What It's Like in Other People's Shoes

"Other people's shoes gives a different perspective. We're facilitating in a spot where other people can share their ideas and opinions and their life so other people can sit there and go, wow, I never really thought of that. I want more of an understanding. I want people to play nice. And the only way to do that is to understand where they're coming from." - Garrett Larghi & Neil Matthews from Other People's Shoes.

Check it out: Other People's Shoes Podcast - https://www.opspodcast.com/


Today's conversation is just plain fun. We had the chance to hear personal stories from Neil and Garrett from Other People's Shoes podcast and they say, "When you walk in other people's shoes, you really do get a different perspective." They have some great guests and interviews on their show, so please check out their podcast as well if you're looking for something to listen to.

Connect with Neil & Garrett: Other People's Shoes Podcast
Connect with them on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/opspodcastshow/

Connect with Dave & Jessica!
To be inspired by more stories, to book us on your next podcast or to inquire about being a guest, find us at SquareOneShow.com - thanks for listening!
jessica@squareoneshow.com

Transcript

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Speaker 1 0:00

Other people's shoes gives a different perspective. We're facilitating in a spot where other people can share their ideas and opinions and their life. So other people can sit there and go, wow, I never really thought of that. I want more of an understanding. I want people to play nice. And the only way to do that is to understand where they're coming in .

Speaker 2 0:18

This is the square one show. Hey, I'm Jessica along with co- host Dave. And today's conversation is just plain fun. We had the chance to hear personal stories from Neil and Garrett from other people's shoes, podcasts they save. When you walk in other people's shoes, you really do get a different perspective. They have some great guests in interviews on their show, so please check out their podcast as well if you're looking for something to listen to. Let's jump right into the conversation. Let's jump into this. So let's jump in. We first met you,

Speaker 3 0:51

you guys , um, how did we first meet you ?

Speaker 4 0:53

So I saw you guy . I saw a Facebook coast in the bus, sprout community posts, whatever that is on Facebook. But I see this post and I and I, I don't know . I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was a graphic. Maybe it was cause it's kind of a tiller of color in my eyes. Grab it. It was the graphic. It was the graphic. So I can't , it was, it was Dave and the , I can flip my eyes but my eyes gravitated to that and I thought, huh, interesting. Square one. Interesting. All right. So I clicked on it, listened to I think one episode and then I listened to the other one with, with Mike lens and I was blown away and I was like, these guys are awesome. Like I want them on my show. I told Garrett of the quote, I saw the quote . The quote is really what did it for me? Probably more than anything more than the eye candy. It was, well

Speaker 3 1:38

do you have the quote in front of you right now or do we need to read that?

Speaker 4 1:41

Oh my gosh, read the quote cause I don't, I don't have any notes in front of me. This is bad. I'm not a note guy. You . Did you guys know that? But no, no, but yeah, read the quote. No, no, no.

Speaker 3 1:51

Okay. So the quotes from Mark Twain, it says 20 years from now you'll be more disappointed by the things you didn't do by the ones that you did. So throw off the bow lines, sail away from the safe Harbor, catch the trade winds in there in your sails. Explore, dream, discover

Speaker 4 2:07

pretty good. That's not too bad. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's, that's pretty profound. I , I wished and I aspire to be that profound maybe someday in my life, but I think that's what it was for me. So that first episode I listened to, I hear this amazing quote from you guys. And by the way , uh, just his voice is his , as I alluded to already. Uh , pretty amazing. And so of course that caught my ear , uh, to it . And I thought, man, these guys know what they're doing. They sound great. They, their audio is awesome. Cause you know, so many times there's a podcast, not only as a podcast podcast or as myself, but as, as a fellow listener, I always am blown away. I'm like, you have this great artwork, you have this great, you know, kind of phrase, you have this great idea and then no disrespect anybody but then your audio sounds like garbage. And I'm like, spend the money on a good Mike anyway. And so I listened to the show and I'm like blown away. I'm like, these guys are awesome. Like I want them on my show. They're doing similar stuff. And so I'm thinking you guys are like these big time celebrities and so most of is true. Like I know that now . Yeah. Yeah, I know that now. Right. And so I reach out, like I always send this email like half-heartedly , like I don't know what's going to happen. Please be my friend. You know, I kind of feel like it's Valentine's day back in elementary school. Do you want to Valentine ? I don't know. No , maybe . Yeah, exactly. And so I send this email thinking I'm never going to hear back from you guys cause you're too big time for me. And I think it was pretty right away. I, again, I don't know exact timeframe, but it was pretty close to right away. I remember being so excited about getting it back so fast. I do remember that. And uh, and then we kinda just dialogue from there. And then , uh , then you obviously you guys sat with us, which , uh , your show's coming out at the end of October, so we're excited about.

Speaker 3 3:58

Nice. And you guys were at , I mean you guys are asking really tough questions. There's a couple of times Dave and I looked at each other like, Oh , I don't know. You take this one.

