Why Social Media Is Destroying Your Sense of Reality

Robert and Max explore the essential concept of personal development, emphasizing that acknowledging one's ability to survive rejection or refusal is a core life lesson. Building mental strength comes from understanding that setbacks are part of the journey. Embrace the idea of being a survivor, as this confidence is crucial for self improvement.

• the idea that surviving “no” builds confidence
• a statistic about 18 to 35 year olds reporting no meaning or future
• how early hardship becomes “battle scars” that prove you can overcome
• Max’s turning point signing to play college football
• growing up fast on an LDS mission in Argentina while learning Castellano
• rejection as training for criticism and pressure later in life
• sacrifice equals better future as a practical rule
• social media as comparison, bragging, and an echo chamber
• “move the cheese” thinking and trying a different door to win

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0:00 Resilience Starts With Hearing No
3:34 The 56% Meaning Crisis
5:36 Childhood Despair And Battle Scars
20:04 Max’s Independence And Argentina Mission
30:40 Rejection Training For Real Life
31:45 Sacrifice Beats Comfort Culture
38:10 Social Media Bragging And Self-Loathing
46:08 Hope Learned Through Survival Skills
51:33 The Cheese Moved Find Another Door
55:31 Flamingo Shirt Marketing And Goodbye

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When you recognize that you can be told no, you can be told many no different ways, and you can still survive. I think that's the piece versus being given whatever you want to either keep you quiet or to keep you placated where you're not going to do something. I think that that allows people to live in this suspended reality where all things are taken care of. Sacrifice equals better future. Sacrifice equals better future. Sacrifice equals better future. If you're not introduced to that concept, then your existence is what is happening today and what can either placate me or entertain me. And if there's nothing to do that, then life sucks. Imagine, if you will, a time and a place where children were no longer the focus of a family, where your own pleasure dictated everything that you did and everything that you wanted. Welcome to the Stare Pit Zone. Welcome to another exciting, possibly interesting episode of the Stare Pits podcast. As Max and I, again, we'll kind of drone on and attempt to be uh entertaining andor interesting and at some point hype you into buying my book. So the entire purpose of this, much as we talked about last time, is buying the book. So if you haven't, if you've been watching these and you're thinking Max is nice and I'm an ass, that's the feedback we're getting primarily. Um and you'd like to buy the book, well, think of it this way that if I had the more money from you buying my book, then it could just be about Max being nice and I wouldn't have to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

And if you want to find out why Robert is an ass, buy the book, right? Tell your story.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Absolutely it. Or you could just watch this and take note.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

I mean, I mean, this shows there's justification. Oh no, no, you don't act the way you do just for kicks and giggles.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Actually, I kind of do because I think it's really, really funny.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I was trying to save you.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

I was trying to save you there. Go on.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Take two, take two, try it again. He doesn't just act this way for kicks and giggles. He does, there's a story behind it.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah, I'm a tortured artist. There you go. Is that better? Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

This is the this is this is your Mein Kampf, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yeah, no, really, yeah, that's really what it is. I mean, there's people that need to die, and I think that's the answer. Wait, wait, I want to be an ass. I don't want to be like a sociopath. Okay, there's kind of a different thing. There's a deviation, there's there's there's a you know delineation there. For sure. So let's just try to work on this.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Not comparing you to Hitler. No, no. I'm just saying from the tortured artist side, the literature he wrote. Yeah, we're both left-handed. Really? Yeah. I didn't know he was left-handed. He's in the club.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Okay. Yeah. We tend we don't talk about him that much. He lost, so dude, he's gone.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

But at your at your monthly uh uh left-hand-handed meetings.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah, we talk about that. Yeah, left-handed vegetarian dog-owning painters meeting. It's rather it's a rather specific group.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Very exclusive club.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Very exclusive, yes. We only we don't have a lot of members anymore. It's like in my chapter, it's just me.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

We just sit around and just well, I mean, if if two of you die off, there's only one left, really.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

So that guy, that guy gets all the money. Yep. So there's absolutely a lot of times they have meetings with snakes in the room hoping that somebody will die. Yes. So it's good. 100%. So it's good. I um I read a statistic the other day that I thought was actually kind of interesting. And it said that well, let me ask you this: what percentage of people between 18 and 35 feel that their life has no meaning? And there is no there's no meaning or purpose to life, and they have no future.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

I'm gonna guess 40 percent. I'm gonna be on the on the on the optimistic side. There's there's about 60 percent that still believe uh in their future and that there's something uh to look forward to.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

See, that's why you're perceived as nice. Because my thought was this. I thought it was gonna be like 80. Okay. Yeah. But, you know, um, the correct answer is 56%. Really? So 56% of the people don't feel that they have a life or do or that they have a life, but there's no meaning to the life, that there's no purpose to the life, that there's no sense of future. And I was so amazed by that that I I mean, I had to read it twice because at first I thought, well, you know, maybe I was projecting the number that I wanted to see. Yeah. And then I thought it was, well, maybe it's like, you know, 44%. Maybe I didn't read the sentence correctly. So after reviewing it, you know, looking at each word individually, um, I then came up with it and I thought, well, that is, you know, the perfect reason why we have a podcast is to talk about useless shit like that, as well as buying my book. So um, that's the new phrase is that every every like 35 seconds we're gonna subliminally say it, buy the book so that other people will accidentally buy the book.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Yes. Okay, so that's just gonna echo in the back of their head.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

