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May 7, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:50:11
TEN YEARS INTO PHILOSOPHY? Time for an AUDIT! Freedomain Call In
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Time Text
You're looking at an audit, a philosophical audit, that seems wise.
Oh, yes, sir.
Well, especially considering, and this is also kind of like a catch-up, because last time I spoke to you was about 10 years ago.
Wow.
Wow, okay.
And that call was not the longest call, but I've kind of followed those steps.
Was it like a dedicated call, or was it just like in a show as a whole?
It was in a show.
It was in a show.
It was one of those where you had a call-in show where people would call in at different times.
It was kind of cool back then.
Yes, I remember all of those.
We spoke about...
I guess we can get right into it if you want.
Yeah.
Last time we spoke, we spoke about...
I didn't know exactly what path to take on my career.
I wanted to be there for my children and my wife.
I was with my wife back then and we weren't married yet.
But we were like, well, let's see what I should do.
I can go either high-end consulting, always traveling, always working, or I can go the less lucrative, but be at home type of, let's say, internal operations type of role.
And within 20 minutes, it was just a no-brainer.
It's like, yeah, let's just do the internal operations.
This whole flying around for money thing.
It's great for money, but who cares about money?
We're here for children, aren't we?
Since then, I've actually been working from home, and my wife has been too, since about 2012, and really haven't stopped.
But I'm starting here.
I'm starting a new job here pretty soon, and it'll be a local job.
And I'm like, well, it's effectively what my dream job is.
And I think it's time to once again talk to Stefan and see if I'm missing something.
See if there's anything I can do better and use philosophy to improve how things are going.
So that's where I am.
Okay, so tell me, I guess, fill me in on, you told me a little bit, fill me in a little bit more on the last 10 years?
So yeah, so 10 years ago I was with my wife already.
So since then we've bought...
Multiple houses together.
We've moved to different states together.
And we got married, of course.
And I don't know how much in the details you want to go, but we've just slowly kind of worked through our careers and have done pretty well working from home.
You know, going into the office when needed, etc.
You know, it's not a full remote thing.
It doesn't really work for anybody.
But going in, you know, getting to know people.
And life has just been...
Getting better and better and better and better to the point, well, I guess I can go into details if you want, but to the point where right now I'm like, oh my goodness, how did life get this good?
I don't even understand it.
You know what I mean?
You follow good advice.
That's the whole point, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So after we got married, the one negative I'll say is that we did wait a long time to have children.
So we started having children three years ago.
So we had our first, my first daughter was three years ago.
And after having her, I'm like, oh my goodness, we should have done this earlier.
But you can't go back in time.
Right, right.
And so you just have the one child?
No, now we have a newborn.
Newborn, ah, okay.
Yeah, we're trying now.
We figured out, I'm like, oh my goodness, children are awesome.
Like, everybody was crazy to say that, you know, they're impossible or they're hard.
They're really not.
Children are, they amplify your life.
If your life is going in the right direction, it just, for me at least, I'll speak from my own experience, it just amplifies all the goodness in your life.
That's all it is.
it's even more amplified.
And so that's been my findings.
And so we're just trying to have more children as much as we can.
I'm getting, I'm in my late 30s, very late 30s now.
So it's getting, we're getting to the end, unfortunately, of our window.
And how old's your wife?
She's mid-30s.
Okay, got it.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense.
That makes sense.
And is your wife staying home with your kids?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, I guess to fill you in on some more details for the last 10 years, my childhood wasn't the best, and we can get into that, but we don't really necessarily need to.
I did have...
Many, many years of long discussions with my parents about the bad aspects of my childhood and what went wrong and why did things go wrong.
They've made amends.
They've been completely...
Their whole lives have changed completely.
Again, because of philosophy and the driving factors on talking things out and shining lights on things that need to be discussed.
Things that...
Nobody wants to talk about the elephant in the room, let's say.
And I've become to be known as the guy that always points at the elephant in the room because I go, especially with my parents, I'm like, hey guys, we have to talk about all the things we did, all the things that you guys did wrong.
And to their benefit, to their credit, they made as many amends as they could.
And now, actually, they just moved in.
Well, I built them a house.
It's almost done.
Next, on my property.
So they've moved here.
So they're basically, they're gardening.
We're farming here.
I have a big farming operation as well.
And yeah, my mom, my own mom is really great with babies.
So my mom's helping out.
And of course, my wife is staying home.
She works from home.
But she's, you know, she's got maternity leave for like four or five months.
And then she's thinking about maybe not going back or maybe going back part-time.
You know, she doesn't know yet.
I'll help her through that decision-making process.
And then eventually, we are planning to definitely homeschool.
Right, right.
That'll be interesting.
And it's funny, not to go on a tangent here, but whenever I say, yeah, I'm definitely 100% homeschooling, you know, there's some people that are like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.
But there are others that say, well, don't you want your children to be socialized?
And I'm like, what do you mean?
Children get socialized by their parents first, and then we have, you know, my neighbors are great.
They're all going to homeschool.
There's a homeschooling community down here, very big.
And so we go out to do events, and there's a lot of socialization that happens there, but generally it's like, well, we don't really want our children to be socialized in the crazy society that exists today.
That's not what we want.
And so that's kind of been my answer.
Well, I mean, it's like saying, well, I've got to learn how to get along with people, so I better go to prison.
Right, right.
And I do describe, I do describe.
Today's society, like a prison.
It's like, wait, why would I send my children to a prison that we call school?
That doesn't make sense to me.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I'm pretty sure we evolved without locking people in propaganda dungeons, locking kids in propaganda dungeons.
That's not how we evolved.
So I try to stay as close to natural as possible.
And the way that kids evolved and learned stuff was with their parents, spending time with their parents and with their families.
So, is it that your mother is taking care primarily of your daughter because your wife is, I know she works from home and all of that, but, you know, that's quite, that's eight hours a day, right?
Well, her job is very easy.
So, she does like two or three hours at most of that job.
Wait, where are these easy jobs where you get paid full-time for working two to three hours?
Oh, man.
No, it is HR, but it's not for government.
It is kind of government adjacent because she's HR compliance.
So yeah, it's HR compliance.
So they have to have someone.
So they basically, she started working at this place.
And then after a couple of years, they went from an HR team of 10 to an HR team of two, her being one of them.
Because my wife is quite efficient, I would say.
And it's very easy.
It's a very easy job.
It doesn't pay, you know, it's, let's say it's very, very low six figures, so it's not like low pay, but it's not very, very high pay either.
I mean, she did replace it.
Low six figures?
Right.
I know.
Hang on, hang on.
Sorry.
Low six figures for two to three hours a day.
Yeah.
Ah, ladies, the life on easy mode continues.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I always tell her, I was like, look, all good deals come to an end at some point.
So, you know, we don't financially plan.
We financially plan as if she doesn't have that job.
But she enjoys it.
She likes doing it, you know, a couple hours, three hours a day.
And she loves it.
Well, yeah.
I mean, it's easy work.
I mean, I worked in HR.
I actually worked in HR for years as a temp when I was in.
In college.
And, uh, I mean, it's, it's, it's Club Med.
Uh, it's ridiculous.
Oh, yeah.
It's all, you know, hey, let's go to Paris for a conference and, and, uh, and, and talk about white males.
Like, it's, it's, uh, it's just, it's completely goofy and an absolute non-work environment as a whole.
There's no deadlines, there's no stress, there's no deliverables, and you're just there because the government demands.
That you be there.
So it's just this weird thing that gets grafted onto productive businesses where people don't really understand the business and they're just there to send some emails and ensure some compliance and hopefully ward off some lawsuits.
That's really all it's about.
That's really her job.
And again, I have to thank you for helping me help her go that direction because I'm like, look, I want you to be a full-time mom.
And she's like, okay, I do too, but I kind of want to have some kind of...
You know, job.
I want to do something.
I'm like, well, the goal is to work from home on a very easy job.
I don't care if it pays you $60,000.
But it ended up being low $100,000.
And that was really the primary goal.
It was like, easy as possible, spending almost no time at all and just do the bare minimum.
And I'm like, I think HR is the way.
This is back in 2014, 2015.
And it's just worked out.
She's not looking to be promoted.
She doesn't care about...
She wants her little side gig and back to the kids.
And she loves the kids.
She just loves the kids.
But, I mean, it's not...
I don't want to be overly critical.
It's not the most honorable income.
True.
Right?
Because it is just government mandates and all of that kind of stuff.
True.
And she's...
She's lying to her employer, right?
I assume she's not saying, oh yeah, no, I spend most of my time raising my kids and I only work two or three hours a day.
Yeah, that's true.
We're not 100%.
I mean, we're not saying like, hey, we only work two hours a day.
We don't say that to anybody.
But no, you're 100% right.
Yeah, I mean, it's the kind of thing, and look, it's not black and white.
There's lots of gray areas, lots of overlap, so this isn't some big, you know, thunderbolt hurling condemnation or anything like that, but will you be happy if your kids do stuff like this, lie to their employer and not really work and take money for things the employer wouldn't pay for?
Like, if the employer knew, like, this is not, obviously, your wife, but, you know, and all of these government workers are like, well, hang on a second.
If I've got to come into the office, who's going to deal with my childcare?
And it's like, you shouldn't be doing childcare when you've got a job.
Yeah.
Right?
So, if your kids are like, hey, I found a way to game the system and make a hundred grand by lying to an employer and pretending to work, how would you feel?
Yeah, no, that's not great.
That's not great.
That's not a great example we're setting.
Well, I mean, it's, again, there's, you know, they tax you and I get that there's lots of gray areas, right?
So I'm not saying this is like, you know, well, I'm a hitman.
What's wrong with that?
Obviously, I'm not seeing anything like that.
But it is something to mull over that your wife is being paid exorbitantly relative to the hours that she's working, right?
Let's say she's making a hundred grand but only working a quarter of the amount of time.
That she's supposed to.
So she's actually making 400 grand.
Oh, yeah.
In terms of time and results.
And then the question is, why is she not being asked to do the work, right?
Does nobody notice?
Does nobody care?
Like, what the heck is going on, right?
Well, so that's part of the gray area, I think, like you were saying.
When she started there, it was somewhere around 8 to 10 people in that group, in her HR group.
