What If Winning Means Refusing To Play

The funniest moments in our lives sometimes come from the same place as the hardest ones. We start out messing around with a fake cigarette and a “mercy shirt,” then end up in a real conversation about why one of us laughs easily while the other learned to stay invisible just to make it through the day. If you’ve ever wondered why you default to charm, silence, intensity, or control under stress, you’ll hear yourself in this one.

We talk adoption, family culture, and the hidden rules kids learn early: when it’s safe to be seen, when it’s safer to disappear, and how those patterns turn into adult habits. From sibling hierarchy and competition to the psychology of play, we unpack why connection breaks when someone always has to “win,” and why some people don’t chase fights at all, they outlast them. Along the way we use simple but sharp metaphors, from wildlife behavior to the shark versus eagle problem of home-field advantage.

The takeaway is a strategy you can use in business, relationships, and conflict: don’t accept the other person’s premise, don’t fight on their turf, and focus on the one thing that changes the whole outcome, survive the first wave. If this hits home, subscribe to the Stair Pits Podcast, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review. What’s your default strategy under pressure: chase or endure?

Find Stair Pits here:
www.unbreakableorigins.com

[00:00:00] Cold Open On Being Invisible
[00:06:14] Where Smiles Come From
[00:12:52] Cooperation And Sibling Hierarchy
[00:18:03] When Play Requires Letting Go
[00:24:36] Why Winning Ended The Game
[00:32:57] Did A Hard Childhood Create Success
[00:40:02] Iowa Jokes And Flyover Truths
[00:45:08] Learning From Everyone Through Targeting
[00:49:03] Shark Vs Eagle And Home Turf
[00:55:44] Flex, Lessons, And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I didn't grow up in a situation where there was necessarily cooperation for anything. It was more like you just did what you wanted to do. Like my mother would do what she wanted to do, my stepfather would do what he wanted to do. And if there was any regard for anybody else in the family, it was purely coincidental. I mean, there was no rhyme or reason for anything that they did. For me, it was much better to be invisible than it was to be visible. Because if people were going to be around me, it was going to turn into something that wasn't going to be pleasant. And so as a result, the more invisible I could be, the better off it was. Please save me from myself. Hi, welcome to another exciting episode of the Stair Pits Podcast. I'm not in a suit, and I do have my cigarette back. Last year, last year, last episode was the first episode that I didn't have my fake cigarette. I made it through, but again, it's just a crutch. I don't feel that I'm socially acceptable without it.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

And hey, though, for those of you watching on video and on YouTube and things like that, you can see two episodes in a row, Robert's not in a suit. But as long as he has the fake cigarette, we feel just fine about ourselves, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Take a big thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

That's a life light pose, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

See, I I know when we started this podcast at first, you know, you were very, you know, buttoned up, looking great, looking nice, professional. I see now you're starting to relax a little bit. You're starting to come over to my side of the fence, and you're you're leaning back in your chair, your leg is up, you're smoking a fake sig. You know, you're you look relaxed, you don't look too stressed out. I like this version of Rock.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Say what? No, I thought I would just I don't know where that one came from. Right, I know. Jeez. That was no. Um, I am doing this though. I mean, if you can get a close-up of it, it's interesting, won't it? I'm wearing one of my personal favorite shirts. Okay. And the reason I love this shirt is I bought it because I felt sorry for the poor bastard that designed it because I couldn't imagine why anybody would ever do it. But the pattern on it, I'm not normally a big fan of patterned shirts, but uh this has wasps which are green and sailboats that are black. And other than the use of wind, I can't really figure out what the common theme was of wasps and sailboats. I mean, is there a group of people out there that are like wasp aficionados who sail or sailors who really like wasps? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

You know, it just that is kind of an interesting crossover there.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

It is. I mean, and yet so it was odd, and I thought, well I'll buy it. And then I saw another one, and I bought it. And that one isn't, they're not, they're not green, they're not green, but it's like blue. And it's the same thing. And I thought, well, you know, I might have the largest collection of these shoot shirts in the world. I could open a museum.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

So you're saying that anytime you are wearing a pattern shirt, people should not be honored at the fact you're wearing that shirt because you bought it out of pity.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah, it's a it's a mercy shirt. It's totally a mercy shirt. That's really what it kind of comes down to. But I just every time I put it on, it's kind of this riddle that I'm working at. You know, it's what is the what was what happened when this guy was sitting in? And was it one of those things that, you know, he had to design 15 shirts and he had 13 of them done. This was on it, and you know, he's leaving for a three-day weekend, and it's okay, put sailboats on it, and that was it, and just sent it off, and then they thought, oh, this is interesting. Yeah, I've never seen anything like this. There's unique enough, there's a huge group of wasp fanciers that will want to have this, and it has just enough sailboats on it that you know people would think that it was sophisticated. And so, anyway, so I bought it just simply out of pure pity. Okay, and it was like for 10 bucks. That explains the price. Well, no, yeah, that's it. I mean, I look at hey, ten bucks fits. Might as well, you know, and that's what it is. And then the other thing is this I'm often confused about my reaction about the person that comes up to me and says, you know, I'm really digging your wasp and sailboat t-shirt.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

