The Consensus Obsession (Backbone Series Final)

This is the final episode in the Backbone series.

Greg and Moe unpack the modern obsession with comfort, validation, consensus, and avoiding confrontation—and why those things quietly destroy leadership, discipline, and culture over time.

From MrBeast competitions and football stories to fasting, parenting, social media, self-discipline, and the fear of offending people, this conversation explores what backbone actually looks like in real life.

Not fake toughness.

Not performative confidence.

Real backbone:

• Standards
• Discipline
• Accountability
• Honest feedback
• Self-control
• And the courage to say or do the difficult thing when it matters most

This episode also explores:

• Why social media is creating performance addicts
• The danger of making everybody happy
• Why discipline starts with small decisions
• How comfort slowly weakens people
• And why fulfillment only comes after challenge

Because at the end of the day—

Backbone isn’t built in big moments.

It’s built in the quiet daily choices nobody sees.

🎯 Backbone: Stop Being Weak and Do What’s Right available now on Amazon & Audible.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We were supposed to be living with backbone our entire lives. And somewhere along the way, we have decided that we want to make everybody happy. We don't want to offend anybody. We don't want to have standards. We don't want to make excuses for everybody. The victim is celebrated. Hooray for them. They've had some hardship of some sort. What they do. That is not how you live a great life. Being constantly comfortable, not challenged, being told every day that your shit doesn't stink when it's time to do some hard shit. You're not. You are not gonna be prepared. Greg Vetter Podcast here with Maurice. Are we sticking on backbone or are we moving to something else?

SPEAKER_01 0:58

We can we can stick to backbone. Well, this will be the last and final part. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Let's categorically wrap this up. I do like this. The consensus obsession. Uh-huh. Where everybody wants everybody to be happy.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Ah. I can I can talk more. We all want to agree. We want everybody to agree. And I think part of it's non-confrontational. Yeah, non-confrontational. But it's this obsession with like everybody not getting their feelings hurt. Everybody gets a trophy. Colin Powell had a great um chapter in his book, It Work for Me in Life and Leadership. And he was kind of talking about the standards that he kept for his team. And they would have meetings about how they were going to do things, and he wanted people passionate about their positions. Like you come in, you fight for your position. But then when I make the call, no matter what the call is, that's the fucking call. And we move forward with that call. Right. You're not going to have your feelings hurt. I took in all the information. I listened to all of it. This is what we're doing. And I think he was able to do that because everybody had faith in him as a leader. Yeah. Right? He was a man of character, honor. The people that were working for him knew he was going to make the best decision in his capacity with the information that he had. He didn't always make the best decisions. He what he did not bat a thousand. But I think when you read all the different books he wrote, he was always doing the best of his ability with the information that he had. And we're also going to remove the ego side of it, because it it doesn't matter. You you've heard me say this a million times. I don't care if it's my idea. Yeah. I don't care. I just want to win. You just want it to work. I just want the best idea. I want the best plan. I want the best strategy for us all to succeed because we're a team. So if it's your idea and we win, hooray. If it's my idea and we win, hooray. I don't care. I want us to win. I want us to be successful. And I think what happens when you try and make everybody happy, there are trade-offs in everything. Right? There is no real consensus. You kind of wind up with a mediocre if they're going to be able to do it. Well, you have to. And the other thing is like, okay, maybe you won that little battle because someone gave you a little breadcrumb to make you feel good. Well, are you gonna is the team gonna lose the war so that we didn't offend you by telling you that your idea or your position is just completely stupid? I don't I don't care. And that's the thing is we have an environment where we need to feel right and we need to feel validated, and we need likes, we need hearts, we need gold stars, and we don't care if that's the right fucking decision. We need momentary acknowledgement and pleasure of my idea was chosen. Well, you guys lost the game. Who fucking cares? You know that was my idea.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

You understand? Yeah, yeah, you're not gonna say about if you lose. Yeah, I don't know what's Jim's idea, fucking asshole.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Yeah. That one part. But but this consensus obsession where we want to make everybody happy all the time instead of just doing what's right. You can't you can't build anything great that way. It's it's impossible. You and I see the world differently. We are not gonna agree a hundred percent on everything, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