That's exactly it, yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

So let's talk about this, okay? Along hand in hand with your book. Which you could buy, which you could buy on breakableorigins.com. Um was there a time in your upbringing because, again, as we've stressed, it was hard, it was difficult, it was very tough compared to what any normal child should have to go through. Right. Was there a time where you ever sat there and you thought you had no future because of the parental figures and guidance that you had in your life, which, let's be honest, wasn't that great, wasn't that stable, wasn't that kind? Was there a chance? Was there a time you sat there as a little kid and thought, it's game over for me, I don't have a chance?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

I think that the my greatest moment of despair was uh in kindergarten where it occurred to me that I could never do 13 years of education. Wow. It was just like I'm never gonna be able to do this. And it was a combination of wanting to learn so badly, liking to learn, and it was kind of a sense of the only time that I had real solid positive feedback was when I was with my grandparents and they taught me a whole bunch of stuff. And so during that time, I liked it. I thought it was great. I thought that that's how you would get recognition or love or anything would be all based upon learning. And then I walk into kindergarten and everything that I knew wound up being a negative. And that was I remember sitting at my little desk and just thinking and legitimately counting it out, you know, kindergarten one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, you know, how could I do 13 years of this? And I tried to figure out, man, at that time I'll be like 18 and my life is half over. And that was legitimately what I thought. It never occurred to me. And then after making it through kindergarten, it was so much more a struggle of making it day-to-day, that the future was kind of an immaterial thing. It didn't necessarily mean anything. And then by the time I got to like third grade, all of a sudden I recognized that there was such a thing as the future, and that I also recognized that the path that my parents were on and the path that I was on were so diverse that there was no chance that I would be doing what they did. So as a result it was kind of like in its own way, kind of a Lewis and Clark story. You know, all of a sudden I'm just following along. And I think one of the things one of the things that makes Lewis and Clark interesting is that most explorers explore downriver. Like they'll start at the river and then they'll go that way. Yeah. Because the water makes it easier for them. And but Lewis and Clark went upriver the whole time. And that I think made them into made it more of an epic story, is that they did gravity was working against them. And so I think that's I think that's one of the pieces. And I think that's I think that's a commonality that you and I have is your story is birth, rescue, recognition that things aren't normal. This isn't this isn't the way it is every place else, and then fighting that that demon of inconsistency or incongruency at a very young age, and coming to terms with it and then being able to move on. Would would you agree with that assessment?

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Absolutely, yeah, that's a great assessment.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

And I think that when you're looking at younger people that don't have it, of the fifty of the fifty-six percent that don't see a future, how many of them have a past?

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Probably most of them. Yeah. Which I which I would assume leads to them not having any hope for the future.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

See, I would say that none of them have a past. Okay. And because it's an interesting idea. So let me let me give you my premise on it. My premise is your past is you had a monster, you had a demon that you had to you had to look at, you had to face, you had to fight, then you had to overcome. And that gave you the concept that you could overcome things. Right. That you had the capacity to take what was in front of you and then turn that into something better.

unknown 11:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

I think that you you you have you have battle scars as a result of it. Yeah. And that once you have that first victory, you can then have a second victory. Okay, I believe I have the same things. I mean, I have victory, I mean, I have battle scars, and I believe that I can overcome things. I believe that if I try hard enough, I will come up with a solution. It might not be the perfect solution, but I'll get out of the frying pan, I won't be in the fire, and there's a chance that I'm out the door before somebody eats me.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

And then I might be able to buy the building, evict them, and then, you know, beat them in the street later on and steal all the shit. That's kind of the way that I look at stuff. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. I have a different strategy of, you know, the backside should be really good. Yes. But when you're looking at 56% of the people that are out there, um they don't behave like they've accomplished anything. It's like they've they've reached this perpetual give-up mode. And as a result, they can't do anything because it's against them, that there's too many obstacles. And that's what makes me think that, I mean, there might be obstacles and there might be horrible, miserable things that happen. I mean, they might be chained up at home and their, you know, parents might occasionally Did you ever know the TV show The Little Rascals? Yes. Okay. So in the Little Rascals, they had like, you know, black and white horrible things on that, right? And they had one of the worst black stereotype characters of all time in Steine. And my stepfather used to quote Steine, which I thought was the most his line was it might like on artichokes, it might choke choke arty, but it won't choke Steine. That was his line.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

And my stepfather thought that that was so clever. And he forbid my mother to buy artichokes because you'd get the artichoke, you take the leaf off, and you only eat about this much of the leaf and then the heart. And he felt that you threw away more than you ate.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Okay. The day that I told him that corn and artichokes were the same, because you look at like how much of the corn and then how much of the corn you actually eat, that we should never have corn either. And boy, I tell you that, you know, when you when you come up with that revelation to somebody that's stronger and bigger than you, the idea for him to backhand you across the room is pretty spectacular. That's one of my other great skills, is I can get hit in the head, land and roll pretty damn fast. You know, it's like I've learned how to do it. I'm actually pretty skilled at that. Okay. Of course, I could have learned just to not make clever comments.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Couldn't learn that one, but I learned a much harder thing of how to, you know, how to absorb the abuse.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Well, I mean, I thought you I thought you were gonna say you learned how to dodge them, but hey, uh absorbing them is actually a better skill. Oh no, the I mean that can that helps you more in life.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

