Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. #187 - Vance Crowe 2.0

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

He's back. Love how this guys brain works. We discuss parenthood & how he thinks people are missing out, billionaires in space, Western Canada seperation?, some of the lessons learnt from his podcast & the power of fear. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

This is Glenn Healing. Hi, this is Braden Holby. This is Daryl Sutterin. Hi, this is Brian Burke. This is Jordan Tutu. This is Keith Morrison. This is Kelly Rudy. Hi, this is Scott Hartnell.

Hey, everybody. My name is Steele-Fer. This is Tim McAuliffe of Sportsnet, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Hope everybody's having a great week. Trucks are in town. Things are buzzing. It is lake season, and the sun is a beating on us right now.

and she's warm. We've had some glorious nights. I know the farmers are hoping for a little more rain, but it has been awfully nice, so if you're sitting at the lake, this is the weather you dream of. Me, this guy, I'm working. And the podcast just keeps rolling along. We've got a great one on tap for you today. Before we get there, let's get to today's episode sponsors.

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let them know that you heard about them on the podcast, right? Let's get on to that T-Barr-1 tale of the tape. Communication consultant for international organizations. He's the former director of millennial engagement from Monsanto, So former communications strategists for the World Bank Group, returned US Peace Corps volunteer, and host of the Vance Crow podcast. Of course, I'm talking about Vance Crow.

So buckle up. Here we go. This is Vance Crow. You're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined again by Mr. Vance Crow. So first off, thanks for hopping back on. Man, anytime a chance to talk with you, I'll take it.

Now, we were joking before we started here because you looked like a man on a mission, you're dive ball and you're doing just about everything and then you're running off to get a kid cry and everything else. How is parenthood going? Oh, man, I love it. I love it beyond any measure of anything else I've ever done. I've been thinking a lot about how, you know, when I was younger, I dated a lot of people. I ran around, had a lot of fun that way. And I loved the thrill of romantic love. Like it was just like, you know, oh, did they like me? I like them there's passion it's all exciting but it is so pale and one dimensional compared to the love that you develop when you have a child and you can build it over time and it is all built around

responsibility like all that romantic love and that excitement i'd give up in the blink of an eye for just you know one hour of the love that you get when you're a parent geez that should be put on a postcard for for parenting right there i was thinking in like, here I sit. I got three weeks with no kids, right? No wife, nothing. As everybody keeps telling you, you're batching it. How's the batching life going?

Batching life is miserable. I'm like, you know, I'm trying to like pull myself together here and be like, you know, we can have a lot of fun here. We can accomplish a lot. You don't have kids hanging off you, whatever. But by like the third night man, the house is just irons. quiet. It sucks. You got no kid punching knee, well, you haven't going to hit that stage yet, but you got no kids trying to wrestle you, you know, like jumping on you from the top,

the top turn buckle, trying to, you know, see how much they can make dad squirm. Like, I, uh, I have to agree. It's, it's, uh, it's interesting how even five years ago, when we had her first, if Mellon, the, the, Shay at the time, would have left. probably would have went out and had some fun. Like, I would have been like, all right. I got, I don't have to be up in the morning. Like, it's okay. But here I am.

Like, most nights in bed by like 9.30, watch the hockey game or watch a show or read a book or whatever. And then I'm just like, well, here I sit. There's nothing else to do. Miles will go to bed. This sucks. You know, I think that that actually has a lot to do with what's going on in our society right now.

I mean, you're watching young adults that used to have responsibility. and meaning and connection in their lives because they had for tens of thousands of years, millions of years. And now we've extended out youth so long because of the advent of birth control, because of the need to be able to gather resources in different ways. And I think that people become unmoored from, from like this deep connection that you have by having family. And I think like, you know, On my one side, I get to just bask in this amazingness of having a healthy child, a wife that loves me and contributes more than I could ever have asked from her. But then you look at like, well, what happens if you don't have that? What happens if you're 39 and you're staring at the rest of your life with no connection like this?

And you can see that people would go a little crazy looking for meaning in some other way. Yeah, I got I got a couple of friends that that don't want kids are my age or a little older and just, you know, for whatever reason, it's never spoke to them or they've never found that right one person. I always think, you know, you already, you already were talking about it, right? Like, and you don't know what you're missing out on. Like you just, like all you see is the diapers and the crying and the schedule and oh man, that must be awful. You don't get to go where you want. But there turns a stage in life where

really don't want to go where you want. You want to stay at home and you want to build that family. And you talk about the importance of family. I feel like every mobster movie I ever watch always just says like, you know, family's the most important thing. Never disrespect the families. Keep it within the family. And as you get older, you know, I hang on. I got four four siblings Vance, three older brothers and a sister. And I don't know, I hang out with them more and tell them more than I ever did any friend, probably. And you can just see the importance of not only for yourself as an adult as you grow up, but for kids too, to make them understand how important that family unit dynamic really is. Yeah, you know, I heard once, and I've never looked into this,

that the core of the word kindness is kin, right? And that really has to do with what is the things that you're willing to do for your people. And you really like once you become either a father or your relationship with your siblings, I'm the middle child, the seven, and I 100% agree. Like you can have friends,

you can have really close friends, but there's just no replacement for that kin bond that you have with a brother or a sister that you've experienced things with, that you're kind of working with the same core DNA. And it's one of those things that I think Western society has in part lost. And maybe not entirely, but we have so many people that don't have kin relations that I think that it's easy to become unmoored.

And I don't know what society will look like as people become more and more unmoored from those kin relationships. I can't speak for everyone, obviously. But my siblings have to be the only people on the planet that I can think of, where we can lose it on each other. And you walk away and to me, there's no like ill will. There's no like carrying that on for five to 20 days or, you know, like it just seems to you're able to do that. you're able to go to like battle with each other in a war of words so to speak uh and once it's done it's done and i have i have one very close friend like that where we can like really get into some

things but it's really hard to replicate with somebody who you didn't grow up with seen inside you know the living in the same place for a lot of you know going to bed maybe in the same room or next to them and just all the intricacies of growing up together is such a powerful bond and i know that isn't you know we're we started off talking about parenthood now i'm talking about siblings but we're just that family dynamic is a very powerful thing and i don't know i can't speak for western culture you know you come from st louis a big city and i come from lloyd minster small farmers, oil workers, etc. And I still see the importance out here of the family dynamic of keeping, you know, growing a family

together and that type of thing. And I wonder if you aren't almost like a shot into the future because you can see the big city and how people are dealing with that. Whereas here, it's just a little different, I think. Yeah, well, I grew up in a town of. 4,500 people. So I was a middle child of seven. My God family was seven brothers. You know, it was not uncommon for people to have 10 or 12 siblings. So then when I moved to the city, I assumed everybody was coming from that same situation. And they're not, you know,

there are a lot of people that, oh, I have, I have a sister. I see her once a year. Or, you know, I have a cousin is the closest relationship that I have. And whether or not this is the future, I definitely saw it a lot, lot more when I was in New York and D.C. Where you see people that, you know, they're the closest family relationship they have and will have because they don't have any other choice is they see their parents around the holidays and that's pretty much it.

And I definitely think that it changes your perspective on timescale, your perspective on, you know, how much the adulation or the appreciation of other people has like a value like because really at the end of the day you could have a million adoring fans but compare that with a conversation you can have with your brother after you guys have had a big fight there's just nothing like it when you say the scale of time what do you mean by that well like uh you know you have a friendship and you've got to do something to accelerate the amount of um commonality that you have right so you have to tell stories about who you were when you were younger and kind of talk about these ideas in compressed format,

whereas your siblings, they lived through it with you. So it's one thing to talk about, oh, how crazy mom was, right? Or the thing that dad did, but like to live through it with somebody, you lived through that in an uncompressed way. There's so much more information in that file than there is in the compressed file of a story, which, you know, always puts you as the hero, always sets you up. up in some different light than maybe, you know, objective reality would let you have. And a big part of that is that you just don't have enough time to show somebody what you went

through. Yeah, the experiences, the time it takes to have set experiences, right? Yeah, and all the things that went into it that, like, you don't even remember, that then color all those other experiences, right? Like most of the things we can tell stories about it's because it has a beginning, middle, and an end. but most of childhood doesn't have like a clean narrative format like it's just lived hmm that's an interesting thought now i get what you mean by time um to switch to i don't know if

this is lighter or not vance what do you think of richard branson being in space oh i i love this i think this is such a wonderful moment in uh in history and and i watch people uh calling him like the billionaire bros, and I read this woman who was like, you mocked us farmers for putting too much carbon in the air and here you are flying off to space. But like, that's like being resentful of, of, you know, wild adventurers that really put skin in the game. They're saying my spaceship is so good, I myself am going to risk all that I have, all of the luxury that's afforded to me. And I'm going to put my ass in the seat and I'm going to fly up into space on it. And I think, man, What better example that we should all have?

