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Philosophy | In a Culture of Productivity, How Much is Enough? | Jacob Trayer from Element Mist | #6

• Jon Bennett • Season 1 • Episode 6

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On this episode of Build Arizona we'll be speaking with Jacob Trayer who co-owns Element Mist. We deep dive into philosophy, asking how Jacob sees the Trades operating 5-10 years from now in this period of great change. 

We cover the means of "salvation" that the western mind currently subscribes to, and we dream a bit of how we make a new path for ourselves.

Jacob has been working in trades in Arizona over the last several years. Alongside that he has a publishing company called Tria Prima Press, and finds himself studying philosophy among a brotherhood of other sharp and inquisitive minds. 

See his companies:
https://elementmist.com
https://triaprimapress.com

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Build Arizona is a space for folks in The Trades to share their stories, insights, and thoughts about what's next for Arizonans. While our content is local and regional specific, there are insights for contractors around the world. Join us and let us know what you'd like to hear about next!

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SPEAKER_02

On today's episode of Build Arizona, I'll be speaking with Jacob Treyer from Element Myth. And I'm going to ask him the big wide open question: how does he see the trades working five to ten years from now? And then we'll both take a crack at the philosophical question, how much is enough? Thanks for joining us today on Build Arizona. Or then we can just pop ourselves into whatever it is that we're doing. But uh yeah, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks for having me. Yeah, I begged you to be on the on the podcast. So thanks. Thank you for answering my call. I said, please, John. I know.

SPEAKER_02

Let me be on the pod. I know. It actually made me feel really special because you were like, hey, let's do an episode. And I was like, someone someone wants to be on it without me asking.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I just want to set the record straight. You know, Joel said a lot of things about LMM messed. I figured it was time to come on. No, I'm kidding. Time to fix what Joel messed up. No, he did a great job. No, I told you that. I was like, uh I don't know what else to say. He kind of said it all.

SPEAKER_02

We'll come to another one. Yeah, we'll we'll we'll uh we'll we'll find something else to talk about. Uh yeah, actually I did I did have something I was reading this morning, and I did come it's funny. I was reading this morning and I came across this passage in the book I was reading, and I was like, oh, this would be a good thing to bring up with Jake and talk about. And then I went downstairs and I was helping uh I was making some coffee and my parents were like, they were like, hey, we have this question with our taxes. Do you think AI could help us? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. Like, well, here, let's download Claude. Let's let's put it onto your computer, thinking this would be like, oh, we'll solve their problems. No. I opened up about a hundred more problems. Yeah. Pandora's bounce. Well, how do you, well, how do you well well this and then how does it? And I just was like, I don't know. Who's Claude? Who's this guy Claude? Who's this guy? Yeah, and then my parents went off back and forth on this. Like, there's I guess there's a Claude from their generation that was like some it triggered some ADHD like joke back and forth between the two of them.

SPEAKER_00

And they're like Well, they had Clippy. Remember Clippy? From like Windows?

SPEAKER_02

Even even before before that.

SPEAKER_00

Like, I'm talking like some they're pre they're proto-Clippy. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

I'm talking like prehistoric, like something on the talk show, like Johnny, Johnny Carson talk show or something. Uh um, which they're gonna watch this episode. I love you guys. Yeah. We love you. Uh no, but it was like some claw thing, you know, some claude character from their their generation they're talking about. And I just was like, no, it's okay. You know what? They're having fun. They don't they don't have an 11 o'clock like I do, and they're just having fun with their morning and they're excited about using this. And I'm over here like, okay, whenever you're done playing, I would like to get this. Are you guys done? Are you guys are we ready to move on? And then I'm like, man, when did I become such a fun killer? Yeah. Yeah, when you started a business. Yeah, when I started a business, that's right.

SPEAKER_00

When they retired and you started a business.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Oh well.

SPEAKER_02

So I had this thought. I had this thought of like, here's what we could talk about. And then I'm like in the car on the way to work, just thinking about that. And I was like, I don't even remember what it is that I read this morning. I do now. Oh, you do now? Okay. I was like, but on the way here. Well, so that wraps up the episode. Thanks for coming on, dude. It's great. It's great to have you. Uh uh, yeah. So um well, before we before we begin, just if you could give a quick who who are you, your company. We like to ground it in the trades, right? Build Arizona is uh for for the trades, a platform for the trades, so we can talk about whatever it is that we want to talk about, but we ground it in the trades first. If you could let the listeners know who you are and and your company.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm Jake, uh, one of the owners of Element Mist. Been doing that, obviously, for I guess not obviously, obvious to me. Uh about five years now. Uh, your previous guest, Joel, is my best friend and business partner five years now, but we met in high school and uh always knew we wanted to do something, and finally the the opportunity presented itself, so we we took it. Um love being in the trades. Love our little niche in the trades, too. You know. Um obviously we've got we're we're in a a small portion of of the trades, I guess you you might say. But it's it's been fruitful and and fun for me, anyways. It's been difficult throughout throughout the the last half decade or whatever, trying to figure out how to do that. Previously I was in commercial property management, and I was in all honesty, like kind of a glorified handyman. Okay for you know, it was a small company, so I ended up doing a lot of stuff. But um that was that was my really my first introduction into being involved with with build-outs of of um new buildings and infrastructure and working with contractors and procuring bids and getting my hands dirty and that sort of thing. Um, I mean, I've always been handy and like to tinker with stuff. And that that's how actually Joel and I became friends. He came over one day. We were like, I don't think it was contentious, but we were in the drum line together and we were like, who's this guy? You know, Joel was the better drummer, he's center snare, and I didn't really care as much. I was just like, I'm happy to be here. So Joel was probably like this guy, man. Why is he even even on the drum? And then he came over and I had an engine block, you know, up on a lift in my garage, and he was like, All right, we're boys, you know.

SPEAKER_02

You want to do karate in the basement?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, do we just become best friends? So that that's that's my story, I guess. There's a lot more to it. But uh as far as the the contracting stuff, that's that's kind of the quick and dirty. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, cool, cool. Yeah, so thank you. Uh yeah, so what I was what I was reading this morning, um, and what you know you and I've had some conversations. Oh, I just realized you have a I think we're the same tattoo.

SPEAKER_00

Look at that. Did we just become best friends? Did we just become best friends? I just realized that you have the uh the golden ratio.

SPEAKER_02

The golden ratio. Um yeah, so uh what I was reading geometry enjoyers.

SPEAKER_00

Nerds. Yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_02

Uh no, you're good, you're good. What um no, that's just actually that's just kind of funny. Actually, sure, when did you get that? And why did you get that?

