Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Co-Parenting Challenges, Podcasting 101, and Combating Systemic Corruption

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

This week I am answering three listener-submitted questions: We begin by delving into the challenging world of co-parenting - a father of three is asking for advice on how to best advocate for his neuro-divergent son amidst conflicting parenting styles and a complicated relationship with his ex-spouse. A listener and their friend are gearing up to start their own podcast but are unsure about the best practices. Lastly, let's tackle the elephant in the room – systemic corruption. It seems that there is rampant and often blatant corruption permeating our political, industrial, and scientific arenas. It is less about whether or not it exists, what can we do about it? Sign up for the new G14 newsletter here: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/exclusive Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/  

What's up, everybody? It's Friday. It's Q&A. Let's get into it. Okay, got the red smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Come on a minute. I can't be clear hot. Welcome back. Before I forget, first and foremost, I was absolutely blown away by the response to this shirt that I'm actually wearing right now, which I'm glad I pulled one out of inventory because these things were designed for the 4th of July, a little red, white and blue, but not two on the nose. and they sold out in like 48 hours. So I can never really determine what people are going to like or what they think is going to be a cool design. So a little bit of it is a shot in the dark or throwing spaghetti against the wall, depending on the metaphor you like. This one did well, and I can't thank people enough for supporting.

It's that type of stuff that allows me to keep doing what I'm doing. For those of you that missed out, I am going to reprint some more of them. I don't think this comes out tomorrow, Friday. They're not going to be available by tomorrow, but maybe early next week. again I was a little surprised but thank you everybody for the support when it comes to that type of stuff so how about I just shut up and get into the Q&A which actually I can't do both of those things so how about I just get into the Q&A and then I'll shut up when I'm done three for today I know I say this all the time but I'll try to keep it short my favorite one of course is on the topic of

relationships and specifically divorce both of those topics I'm not an expert in but here we go I'm a father to three beautiful kids, 17, 7, and 4 months. Oops, their words not mine. Two of which are from a previous marriage. My 7-year-old son, to which this email is over, has been taken to a psychiatrist recently and initially assessed with ADD, depression, anxiety, and likely some spectrum issues as well. My former spouse does have neurodivergence in her family, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case with my son.

I have 50-50 custody with his mother, and I live close by. However, our living styles differ completely and I don't trust his mother. She's content with placing him in front of the TV with an iPad or laptop. Further, she's not the cleanest with two dogs, two cats in a 1,500 square foot townhome and doesn't cook. So his eating habits at his moms are chocolate muffins, fast food, rofo fried chicken, which apparently is a Maryland thing, store-bought meals to be reheated at home, etc. further I feel that she is more than willing to have him sedated with SSRIs when he's old enough to take the medication prozac lexaprozo loft etc i know i should give my ex-wife some grace as she's a single mother with two kids in a full-time job i get that but this is going to take work of which i'm not 100% sure she'll be willing to or be able to boiling it down

i need to stick up for my son go to his appointments and advocate for him as best i can can to not have him medicated and modify his habits with a necessary structure when he is at my house. However, I'm not confident his mother will do the same as evidenced above. Again, I'm trying to give some grace here. There's a lot of negative history between his mother and I. We're getting along well enough for the two kids we have together, but there's still the lack of trust I have for her. my long-awaited question is being a divorce father as well how do you think the best approach is for a former spouse and how do you think how do you think the best approach is to a former spouse and state my wishes a little bit of a fucked up sentence but i think i understand what you're saying to be honest we were going through a divorce around the same time frame and i thought and i found the strength to move forward listening to you jaco and rogan but i listen to you more as are the consummate ballbuster of which i admire and aspire i think i do probably, well, I definitely bust more balls than Jocko does. Here's what would probably shock a lot of people, though.