Like put skin in the game, build something for years, get somewhere so far away that, you know, one or two generations ago couldn't even have imagined it. I think it's fantastic. I couldn't be more excited than when I see stuff like what happened today. Was it not wild that he was on the plane? Like you think about what that guy has. He has literally anything he wants.

There's nothing he cannot afford. And so, you know, he risked at all. And I think there are a lot of people that would get to one one one hundredth or one one millionth of what he has and say like, ah, I've gone far enough. I'm just going to, I'm just going to sit here and tread water. And he didn't. I think it's awesome. And it's a cool. I just, I mean, like, he's literally got everything.

So he's probably searching for the next, the next mountain peak. And to be in that plane for the first time to go into outer space, well, I mean, what do they call that? What's the stupid line? Vance, do you know what? They didn't hit the line, but which they determine as outer space. But he got the flow. Yeah, I mean, like, and it's just a matter of time before he goes, right? I think he was 50 miles up and, you know, a lot of times they say, oh, it's 100 miles or whatever. But to me, like, he's just, he's making, he's taking that next step up there. You know what I think is really cool about space that I can't believe people aren't talking about more is there is so much to mine in space that will razzal. radically change how Earth works. So right now, the reason that platinum is more expensive than gold is because of what it can do if you get it into electronics. I mean, you can do some really amazing things. You can make computers that can do things that we can't do right now. And the first one of these guys that gets up there and lassoes a meteorite that has, or a meteor that has enough

platinum on there to be able to bring it back down, not only are they going to be wealthier than anyone has ever imagined. It'll be like the spice trade all over again, but they're going to literally revolutionize the way our electronics works. So for me, like, we should be just go, go, go, as far as you can because somebody's going to bring things back that are going to really improve life here on Earth. So what do you think, where do you think it goes in? You're thinking that they're going to bring back mining material? Or, I mean, where is the possibilities? Is it endless?

I think that the first real one that we can wrap our heads around is we will colonize the solar system. So that that timescale might be something like 10,000 years. Who knows? Because some of those distances are so far away that it would require you to, you know, put human beings to sleep in order to be able to get that far. But there's almost no doubt if we do not blow ourselves up that human beings will find uses for the different traits that are on the planets or the moons of Jupiter or different gases that are on Venus. And right now, the reason that we don't talk about it is because our brains, it's just such a far away thing that it's difficult to wrap your mind around. But I really believe that, you know, there's really great writers, like the guy who wrote Foundation. That wasn't Isaac Asimov. It was, is it Arthur C. Clark? So that book is about actually

the whole colonization of the entire universe, which is set 100,000 years or something like that in the future. And that book really helped me to like expand my thinking on just how much you could do out there. And I think what a better time than right now is, as we're just edging up there to have personal spaceflight to start thinking about like, really, what could we do? What gases could we mine off of another planet? What value could we get off of creating a solar array off of the earth and piping that energy down to Earth? What can you do when the speed of light? So a lot of people don't realize this. How familiar are you with what's going on with Elon Musk's? what's it called the satellite thing i want to call it star oh shoot it's not spacex it's the other one well obviously not that familiar fire away so he so he built this thing where he's thrown up about a thousand satellites right now and they're going to beam internet down to earth but what a lot of people don't realize is right all of the internet is built on pulses of light right so right now we think like, hey, man, fiber is so fast because it's just you can go through the speed of light.

You're sending information, which is why the internet's so fast. But what Elon Musk points out is that in space, light can move faster through a vacuum. So you can actually move material ideas, information around the earth faster than you can by putting just giant trunk lines all over. So all these people are going to be putting up these satellites and getting faster Internet out in the countryside than if you drove Google Fiber all the way to their houses. And like, so this is just around the corner. So all these people that are sitting in rural America that have been complaining about them not having fast internet speeds, this is within years of completely evaporating and not

just having fast internet, but having literally faster internet that's going on in the city right now. Holy crap. You know how many years? You grew up in small town. You know how many years you had crappy internet? They still got crappy internet. Yeah, and that's all going to change. And I think a whole bunch of these projects, this is why, you know, you look at those projects of like, oh, we need to have the government step in here and they need to do something about this. Well, maybe, or maybe what you need to do is have really out there thinkers and capitalism and let him go as far and as hard as they possibly can. And then you start seeing innovation that that wildly outpaces everything that that we have right now. And that's why we're not just continuing to build, you know, larger and larger wagons pulled by more and more horses. You know, you give me, we should talk more often. You give me a positive outlook on things to come. You get, I get stuck maybe in a bit of a rabbit hole around here.

I mean, literally Saskatchewan just opened up yesterday. So, I mean, I'm sitting here in advance and I'm saying that, but like it's been kind of open for four months. I don't know. It's just, we're in this weird, I don't even, I don't even know how to put it. We've been in this weird state. Like we have not been open, but we've been kind of half open. And we just opened up full yesterday.

And it just was finally normal to walk into a store with no mask on and just be like, like, yeah, like let's carry on with life kind of thing. But you give me the sense that where we're going is going to be something spectacular. And at times, I worry that we're going. to something that is not going to be that. Well, I am a little bit doomy about the way that governments work. And I think we all should be a little bit aware that during times of major technological advancement, that is when things can get really bad. And it's because the old order of the elites that were running society, they were running

it in a certain paradigm. And when that paradigm starts to break up, if they have the ability, to slow it down or if they have the ability to try and get in there and grift off of off of what's going on they're going to and I think more and more as you see people being able to declare their own individual sovereignty their own ability to control the internet where they don't have all these gatekeepers where you have a decentralized currency like bitcoin that I know you've had Steve barber on you've had Rob Long on now you really do run into the danger of of people watching the power slipping out of their hands.

And so they do increasingly tyrannical things in order to stop that. And I think, you know, look at the, you know, the communist regime in the eastern part of Germany, right? As telephone lines were coming on, as all of this new technology was coming on, they tried to keep it from the people. And then when they gave it to the people,

they watched them like hawks and tried to interfere. So I do think like we should be aware, we should be a little bit afraid of what the government is going to do in order to hold on to that power. But to me, over the long run, it's not going to matter. These innovations will proliferate and they will give power back to the individual. But we may all face some really, really serious tyranny because of it. Well, this comes on the news of, I believe I just read that it got shot down, but the government in Canada was having secret meetings to try and push through a censorship bill on the internet. And like, you're just going like, what on earth is going on?

Like, I get it. They want to stop like, sure, terrorism and I don't know, like the really horrendous people in the world. Sure. But you start like censoring all the internet and controlling what's coming out, man, the beauty of the internet just disappears overnight. And then as a people, I don't know what happens. Well, what happens is a thing like the interplanetary file system comes up. And there'll be an internet that routes around and becomes uncensurable. It's not going to happen overnight. And the first people that are going to get access to it are the people that know how to use computers or know somebody that knows how to use them. But we will have our own servers in our house. And just like Steve Barber is offering to have people have Bitcoin miners in their own house.

You're going to have your own server in your house. And it's going to be yours. And you're not going to let just any technician touch it because you're going to know that somebody could come in and surveil you with it. So those things that the government is trying to do, they can do at first, but it is always routed around. Water will always find a way. And so, you know, you think about what their excuses are.

oh, we've got to stop it from child predators. Oh, we're protecting you. This is why we need to do these things. To me, it is all smoke and mirrors. It's a way to continue to be in control and to be able to at first monetize people's data, but then overall use it to control them. But it's going to get routed around. We just have to make sure we're still alive by the time it happens.