SPEAKER_00

Uh that actually during my last job, so what we opened, work for a company called Palette Collective, and we opened big buildings that were populated with a bunch of mostly like health and beauty related uh small businesses. So we did we'd have a big, you know, 10,000 square foot building with 60 rooms in it, and we'd sublet those out. And we were trying to expand our our customer base and opened up suites to um, you know, what kind of our base was hairstylists and aestheticians, that sort of thing. And then eventually we opened it up to tattoo artists and and wellness shops, CBD, people, you know, that sort of thing. And it was a Friday the 13th, and one of our tattoo artists was in there, and I was like, hey man, you want to throw a couple on me? Uh so uh I don't know, they've probably been on my arm seven, eight years or something like that. Okay, it's been a while, but it's just a spur of the moment. It was kind of spur of the moment, yeah. I don't regret it. I still like geometry. Yeah, it's still like an eternal thing, baked into nature.

SPEAKER_02

So that's why I got mine because I was like, if I'm gonna get a tattoo, if I'm gonna put something on my body, it's gotta be not something that's transient. It's gotta be a universal truth.

SPEAKER_00

It's universal.

SPEAKER_02

So it's yeah, it's uh same thing. It's like, you know, I went to design school, and so that was a principle that we used all the time. It was like felt like it encapsulated sort of that uh period of my life in design school. Uh, because yeah, like I said, we used it a lot. It's like, here, use the I mean the rule of thirds is like the baked down version of it, but it's it's very, very similar to that. Uh so that's pretty neat.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's kind of funny, it's a little redundant because like baked into the proportions of our body already, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I was like, well, let's do it more. You're like, sure.

SPEAKER_02

It's uh it looks cool, it makes me unique. Yeah. Yeah as we both have it. Uh-huh. Uh oh well. Oh well. It's cool. I think that's cool to attribute.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Uh okay, so okay, back to what I was gonna ask you. So, what I was reading this morning, um uh you know, one of my more esoteric readings, I told you about it when we um uh met for dinner. Yeah, and we were chatting. Uh, and so um basically to get to their point, uh, humanity is in this time of change. Uh, it feels like, I mean, it feels like even just from the trades perspective and and from the working world, we look out and we see this, you know, AI, right? That's changing a lot of the way that we do stuff. In fact, we were just tinkering with it right before we came in here. You know, I I have an agent that runs and it's building a dashboard for us internally so we can make sure that our management stays on task. Um, because I otherwise I have 45 post-it notes, you know, on my desk and I forget and I move things around and then I cross some things off, and then that one gets thrown away, but it had two things left that I haven't done yet. And then, you know, so working on that. Um, and uh yeah, kind of kind of this larger, broader question appeared in my mind this morning, which is where are we going and what do we want to do with it? Okay, uh, and so I was like, this would be a good question to ask Jake. Uh just give him give him a runway of 30 minutes and just let them talk about where do we see where do we see and let's let's look at it through a trade lens. Okay so so business. Um what would you like to see different five or ten years from now in the way that we work?

SPEAKER_00

Wow, what the heck, man?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I know it's like 1130.

SPEAKER_00

Right off the top. This is water. I should have had a coffee here.

SPEAKER_02

I something. We can go to the we can hit pause real quick and go to the convenience store and get a beer if you want.

SPEAKER_00

No, let's do it. Let's roll with it. I mean, yeah, we're we're definitely in like a like a liminal, cultural liminal space, it feels like liminal period. Um So the question is where where do I want to see the entrepreneurship as it relates to the trades in five to ten years in terms of workflow?

SPEAKER_02

The way that we that's yeah, now you're you're putting the question back to me. Uh kick ball it back. Uh well, okay, so right. We talked a lot about with Joel, we talked a lot about Element Mist, how Element Mist works in the services that you provide.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

The last episode that we had, we had Ronnie Michael uh from um Blush, uh Great Western Pest Control and Green Keeper. Uh, and we talked about how he's been you know been doing this for 25 years, and he has these groups of guys around him, and he's sort of bred this culture uh at his um in in his companies. Uh and they do they do good, you know, a good job to pay their guys well. Um everyone wants to be there, right? Um we know in the trades, if you have someone who's good and they're not being compensated well, they'll go somewhere else or start their own company, or you know, um, so there is a a a culture of um respect bred uh at his companies, and um, you know, they they look up to him uh as a leader, uh, and he does his best. You know, when he was early on, his focus was money, and then as he's grown through the stages, his focus is taking care of his team. Um, you know, because those things get situated along the way, and then your priorities change of what it is that you want to do. And uh that's kind of where our conversation ended. Um, but it kept my mind going a little bit into um, you know, where where where do we want to go five to ten years from now? Um, and I think that's very forefront of my mind because AI is such a disruptive technology that's going on in you know in my field, uh, which is more in the white-collar version of my field, where there's, you know, like middle management jobs being erased, um, your your coder, product, project manager, and designer is being wrapped into one person instead of three, um, because AI can do a lot of that lifting. Uh, and the requests that I've had in my business are from people that are asking me to figure out how to install AI in their business, yeah. Uh, so that I can take away some of the redundant tasks, speed up workflows, um, remove like clerical work. Um and so I see me personally, and I I don't want to lead too much here, but I'll I'll kind of get answer yours in a roundabout way of of what aspect of this. Um I like the idea that eventually AI will be very deflationary. Uh, and what I mean by that is the tools will become so accessible over time after we learn how to wrangle them and harness them and uh apply them correctly and safely and securely uh inside of our businesses, that it's gonna free up so much time for us to do other things. Uh and so one thing that I told Ronnie on the last episode was not only when you're successful in your business do you have a lot of wealth that comes with that, but uh there is another form of currency that's a little bit harder to quantify, and that's the output of a team of guys, guys and gals, that are rallied around a central idea or a central person that sort of houses that idea. Uh, and then you have this um labor capital uh that is combined, it's the combination of all these people on this team. Uh and it's um it's a valuable asset in the community uh because you as a leader can say, Hey, let's go fix this. And then you have a bunch of guys rallying up around you that go, yeah, let's go fix it. You know what I mean? And so a lot more gets done because you have these groups of people who are agreeing to go do something, fix something, build something. Um, and so I was just we were starting to get into this idea of this like labor capital. Um and so uh, you know, after the episode was over, I was like, okay, beyond business, how do we see ourselves working? You know, this is sort of like a dream, like a dreaming question.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, I think um nothing ultimately replaces human connection. And I'm I'm of the camp that AI will never achieve um the sort of ensole nature of a of a human being that that is able to capture the attention of another of another human being. Um so ultimately I think uh like my basic answer to to a not so basic question is that that I hope AI just allows uh anybody in a business to just achieve their goals in a more efficient manner. Not not that efficiency is always virtuous. Sometimes if efficiency is is the enemy of things like beauty or or uh good craftsmanship and that sort of thing. But uh nonetheless, I think that if uh AI gets to a spot where we don't have to guide it as much as we seem to have to guide it right now, that it uh eliminates the the sort of need for a grind set that I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs feel like they need to get into right now, uh, where they're you know maybe not seeing their family as much as they should in that in that important f phase of you know grow growing family and nurturing children and and raising a household and being there for your your friends and your family, your community. Uh I think that's ultimately that's that's more important. Being a part of your uh being a good part of your you know uh community, I think is more important than I don't know, staying, staying up late, crunching numbers on a spreadsheet or whatever. But I I understand that there's sometimes they go hand in hand, sometimes you gotta do that. So I hope that uh AI or whatever tools come out of this liminal phase of technology just allows business owners and people downstream from the business owner to be able to more efficiently achieve their goals. What I what I think has to happen is businesses need to, if they don't have principles, if they don't have uh found foundationary principles, you know, first principles by which they make decisions, you know, when it's not so clear what the answer is to a big question that a business might be facing, you're supposed to be able to lean on those those principles. And if it violates the principle, the answer is no. If it does not violate a principle, then try it out, you know. So I think if you're implementing anything, whether it's AI or not, uh so far as it doesn't violate your your statement of principles as business, the first principles by which your the foundation or the bedrock of your business is laid, then leverage it. Um, there's this ethical, ethical, moral, I guess more of an ethical thing. That's an interesting topic. What's ethics? What's morals? Um of like keeping people employed, obviously, and and creating a space where where there's there's um money be money to be made and wealth to be shared with with with uh people that are ready to work. Um so that that's kind of up to every business leader to determine, you know, at what at what point does the sense of community and um and uh spiritedness within the company sort of dissolve in into this like weird AI-only driven like uh thing. I don't know. This like weird uh that that I don't think anyone would really like. Now, I'd love to see AI get better at answering questions. You know, the big fear is like I don't want to use AI yet to do my phone automation, or I don't want to use it to to help answer very specific customer questions. If it gets better at that, that's that's great. If you can free up your dispatcher to to take less calls and to work more on whatever it el AR or other things they might might be working on, that's that's great. But if if it gets to a point where maybe they're maybe they're about to lose their job in place of a in place of some piece of technology, I think that ultimately it's not my place to dish out any advice there. But I think that you you've got to make a conscious decision of what's what's really important in that moment. So I don't want to see people, capital P like lose out on this at the end of this liminal phase. Um I think the tr a lot of tradesmen are are still in a safe position. Uh but it's certainly the the office side where a lot a lot of this stuff is being implemented and things are being streamlined and uh it's hu hugely beneficial to a lot of business owners. But I think it's important to think about uh how that affects everything outside of your PL statement. You know? Um I think a lot of those things are more important necessarily than the accumulation of stuff by a business owner because he's fired everyone and leveraged his entire operation on a artificial intelligence, which I gotta tell you is probably not a good look for it's the same same thing. You know, if a business owner's or let's let's say private equity is gonna be looking at your business. You got one man doing everything, that's that's a big liability for someone who's interested in your business, right?

