Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - What Would It Take To Change Your Mind

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

Food for thought, what does it take to change someone's mind? Why do we believe in the things that we do? Is it even possible to change someone's mind, or do they have to arrive at that point on their own? In the second half of the episode, I address two listener-submitted questions, both touching on the challenges of navigating relationships as life and environments shift around you. Up first is a couple that uprooted their lives for new opportunities, only to find one partner unhappy in the new situation and facing a lack of motivation and satisfaction. The second question is a shift in gears towards the dynamics of apologies within a long-term marriage. How can one effectively disengage after making amends, especially when it feels like forgiveness is just out of reach? Wolf 21- Check out what they have to offer for the best sleep of your life: https://www.thewolf21.com Use Code: "clearedhot" for 30% off of your 1st order The Speed of War Comic Series: https://www.thespeedofwar.com/ Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/

It's Friday, so you know we're going to do a little bit of Q&A. We're going to do a little bit of food for thought. But before I get into that, for those of you who have never listened or watched the podcast, the single sponsor is Black Rifle Coffee. It's a brand that I love. I love the people behind it. I love the brand. I love what it stands for. And I also love the UFC.

So this is a perfect collaboration. I don't actually care about the partnership with the UFC as much. What I really like about the partnership is that it is designed to support the Hunter. Seven Foundation. And if you've been listening in, I'd say, about the last 12 to 24 months, there has been a rising tide of voices talking about hazardous exposure to things like burn pits and chemicals or just what military members are exposed to in a 20-year campaign, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the cancer that is coming from that. The Hunter 7 Foundation, I'm not even going to begin to describe exactly what they do. I will say they exist to try to

tackle that. And it's not that it's a solvable problem. but to deal with the issues that can come from that. And that's what I dig about the partnership because the more awareness the black rifle can get of their organization, the more they can dedicate to that Hunter 7 foundation. They make great gear, meaning black rifle coffee, whether it's, you know, the hat I'm wearing right now, this t-shirt you unfortunately can't get. It's from the triple 7 expedition. But they have everything you want from things you can make coffee with, drink coffee out of, get coffee delivered to your house, whatever it may be. They do great content as well, and because they are having a celebration and announcement of this partnership,

if you go to their website, black rifle coffee.com, and you use the code at checkout, cleared hot, all uppercase, all one word, you're going to get 30% off of your order. So there's that. And if you do that, guess what? The money's going to trickle its way towards the Hunter 7 Foundation. Okay. Shall we get into this? Shall we get into what it takes?

Let's go. I'm looking at danger. All right, everyone. If you clicked on the episode because of the thumbnail and you want to know what it takes or what I'm actually talking about, this stems from last Friday's episode where I opened more than anything just kind of discussing my own thought process and trying to verbalize the questions that I ask myself or the questions that I ask other people when I have conversations. And I really like the idea of doing it.

and I really don't like the idea of telling people what to think. And I'm considering kind of just changing on Fridays, maybe just always opening with a little bit of food for thought and leaving people with, hopefully, some inspiration to spend time with not only themselves and consider these things, talk with other people and formulate their own opinions and beliefs, as opposed to waiting for somebody to tell them what they should believe or do or the actions that they should take. The thumbnail, right? It's Biden and Trump. I can't think of a more divisive topic right now inside of the U.S. And it's not like it just started yesterday. It's been going on for a while, probably since the first time that they ever squared off. And it stems from, the title stems from, just as a thought experiment, what would it take for you? And what does it take for me to change my mind on something? and how deeply do you understand the belief that you have? And what a great time to talk about Biden and Trump. It hasn't achieved full election psychosis yet. At least there is still some other news that is breathing or bleeding through depending on how you look at it.

But in the future, I think it's going to get more intense because, of course, the election is in November. But I find it interesting, listening to or engaging in conversations already with people not, I guess it would be. about politics. But in the U.S. specifically, who they support and why, whether it be Biden and the Democratic Party or Trump and the Republican Party. And it is and has been for me very fascinating because I am coming to the conclusion for my own personal belief that oftentimes people are having a very difficult time separating the person from the policies. And I don't know if that's a good thing. I think there are pros and cons to policies and there are pros and cons to individuals and specifically the way they conduct themselves in a leadership position. And that is kind of what I

wanted to open with and talk about. So my own personal belief on the two individuals outside of their policies. When I look at Trump, I have a very strict set of criteria that I use to rate leaders on the way that they conduct themselves and their leadership style. And Trump fails every single one of those. He is certainly a character that acts very different than politicians have traditionally acted. And a lot of people will say, well, he's not a politician. And I hate to remind those people that he actually held the office of the United States, which is a political office. So maybe he wasn't before, but this is the arena that he plays in now. Not that that's incredibly important, but I think it is important to remember.

