#29 - Chris Austin: Transform Your Journey, Embrace the Power of Mentorship

Don't doubt yourself, run your race.

It's important to just love yourself and push yourself.

Don't feel like you have to accomplish things to make other people happy.

Welcome to Talk to People, a weekly podcast where I get to sit down and talk with a variety of people about how they got from where they were to where they are and how they improved their life through having better conversations, relationships and community.

What you're about to hear is a conversation that I had with Chris Austin.

Chris is the site coordinator of the Lawrence Boys & Girls Club.

Now I asked Chris to be on the podcast because I think it's incredibly important to have intergenerational community.

A few podcasts ago, you can go back and check it out.

I'll have a little link to it here.

I had on Mia Santarelli and she was talking about the power of connecting with those older than you and how much wisdom and insight we can gain.

Now, in addition to that, I think it's incredibly important to connect with those younger than us, either in a mentorship role or really we can even learn from them.

And this is something that Chris does incredibly well.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode, ranging from leadership tips to how to relate to those who are younger than you, the power of mentorship and how to provide consistent leadership even if you are a similar age to those you're managing.

We even near the end of the episode flip the script and Chris begins to ask me questions where we unpack kind of what I have in mind for the podcast and what I hope the podcast looks like in three years.

So shout out to Chris for flipping the script.

It wasn't planned.

It just kind of naturally happened that way.

You go in, you could talk to people from multitudes of walks of lives.

And it was just like, you can talk to someone from a different country, someone who's been a convicted felon.

You could talk to a mother of four and it's just an opportunity for people to interact with.

Now, before we hop into the episode, I do want to tell you about a newsletter I've been working on.

It's called the Social Fitness Lab Newsletter.

I send out a new edition every Monday through Friday.

And what's inside of it is a simple tip that I've been working on that I think is gonna help you.

So if you'd like to be a part of this, you can just click the link.

You can always unsubscribe if you don't like it.

But my thought is if I can help you by creating something that is free, but also somewhat insightful, then I'd love to be able to share that and bring you all in on that.

So the link's gonna be down below.

With that being said, you are officially live in the dining room studio.

Oh, wow.

How has your day been?

My day has actually been pretty good.

Really mellow.

We don't have any teens at the club, so able to actually get some of the administrative duties I have to do done and taken care of.

So let's talk about the club, because you mentioned the club and a lot of people listening may not know what the club is.

So we'll start there.

What is the club?

So the club, Boys & Girls Club, my home away from home.

I've been a part of the movement for, it's going on 11 years.

This will be 11 years in August.

Started as a 19 year old kid.

Now I've progressed into, I've gone through the pipeline and done group leading.

I've been a site coordinator, which is like leadership at the club for about seven years.

So I was a group leader for three, almost four years.

And then from there it was just leadership because I had been at the club for long enough.

And they trusted me to watch these kids and make sure I don't lose them or anything.

So I've been kind of blessed.

Right, you haven't lost them.

And I saw you at the club.

The way that you can work with all the different people was impressive.

So you started going to the club when you were a kid.

What age were you?

For me personally, I mean, I had to have been like, when I was like a kid, kid, maybe like third, fourth grade.

I'm from Topeka.

So there's, at that time, there was two Boys & Girls Club.

There was like a North site and a South site.

I went to the Adams unit, which is the South site.

And I had a cousin or an uncle that was, and it's like a families know each other for a long time type uncle situation, who was like a director there.

And he would talk to my mom and say, he should come over to Boys & Girls Club.

All my friends would kind of go over there.

So we lived maybe five, 10 minute bike ride away.

So after school, when I was old enough, I was able to ride my bike over there and hang out.

And I always enjoyed the environment.

Kind of feel like a fish out of water at times because that club is, it's kind of like ours.

Ours is, you have multiple spaces you can do things in, and you can kind of choose to go between them.

So imagine that, but it's like kindergarten through high school.

So it's like community center kind of.

And this is before, I believe, Boys & Girls Club, not necessarily rebranded, but they now have more of a focus on intentional activities and learning.

Back then, it was just like a free for all.

So you can go and hang out inside the gym all day.

And they did some coursework and stuff.

