Shaun Newman Podcast - #770 - 2024 Year in Review

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

Ken Rutherford hops on to discuss all things 2024 and the SNP. Top 25 episodes, analytics of the podcast, favourite episodes and highs/lows of the year. Cornerstone Forum ‘25 https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone25/ Text Shaun 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Silver Gold Bull Links: Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca Email: [e-mail] Text Grahame: [phone]

This is Viva Fry. I'm Dr. Peter McCullough. This is Tom Lomago. This is Chuck Pradnik. This is Alex Krenner. Hey, this is Brad Wall. This is J.P. Sears. Hi, this is Frank Paredi.

This is Tammy Peterson. This is Danielle Smith. This is James Lindsay. Hey, this is Brett Kessel, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today, we're doing your interview. I'm joined in studio by Ken Rutherford. He was guest number one of the podcast book club member for, you know, I don't know,

But while it's, what are we? We're going into 2025, so that's probably seven years now. Think about it. Time has really flown when you think about it, Ken. That's, it's one of the weird things of looking back over a year because I don't really pay attention to numbers and analytics. I think I do and I don't, right? I feel like you get too tied up into it

and then all you do is stare at the numbers instead of enjoying the ride and, you know, doing what has brought me here, which is looking for the best guess and not worrying about what the numbers say, right? I interviewed a guy named the cowboy preacher once upon a time, not because I thought it was going to bring down the house. It did at the time.

But we're doing year-in-review today. John's going to be all over the map. It should be interesting. I don't like sitting in this chair. I don't do it on my podcast. I've been asked a lot to do it. I normally would way rather prefer to be interviewing Ken. But I brought somebody in to be a sounding board because I want to talk about the year-in-review.

259 podcast. in a year four of which I believe I was not a part of that would be twos is part when I took July and and he did the mash-up so you know 255 I guess but that number shocked me because I don't once again I thought I was hitting about 208 and to have that many extra in there I was like oh man no wonder at the end of the year at times I felt a little gassed so Ken's come in to help spur on some conversation because I think all of of us can agree when you have somebody to talk to and somebody to ask questions and add their thoughts too. I'm not going to have Ken just be a, no, you're an active participant is what I'm

trying to spit out. Ken, how's Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you too, Sean. Yeah, so it's an honor to be here for you, Sean, as always. And my understanding is, and I believe this as well, when you've talked to as many interesting people as you have, Sean, is you become an interesting person yourself. I mean, you already were before this. You and I have a long history. I don't, I don't know of my wife would agree with you. Otherwise, throw us under the bus. We throw them under the bus. But you are a very interesting person.

And because you're talking to people from around the world, from different specialties and your job is to get in their head and get out some information, by default, you know, I was thinking about preparing for this is you really have a degree or maybe working towards your master's degree in just cool information, which makes you an interesting person to listen to. So when you ask me to come on and just lead the conversation with you and, you know, interview you, I thought, what a cool, cool opportunity. You know, because here you do, what did you say, 200 some episodes in one year?

259. 259 episodes. Yeah. Right. Very, very interesting. And you've been doing this for years now, right? Yeah, well, you walked in on a call. Shout out to Lloyd.

Lloyd has just started listening to the podcast, interviewed his daughter earlier this month. And he was just like, who are you? And I'm like, oh, what an interesting question, you know? And so I just skip over all the stuff because, you know, there's been people who've listened since your episode number one, right? There's some people. And rightfully so, you go back through the first, probably what? I don't know.

For sure, 100 episodes, I made a lot of mistakes, you know, like as bad as not turning on the mic on one interview. So like it's uber quiet. You can still go back and listen to that because I don't know how to fix it. And at the end of the day, me and you had this conversation early, early on about a podcast you were listening to where you're like, I really enjoyed as a podcast at the time I don't know I didn't have 500 or 5,000 episodes

it doesn't matter but they left episode one up and you can go back and listen to how crappy they were and I was like well I want the same experience for the audience I don't want them to think

I'm a brilliant human being which I think I pretty much screw up every ad read every day so I don't think anybody has that misconception of me but certainly if you go back

to episode one and you listen to the first 50 there's a lot of nerve There's a lot of oopses. There's a lot of sound quality issues. And to this day, we still fight it. You do stuff online, and, you know, there's no perfect recipe to make sure internet quality stays strong. That's why on a year in review, I wanted somebody in studio.

And we're not worried about video today. We're going to spit this out in less than 24 hours. I wanted to be as close to the end as I could get. And, you know, I'm wandering here. This is why I host and I don't talk. But, you know, if you're new to the podcast, it started in 2019 with the guy across from me being my first guest. And we built the studio back then in Ken's old office building, which was the basement of an old house. And I joke about this all the time.

I used to take people there late at night. If you remember walking into that old garage, there was guns all over the floor. Not mine. And it was a dark yard. and you probably thought, if you were one of the first guests go out there, like, Sean's going to kill me. Like, this is where I go to meet my end.

And then you walked down the stairs into the basement. That was Ken's office. And there was this old storage room. It had mouse poo on the floor. And we tore it apart and gave it a nice feature wall. And eventually Windsor Plywood gave me the table that sits in here today. And I just started interviewing people there.

The first one, I'm but almost to me, was Valentine's Day. It would have been recorded a few days before that. Oh, you would have done. not that's right we had to get out of their quick for our wives yeah you had to get off for supper or go buy roses i don't know i was too excited because ken was mad at me because i was just like i flicked it on we recorded and then i released it because i was so excited i'm like if i don't release this like what am i doing and we uh we threw it out via email that email link broke because

it kept getting shared and anyways eventually it led to me starting my first ever anchor account and now I don't know how many people have listened to episode one to be honest, but it's been, you know, listened to probably thousands of times, which is a strange thought. The first one. Yeah. Interesting. Just, yeah, at the time, I mean, I'm a real estate valuation specialist, right? I teach it and I have my own business.

I was doing a lot of work for developers at the time. And a friend of mine bought that land that came with the house, right? So we had this house just sitting there. So he was like, why don't you put your office out here? I'm like, perfect. I like places in the country better. anyways and there we are with I don't even know if you had masks I'm sweeping up all the most poop probably not I don't know but here we are a bunch of farm boys yeah like no your review Sean the

the the you mentioned your numbers which you if you were to track your sure what do you could what do you track listens downloads so so so yeah so 20 I got so this year well okay so I 20 2019 I track downloads okay so if you downloaded a podcast which really got confusing for people but it would track to me as one right so essentially if you open the podcast like an episode and started playing it it counted as one does an open count as a

or what we found out over time is that you didn't have to open it you just had to download and it oh a download okay it was a download and so my first you fast forward to where we are at today Spotify's changed all these platforms are changing because they went, oh, I got all these downloads,

but nobody's listening, right? Because they could literally subscribe to a podcast, and you'll see it on your phone. You'll be like, oh, I haven't listened to Joe Rogan. I'm talking to myself. I haven't listened to Joe Rogan in a month, but all of his episodes were on my phone. Well, those would all count as downloads.

So they changed, and they turned it into plays. So now you have to open an episode and play it for 60 seconds. I've had my issues with Spotify in this. Coming to last year, as we chased a million, download plays because they switched part way through the year in that I was opening my own podcast.

I had a whole bunch of people go back to pick a random episode and start playing it, and none of them showed up. So I was very, I'm very skeptical to this day of certain numbers. I mean, nobody can argue with Joe Rogan's success or Sean Ryan or, you know, Tucker Carlson, right? You can see it play out right in front of your eyes. Some of that is, is quite factual. other times I'm like, I don't know. You know, I come now from the COVID world where if you said

a certain word, you're removed from from YouTube and I think Spotify isn't going to be entirely different. I don't care how open they are regardless. So that's my own thoughts there. So back in 2019, we're talking about numbers. Just let me jump in for a moment. When we're talking statistics, part of my background statistics is we're kind of comparing apples and oranges because they've changed what does account. But you and I have spent a bit of time talking about this. What makes your number is even more impressive is that they became more restrictive as to what's a count. So as you say I became stressed at some points because the numbers weren't as high as I thought there would be, but this last year, which we'll get to, uh, you're having exponential growth,

even though they get more and more restrictive as to what is a count of some kind. So you, you were going to go back to 2019. Yeah. So 2019, I had 26,6,694 downloads. I was it. I was operating. Now, I still, like back then, I was, I'm super excited about this. Because that number was, truthfully, people seeking me out to listen to it.

Because I wasn't playing it on Facebook. I wasn't video. I wasn't a whole bunch of things. So the only way you could find me back then is if you, I remember walking so many people through it. You know, it seems odd these days. And I can just imagine, like I think of like Bitcoin, trying to explain people how to get to Bitcoin. In a very simple sense, that was back in 2019 trying to explain to podcast people. And podcasts have been around for a long time then.

They had. But for my world, we hadn't been around podcast. So the 26,000 back then, I'm still like, that was super cool. It was one episode a week. I don't know why. You know, like at times I am last minute, spontaneous go by the fly

fly by the seat of my pants but when it came to this podcast I was releasing things every Wednesday and I remember being up to like one in the morning on or like Tuesday night staying up to one in the morning to ensure it came out

and Mel being like why what does it matter like it matters to me and it's become one of the few things you know certain people can maybe they wake up a roll over in the morning pop open the Bible that's the first thing or maybe the first thing they do in the morning

is go for a workout or whatever it is. You have something. It's your morning routine. It's your routine. It's something you do every day. I don't care what it is. And for me, it became the podcast. Once a week, I made sure. And the problem I had was I didn't like once a week because it wasn't fast enough. I was, like, how can you talk about the world today? Once a week. It's impossible. Tews gives me crap about this all the time with the mashup, because the mashup is essentially doing that. We're taking a week's worth of news, jamming it into a day's show. And at times, It's almost too much to do on one show.

So you go back to 2019 and the stats. 26,000. 2020 is where I went to twice a week because COVID hit. And I was like, well, my initial thing was I was never going to do a virtual interview. I want to do what Joe Rogan was doing, person to person. It's a thousand times better. And you running your own show once upon a time would know all about this. Being a person is way better.

So in the next year, I went to two shows. a week and it was 134,000 and then 2021 it went to 33,000 2022 went to 695,000 and last year we we in 233 we went to 1.2 million now 1.2 million folks is everything the the Spotify the Apple etc but we we started to get into the rumble which it wasn't that much Facebook it wasn't that much right the the bulk of what I was doing was people searching it out, which is insane to think about, I think, although podcasts were becoming more mainstream. So, you know, you're seeing the numbers grow, grow, grow. And this year, which is probably different than almost any year other than 2020 because I'm back on YouTube.

And YouTube shocked the crap out of me. You know, my best year, I was about to go over a cliff, like in the best possible way, or off a mountain top, or whatever you want. I was, I hit 80,000, I hit a thousand people subscribing, and they nuked my channel for Freedom Convoy, and, you know, I don't know, Peter McCullough. Still to this day, I got my channel back and four days later, they removed it again because of an old interview with Peter McClellan. Like, I haven't even posted anything on it.

So I have a love-hate relationship with YouTube other than it's like being on Spotify or Apple. It's a juggernaut. And this year alone, I just started posting on it. Like, a couple of months ago, at the prompting of Jack. So shut out to St. Louis Jack. I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever.

If we get removed, whatever. Well, you know, now we've tripled our viewership there, so tripled how many people subscribe, and I've hardly been back on it. So we're just over 3,000 people subscribe to YouTube. So if you watch on YouTube, subscribe, because it really helps. And I think it's 300 and some odd thousand people

watched on YouTube this year. That number shocks me, Because I just... When did you get back on? Like, maybe September. And you've had 300, yeah, too bad. Because it's a fool me once, kind of a situation, isn't it? They have such a large audience.

But... So, so all those numbers, 2024, 2.5 million plays of the podcast. That's not, that's not like me putting out a video on Twitter of a piece of a podcast. That's the actual listening to an episode. So we're not talking likes, shares. This is just listens. 2.5 million. Sean, you have amazing exponential growth.

Here's a year in review. I mean, what are the questions might be, what's the highlight of the last year? You know, and I mean, that screams as one, but I'll let you answer that. When you look back at the last year, what would be your highlight with respect to your podcast? Well, it happened in January.

I listened to it yesterday, oh, well, this morning, because I was like, I should just go back and listen to that. You know, once again, to the listener that's been along for the ride, you'll recall Frank Peretti. One of the things I'm trying to do with the show, and I don't do it well at times, is like I got this giant audience. Don't know what to do with it. And I got some thoughts on 2025 and different ways to help, like, you know, allow them to be involved in my life because I'm so involved, it seems, in everybody's lives when they listen. is Frank Paredi, I put it out to the world. I wanted to interview Frank Pready.

I just kept talking about it. It was all December of 2022, December, 2003. I was just like, I want to talk to Frank Pretty. I want to talk to Frank Pretti. I want to talk to Frank Pretti. So I just kept texting and phone calling, and I just kept putting it out to the world. If you can imagine like a solar, a wave pulse, I just kept putting it out. I'm like, I'm getting this guy on.

And within, I don't know, was it a month? Was it a month and a half, Frank Peretti on in January? I would go back and listen to how excited I was. And I remember thinking, okay, who do we want to get? Let's just go after it. Now, the only one that has never worked on has been Jordan Peterson. I mean, I've got to, folks, I've talked to his daughter, right? Like, email, email.

But I've talked. But you interviewed his wife. I've interviewed Tammy. I've, you know, like we have, I think this audience knows. We have tried. And for whatever reason, it just, it just. isn't there. And I, you know, now where I'm out with my faith, I go, it just isn't meant to be right now and it's okay. But I look at the 2025 and I go, okay, the highlight for me, just not

take the numbers out of it. I have no idea. Frank Prety isn't in my top 25 this year. It isn't. So numbers be damned. I don't care about the numbers. The number one podcast that stood out to me for 2025, uh, 2024 was Frank Pretty because it was such a surreal moment. You know, I told the story to him, which is, you know, someday I hope to share the same thought with Jordan Peterson. I don't even know if I need to interview him. I just want to let him know how important he was on my life to get me to where I'm sitting here. And Frank Peretti was exactly that. Frank Peretti wrote two books. He's written way more than that, but he wrote two specifically, this present darkness and piercing the darkness, which I found in a used like a second-hand store, Rattie.

Taddy, didn't know who Frank Pretty was, and, you know, prayed about it, bought them for $2. And then proceeded to read the stories and was like flabbergasted. I can't believe I'd never read them before. And if you're new to the, well, I don't know, if you're new to Christianity, but you like the flair of like Lord of the Rings or, or, I don't know, I always go back to Harry Potter and you can hate both of those books. I don't care. That's what he does for Christianity.

And it was just like, phenomenal. And so I wanted to interview him. I got to interview them. And that happened in January. A lot happened after that. But that one, you know, when I started thinking about 2024, you know, like it was just a surreal moment to see, you know, you pray about something. Then I talked about it with this audience a lot because I got a ton of text. People were, you know, like put me in contact with like bookstores.

Said, how do you order his book? How do you do this? Like we tried a lot of creative ways to get Frank Pretty. And then it just took a former guest, Ben Judo, knew the guy who published his book, I think, if I remember correctly. Ben's like, oh, yeah, we can get a hold. I'm like, really? That's how easy it is. Think how many more times you can do that?

We'll come back to that. But now, if you're okay, Sean, what was the highlight personally for you for the last year? We talked about your podcast. Yeah, personally. Is that okay? Yeah. So two things. I mean, they're the same thing, roughly, but celebrating.

my 10-year anniversary with my wife. And we, Ottawa was not, you know, Ottawa was very difficult on mine and Mel's relationship. And, Vance Crow, well, podcast guest podcast host on here,

he helped Tuesday this past summer. He invited me out a couple of years ago to an event he puts on every November. And I remember in 2023, went there in November and just being like, I'm in the wrong place. And I've said this on multiple podcasts now. I don't mean that being with Vance or any Vance's friends or that group, wonderful human beings.

Just that I'm spending way too much time, not in my own life, like not around my wife and my kids. I have a book club. I have a men's group. I don't need to go experience. Like, I have it. We've built it here in Lloyd. We really have.