I guess it's good to have people on a team that got many different views, yeah. And then once they can pitch in, but they gotta be tough though, yeah, because your view is not won't probably be picked all the time, right? Maybe you bet zero. But it's just, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

And maybe your role is to provide a different perspective altogether, just so they can think about it.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Right. That's my role in my writing group when I go to do these 48-hour film festivals, uh-huh. And they put me in the writing group. I don't consider myself a strong writer, but in the writing group, I'll just say the dumbest stuff. And they were like, Well, you know what? That's not a bad idea, or to order to just piggyback off of something else that they might go down a you know, I might get a a something, I might say something funny. He said, Yeah, let's put that line in there.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

But the overall idea, they were like, uh, that's that's funny. And then I'll come out left field, so whatever they're talking about, I just throw something totally left field in there just to make them think different.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

I think that's good. You never know what idea is going to basically create another idea. I also think it's a lack of understanding of your role, not yours specifically, but people, where maybe your role is not to have the best idea, but it's to be a contrarian.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Or maybe it's to simply play the devil's advocate or to provide the risk analysis of it, not to come up with the great idea, but there is this like savior complex or this obsession with with glory, where like I'm going to give them the best idea.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

And then you wind up dropping the ball. I can attest to that when I played football one time at Annapolis, and we were playing old Mill, you know. And for some reason, Coach left me back to catch a punt. And I already got the butterflies in my stomach. I'm like, coach, I haven't practiced this. I never practiced this position. Why am I back here? The coach was like, just stay back here. So then I'm like, okay, I'm gonna catch this football, I'm gonna run it back. Because the score was probably like six to six. I said, I'm gonna catch this ball. It's a Friday night game. Rival schools. I said, I'm gonna catch this ball and I'm gonna run it back. Varsity, my first year on varsity, first game. Man, that ball, he kicked the ball, that ball went up, got lost in the light. I'm running back and forth like this. No. The ball came down and hit my face mask. And roll. Did you recover it? Nope. They got it like on the two-yard line. No. I could have sworn after that game, I ain't say nothing on the bus. I thought I was gonna be back on JV. I thought I was, I thought Monday coming like, yeah, you're going back down. But they didn't, they kept me.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

But it is interesting. This whole consensus obsession, people not wanting to be on the outside or fight for their position, because all of this again, failure of nerve, having backbone, not being weak and doing what's right. My kids were watching uh the Mr. Beast games. Okay. And they're down to like the final, it's two teams or something, maybe five on each team. So let's say it's the top ten. And there's um like one of the final games, which is a dead hang off of basically a pull-up bar that they pull up in the air. And whoever hangs on longer, that team stays, and whoever doesn't, that team, the whole team gone. That's a lot of pressure, dude. So this team gets together, they have a rock climber on their team. They go, Who's gonna do it? He's nervous, this rock climber. He goes, Well, I do a lot of rock climbing, I have a pretty good grip strength. Like, I think I could be the guy. But he goes, I don't really want to do it, I'm really scared. So then this fucking idiot goes, I got it. I'ma do it. I know I can. I'm lighter than him. Mentally, I'm there. I'm gonna, I'm, I'ma do this shit. And everyone's like, well, he's a rock climber.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

He gotta be able to do it at least a little longer than you, probably.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

And he's like, nah, guys, I got this shit. And um so he convinces everybody, this idiot who has no rock climbing experience, convinces everybody to let him do it. And this rock climber's like, okay, I mean, I guess if you if you think you got it. And so they this guy convinces everybody he's the guy. And they all come to they'll go, let's do a vote. So they all vote for the idiot. He fucking lasts like 30 seconds, and the whole team gets kicked off. And I sat there and I I was just in complete shock. You have a guy where his body is built for this moment, he's too weak to do it. An idiot convinces everybody else that he's the guy. He had backbone. He had the wrong fucking backbone, and the other dude didn't have any backbone. And so they ended up obviously the whole team got eliminated, but I was sitting there with my kids, and I use it as a learning lesson. I'm like, guys, okay, you can take these two parties, the rock climber, mentally weak, got it. We can talk about that all day. This other guy has no understanding of his actual capabilities, different learning lesson there. The big problem here is everybody else that was so easily convinced by a moron with no skills whatsoever to put their lives in his hands when they're staring at a dude that is trained in this shit, and they just go, We're gonna go with the idiot because he won't show up. He pitched him a good pitch. I urge people to watch it because it's infuriating. Like you watch this and you just are sitting there with common sense, you're like, but that guy's a rock climber. What the fuck are we doing?