Speaker 4 4:09

And that's all Neil Neil comes up with most of the questions. No , not at all . So we'll blame him. So, so let me tell you, can I brag on him , Garrett , is that okay? Can I brag? That's not allowed in this show. Okay. So I'm going to Bri , I'm going to brag on Garret . This is, this is a great story. So I'm done with first season. I , I've completed my first season virtually on my own. I had an editor when I first started, a young former youth kid. Uh , I'm a youth worker by , by , by trade when I'm not doing my corporate world. So I have a lot of youth connections. And one of my youth kids used to work for one of our local news stations . So he starts editing audio and I'm paying him like 20 bucks to, to edit the audio. Well, again, looking at money, looking at finances and looking at all that stuff. And then lo and behold, thank you, rode , uh , for coming out the road caster . I go out and I buy a road caster . I'm against Dave Ramsey's wishes. We'll just leave it at that, against my wishes and against Gareth's wishes and probably everyone in their , uh , worlds wishes to , to buy a $600 piece of equipment when you're , you know, 16 shows in, what are you thinking? And so anyway, with that, I start doing season two, which is , um, you know, why people leave the church, which is something obviously I'm passionate about, want to know why people have left for whatever reason. I don't care. The reason I just want to know the why. And so anyway , uh , along the way, Gary emails me cause you know, we work together in this corporate environment, corporate world, and he says, Hey, I've been listening to your shows every week. He's very faithful, which I obviously love and respect. And he's a great friend, become a great friend over the last couple of years. And , uh, he said , uh, Hey , uh, God kinda spoke to me and sold me , uh, told me we need to meet. I'm like, okay , okay , what's going on? I said, it's about the show and I'm a flooring people thinking, Oh man, here we go. Somebody finally given some really bad feedback and he said , uh , can I be honest with you? I said , Garrett , you , you know, you can always be honest with me. We love honesty. We have an honest, transparent relationship. Yes. Tell me. And he goes, okay, I'm just going to tell it to you. Your show notes suck. That's exactly what I said, verbally, verbatim, verbatim. And so I'm like devastated, right? I'm thinking, well, you know, thanks for making fun of the kid with dyslexia and on a learning disability. Good golly. Thank you. Subconscious now is just at its lowest. Uh, you know, self-esteem is rock bottom and he said, but I want to help you. Can I start doing the show notes and I wanted to hug him . I'm not much of a hugger of dudes. I love hugging my wife and I love hugging my daughter but, but I wanted to hug him and almost cried because I thought here's this guy that I have come to love and respect as a tremendous, not only man of God, but a tremendous human being and he wants to help in a very weak area for me, a very area that I struggled with and hated doing because again, I'm not very good written form. I hate it. I avoided as much as I can. But for him to come in and fill in that gap in a , in a stronger that he's in was truly a blessing in a, in a tremendous weight off of my shoulders. And so it's great. He's been going strong probably since mid season two and going forward. He didn't do a lot of the showdowns for season two cause we , we just had a formula. We just stuck with it because it just seemed to fit people that have pushed back against it. But I don't care. It's my show. I do what I want. But now going forward, season three, he's completely taken over show notes and uh , I couldn't be happier. He does other stuff too, but I'll let him talk to you about that. But that's kind of my story with Garrett and that again, we do this together. It is a we and a him, I get to be the face of the franchise as he so eloquently puts, cause he's not a sports guy, but I do love the sports analogy on that. But uh, but anyway, he is the mastermind really , uh , really the brains of the operation I get to do [inaudible] . Oh , all right . Jump in there guy . I like, I like to think of myself as the Polish. You can be the dispatched .

Speaker 3 7:57

I like that. So, Garrett , let's , uh , turn it over to you here. Can you tell us a little bit about this show and what is it that really attracted you to feel like this is a really important message to share and offer yourself to the show?

Speaker 1 8:12

Well, originally the way I got started on this, as Neil came over to me, we've been friends. Uh , he's actually the one who brought me into his church originally and we had grown a, a, we had a good friendship there and it only grew from there. But , uh, originally he came up to me and said, yeah, my wife said I should start a podcast. I said, that's a great idea. You would be able to talk, people could listen to you, you could get feedback and it wouldn't be people just sending around you. It would be, it would grow from there. You would get the audience he was looking for. And I thought that was a brilliant idea. And he asked me to be on one of the first record

Speaker 4 8:46

episodes . I think I was the second recording, wasn't I? Yeah, I was, when I started, I tried to launch with seven episodes. That was my goal. So I would, I would stay essentially.