You know, how many times that happened in your life? Zero. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Yeah, it's never going to. But I mean, but at that point, it's just there'll there'll be a point maybe when that comes up to it, or the guy will be begging for change. I designed that and they fired me. Hey, dude, I bought it.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

I mean, well, at that point, um, if when you come across the the guy panhandling who designed that shirt, you got to make the choice of okay, do I give this guy money to live or do I give the literal shirt off my back?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Dude, you are very good. You are outstanding.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Okay, thank you, sir.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

See, that's the difference. And see, for those of you playing at home, that's the difference between Max and I. I think it's really an interesting characteristic on it. That Max, as you'll notice, has a generous laugh and a and a just and a light up the room smile. He really does. And I don't. I mean, it would never occur to me to smile. It would never occur to me to laugh. And see, I'm just showing off.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Oh, I can say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. It's all the curly whites, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Right. Pathetic god, people's attention to draw attention to themselves. Fake cigarette puffing. I'll just get back at you there. Look, I'm killing myself with something fake. But but I think that that's interesting. I mean, where do you think where do you think you learned to smile? I mean, I don't think people I mean, that's really interesting. Where do you think we're just yeah, that's the first question? Where do you think you learned to smile?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

That's a hell of a question. Um you know, I I feel like as a little kid I was always, you know, genuinely happy, go lucky, see the good over the bad, you know, smile, laugh, make people feel comfortable, try and make friends, that kind of stuff. It was a combination of that. Plus, as we talked about in previous episodes, um, you know, don't want to lean into the the trauma aspect, but a lot of it was, you know, hey, I'm hurting as a little kid um because of my adoption, I don't understand it, and things like that. I gotta smile a lot to make sure that people don't know how much I'm hurting. And so I think that's part of where I learned how to smile in the first place was you know, anytime I was in my field, if you will, right, um, put a smile on your face. Right? Which in turn usually makes other people in the room, at least one other person, smile as well, and then you start to feel a little bit better.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Yeah, and then and your laughter, I mean, you have a great laugh. I mean, you have um Ed McMahon was Johnny Carson's co-host on the Tonight Show. And Ed McMahon had this ho ho ho kind of a big Irish drunken laugh that was spectacular. Sisboom. Sis boom. Described as someone made when a sheep explodes. Yours isn't quite that good. No, it's not as drunken yet. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Not as drunken yet. But it just but he had this totally um infectious kind of like the laugh that you wanted to have. Yeah. But his was very managed, you know, his was totally managed in a stage component on it. Whereas you just have a spontaneous, deep laugh that will get other people to laugh. I mean, you're you're really quite good at it. Well, thank you, sir. And uh I are do you are the rest of your brothers and sisters, I mean, do they smile and laugh? Are they like I mean, it when you were growing up, the idea of being a moody black dude hadn't really become a thing yet? You couldn't just be an angry, moody black dude and get away with stuff.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. In in my house, that was that wasn't that didn't fly very well. And so, yeah, a lot we grew up all of us laughing, giggling, playing, smiling. I mean, you know, like uh we always hated family pictures. I hated and dreaded family pictures, but my parents have a lot of great pictures of us growing up, laughing, smiling, enjoying time. So yeah, we were we were a very happy um bunch of kids, which, you know, again, five black kids, two white parents living in Idaho at the time before moving to Utah when I was nine years old. Um and just yeah, growing up and living life. And it's funny because from that aspect, uh I get asked by more people than you would believe. Max, when did your parents tell you that you were adopted? Okay. R.A. Thompson, I hate to admit it, but I do not recall one singular time in my life where my parents, white parents, sat us five black kids on the carpet in the living room and gave us the you are adopted speech. Okay. We just kind of grew up and it was kind of just a huh. We look like this, they look like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Okay, there they're the rest of Utah looks like that.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Yeah, yes, yeah. So hey, there's something different here, right? Biologically, we don't think that that those two could make us five, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Maybe, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

So it we it we had a harder time deciphering that we weren't that we weren't biological siblings, yeah, rather than the fact that they were not our biological siblings.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, if you're all the same age and there's five of you and you're not twins or quintuplets, that it's like, you know, you know, did mom have a gestation period of six hours or how did that work? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. You were living in states that began with vowels?

SPEAKER_02 11:16

I never thought about that.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

I mean, because you could try Iowa and you know, Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

For sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

And just see if it works. That you know, Alaska, Alabama.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Yeah, you know, I as you're as you're going, you know, seems like all the all the vowel states are fairly white.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

They're pretty much are. Yeah, I mean, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Yeah, I mean, you said Idaho, Utah, Iowa, Oklahoma. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

I mean Alabama, Alabama gets Alabama and Arkansas maybe got a little, but Alaska, dude, it's like hard to go, it's harder to go whiter than Alaska. For sure. Yes. Yes. And that's assuming that Induits are actually white people. If we're gonna go the example that, you know, that's yeah. So that is, I just was wondering if that's it. But you you never offered that, you never offered that idea to any brothers or sisters.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

No, but yeah, and yet I hail from the great state of Texas.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Right? Which is not a vowel.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Which isn't, yes, yeah, but it has an X in it.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

It does. That is true.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Yeah. I don't that doesn't mean anything. I thought I would just add it. Yeah. You know, it's just one of those things that could be there. Um, because that's interesting, because when I look at it, um uh I don't smile, I don't necessarily laugh at anything. And I think because it made well, what made me think about it was growing up were you were you were celebrating your family. It sounds like from the things you said, it sounded like there was always a sense of celebration within your family. Yeah. And that would you say in your family it was more um cooperation versus competition?

