Shaun Newman Podcast - #856 - Vance Crowe

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Vance Crowe is a communications strategist, public speaker, and founder of Legacy Interviews, a service that records personal life stories for future generations. He is the former Director of Millennial Engagement at Monsanto, where he focused on public perception of agriculture and GMOs. He hosts The Vance Crowe Podcast and Ag Tribes Report, discussing agriculture, technology, and culture.To watch the Full Cornerstone Forum: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionWebsite: www.BowValleycu.comEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail]

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And when I started building the new studio, I went to Carly and his team at Windsor because we wanted to make it something, you know, something that was just, I don't know, character wood? Like, what's the word I'm looking for? We're using walnut. I couldn't even told you what that looked like. But I went in, talked to his staff, talk to Carly and said, I'm looking at, you know, what would you recommend?

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We're working on it. I have no details. I just, it's in my show notes. Oh, man? What the heck? Tees it off. It's coming next year. We're coming back.

We've had lots of good feedback. Sean's had a breath of fresh air and was watching some three-on-three hockey this weekend. And I was thinking and made a few phone calls. So that is coming. We'll wait to see what day. it falls on, but we're going to know here. I would think before summer holidays for the kids, we're going to know what weekend it's going to be next year.

We're working on it, so pay attention for that. We do have the new studio coming here. You know, hopefully soon enough, it is looking sharp. And if you want to be a part of that legacy wall, reach out. We're looking for skills, labor, materials, money, all the good things. We've got plenty of names going on it. I would love to add your name. So just shoot me a text.

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you find folks make sure that it gets out to a larger audience, and I certainly appreciate that. So please share away. Now, let's get on to that tale of the tape. He's the host of the Vance Crow podcast and founder of legacy interviews where he sits down with grandparents,

parents, retirees, siblings, and friends, to cover their stories. I'm talking about Vance Crowe. So buckle up. Here we go. All right, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Vance Carroll.

Vance, I was just saying to you, hey, it's good to have you back. It's good to see you. And thanks for hopping on this morning. Yeah, man. When you were telling me about how long it's been since we've done this podcast,

it's shocking because it seems like we're doing it all the time. Yeah, well, I don't know. I was excited for this morning. You know, these days, it seems like it's, Well, it isn't a ton of politics. It is a ton of politics.

It's a lot of what's going on here in Canada. And we got through the, you know, Tuesday and I had the 12-hour election live stream, which was a ton of fun, a ton of work. And then, you know, and then it graduated into the event like 11 days later. And so, like, this week has just been like, I almost feel like I'm missing something. but I think it's because I don't realize that how high octane I was running for how many months where finally I just got to take a breath even though the world at times you're like, what is going on? I just don't have like an event two days from now. And I don't have to plan

50 some guests coming on a 12 hour live stream and all these things. And I get to take a breath. And I'm like, you know, who do I want to take a breath with? And I'm like, I want to talk to Vance. It has been way too long. And so. I'm on it, man. That's great. Well, one of the things I always enjoy about our conversations is, you know, you doing what you do in your realm, I find I was saying this to Drew Weatherhead every time he comes in studio, which is usually once a year. So I'm like a year in a person's life that is like constantly seeking out new information, constantly talking to people is really fascinating because you're gathering information, you're implementing new things, you're trying things. And what I find is over the

course of a year, things have drastically changed. Probably you don't think it, but I'll probably notice it. I would think. Anyways, I thought it'd be great to catch up and see what's been going on in in Vance Crow's World. Well, it has been a wild ride. You know, I've been trying to run this company. My wife runs her own company. She's a physical therapist. She started out as an aerospace engineer and went into physical therapy and had to learn how do you run a company. I've had to do that. We have two kids. We have a third one on the way. So life is just blooming. with amazingness. The problems that I have today

are problems that I would have given anything a year ago to have, but they still feel like problems. Well, they are, yes, they're your problems. I'm chuckling. I didn't steer you off when you were at the house and three kids jumping all over it.

You didn't go, this might be too much. You're like, nope, we're going for a third. I mean, it's like jumping into the cold water because by the third child, you know, like, you know how hard this is going to be and how much you're adding into your world. And yet you're like, all right, let's do it. Let's do it.

But it's the only way you can have a little child that you can talk with and play with and share your ideas with is to endure the really difficult part of infancy. We've been playing the kids are into chess right now. And so I've been trying my best, not to like, you know, my oldest is nine now. And he thinks he's a world beater. So then he plays me in chess and loses.

And it's just utter meltdown. So I'm like, okay, John, don't just try and, try and take the standpoint of like, try and help him through it. Right. So when he makes a move, instead of just being like, boop, you're done. I try and be like, okay, let's look around the board. Let's see what happens when you move that guy there. What, what's going to happen? So I literally point out a bunch of things. He's like, I don't care. I want the kill shot. And I'm like, oh, okay. All right. I've tried. And then I like, you know, you do. And then he's just upset. Right. He had his grandfather in. He was teaching him the, I don't know, I don't know what the technique is called, but the four moves to go checkmate, right?

And he goes to a Shay, he goes, but understand your father is probably going to do something that's unexpected. This isn't going to work on. He's like, I don't care. So he tries it. And I don't even know what he's trying because I'm not in their strategic planning session

for this. And I do two things. And he's like, he melts down before he even gets to it because he's like, you've already done something that I can't get you checkmate. I'm like, yeah, what is going on right now? What's awesome about chess is that the strategies and the way that you play give you all these metaphors for life.

I remember one time I have a good friend who's very good at chess. You know I'm Rob Long. And he one time talked about this thing called loose moves. And a loose move is when you're like, I don't know what I should do. I'm just going to put the piece out here. And the problem with a loose move is you're not actually thinking about all the consequences. You're just trying to move forward. and as soon as you have that name,

then you can apply it to your life. And you're like, I don't know, I just got to do something. I'm going to move the board. I'm going to move this piece. And suddenly it snaps in that you're like, oh, that's actually not a good idea. I should think about this more deeply. And by naming the patterns,

the way you do in chess, it gives you metaphors to be able to explain things in the regular world that's been very helpful to me. When you talk loose moves, I'm curious, if you were giving advice to anyone graduating high, school knowing that you know there's loose moves in life and when you do that you're you're pretty much setting yourself up for failure what advice would you give to somebody graduating from high

school i think that one of the biggest things that you have to overcome when you're in high school and you move into the regular world is that in high school you are not actually really enabled to pursue your curiosity instead they give you a book and if you like that book you have to read it and if you don't like that book you still have to read it and this stores our understanding of what our psyche, our inner world is telling us we should be paying attention to. And your curiosity is actually, I believe, one of the most important driving factors in your life. You have to control it. You know, you can become curious about things that won't help you. But if you really listen to what you're curious about, you will not have to struggle to learn things.

You will find that there is a question in there that you're interested in answering and pursuing it is not like work. It's like figuring out the pieces of a puzzle. And so when leaving high school, even though you're going to make loose moves because you can't see everything that's around you, if you're pursuing your curiosity and that curiosity is something that's got pure in heart, pure and intention, it will lead you to the best places for you. Here's a question on your curiosity. Okay. You've been on, I say this all the time. of all the people I've put on stage and I've put a lot of people on stage now, you're in a select company of people who treat the stage with the reverence I treat it with,

standing in front of a group of human beings, trying to be respectful of their time, trying to give them something that will engage them and maybe spur on some thoughts. And I've heard Peterson talk lots about being in front of, you know, especially young men and seeing, seeing them start to nod their heads, seeing them, you know, start to grapple with some of the concepts he's, he's formulating. And I was curious about the Cornerstone Forum. You asked, what did I learn?

