MEN|TAL MEN|TALITY with Branden and Patrick
Podcast focusing on men's mental health, entpreneurism and Dad life
MEN|TAL MEN|TALITY with Branden and Patrick
Episode 1
Pending
Hey guys, welcome to the um mental mentality podcast. Uh I'm Patrick Murakami. I'm Brandon Hickman. And guys, this is our uh I don't know if we call this our pilot episode, but you know, this has been something that has been in the works for a long time. I'm really excited. Um, I know if there's always some tech stuff when you're trying to get set up, and it seems like everything tries to keep you down when you first get started. But part of that is kind of like the whole reason why we started this, you know. So why don't you kick us off and just kind of talk about how kind of this came to be and really what the expectation is for people who are going to tune in?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sure. Uh, you know, Patrick, I think, you know, we bet we met ourselves through business. Obviously, we do a lot of work together and we just grew a friendship up from there. And um, you know, learning your story and then you learning my story. And I honestly don't even think we touched the surface of what you and I even went through. But, you know, when we decided to do this, which has been six months, a year, however long we've talked about doing this, you know, when our families finally sat down and was like, hey, let's let's let's do this, it just really gave me us an opportunity to share our stories, but then also not just in the mental mentality part of things, but also in the entrepreneurship side of things, um, being a father, being business owners, uh running through that with mental illnesses or or um just day-to-day problems that everybody does have, but they stay silent in it typically, right? Especially the men's side of things, because that's the stigma. But, you know, everything came together so organically. I don't think we forced anything. I don't think we tried to um make this something it wasn't gonna be. It just came together so perfectly and so easily that I just, you know, it just, I mean, obviously there was some work, there was some tech stuff that we went through today, and it took a lot of time to set up, but you know, we had to buy some stuff. But regardless, here we are. And um, you know, I think this is gonna be good. But as far as expectation goes, I mean, I just think the average man or woman, I mean, I don't think this necessarily has to be just uh just a men's thing. I think I think women are gonna tune into here on how their husbands or their boyfriends or their sons, even or whatever, you know, or even themselves. I mean, there's stuff that we're gonna talk about in this podcast that are going to hit the hearts of a lot of people, including the women, you know, as far as the mental mentality part, you know, that idea came to me from you know the men, the men part of each word. And I just know if there was something that I could tune into when I was going through my darkest times like this, I think my uh recovery would have been faster, if you will. Right. And then trying to run a business, trying to pay the bills, trying to be a good husband, you know, all that stuff, man. It just it adds up, and I just didn't have an outlet for it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and so before we kind of dive in, I I do want to say this, right? You you know, I ran a podcast before, I had guested on over 50 episodes, I had hosted over 200 episodes, you know, in various platforms. I used to live stream on Twitch, and I thought I was done with all of that. But when we talked about this, there was no resistance, it was like, yes, you need to do this because you have the story, you have, you know, you've come from to showcase what you've been through. So what I loved is that, like you said, coming through it organically and that there was no force. And again, I I got really excited about the idea of running a podcast again, uh, because I got so burnt out on it before that I was kind of like, I don't know if I would do that again. Sure, you know, so I'm really excited about that. Um, you know, you touched on that, you know, this is gonna have impact on a lot of people, and like again, you know, just in talking about this, you know, so many people were excited, so many people were were interested. And so, you know, I do want us to go into kind of sharing some of that stuff so we can get really into it, but I also want to set the expectation for people that like it's not always gonna be emotionally intensive, sure, right? Sometimes it will be some of it. I mean, you know, this is kind of our opportunity to kind of get stuff out, and so just because we're saying the stuff and because it's fresh to us doesn't mean it's always gonna resonate with everyone, and that's okay. But what we do want people to know is that this is coming from a place of honesty, this is coming from a perspective of us of where we're what we're dealing with and what we're seeing, and so like one of the things that I want to bring up and address really immediately is that like for women entrepreneurs, there are so much support, right? And for men entrepreneurs, like there's support if you go to a networking group, right, or for the circle that around you, but the minute that something goes wrong, there's no support for men entrepreneurs, right? Female entrepreneurs can talk about that. Part of it's because we don't talk about the problems and the things that we're suffering through. And again, a lot of business owners don't talk about those things anyway, right? But especially men.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, great point, dude. I mean, you know, for myself too, I mean, I didn't realize how many. I mean, there's a lot of things that I stay silent in in my business because I don't try and stress out my employees. I try not to bring it home and stress out my wife, and you know, rather we have a$2,000 week or we have a$20,000 week. You know, I try and just kind of keep all that to myself. And I just not because I necessarily am struggling with it, because business has its peaks and valleys and it always will, and money will come and go as it comes. But, you know, as I talk to other men specifically, um, they're like, oh, dude, I'm going through the same thing, man. There's$20,000 in the bank account on Monday and it's Friday, and now there's$4,000 in the bank account, you know? So it's not, but you're absolutely right. I mean, I think as far as women entrepreneurs go, they're a lot more, it's a lot more freeing for them to have conversations within not just like, I don't want to say like a group or like a like a like a what is that word? They can confide into each other. Yeah, for sure. And I feel like we can do that as men too, but I also feel like um what's the word I'm trying to say? Not tribal, but like communal, community.
SPEAKER_01:Help me out here.
SPEAKER_00:No, um like you're like back in the day, like you pick pick your pick yourself up by the bootstraps mentality. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you just keep going no matter what it is. You can't quit. You gotta keep going. You got family to feed, people are hungry, and you know, whatever, you know.
SPEAKER_01:So throw some dirt on it. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I mean, and and you touched on this always not being an emotional intent, dude. I mean, I want to have we're gonna have fun with this. We're gonna have guests on here at some point, um, different different entrepreneurs, different business owners, different mental mentalities, meant different mental illnesses, and how they overcome and their recovery and how they did it. And yeah, sure, all that's gonna be some of it's gonna be emotionally intensive, but also like we're here to have fun, man. I don't want this to be uh, you know, you said you were burnt out, like I don't want that. Like I want to be, I was excited to come here today. Yeah, and then after the heat and like all the setup, I was like, oh man, what are we doing? But no, we got it all set up, we're good, but yeah, so that's where I'm at.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for sure. So let's kind of just dive right in, you know. Um I'm sure that you have people who are tuning in, and a lot of them, you know, obviously there's huge support for this, but let's talk about kind of your story.