Like off camera, he's a great ballbuster. And I hope one day that that can shine through a little bit for him on his podcast because I think people are truly missing out on that aspect of him. But I digress. Man, divorce sucks. Divorce with kids can really suck too. You know, I've heard a few stories where the divorce was truly amical. and the co-parenting was spectacular, and both parents were truly able to put their bullshit aside

and just focus on the welfare and well-being of the kids, but it's certainly not the norm. And I just, I don't think it happens as often as most people would hope. And that just is what it is. Divorce, I think, can be ugly. It's emotional. It can be contentious. There's a lot of resentment. And oftentimes, I think that can turn into just straight up rage and desire to injure the other

person, not like with a knife in the neck, but just maybe twisting that metaphorical knife every chance that they have an opportunity. And I think a lot of the times that's through behavior towards their kids. The situation that you are describing, two vastly different living situations, one, a little bit more cluttered, far less structured, and with a person that you feel would be worried that they are willing to take the medication route, which is something that you don't agree with. I don't think that you have, and again, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not an expert in divorce, but just listening to the little bit of information that you have provided and thinking through this, if you have only 50% custody, you are not going to be able to impact what your

ex-wife does. You could go and try to explain to her in whatever terms possible what your concerns are, what you would like to see done with the co-parenting of your child. But at the end of the day, from a legal perspective, she is free to raise your child in the way that she sees fit. Again, I wish I could give example after example after example of divorced parents that are just truly putting those kids first. It sounds like in this situation that may not exactly be the case. I understand that everybody has, you know, different life circumstances, full-time job for your child's mom.

And she's also a single mother, 50% of the time. I get that. That doesn't mean that your child should bear the brunt of that. Easier said than done, I totally understand. If you are concerned about the environment that your son is going to be in, And you actually want to have some level of influence over that. I'm actually going to recommend to you that you not, well, I'm a two-step process. The first one is go to your ex-wife and explain to her everything that you have said in this email to me.

In brass tacks, plain language, don't be a dick, but don't leave anything unsaid. if after that you land in the same place where you are concerned in one household because here's the here's the thing that concerns me about the diagnosis and the potential medication afterwards for a seven year old i mean like how about we give people a little bit of an opportunity to find themselves how about it seven years old people can be at a fucking whirling dervish and you're not even able to control your energy your focus attention whatever it may be like let's take a wrap off of these diagnoses on people who are so incredibly young, still in the just utter formative years of their life. Let's back off of that a little bit. You know, the medication, my limited understanding

when it comes to SSRIs, let's say that you don't agree with it, but she does and she takes him to somebody and has this diagnosis and then is written a prescription for these medications and she starts this child on those medications. What you don't want to do from my, again, my limited understanding is have somebody on those medications and then off and on and off and on and off. It's either a cannonball into that pool or don't fucking go swimming. You can't have both of them. So if it's going to come to a head on this and you feel like the environment that your child is being raised in and you have exercised every option that you can to try to deal with your spouse in the most professional way possible, I would say you need to go to the court and you need to

advocate for full custody. And I don't want to see anybody's kid taken away from them. And me saying you should go advocate for full custody of your child, I don't want anybody to confuse that for saying, oh, this is going to be really easy and you can go express these concerns. And it's just going to be like, Bing, oh, yeah, you're right. And they're just going to take the child away from their mother. The likelihood of that, I think, is very small. Again, my limited understanding, you would have to show a very, very clear danger to your child to actually have it removed from custody of one of the parents. But what you can do if you go to court, and this is going to cost money, and this is going to take time for both of you, but you can create a legal framework that limits her behavior

beyond just what she might feel like doing in the moment. Now, can people deviate from legal framework, yes, they absolutely can't. But if they do, you are going to have something to fall back on, and then it will be much easier for you to gain full custody of your child. I don't know enough about your ex-wife. I don't really know enough about the situation to say whether or not it would be better or worse if that child were to live with you because, you know, there's two sides to every story. I'm only hearing yours, and I try to be respectful and remember that. But set yourself up for success. you know, if you don't have the conversation and she goes down the path that you're worried about, you're going to be starting from an even greater deficit. I would at least have the conversation.