We just got to be alive in order for that to happen. that's vance crow humor there at its finest man how many how many you know how long have you been doing the podcast now the vance crow podcast i started just a little over two years ago so i have about 200 some odd episodes now oh yeah you're you're like bang on right where i am when did you start i started in um i think may of 2019 so i had I had left Bear, so I had been working for Monsano. I was their director of millennial engagement, which was a wild and great job that I loved. And then Bear took over and I was not particularly interested in the role that they wanted me to take if I was going to keep on. Bear is a way,

way, way more conservative company. They had no interest in the kind of edgier work I was doing. And I had always said when I was in this role as director of millennial engagement that I really wanted a podcast, that a podcast would make it so I didn't have to wait around for somebody else to interview me about my ideas. I could then go and talk with people that had the most interesting ideas. And they kept being like, well, yeah, but we'll have to get it assured by the attorneys and we'll have to check these things out. And so in my mind for five years, I was just sitting there being like, I would interview that person. I would interview that person. And then as soon as I left, I bang, bang, bang, started doing interviews and haven't looked back. Well, it started in February

2019 so that's why I say we're almost lockstep we're very very close on the old timeline of a podcast it's I've been getting asked this question a ton right now it's why I sent it off to you I'm curious on your 200 and some episodes are there some whether it's themes or whether it's some knowledge that's come out of it I mean obviously having conversations is going to spur on ideas and everything else but is there is there a gold nugget you've pulled out of your conversations that's really stuck with you. I interviewed a woman named Julie McDaniel, who is for American farmers. Jared McDaniel is a really well-known cattle rancher and grain farmer from Oklahoma, and that was his wife. And she was just like an old soul. And she just really had a lot of ideas

about what it is to be a mother and the value of that role. And I actually was interviewing her just maybe just a few weeks before we had violet, my daughter. And I go back to that and, you know, I'm not like a really, you know, visually emotional person, but it is hard for me not to, like, well up with how absolutely spot on she was about things like what this is going to do and why you're going to care so much and how much she feels for people that don't have children. And so for me, that was like some of her words were rattling around in my head. as they handed the baby to me, right? And so you think about the power of that. If I hadn't had that podcast, I wouldn't have had Julie McDaniel, this, you know, frontier woman in Oklahoma's

ideas rolling around in my mind, and I'm grateful for it. And then outside of that, you know, when COVID hit, my wife's pregnant. I, you know, I had gone from speaking all over, traveling all the time to being locked in my house. So I started interviewing anybody that knew anything about COVID. And I did not care about the mainstream opinion because I don't have, you know, sponsors. I wasn't looking for anybody's permission. And I really got to learn a lot about COVID. First, I got to be the first to be terrified of it. And then as things kind of played out, I also then got to come down from that fear a lot faster. So I feel like I get to ride the wave of what's going on with culture a lot faster than other people. And for me, that's like a, that's like a drug.

It's, well, it is no different than a drug for me. That's, uh, the COVID thing, uh, totally makes sense to me. Like, uh, I think, I think, uh, riding that wave and understanding what's going on, um, in culture and society is, is really enticing. And you're, you're on the forefront. I watch a lot of the stuff you do. Heck, I keep telling people about the most plague in Australia. That is wild. Like, that is absolutely wild. But I do find it very interesting. All the interesting people you've sat down with, the one who talked about motherhood is the one that sticks out. Yeah, I mean, I think that one of the things the podcast gives me is that I can ask questions, one of people that I'm just not going to run into, right? Like, we're going to run into Julie McDaniel in a bar, you know, like at a, like,

you're just not going to. So I do get to find people and sit down and talk with them. And I know you do too. And the other thing is, once this camera goes on, I feel like it gives me some level of power, right? Like, it gives me an ability to ask people about things that they really care about. And if I've done my job of building a good enough relationship with them that they want to talk with me, they will tell me things that have resided in their minds that maybe sometimes they've only told their closest person around them. Because most of the time, and I'm sure you felt this, most people go most of their lives, never having anybody listened to them at all. And so if you're sitting here listening to somebody, they will tell you things that you just can't believe.

You just shocked that they experienced that, that they felt that, that they thought of that. And so, you know, my job is to build a relationship and then ask the question that they would want to be asked if they felt confident, confident that it would go well. Yeah. Starting the podcast, one of the things I learned early on, especially when I go back and listen to my early episodes, it make me cringe. But that's part of the process was you need to listen more because they're telling you what you want to talk about, right? like they're literally giving it to you if you just decipher and listen you could ask the follow-up question and had the whole story right like they've said it three times now you just weren't listening and uh that's been a powerful lesson of the podcast is to you're absolutely right half the time

you're sitting at work you're sitting at the bar you're sitting wherever you're in a friendly banter or it's kind of like surface level stuff when you sit here and And I've listened to a lot of your interviews. When you get the opportunity to sit across from somebody like this, you get to go below. You get to go below the surface level. And in there is some fascinating things. Yeah, while doing this podcast, I've come up with a trick

that I think a lot of people could use if they wanted to get better at small talk. You know, you ask somebody, hey, do you like small talk? And most people, I just gave a talk the other day. And I said, how many of you in this room enjoy small talk? And out of like a couple hundred people, there were two hands that went up, right? And everybody feels like I hate small talk, right? It's not, it's too surfacy.

We're not getting anywhere. It feels like a waste of time. I feel awkward. I don't know what to say. I don't know what they're going to ask me. And I say, well, this is a game that you can play and it will dramatically improve the conversations. And that is, after you started the conversation, you get the other person to start talking. What is the tiniest choice they made in what they were.

saying to you that they didn't have to, but they added in the detail. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for what is the smallest detail that they added in where so for example, I interviewed this guy named John Jennings. John, he manages the wealth of billionaires. He's a really interesting guy, but the way that I came in contact with him was that he has a blog called the interesting fact of the day. So I asked him the obvious question, how did you start this podcast? And he says, well, my dad and I were out riding horses one day and my brother told me, or he, and my dad told me that, you know, John, you're a good father, but your brother, he's a better father. And I was so hurt that my dad said that to me that I had to ask him, why is that dad? And he said, well, you know, you buy all

your daughters, all the things that they need and you get them, you know, you're very supportive of them. But your brother, he spends time with them. And that's really important. And so John was so impacted by this that he tried to sit and think about what could he do and he loves reading and he loves finding out interesting things. So he decided every night when he tucks his daughters in, he's going to find an interesting fact, something he learned in the course of doing work or in course of getting ready to help his clients. And he's going to tell them that interesting fact. And on the ones that they get really excited about, he would sit down and write them and email him to his friends. And then their friends would email them out to other people. And he said, before long,

I started realizing like, hey, I should write these all down and start sharing them. And before I knew it, I had a big mailing list, and that's the interesting fact of the day. And so most people, when they get done with that, the next question is, well, either where did you find these interesting facts? You know, where do you look them up? Or what's the most interesting fact that you have? But to me, the tiny choice that John made was he could have started that story any way that he wanted, but he added in the detail that. that his dad told him that he wasn't as good of a father as his brother. So for John, that is such an internal experience.

It was so deep that he had to add that detail in. Otherwise, the story wouldn't have made sense. And so that's the question I want to ask, which is, so does your dad still think your brother's a better father? And now you've just like opened him up because he now realizes like, well, no, he doesn't because my brother got a divorce and it was pretty ugly. And then you start going into all this other stuff. So I always talk about like when you're hearing somebody tell a story, what was the tiny detail that they added in that they didn't realize? And if you ask about that, things just open up like a lock and a key.

You're Sherlock Holmes of conversation, right? You're sitting there looking for the smoking gun, so to speak. You know, when you tell that story, the thing that comes up for me and you, okay? That story, a man. Imagine being the father, 20 years from now you've got a couple of kids and telling your son or daughter that. Like to tell them that your other sibling is better at it. You know how, like, you know what? Like when you first say that, Vance, I go, man, what a hard thing for your father to say to someone. Like I can't imagine my dad saying, you know what? You're good dad, but your brothers are better. Like, Brian, that's a kick in the nuts.

but he's not doing it, or at least sitting here and hearing the story, you tell it and not having the guy tell it. He's not doing it from a sense of like, you're a mess up. He's doing it from a sense of like you need to be better. And that right there is a hard thing to come by. Yeah, I mean, we live so much of our lives where the feedback people give us is the feedback that makes us like them more. right so you want to get around people that will tell you the feedback that they say well you might like me more but it might take a little while because this is going to this is going to sting and this is going to sting yeah and yet the people who make it sting uh it irritates you and it won't

leave your fucking brain alone you're just like why the hell do you have to say that and then you start thinking about it and that is a good thing i mean as long i assume is it's done out of a sense of like not trying to put you down, just trying to make you understand something. You're a really nice guy. Do you give people feedback that stings? Hmm. It depends on the relationship, I would say. Like the further the relationship is from being one of the tight-knit ones, it's tough. Like, why, in my experience, trying to do something like that hasn't worked and has been uncomfortable for the relationship where if it's if it's you know my wife somebody very tight and close i don't know i it's it's hard to notice something and not and i would

hope that she would do the same and not address it because you have to live with that day in and day out that makes sense yeah but i mean like would your brothers say that you give them feedback that they that they need but don't necessarily want to. Yeah. One of the, one of the, me and my brother Dustin, he's, uh, what is he? Seven years older me, six years older me, somewhere in there. Anyways, we had, oh, we've had some epic fights, right? Like, of trying to, trying to give the other person some, like, advice and like, and, like, losing it. And then it comes back around you talk. And, yeah, like, it's really, really good. I don't know if I'm answering the question.