unknown 13:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

And it's like, that's not the best idea. That's the loudest asshole in the room. And everybody else just went with it. They didn't raise their hand, they didn't say, no, we're not voting for you, moron, because you're just yelling about it. And I do think that when you look around society today, there's a lot of that. Just the loudest asshole, and everybody else is just going, fuck it. All right, let them have it. Yeah, let them have it. I mean, what what's the worst that can happen? It's like a lot.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yeah. So how does it all this uh I guess how do we fix it?

SPEAKER_00 14:08

I mean Well, you fix it with a dedication to backbone, to character, to radical transparency, and then also to the development of your own skill.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah, I was ready to say that individually, like individually, I think Is it a test that you have in this book where a person can say, How much backbone do I have?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

I don't have that, but I'm gonna make that, and we're gonna I'll make a workbook for that. Because I do think as young men, and I say this to my kids all the time for perspective on their age, I'm like, a hundred years ago, you were in war. Me and you were fucking strapping up, and we were going to battle. That was that was just and you were a You wanted to do that back in. Well, because you had you almost had like a bigger purpose where you were willing to sacrifice yourself for the future good of your children. And we don't have that at all now. I mean, it's like, what can I give myself right this second, regardless of what tomorrow brings, to get my gold star, to get my like, to get my views. You know, every single I read something they're saying, you know, social media is kind of dying in its old form where everybody's a performer, which I just find to be so uh annoying.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Yeah, you you didn't like it when he was like, look at me doing a selfie, talking to the camera. I don't know. I fucking hate it. Yeah, I really couldn't get on. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

But there but outside of me not liking to hear my own voice, I just never did the I just but anyway, my my point is like it's moving towards well, hopefully it's moving towards, but it's moving toward content and information that's actually helpful and interesting. Because I'm I'm over the performance bullshit, like the TikTok dances going viral, the current algorithm trends and participating in those. I I just I think it is a complete fucking waste of time, and it is desensitizing people from information that they actually need to be consuming to get better in their lives.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah, like everybody ghettos dance. I mean, I like dancing.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

I like dancing too, but everybody like have you seen those viral um videos of like a camera is set up in like I saw this one, it made me sick. This mom is doing some lip syncing thing in her kitchen, her kids are holding the lights, the husband's moving like a veil or a cape behind her. There's like another kid comes up and throws like fake snow, and she's super proud of it. She's like, this is what a content creator's house looks like. I'm like, what do you like? What do you do? You just lip sync fucking stupid songs, make your husband wave your fucking cape. What kind of nonsense is that?

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Some people like to see that, see that stuff. I guess they think it's entertaining.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

I don't I we have too much entertainment. We're overly entertained.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

We need to stop with the entertainment, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Quick fixes. You get lost in that thing. I'm doing a good job now, though. I'm getting on top of it. Are you stop?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

You're not dream scrolling anymore.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

9:30 hit. Put it down. I'm going to sleep. I fell asleep in 10 minutes, 9.30. And about 9:41, I check my sleep number in the morning. I fell asleep at 9.41. That's great. Boom. Going to sleep. But I wind up, but I found out is I give myself time right before bed. So I don't get in bed and then scroll. I stop whatever I'm doing probably like 7, 7:30. And then I scroll to about 8:30. And then I get bid and I watch TV from about 8:30 to about 9.20. Uh-huh. Baby steps.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah, and then I try to go to sleep. Baby steps. Yeah. We'll keep we'll keep we'll keep winding that down.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah. Keep winding down because one time I'm just gonna get in bed at 9 o'clock, I'm gonna go straight to sleep.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Oh. That sounds amazing. I didn't get home last night until 9:20. Oh, you was out. From my I was at a kid's lacrosse practice. Oh, okay. I'm not out these days. Yeah, I mean, I didn't mean out, but I'm just saying you were You said it like I was getting it, like back in the good old days.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

That's only on Fridays and Saturdays, babe. Sunday, you need to get ready for Monday. Uh yep.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Fridays. I just set my bedtime in my sleep app for 12 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. And then wake up around about 7:30. So that's still about seven hours of sleep.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

So you're ready to get out. You're preparing to go get it.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

I'm just saying, just give myself a time. It's not a solid story.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

What have you been doing?

