Grey on the Rocks
No scripts. No pretending to have all the answers. Just honest conversations, good stories, different perspectives, and plenty of laughs from two guys who have seen a little bit of everything.
A podcast about life, laughs, and the world on the rocks.
Grey on the Rocks
The Episode that Almost Wasn't
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Had Mike not caught it, we'd have missed recording this one. Instead, we did record a show about retirement, motorcyclessness, and leadership.
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That's even better. So we did record the thing we thought we didn't record, and we didn't record the thing we thought we didn't. Welcome to season one, episode four. If you hadn't called that out, Mike, we would have recorded nothing.
SPEAKER_00Oh man. That's weird to me catching it. Holy crap.
SPEAKER_02I don't pay attention to what I do sometimes. So uh welcome to Gray on the Rock. And so far, just to catch everybody up on the pre-show that apparently we did record. Maybe I'll try to interject some of it. Speaking of which, one of the things we talked about was Mike's grandma's vagina. Uh and some other things.
SPEAKER_00He's not lying, actually.
SPEAKER_02That have come up in our lives recently, and uh some things that are coming up, and then we just wanted to, and and so Mike actually said, Hey, we should start recording. So I pushed the button, started talking. Mike said you didn't record. So uh I can't blame this, but this is my drink of the day. I haven't taken a sip yet. I I decided scotch today sounded like a good idea. So a 12-year uh Glenn Levitt, and I have to be honest with everybody. Uh, one of the ways that I shop for uh for alcohol is it's on sale. I have to get a deal. Sometimes it's just a couple bucks off. Sometimes I am looking for something specific for a gift or or a specific uh brand. But uh in this case, the place I shop locally here in Bismarck, uh, they had it on sale, so I got some and and I do enjoy it. It's uh single malt scotch whiskey. Uh it's not as peaty as most scotches that I get, but again, on sale. So I I enjoy it and and uh about halfway through this bottle here.
SPEAKER_00You you've got you've got Glenn Levitt 12 year, which is a spaceide scotch, which is the Manhattan of scotches, right? That area. So it's definitely gonna be it should be a little smoother. It is sweeter.
SPEAKER_02I I get I get a lot of sweet off this one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, should be some caramel in there, some notes, some maybe.
SPEAKER_02I didn't get caramel, but I did get some caramel. Uh so I it's a little I will die on this hill.
SPEAKER_00I will die on this hill forever.
SPEAKER_02I know.
SPEAKER_00Um caramel's a place, caramel's a flavor.
SPEAKER_02Don't make me call the cavalry in here.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you're gonna make it so hard to do.
SPEAKER_02Oh giggity.
SPEAKER_00Maybe so. Speaking of alcohol, yeah. So how okay, how are you doing? Uh man, you can't even read it, Mike. Have you been carrying? I can't read your body. Yeah, yeah. It's uh because it's clear, I bet. Yeah, it's Bowman Brothers uh small batch. That's what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_02Tell me about Bowman Brothers.
SPEAKER_00Uh so the back. Uh this was actually a gift uh from my son-in-law, Noah.
SPEAKER_02All right.
SPEAKER_00Uh on my birthday when he came over and and he provided the birthday dinner for me because usually on people's birthday, I make yeah whatever dinner they request. And he did mine, which was awesome. He did like a couple weeks beforehand what I wanted for dinner. I'm like, uh, it's fine. You know me, I'm I don't celebrate birthdays anything.
SPEAKER_02Mac and cheese tapioca pudding with whipped cream on it. That oh yeah, I know I'm pushing buttons today. Uh so real quick before you get into that, I do uh shout out. I don't know if Noah is a uh listener, but shout out to Noah, fantastic cook. Everything nice, he's he's really good. So congratulations on that. So uh he made you a nice meal.
SPEAKER_00He uh he made me pull pork with uh a spice, he makes homemade barbecue sauces, which is awesome. Uh and and yeah, he's a fantastic cook. Every legitimately everything that man cooks is fantastic, yeah. Um, but he brought this over as uh a birthday present, which was awesome. And it's it's got a really mild start, which I like, but it's heavier on the back end. And it's I can I get some uh some sweet notes to it, but mostly because it's a small batch and it's a little stronger. Uh I get a I get a definitely a heavier, uh not bite, but and not pepper, but just uh a hotter flavor to it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so that that was a great gift from Noah because everything you just described actually describes Noah also. He's uh kind of kind of easy going up front. He's got a a really big back end. Uh he's he's a little peppery sometimes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, give me a little peppery sometimes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. But uh when you first meet him, he's pretty low-key. So yeah, I think it's a perfect, yeah. He he really he really knocked it out of the park with that gift.
SPEAKER_00He uh he will never forget the first time that he actually met me, and he likes to tell people that story all the time. Because I had just gotten back from Afghanistan and Caitlin had been showing him a bunch of pictures of me deployed. It was my the 2011-2012 tour, big beard, long hair, you know, multicams that have nothing on them. Yeah, right. Like, you know, I had a stripped uniform. And uh he was like, Oh, what did your dad do? Well, you know, I'm not really sure, but he's with the army right now, and he's in eastern Afghanistan. She stopped saying that I was a plumber to him, like, oh, that's what she would tell everybody. But so all he knew of me was that I was with OSI, uh, stationed at Aviano, but I was currently assigned to the army running offensive operations in eastern Afghanistan, and I had this giant bushy beard and looked like a mountain man. And so when he and he was a junior in high school when I met him. So when I met him, I'm gonna also I guess I'm gonna tell the story. Yeah, when I met him, him and Kaelin were hanging out at the house, and it was getting late, and uh was like, I gotta go to bed uh to Kaylin, because I just got home, and Noah hadn't bumped into me yet, and uh said, uh hey, I know Noah's downstairs, just ensure that he's leaves by 10 o'clock because I gotta go to bed. I'm exhausted. Uh and so I go to bed and I wake up in the next morning, and I I got up early, you know. I always got up early and I worked out, or I went for a run, and I came back and I hear some rustling around in the room, and uh uh and so I'm like, oh, that's not one person and not rustling around in the room as in wonko bamp, right, right, right, but just like quickly trying to get stuff together to try and scoot out a window or something. Yeah, so I went and sat on our front porch, yeah, right by the door, and he came walking out. I'm like, Good morning, Noah. And he stiffened right up because he didn't know I was there. That's good morning, sir. So I stood up and I shook his hand and I talked to him eye to eye. But to his credit, he took it and was very polite and apologized profusely, and then my daughter got grounded.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, I would imagine.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but yeah, so that's like and he was like, I was so scared because you should be, Jackass. All I had ever heard about you was you know, about your deployed work, and then I messed up so badly, yeah, that day that and that's the first time I ever shake your hand is when I've messed up badly. And I said, you know what? The great thing about that story is from that day it could only go up.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly it. Set that bar low. That's the message to take from today's episode. And he yeah, really, really sets.
SPEAKER_00And he is, man, man. He's knocking out of the park as a dad and a husband, and can't say enough good things about him.
SPEAKER_02Just like every relationship, you know, those those they've been through some tough times, they've they've had some some real challenges, and uh they've gone through it, and and they're they're still they're they're uh uh of of the marriages that I've performed, they're my success story. The other marriage I performed, not so much. Uh they didn't make it, so I'm 50% trying to pad my numbers if anybody's looking to get married out there. Uh there's another one up those numbers. Yeah, there's there's another one pending, but I don't have permission to talk about it yet. So uh yeah, I there's there's some news that we may be talking about at some point.
SPEAKER_00It's part of the pre-show.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely, and it has nothing to do with your grandma's vagina, yeah. Which is well, I mean, indirectly, possibly. Uh I mean, generationally speaking, maternally, yeah. I don't know. Anyway, anyways, anyway, uh, so we're we're up against the clock a little bit here. It's Saturday, the 8th of August, which is uh 12 years to the day since you retired uh for the first time. We're we're not gonna count the others because they really don't count. I mean, only one that was really a retirement, everything else is you just job hopping like a freaking millennial.
SPEAKER_00Um well, and you came out to my retirement, which was awesome. Almost got shot on my front porch.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that was uh I was nervous. I knew I knew there was no like positive way to make this happen, so I thought, well, I'll take a chance. Hopefully, your wife will stop you from killing me. And she yeah, just showed up unexpectedly. Yep, it was awesome for you guys to drive home. And we had uh picking up your mom and aunt, if I remember right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's right. You did, yeah. And we had uh chocolate and peanut butter covered bacon because that sounded like an awesome idea.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um, we may have been drinking, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And wasn't that the Angry Cock weekend?