SPEAKER_00:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:And ultimately, maybe then we'll kind of give some insights to why this is so important. And again, we it's it's a weird spot that we're in because while we have more awareness than we've ever had, we have more resources, it still feels very taboo to talk about mental health, especially for men.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, to to talk about therapy, to talk about your emotions, you know, all those different things. And so, you know, why don't you share kind of what led you, um, what you've gone through essentially, and then you know, keep in mind, you know, guys, as you're listening, that we're throwing in entrepreneuri entrepreneurship as a business owner. You're throwing in being a father, a son, and again, moms, yes, there are plenty of single moms that do a lot of this, wear a lot of different hats, a lot of dads, single dads who wear the same different hats. So it's not a comparison game, but we just want you to give you some insights as to kind of what led us to get here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, man. I mean, you know, I was, you know, growing up, going into my early 20s. I was just grinding, dude. I was just doing job after job. I was working 20 hour days, you know, I was doing I was drinking six or seven energy drinks a day, you know, just trying to just make it work, dude. And I had this horrible mentality with like money, and I was always like in this like mindset of lack. And just everything. I just I just felt like I was very confident, but also kind of like behind the scenes I was falling apart, right? And I and I know that's such like cliche to say like everybody knew, you know, I I seemed like I was okay, but behind the scenes I wasn't. Like it wasn't necessarily like that because I didn't even know what was I didn't know what was happening to me until it happened to me, right? But it led up so fast, and um I guess it didn't lead up so fast. It did it definitely took his time, but it just everything piled on top of each other, and then eventually my brain just broke. You know, that's that's the only way I can describe it is my brain broke. And there's other reasons why I think that happened, but I'll get I'll get into that later. I want to kind of just go through the main events of the story of what happened, but you know, working 20-hour days, you know, my wife at the time had severe depression, so she wasn't working. It was very um, and I didn't know how to love her through that at the time. So I just I fixed my emotions on being angry with her and being resentful towards her. So, you know, I had resentment at home, I had anger at home, I would go to work, I'd be stressed out all day because I wasn't making enough money. I knew that, which is so funny because my bills now are so much more than they were 10 years ago, and I just feel a lot more freer now, you know. So, but you know, as far as all that stuff leading up working, the energy drinks, the cigarettes, the weed, like everything just kind of just piled up, right? And it kept piling up. And I started getting these chest pains, dude. And I didn't know what they were coming from, I didn't know why it was happening, and I started freaking myself out, went to the doctor, went and sought a cardiologist, and I created this like hypochondria mindset in my mind that everything was, you know, something was wrong with me, right? Like, and and and the doctors were wrong. I knew something was wrong, and it was anxiety, and that's exactly what the doctors were telling me. Yeah, and eventually, you know, I was having I was having panic attacks all day, every day, five, six, seven panic attacks a day, wasn't able to sleep. Um, you know, we talked about insomnia earlier, and that was definitely like a time in my life where I just wasn't fucking sleeping. Right. And I was just staying awake all night long, knowing that my household was asleep and that I could possibly die right now, and no one would ever know until I woke up in the morning, until they woke up in the morning, right? From a heart attack or like which eventually I convinced myself that I was having strokes. I was convincing myself that I was having MS. I was convincing myself that I was um creating this disease that no one ever heard of. You know, I started creating things, and dude, our thoughts, man, like our thoughts create our reality in some type of way, I believe. And I just think that it just started, it just started spiraling downhill. And then one day, dude, we were all sitting at Papa Doe's up in Denver, having crab legs, and I had a panic attack. Okay. So I went in the bathroom, dude. I tried to shake it off, threw up in the bathroom, like went back, like obviously went back to the table and was trying to just be normal, but I just couldn't, dude. And I was like, man, I just can't shake this. So we get home, trying to unravel, trying to figure out what was going on. And that's what I think was happening too, is my brain was trying to figure out what was going wrong because that's what our brains do, they solve problems, right? And it just couldn't figure out what was going on. And I was like, okay, let me just try and go to sleep. And it just it, I always tell people I had a panic attack that never went away. I lived in this panic for two years, and every day and all night, as soon as like I would get like two or three hours of sleep, but I would have to take Xanax to do it because it would just calm my mind, it would be able, I would be able to kind of just drift off. But then I would wake up and immediately I would feel exactly what I felt the night before.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_00:And there are so many mornings I woke up and I was like, man, I just can't wait to get back in this bed because it was my safe place, but also I still had a job to do and I still had a family to support. Right. And at the time I didn't have as many kids as I had now. I had one kid, she was five years old, and when I had this nervous breakdown or whatever, you know, my wife wasn't working.
SPEAKER_01:Um you didn't have the luxury to deal with it.
SPEAKER_00:I just didn't exactly like I just couldn't I just couldn't stop grinding because of how I felt. And you know, I never I can honestly say, like, I never actually wanted to commit suicide, but I understood why people do it. But I also at the time read that a lot of hypochondriacs actually are so in love with life, and that's why they didn't want to. That's you know, that's a a lot of those anyway, a lot of them. So I think I I live I lived in that category where I was in love with life, but I was going through this thing that I couldn't get out of. And there were times where I was just like, man, I I get why death is the only way out of this. And you know, going through what I went through opened up my eyes in a lot of different ways that I'll get into a little bit later. But I mean, that was basically, and after those two years, man, it was like after I realized, like, okay, it's been two years, I'm not dead, I still have this mindset of something's wrong with me. And just like the brain fog all day, every day. And what I mean by sometimes they're like, what do you mean your brain's foggy? Like, I don't like there's some people out there that don't know what that means, and it just it it just feels like there's a cloud over all your thoughts, like you just feel very cloudy, right? Like, I don't know how would you explain brain fog to somebody?