They had like an art room, and they had computers and a games room.

But yeah, it was just like an experience being to be around my peers and hang out with them and not be in school.

So you have all the amenities of school.

You have like teachers and adults like mentors.

But then you also have access to like the gym or, hey, they're gonna be doing this food activity inside the cafeteria.

We should all go for that.

So that's pretty fun.

I wanna put myself, if I could get in a time machine, hop back in one, because I had some of that for soccer, being around teammates, even if we went to different schools.

But seeing the club now, I get to witness all of these people from different schools being able to hang out as if they are classmates.

And they're just kicking it.

And what's cool is the staff is really cool with them.

And I know we could probably go in depth on that, but I'm curious about one thing.

You said you rode your bike to the club.

What kind of bike did you have?

Okay, so I had a Mongoose for a while.

Mongoose with the pegs on the back.

I didn't have front pegs.

I wasn't that adventurous.

Did you give people rides?

Sometimes.

Sometimes we would ride home together.

My sister would walk with me home, and I would shop on the back of the bike.

I had that for a good, like a while, and then it got stolen.

And I was pretty upset.

And then I think I got a Huffy, like a mountain bike.

And then from then on, it was just mountain bikes.

I mean, Mongoose, the BMX bikes were cool when I was like a kid.

But then as I got older, it was like I was traveling a lot farther and going up and down hills.

And once I got the mountain bike able to shift gears, I was like, why was I ever not riding this in the first place?

Game changer.

Yes, it definitely was.

It definitely was.

Yeah, I used to be the guy with the BMX bike who would ride around and do the flips and the tricks.

I never did a flip, but I do spins.

And recently I got a mountain bike and it's hanging up on the wall.

I can show it to you, but I haven't been using it as much, but I got it because it seems like more of a grownup option.

Man, for sure.

You feel a lot more adult.

Like I never been a kid at being like, I got a mountain bike and he was like tall and it was completely different than what I ever experienced.

I mean, having the pegs, it was for tricks.

And I was never like a trick kid.

Like the most adventurous I would get is we ride on the pegs and like take our hands off and like stand on the bike and stuff.

But all the extra stuff my friends were doing and I was not into that.

Yeah, I had a buddy who was like, hey, can I ride your BMX bike?

Because I would do this trick where I'd ride and I put my foot off the pedal and put it on the front wheel and the whole bike would tip up like that.

And then I would go back down and he said, hey, can I try that?

So I said, sure.

So he did it and he fell over the handlebar.

And then he broke his arm.

Oh man.

I know, on his first try.

And I felt so bad for him, but in the moment, we didn't know it was a break.

We just thought he had like hurt himself and then he went home.

And then the next day he showed up with one of those hard casts.

Yeah.

That was a long night for me.

I got, I never was a trick person.

I remember we had went to this little dirt path and there was me and a few of my friends and had these hills.

And it was my first time ever doing something like that.

So they were all used to it.

So I go down the hill and then I do the first jump.

And when I land, you know, when you go up, you're supposed to like stand.

Yeah.

I didn't stand.

So I like racked myself really hard and fell over.

And I was like, yeah, I'm not doing any more of this stuff.

And from that day forward, I was like, I'm a normal bike rider.

Yeah.

Take my hands off the steering, off the handlebars every once in a while, but that's about it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I feel you.

But with the mountain bike, it feels like you're riding your bike to work almost.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like you need your own parking spot.

You've been leading the staff with the Boys & Girls Club.

What's that like?

To start at the beginning, it was an interesting transition because the position itself, a site coordinator was pretty much new.

They had what was called a program manager, program director, and it's essentially what I do now, but they had made these changes.

They went to this thing called area director, who was over two sites, two, three sites, and they would have like a lead staff there who was the site coordinator.

And so the duties got broken up.

I still do a lot of the same things across like both of those.

The title just changes, right?

But at that point in time, it was brand new.

I had just been like a staff for a few years and now I'm thrust into this leadership position.

And I wanted the leadership position, don't get me wrong.

But how do I move from being a peer with these people to now making decisions for the club?

And the psych-coronary position was really, how do I say it?

It was supposed to be the bridge between the school and the club.

So, a lot of the staff just come in after school, they do the activities, they go home.

