Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 430 - Founder of Acton Academy Matt Beaudreau

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

Matt Beaudreau is the host of the Essential11 Podcast, TedX speaker, as well as CEO and founder of Acton Academy Placer. Acton Placer is an education center that is centered around every child embarking on their own “Hero’s Journey”, and having the freedom to grow, enjoy, and experiment with their own learning. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Freeze Sleeve: https://freezesleeve.com/ Use Code "POWER25" for 25% off plus FREE Shipping on all domestic orders! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mark Wells Power Project podcast. Today's episode of the podcast is brought to you by our homies at FreeSleeve. You know, the funny thing is the other day I was looking up LeBron James recovery because you know how that guy spends millions of dollars on his body and I saw pictures of like ice packs on his knees. Like it's like ice plastic bags around his knees. I thought he was the best. I thought he was the best.

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At checkout, enter promo code POWER25 for 25% off your order and free domestic shipping. For us to start the show, right, Matt? I've got the whole thing. Okay, good. I got it all. Dial it in. Wait, right, Matt? Dude, I've got the whole thing. Okay, good. I got it all. Dialed in. Wait, legit, he's going to freestyle?

No, that would be sick, though, wouldn't it? Imagine if he did. I was like, wait, what? Imagine if he did. He'd be like, whoa. Yeah. I mean, I don't think he is.

I mean, I don't know. He's full of surprises. I don't know if there's anything like that. I'll come ready with one for next time, dude. Yeah, there you go. It's like, what are you guys teaching over there? Yeah, that's right. It's like, what are you guys teaching over there?

Yeah, that's right. It's all freestyle over there. Absolutely. That'd be sick. Are we rocking and rolling? We're rolling and rocking. All right. All right, Matt.

So I got an opportunity to go visit your place. I don't know how to say your last name, so I need to. Dude, I don't either. We say Boudreaux. Is it French or something? What's going on? It's called French, dude. Yeah, we say Boudre bodro which is super california

hanging up it's not budro it might be how come there's not like an x shouldn't there be an x in there anytime so if i speak in in france or i go speak in canada they say it all wow you know but um they say it really nice they say it really nice i'm like that's awesome yeah so anybody gets close to say it i probably is dude but if anybody gets close i just nod my head give us uh give us some of your background before we dive into this uh really really interesting Maybe that's how close to say it. Probably is, dude. But if anybody gets close, I just nod my head. Give us some of your background before we dive into this really, really interesting school that you have. I know you have like an MMA background. You've got a sports background, some working out background.

So give us a little bit of your background, maybe where you grew up and stuff like that. Yeah, for sure, man. Local-ish, so Vacaville. And so Dennis Alexio was the man in Vacaville. So have you ever seen Kickboxer? Let me move this over a little bit so you stay in front of it. Yeah, you bet. So Kickboxer, right, with Van Damme. So the guy that played his brother.

They get crippled a bit, so that's my coach. So I grew up with him and Kickboxing. So Kickboxing was my thing growing up. But was a good athlete, football, basketball, all that good stuff. Did the normal kid stuff and got done with high school and was like, cool, man. Now what? I got my straight A's, but I got nothing. I can't stop thinking about this Van Damme movie.

Hold on a second. So your coach, though, after you've known your coach for a long time, you're like, this is bullshit. My coach, no one's crippling his spine. That's it, right? That was the thing, dude. When we were younger, we watched it. We're like, dude, kickboxer fires us up, but Dennis would have beat the shit out of both of these dudes. Like, there's no way.

He would have killed everybody in the whole set, right? Like, screw Van Damme. Like, he would have crushed all these dudes, right? He was a bad dude. He's a legit bad dude. I'm pretty sure he's in prison, but he's legit. I think he is now. But he was a stud, you know? And back then i mean he was he was the man to beat so um but yeah man

you know i did the normal stuff dude got all my straight a's and and uh but got out of school and i was like cool i can i can play school i can talk to girls i'm a decent athlete but that's it all right like i got nothing off the world. Guess I'll go to college, dude. So I go to college and played the same game. So played that game, got my straight A's and got better at girls and got better at sports and was like, cool, I still have nothing to offer the world. And so my senior year was, so I was graduating in 2002. So 2001, obviously September 11th, 2001, right?

So that hit and I'm like, okay, well, I'm doing kinesiology because I like sports. But I got no direction, man. So I actually applied at that point and started going through the background process for Secret Service. And that's what I was going to do. And so I went through that whole thing and was offered a job at the White House. And that's where I was going to go as soon as I graduated. So I ended up talking to a Secret Service agent. I was going to graduate in May of 2002. So i talked to him in it was like april um and i'd already had the job offer and

was like all right man uh he's like don't do it um and there was a longer tail story on that and he's like you're gonna sacrifice your integrity i know you're a good dude like don't do this and i'm like all right cool i would imagine you have to turn the other way sometimes when your moral values are compromised and that's basically what you're getting paid for it right you're getting paid to do exactly that yeah and so that's kind of what he laid out so i'm like all right cool i will take your advice i won't do it and now i'm unemployed what exactly about what he said made you be like i don't want to do that i'm just kind of curious about that yeah so there was a little bit of an, he alluded to just a game being played, right?

And so he's like, everything that you're getting through mainstream media isn't all, you know, a lot of times it's just versions of the truth. I don't think it's anything that was, you know, anybody was unaware of. But what really hit was that he was saying, look, dude, I know you. He's known me since I was young. He says, I know you. He's like, you don't separate from what you believe and and you'll have to hear you'll have to play this game and it's an integrity thing dude and you're not going to dig that you know so it was really that man so i trusted him

and and um you know i'm glad i did so um you were going to be like the next jack bauer and shit right jack was going to be the first matt bodrum that's the way it was going to go man so yeah um so ended up pulling out of that. And I had met some dudes kind of in the mixed martial arts realm there. You know, I'd always kickbox, right? So, I was walking in the Chico State Gym right before graduation, and I see these guys in there, and they're wrestling around, and they're... And it was kind of new at the time.

MMA type stuff. It was really new at the time. There really wasn't a whole lot going on. You didn't know who could beat who. Kickboxing, jiu-jitsu. No idea. Wrestling. Exactly. So, I see these kind of skinny little dudes and i'm like oh this is cool so i'm gonna walk in there and just kind of you know it's just this basic mat room dude so i i just walk in

and i was with my other buddy and i'm like oh there's some bags and stuff too so i go over and i'm kicking the bags and you know sure i i had stand up so i'm kicking the bags and i was like hey man you guys you know do you want to roll? And a couple of skinny little dudes. And I'm like, sure. And just got my ass. You're like, I'm going to kill these guys. Watch this, dude. Yeah.

I was like, hey, guys, my coach was Dennis. No, I didn't start with that. But I was like, you know, I got this, dude. Got just destroyed. You know, got destroyed. And I'm like, dude, this is awesome. Just choked out, tapped out in every way possible. Quickly.

Dude, quickly. And so I'm like, okay i gotta i gotta see what you're doing so i ended up finding out one of these guys was one of the original lions den guys uh ken sharon rocks whole crew right and so um that just kind of turned that on for me so i started my ground game still sucks um it's you know it's not it's not upper echelon by any stretch but i trained with him long enough and um started getting into some local fights and uh you know, just kind of rolled with that for a while. So it was cool, man. Tell me about some of those local fights because I'd imagine things were probably a little sketchy back then. Dude, so sketchy. Are you in like an alley or something?

So sketchy, man. Some of these were, yeah, kind of smokers, like backyard sort of deals. So like even the first, like even my first fight had more, it had some prestige around it because it was Ken who was doing it. Ken was actually trying to start his own sort of deal. So he called me. There was actually a Lions then tryout. And little did I know there was a league coming up called the IFL, which lasted for a little bit. It was kind of this team-based league.

And so he was going to do a tryout for that. So he calls me up and he's like, hey, man, you know, you're coming up to Susanville, going to come up to my house and you're going to do this tryout. And, you know, are you game? Are you in? I'm like, dude, I'm there. And he's like, cool. He's like, I want you to be there, you know, a day early.

And this is like a week. I'm just finding this out like a week before the tryout, right? And so I'm like, okay, yeah, man, I'm there. Like, let me know what you need. He's like, cool. I need you to come up the day before too. I'm like, all right, man, if you need me to come up the day before, then great. He's like, yeah, because you have a fight.

I'm going to put on an event that night and you're fighting. I'm like, okay, you got it, man. I was like, what do I need to weigh? He said, I don't know, what do you weigh right now? I'm like, I don't know, I'm like 185. He's like, cool, can you get to 170 by this weekend? And I'm like, cool, man, yeah, done. I'll get to 170, piece of cake.

No idea what I was doing. So I came in at like 162. I mean, it was just like the shittiest weight cut. Right. So we get up to, uh, get up to Susanville and dude, he's got, so we had a Vernon white and, and kit cope and some of these dudes on the card, but we had Bruce buffer announcing, we got boss rooting guy, Metzger, uh, Randy couture, like all these dudes are ringside, like some of the legends. Right. And I'm like, I just had this super shitty weight cut. I don't know what I'm doing. Like, let's see what, let's see what happens, you know? And then we're in Susanville too, which is already like six, 7,000 feet or whatever the altitude is there. So, um, I pretty

much blew my load, uh, in the, in the back, uh, warming up and went out like kind of gassed and went out there and I got lucky enough to win the fight which was cool yeah dude that's what I said I was like oh shit lucky the guy didn't know how tired you were he had no idea yeah totally and he came in and there was no

testing there was no like he was a pretty he was a sketchy dude too that trained kind of down it was there was no so there was no testing there was no like he was a pretty he was a sketchy dude too that trained kind of down it was there was no testing no nothing we were just bleeding all over each other you know and then afterwards it was after we beat the piss out of each other it was like hey man nice to meet you and i've actually still stayed in contact with that dude but yeah so none of them were so that was actually probably the most legit i had other smokers at like aka and some of the bigger gyms and stuff too. But, uh, so did nine of those,

which was cool. What do you think attracted you to fighting? You know, like it's such a strange sport. And I, I realized a lot of people get into it for the sport of it. Cause it sounds like you had some background in it, but it is an odd thing.

Like it's, uh, it's the basis for all sports, you know, two people are like, quote unquote, fighting for a rebound in basketball, right. Or you're fighting and defending position in football yeah uh but you know that at the core of it it's like we really just want to see the people fight they could take off all their

equipment and we would probably be more excited to watch that a hundred percent what uh what guy you pumped up to try something like that because it's very intimidating it you know what man it was a there was a a transition that kind of took place so it started out my dad was a hard is a hard dude um just a very hard individual uh was working in in the prison system probably should have lived there instead um was just a hard was just a hard man and um so i you, wanted to get into sports early on and, um, had tried to get into basketball early on, but I was kind of this sensitive kid and get the, you know, get the ball stolen. And I'm like, I cry, you know, I'm crying. And I was like, fuck this game. And so he's like, cool, man, if you're going to steal it from me,

I legit remember being for like, there was this like community, it was like a, uh, like a camp. And I remember walking in with my basketball and I'm like dude my best friend's gonna be here like who's it gonna be and the kid comes and takes it from me and i just turn around and run back i'm like this sucks everybody's so mean you know and he's like get your ass back in there dude i would be right with you and it's like i was i was done and he's like dude get back in there and i'm like i'm not going back in there like these people suck you know so he's like cool he's like you're gonna go back in there or i'm gonna have you try something else. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to try anything else. Cause you know, whatever. So then the next day

he's taking me to go get punched in the face. Right. So it's like, it's like, cool, man. If you don't want to play basketball, you're going to go fight some human beings. Right. So, um, he was just kind of that dude. And, you know, he finds out in fourth grade that he's a couple of fifth graders picking on me and we see them walking on the street on the weekend. I'm like, those are the dudes. He's like, cool. Pulls over. And he's like, of fifth graders picking on me. And we see them walking on the street on the weekend. I'm like, those are the dudes. He's like, cool. Pulls over.

And he's like, get out and go fight them. Those two boys right there. They're big, like get out and go fight them. Right. So there starts out being like the, okay,

my dad is a savage. And so I need to step up because I'm not going to survive. Right. So it starts out with that. But then as I got into it, I started to get kind of that love for, for the introspection. It's not about the fight.

It's about what's going on in your head. It really is. You're really fighting yourself. Fight club type stuff. That fight club mentality, right? And of course, I hadn't read Fight Club at that time or seen Fight Club or whatever, but it was that. It was like, cool, man.