SPEAKER_01:I think it's just um you think of it kind of like a like a plumbing system, right? Sure, you have all these thoughts, and when you process and and you formulated, they come out of your mouth, right? But that brain fog kind of clogs, and so none of those ideas come out, sure, nothing comes out the way that you want it to, or the way that you envision because of that clog.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and totally, and you know, on top of that, dude, I was like all my muscle tension and from the panic attacks and always being in fight or flight mode. I I think my body like naturally went into this like fetal position, even when I was up and doing things about, right? And I just, dude, like I said, man, there were so many days I woke up and I was like, I just can't wait to get back home. And then even when I got home, dude, it was just still panic mode. Like I wasn't present as a father, I wasn't present as a husband, I wasn't able to love my wife through what she was going through. And and but like I said, after the two years, and I was like, dude, I'm not not dying, but there's gotta be a way out of this, right? And so I started doing research on how to rewire your brain, and it didn't happen overnight. And I read a lot of books, you know, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Carolyn Leaf, you know, people like that that have done it and have taught other people how to do it. I just started diving in, bro. I was reading all the time, and it's like almost became it didn't almost it became obsessive. Like my condition became like an OCD, like it was a disorder for sure. Like my wife was like, dude, are you on Google again? I'm like, yes, I'm like, this, this is what I'm feeling this time, and it was always something different, right? Like one day it was my head, one day it was my stomach, one day it was brain fog, one day it was all of it, one day I felt like I was dying. Like the only way I can describe like the the the feeling that my body felt is like you ever you ever get the shit scared out of you, and like you like have that panic for like a split second, and then your body kind of recovers. I just felt like that all the time. I just felt scared, yeah. But of nothing, right? But of something, yeah, you know. So I just, you know, down those roads, dude. I mean, this is year seven, and after this nervous breakdown happened, and it's taken me a long time to get to where I'm at, and I'm still not perfect. I still have my bad days, I still have my moments where I don't feel good. I still have um, you know, I still get daily headaches, but I think it's all from the tension. But as my body started to learn, like, okay, we're safe, like we're good. This is just something we're going through right now. It started, everything started to diminish very slowly. Yeah. And at the end of the day, dude, I just think I went through something that I was supposed to go through to change me into the person that I am today. And I think that's a that's a big thing that a lot of people don't realize is you're not sick, man. You're just you're transforming into something else. Yeah and you're shedding your ego, you're shedding all of your beliefs that you had from the moment you were born to the moment of this breakdown, and you're shedding all those beliefs that no longer serve you. And that's it's like being buried alive but still breathing, right? Like that's the only way that I can describe it is that I was buried alive, dude, and I I didn't know how to get out of it, and I was stuck, and the only way out of it was through it. And now that I'm on the other side of it, man, dude, life is so much more beautiful than it ever has been.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So, I mean, that's pretty much it, dude. I mean, there's a lot more that I can go into that I think we can get into other episodes, but that's the that's the main Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and there's a couple of things in there that I wanted to kind of circle back to, right? Um you talked about the isolation piece, right? And the insomnia piece. And I I truly believe that we are designed for connection.
SPEAKER_00:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:And so the worst thing, and I noticed this with me um with the the suicide, right, is what at my most vulnerable moments was when I was alone. When I couldn't talk to somebody. I remember even if there was someone random on Facebook, then they're just on my friends list, I would message people. And I think that was my cry for help. But there, if nobody was available, it was just me and my thoughts, which is kind of the worst, right? Because we're our our own worst enemy, but the human spirit is also kind of our biggest uh supporter when we need it the most. It's very weird. Sure. Um, but it's also a very beautiful thing because of the things that I've done, right? Having to cross the line uh that most people would wouldn't dare, right? Um, for the longest time it was like this mark of shame. Like people walked around and I felt like that they were kind of doing this, right? They're giving me the cross, like, oh my god, I don't want to catch the suicides.
SPEAKER_00:Right, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01:You know, but it's what's interesting is that like now I can go back to it and I and I I refer to it as like the beautiful struggle. And people who are going through pain don't understand that, but there is a whole nother life on waiting for you on the other side. And then it's weird to say that because people can't see beyond like the fog that they're going through, or they they can't see beyond this darkness, there's no light for them. And I remember plotting, I remember figuring out like, man, how do I make this look like an accident? Man, who am I gonna leave these things uh to? Who is gonna who can I make hurt the least through this process? But to come through all of that and and really get really intricate, get really detailed to basically say, Hey, I want you, you know, and it's like in your mind, you're like, okay, who's likely to find this? How can I make it so someone else finds it? And then it, you know, and then you start thinking, like, man, who's gonna show up to my funeral? Yeah, for sure. Is my father gonna realize then that maybe he's proud of me at that point, or or is he gonna have any remorse? You know, and then you just think of all these things, right? And it and it just like then it becomes pressure, right? And it's like, well, shit, I couldn't deal with the pressure with all this. What makes me think I can deal with the pressure of of leaving this behind? And it just adds. And when you actually attempt suicide, and then you realize that you failed, then you're like, Man, I couldn't even accomplish the one thing that I thought would fix all of this.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Now I'm even a bigger fucking loser because I couldn't even do that now. Sure. And I have the shame on top of it, and now people look at me, and so it's like, what the hell am I gonna do now? Because if I couldn't do that and I'm still here, maybe I'm just made to suffer. And that's like the ultimate darkness, man. Like, where do I go from here because I can't even complete the one thing that I thought was gonna fix it all.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Yeah, that t yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, as far as the isolation piece, man, you're absolutely right. I mean, you sitting alone with your thoughts is absolutely the worst. I think my you know, I think my situation was a little bit it's I feel like it's different from most because I had such a I had such a big support system. You know, I had a wife that loved me, I had a mom that loved me, a family that loved me, and and I would talk, but you know, you're right, when I was alone at nighttime and everybody else was asleep, and I would I would have a I would have a panic attack in silence. And there were times I would wake up my wife and be like, hey, like I don't feel good, like I feel like I'm having a panic attack, like I don't know, like and she would sit with me, but then I would feel bad, keeping her up because she's got shit to do tomorrow, you know, she's got a kid to raise too tomorrow, and you know, she doesn't feel good herself, but I'm so wrapped up in isolation, even though I had a really big support system. Like I said, dude, there was just no way out of it. And the isolation piece I felt isolated all the time. And I think that was on purpose. And I just felt like something needed to be shed it needed to be shedded from me to be able to come out on the other side. But dude, I remember sitting at nighttime, man, just either they were dreams or daydreaming or whatever. I don't remember, but there was times where I would wake up sweating because I just had a dream or I convinced myself that I sh I I shot myself. Like it was a weird, but I would but like I said, I never like internally like planned a suicide, I never planned to kill myself. I didn't want to leave the earth. I wanted to be I just wanted to be better. I just wanted to feel like I used to feel. And but there were dreams where I would I would see myself blasting myself and I would wake up and like, no, that's not what I want, but like that's what like I maybe that was just my subconscious being like, hey man, like this is like we're talking about death here, and this is what you're feeling every day, right? But then absolutely, the how who's gonna show up to my funeral, who am I gonna leave behind? Who's gonna be sad?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, who's gonna be happy, which is a weird thought to think, right? Like, who's gonna be happy that I'm gone? I don't who knows, but yeah, you're absolutely right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, and it's crazy when you realize that suffering has no bias. Yeah, right. Um, and the sad part, again, part of this is the isolation, is that most of us just suffer in silence because it's taboo to talk about these thoughts. It's God, if somebody knows what I'm actually thinking, they're gonna judge me instead of they're gonna want to help me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01:For sure. And that's part of that is the unbalance of the timeline that we grew up in, right? And so, you know, it's not just men who are like told rub dirt on it. I mean, women were told, you know, be a lady, don't show anger.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01:And so no wonder we have zero balance. And so, how can we talk about being balanced people when we've grown up unbalanced with the way that we were taught?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then we have to turn around and say, Oh, yeah, I'm gonna be a better parent than what I was given. But a lot of times it's the same cycles because we don't ever break them because we don't ever recognize that that was a problem.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, how about like how many people are walking around this earth not self-aware? Most people, right? Like, I would say most people are just out there reacting to everything. Yeah, they're not self-aware of their thoughts, they're not self-aware of how they're communicating to people, they're not self-aware of how they're coming across to people, and they lay their head down at night and they don't lose. I mean, they might lose an inch of sleep, but like a lot of them, they just that's just the way they think that they are. That's just the way that they think that they're programmed and that's how they live. But then also, how many people don't realize that your thoughts are not a part of you? You're just observing them. That you know, that was a main thing for me is that I'm I'm thinking all these things, so I must want to do these things, or I it must be real, or it must be the truth. In reality, we have 60, 70,000 thoughts a day, and 90% of those are the same thoughts we had yesterday.