And her company has actually grown since then.
But the HR department has went from 8 to 10 to now because she's been there and she's extremely efficient at all the compliance nonsense.
She's ahead of schedules.
Just as an example, when she started there...
10 years ago, they were always behind on compliance.
They missed deadlines left and right.
These are government deadlines.
So I guess nobody was taking a look at those and making sure that they were done.
So she started there and she's very intelligent and she's very conscientious when it comes to getting things done.
So she just completely, she effectively replaced six people, minimum.
Well, no, but that just means that the HR department as a whole Has no idea what efficiency is.
Right, right, right.
So the company sees her as a huge benefit.
So that when she actually, we were talking about, hey, we were going to make a move.
So she was going to the office for the first five years, four years of it.
And then eventually we're like, well, we're going to move and you're going to be a mother now.
So let's just have you quit.
And so she went to try to quit.
And they're like, no, how about you work from home instead?
And that's how that deal went through.
And I'm like, well, okay, if that's what we want, let's go ahead and have you work from home because we were going to find her some other work-from-home job, but didn't even have to.
And so that's kind of justification in my mind, but I see your point of it's still only about two or three hours of work at home a day.
Well, no, I mean, it's just, it's, your kids are going to find out about it at some point, right?
And if your kids, and this is just a thing, and there's different levels of comfort with this.
So again, I'm not, this is not some big blanket negative, but, you know, if your kid is like, hey man, I figured out how to make a lot of money while lying to my employer about how much I work, would you say, yeah, that's, you know, good for you?
You know, it's funny about...
If you asked me this question 15 years ago, I would have been the proudest dad ever.
You mean like, oh, you figured out how to game the system.
And look, the system games you, right?
The system games you.
So, you know, to some degree, there is a certain amount of state of nature with some systems, right?
And, you know, just for example, I watched this video the other day where this woman was complaining.
That her 16-year-old daughter, they gave her $200 for a four-day trip with friends for her 16th birthday.
And they also gave her a credit card for emergencies.
And she kept using the credit card to buy food.
And the parents were, like, outraged.
It's like, well, no, no, we gave you $200.
And she's like, no, the $200, that's for, like, fun.
But you've got to pay for my food.
And I don't think that, you know, these days, $50 a day, sadly, doesn't go as far as it used to.
And so they were outraged.
And, you know, my sort of part of my thinking was, okay, but you all voted to have your daughter born in a million dollars of debt, right?
Let alone unfunded liabilities, like the national debt, unfunded liabilities, they look like kind of leftists just based upon the look.
And even if they were on the quote, right, the Medicare and social security can't be touched, right?
So they're like, how dare our 16-year-old be irresponsible with money?
And take more than we...
Well, it's because you modeled all of that with your stupid voting.
Right?
Who are you to say, well, you as a 16-year-old have to be responsible with your spending, but us as, like in our late 40s, have consistently voted to have you drown in debt because we can't manage our country's spending and all of that, right?
So there is a certain amount of...
There is a sort of state of nature in some aspects of the system.
Gosh, you're reminding me of...
Again, before I found philosophy, before...
So I started listening to you back in 2011, 2012, Trayvon Martin, right before Trayvon Martin thing.
And so before then, I was...
Sorry, was that Dana Martin?
Trayvon Martin.
Trayvon Martin, sorry, sorry.
Yeah, slightly different Martin.
Yes, yes, I certainly remember.
Back in the day.
Anyway, so...
Before then, I was always so angry at the system.
I lived in a very terrible, let's say, blue state.
And I had most of my childhood in that blue state.
And I'm looking around, I'm like, this is garbage.
I need to take a sledgehammer to it.
But I'm one little guy.
Again, this is before I found philosophy, so forgive the...
The thoughts here, but I was like, I'm just going to game the system and take advantage of as much crap as possible because these assholes are just destroying society.
That was my thought, again, before I found philosophy.
And I guess that still leads to...
Well, I mean, that was kind of my instinct as well before I found philosophy, so I'll be far from condemning you for something I was the same way with.
Yeah, yeah.
But no, yeah, you're right.
I still feel like, hmm, gaming the system, the system games us, so gaming the system is kind of like almost built in to some extent.
Well, and this is a philosophy review, right?
So I'm not going to sit there and say, well, for you to have any integrity, your wife has to quit and become a dairy farmer.
I mean, I'm not saying anything like that, but what I'm saying is in terms of the philosophy review...
To say, am I comfortable?
Like, I mean, I do this stuff, you know, like I'm still off social media, even though, you know, my ex-platform got restored months ago.
No, no, almost a year ago, I think.
And I'm like, okay, is that still the right decision?
Is that still a good decision?
And so, you just, you have to review these things.
And so, this, you know, are you comfortable with it?
That's an important, that's an important question.
Because either you have to lie to your, This is exactly why I wanted this philosophy
audit.
As an auditor...
I guess I work, at my work, I work with a lot of auditors and tax accountants, etc.
And so you're doing a great job as an auditor, let's just say.
Good, good.
The non-Scientology kind, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great.
Right, so if you're comfortable with it and if you say, look, man, I mean, it's a bunch of boomers at the company, they shafted me with bad education and debt and...
Like, I don't really care.
Okay, so then you're going to have to have that ragged edge of where the state of nature is with regards to the social contract.
And I don't have, there are no big clear objective answers to these things.
So, I don't know.
I think the answer really is having an open mind and thinking about, actively thinking about what we're doing, right?
Not just...
Kind of saying, oh yeah, she has a job and she's a dude.
No, no, no.
What is it that she's doing?
What is it that we're doing?
Are we gaming the system?
Yes, we are to a certain extent.
And what does that mean?
And in a way that we're able to explain to our children, hey, we thought about this.
This is our decision-making process.
And we don't know.
We still don't know.
We may not know.
But in 20 years or whatever, 15 years or 10 years, whenever we're explaining it, we may not know the answer then.
But it's something to discuss as like, hey, what would you do in such a situation?
Daughter, oldest daughter of mine, you know?
Yeah, so children are a great proxy for the conscience.
Like, if you could explain it to your children and feel comfortable with it, then you can, quote, explain it to your conscience and feel comfortable with it.
And so that's...
I often imagine, okay, can I explain this to my daughter when she was five or ten or whatever?
And if I can, then okay.
So that's good.
You just...
A light bulb came on.
So, because I always, when I talk to my wife, as we're making decisions, I always say, like, hey, we need to make decisions that we're able to explain to our 25-year-old daughter.
For example, these vaccines.
Oh, no, you got to explain it way younger than that.
Way younger than that, yeah.
No, no, I see.
We will.
But I mean, like, when our daughter, let's say our daughter's 25 years old, and she asks us, hey, why did you do this?
We have to be able to tell our 25-year-old daughter.
You know, hey, this is exactly why we did this.
This is, you know, this is our decision-making process.
You know, what do you think?
And we have to be able to live with our decisions so much that our daughter will be able to, like, understand.
And of course, you know, I agree, we're going to be explaining things.
We will, I mean, I explained, she's, my daughter's not even three yet, but she's, we explained anything.
She asked today about static electricity.
Oh, wow.
Because she got zapped, and she's like, what's that?
And I'm like, oh, let me explain to you.
Yeah, that's what nature does if you ever disobey your father.
That's hilarious.
It's important to teach her those physics.
Yeah, right, right, right.
But no, it was like, no, I explained to her when it gets a little colder and so the air is drier.
And I had her try it.
I'm like, hey, rub your feet against the floor and you could zap me.
And she did that and she zapped me and she's like, oh, wow.
And then she just repeats back, okay, so static electricity.
It builds up in me, and I touch you, and it goes to you.
I'm like, perfect.
Anyway, so I'm all about explaining as much as possible, but going back to our decision-making process, I didn't know why I was so adamant about always making sure I'm able to explain to my 25-year-old daughter, hey, ask any questions you want.
This is the decision-making process that we made.
It may not have been the best decision 25 years later, but this is how we thought about it.
You explained it in a way that makes the most sense to me.
It's like, well, what I'm really doing there is basically my conscience.
My conscience is who I'm explaining it to.
That's the connection you just made with me.
So that's amazing.
I just wanted to point that out.
Yeah, and of course, a lot of people will just kind of fudge along and then they get kind of defensive.
Because your kids are going to be skeptical of you, particularly when they hit their teens.
And they should be.
Right?
I mean, I've mentioned this story before, so I'll just keep it brief.
But, you know, when I was, I sort of explained to my daughter why I wasn't going back on Twitter, and she's like, I get it.
And then, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, I was like, hey, Zuckerberg seems to be kind of interested in free speech.
Right?
I should think about going back on Instagram.
And she immediately was like, but wait, how is that different from Twitter?
She's so right.
Well, she's completely right.
And I'm like, well, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for saving me from myself.
So, you know, you want that 360 review.
And, you know, I was just talking about this this morning in a Bible verse podcast that you actually can't be moral without people around you who care about you because we all got to watch.
We got to have people watch our backs, right?
Because we're all tempted by stuff, or at least I am.
So yeah, if you could explain it to your kid and say, yeah, you know, the system is a bit skeevy and, you know, they locked us up in terrible schools for 12 years and ladened us down with debt.
So I'm just like, yeah, you know, if the bad king drops a loaf of bread, I'm going to grab it and run.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so that's a whole question around this sort of ragged edge of who you owe.
High morals, too.
Right?
I mean, obviously, if some guy steals your bike, you can take the bike back.
Are you taking the bike back?
These are all big, challenging questions.
I think in general, my general thought is, if you are...
Well, you know, it's funny because in a sense, when your wife's employer said, you know, you're so needed by us that, you know, just work at home and we're fine with what you do as long as you get your work done.
If your wife's work is kind of like piecework, right?
Like I have to do X. I think very interesting questions.
Is she lying to her employer?
If they say, well, it's going to take you eight hours to make the five widgets, she makes the five widgets in two hours, and they don't have any problem with it, is that lying?
These are all big and important questions.
These are great questions.
I cannot wait to discuss this with my daughters.
Well, yeah, I have a chat about it with your wife and so on, because, you know, I mean, one of the things, I mean, you're in your late 30s, right?