Like, it really doesn't matter if the dude looks like you, if the dude looks like you, if the dude looks like her. It doesn't matter because I'm going to learn something about about me while i'm in this and that's what ultimately attracted to me and you know i stayed with it because of that wow yeah do you still do that now i haven't in a while man when we moved uh we moved from the bay um and i would go out to uriah's place a little bit and help some of those dudes with uh just fight camps and sparring and doing what i could do and and um but then we had kids and started building businesses and so i do it in my in my garage you know i'll kick the bag in my garage and get after it for a few rounds and stuff but i haven't

um gotten to punch anybody or be punched in in a while so which is fine and i and i'm you know there's an element you always miss it yeah but at the same time i i'm fine with not getting punched what do you do for fitness now you're staying in good shape i appreciate it man um yeah it really is a garage gym situation so i got the bag up i got the prowler um we got dips we got you know i got a whole bunch of injuries and things too so we got dip station pull-up station and um it's predominantly body weight stuff and and out sprinting and jumping and, um, just trying to stay, stay mobile and stay out of pain ish. Um, but I'm consistent with it. It's daily.

Does that help you from mental side since you don't have the fighting anymore? It's a thousand percent helps a thousand percent helps. Um, it helps kind of scratch that, you know, it scratches that itch. Um, but it also just helps. I mean, you guys know it helps just mentally anyways, man, I got a lot of things that I'm taking on business wise. And so an asshole. Um, but I'm, I'm pretty, I'm pretty disciplined on that too. So again, it's kind of that introspection and the self-awareness part of it. I do function better, much higher protein, more of a meat focus kind of deal. I have a, I love vegetables. I have a hard time with them. Um, but they don't, they don't treat me well. So it's a whole lot more meat. Like in here? Like in here.

Yeah, man, I struggle. I can do some fermented stuff, but that's about it. But I pay attention to how everything makes me feel, how it makes me think very, very much. So that's the majority. Honestly, I'm pretty carnivorous on that side. Post-workout, though, I can handle some, some real basic, like white rice kind of stuff as far as recovery. Um, so, and I don't deviate a whole hell of a lot from that, a little fruit here and there, but all real stuff. We don't do the, we don't do the non-real stuff in

our house. And, and you know, the kids know, the kids know that too. It doesn't matter if we're at school and everybody brings cupcakes. My kids were like, that's awesome, man. I was like, happy birthday. But like, they don't, they don't jump in either. Cause they're self-aware too on how it makes them feel. So all real food. And your kids go to the school that you run. Absolutely. They're the reason, man. They're the reason it was, they were the driving force, you know, it was legitimately like, Hey, I've got, you know, I got three kids now. And at the time when I was launching, um, you know, I had one that was ready, one that was almost ready as far as school age. I had one that was ready, one that was almost ready as far as school age.

And it was like, cool, if we get them and seven, eight other kids, like, great, that's fine. Obviously, it's taken off way more than that, which I'm glad it has. But yeah, they were the driving force. I haven't really looked into a lot of other schools. But when I went to your school and when you were explaining everything about it, I was just like really blown away because I was just like, I never heard of anything like this. And then I met other stuff you mentioned. Um, it's just like one thing after, like, I couldn't, I couldn't take that day in very well.

Cause I just, I was like, my head was spinning because it's the stuff that you mentioned. And, um, this, the, the law here in California for your at-home schooling, you were mentioning that there's no curriculum to it and stuff like that. And I was just like, how is that possible? Especially here in California, where we kind of have a lot of rules. But that's true from what you said, right? It is, man.

So this is one of the interesting things. And I look at it from the standpoint of, if you look at it from a business standpoint, look at it from a monopoly, right? So people get all fired up. Amazon's got fucking all the business in the world and people like, Oh my God, this thing, they're, they're a monopoly. They're driving all this kind of, well, the biggest monopoly in our country is arguably public schooling, right? 92, 93, 94%. Don't say that everybody. Yeah. Um, I hear that a lot and it's like they, so they, they drive their narrative around everything.

And we've all grown up in that. We all grew up doing the same thing. So we don't, it's one of those things we just don't question at all. Right. And so when you realize, wait a second, you can actually, one of the easiest ways to get into college is actually don't have to even have a high school diploma. Wait, really? Oh, really? One of the easiest ways. See diploma wait what really oh really one of the easiest ways what i'm talking about one of the easiest ways we're gonna be so confused after this it's a fuck yeah exactly dude so one of the easiest ways is to not get a

not gonna you can drop out at 16 go take free community college courses right play the game there you have a higher chance of transferring into almost any university i just said if i kind of feel sorry for you or whatever. There's probably like a law or rule that allows you to get in. It's like college part is all the game too. Right. So that, that helps. And so when you go to, you know, kind of the homeschool route. So again, homeschool is another thing that like when we grew up, there was very much like, okay, cool, man, homeschool, you're a weirdo.

Right. Done. Nevermind the fact that we had weirdos in class with us too. Right. We had weirdos in public school. Like if you're weird, you're a weirdo right done never mind the fact that we had weirdos in class with us too right we had weirdos in public school like if you're weird you're weird like it is but more people that were just kind of off kilter maybe used to do it um that's not the case anymore percentage wise you got a lot of people that are just choosing to do that and so our whole school is built around people who now register with the state as homeschooled there isn't you don't have to submit well here's what i'm doing here the. There isn't, you don't have to submit, well, here's what I'm doing here, the standards, I'm meeting it.

You don't. You do a five-minute thing online saying my kid's going to homeschool this year and you're done. Like, that's it. And so then they come to us and they actually do cool shit rather than going and sitting down.

Is there some sort of standardized testing like to see if your kid is actually in ninth grade and stuff like that too? No. If you're homeschooled, there's... No, no. Is there a recommendation? No, not from this. I mean, people will, they'll love for you to do it and that's great. But I can tell you right now, I run multiple seven figure businesses. I get paid by companies to go, got good money to stand on stage and go speak with some of the biggest organizations in the world. And to prove a point last year, I took a standardized test for the parents at my school and my, my math level, I was at sixth grade, right? And I got straight A's. I got straight A's all through school, but I didn't actually learn

anything, right? I didn't learn it. I played that game, right? I could go back and figure out how to teach them. But the reality is nobody gives a shit about algebra. Nobody cares about trigonometry. And I'm not saying don't ever do it. And that's great if you want to work towards it. We want our kids to continue to push the envelope. But to say that that's the end all be all is provable horseshit.

It is really kind of annoying when like you do all these things, you take these math courses high level math etc you finish up and you end up doing nothing with it because that's kind of what happened with me it's like it's like why did i do all this why did i waste all that money at college when everything i do now i'm not using any of that yeah so yeah and dude not only did it happen with you it happens with almost everybody i I know. Happens with almost everybody. And now we've raised the price of that experience too. So now your piece of paper is three times more expensive.

You come out, you're not doing anything with it. Even with my kinesiology degree, right? I had to take geology and, you know, liberal 1800 women's stuff or whatever. Like they give you these random things that you've got to take. I'm like, hold on. I'm doing a kinesiology degree. And they're like,

it doesn't matter. You're going to be well-rounded. I'm like, well-rounded just means I got to give you more money. That's all it is. I have a quick question. Yeah. Yeah.

Am I wrong? Cause like I heard that like in China and other places, I probably am on this, but I'd like in China, right? Like if you want to go towards medicine or something, you go to higher education, you only study those things. You don't have to do all this geology, this kind of stuff. Right. But I'd like in China, right? Like if you want to go towards medicine or something, you go to higher education, you

only study those things. You don't have to do all this geology kind of stuff. Right. Is that correct? Or yeah, there's, uh, it's, you can't generally, it depends on the school. Right. It depends on what they need to do. So, um, and there are, there are universities and colleges here too, that will allow you to focus more and do this, but they're just not they're not your brands.

Right. And they're not they're usually small, little liberal arts, you know, kind of deals. And a lot of times they're struggling financially, too. And so they're just looking for a different. So it just depends. But that's where it's going. It's more and more of that. Colleges aren't going to be they're not going to be relevant anymore. mean the brands are going to stick around but they're let's say it's uh let's just fast forward for a moment here and let's just say it's like 2030 yeah are there a lot less uh public schools and a lot more schools like yours absolutely uh there's without a doubt um without a doubt this covid situation part yeah this this thing that's going on now dude it's it's been this like uh emperor has no clothes moment

you know because people are realizing wait a second mike hold on a second either i'm pulling my kid out and they're doing all the stuff that they were normally doing in this eight hour day and they're finishing it in 12 minutes right and they're just like wait a second why are we spending all this time or they're getting on their zoom calls with these teachers and they're like oh my gosh like the teachers are really struggling with zoom and all of this stuff that's coming out as crazy. And I'm like, no,

no, no. You're watching what was happening in the classroom as well. Like it was still just as jacked up too. So people are starting to realize that. And then you've got more proof of concept for, for places like mine too. You know,

we had a sister campus in Austin yesterday, sent out an email. I'm like, Hey, just want to celebrate this. You know, we got this kid, Chris, Chris has been here with us. The, you know, his whole school career just landed his dream job in Silicon Valley. He beat out 200 college graduates and 50 industry experts for this position. He starts tomorrow. Let's congratulate him. Oh, by the way, he's 17 and he still hasn't graduated from our school. He will graduate in May. Right. And this is a position that's only hires college grads. And we've had the same thing. We had a company that, you know, here locally that only ever hired college grads, the national company. And they

took one of our high school kids at 17 straight and, and he's going straight there. There's that shift is taking place and more and more proof of concept is only going to exacerbate that. And maybe just public school has been exposed and maybe what we're learning is there's not for the amount of time you go to school, the amount of days that you go to school in a school year, the amount of years you go to school, which is over days that you go to school in a school year, the amount of years you go to school, which is over a decade. And it's mandated and it's the law.

Right. Which I think is absolutely asinine. Yeah. And the amount of hours that you go to school. Yep. I think all of it's overkill. And but we're now we're seeing I think people can admit, wow, OK, you don't really learn as much as we thought you did. And we can all agree like there's wasted time and there's wasted effort in college and stuff.

But I think we can also kind of say, okay, well, yeah, maybe some of it's wasted. But you did learn to do things that you didn't want to do when you normally didn't want to do it, but you got it done anyway. Yeah, sure. But you also don't need to learn that over the course of a decade. Yeah. Can you learn it somewhere else? You can learn it in other ways very easily. Right?

My kids, with their businesses, they end up purchasing horses, right? So we have horses on our property. They don't always feel like getting up and mucking the stalls and shoveling shit, right? They're learning to do things that they need to do, whether they want to do them or not, right? Personal responsibility. We don't have to go to school to learn those things, you know, and that's- You can always place it back on them and say, hey, remember, you wanted these horses.

If you don't want to continue with this, we can work on looking at something else. But for now, you've got to shovel the shit. This is what it is. That's exactly it. I mean, all of these things can be learned outside the context of school. And then again, just the focus. Think about the focus at school anyways. You take subjects, right?

Life doesn't work in subjects, but you take these subjects. And about the focus at school. Anyways, you take subjects, right? Life doesn't work in subjects, but you take these subjects and it's only these five. If I was like, Hey, Mark, dude, when you go to the store tomorrow, you can only go shop from these two aisles. You have a very limited number of products to look. You'd be like, like, what are you talking about? Absolutely not. Hey, by the way, you can only read these five books. That's it, man. That's all I'm going to let you read, right? People have a problem with that. We do it in school. We're like, you can only take math, history, English.

And everybody's like, okay, got it. Cool. That's how you learn? Great. You know, there's this old saying that I fully believe, man. I don't remember even who said it, but somebody said something to the effect of if we started making kids go to school earlier and earlier and earlier, it would only take a generation before parents believed you'd have to send them to school for them to learn how to walk. And I fully believe that.

Yeah. Right? Yeah, you don't learn how to walk. You don't learn how to talk. That's right. I mean, you learn it yourself. You self-educate yourself. That's exactly it.

Through seeing and doing and hearing and over and over again. That's it. And it's doing. And people, so here's another term that I hate. People look at our school and they'll go That's it. And it's doing and people. So here's another term that I hate, right? People look at our school and they'll go, okay, well,

it's an alternative school. So I hate that term because when we grew up, alternative means you're one step away from juvenile hall, right? Like you're about to go to jail. And so this is your last ditch effort. You go to the alternative high school, right?

Where it's a bunch of shit. It's like, that's what it, that's what it meant. Yeah. It's like the only alternative. It's the only alternative before you're locked up. Right? Like, so people still use that term alternative and I, and I hate that.