SPEAKER_02I think yeah, it was it was peanut very root beer whiskey, root beer flavored Angry Cock, which is actually Angry Cock is a legitimate brand of whiskey. I've since learned that it doesn't just come in aluminum screw top bottles that taste like root beer. It's it's actually a bad day, it did, and it was very dusty. I remember like wiping it off to when I picked it up off the shelf, and even when I got it to your place, there was like more dirt than not, I think, on the bottle. It was bad. That's that's when you uh well that wasn't you didn't learn yet that I had no taste. Um, yeah, I didn't even taste, I had no taste, and I still have no taste, but I can taste things. So there's that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was the day that I 12 years ago today, I retired from active duty after uh 23 years in uniform, and I retired as an 04 major in the U.S. Air Force after serving in both the Air Force and the Army. So that was yeah, that was I completely forgot it was today until you set that picture.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it shows up in my uh I use uh Amazon photos. By the way, uh certainly not an ad, but if you're uh Amazon Prime member, and so many people are that don't realize that you can set your phone up, and I've had both Android and iPhone, and I know it's it's really simple. You set it up to automatically back up all of your photos, and it is the most, and now now I say it, I'm probably gonna screw up the service, but uh it's been the most reliable. Like it if you upload videos, it'll take so many, and then you run out of room and they want you to pay more. But videos, no matter how big the pictures are, it backs up every photo I take, and then every day it gives me the the year in review, like a lot of people get off the Facebook page.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's cool.
SPEAKER_02But this is every picture that you take, and every one that you download. Um, sometimes they get out of sequence if if the download date is different, whatever. But but yes, I had a series of those pictures come up for your graduation, and uh we never I didn't take a picture of the peanut butter uh chocolate uh bacon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I have that one. I think that'll come up in a day or so because that wasn't the day I retired. That was stage for I think it was like the the day. Whatever the weekend, yeah. Yeah, I think it was the day or two after we we did that. It was that was diabetes in a pan, man. That was awesome.
SPEAKER_02I think that's the only time I've ever spent overnight in New Jersey. And you're doing life right, and I'm fine. Yeah, you're definitely doing life right. So and so what we were talking about with the up against the clock, it's early afternoon, and coming up in less than two hours. You may be handing over the keys to uh your life as a man. Uh sorry to report that's not true. That's not true. I'm not that guy, but it's close, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I have a 2018 Harley Street glide, um, beautiful maroon color. Uh name, and her name is Lila, and we have taken her on a lot of adventures, a lot of road trips. Oh, yeah. Um, but I made the decision this year to sell my motorcycle for a couple reasons. One, I have not ridden it very much in the last two years. Um, and two, there are some medical reasons that I probably should not be on a motorcycle riding around uh, you know, without at least some safety nets of the at least a car has sides, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You mean a bubble if you're gonna be in trigger some days?
SPEAKER_00I do, so that's caused me not to ride my motorcycle as well, because I'm not sure when you know vertigo is gonna happen or whatever. So yeah, I'm I'm selling it for right around market value, a little less than, but I mean it's for 2018 it's got 8,790 miles on it. It's the miles are so low.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I and I can attest we're not trying to sell it here. There's a guy coming to look at it, likely buyer, you're gonna sell it. Uh, but it's it's been well kept. Uh I I know that you've stored it well and that it you've never had a lick of trouble with it. So yeah, you'll have you'll have no problem with that. Uh it's it's uh it's a sad day that we won't have the motorcycle rides, knowing that we're not gonna have that annual pilgrimage that we've had, but we've already talked about that. We're gonna have road trips. Um, it was it was hard to get the motorcycles on airplanes, which I think kept us from going to Vegas.
SPEAKER_00So uh well we can just rent them there or maybe just get one with a sidecar.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Or uh or one of those uh one of those skunkers.
SPEAKER_00Sidecar mic. Sidecar skunk.
SPEAKER_02Better than backdoor mic, like like college.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that was my college name. Yeah, so that's happening today.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's so we gotta we gotta keep an eye on the clock there. But otherwise, we we're just here to talk about regular old stuff and uh life. Um, and I I think this last week I talked a lot about the AI and and uh you know where I was with with career and things, and I've got some some ideas uh on what direction I might go. And and what I'm blessed about, just to kind of give everybody an update on where my um mental health, frankly, has been this last week. I did go through some depression that you know here I am again, uh having to look for a job. Yeah, uh that that sucks a little bit. Uh, but also I'm blessed in that I have legitimately three months. Well, it's it's uh just under three months right now, that I'm still getting paid, still doing a job, and I get to look for something that I want to do. And that might be somebody else paying me, that might be me doing my own thing, which I swore I'd never do. Watching you and Rochelle own a business really got me liking the idea of not taking on that risk, but there might be some opportunities there, and and I'll talk about those if they come to fruition. I I don't want to uh jinx isn't the right word, but I don't want to put it out there yet because I'm yeah, no one's got out of the bag yet. Yeah, um, so yeah, that's where I've been. And Mike, I know that you ended this week. I didn't even know you had this coming up. Uh, and I was surprised to learn about it, and I've been happy to see just the the little brief results of of what happened as a result of this conference that you and Rochelle attended. You want to talk about that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we actually attended the Global Leadership Summit 2026, and it happens every year, and they have really great keynote speakers that come in from all types of industries and some motivational speakers. And and we we used to, as business owners, do leadership conferences quite often. And in in the last couple of years, we kind of didn't, but we made a commitment this year that we were gonna do another one, and we just got a chance to, for me especially, because leadership is is a big um part of who I was in the military, who I am now, um, on and off the mats, that it it it really I got some great nuggets out of there, and it helped propel me to shift a couple things that I'm looking at. Um, because I'm writing a book on leadership. I think we I don't I think we've talked about that. Maybe we haven't. It's only episode four. I'm writing a book on leadership. Um that's what I went into it with, uh, called Leading from the Ground Up. I've got 10 principles of leadership that aren't strictly for the military, but they're the ones that I used while I was in the military to help me develop and developed over my entire career. But one of the speakers, because I've kind of hit a roadblock writing, and I've got a I've I've got a um an appointment set on my calendar twice a week to sit down for 20 minutes. It's not doesn't seem like that long, but it is 20 minutes, and just write something, whatever comes out of me, just let word vomit it, and then we'll go edit it later.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00But I've been kind of hitting a roadblock and just staring at the screen. Um and one of the speakers said did the same thing. He's written like 20 books on business and leadership. And uh somebody early on in his career said, You should write a book on about leadership. And he's like, No, you know, I don't feel like I should, and that's gonna be a tough one. And then they reframed it and said, Well, why don't you write a book on what you would look for in a leader? Interesting. Which is writing a book about leadership. But for some reason, for him, he was like, Oh yeah, don't tell me I can't do it. So I'm like, you know, that's a really neat way to look at it as well. Man, that camera's really blurry. Sorry, everybody who might be watching this and YouTube. Yeah, it got super blurry. Um so I'm not changing it to that, but that's some of that might get incorporated in it. Kind of what I was seeking in a leader in the military, which of course propelled me to be the leader that I was in the military, and then post military and business and in EMS, and as a coach on the mats to both adults and kids, because that's leadership as well. Uh, you're never just an instructor, especially in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, because it's such an intimate space that we operate in. You end up, I end up doing more mentoring than I do. I think I do coaching, wrestling. So oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's well, I mean, that's your nature, but that's also I think a part of what is a healthy gym, yeah, uh gymnasium, also a healthy gym, but yeah, a healthy gym will do that too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, it's a healthy culture. We talk about the culture inside of uh an academy or a gym. Uh for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The the culture matters, and that's usually what uh keeps people. The the sport will bring people in, but the culture will keep them, right? And it's it correlates very well to leadership because the job or the service will bring somebody in, whatever it is that you're in, like being in the army, right, being in the air force, whatever the job was that I did, that's what brought me in. But it was leadership, good leadership that kept me in. Because I after my first enlistment and I got out and went into the reserves, I was sure I was done. I was never gonna be on active duty again. I was done, done. I had really bad leadership. I mean, and I was a subpar enlisted member of the military anyway. I mean, not subpar, I was average. I was like an average guy. You wouldn't look you wouldn't look at me and be like, that guy's destined to be a leader in the military for sure.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I was just average, very average, and I and I had really bad leadership too, that didn't try to grow leaders. The best thing to me a leader can do is is grow their replacement.