If it doesn't go the way that you want to, invest the time, energy, and money to protect your child now up front and go to the court. Lay that legal framework. If she deviates from the legal framework, then you can have that opportunity likely to get full custody of your child. And I don't, again, want anybody to have a child taken, you know, lose that ability to be involved in that child's life or be a caretaker for that child's life. But if you are not fit enough to do so, then you shouldn't do so. That's what it comes down to. I try to be as empathetic as possible for people in the situations that they are in their life. If you want to fuck up your own life, that's one thing. If you want to fuck up your kid's life, that's another.

The first or the former, I think you have every right and opportunity to do so. Live your life however you want. The latter, you have no right to be able to do that. Your kid did not make a choice to be born into this world. And once they are, it is your role and responsibility to take care of them and act as their parent, period. So hopefully that helps. I don't think it's going to be easy. I bet that conversation with your ex-wife isn't going to be awesome.

And every time you feel like you just going to want to smash your. your head against the wall. Just remember why it is that you're doing what you're doing. You're doing it for the benefit of your child to provide a better future for that child. And maybe that costs you every dime that you have right now and all the free time that you have. And that's okay because it's actually worth it. So hopefully that helps. Question number two. Let's lighten it up a little bit. This is a question. God, I need to, I have been meaning to create a YouTube video. about this exact question because I get it all the time.

You may have already answered this on one of your fallout of Friday episodes. However, I do not have the time to watch all of them. As you might understand, I totally do. There's more content out there than time in the day to actually consume it. However, I do value your content, and it is obvious you know what you are doing.

I'd use that sentence with caution. I know how to do a few things at a very aggressively average level. The rest of the stuff, I'm flying by the seat of my pants. Therefore, what tips and or advise would you give my friend and I who are gearing up to start a podcast? Okay, I get this one all the time, two different versions. What gear do I need to start a podcast? And then the second portion of that

question, or usually it starts, it prefaces that is should we start a podcast? I don't want to talk anybody out of it, but I don't want to talk anybody into it either. So the stats that I have seen recently is that there are about a thousand podcasts a day that are started every single day a thousand podcasts are launched into the ether and the unknown internet environment and maybe some people find them some are wildly successful and some fall flat on their face. Quality is likely the reason for the success or for the failure. When people ask me should they start a podcast, I don't ever want to say no, but the advice that I would give anybody considering it is make sure you know why you want to. And my advice would continue with don't try to be something that you are

not. Definitely don't try to replicate or repeat something that you have seen others have success with and think that it's going to be wildly successful for you. Now, I say that and I do, I have conversations with people on Mondays. Well, I release the episodes on Mondays and I'll do Q&As on Fridays. There are probably countless episodes or podcasts where people do exactly the same thing. I've even had people reach out and make those same comments to me like, oh, real good job just doing what Joe Rogan does. I'm like, well, I like the concept of having a podcast and I need a room to do it in and the sound absorbing curtains keep the noise from the other office suites down. And I needed some lights in a camera. Like, I don't really know how to, if you want to

have a conversation with somebody, I don't know how you differentiate yourself in that world other than the quality of the conversation. But to a degree, right, I am also using the same template as others who are far more successful than myself. What I don't. don't do is try to be somebody else when the camera is rolling or the microphone is recording. I don't have enough energy or time in my day to have an alternate personality. Anybody who meets me in real life, I hate that term, but outside of the one-way transaction that is somebody downloading, watching or listening a podcast and meets me in real life, I am exactly the same as I am right now sitting here recording these episodes.

When people ask me questions, I will give them my honest feedback and answers. I'll tell you when I don't know, and most of the time I don't know, I'll tell you the limits of my knowledge. I'll tell you when we're talking about a subject matter that I know a little bit about. And I'll certainly let you know when I'm over the front of my skis on something that I'm just flying by the seat of my pants. So there's that. There's knowing who you are and why you want to start a podcast. Stay true to those things. Don't exhaust yourself by trying to have some alternate personality.