But yeah, like I think when it comes to the brothers, once again, the tighter you are with them, I think it's easier. It doesn't make it easier to handle what they say. But at the same token, you understand they're doing it not from a sense of malice, but a sense of like, I want what's best for you. And I see what you're doing is wrong. I find that, you know, Canadians are more agreeable than America. Well, of course we are. But I don't know if that, does that extend to your familial relationships? Like, is it, are you just, are you more agreeable inside the house as, as other people are?

Listen, all my good friends, Vance, pick at me until I lose my shit, because I'm an emotional guy. I'm very passionate about what I do. When I see the Canadian agreeable thing, I laugh about it because I go, yeah, we're nice people, but don't fuck with us. Like, that's the way I look at it. But in saying all that, right now, that's what we get portrayed because of the way COVID's been handled, the way our government's treating us right now. Like, everybody's kind of like, oh, yeah, the Canadians just go along with anything. I disagree.

I think there's a lot of people here that if you push them too far, and maybe our line, maybe our fuse is a little longer. But at the same token, if you push them too far, I think you're not going to like what you find. the end of that views. Yeah, I mean, I went to a, I was at an Alberta beef producers conference right before COVID. And there was a guy named Peter Zahan who was speaking, he was the other keynote. And he made the case that he thought that there was a reasonably high chance that Alberta should secede from Canada and become the 51st state of the United States. I thought he was going to get booed. I was like, what are you insane, man? And instead, the crowd cheered, wildly. And I think that you're onto something about the Canadians feeling pushed too far. I think

there's so much rural area. There's so much wild, big expanse that the capital city can't tell you what to do forever and not eventually you guys just be like, all right, well, why don't you deal with our trade minister? Because we're breaking off and doing our own thing. Is that a wild speculation? No, it's a very popular conversation right now. I don't think becoming part of the United States. I don't know. Like to me, whatever on that idea. I could, whatever. It doesn't matter. I'm not even going to explore that option. What I will say is that that is a popular conversation topic in the West right now, is what do we do? Because it's becoming more and more clear every day that the East, the capital, the big cities of the East, Quebec, they're going to do whatever they want.

have zero voice in it. And so what do we do? And how do we do it? And so separatism, yeah, like after last election, man, like, wex it freaking went ballistic. Like the West is leaving and everything else. But it doesn't matter how much, I mean, it doesn't matter how popular an idea is. If you don't have the leadership to direct that energy, it goes nowhere. And right now, I'm, I mean, it's been how many years since the election, and it just feels like it hasn't calmed right down by any stretch, right? It's still a popular conversation. But the movement of people wanting to leave, like right after that election, was you could taste it. You could talk about it with anyone, and everyone was on the same page.

It just didn't have the person to champion it, in my opinion. I went to a Wexit meeting. and the guy who is there to talk about it. I always think, like, you have the ability when you have an idea or you're in front of people selling something. You have a very finite moment where you either make a believer out of me, which means that trends to everybody, or you turn me into, I don't want what you got, and I'm just out of here. And the guy who spoke that night, I went to, I'm taking time out of my life to go listen to a political rally. Think about that. And what he said that night, within five minutes, I was like,

I'm not following this guy anywhere. And so then what happened was, all my friends ask, we get talking about it in any, right, all the different settings of all the different little conversations I'm in. And I get to go, actually, I went to that meeting. And they go, you went to that meeting? How was it? Yeah, I'm not following that guy anywhere. And immediately, it's almost like the entire thing is put out by the people that went and watched this guy. Now, there are some people on the extremes that still love the idea. But when you don't have the right guy there, to me or woman, for that matter, it just ate itself essentially, fans.

Yeah, I think, so we read for Book Club this book called Seventh Son, which was like this weird historical, you know, mystic, I don't even know how to describe it, but it was a fantastic book written by Orson Scott Card, the guy that wrote Ender's game. And did you read it? I don't know if you read it for that month. You're going to leave me into my next topic, but yes, I didn't read it. It was a good one. And one of the concepts in there that they talk about that I had never actually thought of was they talk about Ben Franklin. And all of the historical characters in this book are totally different, right? They talked about George Washington getting his head cut off and stuff. So like they make up whatever they want.

But one thing he said that I went and looked up and it turns out to be true was it said Benjamin Franklin, his great invention wasn't the trifocals it wasn't the almanac that he published it wasn't it was the concept that there is such a thing as an american and that up until this point all of these people that had come over were either you know people that had left from another country so they still saw themselves as dutch or they still saw themselves as catholics or presbyterians or whatever and he invented the idea of we are americans and once that idea was born and people could have an identity, then all of a sudden they could rally around things in a different way. And I'm sure that Ben Franklin wasn't the first one going around to these colonies trying to

say, hey, we should all work together. Hey, this is the way that we should break free from the tyranny that we're under. It's just Ben Franklin figured out, this is what we need to do, the sacrifices of identity that we need to make in order that we all come together. And, you know, you know, you know, Ben Franklin doesn't come around very often. So it may be that that guy wasn't the right one. And I have no idea what's right for Canada, whether you guys should wigs it or not. But I do think that just because the first guy that showed up,

you know, that guy's always going to be a little nuts. He's the first guy showing up, right? That's by definition, he's going to be a little insane. You know, that's a fair point. The first always seems to be a little bit on the outskirts, doesn't he? Yeah, I mean, of course. And particularly if you're talking about an idea, like breaking away from from a sovereign government with you know a military and i don't know what you guys

have but i'm uh two planes a submarine and uh like what what do we really have here but you know what what you don't have in saskatchewan or um Alberta that i think is going to keep you guys from really being a function a body of water yeah it's a port yeah we're landlocked become uruguay and uh and then then you become the the real serfs of a another of another group. So you guys got to find a way to get British Columbia to agree in this new whatever that name is because without a port, you're sunk. Yeah, we need to get three tanks, two submarines, and we'll just overtake their military. That's what you're saying? No, I am not proposing this. I have no interest in suggesting that this is what Canada should do. I'm just saying

that if one were to do it, these are the things one would need. Putting you on the spot. I like it. You know, you bring up the seventh son, the book club. I, I, uh, I have thoroughly enjoyed. Since the last time me and you talked, um, I've made you brought it up and some of the listeners will have heard it that I've been, I joined the AVN network and, and, uh, and the book club, I'm part of a book club here. And so then I join your book club and I'm reading two bucks a month and I'm like, like, I don't know what I'm doing, right?

except the books that we read here compared to what you guys read there are so like starkly different that it's it's been it's been really awesome but i hit this i did this bike to quick dick mcdick and uh oh man i just i almost pushed myself over the edge with how hard i was pushing myself trying to do full-time work the podcast this fundraiser kids wife everything and it it just caught up to me I haven't read the last two books. And I put in the network, you know, like, how do you find your love of reading again? Not because I know what, like I've been slowly starting to pick things back up, but I just kind of went over the edge vance. Like I just, how do you pull that back?

And what struck me was I sent you a message. I can't remember. Maybe you sent me a message just a while back. And you talked about, you know, you were struggling or maybe struggle wasn't the word, but you were just talking about burnout. and like, you know, pushing it so hard. How is a guy like yourself, keep yourself on the straight and narrow or the balance, you know,

the balancing act that this is? You know, the, when I worked in corporate America, I decided that every day when I would go to my closet and I'd be like, do I feel like a blue shirt today? Or do I feel more like khakis and this other shirt? I realize like, I hate this.