SPEAKER_02Oh, 100%. I've lost jobs over that because I ran out. I kept promoting people under me, and and then I was done. Yeah. So yes, you're right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they talked about it that like a good a good question a leader should ask themselves is what would happen to the company if I left today? And if I wasn't in charge, what would a better leader do? Questions to ask. And and it dovetails with I'm reading a couple books right now, but um I a guy that I listened to who's who owns a really big jujitsu academy said, Listen, if you are the guy that's teaching all of the classes at your academy, you don't have a business, you have a hobby that pays for itself, maybe. So and that's me right now. We have some great coaches, but they have full-time lives, right? Deputies and um paramedics and military members that are coaches for me, but they're they have other lives. So I teach 99% of all the classes.
SPEAKER_02But what I need to do is start preparing for an academy without me for a lot of a lot of reasons for that, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and and building leaders early on is how I'm going to do that, not coaches. And I was I think I was approaching it incorrectly. I need to build leaders because leaders make great coaches. Black belts don't make great coaches. Getting your black belt in Brazilian jujitsu or karate doesn't automatically make you a great teacher. As a matter of fact, I know some really terrible coaches that are black belts, but they were great competitors in both sides of the martial arts. And I don't believe that leaders are born. I believe people are born with attributes in their personality that can attract other people, for better or worse. But leaders, good leaders are made, they're mentored, they're educated, you know, they're they're taught to be good leaders. And when I finally got that in the military was when I was in the army. And I had a really, really good officer take me under her wing and teach me leadership from the ground up, like where I was at as an E4. And she was a captain. And she taught me to lead where I was, even though I wasn't a leader at the time. I hadn't yet become a fire team leader in that unit. I did shortly thereafter, and then assistant squad leader and squad leader. And um then I went to officer candidate school. Yeah, but she taught me the most valuable lesson I learned from her was you lead where you're at. And it doesn't have to be a formal position. That's one of the things that I take to my kids' class.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Is that leadership starts where you are, not in when you get to the leadership program, because we have a whole separate program for leadership. And I think as I'm writing this book, a lot of things occur to me, like, you know, leadership inside my home, leadership outside my home, leadership in my business, that kind of stuff. And I think I hear this a lot from people that we have a failure of we have a lack of men in society, like good men in society. And I don't think that's true. I think we have a lack of leaders, people who have been taught to be good leaders, which is, I mean, essentially being a good human being. What I have found over all of the leadership positions I have had, both enlisted as an officer and as a civilian special agent, I was in a leadership position as well. That leadership really comes down to being a good human being and caring more for the people around you than yourself and ensuring that they have what they need to do the best that they can do for whatever the organizational goal or purpose is. But at the end of the day, still taking care of them. That was my job. And I felt my calling. Poor leaders, poor leaders only focus on the organizational goal. People be damned, right?
SPEAKER_02Um process over people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yes. And I and I firmly believe, I firmly believe this, and I tell people this all the time: you do not manage people. I hate the title manager. I hate it with a fiery passion. You manage things, you lead people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And too often, and I've had this on in my own career, and I in my book, I talk about two very specific um commanders that I had that were great managers of things and terrible leaders of people. One of which I used to have dreams about killing, legitimately, like running him over with my car in the parking lot. He was that terrible.
SPEAKER_02Does it still happen? Does he still show up once in a while? Yeah, no, thank goodness.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah, which is funny because once I stopped working for him, he would send me emails and notes and stuff, just asking how I was doing. And like he was a big advocate for me at our headquarters because that's where he went. I'm like, who is this guy? I wish I would have worked for that guy, because that's not the guy that I worked for at all.
SPEAKER_02I can see I can speak to how that happens. And and I I don't know the guy, I don't know the situation, but I know that I have this tendency also that if you work for me, so if that's my mindset and you're a pain in the ass uh in the behind for some reason or another, if if that's a if you're a problem because of something you're doing, or because you're too good at it, or what whatever reason, then I'm just gonna manage the things, and you're you're a problem for me. That's too stressful, you get overwhelmed. And I, you know, again, I can't speak to that person at all, but I've seen that happen. Somebody that's good at at project management that struggles to deal with people, it's just it's a problem, therefore, until you're not a problem anymore, you're going to be on the outs. But now that you're no longer a problem, man, you're a great guy to work with. And then and then it's easy to stay in touch that way.
SPEAKER_00So purely guessing on my part, but yeah, that I think that is part of it. I really do. Uh, the other one is is he was uh he retired enlisted, and again, I have an enlisted background. I yeah, I would never give a day of my time enlisted up. I think that informed my leadership in a way that had I not been enlisted, I would have been a subpar leader.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um but he retired enlisted, I think he was a senior master sergeant in E8 in the Air Force when he retired and became a civilian. And he spent a very long time as a civilian, ended his career doing phenomenal things for the command, by the way. I can't, and I have to say that he really did. Uh very impactful things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But when I was enlisted, because I went this is when I was in a very specific offensive uh unit down in Texas. Um when I was enlisted and worked for him, it was fine. Yeah, like no issues whatsoever. I was just another dude rowing the boat, right?
SPEAKER_02Gotcha, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00The day I got commissioned and came back, I was an absolute piece of crap.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it got bad enough that I never I did not turn down or try to turn down deployments because I just couldn't be there. Like I had a wife and three kids at home, and my son was only two, who's 24 now.
SPEAKER_02Guy was that bad to work for. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right. Uh actually he already turned 24. His birthday was this past week. Um hard to keep track of all these things. I didn't know it's weird, especially the older I get. But uh, yeah, I had I had three kids and a wife at home, and I would rather be in Iraq or Afghanistan, yeah, and not be around this guy every day than then have to work, be at home and spend time with my family, which I missed a lot of, but have to see him every day. He was it was that bad.
SPEAKER_02Anyway, to be clear though, you were pretty messed up in the head back then.
SPEAKER_00I and to be absolutely can that I was. There was a lot of stuff that in my life that I had not worked through yet.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I had already seen plenty of combat prior to that assignment. I had multiple combat deployments prior to that, and that I had not and and did not I had not dealt with and didn't even know where to start with because I come from a place of childhood trauma anyway.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And statistically speaking, psychologically, we know that if you have childhood trauma, you are um 10 times more likely to experience PTSD in a in a in an event than somebody who's never experienced childhood trauma does. Two people, same event, one has childhood trauma, the other doesn't. It could walk away just fine. And but then then again, there were some times that people experience real trauma in events, and I was like, that was what you've already you've already figured out how to cope with it. Yeah. So anyway, the I I learned really good leadership lessons from both of these gentlemen, even though they were poor leaders to me. But what I got a chance to see is them go on to be well, one of the two anyway, go on to be really just phenomenal leaders in the organization and end his career on probably the highest note you could as a civilian. And I sent him a note um uh when his announcement came out that he was retiring, because I was still I was a civilian at the time with the organization. I sent him a personal note uh um congratulating him, just thanking him, like and genuinely just thanking him for and I didn't specify, but I thanked him for the lessons that I had learned. And and I thanked him for being uh a person to watch in the command grow into phenomenal leadership, and I think that's important to recognize. And as as human beings, we can do that.
SPEAKER_02I thought I don't think this is everything you're talking about, is about how we relate with each other, yeah. Um from you know, from the beginning, that we're all leaders, uh regardless of what position we're in, we're leading, someone is observing you, which means you're leading at every moment, and even if it's just yourself, you still have to lead your own life, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, and you you have to understand the the role that ego plays in that, and you say, Well, I don't have an ego, because you do, everybody does, right? It's just when it rears its head, you have to learn to put it aside, even if that doesn't mean you're at the forefront of everything happening. Yeah, you should be giving credit to other people, you should want credit to go to other people. Uh, and that was a hard lesson for me in the beginning as a leader, too. Yeah, you know, because I came from a space as a child that I felt very um invisible um and uh until I wasn't, which was terrible, until I wasn't invisible, and that was horrible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh so I felt like I had to overdo, you know, you know my personality, but yeah, no, yeah, I've I've heard nothing new so far today, but yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02For the everybody else that's listening in, yeah.