SPEAKER_02 13:08

I would say yes. Um definitely grew up in a competitive environment when it came to at least me and my younger brother, both of us were lucky enough to play college football. And so him and I were always very competitive. Um when we started out, um, you know, as we as we because what my parents all got us is as babies, and all of us, you know, I have an older sister, you know, a younger sister, and two younger brothers. Um, and so all of us were young enough to that was the only family that we knew. So just like any other family, you know, there was a a power struggle for a minute, right? I I think I've talked about this before, but you know, what you know, so we it was very competitive from a you know establishing the rankings within the family, right? Older sister stood where she stood, right? The she's the oldest, she kind of carries the banner. Um nobody really touches her. I am the oldest son who carries not only that banner, but carries the family name as well, Max Christmas III, right? Um, and then of course had two younger brothers who always wanted to challenge uh challenge my seat uh uh in the throne room, if you will. Yeah. And so a lot of competitive physical bouts on uh on trying to establish the hierarchy of the siblings. But more than anything, it was more cooperation than competition. My mom always hated to see her her kids fight, even though I thought it was more entertaining than when we got along.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Was it entertaining because you won, or was it entertaining because like people were saying more and more hit him again?

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Yeah, I I know I know you'll you'll appreciate this. Winston Churchill, okay? History's written by the victors. Right, true. Right? Absolutely. So I mean, hey, I get the chance to I got the chance to write a lot of history in in the house. I was the kid who um you know would get sent to timeout for fighting my one or both of my brothers, okay. And so I'd have to, I'd get couch time for an hour and I'd sit there and and then the timer would go off after an hour, and and I would leave time out, head right to the brother that I was fighting, hit him, and before, you know, as he started to cry, and before my mom could even decipher what was happening, I was halfway back to timeout. I marched myself back. That's how worth it it was for me to establish a presence, to establish what I thought was a victory over my younger siblings. And we get and we get along great now, um, which it which is awesome to see.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Um but by great, you mean when you walk into a room, they flip it. Which is how it should be, yes, for the for the rest of their lives. They they just need to know bring up your hand and they're ducking.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Absolutely. And it's funny because I I mean I am the biggest one in my family, and and I'm fairly larger than my father. But I do that when he walks into the room. Okay, because he he you know he established his dominance as well. Anytime as the bigger kid, when I would go after my siblings, all this dude would do what he would take his thumb and he'd stick it right in between my ribs. Oh man. And so we always talked about dad's thumb growing up. He had one move and that was it. Yeah. And again, for a non-athletic white, the guy was a hunter, fisher, camper, not really into the traditional sports. Elusively or deceptively quick. Wouldn't call him fast. Deceptively quick. When you thought you were standing just far enough away that he you could say something and he wouldn't be able to grab you, or you could say something to mom and he wouldn't be able to grab you. He was there. He was there. Yeah, he he showed up in the best way, and he's an amazing father, was raised by an amazing mother. Um but for you, when it can when it comes to not a lot of laughter, not a lot of smiles, much more stern. Um do you think did you develop that in because of your business background, because of your business, business, you know, you know, you were so successful in business, but were but you were always the authoritarian that you needed to be so serious, or was that more established, and you can find the details here in stair pits, okay? Was that established more because of your upbringing where you never felt like you had the right to smile and laugh and enjoy life?

SPEAKER_01 17:56

I I think it's a combination of things. One of the things that I thought about, let before I answer it, let me ask you another question on it. They did an interesting study on in determining hierarchy within people. You know, if you look at the the challenge for hierarchy, you know, that there's going to be a certain amount of, you know, your brothers might decide, you know, who is strongest or who is fastest, or just in the classic example of wrestling around, you know, you get on top and you threaten to spit in the guy's face or something like that. Right. Um and at the time that wasn't considered child abuse or, you know, being a pro-salivaist or something. They just was considered a natural way of dealing with it. But there's an idea that goes, and even with like animals that don't have language, like rats or something or wolves, that within the hierarchy, once the hierarchy is established, that the play begins when the lower status one interacts with the higher status one. And that's as a challenge or a chance to test or whatever it's going to be. And that's considered to be healthy. I mean, and that's across all animals with the social thing. And or the social status would be a better word than thing. But the thing that's interesting about it is if it's play, the dominant one has to let the lesser one win like twenty-twenty-five percent, maybe thirty percent of the time. And if they don't win thirty percent of the time, they'll never play again. Right. So in your family, was there something that you established that you could win and then you might let them win or come up with selected things that you might not be as good at?