And I'm like, I'm having my Peterson moment, if I would, where I'm watching the audience be really, really engaged with it. I was saying to Mel, after the show, the amount of people that came up to me after this one, and I call it ripping my arm off because they're so excited. can't figure out what they're so excited about because I'm literally making sure the show goes off smooth it runs on time speakers get up when they are you know all the little things all the little details and I was saying I don't understand I'm trying to understand it as best I can because they're literally just like they're so excited I guess I don't know what other word to attach to it and thankful for what you've done you've been on stage a lot have you had those moments and how did you cultivate or dig up what people were pulling out of your talks. Does that make sense? I don't know

if I'm phrasing that the right way. Yeah, I mean, the reverence that you talked about in the beginning is something that I think about a lot. And I actually think that for people that have stage fright, it is because they're not thinking about the perilous height in the right way. And I think like, because you should be nervous to stand up in front of a group of people. But the reason that you should be nervous about that is because you are, are asking for the most valuable thing that a person owns, which is their attention and the present moment. You only have the present moment and your attention is your bandwidth for changing the world. And when you realize that people are giving that to you, then you have to think of like,

well, what do I have that is worthy of that? Well, whatever I have that's worthy of that likely has to be something that I have both explored and I have an expertise in, but I am right on the edge of where I, like, I am going to discover something new because I am expressing it to this group of people. And that might be because the person is going to nod or they're going to turn in just such a way that it's going to spark an idea in my mind. And I'm going to say something that I didn't know before I walked on that stage. Or it might mean that after we get done, somebody's going to come up and say, yeah, your point about this, but have you thought about this other thing. And that only happens when you trust yourself and your audience enough to create

that sort of electrical field that allows energy to go from them to me, me to them. And I never used to talk in these kind of metaphysical ways, but the longer I've been involved in communicating on a deep level, I understand that two human beings connecting is energy, it's love, it's God, it's something that is indescribable, but the only way you can use it successfully is if you open yourself up to it completely. And I think that's what the Cornerstone Forum is all about for you. I mean, you are holding nothing back. You are finding a way to express things that you know, and you are definitely open to the possibility that things will get created out of that that you did not plan on and you have no control over. And that is truly powerful. Well, that right there is the hope, is that things that happen on

stage, I could never plan happen. If I, if I, if I, if I could bottle that up and bring it every cornerstone forum, I would. That's exactly what I want. I want things to happen on stage, not technically, like not, not the Mike's going dead or something silly like that, but like where something unexpected happens. One was a military vet. Shuttle to Chuck Prodnick. He got up there. This is not a guy who has, is a, well, and I don't want to speak for Chuck, but he's not like a god-fearing man, or maybe he is in his own way. I'm, you know, I just,

I've had him in studio for military roundtables over and over and over again. And he gets up there and he tells this war story about a friend of his. And at the end, he's talking about being shot at and being in basically where the military company that's behind them is already taking their vehicles and everything. They all think they're dead. And they come back from that. And he attests it to a man in his company who had faith in God and prayed.

I'm oversimplifying, but like, I'm sitting in the crowd watching this and I'm like, what is this? I didn't see that coming out of Chuck. I'm like, what is happening right now? That is like super moving and super unexpected. Like I couldn't have planned that even if I tried, you know? And to me, that's why I put faith in people like yourself who've shared my stage and others because I'm like, I trust that if you give the best you have, the unexpected will happen. Yeah, and lately I've been booked up for speaking quite a bit. And so I've had some people be like, well, if you can't come, who would you send? And I spend a great deal of time thinking about who I recommend because I mean it very seriously

when I say, even if your audience is one person, that person, they're giving you the most valuable thing that they have. And when you are creating that room, people are driving for hours and hours. I mean, I've been to your stuff like people drove seven, eight, nine. hours to get there and like they spent money to be there and and they gave up on other things that they could do so you really need to think about who is it that is worthy of attention and you can't have too tight of a grip on it because you like a control freak you go too far in like hey i'm gonna i'm gonna make sure everything goes right and you choke the very powerful thing that you have you have

to have to have enough attention to detail to care about the microphones and the lighting and you know how is everybody's seating, but that is a necessary but not sufficient way to approach it. You still have to find people that are worthy of the most valuable thing that, you know, a hundred people in, brought with them. Here's a wild thing for you to, well, I don't know. I don't know if you know this, but, okay, so when you came, it was like, I think the longest was 16 hours. And then the next time I did a show, I think the longest by drive was 28 hours, but I'd had people fly from the southern part of the States and I'm like, that's, that's a wild thought, you know, because you're talking about tons of time now, money, hopping on a plane, train, automobile, you get it. This show, we had a

person from Singapore. We had a person from San Jose, England, Cayman Islands, and my, and I, the list, when I was doing the little thing that I do towards suppertime, folks, I get everybody to stand up, and then I want to know how far they've come, right? So as the distance gets furthermore and more people sit down. And one of the thing that says always shocked me is how long people stand up because they've actually spent a ton of time and coming to it. And that's probably like one of the most powerful moments for me on stage to see that an idea of mine, because that's all it is, is I'm just wrestling with this idea of how to create an experience where you get value for your time, like an insane amount of value for your time, which is obviously,

working in some former capacity because people are coming from further and further away, which is utterly shocking to me. I mean, it's got to be, I accept that it is shocking, but on some level, like the calling or whatever it is that's in you understands that the people that are coming, they come there both to hear what was said, but also because they then get to experience the energy of other people. They are taking the dice and they're throwing them and saying, I'm a sit down next to somebody and we may think about things really differently or we may, uh, you know, have very little in common, except for the fact that we're both here,

which gives us some commonality that's going to allow us to span from, you know, Singapore to the Northern Yukon territory, right? Like, and, and like that, that really is the power of what you're doing. Convening people is, is an incredibly important role in a culture. And I think for a long time nobody was doing it and and like this is a very petersonian idea where responsibility has been abdicated it lies opportunity and that's what you've done is you've created an opportunity um for people to come together and you know it wasn't happening in their communities and i think this very powerful but it seems obvious to me that this would be the outcome you know you not to diminish what you're doing no no no no it does seem obvious you know when you talk about um uh you know recommending people uh and and and

putting, you know, like that being a big response, but I understand that because I've recommended you before. And I'm like, I have no worries about Vance going and representing my ideas on stage for a different group because I'm like, Vance is, you know, once again, in this small select company of people I've ever put on stage where I'm like, that was good. And he respected the, the, everything I built, he walked up and did what, what I thought, but better. Um, so my question, I guess I want to switch here to legacy interviews because, you know, I've got one of the interesting things that that I started with that, you know, was a complete offshoot of starting the podcast is Lloyd, where I'm from, Lloyd Minster, the archives had asked if I would do archive interviews.

So people who are closer to 90, but I'm going to give the age range between 60 and 90 pillars of the community. And I got to hear the life stories, some of the lessons that helped build them a lot of the tough times that really formed them into who they became and how they dealt with that. You, sir, have been doing legacy interviews now for several years, five years. I'm curious. You wrote, and of course I exited off. I want to read it because I'm curious by, here, let me pull it up, folks. What a silly thing to do. I had you, and then I disappeared you. And we'll bring it up here. It was a thought that I'm like, oh, this is interesting. He said, recently I recorded a legacy interview for an elite American family. I admit I was not looking

forward to sit to it as their life seemed too easy to have real depth. I was again humbled. Their lives were filled with bountiful highs and tragic lows. Everyone is going through things we cannot imagine. Pain, joy, fear, annoyance, failing successes, all at scales that would make no sense to you at all. The judgment of others is meaningless. Five years of legacy, interviews, that tweet, I look at that and I'm like, that's a thought. What, tell me about that. Yeah, you know, so we do these interviews with people where they come in and some of them sit down for two hours and some people sit down all day and I'm asking them about their lives.