SPEAKER_00If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. So that's the way I approached absolutely everything in life, to include leadership. And I was not a great leader early on as an officer. I did some stupid stuff as in my first command assignment. Oh my gosh, I did some dumb stuff.
SPEAKER_02We could probably, I don't know if anybody is is listening or watching that could give uh uh credence to what you just said, but I bet we could find some people that could write some listening.
SPEAKER_00There are a couple listeners that definitely can.
SPEAKER_02Let's let's get those in the comments, shall we? No, I'm kidding. I don't know if you can share that kind of information or how much Mike has to pay you to not do that, but it was there's some pretty dumb stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I just so I I've come to look at writing this book as not just writing a book to put my philosophy of leadership out there, it's to embody what I think I was looking for as a leader, um, and what I what I should be as a leader in my personal life, not just in the military. I as I'm writing now, I'm like, oh man, I'm not really doing that anymore. I probably should be.
SPEAKER_02I love those moments. Those moments speak to uh speak to others, not myself.
SPEAKER_00It's much easier like um approach uh pro uh uh approach the cracks in your soul with honesty, uh uh honestly and and fill them with genuine honesty, right? Which I used uh the uh the principle of kitsugi, the Japanese print um art of kitsugi, uh as a kind of a story for that, because we got to do that in Okinawa. But I mean it, I don't man, I've gotten away from that. I really do like to ignore the holes in my personality, the cracks in my my soul, and then just ignore them, right? And I was writing on that this week, and that it hit me. I'm like, oh stupid thinking, and then the other one that I wrote on this week was you have to as a good leader recognizes that everybody's 100% changes daily with what they have going on in their life. Like I know what you're capable of at your best. And I I fairly quickly can as a leader, I had the ability to learn what your capability was at your worst. But early on, I didn't know how to modulate that. I just expected you to come in every day and be at that best, but that's not life. Are your kids sick? Are you sick? I mean, some mental health struggles, are you financially in trouble? Did you blow a tire out on the way to work? Did you hit there's so so many things that could be happening in a life that fluctuate that hundred percent? And then I was typing on it again, and I've got a couple specific stories in life. Not everything in the book is military stories, some of them are personal stories outside of the military, but I was writing on it and I went, oh, I'm not applying that to the people that I am um that are helping me, that are investing in my gym, my academy as coaches. I'm I'm expecting them all the time to be ready to draw to do everything and and forgetting that their hundred percent is gonna fluctuate every single day. And when I I can't get the hey, yeah, no problem, coach. I got this. I I was I started getting frustrated.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So again, that was the second one. I was like, oh God, darn it. This is it was a good, it was a good week writing and then ending it with the leadership summit because the last thing that I took from it, and I'd got I have pages of notes in my uh I have a specific notebook just for leaning from the ground up, thoughts and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Got pages and pages of of uh thoughts.
SPEAKER_02Uh are you the kind of guy that writes it down uh and then goes back to read it, or do you write it down so that you remember it?
SPEAKER_00No, I I I write it down and then I I I try to keep it with me, but I go back and read it several times.
SPEAKER_02All right.
SPEAKER_00I because I there are principles in there that I need I need to hear. And one of them was one of the speakers said, right now, I want you to write down the uh the names of the four most impactful people in your life right now. Um, and it couldn't be in the confines of um an intimate relationship, marriage, engagement, you know, any you know, you know, any of that. It had to be outside of that, right? Because that's important to do. And there were four names that came up, and it was not even a struggle for me. And it was you, Bill, uh, Paul, and Jared. And I'm gonna name drop Paul and Jared too, because I know they they listen and I know Bill listens, but it was immediate, and each one of you has a very specific role, and and your roles overlap in my life, but you you the old saying iron sharpens iron. But you and it's cheesy these days to say, but you are like the people you hang around the most, and 100%, yeah. Uh and I've been in that way in a good way, and I've been that way in a bad way in my life. And and I'm talking within the last 10 years, I've been that way in a good way and a bad way. But those four, all four of the people that I wrote down immediately, um have faced challenges in their life within the last decade, um, uh, and still maintained a friendship with me that was uh beneficial to me and beneficial to them. You know, it was it went the the friendship we poured into each other, not just it wasn't just a one-way friendship, and that matters, right? It matters to me. I don't want to be a taker. I one of my the slogan that I have on my whiteboard in my gym that I see every morning is seek usefulness, not respect. I see that every single morning, it's a reminder that it's not about me because there I have a personality that I can make it about me a lot, right? Right. Uh and I think most human beings can, but you guys keep me very grounded and you're very honest with me in a way that is humbling and not in a negative way. Right. You know, that radical honesty that we don't get very often in society anymore.
SPEAKER_02100%. And the the message that you sent out to us, uh, I'm not gonna read through it, it was it was touching, uh, and it was I really appreciate how it how it kind of played out because uh all I could do was put a heart on it, you know. I like how do you respond to that? And Bill handled it perfectly, uh and with such a humor uh that that I really I wanted to put a ha-ha on it, but that would have demeaned it. It was it's worth more than that. So, Bill, uh that was it was awesome. And uh everybody that participates in anything like that, to take that moment and say, uh you're important in my life, and I love you for that. And you know, the natural reaction, my first reaction to that, Mike, of course, was to make light of it and to talk about being homosexual and and all these things, which would have still been taken as it was intended, because we know each other so well, and and the other guys are in the same boat. But uh, but it really it means a lot that we do that with each other, it means and it's important that we have those people in our lives. That's how that's how this happens. That's how uh the you know the the book you're writing, it's about it's about engaging with other people, and we build each other up as a result of that. Um, so when we have these conversations, whether they're recorded or just in day-to-day, uh, for there are times you and I have gone through uh seasons where the only time that we talked is when we were gaming together, yeah. And you know, 80%, if not more, of that is just trash talk, and not not in terms of the the trash silly silliness and screaming because we got shot again and all these all these silly things.
SPEAKER_00Unless the one playing with a who's super quiet and we taking care of all of the business while we're dying.
SPEAKER_02Every once in a while we have to call out to make sure he's still gaming with us. But uh uh we're Mike and I are back into seven days to die, which is a fantastic zombie sandbox game. Uh and and I gotta I'm I'm past day 77, which means I've been through 11 horde nights. I have bases built up, I've got all the vehicles. So next time you come into my game, you can go for a gyrocopter ride with me if you'd like. Oh man, nice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I go all in, just like you were talking about, but I'm on my second base now. It's built up and everything's working, and yeah, doing I'm running missions, but yeah, it's a great that's a really fun sandbox game. I'm a big fan of those. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of first-person shooter games unless they are sci-f sci-fi, yeah, basically hell diver and things like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I started uh uh because I just came out with uh Halo Combat Evolved. Oh yeah. Uh and and I've I'm I played through it and I got to a point that it was just boring, so I switched back over to Seven Days to Die. I love the Halo concept. I that that game along with Doom really got me into gaming early on.
SPEAKER_00I remember that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, those those were the games that really got me into like, okay, now I'm settled in. This is what I like to do, but now after a while, the combat gets a little boring. I want to build a base.
SPEAKER_00I want to yeah, so yeah, we work all week so that we can work while we're getting as I'm as I'm digging.
SPEAKER_02I've got an auger now, so I'm digging out uh resources so I can go back to my base and build more things so I can get more resources to go back to my base and build more. Yeah, it's it's silly.
SPEAKER_00This is what we do, people. It's for real, and we're not we're not even joking.
SPEAKER_02And uh so okay, uh back to back to the leadership thing. I took us off off quick.
SPEAKER_00No, that's okay.
SPEAKER_02Um we need those sidetracks. We do, we do, and uh, you know, I respect that that you and Rochelle, I mean you guys as business leaders, you went to this conference. Um, I was impressed that uh I I thought it was a cool uh perspective when you told me about it that it was happening, that it was happening at a church, it was live cast from uh from another church. Like, was this a Christian uh-based leadership program? It is, yep.