If you dodge them, then he just hits you again. And and the answer is, you know, when you have six, four strong person versus, you know, scrawny little boy, you know, the answer is you gotta take one for the team. Okay. And then you also I also learned to cry just enough that he wouldn't go forward. For a while, I tried to show him that I wouldn't cry, but he would just hit me harder.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

So I mean I knew what he wanted. You had to feed him what he wanted. You he needed results. Yeah. But going back to the idea of and the diversions from the the the idea of Steinian artichokes, which I think is kind of funny.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Um, but what they used to do in order to get the kids to cry was this. So they would go to the kids, they'd go to like Alpha Alpha or Darling or Darla, whatever it would be, and they needed the kid to cry. And they would say, We have to do this scene, but your dog just died. Really? And what? Yeah, no, your dog's uh was horrible. You're but you can see him after we do this scene, and then the kid would and the kid is, I mean, the kid's trying to get their words out, crying. Yeah, and the reason they're crying is that they think that their dog, and then when, oh no, you're it was somebody else's dog. Well, you know, it's like after a while, it's like, okay, what what are you doing? Yeah, you know, and I view that as like, you know, and you wonder sometimes how come child actors never become anything, it's because they are so tortured. I mean, Britney Spears' behavior is not accidental, it's conditioned of what happened to her. For sure. And but I think there could be that level of abuse, and there could be other versions of abuse, and the people can overcome it, and some people have things that they can't overcome, and blah blah. But I would say generally, if you're not required to overcome something, if you don't have if you don't have a battle that you can identify as a young person and then again as a teenager, the next X years of your life are in purgatory. There's nothing there because everything is impossible. Like, for instance, would you ever consider bringing your parents with you to a job interview?

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Uh no, probably not.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Yeah. Right. Same thing. Like mine would never go. Yeah. I mean, my mother, and it's in the book, one of the reasons why you want to buy the books. Hey, there you go. Yep. But my mother once wrote a letter to the second grade principal telling him that she didn't care what I did just to leave her alone and to stop trying to contact her. Really? Outstanding. Okay, and you read the book. That was very good. Like that's interesting. Yeah. See, that was acting.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

That's why I'm trying to bring intrigue to the book. That's what you should buy. Right. Really? Tell me more. Yes. Ooh, that's good, Max.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

See, that's that's why he's a professional.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Okay, but no, but that that idea that you could be that divorced from everything, you know, that you could have parents that would be just that generally disinterested there. I think that when I look at that, so you know, if you were if you were to look at your life on it, you would say, recognizing, as you said brilliantly in another podcast on it, the fact that you're black, your parents are white. Wait a minute, this probably I didn't come from them. Yeah. Or if I did, it's really weird. When do I turn white?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

And the answer for that was when you started following hockey and golf. I mean, that was exactly yes. That's exactly when it is.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

So, really, it's your fault that I've that I've turned more to the whiter side of life, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Pretty much, yes. But on the other hand, I've also tried to get you to listen to jazz. That is what you've tried to I've tried to to get you to. You're balancing the scales here. I'm trying to, yeah. No, that's exactly what it is. Absolutely. And I can tell you all sorts of cool stories about black exploitation film that you've never watched. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I mean, I'm doing my part to try to be down with the struggle.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Absolutely. And then at some point, you and I just need to sit down, watch Roots together.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

That would be it. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

And that that'd be the culmination of my friendship.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

That would be that would probably or Black Dynamite, which would be the other one. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Yeah. Have you ever seen that?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

No. Oh, Jay White. Okay. Those of you watching at home, if you ever want to see the most beloved spoof of black exploitation films. So, like an example of a black exploitation film that I saw in theatrical release. Yeah. Blackula. Wow. Okay. Okay. So black vampire overacted the most ridiculous thing on God's earth. I mean, it was just pathetic. Yeah. And it's like it kind of starts with like with Shaft would have been another good example of that. You ever watch Shaft?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

I've seen clips of it.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Gotta watch the whole movie.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

The interesting thing about Shaft was that was one of five movies in the year that it came out that made money.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Really? That's it.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Almost entirely off of the soundtrack. Wow. Okay. And um, but the um that that whole concept of your your initial battle, I think, was recognizing that things were different in your life, but yet had some consistency with the rest of the way. It might not look the same, but it acted the same.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Yes, absolutely. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

And in mine, I think it was it looked the same, but it acted very differently. Yes. So I think that there's, you know, it's an A B on that. Yeah. What would you say was the was the event when you were a teenager that gave you that sense of independence when you broke away from being a child, entered adolescence, and then could see adulthood going forward? What do you think that event was?