And so I came out of that. And I came home and started talking. talking about it with the men's group actually and Blaine Stefan suggested family life they put on these retreats I was like oh okay I'm like is it Christian and he's like yeah I'm like ah Mel's never gonna go for it right so I came home and I was just like you know I really like to go somewhere and work on us I probably didn't say it like that I forget how I said I was pretty nervous and I was thinking she would say no and she looked at me and she said if that's what you want to do I'll go

okay so i booked us in we went to lake louise i mean can you get any worse than lake louise is beautiful and we spent a weekend there together and it was awesome like ups downs lots of emotion um anytime you really dig into a marriage uh i'm sure anyone who's married heck divorced thinking about getting about getting married you know there's more to the story than just what's on the surface level but uh to go there and do that to to like invest in my marriage was super cool and then to experience a 10 year anniversary together and um you know they tease me because i i took mel we're always in minnesota in august for our anniversary our anniversary's august second so we're always in minnesota for our anniversary but we got built in babysitters because

they're them you know my in-laws haven't seen the kids so we you know off we go and i wanted to do a boat tour of lake minnetonka giant lake right get dinner on the water etc well you know like she teased me about it after it was a sour moment of a point of conversation for a bit for me because we went on lake minotanka got this boat cruise got everything and then it was like kind of like senior couples and we're the youngest you know and so we kind of stuck out like sort of up but um yeah i don't know to me 10 year anniversary feels like a real achievement um they talk about uh business and podcasting um you know there's certain like you you know if you made it past this one you you survived right and I think in marriage um to get 10 years and uh you know like I

don't know I don't know I'm I'm like Uber attracted to my wife I I it's weird I'm like weird in the best possible way I you know if I my own younger self could see myself probably get it but like at the same time you know like to be it I feel like um um pop culture tells you that shouldn't be a reality and yet I'm I'm like I wonder if I'm going to be the same thing way at 60 you know like just be like uggling her like I just really enjoy being around my wife and then being being able to take a a weekend away with their work on it was I thought was probably should do more of that my wife laughed she's like she doesn't want to do it every year because we got kids and

we've got busy life and there's lots of other highlights personally that have gone on this year but certainly spending time with my wife is become really important to me. I heard you see that lots, Sean. What would you say? What's the purpose of building a business or a podcast or anything for that matter if it costs you your home life and your wife?

Honestly, I really admire that about you. And it's something you and I both have spoken about right from day one. Thanks be to God, both of our wives stay with us. We're both quirky, intense, odd fellows at times and these ladies have given up on us. So I really admire that in you, is that you and Mel are very different personalities. And even though you're very different, what I've observed is you both just very accepting,

or very accepting of each other for your different personalities and you put it together. And it's a mix. Like when I hear you talk about how attracted you are to her, you know, as I am with my wife, it's just it was meant to be, right? It's, if it, if what has, what you've come through hasn't shaken it, well, you know, kind of adds to your confidence level for being able to take on whatever's coming down the path because life has ups and life has downs and good on you.

So let's go into what was maybe your biggest struggle of the last year with your podcast? The low or the struggle or the part you're, I didn't see that coming. That was very difficult. Man, that was there ever a day you're like, I don't even know if I want to do this anymore or. Never a day where I don't.

I think never a day where I don't want to do it anymore. I am beyond fortunate, blessed to be able to do something that I love doing. I love coming to this place. I love talking to people. I think I've like through 20203 and into 2024, I like learned, like, Can I do, I have this idea in my head. I don't want to do three. It's your show.

No, no, no, no. No, no. I, I have this idea that I want to do 365 podcasts and 365 days. It's a stupid idea. But I watch Casey Nystad do it with like two minute videos on YouTube and he had exponential growth. Because, you know, in theory, if you have an episode or a video that gets, you know, a million views every four weeks, why wouldn't you just up the amount of videos so that you can hit the million once a week or you get the point? and so you know part of my mindset is the kc nice stat when you talk about lows this year i felt like i hit a low

right before christmas you call me i'm like can i just ain't talking i got to go somewhere that's quiet you know dark and i just i don't need to be told how the world works i don't need to be told what to think i don't want to listen to people anymore which is a terrible thing for a host to admit because I was just tired. I was just tired of being told how things are going. And, you know, one of the interesting things about being in a podcast that talks about the government, talks about the problems of the world, is not, there's not a lot of positivity, right? It's not like somebody walks in.

It's like, man, I just had the greatest day. And government helped me out and boom, and it was this and this. And I'm not saying that government, you know, anyways, I have my thoughts on the evil state that be. but like it can get to where I guess the low point was even I have a limit I'm learning that you know it's kind of like a muscle when you go to the gym if you do one podcast a week for a year to take on two although difficult you've kind of built up a little bit of muscle and so now like when I talk about taking days off in July one of the things we did in July this year for the first time ever is I slowed the podcast down I've never done that before the first time in five years that I decided you know what I'm going on holidays of my family. I want to be on holidays with my family. So we went from five podcasts a week to in my world three. So Tew's co-hosted his own show, the mashup with guest co-hosts.

I exited one and we did three shows. To most people are like, that isn't a break. To me, it was like I felt like I was on Cloud 9 in Mexico sipping daqueries or something, right? I didn't know what to do with myself because normally I'm in here. focusing on the next day, the next day, the next day. I'm never looking back. Actually coming in here, telling you when I got in here,

I'm like, I don't know why I'm so emotional about this. Like, it's just a year. It's not that big a deal. Yet I don't actually stop to smell the roses. I think of when I did the Cornerstone Forum, and forgive me. I'm forgetting her name.

That's terrible. Infinity leasing. And Tuesday is going to be like, text me immediately when I say that. But she stopped me in the middle of Cornerstone Forum. And it's like, do you know what you're doing? And I'm like, no, yeah, I don't know. I was like, you having fun?

She's like, this is amazing. And I'm like, okay, she's like, grab me by both shoulders, Ken. It's like, I need you to take a look around and see what you're doing. And I'm like, oh, okay, right? And, you know, when we were, when we won the Saskalta championship, I haven't talked about hockey in a long time, one of the things I did that I didn't realize how important it was going to be to life is in the dressing room after we won. You know, we went in Hillman, folks.

It was the first championship. Yep, since Gord Redden and that group of men. Which was 60s? I know, 70. I think it was 78 or 79. It was 37 years. Yeah, Gord, sure. 78.

37 years to when we want. And as you win in this small community, I'm sure any senior hockey man can relate, you have 18-year-olds who've snuck in to have a beer because in Saskatchewan, it's 19, to, like, 80-year-olds parting their love. Sure, Frank, man. Right?

Yeah. He was 70-ish at the time. He parted to me under the table. Two-stepped with his wife till three in the morning. He was just beautiful. And at one point, and I don't know why I did it, I just sat back, sat on the thing and just watched, didn't drink, didn't do anything. I just sat there and watched with a big grin on my face. And I was like, this is beautiful.

This is unbelievable. I'd hoped we'd get back there four more times. We got close, but we never won again. And certainly we had our chances. Me and you both know that heartbreak. but at times when I'm doing this, I don't, I don't want to get complacent.

I don't want to act like, oh, I've made it. I don't feel like I've made anything. Like at times I get it, but at times I'm like, I'm like two days away from, from going back to the oil field.

It motivates me. I don't want to do that. And I feel a very heavy responsibility or burden for not talking about COVID, like immediately, right? I took a full year. I don't,

I don't know. I say this lots. I wasn't the guy who saw COVID coming. I was terrified of it. I actually tried bringing on the doctors to come on and ease everybody's concern, right? I tried bringing them on so you could know what the heck was going on because back then nobody was talking. They wouldn't allow any of them to talk. Now I'm the complete opposite. Now I'm like, COVID was planned. It doesn't mean COVID wasn't real and people didn't die. I mean COVID was planned. It was an operation. I believe that. Call me wacky. I don't care. and I go, if it was planned, then it leaks, you can see the plan coming, let's stare at it, oh wait, we're going to do an annual event called the Cornerstone Forum, and we're just going to

try and identify things so that we never get caught flat-footed ever again. Because I feel a heavy responsibility, even though it probably isn't mine to bear. Now sitting in this chair, I think it is. It's like, well, I got to decipher through all the BS to know if, you know, is the bird flu coming, or is it just another thing on the, you know, because it, you know, I'm seeing everybody talk about the bird flu. I'm like, nobody's getting vaccinated. They lock us down great.

I say welcome it because everybody's going to wake up. Everyone's going to be like, screw this. They keep doing this fearmongering thing where we chase our tail after vaccines. Give me a break. There's bigger things at play here. I don't know what they all are, but certainly there's bigger things at play. But this, you know, one of the best lessons I learned, and I'm deviating maybe, is Chuck Pronic, Jamie Sinclair, two military guys have been here.

a lot and I had lieutenant colonel retired lieutenant colonel stephen murray on the podcast and he scared the shit out of me I don't drop swears that often folks but that is exactly what happened and then nothing happened right no terrorist attacks happened and everything and I talked to Chuck about it and truck's like oh yeah he's like you got to you got to spot the patterns of life so you spotted one that was concerning you warned everybody and you got a rhythm normally like nothing may happen for another 20 years So what are you going to do? Go around chewing your nails until they fall off and screaming that the sky's falling and he's like, no.

And then Jamie Sinclair's like, yeah, you just, you know, you're skating on an ice surface. And Dave Samanco's out there. Are you going and spearing them? No, because you get the crap kicked out of you. What are you doing? Your body, you're giving yourself time and space. It's all you're doing all the time. So this may be the dance we play for the rest of my life.

We're just giving each other time and space to see what's coming to try and avert, you know, being put in the same scenario that they did in COVID. Those are wise words from people who have been to the toughest of situations. Hey, because it is a severe challenge to be able to last in this game, right? Because the world's speeding up, right? We think about what happens. Remember when there was a Chinese spy balloon and that seemed to last a week in the news? Well, now that wouldn't even make the news today, right? It's more where did the bomb go off?

What's the new pandemic? You had the drones over New Jersey, which for literally, for literally, listeners tomorrow, I have a guy on talking about it. Yeah. Right. And does it give you the warm and fuzzies? It certainly doesn't make it seem like it's aliens. But like, you're absolutely right.

It's just, and now the interesting thing, I think sitting in this seat, and I wonder how many other people are like this. I see the news cycle and I go, it's just grabbing attention. What are they actually doing? Why do they actually want us to see this? Take a step back and start to ask the questions of like, Is this actually going on? Or do they want this to grab our attention so something else can go on? Right?

And that's a very hard thing to break down. Like, I mean, I'm sitting in Lloyd Minster. I'm not sitting in D.C. I don't have, you know, the contact list is forever growing. Like, it's, it's, the phone is a pretty wild thing, you know? Like the phone list now is a pretty wild thing. but like at times you're like why do they want us to see this you know can we be just happy that Justin Trudeau no matter what it can irritate us to the cows home home that he is going to get to

somewhere between is it April and October he's getting he's get he's absolutely getting decimated in the next election it's going to be a lot of people here hoping that that Maxine Bernier or the PPC or whatever other party wins pierre pull is going to win in the landslide. You can talk me off that ledge if you want, not ledge, you can talk me off that spot. But we just learned it in Alberta with the UCP leadership review. 91.5%. There's people stirring up stuff all over the place.

David Parker was there, 1905 committee on and on and on it goes. You know what happened? 91.5%. And so I look at the federal election and I go, well, we're going to have more of the same. People want stability back. And their version of it is Pierre Poliev. Does that mean that he's going to give us stability and everything else?

In the short term, sure. Where's he leading us? That's up for discussion for certain, right? But like, sure, we've talked about that. But going back for a moment, Sean, is when you talked, you and I've talked about this before. When, you know, for people, what Sean's talking about is Sean and I, our families, well, we actually probably, early 1900s. I was reading the history book.

Our families go back to the early 1900s. And then we reconnected. I knew your family. Your oldest brother Jay and I were friends back in college days. And then you and I reconnected on over the senior hockey where I was on the coaching bench and you were the captain of the team and the whole whole championship thing. And then you talk about pausing for a moment just to take it in. And, you know, I've talked about this before is where. A second is a second, you know, scientifically, but how your mind perceives that second.

You can stretch it into 15 or you can compress it into half. And sometimes when you pause and just say, I'm just going to breathe and take it in. You can stretch out that second. And when you stretch out that second, it can embed into your memory as something, that was a special moment. But you have to pause and kind of embed it into your soul. And I'm wondering, have you thought about trying to put that into your. your weekly regime or your meditation time to just say, you know what, this is a busy schedule, the world's speeding up, I want to do more podcast, not less, in order to create that memory,

because we blink twice and we're done here. Have you thought about how to do that in your life? And so I'm probably close to the heaviest I've been in my life again. You know, he's sitting here all week long, right? There's not a whole lot of movement. And so, So one of the things I've been wrestling with my schedule is I play noon hour hockey and I make sure that I do that. And Chuck Prognick would say pick something up heavy every day, right? Just pick something up heavy. Start moving your body, start.

And so one of the things I've been thinking about over Christmas break is how I find some spots to do exactly what you're talking about. And one of the things I love about you talking about time is running events has taught me this. Or I always knew it. One of the two is that, you know, you have a big mess up, 15 minutes before the show. The way I calm myself down is, there's time, Sean. There's time. You've got 15 minutes.

15 minutes can be an hour and a half. Figure it out, walk through it. It's okay. You got time. And I don't know where the heck I learned. that from. Maybe it was one of our conversations. But certainly you don't need two hours a day

to bring yourself down so that you can look around the world. One of the things I've started to do better at, but I'm not great at, is after an interview, pulling out my journal, and writing about it. Do you journal every day? No.

Trying to, with the podcast in mind. Because when you do as many episodes as I do, at times, they can blend together. I'm sure at times I've had a phone call with you or others. Like who said that? Right? Like who said that? And when you write something, it just sticks in your brain. That was in our goal setting. I told you about the goals I set my life 50 years ago. Well, you know, it's funny. Like one of the goals. Just time to do that again, I think

sounds like that. Yes, it is. Well, five year goal. So in the book club folks, you know, Alan, he would laugh at us for a vision board. But it's funny. I don't think there's anything funny about it. I did a vision board and I wanted to be podcasting in five years full time. Not just podcasting. Full time podcasting five years. Three.

Took three. Three of us podcasting full time. Because you wrote it down. Spoke it into reality. Yeah. There's something really important about that. And 2024 is just another

you know like there's things that go on. and I'm like, I don't know, I have to make of that. But I also think of people like, once again, folks, scatterbrain, forgive me. I think of guys like Elliot Friedman to the hockey, the hockey fan, right? If you go watch his story, and I'm probably off of my dates and years and everything, but you get the point of it. You know, Elliot Freeman is probably the number one voice in NHL insider information, right?

Breaking down events, et cetera. He has got 32 thoughts, a podcast where, you know, a whole. host literally asked him his thoughts and all these different teams and what's going on because he's an NHL insider. Here's a guy who never, you know, never suited up for a pro, you know, a semi-pro team, let alone a pro team. And yet he's... He doesn't look like he played hockey?

No. Like, just visually. And what you realize is go back through his career. It took him probably 10 years of grinding it out. And at times, I want to say, getting paid almost peanuts, if anything at all. he worked for all the score and all these different little spots and he started to see he had raw talent and he had to work his way up and then one day everything just snap a finger he's on the world stage and now he's the number one guy now he's been the number one guy

I think for for more than this year but I just watch his his trajectory that's that's really interesting so run o'clock you know I'm I'm five years in about to be six years in the podcast in February. And I don't stare at the numbers that much because they bug me. Doesn't everybody want the numbers to just go like, oh, you got one listen day one, two the second day for the day after, eight the day after that, 16, you do the math in just how many days and that you're a million.

And I learned very early on. I had Paul Bissanette from Spit and Checklets on the podcast, episode 64, and I thought my life was going to change overnight. And it didn't. Nothing changed. I mean, the downloads for that episode. went to maybe back then, I don't know, 1,200, maybe, you know, and then back down to 400, 500, maybe, right?

I was like, oh, had Don Chariot, thought the world was going to just like, oh, man, I got Don Chariot. That was this real moment. I don't know, I don't even know if we got to 1,200. I was like, oh, hmm, okay, fair enough. Let's not worry about the name. Let's worry about the content. If you get some cool names along the way, so be it. So I still will go after.

Would I want to have Tucker Carlson tomorrow? Yeah. Don't want to have Joe Rogan, 100%. Jordan Peterson, all these people. Yes. Commonalities between you and Elliot Friedman. I don't watch pro sports anymore. I don't watch sports anymore.

Unless it's somebody I know playing in it. We both share that. I've watched a couple of other games over Christmas because I've got nothing else on the TV and I'm not podcasting. The world has changed. For the better. But with talking about Elliot Frieden,

what appears to me is that he's genuinely interested. I don't it doesn't look like he's forcing he really really likes statistics and hockey and trade rumors and and and here's you you you genuinely like what you're doing um now we talked about this goal setting you're actually motivating me because I've kind of been spin in circles myself and uh sounds to me like you have to do some some uh vision boarding for for the following year uh gonna do it well how about we just agree that in the first week of January we do it I like it yeah I really like And to the listener, why don't you explain a vision board for him, Kenney? Okay. So this interview is about Sean, but what, what this led our book club into doing is I had a...

This interview is about 2024. And the reason I picked you is because I needed somebody we could get versed with back and forth. So this isn't about Sean. This is about 2024. And now we're talking about why you do a vision board to 2025. Sure. You're part of this conversation.