And this is in part where that advice to high school students comes in. It is not difficult for me at all to sit for hours upon hours to listen to people because I'm curious, right? Every single person that you talk with, like you're, they, they say some tiny thing and you pull on that thread and suddenly you realize like they had an ocean of experiences, good or bad, easy or tumultuous, whatever it is, that you have no way of really understanding. And yet, if you ask them and you are genuine in wanting to know, they'll tell you. And so in doing this for five years, I've kind of come up with the like very cliched. Everybody has a story.

Oh, gosh, if you talk to people, they're really, everybody's, you know, going through something. But that can become a cliche. And I had a family in. They were incredibly busy. They were really difficult to schedule with. Things just weren't going very easily. And I really was kind of like, these are exceptionally wealthy people that are at the very top of society. I don't even really want to do this interview, right?

Like what like they've been there. They're at the top of society. They've always been there. And you know, all these things that I just thought I knew. And and as soon as we started to do the interview and as soon as that electricity started to swap between me and this family, I began to instantly be humbled to the point of like inner shame where I was like, you idiot, Vance, of course these people. have things that have gone wrong.

Like everyone does. Everyone experiences things that are stressful and they're like, I don't know how I'm gonna figure this out. And I'm worried about this person that I love. And I'm afraid of this thing that could happen. And over if they've lived like these people were in their late 80s. And I just could not believe how much I had underestimated their life. And if I could underestimate their life, then I was

underestimating everyone's life. And what I really probably should have said in that tweet was that the judgment of others is really just, it should be the judgment of ourselves. Because in me judging them, I was only doing that to make myself feel good. I was not doing that because it enriched my curiosity or it made it easier for me. It just made it easier because I was like, I'm upset or I'm nervous. And that's something that once you really internalize, that everyone is going through something, it connects you with humanity in a very in a much deeper way. Yeah, on this side, you know, interviewing people as much as I do, there's times where I'm like Uber excited for somebody, you know.

I actually just had a listener as we were sitting here text me about Don Cherry, which I did a long time ago. He said, what an interview. And I'm like, that was like a surreal moment in my life, you know, to have somebody who'd been on, you know, television for years and years and years. but he used to do these rock'em-sockham highlight videos on VHS tape. And Newman Family Christmas, we'd give the new one to Dad, and then we'd sit down and watch it. So I got the, I got like Don Freakid Cherry.

You know, he's like, oh, my God. And just to hear him say, I don't know how he said it, but, you know, good morning, Sean. I was just like, oh, my God, this is happening, right? But, you know, those are few and far between, I would say. And there's a ton where sometimes I could get like that. I'm not excited about this at all. And then it'll almost shock you how good of a story comes out of what the heck they're talking about. And you're like, you know, I just, I did.

I started doing legacy interviews again because people were asking me about it. And I was just like, I don't have time. And then I laughed at myself. I'm like, oh, Sean, just change your brain and just schedule it. Like as soon as you start scheduling it, you have the time and you know you have the time. And doing them again has been really enjoyable hearing someone talk about, it just gives me such perspective on life. I feel like, I don't know about you, five years of it, you have more experience in the

realm than I do. Yeah, there's something qualitatively different about recording a story for such a small audience as opposed to recording one for a much bigger audience. You know, as you're talking to a guest, you're all three of you, you, the guest and the audience are all in it for kind of a certain type of vested interest. I want to be entertained. I want to be informed. The guest wants to be seen in a good light. You want to make sure your audience keeps tuning in.

You know, you all have these motivations. And there's something about the legacy interview process that allows you to set some of those motivations down and really just. just be like my job my role here is to be actually interested in what this person is saying and listen to them and i say this all the time i probably said it on your show before most people go most of their lives without ever having anyone listen to them i mean certainly you have the transaction you're at the the the convenience store and you pay for gum or you pay for your gas or you interact with your barber or your hairstylist or whatever like you're having you're having you're having those conversations, but people don't really remember those. They're often perfunctory. They're often

like not really. There's so much going on in your own mind and in their own mind that you're not connecting. So the time that I get to spend with a guest becomes a sacred time and is very quickly that they come to realize like, oh, this person is really, really listening. And, you know, I would be curious to know how long into a legacy interview for you, Sean, until you feel that connection. And is there's something that you're going for where you're like, ah, the electricity, we've plugged in and now we're going. Hmm. That's, that's an interesting question.

I would say, um, usually it's on them less so than me. Uh, but in saying that, I always got to quiet my brain down. Um, and, and when I come into, um, a podcast such as this, it's no different. You know, I was, I flipped my phone over because you were chocolate at me at the start. And I'm like, I just got to, I just got to turn off everything. That way, I'm not. distracting me so I can pay attention. And usually with somebody who's coming in for a legacy interview, that style, you're usually pretty nervous, at least on my side, because they've never

done anything like this before. They have a ton of thoughts on what they think it's going to be. And then everything you've said, I'm like, yeah, you just, you got to sit and get into their story and treat it like it's, you know, I've been talking lots about the Godfather movie. I watched it again as I get older and I'm like, oh my God, what a profound movie. And if I treat every guest like that and I try my darnness to do it. But if I do that, then I'm engaged. And once I become engaged and start, you know, just pulling on little threads, there's something very, very, very powerful about listening to anyone.

It's more important when it's in person, but even across virtual like this. when you actually listen to somebody and pull on one of their threads, they're like, oh, oh, okay. And then they just start going because they know you're listening and it's just, what is that feeling?

You probably have a term for it. I don't know what the term is, but there's something there that you just pull and it releases an off yard of the races. So I would say, if you were asking me a time, 15 minutes. Sometimes it's two minutes

because someone has a little more comfortability in what they're doing. But like, the moments I've shared in this studio with married couples specifically, when they get talking about, like happy days, there's usually a song attached to it. I don't know why,

but, you know, they're just this. And I'll be like, what song? And then they'll talk about it. And then it lights them up. And I'll be like,

I've never even heard that song. And then, of course, modern technology, I just type it in. I start playing it. And it's like they are warped. They're somewhere different.

They're in the room physically, but you can tell there's somewhere else in the song. And it brings back such a flood of emotion. It's, well, it's making my hair stand up right now. It's such an incredible thing to watch and be a part of. And I don't want to, I don't even want to recognize it. It's just like, I just stand back almost. I'm like, this is something. And you just let the time and space have what it is while the song plays.

And then either they start talking or they just enjoy the moment. And those moments, you know, whether we're talking sports or a legacy interview, are very rare. And I'm fortunate. I assume you're very fortunate to experience those on more of a regular basis than most people ever get to. Man, you're a pro. Like, that's exactly the kind of creativity that you have to have in order to break down those barriers and signal to people like, this conversation is not like the one you had in your Uber or the one that you have with your barber. this is something different. That's really powerful. You know, a few months ago, I had a biotech

firm approach me that had me do a legacy interview for one of their parents. And they said, hey, could you actually teach how you do some of this stuff, but like in a professional setting? And then another one of my legacy interview clients that runs a hedge fund found out that I did it. And so he's now had me come in and teach this to his hedge fund. And I call it interest-based communicating. And this last week, like the benefit of me teaching this class is that just like that loose moves thing we were talking about before, if you can name a way that you approach conversation or challenges that you face, you can overcome them. And I wanted to see how this strikes you. So I often talk about in any conversation, you're at a cocktail party, you're at the Sean Newman presents, you're at, you know, whatever. You meet a new person and almost everybody falls into one of two camps.

that keeps them from really listening. And that is that the first one is what I call internal tripping. So the person introduces themselves and, you know, says where they work. And you're trying to remember their first name. And then you remember, like, where did they work? And then how do I know this person? And wait, what did they just say? And so you're like trying to gather up all these details.