SPEAKER_00And they bring in non-Christian speakers as well, but it was a it was a Christian-based um summit on leadership.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'd like to talk with uh whoever, maybe if you've got a contact for me, I'd like to see if I could get our and I don't know if it happens in Bismarck like it does in my not, but I'd I'd sure like to uh see if we can get involved in that somehow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've I've got a couple people I can um put you in contact with. So one of my uh one of my students, a purple belt of mine in karate, she she is one of the community, she's the outreach community director for the pursuit. And so I know she can I'll just put you in contact with Z and she she'll be able to hook you up. It's it's well worth it. I and I always joke that I'm not in charge of anything in the business. I I just I'm in charge of murder on the mats, that's what I teach. But I I am intimately involved in everything that happens into our in our business, whether people realize it or not. We sit down and talk about finances weekly, weekly, about the business on both sides, about our rentals, and now the cabin. Uh, I'm in which is weird to think about. I handle all leads that come into the gym. Yeah, that's a sales role, which is not my bad.
SPEAKER_02It is.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, but it is. It's weird. I was just I was framing it incorrectly. It's a great chance to again lead from the bottom up, taking leads and converting them or just talking to people and getting them into the academy so they can see the culture. I'm not a hard sell guy. That's not what I do.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Come into the academy. You either like us or you don't. You'll either come back or you won't. I'm not gonna chase you. Um, maybe I will just have a hobby that pays for itself for the rest of my ability to coach. That's fine with me because we have a culture of people that I like, I genuinely like being around when they try to kill me.
SPEAKER_02Have you okay, legitimately? Any deaths on the mats? Any any gym that you've ever been part of?
SPEAKER_00No, none that I've been part of.
SPEAKER_02All right, good to know. Because you mentioned that quite a bit that that people are murdering each other. And I just I want to make sure that people understand that the way I understood that, that it's not literal.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it's yet figurative, yeah, yes, yeah. Uh so I I tell the kids uh in our kids' class all the time in the warm-up when we're doing leg holds, because our kids in our kids' karate class can do a leg hold six inches off the ground for one minute. And I'm talking even five-year-olds can do it. Both legs, yep, both legs.
SPEAKER_02You guys are using you guys are using, oh, oh, you're laying down, not standing up. Yeah, oh, that makes a lot more sense.
SPEAKER_00That's actually the secret technique we teach people to levitate. Are you using your cheek? Using your cheek. Yeah, but we always I always talk about you guys can get through this. I've seen you do it a hundred times already. You know, there's some encouragement because kids will there are a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, some giggling, but that's from my upper belts because they've been doing it for years, right? Yeah, um, but uh and I'll always say, Listen, I know you guys can do this, and besides, nobody has ever died during the kids' warm up. In one of my one of my advanced kids' belts will always say, Yet. Yeah, they'll always everybody laughs. Everybody laughs.
SPEAKER_02They're also has to be random toots that happen when you're doing that because you're you're holding those muscles that are trying to hold those back.
SPEAKER_00Dude, speaking of toots, this is not about this is actually this is kind of about leadership too. Is this a coaching last night um the class and we have open mat after jujitsu where we get to wrestle and one of the guys that's in our coaching program who is um teaches um the paramedic and emt program for the local hospital great guy uh known as sounds like a very upstanding citizen yeah yes he's an upstanding citizen for sure yeah um no he was one of my instructors which tells you he's been in it for a a while he we were wrestling and um we just happened to have Qdoba for lunch yesterday oh it wasn't him yeah him that did the so as his instructor and we're rolling and I'm like what are you working on? What are you trying to do? And he's like oh I'm trying to do these things and so I am literally farting in his face consistently as we're like like loud ones. It was terrible I'm like hey man tomorrow when you wake up and you have um uh conjunctivitis pink eye when you have pink eye just let whoever you go to at the clinic know that it was me put it on my tab yeah they'll laugh I'm really sorry it was like three times dude I farted in his face it was bad I felt so bad yeah but it it was a good night and he took it really well and we made some jokes about it but yeah you know leadership point don't eat Mexican food or Qdoba which is Mexican adjacent Mexican yeah yeah uh before you wrestle that's uh I I tell I say that all the time and I still do it yeah I was gonna say this is a lot you're not gonna learn it just it's fine just just live with it delicious yeah in the words of Odin it was delicious delicious delicious yeah who by the way is going to kindergarten in less than a like less than 10 days he's going to what now kindergarten kindergarten you said kindergarten like kindergarten yeah that's how he says it oh all right he's going to big kids school kindergarten yeah when does that start oh yeah that's because we're coming up again 19th of this month yeah I just cannot believe my very first grandchild is going to kindergarten but he kindergarten Peppy I go to big kids school kindergarten first he called it the American school it's like I'll go american school kindergarten I'm like well it's German but that's fine we'll we'll what what are you telling so there's uh there's a school just down a couple blocks from where we live Longfellow it's an elementary school and so kaelin and noah live across the river which is in a different school district but she got an exception to policy because we live so close and they rely on a lot me picking up and taking care of Odin because I'm air quotes retired. Yeah so free you have nothing going on during the day but I'm able to I can just walk down and he was so excited to hear that I'm gonna be able to walk down and pick him up from school when the weather's warm and walk back to our house like that yeah that blew his mind that he could do that. That is awesome.
SPEAKER_02But yeah he's going to he's going to school that's so what's that like for little kids these like do they go to a full day now is it still halfway he's gonna go through a full day full day that's my understanding is it's a full day of school yeah well he's gonna be ready man he that kid's got uh he's got a lot of good got a little a lot of good experience in life so far so I'm I'm excited for him can't wait to hear the stories yeah I'm sure his teacher's gonna be excited he and he thrives in that environment social like his mom yeah dramatic like his mother I I don't know where she I don't know where she got that from I'm obviously quite stoic yeah no you have you have tendencies but yes um I also have tended I have tendencies in ticks tick and sees you have tickets but he thrives in social environments and it would with structure social environments with structure he operates the best in and he is like it's like cheers when I was dropping him off at preschool every child walking through the halls is like Odin ohie you're here oh no everybody would want to come up and hug him like dude I have to drop you off you have to get to your class go yeah he's he's gonna have to man he's gonna have to deal with that at some point that's because that's a lot of pressure it's a lot look at look at all the the the sad clowns out there anybody else on the show that has that syndrome anyone is it just me not you okay got it okay there it is yeah yeah no I'll be honest we just talked about that radical honesty yeah that's what we do man I had a lot of that uh so I've got I've got some things I do with our church i i'm i'm privileged to be sometimes on the worship team sometimes on the the tech team running computer or youtube stuff uh and then i also have a a men's group and it's it's funny while you were talking about it I was thinking our our our men's group is called ordained leaders like that's the name we selected for ourselves and the subtext of it is uh unsolicited advisors which is what we do with each other and we did we did a lot of that on Thursday and uh um I don't remember why I was talking about that just now but uh we we had some grandkids conversation about well it was the radical uh what's the word you've been using radical honesty radical honesty that we were doing with each other and uh you know sometimes it's a person's turn to be uncomfortable and dish it out and sometimes it's the turn to be uncomfortable and receive it and and I feel like I did both and others did too so uh just part of that part of that connection that we have to have with each other right yeah that's that's why we're put here I believe truly well I mean human beings are are communal animals we are we are bent we we are built we are designed for community and when we don't have that we absolutely don't thrive and you can see that yeah we have we have that or Fritos that's how my world works I have communal activities or I have a bag of Fritos that's calling my name and I'm gonna eat all of it and then feel terrible until I forget how terrible I felt and then I'll eat another bag of Fritos.