I view it as Sean's very interesting. And I think his audience wants to hear from him as opposed to him asking questions. I think your audience would love to hear about you. So I view my role here is to pull interesting things out of you. But what it is is I had a business partner years ago, very intense individual. He had a black belt in Taekwondo, was a bodybuilding champion of Alberta, mechanical engineer, very intense, extremely intense, made me look like I was, you know, I don't know, very soft. And he encouraged me to do this. Set goals for your life and write them down.

Be clear on who you are and where you want to go. and then write them down and then go cut out pictures that represent those and glue them onto a board. And I did that. At the time, they seemed like huge dreams. You know, I wanted a Malibu's tournament ski boat and I wanted a house with dormers in the country. And I wanted to, oh, what else did I have on there? I got to think back. Oh, kids.

I wanted a big family. And so I still have this. And I think it was within 10 years, they were all done. It was kind of like, oh, that was interesting. And my wife who was not a goal-oriented person at all, I said, Jennifer, you got to do this. And so she wrote it down. And then she doesn't, she didn't do a vision board. She just wrote it down.

And she went back and she found her book, you know, whatever it was, 10 years later. And she said, can't look at this. Like at the time she didn't have her teaching degree. And she, but we already had kids and she wasn't sure how she was going to complete it. I said, just break it down into chunks. You know, I know it's a daunting task to go finish your degree with kids. But she wrote down, well, if I do one class here and two classes there and two here. and then if I do the summer and then I do this,

I should be able to have it by this year. It was within, within two months, I think of when she said she could have it done. It was done. And she's not a oriented person. So I brought it to the book club. And we did that. And you said, look at yours.

It just happened. So then the question has to be asked, why are we doing this more? Right? If something has that level of success. So it's like one of mine, which we've talked about on the podcast, and you and I are similar of mine with her wives,

is I just envision myself on my first, front porch holding my hands with my wife, you know, and we've made it. You know, I used to say 85. Now I'm going to say 95. I might as well say 105. And every time my wife, I hit a rough patch, it's just like, yeah, that's just a rough patch. But we're making it to that porch because I wrote it down. It's in my mind. I'm never quitting out my wife. And so for you, you know, let's do it. I think, you know, it's a year in review. But what we could do maybe in a year's time is say, what did we vision board? And what did they come to? And I encourage everybody to do this. You know, you think...

Is Ken making this an annual thing? Interesting. Well, we'll see... Even personally, it doesn't have... No, no, I'm teasing because I go, I assume I enjoy this. One of the things that I didn't realize until I did the top 25 was I invited Tanner in a day on Christmas Day again. I think very highly a Tanner. And I was like, I have no idea of this interview did well last year.

I don't really care. But I invited them on for 2023 Christmas Day. and it is episode 13 of 20204. Now, it was Christmas Day, 2023, but I go just a little over on the year, right? I don't go if I release this episode on December 31st.

How can it be in the top? You get the point. And so I was like, oh, that's a, huh, didn't see that coming. Tanner and a day, I didn't do it to be top 25. I did it because I'm like, I'm starting to see Christmas as a different thing. Sorry. We're talking vision board.

and I'm chuckling because I'm like, oh, so you're saying you're going to do this again next year. Okay, sounds good. Let's do anything to help you. But the, see where that goes. But when you talk about- Yeah, but you do the vision board. We're going to do it in the first week. So if you want to, you know, if you want to do a vision board, folks, and then in a year's time,

text in and say, hey, this is what I did. We'll talk about it. Because, like, one of the things I want to, one of the things I have loved about this chair that I did not realize I was doing at the time. I was just tired of reading emails and trying to follow all the social media comments. So if you do social media comments and I don't answer back, I'm sorry,

I'm sporadic at it. Do I need to be better? Sure. What I do answer back on is this bloody thing. I have a phone. My phone number is on every single bloody episode that I possibly do. You can text me.

You can call me. May not answer it every time, but you can text me and I'll text back. I mean, Ken just walked into me talking to a guy who listened to me for the first time in the past month, we sat around a grand old conversation, very interesting chat. And so what I want to do

is I want to build more of a relationship with the audience because they, you know, I run into so many of you and they'll go, you have no idea which you meant to be in the dark state of COVID. And the only way I know how to respond is you have no idea what you meant to be in the dark days of COVID.

Because literally I was getting torn to bits in different parts. And then I had run into somebody and they'd be like, just keep going. And I'm like, I will. Because you could see the look on their face of like, I'm holding on and you're one of the things I'm holding on to. Vision board is a great idea.

I'm chuckling. I'm not making light of the idea. Any years time will be back here. If you want to come along for the ride, even if it's only one of you, you do a vision board. Next year, December 30th-ish will release a 2025 year interview on December 31st. And I'll bring in some audience feedback via text or what have you and we'll talk about it. Write down the goal, write down the data will be completed, you know, back calculate it and put a picture of it. And dream big.

You want to quit drinking. You want to fix the marriage. You want to get in shape. You want to whatever. And take some time to think about it. Take some time to think about it. I'm not saying take a week. I'm just, you know, sit and actually, where do I actually want to go to?

You know, like, Sean, we'll get into that. but when you say, what are the questions? I was like, do I even ask this question? What are the low lights personally? But I heard you talk about you're the heaviest you've been ever or probably ever. Man, I don't see it. I don't know how you're wearing it. You know, you and I've been together a long time.

You actually look very healthy to me, which is interesting because usually I can spot body fat. But you look healthy. But a thought is, I'd be willing to do early morning jujitsu with you or something like that. You know, something that works into the family life because as we know when you've got kids and other things on the go. but on strength training. You know, I'm struggling last week. I tore a leg in my knee

from Jiu-Jitsu, so the, but a thought for you as a revision board. We can talk about that off, off the air. Sean, it's something I'm curious about.

And I think a lot of your audience, oh, before I do that, you talk about your cell number and listening, or treating to text. People that are listening to this is, you know,

sometimes we all get cut up on our own world. And I've watched what a good, positive text does to you, right? Not, not belly achin. I hated your audience. I hated this, the person, that's fine to you. But the ones that just come in, like the 79 year old senior fellow that just phoned you, just said, you've improved my spiritual walk or something along those lines, encouraged him to reconnect spiritually or become stronger spiritually. There's something along

those lines is what you reported to me. But folks, don't consider just sending Sean a text once in a I'll just say, listen, you've done this in my life. That helped me improve. Just let you know, I put winning my sales. Because Sean, you know, you wear a lot of heaviness, right? Being doing what you're doing, talking to a lot of people from all the world about a lot of things that are, we're facing right now, which are very real. And once in a while, just a thought for people, just to send Sean a text just to say, you know, if something falls in your heart, just send Sean a text that says something positive because it does. We're all spiritual beasts.

Kenny can be my salesman any death. Oh, no. No, I've watched it what it does. And I watch myself, things I've coached when somebody comes up. Once again, I'm making light of, I mean, I think the world of my audience. I like to think they think the world of me too. You know, I've got to go around this Western Canada in particular and run into a whole bunch of them. Heck, I just have my, you know, we talked about marriage in 2024 personally. but Grant and Kathleen out in Colonna,

I got to go spend time there with my family and they got to interact with people who listen to podcasts. That was very interesting, surreal. You know, Candace and the dairy farm and the girls, we got to go have some ice cream sandwiches. They're the girls who created the Trudeau jingle for the mashup. And my worlds are starting to intermingle a little bit, personally and podcast-wise, which has been very interesting watch.

I guess all I was going to say is I think very highly of all of you who are listening and tuning in. I think, like, you know, if only 200 people decide that this is worth listening to, or 2,000 or 20,000. Right. I think very highly of you for giving me your time and energy to flick of this on, to, you know, to listen to, to sit down and allow me to grace your, ears because certainly one of the things I become very conscious of is who I put in my ears

because, you know, like I like Alex Jones, but I can't listen to him all the time and I certainly can't listen to them at certain times of the day. It's just, hey, it's not worth it. Right? The world could blow up tomorrow and, you know, there's only so much I can do. And if I listen to it at midnight, 10 at night, 9 at night, it's like having a Red Bull and going, well I ain't sleeping a night and probably gonna have rough rough things uh rough dreams so I look at uh all of you for giving me your time your energy your ears and uh allowing me to be in them or on your you know like I got a bunch people who listen with the kids and I'm like I don't know what I'm thinking about that but okay um okay uh thank you I mean 2024 has been

a shocking year every year I you know like the number one episode this year just happened The Rustlers Women's Basketball Program. The three girls who came on, 125,000 people. That was your number one? That was my number one. Holy smokes. And that was in a very short period of time. Number two was the Premier, 119.

And then you've got to go way down to Martin Armstrong, was number three. Martin Armstrong was number one this past year, and this year he slayed to three. The basketball, Chris King, the coach at Lakeland, that struck a nerve. It struck everywhere I go. That's all I get talked to about in our city.

I haven't been, you know, I go out for Christmas coffee with some extended relatives. That comes up. I go to the store and I start talking to somebody. It comes up. It really struck a nerve and it struck a nerve here in our backyard. And yeah, it's the number one episode of 20, 24. Normally, what should shock people about this. Okay.

The difference between Daniel Smith's number two episode and the Rustlers, number one episode. The girls had maybe three weeks of runway. Daniel Smith had a full year. Right. And she still wasn't as many people. And now in fairness, it's politics. You're not going back to listen to an old podcast.

But 119,000, 125,000 in like two and a half weeks. Yeah, you really need to revisit that six months from now. Yes. So I don't think that story's going away. I don't think so. And I got some things that are in the works to bring on here in the new year when it comes to Lakeland and maybe our area

maybe in more particular but certainly you know I don't know how I got here other than to say to all the new listeners to the people who've been here along the ride I just appreciate all of you like I mean even when you disagree that's okay it's okay to disagree

I disagree with a lot of people who come on the podcast healthy yeah what's that saying the power of the pen is mightier than the sword it might be the power of the podcast is my ear than the sword at this point in time, you know, is, you know, I'm watching as you're talking. I've always been thankful to have you as a friend, but look at what your podcast has done. First of all, personally, you just motivated me to go back and do another

vision board. So there's, you know, the guy sitting across the table from you. And then locally, right, the wrestlers, that's, that's a Lloydminster College sports team that had a, had some controversy and then you go to the world i've seen you have conversations with people from around the world so really cool what you're doing your sphere of influence or the ripples that you've had right or canada wide and and and worldwide in many cases well i i'm going to stop everything right now because i'm an hour in i probably should have done this of start i'm learning this but like i don't have my hand it's on the wheel anymore i realize it you know um i just you know you you I found faith along the way, and this is why I won't change how I do the podcast anytime soon,

because I look back and I go, you know, by not doing it the way others do it, I've gone full-time, I've stretched my marriage to the limit and found its way back again, and now I feel like are stronger than ever. I found faith along the way, and, you know, I don't believe in coincidences, so I just, you know, thanks to Jesus Christ. My Lord and Savior, the guy has got his hands on the wheel, and at times I still want to jerk it and go, let's go that way. But other times I'm like, you know, all these things going on,

I just don't know where it's leading to. Like, I mean, okay, beautiful picture I know where it's leading to, but like I don't know what, you know, go back to the Frank Peretti conversation, he talked about writing the books and not understanding what impact it would have on the world. I don't do this for, well, I don't know. I just, thanks to the guy upstairs because at times I don't know what the heck I'm doing, right?

Like I, you know. Well, you talked about don't focus on the numbers. I'd encourage you to not just focus on the numbers. I would just say keep doing what you're doing because it's working, right? You know, if you, what is that? Don't fix a wheel that isn't broken or something like that. Look at your growth, right? It's exponential.

It appears to me, maybe I should ask this to you in a form of a question. is that you did help a lot of people by just being somebody sane that would come over the earbuds or the speakers or however people listening to you, that made people feel like, I'm not going crazy. I'm not the only one seeing this. I'm not the only one wondering what's going out there

and questioning things. I've heard it personally many times about you, Sean, and obviously you would hear that much more being, they're coming back to you. But the world seems to be getting crazier. But I'm going to ask you, do you see it that way? I don't. I think they want you to think the world's getting crazier.

And I think there's certainly, there is, oh, it's the period. We've all gone through it. If you're just wising up to the fact that some things aren't. What's that called? There should be a term for it. Yeah, there probably is. You know, like it's uncomfortable. You're talking about the period for the listener.

is where you and I were, our lives were coaching hockey, having a few beers on a Friday night, you know, having some fun with the family and going on a summer holiday and other than that. And then COVID hits. A lot of people, they're a different awakening period. But when you become awake, the world can be a very uncomfortable place for a period of time where you start to question everything around you.

Is that what you're referring to? Yes. That uncomfortable period of, I don't know if everything around me is what I've thought it was. Well, now I know it isn't. What was your, what, for people, because everybody has their own journey, right? What was that like for you? Awful. I mean, beyond awful.

The book club knows a lot about this because I called pretty much everyone in it almost daily, because I was going to get the shot. You know, Joe Rogan talks about this, this week, where he was going to get the shot, and then a series of events happened where he doesn't go and get the shot. I'm like, holy man. Imagine if Joe Rogan gets a shot. Instead he doesn't, and we're on an alternate universe. We're in an alternate timeline, right?

Like, instead, things happen. No coincidence in my world. And Joe Rogan doesn't get the shot. Okay? So you talk about, like, I just think that's wild. So that's why I bring, so then you bring it back to me. I had no longer, no shorter than a month where I probably called Ken, Dustin, Harley, Brian, and went, I think I'm just going to go get it.

And then I get talked off the ledge, and then I go interview Peter McCullough. And then I get yelled at for interviewing Peter McCullough, because he's a quack, and he's been fired, and didn't you know that? And on and on and on, and on, and on. And I go bury my head in my room, and I'd be like, what am I doing? And then I'd talk to the wife, and then I go back in here, or I go back to work, because at that time I was working full time. And I would argue about it all day long, and I'd go home, and I'd go home, and I'd go home, be like,

I'm just going to get up. I'm going to go get it. So then I go, I'm going to go get it. But before I do that, you know, I'd call somebody, ah,

maybe she's just wait a day. All right, no way today. And like, to me, that time is awful. I don't like, I like being accepted.

I think most people like being accepted in society. They want to feel welcome into a party. They want to feel, for lack of a better term, the cool kid. You have to remember,

for me, I was, I was raising money for the health foundation. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to make our community better. And the way I saw that was raising money for the hospital because it had done wonderful things for my family, wonderful things.

So when you say the hospital's awful and it's a corrupt thing, I don't agree with you. Now, through COVID and onwards, there's been some things. Let's all agree on that. But it saved my child's life, save my wife's life. So I got some choice words when you say it has no good. This is where me and twos have a real tough time because he's got his own story and his own family. And everybody's got that.

That's why I'm like, you have to be able to listen to something and be like, oh, wow. Didn't know that. Fair. So the tough time sucked. Really, really sucked. He's like, why? Because for a time, everybody thinks you're loony. Like bad shit loony.

Did you think you were loony? Oh, yeah. Yeah. like what am I doing? Like what am I doing? And then, you know, I go back around some like-minded people. And I think being around like-minded people is a great thing. Being around too many like-minded people, never hearing your thoughts be argued against,

even in the plightest way, is probably unhealthy too, right? But at a time in COVID, man, those were the only things that kept me sane. That's why people say I saved their life. I'm like, you have no idea. what your text meant. Have no clue. Right? Every time you venture into the unknown. A listener just text for a walk in her.

Still sounds like you're uncomfortable bringing on religious people to talk about faith. 110% I am. It's the most strange thing I do. But I kind of take my hands off the wheel and I go, I think this is important. I'm going to, you know, and it's funny when you go back through a year and review, there's some of my favorite podcasts. It just are.

And yet, it's uncomfortable because I'm going into a world where people don't want me to go. You know, like, so people Or some people do. Sure. But people during COVID didn't want me to steer into COVID. They wanted you to, don't do that. Just join the hurt.

Just go along with it. It's fine. We're fine. Everything's fine. Sure. Nothing's going on here. It's fine. It's fine.

It's fine. And every time you pulled into the guardrail, eventually they let you off the guardrail, sent you out to pasture, close the guardrail up, and just never allowed you back on the highway. And so that's what it's been. I've been driving through the countryside. Now the countryside is quite beautiful.

They helped you. Yes. But for a time, you get out and you're like, but I just, I just want to be, can I drive on the road and have my thoughts too? What would be your advice to somebody who's going through that, the awakening period? How to do it positively and not go crazy and. Don't take it out on your family. Yeah. Honestly.