SPEAKER_01 20:24

I would say it was the day I signed um my national letter of intent to go play football at the University of Nevada. My, my, the, the tail, it was would have been February of my senior year. So, so during basketball season, national signing day, signed with them in February, graduated from high school in March, and then left on my LDS mission to go to Argentina in May of 2016. So I'd say about probably February of 2016 was really the first time I saw that independence, that jump, that separation from adolescence to adulthood, from okay, leaving my parents' house, here is the plan going forward, go on a mission, and then I'm heading straight to Reno after that to go play for the Wolfpack. So that that was really kind of the first iteration of I'm an adult.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

And let's even talk about because that's another interesting piece, I think, that comes into it. So if you were to look at the story, you know, very odd beginning, dumped into, you know, Idaho, northern Utah, all of a sudden, wow, black, white, how does that work? Weird. Outstanding athlete, beating the crap out of your brothers, um, and then, you know, becoming basically a physical dominating bully. And see, it's hard to believe he's a nice guy now, but it kind of happens that way. But um, so you basically physically intimidate people with a smile on your face into becoming the perception of a nice guy. Yes. And then you um go to You're a successful athlete, you have a bit of a future that there is a piece of the future that's introduced there, right? Yeah. That two years later you're going to be playing football, but then all of a sudden you're in southern Argentina speaking a language that wasn't the language that you originally taught, which had to be fun.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

And then basically, as a missionary, you're selling God, or you're introducing people to God. That's a real adult thing to do at that point. I mean, to be able to introduce people into something that's an intangible. I mean, you can't go and say, you know, here's six pounds of God, how much do you want?

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

So walk through maybe your understanding of what was life like trying to trying to deal with representing God in a land that you didn't speak the language. And then I think it's also the idea. Did you ever feel that it was racist that they made the black guy go to the southernmost part in South America? I mean, was that like, you know, if you were white, you might have gone to like Venezuela or something? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

It is funny too, because um I was the first black LDS missionary in the history of my mission. So that's the first time they'd ever see. So I thought I got gawked out a lot being a black guy in Utah. Right. I go down to Argentina way worse when it when it came to just being a polarizing figure walking the streets because people are like, we don't see that around here at all.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

They ever stop and try to get their picture with you or anything? Oh, all the time.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Really? Yes. I mean, and and I realized too that um a lot of people think that uh every black person in the United States related to each other. So I got asked all the time: Do I know Barack Obama? Is Will Smith my uncle? Do I know Shaquille O'Neal, Dwayne Wade, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant? Where I got asked that almost every day. Not Michael Jackson? No, never got asked about Michael Jackson.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Maybe you're too big.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Maybe he turned he turned white. That's the other problem. Yeah, but he bleached out and he got the nose. Yeah, he got bleached out and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

But so they probably didn't think about that.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Yeah, but that that whole transition to becoming a missionary, that was the biggest step in my growing up for sure. Because I'm 18, walking around southern Argentina with a 19-year-old as my companion.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

And describe what a companion is so they don't, you know, I don't want because one of the theories here is I'm hoping that there will be enough Max as a nice guy that eventually I can sell you off as a husband. You know, so I'm just let's explain what a companion is.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Yeah, so just a another, a I don't even what's it, what's it, what's a better word than companion?

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Um a but companion is the word that's used in the faith. Yes, exactly. But to somebody outside the faith, what would they call it?

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Um I'm blanking. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Well, partner isn't probably the word.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Yeah, that was the next word I had in my head. I'm like, partner's probably worse than that.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Yeah, fiance is another value. But would you say uh an associate? Associate, yeah, another person or another believer, or somebody that you would go together. So it would be this.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

And we and we help each other out when it comes to talking about the faith. We play, we play off each other. Right. It's easier to do it between two people than to than to stand there and just you, you know, you blabber onto somebody, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Um so so for instance, I would be your companion in this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

One of the things when you said blabber on, I kind of got that part.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Yes. By the book.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

That's true. Yep, by the book. Yep, absolutely. Um, yeah, no, that that was a lot of growing up because yeah, didn't know the language at all. I had to learn it when I got down there. Um, you know, not too many people walking around in my life before I went to Argentina that just fluently spoke Castellano.

unknown 26:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

I thought I was learning Espanol, I thought I was learning Spanish. Nay. No, no, no, not in Argentina. They speak Castellano. I I got told when I got down there that if I truly wanted to talk to God in the purest form, I don't pray to him in English, I don't pray to him in Espanol, you pray you pray to him in Castellano.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Oh, yeah. Well that's okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

That that is that's the language of God. Um and so uh yeah, learning Castellano, that's the first time I've ever lived outside my parents' house.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

It's like I went from Smithfield, Utah to Comodo de Rivadavia, Argentina. That was the that was me, you know. It was, you know, I didn't make a pit stop in Reno on the way down. It was just straight from fully dependent on my parents to living in another country, the southernmost tip of the world, down by Antarctica, and being an 18-year-old, walking around with another 19-year-old, talking about God, God and Jesus Christ, and and and trying to to uh teach people and show people about our beliefs in a certain faith. So yeah, it was definitely a lot of took a lot of maturing, a lot of growing up. I like I said, it really sped up my I feel like my development, my growing up and my maturity in life, because I had to, in order to even survive in that environment as an 18-year-old, you don't get act like an 18-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Right. So in that environment, the idea of of selling faith is what you're doing. And I don't mean that in a negative way. No, absolutely. But whenever people are talking, if you're selling, I mean, let's go to lunch, okay, great. Where do you want to go? Well, let's go get tacos. I'm trying to sell you tacos. I wasn't just using tacos because you were talking about Espanol. But, you know, I was trying to do that. The other question I had when you were in down there, did you ever see penguins? Yes. Really? So penguins made it up there?