He is not somebody who I think I would allow into my life. And from a social interaction, I don't care about the level of wealth. I don't care about really anything other than the way that he conducts himself in that leadership role, the vernacular that he chooses to use. And if I had the choice, which I don't, right, so it doesn't actually matter. But it's not somebody that I would allow into my personal life. On the other side of that is Biden, who I think it would be easy to say is a more polished statesman. But I don't know if a life in politics, having been in politics longer than he has been out of politics, is actually a good thing.

And as somebody who is just trying to be a general empathetic person, my heart hurts. for the individual and the pressure that he is under in the current state that he is in. And I am making that statement having no interaction with the person, having no medical background, no ability to rate somebody other than with my own two eyes and my own two ears. I also do a good amount of public speaking, so I understand the pressure in that environment. I understand miss speaking from time to time. I do it all the time on this podcast. But there is a difference between miss speaking from time to time and what every,

everybody is able to hear and see, you can either acknowledge that it exists or doesn't, I think you'd be bouncing up against the objective truth if you would want to argue one way or the other, of an individual that is on the decline from a physical perspective and a cognitive perspective. And that's okay, because we're all going to get to that point. You had the pressure of the job, the public spectacle, the magnifying glass of everything that you say and do. I don't think that's a life that any of us would want. And again, I'm just viewing this to the lens of being an empathetic person stripping all policy away. I wish that he didn't have that pressure on him. I wish that not that I want him to be removed from the job, but for his best interest, just again, as a person, not a politician, would that be better for him? I don't know. I have my concerns. outside of that, you know, the life in politics, the amount of information that has swirled around him and his family, I pay a little bit of attention too. I think it doesn't surprise me that people in politics become corrupted or they're corrupted before they go into it and utilize the system for their own personal gain, either individually or for their family. So that doesn't surprise me, but I don't like it. So I have equal levels of criticism for different reasons, both of those candidates. You know, maybe that's a good turning point for, the food for thought. As a open-ended broad question, I'm curious what people think is better for our country. I am not Nostradamus, nor do I think Nostradamus actually was Nostradamus, not the person itself, but people seem to forget all the things that he got wrong.

But I think it's safe to say that unless something pretty drastic changes, the final two choices that we're going to have for president of the United States will likely be Donald Trump and Joe Biden. We could argue, discuss the, you know, what it means that those are the two final candidates in our country, but let's save that for another time. And let's say that those are the two candidates we have to choose from. What is better for our country? Somebody that most people would say have a stronger U.S. policy, a more U.S. centered policy. But poor communication. They fail every metric of what I would consider to be solid leadership tactics, techniques, and procedures. and the global optic that may come with that, or is it better to have somebody that would have maybe less U.S.-centric policies? And again, there's a whole conversation about what is or isn't what the pros and cons of those are. We can shove that to the side. But a weaker U.S.-centric policy, but the person is more of a statesman in the traditional terms, has a communication style that is a little bit more, I guess, palatable in that arena or less, I don't know, jarring. I don't know the correct word for that. And that comes from a life in politics. Not for me to say,

which one is right or wrong. I'm curious what people think of that. And it's been interesting to me to listen to and engage in conversations with people around politics, which is something I largely avoid. But there is a repeating narrative and theme. And that is there is an unwillingness or inability to separate the person from the policies. They both have to be tied. And I'm not a fan of the belief that criticism and support are mutually exclusive. I think you should be able to, even if you have things that you agree with, I mean, I think we can all agree that nothing is perfect, even might have the best of intentions. Why is it that criticism of something that you support? is always viewed through the lens of trying to chop it down, as opposed to criticism of something

that you may support. Why can't it be more viewed through the lens of trying to improve something that you already maybe like or agree with, but could lever that to the next level? And again, I don't have the answer to that. And when it comes to politics, especially in the current era, I'm curious what it would look like if we were to remove the two, people that we had the opportunity to vote for. And instead, we had to look at the policies that they would present blind. And maybe that would be a better way to do this. I understand it's probably not possible to do so. But I would say the two people that we will likely have the ability to vote on are very, what is the word that I'm looking for? Polarizing. And there is a

trench and tranche of support on either side of that. And I don't know if that is necessarily healthy. I'm just fascinated as to what people would say removing those two figureheads and you had to do it blind. Would that be a better way to determine the trajectory for the United States? And I'll be the first to admit that the person implementing those policies has a large hand in that as well. And they could take a great idea and augured in. because of their behavior and choices, or they could take a poor idea and they could improve it, evolve, it, innovate it, and make it better through their choices as well. So, again, stripping that from the side,

I'd love to examine the candidates as opposed to through the lens of who the actual person is, who I am of the belief. The president of the United States is not actually the most powerful person in the world. They might have the seat that looks like that, but it's the people that they have working with

their cabinet, their staff, and all of those things. Would it change anybody's mind? if you just had to look at it blind. Would that be a better way? I don't know. Food for thought. What I know is that our country right now seems to be the most divided that it's ever been.