I'm huge, you know, I can't speak to women. I'm sorry women. Like, I, to me, father, man, I don't identify as anything else. Get a good group of men around you and let them call you on your stuff. And so when you think the world is a falling, you know, the meteors coming tomorrow or every person around the, every corner is trying to get you, or, you know, the aliens are here or whatever it is. And you're like trying to grapple with, holy crap, a huge paradigm shift. have a good group of men around you so they can just like

throw an arm around you and be like it's going to be okay like it's going to be okay look at what we have here it's beautiful yeah Trudeau is an absolute insane human being everybody knows it world knows it

it's going to be out here in four months six months and Pierre Pollyev might be just as bad maybe all politicians always have been but like look at what you have so my suggestion is if you don't got close friends

part of the Cornerstone Forum is the community that comes. The reason that isn't $700 a ticket is because I get it. Like $200 is not cheap. I get that. I get the economy, but I don't know,

you look at the bills piling up to try and keep it there. It's very difficult. Part of what happens, you know this because your entire thing with Jiu-Jitsu in the last year has stemmed out of the Cornerstone Forum. The people that are coming to it

are your people. They are. You don't show up to that because you took six vaccines and you're like, oh, I can't wait. Just can't wait to hear about the new genders that are coming down the pipe. That isn't what's going on there. It isn't that extreme. I don't mean to say that we sit there and bash that. It's just you're looking for normality.

It's about as close you're going to get. And, you know, like you want community. You want to start to learn about people in different areas and start to run into people that are going to hold you accountable or give you the opportunity to like come through this and be like, oh man, I don't know what's going on. That'd be my suggestion. Ken, you've come through it. What's your suggestion? I think I'm still going through it.

I'm just, my legs aren't as wobbly as they used to be. And, oh, that's, that's good. As you're talking, the first thing that I have to say is I have to reach out and say thank you to some good friends. There's really three that, Andre, you and Alan, I'd call them. through you were my three best friends and um man the value of a good friend don't take that for granted because boy boy when it's a when it's a tough day and and you're not sure which way's north you know that's when the phone call comes in uh so i'd have to say thank you Sean for that also for me was my faith same as you is it's okay you know we know that there's a good side and the bad side

there is a God, there is a Satan, and I'm on the right side of that. So that helped me to restabilize and build up from there. The other thing that I had to go through was, okay, there's a lot of things flying around here. Turns out a lot of things that I thought were true are not true, and there's a lot of smoking mirrors going on. But what is the most important things in my life? My faith, my wife, my children, and those who are my closest friends and family, and neighbors. So let's go back to that because something that happens 14 countries over.

Am I concerned? I'm very concerned about it. But I'm not there. That's not my wife. That's not my family. That's not my kids. So I went right back to ground zero and found my legs there. And I'm very thankful for that because I just went down to the sturdy ground. I went down through the soil, found my bedrock, built up from there. I'm continuing to build that. So that's what I did because it's too much. There's just too much. And the further you read, more you read, the more you watch, the more you think, the more you analyze, more you're like, I don't know if there's a single thing that that TV

has told me that's true in my entire life. You know? Yes. And that's unsettling. But that's okay. That's okay because, you know, see it for what it is. Yeah. And I know that when I go home, oh, I've drove my wife nuts, probably daily.

But every day I go home, those warm arms hug me. and I know that's real. What my heart feels when I hug her is real. You know, when I see my kids, now my grandkids, you know, that's real. When I see my neighbors come out for some, to win, when I roll in jiu-jitsu with some friends, I mean, when the man's putting his arms around my neck and I can't breathe, that's real. So I've really got much more focused on my immediate surroundings. The food that I put on my body, the animals that I grow on our land to eat.

Those are real things. And I just find, I'm out in the garden. This summer, when you talk about those slowing time down, I'm in my bare feet. I've got the soil between my knees. I got my four-year-old naked son on my shoulders because that's where he spends the summer. We're either working or in the yard or whatever we're doing. And I'm out pulling weeds in the garden while I'm watching my dog run and my wife's walking down. I'm like, those are the moments where I'm here.

Like even if the world falls apart around me, I got hot sun on my face. I've got some swell between my feet and my toes. I have a beautiful wife that still loves me. I got a kid on my back and I'm growing my own food. life is still pretty good. We built our, we live in town, folks. So we built Ray's garden beds this year. And I didn't realize how cool it would be to watch a kid watch something grow.

Yeah. I understand, right? I grew up around it. Yeah. But I, you know, I just didn't think about it. And then, you know, names today are not coming to me. Oh, I thought you're struggling whether you're going to say something. Names aren't coming to me.

Related to what? The guy who. talked about purple carrots on the podcast. And then I was like, purple carrots, what are you talking about? And then I went home and asked kids if they had purple carrot.

And carrots aren't purple dad. And so he sent us some. And we grew purple. Summer. Yeah, we grew purple carrots. And, man,

my forgive, like architect from BC and, you know. I didn't listen to that one. No, I'm going to have to listen to almost all years. Fantastic, man. Anyways,

that's terrible. Your audience will bring it back to you. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. What are you going to do? Anyways. we grew a garden this year

and I got to watch my kids watch purple carrots grow and just as simple as that what a cool science experience huh you know like the

the little things that have come out of the podcast I haven't you know like have I gone to drinking strictly raw milk or something you know not I don't think that at extreme that is not

you know like that's what the world I'm reading you there that's right I'm just one more one more a mile crazier than shot but but certainly

you know like there's been a lot of things I've implemented in my life. And a lot of it's been from the spiritual aspect, right? Like I think, you know, two years ago, we didn't pray before any mail. Now we pray before almost all meals. I don't want to say every meal because, you know, like that'd be a lie, but pretty close. But I remember the first time I prayed at a meal being like terrified to do it. And it's just like it's all this fear, you know, you just think it's going to be awkward.

And it's not. It's a habit, isn't it? Yeah, and then the kids want to pray with it. Now the kids take over praying more than I do. I'm like, wait, listen, I want to pray. You know, we're almost in an argument about it. It's great. And you start reading your Bible.

Kids want a Bible. Oh, sure. Yeah, all right. So then we started going back to church. Do we make it every Sunday? No, we do not. But if I put that to Sean of 10 years ago, when he made it once a year,

because his mom would pretty much a hog time and throw him in the vehicle and take them, I mean, it's been a pretty giant leap forward in 2024 on the personal aspects of life. A lot of it has been from the spiritual walk. It has taken a lot of time to be comfortable talking about it. And part of that's come from my personal life. Like, you know, like I didn't know how to talk to Mel about it. And then one day I just started talking about it because I'm like, well, I got to get this out of my head.

right and and and it just comes up more and she knows i'm you know there's certain things she teased me about because you know like there's just stuff going on in the world you know like 2024 olympics the summer Olympics that opening ceremony man that just i just can't believe i just water i'm like what is this how is this possible this is the world you know and and certain people are like ah you're looking way too much into it and i'm like how can you not see what i'm seeing, right? Tell me, tell me you're not awake without time you're not awake.

I mean, like you've got the P-Ditty files or P-Dity whatever. And certain people have no idea that's going on. And I'm like, oh my God, what a lovely life you're living. Except I was there five years ago. Yeah,

we mock exactly what we were. Right. So I don't even, I don't even, like I don't want to mock it. I just, it's like, there's things that went on in 2024 that will blow your freaking mind.

And I am trying as hard as I can to do the military thing, which is spot patterns of life, but rhythm normally, right? I think I should put it on a shirt, I should sell the bloody shirt, and people should adopt that, because otherwise, I think you'll go insane. We're talking about how tough it is

to start seeing everything in it. It's very tough. But then it's almost as tough realizing, like, this could be the next 50 years of your life. This could be the status quo for the next 50. You may not ever get another COVID, where it's so blatantly obvious the rest of your life. Or in two days, we could, boom.

And this is why you go patterns of life, but rhythm normally. And that to me is one of the best things I learned in all of 2024 from guests. And it's a guy, two guys, one from Alberta, one from Saskatchewan, who both fought for our country for a very long time. And I text with them both almost daily now. Jamie Sinclair, you know, showed it to Jamie, has become, you know,

Airborne Friday, we talk about him every mashup. And that man is, you know, wonderful human being. He pretty much calls me from everywhere. And he'll probably call me after he listens to this. And we'll have a three-minute conversation

about something and he'll be off and running again. And so, like, the wonderful thing about this is, you know, like, be thankful for COVID. As much as I hate saying that, it literally sounded the gong. If you're going through,

starting to realize some things aren't on the up and up. We've all been there. The next thing is realizing, you know, are they going to assassinate Trump before January 20th? Or is it going to just go on and they're going to wait four years? Are they going to wait 16 years? Are they going to wait 50 years?

I don't know. Hit me when you were talking about Joe Rogan. What did Joe Rogan's podcast or his influence have if he would have got vaccinated? And the exact same thought came out of mind about you. Sure. Right? You know, it is you just, you just, you weren't in the fight anymore. which means you kind of gave in,

which, you know, I'm not, I'm not, I don't have any judgment over people that, no, no, no, but it was, it was different being, more so just walking side by side is when you, when you didn't get vaccinated, you had to face the weight of the world as to all the pressures that were coming in. And how'd you done that? Honestly, if I'm watching you,

I think you're still podcasting, probably on the side. You probably got, you probably had a few NHLers now. You might even be doing some, I'll tell you a personal story. So I sat, we're folding laundry, wife and I. This is late 2021. We're in an argument about me getting vaccinated. And I finally look at Mel and I said, listen, I'll go get vaccinated today.

But at the end of the year, I'm going to stop podcasting. I'm going to go back to work and a job. It's just going to be Baker Hughes for life. shout to the guys still working a baker there's some good human beings there but I'm not going to do this anymore and the reason I'm not is if I can't interview people and take the knowledge they're giving me and input it into our life what the hell am I doing but if you want me to go get vaccine

done now this is a huge argument over a whole bunch of different things this is where it blew up to and it was like to me when you talk about seconds expanding it's probably three seconds ten seconds I don't know how many seconds. It felt like a lifetime. And she looked at me and said, I think she should keep podcasting.

So you all have Mel to thank for me not getting anywhere near the shot. Because as much as it was the book club keeping me going and knowing, every man knows it's the woman behind you that makes you what you are. If she wasn't on board with this, and at times she probably isn't, I talk to school, teacher, or things about teachers being the awful human beings. How do you think that affects my wife at home, who's one of the greatest human beings I know

that teaches in a bloody school. Like, it's uncomfortable at times. So you can imagine having her be like, I think you should keep podcasting, was all I needed. I didn't need anybody else. I just like, let's go destroy this thing then. Now, in saying that, then I went to Ottawa

and, you know, people want the Ottawa story, right? They want it from cover to cover. And I hope in my lifetime I can give it. I can give it to you. But it took me to the brink of where, you know, like, I had to work back with Mel on, you know, everything in Ottawa. Because Ottawa, I just, you know, I fell off, I fell down into the pit of hell, if you would, and disappeared.

I was just like, boop, where did Tron go? You know? And that was like five days. Probably a little less than that. It was probably like 48 hours or 72 hours. And it's moments like that. think about a lot and I hope someday I can sit here and have a podcast or a series of podcast or a book and just lay it up but I don't want to give you like half of the story

and until I got the full story I can give you bits and pieces because people want to know it was just all I can say is you know in in the Coles notes version it's the first time I ever actually prayed that's why this is on the wall and we're not doing video today But this picture taken by Luciano. It's a beautiful picture. More than beautiful. I don't know what word I'd use to describe. It's me praying in front of the Peace Tower.

Spiritual, I don't know. And, you know, my hat's off to him for doing it because he was in the right place at the right time for you. You had somebody that cared enough to capture that. Like, that's very professionally done. He's a professional photographer. Yeah. But he was there. And it was you.

And it was, you know, coincidences. God moving the pond pieces around, right? Just go read Frank Peretti. Go read both of those books, piercing the, this present darkness and piercing the darkness. And they're entertaining. Like they're not, even if you are the Christian,

there's, you can't put it down. You've got to get to the next chapter because I've got to see what happens, right? It's how I found it was written. Watching Mel, when you say, I got to give credit to Mel, for sure you do.

And what did notice about her and my wife as well, but Mel would be a different personality type than my wife, you know, but I look at you and I, like, we're wild horses. And think of that moment in your marriage is you're sitting there saying, Mel, you married a wild horse. And jokes aside, is, and if you want, I'll jump in the pen and I'll never jump out again. If that's what you want.

It'd be interesting to hear her thoughts. She's probably sitting there thinking, doggone, some days, I just want you to get in this pen and just close that gate behind you. And can't you be normal like everybody else's husband? You know, what's wrong with just going a nine to five? And what I've noticed in, Mel, is every time you folks, you two talk about this, at least what you've reported to me, she says, no, go be you. That's what I'm married.

Go be you. Well, I offered, the listener should know, because they've been asking. I offered her that chair today to come and do this. And maybe some day she'll, uh, answer the call, but she wants nothing to do with, with, with the podcast. And I don't mean that in the sense of like she's against it or anything, just that she's very uncomfortable with being in front of the mic. And, uh, I will have all my kids on here well before I ever get Mel,

but someday I hope she'll, she'll come and I don't know if she'll ever give the answer. But I would, I would love, I told her, I'm like, what if I gave you a series of questions is just to ask me? All you have to do is just, no, I'm not coming. You should do one privately. I agree. I agree. we're working on some things in our world.

You know, one of the things I do with goal setting is we set marriage goals and that type of thing. And we usually do it driving back from Minnesota. We sit in the vehicle and we got sheets written out and you want to talk about the power of writing something down. I can't do any spoiler alert just yet. But we're working on something that I think is going to be life-changing. Yeah. You know, and that's a pretty big cliffhanger to give everybody. But until it's worked out, you know, there's no point in putting a cart in front of the horse, so to speak.

But, yeah, I mean, I can gush about Mel all day long. I mean, the best feedback ever got from the audience is four, three women at one of my early events. And something had screwed up on the screen for audience interaction. So what I was doing was I was going around and getting phone numbers and then texting them specific things. and I asked a woman for her phone number. She's like, oh, you're asking me for my phone number. And then one of the ladies is like, honey, if you don't listen to the podcast and realize how much he's in love with his wife,

I don't think you're going to get it or something like that. She had a nice way of putting it, and I kind of chuckle. I'm like, oh, I'm glad that comes through the airwaves. And then, you know, it carried on because obviously I was running an event and I had no time for small chat at the time, as people probably have learned by now. But, yeah, Mel's the best, you know. And I think any strong man would probably,

probably praised their wife because they realize, you know, you talked about it very early, and it's right in the Bible, you know, build your house on the rock. And now that's talking about God and Jesus as your foundation. But in the mix of that is who you're married to and what you're doing to strengthen that relationship. So when the storm comes, because believe me, folks, for all of us, whether it's just a death in the family or a loss of work or take your, you know, it doesn't have to be World War III. It could be just something real close to home. It's coming.

And when that storm comes, you want to have things set. You want to have a strong foundation so you can weather the storm. And the storm may last two days, two hours, may last two years. I've, like, I'm going, you know, you're in review and we're all over the place, but forgive us. that's a podcast. Jordan Peterson and his wife Tammy, if you go back and listen to those, now I believe I interviewed Tammy in 2023,

so I don't think that's 2024, but forgive me if I'm a little off on that. One of the things that shocked me, you can plan for a lot of storms, right? Just take the one we know that's going to happen to all of us. My parents, Mel's parents, are going to die at some point.

That is not going to be an easy day. The day Daddy on Newman can't come in here, and do a blue-collar roundtable right before Christmas, you know, I'm going to be like, that's going to be a tough day. So those days are coming. It's the ones we can't see that this is why you need the foundation set. And Jordan Peterson and Tammy,

Tammy really put it in, I've thought about it lots, is, so he dances with his wife once a week to twice a week, every week, okay? Then he has his rise to fame. Then he gets really sick. And he ends up in Russia, and an induced a coma.

And his wife has got stage four cancer. I don't think they can be any further apart. No kidding. And the way she talks about it is when they eventually get back together, right? She's conquered cancer for the time being. And he's gotten over his addiction and they're together again. She literally says, I actually, we weren't sure we were going to make it. I'm like, really?

She was, yeah, like, I didn't know. him anymore. I didn't know him. He wasn't, you know, I'm, I'm, I should really go back and listen to it, but, you know, she's basically saying, like, I didn't know my husband anymore. And it's not like they had three young kids. All our kids are growing. You can imagine the things they're dealing with. And I said, well, what got you got, you know, what kept together? He said dancing. We started dancing. It was like, all of a sudden, it was like, oh, and they kind of, oh, they stumble up, but, oh, I kind of remember this. And if you saw them on stage together at Rogers,

they danced on stage. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Someday, Lord Willen, on a stage I have, I hope I get to dance with my wife that way. I thought it was just beautiful. And yet, I think of the storm they went to the road. Get to that point.

I'm like, I don't want to go through that storm. I never want to be in Russia and induced a coma and have my wife have stage four cancer where I can't be around. Are you kidding me? Who wants that storm? Nobody. Nobody wants that storm.

That's a storm you cannot predict. COVID was a storm that I think you could have predicted. I don't know if you could have. Some simply could. Yeah. I don't know if you could have saw how it would all play out. I could have been better prepared. So there's certain storms we can see coming.