So that's on the should I start a podcast front. On the other side is what tips or advice, what I have for somebody who has decided that they are going to. And this is actually a pretty easy one. The vast majority of people who consume content via podcast or podcasting content are through an audio-only medium. I would say 20 to 30 percent is going to be those who watch it in some way, shape, or form, whether that's on YouTube or Spotify does video now as well. So any platform where you can have a video content, 70% of people are going to throw a set of earbuds in and they're going to listen to it when they are doing probably something relatively menial where they want to have the ability to focus on something else or they're driving in a car. Since the vast majority of your audience is going to be audio only, invest the time and money up front to get good audio equipment. The barriers to entry to a podcast are actually really low.

You could actually record the entire thing on a phone. I don't recommend that you do so because the audio quality is just not great. Invest in good microphones. You're going to need something to record it on. So I would say at a bare minimum, you need a laptop. It's 2023. So obviously get an Apple product. And they have native things that you can use.

There's stuff like garage band. And I'm obviously just talking shit about, you know, Apple versus PC. I'm sure PC has a native app as well where you can collect. sound on your hard drive. There's programs like Adobe Audition. There's pro tools. And a lot of those I have found because I've played with a lot of them is that you're going to use about 3% of what they're capable of and the rest of it is just right over the top of your head. So when you're starting, start with something that's quality, but you don't have to leap into those larger software platforms that you're not going to actually be able to maximize or utilize. So you're

going to have something that you can record it on and then spend money to get good microphones. The sure SM7B is kind of the industry standard. It's what Rogan uses in his studio. And I didn't know this until recently when I had JT on. And his episode is coming out Monday. We actually talk about this. That microphone was actually designed for vocal tracks, for artists, which explains why you actually have to turn up some of the settings to enhance the volume that is recorded

because they're probably getting yelled into or screamed into or sang into at a really high volume level. And in a normal conversation, it just hits a little bit low. So I actually recently have just switched out the podcast microphones in the studio to what JT recommended. I don't have enough beta on those yet and enough experience to recommend one over the other. But I can tell you right now, if you get a really high quality microphone and find an environment that is high quality from an acoustical perspective, which is why these curtains exist, is to dampen the sound in this room, to keep other noises out, it makes a difference for the listener. And if the listener has every single day a thousand options in addition to the options they had the day before to choose from, you need to differentiate yourself from a quality perspective. And I've heard episodes of people trying to record them in their car and you get background noise and it's just instantly off-putting. And I don't think you have a lot of opportunity to recapture those individuals once they are turned off to what it is that you are putting out.

So audio would be primary. Secondarily, if you want to live in the video format, again, make sure that you start with a camera that can record high-quality video. I would say at least 1080p, but you probably don't need to jump into the 4K or the 6K world when you're first starting. Let it build into that and maybe create a sustainable platform where you either have advertisers or support from people that are listening to you. over time that you can, if you do in some way, shape or form, monetize that in the long run, you can reinvest that into your platform. And that is essentially exactly what I have done. I started with no video, audio only. I'm on like my fourth or fifth iteration of microphones. I keep trying to find the next iteration that will enhance the audio experience.

I think the first camera that I ever tried to use was a GoPro, which you can't actually do. And you can use your cell phone. Again, like an iPhone, you would 100% can capture super high quality audio on your iPhone. And there are plenty of interfaces that you can hook that right up to a laptop so you could go audio video right there. And that would be a great start. Over time, I built to wanting to have instead of one camera, which is what I started with, to having two cameras. Then I wanted to have the ability to have Michael in the room to switch back and forth just to save time and editing. And also the ability to look stuff up real time when we're having conversations has been hugely beneficial. All of that took years, though. The camera,

that I'm looking into right now, this is a Sony A7S3. It's an expensive camera, but I use it for, or I bought it with the intent of vlogging, which I want to do a lot more of. And I have another YouTube channel outside of the cleared hot one. I think it's called the path, the path less traveled, the road last traveled? I don't fucking know. I think you'd have to look up my name, but it's for everything outside of podcast-specific episodes because I want to be able to do stuff outside of that and not saturate people who are just here for the podcast. It's an expensive camera. I take the money that I make from the podcast and I do the best that I can to put it back into the podcast. So, you know, there's, it's a two-way transaction. There are people that support