Speaker 1 8:56

So yeah, he was, he was one of the first ones. I actually sat with him and recorded, but his episode didn't release till later. Oh, much later I was in there. When is it going to episode? I got emails weekly. Like what am I on, what am I, yeah, I was thinking he might have, but as we were sitting there and the episode started coming out, I was listening to this and going, this is a great platform. I really liked the messages he was sending. He did a , his first episode was the pilot episode, which is just kind of just explaining it, but then he went into inspiration and struggles for the first season. And uh, listening to that, I was like, this is such a good platform for what we're looking to do and that's getting into other people's shoes with kind of a Christ , uh , background. I was so moved by it and the way he did his episodes and the way he asked us questions that I was sitting there going, can I help him in any way in anytime he asked for any kind of help or input or even if he didn't ask, as you will probably tell you, I keep on giving him input. Every episode that came out, I'd email going, this is amazing. I feel this about this person and you will go, can I email that to that person? I go, yeah, do go ahead. Well, because my whole thing is is feedback is so subjective, right? Some people receive it well, some people don't. And so I'm always respectful of the guests. If we get feedback and we have, I think on almost, correct me if I'm wrong, but almost every episode you have received some form of feedback, you know, whether it be one or two people or you know, five or six. But I believe that if somebody has a powerful story, they need to be able to share it. And then of course I want to be able to give that positive feedback back to that person. Or maybe they have a followup question that I can kind of help facilitate the two people, you know, kind of having that dialogue with. So with that, I kept on getting more and more involved, kept on getting more and more feedback saying , Neil , we need to work on this. And I kind of just kind of implemented myself. And then halfway through season two, I was looking at the show notes. I'm going to , these show notes are the same every week. Why are these show notes the same? I said, Neil, your your show notes suck. Can I help you with this? Let me please do your show notes. And from there I just kept on pushing myself more and more into the episodes and more and more into the background of it where Neil , uh , said, what's your role here? What are you doing? I go, you know, in movies there's a thing called an executive producer. And really it could be someone who introduced the actor to the casting director. It could be someone who does let them film in their house, executive producers, a kind of a title. They just throw out to someone who did something and they want to be thanked. And I was like, that kind of fits me cause I don't have a defined role. I'll just do whatever and that'd be done. Yeah, exactly. And that's how I got involved. And for me, this is kind of a ministry. I love the fact that I can help Neil go out and reach more people. And since it's such Christian base, because we're both Christians or fall river followers of Christ, we get a little bit more that influence out there and kind of spread God's word. And that's, that's how I got involved with my passion for it. That's awesome. So tell us a little bit about, is the actual vision

Speaker 5 11:54

of the show, what are you trying to do with it? Uh , what kind of stories are you trying to tell and where, where do you see it going to?

Speaker 1 12:00

My answer is easy on that. My answers it Neil deal looks like he's struggling over here. Uh , he loves being on the questioning.

Speaker 5 12:08

Yeah, we do see , we know the feeling

Speaker 1 12:11

for me. Uh , people are so enclosed. If we look at society, everyone wants to be on their source of entertainment. They only want to close down and get the information they want. Everyone wants to be self congratulated and wants their ideas bolstered. I'm guilty of that. I'm sure Neil is guilty that everyone's guilty of that. It's kind of a human nature. Other people's shoes gives a different perspective. We're facilitating a spot where other people can share their ideas, opinions, and their life . So other people can sit there and go, wow, I never really thought of that. And that for me is what I want. I want more of an understanding. I want people to play nice. And the only way to do that is to understand where they're coming from.

Speaker 5 12:50

That's fantastic. Is there any, thinking back through all the stories that you've heard, is there a certain one that really sticks out to you that you thought, wow, that's if , if I only had a chance to listen to one episode or start, which one should I listen to first?

