something of our lives and For me. I just want to share this up front like, you know One of the things that, you know, uh, that attracted me to you, uh, as a, as a human, uh, out of the gate was like, I feel like every time you and I, and Chris, I remember some long, like, of course there was always a little scotch present or something we were sipping on.

But like, I remember some evenings because we were all broke ass musicians and

Mike: Uh huh.

Sam: I remember, you know, working at a restaurant together or whatever, but, uh, I just remember some like late nights where we would just sit up and just and just tear shit down.

You know

Mike: Mm hmm.

Sam: Like, and it just kind of came naturally to us where we would get going in conversation. And, and I feel like our, our whole relationship has been like that. Like every

Mike: Yeah.

Sam: I get together, it's like, Oh, clear the calendar. We're going to, going to talk until the cows come home, you

Mike: Yeah.

Sam: um, I just love that about you. And I've always, I've always leaned on you like that as a

Mike: Oh wow.

Sam: [00:04:00] um, and, uh, it's just meant the world to me. And now nearly 30 years later, or however long it is,

Mike: Yeah.

Sam: how many Christ, yeah. 30

Mike: Yeah. That's crazy.

Sam: it's still, it's still important to me.

Mike: Yeah. Wow.

Sam: dare I say, you know, You're one of my best friends,

Mike: Yeah. Thanks, man.

Sam: lifelong.

so for me, you

Mike: Mm

Sam: it felt really natural to, to hit record and just kind of

Mike: Yeah.

Sam: like

Mike: Yeah.

Sam: and I do,

Mike: Yeah.

Sam: And so if you wouldn't mind kind of sharing with our, um, um, a little bit about like kind of how we arrived at the Maxim EQ idea because it really was your idea.

Mike: Mm hmm.

Sam: uh, that'd be great.

Mike clone: Yeah, thanks. all of that great recollection, uh, for openers. And I certainly recall some of those late night conversations, I think. That you probably recognized some of those [00:05:00] qualities before I'm, I've even been aware of them right in terms of getting into these long form, engaging, stimulating conversations and it always came really naturally to me and I just didn't I've kind of assumed that everybody did that, and, it wasn't until many years later, that I could even bring myself to acknowledge that for fear of sounding pretentious, might actually be exceptional, or at the very least, not just be the norm .

I just assumed it was, right? Because, Doesn't everybody just do that with everybody?

And so it's just really weird that reflecting on some of that, there have been these very consistent patterns in my life And one of them was I'd have these conversations with people, or we'd be reviewing some situation in their life or some situation in my life. And I, I'd hear this phrase a lot.

I never really thought of it that way. I'm like, Oh, okay. And I just [00:06:00] assume that every conversation that somebody's having is revealing, you know, something like that Um, and I guess maybe that's not always the case and I started realizing recentlythat when Something fairly commonsensical kind of hits you at the right time and resonates with you at the right time It could have been delivered in some other form You In some book, in some song, in some movie, but there's something about being ready to receive it and the delivery method that it came in that has been really valuable to me lately.



a really good example of that is, uh, Whether it's Tim Ferriss, which I know is a podcast that you and I both like, and some of the guests that he has, or whether it's Tetragrammaton from Rick Rubin that I really like, I would find myself pausing pretty [00:07:00] regularly on, these individual statements that would just, um, come out over these long form conversations that I really wanted to unpack.

And then see if there was any applicable relevance to them in my life, whether it was something that I could relate to in my past or more constructively, something that I'm trying to work on going forward and, you know, If unpacking it might help me see things from a different point of view to contribute to a growth effort, I found myself doing that a lot 

Sam: Sure. So, I mean, what, just extrapolate here, what I hear you saying, and I think that we share this, this observation in in common, and that is that, we're in a time now where, as a society where, we're experiencing, uh, An exchange of ideas and information at a much higher speed. [00:08:00] Information is flowing, uh, irrationally fast, uh, via media, via, uh, you know, mass media, I mean, whatever else, you know, and, so, you know, we find ourselves in this mode of acronym, we find ourselves in this mode of adage and, you know, quips and you know, everything's reduced you know what I mean?

Which really compresses and reduces the value of our language, uh, so often. And I know that you're a guy who always wants to hit the pause button and be like, hold on a

Mike: Yeah,

Sam: that for a

Mike: which the irony in that is I love the exercise of trying to refine something down to its essence in my, in my work life, um, despite the rambling in my written life, right? And so I actually like that to a degree as long as it's not trivializing and cheap and that kind of thing But what

Sam: you like the efficiency

Mike clone: I love the efficiency of it, right?

But at the same time what's interesting to me [00:09:00] Is that even in the course of a long form conversation like the podcast that we like listening to I'm still finding pieces of it That I feel would benefit from pausing and unpacking.

I still felt like there were so many moments of density in. In them that we could have just paused right there And then just talked about that for the remaining time if they wanted to go deeper And so to me each one of these episodes that we're recording with a guest feels like an opportunity to just start from that Right just start from that and if we ended up going somewhere else and bringing some other themes into it fine You know, but we're starting from a launching point that you and I feel like the subject matter is worthy of diving deeper with having three different people's points of [00:10:00] view, bringing that to the conversation that gives us all something to riff off of.

and then you and I were reconnecting in the form of having these really stimulating, enjoyable conversations, which is definitely something I've always loved about you and our relationship. the enthusiasm and the passion that you bring to everything that you engage in.

