Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Reflections on 47 years...

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

A single listener submitted question for this Friday episode. But first, some reflections on 47 laps around the sun, then: 1. How do you want to live your life? Do you want to avoid all risk, take every opportunity, or something in between?  Enjoy

Well, hello, everybody. Welcome back to today's episode. It's going to be not incredibly unique. That would be not truthful to say that. But we only have one question for today. And I'll explain why once we get going. Follow it off Friday number, who knows what. Let's get it on.

Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, one minute. Okay, so what was I talking about when I said the episode was going to be slightly unique, even though that's probably not the right word. Well, I tell you what, I do have a question selected for today, but it ties into what I want to open with. And I want to open with reflections on the last year of my life because I sit here today. It is Thursday, October 10th, which happens to be my birthday. I was born on 1010.

and that's been pretty easy to remember most of my life because I'm an idiot, but I can remember repeating numbers. So this morning, I woke up and somehow was 47 years old, which is an age that I didn't think I would ever arrive at. And I wasn't trying to be, you know, dark or, you know, foreboding. Would that be the right word? That's a word. I'm going to pretend that's the word that I'm looking for. When I was younger, I just had a different optic on time. And it seemed like people who were 30 were ancient, 40 were dinosaurs, and 50 probably put out to pasture, I think it would be. But here we are, 47 years old. I'm going to say this. Birthdays, to me, are not that big of a deal. I don't know if they ever have been. I deeply appreciated and wanted the presents when I was younger.

But I actually don't want anything for my birthday this year because I already have too much shit. I just have too much shit. I have too much clutter. I don't need anything else. I am by no means a rich man. But I do well enough that I can kind of get what I want to if I want to. And even with the ability to do that, I have learned that things and happiness, they're not often correlated. So I worried about a lot less.

I, all I could hope for, you know, one of my children is off in college, so I couldn't get a hug from my middle son. But my daughter happened to be staying with this last night. So it started super early this morning with a hug from my daughter, her telling me, happy birthday. I'm going to see my older son tonight, who turns 21 tomorrow. The day that this episode comes out, my oldest turns 21 fucking years old. and that is harder to wrap my mind around than being 47 myself. And of course, I could spend time with my wife, hugging a kiss from her as well, and from the wean. Javelin this morning was very loving.

He wanted to make out quite a bit. And it was consensual when he made out quite a bit. I like kissing my dog. He's friendly. And some people are judge you of that. And I don't know what to say about that. other than you might not be living your life in the best way. So 47, yeah, I don't feel 47. I can tell you that much for sure. And it has been an interesting 12 months in my life, as I think probably every one of them has been.

In the last 12 months, though, I had the first surgery that I've ever had in my life, first time ever being put under for anesthesia. a relatively major injury in Jiu-Jitsu for the first time of dislocating my shoulder, completely my fault, and it was accidental either way. So some health-related stuff and have decreased in size, I would say, the social circle that I spend time with, had probably one of the most challenging experiences in my life to date with a complete and utter personality change and shift in behavior from somebody that I thought I knew well. And if I'm being totally honest, that experience is still unsettling to me because it has gotten me to question my ability to read people and my ability to trust people. I will say that I have never been somebody who has had a large social circle, but I do care very deeply about the people who are in my social circle and to have a shift in behavior that was as drastic as what I experienced in the last 12 months.

That one rattled me a bit. I'm still working my way through that. And I'll talk in a little bit more about social circle and what it means to me anyway. But some health stuff. Some personal stuff. Professionally, the coffee shop is in its second year. I think the podcast, the podcast might be approaching eight years, which is wild. Because it doesn't feel like it's that long, for one. I really enjoy doing it. I don't feel like it's work at all. I love sitting down and having fascinating conversations with people about them and who they are and what they believe.

I love it. Jiu-jitsu is going well. super grateful to have an amazing partner in my wife Leah. The kids are doing well. They're on their own trajectories. Overall, it's been a very good year. The health stuff was a little bit intriguing to me. The intestinal blockage, I don't think I could have done anything about.