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Racing. Racing. Yes. So my two younger brothers, I was the biggest. Right. And I think I their speed is because of me. Okay. I take full cred I I I want to take full credit for my little brother showed up to BYU. When you get to heaven, you gotta have this story a lot closer. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not very good. Absolutely. My little brother showed up to BYU at 18 years old and ran a 4-3-40-yard dash. Okay. Um and I told everybody, I'm like, the reason he is so fast is because I grew up chasing him his whole life. And he's and he learned, hey, I can say whatever I want to this dude as long as I can get away in the process. And so, so yeah, so we would have races or we would, or you know, you know, he would he would say something to me just, you know, to to, you know, that would not not enough to where I was just, you know, red in the face, hypothetically, because you can't really tell when I'm red. Right. Right. Um, but uh just enough to where he could prove that, hey, I can say something to you and be pretty close, but at the end of the day, you'll never be able to catch me because I can get away, right? And so, so Caleb and Brandon, my two younger brothers, were were very good at um uh, you know, keeping their distance enough to where they're close enough that I'd want to get up and chase them, but were safe far enough away and knew they were faster than me and would outrun me, and eventually, you know, again, I ended up playing defensive tackle, okay? Endurance is not long bouts of endurance, is not a not a strong suit. All right. Keep me in a five-yard box, strength on strength, all day long. You want me to run 50 yards? Not gonna happen. Not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

When uh I was when I managed record stores and would deal with that. Occasionally the company that uh worked for would give you a bonus if you caught a shoplifter. Really? Oh yeah, and the More the more you exaggerated the story, or the better the story was, the more you the minimum you get is 25 bucks. Okay. But you might get more. Yeah. So one of the things that I worked on was um I would chase the person, but you know, if you're going to chase the person, then they might fight you. Okay. And I didn't want to fight them. Yes. So what I would do is I would chase them, and then I would fall back enough that they would continue to run. But, you know, they just weren't going to deal with it. The answer was just to get them to sprint out so that they come to kind of this grinding halt. Yeah. Then to come in, stick your shoulder in the small of their back and sled them as hard as you possibly can. Wow. Then roll up on the back side and then zip tie their hands behind them and then frog march them back to the uh the play. So they'd come back and they'd be like bloody on the front of you. But I never had to hit them because if you fought them too soon, they might hit you. For sure. But you could get the guy to run. As long as he thought he could get away, he'd run. And normally, you know, like for somebody that isn't used to doing it, you get them to run two blocks, two and a half blocks. They're spent. You know, they're they're very easy to take it. And then you just knock them down, zip on one, get the second one, boom, pick them up by that side. If they give you any crap, you just drop them on the ground again. Yes. It's very, very effective.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Yeah. See, if if if I was ever able to, if I if I ever was to shoplift, I would walk out and I would just keep because I'm like, I want to get in the physical audience. I don't want to to sprint away because I'm about 20 steps in, I'm gas, take this, I'm arrested, I'm too tired to do anything about it. I would just walk out. If anyone would like to stop me, please make the attempt. I have energy for that.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

I don't want to run away from you. So that but that's so that is a very, yeah. If I was ever to, if I ever shop with it from you, that would be my play was hey, I want Robert to come fight me rather than just chase me down the street.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Yeah. It'd be a different situation on that. I think and there's there's other elements of just being able to follow the person and then just have to give them the example of you're gonna get in your car and I have your you know, I have your license plate number now. Yes. And you know, the question is, you know, how much more trouble do you want to be in? Absolutely. And, you know, we can just make it go away now, or you know, whatever. How would you like to play this out? Yes. But no, there was a certain joyfulness in being able to chase people on that.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Um, but yeah, I think that in my universe, I didn't grow up in a situation where there was necessarily cooperation for anything, and there really wasn't even maybe competition for things. It was more like um you just did what you wanted to do. Like my mother would do what she wanted to do, my stepfather would do what he wanted to do, and if there was any regard for anybody else in the family, it was purely coincidental. I mean, there was no rhyme or reason for anything that they did. And so I that idea of learning to play where people would want to play never occurred to me. And most of the things that I can do, I can do really, really well. And it would never occur to me to let the other person win. I mean, it's almost as if in my world, it's like I want to win and then I don't want to play anymore. I'm I'd like it to be settled and then I don't care. I mean, it's it it was an entirely different, you know, kind of more of a sniper version of it. I mean, one shot, one kill, and that's what it is. Let's just not play anymore and win by enough that there's no reason to ever play again. Um and I think that a lot of times I would come up with things that I thought were extremely funny. And if I said things that were extremely funny, then there would be an a high probability of somebody wanting to introduce some form of direct parenting that generally resulted with the back of their hand or their fist, you know, finding my face. So as a result, and you don't have to cry, I've gotten over it. Yeah, yeah. I mean that was emotional. I like that. But thank you. But just tough up shit. It's not you, okay. It's me. I'm trying to show empathy here. Yeah, hey, I'm the victim here. Yes, absolutely. I'm sorry, sorry. Let's limit our roles.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

I'm just used to being the victim of the black man on the set. Exactly. Okay, I'm just I'm, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

I'm just saying, dude, I'm trying to trying to show you a little bit of what it's like. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

I didn't know, I didn't know old whites could be victims. So we can this is news to me.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

