Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 52 - 1 year anniversary episode

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

It's hard to believe that it has been 1 year of Friday Q and A sessions. To celebrate I open with reading some of the worst reviews of my podcast, and providing some feedback to the reviewers. Then, of course, it is time for listener submitted Q and A. 1. Should I have a minimum number of extra-curricular activities for my kids 2. Do you think that BJJ is good for kids, why? 3. I have a friend that drinks too much, but is a high performer. How can I help him and balance being both supportive and loyal 4. How did you make peace with your mother's death 5. Why are you agnostic Enjoy

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And I was looking at the numbers were at Full Auto Friday number 52, the one-year anniversary. And I figured what better way to kick off the one-year anniversary episode than by reading some of the lowest ranked reviews of the podcast and discussing those reviews and providing my thoughts back to the reviewer, much like the reading the mean tweets series that I've seen on TV. Now, I'm recording this intro before I have done the episode in and of itself, so I'm going to guess that this episode may not be family friendly, and we'll leave it at that. Here we go. Follow out Friday. 52, away we go. All right, everybody. Like I said, the one-year-old.

anniversary, I went on to Apple podcasts and searched through the reviews of the podcast. And I tried to find some that did their best to break me down and tear me apart. Because why not? And why not give some feedback to people who might have a slight misconception of who I am and what it is that I'm trying to do? So let us begin. Review number one. great when not supporting terrorists is the subject line and he spent years fighting terrorists but is now interviewing homegrown radical left wing terrorists now i guess i probably could have opened with a more insulting review to myself but i find this one to be interesting because i think it speaks to exactly where we are in this country right now which is one of the things that gives me the most cause for concern the level of divisiveness the level of divisiveness the level of of absolute clarity that people at least seem to have in their beliefs and their ability to put people into a category. Most often, when it comes to something like this, they're placing somebody into a category that sits on the other side of the fence. So I'm not talking political, but just a belief spectrum of their own. I don't even know actually what episode this is in reference to. But what I can tell you is, if you're the person who wrote this review for me,

is that I've never sat down and had a conversation with a terrorist. I don't think. I actually, if given the opportunity to do so, I would actually sit down and have a conversation with somebody that I had fought against in either Iraq or Afghanistan or actually anywhere in the globe. I would be willing to have that conversation. That is how open I am to having my belief system challenged and to allow other people to talk about what they believe. Now, does that mean that I have to believe what they say? No, it absolutely doesn't. Does it mean that I have to align with their values? No, it absolutely doesn't. Sometimes we can agree to disagree. And I've had plenty of conversations on the podcast where I don't agree with what the person's saying, but what I'm not

going to do is attach a name to that. You're an idiot. You're a moron. You're a terrorist. fill in the blank because what I can tell you right now, just based off of this feedback, you wrote this in because you heard somebody on the podcast who was expressing beliefs that were different than your own. And because you are such an expert in what it is that I used to do and what this person probably stood for, you felt like you wanted to label them a terrorist. So, you know, good luck with that. Good luck with being so rigid and who you think you are that you're unwilling and unable to even have your beliefs push back on, whether you agree with it or not. I feel like you're going to end up in an echo chamber surrounded by people who only have the beliefs that you have,

which I'm not putting a value judgment on that. But what I will say is that's not how I'm going to live my life. And I'm going to provide a platform for people that I think are interesting, regardless of whether or not I think they may be correct. Review number two. Subject line, lame or lame, I'm not sure how to say it, pandering, boring, and never challenges positions. Well, I don't know what to say. I'm not an expert on what pandering is. I had to look this one up a little bit.

I'm not sure that I do that. Boring, you have no idea. You should see me when I am not hosting the podcast. You want to talk about boring? I am exactly that. I try to basically keep to myself most of the time. My social circle is incredibly small. I like a very few number of activities, but I like those activities very much.

And, you know, never challenges positions. It kind of goes back to the answer that I just gave on the first review. I feel like what I'm trying to do is provide people an opportunity to talk about their beliefs. And then I will question those beliefs in a manner. that I at least, again, attempt to not make insulting to the individual. I'm going to try to treat people with a baseline level of respect. And to me, this journey of the podcast, what I've enjoyed about it the most is sitting down and talking with people about what they believe, what they think is interesting.