Your wife's in your mid-30s, so.
You may start to get a creepy realization of this, but I just did a show on this this morning, so I won't try and shoehorn the whole thing in here.
But basically, as you get older, money becomes less and less important.
And the quality of your relationships is all important.
Because you can't buy youth and vitality and vigor, and you certainly can't buy happiness, but quality relationships are the great comfort of aging.
If your wife feels like she's in a situation of deception, well, they think I'm working eight hours, but I'm only working two, and I'm going to pretend to this and that and the other, then that probably is not great for the conscience.
But if she's just like, hey, you know, they want me to do this stuff, I can do it super fast.
They've never said it's inefficient.
They've never said you need to work more.
They give me tasks.
I complete them.
They pay me for it.
They don't care.
And they certainly never asked, how long did this take to do?
They only care that I get things done efficiently.
So that's a whole other mindset, if that makes sense.
And I think it's important to sort of grab that one by the horns.
Well, it's funny.
We've actually discussed this very topic because, you know, years and years ago, not years, I guess when she started doing this arrangement, I'm like, well...
It became only her and the C-suite executive, effectively, of that company.
The only two people doing HR.
And I'm like, well, do they expect you to be online all the time?
What's the deal?
And it's like, no.
There's things that need to be done.
And I kind of figure out what needs to be done.
And I do them.
It takes me not much time at all.
And, you know, it's funny.
Every time that...
This executive calls me.
He's apologetic.
He's like, oh, I'm sorry to bother you.
I just have a couple questions or something.
I'm like, that's so interesting.
And every single year, it's like, great reviews, she's doing amazing, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, well, as long as they're happy, then we're happy too.
Right?
So, it's been a discussion point for us, but I think we'll continue to discuss this as she thinks about going back again.
Right, right.
Okay.
Yeah, that's obviously a pretty important qualification.
And tell me a little bit more about how your parents, well, a little bit of the stuff that happened when you were a kid and how your parents were able to turn it around.
This seems like a very inspiring story.
So, when I was a kid, I always say I did not enjoy my childhood as much as I should have.
And, you know, there was my...
My mom was always very loving, but she married a guy that was unfortunately violent when he gets angry.
And so my childhood was filled with memories of getting hit, of threats.
But it's also filled, I mean, there's also a lot of very, very good memories.
My dad would take me everywhere with him.
Whenever he traveled, drove around, we were in a different country.
We were not in the current country we were in.
We were in a Caribbean country.
We would travel.
I would always be with him, and it would be almost always a great time.
But it was like 2% of the time, if he, let's say, blew up, it was extremely...
It was terrible.
It was bad.
And, you know, I would say...
Well, like, how bad?
Like, what are we talking?
Well, he would...
I would say he hit me with a belt.
I think seven or eight times in my life.
Okay.
And, you know, even once is too much.
Right.
And what other things would he do when he was angry?
He becomes completely irrational.
He goes, he screams and yells and, you know, a theme with him and me has always been he...
And we've talked about this, so I'm trying not to interject the learned process that I've had with him.
So I'm just trying to give it to you raw and then tell you what we did about it.
So he would call me, you're worse than trash, you're terrible, you're not doing enough.
Oh, so really verbally harsh and negative, right?
Yeah, very.
While it happened very rarely, those instances that it happened, and I'm both blessed and cursed with a very decent memory, I don't forget.
And so, you know, even whenever he did that, he always came back and apologized and said, sorry, you know, I'm sorry I blew up at you, even when I was a kid.
But, you know, it wasn't enough.
It's like, you know, just don't do that again.
And he did it again.
And sorry, how often, you said there was only six or seven times you got hit with a bell, but how often would you...
Would he lose his temper and get angry in that way?
Like once every six months.
Like twice or three times a year, I would say.
Okay.
And your mother, how was her temper?
Very...
She's never...
I think she only yelled at me once, and I was...
13 or 14?
And so I just laughed at her.
I remember this very vividly.
But she was never a yeller.
She was never a hitter.
She actually tried to protect me from my father whenever he got heated, let's say.
She would try to stand in front of him.
And so she still married him, right?
So she's not innocent in any of this.
But as far as she did, her biggest negative is she could be a little bit manipulative.
And what that looks like is she'll tell you a story, and you're like, why are you telling me this story?
Oh, it's because you want me to donate $100 to this person.
Okay, you don't have to tell me the story.
Just tell me you won $100.
You know what I mean?
That's what I mean by that.
That's her biggest negative, but it's manageable.
And did your parents stay together?
Oh yeah, for sure.
And tell me about the redemption arc.
It started when I was about 15. And I just, I'm very questioned.
I questioned everything.
I questioned everything.
I mean, that's always been me.
And I started asking questions.
I'm like, so why did you treat me this way?
And it started out with like, oh, well, my childhood was terrible.
And it was.
Right?
His childhood was horrendous.
And his mom was just evil, right?
And I didn't know any of this until I was like, you know, 14, 15, and I started asking questions.
And I told my parents, I'm like, well, I'm never seeing her again because she treated you guys in that way.
What do you guys think about that?
And they agreed.
And then my dad even took me up on that and said, well, I'm not going to see her either.
And so we kind of had a, we talked about that and how...
His treatment was, I helped him work through that.
And I was like, alright, it's my turn to work through my things with you.
Because you, I would say I didn't have the right childhood.
I didn't have the childhood I wish I had.
And so, I remember he did apologize back then.
And then when I started talking about me again after we spoke about his mom.
He saw himself in me.
And it was very, you know, lots of emotions, lots of, you know, what can I do to make this right?
How can I help you make this right?
And, you know, at the time I was starting to work and he's like, I'm like, well, help me go to work.
Help me figure out a way to better my life when I was 15. And to his credit, he did.
He's just like, all right, well, I can drive you to work.
I can teach you how to drive.
We'll get you a A crappy, cheap car to drive around.
And the fact that he was always open to talk about it was the biggest thing for me.
He was always open to, like, whenever something came to my mind about my childhood, I'm like, hey, let's talk about this.
Or let's go for a long drive and talk about, you know, to explain to me why this happened.
Why did you hit me with belts?
Tell me about that.
And we're able to get deeply into his mind about, you know, when I blow up, I don't even know what I'm doing half the time.
And it's like, it's something in me.
And so from him telling me that, it's like, well, you need anger management.
And, you know, I personally helped him through anger management to the point where when I was like 16 or 17, he really doesn't, he really hasn't, he doesn't yell, he doesn't scream, he doesn't.
And when I'm around him, I can tell when he's starting to spiral a little bit.
And now all I do is remind him, hey, you're not doing so well right now.
Take a moment, take a breath, and think about it.
And so he takes a moment, takes a breath, and he's like, oh, I apologize.
I was starting to spiral a little bit.
I'm sorry.
Completely changed his methodology of thinking, his methodology of dealing with his own anger, and his ability to Use his brain in a rational way versus letting anger get the best of him.
And he's a changed person.
He's a different man than he was when I was a child.
Completely.
That is great.
That started when I was 16, really.
You took the lead in that in many ways, right?
100%.
And still, I'm effectively the leader of my whole family.
Just taking the lead.
And I just said, this is what we're going to do.
This is why we're going to do it.
Let's discuss.
I always discuss the topics.
I always point at the elephant in the room.
And let's talk about it.
And things have worked out since I was a teenager because of that.
And I'm one of five, by the way.
Right, right.
Very good.
Very good.
And your mom, how has she shifted and changed?
She...
You know, she always tried to push religion really deep down my throat, which made me completely reject it, just outright.
Catholicism, right?
So, I mean, when I was like 13, I read the Bible cover to cover, then I read it twice, so I had notebooks full of notes, and I would go to the church.
Ask questions, and I was told I asked too many questions.
Just being told I asked too many questions one time is enough for me to say, well, you're out of my life then.
Because if I can't ask questions, you're done.
And maybe that's good, maybe that's bad, but that's how I've always been.
So that's the most negative thing I can think of her.
I've also had these discussions with her.
I asked her, I'm like, hey, so...
How did you and dad get married?
Why did you guys get married?
Etc.
It wasn't the best.
Let's say it wasn't the most rational thinking.
It was like, oh, we met in a big city and my dad is a good-looking guy and my mom's a good-looking gal and things accelerated and they got married quickly.
So it wasn't really a rational choice.
So she understands.
She wishes that she made better choices for her kids.
How are your siblings doing as a whole?
I mean, every one of us is doing very well.
There's nobody doing poorly.
Everyone's married, everyone has kids, except for my youngest brother.
He'll be having kids soon, I think.
He's married, happily married.
I think the turnaround when I was a teenager really helped a lot of the family, you know, kind of figure out how to communicate with each other.
Because before then, communication was like zero.
And the ability to communicate openly and freely and talk about things without the fear of retribution and manipulation, that pays dividends.
And so, you know, everyone's extremely successful.
Some work in the medical field, some are engineers.
Some, you know, they're just, I guess we're also blessed with intelligence, so everyone has great jobs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And we have like, I think, nine, nine grandkids.
My parents have nine grandkids.
Wow.
And how are your relationships with your inbuilt?
Oh, yeah, not the best.
Oh, boy, that's a good question.
So, my wife's parents were awful to her.
And so, my wife's from China.
And it's relevant because of the one-child policy, and she was the firstborn.
Sorry, you mentioned Caribbean.
Are you black and she's Asian?
No, I'm, let's say, white Hispanic.
White Hispanic.
Okay, got it, got it.
And she's Chinese.
We're both Catholic.
So there's that.
Okay.
But anyway, so yeah, so one-child policy, being born, firstborn daughter, effectively means you're kicked to the side.
And then, you know, they tried for a second one, luckily for them, for her parents, it was her brother, I guess, a son.
And so my relationship with her parents, we really don't spend time with them.
I see them maybe once a year, maybe once every couple of years, and that's about as much as we both can handle.
Oh, why is that?
So the treatment that my wife got when she was growing up, she was thrown to the curb.
Ignored.
I mean, there's a story, and I guess I'm okay sharing with it, not the gory details, but there's a story my wife tells me that happened a bunch of times to her where she would try to cuddle up with her parents and her younger brother, and her mom would literally kick her out of the bed.
No, get out.
You're not sleeping here.