I was there all day.

So, there were a lot of times I was there from, we had morning clubs, so I was there at seven to 6.30.

So, it also helped with recruitment of kids, building relationships with families.

They would see me all at the school events and things like that.

So, it was an interesting thing at first.

And then I started to dive into, what do I need to do to be a leader?

Because I think a lot of my peers who got the position were like, oh, now I'm the boss, I get to be this new program manager.

But for me, it was, how do I coach up my peers to have the same passion for the club?

Because I always felt I was slightly different than some other people, how they viewed the club.

It wasn't just come in and play Uno for a few hours and hang out.

It was, how do I make an impact on these kids?

Kind of the try hard method, but it works.

Yeah, it does work.

And it's like, I think in everyone's time at the club, their first year is always like the hard one, because you're trying to figure out where you stand with the kids.

You're trying to figure out what it actually means to you.

Some people come in and only work for like a year.

I think the average is like a year and a half, honestly.

You come in, you work for a year, a year and a half, you get done with school, you're done, or hey, I'm going back home, so on.

So if to have anyone that stays longer than two years is already like a big win for me.

So for me to be there, my first year, I was like a teenager.

I came in, I played the uno, hung out with the kids.

But then over time, I started to develop these relationships with my youth because I worked with kindergarten, so they were like real little.

And seeing how some of the things I would plan would really brighten their days or make them feel better and how they wanted to come to club to hang out with me gave me a sense of purpose and belonging that helped like push me to keep wanting to do it.

And that's what made me come back the next year.

And then the next year I was like, well, how can I improve upon this?

I had these kids for a year.

I moved up with them, so now we're there in first grade.

I'm working with first grade too.

How can I do this now with them?

All right, I'm going to do a little more intentional activities, try to do some more long-term things.

At that point is when I was like, well, maybe I should set aside a little bit of my own money to do certain activities because we only got so much for supplies.

So if I was like, man, 100 bucks for the whole school year.

Like if we want to blow it all in one big thing, whatever one year we did like gingerbread houses, $100 on gingerbread houses, and we would do like one big gingerbread activity or it'd be like a bunch of really small activities that would spend a little bit of money on, help entice the kids, get them to buy into it.

And over time, I think it's just kind of like set in with me that I really enjoyed being around them and like doing the job, which in a long roundabout way is what I wanted to bring to the leadership position with the staff.

It was like finding that buy-in.

I never asked them to bring their money to club and like spend stuff, but having that one, two, when you go home and being like, I did this activity today, the kids seem to really enjoy it.

How can I improve upon it?

I have Billy inside of my group.

He's troublesome, but I saw him find this spark when we were doing this art activity.

Maybe I should do that a few more times, let him lead it or find a way to get him more involved.

So yeah, that's kind of like my mindset with the staff.

And I think my leadership has changed over the years from when I was a site coordinator to now.

Now I'm definitely more like the big brother aspect of it just because I'm like so much older at the time I was like 22.

And I'm like, you guys are basically my peers.

I mean, I'm not going to tell them what to do.

I want to, anything I would ask them to do, I would do with them.

But it's definitely like now I'm more of like a coach mentor for them.

And sometimes I consider them like the big kids in a sense because they're coming in, they're 19.

Well, maybe not with the teens, but 20 years old and they never had worked with like youth before or teens.

All right, look at the situation like this.

You were a teenager and this adult approached you when they were telling you you were doing something the wrong way.

How would you feel?

How would you want them to approach it?

Knowing your mentorship style and who you are as a person, how can you connect with this kid who has basically no shared interest with you?

How can you find that common ground?

So like this challenge and do stuff like that has been like really good for them.

It's been good for me too.

I feel like I'm like learning and growing too at the same time.

Have you gotten pretty good at UNO?

Actually, I don't play UNO at all.

The teams cheat.

They cheat a lot.

They don't necessarily cheat.

They change the rules.

So you'll start playing the game and I'm big on the rules are all stated up front.

You tell me if it's house rules up front, I'm good.

So we start playing the game and it's fine.

And then halfway through, you guys start stacking.

And I'm getting hit with a draw 16 because everyone else starts stacking.