That's what's been rewarding to me the most, that and probably the introduction to people that I never would have met in the first place. So maybe sometimes I do come off as pandering. I definitely don't mean to. Boring, you nailed it right on the head there. And, you know, as far as never challenging positions, I'm sorry that you came to that conclusion. So what I would say is, you know, maybe listen to some more recent episodes.

Perhaps this, actually this one was from 2020, so this is recent. And then I guess the only feedback that I could give you on this one is, you know, maybe take a step back and think about the things that you wrote, much like I'm doing right now. And then when you're done with that, why don't you just go ahead and fuck your own face? Number three, subject line. Annoying and not funny. Again, I'm going to have to agree with the reviewer on this. He laughs so much in the interviews.

Is he nervous? My lord, what is wrong with him? Well, I apologize that I laugh in these interviews because I'll tell you right now, I am having the time of my life having these conversations. I would have, I think, earlier in my life, considered myself to be an introvert and not very, socially outgoing, that latter portion is probably still relatively true. Like I just said, I have a, I don't know how large a social circle average would be. I feel like I have a smaller

than average social circle, but I do care about those people very deeply. So maybe that bounces itself out. But the reason I laugh in these interviews is because people say funny stuff. we talk about topics and go down rabbit holes that I never would have thought in a million years that we would go down. And I'm having a blast. So I apologize for the laughter. I guess if you wanted to find a podcast that was far more serious where laughter is not as supported, then this one, this one's not for you. Is he nervous? I don't think so.

I don't get too nervous about a lot of things. I used to be really nervous about public speaking. but then as with most things and like the advice I give people is you should probably go headlong at the things that make you uncomfortable. I did enough public speaking that don't really get nervous by it anymore. And I guess the podcast is a portion of public speaking as well. So no, sorry, I hate to tell you I'm not nervous. And to end with my lord, what's wrong with him? How much time do we have?

How much time do people have on a Friday for me to list what is wrong with me? Should I do this alphabetically or should I do this sequentially by the things that I will generally make an error on or do wrong in my day to day life? Because the list, both of those would be equal list, obviously, same things. But yeah, I do the best I can. There's a lot of things wrong with me. I struggle with self-confidence often. I struggle with self-worth. Often.

I'm too short with people sometimes. I'm too gracious with others at sometimes. I'm not as good of a parent as I want to be. I don't get enough rest. I wish I had my diet a little bit dialed in more. I wish my rest to training routine was a little bit more in balance, so I don't constantly feel like I've fallen underneath the steamroller. You know, what else is wrong with me?

There's plenty that's wrong with me. But to wrap this up, I'm sorry that I'm too annoying for you and not funny. So instead of listening to the podcast, why don't you go back to kissing slash fucking your sister? because your mom slash cousin is probably just fine with it. Next one. And last review for the day, before we get into the serious things and actually answer some questions. And this actually has nothing to do with me, but again, this ties into, I think, the first review.

Andy is outstanding, but I canceled my sub, is the subject. Andy's sidekick, Brian Bishop, killed this podcast. He spewed so much factually incorrect nonsense that I simply had to leave it. Worst was proudly stating that he had not once worn a mask during the pandemic, seemingly oblivious to the obvious fact that masks are worn to protect not yourself, but others in your community. He furthermore conflated this idiotic move with some sort of leadership. Aside from that, Andy is outstanding, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

emotionally for his ability to be open-minded and admit when he has been wrong, which, if you know me, is often. Maybe one day he will look back and realize that giving a platform, to someone like Bishop who will influence others with his rhetoric was wrongheaded as I see it to be. Like I said, this ties back in. It is not my job. Well, let me take that back. What I consider my job to be when it comes to hosting this podcast is to present a platform and create an environment where people can express their beliefs. It is not my job to be the belief police. I, I believe at a very deep level, and I've heard Joe say this many times, that the only way you combat bad ideas is with good ideas.