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. In my mission, there were glaciers, penguins, uh, whales, seals, the whole, the whole deal. I made it all the way down to the southernmost town on the planet that's inhabited by people, is called Ushuaia. Um, and then that's where National Geographic launches off to go do their explorations in Antarctica. It's literally here's the mountains, here's the Arctic Ocean, and they built this little very, it's a very touristic town because everybody, you know, all the cruise ships go there, everybody wants to say they've been to El Finda Mundo, the end of the world. Okay. So I was down there for five and a half months in the middle of the winter. And I mean, I thought I knew cold.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Growing up, growing up in Cache Valley.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah.

unknown 28:48

Different.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Different. Different for sure. You see how the palms of my hands are white? That's from living in Argentina.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

That's basically what it was. It from the pigment out.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

I'd take off my gloves all the time and shake people's hands. Yeah, yeah, throw some of the pigment off. Yeah. Um, but uh, yeah, so yep, saw saw penguins, saw a lot of different uh wildlife down there in the Patagonia, um, which is what that I, you know, I never knew the clothing company that's called Patagonia. I'm like, that's a really weird name. Oh, it's actually based off of this part of Argentina right here. So it's like Hershey is like named after a town. Exactly. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

And and and you know, I I've been to Hershey, Pennsylvania. I've also been to Intercourse, Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Well, that's true, yeah. Which I'm like, uh they have an abbreviation that's much shorter.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

I'm like, what came first, right? When it came to that one. Um but uh but yeah, the uh yes, took a lot of maturing and growing when it came to um the mission and like you said, selling God, um, you know, stopping people in the street, you know, going door to door. I mean, in Argentina, you don't knock on anyone's door either, you clap, right? You stand outside their gate and you clap and hope that they hear you. Um, I remember we had one lady, she was in her front yard a couple houses away, just reading a book, doing her thing. As we walked up, all of a sudden she fell asleep. And we sat there and we clapped. Like from me to you, but there's a gate in between us, and she is on her lawn chair, and I am she did not move. One of the best we thought she died for a second, but one of the best acting jobs I've ever seen. The second we left, she quietly got up, went in her home. We woke her up, and that was and that was that. So, so yeah, and it it took a lot of maturing a lot of the times to face rejection, right? Yeah, that was a big deal. That that I think that helped me grow more than anything else. Was I've never been told no or that I'm dumb or stupid or been rejected more in life than at that point, which prepped me for college football. Right. Okay. By that by the time I started playing college football, I you know, coaches tell you you're dumb, you're stupid, you suck, you gotta improve here, you gotta do this. By the time I got home with the mission, I was I was battle-scarred enough to to not take that too personally.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Right. And I think that I think that's a big piece of it, is that when you recognize that you can be told no, you can be told many no different ways, and you can still survive, I think that's the piece, versus being given whatever you wanted to play, you know, to either keep you quiet or to keep you placated where you're not going to do something. I think that that that allows people to live in this suspended reality where all things are taken care of. That, you know, if you wait long enough, mom will make you a sandwich. Yeah. You know, or mom will get you green cheese, or if you don't, you know, that you won't eat this, but you'll eat I have a um I have a cousin who or I should say nephew, who um was so shelter would perhaps be the best word, that all he will eat is granola bars, cut carrots, and um like chicken McNuggets.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

And how do you when we went to his birthday once at a nice restaurant and he wants to order off of the children's plate when he's like in his twenties? Yeah. And his youngest half-brother is willing to try other things. And I just I mean that that idea that he couldn't eat something else. I mean, at what point do you so diminish your life where you look at his idea of is there a future? Well do you want a future where your entire life is consistent upon eating, you know, chicken McNuggets with whatever the sweet sauce is, you know, having a couple of carrots and a granola bar. Just you know, I g the guy that used to be the sheriff in Maricopa County, um he ran what many people thought was an inhumane prison. But if the people didn't act properly, he had something called punishment loaf that he used to give them that would like whatever the nutritional requirements were to feed prisoners were contained in like a four and eight-ounce serving of this stuff. But it was basically tasteless and horrible. Wow. And they would just and they would cook it up and they would get it. And if the people mouthed off to the guards or they didn't do it, if they didn't clean it up, they'd get punishment loaf for a couple of weeks. And then magically that was it. If there are any violations, it would just extend it. And there was peer pressure that people, whatever they were required to do, they would do it because nobody could stand punishment loaf for that period of time. And I think also the name punishment loaf is kind of, you know, it's a great name for something. Absolutely. It gets the thought across. Yeah. But you can learn. But I think that that I think the way that you described it, I think answers a lot of the questions where if you look at the people that don't believe that there's a future and don't believe that their life has purpose, one of the ways you can look at it isn't that there's no future. The idea that in your life you've had a real consistent example of how do you sacrifice in order to get something in the future. I mean, you understand sacrifice equals better future. Sacrifice equals better future, sacrifice equals better future. If you're not introduced to that concept, then your existence is what is happening today and what can either placate me or entertain me. And if there's nothing to do that, then life sucks.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Right. And that's I think one of the big problems that perhaps this other group has is that what what have they ever sacrificed? And I don't mean denied. There's a difference between being denied things. Clearly, most of them were denied putt, you know, ponies when they were seven, or they didn't get a chance to live at Disneyland for three years when they were nine. Yeah. So I mean they had undoubtedly incorporate just horrible consequences of their parents abusing them at that level. But um, and they didn't get like cake every day. For sure. There's terrible just terrible problems. But I wonder what I wonder what that percentage is. And then I think that the other thing that you do very well is you have an incredible ability to reflect God's love. In the you're easy to approach, you'll talk to people, you engage in people, you'll have interesting conversations with them, you facilitate conversation. And when I look at other people that are out there, you ask them something, you ask them a question, and it's almost as if they had come from southern Argentina and were dumped into the United States and knew three words. I don't know. Okay. Nothing. I want chicken McNuggets. You know, that's that's like the that's their their entire vocabulary is monosyllable nods. Yeah. And I wonder I wonder how do you get, you know, if that idea that they're depressed, and depression, I think the classic version of it is, you know, anger at themselves. I wonder how much of that is having an inner belief that you could do more, but the way that you've built your life keeps you from doing more, keeps you from even trying. Does that you know you know many more young people than I do? Yeah. Is that true or is that false?