The the whole theory was look at it this much, you know, the whole concept of being a Slavic. Uh-huh. Okay. You know what the word root word there is? Slave. Absolutely. Yes. Okay, so we have an entire subsection of white people that are known as slaves.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

That is very true.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

You know, very true. That's truly what it is. Yes. Do you know what Thompson means in Latin? I do not. Possible slave.

unknown 27:29

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

I don't think I think it actually means son of Tom. But I'm just trying to say that it could be something.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

It could absolutely could be. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

No, I'm just I'm just throwing it out there. 100%. It's probably wrong.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

But it could it might be right. Yeah. That's I mean, I mean, we're gonna need to do a spin-off series of just theories. Just theories, yeah. Yep, like like yes. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

And and I think that that's you know, uh to me, I think that's a big piece of it, is that I would say things that I thought were particularly funny or do things that I thought were particularly funny. And in many ways, it was a game of, you know, how many birds can you catch inside of the crocodile's mouth? And the answer is you just don't want the crocodile to bite you. Yeah. So you can't let the crocodile know exactly that he's being made fun of. You know, if he figures it out hours later, a week's later, or something like that, it's fine. But during the time, just better to just say it and see what happens. So that idea of you know, if we if we have faces so that we could convey emotion, you have a wonderfully expressive face. I mean, you can express things on it the way. Too expressive sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

I mean, I I do a I I wear my emotions on my sleeve or on my face. Yeah. So pros and cons where it's like no one has to guess how I'm feeling. Yeah, you can pretty much tell. Um, whereas you do a fantastic job of hiding that. Yeah. Where like, you know, where you can say, I mean, there's many times where you've said some of the funniest things I've ever heard with an like like you're talking to me like this, with an absolute straight face, no emotion whatsoever. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

And it's the same thing that, you know, when you talked about how your brothers learned to run from you, that if I was going to say something stupid to my stepfather, um, you know, the chances of being hit were very, very big. And so as a result, you couldn't you couldn't let him know that he was being made fun of, but at the same point, it's funny, you kind of have to say it. Yes. And so I I would play that part of it. And for me, it was um kind of the idea that I was I was gonna win my battle. Like, you know, where you said you could win the strength battle, but you weren't gonna necessarily win the sprints. Um, although, you know, going back to, I think we talked about this on a previous podcast, that there was a practice that I attended at Utah Tech where um Max intercepted a pass and then sprinted. And you know, see he's laughing, so I okay, I put the air quotes in, sprinted.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

And energy was safe for Saturdays, okay?

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Yeah, it was practice Monday through Friday didn't matter. But he did manage to he did manage to move from where he caught the ball at about the 38-yard line to the end zone under his own power, much to the cheering and disbelief of all teammates and everybody that was there. I mean, you would have thought that we had won the Super Bowl. Absolutely. But Max did a great job. He stepped in front of the screen pass, makes a nice little dig with his left hand, takes it, tucks it, and then just, you know, runs the five yards that he's good for. The tank is empty. And then he's like, Well, I've got to go more, and everybody was screaming. So kind of just by sheer emotion, he was able to take it the remaining yards. Yes. I mean, right up there with um maybe when Johnny Lamaster turned a double play against the Dodgers. I mean, someplace in the top maybe seven or eight hundred thousand elements of sports that everybody. But it's it's there. I mean, I don't think you're ever gonna get like a sports car on it, but it's I mean, it was it's impressive to me. Everybody else that saw it was pretty good. Oh, 100%. Coaches are all running for defibulator just in case.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Yes, exactly. But as they should have.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

As they should have. And it was scary. Everybody said, Well, God, who wants to give him mouth to mouth? We've never I got a class. We've never seen him run this far in practice. Oh, no, it was huge, it was absolutely magnificent. Yes. So no. So I think that you know, for me, it was kind of learning and managing um managing the moment or allowing me to play my game. You know, like I knew the thing that I could do, and so I wanted to win my event, and I didn't care about the other events. The other events didn't mean anything to my country. You know, I wanted to win, I wanted to win my event. Yeah. And if I won my event, then I was really, really happy, and the rest of it didn't matter. I only kept scoring that thing. Yes. So I I think that that's an interesting piece, but but I do think about that at different times where other people that I know, you know, have wonderful facial expressions and they look at it, and the extent of mine is I can give deadpan responses to things.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

And people might think that it's a high end of art, and it's not, it's just that's how you manage to live.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

Yeah, it's just kind of kind of who you are, how you who you developed into being. Let me ask you this. Again, you have been very successful in life in the world of in the world of business and and and those things because of your authoritarian presence, your willingness to do whatever it takes, to put your nose to the grindstone, do all those types of things? Do you believe that with the life that you grew up in, with it being hard, a lot of times joyless, a lot of times, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally abusive? Did that attribute to some of your success later in life? Um or let me even reframe it as do you feel like you would have been as successful as you are today if you would have grown up in a normal, stable household with laughs and joys and comfort, something that didn't push you outside your comfort zone every single day, something that didn't, you know, challenge you to simply survive every single day. Do you think you would have been as successful as you are today? Or is that kind of a a no matter what, I would have stepped outside the house and been successful because of my mindset, or because of the survival mode, I had to battle even once I got outside of that?