And you end up tripping and you're not really listening at all because you're like, I got to come up with a question. And you get to when they stop talking and you're like, ah. And so you just ask them for fun. question. So I call that internal tripping. The other one that keeps people is why I call fast matching, which I think for me, this is one that I really have to watch out for, which is somebody's talking and they're telling me about like, oh, I dropped my parents off at the train station because they were going on a cruise to the Bahamas. And I am immediately trying to map

something that I know about to what they map to. So I say, oh, the Bahamas, where were they going. Now, what I'm actually hoping for is that you name that your parents were going to a resort that I've been to so that that way we can share notes on that. But that actually demonstrates very clearly that you're not listening because the most interesting part of that story was that you dropped your parents off at the train station to go to an island. So the story, when we end up asking about the fast match, the thing that you can connect on, you actually make the conversation about you instead of about what was really going on there. And so which of those two categories do you think you fall into?

Internal tripping or fast matching? Well, I was going to say both of those, for me, are really tough in a busy setting. So when you're at, when there's tons of people around, there's tons going on, it's really difficult for me, I can't speak for everybody, to like quiet space out and have a one-on-one where I'm like so intent on listening. in it. It's such an easier setting when it's like this or when they're just in the studio. It's built to take all the noise away. It's built to have this, to create this atmosphere where I don't have internal tripping because I'm not, I'm not, that isn't how I, can you imagine

if I approached an interview like, but I know the conversation you're absolutely talking about. Oh, they're going to Bahamas. I went to Bahamas, you know, a couple, and you're trying to find that. Oh, we, we interplay. There we are. And in busy settings, it's really, tough not to do either one of those, right? It's, it's, it's, it's, the atmosphere, if you would. But it's interesting, uh, you know, like not to, not to just steer it to a conversation I just recently had, but I, my, I got to have, um, a mentor of mine who was a hockey coach for two years, two very important years, uh, guest, or listeners just got to hear him, uh, he was at the national championship for, for junior A here in Canada. And I got to go sit with them and, and, and, and,

chat with them for about a half an hour. And that night, uh, I went and watched one of his games as he coached his team playing. And after the game, there was a guy there and I don't know. This shouldn't surprise anyone. But you know, I saw a guy. He flicked on his phone. He was watching something. I thought it was the Euler game. So I walked up. I have no shame. I just start talking to people, right? Because I find it interesting to just meet different people. And I firmly believe God puts you in spots. And you never know the opportunity in lies if you just start talking to someone. And you Here it was a guy who played higher end hockey, higher than me. And I got talking to him about it.

And somehow I'm sitting there and I just kept asking questions. I found out really fast. He's not interested in me, which is totally fine. But I'm interested in what, you know, who is this guy? And so I just kept pulling and pulling. And he got talking about guys who make the NHL and that he had roommate with, with a guy, Patrick Sharp for people who care and follow hockey, who was a very talented the hockey player. And he goes, yeah, you know, it was right around 9-11. I'm like, oh. And he's like,

so I just didn't feel safe going to different places. And, you know, and then he kept talking about, you know, they offered me to go to the East Coast League. And I was just like to go ride the bus. No, I'm not doing that. I'm not going back to the bottom to try and work my way to the top. And instead, he's become a very successful business guy. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. But he goes, you know, it's funny, though. I watch the NHL and I see guys in there. I'm like, how on earth did they get there? And I was like, I don't know. How do you think they got there?

He's like, because they probably were willing to start at the bottom and work to the top. And he goes, and I got two sons and I tell them all the time, it's going to take a ton of effort if you want to be there. There's only two things that can derail you from it. And I was like, what are the two things? Alcohol and women. He's like, those two things derail so many hockey careers. It's not even funny. I'm like, that's an interesting.

I walked away going, what an interesting conversation. That guy will never remember who I am. But obviously I remember because I'm sitting here talking about it. So when you, the internal tripping and the fast matching that you bring up, when there's a ton of people around or I'm war out after the event is a particular one, I have to be very like, take a deep breath and put on your best face and realize you're war out and you have to like try. And I almost apologize over and over again about how tired.

I don't deal with those two things when I step in this place. I don't think, Vance, but on the outside, those things are almost impossible to corral at all times unless you have a strategy I'm not aware of. You know, when I get off a stage, and this took me years to learn, maybe five years of speaking nonstop, just talk after talk after talk, you get done and somebody wants to come up and talk with you, even if they frame what they are saying in the form of a question, it really, you have to think about how much energy and effort it took for, at least it took me to understand like, this person got way out of their comfort zone to wait in a line, to stand there to talk with me. And really what they want to do is share attention. And so

when I realize like, hey, you're tired and you are feeling, you know, you're overflowing with energy because you've just had this adrenaline experience of giving a speech and it going well. and you're like they come over and they're being complimentary and they're shaking your hand and that's when you have to not be selfish and you have to like this is me me talking for me i'm not saying you're being selfish but like say like oh i need to return this energy to them and if i can do it in this very public setting and i can get the world to fall away you and that person can then share a moment that will transcend time there are i mean uh dan plumber he's He and I have become.

Shout out to Dan. Very close friends. I, I, he, he sends me videos. His wife sends me videos of their kids rodeoing. They've watched my kids grow up. They've sent children's books. And I told you, I, sorry to interrupt, but I told you, I think I sent you the picture that we got to go to their, their ranch. Yes?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, so anyways, I got a ton of time for Dan. Carry on. So the point I'm saying is, if you can not allow yourself to be tired or selfish, or internal focused. If you can turn it outward, then that...

How do you do that? You just know that this person is giving you the most valuable thing that they own, which is their attention, and you just return it back to them. It's good advice. My issue after, you know, for the event,

and I'll speak directly to Cornerstone Forum, and to anyone who attended, who tried talking to me at the end, and I hope I wasn't an asshole. I'm sure I wasn't. that's not how people would frame it, but I'm like, by the end of that day, it was a 14-hour day by the time we were at the event to the time we left, and the event itself took a huge chunk of time. And I was trying, my problem is I'm so orientated to making sure the show doesn't go off.

I take all my energy, and it goes into that. And I don't stop, if I sit down, I can fall asleep, so I just don't stop moving all day long. and then by the time it comes to like where you're having those moments, I'm like, I got nothing left. And I don't know how I don't know how to push through. I probably need to work on that. It's game seven of the Stanley Cup. It is, you know, the moments before you reach the pearly gates. It is, this is, you do all of these things, at least what I learned. You do all of these things to get to the end. And so you can have. have the moment. So you can have that moment with those people. And that if you are really on the stage and you are

really giving energy, the most deflating thing is that there's nobody that wants to talk to you afterwards. But if people do want to, you just have to remember like, this thing is not over. And I'm not mean to be harsh. But any time that you're allowing yourself to be like, I'm tired, it's an indulgence that you are, you're not like, and I know it, man, where I'd be like, man, I just killed out here. I just did great. And I've got to sit here and talk. but then you wake up and you realize like oh actually the whole point of getting up there and having that moment is so that me and this person can share love or energy or god or whatever it is and that actually is the the last moments of the game that's good advice yeah here's vans laying truth bombs on me but you know the only way you get good advice is that you failed over and over and over and

over and over and over again i mean i got off the stage you know being like ah look at how how great I am. And I look back so embarrassed, you know, so embarrassed. Well, I watch, people may find this funny, but I've been, you know, when the Cornerstone Forum happens, I catch maybe 10% of it because I'm just ensuring the experience is flowing. And so I've been watching game film, as I call it. And I like watch my opening thing. And I thought I did really good.

And I think overall I did really good. But then I'm watching myself on stage. I'm like, why are you doing? There's room to improve, Sean. There's room to improve. It's uncomfortable to watch it, but it's necessary in order to keep growing and getting better. Are you editing your own legacy interviews? Do I edit my own legacy interviews?