And I'm like, wow.
And that's basically the personification of her childhood.
I'm just like, that is awful.
And they've never made amends.
They don't apologize.
They're not people that I want around.
Both my wife and I agree.
They're not people that we want around our children.
But do you go visit them or do they come visit you?
Or how does that work?
They've come to visit us, Bob, once every couple of years.
Oh, okay.
Not a huge fact there.
Is she in much communication with them?
No.
Okay.
All right.
Well, thank God for half a world, right?
They live in America as well.
Oh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But still.
I mean, do they just not visit because they don't care or they're not connected?
It's been very clear.
So I'll give you an example.
So when my wife gave birth, it's customary for the first 30 days.
Some very special Chinese cuisine has to be made.
And I said, well...
I have no problem bringing your mother over as an employee.
And she can cook for you, clean for us, and she'll...
Sorry, as an employee?
Yeah, I told her, I'm happy to treat her as an employee.
I don't know what that means.
Effectively, she's here to do a job.
She's here to cook the food that...
Oh, like a maid.
Yeah, exactly.
And if she wants to do that, I'll consider it...
I'll consider it good.
She's here to help you, actively help you.
And so while she's here, she does a great job.
She's a hardworking person, the mother.
Hardworking person, cooks well, cleans, does everything she wants to do, and she wants to work and clean, etc.
And then when it comes time to like, well, you know, it's Chinese New Year, so maybe it's time for me to go back.
I'm just like, are you nuts?
Like, you've been here for like two weeks.
You want to leave already?
Did you want to spend time with your grandkids?
Don't you want to get to know them?
You don't spend any time with them?
Right?
So where are you in this?
This is me thinking to myself.
So I talked to my wife about it.
My wife is obviously not happy about it.
Her wanting to leave already.
And I'm like, well, we knew this is how she treats you.
She doesn't value you as much as she needs to.
So it's time for her to go.
So I'm like, alright, just get her a ticket.
And then the funny thing is, when we bought her a ticket to leave, to go, to go back, to go back north, she's like, actually, maybe we should change that.
Maybe I do want to spend some more time.
And I'm like, no, you already made your feelings clear.
You're leaving.
I'm taking you to the airport.
And maybe that's right.
I don't know.
You tell me.
Maybe that reaction is a little harsh.
What was your instinct about why she wanted to leave?
She wanted to leave because maybe her son was coming back from China.
Possibly.
And maybe her husband was coming back from China.
Possibly.
But they're not even 100% sure.
They don't have the flights yet.
What are you doing?
And my instinct is that, and I'm pretty sure this is what's going on, that she cares a lot more about her son and her husband than she cares about her daughter.
And I'm like, well, if that's true, then that's fine.
No one's forcing you to care about your daughter, but we don't have to have you in our lives either.
Yeah, it's a funny thing how little people understand the fierceness that fathers have in particular towards their children, and in particular daughters, I suppose, maybe a tiny bit more.
And I was very much this way too.
Like, if you don't particularly care about my daughter, you're completely expendable in my life.
Like, if she's not, I'm not obviously saying you've got to have the same feelings.
But, you know, I was enamored, fascinated, you know, and loved the whole process.
And if my friends were like, oh, yeah, cute kid, and then they wanted to go on to something else, it's like, no, we're not in the same place, man.
Like, we're just not in the same place.
I 100% agree.
Yeah, so, yeah, I had a whole scrub fest of people, particularly, you know, the sort of narcissistic, selfish bachelor people.
Who are just like, yeah, yeah, that's cool, man.
Hey, you know, and then they just go on to some topic or whatever, right?
Or they hold your kid like she's some sort of bomb or something, you know, like, come on, man, lean in, right?
I got a great kid, and she's really fascinating to me, and she's a lot of fun, and she's wonderful, and, you know, spend some time playing with her, get to know her.
Like, it's sort of like if you get a wonderful woman in your life.
And your friends are like, yeah, I just want to see you, man.
I don't want to.
It's like, no, no, no.
She's going to be my wife, man.
You got to lock in or you're going to be toast.
That's funny because, I mean, I love to bring my oldest everywhere.
I always ask her, hey, do you want to go here?
Do you want to go there?
And she almost always says yes.
Yeah.
All right, let's go.
Things take longer, but who cares?
Right.
We go to the hardware store.
We're going to go pick up this.
And I tell her, hey, we're going to do X, Y, Z. And she always says, can we do one more thing?
Like, okay, what would you like to do?
I don't know, just drive around.
Oh, when your kids want to spend time with you, like, I mean, last night, my daughter had a, she had a pretty big day yesterday for various reasons, and last night, she was like, hey, let's go for a walk.
And I'm like, yeah.
You know, when your kids, especially, she's 16 now, right?
So, when your kids really want to spend time with you, man, that's just a great thing.
100%.
And that's kind of, yeah, I've really noticed that.
That's kind of, I've been mulling this over, this kind of issue over too, but we can, I guess we can jump to that topic next.
So, you know how there's only 24 hours in a day?
I do know that, yeah, sadly.
I find that to be a big problem in my life for some reason.
And it's not a problem that I can fix, obviously.
No, no, I'll fix it for you.
What do you need?
How many hours do you need?
I'm on it.
Oh God, yeah, I need like another, I need another 10 at least.
Yeah, yeah.
And it always feels like I'm playing catch-up.
When, I mean, objectively, I really have two great daughters.
Maybe we're definitely going to try for a third.
And if we're blessed with a third, great.
If we're not, it's okay.
But, you know, I have my career and it's gone great.
You know, I was the guy, by the way, that I went from, I was working at a place and then I I started my own consulting business, which was going great, and then landed me this great position at this accounting firm.
I don't know if you remember the chats going back and forth, but I'm that guy.
And so my career is going great.
I have a big, let's say, less than 100 acres, but more than 50-acre farm that I manage.
My dad now is managing for me.
So I got a lot of things done.
You know, I do car racing.
I have a small YouTube channel I do on the side.
Very, very hobby.
Very, very hobby-like.
So I have lots of great relationships, friends that I talk to basically every day, and extremely intelligent people.
And my wife is just the absolute best.
But I always have this nagging feeling in the back of my head.
It's just like, you're not doing enough, do more.
So, but more of what?
Is there a particular topic?
No.
So like, an example is like, I need to spend more time with my daughters.
So I go, and like my oldest daughter especially, she's just like, hey, you know, I'm doing my own thing.
Leave me alone kind of thing.
Right.
Like she's playing with a toy or something.
Because I'm always, you know, whenever she's around, I'm like, oh, what do you want to play with?
Let's play with this.
Let's go hang out.
You want to watch, let's watch, you know, we'll watch excavator videos or carve it, whatever she wants to watch.
Excavator.
Explain to me excavators.
We bought an excavator recently.
Let's go on the excavator and I'll teach you how to maneuver it.
Obviously, it's off for safety, but that kind of stuff.
Eventually, she's like, okay, I'm going to go do my own thing now.
I'm like, I need to hang out with her more.
She's like, no, no, no, I'm good.
Let me be here for a minute.
Then other times, it's like, well, okay, then I have to go work on I have to work on the farm.
A couple days ago, I completely renovated my...
I have a big skid steer.
I don't know if you know what that is.
I really don't, but I feel the explanation is going to put some hair on my chest, so go for it.
So it's technically a track loader.
So it's a big construction machine with a big...
Usually a big...
What are they?
It's not a...
It's not a shovel.
It's a giant bucket.
It's a big bucket that's effectively a big shovel in front of it.
It weighs 12,000 pounds, a big diesel machine.
You get into it, there's two joysticks, and you move dirt around with it.
And you could also have a big mower on it and stuff.
And so it requires some maintenance.
So three days ago, I took the whole thing apart and cleaned every bit out of it and power washed it and does all crazy stuff.
And I'm like, okay, I'm moving on to the next thing.
Just non-stop working and doing something and being productive.
Part of the reason why I'm actually calling you is because I'm challenging myself this year to every week have one phone call with somebody that affected my life in the last 15 years that I haven't spoken to in a while.
And you were on that list.
And so I'm just doing all these things and having a skid steer, I did my...
Parents Foundation with Skidsteer and I run power lines and I run water lines with my excavator and I have these crazy projects that I've executed on and done great on.
And again, I do car racing stuff.
I race at Sebring, I race at Daytona, I race at all the great racetracks around the United States.
I have done less of that in the last two years.
Because of my daughters being born, but I do plan to get back to it.
Well, and your daughter's also needing a husband who's not a smear on a track.
A father who's not a smear on a track, right?
Yeah, that's why I don't do door-to-door racing.
We do time trials, so you're not racing against other people.
But there's still gravity and momentum, right?
You don't want to end up like that guy from 90210, right?
Yeah, and I actually did have a crash.
I'll never think about it.
Dude, this is back in 2019.
I had a crash, but anyway.
So I'm doing a lot less of that.
But still, in the back of my head, I almost have to ask myself for permission to rest.
And I'm like, why am I doing that?
It's crazy to me that I'm doing that.
Because I think objectively, I don't know if you'd agree, but I think objectively, I think I'm doing okay.
Yes, you are.
Yeah, it sounds good.
I mean, you know, family's working well, your relationship is working well, and your career is working well, and your health is good, it sounds like.
So, you know, I think to ask for more is just starting to get greedy.
Right.
Right.
So, shake it out of me.
I don't know how.
Well, no, shake it out, and that is not going to answer much for you, right?
The question is, so, when you feel like you have to do something, The question is not, why do you have to do things?
The question is, what do you feel if you don't do things?
Mmm.
Right?
Anxiety.
Well, okay, so what do you feel when you don't do things?
So when I sit down on the couch, and I call them wife-mandated relax time, where she says, she takes me to the side and is like, hey you.
Slow down, right?
I'd like you to be around for the long haul, so yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, hey you, sit there, relax.
Because I'm always asking her, hey, how can I help you?
What can I do to help you?
And she's like, you can help me by sitting down and relaxing.
Yeah, yeah.
My wife has the same approach.
Stop doing stuff, stop trying to help.
Just, you know, you work hard, relax, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And so when I'm sitting there, not every time, but often, I feel like dread, like I'm missing out.
It was especially bad when I lived up north.