SPEAKER_01 20:29

I don't know. I'm probably still in the bed by 12 unless I'm going out. And then if I go out, it depends on who I go out with. Some of my friends, we like to stay out all night. Yeah. But that's not an every weekend thing. That's like an every blue moon. And then once I tell my wife I'm going out, I'm like. Dude, I haven't done I haven't done that shit in I mean, we go out and listen to music. I don't even know how long. Maybe go out. If we go out and grab something to eat, I mean that's an early night. Yeah. We go out, might eat a nice fancy restaurant, something, and then we just come back and go to sleep. So yeah, it depends. If we go out and we listen to music, you know, the music not over till about 2 a.m. You know.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Alright, so my I got homework. I gotta create a backbone test.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah, there you go. I think that's interesting. And then you can put that on your sub stack in a subscriber form. Let's make a note of that. A backbone test. Create a backbone test. So I can calculate and see what I gotta work on. But just off top. Yeah. How could a person ask their self personal, I guess, questions like, okay, that's interesting. I I wonder. And honestly, ask themselves like what questions would they ask themselves to see if they have backbone or they you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 22:09

I would observe for a week and just take notes. Every time you want to say something and you don't. And I don't think there's a right or a wrong there because half the things I don't say are for good reason. If you don't have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. But if you do that and you get into the rhythm of understanding why you aren't speaking in certain scenarios, are you biting your tongue? Are you not trying to offend somebody? Would you just be saying something mean? Do you actually not like the person? Or do you not feel like having an argument? Right. And a lot of that's intelligent. You know, having backbone is not just yapping your fucking mouth off all day. Right. But there's your battle. Yeah, but there are moments in a week, and you'll know them if you start recording them, where you probably should have said something. Yeah. And you didn't. And you didn't, yeah. And then another just easy one is having backbone with yourself. Discipline. Discipline with yourself. Yeah. Did you wake up on time? Did you set a standard for the day? And did you live into it? Did you know let's use nutrition as a great example? Let's say you're trying to eliminate chocolate chip cookies or something. You have like an addiction to it. Did you eat any cookies that day? Were you able to increase the size of the muscle in your brain, the discipline muscle, and go, I'm not doing that today. Right? I'm going to stand strong. Because all of this stuff, it does just start with you. We ha we have to be able to at least have some control and some power over ourselves and our thoughts. Yeah, that's the way it starts. It's not anywhere else. And then it'll just spread like wildfire. Yeah, I mean, Napoleon Hill had the easiest one, which was the discipline in fasting. And he goes, once you can master your stomach, you can master anything. Which I agree with. I mean, our country's the fattest it's ever been, ever.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Yeah, you're starting to hear a lot of that about fasting and stuff on uh on the socials now. Everybody, if your algorithm's right, yeah. You can start to hear about fasting, and and they say that as well. If you can't control your hunger or your appetite, then you can't control anything. You can't control anything.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

And it's about and then you'll have, you know, the people that want to play devil's advocate and say, well, food's addictive. Yeah, it is. They create it to be addictive. You know what you could do? Not fucking eat it. Go into your house and throw it in the trash. Because at the end of the day, your brain needs nutrients and satiation. And so if your brain is satiated and it's got what it needs, it's not going to be craving cookies and Doritos. I think they said the most addictive, bad chip on the planet or something. The most genetically modified, horrible chip is the Cool Ranch Dorito.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

I just was talking about those Cool Ranch Doritos because my daughter asked me, what was your favorite? I think he said Dorito. We were talking about something, but I that must be going vibe.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

My kids asked me the same thing two days ago. The fucking internet. I know, dude. And they go, What was your favorite Dorito? I'm like, Cool Ranch, bro. I said the blue bag. You know, the blue bag.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Used to take it. Whitey mother would make this delicious like goulage or taco salad in this big old bowl. Crush up blue ranch Doritos. They always had the best snacks that they held. I would take them Doritos and take the taco mix that she made, and then we'll next talk about something special.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