what it is that you are creating and then you can continue to support them by investing back into what it is that you are delivering to them. That's the way that I think the ecosystem should be. It should be not a one-way street or a cul-de-sac. It should be a two-way street to the best of your ability. The stuff I'm using now is years down the road, years down the road from where I started. And I started with an absolute budget setup. And it was awesome. And I recommend that everybody do exactly that, unless you are in a place where you can make a large investment up front. I think for the camera system and what I have now in the studio, it's tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment that was accumulated over time and incrementally improved.

upon. If you have that type of money up front, I wouldn't advise you to not spend it. I would just say spend with caution because it's really easy to buy a lot of stuff that you don't actually need. And I've been caught in that trap as well. I get online and like, oh, I need one of those things and you get it and you don't even know how to use it and try to implement it into your workflow. And the next thing, you know, it's gathering dust on a shelf, not that there's a shelf off screen that might have a bunch of that stuff. So start slow, focus on quality. Know who you are and know why you want to start a podcast and then enjoy the process. It is something that if 10 years ago you had asked me to write down 100 things I might be doing with my life, having a podcast would not be on that list. And it is the

coolest thing that I do. I love the people that I get to have conversations with. I love where the conversations go. I love the questions that people send me reaching out about, you know, just just this podcasting in general or life in general. Not that I'm qualified to answer all of them, but like I said, I'll give you my best answer. Enjoy the journey. Question three. What's the solution? With the significant levels of corruption we've seen, especially in recent years, how does a country like ours recover such a fucked up system? It seems every facet has varying levels of corruption, which I'm sure has always been present, but not so blatant. It's wrong either way. Political, industrial, and even scientific corruption in news in our country every single

day. But not many people in power seem to care. It seems that we've lost control. Senators become multi-millionaires overnight, unchecked, and pharmaceutical companies make people sick so they can charge them for the cure. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks for the podcast. What is the solution? Remember like a few minutes ago where I was just talking about, where I need to tell people where I reach the limits of my knowledge? This is a little. This This is one of those times because I don't fucking know. I have the same concerns that you do, but I don't know what the answers are to navigate us out of this situation.

Let's talk about the political system here for a second. Senators becoming multi-millioners overnight. I'm not sure that it's overnight, but it does seem to be that net worth rapidly escalates as soon as you take public office. And I don't know if that was the original or initial intent of... the design of public office. Maybe it's a natural byproduct because of humans and their inability to really manage and control power, whether it be perceived total or absolute power, fame, recognizability, whatever it may be.

I'm not so sure that humans are really designed to deal with those things without falling into a trap of self-serving to some degree. I'm not sure. I think, though, that that is part of it. So I don't think it happens overnight, but it certainly does happen. We have an amazing ability to reach out and collect data on our own and take a little bit of time to explore the net worth of politicians in this era, how they gain their net worth, the surprising success that oftentimes many of them have in the stock market. where they go after they serve. And it paints a pretty murky and muddy picture.

And I don't like the picture. And I've always gone back and forth. And I was just having this conversation yesterday. What draws people to politics? Is it the desire for power? Is it the desire to serve themselves? Does it naturally, do people who are naturally susceptible to corruption gravitate towards politics because they see what they can get? from it? Or is the political system in this country so tainted at this point, regardless of who you are

when you enter into it, the more time you spend in that pool, the more that chemicals, the detritus in that pool, the poison, and this insidious nature of the pool water itself? Does it just eventually soak its way into you and change who you are? I don't know the answer to that. I think it may be a little bit of both. I do think that there are people who go into it with the best of intentions, and then they realize like the only way that they can survive or the way that they self-justify their behaviors, the only way that they can survive is to go along with the party line because otherwise they're going to be ostracized and they're going to be ineffective. So they just kind of eventually get into lockstep with whatever side of the aisle and the direction that that

particular ideology is going. And then it doesn't really matter why they came into politics in the first place because they're just going along with the tide, either going out or coming in. I'm not an expert on the political system, but if the political system can taint the most virtuous of us in that way, meaning exposure to it is dangerous or damaging, I think the logical solution is to limit exposure. There are plenty of things that we encounter as human beings that we know are dangerous and damaging, whether it be a medication, a physical treatment for treating a disease, or how about even going to the dentist and checking your teeth out?