Let me explain.
This might help.
So when I was up north, basically up north, I felt like there was effectively maybe three weekends a year that were good weather, not rained out from the week before raining so it's not muddy.
Free and available, right?
There's no planned birthday or something.
That three weekends a year that I can get something done outside, right?
Work on a car.
No, I grew up in England.
I know what you're talking about.
Right?
And I'm just like, so it's less of it.
There's a lot less of it now where I'm currently living.
But it's still that like, man, if I don't get this done today, am I ever going to get it done?
Right.
There's like dread.
There's like, oh my God, if I don't stand up and like...
Like, go and fix that one thing.
I'll never fix it.
It's like, oh, that light bulb went out.
I gotta go, like, change the light or something.
It's like, if I don't do it right now.
Or it'll never happen.
Right.
Right.
It's just like, but it's like, when it's one or two things, it's like, okay, that's fine.
But it's like, everything.
All at once.
Tsunami of like, you have to do everything now.
When I go sit down and get the wife mandated relax time.
Yeah.
So then the question is, Where does it come from that you have to do things now?
The typical example, and this is something because you're still a relatively young man, you're not at the age where you see the price of people's workaholism and stress.
I now am of the age where I see the price of people's workaholism and stress.
I mean, it's not pretty at all.
Do tell.
Well, obviously, I don't want to sort of get into details of people that I know, but there are health issues that come out of workaholism and stress that are brutal.
So it's the old thing, it's like, yeah, you can get things done, absolutely.
You can make yourself do things and you can be busy all the time, right?
Absolutely.
And then...
You'll get sick from stress and not relaxation.
Like, have you ever trained?
Yeah, I mean, you obviously trained for your...
Car racing stuff.
Car stuff.
But have you ever trained for, like, heavy-duty athletic stuff?
Yeah, yeah.
And I was at a varsity crew.
Right.
Okay, so what happens if you train for eight hours a day, every day?
Oh, God, your muscles effectively become...
Well, you die.
I mean, you don't die, but I mean, you're...
You're ineffective completely.
Well, yeah, you just pull muscles, right?
Mm-hmm.
So you need your rest days.
Otherwise, you can't be a good athlete.
So you can make yourself do stuff and you can be like, I've got to get something done all the time.
But that's...
It really does kill your productivity.
Now, it may not do it in the short time.
It may not even do it for years.
But at some point, there's going to be a price to be paid.
It's funny you say that.
So you just woke up some memories that I don't think about.
But I remember times where I've done this, you know, nonstop work, work, work, do something, do something, do something.
And there comes a time where I wake up and I'm like, I cannot physically do anything anymore today.
Yep.
And sometimes that happens in a benevolent way, like you just get tired.
Other times, you just get sick.
Like, your body will make you rest, one way or another.
Like, you know, it's the old thing, you know, like the old mafia thing, like, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way, right?
And that's what rest is like as a whole.
We could do this the easy way, or we could do this the hard way, right?
Or a really, really bad hard way.
Right, right, right.
I think that if I start thinking through that, if I start thinking long-term about it that way, when I go rest, it's like, well, if I don't rest now, then I won't be able to be productive later.
Right, right.
And so the first level is it's not that efficient.
Right.
Right, like, you know, the old, you know, this is obviously better than I do because you're very handy.
But, you know, measure three times cut once, right?
And if you're like, hey man, I don't have time to measure.
I gotta be productive.
Well, what happens?
Well, you end up cutting something too short and it's a big waste of time, right?
That's a really good way to put it.
That's a really, really good way to put it.
We used to talk about this in the software field a lot, which is...
If you don't have time to fix it now, or if you don't have time to plan now, how are you going to have time to fix it later?
That's a really good way to put it.
So, I mean, in general, at least in software, this is probably true in many things, but in general, what you do is, if you fix something in the design phase of software, it's at least 10 times...
after the code base is started.
And of course, it's the same thing that's true in the building trades, right?
If you're trying to build something or a house or whatever, is it easier to fix it in the design phase or get it right in the design phase?
Or is it easier to try to fix it when, like later on?
Right.
Right?
Or the old thing, is it easier to put a sunroof in the car When you're ordering it or after it gets delivered, right?
Right at the beginning.
The earlier you do it, the better off it is.
Thinking back to the rest days, those rest days, that's your body and mind fixing itself to continue to do it.
You try to fix it when it's time to go live, to take your software example.
It never works out very well.
Yeah, I remember having to fix software while we were training people on it.
Oh, God.
That was pretty exciting.
So you were teaching them how to use the software, and they're like, oh, that's a bug.
And you'd be like, hold on a second.
Yeah, just do this.
Well, we can't do this.
I get an error message.
Oh, okay, let me just whip over the code base, fix it up, recompile, and we get to go.
Right?
I mean, that's not a huge amount of fun, but, you know, it certainly happens when you're kind of new.
That's hilarious.
So the first stage is it's not efficient.
You know, it's like all the people who say, well, I just don't have time to exercise.
It's like, do you have time for osteoporosis?
Do you have time for, like, getting sick?
Because that's what's going to happen if you don't exercise.
Because, you know, exercise helps your immune system and all of this kind of stuff, right?
So all the people who are like, well, I don't have time to exercise, it's like, then you're just going to get sick.
You know, or, you know, you run for the bus, you pull the muscle.
Or, you know, something, right?
Do you have time for, like, a heart attack?
Because, you know, if you don't exercise, it's really bad for your heart as a whole, right?
So everyone's like, I don't have time.
And it's like, well, then your body will make time.
If you don't make time for your body, your body will make time for you.
And trust me, you don't want to be on the reactive side of that stuff.
You want to be on the proactive side.
Yeah, you want to be on the proactive side.
You want to be on the prevention, not the cure stuff.
If the body has to enforce its own relaxation, it can get pretty harsh.
It's not just like, oh, I feel tired.
It could be like, oh, God, I have angina.
I have a stroke.
You don't want to have the body enforce its relaxation because the body just rolls the dice and says, man, any way we can get this done, I'm getting this done.
Shit, when you put it that way, of course.
Yeah, that's not a plus.
It's like, I don't have time.
I don't have time to maintain my car.
It's like, okay, do you have time for your car to break down in the middle of nowhere or for your brakes to fail and you run into a wall?
It's the same thing with driving, right?
So with driving, and my daughter's getting ready for all this stuff, right?
So I'm working with this with her.
It's like, I'm in a hurry.
It's like, well, nothing's going to cost you more time than an accident.
Or getting pulled over by a cop.
I'm sorry?
Or getting pulled over by a cop.
Yeah, or getting pulled over by a cop, right?
I'm late.
Okay, well, it's not the world's fault that you're late, and don't make the pedestrians suffer.
Yeah, please.
Right, there was a, I mean, it's a very sort of famous thing from a business standpoint, but I had a project manager early on in my career who had a sign over his desk that he would point to regularly, which was, a failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
I love that.
You say, oh, I'm in a hurry.
I've got to drive fast.
It's like, okay, well, do you have time to be in hospital for three months if you crash?
Well, and the funny thing about trying to speed to make it somewhere because you're late, even if you don't crash or don't get caught, you're still only saving a couple of minutes.
Oh, it's terrible.
Yeah, I mean, they've done these studies where people, like, they're given immunity from traffic laws and they try to, you know, get from one end of the city to the other.
Real quick.
And yeah, it's like maybe a couple of minutes.
And the stress and the danger and like it just doesn't pay off.
Oh God, the stress, yes.
It doesn't pay off.
Well, I take all of my fast driving out at the track.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's good for you.
Good for you.
So, yeah.
So, do not have your body enforce your relaxation.
And the longer it takes, in other words, the more you get done, usually the worse it is for you.
It's so inefficient, too, yeah.
It's so inefficient.
Yeah, like, if you don't take care of your car, if you don't get the maintenance done, you can't predict what's going to happen.
Like, you can't predict how it's going to break.
And that lack of prediction is really bad.
God, that would be terrible.
If you're proactive, you're in control.
If you're reactive, you're not in control because you're just waiting for something bad to happen, if that makes sense.
So relaxation really is maintenance.
Absolutely maintenance.
Yeah, no question.
If you don't take care of that maintenance, it will take care of itself for you.
Well, imagine you're driving, right?
Or you're trying to think about, you know, I got to go and do a race.
And you're like, well, look, man, I don't have time to check my car.
I don't have time to maintain my brakes.
I don't have time to do any of that.
I'm busy, man.
I got to start this race.
Yeah.
Well, I've had those times where I haven't had time to do that to the car, and what I do is I cancel the race.
Yeah, of course you do.
Of course you do, right?
Because, you know, that's just really dangerous, right?
Mm-hmm.
And so, yeah, your body is there to help you, and your body is there to rest, and it needs its rest, and it also needs its play.
Right?
Right.
Like, I've talked about this in terms of racquet sports, that I'll try and do all of this cool stuff in racquet sports, and I know my body is like, come on, man, we do your head stuff all the time.
Oh, all about philosophy.
Let me hit a ball around.
Don't try and nerd concept it up.
Like, just let me hit a ball around, let me have fun, and stop trying to do all of this cool intellectual stuff when we're literally hitting balls.
And that's absolutely right.
I mean, that's totally right.
Let my body play.
Because if it's all about the head, my body's going to be like, okay, I'm mad.
I'm mad.
Like, I'm mad now.
Yeah, that's what I struggle with the most.
It's my brain, my mind just doesn't stop.
It's like a storm.
It's just always something, and it's just non-stop.
And it's like, that's why it's part of it, too.
It's like, there's a billion things in there that my brain wants to do.
And then the other half of my brain, the animal side of my brain, it's like, nah, dude, I'm done.
Right, right.
Yeah, exactly.
So recognize that you are, of course, your body is not a...
A car to drive your brain around that has no needs or preferences of its own.
Your body and your brain are a team.
And, you know, like, if you've ever had, have you ever been on a team where someone hogs the ball?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, it's really annoying, right?
It's like, bro, stop hogging the ball.
Stop bogarting the physicality, right?
And so it's the same thing with the mind and the body.
Like, the body shouldn't hog everything.
In other words, Oh, I like cheesecake.
Let's eat cheesecake because the body likes it.