And the final question that I will maybe leave people with, and this is the one that I keep asking myself, is who benefits from that division? Do the citizens of the United States benefit from division and arguing and infighting in our country? Or do the politicians and the people empower benefit from that because we're too distracted to actually pay attention to what they're doing. It's a good question.

Maybe we'll leave it on that. Food for thought. All right. So into the episode, I get asked one question over and over and over again, very consistently. Hey, do you ever get any crazy emails? And literally, right before I sat down to record this episode, I got one. So I'm going to share it with you because this is the kind of stuff that I get. Subject line, psychic weapon attack focused on Andy Stumpf.

You had me at hello. Let's go on a journey together. My astrobi was modified by Memorial University, Eastern Health, the RCMP, and the Canadian military in St. John's NL, Canada. This was also facilitated by the dark web app clubhouse. This was done to me for the purpose of selling me either to the Americans or Chinese, but my brain had already mutated and that process never worked with me. During the past week, my astrobi was remodified at Memorial University once again, and they installed sensors on my astral body. Cut off a cut off a huge of its head. Their words not mine, but this person is totally sane, so we'll just go with it.

And installed a box in the back of my astrobi. This was done for the purposes of the NDP politicians using my astrobi as an energy source for the upcoming election. Specifically, I apologize for this. Yagmite Singh and Toronto Ontario, Ontario Mayor Olivia Chow. She's a big recipient. The Chinese and Iranians and the LGBT radical activists are deeply involved in what is being done. done with me in St. John's NL and are closely connected to the NDP politicians. Yesterday, there was a massive effort to use my psychic weapon, astral body to attack Andy Stumpf

and drain energy from him. I was wondering why I was so fucking tired. The technology system even interacts with my face and applies an image of another person's face over mine, making me form an emotional connection with that person and creates an energy suction symptom after forming an emotional connection. yesterday Memorial University and the Canadian military were putting Andy Stump's face over my face. It was later shown, I was later shown images of Andy Stump's body in that box. They had attached to my remodified astral body. And it was communicated to me that I was supposed to suck Andy Stump's energy and maybe even his astral body into that box for other people to access Andy Stumpf.

The other people looking to access Andy Stump are most likely the Chinese working at Memorial University. The Chinese are also deeply involved with the Canadian military in St. John's NL to the point where it should be called the Chinese military. The American military and intelligence community know lots of information about me and my astrobody. And my astral body has been almost everywhere and had everything done to it. It's been to NASA, space, American military bases, labs, and interacted with by almost everyone involved with UAPs. Yesterday, besides Andy Stump, the focus was also on Chris Miller and to a lesser extent Sean Ryan and Ed Calderon. I've written many emails to Sean Ryan and the vigilant elite support team about what's happening with me and wrote to them about the Chinese Memorial University and the Canadian military using me to target Andy Stumpf.

To make sure that Andy Stump was informed about his being targeted, I am writing to him. I fight back against how this technology system tries to use me and I don't let them use me as a psychic weapon against people. I think the Chinese military had big plans on how they were going to use this, but thankfully as time progresses, their efforts are not successful. If no one from the vigilant elite support team or Sean Ryan has contacted you about that information, you may wish to contact them. Some of the sophisticated technology used on me as Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, but I am not sure about this new setup. Good luck, staying safe. Signed, I'm not going to read the name. Maybe I should have left this one in the Food for Thought section.

Crazy? We're no. It's fun having your email out there in the public domain because sometimes this is really. what you get. Shall we answer some questions? Let's do it. I got two short ones for today. All right. Before I get in both of these, these are kind of relationship-based questions. I know I get these quite a bit, but let me be clear. I'm not actually a relationship specialist. I'm not a therapist or counselor of any kind. I answer these questions through my own experiences in life. Hopefully they help you. If it doesn't apply to you, then you know what?