I'm like, we haven't been doing this the entire game.

So why you switch the rules?

And I'm a pretty flexible person, but I'm also competitive.

So it turned into a huge thing where I was just like, I just cannot play with you guys, unless you guys tell me the rules up front.

And they swear up and down, they don't cheat, but they cheated.

Yeah.

Put this on record, huh?

I'm putting it on record.

There are other games like we play Jenga a lot.

I'm pretty good at Jenga.

Connect Four, I would say I'm solid at chess.

I'm no like grand master or anything like that, but pretty solid at chess.

Checkers, I'm pretty good at.

Like board games, I'm cool with.

Right.

Uno.

Once they break out the Uno deck, you're like, no.

Yeah, there's another, the face 10.

Yeah.

Face 10 is real tough for me.

I just, I don't want to play that game.

That takes forever.

It does.

And I feel like, again, I watch, I didn't know how to play that game for the longest time.

So I had teens teaching me, which is fine.

Like, you know, it made them feel good about teaching, you know, Mr.

Chris a game.

But then I'm watching them play the game.

One thing happens.

And then we start actually playing it.

And I'm like, you didn't say anything about this.

Like, I think you're not being honest with me.

I think you're cheating.

No, no, it's in the rules.

It's in the rules.

But don't check the rules.

It's in the rules, but don't read the rules.

Yeah, don't actually read them.

Cause I mean, even when we played Uno and they talk about stacking, the Uno, official Uno Twitter and stuff will say like, stacking's not real.

And I don't know if it's misinformation or what.

Yeah, propaganda.

Yeah, but I'm just not, I read the little booklet.

It didn't say anything about stacking at all.

It's not a thing.

Yeah, I haven't played Uno enough to even know because the premise of the game is you have a, I wasn't thinking I was gonna ask about Uno, but I am just cause I'm curious now.

The premise of the game is you have your cards with different numbers and colors on them, right?

And then a few of those cards will be Uno reverse and then draw three and whatever.

So then depending on what you lay down, as long as I can lay down a card that has the same color or the same number, then I'm good.

Yeah, or you have like a specialty card.

And so this is where like it gets kind of sticky because in the official rules, if you have like a wild card that changes the color or a wild draw four, in the official book, it says you cannot play that unless you have no other card to play.

Oh.

So a lot of us just play like, if you have this card, you can play it at any point in time.

Yeah.

That's like a difference in like house rules versus official rules.

And I try to express that to people and teens.

I'm like, you know, sometimes it's fun to have your own variation of things, but just so you know, this is how you play it.

And they swear for now, no, no, no.

And I get out the book and I'm like, this is exactly what it says.

Like I'm not making this up.

Yeah.

So I got real funny with it last year.

And there's like an all wild version where it's like all wild cards.

So it's like wild, it's wild change colors or like wild swap hands, wild draw six.

Like it's all wild cards.

No, actually for me, that was fun.

Yeah, because then you could just go outside the lines.

Because everyone could just like cheat and just like play their cards and it just gets real toxic really fast.

I'm totally fine with that.

We know the parameters of the game up front.

Right.

Then kids try to like cheat the system, say, oh, we can stack and do this.

I'm like, no, we're not doing that.

And then what's stacking?

If you have a draw two, you play that and I have a draw two and I'm next, I play my draw two.

So the next person draws four unless they have one as well.

And then could I do a draw four on that or do I have to have a draw two?

See, that's where it gets sticky because people were like, oh, well, two plus two equals four.

I'm playing this while draw four.

So now you got to draw eight.

To me, it's just like, I got to back out of this game.

I'm getting too invested in it.

I want to maintain my integrity and my poise here.

Yeah.

Have you always been like, let's go look at the instructions, like kind of by the book?

Actually, no.

I think that's been something that's definitely grown on me since I've been working with the teens.

I was always just a go out there, go do it type person.

I'm still am.

I mean, if you give me a shelf to build, I'm not reading the instructions.

I was just going to jump in and try to do it and probably mess up four or five times and then go back and read the instructions.

So now with the teens, I see the value in it because working with them, I get to watch them try these things and make those mistakes.

And then I'm like the master Yoda come in and be like, well, if you read the instruction manual from here to here, it'd help us out.