You know, that kind of thing, right?
So the body shouldn't be totally in control.
It's like a team.
It's like playing doubles in squash or some sort of racket sport.
And, you know, every now and then, like on social media, you'll see some video.
I saw someone recently of some pickleball player.
And, like, she's supposed to be a team and she's just taking every shot, right?
And people are like, oh man, I hate that kind of stuff.
And it's like, yeah, yeah, okay.
But that's your brain and your body, right?
Stop hogging them all.
Your body is not just something that is there to just, you know, convey your brain around so your brain does all the cool stuff.
Your body has its own needs and its preferences.
And it's, you know, it's happy to support the brain.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But, you know, it just, it can't, the brain can't hog it because then it's just kind of selfish and narcissistic and you'll pay anyway.
Yeah, for sure.
Oh man, this is very helpful.
And I can't believe we've already been talking for an hour.
Sorry, and I'll just keep this next part brief.
So the first level, the first level is saying, well, it's inefficient, right?
Like if I...
Right, so the first level is, well, I shouldn't speed because I'll get a ticket, I'll get into an accident, and so on, right?
That's sort of the first level.
And the second level is, who's in charge that I feel this level of tension when I am not being productive?
And so for you, I imagine that that would be, you know, someone like your dad or something like, who's in charge, right?
Yeah, 100%.
No, it comes from my childhood and my dad and stuff.
Right, right.
I actually, as soon as I feel that, I automatically, I know where that's coming from and it's irrational.
No, it's not irrational.
You had to please your father when you were growing up.
That's not irrational at all.
That's true.
Right?
I mean, pleasing your parents is not like some optional thing in our evolution.
It was an absolute have to.
Like, I have to please my parents because...
You know, I mean, of course, I'm not saying this about your parents, but for most of our evolution, at least half the kids didn't make it.
And it wasn't the popular kids.
It wasn't the kids that the parents really liked and loved.
Like, you've got five siblings, right?
If there's not enough food, you better be a favorite.
They better really like you, if that makes sense.
So, it's not irrational, and it's not optional.
It is an absolute.
please your parents as, as a kid.
So, um, that, and, and your body was like, okay, well, if dad, you know, there's, there's a sort of terrifying, you know, a friend of mine once described Tom Cruise as like the manifestation of rage against the breast.
And I could never hear that or unsee that, but there's a film called Magnolia where he plays this pretty terrifying, I don't know, half cult leader or something like that.
Right.
And in the, um, He's like, you know, you just, you need to do your job!
He's just screaming, and, you know, he had this whole thing under COVID where, you know, people were violating some COVID requirements on his film sets, and he just, you know, completely freaked out.
Now, of course, I get it, right?
I mean, he's got a lot going on as a movie maker, so I kind of get why he would have some tension around this kind of stuff, but, you know, he is a kind of terrifying guy of, like, you have to do your job, like, your job, and, you know.
It's one of the reasons why he makes, you know, very competent films, right?
Is that he gets people who do their job.
And so, you know, I get it.
It's important.
Of course, you know, he has no particular love life, and he's just like this movie-making and app-making machine, and so it's not my particular kind of life.
Kind of sad if you ask me.
Sorry?
Kind of sad if you ask me.
It is kind of sad, yeah, for sure.
It's not the kind of life that I would want, because, you know, it doesn't really matter how many awards you have or how much money you have.
Mm-hmm.
That's pretty sad.
Pretty sad.
So, uh, so my point is like the do your job stuff is really important.
And there are times when it's life and death, right?
I mean, like you have to get enough in a cold climate, you have to get enough food for the winter.
Like, it's not like an optional thing, right?
Otherwise you die in war, you know, like you have to do your job, right?
Like if, if you're there to deliver the, um, uh, if you're there to deliver the ammo, you have to do your job.
Otherwise, like You die, everyone dies, you get invaded, you know, your wife gets raped in front of you, like, whatever horrible stuff would go on throughout most of history.
Like, so I get that stuff for sure, but it's also important to remember, like, I mean, you know, white Hispanic, right?
So we talk Spain, the origin story in Spain.
100% Spain.
Yeah, so in Spain, for most of the Middle Ages, a third of your year was religious holidays.
Wow.
This whole, like, work 50 hours a week, this is totally new.
This is, like, this is not our evolution in any way, shape, or form.
You know, medieval peasants had, you know, they'd spend all winter basically not doing anything because there was really nothing to do.
I mean, you had your food or you didn't.
And so you'd sit under the blankets, you'd tell stories, you know, and all of that.
So this whole, like, 40-hour work week, I have no particular issue with it as a whole.
But that's new stuff for us.
And it is sort of a slave mentality.
Like, if you look at lions, right, it's the old joke, right?
Like, why do they call them lions?
Because they're just lying around the whole time.
Right?
So they're powerful, and because they're strong and powerful, they don't, they spend most of their time conserving energy, as most predators do.
So this sort of constant work thing is a low status.
It's a low status thing.
Like, you think of the squirrel constantly having to gather nuts versus the wolf, which spends most of its time because it gets all the calories at once, right?
So the wolf spends most of its time just, you know, lying around, having sex, training its pups and all that.
It's not a very hard-working creature because the hard-working stuff is for the prey species.
And so if you're raised by a parent to be a prey species, right, to have to please or die, then...
You're going to end up with this sense that if you're not producing, you're in danger.
Right?
Because if the slave is considered to be lazy, the slave is killed.
I mean, they don't keep the slave around.
It's just like, if you're lazy, if it's too much work to get you to do any work, we'll sell you or we'll kill you, which would be sort of two sides of the same coin, right?
So, work or die is...
Is a slave mentality.
And a prey mentality.
Yeah, because you grew up with a very harsh and occasionally violent father, this work or die, yeah, that's a big thing in life.
That is a very big thing.
It's a very big mindset.
It's the employee mindset.
And of course, you know, the powers that be love it if you're in the work or die mentality.
Because then you just, you can't say no, you can't think it's good for me, you can't relax.
And, you know, it's great that, you know, they say this is sort of joke, right?
That there's nothing that's more stressful to a wife than a husband on the couch.
Right?
Now, again, I don't, I mean, it's kind of a joke.
It's not really real, but at least, I mean, certainly it's real for some people, for sure.
It's certainly real for some people.
But, you know, if you have a wife who respects you, then she wants you to relax.
And that's in part, you know, like men die, what is on an average, six or seven years before women do.
And that's one of the reasons is because women are usually better at relaxing, right?
There's no spa day for men, right?
And that's, you know, not particularly fair or reasonable since men do, like we do a lot of work, right?
So it's also part of love, right?
Part of love for your wife is you don't want to have her outlive you by 10 years or more, right?
That's not right.
And she won't be happy at that.
Any more than you'd, like, if your wife was a smoker, you'd be like, man, you've got to quit smoking because you're going to die young and I love you.
Right?
Like you said, you give up a ton of your racing because of your kids, right?
Which, you know, makes sense.
So if you're just, like, stress guy working hard and you've got to get things done, you know, stress is as bad as smoking.
So if your wife was a smoker, you would not be particularly happy with that.
And so, you know, the sense of, like a shark, you've got to constantly be in motion.
or negative things are going to happen.
In other words, it's not the wanting to be busy.
It's just a form of stress or anxiety management.
And that's, you know, you got to ask your wife, do you want me to get a bunch of stuff done that you don't particularly care about?
Or do you want me to live 10 years longer?
Oh gosh, she'll choose the 10 years longer any day of the week.
Of course you, and say for your kids too, right?
Do you want me to be around to enjoy my grandkids?
Do you want me to get a bunch of stuff done that you don't particularly care about?
Gosh, it doesn't even make sense to do those things, you know?
Right, right, right.
And again, I say this with, you know, I mean, I've been known to work a little bit too hard myself from time to time.
I don't have five interviews a week kind of thing, right?
But it is just not a productive thing to do in the long run.
And it's not what our loved ones want us to do, which I think is what your wife is saying when she says, like, Chill and relax, right?
I want you to relax.
You know, my wife said now, she's like, why don't you just relax today?
I'm like, you're right.
That is a good idea.
That is a good idea.
And, you know, for me, getting off politics and all of that had a lot to do with, like, okay, that's an extreme sport and I can't spend my entire life doing...
My childhood was an extreme sport.
There was a lot of extremism in my business career.
And, you know, I just can't keep living on the edge my whole life.
Ragged edge.
Yeah, I've been living on the ragged edge for too long.
Yes.
Yes.
And it's also, it does distract you from that sort of basic connection or love has a lot to do with relaxation.
It's really tough to connect with people who are stressed or distracted or Actually, You think about the sort of nice, great conversations you have with your wife, and it's like it's when you're just sitting there, you've got nothing to do and nowhere to go.
in fact, that's effectively when I'm...
When I feel burnt out and my wife's like, no, you're not doing anything.
That time is when we connect and enjoy each other and just talk about anything and everything for hours.
Yes.
So that's a big recharge for me when I talk to my wife.
And it's the whole thing.
It's like, well, what are you working for, right?
What is it?
And, you know, again, I get there's some stuff that has to be done, right?
So we know all of that.
So we're not going to do this last dichotomy of like, you're either a German or Caribbean.
Right?
There's nothing in between, right?
I get all of that, right?
But what are you working for?
Without relaxation, it's the old thing, it's like, is there any point making money if you never spend it?
Is there any point working if you never relax?
No, I think you're right.
And the idea that you have to justify your existence with endless labor, that is straight up slave morality.
Yeah, it's pre-mentality.
I don't like being in prayer mentality.
Yeah, no, that's no good.
And, of course, it teaches your kids that you don't have value in and of yourself.
You only have value in as far as you work, in as far as you get things done and please people.
And that is not good.
You've got to have value in and of yourself because you can't spend your whole life working.
And the other thing, too, like, what are you going to do when you retire?
Right?
I mean, I know you're young, but, you know, it comes, and, you know, it may be even sooner than you think, right?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
And you're disagreeing with your wife.
Your wife finds value in who you are as a human being.
Whereas you're saying, no, no, no, honey, you're wrong.
I'm only of value if I'm providing resources and things to people.
And she's like, what?
Are you saying that you're supposed to pay me to enjoy your company?