SPEAKER_02

It's a glorified job.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. That's a that's a uh big bottleneck that's yes, you know, that that person goes away, then they got a lot of shoes to fill. Or one big pair they're gonna have to f of shoes, they're gonna have to fill with a bunch of little pairs of shoes, right? Yes. So in a similar regard, I think you'll see investors, maybe private equity, these companies are growing, hopefully selling and making making people money that um in the same regard there is some danger in putting too many eggs in the AI basket and and over-leveraging that that technology and uh potentially jeopardizing um either the sell of your the sale of your business or or the um your your ability to um bring new people on that might be wary of that or well, you know, whatever it might be. I that I think you understand kind of what I'm getting at, but it's it's equally as hazardous in my opinion to put all your faith in one piece of techn technology. Just as aim as it is if you put all your faith in one one individual. You know, so I think that's something to consider as well.

SPEAKER_02

We have been calling that tech debt.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Tech debt or or even cognitive debt. And that's something I think is happening a lot with AI right now. Is a lot of people are just vibing their way through building stuff. They're not employing any wisdom of how or why. And like you said, you have one person that's now been responsible for building a whole bunch of processes for a business. And so then you can cut out some other people in in the way, air quotes in the way, right? Um and then yeah, what happens if something happens to that person? Or what happens if the AI fails and it doesn't work? You now have the accumulate, like it's it's basically would be like an avalanche at that point.