SPEAKER_00If if you if you can substitute Fritos for salt and vinegar chips that's me yeah those are the two thirds for me too yeah it's it's a good second I'm I'm okay with those yep yeah I just I I think without that you we get a lot of issues oh speaking of communal yeah um communal animals did you see that um meta was sued and I think it's a couple I would say billion but I I'm I'm not sure um dollar lawsuit about the use of social media platforms uh on kids under the age of 18 and how the algorithms are set up and have caused they can link it they brought a bunch of psychologists in and they could link it to depression and and suicide and things like that. And so there are are they been ordered to put safeguards like Meta for Facebook and Instagram and all that have been ordered to put safeguards in their software so that um anybody under the age of 18 can't do more than 90 hours a month. They're gonna hide the number of likes on photos. They're gonna there's a now there's gonna be a con they're gonna appeal it and all of that obviously but um also it won't do any good that's no it absolutely will not that's where I'm gonna go with that band-aid on a broken dam. Yeah yeah uh I think social media has made mental health worse I'm not gonna lie um but there's no back i in in in i'm a I'm a guy that has had to rein it back in as well as a guy with a TikTok channel that I post twice a week on but I I still have had to do that because I used to get up in the morning and the first thing I look at is my phone and and notifications and that kind of stuff and and then I would you know look at it all the way up till bed. Well now what I'm trying to do is the first hour of my day now is work and sc workout and because I got a kind of away from that I would wait until like nine 10 o'clock in the morning and I would work out and I remember that it's again it's back again six o'clock in the morning my alarm goes off I get up I work out the only reason I'm using my phone for the first couple hours of my day is as an alarm clock to wake me up and then to play music in my ears. That's it. Yeah and then um I'm we've got an audio uh audio audible book that I'm listening to um how economies I almost said audio you know we'll go on old school yeah what what are you listening to?
SPEAKER_02Uh how economies fall I know super economies fall that's yeah yes cool so I like that uh how do you like it so far?
SPEAKER_00I mean is it a it's good for well yeah you know me I'm a data driven guy right so it's really good i i i like the book quite a bit uh how oh sorry how countries go how countries go broke sorry not oh yeah okay how economies fall yeah so how country okay so how countries go broke but he talks about how i um how how economies fall and this that's the whole premise of the book right uh and he taught he brings that up quite a bit but it's by Ray Dalio D-A-L-I-O.
SPEAKER_02Ray Dalio so that uh those can be hard to listen to if they get too statistical yes so what what's uh what what's that what's the balance there there's not if you don't like statistics you will not like this book i'm not gonna look it up then because sometimes that's just that that and names there are some books that I really like I there there's been a couple musician books that I the like biographies or autobiographies but it turned so much into we went here and this person and this person and this person were there and this person did this and that person did that and it you know the like the history of of the people instead of the relating it was about their histories and that gets to be too much um so okay good good to know about that uh I do like the the the the uh concept of it um I read I'm looking for who the author is right now I just read the Lincoln um the the Lincoln Miracle you know me I love some Lincoln I love you do so man I've got shelves of books about Lincoln the Lincoln Miracle and it's by Edward Acorn A C H O R N and he's written a couple other books too I I know that name yeah he this this is specifically and I knew this going into it and it's why I got it it's specifically about the uh Republican convention in Chicago like it's what led up to it and obviously the results of it but the things that happened there and what I found interesting about it I I'm a guy that doesn't like the idea of politics. I don't like the the conversations that have to happen in order to get things done and this author Acorn did a really good job of explaining it in a way that was real and like approachable like I okay I can understand why this guy was making this deal in order for this thing to happen over here and and this was the fallout as a result good or bad like he really described it well. And it was a it was a long lesson I want to say 15 hours something like that. Absolutely worth it and you know he did a what I really like this about him as an author he finished with a fantastically written epilogue that covered the result of Lincoln being president in a short concise way but still informative but then also talked about the other major players and and where they ended up I really like that kind of storytelling just finished that this last week and I started Dungeon Crawler Carl everybody's talking about this series it's been a a pop pop pop culture phenom and I finally bought in I heard one more person talk about it that that just pushed me over the edge so it's uh it's it's I think there's eight books so far and it was just a guy that decided to write this story and he's gotta be a a multi multimillionaire at this point just a just a guy wrote a story about Carl not giving anything away but the story begins with him uh going outside to get his recently ex-girlfriend's uh super uh prize winning cat from outside in the cold because he opened a window and the stupid cat jumped out for the first time it's never done that before so he's out there in his ex's crocs uh a t-shirt boxers and a leather jacket and as he goes outside all of the buildings get squished all around the world and this alien race begins a dungeon crawl that is exactly like you'd expect it to be in gaming and and there's a lot more that goes into it and I I he's still on the first level and there's 18 levels down that he has to crawl through so I'm just learning about the story. When I first began it I thought this is stupid I'm not gonna like it and then here you're gonna appreciate this they started explaining the rules in the uh tutorial uh that he that he reached and I'm like oh oh okay now I like it I'm in I'm sold I'm gonna I'm gonna listen to this book uh and I this may be a series that I actually just pay outright for or use my credits for because it's so far it's it's entertaining uh it's got decent volume the guy that's doing it uh I wish it was Ray Porter but it's not the guy that's reading it I will I've bought probably half of the books that Ray Porter reads as as the audible guy I've bought because he was the the the actor the the voice actor Ray Porter he's the one that did Project Hail Mary and he's done some other series that I like I just watched it again recently Project Hail Mary amaze amaze amaze if you've not seen it such a great movie it'll make you cry it makes you laugh gives you not at all what I was expecting either it was such a pleasant surprise it was it was it was a great feel good movie that also was sci-fi yeah right I just thought it was really good we are on different paths with books yeah because so what's next for you are you are you gonna go well i i just finished at Start with Why by Simon Sinek again yep so I've read the book and my book has notes in the margins but I listened to it on audible again because I was reading Leaders Eat Last and he references this some stuff from um Start with Why I'm like you know what I haven't read that I haven't read Start with Why since I was an officer which has been a hot minute at least a decade since I've read it so yeah obviously as of today um so I I went back and I listened to Start with Why which great book which of course spurred some thoughts for me for the business and things like that.
SPEAKER_00And then I finished Leaders Eat Last which I highly recommend. It's based off of a Marine Corps print an un an unwritten Marine Corps rule. Oh right um and I'm not sure if I've talked about this before so in the Marine Corps you go to any Marine Corps um base or or they they call them camps they don't call them Ford operating bases any Marine Corps camp deployed uh like we uh when I was at Bagram in 2005 we had uh Teffelhunden which was camp temple Teflhunden which means double dog all right in German uh okay yes it does and you can see that you can you can see this principle where in the Marine Corps there's an unwritten rule that leaders always eat last the most junior of the unit whatever size it is eats first always and the most senior of that unit eats last. So if it's a fire team the youngest person the lowest enlisted person that four person fire team eats first and the the fire team leader eats last squad same thing platoon the platoon leader will always eat last yeah usually it's a fight between the platoon leader and the platoon sergeant because the platoon sergeant's a lot older than the lieutenant running the platoon yeah but more valuable yeah yes they they um they they have this unwritten rule that he saw over time spending time with the military and it became this book but he was able to see it in different businesses too so it's a great principle I highly recommend it uh and then of course servant leadership is really servant servant leader yep which is another great book by the way I read that as a as a young officer yeah servant leadership which informed the second command that I got because I read it during my first command and changed some things at the end so that by my second command I was hopefully a better commander um and had honed it in by my last command but now I'm now I'm listening to how countries go broke and uh the meaning of your life by Arthur C. Brooks I heard him speak yeah I've heard him speak and I heard him speak again this week Arthur C. Brooks great um great information great speaker the author of like 20 books. Yeah this was really good though really good the meaning of your life not the meaning of life it's very we all know what it is which yeah which is you know 42 obviously obviously obviously um it just talks about how you find and how you can hone in on the meaning of your life and it specifically centers around leadership but so those are the two I'm going through right now and a farewell to arms oh by why why did that come up for me recently well because uh we talked about that because it was my grandmother's favorite book there it is that's how it came up yeah yeah I had no idea why because I've of course read the old man in the sea because it was required in in high school and literature and some other books uh but I've never ever read a farewell to arms yeah and and Mama Mel said that was my grandma's favorite book and I didn't and I know a lot about my grandmother because I spent a lot of time with my grand my grandmother and my grandfather on my maternal side um but I had no idea and so of course now I have to read it and it's about an an Italian ambulance driver in World War I and the fight with the Austrians in the Italian Alps which I know the area really well so it was cool for me so far. It's been neat for me to read.