Um, Just seemed like a really good opportunity to work on a creative project together and, and do it in this form not just because podcasts are all the rage and everyone's got one, but it's like you, you brought this idea.

Hey, let's just start hitting record on these conversations that we're having, because I think they're pretty interesting. And I think there's some substantive stuff that could be beneficial to other people listening and then to tie it all in together. You know, that's where the marriage of the two things came together.

I think of, [00:11:00] of kind of like this, this idea that had been percolating in my head. And, one of the components of that was really to bring other people into the fold. And so I think it was born that, hey, well, let's justPick a themean adage, a maxim. a saying that has enough meat on its bone that would support a three way conversation for a half hour, hour, and we'll go from there and see what happens.

and hopefully our listeners may have their own takeaways from it. And really, that's the goal. It's not about us necessarily puking our points of view onto someone else.

It's in hopes that, um, Something that we touch on may have a similar effect to what I've benefited from listening to other conversations and to your point, as you pointed out, wanting to hit the pause button and just give it some additional consideration for a little while. Yeah.

Sam clone: so a couple of things we, a, we definitely came [00:12:00] up with the idea of inviting a third guest into our discussions specifically to add a new layer of subjectivity to our conversations because, you and I have been doing this for so long and it was, I definitely think necessary for us to, to decide to invite a third person to, save us from ourselves and to, and to bring, to bring another perspective, which I think is great.

uh, I just want to mention like, you know, for me, just in general terms, um, you know, kind of where I'm at in my life, like an amalgamation of, of contexts and here of paradigms here, like, um, my work world, uh, my professional engagement with the world is that of a realtor and I, and I serve, I serve people, I serve clients, you know, and, and, in a pursuit toward getting better at that, uh, uh, and toward making that kind of [00:13:00] my own, curation, you know, I have learned a lot from masterful sales people in the real estate industry that there is a huge emphasis on making authentic relationships and part of making authentic relationships. in order to give, uh, integrity to your business, uh, is, listening and, and, and really, truly, engaging with people with an open heart and with open and with real authentic curiosity, you know,

Mike: I love it. Do you see this? And especially bringing our guests into it as an opportunity to, to continue to build that skill. Mm-hmm

Sam: 100%. And I, and I have, I have literally adopted the, into my personal life too, just to bring value [00:14:00] to my personal life, just the practice of, of becoming better at being in a mode all the time of curiousness,

Mike: Yeah. Mm-hmm

Sam: of wonder and, slowing down and making space for the answers to arrive.

You know what I

Mike: Mm-hmm

Sam: Uh, and, and, and being in a listening mode. Um, and it's changed, it's just changed so much for me, you know, and so it really connected with me personally when you brought this idea up. I thought that's consistent with who I am and who I want to be.

Mike: Oh, I love it. Yeah. That's great.

Sam: And, and so, I live now in this constant state of practicum with this, this modality in my, in my heart and in my mind, uh,

Mike: Yeah.

Sam: started doing this, which is great. know, um, I think that also just as a society, I just want to mention this, like, you know, There's a lot of paradigm shift happening in our society and so many, so many extreme [00:15:00] trajectories of, of, of new awareness and, and, uh, you know, folks, Folks are beginning to break up a little bit with, with, sponsored media, mass

Mike: Mm hmm. Mm

Sam: starting to break up a little bit with elected politicians, realizing that there's just way too much programming happening in our

Mike: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

Sam: and, and the power, and folks are starting to realize, I think more and more that, um, that real. power and real um, I want to get this word right. I think that folks are arriving at the fact that that authentic love as much as I hate to abuse that word because that word has just been just been used and rung out but I feel like authentic unconditional love as a modality.

Mike: hmm.

Sam: the path to wisdom and the

Mike: Mm hmm.

Sam: elevating [00:16:00] frequency and the path to becoming better.

Mike: I love it. Yeah.

Sam: that's, and every, that I engage in now, I, I, I, I'm holding myself to that. This, this has to be why this has to

Mike: Yeah. The filter that everything goes through, you know, for your experiences, anything that you're engaging in. Yeah.

Sam: percent,

Mike: Yeah.

What I like about the path that we've chosen, um, as it relates to bringing guests in one, I suppose it's out of necessity because I don't know a lot of movie stars and rock stars and stuff like that. I'm not sure about you. Um,

Sam: I

Mike: yeah. But to your point, it feels like. To me, I mean, there's lots of stuff out there That's the beauty of the democratization You know of being able to do something like this when you and I were coming up as as aspiring musicians There were very defined gatekeepers, you know to what got through right?

So [00:17:00] one of the benefits now is that anybody can go ahead and work on a creative project, have a podcast, write some songs, get them on iTunes, get them out to podcasts, which is fantastic, right?

Sam: Right.