SPEAKER_01:80% of what we say is actually regurgitated from other people. Yeah, for sure. Right. And so I use this example all the time. Like I was at work and I told this guy, Oh, I went to go see the new It movie. And he was like, Oh, was it scary? And I was like, Yeah, I guess it was, right? So then the next time I go to tell somebody, I was like, Yeah, I went to go see the new It movie, it was pretty scary. And someone's like, Oh, what was really scary about it? And the next person says, Oh, I didn't think it was that scary. So then now I'm like, have to formulate this opinion. Was it scary? Was it not scary? And so the next person I choose, then it becomes a formulated opinion, right? Or then maybe it comes where it's regurgitated a little bit of both. Hey, I went to go see the new it scary parts of it were kind of scary, but overall it wasn't scary, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's weird how we just literally repeat and regurgitate what other people are saying. But if you listen to conversations, if you look at it statistically, a lot of the stuff that we say is literally just regurgitation of what somebody else said. So then you realize that maybe the thoughts that we put out are just repeat processes of something that somebody else is saying or what they're learning. Um, I have a friend who basically he loves attending trainings, he loves mentality stuff, but he gets fixated on that one person that taught him, and then he goes and follows and he's regurgitating everything that that one person says instead of trying to combine all the things that he's learned. You know, so it is a weird process in the human psyche. Um and it's you know, part of it is like I know that people are just trying to process and get through day-to-day, right? So it's easier to just go with the flow, but it's also a very dangerous game to play because then at one point, like you said, that shedding of your ego, that shedding of basically becoming your own person, that's a hard line to walk through. I tell people the hardest thing I ever had to do was face myself, look myself in the mirror, and say, You're a decent person, you deserve to live, you deserve happiness. I'm like, I I just try to kill myself. How can I find that? You know, and so when you think of all the things that are there, there's so many layers, there's so many different things, and we just never know what people are going through. But it's easy to judge, but we also know most of the people when they're judging, it's basically because they're putting out and they're judging all the worst parts of themselves.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of people they just don't know, dude. They just don't know. Like it's they don't know why they are the way that they are. They never they never try to retract and heal whatever happened in their trauma hood or their trauma or their childhood or whatever trauma happened when they were a teenager or an adult or whatever, you know. Usually some hurt people hurt people, right?
SPEAKER_01:So let it be known, healed people also healed people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely for sure, dude. And I think that's the transformation, right? Is that you know, the the heaven and hell part of things, like you know, it's like where is where that there's that line where you're Right. I mean, heal people do heal people, and and and it, but there's a transformation that can happen from being hurt to being healed and being able to do what you and I are trying to do and help people through this transformation or this shedding. Uh I mean, you know, people use animals all the time, like a snake shedding his skin or a caterpillar going into his cocoon, like all that's painful. Right. You know, I don't know how much of how much painful a snake is shedding, you might know, but as far as like I know a sunburn hurts like hell, so like right, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly apparently is like really excruciating, excruciating, right? So but yeah, dude, I mean I just think that people are so and it this all really helped me learn that it just made me more compassionate, right? And I'm sure the same for you too, but it also made me understand that like, oh, you are the way that the you are because of something that happened to you or something that you're going through. It's not necessarily you're not mad at me because I have to redo your window tent because of a dust particle in there. I was just the last straw because you're picking up on the last day. You might have had a shitty day, you had a shitty week, shitty month, shitty year, whatever. And I'm just the person that was the easiest to blow up on.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Because it really at the end of the day isn't that big of a deal. Takes me 30 minutes, I'll do it. And it's happened numerous around times. And as I grow, I just, dude, you know what, man? I'm gonna take care of it for you. I love you anyway. Yeah, you know, and I think that is where if we can get the world to map the mentality of like everybody's going through shit, but if we can just love people through it instead of judging them and expecting I think a lot more people will come out on the other side without having the death part of things. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01:And it's a it's an interesting spot to be in, right? Because the world judges, social media teaches us to judge, right? Um and the internet was the the best and the worst thing, right? It's a double-edged sword to give people a free voice without accountability. But also at the same time, people at the end of the day, like I said, you know, we crave the ability to connect. We want to be able to communicate, to be able to have somebody that we can call a friend or a lover or whatever, right? We want compatibility, we want to be able to have um companionship in some way, shape, or form. But it's interesting because, especially now with AI, it's getting to this point where people are disconnecting from each other and they're connecting more on the online or the digital uh realm, which is a dangerous game to play in itself. So it is kind of interesting timeline where we're at with again having more access to resources and having stuff stuff like where AI could be a companion, but also at the same time you're disconnecting more from the real world, you know. So it's a weird time that and a weird place to be in right now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, dude, and it's happening really fast. You know, when the internet came out, they didn't know how fast it was gonna grow. And I think we're in the