So the, so we're teaching personal responsibility, we're teaching self direction, we're teaching character matters. Like we're teaching ethics or a real thing. We're teaching that. So then what's the alternative, right? What is the, what are we the alternative to then if that's the case right and and so um and maybe call it solution school that's right it's not the alternative how adults are supposed to be school right you know and then how we've forgotten to be as a society school um it's kind of that you know so it's it's um yeah it's a it's a fun place to be man um a friend of mine that i

know um she's kind of getting the realization that the school that her daughter was going to maybe not be all like you know the most uh tip-top shape yeah um and this is because she's like okay i i can see where my daughter's struggling yeah how the hell were all these teachers passing her throughout all these you know yeah you know through all these teachers passing her throughout all these, you know, yeah. Yeah. Through all these grades. Yeah. Um,

I don't know. Is it really true that like public schools get paid to just pass kids or is that something totally like just the conspiracy theory type of thing? You get paid to have butts in seats. Yeah. Right. So you get paid to have kids there. So if you've got this young person and then you're going to move that young

person somewhere else, or you're're gonna get them somewhere else to go Get help or to get but you're losing money because you're no longer saying they're gonna be there Right and then if you can put them in a special class of some sort where they need extra help, right? You can get extra funding for that too. So it's a money game. Mm-hmm. It's a politics game, you know I mean, that's that's really what it is. It's butts in seats, man Yeah, and it's just interesting because I think maybe a lot of parents are kind of realizing like oh shit like you you're not really paying attention it's like oh it's because it's homeschool but like what you said earlier it's like no now you just see it yeah i think that's crazy yeah it's when you're

taught you know and i'm i'm always the first to say man i'm so i'm super pro teacher i'm super pro administrator because those are good good folks folks. Right. For the most part. Of course, you have your your scandals and all that kind of stuff. Right. So there's douchebags everywhere. But you there for the most part, they're there for altruistic reasons. They really do want to help. You know, they want to help people out. But you're not taught to work with kids. They're not screening for people who are really good at actually connecting with other human beings. You're in a system and you're taught how to perpetuate the system, right? You don't deviate from the system. It's the status quo. That's what you're taught to do, right? So you can teach any monkey to do that.

I've had teachers with PhDs that have worked for me that couldn't teach their way out of a paper bag. But the guides at the schools we have, the majority of them do not have any kind of credential and that's good. That's, I want it that way. Cause they haven't been jaded by, by that. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And then, um, so I guess advice for, for myself, you know, my daughter, she, I mean, this was probably like three years ago now. Uh, she hit me with the question that I didn't expect her to hit me with so soon, but she like a struggle with homework or something. I don't remember exactly what happened, but she just looked at

me and she's like, why do I need to learn this if we have Google? And I'm like, you're absolutely right, but I don't have an answer for you. So let's just know that was the answer. Yeah. Right there. Okay, cool. Right. Cause yeah, I'm like, yeah, every, everything you're learning right now, unfortunately, like you're probably not going to use it later. I'm like, but I don't know what the answer is. So let's, let's get through this because we have to finish it. Cause we started. Yeah. I'm like, and we'll, we'll tackle that other question later.

So like what, what the hell? I mean, I guess that's the answer then. Dude, that is the answer. And that's been the age old. Like, why do we have to do like, I remember kids asking that when I was in school. Why do we have to do this? And it's like, shut your mouth. And we, you know, whatever.

There was never a good answer. Cause that's what you do. Because that's what we need to do this? And it's like, shut your mouth. And we, you know, whatever. There was never a good answer. Because that's what you do. Because that's what we need to do. Right. Because that's what my boss is telling me to do. Because if the principal walks in right now and you're not doing that, I'm going to get in trouble. Right. Like that's what, that's the answer.

So yeah, you're right. If you can Google something, what are we doing? Let's spend our time doing something else. Well, it's also a good, it's a good, it's a good teaching moment too, because you can ask a kid, say, Hey, well,

what do you want to know from Google? And they could say something, right? And you can say, okay, we'll go look it up. Totally. They look it up.

They give you information and say, do you believe that? For sure. How do you know it's fact? For sure. Did you, did you look at multiple articles? For sure.

Did you YouTube it? Right. Did you check out a couple, because you're going to really have to go through. So it's not as easy as a Google search. Right. You're going to have to really look into it. Like, does God really exist?

Are you typing something crazy? Yeah. It's like, well, you're going to have to do a deep dive. Nobody knows. That's exactly it. And you can teach kids that, hey, look, sometimes we're not always going to be certain of stuff, but we can get as close to the truth or as close to our beliefs or our truths as we can get. That's right.

And that's all we could really know. Go down that rabbit hole and start to decipher between good information and bad information. Right. And then once you get what seems like good information, how do you then transform that? How do you use that information to either collaborate with somebody else and create something else? Or, you know, what do you do with that information once you have it? Those are the those are the kinds of conversations, you know, a big part of what we do are Socratic conversations, right, on a daily basis. And this doesn't matter if

there's the five-year-olds, the 18-year-olds, everywhere in between. And so we'll give them a scenario and go, look, here's your scenario. Do you take option A? Do you take option B? Like, let's discuss. And so they learn to have those discussions and have kind of those deep dives into, you know, big topics and not get all butthurt about it, not bring emotion into it. Right. Where it's just like, OK, you're a Trump fan. Well, I'm a Biden fan. Well, then, cool. We hate each other. None of that. None of that horseshit. It's like, cool. Why? Why do you love Trump? That's awesome. Why do you love Biden? That's great. That's great. Let's eloquently speak to why you speak to why let's genuinely listen and let's try to go facts over emotion and then just see. And at the end of the day, we're going to disagree on some stuff too. Cool.

Awesome. High five. Let's go play. And that kind of stuff is really hard to try to pull up facts on to try to figure out who's done what and who hasn't done what. Holy crap. A hundred percent, a hundred percent.

So, I mean, that's it. And we want to give them that kind of framework and that kind of mindset. And that just develops different adults. And wouldn't you guys agree that that's like a better process for problem solving? Because I just remember when whoever the asshole was that decided that my daughter needs to do Common Core. And I would be like, just do the math.

Don't backtrack like 10 steps to get it. They said it's wild yeah her teacher was like oh we do it this way so they can learn how to problem solve and i'm like but why are you creating a big problem for them to solve imagine if you and i had to figure out our businesses the same way right imagine that wouldn't it's like one of us wouldn't have survived like one of us may have right but the likelihood is that neither one of us would probably have anything if we had to do it the same way. And what you're talking about,

that's like, no, no, no. You're going to do it the same way as me, and you're going to do it the same way as him, and the same way as him, and the same way as her. And it's like, does it matter how I got there? Can I just get to the result? And that's the logical train you should go down. It's the logical train you should

go down. It's the logical train and people will go, dude, I can walk anybody down the logical train of public school and traditional schooling is not the ideal, right? We can walk anybody down that, but it's the emotional attachment to it. Like you are emotionally attached to a religion, right? It's the ultimate cognitive dissonance. You can walk people down that and they can be like, yes, yes, yes. And I've, I mean, I've had it with parents walk them down like, yes, yes, yes. Great. Awesome. Cool. My kids here and then their kids there and their kids making money and their kids making friends. And they're like, they're more responsible at home. And they're like, but their math level is slipping. And it's like, holy shit. Like, what do you, you know,

it's, it's that, it's that emotional attachment to that. And then we have all these parents who are like, okay, cool. I can't do your homework. Like I don't want, I full on don't understand your homework. Right. I feel, I don't want to homeschool you because I won't know what to do. So you're saying I went through this whole system right here that then left me feeling ill-equipped to help my own child, right? I mean, there's so many logical issues with all that kind of stuff. And again, when a kid gets past like fifth grade, it's impossible to help them. It is. Absolutely.

For me, too, as a career educator with graduate degrees, right? Like it is. It's impossible. with graduate degrees, right? Like it is, it's impossible. And, you know, going back to that concept of alternative, this whole way of doing it has only been about like a hundred, something like a hundred years,

a hundred plus years, right? Before that and all of humanity, you did stuff. Mark is the man in town who is the welder and I'm going to be his apprentice and I'm going to go in and start welding with him. And eventually just by doing and being with somebody who knows what they're doing, I'm going to be in and start welding with him. And eventually just by doing and being with somebody who knows what they're doing,

I'm going to be a welder, right? It's pretty easy. And that's essentially what we're doing now too. It's like, look, start doing this. Start building your business. We're also going to have you team up with other people who own businesses or people that are in your fields you're interested in. Start doing this and go.

By the way, welding is really fucking complicated. It's really hard. It is really hard. It's really hard. It's amazing that like anything gets done. It's unbelievable. Totally. Totally.

But you don't have to know the science of it to be able to do it. Right. You know, you don't have to know the temperatures. You don't have to know, you know, you have to cool this thing down or you just, you learn those things and you burn yourself. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly it. Yeah. You don't have to study the history of who was the first welder

and who, like what date did he start welding and what, like none of that shit matters. It doesn't matter. Start welding. Right. You know, give us, give us a little bit of the background on the school. Like, uh, what's the name of the school and then how did they, how did it get started? And was it modeled after anything else? Yeah. So we're actually part of a global network. And so it's called Acton Academy. So A-C-T-O-N. And that's named after Lord Acton. He's the guy that said, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

A lot of people have heard that quote. And so Acton actually started as an MBA program. There's a master's program. And it started in Texas. And then the founders of that program said, you know what we want to do? They had kids. And so they said, we want to kind of do a K through 12 and like, let's, let's figure out how we can do this in kind of a K through 12 setting.

So they set that up in, in Austin primarily for their kids. And they're two of my heroes, man, they're, they're brilliant human beings. So they, they were running this and one of the families had to leave and actually moved to California. They moved to Southern California and then they called Jeff and Laura are the names of the founders and they called them and they said, Hey, you know, we kind of want to do this here too. Would you mind helping us? Like we'd love to start something up. And so they're like, okay, well, yeah, sure. Like if you want to do that, let's, let's help. And so that kind of slowly became, it's not a franchise. It's like a,

it's more like a CrossFit kind of thing, right? Where you got all the boxes that have similar language, similar beliefs, similar type workouts, but the owners are the ones that are, that are really putting their DNA into it and say, no, we're going to focus more on this. We're going to do this. They all try to help each other. They collaborate around things, but everybody's doing their, their, you know, different thing too. Right. So it kind of grew into this network. So there's almost 200 of us right now globally. We're in like 30 somewhat different countries. And it really is a network of people who have come, some of us from education backgrounds, some from business, some like myself from both. And we just decided, look, we want to come plain by building something better.

So as this model started popping up and doing things, I was actually getting ready to do a TED Talk in 2015 on alternative education models. And so I started looking into who's actually doing this well, because I was always the pariah and I was in public schools and private schools. And I'm like, hey guys, everybody over here, like all the stuff we're doing is horseshit.

Like we should be doing something different, right? And so I've been speaking out about that forever. So getting ready to do this Ted talk. So I started looking into organizations that I thought were doing things the right way. And so that's how I first found Acton, um, went out to Texas, watched it, watched a group of middle schoolers run a two hour meeting more efficiently than most fortune 500 companies. And the adult in the room said nothing the entire time I was there. And I'm like, this is what I'm talking about. You know? And so it gave the Ted talk and then started connecting with them and said, look, I'd like to become a part of this network. I want to do this where, you know, where, where I am and, and, uh,

and start building out. So that was, that was about five years ago. And so I took a year to build the community while I was still traveling around doing 50, 60 keynotes a year. And took a year to build that up, man. And really was like, hey, if we can get 10 kids, that'd be great. We started out with 55. And now we've got a full campus with a huge wait list and just purchased our second campus in Sac. And we're going to do seven, eight, nine campuses out here in this general area. How is school now because of COVID and stuff?

Good. eight, nine campuses out here in this general area. How is school now? Cause of COVID and stuff. Um, good. I think that last we spoke, you mentioned, uh, you're just kind of leaving it up to the parents or some people that are distance learning and some people are coming to school, right? That's it, man. So, you know, freedom is my favorite F word, right? And so part of knowing here's part of knowing the ins and outs of, of public school and kind of that whole game. Like I said, one of the easiest ways to go to college is don't get a high school diploma. Right. So same kind of thing. So we set ourselves up from a legal standpoint as we're not a school.

We're an educational resource center or professional development center. Right. Whatever you want to say that this is what we are. The kids register as homeschool and then we'll come to us to collaborate for things. So from our perspective, we weren't, there was no impact on that. We just left it up to the parents. We just said, hey man, what do you guys want to do? Do you feel safe? If you want to stay home and go virtual, we will help you with the virtual stuff. Great. If you would like to come to campus,

come to campus. We're not going to, you know, put something up to your kid's head when they come in. We're not going to say 42 feet apart. We're not going to say, you know, 12 masks. We're not going to like none of that stuff. What do you, what do you want to do? So we're, we're not going to say 42 feet apart we're not going to say you know 12 masks we're not going to like none of that stuff what do you what do you want to do so we're uh we're rocking and rolling man full campus full go yeah do you think it's going to be a uh like for traditional schools like a temporary thing or is schools like never going to go back to being the same as thinking outside of like mandates and stuff but as far as like you know even like companies like oh we're doing just fine working remotely and we don't need all these office buildings now they're probably going to change forever is school going to be something similar no um because the that butts in seats

right it's that model is still built on having those physical locations it's still built on having those people there um so that still built on having those people there. So that won't change anytime soon. And there's a lot of money invested. Wasn't it also really odd that like, I'm very confused. They shut the schools down. Yeah. And one of the first things they talked about was getting funding for the schools.