But I remember laying in the hospital post-surgery when they wouldn't let me drink water, which is, that is rough. And I'm going to be honest, I drank a little bit in the middle of the night because they would give me ice cups. And what I would do is I would put the ice cup up to my mouth and I would breathe on it until it melted a good amount of it. And then I would sip on it a little bit because I felt like I was doing 100K through the fucking Sahara Desert and there was no water. That was the worst. But I remember and I actually posted a picture of this. I had the water jugger thing with the straw in my hand and I had the bracelet on from the hospital. I was thinking in that moment, I don't ever want to feel that thirsty again.

And it got me ruminating in a good way on, I need to make some changes. And health-wise is one of the things where I have dedicated some effort for sure. I've been open about, I started TRT in January of 2024. So 10 months in at this point, spoiler alert, it's not, it is not Superman pills. It's not, it has changed my life a little bit. I feel like I can recover better. And I am working my way through the protocol that I am on. I specifically asked to be started off very slow so I could figure out the levers on the stereo to move up or down.

What I didn't want to do is go crazy to begin with and then have to back it off because there's a physiological and a psychological attachment to that feeling that way. And I didn't want to do that. So better, but a continuing process and journey. One of the things, though, that has happened because of that surgery and because of paying more attention to my hormones is I'm actually paying much more attention to my health and I'm being more scientific about it. I'm getting my blood drawn every three months, which is giving me a look at my levels. One of the things that I noticed in the blood draw, specifically was my fasting glucose.

I'm wearing a constant glucose monitor. I just put it on a couple days ago. to look at even just my dietary habits to try to treat it more like science. And for a week, I'm going to eat like I normally do. And it's already been incredibly interesting to see what my body is doing with the fuel source, regardless of me not being able to feel a difference. I had a carnia soda burrito at around noon today. It was fucking delightful.

I've had many carniasada burritos in my life. living in Southern California, probably safe to call it a staple. It was the fastest and highest spike in my blood sugar that I've seen so far. And, you know, there's obviously beans and rice and tortilla and all those things in there. I didn't feel any different, but I'm trying to look at this like science and understand how my body is responding to different type of fuels. I'm going to be looking at traditional meat, you know, from a grocery store, how my body responds to that versus the red meats specifically, to wild game, which is less fatty, to chicken, to fish, to dairy, and all of those things. And again, I'm early on in this, but this is all coming from actually

paying attention more based off what happened to me in the last 12 months. So that's one of the things that has been largely different in my life, flipping from 46 to 47 or in the 12 calendar months before being 47. So tonight we're going out to dinner with the kids, my dad, my dad, his wife, Leah, and Leah has a bank of three questions. She asks, what it's anybody's birthday. And I know that she's going to ask them to me tonight. And I've been thinking about my answers because we just had actually a birthday party of sorts this last weekend where two people were having their birthday and the questions were asked. And it gets you thinking about your own answers. And those answers tied right into my reflections on, you know, being this old, this close to death would probably be the way I would describe it.

The first question is, what's the heaviest thing you carry? And that is a broad question. And it's a deep question as well. And I think it's safe to say she is not talking literally. No, I'm not talking about a rucksack or a backpack. but what weighs on you the most? And I have had the same answer for as long as I can remember her asking me that question, and honestly I don't think it's going to change tonight.

My answer to that question, what is the heaviest thing that I carry, is that I constantly worry whether or not I am good enough. I don't know how to do any of the things that I do. I've never owned a business before. When opening the coffee shop was my first journey into having paid employees and having a business architecture and a business structure or designing a building or managing a construction process or hiring people. And I don't know how to do any of that stuff. And now we have 20, 30 people, some much more permanent than others as they're floating through. But at the end of the day, I don't know if I am good enough at what I do to make sure that that place survives so I can provide for them.

The podcast, I don't know how to do any of this shit. I do the best I can to be myself, but I'm constantly thinking of ways where I want to do better. here's an example. Filler words. I just used one. I said, uh, one of the words I'm trying to reduce from my vocabulary is the uses of the word like. I caught myself saying it far too much. And it's been a challenge to think just for a microsecond more before you speak by pulling that word out.