Speaker 4 13:03

Well, when I answered that last question, I don't know where it's going to go. I really don't, it's so hard because I've struggled with this question and I had a feeling you were going to ask it or maybe even feared it in a sense which fears a liar. So just set that aside. I don't know where it's going to go. I really don't. I just know we are going to put ourselves in front of or asked to be put in front of anybody we can. I believe there is such value in people's stories and I think storytelling and not lies per se, but story telling somebody's story. Last just finished a book recently actually called out of my mind and a little foreshadowing. We're excited. We have an opportunity to potentially get the author of the book. Her name is Sharon Draper. And uh, we're excited about the potential of that. But uh , but I just finished this book and the whole book centers around a girl with cerebral palsy, cerebral cerebral palsy. Yes . The same thing that Stephen Hawking had anyway , so the , the girl can't talk. And so there's kind of her story and the setting is a , an elementary school. So she's elementary school age, which he can't talk. And so I thought about that even this morning is I was mentally getting ready for you guys, is the idea of what if I couldn't talk, what if I couldn't speak? What if I couldn't communicate? What would that world be like? Well , a lot of people would probably be happy because I probably talk too much, but, but so we'll again set that aside. But going back to, it's just this idea that I want to give someone a voice. I want to give someone's story, a platform, whether it be mine or maybe we're sharing their platform, but I want to give them the biggest microphone I can to just tear a little story because it's so important. And then as far as your question, which episode do I, it's , I only have one kid, so it's pretty easy to say, well, she's my favorite, but I look at my episodes much like my children. You know, there's now been 41 of them, which is hard to believe. It almost sounds like we're Catholic or maybe even LDS. I don't know right now if I was gonna pick, there's three. Okay. I'm gonna , I'm gonna narrow it down to three, which is tough. No particular order. We just did one with a Rob Pope. Uh , he is the real life Forrest Gump in my mind. He is a runner from great Britain that did the Forrest Gump route from the movie Forrest Gump. Did the Tom hang stayed in the movie Forrest Gump. He did that, he completed that. So that was pretty cool. So I really like him, obviously as a runner, want to be runner. That resonates with me and he was just such a great interview is great. We had some technology hiccups at the beginning, but, but just a great interview. Just a real personal guy. Love him dearly. I wish him all the best. So that's one. Again, no particular two would probably have to be discouraged . Nate and I really liked that one too. And again, I resonate with that one because I interviewed my former pastor's son and I got to see the front side of it, what his parents were going through as he was going through his drug addiction, drug fall, being arrested. I got to see that firsthand because I was actually on staff with his , uh, with his dad at church. So I, I got to see that from the parent perspective, but I never got to see it from his perspective. So it just gave me a more rounded view of his story. That was Dan Gregory, discouragement for season boy. And my third one, I really liked darkness. And again, I have an emotional tie to that one too because Heather, our guests who let off season three was a former youth girl. And uh , I knew her husband and her very well and I was sad to see him take his life. And uh, I never knew her side of her end of the story in her really even her side of the story. Cause you know, as youth kids grow up and they get old and they move away, it's sometimes hard to get in touch. And obviously Facebook wasn't as big as it is now, but to hear her side of it and to hear what happened to her and how people kind of sort of surrounded her and sort of didn't, was pretty impactful. And that , and that's, that story always kind of resonates with me again, cause I love both of them very dearly. So anyway, there's , there's my three, Oh , I'm only gonna say one. Oh well look at you. Oh look at you. I got wa follow direction out of all of them.

Speaker 1 17:08

There's a couple that I really liked , but the one that I think has been the most impactful on me was Michael's the spine of the EFTA episode. That one also aired , I think it was last week and listening to the unedited , uh , and then listening to the re edits and whatnot. His story, cause he has, he's had spinal [inaudible] since he was born. He's been almost completely wheelchair bound and his story of how people view him and what he wants from other people and how he wants interactions and his vulnerability brought onto the show. Everything made it not only entertaining but so much more insightful and you could really connect cause it really draws out the empathy. I think that's probably why that one is my favorite. Not to discount, you know, Cody or silly or all the other ones. Absolutely love were you guys. Oh you guys, you got to be my favorite guest. So sorry, we're in the top 44 . No, we're just over [inaudible] to be honest, in my mind, you guys are my top favorite guests because they have, so do you guys have done, but what do you guys have interacted with us? You're recording it . You guys have just been phenomenal. Oh ,

Speaker 4 18:17

you know, and, and I, and I want to say that to, you know, didn't doing the show and I am blown away. Again, going back to my statement of the people that we've not only gotten to be in front of obviously, cause we don't know. I don't know who downloads it. I mean we see numbers, but I don't have, I don't have a person. I don't have a name with the number, you know what I mean? And so, so I don't have an emotional attachment when I see the number on the screen, I don't, but I have an emotional attachment with the person I sat with. Yeah . I have an emotional attachment with how I felt when I sat with them and how encouraged I was, how heartbroken I was, how excited I was. Uh, those are the emotions that run through my mind. And, and again, it's so hard to narrow down even my three. I mean there's so many more that I, that I just think of and , and so many more to come. And I think that's what's so exciting and going forward to answer your initial question is where do I see it going? I will sit with anyone who wants to sit with us, beg, plead, borrow, whatever it takes to sit with them. Because again, I think stories have so much value

Speaker 6 19:20

and I think for us that's been the , one of the greatest benefits of doing this show is just the people that we're connecting with and get to talk to and hear their stories. And it was the same thing for us when we were on the road. It was just, it was about who we could connect with. And there may never be any financial reward from this, which is not why we're doing it. But the relationship award is way more valuable for us. That's , it's so cool. And we love that you guys are doing the same thing and getting those stories out there and connecting with people. But you guys both work in corporate America, right? And we heard a little bit Garrett talking about that. So what made you, and I think you guys, even you do the show during your lunch breaks, right? I mean you probably on your lunch break right now. So yeah, we are. How did you, how do you manage that and what was the original impetus to say, Hey, we should spend our lunch breaks doing this show, calling people from all over the country are all over the world and tell their stories. How did that happen?