Like, oh, I should have just beginning.

I'm like, yeah, you're right.

As you are thinking the same thing whenever you did it.

Right, right.

It's so funny the way that works.

Like, I know that working with teens, one of the things that I observed was the important thing is not being the wisest or the smartest or the hardest working.

The important thing is being present and being consistently there.

Yes.

Because I feel like a lot of people, and this is my opinion, you're the boss as far as this goes, so you may have another thing in mind, but one of the things that I would look at is, oftentimes people will be like, oh man, but what if they ask me a question I don't know about, or what if they see me mess up, and then I'm like, dang, but being there and being around and being there for the good days and the bad days and developing that consistency, which I think has been one of your greatest strengths is that you've been there, right, and consistently.

So then there's so much data to look upon.

It's like, oh yeah, he'll be there because he's been there.

And I imagine the kids will probably think similarly.

I do believe they think that way.

At times that I think they get a little bit, not burnt out with me, it's like when you're around someone that much, because there are kids I've known since they're in second grade who currently come to the club.

I've known them for a long time.

There are kids who maybe don't come to the club, but I see them in high school and those are my original kindergartners.

They're going into their junior year in high school right now.

So it's like being around them, the consistency is great, but then also some of the things I say and do kind of falls on deaf ears a little bit.

And that's a thing that's I think kind of hard for me is like, I was, you enjoyed being around me so much when you were in fourth grade.

Now you're eighth grader, ninth grader, can't stand me.

But I mean, there are people too, they're gonna change over time.

Our things are always gonna align.

It's almost like you get parenting experience because I imagine a parent feels that way.

It's just like working with the youth in this capacity of Boys & Girls Club is the greatest.

Like it's like distant co-parenting in a way.

I see some kids, especially when I was with elementary, I would come in for morning program about 6.30, 6.45, and there would be kids who would show up there about 6.50.

So they're there at 6.50 and they're not leaving until 6 p.m.

because they're at school all day, they go to after school program.

So in a regular work week, I probably spend more time with someone's kid than them.

Making that time valuable, making sure those kids are safe, making sure they feel good about the time that they spend with me and also the parents feeling good about that is always super important to me because some parents, I grew up in a single parent household.

My mom having trusted mentors that she knew I can go with and be safe at and learn something, try something new and I can come home and be like, I did this today.

It meant a lot to her.

So just creating that environment for those kids is huge for me.

You had a whole bunch of questions for yourself.

You were asking, how do I transition from being a peer to a leader?

You were asking, how do I navigate whenever the kids are burnt out or feel like I'm just that old guy now?

All right, bro, I've heard it.

It's like in Charlie Brown, it's like, one.

Yes, exactly.

And then someone else will say that same thing and they're like, this guy's brilliant.

Could be challenging.

Are you, do you have, how do you find answers to this stuff?

I'm a very reflective person.

So I mean, I think I do my most growth when I'm able to walk away from a situation and just look at all the things that are in my control.

And the question of what happens when the kids get burned out with me?

The burnout's inevitable in any scenario, whether that's my staff, the kids, even just my family.

At some point you're going to be around someone like I just don't want to be around you right now.

How am I interacting with them?

How am I trying to recognize those signs of burnout?

Or how am I trying to minimize or maximize the time?

If you're burned out with me, we work together every single day.

We're around each other all the time.

And I know that there's a good five-minute window where I'm going to have your attention.

You're not going to be like over hearing me speak.

I got to maximize that time somehow.

Just reflecting on things like that.

And like you said, with consistency, being around the teams for so long and my team itself, I kind of noticed those things.

I'm definitely like a people watcher.

I don't know if that's like just inherent to me or something I picked up with the job or it's definitely something that's grown with it.

So I watch a lot of people's interactions and traits and I look at and think about, here's how we work as a dynamic.

Here's the things that I notice about them.

Here's the shared spaces or interests that we have.

Do you journal?

I used to.

I struggle with, I don't know if it's like just me personally, I struggle with continuing things like that.

Some things catch my attention and I cling to them really quickly and I do them a lot.

But then over time, I fade away from that.

So there have been times I've journaled.