And I'm doing that because I want to be better at what I do with the podcast. I don't have crazy overarching goals. I'm not trying to make myself a millionaire off of this podcast. I'm certainly not trying to be somebody that I'm not. People would be shocked at some of the guests that I have actually said no to because I didn't agree with either the premise of the interview or the qualifications and quantifications that came with it or the individual. And I realize that that is limiting in some ways, but I don't know how to do any of this. I worry that I am not a good enough example for my kids. I worry that I am not a good enough partner for my wife because both my wife and my partner

deserve the absolute best. And if I'm being totally honest, I don't think of myself that way. I am an incredibly flawed person. I have made countless men. mistakes. And not only have I made countless mistakes, I've repeated mistakes that are pretty easily avoidable. And I just, you know, didn't correct my behavior. Actually, it's funny on that topic, Mike Glover, trick me into writing a book, essentially, in the past 12 months. And I wrote a book. And I'm almost done with the final draft. The publisher asked me to work on two chapters, and I did. And then it'll go out, have the four word written. And then it'll go out, have the four word written. then it'll go back to the publisher. It'll come out January, 2026. That book is a lot of the

mistakes that I have made in my life in the hopes that people don't repeat them. But I don't know if I'm good enough to write a book. I don't know if it's going to be well received. I don't know how to do it. I mean, I did it. I don't know if I did it well. That will be up to the judgment of other people. but that is what I worry about more than anything. I worry that I am not good enough to provide for the people that need me to be able to show up and perform. And I don't know if that's a healthy headspace, an unhealthy headspace. Again, I'll leave that for other people. It's a motivation for me.

You know, there's people that are motivated by praise and there's people that are motivated by the guillotine. I probably fall a little bit more into the latter category. I don't know if it's more anxiety inducing to be in that headspace or not. I don't know. I also don't know if I can change it. Again, I don't feel like it's unhealthy. This is not a cry for help by any means, anybody listening to this. I'm just trying to be honest about who I am and how I view the world. So that's the heaviest thing that I carry. And it touches everything that I do in my life. The next question that she will ask is, what are you the most grateful for? And, And for me, this is an easy one. I am most grateful for the people that are in my life, the people that are actually friends, close friends, family. My social circle is not large. I am not the most social butterfly. It does not fill my cup to go to large social engagements and have conversations with the variety of people that I don't know. I am not antisocial. It just does not fill my cup. I am probably a little bit.

more introverted than I am extroverted. Leah is actually probably a little bit more extroverted than she is introverted. It's an interesting balance because she can see it. She'll look over and be like, oh, you're ready to go, aren't you? And I will say, how did you know that? We only got here a mere five minutes ago. So again, it's comical and we manage it well, but I do deeply care about the people that are in my social circle. But I'm telling you as I get older, the social circle is getting smaller. I'm not interested in a hierarchy or peacocking or people trying to be something that they are not or going to an event or doing something just for a recognition or an elevation of status around a social circle. I don't want any of that shit. I don't think I ever did. But as the calendar

months and the years tick by, I don't want any of that. I want people that I can sit down and have a real conversation with about life. And they can talk about what's going well for them and they can talk about what's not going well for them. I mean, maybe a term for that would be vulnerability. They have the ability to drop the suit of armor because they know the person that they're talking to doesn't have knives out behind their back. They know that they're not at risk. And actually, the person that they're talking to deeply, deeply wants them to be successful. The number of people in my life that I probably thought would fall into that category when I was younger is at least 10x smaller now. And I'm not joking when I say that. Subtraction is infinitely more powerful than

addition for me when it comes to my social circle. And again, I'm not looking for reasons to push people away. I'm not saying that I'm not interested in meeting new people and having friendships with those people, I am just far more cautious who I allow into my closer rings of friends and family, is what I will call that. But those people that are there are what I am the most appreciative of in my life. And maybe this ties back into not wanting anything for my birthday, because what I am the least appreciative of in my life are things. truly i don't i don't care you could have the fanciest car you could gift me the fanciest car i would say

thank you of course and i'd be incredibly grateful but that's not where my happiness is going to come from i know that about myself i would enjoy myself while i'm driving it or an airplane a helicopter fucking fill in the blank with whatever it may be at the end of the day it is just a thing and i don't care about any of those things which all of them are replaceable maybe not from an economic perspective for each individual, but there are ways to find other things like that in your life. I just don't care. It means almost nothing to me. The third question, what do you want out of the next 12 months?