Yeah, I do, actually. There is no better game tape in the entire world. Than listening to yourself, ask questions, and watching their faces. And like, man, I have. learned so much about how to do things in conversation. I'll give you an example. One of the things that I've learned is that asking how questions are far, far more impactful than why questions. We perceive at the beginning like, hey, why did you do that? That's like you setting them up and giving them a rich ground to run through. But why questions are inherently impossible to answer. Because

is why we do things is multifactorial. And most of it is not something that we're consciously aware of. We're unconscious of it. I did it because 30 years ago, my dad yelled at me when I did it this other way. So I always do it this way. And we don't even know where that's coming from. So when you ask somebody a why question, they have one of two responses. They are either going to be defensive.

Like, well, the reason I declared bankruptcy was because I needed to do this and this and or they're going to be in somewhat of a bragging mode like oh now i get to tell you why and so they start explaining themselves from the grandiose perspective but if you can resist asking why and you can ask how questions if you can say hey how did you decide to go through bankruptcy how did you decide what to do after this tragedy happened to you all of a sudden people will go back in their minds and they'll start telling you about the linear series of events and that most of life is really about what are we reacting to? We make an action, the world reacts to us, we react to the world,

and they get to lay out how. And as they lay out how, why emerges, and oftentimes the why is something that they themselves didn't even know or understand, and you watch them have realizations about their lives because you ask them how. I think how is one of the most valuable questions in the world, and it's actually far more important to get good at asking how questions than why questions. That's interesting. Now I'm like, now I've got to go back and listen because I'm like, I'm not sure. I've never, I don't know if I've ever, you know, one of the things I'm always intrigued with how your mind works, right, is you're constantly trying to perfect it, I guess is maybe the simplest way to put it. And in my mind, I've realized how important listening is. So no matter of the question you ask,

the most important step after that is to listen. Because even if you offend them, you can go, oh, I didn't mean to, you know, you could put it however you want. And then usually that listens another response. And then you just keep listening and you keep allowing them to unfold what they're wrestling with in their own mind. And that's what I've always put the importance. I've never put it on how you ask that.

Well, certainly not. I get there's certain ways to ask questions, but never on the wording. How versus why? And even deeper than the wording is, and this is something you naturally exude that you are curious and you are very open and you smile so much. The way you react to people makes them feel very accepted. But when you ask a deep question, the first thing on a person's mind, because the fear is our prime. We first say, like, should I be afraid of this thing? So if you ask somebody a deep question, their brain automatically switches to, why are you asking me this? And so helping people to understand that you are interested because that was curious or you had said something unexpected.

So like framing up questions, one of the game tape things that I figured out was I used to give a ton of preamble to a question. Now I give only enough preamble that the person understands why I'm asking. So, for example, I might say, you mentioned that your mother dying was very difficult for you. Tell me about how you went through the grieving process, right? So all of a sudden, the person knows, like, oh, he's recalling back that I had said something, and he's giving me an opportunity to linearly lay this thing out. And so they're not afraid of answering the question. They're not wondering, are you going to use this information to hurt me? Is this going to make me look bad?

They're now able to set up the rest of that question and the answer to it in a way that makes them flow, where they are not actually structuring the answer to change your impression of it. They're answering it from a place of authenticity, and that authenticity is the trunk line of the energy between the two of you. Yeah, you put in words to a lot of thoughts I've had. Oh, this delights me. I can't. You're one of the best interviewers in the world, so this is great.

Well, well, I take, thank you. That's an awfully high compliment. Every once in a while, you'll stumble across something you've been thinking on. And for me, the Godfather movie, I want to write about it. I find writing extremely difficult, partly just because I'm probably letting the fear of writing take hold over actually just writing. There's something about the Godfather movie that just like started to make sense of a bunch of things that, you know, for me, only a movie I suppose could do.

And, you know, I listen to a ton of podcasts. I've listened to a ton of audiobooks, read a ton of books. And sometimes there's just a line or two that makes sense of something you've been wrestling with. Jordan Peterson did this a lot for me before I started the podcast. You just started to say things. I'm like, man, I've been thinking about that, but I couldn't put the words to it. It's like wrestling with something, it annoys you so much, but you can't seem to spit out your idea.

Does that make sense? Oh, absolutely. I spend a lot of time trying to name ideas, and that naming of ideas is what crystallizes them, and then it allows me to take that idea and share it with you, and then you can push and poke and prod on it, and then you give it back to me. And I think that's one of the functions of, men spending time together is that we have these ideas that we're kind of playing with and then we put it into words and then we let our friends like get on it and beat on it and stuff. But if you're not meeting with people regularly and you're not sharing with them your ideas, then they stay a cloud. I've kind of been thinking that or I've always thought that. And so getting them out. So if writing is difficult, maybe instead of thinking about writing in his paragraphs, you should write it as a single sentence. I have this idea I want to put a name to like loose moves. fast matching internal tripping and then just explore it after that make it better just keep keep

iterating on the definition a definition has two components a genus and a species it like tells you the genre like a cat is a mammal you know with something that differentiates it from all other mammals i don't i don't i don't even know what that is but um so like once you can name the idea and then put a genus and a species to it and then just keep working on that definition and eventually you get it to the purest point it's not writing paragraphs or pages it's actually writing something very very small have you ever had uh on your side whether it's a book whether it's whether it's going and watching someone speak a movie i have no idea a song for for um well for some i suppose that has just it's a commentary on on who you are?

Oh, 100%. And I have come to realize over the last four or five years that it is strictly personal to me, but there is a book by Carl Jung called The Undiscovered Self. And I found myself literally slamming the book shut and being like, how could he know this? Like how could he understand this about me?

And I often describe reading that book as coming to the understanding that what I thought was the center of the cathedral with the Sistine Chapel above me was actually just the vestibule of my soul. And that by reading this book, he showed me you can walk through this door and understand this about yourself. You can go up into this balcony. You can go down into the catacombs. And guess what? There's an endless number of rooms in here. And so as you explore more, you will discover more about yourself. And I literally discovered that my own soul, I only understood it as like I was just inside the front door.

And then I've tried to share that book with people that were going through tough things and they couldn't care less because they're curiosity. That's interesting. Yeah. That is interesting, isn't it? That something so profound to you, you can give it to other people and it means nothing. How many times have you, and I'm talking to you as much as the audience at this point, how many times have you heard some famous person get asked, what's a meaningful book in your life? And they go, oh, this one, and you go read it.

And you're like, what the heck is it about that book? Nothing in there. But for them, at that stage of life, at that moment in time, it was something they needed to hear. And it just sends them off on a completely different trajectory, but they needed it. This is why harnessing your curiosity is a superpower because Carl Jung talks about like, you actually can't read a book that you're not curious about. You can read the words like psychologically. You can logically put those words out, but the meaning that they're going to write into your brain is very, very low. And so what curiosity does is it it finds like, where is the largest pipe

that I can have that will just flood things into my brain. And really, social media, AI, all these things in the entertainment industry have figured out they can flood that pipe with sludge that is your purient interests, right? The things that you're like, oh, you know, naked, naked flesh or, you know, opportunity for greed, like you can get distorted in curiosity. But if you can, like, really harness it, then you don't actually give a fuck. what, excuse me, what is somebody's book is that they find important. If you open it up and you get to a few pages in, I will chuck books off to the side if I'm

not interested. And if I don't like them, I throw them away. I like, I don't want those memes out there. But, but like I never read a book I'm not curious about. It's funny you bring up curiosity is a super art. You know, one of the questions I'd written down on my paper was I wonder what superpower Vance Crow figures he has. And I don't know why that question. I'm like, what a strange question. And then you say curiosity is your superpower. And I'm like, that, that's, I get to, I get to go to my hometown in a couple weeks. And they brought me in for graduation.