The best way to do that is to pull bad ideas out into the public specter, to talk about things that maybe make people uncomfortable, to talk about things and beliefs that I might find to be completely idiotic. And I'm not referencing directly what this person said about Brian in this. But I've had people who express beliefs or have had experiences that grade on me pretty deeply. And it's not my job to crush them. I feel like it is my obligation to present that individual with a different viewpoint, maybe flank their position when it comes to a thought process or belief and provide for them a different optic with which they can view the same situation. situation. Does that mean that they're going to? No, it doesn't. And what that means, if I see my job is creating a platform for those to express their beliefs, what that means is sometimes guests are

going to come on the platform that people don't like, that they're not going to like how they either portray themselves. They might not like how they look. They might not like the sound of their voice. And all of that is okay because this medium, this podcast, it's completely option. You could skip any portion of it that you want to. You could skip the entire episode if you want to. You could pick which ones you listen to based off of the topic or based off of the guest or none of it at all. But all I would say is, and this is the rule that I try to hold myself to, is I won't shunt something down just because I don't like what somebody is saying. I, more than anything, what I try to do is I will listen to what they're saying and I will try to understand again. So I listen. I try to understand what they're saying. And then I work my way through that. I don't avoid it. I don't bounce off of it because I have an allergic reaction to it. Nobody learns anything by doing that. We don't enhance our conversation or our society or our communities by doing that. It's easier to just push somebody away that you don't like. And you know the rhetoric that you

consider to be wrongheaded, here's what I'll say to you. Having that rhetoric or having, you know, the things, the way that Brian felt about masks in the beginning and the way that he feels about masks now. I'm slightly speaking for him and he can correct me if I'm wrong. But they're not the same. His opinions and beliefs, they evolve as well. And he and I've had many conversations because you have to understand there's what happens in the studio when we hit the record button. And then the continued conversations that happen after and the shifting of viewpoints and beliefs, all of those things happen. But they happen because we're talking about it. So again, you might call it rhetoric.

Guess what? Brian is not the only person that feels that way. And having somebody on a platform talking about that being not, again, pushed back on, but being asked questions from different angles, getting them to further explain or potentially refine their belief, that's where growth actually comes from. Now, on the subject of canceling the subscription, I don't even know how to track the subscriptions. So, okay, you're not hurting me. I don't want people to subscribe to this podcast because they feel like they have to or they feel like it's a benefit to me. I find this podcast to be so enriching and rewarding to make and I hope that people can find it to be enriching and rewarding to listen to. If that's not the case, don't subscribe.

Swipe whichever direction on your phone allows you to delete the podcast in its entirety, not just the episode and move on with your life and find somebody that provides that for you. That's all that I'm really going for. So I'm not the person who's going to shy away from having uncomfortable conversations. I'm not the person who's going to stop somebody from putting their foot in their mouth in a public setting so they can learn and others can learn from that pushback. That's just the way that it is. And that's the way that I'm going to keep doing it. And if you don't enjoy that, perhaps the podcast isn't for you. Boom.

Moving on. Let's get into the questions for this one year anniversary, full auto Friday. This is a two part. One, did your father, should fathers, compel their children to participate in a minimum amount or number of extracurricular activities in a given year? For instance, my parents made my siblings and I participate in a minimum of two extracurricular activities per year. We could choose whatever we wanted, but at least one was required to be an athletic endeavor. Activities could have been anything from math club or debate to football or golf. I wish this is one that I would have asked my dad, who was the co-host for Full Outer Friday, 51, because I don't remember if he required us to do so or if we wanted to do so.

But both my sister and I were physically active, both in school activities and out. Speaking for myself, I did, you know, Pony League baseball all the way in through high school baseball, junior lifeguards in the summer months, and then water polo when I was in high school. And my summer extracurricular activities, again, if you listen to the Full Auto Friday 51, was working for my dad. So very physically based. I found there to be a huge benefit from that. But when it comes to requiring or enforcing a certain number of extracurricular activities, what I'm going to go back to is something that my dad said. And that is maybe help your children find something that they're passionate about and focus less on the number of activities and more on the quality. reward from that activity. I would rather, with my own children, have them find something they're

incredibly passionate about and dedicate most of their time to that than finding two or three things that they're, meh, so, so about, and then having to split their time part and parcel between those, not really getting the benefit or reward from that one thing that they're incredibly passionate about. And there's two sides of the spectrum. One is the parent that allows their kid to play video games all day long and has fingers that are stained orange from eating Doritos in a gaming chair. And then the other side of that, which I see too, is a seven-year-old that has 19 different extracurricular activities with zero free time to actually be a kid. You know, they're going from soccer to tennis, to tutoring, to golf.