SPEAKER_02And that actually speaks to how how we have different uh ideas for literature because my grandma's favorite book and she left to me her set of Dune the the the Dune books when she died. So very different tastes this is yes this is how we ended up where we're at and what I like to do so I I do uh a biography or autobiography and then uh uh well so the the the first in the ser the first in the set so we'll call it a set it's gonna be uh a life um uh learning life learning so like what you're talking about would be a good example of that right the the kind of books and then it'll be a biography or autobiography and then it's something to cleanse my palate and then I start over again and sometimes it gets mixed up a little bit depending on how like I've listened to 30 plus hour long books before that changes how the routine goes because I need to change things up a little bit. I've I've learned of myself if I just listen to one of any of them it I lose interest so I I have to keep it fresh and I just happen to be on dungeon crawler carl right now I'll let you plus I also heard I think it's uh I want to say it's either Prime or hopefully Apple TV picked it up as a series they're gonna make Apple TV would be great they're really good at making books into shows these days I I really respect what they're doing so so yeah there's that well have you uh speaking of weird whoops sidetracks have you watched Stuart save the universe or doesn't what was that Stuart doesn't I haven't oh the first episode's awesome is that right it's because it's an offshoot of uh big bang theory big bang theory yeah which I watched all of Big Bang Theory and as I got to the end I realized I really don't like that style of show anymore so I kind of ground my way through the rest of the show like oh we'll get to the end because I'm committed and then I thought well I'll give I'll give young Sheldon a sh a shot absolutely hated it all of the is there okay here's here's the the line for me is there a laugh track in in the show I don't think so because I pick up on the there I've got those fairly quickly it feels so cheesy anymore anytime I start something with a laugh track it turns me off and I can't think of anything else so I'll give I it looks like a cool concept it sounds a little bit like what I'm talking about here with Dungeon Carl call and well you get Siraj in the first episode. Nice yeah um briefly it's just a part of it but yeah um I did not watch last couple seasons of Big Bang Theory because I it just it felt so tedious yeah you know so I I was just done uh well good to know I'll I'll give it a shot I'm behind on a lot of shows I haven't started watching uh the fourth season of uh soccer guy football oh Ted Lasso Ted Lasso I haven't started the fourth one um there's a couple other shows out there that I've got bookmarked but I'm waiting for the series to get the the season to get done yeah and I don't want to binge it we actually Janita and I are watching Little House on the prairie reboot on Netflix that's right you said that yeah it's it's cheesy uh so watching everything it should be as Little House on the prairie yeah because well it's it's different it's it's no uh uh Charles what's his name who's the guy that played uh Charles um the main guy that he was in uh other show with yeah and uh some other stuff landing yeah there he is that's the guy yeah it's the the main actor is not him but it's kind of interesting though he's got some uh uh PTSD from some things that happened in his family and they they absolutely address the fallout from the Civil War and what people are dealing with and well the books are very different from the original series Yeah, I think they incorporated some of that in this. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which if you didn't know that, spoiler alert, it's true.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're not in Minnesota this time, they're in Wisconsin, which is rewatching.
SPEAKER_00We're re-watching um all of Ted Lasso, the first three seasons, almost done with the third season.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, that's a good way to do it.
SPEAKER_00And so now when we're we're done with that, it'll be a couple episodes into season four. Um, and we started watching House of Dragons, the latest episode or latest season, but it it got to be a lot, and so what we're gonna do is just wait for it to be done, go back and watch the previous season, and then this last season, because they're gonna wrap it all up anyway.
SPEAKER_02So, also, you still have to watch two shows that I keep recommending Deadwood, I know Deadwood.
SPEAKER_00I know I gotta watch it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you'll get there, and you will you do need to watch that for sure, and the uh Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. I would say watch that before you get back into the other show. Night of the Night of the Seven Houses, rather, not dragons. That's gonna be Kingdoms Kingdoms. There it is. What's that? It's gonna be a me only I don't think if if you both watch but don't you both are you both watching uh uh but you're both watching House of Dragons, yeah. This is this is that but better, it's better than any of the I've watched all the shows. The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is better written, better acted, and better character driven than any of the other shows that are out there right now because it's so focused on this one guy. Yes, and then we'll see, and then and then the first five minutes of the second episode, and you will text me.
SPEAKER_00I've heard that from two other people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're gonna text me when that happens.
SPEAKER_00And I get crap from the other two people too that uh that I have watched Knights of the Seven Uh Kingdoms.
SPEAKER_02Of all the things for you to not watch. Freaking Deadwood, dude.
SPEAKER_00You know, I if I only if I I if I was only lazy, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's what you need is less than a lot of people. Yeah, yeah. That'll never happen.
SPEAKER_00No, I don't think I my my brain is not built for that at all. And because I've given that significant thought. Like, what does retirement look like for me? Like real retirement, what does that look like? Yeah, it still looks like travel and training and and and shooting and you know, all the like I just go train with people and then I go visit places and I I'm still doing things. So I mean, for vacation in October, I'm going to Mesa, Arizona, where I have family, but so I can train at the police academy at Mesa, Arizona. I'm not going there for a vacation. It's a vacation for me, but it's a traination. So you can work. Yeah, I'm I just I don't someday, someday I'll be so broken that I can't do this, and I'll have to take a real vacation. But right now, I don't have to. So, you know.
SPEAKER_02And then by then, by then, you'll be a cyborg.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and then I will have to not take vacations, just change have an oil change.
SPEAKER_02Be near a uh a plug-in port, if you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, batteries can't go dead, and every 10,000, every thousand hours I have to have an oil change.
SPEAKER_02Yeah that's what the kids are calling. Walk up into Valvelaine and like, hey, check your undercarriage. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Sometimes you're gonna pay extra for that.
SPEAKER_02You do, you always, always got to. What else is going on in life? What else do we got?
SPEAKER_00Man, that's that's really that's been the crux of my entire week, is that amen. Writing and leadership. That's been it and coaching.
SPEAKER_02Those are pretty good things. Coaching lots, yeah. You just you never you're never not you're never not coaching.
SPEAKER_00I ever ever day, every day. Which is fine. I you know, I I swore I'd never have uh a kid's class, but those little snot rockets are the ones I like coaching the most, so yeah, because they listen most of the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's not true. I have two miniature schnauzers that can attest to how to how toddlers don't listen. Dogs are just toddlers, man. And that's true. Our miniature schnauzers are just too damn smart. How's Skull doing? I haven't seen Skull in a while. How's he doing that?
SPEAKER_00He's seven still shitting in the house when he doesn't get his way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, you shitting there, you shit in the house.
SPEAKER_00That's true, but I use the toilet. Well, last night he got up at 2 30 because the guy who swore he never let a dog sleep in the bed. Oh, obviously. Um but Skull's very emotionally intuitive, and he's been able to pick up on when I'm having a nightmare, a PTSD nightmare, and he will start licking my face and waking me up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh, which I appreciate actually, because it doesn't go very far. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Has he ever done that when you weren't having a nightmare?
SPEAKER_00No, never. Okay. Nope. Um, so he got down off the bed, and I didn't hear him walk down because we have stairs, you can walk up and down, but I heard him whining at the door.
SPEAKER_01Uh huh.
SPEAKER_00And like you are a dog, man. You're a descendant of a wolf. If you have to go to the bathroom, you know how to get to the doggy door in the in the living room.
SPEAKER_02Oh, the door wasn't closed.
SPEAKER_00No, it wasn't. He wouldn't leave the bedroom with the door open to go to the doggy door so he could go out inside and crap. Have you had his eyes checking out of bed?
SPEAKER_02Maybe he's got the stigmatism. He can't see well in the dark.
SPEAKER_00You don't you I think there's an eyesight. I do really do think there's an eyesight problem. Um, and there's nothing they're gonna do about it.
SPEAKER_02So I think he just gave little doggy contacts, be these little doggy glasses. Get him bifocals in case he wants to read.
SPEAKER_00I think he has a hard time seeing in low light. I honestly do. Yeah, uh, because he has no problem during the day, unless he doesn't feel like he's gotten enough attention, then he'll intentionally crap in the house.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh, but outside of he he does fine during the day, but at night, I he uh he's legitimately, I think, scared of the dark because Sadie always went out with him. And oh he needs an assistant life without with Sadie before you know she passed.
SPEAKER_02So what I'm hearing is you need another dog.
SPEAKER_00No, no, I'm willing to re-home the one I have, yeah. Mo most days.
SPEAKER_02You ever so if you ever if you if you poops in a house, if you ever barefoot stepped in dog poop? Yes, and yeah, me too, man. That is a bad end of day when that happens. Yeah, all the swears come out. Oh, I have too bad. Yeah, yeah, those are those are bad, bad moments because he there's no there's not there's no way to come back from that. Yep, it's just bad. Like that's the end of the day, possibly the week, maybe burn the house down. I mean, it's not a spider, but it's pretty close.