SPEAKER_01 34:20

I think that it's it's an interesting question. I think if my mother and biological father would have stayed together, um I would have probably been dead at like 14 or 16 because my father liked to drink. I would have been encouraged to drink, my father was aggressive, I would have turned to be aggressive, my father could be an ass, I would be an ass. And as a result, I would follow his method into hard-drinking asshole 14-year-old, which is a polite way of saying beaten to death or car wrecked death. So in that respect, I would have been a statistic. Um I think that the way one of the things that I learned, which was kind of an interesting idea, was like back in the day you didn't have a lot of TV choices. You had very minimum TV choices. Like in the Bay, there might have been three or four channels that you could pick up off of your rabbit ears. You know, so it was very over the air was just very minimal. So you didn't have the chance of what you wanted to watch. You learned to watch what was the least boring thing to watch as opposed to what you might want to watch. And a lot of stations back then would just go off the air at one o'clock in the morning and they'd turn back on at 4, 4:30. So there was a time in there where there just was nothing broadcast on television. So one of the things that I watched a lot of was Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom with Marlon Perkins. Do you ever see that? Never even heard of it. Um Mutual of Omaha was an insurance company that was based in Omaha, which is a city. Begins with O. Has a lot of white people. It's in Nebraska.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Um I'm immediately starting to think of other cities that start with the letter O. Yeah. Or just in case I got asked.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Orlando.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Right. Because remember you asked me about the city that started with D. Yeah, right. I think I got one, maybe two.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Yeah, it's really sad. Yes. Okay, let me ask you this. There are four state capitals. There are four state capitals that have the name City in their name. Something fun for you to play at home. How many do you think you can get?

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

It's not Sacramento City. It's not Portland City. Yeah. It's not Olympia City. Kansas City is the capital? No, it's not.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

Correct. Um Sin City is not the capital of Nevada. Correct. Um there Rapid City somewhere in the possibly, but it's not the capital. Not the capital.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Um can you give me the can you give me the four states? Well, let me do this. One of them is the state you live in.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Oh my shit.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Okay. Hey, next topic.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Hey, how are you doing? Okay. Okay. Salt Lake City's one of them.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Yeah. Okay, well, we'll just stop there. Don't worry. We'll just stop there. Let me see if I can give me the other states. What are the what are the other states? Okay. They were all in the United States. Okay. One of them is one of them shares a border with Utah, the state you live in.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Carson City? Correct.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

Oh!

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Way to pull that one out of thin air. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

Very good. Nevada. Carson City. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Give me another one.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

The other one is the state that what's his name used to play football in.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

Oh, Oklahoma City. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Okay. Yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

That's and for what's his name, by the way, that's uh the new starting defensive tackle, the extremely brittle um Justin Kirkland, whose entire future is based upon being a spokesman for Kirkland products at Costco.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

Which he actually should do.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Yeah. Hi, I'm Justin Kirkland. I really like the Kirkland brand uh granola bar.

SPEAKER_03 38:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Absolutely. Okay, we got one more. Scouring the United States. It's not Honolulu City. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

It's not Juno City. It's not Sacramento City. Correct. It's not Phoenix City. Okay. It's not Austin City. Nope.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

New York City.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

No.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

Oh no, because Albany's the capital.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Yes, it's not Albany City.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Yeah. Um do you know what Caleb?

unknown 39:22

No, no, I thought it was New York City as well.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

Son of a gun. Um. Yeah, I did. Is it on the East Coast? Midwest. Iowa City? Very good. Yes? Oh, okay. See.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

See, that's huge. Good job.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

Thank you. I I think I I, you know, my intelligence dropped to zero when I didn't get Salt Lake City, but I think I increased it. No, no, no, no. You finished strong. You know, you know, by about 60%. I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

You you finished really, really pretty well with that. And particularly since that's a state as we begins with a vowel, so it's you know, it's not even close. So that's even worse than that.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

Iowa is the Iowa's the worst state I think I've ever been to. I I have unfortunately played a lot of football in the state of Iowa. Some of it in my favor, some of it not.

SPEAKER_03 40:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:16

Right? But neither here nor there. I've never been to Iowa. A true flyover state. And I applaud the people who live in Iowa. Thank you so much for farming and living. I couldn't do it. I don't like we're playing here at Utah Tech. We go to Northern Iowa and play those guys and get our doors blown off. And me and that's Kurt Warner, you by the chance. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. In the dome, everything they probably I think they still have the turf from when he played, okay, back in the 80s. Me and what's his name get on the bus to come back, and we look at each other and we said, you know, in reality, we won today. Because these guys have to stay here in Iowa. We get to go back to Sunny St. George.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

Right. Back in the uh back in like the 12th, 15th century from that point in it, that one of the ways Britain used to pay for their same asylums, which were basically dungeons. Um, they would rent the people that were in there to the nobles, and they could do anything they want with them. They could sexually abuse them, they could kill them, they could beat them, they could do anything that they want, that they were just simply tools to be dumped out there. And when this country was originally brought together, that practice was considered to be so important at Horant that if we were going to have people that were gonna have mental deficiencies or problems like that, that we needed to have a place where they could be not exploited and free. So they came up with this idea of a place to keep them. And they came up with the acronym Iowa, which stands for idiots out wandering around.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