SPEAKER_00

Because now it's too integrated into your business.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. It's too integrated into your business. If it fails a task and you have no idea how it built itself into that corner, because you just hit go and then you go do whatever, do your laundry, whatever, and it starts building stuff for you and it works itself into a corner and then it breaks, you have no idea how you got there in the first place. And then you have this expectation that this is supposed to work, right? Like, like, like if we're using my business as an example and I sell it to someone, right here, let's run this automation for your business and let's do this, and it breaks. Well, they're coming to me.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And if I have no idea how it's built, then I'm in hot water. Yeah, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, if every if everything is a distributary from the AI, that's bad news. That's probably a bad, a bad sign. Yeah. For sure for sure. It's an avalanche scenario.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah. So so okay. So when you were talking, I was able to see because yes, I I do think there there absolutely will be people who are like, how do I replace everyone in my business with AI? Yeah. So that I can produce the most uh you know margins my business has ever seen, and then I can reap the rewards, right? I think that will happen for a short time. Um, and I think companies will actually see a decent amount of success with it, and they'll see their bottom line actually um, you know, appear better on the profit and loss sheet. Uh and then they'll the the top will take home more. I actually saw someone's someone put it very succinctly online. I wish, you know, maybe I'll after this, I'll see if I can find that person and and tag them in this. But they said um AI has given wealthy people access to skills of the non-wealthy. Yeah. And so now they just don't need the non-wealthy anymore. They can just use this this access to their skills and their skill sets to do the work for them. And so um I think that in in in tandem with like the out-of-control debt that we have, uh, I think those things will come to a head at some point. And so, yeah, maybe I'm maybe I'm dreaming a little too far ahead here. It's probably best to look down at the next you know, three steps instead of the mountaintop. It's fun to dream. Yeah, it's fun to dream, but um, yeah, what what I would like to see on the other side of it um is a world where uh uh we have more time to do things with our hands. And almost like it almost feels you know, like uh in a in a we uh we we at large, royal we at large, often think of a utopian type of world as a place where we're all enjoying ourselves and our time here and making art and singing and dancing and playing music and having fun. Uh and I've grown up wondering, well, we have all this infrastructure around us. Why are we what are we working so hard for? You know what I mean? Like, are we am I working really hard so I can generate wealth? You know, this is a fun question. I I want to ask my Yelp guy every time I'm on a call with him, which is like, who are you really helping here? Are you really helping my guys or are you helping your owner get his third yacht? Yeah, you know what I mean? Um and uh like are we are we really making things more easy and accessible, or are we trying to absorb as much income from tradespeople as possible? You know what I mean? Um and from a business standpoint, they're gonna from a marketing standpoint, they're gonna tell you, no, we help connect people. From a business standpoint, they're like, it's nine dollars a day to have your logo on your profile. It's like, oh my gosh. Yeah, you know. Um, but I see the trades playing um an integral role in this transition, in this transitionary period. I just don't know quite how to put my finger on it yet. Uh and you know, some of the things that I think about um are like how to how to how to eventually make myself obsolete in a trade business. Uh I don't know if I'll be doing my job forever, you know what I mean. Uh so how do I build the systems and processes uh into businesses around me, trades and services, uh, to where it does alleviate um it does alleviate time. Now, whether or not it's going to remove someone's job, that's gonna be a challenging discussion, right? A challenging moral discussion. Because established businesses that have lots of people, they'll have to let them go, right? And those people have to find stuff for themselves. Businesses that are just now starting that never hired someone to begin with, they're not gonna have the same moral conundrum because they'll just go, well, I wasn't paying for someone to begin with, so I'll just go ahead and implement AI because I'm not hurting anyone. Um, so it is gonna be this moral sort of conundrum that we're faced with while we're while we're onboarding a lot of this technology. Uh, because its ability to think for us is really, really unique. Uh, it's very powerful. Um like I was, you know, again mentioning beforehand, we were building this dashboard uh internally. And something, you know, a coding language that I don't understand. I actually like the DD metaphor for it, which is um in DD, wizards get their ability to cast magic by spending years and years studying books. Right. So they're in the libraries, they're reading, they're learning how to command the language. They're in right in DD, sorcerers just get to cast magic. They're just like they're like the I don't know, they're the cool, they're the cool guy magic caster. Yeah. Where they don't really know how they got the magic, it's just innate in their ability. And that's how I felt like this weekend, because I would just plain plain English tell this thing, this is what I want to see. And then five minutes later it appeared on the screen.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think that's that that's the great thing about it, right? Because otherwise you might have stayed up all night, you lost sleep, reduce your quality of life, you know, the next day would have been probably pretty bad because you didn't get sleep. So in that regard, I think AI is great. You know, if it's if it it gives you if it gives you more of your life back, yeah, perfect. Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_02

And I want to figure out how to install that in into people's businesses, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um, but where do we go after that? Because I can already see that part happening, right? Where do we go after that? How do we how do we combine our forces to make this world a better place? Yeah, it's a hard question. It's a it's a dreaming question.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Well, yeah, man. Why'd you start us off with this? I can ask you your favorite color. Um pass. I don't want that out on the internet. No, uh I think that uh uh I guess despite what uh well I guess I'm the most underqualified person to ever sit behind a microphone and talk about this sort of thing, by the way. That's why I asked you. Dude. I'm not the guy. But whatever, we're gonna do it anyways. I just don't think that AI is is really ever gonna be kind of like I said in my my first answer, it's really ever gonna be a replacement for a for a human person in a lot of ways. But I think that if it can give you some of your life back, that's that should be uh in my mind, kind of the goal with it. Uh if it if it takes your life away, if it takes your your means of putting food on the table and a roof over your head, that's that's not a good thing. And that's it's time to reevaluate kind of what we're doing at that at that point in time. But in the same regard, I'm not not totally confident in so we as a culture, we've and this is like this is true ever since um quote unquote the Enlightenment. When we became a very materialistic, positivistic uh it's only true if you can put it in a test tube and develop a law out of it. Sor sort of mindset. Um we've we've slowly done away with uh anything that resembles like leisure for most people. Um and especially and you see this in the last ten years that I've been in business or whatever, in different businesses, that that like grindset attitude is is a big big proponent of like seems almost anti-life, and it's it's all pointed towards some some distant future thing that may or may not come to fruition, you know, if you don't get into a horrible car accident on the way home. You know, you're my point is you're you're living your life right now, and actually right now is the the only thing that exists. So that this is the most important moment. And I know that sounds kind of frou-frou, especially on a like a contractor podcast here, uh build Arizona, but um I hope it's where the rubber meets the road, right? Is now. Um, you know, it's in the small interactions, it's how you treat your server, it's how you it's how you react when someone cuts you off on the freeway, it's how uh it's how you interact with your neighbor when he's pulling his trash can in, you're doing it at the same time, you know. That's where the rubber meets the road. And in those seemingly mundane moments that's that don't that seem like innocuous and totally meaningless, that's actually where all like where everything is. Uh that's maybe seems antithetical to like the lock yourself in an office and and sacrifice 20 years of the, you know, the first 20 years of your children's life to build some uh giant uh cash cow that that you're not gonna take with you when you pass. Your kids might get it or they might not, or whatever, or you might not something might not work out, right? It's just a big thing to sort of hinge your whole entire um sort of mindset on. So I my point of bringing this up is we're culturally, we've sort of driven us ourselves back into this primal state of of uh reactionary thinking where everything we do, we we have to fill every void of time. So in pr pr for primitive men, it was it was hunting, it was it was animal husbandry, it was agriculture, it was um at a certain point, you know, digging out canals and and figuring out some sort of hierarchical leadership structure within the community and yada yada yada. But it was constant work, you know. Men were out doing the hunting and gathering and doing all that stuff, and it was it was all um uh reptilian brain, your your lowest reptilian brain, full engagement, full reactionary. It's survival, right? And we've worked our despite, like you said, despite all of the enormous amounts of wealth that we've seemed to have generated for for the world as a as a as a world, and all the structures that are around, and all the you know, the the abundance of food and this and that, we still don't know how to do nothing. We still carry on with this like hyper uh hyper-industrious mindset, which I'm not sure is healthy. I'm not like I'm not like certain that that's actually good, capital G good. I would agree. And and for which reason, I'm not totally certain that people will know what to do with leisure. You know, if AI gives us leisure back, uh I I'm I'm worried about the amount of like uh crap that we've we are fed every day um from every single screen and billboard and everything we look at. And um I think I think we're at a really so this liminal period that we're in is is extremely important. Uh easy to say that, whatever. I'm not like some philosopher here, but um I would disagree. But uh I think as AI starts to give you time back, it's important, it's really the whole point of this like weird diatribe that I went on is that you really need to reevaluate like how that time is spent. Yeah. So if if it if you're given the gift of time back, um filling that void back up is is um is something you you're gonna have to be really conscious, really aware, and and really like um um autonomous about. And I'm and I mean that like in the etymological sense, like uh auto is self, gnomos. So that word, autonomy, auto, self, gnomos, law, self-law, self-regulation. Um we've got to create some like some sort of moral and ethical guidelines for ourselves, some virtues by which we act, just like a business should be able to fall back on its on its statement of principles to answer hard questions. Individuals need that too, you know, and whether it's a real a religious thing or or some sort of social context. Some other thing by which you can construct the the foundation or let's say that the initial architecture of your life, you need you need those guide rails. You need some some set of principles by by which some virtues by which to make decisions once you have your time back. Um or else in my mind things just get weird and hedonistic, and we end up in this like post post-technological gluttonous, hedonistic, sad existence. So we have an opportunity here. We have a real target-rich environment for goodness. There's seemingly a lot of poor things going on. Um I think there has been in every age, every age has struggles, right? But um, nonetheless, we have a target-rich environment as we walk about life to be good. And um I think whether or not it it feels good to you in the moment, you've got to really know what is good. And that starts internally with a real evaluation of yourself and your principles. And and you need to to learn how to um think sort of top down rationally. Once, once you're given time back and you've been living in this reactionary primal state, especially as an entrepreneur, putting out fires, keeping your roof over your head, keeping food on the table, boom, one set one second AI takes a lot of that off your plate and you've got all this time.