Move on. And maybe something next Friday will. Okay, here we go. My girlfriend and I have been together for just over two years. We met in Wisconsin. Everything was great, but she moved. made it clear from the start. She didn't want to stay there because she doesn't like the cold, and Wisconsin didn't offer anything for her career. Fast forward a couple months, and her mom passes away. Needless to say, that rocked her world in the worst way. Fast forward, even more, I was traveling out of the state for work when she asked me to move across the country. I was fed up with my job and said, fuck it, let's try something new. Now, here we are, across the country from our families, in a place where the price of living is extremely high. I have found a good job with a construction

company and management, and I'm loving it. I wake up and I get it. I get it. I get a place. I it after it. She, on the other hand, seems to now regret it and is constantly complaining about how little she makes, how she hates her job, and how she doesn't know what she wants. The once motivated girl I fell in love with is now constantly overwhelmed and is a little longer motivated. While I am used to operating at a million miles per hour, prioritizing and executing things efficiently, I can't get her to buy into the same sort of thing. Is it too late? Am I sealed into a vicious cycle of constantly building her up? Any advice is greatly appreciate it. Keep up the good work. Okay. Have you considered that your girlfriend is still dealing

with the passing of her mom? Again, from somebody who is not an expert in any of this, grief manifests itself in ways and in timelines that are not linear. So although you describe yourself as somebody who moves a million miles an hour and you prioritize and execute, first off, take a fucking wrap off. Okay, like I appreciate it. But God damn, man, like, make sure you're taking some time to enjoy life a little bit too. Your girlfriend obviously is not capable of doing that right now. And what I would say to you is perhaps every one of these critiques is 100% valid. I'll give you that. And even if they were and you had like overwhelming evidence to support that, I would say to you, if you want to continue to be with this person, if you think that the person that you fell in love with

that you described, hold on a sec, excuse me, fighting off a cold unsuccessfully, it seems like, if you believe that that person that you fell in love with is still there, I would challenge you to change your mindset from being able to list out the things that you think she's falling short on and start being able to list out the things that you still love her for or that you fell in love with her for. Start looking for her victories as opposed to the things where she's fallen short.

Because I'm going to tell you right now, under enough scrutiny, we're all going to fall apart. nobody's perfect and you are right now in a phase of your life where it seems like you're firing on all cylinders you're going to find yourself at a phase in your life where that's not going to be the case and it's a rough optic when people turn that level of scrutiny back on yourself so all of these things might be true but dude like give it a beat give it a breath i'm not saying you need to do everything for your significant other and you know it's possible if not likely She might not be capable of operating at the level that you are.

I mean, people are a different being, like we're a mixed bag. You never know what you're going to get. But if you find somebody who is exactly the same at you as you, right on. If you find somebody that's not, you can either accept that difference or you can resign yourself to being unhappy for the rest of your life. So I'm not telling you to accept these things. but there are some things in the space she's at right now she can probably improve and others where it may not be appropriate or she may not have the ability to do so. My biggest piece of advice to you would be this.

Have meaningful, deep conversations with her and listen. I would suggest that you find somebody that she could maybe talk to. And I would also suggest couples counseling because you can at least have somebody else in the room, who is a neutral third party that could maybe help you guys navigate the differences that you are seeing in this person now versus what you saw in Wisconsin. And you may want to, in that environment, ask her what differences she sees in you, right? All of this is through your lens. I'd be curious to see, say, curious to see.

Yeah, curious to see. I'd be curious to see what she says in the other direction. my suspicion is that she wouldn't be capable of it right now because I really do think a lot of this has to do with the grieving process for her mom. It's like I wish it was easy and you could we're going to grieve for a month and then we're going to be on with it and we're going to move on with our life and pick up back at our full capacity. That's just not what I've seen. It's not linear. It's not the same for everybody and it can come like a sine wave, peaks and valleys and you don't get to really choose, you know, the strength and the amplitude and the frequency. It's,

it's rough. A vicious cycle of constantly building her up. I don't think a long-term relationship would exist if you were constantly building her up with no end state associated with that. But from what your email is describing is somebody who needs help and they need support. And sometimes you need to put your own shit aside. to help somebody in that environment. I feel like the woman that you fell in love with is still in there, but right now I think she needs your support and not your criticism. So I know this email is about her,

but why don't you pull your head out of your ass and actually start thinking about her as opposed to complaining about the impact that is having on you? Question two. Andy, long-time listener, please don't use my name. Well, you didn't include it, so I can't. That's not even fun. Who's that fun for? Not me. Not for you. I'm looking for strategies to help me disengage from my wife of 20 years after I apologize. For the most part, she accepts my apology and it's over.