And sometimes I see children that are being, I don't want to say forced, but I'll say being driven at that level of activity. and they seem to be doing okay with it. And others, you can just see a blank stare across their face because they're almost dead to the world. They're completely overwhelmed and it's just too much. So I would say find a balance. And the balance for me is apparent.

The currency is the passion for what they're doing and the reward they get from it, not the total number of extracurricular activities. The one caveat I would put to this is I would be very cautious in allowing your child to say that video games is my extracurricular activity. because it doesn't, it's a departure from the real world, whereas most of the extracurricular activities to include everything that you mentioned on this are in engagement with other people outside doing

active things. I do think that the desire and demand of young bodies to be active is absolutely there. Like I said, I felt it in the middle of myself. And that is at least a decision point that I work my way through when it comes to activities for my own kids. Question two, from the same individual. You have submerged yourself deep in Jiu-Jitsu in the past few years. Had you been deep in Jiu-Jitsu at the beginning of your fatherhood, would you have required your children to reach a minimum proficiency in that combat sport or another one of their choosing, i.e. wrestling, karate, TKD, which I'm assuming means taekwondo, etc. Yes, if I had started when I was younger, I absolutely would have involved them, all three of them,

in jiu-jitsu, and I think it would have been more for a way for me to be sharing something that I'm really passionate about and something that I really love, and from the growth that comes from it. And when I say that I'm not talking about the growth that occurs on the mats, yes, you're going to get an increase in skill, proficiency, you're getting exercise to a degree. That's great. You can get a lot of those things in a lot of places. I'm talking about learning to deal with hardship. I'm talking about learning to deal with failure. I am talking about being into a position or being put into a position where you have to fight your way out of it. Competition in general, winning and losing.

All of those things are incredibly important. And the lessons that you learn on the mats, at least for me, they apply to the real world as well. Or not the real world, the world off the mats outside of the gym. And I think I have three kids, two boys and a girl. The emphasis for me would have been on my daughter. It is so incredible to see how empowering physical competence is in women of any age, but young women specifically. I have probably more concerns from my daughter for different reasons than I do for my sons. At the end of the day, though, my sons, I think, could be little violent savages.

The male and female body, they're different. and I worry about a man ever trying to do anything to my daughter. And I'll leave it at that as far as the description goes. And I can't think of a more impactful and powerful tool to give her than the confidence that comes from knowing that she can handle herself in almost any situation against almost anybody. And notice that I use the term almost there because there are no silver bullets, except I mean, I guess you could paint a bullet silver, but that's not what we're talking about. It prepares you really, really well, but there's no magic formula.

So just because a female might be a black belt in jujitsu, guess what? There's a height and weight range where that's no longer going to matter, but you can probably hold that person off until a higher level of help arrives. So my daughter, I think it would have the biggest impact on. And for my sons, again, the lessons off of the mats, I think would be the most important. And they would be learned through that physical activity. so that ties into my first, my answers to the first question. And when it came to the choices that you listed, wrestling, karate, or taekwondo,

I would say wrestling for sure. If it wasn't jiu-jitsu, I'd probably get them into wrestling. It's grappling. It's aggressive. You're going to win. You're going to lose. It's going to be painful. Karate and Taekwondo, I'm not going to get into an argument with people about the efficacy of those in the real world.

What I'll say is go to the UFC and find for me an example in the modern history of the UFC. or ever where somebody utilizing a martial art like karate or Taekwondo or Akita or any of those things actually is standing atop the podium, even though they don't use a podium, who's getting a belt tied around their waist using those martial arts. So I would focus on ones that have more real world application as opposed to those that are, maybe this is an incorrect description, more performance-based. Question number two. Okay, so I live in a country where firearms are tightly controlled and licensed.