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Or what yeah, I would say it is true. Yeah, like that there's different different aspects of of of and I've been victim of this too. Different aspects of you and yourself when you look in the mirror and you might not like what you see, or you might not like the person looking back at you, that that is a lot of what holds people back rather than the outside noise, right? I feel like the the biggest limiter of people and their potential are themselves. Absolutely. Right? I don't I I think you you have the option and the and the chance and ability to reach almost anything you want in life, or at least make the attempt. You're not gonna get everything you want in life, but at least make the attempt to reach for the things you want in life. Sometimes those even those attempts are thwarted, like you said, by a lot of the depression, a lot of the the self-hate, self-hatred, self-loathing um that goes on. And a lot of that is again reflected a lot in my generation. A lot of that has to tie in with um uh social media and and you know, what was it, Mark Twain who said comparisons, the thief of joy, and things like that. So we're all scrolling on our phones, comparing, you know, I can find a whole bunch of people who their life is way better than mine according to social media, right? And so I can sit here and compare myself all day to all these other people, which then generates oppression, and which then you'll just which is why my generation we should be more prone to pick up books by the book.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Very good segue by the book.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

That's a really good idea, yes, in order to escape. It's funny because you read a book, at least back in the day, you write you read books to escape the real world, you read books to take your mind off things. Now it's almost like you are you can read a book to escape the fake world, which is the internet, correct, which is social media, which is because that like I tell everybody it's like social media is not really real. I mean, that that's everybody putting their best foot forward. That's not real life, that's not real people if you're only showing the best of yourself. Because many times, in many instances, we show the worst of ourselves in real life, right? But no one ever wants to put that out on social media because it you won't get the popularity or the fanfare from that.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Right. Do you know what they used to call that level of social media when I was a child? Bragging. Okay. Yes. That's really what it is. Yeah. And it's like, for instance, you know, and I don't want to do it because it would affect too many people on it, but I have extremely attractive calves, and I notice you're constantly looking at them.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

But you got it propped up there. So I mean, that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

I should probably just hide them. Yeah, yeah. But the the answer is I could go on, like, you know, attractivecalf.com, yeah, load some pictures of mine, and I'd be number one.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Yes. I mean, you you uh it's funny. You I mean, you would you be competing with other calves or would you be competing with livestock?

SPEAKER_00 41:14

No, calves. No, no, no. I meant calves. I just I have just no, you've got legs. No, I have like just a bunch of tiny little just a bunch of tiny little cows at my hands. As soon as they get to a certain as soon as they get past veal, they're gone. Gone. Yeah, absolutely. But no, that's but no, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

My my fault, my fault.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

No, totally your fault. Yeah. But um, but I think that that that concept of like constantly bragging about crap, it's the uh it's worse than the than the kid. Oh, I got a you know, I got a 97.5 on my test. Yeah. What did you get? Oh, you're stupid. You know, it's um congratulations. You know, so you good job. That's gonna, you know, what you got on your third grade spelling test affects your credit rating and capacity to get a good job.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

It totally defines who and what you are. Oh, yeah. Yes. So I think that I think that there's that concept if you live in a world of perpetual bragging, it turns into who can brag bigger and better more. Yeah. And I think that the counterpoint to that is, you know, either it's the biggest best or it's the worst, most horrible. You know, there's perpetual victimization and there's perpetual I'm the best, and that there's there's nothing in here. Yes. And I get the fact that nobody, you know, if you ever go to mediocre behavior, no one ever goes to that website, mediocrebehavior.com, because it's like, what did you do today? Well, you know, I got up and I went brushed my teeth, went to the bathroom, took a shower, got dressed, drove to work, worked, came home, ate, tried to find something to watch, and then Doom strolled on my phone for seven hours and felt found other people that were as depressed as I am, and a bunch of people that are better than me, and then I fell asleep in a bath of my own tears.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

That sounds like a song, a bath of my own tears. No tears.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

No, it really, it it really is. Yeah, and it could be a ballad right there. That that that's pretty much it. You know, if you had a banjo with you, we could work with that. Oh, absolutely. So I think that that needs a great banjo, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Yes, we need to workshop that, no doubt. Yeah, that's really yeah, you're right. Everybody they see on social media what they want to see. They everybody, it's an echo chamber, right? Right? I mean, you're all here, you're You're talking to, I mean, everybody's, you know, usually it's like you're talking to people who only agree with you, right? You're you a lot of times, you know. I mean, I of course, you know, everybody gets very heated in sports debate. So, like, that's a lot of my social media. So you do get to see a lot of the opposite side. But yeah, but like, yeah, you're absolutely right. Just no one likes the mediocre, right? No one's gonna sit there and look at their phone and be like, did it let me give that a little heart or a little like on Facebook um for something mediocre, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Do you think that there should be, as opposed to thumb up, thumb down? They should just one in the middle. Yeah, yeah. This is just like I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Do better. Like either give me, give me something, give me something to do a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

You could just make it that you could just scroll it to get the thumb to the point that you wanted it to be or broken. Yes, just like no thumb. Yes, just the other answer.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Yeah, hey, I think that that's your next million dollar idea right there.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Yeah, it's just the no thumb major. Yes, no thumb major.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Absolutely. Um, let's talk, let's talk about about hope with you again. Um, at what age did you leave home?