SPEAKER_02

What do you do with it?

SPEAKER_00

Things could go weird or things could go really well. Yeah. So I I I I just say I'm worried because I don't think, and and this is not true for all people, obviously, but I I I I worry that a lot of people uh will misuse that value that's given back to them, that value that is baked into time. Does that make sense? I'm weird.

SPEAKER_02

No, sorry. It makes a lot of sense. I we okay, so a couple of things came to mind. So Micah, who who uh helped me start my business years ago and kind of comes in and out. Um, right now he's very much um interested in assisting. He's been using AI. And uh um he we had this conversation where he feels like it's 5x'd his ability or 10x his ability to output his thoughts. And so he's used it to he has a company called such a grind set way to put that. I know, I know. It's 10xing my brain right now. That's what came out from it. He's like, I feel like I've 10x the ability to output. But the human condition behind it is I've 10x'd my problems that I want to solve.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And so he's still in this same like, wow, I feel like this thing is this secondary brain, which I can offload my ADHD ramblings, you know, of a 30-minute note, you know, voice note into this machine, and then it will organize it, put it into a to-do list, it'll start knocking things out and do it for him. He goes and does laundry, makes some food, whatever, comes back, and it's updated stuff on his website, it's updated his internal mission control board, it's done all this stuff for him. And now he's like, Well, how do I, how do I 5x this? You know what I mean? And so he and so he we were having this conversation the other day where he's like, Is it the human condition? Yeah, where we're just like, Well, now I'm more productive, so how do I be more productive? Yeah, I hear that. So you're so annoyed by that. You're right. It's this like it reminds me of the allegory of the Mexican fisherman. Have you heard this one?

SPEAKER_00

No, tell me.

SPEAKER_02

So the allegory of the Mexican fisherman is um a rich New Yorker businessman goes down to Mexico to go fishing. This guide takes them out and they go fishing and they capture a couple of fish, and um, the guide's like, okay, that's enough for dinner, let's go back and eat. So they go back and eat and they cook it, and it's this wonderful moment, right? It feels it's very different from the New York businessman's day-to-day hustle and bustle, fill every second with productivity. And uh the fish is delicious. They're they're they're singing songs, they're playing guitar, they're dancing, they're having a good time. And the next morning, the fisherman, uh, the businessman goes to the fisherman and says, Why why did you only stop when we caught a couple of fish? And the fisherman says, Well, that's all we needed. And he goes, He goes, You don't understand. That fish is so delicious, we could turn this into a business. And he goes, Okay, what do you mean? And the businessman goes, Well, we'll get a couple of boats and then we'll start capturing all these fish. And then he goes, Okay, well, then what do we do with all those fish? Well, what we'll do is we'll transport them to a cannery somewhere in New York. So you'll need to move to New York. And he goes, Okay, so I moved to New York and we start a cannery. So we get all these fish and we have the cannery, and now we're now we're producing all these fish. And he goes, Then what's next? And the New York businessman goes, Well, we market it and we make you a bunch of money. And he goes, Okay, great. I've made a bunch of money. Now what do I do? He goes, then you go retire on a beach in Mexico.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Totally. And he's like, Yeah, and that's that's the story. It's like, yeah, it's it's like he's already found what that guy is looking for. And he's like, look, if we extract all this wealth from the planet, then we can have our own little bastion of peace.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, he's gonna gift him his life. Yeah, exactly. Uh-huh. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02

When the guy's like and the guy's like, I I enjoy dancing with my wife and playing guitar and catching two fish a day. Like, that's really all I need to do.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It's a big question. I think everyone should ask. How much what is enough?

SPEAKER_02

What's enough?

SPEAKER_00

There's so there's such a thing as enough. Yeah. And not just in terms of like our our habits, you know. Like I I love nicotine. I struggle. How much is enough?

SPEAKER_02

How much is enough?

SPEAKER_00

If it's giving me heartburn before bed, I probably had enough, right? Um, uh I love that. That's I'm gonna steal that. But um yeah, that's that's a great great uh example for what I'm trying to communicate here. Yeah. Um I think that uh yeah, we we we're not really, at least in the West, especially in America, we're not you know, your your individual circumstance might might be different. I think my parents did a good job, your parents might have done a good job, and that sort of thing, but culturally. Because in some sense, we are raised within a community that is sort of colored by the by the lens of of whatever the current culture is, right? Whether we like it or not, it's just the circumstances that we're born into. And um that that culture for since since we've been alive, and again, I argue for for now centuries, but especially since let's say the Industrial Revolution, because that's really what kind of kicked off hyper. Drive for a lot of this, like productivity is some sort of sort of virtue or something like that, right? Um that's just the nature of the the kind of worldview that we're born into now. And you you actually have to be kind of radical to leave that, to to to kind of not do that or turn turn away from that, and to align yourself with a way of living or a worldview that is sort of anti antithetical in some sense to efficiency, productivity, numbers, dollars, cents, all that sort of thing. I know that's weird. I know that's what like that sounds weird to say, because we're we're ti whether it's some influence, manosphere influencer on on TikTok or whatever, or or you turn a commercial on or you see a billboard, it's all sort of geared towards um what you're what you're talking about. The the guy from New York, the productivity, the the the squeezing every penny out of every moment sort of attitude. That seems cool and virtuous. That's what we that's what we show off in our music videos, money and wealth. You know, that's like what we think is good. That's what we're raised to think is capital G good. So it's hard to move away from that that idea of uh in some sense like salvation. Yeah. It almost becomes a replacement for some traditional sense of salvation.

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell If you get wealthy enough, you can escape the matrix.