And I'm like, what a, yeah, I don't know what most people think of that, but I'm like, I'm actually like quite humbled by it to be asking. That's amazing. And I'm like, I don't know what to heck to tell these kids. I'm like, you know, because if you would have sat in front of me when I was 18 and told me, the world's your oyster, just go after whatever you want. It doesn't make yes, but no, right? It doesn't really give me any direction.

And I was thinking about, you know, like, what advanced superpower is? And then you say the line and I'm like, oh, that's, I don't know what that is. That's, that's rather comical on my end. Well, it's synchronicity, right? And Carl Jung actually talks a lot about how synchronicity is the signal that you're in the place that you need to be. And I think like you find that one of your friends, like just in our case, we haven't talked to each other in a while. And for some reason, like the things that you're interested in, map to the things I'm interested in. And this is just a signal that you are in the place, whether that's like cosmically, like the universe wants that, God wants that.

or if it's just, hey, like, you're just, you're finding a groove. But waves are real things. And that's what I think curiosity allows you to do is to get on the wave that's going to carry you the furthest and have the most energy. Yeah. And the thing about curiosity is I can, you know, once again, I go back to all the different forms, you know, from music to movies to books, to conversations. One of the things by following curiosity specifically is if you're open to it,

you never know when you're going to find the book, the piece of music, the lecture by somebody, you know, on and on, that could completely alter the way you move forward in life. And that can happen all the time. I point to you a lot with Jurassic Park. I think, you know, to the people who just started listening to the podcast, If you go way back when, I was part of Vance Crow's book club. We used to read a different book every month.

And I used to sit there and go, why are we reading this book? It makes no sense. We read Jurassic Park. And in the middle of COVID, and I don't know if I've told you this story, I got invited to Brownfield, middle of nowhere, sorry Brownfield, but it's the same as going to the middle of nowhere, Saskatchewan, to literally talk to a hall of 400 people. And it was in the middle of when you weren't supposed to be meeting,

so you can imagine, you know, the height. and senses and everything. And I got up on stage and I wasn't, I'm still not a profound speaker, I don't think. But I was honored and I always try and condense, if I have 20 minutes of thoughts, I try and condense them into seven because I don't want to go long winded.

And so I got up there and I was, I was thinking on the ride. I was riding with Dustin, my brother. And he was driving and I was writing out my speech. And we had just finished or were somewhere in the range finishing Jurassic Park. And when we first started it, I thought, what that stupid book? Why are we reading Jurassic Park? Vance Crow's is brilliant guy. Why are we reading Michael Creighton, Jurassic Park? And then I read it and it's become, well, in Brownfield that

night, I looked out on the crowd and I said, you know, it's times like these. I should probably quote something from the Bible. And I could see a ton of head nuts. Yep. And I said, but I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm going to read you something from Jurassic Park. I got a laugh from the crowd and then I read this thought on on um it's funny I wonder if I still have it on my phone because it's it's just become something when I when I look at life and how it's not straight linearity it's just not one event after another it's one event can completely change your trajectory and if you approach life like that every single day you just the world is absolutely full of possibilities. It's actually giving me so much hope in life. This is where you and I, I think,

are so similar that, like, I at some point along the way, I heard this idea. And it was basically like, every single person you meet could be an NPC. They could just be a character in the, in the video game that has no autonomy. Or every single character you meet could be critically important to the next phase of your life, to the next thing that's going to happen to you, and that this person, no matter how they look, no matter how much they're interfering with the things that you have going on, like may hold the keys to something you need to know tomorrow, a week from now, a year from now. And when you treat the world like that, it turns out everyone is that way. Everyone does have something that they're like trying to teach

you. And all of a sudden, the world opens up and the electricity and the opportunity and the opportunity and the adventures and the chaos it becomes manifest right in front of you over and over and over again i'm laughing because on my side vans i found my notes and i have a it just goes on and on and on this doesn't oh you can't see it but it's like pages of notes from drastic park i don't do that on every book i don't drastic park okay you know you want to have your mind melted have you ever gone and looked up michael criton like videos of him on c-span and stuff no Oh, dude, this will melt your brain. This guy was so far ahead of what was going on with propaganda in the world.

What, like, what lies we were being told by the experts. It will, you in particular, all of your audience, it will melt your brains. You will not be able to stop. It will be a Jordan Peterson-esque type, like, thing. Well, it won't shock me because I'm like, the guy, you know, a fan's crow. has done anything to the Shrod Newman podcast, folks, which I'm sure there's lots. One of them is Jurassic Park. It's just changed.

Like I read it so many, when I cannot tell you how many times I went back to this line in the book and went, I can't believe that's in Jurassic Park. And it's straight linearity. This is what I read in Brownfield. Straight linearity is an artificial way. And just to set this up, this is like November 2021. This is in like the darkest time. of Canadian history in modern time at least, where we're meeting in a hall

where you're not supposed to get together in groups more than what. Was it 15? I don't know. And there's like 400 people there. It was an insane thing to drive to. And then to see how many people there and be like, wow, this is something.

So when I make the job, I would just read something from the Bible, but instead, and I get to laugh, I read, straight linearity is an artificial way of viewing the world. Real life isn't a series of interconnected events happening one after another, like beads,

strung on a necklace. Life is a series of encounters where one event can change all the events that follow in an unpredictable way. I'm like, I just, and I can't remember how I ended that. But when I look at you, Vance, I'm like, you know, one of the things when you talk about waves and we're on the same is, this is why I was like, who do I want to talk to this week? I want to talk to Vance Carroll. Why? Because you've given me something that I would have never had if it had not been for running into you via a guy named Quick Dick McDick, right? And that long chain of events that happened and following my curiosity. Because I, I, it's, it's an insane story. And if I may, I'll just share it because there's going to be a ton of people that weren't listening back then.

There's going to be a ton that worked. But I, when I first started the podcast, I used to do an insane amount of research looking back on it, on a guest. That got put on me by Ron McLean. who this audience will have, you know, their feelings on Ron and what he did to Don and rightfully so. But Ron said you should spend 10 hours of research for every hour you're going to be on with the guest. And so I'm like, well, this guy's at the height of his career. I got I got to approach that with respect of what he's putting it. So what I used to do back before Quick Dick was the first time he'd ever come on the podcast, on any podcast was mine. So I listened, I went and like watched his videos, then I interviewed him. And then I waited. I,

I don't know. Was it six months? Was it four months? And I went back and interviewed him again. But by that time, he'd been interviewed by a bunch of people. And so he'd been interviewed by Vance Crowe. And I listened to the interview. And I went, holy crap, this guy is good. Who is this guy? Anyways, then I interviewed him again. And in that interview with Quick Dick, I brought you up. And then it was like another six months goes by. I interview him again. And in that point, I listened to every interview he'd done, including yours again. And I had the thought, holy crap, this guy, I had the same thought, this guy's something. And then I went and listened to the final interview I'd done with QuickDick.

So I went back to our previous conversation. And I had the same thought that I brought up in the show with them. And I'm like, I just got to reach out to Vance Crow. So I reached out to Vance Crow on, and this is, this will sound silly. But I want to say it was like a Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. And say, hey, did you come on the podcast? You're like, yeah, sure, when? Like, I don't know.

Could you do today? Yep, sure. And me and Vance went on like four hours after and had, well, one of me, many conversations that's, you know, and that's why the Jurassic Park thing to me is so relevant. It's, it's so like, I mean, it's a perfect example of non-linearity, right? It is actually literally a perfect example because who would have ever known that me talking to this weird guy, Quick Dick, McDick would result in Candace Plummer many years later writing my children stories about how her boys are rotoing and us trying to find time for them to come

up on their ranch, right? Like these things could not possibly have been predicted. It was a network of things that happened. And all of that gets kicked off if you're curious about other people. And it's like it's so beautiful and it requires a sort of ego death. You have to, you have to sort of kill the part of you that needs to be recognized by other people. And when you can do that, things start opening up and the world starts going faster and faster and faster and more and more interesting. But if it, I mean, I think both you and I's lives are testaments to, yeah, curiosity and non-linearity.