And that's that's how the state came into being. That's impressive. Really is. They grew corn around it so you couldn't see it.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

So it's originally an insane asylum.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

Yes. Wow. Look at us. I mean, I mean, we go from talking about stair pits to talking about the Midwest, farming, dungeons, corn. And then in the background here, we have we have, you know, yeah, the you know, uh uh uh Darius Rucker singing a country song for us. Yeah. Um, you know, the one black guy.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

That's it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Who's out here who's out here singing country as well. So as soon as we start talking about Iowa, Charlie Pride. All of a sudden, there's uh they they play the one the one song that I'm just kidding. I I listen to a lot of country music. I'm from Texas.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

Yeah, that's what you have to do. That's one of the things, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

Yeah, but no, I think that so I I think when I look at it for me, when you're going back to your question, was I think that it was an example of more of a survival thing, and just for me, it was much better to be invisible than it was to be visible. Because if people were going to be around me, um they were going to it was going to turn into something that wasn't going to be pleasant. And so as a result, the more invisible I could be, the better off it was. And most of the relationships that I had growing up were were more adult relationships. Like I never saw myself as a kid, I saw myself as an adult. And so as a result, um, you know, your emphysema is really, you know, here, why don't you hold the fake cigarette since you're coughing for a while? I mean, yeah, maybe you just need to you're holding it the wrong way, you're gonna burn yourself. Yeah, but the red part is where the fire is. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so that's what it is. And it's Did I ever explain to you what I learned about Holding cigarettes on it? I don't think so. Let me see it for a second again. So if you're holding it like this, okay, this is like a way that people would hold it. Brits would hold it like this. This would keep it from the smoke, but hold it like this. But junkies hold it like this. Okay. And the reason for that is number one, it takes less skill to get it to your mouth to smoke. And two, if I drop it to my side, see how it stays in my hand? Yeah. Means I'm not going to light myself or the building on fire. Okay. It'll just burn down to here, and then I'll wake up and roll over on it. But it doesn't. Jeez. Well, no, I mean it's true. This way it stops it from going into it. Interesting. So I learned that from watching junkies in the city. That's one of the things that I wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

So you tell you, you took. Do you feel like that is one of your serious question? Do you feel like that that that's that's one of your skills attributed to your childhood is your ability to no matter the person or their life, right? No matter how high or low they were on the totem pole of life, you were able to take something from everybody. You're able to learn something from everyone.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Yeah, absolutely. No, I think that for me it's a um it's it's a targeting thing. I think for me it just comes down to just a simple targeting software. It's what what do I think about X? You know, it's like, well, there's somebody. Well, if this goes into something, how do I play it? You know, how might what am I going to use if I have to fight this person? How am I going to fight them? And I became pretty successful in being able to recognize what is the person's weak point, what is the person's strong point. You know, if I'm going to do something with them, how does it work? And going back to like the Mutual of Omaha thing, which is where we were, um they would come on and they would show you something like they would go to um, you know, the savannah, and they would show you um like hyenas or something. And then to go from the show into the commercial, Marlon Perkins was the host, and Marlon was this old guy, and he would go, and like the and like the rabid dogs of the like the rabid dogs of the savannah, mutual of Omaha will lay waste to your insurance problems by providing you with excellent coverage. It was no matter what it was, they would do this little forced segue on whatever the animal was going into it. And my personal favorite one was, and like the giant Anaconda, Mutual of Omaha will squeeze the very life and money out of you. And as a cold-blooded killer, it will never give you a single dime. Now that's obviously they'll never sponsor this podcast with something like that, but we'll just go to somebody else. Yeah, Geico seems like they're pretty good. Yes. But um, anyway, um, but the uh I kind of viewed everything as like a general example of mutual Vomaha. And one of the things that I learned about constricting snakes from mutual Vomaha was that the snake doesn't actually crush you, it just holds you. And then when you exhale and you get smaller, it tightens and it holds you there. And then you do it again and when you convulse and again and again and again, and eventually your ribs break. And the snake isn't doing anything other than holding you. And it struck me that you could you could play cheetah and run something down and knock it down, and that's an effective way. You could play snake, you know, play constricting snake, and just force the person to fight longer than they wanted to, turn it into a war of attrition. Everything turns into a war of attrition. And you could say that, you know, that basically the book is you know a 10-year experience with my stepfather that I just outlasted him. Yeah, it had nothing to do with um with anything that he did. You know, it wasn't like I could beat him up on anything, it just turned into how could I outlast him? And it was just a simple thing. And if you're going to outlast somebody, you don't need to talk shit to him because that's just encourage him to fight more. Just, I mean, let them fight the void. If they're fighting nothing, it's it's very frustrating. And the fact that he could scream at me and yell at me and I just stare at him.