Right. And I'm like, if they're not operating, how do they need more money? Like, but I just, I don't, some of the stuff that happens, you're just like, wait a second,

what's going on here? 100%. The lights are off. There's no buses. Lights are off. There's none of that stuff is running. I mean, that's exactly it. And we already spend so much more per student than anybody else.

It has nothing to do with increasing, increasing funding. We'll never, never be the answer for school. Schools need more money. They really don't. They need to quit doing stupid shit. Right. And they need to read, they need to rethink the way they're doing. Everything has nothing to do with money. We drive so much better from like a result perspective. Like we drive so many better outcomes for much less per student than, than any of our public schools. And it has nothing to do with,

well, there's good schools over here, bad school, dude, they're all the same. Like I've worked in Stockton and I've worked out in, you know, Rose,

I have gangland Disneyland, right. And in California, the schools are the same. The quality of the teachers are the same. There's no good schools means you're in a high socioeconomic area, period. That's it. So you have parents that provide more opportunities, right? And they provide maybe more of a influence as far as like, hey, you've got to do well, right? And so the kids have better

opportunities. So they come in and they test better. That's what labels a good school. Well, they never ask the parents. I mean, they might already be asking quite a bit, especially because you pay a good amount in taxes and stuff like that. But they never, you know, like they may say, hey, you know, the school needs more computers. And you're thinking, oh, okay, well, I can help with that because it's my kid's school. But they never ask you like, hey, Grant High needs, you know, because that would would be like people would scoff at that and be like, I why would I pay for for sure? You know, and no one gets it, but they should be like, I think they should be like, you know, not able to pay to go to the school? For sure, man.

So that's always the downside of any privately driven organization is the cost. The fact that we don't get government money. Right. I mean, so that's always going to be the downside. So we have a few different things we do. So part of it is just the inherent nature of our school, the way we do things. We are focused on helping kids build businesses and build opportunities. So our students are making money. We have students who pay their entire tuition themselves with their businesses.

Wow. Right. So when you're making that cash, not only are you able to now afford it, that cash, not only are you able to now afford it, what company doesn't want, if some young 18-year-old comes over here and says, hey, I want to work with you guys. I love what you guys are doing. By the way, these last six years, here's my P&L. Here's my cash flow sheet. These are the businesses that I've been running. This is what I've been doing. Here are the internships and apprenticeships that I took on.

Some of those were paid, by the way, too. Dude, you're going to want those people in a heartbeat, right? That's way more impressive than I went to college like everybody else, right? So you've got the opportunity for them to do that there. But we also have things like jobs on campus. So we've got an executive chef on campus, right? And he goes in and he teaches culinary skills. So young men are getting valuable skills, right? And young men and women, but we have more boys that are in the kitchen. So they're getting the valuable skills. So young men are getting valuable skills, right? And young men and women, but we have more

boys that are in the kitchen. So they're getting the valuable skills and then they get, you know, they provide the meals to everybody, but then they also have some kickback that goes towards working on campus, right? It goes kickback towards their, their tuition. Ultimately we want to continue to, so like anytime we do any kind of consulting, it goes back to the kids. My podcast is all like any sponsorship on the essential 11 all goes back to the kids. It goes back to the families that we have so we can help the families that we know are struggling the most. Right. This program I'm building with Tim Kennedy.

All of that is going back into the kids as we continue to grow profitability wise. We want to buy, you know, if there's other small businesses in the area that we can purchase, have the kids go run those businesses with our, with our mentorship. So they're getting real experience running real businesses. Profitability goes back in to scholarships. So we want to, um, you know, build those opportunities in as much as humanly possible. I know some people are wondering like, what kind of businesses are some of these kids built while they were in school? Yeah. Can you give us some examples of that? Yeah, man.

We've got, you know, I saw the custom, the cornhole board out there with your face on it, right? With Mark's face on there, which is rad. We've got a young man that builds custom cornhole boards. So he builds them on campus, right? Puts the boards together, does custom wraps and all that kind of stuff. So he's selling those to individuals, to hotel chains, to businesses, right? So he's doing that.

He actually just teamed up with two other brothers that just came in. So they're expanding because those guys make bike ramps and all kinds. So they're actually just kind of doing a carpentry business all around for, for multiple things. So these guys are selling out. We've got a girl that does custom abstract art. And so I saw that when I was there. Yeah, she's rad. So not, and she'll do, you know, she'll do paintings, right. And she'll sell those, but she also has

been commissioned to do cars, um, to do, uh, she has a lot of skateboards and clothing as well. And so she's got her products in five or six shops around here in Sacramento that are selling her stuff where she does this custom artwork. She sold a skateboard earlier this year to Tony Hawk, took it to his California Hall of Fame induction, right? So like, that's pretty, that's pretty legit when you can be like, he takes that to his California Hall of Fame induction, you know, has her board up there like that. That's a big deal. What a cool thing to support too, when you say, hey, I bought this from this kid and

support their tuition to go to this school. Like that's it, man. Who doesn't want to be part of it? Exactly, and support their tuition to go to this school. That's it, man. Who doesn't want to be part of it? Exactly, man. Nobody wants to say no to that. A young lady, middle schooler, that just went and did a pitch to some local boutiques because she makes custom leather jewelry and leather satchels and all this kind of stuff. Her dad does something where he comes home with a bunch of leather scraps and then she

takes and puts all this stuff together. It sounds like we can get a lot of these kids sewing some slingshots over here. Hey, get a little Nike project. It's the best, and here's the deal, too. We call it school. It's part of their school. You don't have to pay them anything. It's great.

It's free labor. It's free labor. We can get rid of half. You said you got like 10, 11. We'll get rid of half your staff. That's right. I'll go hook you up. You get like three or four kids for every dollar.

For sure. For sure. It's great. So, yeah. I mean, they're so. For some people listening, yeah, for some people listening that might think it sounds odd,

but people do this for private schools as well. Like there's a lot of kids that can't afford private schools. One of my good friends who's at this of kids that can't afford private schools. Um, one of my good friends who's at this very table right now, uh, had to do that. He worked at the private school. He wasn't one of the rich kids. He had to kind of work. He had to work for his tuition basically. For sure. Yeah, absolutely. And so again, the more we can build out the profitability of that too, and just drive, I mean, we want to go into areas of, of, you know, uh, Sacramento that

there's just people that they're just going to struggle to afford something like this. And we want to go, cause we will, you know, I remember there was a university that was doing a study on, you know, alternative education. And, uh, one of the students got ahold of me and I think they were in Texas somewhere and he got ahold of me. And so they kind of this whole case study around us. And he's like, when are you going to go into the inner city?

I'm like, dude, as soon as, as soon as humanly possible. And he's like, you know, I grew up in the, in, in kind of a rough area. He's like, what do you think? Like with those, would those kids do well in this kind of environment? Like, dude, they would. So first of all, they just have less opportunity. They are just as much a genius as every kid that we have period. And a story.

I actually think they'll do better and do crush it. Cause a lot of these kids have a chip on their shoulder too. Right. And they're like, look, I'm struggling on something. I'm going to come in and show you guys, I can make something myself. One of the biggest downsides also, I think of privatized education is a lot of kids that come in and whose families can afford it. I've seen a lot over these last few years, those kids have this kind of mindset. Well, mom and dad will always take care of me. Right. Like there's,

I saw that safety net. I saw that when I coached football for sure. You know, you could see who comes from what kind of family and for sure. Most of the kids that had kind of quote unquote, everything that they need maybe. And then some and played a lot of video games. Like they weren't that into like smashing into each other.

Totally. But the kid that maybe was neglected a little bit, maybe didn't have the same opportunities when he had a chance to hit somebody it's he's getting at it yeah it was like he was born to do it like 100 hey man i meant to hit the guy but not like that dude that's it that's it i love that dude and that's you know we talk about those kids as being the underserved kids i think the kids that have too much are underserved kids because they're the ones that are going to be mentally handicapped moving forward. Right. That's where all the entitlement comes from is that kind of stuff.

So I think these kids will crush it. Yeah. I had a good Ray. It's hard. It's hard to meet people that are normal when they come from a lot of wealth. Totally. You know, and especially not necessarily when it's the person's first run of it, but when it's generational or when it's, uh, you know, the kids a lot of times are really fucked up.

A hundred percent, man. Who had a good, um, was chatting with Ray care, right? Not too long ago and a mutual buddy. And we had him on and, uh, I mean, we kind of, we kind of chatted for a while. That guy's fired up. Dude, that dude is fire. Like he's not, he was one of the dudes that came right through our screen. That's the way he, that's the way he does does it so i actually put out like a disclaimer too i think

our episode with him goes on this weekend i put that kind of disclaimer too because you know he was getting all just just you know fired up and i'm just like and i try you know this our podcast is geared more towards all these young people and stuff too right but i just found myself as i'm sitting there talking to him i'm like yeah fuck yeah dude so that i don't normally say either. Right. And I'm just like, we're just like, yeah, fuck this and fuck that. And it was like, you know, like we're just super fired up, dude. And it was, it was hilarious. But then we ended up talking again this weekend too. And we're just like, dude, we're both, we ended up kind of going to this rabbit hole. Like we're both super thankful for some of the rougher that I'm thankful for. I don't

talk, I don't have a relationship with my dad right now. Right. But I'm super thankful that I had the relationship that I did. I am. I'm thankful thankful for that i'm thankful that there was a chip that was put on my shoulder i'm thankful for the lessons i learned i'm thankful for the the good stuff that he did and the kind of the anti-hero things that i can learn like i'm thankful for that him too he's like look i had a you know he told you guys he had a horrible situation right but he's like dude i'm grateful for that because it gave me the fire to be the dude that i am also maybe that's all your dad knew and that's it that's, maybe that's all your dad knew. And that's all I knew.

Like maybe he didn't know that he could have taught you the same lesson through having you shovel snow or something. That's exactly it, man. And that's why I think it's, you know, it's, there's almost never a reason to have ill will. And if we can teach our kids that early on too, you know, because everybody's viewing things out of their goggles, you know, so I haven't, dude, I have no ill will towards my dad. I wish him nothing but the best, you know, he's battling viewing things out of their goggles, you know, so I have, dude, I have no ill will towards my dad. I wish him nothing but the best, you know, he's battling his own demons, man.

And, uh, and I learned a lot through that and, and I want him to get past those demons and I hope he does, you know, and that's, I want that for everybody, man. And we can teach kids early on to battle their own demons and to not worry about other people that are battling those, dude, man, it makes a big deal. The thing that CT Fletcher shared with us, I always thought it was like just wild. He was like, you know, try loving people that are bad on their nerves, dude, man. It makes a big deal. The thing that C.T. Fletcher shared with us, I always thought was just wild. He was like, try loving people that hate you. Or try loving people that have hate in their heart. He's like, it's the hardest thing to do, but he's like, it's easy to love people that love you,

or it's easy to like people that like you, but he's like, try it when they hate you. For sure. It can help you to live a more peaceful life. It's nearly impossible to do. I understand it's very hard to do, but if you can figure out a way to do it, you're getting on the right track. You're on the right track. And I think, dude, that's where that, you said the key word, man, is that peace. It's the peace.

The peace of mind is like, it doesn't matter. You got a million people who love you, a million people who hate you, and neither one of them are, your psyche is not dependent upon either of those. I don't have to crave these. I also don't have to fear this or be angry at this. Like, just peaceful. I'm doing what it is that I think I need to do. And there's integrity. I can look myself in the mirror.

And, you know, family loves me, too. Life's good, man. It's all good. And that's what I want for all these kiddos, too. It seems like you guys have an entrepreneurial spirit at the campus. And can you share some of those principles with us? What are these things that you try to teach some of these kids? I'm sure it matters what age they are, but in general, like what are some things you

try to teach these kids? That's a really good question. So, and people say all the time, like, well, you guys just want to build entrepreneurs. And that's definitely not it. I don't think, you know, you know, entrepreneurship and it's a hard road. And I don't think everybody is cut out for that necessarily, or that should even want to do that, right? So, but I think the entrepreneurial spirit

of looking to how to add value, how do I, you know, continue to grow and move things forward, right? I think that benefits anybody. So that's really, we tell our kids that are there, you will be successful with these two things, work hard, treat people well. Like if you do those two things, you are

willing to work hard. And that just means you're, you're willing to push it. You want to grow, right? It's that growth mindset sort of deal. And you're going to treat people the right way along the way. Generally things are going to work out good for you. Now it's easier said than done. And so that's where we put in all of these systems to give them agency early on to actually have adult conversations, to actually hold the line for each other on the character part of that. Character matters. Personal responsibility matters. We are very anti-victimhood, period.