Yeah. So it's, it's been a wild ride on this side, you know. I remember when you were getting approached to run for politics. And I remember I was pacing around. in my backyard and we were talking and I was like, man, you have so much power in gathering people and gathering ideas. And I strongly feel I'm right about this. I think you've done a lot more in the time since we spoke about that because of your podcast than you ever would have at whatever political level you could have done. Well, I actually got asked about it at the cornerstone forum,

is sitting at a table and he said, are you going to run for politics? And I laughed. I said, no. I said, unless you can convince my wife and she comes and talks to me and says, you need to run for politics. I will not be running for politics. And it's not because there isn't a part of me that wants to, doesn't, like I, there's part of me somewhere that's like, you'd be a good politician. Okay. And then I think, you know, I have a couple guiding principles on the podcast that I'm very firm on. And that is, you know, the day I'm not having fun with it or not being true to who I am, that's, that's a dark day, right? Just be yourself, approach every conversation with the same curiosity that got you this point and um you'll be you'll be put on a good path you know like

i don't think there's any um anything in my curiosity that's going to steer me the wrong way if i just stay true to who i am and the second uh would be my family anytime it starts to take me away from mell and the kids like nope i don't like this i every time i'm gone from home those are like i can't quite put it into words because i know there's a ton of working men that have to have to have to go away for work and I respect them for it. I just don't want that in life. I don't want to be gone for two weeks, even if it was paying me a crazy amount of money. I just look at it and I go, I want, I want the opposite. I want if it's going to take me away, I want my family to come with me because I feel better when they're around. Even in the days where your kids are like, oh my God,

what are we arguing about? What are we crying about? There's so much emotion here. What is going on? I get away from it for a couple days, and I'm like deeply saddened. I can't even begin to put it in words because as soon as I had home, Mel always lasts for me. She's like, there's nothing wrong. I don't know what you're like, I don't know. I just missed it. Just miss being around it.

And I talked to all these people who are older than me, and you would talk to so many of these in legacy interviews. And they all point to this is the most important time in your life. Don't, like, you're going to blink. And all these days where your kids are around are going to be gone because they're going to be off. They're going to be graduated. They're going to be doing their own.

minds are going to be doing their own things. And I really take that with all the seriousness that they tell me about it. You know, just the other day, my creative director and I were, we're experimenting with some new ideas where we could get a cabin essentially, like a very nice cabin and have a whole family come in and do a legacy interview and then record about, you know, tell us about grandma and granddad. We're just doing this. And so we're driving. And I'm really stressed. And I've got a hundred things going on. I don't really have time to go check this Airbnb out, but we committed to doing it. We're going to do it. And so Sean and I are talking and I end up saying like, what do you, you know, like,

what's one of the lessons you've learned? Because I was telling him about my humbling moment with the guest. And he said, you know, one of the things I've learned is that if I had recorded a video 10 years ago or 10 years from now and I could watch it, I am certain that that person would tell me you should enjoy the moment you're in right now more. And that there's no future self that thinks that you should be trying to rush through this moment to get to something else. And man, like that strikes me so deeply because just like you said, man,

I have had some days with my kids in the last couple of days where they're just melting down over nothing. The crying is nonstop. And you're just like, I need 30 seconds of quiet in order to not lose my mind. And you'd be so easy to push fast forward on this part to check out with drugs or alcohol. And man, that's a temptation. And it's one that sits right on the edge for me. I want to do it.

But if you fast forward this part, 10 years from now, you're not going to be happy that you did. And that really the thing that would make you happy is if you were to say, I'm really glad I took that time to be where I was and to be happy with where I had gotten. and to realize that the problems I have today are problems that a year ago I really, really wish I would have had. I don't know. I think that's a beautiful thought, honestly. You bring up drugs and alcohol. Are you, I can't remember where you're sitting. Are you drinking at all or are you? Drinking was very easy for me to give up. And then I used to like smoke weed quite like not a lot,

but like, you know, fairly regularly. And what I realized is like, man, it's like hitting the fast forward button. You're like feeling happy, but you're not really aware of what's going on. And yeah, I had to a few months ago, like, be like, all right, we're hitting the fast forward button too often. Like, we need to stop doing this. So right now I'm not really on anything. But I'm also not like as hardcore, sober as I was a couple of years ago with alcohol.

But that's mostly because it doesn't have anywhere near the pull that it used to. to for me. I've been, I haven't had an alcohol or anything for that matter since January 1. So I'm closing in on this, this, this mark, six months. I've watched and listened to a bunch of different celebrities for the most part talk about, you know, the first month, you know, they got there and they passed it. Then they thought, okay, three months, I'll go three months. And then they passed it and I'm like, huh, just not noticing anything. And then they all talk about the six month mark. And I've been curious about it. I'm like, it's like the event horizon for me.

I'm like, what's over six months? Like, what is that? Why do, why does that seem to be a trend? Not everybody says it, but enough say it that I'm like, there's something there. And, you know, I went through, I went through like, you know, you'll chuck out me. You know, what I first interviewed vads, folks, I had missing teeth. Think about that. I'm like, you know, I go back to the early interviews and I've had people say like, holy crap, you're missing teeth.

I'm like, oh yeah, you know, like this has only been, you know, in the last couple years. But the first month was, I wouldn't say difficult because I'd done it before, but it was on my mind more than I thought it would be. Or I started to notice what was on my mind, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And then we had a hockey tournament in month three, which being in the dressing room in my mind was extremely difficult. that room has such, I don't know why I'm using the word reverence, but I have a ton of time for being in the hockey dressing room and the community in there. And alcohol is a part of it, right? When you get older, it's just, you know, you have a beer after a game.

It's just very social. So that was a difficult thing to get through it. Once I got through that, I'm like, if I can get through that, I can get through anything. And it's funny, as I go along, as I inch closer to the six month mark, I'm shocked at how little I think about alcohol at all. like we just passed may long and may long is historically in my life this big weekend where you know it's the sun's well it wasn't out this past may long but usually the sun comes out you know in candeland you you get to go enjoy camping or whatever it is you have a long

weekend and you're just excited and alcohol is a tail with it and i'm starting to become comfortable with not drinking it's it's strange to say that out loud and i'm I don't know. Did that happen? Like, you go, oh, alcohol, this doesn't have the same effect. You know, it's no different than reading a book and it changed in your life. For everybody, they've got their vice that, you know, really holds firm on them. And I realized in the first probably four months how much I thought about alcohol to escape exactly what you're saying with kids or to enjoy time with friends or anything. And as I get further away from it, I'm like, hmm, I'm shocked at how little I think about it now. I think there's something to the like the vibrancy that comes with sobriety that most people don't get to, like whether it's at six months or a year or probably multiple years. I think it's probably a nonlinear, you know, catapult that like I think that for me, I mean, I just absolutely love the freeing feeling of alcohol as you're like having fun and the music and you're just kind of like, oh, this is great. But like what I've come to realize is like the cost on the other side of it was so much higher than I ever knew when I was drinking that like, I really, if I could go back, I would never want to watch the parts of the movie where you're like, oh yeah, on that Saturday morning when you decided you didn't feel very good so you didn't go to that thing. Well, that thing would have led to X or Y or Z or all the number of things that you just, you know, you didn't feel good so you didn't talk to that. person or you, you know, did something else. And certainly it's not all bad, but I think, you know,

as we think about non-linearity, none of those things are over the long term using them is not going to continue to get you positive results. And that's not an easy lesson for me to learn. I have to keep learning it over and over and over again. So it's easier for me to talk about than it is to live. You talk about, sorry, you mentioned cost. And I get part of what you're saying, but like when When you say cost on the other side of drinking in particular, what do you, could you expand on that for a second? Yeah, I mean, I don't know about you. Like, I get terrible hangovers.