And they sell that at school events where they'll open a bag of Doritos, put some ground beef in it, lettuce, sour cream, whatever, and it's like a taco in a bag. See, we started that back. We started that back in the 90s. They just ignore it.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

We started that back in the 90s. Did I know somebody? Like, man, you're honest started that. Man, we was doing that in the 60s. You're like, they didn't have Doritos, bitch. Yeah, they're not in the 60s. But maybe I you know what? I don't want to get canceled. They might have had Doritos in the 60s. In the 70s, I think Doritos.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Probably. Yeah, but I would say easy things to do for yourself from a backbone perspective. It's like look at your weaknesses that you have, look at the vices you have, and just put some standards in there. And just see if you can develop that muscle a little bit. And if you can do that and you can fast for 12 hours, maybe not 16 or 18 to start, when muscle getting bigger. If you cannot then eat cookies or soda that day, when muscle gets a little bigger. If you can speak up one time where you would otherwise be too scared to do it, when and and that's it's the little stuff. And it compounds on itself because this entire thing, we were supposed to be living with backbone our our entire lives. And somewhere along the way, we have decided that we want to make everybody happy, we don't want to offend anybody, we don't want to have standards, we don't wanna make excuses for everybody. The victim is celebrated, hooray for them. They've had some hardship of some sort, whoop-de-doo. That is not how you live a great life. Being constantly comfortable and not challenged, and being told every day that your shit doesn't stink, when it's time to do some hard shit, you are not gonna be prepared. You're not. Like my grandfather was born on October 29th, 1929, which is the the fall of the stock market that began the Great Depression. That motherfucker lived in some hard times. He used to wash his tinfoil. He did not throw out tinfoil, he washed that shit. Oh, the the the uh tinfoil. The aluminum foil. Yeah, he washed it.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

And folded up and put it up. Yep. We're gonna keep it for next time.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Yes. And he saved up all his money. He was not a rich man, but by the end of his life, guess what? He had a lot of money. Because that motherfucker didn't matter what the market was doing, didn't matter if he was in a good economy or a bad economy, didn't matter if something bad was happening or good, he was built for tough.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

So like when times are good, great. Hooray. He's still washing his fucking tinfoil. You know, like we would get these little plastic cups from I don't know what random fast food chain back in the day would give you like little kid cups. Oh yeah, and you keep them. Dude, he fucking washed those things until all the print was off of them, and he still kept them. He kept the jelly jars and made them cups. So when he was done with jelly, washed them, cup.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

I mean, we do that.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

But like nobody else, we're uh we don't make anything anymore that lasts. You can't fix anything. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Everything is some plastic piece of shit, and when it breaks, you're fucked. You can't fix it, so you just buy more.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

That's because it works. My grandmother said that light bulbs don't even last as long as they used to last. They say they last like 20 years or some bullshit. No. They're out. They wouldn't be making no money if light bulbs lasting 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

That's why they don't cure disease. There's no money in healthy, independent, smart people. There's no money in fixing the problem. There's not. There's money in managing pain management. Not solving the problem.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

I think they got that word in some of the descriptions too. Manage. Yeah. Of course they do.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

They're telling you. We're gonna manage. We're gonna manage the pain. With what? Uh basically a form of heroin. Oh, cool. That seems great. One molecule over. Right. You can actually easily turn it into heroin. Right. If you run out and you use heroin, it's almost the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

It's a little bit more addictive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Um, so I will create that backbone test. I think that's a great idea. And I'll put that on my sub stack for people to take. Um, but other than that, I do think that this book is helpful. It gives a good perspective on a bunch of different philosophies that I think can get people back on track or at least beginning the process. Right, to give them something to think about. Give them something to think about. I mean, that's all we're doing out in this world, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

We're trying to be curious, we're trying to get a little bit better each day, and that's all you can do.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Yeah. So instead of scrolling, you can just read a couple pages. Hey, how long do you how long is it gonna take you to read a book? Or you can listen.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

There is the audiobook that is now out, right? Yeah, yes. So we got that going. Well, uh, I think this was good. Greg Venner Podcast, Maurice Taylor, backphone is out. Talk to you next time.