And there's other storms that there's just no way. It's like a rogue wave. There's no way you could have saw that coming. Gee, you're motivating me. It's what good friends do. You mean, we're listening to it. Happen real time. going home to dance with my wife, right?

You know, I should have added, how did I come through my awakening process? My wife stayed with me, right? Because boy, boy, when you're trying to take on the world and try to figure this thing out, it's not comfortable. You know, and when you talk about Mel, you know, your auto experience, you know, I often hear you talk about it was one of the greatest struggles and hard and difficult and what you push your marriage to the brink. gee, I'm just observing you from the outside is that I think you are a very different person,

a much stronger person, a much more wholesome person. And I look at you and Mel. I never did doubt you and Mel. But, you know, when we were doing the senior hockey thing and, you know, lots of beers, lots of late nights and lots of road trips and yada, yada, yada, not that anything bad is happening, but just in the dressery room until 2 in the morning instead of being at home, getting ready to, you know, go take the wife out for a steak dinner. And maybe, no, it's not maybe, you couldn't be the person you are right now without that, right, without the Ottawa.

And your marriage, it looks like it's stronger to be multiple times. So a question I wrestle with all the time is how many people, like, how can, how am I going to put this? What Ottawa showed me is there's this, right, the physical table here, and then there's the things we can't see, right? except for some odd reason, I started to see it. And I wonder about that lot. And if you don't realize there's like the two side-by-side or intertwined or however you want to put it, it's like you're missing part of what's going on. So you say you don't look as heavy as you do.

What doesn't bother me? Like saying I'm heavy doesn't really bother me. I actually pretty comfortable with who I am. Getting or having faith, having Jesus on my side was the, the most peaceful thing that has ever happened in my life. And it was just like the weight of the world, the weight of a whole bunch of things, just dissolved.

I don't know. I don't know if that's the best way to put it. What does the scripture carry? I'm terrible about memorizing scripture. It's one of my weaknesses, but let him carry your yoke or carry the weight. There's a scripture that talks about that. Something out there will text what it is.

You know, is it let him carry the burden. And once you do, I don't know, so you do that. And all of a sudden it's like, huh, okay, I'm all right, you know, like, I'm here I sit. And I just want, you know, like, I think about how many people don't understand that. Or I can't even begin to try and explain it so they can understand it, right? Because, like, part of it is if you've never experienced it. It's like, I don't know, like, I remember talking and arguing as a younger man about ghosts and just spirits and not understanding that.

And, like, that's been my conversation now since Ottawa, right? I don't know how many people I've talked to about it because I'm just like, I don't get it. Why don't we talk about this more? Well, because they'll deem you crazy. I remember Seth Bloom saying exactly that. I'm like, screw it. They already think I'm crazy. So, like, let's talk about some things.

We're going to talk about some things or not, right? And so, like, here you sit. I don't want to die tomorrow. If I did, I think I'm going to the right spot. I believe I'm going to the right spot. Now, I don't know what plans the big guy has for me. Could be something, you know, like popularity or downloads, right? Maybe you get to 50 million downloads.

I don't know. What does that look like? What does it even feel like? I have no idea. I don't know what 2.5 feels like. It's kind of odd. But, I mean, like, most days I just go about my life and there's nothing different than happens anymore.

The people who've yelled at me, you've yelled at me long ago. And they probably have no idea who I am anymore. and probably don't care to know. That's fine. People who've been along for the ride have been along for a ride. And the new people that are coming in, they have ebbs and flows of where they're like, oh, man, I love this.

You're talking too much faith. Or they find out I talk faith and they're like, man, this is amazing. I don't know. This is just who I am. I'm growing. You can't ask me to go faster. I've tried doing the fast thing. I fell off a cliff and barely made it out alive.

So you've got to go out of a pace. Frank Pretti, come back to this interview, way too much. But this isn't part of the interview. That's your highlight. This was a year, an hour after, we talked for an hour after the interview. And he said,

don't race. There's a guy I admire. I don't hardly know him. I just read a couple of his books. He was just putting my path for a reason. He's like, don't race. This is a journey. Take your time.

Learn, listen, enjoy life, see the things for what they are, realize there's good and evil. and don't like stress. Like, you know, do not fear. Do not, do not, like, you've already talked about it with the different scriptures. And so, Frank saying that to me was like,

I don't know, probably if you're looking for coaching advice, having, um, Daryl Sutter or one of the, the all-time, I don't know if Daryl Sutter is the all-time greats, but he's been on the podcast. Glenn Sather, tell you something about coaching. Oh, that's, oh, that's, oh, okay. all right and all my life it's been a race we got a race because armageddon's around the corner i talked about armageddon a lot because it really annoyed me as a kid that's all i ever heard about

so it was a race it's always a race and all i look at now is it's a journey and i've learned it this is going to be an adventure i hope this is a 50 year adventure i hope it's just beginning and you know i got you know like i'm 38 right now i hope i make it to 88 i hope i get to still do this i hope I'm like one of the, you know, Harry Neal or one of the old boys from Hockey Nett in Canada that gets to do this until very, very late stages of his life. And is there going to be stupidity in the world? You know it. And is it going to happen in your backyard?

Oh, yes. And what can you do about it? Well, you can get better every day. You can lift something heavy. You can read something. You can become active and involved in your community. You know, is it any shock to number one podcast that 2024 is something in my own community? Like, I mean, when you do, you know, the list, okay, here's your top 25.

Peter McCullough, Heather Heying. We're starting for 25? 25 going down. Peter McCullough, Heather Heying, Rebecca Coughler. So do you want me to explain who these are? I don't know if I need to explain it anymore. I think it's your podcast. You do what the heck you want to.

Okay, so Peter McCullough, doctor. 25 times two minutes each. If you do two minutes each, you're at another hour. Okay, well, I'll go faster than that. Some I may spend just a smidge of, more time. Peter McCullough, obviously everybody knows him. He came on and basically said, don't get vaccinated. That blew up. And, you know, Peter McCullough's, you know, world renowned now. Certainly in some circles, he's demonized and others. He's, he's applauded. And I just think highly

of the man. He deserves many things. Yes. Heather Heying from the Dark Horse podcast, she's a wife of Brett Weinstein. She came on talking about what happened to them in Evergreen College a few years ago. And that was very very, very important. very, very, very fascinating. Rebecca Koffler was just on. She's the Soviet Union lady who moved, immigrated to the states, became an intelligence officer, and then got punted for basically saying, listen, if we keep doing what we're doing, like Russia's going to war with Ukraine.

Like, we've got to stop this. And she got her walking papers and now has written a book and is somewhat of a whistleblower. Very interesting woman. Then you had J.P. Sears. Everybody remembers him from... Red hair, long hair. Red hair, long hair, the life jacket video, right? You need two life jackets, skin in the water?

Like, you know, shout out to Dave Bradley for bringing me to the Bitcoin Rodeo. This year I get to speak at the Bitcoin Rodeo. I have no idea what that looks like, but I appreciate Dave Bradley. He was on my stage and returned the favor by inviting me to his Bitcoin Rodeo and then allowing me to interview their headline speaker, which was J.P. Sears. Super cool. Got to meet him and interact with him for a little bit. and that was really cool.

On number 21 was Matt Erritt. He's going to be on the stage in Cornerstone Forum here in 2025. Matt Erick's been a featured guest off and on for a few years now. He breaks down Canadian history, like few I've ever seen. And probably an hour or two of every podcast, I'm like, I just got to stop. Like, I got to think about what you've just, you know, like you're giving me information by fire hose. You're giving me 700 names. but if you're into history and maybe a different version of what actually went on, Matt Err, it's your guy.

Top 20, the Tempt on Trump. I had Daniel Bulford with Jamie Sinclair and Chuck Prodnick on about a day after, day of when Trump got shot, and we just talked about different things. Daniel Bulford used to be on the sniper detail for Prime Minister Trudeau, then spoke out to vaccine mandates, and everything. else and he became one of the go-to spokespersons for the convoy. He's pretty much had his life ruined. Probably, you know, I should invite him back on.

I was going to say, I'd love to hear back. He's a special human. Yeah, he was on these people. There's so many things. Yes. And he's living in Alberta now. And he was on the podcast earlier this year at one-on-one. And think very highly of Danny Bulford.

Yeah, super interesting, man. And then, of course, adding him in Chuck Prodnick and Jamie Sinclair. Yeah, those three end up in a room together. Well, virtually. Because I was sitting in Idaho. When it came through, we could, yeah. No, I was sitting in Idaho.

Like, I'm sitting in Idaho and Trump gets shot. And I'm like, oh, my God. Like, am I racing back to Canada? And, you know, it was the weirdest thing. You know, you talk about people waking up and different things. I'm sitting in a hotel now. Hotel is transient people on their holidays. So probably they don't care.

But in the breakfast room that morning, there was a TV. and it had the news on and they're talking about Trump getting shot and I'm scanning the room to see like is anybody else paying attention to this? One other guy out of a group of probably 40 people older man I'm going to say 65 and we locked eyes and he just nodded at me

and then we went both to watching the TV nobody else cared I'm like the guy who's about to win an election who's the biggest threat to the Democrats military industrial competition list off a few other powerful organization. Just got shot and nobody's paying attention.

I'm like, this is crazy. Yeah, the Matrix is real. What are they called non-player characters? I've heard people call you? Yes. You're sitting there going like, hey, yeah, I'm with you. But I'd love to hear back from Daniel. That's that, that's a special thing.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, keep going. Number 19 was late in gray. So everybody knows Gray Matter conversation or Grey Matter podcast. Lane Gray, lawyer from Cold Lake. He's been on several times. He spoke at 1 Million March for Children. you know like he's

I mean that that happened this year too geez man there's been a lot going on that was this year I'm sure it was this was the shortest 10 10 years packed into one year actually maybe I got maybe I got my years see this is this is where I'm like wait a second

did it happen this year there's a lot of miles covered in a year maybe it happened in 2023 because we didn't do one million March this year so maybe it happened I think you're right but Lane Gray late and Gray has been a on and off guest, well, not an on off, he's been a fixture of the podcast now, and of Alberta politic political scene, you know, through COVID, because that's where I stumbled

on to him, and I know a lot of listeners did. And so, Leighton Gray's at 19. Number 18 is the cowboy preacher. He was, I think it was top 10 or top 15 in 2023 this year. He's at number 18. And I went and did his man camp this year where there was, I forget, it was a 400 men descended on a camp out by Bonneville. And that was pretty special.

He's just a, you know, he's a guy who works in the oil field for his day job. And then, you know, he puts on his cowboy hat and walks around and preaches the gospel. And he's a very interesting character. Yeah, he's definitely not, he's not an end. None of these people on your list are just hit me. None of them are NPCs. These are all engaged, active lights are all on, you know, full of spirit. But keep going.

17 was Moka Bersergan. Oh, yeah. He's onto some trails there. Yeah. Well, he's used to. work for Rebel News. Now he's got a bersergan media. Interviews people, you know,

follow the Coots trial very closely. The Saskatchewan bypass scandal. Mayor Sohey and Eminton. He's a kid that's breaking stories and chasing him, like vehemently. And so he's been very interesting. I'd like to hear back from him too. That's a cool dude.

I'll try and get him in studio. Try and get him in studio. I just seen last night him chasing around the mayor of Lloydman, or mayor of Emmington. Yeah, So he, yeah. Keep going. Then you had the blue-collar roundtable.

So one of the new things of 2024 was a blue-collar roundtable. So that's guardian plumbing and heating, stepped up as a major sponsor of that. And we decided to bring on different blue-collar guys from around basically the provinces to come on. And the number one out of the blue-collar round tables, which I just saw it. So I put it on the lid. But then I'm like, who was on that one? was Shane Wenzel from Shane Holmes in Calgary and

Sundance Construction. Oh, man. Look at me. I can't remember names. I know you're talking about. I can't remember the name, but that's terrible. It's terrible. Oh, you've just got overload? No, we're going to find this out. That's going to bug me. Jocelyn Perziac. As soon as I start looking my brain. If you talk to three people a year, if you forgot a name, I'd forget.

I wouldn't forgive you. When you talk, just... So they came on to talk about. the housing crisis and that was the number one blue color round tape. Well, it was number 16 on the list. So that's Jocelyn Berziac and Shane, Shane Wenzell from Shane Holmes in Calgary. Very interesting episode

right. Small house, home builder versus a large home builder both talking about the housing industry here in Canada. Then you had Melissa McKee, that's Biker's Church out in Ottawa. Because I'd had Daniel Bulford on, he talked about the importance of the Bikers Church.

I'm like, I've got to have this person on. So I had Melissa McKee on. Listen to a huge chunk of it this morning. And, you know, one of the things, you know, when you're talking about a year and things that stick out to you, one of the things she said that really stuck out to me was I'm ungovernable, but I can submit to authority. And I really enjoyed my chat with her. She's like, I'm ungovernable. It doesn't mean I can't, you know, I can submit it to authority. Like, as long as it's not going across all my rights and everything else.

Because they're one of the churches that stayed open in Ottawa. Think about that for a second. Imagine the opposition they would have faced. That links to Daniel Bullford. Does it not? Daniel Bolford. That was a special story. Daniel Burford reached out to her.

And then they're the church that stayed open and they got prostitutes and drug users and on and on. Honestly, I think, you know, when I look at the top 25, I'd probably just bring them all back on for 2025. Right. Your audience is telling you. Yes. Yeah, good on you. Keep you going. Number 14 was Dave Calm.

So Dave Calm has come on an awful lot. He's the professor from Cornell. And he's outspoken. I think Dave would enjoy this thought. I love talking him. He's one of the easiest guys to talk to. I disagree with him on a lot of stuff. But he's easy to talk to.

He's open to talk to anything. He's tied into such vast, interesting circles that his insights into child trafficking, human trafficking, some of the dark things. I'm going to try and get them back on here in January because I want to talk about P.Dady. I really just want to talk about it. That's your guy because if the Epstein and P. Titty stuff doesn't unravel. You know, but at some point it has to unravel.

It has to. That'd be interesting. Like, I mean, LeBron James took a break from the NBA. JZ has got rape allegations from a woman, right, coming out. And you're like, look at the list who went to P.D.D. And like, I mean, you start to go, oh, man, I thought I was buck a lot. It could get just a touch more while. Dave, calm, there you go.

That'll be, what was your, oh, Paul Brandt. Paul Brand. That'd be an interesting one to touch back on, too, as this unravels with the pedophilions. Paul Brent, not in my city. If people don't know, Paul Brandt, the Canadian music singer, country Canadian music singer from just outside Calgary. Another Christian guy. Yes, yeah, a while.

And I've had conversations with him after I interviewed him, because I've been to his ranch about my journey with faith and his, and it's fascinating. I wonder if I don't just probably read it. you showed to Paul Brandon. That would be some cool entertainment for your cornerstone. It would be. There we go.

It would be. Tanner Nadee, number 13, as I told you before, Christmas episode. We talked about Christmas and the importance of Jesus Christ, and that was number 13. And I think a lot of people on this podcast think very highly at Tanner. His knowledge on the Bible is. Yeah, it's cool, dude. Young guy, now he's married. Now he's married.

seven kids. Yeah. If that's the level of maturity, he's out at that age. Okay. But keep going. Number 12 was retired lieutenant colonel Stephen Murray. So that's the one that scared the crap out of me. Very interesting insight to the world, to immigration, to a lot of different things.

And at the same token, like, you know, take the information, rhythm normally, right? I like what he did to you, though. because you know certain things you just have an order right and sometimes you need to get punched in the face three times to say huh and i found he did that probably we'd talk off air on some of those things but i found he really punched you in the face a few times and remember talking to that but keep going that's a great episode a great episode and and uh if you're listening to this stephen i like what you did to Sean um I'm just going to look it up here there it is uh number number 11 was Matt Bracken. He was the American author and former Navy SEAL. And he he was another one from this cloth of the long goes

craners, the columns, the Stephen Murray's, etc., etc., talking about world conflict and how it affects the United States. So he was a very interesting guy. He's written a bunch of books that people The reason I had Matt Bracken on, he's like, oh, man, you had this guy on? Get Matt Bracken on. I haven't heard from him in forever.

He's what number? Is he? Number 11. Look at that. And so the world's getting more, you know, you see the conflict around the world. That probably another guy to revisit. I would think so, yes. So then you get to your top 10 and you're like, okay.

Let's do the drum roll. Yeah. 10? Number 10? The raging dissident, Jeremy McKenzie. Yeah. He's been top 10, two years in a row. Yeah.

interesting character. Who was it? Somebody very famously said that it was because of Diagalon that the Emergency Act was pulled. I forget, it was somebody credible, somebody like a Pier Polly ever. I don't, I'm not saying it was him. I don't remember saying we went to Emergency Act because of Diagola. Have you read that?