No, I enjoy you for who you are.
You don't need to do all of these tricks and be all this kind of productive stuff.
And so you're saying, well, honey, you might think that you like me for who I am, but you're kind of wrong because I'm only a value if I'm producing things.
Well, to add to that point real quick, my wife and I, a couple years ago, sat down and just did the math.
Within 10 years, we're going to run out of stuff to buy.
We're basically already there.
We don't really have that much to buy anymore.
Right.
I have seven cars.
Just FYI.
Oh, because if you're racing stuff, right?
Racing and just, I'm stupid or something.
I don't know.
I'm just, whatever.
I just have seven cars for no reason.
And racing and, you know, a farm.
And it's like, you know, I have somebody call me the other day.
Hey, you want to buy this cool car?
I'm like, no, I'm done buying cars.
Like, I need to sell some of this stuff.
Like, I'm done.
I don't want to.
But you're going to run out of stuff to buy.
So what the hell am I working for?
You're right.
It's time to...
It's time to relax.
And of course, what matters in the long run is your relationships, and your relationships are facilitated by work, right?
I mean, you can't have a relationship if you're living under a bridge and starving to death, right?
So you've got to, you know, you've got to produce some stuff, but your relationships are not facilitated by workaholism, and workaholism is the existential belief that you have value only if you're producing value.
You don't have value.
In and of yourself, you have value only insofar as you are producing value for others.
The B-plus arguments.
Yeah, that definitely is.
You're then an employee and a slave forever and ever, amen.
And you can't be happy with yourself because if you're not producing value, then you have no value and you just can't be happy with yourself.
Like, who am I when I'm not doing a show or producing value in the world or whatever it is, right?
And so on, right?
You got to be something.
Otherwise, you don't have existence.
You only have utility.
Or you don't have value.
You only have utility, right?
Now, I mean, and of course, you're saying it's primarily an economic relationship, right?
Like, I mean, my waiter will say how I'm doing.
Like, hey, how you doing today?
You know, they don't care.
I mean, other than in this sort of abstract, generic human way.
But they don't care how I'm doing.
It's an economic relationship.
And I don't particularly care how they're doing.
I'm just hungry.
Like, not in any specific way.
I mean, I care about abstract things as a whole, right?
You know, if the waiter is pregnant, I'll say congratulations.
And I mean that in a sort of generic way, but not in the same way, you know, as a friend of mine gets pregnant or something like that.
Saying that things are an economic relationship and you don't have value in and of yourself, you only have value in and of the productive value you supply to others is a way to just sacrifice your relationships, which is the primary goal of life for the sake of productivity, which is of a diminishing return.
As you say, one car makes you happier.
Right?
Because one car versus no cars is a big deal, but of course, an eighth car doesn't make you as happy as the first car.
Right.
I mean, I'll never be as happy buying anything technological-based as I was buying my very first computer.
So, yeah, so the question is, if I don't, who am I?
And this is true more so for men, right?
Because it's human being, right?
Women are human being, men are human doing.
So, okay, so if I'm not providing value, if I'm not providing specific value, what am I doing?
What is my value if I'm not providing value, if I'm not making something or doing something or building something or anything like that?
And that's a tough question for men in particular to answer.
But we got to answer it.
Otherwise, we, you know, an early grave and a difficult, stressful life and no relaxation and the attendant.
Resentment.
Right?
Because nobody resents like slaves.
And if you have the slave mindset, resentment will be your constant problem.
And I'm not saying that's with you.
It could happen over time.
Because you won't feel free.
And you won't feel like you're making decisions in and of yourself.
You will feel like, well, I have to.
I'm compelled.
I have to.
You know, like you've got a bad boss who's going to fire you and it's the only job in town.
It's like, well, you're going to resent your boss because he's making you do stuff.
And it's that creeping feeling of like, oh yeah, so I'm only here because of the value that I provide, not because of the value within myself.
That always creeps up.
And it may not be people, and certainly it wouldn't be your wife because she's telling you to relax, but it will be your work as a whole that you'll resent.
And, you know, maintaining joy in your work.
Like if I said, Listen, I got to do a three-hour live stream every day, right?
Regardless of inspiration, regardless of energy levels, I can't have any other, like that kind of stuff, right?
How long would it take for me to resent that entirely made-up obligation?
Well, it wouldn't take very long at all.
And so I'm very fierce in protecting my joy of work, my joy of doing shows and philosophy and so on, right?
I'm very fierce on that.
Because if I lose that joy, then it just becomes drudgery and resentment, and I don't want to, and, you know, I can probably put on a happy face for a little while, but not too long.
So, I'm very fierce at protecting my joy in what it is that I'm doing, and I know for sure that the only way I can protect my joy in what I'm doing is to view it as obligation-free.
I don't have to.
I don't have to do it.
I don't have to.
I don't have to.
And so once I'm in a state where I'm actually choosing things from that standpoint, then I don't resent it because I'm choosing to do it.
But if I feel like I have to, I got to, and I'm sort of whipping myself forward, then, I mean, you can get a bunch of stuff done.
You absolutely can.
You are undermining your joy at doing things and getting things done.
And long-term.
That's going to cost you in the long run, man.
Mm-hmm.
That's more costly than it is beneficial.
Mm-hmm.
Cost-benefit analysis.
This is very great.
And then, sorry, the last thing I'll say is what happens is the other thing too, and this is, you know, you work for yourself, so it's not such a big deal.
But in general, what happens is if you are a compulsive worker, What happens is you end up getting a bunch of work because you're very good at what you do.
And because you get a bunch of work because you're very good at what you do, you end up with way too many responsibilities.
You know, there's an old saying in business, right?
Like, if you want to get something done, give it to the busy guy.
That's funny you say that.
So I started consulting and then...
A tsunami of work just came my way.
I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't do all of this.
Are you guys crazy?
And so now I'm actually going to be a high-level executive at a regional firm.
So I'll have less work there than my six months of consulting work that I did.
Right, right.
Yeah, because if you're very competent, then you get huge amounts of work, and then you feel overwhelmed, and then you start to get resentful, and you start to get annoyed.
And yet you can't give it up because you've got all these obligations.
Like, the person who takes the obligations very seriously ends up getting a lot of work and ends up with too many obligations and no longer feels free and then resents everything.
So, yeah, it's really...
Preserving...
Your joy in your work is the most important thing when it comes to productivity.
And it's not the easiest thing in the world to do.
Because competence brings obligations, brings a feeling of enslavement and entrapment.
Yeah, I've never heard anyone talk about preserving the joy in your work.
That's profound to me, at least.
Oh, yeah.
No, I will.
And I feel even more of a responsibility because it's like...
I mean, the work that I do is pretty serious, right?
I mean, it's, like, designed to, like, you know, save people's lives and make the world a significantly better place and all that kind of stuff.
So, I mean, I take it very, like, having to preserve the joy is a very serious business.
It's kind of a weird paradox.
I cannot afford to not enjoy my job.
Sounds like a really complicated, confusing kind of contradiction, right?
But I really can't.
I mean, it's not like there's a lot of bunch of other people who could do what I do.
And so I really do have to, I really, really, really have to preserve that kind of happiness.
That's essential.
So, yeah, I hope that, and, you know, your job is important for you, and I'm not sort of trying to say, well, my job's important, you're not, but it is very important to you, and it is how you provide for your family and your kids and all that, so you have to.
Yeah, you have to preserve that pleasure, and that means stuff has to be chosen.
You're doing it because you want to, because you find meaning, and it's a value, and so on.
Because, yeah, you lose that, man.
Oof.
Then life just becomes a slog.
And so, yeah, so people end up with a lot of obligations because they're really good, and they're really good often because they take stuff super seriously.
And, again, there's nothing wrong with taking stuff seriously, but if you end up in a situation where you just...
Feel overwhelmed because of your own competence, then resentment...
I mean, again, you can muscle it for a while, but it will undermine your joy.
And once your joy and your work is undermined, it's really hard to get back.
And I've certainly come to the edge of that sometimes.
But I really have to just...
I guard it like a pit bull guards a baby.
Maybe that's not the best analogy.
But you know what I mean.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
You just gave me a roadmap for how I'm going to execute on my plan for this firm.
If you're not free to say no, you'll always resent saying yes.
Well, I'm going to be guarding my joy of what I do because I do love what I do for work.
I would do it for free, right?
But obviously not.
I'm so good at it that people want to pay me a lot of money for it.
But there's certain aspects I'm just, you know.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to hire someone.
I have free range to do so.
Whenever I feel like, okay, this needs to be done, I hate doing it, I'm hiring somebody for it.
Yes.
That's the roadmap.
I love it.
This is very impactful.
Good, good.
Well, it sounds like we had a productive old chat, and I guess I'll catch you in a decade.
Yeah, I did.
I mean, I did have, after that such deep conversation there, the last question that I had written down for you.
Yeah, good for you.
So, like I said, I have a two-year-old, almost three, and I have a newborn.
And after COVID, the whole vaccines and trusting the medicine, etc., it's just gone completely out the window.
You ain't alone in that, brother.
I know.
I interviewed, I don't know, seven, probably eight different medical doctors before we chose our pediatrician.
And our pediatrician is actually amazing.
He's really good.
He's into crypto.
He's really good.
And he helps in choosing, okay, how do we do the vaccines, etc.
And he admits that, well, I don't know enough to tell you when you should take it, which vaccines exactly you should take.
I'm just giving the recommendations.
What he does say is, you guys make the choice, and I'll help you through it.
And she tells me exactly what's in it, why is it important.
But I still struggle to figure out which vaccine to do and what.
And you tell me if I'm thinking about this the right way.
Because the way I'm thinking about it is, well, if I were to explain to my daughters when they're 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 20, that, hey, this is what we do with your vaccine schedule.
We reduce them significantly.
We pushed, you know, instead of having you take four or five of them every two months, which is ridiculous to me, we chose the most important ones, right, you know, for the first six months, and then until you became six months old, we didn't allow anybody to be around you for the risk, you know, we're very risk-averse when it comes to that.
But then we pushed a lot of things back, and, you know, we didn't give you all of them, and this is exactly why.