There are times when, to me, it feels like she is just grinding it in. It almost feels as if she thinks when I apologize five times over a 20-minute time frame, then I can be released back into society again. In some of these cases, when I try to disengage, she'll try to keep it going by saying things like, you act so childish that's right walk away and ignore the problem things won't get better between us until you start taking responsibility for your actions i am looking forward to your insight and experience i don't have insight and i don't have well i have my own personal experience again not a relationship counselor um this sucks there are degrees of that that are passive aggressive and there are degrees of that that are very aggressive. I don't care who you are. I don't care who you are with.

There's going to be conflict. There are going to be times when you have to apologize because human beings are idiots. We're all idiots from one time or another. You're always going to fall short at some point in your life from the person somebody else wants you to be and the person that you were capable of being in that moment. And that is okay. I have heard people say apologies are a sign of weakness. And that is one of the dumbest things that I've ever heard a human being say. Because when you can recognize

that you are wrong and you can step up in front of that and clearly say to somebody, I'm sorry. I've fucked up and I want to be a better person. Obviously the next critical step is becoming or being that better person

because if you don't, your words are completely hollow and meaningless. That's a sign of strength to me. I've heard apologies as I just having a conversation with my wife kind of about this and disagreements. Excuse me. She said what she has heard is validate, apologize, and move on.

And I don't know where that comes from, but I like it. You're having a disagreement with somebody. You make a mistake. Somebody comes to you and they tell you that you have done something that made them feel in a way that they didn't appreciate. validate, validate, apologize for the behavior, and then move on. That's what you should be able to do in a healthy relationship that has healthy communication. Somebody chasing you down and saying to you, that's right, walk away, ignore the problem,

or things won't get better between us until you start taking responsibility for your actions. Not that I would recommend that you do this, but I'm curious how she would respond if that was turned around to her in a mirror. and she was on the receiving end of that. My suspicion is that it wouldn't be well. And I'm not a person that would be able to rate the health of your relationship, but these are unhealthy exchanges inside of that relationship. And they're not going to get better unless you address them. And I'm going to recommend the same thing for you that I did the previous email.

You need to find a couples counselor. And you need to have somebody in between you that can provide an objective lens to you being on the receiving end of these things. to you being on the receiving end of these things that can hopefully restructure your communication into a healthy range because this isn't healthy. 20 years is a long time being married, but the sunken cost fallacy is very real. I put so much time into this that I just can't move on and do something else. And I am not telling you that you should get a divorce. I'm just talking broadly.

I know couples who say things like, well, we've been together for X amount of time period. What else am I going to do? I don't know. How long do you want to be uncomfortable for? How long do you want to be miserable for? Because if it's been that way for 20 years, do you really want to do another 20? Which is like the extreme example. I mean, a better question is, do you really even want to do it one more time?

Do you want to do it for one more day, one more week, one more month, one more year? I mean, I've fallen for it. I've fallen 100% fallen for. I've been at this for so long and I'm just going to stick it out. And that just is dog shit because we don't get our time back. If you spend our time in this environment, that's where your time's going. There's no refund on that thing. I think sometimes when you've been together for somebody for a long period of time and two decades is, of course, a long period of time, you can kind of lose compassion for them a little bit because it almost seems like it's casual. You've known them for so long. You've had so many conversations. And I think it's really insidious. And I think it's really insidious. think it's really dangerous and it has to be guarded against. Love is an amazing thing. Marriage is an amazing thing. But they both require work.

And if you don't put work into it, like, you know, not that I'm a gardener, but if you don't water things, I'm pretty sure that they die. Water and put them in the sunlight. Relationships are the same way. I wonder if she talked to you like this when you guys were first together. My suspicion would be she probably didn't. So maybe it's time to pull the plant back into the sunlight, give it some fertilizer. give it some water. A gardener should do that, right? Because you guys are each plants. You need to find a

gardener that can do that and it's not going to come from you guys arguing together or organically. I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm going to tell you right now that's a long fucking road to hoe. So invest back in your relationship and fix these issues so your next email doesn't come and it says, my wife of 30 years or 25 years with the same problems. These won't fix themselves. And I don't know enough about your relationship, nor is it my place to put blame on to anybody. But I think most people could recognize that these are not healthy communication patterns. Do the best you can to fix them. If she's unwilling to fix them, well, then you have some deeper questions. That is how valuable is your time and how much time do you want to invest in an environment like this? And only you can

answer that. So hopefully that helped. And I'll see you all on Monday.