and I have always been taught from a very young age to have excellent firearm safety and respect for all weapons. I have a friend who drinks a little too much and has a long history of getting into trouble. But he is also a successful guy and highly functional. A while ago, we had a party where a guy annoyed him. He asked me to show him a new rifle that I had. I didn't know he was intoxicated and he moved right away and shot a guy's car. door straight through. Understandably, people freaked out, and his girlfriend was upset with me for letting him touch the rifle. To be clear, he wasn't swang, no alcohol on his breath,

and it was a massive shock to me when he did this without warning. Since then, I've been much more careful around this guy. A few months later, he asked if I could write a letter supporting his applications for a firearm license. Unsurprisingly, I said no. Fast forward a year or so, and I got a call from him recently saying he had been fooling around. with some friends and one of them had a negligent discharge of a small caliber rifle and it shot him through the leg. I am a former soldier myself and have a bit of medical training. He sent me a photo and asked me what to do. I told him go to the hospital, but he wouldn't do this as he was worried about the police getting involved. I did suggest that he wash it out with saline and not

close the wound and take a broad spectrum antibiotic, but also said, I'm not a doctor and he needs to go into the emergency room and see someone as soon as possible. My question is, when you had a friend who is a complete idiot and you are worried about him, how do you balance being supportive and loyal with concerns that things are heading in a path that you are not comfortable with? I don't think my friend is a danger to anyone, but he always seems to push things further and further, and I worry about where this could end up. I'm also worried about compromising myself by knowing about this. And if that came out later, I could lose my own license and get into trouble. I love hunting and shooting long range all year round. So that would be a big blow. Holy shit, man. Okay.

Where do I begin with this? Maybe I'm going to start with this sentence. I don't think my friend is a danger to anyone. Are you fucking kidding me? Okay. In the paragraph above this, you described to me, him getting irritated with somebody, asking essentially to see your rifle, shot through the dude's car door. Okay. When it comes to being a risk to somebody else, I'm not necessarily sure if there's a more clear and concise definition of that. Later in that same paragraph, he ended up with a gunshot wound in his leg and didn't want to go to the hospital.

So I'm going to say not only is this individual a danger to himself, he's a danger to other people as well. Now, let's go back to when you let him touch the rifle. You know, the girlfriend being upset at you, no. What she should be upset at is her fuck-wit boyfriend, okay? Because he's the one who shot it through a car door. On that note, what are you doing pulling a gun out at a party or a rifle out in this instance? You know, it was a shock to you when he did this. There was no alcohol on his breath.

Yeah, okay, that's great. He wasn't swaying. Where were you? You were at a party. I'm going to assume that there was alcohol there. You open this with that you have been taught from a very young age to have. excellent firearm safety. Have you ever been talked to about mixing alcohol and firearms or having firearms present in a place where there is alcohol, which I'm going to assume at this party that there

was? If you have been talked about that, then what the fuck are you doing? All right? This whole situation is an absolute shit show. You talked about loyalty. How do you balance being supportive and loyal? I would love to have you sit here and describe to me what your definition of loyal is. Because when I think about loyalty to my friends, what I think about that to me, the currency of that is based in honesty. You tell them the things that they need to hear, not the things that they want to hear. Do you want to be this incredibly loyal friend that just allows this other individual to continue doing things like this? You even mention the escalation and where it could lead to? Or do you actually want to sit down with this individual and have the hard conversation?

That, to me, is being loyal. allowing this to continue, especially in your presence, that's not being loyal. That's being a pussy. What you're doing is you're avoiding that hard conversation. The best way that you could be supportive of this individual is to grab him, sit him down and tell him he's being an absolute and complete fucking idiot because that's exactly what he's going to do. And the issue with guns, one, right, they're designed to kill.

And he can make a mistake with a gun that could not only end his life, but somebody else's. And if he does that, post you writing me this. email and you knew about all this stuff going into this, have fun with that unclear conscience, because you know there's probably a way that you could have stepped in and done something about this. I oftentimes, you know, people will say to me, much like you did in the second sentence here, you know, he's also a successful guy and he's highly functional. No, he's not, right? He is at a point in his life where he's probably doing something where he can appear that way, but all of this stuff is happening directly underneath the surface. And at some point in time, in his life, it's going

to unbalance in self. And perhaps the poor behavior is going to come to the surface and nobody's going to think he's successful or highly functional. You said at the beginning of the paragraph, drinks a little bit too much, not the marquee of somebody highly successful and highly functional. You need to step in here and actually be the friend that you are portraying yourself to be. You need to sit this person down. You need to have a conversation with them and by all means keep guns the fuck away from this person. Okay. If you ended up losing your license because you knew about this and you didn't do anything about it, guess what? That's the right call. Because right now, what you're doing is enabling this behavior. What you actually need to do