same spot now is that people just don't know how fast AI is gonna grow. But what we were talking about earlier, dude, people making money off feet picks from not even their own feet, their AI made-up feet, you know, and just you're absolutely right, dude. Like, you have to be pretty, you have to do this, you have to do that, you have to have six-pack abs to be, and a pretty girl with big boobs and and and a nice ass or whatever, you know. And that I see it in my daughter, you know, my daughters where I'm like, dude, like you gotta stop. But like, also, how do you stop? Like, this is just the world you grew up in. You and I were able to grow up in a world where we saw it before it happened. Yeah, like we lived it before all the technology and all the shit happened. Yeah, so I think for us it's a lot easier to shut that off if we need to, but with them, dude, it's I mean, I'm sure it's the same with Maddox too, man. Like it's like always in their face all the time, every day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we grew up in a timeline where there were ugly ducklings that turned into beautiful swans, right? Sure. These kids, they know no idea what an ugly duckling could be become someday, right? Yeah, just you're either ugly or you're not to them. Yeah, it's so weird.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But like, how many how many girls do you see walking around? Like, does anybody go through an ugly phase anymore? That's what I'm saying. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:Like, yeah, that's that was my whole point. Like, we we knew that you know, the girl who is kind of like maybe shy, she didn't wear makeup, or you know, just we knew at some point that you know some of the ugly girls could become beautiful, right? Yeah, sure. Um, but nowadays it's like there's no such thing. Like you you're born into it, you're uh you do everything you can from a young age, and you're not you've never been ugly, right? Yeah, and that's a weird concept as I think about it, because I'm like, man, everybody always had a chance, right? There's and now it's like nobody has a chance, or everybody has a chance, depending on how you look at it. It's so weird.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's we live in some strange times, man. It's like the best and the worst time to live in for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Like, and I think about this for like, you know, my son, like he's sitting there and we went to um a beach in Los Angeles, and you know, LA, everybody's dolled up or whatever. We're going to the beach, and you know, we're joking around about like him seeing cake and all this stuff, right? And we came back and he's like, Yeah, I saw a lot of it. And and his mom was like, You're lucky you were in LA because if we were like in Missouri or something, who knows what you would have seen, you know. Um don't get mad, Missouri. Come on now. But you know, the idea really is just like it's crazy that at 10 years old, you know, you have to kind of prepare him for the real life world of what he's going to see. Um, regardless if he is it wants to see it or not, you know, is it better coming from a parent to say, look, these are things that you're going to see. You're going to the beach, you're going to see lots of butts, right? But then also, I know like if we don't have that conversation, he sees it for the first time, what does that look like? You know, so it's so weird to have to prepare for this digital world, this real life world, and then this variation of what you may see online may not be what you see in person.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. I think also when we were growing up, man, we kind of had to be like we had to secretly check out women, right? Like, hey man, look at that over there, you know. And now my daughter's like, Dad, look at that, yeah. Like, oh my God. Like, it's just so it's just out there, dude. Like, and you're right, dude. It's like, how do you like you how do you prepare them? But also, how do you not allow them, how do you allow them to still be a kid when they're supposed to be a kid, right? You know, because Maddox is 12, right? He's 12 plus 10. Okay. So Keely's 12. But it's how do you I don't know, dude. How do you shelter our kids from from but then let them also live their own life? But also, like, I never want my kids to have to go through what I went through. Right. You never want Maddox to go through and and and and possibly think about suicide, right?
SPEAKER_01:Like, that's not Dude, my dad never sat me down to talk about stranger danger. Right? My dad raised three of us by himself. I never had to have that conversation, right? But like I had to literally have this conversation with my son when he was like five years old to say, hey, if somebody offers you candy, what do you say? Right? What what happens if somebody says that they're a friend of mine and I'm not there, right? What are you supposed to do? Like, we never had those conversations. And then but now it's like it's mandatory to have those and and like a yearly check-in on those or a monthly check-in to say, hey, what you know, to just test them to say, hey, what do you do in this situation, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Or to turn around and be like, hey, if somebody offers you this, right, and then you got now you gotta worry about the online scams, right? So can't kids can't even go online and play games without dealing with weirdos that way either. It's it's so crazy.
SPEAKER_00:I can't, dude. I don't know. When I was 12 years old, I was on a bike all all around this town. And I can't even let my kids go into the cult school. Can go down the cells, dude. Like it's just weird, man. Like, you know, and and people are, you know, well, I think your anxiety's taking over. Well, yeah, dude, like fucking kids are ended up missing and we don't even know where they're at.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and again, if if we have no ugly ducklings and your exact daughter's no ugly duckling, yeah, right? And she's got gap. Yeah, dude, there's no way I'm letting her drive down the you know the the the street on a bike. Yeah, dude. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and just even the way, and I know it's always kind of been like this, but like even the way my daughter tries to leave the house sometimes, I'm like, dude, there ain't no fucking way, bro. And what like, but it's not her fault, like all they sell at the stores is crop tops, yes, and all her friends, and all her friends, you know, and all that too. But yeah, dude, it's it's yeah, you're a better man than I.