Speaker 1 20:15

Uh, I'll, I'll jump in first. For me, helping out Neal was my major thing at first and then I thought to myself, this is, this is a ministry I could do for Christ, for God. And , uh, I was looking at my schedule cause this takes up well more than my lunch break for what I do. I also go home. I really wanted to push forward putting our episodes up on YouTube, which we now have a YouTube channel that airs at the same time that our , uh , podcast does . And for me, that just is increasing our reach. So I was looking at my time. I love playing video games. Video games is probably my , my BICE,

Speaker 4 20:48

I'll play hours and hours and hours and it's just the grind. It's, it gives a false sense of achievement and I was looking at that going, this is taking away time from other things I could be doing. And for me this podcast was a blessing because it allowed me to replace that time with doing something that actually matters and it's increased just a lot of fulfillment for me and being able to do something that matters to go back to that. So I have a sales background. If you can't tell, it's shamefully admitting I am an introvert. Right? I'm totally an introvert, super shy, afraid to be in front of people. We did not see you running in some masks .

Speaker 5 21:30

Cost . Yes, I was on your , I was on your Instagram page and you are dressed up as the gingerbread man. Is that right? That was a fun day in Florida. We saw the training, the training, the ginger man Redman training and then like smoking the competition and the next photo. Yeah , very, very shy.

Speaker 4 21:49

So we , uh, we were very fortunate this last summer. We got to partner with , uh, with a local baseball team. We don't have like minor league , uh , teams or , or major major sports teams. So we have the Metro roads , which is as close as we can get to kind of minor league feel . So anyway, we partnered with them this year, which, which was really kind of cool. We got to give away a $50 Amazon gift card to a lucky patron at the game. And then a , as part of that , uh, we got mentions during the game about the show and then they do a mascot race. And so they had a Christmas theme, you know , uh , event going on where the players were like Christmas outfits and they played Christmas music and all that. So anyway, I had this gingerbread suit that I had worn in Florida and I thought, this is perfect. This is great marketing. I'll partner with them. It'll be great. And so I got to race a mascot. So that's that story. But you should've let the mascot went stop it.

Speaker 5 22:41

Oh , are you cheating on that at all?

Speaker 4 22:44

I totally forgot your question, but how do we manage it? Okay, so sales background, that's where I was going. I'm also apparently add apparently so shiny objects. Yeah, look at that squirrel. So I think for me with that sales background, I always go with what the client needs, right? So in your guys' case, when we interviewed you or when we really interview anyone, we immediately say, when can you do it? If you tell me I can do it at 6:00 AM your time, cause I know you guys are three hours ahead of us, I will get up, it'll be rough, it'll be tough. But I'll get up at 6:00 AM I won't get up a little bit for good again, I will get up at 6:00 AM I'll set up the road caster in a way we go, I don't care. My wife has been tremendously and daughter likewise have been tremendously supportive from the start. I don't know if we ever really had a real conversation except I remember one time saying to her, this is gonna take a lot of work. And she said nothing worth doing. I don't even know how. I didn't finish that.

Speaker 6 23:47

Basically it's going to take a lot of work. It's going to know , Hey , there's gotta be a lot of words . It takes a lot of work . Thank you . Thank you Karen . It's a lot of work to quote quotes, something, a lot of worked in quote unquote. Yeah, but, but she's been really good, but there was one time,

Speaker 4 24:03

if I can share this, she's probably going to be a little disappointed if she hears this. But there was one point in time where we had a lot of shows to kick out and I was feeling a little stressed. That happens a lot and I get anxiety a lot. And I came home on a Thursday night and I knew I had this to do and that to do and show this and this and that and whatever. And so I, I usually go to a men's group at our church on Thursday nights in our community and I told my wife proclaims , uh , I'm going to skip Ben's group tonight. I really got to get this show edited. I really got to get it up. Uh, you know, I, I have to do this, have to do this, I have to do this. And she kind of stopped me and she said, wait, wait a second. Say that again. I said, well, yeah, I'm going to miss men's group tonight. It's just gonna be a one time thing. I really got to get this show edited. And she goes, eh , what are you doing? You told me already Tuesday night was going to be editing night. I'm fine with that. I've, I've made concessions on that, but you, you got to go to men's group tonight. That's more important than the show . And I said, you don't understand. I'm like having anxiety cause I gotta get this done. And she said, Whoa, you're getting, you're getting anxiety over the show. You need to stop. And I was like, no, I, I always get anxiety. You don't know that she looked at me. Yeah. Yeah. She looked at me only the way she can look at me and she said, then you need to choose what's more important God or the show.

Speaker 6 25:21

Your wife is brilliant. The show still along . I mean she's , she's only made one bad mistake in her life. I always tell people that ,

Speaker 4 25:28

but I think that's the thing that I would tell people and share with people is the fact that we do the show when we can. We really do. Somehow time works. It works. We don't, I don't have to sacrifice too much. I really sacrifice one night a week really, which is Tuesday to edit, to do everything else. Most everything else I do in the morning, we put quotes on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter every morning. Those are pre-created. Each week I take a time on Saturday and I just knock them all out for the week and they're done and I go to my phone and I just select the picture I want and the quote I wanted and I post it and it's done and I have this cheating, but I have three loaded hashtags in the quote already and what we're going to go in the direction and I literally copy and paste from my notes and boom, it's in, it's like five to 10 minutes. Neil calls that cheating. I do that for the YouTube.