Mike: But one of the things I like about our approach is that as I consume more and more of that content, especially in the podcast form, it feels to me like it's becoming another outlet, similar to like the late night talk show circuit where the guests that I find interesting are really there to promote their latest book or their latest movie or their latest record.

And I thought, you know, you and I. I know some fairly interesting people that may not be famous, but have, you know, pretty high emotional intelligence and have had a number of different experiences in their lives and worn a number of different [00:18:00] hats and an above average level of mindfulness.

And so I thought. You know, I can't necessarily relate to somebody who's on a book tour or promoting their latest gajillion dollar movie,

Sam: Right.

Mike: but that doesn't mean that three people who have lived multiple chapters of their lives don't have experiences and points of view to share that are probably arguably more likely to resonate.

Um, I don't want to say average people. I don't really like that term, but let's say a typical listener. so anyway, I, I just wanted to share that that was a big piece of it to me.I don't see our inability to book A list stars as a negative point. 

Sam: Sure.

Mike: um,

Sam: I, can I

Mike: yeah,

Sam: I find oftentimes when I'm listening to some of my favorite podcasts, which are some of your favorite, [00:19:00] favorite podcasts as well, that, you know, there's, there's a lot of limitations. To what is able to be shared and what gets shared and there's a distillation to the, to the content and these interviews when there are people who are working with a PR team and working with, you know,

Mike: yeah.

Sam: affectation or there's, there's a contrivity to, uh, to these interviews anyways, that, that I, that's

Mike: yeah,

Sam: desire.

Mike: exactly. It just goes back to what you're just saying, you know, the uncanned version of being in the moment and having a genuine conversation rather than something that's, I think you just say contrive to some degree, right?

Um, I think,

Sam: and I discussed recently, uh, you know, the idea of moving forward and tearing down, uh, or making literal maxims out of some, out of some quote, you know, some quotations from the context of lyrics of favorite songs

Mike: yeah.

Sam: records, you know what I mean?

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:20:00] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam: off of the sheen of, of someone's, some famous person's songwriting and, and unpacking a single line, a single, a single set of words and being like, yo man, where was this guy's head at?

Where was his heart at when he used this combination of words, which just continues to, like you say, to paraphrase you, which continues to haunt me. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I've got some of those lines from songs throughout

Mike: Yeah.

Sam: that, you know, that I'm just like, man.

Mike: And, what point of view are we hearing them through now? You know, that may be significantly different than the way I experienced that line or that song or that poem or whatever, 10, 20, 40 years ago. So,

Sam: Yeah,

Mike: think, yeah, there's obviously plenty of, uh, fertile ground there.

the loose format, I feel like we're going to end up with here with our guests, if we present them with a handful of maxims to choose from, I feel like we can use that [00:21:00] pretty minimal outline as a loose guide for the conversations that we're going to have.

Sam: Yeah. then, you know, people listening in, uh, have the opportunity to be explorative in their own private minds,

Mike: Exactly. Exactly. And that's, that's, that's my hope for it, 

That would be amazing.

Sam: And one thing I think we should consider doing is,uh, an e mail address for Maxim EQ so that we can invite people the talk. communicate with us. We can

Mike: Yeah,

Sam: to leave comments or to share feelings or thoughts or whatever.

Mike: that would be amazing. the benefit of the, you and I talking is that hopefully we're learning something from each other during the conversation. We bring in a guest and now, you know, I've got two additional point of views from which to maybe glean something. Imagine doing it collectively where other people are sharing what their reactions and processing was to these conversations.

That would be [00:22:00] amazing. It would just make the stew that much richer. I would love that.

Sam: Yeah.

Mike: I think that, uh, this is going to be exciting. I think that this is going to be a journey. Um, it's not perfect. I think that it will evolve. I'm open for evolution and

Yeah, for sure.

Sam: what I'm here for. Uh, so I just, I just want to get busy and start doing the business

Mike: Yeah.

Mike clone: I hope that we have the opportunity to, jump right in and, just continue to get better and better at doing it.

Sam: Yeah, me too. I look forward to it 

let's just do this. let's create Maxim EQ. Let's invite people to become part of it. And let's see, um, where it goes

and we put it out there, we don't own it anymore.

That's

Mike: know, it belongs to the receivers

Sam: Mm

Mike: And whatever purpose it serves for them, that's fantastic. if it's of any benefit to anybody in their life. Great.

Sam: Yeah. I feel, I feel a [00:23:00] sense of purpose in realizing this and making this happen. 

I hear the wise words of Bob Marley in my head frequently. Um, the, the line 

from Redemption Song, emancipate yourself from mental slavery because none but ourselves shall free our minds.

Mike: Right on. Yeah.

Sam: I feel like, I'm ready to, to, to be accountable to that. I'm ready to be a soldier for, emotional and spiritual emancipation.

I'm specifically ready to achieve elevated level of connectivity with, with other, human beings

Mike: Great.

Sam: and to become a better listener and to become just wiser

Mike: Mm hmm.

Sam: um, a more useful contributor,

Mike: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Sam: my little world.

Mike: Love it, dude. Love it.

[00:24:00]