SPEAKER_01:I don't think I could deal with being a girl dad.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, I have to go through this three times, dude.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't think I could do it, man.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's uh it's okay right now, and it's definitely not like a huge stress in my life. But I mean, we went through some mental stuff with Keely where um I don't know, dude. I don't know if like she was going through stuff and she was just saying things that to get our attention or if she was really feeling this way, but there was a time where like we had to throw her in therapy and she still is like, dude, you gotta work through this, man, because this is not you can't live like this. Yeah, and she's got her own anxieties, and she, you know, every time we leave the house, she thinks we're gonna die. Like, it's like you know, it's just shit like that, dude. That's like, where did that come from? Did that come from us? Did that come from us as parents raising you that way? Because my wife has a lot of anxiety, like, she won't even let my kids like go to a dance camp for two hours, and she'll sit in the parking lot until they're done. Like, I'm like, dude, you gotta just let them go do their thing, man. Like, I get it, but like also you can't let our kids not live based off of your anxieties because that's what that's what our parents did to us.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna give you this crazy stat uh or this crazy fact, I guess. Um, and this fucked me up the first time I heard it. But it says that your kid actually starts training you as young as three months old. And so think about like everybody makes like the the baby coups and the and the cute baby face and trying to get the babies to laugh.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But the babies are training you to see what they can get out of you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01:And so the manipulation of a kid starts as young as six months. Oh, I don't doubt it. And so it's interesting because as parents, we believe we're the authority. We believe, you know, I'm your parent, blah, blah, blah, I'm your father, right? But the reality of it is that our job is really just to facilitate to help them, and hopefully that we've had an impact, that they, you know, have good morals, that they have an understanding of the world, what they want to do, that they're confident. But really, at the end of the day, they're their own people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that is such a hard thing for most people, uh, and people to rap around, especially parents who didn't grow up that or who'd never heard that before. But I remember first time hearing that and I was like, holy shit. And it's true because like when my son was playing football, God, I was the happiest father in the world, right? I was the worst sideline parent father in the world, too, because I'm like, I'm like coaching from the sideline, I'm telling him, like, you need to go out there, blah, blah. And my wife is like, You realize that he's an only child. And I was like, So? She's like, Did you not play the sideline game with when your brother was playing football? You watched him play for years. She goes, he doesn't have cousins to rough house with. She goes, and he's the king of the house, he's the only kid, right? So if I rough the house with him, I get yelled at. But it's that type of mentality and situations that I didn't think of because I just always had a brother that I always played with, right? Yeah. Back when we we could play Smear the Queer. Do you remember that game? Oh, yeah, dude. Totally. Guy, we're gonna get killed on this podcast on the first episode. Um, but you know, it's that type of situations where it's like, I never thought that. Yeah. And so I actually had to go and uh watch videos on how to be a parent instead of a coach on the sideline. And it trust me, like it is a hard thing because like I love football so much. I wanted my son to love football as much as I did, right? And so we would go home and I would spend extra time practicing with him. I'd be in there and I was trying to make it fun, man. I went and bought tackle dummies, and I'm out there tackling it, showing him what it looks like, you know. And it's all fun and games until he goes to practice, and that same experience is not there. Right? He is six years old, and coaches are out there yelling at him, you know, and it was so crazy to realize then that like being a parent, you're a guide. You don't get to really t tell these kids what to do to a certain extent, right? But ultimately at the end of the day, they are going to make their own decisions, and so you're a guide up until the point where they decide that they can make those decisions on their own.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. I'm definitely guilty of that, dude. I mean, mom and I were both super athletes, and Keely's she's getting good at volleyball, but I mean, you just saying that makes me think, like, man, I gotta kind of like fucking dial it back a little bit because there's been times where like I I tell her to do something over and over and over and over again, and she doesn't ever do it. But like when her coaches tell her to do it, she does it. Yeah, and I'm like, wait a second, dude, like I just told you to do the same shit and you didn't do it for three practices. You know, and her mom's the same way. We're and it's just like, but that's how I was like I had someone instilling in me, like, if you want to be the best, you gotta do what everybody else doesn't do. Right. And is that me taking part of is that me taking away part of my kids' childhood? She because she's just she's not doesn't want to be a professional volleyball player. This is just what she's doing right now, right? You know, so being a guide or being a parent versus a coach, I think is a very important step, especially for single parents, or our single, single children parents, because they don't have anybody else to work off of, you know. So I had I had there was five of us, and three boys played basketball or football, and I ran track, played basketball, played volleyball. I was in it all, and I was one of the good ones, you know, and but I always had people to rough house with or teach me or whatever, you know. So um, yeah, dude, that's definitely something I'm guilty of. Thanks for bringing that up because that's something I need to work on myself.
SPEAKER_01:So what uh what I found, and I I really believe in this philosophy now, and I can't remember where um uh uh YouTube, Vimeo, I I watched this, and it was basically like this parent where this girl had a penalty kick, right? She was the last one out of all of uh the teams like high school championship soccer, yeah. And she went to kick and she missed, and she was crying and she was kept blaming herself, and her parents came up to her and said, Hey, if you had kicked the other way, you would have had the same result, right? And they're like, You did good, it just didn't go your way this time. And they showed her a year later, and the girl was in a similar situation, I think it was in a championship game, and she ended up scoring like four or five goals, right? But she also had like two assists or something crazy. And when they went back and they said, you know, when you look at that video versus this video, what was kind of the difference between you being able to miss that penalty kick and recover and come back and have this game? And she says, I had the confidence. And they said, Where did that come from? She said, It came from just doing my job. She goes, There was no pressure for me to do well, there was no pressure for me to be the star of the game. She goes, My coaches gave me a role and I just did my role. When I come home, my parents praise me if I had a good practice or if I have bad practice. There's no pressure for me to be a superstar, I just do my job, my teammates do their job, and when we have that, we're very clutch because we're just doing our job. And that like opened my eyes so much to and I felt so much guilt for being that sideline parent for yelling, you know, trying to teach my kid to do all this stuff and yelling at him. And again, I'm like, man, this is supposed to be when the game is fun.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so I'm like, even now, he doesn't want to go back to play football. And it necessarily what doesn't necessarily from me, the organization ended terribly, the coach ended up getting canned. Uh, he made us choose sides, you know, it was a really ugly situation. But you know, it's a nine-day difference between the football coach that we had and his boxing coach.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_01:You know what I mean? So it it makes a huge difference, but again, you know, kind of being that guide versus being maybe the parent sometimes helps to be able to take that pressure off and just allowing them to just do their do their job.
SPEAKER_00:Well, how much how much do you think got instilled in you as a child that you carried with you through your entire adult adulthood? Oh my gosh. A lot of it.