is get a hold of this dude and you need to stop it before things get worse. All right. Sorry, blacked out for a minute. Okay. Next question. I was listening to Full Auto Friday, Episode 51 with your dad, which, by the way, I was on the phone with him this morning. I'm going to try to get him back here up here soon. And every time he visits, we're going to do another one. And I'll let people know when he's coming so you can have specific questions for my dad who also obviously moonlights is santa claus you talked about your mother passing away from cancer i too had my mother taken by cancer i'm an 18 year old guy and just getting ready to head off to college she passed away a little more than a year ago and much like yourself she was taken relatively quickly

and it was kind of a whirlwind she always did her absolute best as a single mother to put me first and i constantly ask myself what would she do and would she be proud of the decisions that i I'm making. My question is, how did you begin to make peace with your mother's death? And how do you put that baggage down, but still continue to honor their memory? Man, this is a, it's a tough question for me. And the most honest answer that I can give you is I don't know how much peace I have made with my mother's death. Because of my old job, I have, I have, I think it's safe to say that I have a different relationship with death than most people do. And by that, I mean having been very proximal to a good amount of death, probably most than anybody,

or not anybody, but most more than what most people will ever see in their life. And I'm glad that most people won't see that amount of death. But it does, I don't want to say you get used to it, but there's a degree of getting used to it. And then in addition to that, the number of friends that I have lost from my old occupation, just in the execution of that job or the training involved in that job, is higher than most occupations. And that ties into as well, it's not a comfort level with death. It's just a higher than normal exposure. I don't know how healthy my dealings with.

with death were when it came to a lot of my friends. Most of them occurred before my mom pass. I did the best that I could. And again, it was something that I feel like I started to get a little bit conditioned to. And it sucks for me even to hear myself say that because I know that it sounds calloused. And I don't feel like I'm a callous person. I care very deeply about my friends and the people that are close to me. I guess in my head, I told myself that it was an expected potential outcome from the job and that allowed me to move on. I could have done a better job with a lot of my friends in the way that I dealt with it. When it came to my mom passing, and I think I said this when I was talking with my dad on

the podcast, I had just gotten back from a deployment and I was in a headspace that was very black and white from the perspective of having recently made decisions or had lived for almost 10 months in an environment where we were making not daily, but not daily, but oftentimes almost daily decisions about life or death or being exposed to death or taking actions that would lead in death. And in my own experience, at least, the longer you're overseas, the more you get accustomed to being in that headspace. And it allows you to make decisions very efficiently and very concisely.

And it takes a while for that to unwind or it has taken a while for that to unwind for me every time that I have come back. and I didn't have the chance to unwind in the way that I wish I could have for my mom. I really feel like I actually failed my mom at the end and her passing. We didn't get to have a conversation that I would say provided either of us much closure. I'll save the details, but I knew at the time that I should have gone back and attempted another conversation. but I didn't because I just wasn't emotionally or mentally capable of doing so. And it ended up being the last conversation I had with her.

So it's something that I'm still working through. Am I at peace with my mother's death? Well, I've accepted the fact, obviously, that she is no longer here. And what I'm at peace with is the fact that she is no longer in pain. The amount of pain, at least that I have seen with people towards the end of their life when they're battling cancer is almost indescribable. And the change that it manifests itself just physically in the individuals, it's really hard to describe if you haven't been around it. My mom was a shell of the person that she was when I remember her and the memories that I hold to be the most dear. So I know that she's gone.

I know that she's no longer in pain and I'm at peace with that. But probably once a year, something will remind me of her or I'll just be having a conversation with her. I talk to myself pretty often. I don't know if that's normal or abnormal. And what I'll end up happening is I'll break down for a bit. And still the emotions that I have about it, they kind of come bubbling up, that sense of regret of not having better closure, of guilt of worrying about if I was a good enough. you know, son and support network for her as she was passing. And I've come to a place where I don't try to fight that anymore. I let it take its course and I just try to work my way through those