I don't want to do this. So what I did was I went out and I bought 10 white shirts. You're a white shirt guy? I was when I was in corporate America. I'm wearing a gray shirt now. But I was like, if I've got to dress up every day, I'm going to wear the exact same thing. So that way I never have to think about it. And from that point, I was able to build all of these other things on top of it.

So I'd start being like, oh, okay, well, my shirt doesn't fit as well as it used to. So I'm going to start tracking my calories. and then I'd start running and I you know just going on and the times when I hit burnout were the times when I didn't have a habit built it was those times when I was like ah I should want to do this I see other people wanting to do this and so I'm going to try and you know take on this other thing and this other thing and this other thing but if I if I have a thing integrated into my habits I and I get to the point where it's not work to make it happen anymore then I can't can keep building. But I noticed that the times when I get out of controllers, when I try and add too much. And when I, the birth of my daughter, that was such a huge disruption to my life, that all of my eating habits went out the window, all of my laundry habits went out the window, all of my every good habit I had went out the window. And that's when you come back and you say, okay, what's the foundational habit that I need to reconnect with? Get that one going. And then we're

going to do another one. And like that's the only way I've ever figured out how to how to not do it. Because if I'm not careful, I will spin out of control and, you know, I'll be, you know, drinking too much and doing all kinds of stupid shit. And so for me, like, I have to just be like, all right, we're going back to basics. You know, that's probably the best thing about the wife and kids leaving is I had to go back to the basics. So I'm in the middle of a 72 hour fast right now because that forces me inside again. And like, no booze, no food, just you and your thoughts and doing this. And it's been very healthy for me because it really puts things back in perspective, I would say.

How far into the fact are you? It's my second one, Vince. So I'm about halfway, 36 hours. Okay, wow. and you do it is are you just on water or you're uh yeah just no just water no no no oh yeah sorry coffee in the mornings coffee in the mornings coffee in the mornings and water yeah it's i remember the first time i ever did a fast they did 24 hours and i remember thinking i will never be able to complete this because i love food like i love food and uh and then you complete it and you're like

you know, I think it was uncomfortable, but, you know, I actually didn't feel that bad. And then, and then I did 40, 46. I failed at getting to 48 for some reason. My mind wouldn't let me get there. Or I wouldn't let myself get there. It doesn't matter. But at 46, it's a different step. And then, I don't know, like, you start to understand your body and like, here I am. I feel fantastic. No, no issue hitting 72. I'll be there and carry on with life. Like, it's, it's, uh, really put some of your, your wants, especially body urges, like, you know, food or, um, you know, like you want to go for a beer or beverage or whatever or you want X, Y, Z, it doesn't matter. Really puts that in check and you got to deal with your mind because your mind is like,

you know, you walk through the truck wagons are in town. You ever seen Chuck Wagon's live? You probably have never seen that. You don't know what you're missing out on. Anyways, so you walk in and you smell the, like the burgers being, you know, and you can just everything, the fries or the onion rings or the donuts or whatever, and it's just like this lofty. Like, think you're going to a carnival.

And your brain will say some messed up shit to you about like, oh, yeah, let's just get one. And you've got to have like this internal argument. But it's fun to do that again because for too long, I think I was letting that inner monologue just be like, yeah, let's just go get one.

It's just one. It's all good. and then that just leads you down. When you talk about the routine and the habits, that was what the book club, our book club here did for me. It made me address that I had no foundation of like, I need some good habits. And from there, good things happen,

one of which was the podcast. Let's talk about that inner monologue. Do you have a name for that inner monologue? Is it one inner monologue? It's one. but I don't have a name, but when I journal about it, I often say we have a discussion, like we are doing something, which after I write it, I'm like, that's kind of messed up. Like, why am I writing it that way? But it feels natural. Like, we're going to go do this,

or we're having this argument. And it's just an internal debate between the two sides of my brain. I don't know. What's your thoughts on that? Well, like, I came across, in the book, The War of Art by Stephen Prescott, this concept of the voice of resistance. And so it's the idea that, like, you know you should do something. You're like, you're supposed to go running. First couple times you go for a jog, it's like so easy. You're like, yeah, look at me. I'm so awesome.

I jog. I'm going to do this forever. And then on the third day, you go to put on your shoes and there's a little voice that's like, you know, you don't have to do this. Like, you did a really good job yesterday. And you're going to do a really good job tomorrow. So why don't you just sit this one out? And I was just telling my wife about this this morning.

Like I always thought that that voice of resistance like would be it would go away, right? But it doesn't. It's it's always there. Always there. Always lurking. And it's a funny thing because if you were just to completely obliterate the voice of resistance, you do insane things, right? It's not your enemy, right?

It is a voice that has to be put in balance. And I think over time, as I've written about the voice of resistance, I've come to the conclusion that it isn't just one voice. It's a whole bunch of different ones, right? It's ones that have different things that they want from me. And this internal dialogue or discussion is one that I'm deeply curious about with other people because, you know, you hear that concept. I contain multitudes.

Like I have, and somebody could take this out of context and make it sound like I'm schizophrenic, but like I have many, many, many voices in my head of, of which I control literally zero of them, right? They do what they want. Do they speak in different voices that? How do I say that right? Like, how do you differentiate the different voices? Well, I didn't used to be able to.

And then when I started writing about like, oh, I have this voice that says, I don't want to run. And sometimes it's one voice, right? Sometimes it's the voice that's like, oh, Vance, you should take care of yourself. Oh, you're so pretty. and you're just so sweet, you should just sit down and really enjoy this coffee. And then there's another one that's like, you have so much work to do. You have to get other things done.

Your run isn't important. You've got to get work done, you lazy bum. You're running away from your problems, right? And then you start distinguishing, like, what is it that these things want? And for a while there, I always thought, like, what I really need to do is just wrap a rope around them and just drag them around to where I want them to go. But those voices are the thing that make me who I am. And in fact, like, it really starts making me wonder, am I actually just this like puppet that these voices are controlling?

And it's just like who gets in charge of the controls for a while? Because I don't, like, there's nothing I can do to be like, okay, voice, you're done talking now. We're taking over. You just, you got to have that conversation. You have to like, you know, whoever is at the controls gets there by different means. I'm chuckling that you have a voice that calls you pretty one. I told you, I don't control it. Two, do you talk out loud to yourself then?

No, I mean, if I'm writing a speech or something I do, but that's because this is like I have to. If I only keep the thoughts of like a speech or something I'm trying to write inside my head I can skip over important things but if it's this conversation about should I go run should I eat this sandwich should I you know have that extra cup of coffee just to get a little bit bigger of a burst these are not complete conversations right it's like your brother you don't have to have all of the words said because you already know what's going on in fact I wonder if they are verbalized as as words or if they're just felt in some way well see the best way that I get

control of it when we, I feel like we've had this conversation partially before because you call it the voice of resistance. All I can think of is the bitch voice. It's just like nagging on you, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag. And to put that voice, that particular voice in its place, I have to talk. I speak out loud and I probably look ridiculous, but I don't care because it's just annoying and you just need to shut up, all right? And I'll tell you a funny little story is I remember, this is like two, three years, ago, I was in the midst of, of, like, monitoring what I ate because I knew that I was, my eating habits were poor. And so I was trying to get a hold on that. And that is a juggernaut. But I'm like, you know what? Let's just do it day by day. We'll just do it day by day. And when did you know

what the first day was a safety meeting where I work? And on safety meeting mornings, we have breakfast sandwiches brought in from, you know, McDonald's, Arby's, doesn't matter, right? And I tell you what? So everybody leaves the room and I haven't grabbed one yet because I'm like, I'm doing this thing. I'm going to monitor. I'm not going to eat fast. Okay, here we go. And I sat there and stared at that thing for probably two solid minutes, felt like an eternity. Then my brain goes, it's just one. It's just one. I'm like, yeah, you're right. It is just one. Like I'm having this conversation out loud. Thank God, nobody walked in. I grab it, but now it's called. So I walk over to the microwave, put it in the microwave, okay? As is going like 20 seconds, I'm like,

this is a very bad idea, Sean. Like, why are you doing this? Get it out. I'm like, no, oh, we're going to have this. Put ketchup on it and I have it like in my hand, Vance. And I'm like, oh my God, and I throw it in the garbage. And then that led to like eight months of being like very conscious of what I was eating. But it had to get me so precariously close to just self detonating it in the first day of trying it.