SPEAKER_01:A lot for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like the pressure of being good at whatever, you know, the pressure of being good at school, the pressure of being good at sports, the pressure of being good at everything, you know, it's like if you don't, and then we're doing the same thing to our kids without even realize that we're even doing it, you know. So I just I think if we just take a beat and just try and really be that parent versus a coach. And like I just don't want my kids to have to carry something that I said or something that I did to their entire adulthood, and then it becomes a childhood trauma because it's true, dude. Like, you can call this bullshit if you want, but there is something that happens in our body where our body stores the trauma of something. It could be, it could be the littlest thing, right? Like, just I'm I'm gonna tell you a quick story. There was a story about this girl, she having she was having panic attacks and she didn't know why. She had a good life, she got good grades, she, you know, she was an adult at this time, right? 20, 24, 25 years old. And she went and met with a trauma specialist, someone to dig deep into why she was having these panic attacks. Well, come to find out, she was having panic attacks every time she saw the color yellow. There's a lot of fucking yellow in this world, right? So they broke it down, and there was this one moment where they were in a they were in a growth, they were in an ice cream shop. It was her and her sister and her mom. And her sister did something, got good, I don't remember the exact story, but got a good grade, was able to get ice cream, and the other sister wasn't. And the mom was wearing a yellow dress and was reprimanding her. And so that yellow because of, you know, well, you didn't do this, so that's why your sister gets this and not that, and blowing up at her in the store. And that's where that came from. There's something that happens in our brains and our bodies that stores whatever happened before. It could be the minus, like that's not really of a big like as an adult, that's not a big deal. But to that little girl, that was everything. Right. That was a big deal to her. Right. That she blew up, her mom blew up in front of a uh in in in a store. And she fade at that time, she probably took that as favoritism and kind of like an abandonment, right? Like and that she carried that with her until she was an adult and was having severe panic attack uh panic attacks because of it. So, you know, as far as raising our kids, dude, I just think we just gotta take a step back and just realize that that, you know, and sometimes, dude, I'll lay my head down at night and I'm like, man, I really probably shouldn't have said that like that, or I probably shouldn't have did it this way, or whatever. But again, going back to being how many people are self-aware of that, right? There's not a lot, dude. There's a lot of there's a lot of parents out there that are just doing the best that they can with what they have, but then there's a lot of parents that just don't give a shit. Yeah. Well, and the other thing too, so again, I love my father.
SPEAKER_01:He raised three of us by himself, I have mad respect for him. But I grew up with a father that never apologized, right? Not once.
SPEAKER_00:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:And so, but I also have grew up with a father that not once said, I love you either. And so while he's playing the dual role of kind of being trying to be nurturer and provider, you know, I didn't get any of that stuff. And so growing up, like I look back and I'm like, dang, I just no wonder why I craved attention because I never got that motherly touch, I never got those good night tuck-ins, I never got those, you know, goodbye kisses or whatever. And so there was a period of time where I literally didn't cry for 10 years because I cried so much as a kid, I was so sensitive because of this loss. And everybody, um, you know, I didn't, it's not like you know, you're a kid, you don't expect people to know what's going on. Like, I think kids are so much more self-aware. But in third grade, I was like just making sure that my sister was okay, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:I was told to lie to make sure that we're okay so that way the schools wouldn't provide us with like therapy services. Like we went to some of them, but it was so seldom. And so, like, my thought process was like, Man, like I have all this pent-up energy, so when I get mad, I would cry. And this happened probably all through middle school, right? So from about third grade to about ninth grade, and then during that time, from like ninth grade, was it was that 15 years old, 14 years old, up until I was like 25 years old, I didn't cry. And like that's talk about an imbalance, man. Oh, yeah, sure, totally. And so you're building all this tension up, and you're always angry, you're always upset, you know. Like you can blow up anybody for any reason because every single other emotion is gonna try to come out, and then I'm bottling the one that really needs to come out, you know. So crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, dude. I mean, I was a very, very angry child. Um, I was always getting in fights, I was in the principal's office every other day, and I never really understood why until I went through what I went through, and I was like, oh, I have I'm fucking angry. Like I was I was an angry person, but even though I was a very sounds contradicting, but I was a very loving and giving person, but there was something inside of me that was like I'm angry, and I had a very short fuse or no fuse, right? And um, you know, my parents were 18 and 19 years old when they had me. They were young, you know, and my mom um she did great as a single mom, right? She I she did the best what she did the best that she could with what she had. And it was that was enough for me at the time, right? Right. But she also had a lot of anxieties, like I couldn't go do some certain things, I couldn't go do stuff, but I think really the cherry on top one was the abandonment issues from my dad. And um, you know, our relationship was is good now, but um, it's probably not as good as it could have been if he was more present in my life. But um, you know, I remember this one memory where I was just I was sitting on the stairs, dude, of my mom's house, and my dad was supposed to come get me and he just never fucking did, you know, and it's like and I look at my kids now and I'm like, man, I would never do that to you. But I also didn't understand what my dad was going through at the time, you know, and and um you know, I was probably I don't know, seven, eight, nine, ten years old at the time, enough for me to understand, like am I just not good enough for you? You know, and there was times where he'd be like, man, I'm gonna be at your game, I'm gonna be there, I'm gonna be whatever. And it's just so like weird as a child, right? Because even in high school, 15 years old, made varsity as a freshman, like when somebody tells me they're gonna do something, I expect it, I expect them to do it. You know, as a 15-year-old, like you you understand that. But also, like I didn't have the I just felt like I'd look up in the stands, I'd see grandma, I'd see grandpa, I'd see mom, I'd see stepdad, but no dad. Like, but that was the one person I wanted there, but didn't have the mental capacity to have the gratitude for the people that were there, right? Because I was so fixated on the one person that told me he was gonna be there. Right. I almost expected everybody that was there to be there because they were there every time, they showed up every time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and we take it for granted because we don't know the appreciation because they're consistent.