Speaker 6 26:17

It's called being smart. It's called sustainability. Well, I just thought it was cool cause I have like figured this out. Really not. So how do we do it?

Speaker 4 26:28

I don't know how we do it. I really don't. I don't know. God is , is truly amazing and [inaudible] allows schedules and happens and my work has been completely flexible. I told my manager and my supervisor both, which is probably a mistake, but I told them both. I said, listen, I started this podcast and it's pretty awesome. You should listen to it. And I did have somebody say, yeah, his voice isn't nearly as annoying as it is and realize, Oh that story piggy back . Oh yeah. I kind of want to piggy back on what Neil was saying. Save me . One of the things that , uh,

Speaker 1 27:03

we've learned is how to do the show more efficiently. How to do it right. What we're doing, looking for sponsorship, how we're recording, what equipment to use and we're still exploring, but we got a lot of it down so much. So to the point , uh , we had a guest called grandpa Chuck . Yeah. We love grandma. Chuck has been such an amazing person. He's another great , uh , you, you ranked under you guys but only barely. And he reached out to Neil saying, Hey, how do you do this? How do you do that? And that's one of the things that we love is when people come out and ask us questions saying, Hey, we want to get started in this or you guys do this a well how do you do it? Neil has been more than gracious to share that information. And uh , we had an old piece of equipment. He was saying, how much do you want it? We gave it to him for a steal of a deal . It wasn't old by the way.

Speaker 4 27:46

Zoom. It was a little piece of equipment because we had something else. Yeah, it was great. And I had it for two months. I had it for two months and I bought a road caster . So anyway, yeah, impulse buy. It was an impulse, right? I have to, yeah, but it was good for him. So he has a , it's a God thing. Radio program. I think if I'm getting that right, it's a God thing. Radio and so 81 years old, his dude's podcasting. Are you kidding me? That's awesome. I love that. So cool. Yeah. And so yeah, again, how did we find him? The Buzzsprout community page. Thank you. Yeah. Do you guys feel like doing the show, you've done it for a little bit now. Would you say that it's changed you in any way? And if so,

Speaker 1 28:28

how ? I remember when I originally came into the show, I was thinking of how to improve it. And I kept on thinking and thinking how I can make this more efficient and then became a business mind mentality very, very quickly. And one of the things that Neil is always doing this , he's kind of trying to ground himself and in so grounding me saying that this is what we're doing. We're trying to reach out and touch people and touch people's lives. So it's been very, very humbling with those conversations with Neil. And the show has been humbling in general. Uh, there's two or three people in our, off my side of the office that listened to the show regularly. There's seven other people in Neil's that I , that listens to the show regularly who I know and love as well, and to hear them come up and go do that show was great. Hey, look, you've improved on this so much. Dude, that gas touched me in a certain way. They gave me a hope or that , that's so sad. I want to speak with them or whatever. The emotional responses. Hearing that and knowing that we're touching those lives and giving opportunities for people to connect has been extremely humbling and the people's comments is just filled my heart with warmth and it's kind of directing me in the right way. It's made me a little bit more hopeful for everything. That was profound, Garrett . Thank you. That's really good. I liked it . One of my favorite runners of time,

Speaker 4 29:42

Steve Prefontaine said, to give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift. It sounds very braggadocious, but I believe God blessed me with the ability to communicate. And in doing so, I want to give it my best. And at any moment if I feel like I'm not giving it my best and I'm somehow sacrificing what God has put before us, I, I get mad at myself. I get really discouraged. He does. I've seen it many of the times I get depressed. And to the point where again, that stink and buzz broad community page, I posted to some random comment, I can't remember what it was, but I got a phone call I think within two hours of posting it from our, as we affectionately call him grandpa Chuck. And he said, Hey, I saw your post . Are you okay? How can I pray for you? And I was blown away by that. I was humbled by that. I thought I'm , I'm good. And I of course put it on the fake face, the fake smile and Oh yeah, everything's fine. Just, you know, some darker episodes we've had and you know, and then like I go downstairs, some my dad's get at work and somebody who I know very well comes up to me and says, Hey , uh, are you okay ? You just don't seem like yourself. And I'm like, Oh yeah. You know, again, fake smile, fake everything. Yeah, no, I'm good. You know, just rough than I, you know, editing, blah, blah, blah. I made up some, you know, lied, I'm sure some stupid response . But I think that's what it is for me. If I'm not giving my best, I really feel like I'm really sacrificing the gift. And in that I think the show suffers, the people suffer, our , our listeners suffer whoever they may be. And so I don't ever want to not give my best.