I don't care what your background was. You do not get to play the victim. So maybe the kids aren't necessarily telling on each other, but they're saying, hey, that's not the way we behave. It's that. Exactly. So they operate on covenants and contracts with one another, right? So they create contracts within their studio and studio just means it's kind of this mixed age, um, group. Um, but there's a general contract for, for everybody that's

there. And so that studio contract, it's generally seven or eight, you know, things that they come up with. And it always boils down to promises of, I going to be my best self. I'm going to hold you accountable to being your best self. This is how we act here in a professional environment. It boils down to that basic stuff. It doesn't matter if it's the five-year-olds doing it or the high schoolers doing it. Right. And then they know they actually have, not only do they have a voice in it, we don't want to, as adults have the voice at all. I would rather have the kids sitting there having a conversation and, and you know,

you and I are trying to talk and Mark keeps interrupting. And then it's one of us. It's like, Hey, so Mark, real quick, man, you promised you signed the contract.

You promised, you know, you're not going to talk over other people, man. Can you, can you, you know, whatever.

Right. Yeah, exactly. And, and we've got systems in place. So where if you keep doing it, there's actually repercussions there too, including you might end up having to go.

The kids can, they can get rid of other kids. You're off the team. You are off the team. You're off the team. And then of course we have fail safes in play in case there's somebody who wants to take a power trip of like, cool, let's see who I can get rid of today. Right? Like we have systems in place too, so that if that person is doing that, they get rid. So you, you put these structures in especially early and it just ends up being the way

they talk. The kids that have, you know, I've got nine year olds that have been, that have never gone anywhere else. They've only been with us. And it's hilarious to hear them have these conversations. My daughter and her best friend, you know, they'll be like, Hey, what are you doing? This is not your best work. This is not your best best work like i know you can do so much better than that and what's cool is the other kid will be like you're right you're right can you help me on the and it's like cool yeah all right here you go and then like all right good and they're done there's no nobody's butthurt nobody's fine it's just like boom here's what it is because this is the standard that we want to achieve and it's not just a standard of what like is because this is the standard that we want to achieve

and it's not just a standard of look at it like you happy with that are you happy with that yeah is this the best you can do because i've seen you do better just not your nine-year-old say that is the funniest thing to me for some reason dude and it's real oh and it's real and that doesn't need adults right we had during this whole covid thing at the initial thing we went virtual everybody virtual for a little bit too. Right. And I had, dude,

I had, I've worked with so many schools and school districts all over the world. And so I had these, I had teachers, I had administrators, I had superintendents that were calling me from everywhere, just going, what do we do? Like,

what do we do with all this stuff? Like, and they were looking more for systems. Like, how do you do this at home and keep everybody on track virtually and all this kind of stuff? I'm like, I can help you with the systems part,

but the big part is you're not teaching the students how to self-direct actually how to not have the adults there, but still push themselves forward, hold each other accountable. That's what you guys aren't. That's what you guys are missing. So it's not going to be the same. They're like, no, no, no, no. We do a good job of that, right? We just need to get them some iPads in their hands and then we're going to be okay and i'm like okay cool man um and i was talking to a superintendent from another state and i said let me show you i was driving back into my driveway i said dude let me just show you what i'm talking about let's get on facetime so we got on facetime and i flipped my screen around and i creeped into my house and i walked in and my nine-year-old's on her on her computer and she's got her headphones on and she's like, no, no, no, no. And it was her and two other nine year olds. And they were having a conversation around the

difference between fixed and variable costs and sunk costs and all like, this was the conversation they were having. And so I'm showing him and, and he's like, Oh, okay. That's kind of a high level conversation. I'm like, and there's no adult involved in this conversation. There's not even a teacher monitoring this a teacher monitoring this like that's the difference between what we're doing and what you're doing That's the difference. You know I always tell people our ideal day on campus, and this isn't just some like Esoteric bullshit. This is really what we push for our ideal day is that none of the adults show up to campus at all? The kids don't notice and they don't care. Nothing changes. You know, that's the ideal.

Yeah. Mark, Andrew and I, we've had this conversation before and I want to, I want to know first off, if you think this is like really legit first off. And then also it seems that you guys are just taking a totally different approach. When I went to school, it was eight to four. Yep. Right. And jobs are like nine to five.

You know, I get picked up. We'd have teachers that looked over everything we do. We have a little lunch break where we eat our food and we'd be in these classrooms where we're looking to somebody like a manager to tell us what we got to do and tell us what we have to learn. And it just seems like normal schools are just preparing kids to go get a normal government job in the workforce and stay

there for a really long time because it's what they're used to. Are we right? Yeah right yeah 100 on purpose okay this is all on purpose right and so that's part of you know without getting all um you know i don't want to get like where it sounds conspiratorial or whatever but the reality is the the people who brought this model over that was kind of the the mo is you get people smart enough to follow directions, but not quite smart enough to really think for themselves, challenge it, want to go outside it, maybe do something better. Right. It's, it's kind of that general sort of mentality. Um, and we've just continued to maintain that. Um, so you're absolutely right. Like we're continuing to push

people. So that's one of the biggest downfalls is that you've got all these 18 year olds that have always had that. They're still asking another human being, like, can I go to the bathroom right now? And that other person has the ability to go, no. You're like, OK, got it. And then they graduate and the next day they're supposed to make all the decisions for their life. Right. When they've never made a friggin decision, including when I get to go to the bathroom. Right. So we're handicapping them from the get go. fricking decision, including when I get to go to the bathroom, right? So we're handicapping them from the get go. And so we're creating all these kids who go into, you know, even at the end of

college, go into their job. If they're lucky enough to get one, what do you want me to do? Give me the rubric so I can get my a, right. I'll play that game. And as soon as I get done, I'm going to sit here and I'm going to wait for you to tell me what to do next. Cause I don't understand how my role plays into the bigger role of everything, right? And so we've created all these handicapped individuals. And it's one of the biggest things that I hear from CEOs, from hiring managers all over the world. It's that, like we're playing with like,

come in and help. Lockheed Martin has me work with their, what they call their developing leaders program. It's all these 22 year olds that are out of Harvard and Stanford and MIT. And they're all way frigging smarter than me. And they're like, Hey,

we want to fire all of them. We want to get rid of all of them. Cause they don't know how to do anything. They don't know how to work. They're all really smart, but they suck. So can you help us not fire all these kids? You know,

like that's it. And that's what we're creating in mass still. And the more we standardize and the more we focus on just two subjects for one test, cause that's where our money's coming in. The more we're handicapping these kids to think that exact same way. So yeah, you're not wrong at all.

I think a lot of times, school and just standard education teaches you to maybe question or poke holes in things, but then not have a solution. And to place a ceiling on things a lot of times. Because I get this a lot where i might say something and then i would hear well the problem with that is yeah and i'm like okay if

we're going to point out problems i mean i i can we can have a we can do that all day yeah we can talk all day there's a lot of problems with a lot of things but if i'm trying to elon musk this thing you know i'm trying to make it better yeah so. So, okay, maybe you brought up the problem, but can you also see, okay, you might recognize that as a problem, but what would be a nice solution to that? A hundred percent. Or what can we poke holes in it to where we get thinking about. That's it. What the solutions would look like. That's exactly it, is going from that solution standpoint, right?

And then also understanding that as things change, the solution may morph too. Right. So one of the things we talk about is our kids, not only do they know where to find answers, not only do they know how to create and look for a solution, but they can also go, okay, well, right now I need to actually kind of unlearn. This is whatever this is, is no longer relevant to society or to the answer or whatever. So now the solution looks different and the solution needs to morph right at this point too. mean that you know this didn't exist 10 years ago and 10 years from now that's a pager right like that's so so cool so then what do we do with that so don't get too tied to this what's the functionality but as there becomes a better solution then or a better tool then let's bring that tool in so that we can create a solution that looks a little bit different.

But it's that solution thinking. But everybody likes to, people like to chill in the problems. We like to sit back and watch Tom Brady and be like, oh my God, I wouldn't have made that pass. Didn't you see that guy coming over the top? There's no way. And we're going to sit there and tell the goat behind our football player. Oh, yeah.

I have to film him. You've got to help him out. Se a football player. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I have to film him. You've got to help him out. Football. Yeah. Seahawks. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah.

So, you know, we love to do that, man. And that's, but it is coming with a solution makes it big to do. And we'll get it all the time. Parents, everybody went to school, so everybody knows how to run a school. Everybody knows how. Like, this is what you should be doing. Like, okay, cool. Got it. Thank you you 10-4 are there uh are there grade levels at acton um what grade are you in so i i well so

here's what i'm thinking because my daughter's in seventh grade right now and uh you're talking about you know uh uh opening up a new school in sacramento checking out the website it's you know scheduled for 2021 by then she would be in let's see math i think ninth grade ish it carried the two yeah of so that's ninth grade of traditional school and then if she were to join act in like like that'll be the first time she experienced anything like that yeah what would that transition look like for someone that's in that situation? It's a really good question. It depends.

There's no blanket statement, right? Because there's no blanket statement for humanity in general, right? So, you know, we have kind of as close to a generalization as we can. If somebody's got a certain amount of years in a traditional system, it'll take them maybe that many months before they start to learn how to self-direct. And that's held relatively true, but it depends on the kid and depends on the parent too. I mean, it really depends on the parent, right? If the parent is on board speaking the same language, the transition can be much shorter, but it is way harder to come in as a freshman. It's way harder than if you're a five-year-old because you have to unlearn.

You got to unlearn all of that programming. You have to unlearn waiting for somebody to tell you exactly what to do, when to do it. You have to unlearn the fact that, wait a second, I have a voice. Wait a second. I don't, it's not about just taking a class and having subjects. I'm supposed to go create right now. I'm supposed to go create. And, and if I find something I really like, or that I'm good at, they actually want me to be obsessed about that and just go become a ninja on that. And we don't give a shit about your SAT score right now because you're a rock star right here. Like, go get this. It's a different it's a different mindset, you know, so it's really hard if you come in at five years old and they just go, OK, well, this is the way it is.

It's a whole nother game. Not saying it can't be done. And we've got kids that come in at all different ages, but there is a vetting process and there's no perfect vetting process too. But it's like, we'll have our info session, kind of an open house next week. Right. And so we'll do one a month and we'll have 70, 80 families. It'll come in and sit in the auditorium.

And within the first like five, 10 minutes, my goal is to get everybody to leave. All of them. I'm like, most of you guys, your kids would probably be fine. Most of you guys will not. You will not be able to get around the emotional baggage. Here's kind of some of our beliefs. College is great.

If you want to learn how to play the game, we'll get your kid in, you know, help your kid get into college. If they want to do the work, that's fantastic. For 90% of them, it's a dumb ass idea to do. Like, I'll throw that out. Math does not matter. Um, you know, just try to, as much as I can, is I can just kind of irk them and just see how uncomfortable I can get them and just try to get them to go early. It's the hardest thing is, is to find the parents that are, that are going to support

that. Yeah. Placing kids in certain grades. So it probably doesn't, you're probably not too concerned about it. They can probably go one way or the other. Yeah. They can probably have a two- or three-year age difference. They do.

Right. In their studios, there's multiple ages, and it's more social-emotional is the biggest part. And then some academic ability plays into it a little bit, but it's that social-emotional part of it that matters the most. There's nothing better than hanging out with an older kid when you're young. Like it's like, there's so sure. Someone who's 11 when you're nine, they're like, first show the football further and do all this stuff. This guy's so awesome. For sure.

But then there's also like the downfall of like the, the 11 year old we're taught in regular school. If you're 11 and you're not, well, I get to automatically look down on you because you're not right. I get to squash. You are not right. And then I will automatically revere you when you're older, even if you're a complete douchebag, you know, and our kids mix so much, you know, my, my boy who's there now, and he's in that, the youngest studio, he's, he's just under five and, uh, you know, he'll come home and be like, okay, so my friend, you know, my friend Cameron, and I'm like, Oh, Cameron in your studio is like, no, no older. I'm like, Oh, the 18 year old Cameron.

That's your friend. Got it. Yeah. You know? And they just, and they'll throw them like, Hey, Cameron, dude, you're not following the contract right now. You have a five-year-old call out an 18 year old being like, then you're being a douchebag. Like, don't do that.

And that's legit. And they can legitimately point to it, you know? So, um, we just want them to have that experience because the reality is, so I'm 40 and if you guys aren't exactly 40, then we shouldn't be hanging out right now. We shouldn't be talking, you know? And what grade does that make us? And all that, none of that stuff plays out in life. It's only in the school game.