emotions. I'm along for the ride. I don't fight it. I don't try to channelize it. I just go for the ride and what it ends. It ends. And I have found that that has helped me. And I don't know if it'll ever stop. So when you ask how to put that baggage down, I don't know if I can. And I don't know if I want to. I think it's important that those things are still coming up for me and then I'm working my way through them. And the best way to honor their memory, I look at my mom and my dad and the example that they set for me. The best way for me to honor anybody specifically or especially my parents, but maybe even those who are no longer living. So even maybe just anybody who is impactful on your life is to follow the example that they set for you. Become the person or continue

becoming or continue being the person that your mom would be incredibly proud of. Become the person that you think that your mother would want you to be. Not because you think that that's what's important is what they thought, but because deep down inside that's who you want to be. You want to honor their example and you want to honor their memory by living the absolute best life that you can. And when I think about my mom, so incredibly smart, so incredibly gracious. She loved her grandchildren, you know, unconditionally. And the best thing that I can do is try to pass that love on to my kids to set that example for my kids and make sure that they know who she was and keep her memory alive through them. Hopefully that helps answer your question. Last question for today.

Hey, Andy, I heard you mention how you've read the Bible and came to the conclusion of being agnostic. For clarity before I continue, one was not associated with the other. I've, I think I largely have felt agnostic for as long as I can remember. I read the Bible because I was curious about what it said. One did not leave me to the other. Would you be willing to explain the specific details of how and why you came to that conclusion? Excuse me. You and I seem to have a very similar thought process.

And I'm currently struggling with this topic since being reintroduced to Christianity after a lifetime of agnosticism by some local and presumably seals. Long story, but cool guys. I've not read any book in the Bible to completion yet myself, although I'm familiar with the basic tenets of the religion. But I'd really value your opinions and thought process. Thanks for giving us, or thanks for making, give us the content that you do. Okay, so religion. I don't talk about this one too much because I'm not an expert on religion at all. But the best example I can give you of somebody who is devoutly religious and faithful was Bill Rapier.

So I recommend going back to that podcast. and listening to the conversation that we have. He's an amazing resource in reference, to me, at least, when it comes to religion. And specifically, it's integration with the job that we both did for a long period of time. And I can't give you a concrete example or reasoning as to why I land in a place where I just don't know. other than to say that I've never seen or felt compelling evidence either direction. Like I said, I read the Bible for more educational purposes, and I wanted to be able to have conversations with people about it. Bill being one of those people, his conversations that we had sparked an interest in me to read a book that he would reference, not often, but he would reference it from time to time.

So I did, and I'm glad that I did. I've seen the absolute worst in humanity and behavior that I can't describe an evil that is indescribable. And it still hasn't led me to a place where I think that there couldn't be something greater than humanity or that it's just all on us. I just have a really hard time with either of those polls. And I'm very jealous, actually. I've said this before. I'm very jealous of people who have the faith that they do when it comes to religion. My ex-wife used to want to go to church from time to time, and I would oftentimes spend more time watching the other people that were there who were just fully immersed and engaged in what they were getting out of the experience, which I was not getting out of that experience.

And I'm not willing to fake that either. But I really was, I was envious for sure. And, you know, envious or jealous to pick the term you want to of what it was providing for them. But I have never felt it in myself, and I'm not going to fake it. I've never been somebody who's prayed on the battlefield. I know people have said, hey, there's no, you know, atheists and foxholes. There may well be. You just need to probably increase the number of people you talk to who are in foxholes.

And like I said, I feel like I've seen every spectrum of human behavior. I've never had an experience where I thought there was some type of divine intervention. Do I hope there's a higher power? I would like to think so. But do I know there is? I absolutely don't. and which is, again, why I land back on being agnostic. I've had people send me Bibles.

I've had people send me books. I have, like I said, I've gone to church. I've had conversations with people who are deeply faithful. And I leave those conversations and experiences often, you know, refreshed and a renewed sense of, you know, what's possible when it comes to faith. But I'm not going to lie about how I feel. And I'm also not going to lie about the limits of my knowledge. I just don't know. So I have to land with.

landing in between. I'm not going to say I'm an atheist and I'm not going to say that I'm faithful because I don't believe that either of those describe me well and that's how I land at Agnostic. And that's it for the one year review on full Auto Friday. See you all on Monday. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thanks for taking the time to tune in, whether you're listening on an audio-only platform or you're watching on YouTube. I appreciate that you take the time every week to tune in. People ask me a lot, what can they do to help me spread the word? And the answer is actually embedded in the question.

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