Speaker 3 31:18

And I like that. I'm just thinking back to your comment that your wife made is to be our best. We have to say no to a lot of things. And so her comment of you've got to choose, you know, what's important to you now that was, you know, do you do the podcast or do you go to men's group? But I think that's still kind of plays into creating space to be your best and saying no to a lot of things. You feel like you've had to say no to other things to be able to keep pursuing this.

Speaker 4 31:47

Yeah, I have, I've had to say no to insecurity . I've had to say no to self. I've had to be okay with not getting feedback and I have had to be okay with, you know, saying no to insecurities, you know, those to me are all liars in my head, which makes me sound like psych crazy person. But it's not meant to be normal . But yeah . Okay. I didn't know. I'm such a weird person. I don't think anyone's like me. I always think, Oh, normal people have those thoughts. I was thinking I'm weird, but, but in, in that respect, I know I've had to say no to family time at times, but you have to choose the yes and a, and we've gotten no's from guests that we've reached out to with that, you know, sad puppy dog email, you know, please be on our show. Um, I was really excited. We, we gotta , I don't want to drop name or anything, but I felt like we had kind of secured a pretty big name and I was really disappointed when that didn't happen and I was really depressed for a little while because I thought, what is it about the show that doesn't, they don't, would that change their mind? Why don't they want to come on now what, what did I do? What are we put out that they heard that maybe they don't like now, you know, all those things start floating in my head of , well, maybe you should just stop. Maybe you should just quit. Maybe you should give up. And I think that's the part where I've learned to have, to push that. No aside,

Speaker 1 33:06

I think for myself it's a very different answer. I've had to say yes to a lot more stuff. When Neil originally came up , uh, and I wanted to do the show notes and I wanted to be more and more involved , he kept on , uh, pushing that envelope and trying to get me a little bit more involved than I was comfortable with. And I would have to sit there and think and I'd be like, no, this is a good thing. Say yes, I can't think of anything I've really had to say no for it. But then again, I'm in the background. I'm not in front of the mic. It's easy for me, for my schedule. I'm blessed to be able to work in a space where I could take a lunch pretty much when I need to because of the position I'm in. I've been able to move things around. I haven't had to say no at all. I've just had to say yes and be more confident and accepting of new things and new responsibilities, new moving forward. And it's been very much of a growing experience for me in other aspects of my life using the show to say, this is where it's worked here. Would it be worth it to apply this to this area of my life? So I feel like it's very opposite to Neil is I'm more agreeing and not needing to say no. Yeah.

Speaker 6 34:11

Or say no to some video game time bed . Yes. Letting that go

Speaker 1 34:17

better. Things to do with my time, more productive. And that's , that's just been more and more encouraging. At first it was kind of a, I have to let these people down. I'm not going to be here for this. But at the same time I'm looking at what am I really doing with this video game time? The answer is nothing. It's a digital piece of code that gives me a false sense of accomplishment. So I guess I do have to say no to that. He did say no to the road casters .

Speaker 6 34:38

Oh, I did. I just want to put that on there. No , no. I'm gonna let that know you . Like I sent him a text. I'm like, Hey, look what I just found. Look how shiny and pretty, you know you didn't , he goes, he goes, you're not getting that, are you? And I'm like, no, no, I've got, and then the next day showed up, I already gone, I don't know how I got here , what I been doing,

Speaker 1 34:58

what did we, what do we have now? Is that not good enough? Is this unnecessary , necessary ?

Speaker 6 35:02

And he'll said no. And then it showed up. Well, I just think it's interesting, just going back to one of your things you just said about saying no, and it was specifically to insecurities and you not thinking that's normal. And I feel like everybody we've talked to on this show and just people in our lives we talked to that is an extremely normal thing. I think the more abnormal thing is the people that push past those insecurities. And in spite of those insecurities, they, they still decide to create something or to do something new and different and push into those things that make them really uncomfortable because of those insecurities. But so I , I think the insecurity is the normal thing. It's pushing past it as what makes you, you guys a square one square one trail guests. So I think that's awesome. That and just keep pushing into that. Yeah. We're excited to hear where you guys take the show and the different guests that you have on.