SPEAKER_00 45:04

15.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

15. 15, 16, yeah. Okay. So when in your life did you feel like you had the most hope? Was it when you found out you were pretty smart, even though education wasn't for you? Was it when you were 15 when you left home? Was it when you when you started your first business? Was it when you made your first million dollars? When did you or when was it when you got married? Can't leave Susan out of this. I apologize. I apologize, Susan. Didn't want to forget you. You're the most important thing that ever happened to this guy.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

So does she pay you to say that, or is it that obvious?

SPEAKER_01 45:37

Her and I, her and I have a backdoor deal. There's a bag of money that she left in my car.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Um so you actually get paid to pay to tell the truth. I mean, that means it makes it kind of seems like see, I tried to pitch you as a real nice guy, and now you have to be paid to tell the truth. That's not right.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

You have every everyone has their price. That's true. You know that you you came from the stock world. Everyone has their price. So, at what at what stage in your life do you feel like you had the most hope for the future? Like I know I hit a bunch of different points there.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

I would say when I recognized that I could do things, I for me, I think it was um I had a uh a babysitter, Mrs. Blackman, who was just spectacularly horrible as a babysitter. And one of the things that she uh used to do is she just drop me off at the zoo, and then I would be there and I have to meet her outside like at four, and I'd be at the zoo all day by myself.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

And what time would she drop you off in the morning?

SPEAKER_00 46:43

When it opened around 9 30 or 10. Wow. So I would spend, you know, pretty like seven hours in the zoo.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yeah, you're putting in a seven, eight-hour workday at the zoo.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

And it was, but I would be there by myself, and it was great because nobody was bothering me. I could look at the animals. How old were you at the time? 28. No, it was um it was weird that I had a babysitter.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

It made knowing you make sense. Very irresponsible. You need a babysitter at 28 years old, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

Yeah, she tied my shoes. Okay. Shortly after I learned to tie my shoes, everything changed. Gotcha. Yes. Didn't have to wear loafers. I could it was just like the other kids. Yeah. But the uh I was like pre-kindy kindergarten right around in that kindergarten first grade. Yeah. And so I would just wander around the zoo by myself. And I learned like in the mornings it would be kind of cold, and we didn't necessarily always have money for jackets. So they would feed like the lions and the tigers inside the big cat house. So you would go in there and it would be warmer, and then you'd watch them being fed, and then you'd go watch something else, and it'd wander around the zoo and deal with that. And she taught me at that point that I didn't need to buy a ticket. I could just walk past people that nobody would ever think that the child would go into the zoo by themselves.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

And so I guess at that point I learned how to steal. I mean, in a very effective looking back on it, I learned how to steal. And then they had another area that was called Playland at the beach, and they had it's a place you go for like picnics or birthday parties or something. And starting at around 11:30, people would show up there for their kids' birthday parties. And all I had to do was there'd always be a mother that was trying to bring things in and was carrying too much stuff. I would just carry something with her, and she's paying for you know 10 kids to come in. They're not counting 10 kids. Yeah, they're just taking the money. So I'd carry something in, I'd put it down, and then I would just participate in that kid's birthday party. So I'd get like a hot dog cake ice cream. It's great. And then so I would go from like little Johnny's party to little Jimmy's party to little David's party. So I could get like three hot dogs, three pieces of cake, three scoops of ice cream. And at that point, I recognized that I could do for myself. Okay. And I knew it was wrong, but I also knew that I was really hungry. And that breakfast really wasn't anything that we had at the house. Mrs. Blackman wasn't gonna feed me anything. She tried to feed me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich once, and that wasn't gonna work. So, and then you know, at dinner we would have like questionable dinners sometimes. So scrapple. Yeah, scrapple. So it would be horrible. So at that point, I learned that from about 11 to 1, I could cram enough calories into me that it worked. And I think at that point I knew that I could make that if it wasn't working, I could change it. And it didn't matter what other people thought of the change. At a certain point, the revolutionary theory that, you know, my need gives me right. Uh at that point I think I was truly starving to the point that it was, it did make sense to me. So I did that for about two years, year and at least a year and a half, two years. And that's the thing that was bizarre about it was virtually every day I'd walk past one of the two or three ticket takers with a different mother. You know, and I'm wearing basically the same thing. But of course, everybody back then wore the same thing. You know, I'm wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt. Okay. So I'm walking past every day with the same people. And that was it. But I think at that point I saw two things. One, that there was a way around it. And number two, that I could manifest it, that I could actually do it. And then after that, it never occurred to me that anything would be impossible. Like I would look at other kids who would be screaming that they wanted things and they had no idea that they could just get them. And that I think was the big the big difference for me. And I think that one of the things that's in the book that you should buy is that the way out of that doom cycle of depression is number one, look for the answer where it's least likely to be found. Because if you've looked every place else that you think that that's the answer and it's not there, I'll give you a hint, it's still not there. They they talked about the idea that if you have a maze, let's say you have a maze with three possible doors on it, right? And at the end of one of the doors is cheese. So you put a rat into it, and the rat will go down each of the tunnels and eventually it'll find cheese, right? So if the rat, you'll have a successful rat, if you always put the cheese at the end of door number two, the successful rat will be able to recognize door number two. It'll go running down door number two and it'll eat the cheese. And then it'll come out and it'll be happy, right? And then every day you do that, and the rat just pretty much has it nailed. Then one day, let's say you move the the cheese from door number two to door number three. Well, the rat will go down two, not find it, come back out, look, go down two, not find it, and do it like three or four times, and then it will go down one, not find it, go down two a couple of more times, and then go down three and eat the cheese and come back out, and it's great. But that's like how a rat works. Yeah. With the human, you could do the same thing. You have three different doors, and the human will learn faster that it's down door number two. I mean, it won't take him a week or two weeks to figure out that it's down door number two. He'll figure it out almost immediately. And the guy that these these experiments with rats used to give them like 60% of the food necessary for a rat to survive. So they were very motivated by food. I mean, the guy was torturing his subjects. So if you ever want to get rats to do things, that's the secret. That's why you want to buy it's not in the book. It should have been. It would probably have the book to sell better. Um, but the the thing with humans is the human, you move the cheese from door number two to door number three, the human will go down door number two, see that there's no cheese, and then wait for the cheese and die. But it will never occur to them that the cheese is in another door because they want to do something the way that they like to do it, without any regard to a success.