Well, I think this goes all the way back to the beginning of the thing you were talking about. with burnout, right? Like if you dominate that voice, right, and you get yourself to eat much better, or you dominate that voice and you get out and jog all the time, right? Those voices don't go away. They're sitting there waiting for some sort of thing to trip up, right? For some sort of stress going on in your life or some sort of thing. And if you have not found a way to be in concert with them, which is where I think the habits come from, like, then everything goes like completely out of control, at least for me, right, where I'm just like, ah, I'm going to spend the whole weekend. I'm going to eat three frozen pizzas. Maybe I'll go buy some pizza rolls, right?

And my wife can watch this train wreck coming from miles away, right? But there's nothing to be done about it. Because the voice has already had that discussion. And I remember when I would try and quit smoking, right? I would, I would, you know, I would quit smoking. I hadn't smoked in two weeks, three weeks, maybe, let's say three months, right? And then for some reason, I get this voice in my head that's like, you know what we should do. We should go buy a pack of cigarettes. And the whole time, you're like, I really shouldn't go do this, but I'm not going to stop. And you have, but something happens and you don't and you don't.

And so for me, the real challenge is to resist the temptation to try and dominate that voice. and to somehow get in a better relationship with it, which I think is a large reason why I'm so glad we're talking about it and why I talk with other people about their inner voices. Because at its core, I think there's a voice down deeper that is what I call the Damon, right? Like the voice that knows what you're truly capable of. But he will not yell, right?

He will not express himself manifestly. I have to actually be sitting and deeply listening. Otherwise, the voice about who I really should be, who I really could be, is drowned out by all these other competing voices that I've just sat there and dominated and been like, no, you shut up. I'm going to go for a run. Do you meditate? Yeah, frequently. I haven't probably in the last couple of weeks, but frequently I do, yeah. I don't meditate that much.

I can't sit here and pull your leg on that. But it's one of those things that is you try it. And if you give it its fair shake, I couldn't believe how it took the stress level just like threw it away. I did it before a couple of big meetings I had within work. And then I got asked to present to a college in town about sales and talking to people. And I was like ungodly nervous, which is, I don't know, probably common when you haven't tried something before.

But for me, like, when I look back at it, I'm like, I talk about, I talk to people all the time. I don't know why it stressed me out so much. But I was like, I was like not hyperventilating, but I was like wound tight. And I just did an app on the phone where I meditated for like six minutes. And that six minutes took me from up here to like such a good mood, down low, calm, let's go do this. unbelievable. And when you talk about trying to hear your your inner voice, your Damon, I wonder if meditation isn't a big key to that. Oh, I 100% and like you can get there different ways. For me, exercise when I did jiu-jitsu, that was definitely a way to get there.

And for anybody that's like listening and thinks like, ah, you know, what are they talking about, inner voice, any of these things. There's a really interesting exercise, a guy named Sam Harris talks about, which is, do you actually control your thoughts? And, you know, my immediate reaction is like, yeah, I have free will. I'm able to control my thoughts. So he'll do this exercise. Well, he'll say, okay, I want you to think of three movies. Just go ahead, take a little bit of time, think of three movies, right? Now, after you've thought of these three movies, why did you choose those three movies right and right now your your brain is trying to tell itself a story about like why you chose those well i thought about this and this and this and this but that when you asked your

brain for those three stories or three movies it just boom they just came up where did that come from who told you to pick those things like could you have picked other movies could you you know you've probably seen thousands of movies why those three and so for some reason when i think about that experience of like my brain just throwing up these three things and then when I try and say why I can tell myself a story about why I chose those and then I start being like who's back there throwing these ideas up here because I couldn't have controlled it I couldn't have chosen three other ones I think that I could but they just showed up there and meditation allows you to stop and see what would your brain throw up if you aren't asking it questions.

if you aren't constantly stressed, if you aren't constantly thinking about what am I going to do next? And that's where that voice of like, have you been thinking about this thing? And so like these ideas that I should be going towards, but I'm blocking them out, start coming up. And they don't come up in that anxiety inducing way like I need to pay bills, but they come up in a much more genuine, slower, authentic way. And that I think is closer to what I'm referring to when I say the Damon. That's what movie what movie did you have come up when when you think of first three movies coming to your head? Oh I mean E.T gladiator and hackers. I don't know it's just those are the first three top gun old school and I don't know super troopers just flashed into my brain for

whatever reason right and where did it come from like why why that one and you could be like well because I looked at the corner and I saw this thing and it made me think of it but like like that prompted a thought from somewhere, right? It's amazing to think about this gigantic cathedral that is your mind that you're really just in the vestibule of. And I think most of the time I'm not even at the front door, right? And then when you do start walking in there, you're like, oh my God, this place is amazing. It could use some cleaning up, but it's pretty amazing. You know, speaking of movies, movies just are finally starting to come back. I just read an article talking about the Black Widow, right?

The new Marvel movie having the best opening weekend since the pandemic started, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is Vance Crowell a guy who watches a bunch of movies? You rattle off three. Do you watch movies on occasion at all? Not at all. I mean, if it'll make my wife happy on Friday night, I'll try and start watching a movie, but I never make it through. Like sleeping or like walk away?

I just I have to go to bed at a certain time I just my whole body shuts down and and it's very rare that something on like I I'm just not bad interested and like I don't I don't think that this makes me like more artistic or more connected like I just I just don't care I'd be much much more likely to watch like a serialized show like Sopranos or the Wire or something like that than I would to be like oh, I'm going to choose a movie. And probably part of that is some level of, like, keeping too many options open. Like I start flipping through Apple TV and I'm like, I could watch that, but that's an hour

and a half. Maybe I should go see if there's another way I could spend an hour and a half. No, no, maybe that one. And I could spend an entire evening watching trailers and then be like, I don't want to watch any of these and be perfectly happy. So it's not like I'm like, you know, can't deign to do the low brow movies. It's just that I just keep too many options open and I don't care that much. Well, that is where we differ, my fellow podcaster.

I love a good movie. You know, when you guys selected Jurassic Park, and we may have talked about this last time, I still remember thinking, like, why Jurassic Park? And obviously, I didn't know the history of the book and how well it done and everything else because it was a fantastic read. I'll never do that ever again to any book that's. ever selected by the book club. But there are some fantastic movies that just, man, they're entertaining.

And really get you thinking of like, huh, like, I mean, it's, it's been, it's been well overdone now, especially through everything we've done through. But like the Matrix, like, that was fantastic. Yeah, I mean, I watched The Matrix. I like that. I mean, I think like I've seen probably most of the pop culture movies that, you know, really, you know, Master and Commander or any of these, but like now, I don't know. You go from The Matrix to Master and Commander. Oh, I do love that movie. Master and Commander, I think is a masterpiece.

But I was a sailor, too, right? So, of course, I'm going to like that movie. But, but, I mean, I enjoy a good movie. but like, you know, to go see something in the theaters or, or, you know, to watch something that's like just... That's not you. No, I would, I would almost never watch a superhero movie ever. It's just like, I'm sure they're good. I just, I just, I would never...

So let me get this straight. Vance Crow is not a sports guy. Vance Crow is not got a superhero favorite. You know, I got one. No, I don't even know very many of them. How the hell did we hook up? You know, I think I love sports. Don't mess with the Batman.

Like, oh, okay, okay. I take that back. I loved the Dark Night trilogy. In fact, if I have a hangover and there is nothing going on that day, I'm watching one of the Batman movies for sure. So I'll take that back. But I don't think of that as a superhero movie for whatever reason. What are you talking about?