Speaker 4 35:57

Well, thank you. Yeah, I mean , uh , again, I , I just feel like when I was small story, when I was in high school, I had an English teacher tell me, well actually I declared to her, I was, I was going to go work for ESPN and I was gonna be a sports broadcaster and you know , I was going to be, you know, seven days a week doing sports center and it was gonna be awesome and I was going to be spectacular. And you know, I was gonna go to your university of Connecticut and all this stuff. And I remember her in a parent teacher conference, which was weird in high school that they had those. But, but, but they did. And I remember her telling my mom that I had great big dreams that sadly, because of my learning disability and because of my inability to write communication out, you know, in written form, I was really gonna probably struggle if not fail at being a sports broadcaster. And so I might want to think about a different career that would be more suited to me and my skillset . And I gotta be honest. Every time I turn on the microphone and I turn on the road caster and I sit with somebody, I'm not going to lie. I do think about that. I do think about that a lot. But I think to myself, what if there's somebody out there right now listening to me or even listening to us as we talk that is having a similar struggle? Like where's my voice? How do I get my voice? What do I need to do? And maybe they hear of a guy who, again, I'm, I'm, I'm nothing special. I really am not. I love four things in my life. I love my God, I love my wife, I love my daughter and I love my tar heels. And outside of that, you know, I'm just a normal guy, but when I turned on this microphone, something powerful happens. And that's, this is I get to communicate with somebody that maybe maybe walking through the most painful thing in their life and having to relive it, but then has the confidence and the comfort to say, but I'm not there anymore. And that's what I want to say too , is I'm not that young, insecure, scared little sophomore in high school with big dreams and big aspirations. That hasn't come true now. It's not ESPN we are on every week, but we're growing. And I don't know why. I don't know why people listen to our show hopefully. Cause it's good. I don't know. Well she did, but I do know this. I do know this. I love what I'm doing and I do. Whether I get paid for it or not ever, it doesn't matter. I love what I do and I love that I get to work with Garrett and I love that, you know, we get to meet amazing people because there are still amazing people out there. And I think that's what drives me forward. And she didn't know about Garrett at that time too , so that's okay . No , that might have changed their mind a little bit. Cause Garrett has such a, you know, the lack and why there's no room for gray kinda guy and very he can write to . So , uh, for me everything is a lot more and white, although it shouldn't

Speaker 1 38:36

be there. There's a right or wrong. There's uh , for me this is just an opportunity, a wonderful opportunity and so much has been learned and growing, being able to share. It's been wonderful.

Speaker 4 38:48

Hey, can I ask Garrett a question? I know it's your show, but go for it . Takeover. All right Garrett , what's the hardest thing about working with me? That was my next, you know, wasn't it really ?

Speaker 1 39:00

So there , there is a lot of people because deal and Iressa close and we know a lot of the same people. A lot of people come up and go, so what's it like working with Neil or Oh, I'm so sorry that you have to do this podcast with Neil or whatever it may be. Cause deals as strong personality, but for me, Neil, no, none at all. Yeah, sure. For me, Neil is a breath of fresh air because he's got so much energy, so much positivity. He wants to go, go, go do his best and bring every one our long on a positive basis that I've never looked at Neil and gone, Oh, I have to deal with this. There's some times when I'm sitting there going texts saying, Oh, how do I put this? So it doesn't hurt his feelings, but apart from that there's working with Neil has been a complete joy. It's almost as good as being friends with Neil.

Speaker 4 39:47

Ah , sorry. I didn't mean to hijack your ,

Speaker 5 39:50

okay, we're just wiping away tears over here. Will you be my Valentine? Check one? Yes or no? That's an idea. I'm going to give you Valentines that can get awkward. Just give him blue roses. Well , Hey, we really love having you guys on this show. We love how conversational this has been. We really appreciate that. Can you tell people where they can find you?

Speaker 4 40:16

Yeah, of course. We do have a domain. We don't officially have a website, but we do have a domain though that we use in that set ops podcast.com. That's of course where you can hear past and present episodes of other people's shoes. And of course we are on all the social medias that I care about. That's of course Facebook, we are under other people's shoes. Of course. Feel free to go like us over there and of course we are on Instagram. Yeah, that's right. We're on Instagram. So do follow us there . Uh , OPSB podcast show under Instagram and if you're a big Twitter fan we got you covered there too. We are at people's shoes under Twitter as well. So please follow our social media is come listen to one of our shows. If you would like to email us. We of course always love feedback, do always love it. We really do. And we try to implement feedback we do here so that can be done@opsbpodcastshowatgmail.com so there we are. We also like anyone who wants to be a guest to email. Yes , we are always on the hunt for a guest. We are looking to release our fourth season. Come January 1st. We will start our fourth season, whether we like it or not. It will be here. It will happen. Awesome. Well guys, we really appreciate you guys taking your lunch time to hang out with us. So hopefully you guys

Speaker 6 41:34

get some food too . Five minutes left, maybe two minutes left to eat lunch and hail a sandwich or something real quick. So I'm on the phone constantly and so I just eat whenever I want. So just in between phone calls and me, I just kind of bear through the day when I do want to have these and [inaudible] it's a good diet program probably. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yes, that's that's, yeah, that's where, that's our not working, but yeah, it's a good idea. All right guys. Well have a great afternoon. We appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 42:04

Explore, dream, discover. That's what we're all about here. Sharing people's stories and engaging with each other. While we hope you found this conversation helpful and encouraging. We'd love to keep in touch. And we just started a Facebook group where you can connect on a more personal level. It's called the square one lounge. You can find it by going to our website, square one show.com and at the top, just click on lounge. Thanks to our editor, Paul McCaw SCO . And until next time, this is David and Jessica lives . Enjoy your week.