Well, I think everybody knows. I think that's just, that's the story. There's another non, he's definitely not NPC. No. At times, Jeremy says things where I'm like, ah, yeah. I wish you just had a little bit more read the room, but it's kind of like our talk on Jack Cruz, right? He just was on with one of the. Danny Jones.

Danny Jones and Carly, Callie Means. Means, one of the means. And the doctor for Northern States. Yes. And at times I'm like, ah, just we, but that's Jeremy McKenzie's like twin, right? Like, I mean, not totally, but you get the point, right? They are going to speak their mind and you can love or hate it. but he's not boring he's not boring and he doesn't pull any punches so he was number 10 um

number nine of course dr jack cruz number nine was dr jack cruz that's gonna heat up again yeah wow i watched this thing and i'm like i was already thinking i need to bring him back on what i told him after we were done is i'm like i want to come to el salvador on an interview in person i want to see el salvador for myself i want to go there and i want to know if this is like where i'm getting to in my journey with podcasting as I'm tired of hearing oh Nova Scotia is a beautiful place you should come visit

or it doesn't matter the island is a great place you come I'm like I just want to go I want to go and see it with my own eyes I want to feel the sun with my own face I want to see the people I want it on and on and on

I'm going to get to another guest who has an interesting thought on this but regardless Dr. Jack Cruz who I sat there afterwards and he goes I kept saying the same thing. I'm giving you the whole outfit.

You keep biting it. I'm giving you the whole outfit. And I'm like, think about that for a bit, right? Very fascinating interview. Very fascinating. How the heck I had never heard of Dr. Jack Cruz until he did Danny Jones

is beyond me. But I think that's why, on the latest Danny Jones, he's saying exact that. How did you get so big? Right? I like this question. I know, well, that's another day for another day.

But these aren't the times to be beat around the bush. Sure. Right? Well, and the fact that, that means, couldn't be like, listen, we should stop these vaccines immediately. It was a simple line to say.

Is you're like, that's interesting. Why won't you just say it? Well, because you're vaccinated, and you weren't hurt, and so you don't think it's that bad. Would be my guess. Well, you talk about speaking your vision into reality. I've already told you this. As you know, we've already bought stuff in Nicaragua. But I want to see El Salvador.

And there's a possibility of you having some links to Bakelli and what he's done with that country. And I'm speaking to reality. If I can throw in a backpack and come with you, I'm coming with you. I want to see El Salvador person. I want to, if I can see Bo Kelly. I just want to see this country. From murder capital of the world to safer in Canada, the U.S., and Jack Cruz has relationships of some kind.

I'm coming with you. Speaking to reality, but let's go. It's your list. You go. No, no, no. This is why you're here to add to the conversation. So, yeah, El Salvador, I think in the next year and change at some point, I think that's going to, like,

I was told Boot Kelly that type of politician didn't exist. I'm not saying I know everything about Bo Kelly. But when I listen to him and Tucker Carlson talk, I stopped it down. Listen, I listen to pretty much everything on Two Speed these days, unless somebody's a real fast talker. And I think a lot of the listeners here are the same way.

And so they'll get the implication. I slowed it down to one, because what he was saying, I was like, I didn't think a politician could talk this way. You know, faith, talking about like corruption and things going on in government and just analyzing the world from like wow and um i don't know if i'll ever get the chance to interview that guy but he shot up my list of guys of mike bukelly or just say i will interview him someday sure i will interview boo kelly someday if you can make that happen let's do it yeah you know like the audience that's listening

in this um starting in january january yeah throw it out to the it's brought out to your audience If anybody has a link to Kelly, Sean hasn't interviewed him yet. January 2nd, I get to interview a guy who was arrested and jailed for January 6th. And he agreed because multiple factors, I've got to give a show it to dust. But one of the things he said to me was, I listen to you and Tom and Alex, and you have a way of bringing the full story out and the meat of a story out with your listeners and your guess, I guess. And so he's like, yeah, I would gladly give you the, I think. the first interview, I think, that he's ever done. And this is a guy who went to jail for January 6th.

I'm like, holy crap, all right. I take that with like the utmost respect, I guess, that that's going to happen. So if you know a way to get me, Boo Kelly or, you know, somebody else in El Sop. Miley, Miley, Miley, you know, like to Jack Cruz's point. Another one here in Canada, though, is Lestlin Lewis. I haven't been able to get close. Oh, you've got to get less. she's on a path right now.

Somebody's got to get less and loose. If you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I know how to do that. Or you know, you know, like, point me in their direction because I'm a dog on a bone when I get ideas in my head and the more we talk about it,

the more that I interact with all of you. There we go. You're already getting your list to put together. Lesson Lewis, PhD in law, speaks incredibly intelligent, around for leadership of the Canadian Conservative Party and has been on the right side of things.

I think I haven't seen her mess up. to be honest. You know, and here she is speaking on this whole Canada 51st state thing and saying there's more to this than you think and it's actually a bad path. And you got to get on Sean Newman podcast, Leslie,

because you got some like minds attracting here. And I think she needs a bigger voice. For some reason, she seems to have been silenced. It looks like it. Yeah, come on. Come on.

It's the resident crazy in the conservative party. Dr. Leslin Lewis. Yes. Ph. You got to have one so that you can all be like, oh, they're doing something. Yeah.

Okay, go on with your list. Number eight was a Coots 4 Roundtable, the first one I did. With, um, let me actually pull, I want to make sure I get all the names right. I should have been your Jamie. No, no, it's all good. We didn't do video. I was doing a suit jacket for nothing. I was like, well, if I'm doing this for Sean, I got to at least throw on a suit jacket.

Actually, I'm ditching it while you're looking up Renee. We didn't do video because I'm editing this one. I told Jack, I'm like, I'm not doing video to put this out. I just wanted to sit and have a conversation and a coffee. So it was episode... It was episode 689 Coutts 4 Roundtable. It was the first one I did. It was Granny Margaret McKay, Mackay,

Nikki Tom, and Stevelin Ambrose. So Nikki Tom was good friends with Anthony Olenick, and Stevlin Ambrose was the guy that looked into the tech side of it and realized they were saying that he had pictures of guns that he just liked or looked at on on on Instagram and it went on and on and on. It was very actually interesting insight. And then of course, Granny Margaret Mackay

was the one who became kind of the spokesperson for the group for a while, and they came on. So that was episode eight. Sean, at some point in time, you know, on that one, I pay attention to a lot of this very intensely. And even myself,

I can't put the whole story of Coots together. This isn't the conversation for, today. But what happened on what day and what was the evidence that was shown? And, you know, there was police tampering with, with the vehicles. And then there was a table of guns shown, but it wasn't their table. You don't have to go into it today. But I'd love to hear somebody just break it down specifically point by point. So something like me can go, you know, because, you know, it kind of got politicized. And then, you know, there was actors at play. And I'd just like to hear it. Sure. I'd love to hear that. I think there's a few different people out there maybe

that could give that. But in fairness, to break it down day by day. Yeah, sure. Just the evidence as we know it now. Because when it was coming out, you're kind of like, okay, what are these people doing, you know, if I'm unclear, there's probably a lot of people are like, I think I understand, but I don't really understand.

Number seven was Tiana, truth seeker. She, she, uh, I'm going to pull this up too, because I want to make sure I get this right. She's the citizen journalist who, who originally from Yugoslavia, and she had over 419 million views on TikTok. Oh, she's the blonde girl.

I like her. Oh, yeah. So I wished her a happy or Merry Christmas, right? Because at the end of our conversation this year, she says she's out of Canada, I'm gone. I'm never coming back. Has she revisited that, or she's still in the same? So I asked her how Texas is going.

She says, I miss the nature and I miss Canada that was before we got divided. The south of the school and everyone is super friendly in a real way. But there's no home like North Canada. So one of the things I notice about people who leave Canada, not saying everyone, right? And maybe it's a certain age demographic as well. They get away and they want to come back. And I don't want to leave. I want to fight for this because I feel like if you go anywhere, you're going to have to fight for it anyways.

You're going to have your own problems. You're going to have to fight for what's in your backyard. And here, specifically here, I love this area. I like I just it's a part of who I am and it's more than just land it's it's the people it's the families it's the culture it's it's everything that's been probably fought for well I know it's been fought for in in years well before us and that's why in 2025 here in a few days we're starting to build a podcast studio out near the farm because I'm like I got a choice here I'm either going to go one way or another I'm going to slowly start to exit to bigger cities

because everybody seems to think that getting on all these giant names is going to put the podcast on a different realm and maybe it would. Or I can go closer in my roots and maybe the podcast suffers for that. I don't know. No. Or maybe it turns into something different. And so truth seeker was number... Those Eastern Europeans, we have to listen to them.

Those are wise words coming from people that have walked through come out of some of these these darker... they can all see it. Yeah, yeah. She'd be interesting. Her new experience. Oh, yeah. 100%.

That'd be cool to. Cake you going. Well, I'm going to probably extend the invite. I know I will to all these people to see if they want to come back on. Number six was Dr. James Lindsay. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

I mean, he has a giant social media following. What's giant? Million plus. Oh, wow. I think. He's, he's, uh, well, I mean, when I go back to Heather Heying, you go back. to the documentary they made on Brett Weinstein and them at Evergreen, who's the one that was doing it? Dr. James Lindsay, or he was a part of it, right?

He's in the documentary. So you're like, this guy has been on the ball. Has he written a book on his subject matter? Yes, he has. I should read that. Have you read it? No, I have not. You and I should drop our next list of books. I finished chaos with you. I'm looking here, folks. Well, Sean is doing that. Project Chaos is what.

$533,000 on X is what James has. But I'm sure if you extrapolate that out, there's a ton of people following him. I have to make a list of things I have to do when we're done here. Number five, okay, top five. Shout out to twos. The mashup finally cracked. You go to Tuesdays episode in your top five.

The mashup, SAS election live stream. The SAS election live stream. It was in your top five. Top five. Well done, twos. I think I've watched. you mature as a podcast host and watching you and twos, it's just like everything else, right?

First time you skate, you're a little wobbly. You don't even know how to hold a stick, right? And watching the both of you, you guys got a group going. It's kind of fun because you're very different. And, you know, like, but it's a... I'm sure I know the absolute heck out of twos, and I know for a fact I've told them this at the time. I think very highly of twos.

Tews, I think very highly. So don't take the next criticism as anything other than you drive me not some days. We're like an old married couple And, you know, instead of allowing Get him a thought out, he'll throw on a quip. And we're like, you balance each other. I know we do. Both very intelligent.

We just had somebody comment on the last show that we're such a healthy balance. I just love the show because we're not the same. We are far apart on a lot of different things. But in the same token, we're aligned on so much. The mashup has been such a fun injection into what I do. I look forward to it.

out of 52 weeks, knock off four because I take July off at a 48 weeks. I look forward to that show probably 42 times. There's probably six weeks in there where I'm like, I don't feel like talking to twos, right? Or twos doesn't feel like talking to me. Or there's just crap going on in the media and I don't want to talk about it. But overall, yeah, and we have, I got a, twos calls it assembling the Avengers for 2025,

but we're going to do a federal election live stream that is going to blow the socks off this thing, I'm excited for it. We do it here in studio. We had a ton of fun on the SAS election. Ken was a part of that one. A whole bunch of people were part of that one. That was in her backyard. It was a ton of fun.

You know, like you had Quick Dick and Nadine Ness getting into it over. I don't even remember. What was it? About farming, both spraying chemicals on. Yeah, crops, yeah. If you think elections are boring, we do

anything that are boring, you know, in this BC election live stream, which was a close second to the SASC one, um, glory holes got brought up on and off of that thing for like two straight hours with every guest because it was a joke right at the start and it just kept going to go on. We're talking Trisa Tam. No, like an actual glory hole in the wall. Oh, I thought that was her recommendation through COVID or something. Oh, no, no, no. That's my, you might be right. You might be right. But like, I just think of all the, all the guests we had on that night and glory holes being at the top. Chase Barber absolutely going ballistic on who's the chief medical officer there. Oh, Bonnie Henry.

Bonnie Henry. That was on the side of the road. Like so, yeah, number five. Hey, what you and twos have, it just hit me. You know, you and I, I knew of you, but friends with your family, but when you and I got a hockey dress room together and then you spent a couple seasons together, and get to the point to where you can yell in my face. I don't think I've ever yelled in your face at a different style, but by iron sharpens iron.

Sure. Now it's like you can raise your voice, you can stomp out, you can do your thing. I know I'm going to get a phone call 15 minutes later, and I'm thankful for it. It's just how, how process. You and twos, you have that now is where there's no longer an awkward where you're a little bit annoyed with them,

so you snap back, but there's an awkward silence, then twos isn't sure how hard to give it back to you. Now it's like you guys are two guys that have spent a lot of time in a dress room together. You've been to battle together. You could know each other's grooves and you're more comfortable being blunt and working off each other and accepting each other for your differences of opinions or thoughts?

We're at episode 139, I think, coming up this Friday. And I wonder how many more it will take until it's just like, because everything's growth, right? Like for the first 15, we didn't know what the heck we're doing. For the next 25, we're having so much fun. We weren't even paying attention. And then you started to pay attention. You ebbs and flows and you try something out.

And then you screw something up. And so we're at 139. And I go, does it take a thousand of them? Does it take 400 of them? Do we make it that long, right? Can we last? You've gone from a grants and now you're a 15-year Scotch? Sure.

And you're going to go to a... So, top five. I know Tews was upset that I don't even know if a mashup made it in the top 25 last year. Now, in fairness, the statistics have changed a bit. But it's top five. And it was the SaaS Collection live stream, and we got a federal election coming this year. And that's going to be a point. Me and twos are going to be all over that.

That's going to be, we're going to plan a few days to make sure that we get it right. And he calls it assembling the Avengers. We'll see what we can do, but we're going to have people from all over Canada. Come on, that sucker. And, wow, it's just,

it's just going to be way too much fun. It's just going to be way too much fun. I'm really looking forward to it, and who can say that about an election? Number four, they were number one, two years ago, and they were number two last year. They're my most steady guest, I would say, and that's Tom Longo and Alex Granger.

The 11th time they were together. Tom and Alex, 11.0, they've been on stage now twice for me. They're coming again to the Cornerstone Forum. And I think very highly about the men. You know, obviously the audience does too. There's just a chemistry there. Because I don't know, I don't say anything. You know, I interject every once in a while,

but I let the two of them go back and forth. and well they've been since they came on to the show they've been top five now three years running yeah Sean's audience is speaking and was able to meet them in the barn right very very good fellows interesting to have thinkers of that realm right you know if you want to understand what's going on NHL we'll talk to Elliott Freedom Friedman you want to understand what's going on the world it's nice to hear from Cranger Luongo on their take you know they're just they've stared at the world for

so long that they're they can put together other thoughts and ideas and data very quickly. One of the things that, like, you know, when I have Melissa McKee, let's take, or JP Sears, the first time you're on the show, Heather Heing, you've got to give your, I call it the origin story. One of the things that Marvel, I always, you know, go back to superheroes, one of the things Marvel Universe did very well is they did an origin movie on all the superheroes. Even if you knew it, they did it so that you didn't need to do it when they all.

all got together. When they all got together, you could have the Avengers and you didn't need any backstory. You could just do the story. And so one of the things that has happened with Tom and Alex is they each had their origin story podcast. And since they've come together, we've just been able to let them loose over and over and over and over and over and over again. And the thing about, I forget where we're at, we had 17 or 18 now is we all, and we've met in person now twice. We've had the barn nights. We just have had so many. They're not just guessing where you're friends. Yeah, we've had so many conversations away from the mic that when we step on the mic,

I think they're truly as comfortable as I am to just be like, start talking. Just have it out of. What do you guys want to talk about? What do you think is important right now? You know, because I'll talk about drones. They'll start laughing at me and then they'll go off to. Yeah, you're kind of almost hockey dress room buddies now with them too. That's right.

And that has taken time. And when I look at them being number four, and it takes trust, right? You've got to know that they're not trying to, oh, I got you, right? So that has been interesting. So that's number four. Number three, that should shock nobody. But she wasn't in the top five last year, I don't think.

Or sorry, I'm skipping. Number three was number one last year. That's Martin Armstrong. So the huge news this year is Martin Armstrong at the end of 2023. I went, okay, when I'm planning out this event, Cornerstone Forum, who do I think should be there? Number one guy, Martin Armstrong. And he told me no.

but he told me to do it virtually. So I was like, I'll take that. Virtually, Martin Armstrong is going to be at the Cornerstone Forum and Lloyd Minster. Done. Silver Gold Bull, Bull Valley Credit Union, showed up to both of them. They convinced me to bring Cornerstone Forum to Calgary this coming year. So I sat there and I thought, who is the number one guy I wanted to come to the Cornerstone Forum in Calgary, Alberta?