And this one, I actually, I don't know if I have a good answer on this one, because I enjoy what I do. Like I said, I love the podcast. I'm really enjoying the coffee shop. I am proud of what we built. I am proud of the fact that it is growing. I'm proud of the culture and the environment there. I love doing jiu-jitsu. I love hanging out with my wife and doing jiu-jitsu and traveling the world in doing jiu-jitsu with her.

So I don't want to add. I'm not against adding. Let's say that those were three legs of a triangle. I'm not really looking to make it into a square. I'm not looking for a fourth. And there's a good chance that I might be leaving. leaving out of fourth. So whatever geographic shape you wanted to start with, what I'm saying is I'm not against adding another corner or angle to that, but I'm not actively looking for it.

What I'm looking to do is maximize the things that I'm already doing. When I travel with my wife, I want to focus on being in the moment and enjoying not only what we are doing there as the activity, but our time together, the time with my kids. Same thing. Not only what we are doing as an activity, but meaningful time together. The business, I want to continue to see it grow, mostly so we could bring more people in and provide for them as well. It's really cool, I think, to own a business that provides a means of economic survival for people. And for clarity, we have bristas working for us, right? I'm not, I'm not putting anybody through Harvard on what we pay them, but we're providing 20 to 30 jobs in an area where I live directly. And I think that's awesome.

Jiu-jitsu. I mean, I suck at it, but I love it. I would like to, my goal for the next 12 months, work on, work towards technical perfection, which isn't possible. But it's the opposite of relying on attributes. size, strength, weight. All of those things are real, by the way. And anybody who tells you that they're not as full as shit. But stripping those things away and an understanding of the art itself and timing and application of technique, which I think will actually help with anybody rolling into the later years of their life. Because size and strength are definitely going to go.

Weight, depending on your diet, may not go down, might go up. But the attributes are variable. knowledge, timing, technique. I think all those things can be like a secret weapon in your pocket. And that's what I want for the next 12 months. I want to optimize and enhance the things that I have and focus on those things. So it's a cool bank of questions. Now, the question I have for today, full out of Friday, ties into this a little bit.

And I'll explain why. So let's get into it. My wife and I feel stuck. We have a two-year-old daughter with another girl on the way, and we both make 100K to 150, K per year. But we live in Southern California. A quick Google search shows that 100K per year is considered low income in California. That shit's real. You could have a multi-income family, both at 150K. And as crazy as it sounds to anybody that doesn't live in Southern California, that that is low income or that you would be struggling to find an affordable place to live,

it's real. I've seen it, I've experienced it, I get it. I have a job in orthopedic device sales, and she works remotely. We want to leave but feel stuck because our families are here. My job is almost entirely relationship-based, and we both grew up within 20 miles of where we live now. So the thought of relocating to an area where we don't know a single person is almost overwhelming, even though we are so focused on our daughter and our lives that we hardly see family or friends. We also despise California politics, but again, feel stuck based on my work and how close we are to family. We know that we want to leave one, we know that we want to leave California one day, eventually, just not sure when or where to. Any advice on navigating this would be appreciated.

Do we stick around until the kids are older? Do we just leave now? Should I try and find a job before relocating or after relocating since my wife will keep hers? Thanks for your time. How does this tie into what I was talking about already? Well, it ties in because you have to ask yourself for the person that wrote this email. how do you want to live your life? There's an argument to be made for living a life based on safety and security and a strong foundation. That's what you want to make your, the premise of

how you build your life. There's pros and cons, and I'm not going to argue either of those. I'm just going to give you some options. Another one could be living your life more in the moment, taking every opportunity that presents itself in paying a little bit less attention to the long-term potential impact of those things and really focusing on what is currently presenting you an opportunity right there in your face. That's pros and cons to that side as well. How do you want to build the foundation of your structure with your spouse moving forward? Now, eventually I'm going to get to a place assuming I live to 147, which is my goal. As I get older, and I think as everybody gets older, you start to realize that at some point in time,

you're not going to get to answer those three questions anymore. Because your time has come and gone. And when I am on my deathbed, there are two things that I don't want to experience. The first one is a feeling of a regret. I don't want to regret the choices that I made in life. I don't want to regret the person that I was. And I don't want to regret not taking the opportunities that were presented to me. The second one is, is I don't want to be disappointed.