SPEAKER_00

It is, it is the yeah. I mean, it it is the and I'm gonna try not to use annoying words here, but sometimes there are big words that are important that's that mean specific things. But um there is some some sort of religious undertone to the secular world, uh, the secular, positivistic, sort of scientific productivity-driven world that we live in, is also religious. And it has a system of salvation, what we would call a soteriology. That's a system that's a study of salvation or the system of salvation. And that system of salvation in the secular world of which we are all brought into and live in, no matter if you go to church as a kid or not, the that system of salvation is the accumulation of wealth. That's that's kind of what we're taught. That's how to make it out of this thing is accumulate wealth stuff. So I love how never mind, I like how we started this podcast.

SPEAKER_02

This is what I was hoping we would get into. I know it's kind of hard at 11 a.m., you know. No, it's all good.

SPEAKER_00

It's uh but how much is enough? Yeah, how that's um that's actually the subject of uh Plato's Gorgias. Yeah, if you ever read if you ever read Plato, who we we've all kind of heard of in high school. If you ever serious I mean, that's that's the foundation of Western thought. Right. Is that guy. And uh argue with me in the comments. I'd love to argue that. Um one of his dialogues is called the Gorgias, and he's talking to this young, young statesman. He's in dialogue with this young statesman who so rather he's an aspiring statesman, right? Young young man who he's he's in dialogue with. And uh the big question that the dialogue tries to answer is what is enough? So if you're interested, and I'm not gonna sit here and rattle off the whole dialogue, but uh I'm interested. Yeah, yeah. The first Alcibiades and the Gorgias do a great job of trying to tackle what what is enough? Temperance. Some some sense of temperance, you know. Uh and and if if you try to unpack what that means just as a virtue without any sort of instantiated examples, as to say, like we we can talk about like, oh, you know, I need I can't drink any more coffee today. I'm I need to exercise some temperance. I'm too jittery already. I don't need any more coffee, right? That's a instantiation or a phenomenon of of uh temperance. But uh it's much harder to just describe what temperance is on its own without, without drawing down into this like material world an exact example. But uh what the philosophers did a great job of is ta tackling those questions in and of themselves. And that's what that's what we have a hard time now with is trying to uh wrestle with ideas like temperance or fortitude or justice, prudence, all those, you know, faith, hope, and charity, like standard issue virtues. We have a hard time with now because again, in the scientific scientific world that we are raised in, we need concrete examples. So we're again, we're raised to seek and put faith in concrete test tube MX plus B answers, you know? It's the more abstract things that we have a hard time with. So really, yeah, encourage anyone, especially entrepreneurs who are who are responsible for some some level of like relationship to their community, um who have an ethical imperative as an entrepreneur to to do good things, to do good work, and to leave a good legacy, you should start to gather some sense of answers to some of these harder questions because they're relevant again where the where the rubber hits the road.

SPEAKER_02

They're not relevant tomorrow, they're relevant right now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. How do you cultivate these things in your life?

SPEAKER_00

Good question. Sorry, keep drinking water.

SPEAKER_02

You're not allowed.

SPEAKER_00

How do I cultivate these things in my life? Well, it's a struggle. Sure. It's struggl it's like constant, yeah, constant endeavor. Uh one being like being conscious about it. So first thing anyone anyone who's like, okay, I've been I need to clean up my act or something like that. Or, you know, let's take a young man ready to a boy who's ready to be a man. You know, there's a couple couple ways to do that. Maybe you've you've got a good dad who put a wrench in your hand and he took you out on the job site and put some faith in you and some trust in you, and raised you to to sort sort of follow in his footsteps and and be a good, you know, virtuous, honest business owner or employee, whatever. That's great. You're lucky. A lot of young men don't have that nowadays. Um you might join the military. That's pretty good initiatic process, turn a boy into a man, you know. Could be a scary one, especially nowadays. Um or you have to be really pretty radical and like do do that yourself, to yourself. Um in which case you can fall victim to some pretty weird ideologies. So if you sort of shatter your worldview, you know, say you were raised a whatever, and X happened while you were a whatever, and then you like you dump all that previous stuff that was the superstructure of your worldview for the last 18, 19 years of your life. And all of a sudden it's real easy for you to become susceptible to something like a guru who might have some ulterior motives, right? Or some weird business guy who who sees that you're you're an easy target for him, you know. So it's much harder to take this like personal um reconstructive route. And you you have to have really good discrimination. And uh, I know that word's sort of like scary nowadays, but we do it every day. When you decide what you want to eat for lunch, you discriminate. So what I mean is like, unless you have a really good sort of um uh problem solving and and and rational way of going about making decisions, um, it's a lot harder to sort of turn yourself into a man without some sort of initiatic process, which is usually familial, or you know, if you're part of a tribe, it's like almost all indigenous tribes have that sort of rite of passage. Takes a boy and turns him into a man, you know, hunting, killing an animal for the first time, skinning it, preparing the meat. Um so for me, I mean, I I was lucky. Great dad, great parents, but a great dad who taught me a lot of things and and instilled in me a lot of good good virtuous um uh attitudes and and ways about you know solving problems and that sort of thing. And uh so I'm I'm lucky in that sense. But I wasn't raised particularly religious, like I didn't have a real solid religious foundation. Not that you necessarily need one. That that's you know, that's that different conversation. But um if you don't have that, you're you're really kind of left without without a worldview. Because with without some sort of uh structure that that something like a religion can provide, the the world without that doesn't really give you one. Um social media doesn't certainly doesn't give you one. Facebook, meta, Twitter, like all those things it gives you consume and make money. Sure, yeah, but it tells you how to think, but it doesn't tell you why to think it. Yes, right. So you end up like, oh, I believe all this stuff. And then there's you know, why?

unknown

What?