SPEAKER_00Pretty close. He's taken to crapping in Odin's playroom now. Because of course, Odin goes in there when he's there, and all of Odin's toys are there, so the room smells like Odin, and and and Skull has a whole life has herded Odin around the house. Yeah, but Odin's pretty independent, but he knows how important that room is to us. So he goes in there and he pooped up and that room on purpose, yeah. Right dead center in the middle, not in a corner, not on the bed, not hiding behind something, dead center in the middle of the floor.
SPEAKER_02He's a weird dog, man.
SPEAKER_00He is a weird dog. Well, he's got a weird owner, so we've been pretty fortunate that way.
SPEAKER_02Uh, we've had a couple boy dogs that like to lift their leg every once in a while. Uh, but this is like Willie is gonna be our last boy, probably. I mean, you can't say for certain. Uh girls, girls are pretty good.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, you I can tell you for sure he's the last dog we uh we'll ever have.
SPEAKER_02Now, there's been there's been some conversation that Mitzi, our youngest, is the last dog we'll have because she's you know, she's just over a year old, and we're both in our mid to upper fifties, and you know, at some point you have to think about these things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you gotta call it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but uh I don't believe it. I've seen how Janita looks for dogs, whether she's looking for dogs or not. So uh uh it's a good life. Dogs are you know, you so we talk about leadership, we've been talking about that. There's there's a lot of aspects to life, like we can't just focus on being a leader, right? Like if we do that, we become robots and yeah, hard to live with. Uh, dogs have taught me I I did life backwards in a lot of ways. And one of the ways that I look back on um if I could do it again, would be to have dogs first and then have a family. Because I've learned so much, and and who knows, it might not have worked out the same. Uh, but I look at how dogs interact and how they just have pure joy and love and and can can bring um energy to any moment, or or like you talked about with the emotional connection. Uh, you know, the day I found out that I was losing my job, uh, the dogs knew that there was a thing happening in our household, and they responded. And it's a it's a gift to have them. Uh, you know, the I don't know if it's a joke or or just a saying, but people say we don't deserve dogs. Well, we do, we just need to recognize that and appreciate them. And uh just you know, the the playtime and the the connection that we have, and um the the the old joke about throw your mother-in-law and a dog in a trunk and close it, and when you open it, see which one is happy to see you. You know, that's there's something to be said about that.
SPEAKER_00It's true, that's why Skull still is here and he's still a part of our family, and we haven't aggressively tried to re-home him. We joke about it, but we're not going to because he's just so joyfully loving all of the time, almost to the point of neurotically loving.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. The pawing and this, yeah, we get that here too. Yep.
SPEAKER_00But uh to be fair, I have spoiled him in his life several times because of surgeries, right? We when I have a surgery, him and I hang out on the couch, I'm drugged up, and he's just napping. He's just used to that. And so when we can't do that, he I think he gets upset. He really does. That's the life he knows as a puppy. So, yeah, I mean, and and what's I mean, that's all a dog knows. Is that what this this uh one of my owners does all the time is this is this is our relationship.
SPEAKER_02And as far as he's concerned, you're just being an idiot because you're not doing that right now. So let me help you understand. This is the way I communicate with you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, gotta give him some grace on it. Now any shraps in the middle of the floor.
SPEAKER_02That's yeah, we we do our best.
SPEAKER_00So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, I feel like we've uh we've had a good conversation today. I think we have to. I don't think we missed anything we needed to talk about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I've finally word vomited my entire week. I've been waiting, I've been waiting for the debrief.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's the debrief, not close. Uh that's that's a different show. Um, but okay, the one thing we have to do the commercial before we wind up here. Um, still looking here. Let me let me go to the website, see if I can find it amongst the thousands of tabs that I have open here for uh no, that's not the one. Here it is, Patreon. Let me see what our Patreon the membership count. Well, maybe it didn't refresh properly. Let me click it again. Zero.
SPEAKER_00Uh it'd sure appreciate it if it wasn't zero.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, can we do more? Um, so what do you guys need? What do you need from us to to make that happen? Uh, if we pay you, would you pay us? So, like if we give you ten dollars, would you put five dollars into the gray on the rocks?
SPEAKER_00Is there content that you'd like us to cover that would that would get you to is it contribute?
SPEAKER_02Does it need to be more convenient? Like, do we need to text you each individually? Uh do we need to come to your house? Uh like send us your address and we'll we'll send Guido over, rough you up a little bit if that's what you're into. I mean we're not we're not we're not opposed to that, but uh yeah, it's like there are better ways to get to do that. Yeah, the the link is in. I make sure it's included in the the the uh the the little notes the description. Um go to Patreon and look look up Gray on the Rocks, we're there. Uh reach out to us, give us a 20 spot on the street, that'll be fine. We'll figure out a way to put it in there. Uh just keep paying for the things. We're we're not trying to get rich off this thing. I don't know, I don't plan for this to be my next career. That's not what I'm going for here. I just want to be able to pay for the licensing and the storage of the the the podcast, hosting, and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and I mean a little bit of our time. We'd love to get to a point where we could tell our special units that the uh the hours that we spend doing this each week is more than just us sitting and drinking whiskey together.
SPEAKER_00Right now that's what it is.
SPEAKER_02That's pretty much what it is. It's a hobby that doesn't pay for itself. Yeah, and that's hard wrong. That's hard to explain to uh to folks in our lives sometimes. So for you out there, please click that link, uh, get one less coffee or come over to my house and I'll make you coffee instead, and uh we'll we'll we'll go from there. But uh, I think that's it. Um we'll we'll be back again. So uh we're into August now, and I know, I know, Mike, that you and I are gonna have weekends where we're gonna be busy. We're gonna be next weekend for me for sure. You're gonna be busy next weekend. What's going on next weekend?
SPEAKER_00Um that's our annual jujitsu uh seminar. So Ray's coming up on Friday, and he flies out on Sunday. I'm free Sunday afternoon, but maybe we'll do Sunday afternoon. Yeah, Saturday's completely taken up for me.
SPEAKER_02Or hear me out, we could do Saturday night. Uh and when everybody is at your house and we could have guests.
SPEAKER_00I'll just take my iPad up there.
SPEAKER_02Or maybe Friday night. Let's plant that seed. Let's see if there'll be some. How many people are staying at your house? Is it just Ray? You got got others?
SPEAKER_00Nope, there's four total.
SPEAKER_02Well, one of them's got to be interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I don't I don't know any of them well enough to say if they are or aren't, but uh no, I do I do know that if they're hanging out with you and they're up like they're traveling to go to a conference like this, you've got leadership, you've got dedication and tenacity, you've got people that are passionate about uh martial arts, obviously, but they probably have something else going on in their lives. We can find something to talk about. Uh maybe. So there's another thing. Let us know if that's the kind of content you want. Let's get more people involved. If not, Mike and I'll get together at some point. We try to get these out early in the week. Um, and and I gotta be perfectly honest, it'll be much quicker if you pay us. But until then, uh, like from here, you're gonna go get your motorcycle sold. We'll probably get on and do some gaming before the day is up, and uh, I'll get around to do the post-production at some point until you start paying us, and then I'll I'll make it more of a priority. So the first hundred bucks a month is just to if if we get that from our members, first hundred bucks a month is just kind of paying for everything that we got to pay for. Once it gets above that, then you become a priority, and uh, I'm I'm gonna spend more time making this uh even more professional. But for now, you get what you pay for, and we want that to be better. So please help us out. All right, appreciate it. All right, done with the whining and calling for things and selling uh cheers to everybody. Oh, you're empty. I am you're empty.
SPEAKER_00Well, I gotta sell a motorcycle, so you know.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, you gotta, yeah, yeah, you gotta negotiate properly. Never be the first to give a number. Did you give a number?
SPEAKER_00No, oh, excellent. Not at not at all.
SPEAKER_02No, yeah, you gotta start high. Start high. Let them be the first. All right, that's not true. You know what? I say that, never give a number, but I'm Midwestern. I'm gonna get I'm gonna be the guy that like, I'm gonna give you a number, and I'm bad at negotiating, but I'm I don't I don't sell things a lot. That's why I don't do sales. Yeah. All right. God bless everybody. Take care, get some rest. We'll see you next time. It's a great on the rocks.