Martin Armstrong. I would just love to have him in person once. Martin Armstrong, number three on the podcast this year, number one on the podcast last year is going to be in Calgary May 10th in person I don't know what I think about

I'm like that one I'm hoping I get to smoke a cigar with Martin or whatever Oregon just speak it I will I will I will be speaking a cigar I will I will

sure and you know like we're working on a couple things with the military vets and Rod Gil Taka of CCFR maybe I'll get to shoot a gun with Martin Armstrong right like yeah do something memorable right of course you will

Like this guy You don't love or hate him You could say he's a grifter And all these different things Guy has really Been impactful on the way I look at the world And a way a lot of people look at the world So a lot of people

He's a very loyal following Just like you Yeah You're gonna be You either don't know who he is Or you know exactly who he is Yeah And so he's number three

And I've You want to know the strangest thing Is I can I can't pick up the phone right now and go call him but like I've talked to Martin on the phone several times now I'm like this is such a I'm living in a different world I'm living in a you know like sat and talked to Martin about you know a whole bunch of things and for the fact that he is coming here in 2025 that's cool that's super cool or two this should shock no one premier Daniel Smith yeah and I get

asked all the time by tons of people which which interview um this one was 552. So this was right before Christmas last year. So as you mentioned, time adds numbers. Well, even if it's one here and two there. Just the interview with Jennifer Jones. Jennifer Johnson. Jennifer Johnson, I'm sorry.

You know, is that one still trending up? Because that was a good interview. I assume yes. That was pretty much a week ago, I want to say. And her and Shane Getson. And the thing with the last week is that, I don't even, I mean, they're in the numbers there somewhere, but you know, you'd have to have it absolutely go off like a firecracker to make the top. Jennifer Johnson, Shane Getson will be 2025.

Right. Anything towards the end of December, I just push into the next year. But regardless, and you saw it at the AGM, right? Lots of controversy. People like a story, you know, the David Parker's of the world. Sure. As you mentioned, the different groups and leadership review and what was it, 90? 91.5%.

And hats off to you again, Sean. You've built trust there too. I mean, politics is a tough world. And she's willing to come sit in your podcast studio and be interviewed by you, which tells you, oh, there's a level of trust there. And you're also, you do that very well. You also don't give her a free pass, you know, like you and I talk quite a bit before you interview her and after. And I find you do it really, really well where you ask the tough questions, but you're also respectful. And you probably take heat because, oh, are you a paid?

Yeah, a paid shell That's a podcast of its own I know Sean I've known them very well As you said our families go back Over 100 years And this dude is not taking money From any political party

To say certain things Or not see certain things That is not the truth The money I've taken from the UCP I've taken To host the injection of truth You got paid to To host the injection of truth

Which I still think to this point We got a second one coming up here in 2025. And didn't you host the leadership debate or something? Yeah, I didn't get paid for that. I did that pro bono. I was like, you're going to let me

on stage with all these people to... So you go, you put your own gas and your own tank, drove yourself there, set up your own equipment. Oh, 100%. And got to sit on stage with five of the seven leaders who were racing to be the leader of the UCPAs.

Anyway, but people want to know how I got Daniel Smith. I don't know. How do I get Martin freaking Armstrong? Okay? I just treat them like human beings, listen to them. Go, holy crap.

I should bring you back on. Podcasts are decentralized, and I think podcasts are the new, uh, mightier than the sort. You're probably right. So Daniel Smith, they know that.

Daniel Smith, I interviewed the day they called it a pandemic of the unvaccinated. I interviewed her on that day. I don't mean to say that as like, oh, we're best friends. We're not. I didn't know.

She's just somebody I really respect. She's, she's now the premier. I mean, but like she was on the first stage I ever did. First, first, first,

um, And with Andre. Andreem Murray, Shane Getson, Dr. Eric Payne, and Daniel Smith. Those were the four people I put on stage to be like, how do we do better? Or what is this thing? It was in Lloyd Minster.

So she's been on stage for me before. Did I have some crystal ball that I knew she was going to be the premier? No. In fairness, you were there for her before she was in the show. So like, how do you translate that? It's like, well, you know, like. Not there for her, but you were involved in her. If you're if you're if you're if you're if you're a hockey team you're trying to scout

superstars become before they become superstar agents right you're trying to find that and unbeknownst to me I stumbled on Daniel Smith and I wasn't stumbling she was a loud voice in Alberta that got her own radio show up to time and got removed so like I don't think it was I was ecstatic when I got her and after I interviewed once I'm like you got to come back on and then you got to come back on again and oh my god you're going to run now you got to come back on again and now it's like i jump through the same hoops everybody does like trying to get trying to get the premier on right now is like rattling my head off a table i wanted her to come speak of the cornerstone forum i don't know if that can happen um possibly possibly she doesn't get anywhere near it she told me in person she would

but then you start dealing with her staff she had the contract right then yeah well it's right like like i mean like she's a premier of her province yeah chances of her being there I would give it a coin flip, I guess, maybe. David Parker is another controversial character. But, Sean, how does he put it where, you know, and you're getting it now, too, to where people love to sit on the sidelines and throw all the knives. You know, they've got all the answers and you're a shell, you do this, you're, I've got labeled this when we're doing this Saskatchewan thing.

You're part of the paid opposition. Paid opposition or what's it? The camera of the fancy words. But David Parker puts it where you've got to get involved and influence the politicians, right? You can't just sit back and throw knives. You've got to be, you've got to steer the ship because they're, they just listen to people. Votes are the currency. And so you've done that very well. You know, like you're not getting, you're not getting paid by the I don't want to get into the infighting. There's so much infighting. I just, you've done that well. You have a role to play moving forward. I don't know. And sometimes that probably feels like I'm, I'm, um, steering away from controversy. At times I, you know, I just don't like the infighting. I like, I look at Christianity. See all the denominations. I see all the denominations. I see. what they fight about and I'm like man do we all agree about Jesus

okay what's the problem here I know I'm being a little bit hyperbolic but when I look at you know what's going on in Alberta or anywhere look at what's Donald Trump got elected what are they all arguing about now Kenny we had the same thing when Daniel Smith got elected

why isn't she doing this why is she doing that why is Donald Trump appointing that guy blah blah blah blah blah I'm like man the United States is going through it right now I mean that can't but that's another one I know. So here we go.

And the number one we talked about earlier on, the women's wrestlers basketball program. Overnight, it went from, I don't know, 3,000 to 100,000 overnight. My guy was just like, my jaw hit the ground. I was like, you know, I've had posts. So my number one post on X this year has 11.7 million views. Okay?

A post about Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau. Social media, you can pay things, you can have ways of getting people interact with it. And social media is like a super, I don't know how many millions of users use X. So as things become popular, the algorithm pushes it. And so your number gets, I'm not saying inflated, but kind of inflated. When I see 100,000 people watch a podcast, I'm like, it kind of reminds me of when Shep, I had Shep on episode four or five. and 800 people tuned in

and to put that in perspective I'd had like 100 people 112 800 I'm like oh my God what did I just do yeah told you the community love shot yeah 100% they did

and they shared it because they said you got to listen to this and me and you have had lots of conversations about this when Joe Rogan does a huge podcast like a great podcast

when he had on Donald Trump let's say his baseline folks is I don't care 10 million people tune in to every podcast. When he has Donald Trump on, his number probably went to

$500 million. And now his baseline increased to 14 million, let's just say. I'm just arguing numbers, you get the point. Now the rest of the time he's doing podcasts, 14 million, and then he'll hit another one out of the park, which for anyone could have been Adam Sandler, it could have been whatever, and it spikes.

For me, it's the same thing. You know, I have certain, my baseline's probably closer to $5,000, I would say, roughly. So it's just, it's just tick it along. You know, you have some drops, you have some spikes, but overall, there's going. And every once in a while you do a Tom and Alex,

and you get $28,000. You're like, okay. I don't know what we did there that we didn't do on the other ones, but okay. Or you have Dr. Jack Cruz on, or you have the Premier on. Now the Premier makes sense. You interview these girls.

The rest of the wrestlers basketball, I've done three of them now. Didn't get that high. That one, went to the moon. And I'm like, to the moon. For me, the moon right now is on a new peak has been set of $125,000. I've never had that before.

I look at that. I go, well, I know there's going to be higher peaks. I truly believe that. But that's a pretty special moment. I'm like, holy mackinaw. Like, why did they take off? It don't, like, I mean, it's academia, right? It's part because it's a college.

Sure. They were, let's just, sorry, let me give me 10 seconds here. people that were tuning, not that we have to recap all of your episodes, but Sheph. No, no, no, but that's the number one. Just when we talk about Shep, Shep owned a sports shop in Lloyd Minsteria.

And if you're over the age of 35 in Lloyd Minsteria, he either sharpened your skates or sold you a gun or was just your buddy. Everybody loved them. And so this fellow who was kind of like one of the pillars of the community from a, well, from a sports perspective, for sure, one of the pillars of our community.

And so Sean interviewed him. And then just the listens showed the love that the community had for Shep. Now let's come back to the basketball. the basketball, the rustlers, is it's academia. It kind of hit me. I wonder if it's a little bit of Canada's version of the Weinsteens, you know, where, you know, there's lots of disagreements.

Academia, there's lots of, oh, man, I can't tell you. Somebody I'll have to tell a story on HR investigations and all the stuff that happens in academia. It's, it's government. But for some reason, that Weinstein interview or that Weinstein issue where they were walked out the door for what? What were they walked out of their university for or what were they terminated for? They spoke out on something.

It doesn't matter. It was something to do with close to Black Lives Matter or like no white people allowed on campus for a day. And it was something like that. And it was just DEI is all it was. But all of a sudden, could you imagine how many university and college camps across the U.S.? And there was something like that on a weekly basis. But for some reason, that one caught wind and it took off. And this one with Lakeland College with the basketball players and their coach,

being terminated for what appears to be making girl run lines. We don't know all the evidence, but that's what appears to be. And then having a medical episode at practice, which could be passing out, could be concussion. It could be multiple things. She collapsed. We don't know the extent of it, but the more you dig, the less and less, when you put something as a medical episode, you think our brains go to the worst. You know, before I did the interview, every guy I've talked to, thought for sure he was having an affair with Blair.

That's, we're trained to think that. Yes. They saw a coach. A male's terminated. Yes. Immediately. Like a week. Especially from either a children's program or a camp or a hockey team.

Everybody jumps to what's the sickest thing that that person could do. You know, that's probably an issue that we should be. But regardless is something struck a chord here, right? Is that you just rattled off Martin Armstrong. You rattled off Peter McCullough. Premier Smith. Premier Daniel Smith. Right.

these are big names in the world. For sure, and you have a basketball team that skyrocketed to your number one. I think there's more at play here than I know Chris. I like Chris. Obviously, number one basketball program in the country, right, on the college level. It's a big deal. But there's something more at play here. I think this has a Weinstein element to it.

Or what do you think? Well, I think it hit. It's kind of the perfect storm. you have a national champion basketball coach who's been voted the coach of the year for all of Canada last year and the ACAC coach six out of the last 10 years roughly they're national champions

so they haven't lost a game in 34 in a row okay so the winning the winning is a big part of this he's a winner yeah okay two built a program from nothing two or not from nothing did he was he the first coach I don't know if he's first coach She's been there 17 years. Yeah.

Two, he's local. So this area knows who Chris King is. Okay. Three, he has a huge community involvement piece. I don't think Lloyd truly will understand if we lose him, what it will mean to our city. Like, from the basketball kids programs, just basketball is a sport here in town. Right? He's brought the hoop factory, you know, for the listener, he took an old, the B. Fisher Center, right?

Yeah. And took this old shop and turned it into a beautiful gym. Yeah, they're probably going to flip a coin whether we push it in or turn it something. And he turned it into a beautiful gym. And like it takes somebody with creativity and vision to build something like that. So, you know, you got winning, you got local, you got community involvement, okay? And then to top it off, it is. Isn't him getting accused of sexually abusing or having a relationship or something like that where everybody goes, oh, it's discipline.

And the world right now lacks discipline. So the four of them all together. And the fact, all out of fifth, the college won't say anything is just to let it go rampant. And the more people I talk to, the more damning it looks. now you could add in that the SMP is here in Lloyd Minster right if this happened in in if Sean went and interviewed you know like a popular episode this year was Jeff Colvin the former mayor of chest a mirror chestermere I think right and that was a popular episode but if you're in Lloyd you're like who the heck is that who's who's uh Colvin okay I kind of get it and there's people who listen to it in Chesmere and they're like oh yeah I remember him. But you're hitting, I built, I'm from this area too. It's big in this area, though.

Because our population is 33,000. I 100% agree. But you're talking about why this episode. Because a whole bunch of things align all over the place. And all of a sudden, you have the platform to host it on that brings all these things together. I haven't found, I shouldn't say I haven't found one. I've probably had out of the myriad of phone calls. texts, emails, social media, two people that spoke, not even ill of Chris King.

One told me that there's more to the story. One told me that he'd had a complaint years ago. Okay, that's the two things that I got on one side. Okay. Other than the other being the college saying, it's a slam dunk case and like he did something horrific. Okay. On the flip side, I have an entire. community is rally behind them.

I've got now seven basketball girls, two coaches. I assume Chris King isn't going to say, if he was going to jump on the grenade, I think he would have jumped on the grenade already. So you got 10 people from the basketball program. You got parents reaching out. I've had a parent on. I've had Taylor Weaver from Lloyd Mr. Meridian source come on.

What's his role? He's the managing editor. Of the paper and time. Right? This story. What has he been in like? 10 years? 14 years?

10 years of it. Yeah, so he's putting his name beside it too. You know, it's very interesting. It's going to. So what me and you probably agree on, and I think this is where you're kind of alluding to, is like, this is probably the tip of the iceberg for a larger problem that is across our education system here in Canada. We all know what's going on. We keep hearing these stories.

And then it plays out in Lloyd Minster. The most blue collar, I think family-oriented, you know, place in Alberta and Saskatchewan with very little government. If you're in Lloydminster, either your family farmed or your grandpa farmed or your great grandpa farmed or your brother farms or you came here for the oil field. You're working men. You're a trucker or a welder or a, you know, we're a very. We don't have government.

We don't have union. Yeah. No government offices. No, nobody really important in terms of the power structure. For this to pop up here where you have a national champion basketball winning team, which is even more bizarre. Yeah, there's no palm trees. There's no ocean.

There's no, we're 33,000 person city. One of our main attractions is Walmart, right? Right. And somehow you get these world class athletes that come from literally around the world to come play for these teams to take these. Lakeland somehow became really the joggernaud of college athletics in Alberta and nationally. It's a really cool story of its own. You know, we have double national championships, the female women's,

volleyball team was also a national championship. And the basketball team was ranked number one again going into this coming year. And now, I mean, you have to wonder, do they even have a team coming into the second semester, right? So to go from ranked worst without a loss coming from last year's championships to even run a team in the second semester. Correct. Major story. And what's interesting of that one, Sean, is if this, and I don't know, but let's, I don't think you'd have to guess too widely to say this could be heading for litigation is litigation.

You've got to air your... Yeah, well, that's... Air your dirty laundry. So the thing that... The thing sitting here that I've probably learned over the course of, you know, almost six years now, but certainly since 2022 is like the college wants to sit down away, so they're not going to say anything. They're hoping Christmas would everybody forget about it.

They haven't. And now, the tool they have... is we'll just drag it out. We'll drag it out for five years. And people will forget. And they'll move on. And Chris King will move and find a new job. And my hope for Chris is that he lands on his feet.

I believe he will. But from a community perspective, I'm irritated. I'm probably more than that. Because this is a guy in our community. This is our community. And some group of people is trying to tell us how things go in our community. And then they won't tell us why they did it. Like if the guy literally slammed a woman's head off the floor,

oh, that changes the story. Like, we need to know the story. No, I'm not going to talk about. Really? You think you have that power? We'll see. And here's the thing. I got all the time.

I ain't going anywhere. Now, for Chris, are they filing suit and all that? I believe they are. Which means this is certainly going to court. This is certain or it's going to get settled out of court. Maybe that's the best thing for the Lakeland. or maybe it's the best thing for Chris, I don't know. But like, you have put a scar on our area, we're going to talk about it.

Or you best believe we're going to talk about some things. And they're just on the radar now. You know, I don't know how they, their goal is to make it go off into the abyss. And if I'm on the flip side, it's to keep it in the public eye so that we can maybe get some things changed around here. I think would be, you know, where I said, this is happening in our community. Why is it number one? it hits all these different things. I think for me, the importance of it is, you know, it's a local story.

I'm local. Chris is local. Chris is loved in this community, right? Well, from a personal perspective, I bleed Lakeland. I love Lakeland. And just as Shep is one of the pillars of our community in terms of sports. Lakeland is one of the pillars of our community in terms of education. Right, it's our only college in the area.

Kids can start their university careers there, their diplomas. They can have, well, it started as an agricultural school. You know, what are we, a group of farmers, right? And so it's really right from the beginning. And I played volleyball in the program, right? A hundred years ago, I was a student there, met my wife there. I teach there. I love it.