I don't want to be disappointed in the experiences that I had because all I can think about are the ones that I passed on. I don't want to be disappointed and concerned about the path that I didn't take, the risks that I didn't take. I can't imagine a worse end of knowing that the end is near, and you are regretful and disappointed in the life that you lived. Now, I am only talking specifically about me, and I'm going to answer this question as if it was me in this situation, which is easy to do because I don't actually have to live this, right? But this is how I would do it. To me, knowing that that's not how I want to be on my deathbed, like I mentioned, I would never feel locked in place.

You mentioned that you live close to your friends and family, but you hardly get to see them because you're so focused on your daughter and your lives. You have a two-year-old daughter and one on the way. So you have, call it two kids under three. As your children get older, you're probably going to want to settle a little bit so they can get their own roots underneath themselves and develop a social circle and a community of their own. When that happens, you're going to have to do the same thing, right? You're going to have to stop from a living perspective, meaning where you actually live. because I think it is a little bit unsettling to move around multiple times as kids are in those formative ages.

But between two and three, guess what? You got nothing but runway in front of you. You are at a time in your life where you could take this opportunity and throw a fucking dart at the United States. Now, if it lands in the middle of like the desert in Arizona, pull the dart out and throw it again. Right? Like to give you some ideas, you don't have to actually go where the desert. the dart hits, but maybe as it hits that map, it inspires you because you have an interest in something that's nearby. What is stopping you? Ask yourself this. Is there anything that's

going to happen to you in life, let's say from an economic or job perspective, that's going to stop you from being able to make money? Are you willing to reinvent yourself? Are you willing to start over? Are you willing to go somewhere unknown into the future and figure it the fuck out when you get there. Because if you are, if you are unwilling to stop and you're willing to grind, I guarantee you wherever that dart lands, you're going to be okay. Could you potentially make less money? Yes. Could you potentially be happier making less money? Fuck yes, you can. Things, right? What's the, you know, probably the most powerful philosopher of our time, Bradley Pitt, in the documentary Fight Club said the things that we own end up owning us. Obviously, I'm joking about

the few statements before that, but there's some truth to that. Freeing yourself up from those things is exactly that. It's freedom in a lot of ways. Yes, you have young kids. Yes, it's going to be difficult. Are they going to remember any of the struggles? Nope, they certainly are not. You have a few years where you can fuck around and find out. And if I was in your shoes, that is what I would do. Now, there's a difference between taking risk and gambling. When you throw the dart at the board, don't pull it out and then get in the car and drive straight there. Do some research, right? Look at options, pros and cons.

You're assessing, analyzing, and maybe being able to mitigate risk. Gambling would be throwing it on the map and then pulling it out and just going without any foreshadowing, without any thought. And I'm not saying do that, even though you could, especially for single people, younger in their life, fucking giddy up. Throw a bunch of darts. You have people that rely upon you. So it really goes back to, for me, I'm looking at this. You know, that's good that your friends and family are that close. You don't get to see them anyway.

We live in a beautifully interconnected world where you can face time almost every day. And airplanes are a real thing. I flew on one yesterday from New York back to Callisbell. So you can travel when needed. And also, your family can travel to see you as well. There are solutions to these very, very first world problems. I'd say get ballsy. if it were me, I would go. I would look at what really matters. Is it money or is it experiences? Is it money? Is it

adventure? Is it money or is it the ability to see what is over the horizon, even though you don't currently know what you can see? And then you get there and you realize, oh shit, that was a mistake. And you have a choice. Do you go back to where you came from or do you go over the next horizon and see what is over there? To me, it's horizon to horizon. That's what I would do at that stage in life. even at my own stage in life. Like I said, I'm trying to do optimization of the things that I do, but I'm not against suggestions or opportunities that come my way. I will take them if they make me curious enough, even though I don't know what's over

that horizon. What's the worst case scenario? Fucking turn around and come back. Or you get a little bit more adventurous with it and you go over the next one. So that is how I would take this. There's no right or wrong answer to your question. ask yourself, how do you want to look back on your life when you're on your deathbed? And the answer to that is going to be the roadmap for what I think you should do with this question.

And that's all I have for today.