You know, it doesn't make any sense. So there is an actual contract that kids sign? Oh, there's a legit contract. They create the contract. And then, so at the end of our first, we kind of go in these waves of five or six weeks on, and then about a week or two off. And we kind of go in these, at the end of every session, we do what's called an exhibition. So we invite family, friends, whatever. You can see what they've created. You can see what they've done. We want to hoot and holler, like support the kids

with all the stuff. And then at the end, that first session, they have a ceremony where they go through and sign it. The parents make an, like take an oath and, and they sign a parent contract of basically like, I'm here to support you. Like the kids and the parents make promises to each other. We make a big deal out of it so that we don't have to worry about the drama of it.

They legit sign the contract. They don't have to, but if they don't, they don't get to stay. So that brings up my next question with the contract. They don't have to, but if they don't, they don't get to stay. So that brings up my next question with the parenting. Totally asking for a friend, I promise. Have you ever dealt with a student that lives in two separate homes when one parent's totally on board and the other one's just maybe not so much. A hundred percent. Yeah. And how does,

how do you guys get through that? We've got a lot of the, the split, um, that there is no blanket answer on that either. It's, it's tough. Um,

I, you know, I'm, I'm a big proponent for let's talk early. Let's like get the conversation out of the way. Um, I have told parents, you know, like,

Hey, you're, you're clearly not on board with this. So either you've got to not be a part, um, you can't talk about this or you got to, or we're just, this is going to mess up the opportunity for your kid. If it's, if it's really messing with the way the kid, you know, handles things and it's making the kid conflicted, that's the biggest, that's the biggest thing. And when it may end up not working out, you know, for the family, which is unfortunate. We've got to have the parents on board. They've got to be speaking that same language. So it does, it ends up being tough.

Luckily, it doesn't happen too much for the most part. Even if the family split, the parents are usually generally both okay and on board there. But if it's, if there's some, there's anything that's affecting that kid, it's going to be a heartache. It's going to be struggle. And ultimately, it's not good for the kid. And that's what we're looking out for is them, no matter what. What do you think is the toughest thing that you guys face? And how do you maybe dispel some of the misconceptions about your place, your facility?

I have to admit, going into that environment and seeing what it was and not having a good understanding of it, I'm immediately thinking like religious or cultish or any of these kinds of things because I've never seen anything like that before, so I don't know anything about it. So what are some of the things that you guys face that are tough, that make things harder for you guys? Well, it's hard to get people to join the cult, right? You know, some of the ceremonies, some of the the sacrifices right up front like people aren't necessarily down um

so yeah there's no there's what's cool is because we don't have a religious affiliation like the the conversations around religion are really in depth the whole time i was there i was waiting for you to like say something like you know to get this sucker me and steven into like you know going to your church or something that's hilarious yeah there is no we we bought the building in roseville from a church they still operate out of there but it's a different and that's what you said in the beginning like yeah don't worry about this stuff i was like yeah yeah sure you're gonna club me over the head on the way out with a bible oh that's so funny, dude. Yeah.

No, there's no religious affiliation at all. No cultist affiliation. God, dude. Now I'm wondering how many people walk in and they think that now. Yeah, right. They come in. Don't worry about it. That's all.

Yeah. Don't worry about these prayers and things. It's all good. Oh, and let's go. I'm going to take you there. Here's a podcast room. Here's the adrenochrome room. Yeah, dude.

No, there's none of, uh. There's none of that going on. The biggest myth is that because we put academia, what I think is in its place, right? And I'm not saying it's completely irrelevant, but it's somewhat or moderately relevant. You know, that, that, and because we say college isn't necessary for everybody, that it is a place that then is for somebody who's troubled or somebody who has special needs. And we're saying, no, this is a place where we actually believe kids are geniuses and we actually

want them to go out and cry. Like it's literally the, it's the, um, the indoctrination around school. That's really all it is. It's that emotional attachment. If you thought, if you, from a lit, I mean, religion's a perfect example.

If 92% of our population grew up hardcore Catholic and I'm coming in going, I've got a different religion now that means you need to kind of like stop revering the Vatican. Like there's issues there, right? There's pedophilia there. And they're like, yes, we see it, but still my kids need to go to mass, right? It's you're breaking people from this religion of this is what school looks like. It is 95% of our, of our struggle. And so it's a long tail game of a proof of concept thing. You know, I mean, it really is. And, and, um, I think CrossFit again is kind of a good example that whether you like it, you don't, you love it, you hate it. Like that's irrelevant. The reality is they change the way people viewed fitness. Some people have done really, really well with it. Right. And then you've got your other businesses that are now having their CrossFit style classes out of it. Right. And it's shifted some things. That's what we're doing.

It's the solution. We're going, hey, look, here's a solution. Here's a better way that's more relevant for the 21st century and proof of concept over time. Now it's going to, you know, other schools are going to have to follow suit. Public schools won't. Too much money. So does this sound right like even though you sell quote-unquote school and you sell education it may not even really be that relevant or important but but you do need to learn you need to learn shit sure you need to learn you absolutely need

to learn right there's a difference between education and school right yeah that's the difference you're always learning something right you know learning and walk around you walk around here and learn what you guys are doing see what you guys are doing like that's learning we have a conversation i mean that's learning you tell stories that's learning your grandma tells you a story you're learning you get on your bike and you fall down you are learning like you're always that is just the default state of the human being you know is learning but there's a difference between education and school school implies a very narrow system. We're saying, look, this is a buffet.

You've got all the food available to you in the world. Try it all. Try all the food. And then when you figure out which one you really like the best, let's hone in. Let's look at all the variations of that. Let's learn to build a life around that because you love that. You want to stay at the dessert bar the whole time? You're more than welcome to. Stay at the dessert bar and make a life around the dessert bar love that. You want to stay at the dessert bar the whole time? You're more than welcome to.

Stay at the dessert bar and make a life around the dessert bar. Dude, that's it. Right? Whereas schooling is more about, no, no, no. There's these four foods right here. They're all about as good for you as Mickey D's and you're going to stay right there. Yeah. That's all you get to eat.

And then all of a sudden that's going to make, that's going to make life work out. It's horseshit. You know, you were saying that, um like when andrew's talking about bringing jasmine in um you you said that you kind of base where or what part like classes that these kids are in based off like socially emotional skills yeah yeah i was curious first off how you kind of judge that but i was also curious because people are probably thinking this like what if my kid currently has bad grades do Do you guys even do grades? I'm guessing probably not. Yeah, we don't.

So there's a mix of, I mean, grades as in like a through as an a through F deal, right? Yeah. So from an academia standpoint, so we'll utilize a lot of open source systems. So things like Khan Academy,

right? So we know Sal very well and, and Sal's a great dude. And so he's building a very comprehensive network of, of things that you can self-direct your own learning from an academic standpoint. Right. So we'll use Khan Academy. We'll use programs like Dreambox, Lexia, all of these kind of self-directed, almost gamified things for academia inherently built into those.

You've got to pass. You've got to show mastery. You've got to pass a certain course. You've got to do a test. You've got to show mastery, right? Like you've got to pass a certain course. You've got to shit, you've got to do a test. You've got to do that. We're more concerned about taking a step back foundationally going, okay, so you're in this particular unit right now. What is your week look like? How do you want to schedule out your week and how much Khan Academy do you want to put in there? And you're like, okay, by the end of this week, part of my goals, or I want to get

through, you know, three skills in con. Cool. Awesome. Let's put down those three goals. When are you going to do that? When are you going to map that out in your schedule? We're more concerned about helping the kids do that. And then at the end of the week, go, okay, cool. Did you get to your three skills? You're like, yeah, I actually got four. Cool. So next week, if you want to keep doing that, should we make your goal four?

Like, is that right? Or was something super easy? Like, what does that look like? Or you're like, no, I got two. Cool. Okay. You got two. Did you set your goals too high? Or were you dicking around? Were you like, what does that look like? That's self-awareness piece. Socratic conversations, along with projects from an individual side or a, so this is where we deviate from the grades thing, right? An individual side or a collaborative side. So my daughter right now is working on, um, she wanted to, uh, do like an interior design and a, and a home design sort of thing, right? So she worked on a program where she created a virtual design of, of a house and, uh,

then created a physical model of that same house and then wrote something on why she designed the house the way it was, why this is her dream house, why she thought this was like, how's that? If she did her best that she modeled it after, you know, somebody who had done something before her,

she did her best work. Who are we to go? Okay, well, let's do, like, forget the subjectivity of a grade, right? Like she wanted that, and she had a time frame in which to do it and have it done so that she could exhibit it. Two, we get the high stakes of she knows now her parents, other parents are going to come in and see that work. That's where the feedback really comes in. Forget the A through F. I was going to say, do people get to ask questions? People get to come in and ask questions.

Like, hey, there's like a, is there a hole in the roof? Why did you do this? Exactly. What'd you do? Why'd you do this? Right. And that's real kind of feedback. That's what those exhibitions are for.

Yeah. Right. Because that's the way the world works. Your business gets feedback on whether or not you make money and stay in business. Like that's your feedback. You don't get a grade, right? Your feedback in a relationship works on, does my wife stay with me? Right? Like, are we, do we get along? Barely. Barely. Exactly. Yeah. Like it's, but that's the feedback. It's not, I don't get, you know, we're coming up on our,

on our anniversary this, this month. And I'm like, I'm like, okay, what did I get? You know, she's like, you got a B plus in husbandry this year, you know, and this is like i'm like okay what did i get you know she's like you have b plus in husbandry this year you know and this is like that's what you know so it's real feedback there and then the collaborative projects again that have that exhibition attached to it so that's where we expose them to things that they may not have been so the individual projects they're choosing and going oh this looks interesting and we've got this is where that network comes in handy because we've got hundreds right and we just go just go here. What do you guys want to do? We'll get the materials. Like,

what do you guys want? And they're like, Ooh, we'll take this one. We'll take this one. We'll take this one. We'll do our academia in the morning and we're going to tackle our individual projects later and have our timeframe.

So we know we've got to actually get some shit done because people are going to come see it. And then we're also going to expose them to some other discipline. And that's going to be a collaborative where the three of us have to produce something. And and and again have that same time frame and a little bit of that real world work sort of mentality of like oh we got a time frame we got to get you know get something out get a product out yeah what are the uh the hours of operation then so we'll open our we'll open our doors at eight um and kids can come in and do what they

want to do they can get to work um we'll We'll have different things going on at 8 o'clock from sometimes yoga, sometimes PE, sometimes they can just play and do what they want to do. Yoga? Yeah, man, go in there and stretch. And a lot run by students, too. We'll have a high school senior coming in and just doing yoga for all the kids in various classes.

But then the morning meetings for all of them start at nine. And so that literally is a meeting. And again, that's little kids, older kids, everybody in between. They're meeting with their studio. And that starts with a standing up, good morning, shaking hands, learning to look each other in the eye, like, you know, that kind of stuff. And then they'll jump into a Socratic conversation. They'll end the day at three.

But then again, you know, we're open for a while afterwards. So there might be another like culinary class going on. There's various groups that come in and rent the facility out and kids can get involved in helping those. We've got a lot of political groups that come in and like to use our space because we have a nice, a nice space. And we'll have high school kids that will help them run their stuff. And so when people come in, they're like, Hey, we would like to rent out your building for this event. You know, how much does it cost? I'm like, well, what's fair? What do you think is fair? What can you guys afford? And they'll say, okay, we can afford this. I'm like, cool. How many kids do

you need to help you run all of this, help you run the sound, the AV, the tech. And they're like, okay, we need these two kids. I'm like, cool. So then that money right there, you split it up. That's their pay. You pay them directly. Don't pay us, pay the kid, pay the kid that's out there working. So yeah, it's cool. How do you deal with the people being late or people not showing up? Is that something that's like usually in their contract and the other people just kind of point back to the contract and say, Hey, that's not the way we behave around here. The kids hold the time, the being late thing, the kids hold, they, they decide that, but they hold that pretty, pretty hard line on that. And they'll hold it harder than a lot of times the adults would, you know, they'll hold that and be like, dude, why are you like, maybe don't, you know,

don't let you in. Um, I mean, you miss it for the day. They really, you miss it. You miss out. Yeah. You miss the meeting. Like you get to, you miss what's going on. And if we have, you know, somebody there as a guest speaker, entrepreneur or whatever, like you miss it, you got to stay out. And if you didn't come, you know, the way we all decided yesterday, we were going to dress in a particular professional way because this person coming in, that's the CEO or whatever, like, and you didn't come in, you came in and sweats sit outside. I mean, they'll hold those. They will hold those lines. There is no, we don't have the butts in seats kind of thing. So if you want to go on a vacation with the family, awesome.