That's a superhero movie. Fair enough. I take it back. it back. I love the Dark Night trilogy. Absolutely love it. The first two are better than the third one. But the... Yeah, well, but I mean, he's got to wrap it up at some point, right? And there's a couple of plot holes, sure, but that's okay. But like the, what I guess what I'm referring to is like the Captain America, that kind of thing or the, you know, that, that, those movies are just not... Not your jam. Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. Well, you saved yourself with the Dark Knight

because Christopher Nolan is by far my favorite director and anything he brings out is so masterfully done. It's it almost hurts my brain sometimes at how well he can construct a complicated story to go on the big screen and be like palatable and like enjoyable and the dialogue and acting and everything. Yeah, I mean like truly his concepts around time and around just like character development. is amazing and he's been able to transcend and not have a bunch of pop culture you know BS woke stuff in all of his movies like I don't see a bunch of stuff in there where I'm like oh all right that was the token you know nod to this concept he didn't do any of that and I really really appreciate that about his movies well I don't know how much time I got you I know you're sitting at nine o'clock so if you like I'll slide into the final segment that way I don't keep you

hear you know i i i'm having a blast man this is this is fun i'm kind of curious what happens when your body starts to shut down if you just start nodding off i'm like oh that's the cue my uh my fingers i have to i have to start popping them and they get really uh they swell up so that that's the trigger oh there goes the fingers they're going to sleep it's time they're not going yet they're not yet yeah well you've mentioned well in that case can we talk about fear for a few minutes Because if anything has been more evident over the last year, it has been first the power of fear, but then the use of politicians using said fear through the media to just like keep pushing it on the population. I can't sit and speak for the United States.

I can just sit here and speak for Canada, at least where I'm at and see what the, like everything is just, man, it's just. And I had a guest on tell me. It's just fear, fear, fear. And at the time, I remember thinking, it ain't that bad. And here we sit, like, whatever it is. Now we're open. Things are getting better.

But for a long time, man, that was, you could taste it. You could cut up with a knife. It was weird. My favorite line about fear comes from the movie Dune. Fear is the mind killer. And a movie guy, or non-movie guy, drops a movie line to me.

It's not a movie line. That's a book line. That comes from the book. That is a fantastic book. And they are coming out with a movie. Have you seen the preview? I have seen that. I'm reluctant to watch it. Like the book is so good. Probably not. No. But any case, the line in there, fear is the mind killer. That that is one of those things where I've been in situations where I am literally afraid. And you start being like, it's the mind killer. Okay. So now that fear has been there, I've accepted. that it's here. It's something that's, that's, you know, real. Now let's discern what is danger and what can I do about it? And I think that the thing that you're talking about with the media going fear, fear, fear, fear, I think people like the sensation of fear, right? It stimulates you. You, you, it's the same as taking some kind of drug like Adderall or something that really amps you up because all the sudden life is exciting. And if you're in a life where you don't have deep family connections, you're not a member of the community, your job is not meaningful, then you need something to stimulate

your brain to say, you know, there's a reason to be alive, or there's a reason to keep your eyes open. And I think that I think people become as addicted to fear as they become addicted to anything else. And that's why, I mean, I saw a clip of CNN the other day where they still have like the counter of how many people have died from COVID, right? like what is the percentage of people that have been vaccinated? And you're like, why are you guys running this? Like it's a sporting event or something. Like this is insane. But it's because their viewers want it.

They love it. I'm sure if they took it down, their viewers would be like, how many people have been vaccinated? Honestly, I was saying that exact thing the other day was media is not stupid, right? Like they may say stupid things, but media in itself is, you know, is doing what the viewer wants. The viewer wants that up there, which means in a weird,

effed up way, just like you said, they want that, that fear substance to it, which is messed up. I don't understand it. Like, my life has gotten exponentially better

when I just started turning off the, I just don't need to humming it with the numbers. I don't, you know, if you didn't tell me there was an outbreak and wherever I would have had no clue and I'm just living my life. and enjoying it and enjoying my kids and everything else. And yet, here we are, still persist.

The mass still persists. Well, the mass have all come off, but it's been rather enjoyable. I mean, you got to see that a heck of a lot earlier than us. But that has been an enjoyable sight to see people smiling again, right? Like, actually looking for it right now. Like, let's smile, right? Let's see some teeth. Oh, man. I mean, like, you know, St. Louis was pretty good. Like, we got this stuff off pretty early. And really a lot of people when they didn't. have to they they they didn't get into it but just the other day i was on a plane this is the first time i've flown since covid so 17 months and uh you know the woman uh when we board the plane stands on there you know they've got that little telephone and she's like okay i just want to

point out to everyone that you at three different times agreed to wear your masks at all times when you bought your ticket you had to check a thing that said you would do this when you checked into your flight you said you would do this then when you boarded the plane you are making you know explicit consent that you will wear your mask the whole time and it is just like authority authority authority and the airports are like this so that plane was really intense everywhere you go in the airport they've shut off CNN and all it is is signs of like you must wear your mask at all times and then you walk into the restaurant that's right there and if you're sitting down you're allowed to take your mask off this is like absurd but like the the level of authority that people have

to be exerted. I wonder if it'll ever go away. I really genuinely wonder until the government in the U.S. gets whatever vaccine numbers they're demanding or whatever control they want to get if you'll be able to walk around without a mask on an airport. And I think that's the worst place. I mean, maybe it protects you from some diseases, but the other side of it is you took an experience where people don't really like sitting with next to one another. And now they really don't like sitting next to one another. because you can't tell if the guy sitting next to you that bumped into you as being like, oh, sorry, or if he's being like, yeah, go fuck yourself. I'm going to take this armrest whether you like it or not.

And that's not good. I can't imagine that facilitates better transportation for anybody. Anytime you can't see facial expressions, it doesn't matter if you're in the school yard, on a plane, at work, anywhere. There's so much that comes with facial expressions. Everybody knows that. And if anything this year has taught us is the importance and value of that. And we just got to push, I think as a population, you have to fight for that.

Because like there's something to be said about seeing someone genuinely smile at you or nod or see the, not the nod, but like to see the eyes interact with the bottom half of the bloody face. I don't even know why I have to talk about this so much anymore. Because it's like everybody's felt and experienced it where you can't tell if the person. person's actually like, that person, they, I'm trying to smile at them, but I just realize all they can see is I'm kind of like twisting my head a little bit and they can't figure out what I'm doing. My favorite psychologist, the one that I've read a ton about ever since having our daughter Violet, is a guy named Renee Gerard. And he talks all about how basically from the moment you're born. And I didn't realize this until I became a parent. You know, a child can't speak for the first 12 to 18 months of. their life. So all they have is crying, laughing, neutral, and them mimicking your faces. So like all they're doing all the time is watching your face and seeing what is dad looking at? What is dad

excited about? What is going on with dad? And they make the same facial reactions. So when we figured out that COVID was not impacting children in the same way that it was adults, then anytime somebody came over, we were like, please remove your mask. like please like interact with our child because I think that the only time that a child really can learn how to gauge facial reactions is when they're super young you take that away from them they're fucked for their whole life so I was telling you before I came on I was interviewing a guy from Onion Lake right and he was telling me about um a bunch of different things in his past and so I one of the questions I've been I've been searching for for a long time an answer to that I haven't really got a great answer to is been, I have four siblings, so there's five of us. And the statistics say,

one of us should have got into drugs or been an alcoholic or something, right? And we've all, you know, like dabbled and sure, whatever you want, and sure, do we like beer and whatever? Yeah, yeah, but like none of it is taken over anyone's life. Okay? So this guy tonight is telling me

when he was younger, he was dealing with a lot of the stuff from the residential school into a whole just plethora stuff. And he dealt with it with alcohol. And now with his grandkids, so a generation passed, he's sober, he's come to terms with some of the things that went on in his life. And he's like, and they will never see that out of me. So I'm hoping, or basically what he's saying is, uh, I can pass that on to my grandkids. kids. They don't have to live in a, around alcohol and anger and stuff that comes with it like that. And it's the first time I've ever had anyone say kind of what you're saying with the mass and the smiling and how they interact, but kids pick up on so much more, and it just dawned on me tonight,

so much more than just the facial expressions and even how you're interacting with other adults and everything else. Did that make sense? Oh yeah, man. I mean, I mean, I, Like my dad, when I was something like, I don't know, 13 years old or 14 years old, quit drinking. And I have literally no memory at all of him drinking. Zero. I don't remember it. And my brothers and sisters that are older than me are like, oh, yeah, dad used to tie one on. He'd have some friends over.