You get an x-ray. We realize that there is a risk to getting too many x-rays or exposure to that type of radiation. So what do we do? We limit it because we understand the risk that it has. And I think we're at a place now where the data is out on the risk of exposure to our current political system for too long. I just think it changes who the person is. And I also think that people in power care far less about serving those that elected them into office and carry far more or care far more about staying in power and making sure that the system is serving them.

So we need to limit that. We need to limit the exposure. I am a firm believer that our political system will not be corrected until we institute term limits. And I think two is, for whatever reason, I like that number. And again, I know that terms currently right now, they shift a little. Some of them are four. I think some of them are two. So maybe two total terms isn't the right answer.

Maybe eight total years in public service is the answer, however many terms that may be. You know, we do that for our presidents, and I think there's a good reason for that. So that, I think, is the most reasonable first step to take. Do I think it would be easy to institute that? No, because the people in power, I truly believe at this point of my life, are just far more interested in staying in power. And until we, as the ones who actually are supposed to have the power with our ability to vote them in or out of office do something about that, absolutely nothing is going to change. So that's my thoughts on the political portion of that. But actually, the industrial and scientific portion of that, it really ties in.

because if the people in power are there to serve themselves more than to serve the people, they are going to create relationships both in the industrial and scientific world that do that in both the short term and the long term. So I really do think that one of the biggest changes that we need to make, and I think we need to make it soon, is just a public acknowledgement of how toxic the political system can be, and we treat it like anything else that we recognize can have an inherent danger. Until we do that, I think we might be proper fucked. I also think it would serve people to wake up a little bit. Just wake up a little bit and realize that a lot of the things that we are bombarded by every single day, there is

a pointed and directed message that comes with it. Let's use the news as an example. Left side of the right side of the aisle, traditional news. If you can't blatantly see, feel, and hear the bias on both sides of the aisle on these traditional news networks, if you don't recognize that there is that bias and there is a message and that there is an attempt to influence from those platforms, you are going to be like a flag blowing back and forth in the wind. Like, let's just wake up as a society and recognize that maybe a lot of the things that we are exposed to are not as altruistic as people would like them or promote them to be. And I'm not saying don't get your news from a traditional media source. I'm saying maybe just take a breath and understand and recognize how does that traditional media source, whether it's print, digital, video, how do they pay their bills? And once you understand how they pay their bills and what they need to do to pay their bills, it doesn't make the information that they're putting out less valid. It just gives you a more clearly changing the prescription on your lens that you view the world through.

You can separate a little bit of the bullshit and understand like, you know what? I hear what you're saying, but maybe a percentage of what you're saying is being driven by something else, that somebody else may be trying to push on us as a society. I see it in social media. I see it in politicians. I see it in traditional media. So a little bit of an awakening as individuals in this country would probably be a really good thing. Like just stop believing everything at face value.

I think curiosity is a fascinating and amazing thing. I think the more curious a human being is, the more questions that you ask, the better off that you will be. And oftentimes, it just takes like one more step. It just takes one more step than blindly receiving information and turning it into your own narrative and bumper sticker. One additional step. Maybe one additional resource. And you will have such a more well-rounded approach and understanding of what's going on in the world around you. And I also think the number one thing that we need to do in this country is to stop looking for other people to solve our problems.