Go on a vacation with the family. Just do it from a work standpoint of communicate with your team. If we're collaborating on a project, I'm going to go on vacation with my family. I got to let you guys know because you guys are my partners. So I got to make sure I'm not screwing you guys over. Right. So it's just like work. It's a workspace for kids is what it is. do these kids follow the concepts of weekends like you know what i mean

yeah like you know how like in school you you have school monday through friday then saturday and sunday you have a break just like work yeah do do they do things on the weekend too do you guys have things for them to do or do they just kind of like we don't necessarily have things for them to do we're not assigning homework yeah but a lot of them will do things on their own because it's a job right it's their job and and a lot of them majority of them actually like their job like they like it right the kids actually want to be there um you know my kids aren't excited for weekends and we've got a pretty i mean like are we hard to live with didn't really on your little ranch with your horses you tell like does this suck

right and but they're like ah but we just want to be there you know so the kids actually like it so a lot of them will take their projects home and they'll they'll do stuff over the weekend because it's just it's fun it's part of what they do you know yeah yeah which is cool isn't that how we're supposed to build a life yeah you know what i mean uh-huh like we're the the day itself doesn't necessarily matter we just enjoy what we're doing and who we're doing it with that's the point man you've mentioned uh studios a couple of times yeah what is that it's a it's a mixed age so from a social emotional standpoint, right? If we're talking about these Socratic discussions,

five-year-olds are going to have a discussion that looks one way versus obviously a 10-year-old or an 18-year-old, right? And so there are studios that they start the day with. There's a studio that's got four or five and six-year-olds. This one's got like seven, eight, nine, maybe 10-ish. This one's got 10. So it's kind of breaks it up that way. And that's got like seven, eight, nine, maybe 10 ish. This one's got 10. So it's kind of breaks it up that way. And that's really just for the conversations and for the collaborative projects. Other than that, they end up mixing all day long, but it's for those,

you know, for those things. One of our, you know, our middle schools last year had a great Socratic conversation around George Floyd. I mean, and that was their idea. They wanted to bring that to the table and they wanted to say, hey, does systemic racism actually exist? Is this a real thing? And if it is, what do we need to do? Right. So they had a fantastic conversation around that. That's not anything I'm going to have a five year old then.

Right. That's not they're not there yet for the most part. So that's, you know, that's why the're not there yet um for the most part so that's you know that's why the differentiation in the studios but then throughout the day as they're doing their individual projects and stuff they're mixing you know they're mixing non-stop and then you said earlier like oh you can't like through life you can't just say like i'm going to study this one subject like you know i can't work that one subject so do you guys have like a i guess a curriculum or like how does that work like you can study one subject i'm saying a curriculum or like, how does that work?

Like you can study one subject. I'm saying like life doesn't work in. Yeah. Sorry. That's what I meant. You're going to study one thing, like get at it. So yeah, they've got, we expect them to do at a certain amount of work, but they can decide what that looks like.

Right. Like everybody's doing the, everybody's taking on a collaborative project every five or six weeks. You're taking that on with, with other people. You're working on that period. The rest of that, you are deciding what that looks like from an individual standpoint. Do you want to focus all on academia? You can. If you want to do that, you can. We're not going to lecture you, but we're going to teach you how to get open sources and figure that out. So we've got kids that take classes through Stanford and BYU and all that kind of stuff

right now because they're signed up through those. So they'll go rent one of our offices out and they'll go in and they'll sit down and they'll take their live classes. You can do academia for sure. You can do that all day long. You can also do some of those individual projects. We have hundreds to choose from. So you can do those and decide I'm going to do like three individual projects over these five or six weeks. I'm going to do three more on this. Like you decide, right? What that, what does that look like for you?

You can mix and match. All of that's cool. The only thing that's not cool is if you act like a douchebag at any point during that, then you got to go. Or if your parents are douchebags, then it probably wasn't hard to align with Gary Vee. Since so much of what you teach and preach seems like it aligns with them.

Anyway, a hundred percent. Yeah. It was the first time I, the first time I chatted with him, he's like, dude, tell me more about, tell me more about the school. We were actually on his IG, um, doing an IG live on his, and he goes, tell me more about this school. Like what, what is it that you're doing?

So I explained just a little bit and he, you know, in true Gary V fashion, like slams his, you know, slams his hand on the table. He's like, that's a school I would have fucking gone to. Right. And then it was like, yeah, man, so it's pretty cool. So yeah, so we've gotten, um, we did an event last year, uh, the no safe spaces event where we teamed up with Prager and, and, uh, Dave Rubin and some of those guys and put on this really cool event. And, uh, Gary gave us a, you know, kind of a shout out for that and kind of did a little promo piece for us. He's like, dude, I wish I had this kind of school as a kid. I wish I had had this kind of event as a kid. Like you guys got to go. So he'd done some stuff for that. And then he's helping us with a summer project for next summer. We're going to do kind of a, almost a reboot of like the apprentice, right? Remember Donald Trump's kind of apprentice. We're going to do that in the Sacramento area for teens. And so just bring teens into the Roseville campus, kind of do this like two week, like an apprentice camp, you know, where they're going to be doing real challenges around that and be able to win real money kind of stuff.

So, yeah, he's a big it just makes sense. Like I said, it's a big supporter. Yeah. Yeah. I like what you're doing because I think that, you know, the schools aren't going to change, you know. because I think that the schools aren't going to change. Well, even if they did, it would just be hard to get all of them moving in the correct direction. For sure.

They just have always been the same. America is really strange. It's a really strange place. Shit was set up so good, but it was set up a really, really long time ago. Yeah. And we haven't changed anything. And Joe Rogan actually did a sketch on it one one time in his uh comedic routine where he was like he was asking people like you know um he was he was i guess he was like one of the guys that wrote the uh declaration of independence or whatever and he came back like into the future and he was like so like that you know what would

you guys work on you know with the constitution and stuff and and they were like oh well we haven't changed anything he's like are you fucking kidding me i wrote that shit with a feather work on you know with the constitution and stuff and and they were like oh well we haven't changed anything he's like are you fucking kidding me i wrote that shit with a feather and i was high as hell you know it's like that's awesome we just haven't really had a lot of yeah there was great ideas that were set up then and there's a lot of things that you know maybe maybe when they wrote those things maybe they didn't realize that america was going to kind of get into you know quote-unquote policing the world. Sure. And various things. And so it gets to be very complicated on how the hell we're supposed to act today.

Yeah. We're supposed to do things today. Even the school system. I would say the school system was set up great for many, many years. For 20 years, 30 years. Yeah. For what it needed. Yeah.

The system that my dad went through and a lot of people went through of going to school and then going to college, it seemed to work for many Americans. Unfortunately, it didn't work for a lot of other Americans who were discriminated against. But it did work to help build America to a certain extent, to a certain point. Totally. And it just, it's broken. Yeah. It doesn't really work anymore. It doesn't work anymore.

Cotton gins works too. You know, like nobody gives a shit about those anymore. Model T was great. Now it's, you know, like that's it. It only goes 40 miles an hour. That's exactly right. So things. Inefficient.

You said things change. And so, you know, the fact that we're so reluctant to do part of it as a human nature thing, it's the comfortability, you know, thing. You get very comfortable in your complacency of just doing the same thing day in day out not pushing yourself there's a there's a you know you get comfortable that's part of it and then part of it is when big money gets a hold of and big politics and big agendas get a hold of anything and there's a whole lot of money and there's a whole lot of reasons there's a whole lot of control that's kept because we don't change. Well, shit.

You know, Pearson's making more than so like Tom Brady plays for the Seahawks, right? He's a football player for the Seahawks. Running back, right? I said running back. Yes, I said. You win! You're good, man. You paid attention.

Right? So, but. Smack the shit out of yourself. I know. And see, and that's, dude dude that's definitely not part of our contract so we're gonna kick you out we're gonna kick you out

of the cult abuse we're gonna kick you out of the cult abuse is part of the cult but that particular abuse is not part of the cult you're in trouble

overreacted dude that's it shoot it's better than like a leg sweep or an arm bar or something good call

it could have been a lot worse good call I didn't remember where the hell I was saying. Oh, no, dude. I was just going to. Pearson, right, that makes all the books. Like, they make the books and then the test prep materials for, you know, your test after.

And then your study materials, the test for the test that come out of the books and all this kind of, they make all, all of this, they make more money than any NFL team in a given year. Any, and like they Trump everybody, right. Holy by creating all of this kind of stuff.

That's what I'm saying. There is no financial incentive for them to change. Why would they want that to change? Right. And so there's a lot of lobbyists and there's a lot to change right and so there's a lot of lobbyists and there's a lot of you know there's a lot of things pushing to keep things exactly the same money's a big part of it so you're right you know the i think one of the big things that is really awesome to me about all of this is the mindset that kids get because um i obviously i'm

28 so i have a lot of friends that are around that same age and it's like they don't have the mindset where uh i guess not doing well at something or failing at something is is an opportunity to learn yeah it's more so when you fail at something it's like you're just not good at it you're gonna suck at it yeah there's there's really no reason to keep going let's switch to something else right and it sounds like all these kids they're great with criticism like when you told me about that nine-year- it's like, I don't think that's your best work. Like you tell that to somebody now they're like an adult, you tell that to an adult now

and it's yeah, for sure. They're either broken down or they're like, I hate you. You know, like it's one of those. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. It's the mindset. Yeah.

And so Ray does that whole thing of like, win or you learn. Right. And I was so fired up on this. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. And he's like, and then you win or you what?

I'm like, if I can lose. And he's like, no. And I'm like, no, no. I mean,

you learn. Like, did he suck me in that whole thing? But, but that's it. It's that learning process that's through, through the failure. And then just continue to go for it.

And again, I like to use sports analogies for a lot of things, but basketball too. Like you start out shooting, you suck. You're missing everything. You start shooting for that. You suck. You miss, you miss, you miss. And again, I like to use sports analogies for a lot of things, but basketball too. Like you start out shooting, you suck. You're missing everything. You start shooting for that. You suck.

You miss, you miss, you miss. And you just keep going until now you make it more than you miss. It's literally that easy. It's not, it's, it's that simple. It's that simple. It's not easy, but it's that simple. It's that same kind of concept. Just keep doing it.

And if it's your best work, great. And then go back and do it better next time. How about, actually you mentioned yoga, so they do have that, but I'm wondering, like I played a lot of sports as a kid, and is there something intrinsic other than that, like that these kids do physically each day, or is that optional for these kids? I'm guessing. How's that work? Yeah. I mean, we'll have, you know, we got the yoga there. Obviously, there's breaks for them to get out there and run around.

And we have, you know, kind of a physical education that's more of a fitness, you know, kind of related program. That's something I want to build out more, though, in our new Sacramento campus. Since we're going in and doing a complete redesign

of that building, we're putting a full on gym in there. Yeah, which is great. And again, we like to use our facilities to do development for, for adults too. We want that to be used 24 hours a day, seven days a week, right. For something good. And so we're putting a full on, uh, full on gym in there. We've got bags. We've, um, and actually Smokey hooked us up with the guy from Fuji mats, right? So we're getting some, um, you know, getting our bags, getting our mats in there. So we'll have, uh, we'll have martial arts in there. We'll have,

um, you know, get our racks in there. We'll have a full kind of, um, full fitness facility in there. It's a huge part, man.

It's a huge part. Yeah. Uh, and it's not, you know, it's, it's piss poor in, in traditional environments.