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. I don't know. It's just kind of there. Yeah, yeah. So for me, I'm gonna get back to your question. I'm so sorry. I went off on a huge tangent, but um, for me it's like constant, like constant realignment of actions and thoughts and words, all the all the things that that um seem mundane but are important, right? Um so I got lucky, I was raised right, I um I have great friends, I've got a great community around me, you know, the best gal in my life that I could ever ask for. Um so supportive unit, but generally it's um it's a matter of continuous learning. So I never carry the attitude that if they're like I got everything figured out. Um there's a dialectic that happens throughout your whole life where you you learn new information and you should integrate whatever aspect of that information that is that is important to being a better better man than you were the the day before, you know. So continued education, and I don't mean that like this isn't a call to authority, like don't go to school if you don't want to go to school, but so I don't mean like some some level of formal education unless that's what you want to do, but educate yourself, continue to educate yourself. Learn about stuff, learn about things that maybe draw you out of your comfort zone. Surround yourself with people that aren't just like you, you know. Uh go to I have a I have a thing where um I'm not, you know, I like Joel doing all this sort of thing. Like he's the best face for the company because he's great at it and he's handsome and he's tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect. And he's got a deeper voice, you know, he's cooler, but doesn't wear glasses. Um perfect head of hair. I could go on. So one one thing for me is like doing this sort of thing, getting myself out of my comfort zone and do you know, putting on the shirt and going to a mixer for the company or or doing the podcast, doing that. That's character development for me. That's just important for me to do, to be able to step out of the sort of tightly circumscribed circle that I live in and expand that and bring the virtues that I try to inculcate into my life into new territories of existence, you know. Um, so hopefully I started to at least answer your question. Like, how do I make a practice of that? But I think really it's just about being aware of yourself, self-awareness. And after you're aware of yourself, you've got some idea of of your strengths and your weaknesses, which I think is really important, like knowing who who you are in some level is very important. Then you have a baseline, like how to how to go about implementing things in your life. You know, kind of who you are, then it's and that's you know, that's a huge thing. Who am I or whatever? You know, that's a massive question. But do some work to figure out who you are. Be honest with yourself and listen, listen to your peers when they're honest with you. A lot of medicine is bitter, doesn't feel good, but it's good for you, you know. Um, and then you know, take that and integrate it into your consciousness. You need to speak, you need to think, speak, and act in ways that are aligned with your your values, which hopefully are good. And if they're not, uh you need to probably be a little more proactive about uh being a more uh decent member of the entrepreneurial community, of the contractor community, of the you know, of your community community, your church, your family union unit rather, whatever it is. Um so just but it's measured in those little moments, you know. It's measured in how you treated your server last night. It's measured in what kind of hand gesture you gave to the guy that you thought cut you off on the freeway, you know. It's measured in your last conversation with your parents. It's me uh that's where uh those your I think I think your progress is really measured out is in seemingly innocuous mundane moments. You know? If you're freaking out and cursing and your blood pressure and cortisol are through the roof because someone zipper merged in front of you, probably got a little work to do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's uh I said it, I think, on the first or second episode um where uh it's like the man who lives the man who lives in um Oh man, I forget the exact quote, but it's it's something like if you're if you're living too fast, or if you're if if every it's kind of like what we're talking about, where where if every single second of your day needs to be optimized for productivity, otherwise you have this feeling that you're falling behind, or you have this feeling that you're inadequate, or you have this feeling that you're not gonna make it or escape the matrix. If that is the way that you live your life, you you you set yourself up for being angry.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, because and then and then when you You are an AI. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

If that's how you live your life, you're just as good as an AI. And you should lose your job to an AI.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I honor actually that's a that's you make a good point because it's if you are living in that way, you're living in, I would say, like a thought-dominated manner, to where you are just you're just how do I, you know, it's like the the book that I'm reading right now is The Science of Scaling, uh, same author is uh 2x is um harder than 10x. And it's this idea that like if you're trying to 2x uh your time, what you're doing is you're optimizing every second. And when you get stuck trying to optimize every second, you become agitated, you become frustrated. You forget that the person that just cut you off, the person that just cut you off might be on the way to the hospital. You have no idea what's going on with that person in front of you, and yet your reality is more important than theirs. And so it justifies you flipping the bird, you know, and being really upset at that person, and you have no idea what's going on. And yeah, I think this is kind of something that I dream of and I'm hopeful for uh as we move forward, is that we do cultivate that presence and we do cultivate um a place where we slow down. Um because yeah, well, I think when you're when you slow down and you're more present in your awareness, it's much easier to be kind, it's much easier to be all the fruits of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, right? And just like you were saying with autonomy, right? Self-control. Right. So that's one of the fruits of the spirit, right? Is self-control. And actually, that's the last one that's that's mentioned, right? If we go by the Bible, it's love is the first one. You know, that's the first one and the most important one that's cultivated as a fruit of the spirit. And the one that is seen here in the scientific, materialistic, reductionist world that we live in, right? Self-control is the ultimate um virtue of man in in well, love is, but but in in the sense of like have you have you mastered Maslow's hierarchy of needs? And self-actualization and self-control is is the top of that pyramid where you um have answered what is enough.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. It's uh it's uh up to each man or each person sort of answer for himself or herself. Yeah. Uh yeah, how that takes shape in an individual individual life is is unique to each person, but I I think there is such thing as enough.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, certainly. You know, certainly. And we can we can if we wanted to get into like what that looks like, you know.

SPEAKER_00

The libertines hate this conversation. The dudes on their yachts hate this conversation.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, they're boiling. They've turned this, they've turned this conversation up already. Yeah, yeah. Or like, you know, the faults of our system, we have this like, you know, 40% of our food gets thrown in the trash while people go hungry. You know, so you have this like, where do we draw the line? Where do we stand up and say enough is enough? Where do we, where are we like, not necessarily this triumphant stand up with pitchforks and say enough is enough, but where do we come together consciously and go, why are we throwing away 40% of our food when there's hungry people on the street?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You know? Why do we have empty buildings because the property owner can't find someone to rent it? So they'd rather have someone sleep on the porch out front than inside of it, you know what I mean? Uh and it's these are the big, really challenging conversations that I think are kind of coming to a head. I maybe that's the maybe that's the hopeful. That's the that's the optimist to me that's like, hey, these things are coming to a head and we're gonna answer it together. That's probably gonna be ugly while we do it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I hope so. I mean, uh hope is important, right? Um there's a great band, Chat Pile, and they have this song called Why that's about that. Like, like, why do we have people sleeping out a chat pile? Chat pile? Yeah. Okay. I don't encourage anyone to listen to this. This is the sort of thing I'm into, but they have a song called Why, and it's just him sort of screaming the whole time about why why are there buildings that are empty and there's a dude sleeping outside of it. And I know that's kind of like a like a little hippie, dippy, like uh whatever. I understand. But it is kind of a real question. You know, um, yeah, I don't know. I I hope we'd turn a good corner. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I I I hope I hope as we I want to be a part of that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I want to be a cog and the the machine of hope. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I would like to be a part of that. So I guess that was sort of maybe the effect or the the hope of my original question. Yeah. Because I know um, you know, part of part of what is really important when dreaming a new reality is you gotta be able to dream it first. We can't create things that we you know, that's saying it's like I don't know what I don't know. You know that if you cannot dream a better future, you'll never be able to build it. And so I think conversations those conversations are important. Yeah. You know, so like why do these you know, I when we had dinner last, you know, I told you uh the book that I'm reading, one of the points that it's making, which was great, because I think I told you this is this was a joy of my weekend here. I think I told you that the book hadn't explicitly stated this, but that I I you know I said the reason why we're seeing so much darkness in the world is because light is actually cultivating right now, and light illuminates what's been held in the darkness, and then you get to see it, and once you see it, you can. Actually, start to understand what the problems really are. And once you see what the problems really are, we can actually start to dismantle them. Uh, and I think I told you I was like, they haven't explicitly said that. And then I was reading this weekend, explicitly they said that. The author was like, What's happening right now? Is more light is being cultivated in the world, and so all the things that you're seeing. And I was like, either you knew an incredible. No, I'm not that smart. It's like it's an incredible author to have led up to this point. I just got lazy and I hadn't read that chapter for like three weeks, and so finally called you know. It finally uh like coalesced. I think it's probably a good book. Yeah, this is yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think there's a there's a bit of a lie of grandiosity too. Like people, people when we talk about change, it's always this big, it's like this Obama idea of change, you know, like capital C change, and then it's like Capital H hope. Wait, what happened? Yeah, wait, same for four to eight years of the last thing that was going on.