SPEAKER_02 48:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

And he just can't yell anymore. You know, and it just turned into the idea that by giving people nothing, no one you can't stay angry that long. Yes. And just let the anger go away. Just you all you have to do is let them get tired and then they'll go away.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

So last question from me today, kind of kind of tying to that. All the wars that you fought in your life, I know you fought a lot of them, you have a lot of battle scars, a lot of a lot of a lot of knowledge to pass on, which is why you are a mentor in the first place to pass on the knowledge that you've learned from the wars that you fought to the younger generation. You're doing a hell of a job of that. Um do you feel like you've won the majority of your wars in life through just simply outlasting, or is it more of the cheetah method of I need to chase this in order to achieve it, in order to be to run a successful business, in order to be a successful person, chase, chase, chase, or just simply outlast until you prove your point that, hey, I'm here to stay, more of an indestructible method rather than uh than a chase method. What do you how do you think you've won the majority of the wars in your life?

SPEAKER_01 49:49

I I think it comes down to um you know, the example that I know I've used with everybody, I'm sure I've mentioned to you. So the whole example of, you know, if a shark and an eagle are fighting, who do you bet on?

SPEAKER_02 50:05

Probably depends on whether it's in the water or on land.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

Well, yeah, I would say in the air or water would be even better. Okay. But yeah, right. So I would say that, and that's like there's a lot of air in Iowa City just as an example. If you ever go there. Absolutely. But no, but the um, you know, if the fight is gonna take place a thousand feet in the air, bet heavily on the eagle. If it's gonna be placed 20 feet under the water, the shark is the prohibited favorite. For sure. And the answer is never fight the guy in his home ground. You know, never seed, I mean, I don't have to play home field advantage. I just don't want you to have home field advantage. Okay. And that in debate, you um if you're going first, you get the privilege of establishing the premise, and then the other person has to defeat the premise. Yeah. So the the thing is just never accept the other person's premise. And I think that it comes down to the idea of winning and losing is a random, it doesn't really mean anything. Um what it comes down to is did what you do make you stronger? And I would say the things that I did made me stronger. And so in that regard, I think that I won. And I also learned, you know, from the idea of Hannibal that if you're gonna salt, you know, if you're gonna go into something, don't be scared to salt the fields. I mean, if you're gonna want to deal with it, make sure at the end of the day that there's a lasting taste of something that hurt to make sure that the person just doesn't ever want to fight you again. But to me, it's just an example of you see how the other people lose and then just let them lose. It's rarely that you win, it's just you let the other person lose, or you get the other person to quit. I mean, if if it comes down to well, I mean, today is the the third day after the United States, you know, its most recent attempt to blow up Iran or to stop Iran, that it used to be very few people in the in the like Middle Ages, you know, very few people won, very few people died in battles. They died in sieges. Right. So it wasn't, you know, a bunch of sword play or whatever. It was just, you know, the people eventually, you know, either starved out in the community or they got tired of the siege because they couldn't there wasn't enough things for them to eat and they had to give the siege off. But that's how people died. I mean, they died because they went across and they got a cut, the cut got infected, they got gangrene, they died, and then some disease swept through whatever it was, and then they just couldn't do it anymore.

SPEAKER_02 53:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

But it had very little to do with the swords. I mean, it was pretty much you died from you died from inertia, is really what you died from. And I think that's just the answer is that are people willing or you know, how much energy does it take to fight? Do you have that much energy to fight? And all you have to do is just you have to survive the first wave. And after the first wave, very few people will continue to fight.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

Wow. Survive the first wave. That's it. It's the theme of today's episode.

SPEAKER_01 53:38

That's it. And here's a little piece for those of you that are playing at home. That's kind of a fun theory of that. This is something that I did learn that was kind of interesting. That if somebody pulls a gun on you, if you can turn yourself as opposed to this way, if you can turn yourself with the left side of your body away from the gun and this arm down, that you've now reduced your target mass by two-thirds. And you've put your heart on the opposite side of your arm and in a rib cage, so the chance of somebody hitting you in the heart has gone away. I mean, they still might get a headshot on you and kill you. But for every yard that you can escape, get away from that person, your chance of surviving goes up exponentially. Absolutely. And so the answer to it is is that again, just I mean, the guy pulls the gun on you. Just, I mean, reduce the target mass to nothing. And then escape and just don't play, you know, you have a gun, I don't. I mean, the you have a gun, I don't battle results in compliance to the guy that has the gun unless you can get enough space from them. So that's that's really what it was. And see, now see, if you were if you were really good at this, what you would do is you would flex. So just do this, just go ahead and flex. And you would say, now you'd say, My brothers learn to avoid these guns.

SPEAKER_02 55:05

So just work it for me.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

Yeah, yeah. Just give the line.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

My brothers learn to avoid these guns. See, that's the way you sell it.

SPEAKER_01 55:14

That's it's the way that you sell it. Yeah. Good job. So there's something you've learned, boys.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

There's something you learned, boys and girls, today. It's like number one, Mike Rake's right. Um, that you know, the entire theory with your siblings is that the oldest sibling is right, the others just exist to basically clean up after them. Yes, and that physical domination ultimately leads to the success of all things.

SPEAKER_02 55:38

Amen. Works with Rams, works with that. Stair pits out now. R. RA Thompson, the author. Thank you so much for having me on your show today, brother. Thank you for being here. Really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

Sure good deal. I'm glad you had a chance to play with the cigarette too. I think that's cool. Thank you. Thank you.