They'd really, you know, yuck it up. I have no memory of it. And I think, like, that's a really good thing for me because I think, like, probably genetically, I have that pull to be, to be, to have alphableness. alcohol be a real problem for me. And because I didn't watch my father do that over and over and over again or watch him make a fool of himself or do those things. Like it was definitely a major benefit in my life. And, uh, and I imagine that just has to do with, I saw a dad do it and I'm just mimicking what he, what he was doing and, and not even realize that you're, that so much of your life is really mimicking the people that you were around when you were a child. Yeah, that's, that one hit me like a ton of bricks it just i don't know why it's i'm just like that makes a lot of sense right obviously the friends you surround yourself is no different than right if you surround yourself with good people that have the best in mind for you that's going to do good things for you this is very similar and i guess it just i'd never thought of it like that way so that makes a lot of sense

to me now i've kept you past your bedtime and i want to make sure that you get you know not the hand tingling. So I want to slide in the crewmaster final five. I do appreciate you coming back on, Vance, and you're always welcome to come back on because I, I don't know, I, the hour is kind of just like where to go, right? This is the most fun that I have on a podcast. This is more fun than doing my podcast. I really enjoy talking with you, Sean. I think you're an exceptional listener, and I think you just, you really have a gift. And you've asked me before, like, I don't, I don't blow smoke up people's asses. Like, I will only tell you what I really think. I think you really have a gift here. Well, compliments are such a weird thing, you know? Like, do you want to be complimented? Yeah,

sure. But it just, I don't know, it almost feels uncomfortable. Like, I'm, I think so highly of you, Vance and what you do, I listen to your, obviously, I listen to your podcast. But then I'm, you know, you invite me into the, the book club and everything. And it's been a lot of fun. It's just been to see what you've built and to be a part of it. And to get that feedback, it's uncomfortable. I don't know how better to explain that. a shout out to Quick Dick McDick and it should really be like a big shout out to people like him that say, you know, bring people together because I think that we found each other because of him and he's a great dude and you should just give him a shout out. Well, a non-superhero non-hockey guy

meets a hockey superhero guy. Yeah, yeah, that is that is an odd, isn't it? Well, here's your final five, okay? I am edging closer to my white whale, which is the guy that I've been working on. not Wayne Grexky for everybody listening. It is a guy that I've been trying to get for since I started the podcast and it has taken a lot of bloody work. And I'm getting very close. I'm curious. Does Vance Crow have a white whale that he's trying to get on? You know, I've not pursued it, but I do have somebody that I would love to talk with and that is Peter Thiel. I think that man is genius. I often use what I call the Peter Thiel paradox on my on my podcast. You know, what's one thing that that you think that no one agrees with you on.

And I would really enjoy a long form podcast. But, you know, you've talked to me. I haven't, it just never really dawned on me that I could. And because we've- I tell you what, if you get that guy, I'll be the first listener you get, because everybody, if there's one thing I know about you, is that question, heck, you asked me,

and I was like, ah, wow, I don't know. I'd love to hear you go at it with them. That'd be a lot of fun. I will. I'll start working on it tomorrow. All right. One event you have to experience. You want to experience, but you haven't yet. Ooh. I never been to a rodeo, and I really think I would enjoy that. I don't know if that counts, but I know that Canadians, like, when they heard... F&A, that counts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never been to a rodeo. I would really enjoy that.

Come up to Canada, not this year, because hopefully by next summer it's a little better. Next summer, you come up here. we'll treat you to a good time. We'll show you a rodeo. I'd love that. I would love, love, love that. Podcast you're listening to now. It's a double up from the first time, but I'm always curious on what Vance Crowe has his ear to and keeping up to date with things. So there is a guy named Jim Rutt, who he has a podcast. He was a CEO. He's kind of a savant, very intelligent guy. He's in his 70s. I've had him on the podcast a couple of times. and he's focused on a thing called Game B. So he succeeded wildly, sold a company for $15 billion when he was running network solutions. And he basically has said, if all of us pursue winning on Game A, there won't be enough resources.

We aren't going to have meaning. Society doesn't work well in this thing. So he wants to start a game B, which is to figure out how could you establish small communities, probably at Dunbar's number, 130 people or less, and have people live in communities where they get a lot of meaning and value out of being with one another. And I think it's a wild idea that has very little hope of working, but he interviews people that give me a lot of hope

and make me think about things differently. And when you're pursuing something like that, it's always interesting to cheer people on. So Jim Rutz podcast, the Jim Rutt Show. The Jim Rutt Show. Okay. What's yours? The shows that I'm listening to? Yeah. I've been listening to 222 minutes. He's a guy who's, well, he's been on the podcast twice.

He's kind of like a quick dick McDick when he first started out, except he really doesn't want people to know who he is, so he never uses his name. And he does podcasts that are probably 10 to 20 minutes long, pretty quick. And it's all about Canadian politics and what's going on in our society, except from a point of view that's like Quick Dick, right? Like where he shows the absurdity of what's going on. It's a little more colorful than Quick Dick. He's got a few more F bombs and everything else.

He gets me laughing out loud quite often. But he's a guy that is a writer. So it isn't garbage. Like it isn't just a guy going off on a on a tangent and just saying Trudeau's an idiot like what he says really is thought out well and has very nice punchlines and everything else. He gets he's an odd guy to have. He's a fun guy to have on the podcast, but he's odd in the sense he wants to know what we're going to talk about because he doesn't like not knowing what he's talking about when he go off in the sidebranch. He loves it like after he's like man, that was a lot of fun. But he's like, I just want to know so I can have everything in front of me so I get my facts straight.

like, you know, he's very meticulous in his details, I guess. Wait, is this the reporter guy? Man, I listened to one of your interviews where you interviewed this reporter that was a wild, wild stuff. Byron Christopher. That's what you're talking about. That was nuts, man. That was insane.

Anybody that's listening to this podcast, if you've come this far, stop what you're doing and go listen to Byron Christopher. Yeah, that was a wild story, wasn't it? Oh, man, that was great. I would listen to that guy. You and him talk for a long time. I tell you what, I'll try and get them back on. How's that? I'll work on getting them back. Yeah.

What's one world event right now you're following closely? You know, you mentioned the riots in, what was it, South Africa? Yeah, so I think, I think. Is that the one? I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. I think that like we're in like a really tumultuous time right now. And I'm not hitting the fear button with COVID. But the Haitian president was just killed by hired killers. The South African president was just arrested, which then prompted mobs, which then prompted shop owners to pull out, you know, assault rifles and shotguns and actually started shooting at protesters and mob people. And my belief is that much of the chaos that's gone on in the U.S. right now is really a luxury that we have, right? We have like enough stability that if somebody

burns down a target or they burn down a tire store, people can move on with their lives. But the rest of the world doesn't work like that. And people had their lives ruined here. I'm not saying that. I don't want to minimize it, but they had insurance or there might be somebody that will come along and help them. But in other parts of the world, if you do that same mob mentality, you're talking about people that literally won't be able to feed their families the next week. And I think that the U.S. has had the mind virus go on and it's spreading around in the world while other things of great importance, presidents being arrested and shot. And I think that it is very likely that this can spin out of control. And so I would watch for developing countries and their leaders being killed as that that's what I'm watching right now. I think it's very, very serious. Well, we're going to leave it there again, sir.

I tell you what, man, I enjoy every time we sit down and talk. One of these days, I plan on making it to St. Louis so that we can do this a little more properly across the table from one another, maybe a fine glass of scotch from somewhere and actually have in person, you know, getting to do it with Quick Dick was pretty cool. It was pretty quick, you know, considering what we were doing with the bikes and everything. But it was still really nice to like actually meet a guy that you create a connection with through, you know, like the weird world we live in. Like amazing, but it's strange to grow a friendship through virtual reality book club and podcasts and whatever, right? Like that's odd, but that is 2021. And I've really enjoyed this once again.

And well, I'll have you back on Vance anytime. You know that. And yeah, thanks for hopping on. Thanks, man. I really appreciate being on. Hey, folks. Thanks for joining us today. If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe.

Then scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review. I promise it helps. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast fix. Until next time. Hey, Kieners, thanks for tuning in today.

I got tons of guests suggestions rolling in, but I'm always curious who you guys are interested in hearing, and if you got some guest suggestions, text me, find me on social media. I always love hearing who you guys want to, you know, get me to try and bring on the podcast. I can't guarantee anything, but at the same token, I love hearing your suggestions

and where your guys' thoughts are, and who you want to see and hear from. So if you got any ideas, by all means, throw them to me once again through text, social media, that kind of thing. Otherwise, enjoy the lake, enjoy the heat. Summer is here. Let's not complain too much about the heat. I mean, soon enough, it'll be minus 40 and we'll be complaining about that. So go enjoy the day and enjoy the rest of your week. We'll catch up to you Monday.