Everybody in this world, everybody in this country, I don't care who you are. I don't care how much money you have. I don't care what's your socioeconomic status is. We all are going to have things that we face in life that suck the biggest of dicks. And oftentimes, you know, the more I have conversations with people, I have found that the problems vary not really by the kind of problem. It's just the scale of the problem. largely dealing with the same stuff. It's the scale that really varies. But truly, I know some people who have net worths that I don't understand and their life is not worry free, that they're

not fancy free, you know, doing the river dance at sunset every day as gum drops fall down on them on this beautifully manicured meadow. It's just not the way that it is. In addition to waking up a little bit and realizing that maybe all the information that we are receiving isn't with the best of our intentions in mind. Stop looking to other people to solve your problems. Take ownership and accountability of where you are in life. And before you look for anyone else to solve a problem, go flip a light switch on in the bathroom and look into the mirror and start there first. Build yourself into the most resilient person humanly possible. Like the fact that 60 to 70% of Americans are obese right now is fucking disgusting. Like what is wrong with us as a society?

Like, for one, again, the data is also out on how well human beings can tolerate stress when they are in a compromised environment. And by that, I mean they're physically compromised environment. Like, if you're out of breath getting up off of the couch and you're tripping over empty bags of fucking Doritos and Diet Coke, you're so unprepared to deal with and tolerate the challenges that you're going to face in life. And it's so easy to sit there on your couch with your Doritos stained fingers and bitch about everything.

are we doing this and why aren't they doing this for me and this it's like shut the fuck up and start with what it is you can actually control which is yourself so get your ass off the couch turn yourself into a weapon of resiliency which is going to help you deal with and tolerate stress seek out things that are difficult to do improve yourself mic you know incrementally over time and and don't get me wrong there's plenty of days where i take time off but at the end of the week or the end of the month I am always trying to trend in the right direction. I am always trying to make myself a better version of myself. I have steps in the wrong direction.

I make mistakes along the way. I try to learn from those things and build myself back better. I think the number one tool right now that is used for control of the American populace is fear. And a lot of that is through traditional media. I mean, they aren't reporting good things. They're generally reporting bad things, right? The whole, if it bleeds, it leads philosophy. Well, when you're not resilient, when you're not prepared, when you're not capable, it's really easy to be scared of everything.

And when you're scared, you are at your most manipulatable point. Stop being that way. Nobody's going to fix that for you. You have to get off your fucking ass and do it yourself. And I know this is like huge tangent off of kind of what you ask from a political perspective. And can our system be fixed? Our system is full of individuals. But people as individuals need to take control of ownership over who they are and where they are at in life and start to fix those things in their life that they find to be deficient before sitting there and chipping away at what they think is deficient in this country.

We have to work on both at the same time. I actually would say don't do one into the exclusion of other, but let's do both at the same time as opposed to just trying to chip away at our system while not doing any work on ourselves as individuals. I think it can be fixed. like I said, I think the political system can be fixed, but at the end of the day, I also think we need to invest equally as much time on our individual selves and systems as well. And with the combination of those two things, yes, I think it can be done. We'll be done overnight? Absolutely not. How much time am I talking? I don't know, five, ten years of it might not be awesome either. It might not be fun. We might feel like we're going backwards. But what's our other option? Stick with the status. quo, how's that working out for us? You guys happy with the leaders of this country? Do you think that they're serving you and the American people with their best intentions in mind? I'll leave you to answer that for yourself. So they're not going to fix it. The people in power are not going to fix it. They're actually going to do everything they can to stay in power. So that leaves it to us.

But if you're going to start with us or the royal we, eat me, I, better take a hard fucking look in the mirror first. And then we can start looking externally. And I think, that's all I've got because I've completely lost track of what was even asked in this question. And so why not end it there? Let's, let me see. This comes out on Friday. I got another episode coming out on Monday with JT. Fourth of July weekend is just around the corner for anybody in the Flathead Valley. Do me favor. Come join me at the Black Rifle Coffee location in Calispell on the 4th of July. We're going to be open in the morning until I think about noon or one. I'll be there working a shift behind the counter. Be very careful what you order from me because I don't really know

how to make that much, but I can work the point of sale system, so I'll probably see you there. But let's come celebrate this nation's birthday together. Be safe, please, everybody out there. You know, drive fast, take chances metaphorically, but don't get crazy. That's all I got. Later.