I learned to drink in a period of my life where I got no hangovers. So I didn't get my first hangovers. So I was probably 25 years old, in which case I had like developed all these habits of drinking that were really not good. And, you know, I was fortunate that I was never one of those people that wanted to get in my car and drive around or, you know, any of the things that could have gotten me, you know, to kill somebody or get arrested. But I would wake up the next day when I started getting hangovers.

And, you know, I'm not me. I'm the, I'm like the same thing as an animal that's gotten hurt. And they're like covering over that pain because like I have a headache or I'm really tired. And so now if my friends want to do something or if I'm going to spend time with somebody, I'm not sitting there sharing energy with them. I'm sitting there, you know, holding the. the wound that I just opened up in me. And, you know, maybe it's only lasts for a few hours in the morning, but you don't know what

you've lost there. And if it's been happening all day or if it happens multiple times a week or multiple times a month, like the cost of that, you'll never actually know. But you can be certain that you are not operating at the fullness of self. And so those are the things that as I say them out loud, this is all for me to internalize and re internalize because I think, at least for me, uh, I can create a vice out of almost anything. I can do it out of eating keto.

I can do it out of, I can do it out of anything. And really, it's anything that keeps you from being your full self has got a cost to it. Yeah, the cost is interesting. Even that word is interesting to me.

And I think about it. And one of the things I equate the cost to of, of vice, is how much the lingering effects of it dominate my thoughts. You drink. Yeah, even if you don't get a hangover, like a bad one I'm talking about, right? Let's just say you're a little bit groggy.

It's just the effects of it dominate my thoughts for, I don't know, but to me, like probably the next day. And then it becomes a bit of a habit too where it's Friday night, oh, might as well, you know, might as well celebrate Friday night or friends come up. might as well it's a birthday part might as well everything becomes might as well and i sit here at almost six months and i don't want to think about how long i'm going to do it maybe i do it forever but when i do that thought process i start to scare myself and so i'm like let's just back it up let's do another

day just do another day just one day at a time let's just see where it goes and don't beat yourself up if you have one because that's that's wrong too you know like you don't have to be so harsh on yourself but as i start to understand it more and more i'm almost surprised at how well I can monitor my thoughts and start to wrestle with them. Being aware that you are thinking is quite powerful. You know, when you first learn to meditate, right, I don't know how much meditation you've done, but like what you find is if you try and just hold your mind steady with no thoughts, you can't really last more than 15 seconds because an idea will come up like,

did I turn the stove off? Oh, I wonder if my car's okay. Oh, I got to remember to do that thing. And the more and more that you do meditation, the more you realize that most of what you think of as thinking is not thinking at all. It's actually emotional bursts that are popping into your brain and that you are reacting to those bursts over and over and over again. And that by just observing like, hey, these ideas come to me or these emotional bursts come to me and I don't have any control over them. Then it starts to make you say like, wait a second, what do you mean I don't have control over these thoughts? Because they're coming from somewhere.

And like, but I'm not able to just turn them on or off. I also can't choose which ones I'm going to let through the gate. But then you start to realize, well, I can decide which ones I'm going to grab onto and which ones I'm not, which ones I'm going to just let float by. And this is probably a really great way to explain that cost. is that when I'm injured, when I'm nursing my own physical pain, I grab on to so many more thoughts. I react to so many more things that I am not actually as sovereign as I could be. And that's probably the slavery of doing the things that feel good but ultimately hurt us.

Yeah, I'm doing, I do that multiple, how do I put this? in an interview I catch myself all the time right you start talking or not just advanced sorry just any guest and I'm like oh you're doing it focus back in focus back in right and it's a very I got nothing against drinking I really don't I'm there's been so many celebratory times where alcohol has been I don't know beneficial let's say it's been you know enjoyable I just look at the repercussions to use your words the cost and you know one of the most important things ever did now I laugh about time I don't know if your your brains changed on time but when I go back to when we were first starting to talk

vats I thought about week to week maybe month the month and after interviewing so many people I've started to extend my brain you know like I can't act like I could sit and look out 10 years that's that's that's that's far but i've started to look at time differently and when i look at the cost of alcohol one of the most important things i did 2018 with the book club is i started i wanted to change a bunch of things in my life and well i got this list of like 50 things and it was overwhelming and so i went wait a second let's let's not do everything at once But let's just start to see, well, why can't you do this? So I started to trim it all down, and it came to one thing.

It was alcohol. And I looked at that, and I wrestled with that for seven years. Think about that. Seven years, I wrestled with it to where I finally was like, okay, you're doing this. And in one breath, I'd go, man, why did it take so long? And the other breath, I'm like, I'm just thankful I got to the point where I could wrestle with it to the point where I try it. And time to me has a different meeting as I get older, which I'm sure it does for all of us. We start to look at it differently.

Kids add that in, you know? And, oh, I don't know if you've wrestled with, and I assume you have wrestled with something for a series of time longer than a week, a month, a year. But when I think about it, seven years, that's wild to think about. And yet, I'm not scared of that anymore. That's, I'm just like, it takes time to get an idea. You know, you hear of all these magnificent minds wrestling with an idea for a decade longer and then finally having a masterpiece, I guess, is where I'm leading it. Yeah, and I think one of the things that you learn as you get older is that the things that pull us down,

even if we master them for a while, sometimes then we fall down. And you look around at other people and you see them in the state that they're in and it becomes very easy to assume that either they don't struggle with that thing or they've never fallen down. And legacy interviews has shown me, you know, when you talk about something like alcohol, how many times people have tried to quit and how debilitating the idea of like, well, I tried it and I couldn't. And then I tried it again because my wife wanted me to. And then I tried it again because my children wanted me to.

And like, you realize like, that's okay. That's actually what most people go through. It's like the trials are not as simple as they are on the movies or in a book. They really are about falling down and getting back up. And most of what makes us great is really about how we respond to when we fall down. And anyone can recover from almost anything. And it really comes down to like, how are you picking yourself back up? And in what way can you be the hero?

Because the funny thing about the hero's story is the hero always must fail or have some vulnerability in order that whatever they did to change allowed them to overcome it. Because if you don't have something that the hero has to overcome, there's no story there. And that's true of ourselves too. If we didn't have things to overcome, there would be nothing dynamic. and interesting, and this brings us all the way back to the beginning of the conversation. We were talking about, like, I assumed these people didn't have problems to overcome. And what I came to realize is everyone has problems to overcome.

And that is actually your life story is how you overcame what was taking you down. Thanks, Carl. Thanks for, thanks for hopping on. If people wanted to get a legacy interview, where would you tell them to go? The best place to go is legacy interviews.com. And then on there, you can schedule a call just to sit down and talk for 15 minutes about, is it your story we're capturing or do you want to capture your parents or your grandparents? And then we'll talk about, do you want to do it online or do you want to do it in person?

And I am one of the worst salesmen on earth in that, like, I never want to pressure anybody. So if you have a call, I'll just tell you how it all works. And then we'll let you go from there. and we've had people from all over Saskatchewan, Ontario, Alberta, all throughout the United States, do them, and we love them. We get all kinds of stories. So legacy interviews.com and fill out of contact for them. Thanks for doing this, Vance. Appreciate it.

And hopefully we don't wait over a year to do it again, but I know how life just seems to fly by. Either way, excited for you to have your third. Congrats, an early congrats. That's exciting. and look forward to when we bump into each other again. Thank you, my brother. I really deeply appreciate you having me on. And, man, I love seeing all your stuff succeed.

There's a sense of pride I have in the fact that I've known you way back when. Thanks again.