I really, really dearly love Lakeland. I hope that however this goes, Lakeland comes out of it. It's stronger. better, stronger and better because we don't want to see... Well, what does everybody want? They're an ally, not an enemy.

It's going back to the hospital thing where you say the hospital's a terrible, you know, everybody in there. It's like, well, no, it's saved my... Like, I know tons of great stories out of it. Lakeland has a ton of great stuff. Pam Beacott sat here and bled Lakeland College.

But she's disgusted because of the way they're acting. And us as a society, us as a community, can ask for them to do more, to be better. better. This is, this is, they don't, they don't get to just sweep it under the rug and walk away. I mean, maybe that's worked for a long time. But part of journalism, part of what, what going after stories entails is not letting it go to sleep. It's like, no, no, you don't get to do it. Like, we're going to seriously walk on. Look at COVID. I mean, like, they, they just keep

sweep. I hate to bring that into the side of Lakeline College, but, you know, like, what has been the, the, the, the, the tool. that some of the giant organizations have used, time, space. The longer it goes on, people get back to normal life, and some of the fight goes out of them, or they didn't realize how long the fight was going to take. Look at Tamara Leach, Chris Barber. They just drag this thing on.

They just drain the money out of people so that they can't fight anymore. That's their tactic. Well, you get to revisit this in another year's time. I mean, obviously, you're going to be on the trail here in between now and then. Let's see where they are in a year. and again, you know, in any relationship, communication they talk about as being key. I hope there is communication because with the uproar in the community and the greater community,

not just our community, but the greater community that's come to be interested in this story. I think that's a good thing. You know, if I'm a Lakeland, I might be thinking, oh, man, I'd like this to just go away. This has become a headache. But that shows people care, right? If people didn't care, it wouldn't be a story. I think people care about Lakeland. They care about the basketball program.

They care about the sports at the college. They care about what it's done for the... They're me, right? And so they're hurt and they care. So that's a good thing. But anyway, Sean, there's your number one story. Anything you want to get to before we wrap it up? No, because I think that's pretty much labeled it.

I was wondering, Tuzid text to me a whole list. Yeah, let's go through Tuse text. And I just thought maybe if there's one from twos, we might want to do that. You tell me what sticks out to you from that list, if there's anything. Oh, we've already hit one, guest hopefuls for next year. We've talked about that. We've already talked about mashup. Well done, twos.

Family balance, we talked about that. Tews, we didn't even go through your list until the end. And, man, you're, you're ret. While you're thinking about it, twos has become the guy who's on the podcast the most. Nobody graces, the airwaves more than twos. and we butt heads a lot but at the same token I think very highly of the guy

he's started a new business he's working full time I watch him and I go he's where I partially was you know when I was working full time and doing this in the off hours the early hours the weekends the just everything

and you know like people should know two isn't collecting a paycheck of thousands of dollars to come sit and do the show with me And people might go, well, I mean, he's got accolades in fame. And I'm like, I don't know. Like, you know, when we did, when we do things like the mashup live streams,

we probably lose money on those right now, you know, but we both believe in it and have a ton of fun with it. And we have some companies that have been fantastic. And I should probably, this is probably where I should not leave it because if you got an extra question or anything, Kenny, by all means. But, you know, what I do here is not possible if it isn't for silver, Bull, right? They signed on this year and 2025 now as the, I call it the major, the title sponsor. They're on four or the five days. Them and Bull Valley Credit Union have brought Cornerstone Forum.

The only reason it's feasible is because those two companies not only stepped up, but twisted my arm and dragged me to Calgary in the best possible sense. But then you just have like this list of companies that continue to support what I do here. And some of them for a very, very long time. You know, like, I'm honestly, I'm just going to read through them because I want to make sure that I don't forget anyone. You know, like, I'll start with Crude Master Transport. Cruedmaster gets almost zero advertising on here because they did the final question.

They've done substack. But Heath in the Dark Days of COVID when everybody was yelling out and yelling at him too for supporting me, he's been a steadfast man who has just stuck by me through thick and thin. and I can't speak highly enough of Crude Master. They come do my, you know, we did dueling pianos for the Christmas party. Their company buys tables there and comes and their company comes and supports it and had a grand time this year I might add in.

And so like people like that, I'm like, oh, my goodness. Like, how do you even repay that? And they've been here since day one. They were one of the first sponsors I ever had was Heath. He was one of the first guys I went to. This year, Cal Rock came on, Dan Aquino in their group. Clay Smiling, Prophet River. They've been here for year after year.

I tell the story lots that back when my first idea was playoff hockey drafts, you know, the Don's Cup. And I walked in, went for coffee with back when the clock tower in town, downtown, at a restaurant in there, we went for coffee. And I asked him for 50 bucks. This is a guy who's, I don't know, how many millions of dollars worth of guns is profit river selling? I asked him for 50 bucks. And he laughed out loud, folks. I'm looking into the camera like it's odd.

It's not odd. He laughed out loud and pulled 50 from his wallet and said yes. And I got to have him on the podcast last year around this time and just say, you don't understand what $50 meant to me. It was like your idea is not stupid, go on. Now, that idea didn't work out. This idea has. And Profit River's been along for the ride every year since.

So a shout out to Clay and Ed because you just never know. anyone listening you never know what a kind word $20 because it doesn't have to be that much everybody thinks it's got to be thousands of dollars it was a $50 bill it's a $50 bill and although that wind in your sales yes it did yeah um Windsor plywood you know we're building this podcast studio and um just in the process of ordering some um a door and a window and and dealing with Windsor and i you know like Windsor plywood built the studio table I remember hauling it down there and setting it up in that old building and now coming here. And so the team over Windsor's been along. They were at the Christmas dueling piano shows. And so that's been, once again, my wife says I'm huge on loyalty, which I am. But I've had companies stand with me through thick and thin, which has been super cool. It's helped me keep moving forward.

And, yeah, once again, 2024 has been very. very, very, very special in a lot of different ways. You got rec tech. That's your good friend, Alan. You know, I remember talking to him about it. And now he's, you know, him and Ryan, Ryan's his manager, have been a part of this now for several years. Rec tech power products on the west side of Lloyd. Oh, RG, BRP stuff.

What did, uh, oh, and other stuff as well. Lots of people drive through Lloyd coming from Zaston, coming from Ementon, whatever. And they talk about rec tech being a landmark location. They're like, oh, there's rec tech. Hear Shod talk about it all the time. If you stop in, you'll see what the heck I'm talking about. On the south side of the road on the way in Deloitte. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Beautiful, beautiful building. You got Ignite Distribution. Oh, great guy. Shane Stafford. Got some cool dudes around you. Oh. And doodettes. I can't speak highly enough about all these people.

You got... Solid guy. You got Caleb Tafts. Literally this man doesn't want the advertising. He wanted a community spotlight. Just some things so you can showcase what's going. on in the community. Just look those names you just rattled off,

hey? From the Heath McDonald's to the Clay Smiles, yeah, killed Taze. I'm on a ski mountain with him in a couple days with our kids and wives. Kristen McGowan, McGowan Professional Chartered accounts. Look at that. Yeah.

Right? Like, these people have been. Northwest School Division's newest trustee. There's a doer right there too. I hope I'm not skipping over anyone. You know? There will be, but you've got so many people and you can catch up on them.

These silver gold bull obviously you've mentioned. Yes. Well, and Boe Valley Credit Union signed on for the new year. So, so, you know, like that's going to be something new coming down the pipe. And, you know, like I just, my hat's off to all these people. And Toos, going back to how I got on to this. Tews is a guy that, you know, we don't have a major sponsor of the mashup because I was, I've been talking to a lot of different people. Lots of people love it.

But they love it around the water cooler when they don't have to be like, oh, yeah, it's great. because, you know, there's some off-colored jokes. There's some foul language. There's a whole bunch of things. And that's why people love it. And so if... I don't make money on. I mean, that's another topic, but another day.

But right now you put a seed in the ground. You're adding water. And look at your... What was your SaaS politics or your SaaS election was number what? Number five. So you and two and now we're heading into a national election. And this would be the... Well, this would be the time.

If the SaaS collection caught fire. So advertisers like... like views and listens and downloads. So how do you capitalize on that? I mean, Tuse has his MBA as well. So I'm sure. Throwing that out there. I don't mean it to be a sales pitch.

Just more of a hat tip to Tews because this guy works full time. Yeah. Then has started a business with Mrs. Tews and still finds time to do the mashup. I know he really enjoys it. But at the same time. And keep up on all the, you know.

Yeah. There's a brain that needs, it's hungry for information as well. if my final thought here okay I have I have a couple final thoughts I want to make sure that I say if you've listened this long one today is the final day of the early bird prices for cornerstone forum so if you're going to buy a ticket buy it today because it's going to save you money if you're waiting to buy a table with one of the speakers I get it wait till tomorrow two two would be I'm building a podcast studio okay and I need Ken to flesh make sure I get this

Correct. So if anything confuses you can, I want to me. Okay. So I'm building a podcast studio. Now, what I want to do is I have this idea for one wall of the studio. It's a big glass wall, with a big SMP logo in it, and then somehow I'm going to get somebody more creative than me, etch into the glass company logos for companies that help support it, or names of people who either donate time or money to it so that you're so I like because the podcast is for you right like I mean I'm I get to be the the the host here but I want people from as the years go on they walk into the studio to be like what is that I'm like oh that's a community need to help build this so if you're sitting in halifax and you're like I can toss 20 bucks in or 100 bucks 5,000 bucks I don't care you take

your number you e-transfer me can e-transfer Sean Newman podcast at gmail.com That'll be down on the strong notes. Two, if you're a company and you're like, oh, we could donate some wood or we could we could pay for a bill of wood, right? Simple write-off. We'd like to be a part of that. Because it's going to take material, right? Wood, concrete, electrical, you just name it. Just think about it.

You got to pull these things together. We'll put your company logo on there. Or your time. If you're an electrician, because right now I have AMC electrical going, oh, we'll open an account. you can use Show it to Drew. We can use, we'll opening accounts

we'll pay for the materials but we need somebody to install. So if you're sitting here and you're an electrician because right now that's what I'm looking for and you're like, oh, that's me.

Your name can go on the wall just by going out and doing a bit of work. And my hope is that we build something that can, I don't know, maybe it's just a butterfly moment but we'll move the dial forward,

we'll move the needle forward. I know people will say it already has, but I have really, big dreams of where this thing can go and who can come to this area and who can come to this province and where this can go and how it can interact in our lives and I want to build something that's phenomenal can I just walk out and pay for it no I listen I can I think I can make that work over the next however many years but I want you to be a part of it I really want all of you to be a part

of it and if you can only spare $20 great but maybe you got a talent and you're like oh if you give me the date I can just drive out and I would gladly come and do a bit of work we can probably make that work too. And the other thing is, if you're like, all Sean's out there just to make money, right? We raised 200 grand. Let's just go pine the sky. We raise $2 million. Anything we don't spend putting on to this thing, we're going to donate to a charity. We're going to make sure that I don't, I'm not getting rich out this. That's not why I want people be involved. I want you be involved. So when I look at the wall, I can put a name or a face to all the people who've been a part of this thing who have helped. If I've helped you, you've likewise helped me, whether you know it or not.

And do I need money for that? No. I have this idea of building a studio and I want you to be a part of it. Does that make sense? I think it makes a lot of sense. It's really cool, really cool. So speaking of cool people, Jonas Hegel, right? The Hegel family.

Jonas Hagel. Right, he's involved. And, you know, as I'm listening to you, if I'm out in listener land, is I'd like to, like, say, I'm not electrician. Am I doing, I'd like to just make sure I understand what, what am I getting myself into? Are you looking for, like, do I have to pull up camp and I got 30 days of work? I got a crew of war. So a little bit of like, what am I looking for? You can almost put this together on your website is I need five hours of electrical work.

I need $1,500 of lumber. So people can see, oh, that's what they're looking for. And then I would think also a cool thing is, and then take a picture, you know, like our vision board. You find something on the internet that represents your etched glass, your logo here. Your logo here. And it'll be sitting over top the fireplace. It'll be sitting here. And then another thing to be really cool is if, I'm just brainstorming with.

Sure. Is if you give over this much dollars worth of time or money or materials or anything like that, clean up, whatever. You get, you get a night at the stay. Two stakes, a bottle of wine or a bottle of non-alcoholic, you and your spouse, you know, or a girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever, you know, as a thank you. You know, it's just something that goes. And then maybe even like a heck, I. a hot dog roast.

You know, on this Saturday, on this weekend, if you're a part of this, you come out, and it's, just like we talked about fellowship when you talk

about what happens when you come out to the cornerstone, cornerstone forum, all of a sudden, you're sitting around a campfire with some of the coolest people you could ever associate with.

Build a, a night to remember. A night to remember. And at end of it all, it's a cheers to, to Sean, here's to a new beginning. And,

you know, I don't know, I'm excited about it. Because you're talking, I'm like, okay, how do I help? I want to get a well. I want my moist name on that, on that, that etched glass. And it's kind of got a cool feel to it. You're onto something.

I'd clarify it a bit more. Yes. Well, we'll work on that. Yeah. Because what you're talking about is some people can hear it or can visualize it across the airways. Other people need something physical in their hand with the details. Because me and you, although similar, are different.

I appreciate that. That's a, there you go. If you have thoughts on this, text me. Because I want to make sure that I get it clear. I want to make sure that people understand what I'm trying to do. And I think 2025 is going to be a wild year. I just feel that in my bones. I'm very optimistic.

I'm very hopeful. And one of the things I want to do is I want to get closer to my roots, which is building this and staying here and bringing people from all over God's creation or conversations from all over God's creation to this side of the world. If you're not willing to fight for it, you're either an NPC or you didn't really love it. You've got to fight for it. It's kind of much one of that thing. Oh, you keep talking about Carstone Forum.

Sure. How many more days to buy two? When this releases, it'll be tonight, right? How much will that ticket cost if you bite now? How much will it cost? So it'll cost you $206 today, roughly. And starting January 1, it goes up to, 225 a ticket.

So that's the first increase and there will probably be a second. 225 plus, like the 206 is plus tax. Yes. So it really goes for 200 to 225 plus tax. 200 plus tax to 225 plus tax. Yes. Yeah. So buy them.

Buy them. Because it sold out last time. It sold out last time. And right now, um, we're about 30% sold of our goal. So, and obviously hats off to all of you who are, who were buying tickets and getting involved and waiting.

That's many months in advance. Yes. Because you just put this together. Cool. How did they buy them from you? Cornerstone forum, sorry, showpass.com backslash cornerstone 25. It'll be in the show notes. You scroll down.

May 10th. Saturday in Calgary. And it's going to be at the wind sport. You know, I joked about this at my first event, and I don't know how exactly it's going to come on. We have to write it out a bit more. But I'm going to be back on my stage, which is a nice surface. Obviously, there will be a stage on top of it and flooring and everything.

But we're in an arena this time at the wind sport. It's Olympic Village. It's beautiful. You can see the mountains from where we're at. You know, if you're flying in from a different place, spend a couple extra days and go out to the mountains and explore the area. You know, from anyone driving around Alberta, it's going to be in May. It's going to be beautiful. and the event that we,

event center we picked. You know, when I walked in, my jaw hit the ground. I was like, this is where I want to be. Oh, yeah,

Nick from Silver Gold Bowl laughed at me because we went and toured like probably seven places. I was like, yeah, I can make this work. I can make this work. And he said when I got in this hockey rink, basically my jaw was on the ground,

the entire town. I'm like, this is where it's at. Like, this is something. And, you know, um,

uh, I think that Daniel Smith is going to be there. I'd be shocked. I don't know why she wouldn't come. But in saying that, she hasn't confirmed, and we won't know until way, way, way closer. So I hate to say that out loud, other than I'm pushing for it really hard

because I think the premier of a province being there where hopefully, you know, a thousand people are, of her, you know, voter in pace, I don't know why she wouldn't. And if we're going to talk about the future, why not have the leader of a province come in and share her vision of where she sees Alberta going. So yeah, Cornerstone Forum is going to be a ton of fun, May 10th in Calgary.

Awesome. Kenny, thanks for coming in and doing this. I know I didn't give you, you know, in years to come, assuming this happens every year again, we'll have a little bit of an idea. I throw it an idea and sometimes I throw out an idea and I don't actually don't know. I'm like, I don't know. Do we go through one point after one point and that's how we do it?

You know, what I hope is, the audience goes, you should try this next year. You should try this. And they give you a ton of feedback or me a ton of feedback. Heck, maybe they have 50 questions. Maybe you get, you take phone calls the day before so you can get. Yeah. What would the audience like to hear from Sean? Yeah.

Because like you've done this for song. It was so much you talk to so many people. You are a story of its own. And so that would be kind of interesting. Ask the audience. What would they want to hear from you? We're just shy of three hours. That's a long one.

Wow. That was good though. Went quick. Yes. Thanks. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for answering the call. See ya.