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:57

And I think that the second that I behaved more like a rat and less like a human, I became much more successful, that it would never occur to me that just because this way doesn't work doesn't mean that it can't be done. It just means that this way doesn't work. And I think that if you're going to read the book, of course, that would require that you did one of two things. You could come here to where we film and then come in here and try to steal Max's copy. Um, or you could buy it. Of course, the problem is if you come and steal Max's project copy, you're gonna have to probably. Well, after you killed Max, I'd probably be so scared I'd just give it to you. But you know, but the answer is Max, you probably have a couple of them to take Max. I don't think you're gonna take them down with one shot. I appreciate that. Caleb's pretty wily. He'd probably try to hit you with something. For sure. I'd survive pretty much. But um, but I think that that's the that's the purpose of it is that you read something, you get an idea that you could just try it another way. It's not necessary to do it the same way. You have to do it a way that works. And it's not doing it to be different, like you said, well, looking at your m yourself in the mirror and deciding, oh my God, I don't know what I like, and then coming up with a clever idea, I know asymmetrical haircut or weird color. Because that will make me happy. No, it'll make you noticed, but it won't make you happy. And the answer is this you're happy by accomplishments, you're happy by trying, you're happy by overcoming failures. So that's what it is. Speaking of that, as we bring this to a close as we're trying to sell the book, I read another article, in addition to the one about kids, you know, not being 56% of young people not seeing a future or anything. Yeah. And I feel sorry for you. I really do. I'm not mocking you because it's easy, I'm mocking you because it's funny. It's entirely different.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

Yes, but it works the same way though. It really does.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

The answer is this you say potato, I say tomato. Uh-huh. You know?

SPEAKER_01 55:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

Which is weird because I should have said tomato and tomato, but I didn't. That's okay. Yep, we're good. One of them is red. Anyway, I read another thing that was interesting, and it said best-selling authors own shirts with flamingos on them. So I bought a flamingoed shirt. So now that I have the same thing that was represented in that article. Yes. You're now ready to be successful. I now dress like a best-selling author. Absolutely. Based upon an article.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Isn't isn't, I mean, you've been very successful in business in your in your in your former life. Isn't that you dress for the job that you want? Isn't that a thing?

SPEAKER_00 56:32

I mean, didn't you you had all your stockbrokers dress to the knives in order to have to do the right thing. And so now I recognize the thing that's probably going to sell probably a half million books in the next week and a half is that well, people, well, yeah, he's just not like mean to Max, and Max is so nice and he's mean. And but it's like, dude, the guy's wearing a shirt with flamingos. The guy to own a shirt like that has to be successful. Yeah, it has to be a great book. Yes. So anyway, that's that was my my better attempt at marketing it. I love it. So that's what I have. Yes. That's what we have for today.

SPEAKER_01 57:07

Find out more about R. A. Thompson and his flamingo shirts in the book.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

That's actually not in the book. See, that's false advertising. That's an example of. See, I tried again.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

Dude. That's that's that was another attempt with me just trying to entice the people.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

And see, that's just just try it again without the flamingo part. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

Um, to learn more about R. A. Thompson and his interesting. Okay, take three.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

Take three. Take three.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

To find out more about R. A. Thompson and his scrapple eating adventures. By the book.

SPEAKER_00 57:45

Thank you very much, Mike. That was the best one. That was pretty good. Okay, that was perfectional. Thank you very much. See you next week. Buy the book. I don't mean to be begging for it, but you have to. Sorry, just the way that works.