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, right? And then I would look up in the stands and I wouldn't see my dad. And I remember this one time after the game, I was walking towards the locker room. I don't remember if we won or lost, but that's here, neither here nor there. But I remember my dad grabbing onto the fence of the stadium, and I was like, Hey, you were here. He's like, Yeah, I've been here the whole time. I don't think he was there the whole time. I just think he, you know, whatever. But you know, is that why I was so angry as a kid? I think so. I, you know, I think you know, there has been times where I would, because my my parents were split, obviously, and we had I went to my dad's every other weekend. Well, I'd go, I'd go to my dad's and he would just drop me off with grandma, and then I wouldn't see him. He would go, he would play overnight and go play pool because that's how he made money at the time, which is fine, but then he would sleep all the next day, and then I'd be trying to wake dad up, and dad was just sleeping all day, so I would just go hang out with grandma. And then to me, I'm just like, dude, I just like as a little kid, that's what you feel is like I'm not good enough for my dad to hang out with me. Right, right. So, like now, dude, even though there's days where I just don't feel good or I don't feel like playing, or I don't feel like like I try and give my kids just even if it's 10 minutes of playing with Barbies or whatever, I just really try and be aware of that, you know. Like I just don't want my kids to have to, I don't want my kids to feel like they're not good enough because of me. You know, I don't want them not to feel good at like I don't want them to ever feel that way, regardless of anything, but I just want them to be able to know that dad was always there, right? You know, so but yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that's I think that's like the realest thing, right? Is just every parent wants to be the better parent than what they had, right? They want to fill those voids, but the reality is that we can only give so much, right? Uh and and what I mean by that, of course, like majority of parents would give their life and give everything. But I think it's there's also a social responsibility where you're being able to showcase your kids that you can be happy, that you can be strong if you need to, that a single mom can do it, right? And the here's the thing that kind of ties back when I talked about the beautiful struggle the human spirit can be lifted and can be reversed, and no matter what situation you go through, you just grow through that, right? That's one of my favorite hashtags, grow through what you go through. But uh what it also to me represents is that you can no matter where you start, it's it's where how you finish. And we're not bound by our circumstances. The only thing that is ever a hundred percent a part of everything that you've ever been through is yourself. And so while certain things maybe happened, right? Kids get uh, you know, molested or whatever, like you can't change what happened to you, but you can certainly change how you react to it and how you let it impact you now. And I think that that is kind of like the most important lesson that I had to learn to overcome suicide, depression, to go from thinking that man, I'm made to be, you know, to go paycheck to paycheck, that I'm gonna be less than average, that I'm gonna be homeless, you know, I'm gonna just another statistic, I'm gonna be dead, so it doesn't matter, right? All those mindsets, mentalities, all of those things to then say, you know what? I can help any business scale, I can help any individual overcome what they're going through. Not because I've done it, but because I know what it takes, the grit to be able to go through that. And I truly believe that everybody has that. They're just afraid because they've maybe truly never had to dive into it or they've never faced it head on. But I think that that's really what that beautiful struggle means to me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. Or no one ever taught them how to no one ever taught them how to do that. Correct. No one ever taught anybody. I don't remember one time being like, hey, there's gonna be a time in my in your life where you're gonna look yourself in the mirror and you're not gonna know who the fuck you are and you're gonna have to figure it out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You're gonna you're gonna live your life based off of what everybody else taught you up until now, which for me was 25 years old, and that's exactly what I did. I lived how everybody else told me I should live from my religion to how I should treat people to. And not all of it was necessarily bad. But I didn't have my own identity. I created my identity based off of everybody how how everybody else thought my identity should be. Right. Right. And, you know, the worst thing that happened to you is the worst thing that ever happened to you. So regardless if it was your mom yelling at you in an ice cream store in a yellow dress or your uncle molesting you, like that's the that that's the worst thing that ever happened to you. That's the worst thing that ever happened to you. And that's why I think a lot of people suffer in silence, is because it's almost like they feel like, oh, my situation's not as bad as Patrick's situation, so I'm gonna kind of keep quiet about it. Because I don't want.
SPEAKER_01:Nobody's calling you up, be like, hey man, let me let me sit here and actually pray with you. Yeah, right. And so I think that you know we'll kind of wrap this up and and really open this up for the next episode. But I think some some key takeaways from today really are speak up, right? Find somebody to avoid that isolation, even if you feel like you're annoying somebody, I don't care. Talk to them, do whatever you need to, right? Um for me, dialoguing and writing stuff out was a huge part of what allowed me to flip the script. Okay. Um, we've talked about this, right? You know that I um you know I wrote a lot of poetry, you have written a lot of poetry. We've talked about maybe sharing some of those.
SPEAKER_00:Which we're gonna do some slam here, dude.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and I'm excited for that. But you know, being able to get away from your thoughts when you're have when you're in that isolation, do whatever you can, listen to music, talk to somebody. Hell, if you gotta develop AI, you know, uh a chat bot, something, because if you can do that, that's step one, right? But also realize that I promise you, whatever thoughts you're thinking, if there's any if you think that removing yourself from this situation is a solution, it's not right. And so the other thing that I would take away from this is every successful person has a sad story, and so all the things that maybe people are going through right now is part of that story, and at some point this is just going to be part of the story that you tell that somebody else is going to need to hear later.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, dude, for sure. Yeah, man. Just a key couple key points to I gotta use the restroom, so we gotta wrap this up here soon. But I uh, you know, something that I guess really what I would want people to take away from here is just you know, something I touched on earlier is just I want people to really understand that they don't have to attach to their thoughts as often as people do, right? Like you are not, you are not your thoughts. You're just the observer, you're your your human spirit, your soul. The whole purpose of why I think we're here is just to live, right? And just to allow our soul to grow to whatever you believe happens next. Like it really doesn't matter. We're a vessel here, and this isn't the end, but like also try and make it to the end. You know what I mean? There's gonna be shit we have to go through. There's not anybody I know that has a fucking perfect life every single day, right? Everybody's got their own shit, but talk about it. Let's talk about it, yeah, you know, and just understand that you're just the observer of what you're thinking, you don't necessarily have to attach to every single thought that you're thinking because it's not necessarily a part of you. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But well, and I think, you know, we want to hear from you guys too, right? Like, what is it that you're going through? Understand, we're not psychologists, we're not doctors, you know, we're just two guys who decided to talk about a podcast and be honest about the things that we've gone through. But, you know, so we're not gonna be able to give you advice, right? We're not gonna be able to kind of, you know, lead you in a path that go kind of goes down, but you can share in that. You can know that you weren't the only one that maybe filmed that. And so again, in the show notes, we'll have contact information if you're willing, wanting to share. We'll read some of those things maybe on the when we on the next episode. Um, just so that way we know that you know what is it that you're going through, and just know that even just writing it out is probably gonna help you feel a little bit better, right? But just the takeaway to know that you're not the only one going through that. And I think there's comfort in and some solace. I don't want to say like, you know, um that you know that uh somebody who's going through that needs to leach onto somebody else that's going through it. But that's a there's a reason why groups exist, why communities are so important, especially in today's world, whether it's business, whether it's a hobby, you know, personal. Um and so figure out where it is that you can plug in, you know, and again, let this be a safe space. Yeah, we talk and we're talking about some of this real shit, but at this at the end of the day, we're doing this because we know that people need it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. Absolutely, man. I couldn't agree more. I think so, I think our first episode went really well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I'm looking forward to this. And uh guys, catch us on the next episode of uh mental mentality, and uh we'll catch you on the next one.
SPEAKER_00:Hell yeah. Bye everybody.