SPEAKER_02

Just more bombing and more wars.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um so we're sort of like uh fed this lie of grandiosity, like like change or being good or something like that, like has to be big and and like hugely inspiring to a lot of people. So I think it's like like it's all grassroots. It's like it starts with like your neighbors and your family, like the most important work you can be doing. If you think you could be a better person, which I bet you can, you know, uh start with like the easiest, lowest hanging fruit, which is just like everything immediately around you as you're walking about life. There is not that's it's the grandiose people oftentimes that that do some scary stuff. You know, it's people that think they're doing something good, and then you know, we see like something really terrible happen on the news because they're trying to really affect some massive change, and then we go and then the media cycle is done with it in about a week, and no one cares something horrible happened and no one cares anymore.

SPEAKER_02

Yep. Or or it got corrupt from the inside because power corrupts. That that reminds me of this Jack Cornfield quote. Jack Jack Cornfield's a Buddhist teacher. Okay. And I read his words.

SPEAKER_00

Sounds like a Buddhist.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Jack Jack Cornfield.

SPEAKER_00

Jack Cornfield, the Buddhist. Does not sound Buddhist at all. Second century Buddhist Jack Cornfield. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, he's alive right now. He's uh he's a wonderfully um soft-spoken and very, very uh wise gentleman. Uh, and I enjoy listening to his work. One of his quotes, though, because he'll have people come to him sort of with this bodhisattva attitude of like, how do we end suffering for all people? Right. And it's this, like you said, it's this wonderful, it's a wonderful attitude. And it's often, especially from a Western lens, because he's Western, you know, man. And so um, it's it's typically these questions are proctored to him from a Western lens of like, well, well, okay, so let me grab a camera and let me go film all the injustices in the world and let me get in front of the microphone and let me let me like help enact these great changes and big things, you know, and we have these sort of grandiose ideas of how to enact change. And his response is like, Oh, yeah, the best thing you can do is is tend to the parts of the garden you can touch.

SPEAKER_00

100%.

SPEAKER_02

Just take care of your family. That's it. If you put it on your own shoulders to save the world, you can. If it's it's actually, in fact, it's really hard to just sit in peace in your own life. The one thing you do have control over your own self and your own emotions, it's actually really hard to sit in peace in just that.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, every contractor listening to this knows that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_00

They lay down at bed at night.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and then your brain's still going on what do I need to do tomorrow? And what I need to do the day after that. How do I escape the matrix? Right? That thought process always that kicks in my mind almost every night, too. And so, how do you how do you cultivate peace in just that mind? Start with that one mind.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, pretty, pretty large task.

SPEAKER_02

It doesn't sound very vague until you try it and you're like, wait, maybe I can't save the world.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Because uh I'm having a hard time just going to sleep tonight because I'm stressed out about payroll tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00

Dude, heroes, heroes journey is all like internal, man. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

What else we got?

SPEAKER_02

I was gonna say we we've gone an hour and ten minutes. I know you and I know you and I I know, I know. You and I we could probably go three hours, but we could also do this you know, another episode. Is there anything else that's uh burning on your mind this morning?

SPEAKER_00

Just happy to be here, dude.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I love your studio, and you're the man. So I appreciate you uh being such a important part of what we do at Element Mist. Um you know, there's a attitude and a and a value alignment between us that I think it's fruitful for for both our companies and um it's it's been we've been blessed. So you again, you're the man. Thanks for setting up this environment to like do this sort of thing. Yeah. Uh sorry to everyone that just had to listen to that.

SPEAKER_02

There's a couple friends. Charles, I'm sending this to Charles afterwards. Charles will be like, this is great. Um my parents are gonna be like, so um, I didn't really get that episode. You made fun of us in the first five minutes and then you went off on a philosophical tangent. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Then you're talking about being uh good.

SPEAKER_02

I think that's what it was derailed on your parents? Yeah, my mom would be like, Well, you guys want to be good, that's good. Things are good, honey. No, appreciate it. Infinitely supportive. Yeah. Uh no, thank you. Thank you. Uh, because the same. Um, blessed, blessed by you, uh, Joel, Adam, right? And uh you guys have been integral in Bent Creative as well, believe it or not. Uh, you know, when I was just building websites and uh Joel had approached me and was like, hey, could you build our website? And then the conversation sort of spurred from there of like, well, let me attach the other things, you know, Google and and let's let's work on getting you guys leads and things like that. Um, and that unlocked a new understanding of how to operate my business. Uh and then working with you guys, I think it was so fruitful for me to work with you guys before working with anybody else. And I don't want to knock anybody else. There are definitely contractors that just care for me to get them leads. That's it. And that's fine. That's the that's the operational contract between our businesses, and I'm happy to do business that way. Yeah. You guys care to see you know, I remember Joel right away was like we we want to be part of the culture of Arizona.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Uh and so I think coming into working with the trades through the vehicle of what you guys are doing at Element Mist helped format me in a way that I already was aligned with, but it helped prove to me that like we can use this vehicle and we can use our businesses and our companies to do the things that we're dreaming of. And so uh thank you, you know, yeah for for the way that you run your business.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks to Joel for heat seeking you out. He's got a good eye for good people.

SPEAKER_02

He does, he does. Yeah, so thanks, Joel. Uh I'm looking forward to having Adam on.

SPEAKER_00

He got every single shout out. Yeah, yeah. Adam, he's next, man.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I want Adam on here. Uh I know he's uh he's a wealth of of wisdom and information about the trades.

SPEAKER_00

So I don't know how he's got a big head. Yeah. There's uh he's got a lot of storage space. I mean that lovingly. Yeah, lovingly. He knows. He knows. He knows everything. He knows. That guy is an AI. He might be an AI, yeah, actually.

SPEAKER_02

He's OI. He's organic intelligent.

SPEAKER_00

All right. Well, thanks again. Thank you so much. I can't believe that's an hour.