You know, it's, we all know what PE look like, you know, and it's a joke. We actually want to have physical fitness, physical training, get back to, which again was kind of an old school sort of thing too. Um, yeah,

we absolutely want to put that in there. And the program that Tim and I are working on too is geared more towards young men and that's ultimately we want a physical campus around that. And so that will include a whole lot of martial arts, but also include gun, gun training, gun safety, um, hunting, um, all of those kinds of things as well so for the young men they should do that so yeah which is super cool a lot of oh go ahead go ahead a lot of the people that went through the school are they currently now work for the school um that has yeah that's happened we've got we've got some of those um but a lot of our kids that

have gone through i'd imagine you would enjoy it and be like hey i'm just gonna stay here and keep working 100 but some we had a lot of them that are landing their dream job we have some that come out and you know a girl that came out and her non-profit was already grossing seven figures so it was like she's like i'm out i'll take a gap you know i'll take a gap year or two you know i just run my business um and we got some that are going you know straight into universities because it makes sense for them we got some that are going into um programs like praxis that are more apprenticeship based because i'm going to literally everything yeah cool to literally everything. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Literally everything. We got a question from the live chat. I'm going to scar gar. Hopefully that's pronounced correctly. Don't know what kind of name that is,

but basically they're just asking like, how do you have like performance indicators? Like, how do you know if a student is thriving or I don't know, they need a, somebody to guide them a little bit more. Yeah. How do you know you're thriving in anything? Right. We like to measure things. And that's one of the things in school. That's one of the things that we feel safe with is when we can measure it. But again, when it gets to stuff that really matters, how do you measure how much you love your wife? How do you measure? Right. So then what is the definition of how do you know they're thriving? If I've got that mom who tells me I have a completely different child at home, they're ridiculously happy. They're taking on more responsibility. They're actually,

you know, they're making money in their business. They want to go to school every day. They're making friends like they're happy. So I would say that that's thriving, right? I would say that that's a thriving thing. So again, depends on it's the context of what we're talking about. If we're just going to focus on academia, you're thriving. If you're getting better period, like you can still measure academia is the easiest thing to measure. Right. And so I fully get the questions. We get that all the time. Um, from a project standpoint, is this your best work? And what we do from a very general sense is we give kids, if it's going to be a writing piece or it's going to be, you know, an end result of any kind of project, we want to give them as close to a world-class

example as we can. You know, look, here is a piece of writing that would be considered, you know, a persuasive essay, right? And this is a world-class example of persuasive writing. Don't plagiarize it, obviously, but copy the style, copy the format, right? Like copy that kind of stuff and then, and see, and that's how you learn, that's how you learn how to write, right? And so it's, and then the next time you do it, you take that and go, okay, can I get it better? And you want to give it to your peers. And we have all of these systems in

place, but to just get better, if you are getting better every day, you're thriving. If you're happy in that, you're thriving. If you're happy in that, you're thriving. If you're productive, you're thriving. You're treating people well, you're thriving. And getting a 90 on a Civil War history test doesn't mean shit. It doesn't mean shit. School is like... It means the same thing as whatever score you got at Scandia on your fucking mini golf game.

Right. It means the same thing. Cool. That's how you played that course, that game. You got that score. You may have paid attention. You may have paid attention in school and you may have enjoyed that particular subject. You might have a decent memory.

Yeah. But does it really show much improvement as a person? Right. You know, and maybe you can start to say, okay, well, if you did nineties all around, then that means that you are maybe a self-starter, you know, there could be other qualities in there, but do we have to learn stuff that we don't want to learn in order to know that? And in order to gain an advantage over other people to be a self-starter? Fuck no. Exactly.

That's unnecessary. And just because you have academic aptitude doesn't it does not translate to success iq provably does not translate to success provably like it does not it's all those other things matter so much more your emotional intelligence is probably huge more important because then you just have the ability to communicate with people which is that's it and you've got like you said self-confidence right you've got the confidence to because you've actually done some things you have self-confidence, right? You've got the confidence because you've actually done some things. You have self-awareness. I know what I'm good at.

I know what drives me. I know what makes me happy. I know how to build a life around seven days a week. I can do things that I need to do because I also happen to like what I'm doing. Those things are way bigger indicators. How about the teachers or instructors or whatever? Yeah. I don't know what they're called.

Yeah, we call them guides. Guides, okay. Yeah, they're like the mentors, right? So they're kind of watching. They're trying to gauge kind of the energy in the room. Is everybody having a good time? Is somebody struggling on something? What kind of questions do I need?

They actually don't lecture. They don't answer questions. They will only ask questions. That's one of our rules. They don't answer questions. They will only ask questions. That's one of our rules. They don't answer questions. So they will only ask questions. So what kind of quote? What do you think of this?

They say, well, what do you think of that? What do you think of this? How could we figure that out? Or, hmm, what would we? My kids hate me for that. Let's say this here. You're a great teacher there. For sure.

But that's it, because it makes them think and have to figure it out. So then by the time the students are older, if they've gone through that system they don't bother asking a freaking like what's the point like that guy's not going to answer it you know so um it's way harder to be a guide than it is a teacher because you're having to continuously watch that um you know kind of watch that energy psychoanalyze everybody like how do i ask this question that gets you fired up and then i ask you in a different way it gets you fired up and then if things are devolving who's kind of my sheepdog that's in here that will kind of bring things back and i okay it's smoky so smoky what do we do what do we need to do right now to kind of like what do you think if we look at the contract and kind of

the way these guys are doing like what could we what could we do to kind of help fix this and when they say we they mean you right and and so it's like you're this you're professor x in the background right so it's hard to find those people because they've got to be first of all on board with from a from a school standpoint they've got to be like yeah dude this is the way it's supposed to look but then they also have to be a natural connector with other humans actually have to like people you don't have to like people as a teacher right you just have to be a natural connector with other humans. They actually have to like people. You don't have to like people as a teacher. Right? You just have to like the system.

And so they've got to really connect. And that's a DNA thing more than it is something you can teach. Yeah. It really is. Is it hard to maintain a guide? Because I'm just imagining somebody who wants to be an educator and they find themselves there. And they're like, man, what am I? Screw this. I'm going to go do my own thing now.

Like, as far as like their business, like maybe they became an educator because that's what they went to school for. Right. And then they come here and they kind of all of a sudden see what's happening with these kids starting their own,

you know, businesses and stuff. And then want to go do that. Yeah. I mean, realistically, if they started out as a teacher and then they came to us, it's probably not. I've had so many people that have walked in our doors like, oh, my gosh, I've been teaching for 20 years.

I've got to be a part of this. I'm like, you just said bad words to me. You just said you were a teacher for 20 years. Like you were involved in the other cult for 20 years. Like, no, dude, this is not going to be the place for you because you're not going to be able to unlearn all of that kind of stuff, you know? So, um, but I encourage, I encourage the entire, like the entire staff is on this mission for these young people. And I also encourage them to, what does that look like for you long-term? What is your journey long-term? Allie is here and she does media marketing for us. And she's amazing at it. She's also working on being an actress. Awesome. I want you to do both.

Right. And I'm going to pour into, to that. I want them to do both. Right? And I'm going to pour into that. I want them to pursue what we're doing on our mission here. And there's room for them to continue to grow within the organization as well. I mean, we're making it so that there are multiple things they can do within the organization. And I want them to pursue what they want to pursue outside of that too. And my job isn't to care which way they go. My job is just to pour into them as human beings, just like their job is not to care from the young person. It's to pour into them as human beings and making sure that they're growing how they want to do. I'd look at it the same way as the guides look at the kids. I work with the staff that way. Yeah. And can students get rid of a

guide? Yep. How does that work? They are give that, that feedback anonymously or non anonymously. Um, and, and if, you know, we, this isn't something that's flat out. It's not something that it's going to pertain at our plate. We have amazing human beings and that's not just pandering to my staff. They're awesome. Like that would never happen with web, but that has happened. Um, and kids will have, uh, they have town hall meetings every single, every single week. They can have those town hall meetings in their studios by themselves, or they can have the guide there, right? They get to choose what that

looks like. They'll run the town hall meeting. And if they want a town hall meeting without the guide present, and they want to talk through like, Hey, the guide is not abiding by the contract and they can give valid things like, Hey, look, this give valid things like hey look this is where they're not this is where they're not we would ask them to then have the guide and go look you're not abiding by the contract here here and here we'd like to see this as a you know it's kind of a performance review right like we'd like to see you change this and this and this and if the guide does not do that then they can bring examples to the owner and just go hey look here it Proof's in the pudding. And they got to go.

The fostering of community in this man is totally insane. I mean, in a good way. It's insane in a good way because it's like all these kids are just learning how to be fruitful members of a small community. Bingo. Which you don't learn that necessarily. Especially like in normal school public school there's always clicks and stuff for sure and there are kids that you know are out there and they're not able to be within this and they just do their own thing and they're and kids just

don't know how to be a part of a group exactly that's part of the biggest issue and people all about you know we need school because of socialization right i'm like cool you can learn socialization in prison too. You can absolutely learn it there, for sure. Not sure it's the right kind. Not sure it's what you want. There's a reason cliques form in prison too, because that's a safety thing.

And same thing that happens in school. These are my safe people. And so that's my rival gang over here. And the reason a lot of times those form is because when they're in prison, they don't have a voice too. You're told when to do what to do. You're told to gang over here. And the reason a lot of times those form is because when they're in prison, they don't have a voice, too. You're told when to do what, you know, what to do. You're told to do it here.

You're told to take a shower here. You got to stay in line here. The most relevant, I think, kind of comparison systemically for what we do with our kids in school from a purely observational standpoint, it is it's prison. It's that same sort of thing. Right. And so of course, all of these, we even feed,

we even feed them the same. And we do, we do. We feed them the same. I mean, you feed, you feed them, you feed them food that intentionally makes them like sluggish.

That's exactly it. It spazzes them out and then slows them down. Low quality stuff. Low quality stuff. So they stop moving around so much. A hundred percent. Right. You're, you're lobotomizing these individuals and, Passes them out and then slows them down. Low quality stuff. Low quality stuff. So they stop moving around so much. 100%. Right? You're lobotomizing these individuals.

And then they know they don't have a voice. So they're trying to figure out, well, how do I have a voice then as a human being? And so you do that by bullying. We don't have, bullying does not exist. Nice. It's not a panacea. There's not, I mean, there's kids, there's humans. People will have disagreements.

And sometimes the younger kids, until they figure out how to do this, the disagreements can go. Like little have disagreements and sometimes the younger kids until they figure out how to do this the disagreements can go like little kid disagreements can go but we don't have bullying and it gets nipped you know quick there is no bullying especially once we enter the gun safety part of it you know reveal what are you excited about that yeah not when you said gun gun safety all right first off like i've shot i shot in a range a few years ago and then my friend got into guns recently. Yeah. And I guess it was my, it was another time I was in the region.

I was like, I was just very aware of the guys around me shooting. And it just, it, I was like, damn, I could die anytime. Yeah.

But, but the, the other thing was like when we started talking more and this, this might be kind of beside the subject. Um, like we were the only two black dudes on that range. It was Sacramento Gun Club. And we were the only two black dudes there.

He has a friend that owns a bunch of guns in Roseville. Went to this guy's house. He's a former Marine. He's a white guy. And he started teaching his kids how to shoot and be comfortable around guns since they were like 10. So one of his sons comes out with a shotgun and he shows it to me. He's like, check this out. And i'm like oh oh god and it's just like it's so great that you're teaching these kids not to be scared of guns or you're going to i don't know you said it's not but you teach them not to be scared of guns and and how to how to deal with these things in a in

a civil way it's that's something that i wish i learned as a kid because when i went to the range i was legit frightened for sure because you because it was unfamiliar it was very unfamiliar right we grew up being told you don't talk about religion politics money right so what that's created is a whole bunch of people who can't talk about religion politics money yeah right it's that same concept expose early expose often have the conversation around it's a real they're not going away so understand the the good uses for the bad uses for it make sure the character of the human being is there no guns ever killed anybody by itself right and make sure the character is is solid there and and we'll all be better off for it yeah that's it cool where can people find it and where

can they find out more about your school appreciate it man um actin placer so a-c-t-o-n placer is p-l-a-c-e-r you can go there to actinplacer.com you can find actin placer on uh you know ig or facebook all that under mine is my stupid french last name you know just matt just matt bodro and and um the essential 11 is our as our outreach you know podcast and um you know it was honored to have you in there, man. I had a good time with that. Anytime. I'll come back on. Yeah, I appreciate it, man. So, yeah, you can go to any of those spots, man, get some more info.

Anytime you want to bring some of those kids over here to check out the gym or check out the facility or you want me to come over there or do something. That's awesome. Or maybe we can come over there and show them some workout stuff or something. It would be fun. Oh, that would be rad. That would be rad, especially with the SAC campus, with the gym that we'll have in there.

That'd be super fun, man. That'd be amazing. I know. This guy doesn't look like he works out. Yeah, you can't tell. He's gone to the gym a couple times. It looks like he's been there once or twice. Yeah, for sure.

Take us on out of here, Andrew. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. Thank you, everybody, for who was chatting on the live stream. That was really cool to see you guys here. I know it's been a hot minute since we streamed live, so we appreciate it. Please make sure you're following the podcast at mark bowles power project on instagram at mb power project on twitter we're on linkedin facebook and of course right here on youtube uh my instagram is at i am andrew z and sema where you at again you're freaking amazing yeah this is dope this is so dope when i have a kid brother he's going to this

school please or she and had and sema in yang on instagram youtube and it's me yin yang on twitter This was dope. This was so dope. When I have a kid, he's going to this school. Please. Or she. And add Nseema Yin Yang on Instagram, YouTube, and Nseema Yin Yang on Twitter. Mark. I think one of the best things you said was that if you had a perfect day, that there would be no adults supervising and the kids wouldn't even notice and they would just carry on as normal. Yes, sir. I really like that a lot. Anyway, I'm out of here.

Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch y'all later.