It's just, And I'm sitting here, I'm reading scientific abstracts on different studies on vaccines, and I'm like, gosh, can I just, what?
There's no other resource that I could find to tell me which to take, which not to take.
And I almost feel like, well, am I making the right decision?
Like, okay, we're not doing this one, but what if she ends up getting whatever this is, diphtheria, not diphtheria, but one of these diseases.
Oh my God, we would have made a mistake.
But that's kind of how you have to deal with life.
Mistakes happen.
And so I don't know if you had any thoughts on...
Yeah, I mean, the good news is not just that Kash Patel's in at the FBI, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in.
So I'm sure you know the history of this, that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanded to know if there had been sort of double-blind experiments or, you know, combination safety tests on...
This, like, what is it, 70-plus vaccines that they're trying to jam in kids?
And, I mean, you can't test.
You can't test that in any reasonable way.
So he ended up suing, and I think that they finally admitted, yeah, we don't have, you know, a whole bunch of double-blind experiments.
We don't have any of that kind of stuff with regards to these things.
So I don't know the answer.
I mean...
Obviously, vaccines is one of these topics that is so upsetting as a whole, just for me.
Because, like, if it turns out that vaccines have a relationship with autism, and something sure as hell does, because there were no autistic kids around when I was a kid, and, you know, as I've mentioned before, you can't find descriptions of autism.
Throughout human history, it is something that is in the last couple of decades has just gone through the roof.
One of the most corrupt, vicious, and evil aspects of society as it stands is that people aren't moving heaven and earth to figure out what the living hell is going on.
Like, that is one of the most absolutely, like, talk about, you know, breaking the social contract.
This catastrophic, or can be catastrophic, neurological disorder.
Like, I remember reading about some woman whose kid has severe autism, and she's like, the first hour every day was just trying to get him to brush his teeth.
Like, it's just hell in many ways, right?
So the fact that we've had this, you know, massive rise, and oh, no, it's always been around, it just wasn't diagnosed.
It's like, that's just too glib an answer.
So, I don't know, you know, I mean, hopefully they'll do studies, and of course, if it turns out, and I don't know, of course, what the answer's going to be, but if it turns out that vaccines have something to do, like the escalated vaccine schedule has something to do with autism, I can't even tell you.
I can't tell you in any public forum the kind of punishments that I would like to see meted out at people who might have suppressed this, if it turns out to be the case.
But it would be...
I'm right there with you.
I don't know.
Hopefully, when RFK Jr. is in, he is going to find ways to get this information out.
That's what it is, man, because there's no information.
You can't trust it.
I'm just following, I'm basically, I looked up the 1984 vaccine schedule, and it's like, they do tuberculosis the first month, nothing until the six months, and the six months is like one shot of like three different things.
MMR, right?
Measles, mumps, rubella, or something like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then again in a year, right?
But now it's like, the first day, it's like they want to inject them with like eight things.
I'm like, okay, no.
Well, and I mean, some stuff that you can, what, get?
From sexual contact and drug needles, it's like, I'm pretty sure newborns are a low-risk category for that stuff.
Right.
Yeah, I don't know the answer.
I am incredibly suspicious at the lack of, like, if you look at the amount of resources that were mobilized for COVID, like, society lost its shit over COVID.
Yes, it did.
And, you know, with this, you know, Alpha was a nasty bug, and I get all of that, right?
But if you look at the amount of resources that were mobilized over COVID, and then you compare that with the kind of resources that are being mobilized to find the cause of autism...
Oh, gosh.
I mean, it's complete opposite.
Now, of course, the cynic would say that, well, they lost their shit over COVID because they made hundreds of billions of dollars.
And because they're making hundreds of billions of dollars off vaccines, they're not particularly interested in finding the cause.
Like, my belief is that the cause is known but suppressed.
And it's known but suppressed for money.
I don't know what the cause is, but I believe it's known.
So, when people aren't looking for stuff, it's because they already have it.
Yeah.
So I think that the cause of autism is probably known somewhere.
I'm not saying I know what it is.
Obviously, I, like everyone, have their suspicions.
But I think the cause of COVID is known.
Sorry, the cause of autism is known.
It is just suppressed for money.
And, of course, when people look objectively at COVID, they say some intensely evil stuff was done for the sake of money, power, and control.
Which should not be too shocking for any student of human history.
And so with regards to vaccines, the fact that there's not this massive societal effort to find the cause tells me that the cause is probably known.
You know, like if I've got a grandfather who buried a bunch of bodies in his backyard and I say, hey, I want to go plant some stuff, he'll be like, no.
No, don't.
It's, you know, don't do it, right?
And then he'll get pretty aggressive.
Because he knows where the bodies are buried and he doesn't want me digging around.
And I think the same thing is true of something like autism or, you know, just the general ill health.
Like this, oh, this measles outbreak is like, it's a couple of cases.
And people are saying, and rightly so, like to the media, like, well, why aren't you talking about diabetes and obesity among children?
Because like, that's like, compared to measles, that's the big risk.
And so, yeah, so the fact that you've got a system that makes money off chronic illness.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Because I think he really does care about this stuff.
And I think he's, you know, he's been saying like he's been praying for decades for the opportunity to try and make America healthy again.
I think he is a man with a mission.
And of course, given his physique, he has a fair amount of credibility.
So I think that, you know, if there is some relationship between vaccines and ill health, like, you know, I'm sure you've read the same stuff, like, there was no such thing as SIDS.
Before vaccines.
And again, I don't know.
It's like COVID.
It's this whirlwind of both inadvertent and advertent misinformation.
And so maybe the health effects of vaccines will come out over the course of RFK's tenure.
Or the lack of information is also going to be important.
And then, of course, given that autism is just a massive, massive problem.
Within society, the fact that people haven't been moving heaven and earth to find its cause makes me believe they already have it.
If it's vaccines or something else, I don't know.
I don't know.
Obviously, I can't give you any health or medical advice, but what I can say is that I think that the information is going to come out sooner rather than later, and it wouldn't have happened if Trump wasn't in and RFK wasn't in his post.
But you might get information to make a better and more informed decision sooner rather than later because of what's going on politically.
Well, on the note of autism, right, the reason they don't, also another reason to add to that, why they don't want to find a cure or find a reason, is because it heavily profits the state and state-run education centers.
It's this huge program.
Yeah.
I know this because I have family, extended family members that I don't really talk to, but they're these special ed teachers.
They have like three students for their entire year.
That's all they do.
And there's three special ed students, four or five.
And that's it.
You can have no more than five.
And so there's a huge department of just special ed for autistic kids.
I'm like, that's a huge moneymaker for these people.
It's insane.
Yeah.
And then...
The last thing I'll say is the lack of nuance.
Because both of my kids are genetically, I would say, very, very healthy.
My wife is extremely healthy.
Excuse me.
And they're breastfed.
They always eat very well.
They sleep well.
So there's no nuance as to the risk factors.
We're not swimming in sewage.
So we're not going to get the polio that runs around, especially in the Hasidic neighborhoods.
We're not going to be, you know, we don't have any, let's just say, we don't have any different people that would be in sexual contact with weird things, let's say, at all, anywhere near us ever.
So we don't really necessarily need all this.
There's no nuance to it.
There's not like, oh, okay, if you're at risk of XYZ, if you're in a highly populated area, if you're going to go to an Ibiza, You know, rave with your baby, then maybe you should take these vaccines.
But if you're not, then maybe not.
There's no separation or nuance, no thought about the individual patient.
It's like, okay, two-month-old baby is the same for race, creed, color, geography.
It doesn't matter.
Bam, this is the schedule.
It's like, that doesn't make any sense to me either.
So it's like, I really hope some truth comes out, like you said, with RFK and Trump.
The last month has been amazing.
I'll say that, so I'm hopeful.
Yeah, yeah.
And it would be one of the greatest evils in history if there's an answer to the ill health, particularly something like autism, the ill health of children.
If there's an answer that was suppressed, I would almost look in any other direction.
Mm-hmm.
If the parents wanted to enact vengeance.
Like, honestly, that's just...
But, you know, I mean, this is what happens when you put the government in charge of stuff, is it's going to become corrupt and populated by insanely cruel and greedy people, so...
Yeah, so, I mean, I hope the information's going to come out, and, you know, we're still waiting for...
And, you know, I think we'll...
I don't think it will happen, but we're still waiting for any kind of...
Accountability for the lies and rights stripping under the COVID era.
So I don't know.
The system has gone beyond, at least in the West as a whole, but maybe this is an exception in America under the current administration, but the system seems to have gone beyond any kind of self-correction.
And then it's just like, hang on until it crashes.
Yeah, I don't know, but I would certainly, I'm sure you will, keep your eye on what might be coming out from HHS or CDC or anything like that.
And that really could rock the world.
Or, you know, the other thing too is it's all this weird thing, like, I think if I remember rightly, the SSRI theory of like, well, you've got a chemical imbalance in your brain.
I think that was disproven fairly robustly a year or two ago.
You'd be amazed at how things don't change, even when the facts come out.
But it will change for your family when the facts come out.
Oh, of course.
Yeah, it's funny.
The last four years, I really have not been paying attention at all to politics after the election was stolen.
And then now that Trump's in, it's like, let me take a glimpse.
And then I'm like, oh my goodness.
Every single day, it's like nonstop.
It's like, what?
Amazing stuff happening?
Wow, okay.
That's cool.
So, yeah, I'm definitely glued to, like, what's going on.
I just want to hear some truth.
I want to hear what's going on because we've been in the dark for too long.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, brother.
Well, I hope you'll keep me posted and I really do appreciate your conversation today.
Congratulations, especially given your origin story on what a beautiful family you've made and congratulations on your parenting and your wife's parenting.
It's just...
Beautiful to see and to hear.
And it really does put a spring in my step to know that philosophy, along with, of course, a bunch of other factors, has helped make your life so much better and the life of your children so much better.
So I really do appreciate that update.
Yeah, significantly.
And, you know, thank you so much for this philosophy audit.
Very helpful to me.
I hope the listeners also get something out of it.
But for sure, it was super powerful.
And hopefully, let's not make it a decade this time.
Let's make it five years at most.
It's up to you, man.
Just let me know and keep me posted.
Alright, thanks Stefan.
Have a good day.
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