And there are times that I definitely open up my notes at on my phone and jot some things down, some thoughts and feelings.

Or if it's like something profound hits me, I'm like, I gotta research this a little bit more.

I gotta find a book about this or something when the moment strikes.

But as far as continuously doing it, I haven't really been keeping up with it, you know?

I want to though.

I definitely think it's good to have some form of like outlet or have that.

It's like reflection on paper, you know what I mean?

And like you mentioned you are a reflector.

So what makes me think, ooh, I wonder if you journals.

I recently made a rule for myself.

I can't get on social media in the morning until I've read my Bible, read a book that I'm just focused on, be it, it could be about YouTube or podcasting or about whatever, you know, just a book.

That way I can learn something and then journal.

And once I do those things, and then I kind of made this rule, this rule that I have to eat breakfast prior or I have to make myself breakfast before I can look at my phone and be social media because I will hop on social media and then get, get going with it, yeah.

And then I forget to eat, which is crazy.

So I have to make sure that I'm taking care of my body and getting food.

But I say all that to say I've been journaling more.

That's good.

Yeah, it's one of those things that we hear about it and we know it's helpful.

We don't always do it.

And when we do it, it's hard to know how to do it.

It may not feel the most beneficial.

It's like exercising.

You show up and you do it and you're like, is this really doing anything?

I'm just spending my time.

But that could be a cool thing to consider, particularly with your reflective nature.

Yeah, I mean, finding the time or creating a time for that is always difficult.

I am more apt to meditating, honestly.

Oh yeah, how do you do it?

I just create a space or a time about 15 minutes where I can sit either alone in my room or sometimes it's really just me outside of work.

I leave the job, I cut off my AC inside my car or something, and I just sit inside my car for a little bit.

Or a lot of people joke about when they get home, they sit inside their car before they go inside.

That's perfect time.

Just take a second, be a little mindful, feeling your body, I guess.

Not necessarily touching yourself, but understanding you go through a whole day and you don't think about how you actually physically feel.

You don't think about, my arms feel like this, my limbs, my fingers, taking deep breaths, intentional quietness, silence.

That's the time I probably reflect the most.

I just think about the day, think about how I'm feeling.

I think about, at the end, I'll think about what I actually have to do going forward.

When I go inside, I have to go do the dishes or make sure to send this email or check, call my mom or something like that.

But for those 15 minutes or 10 minutes, however long it is, I just, deep breaths, think about how I feel, think about what would make me feel better if I'm not feeling good, think about if I am feeling good, what I am thankful for in that moment, and then I'm right back to it.

I wish I would do it more often, like longer, but I haven't gotten to that point where I can sit for 30 minutes and just meditate.

That's really hard for me.

What do you think about those monks who can sit for eight hours?

You know, I've thought about that, and I think it's a way that they were brought up.

I mean, given the time that we live in now, we're overloaded, because things are just thrown at us.

Like you talk about getting on social media, and you see a million things on there.

You see a thread, and you're like, I'm going to read this, and you see someone make a funny comment, and you click on that, and you're going down the rabbit hole.

I mean, me personally, I have Twitter, and I use Reddit.

Those are my two main forms of social media.

And Reddit is like the deepest rabbit hole you can go down.

And people write essays on there.

Yeah, you start on one thread about something, and you turn around, and the next thing you know, I'm reading about someone's experience with this pellet smoker or something.

And then I'm like, man, now I'm reading about rocket scientists, and I'm just going down a rabbit hole.

So I would imagine these monks never experienced anything like that.

And their idols, the people that they look up to, also never experienced anything like that.

So imagine if your idols were, or our idols were people who meditated or journaled and do those things.

It would have a profound impact on how we view adulthood.

Because I mean, my mom, she was definitely like a always get up and go type person.

Yeah.

And for that, I'm thankful for her for that.

But as far as mindfulness things, outside of praying, she never really showed me how to actually do that.

And so in this case of these monks, or these people who have the ability to meditate for long periods of time, they probably had a mentor of some kind who demonstrated that.

We pick up on things just by watching the adults in our lives.

So you're saying they didn't have TikTok.

Oh no.

I think the world would be a lot different if the Tibetan monks had TikTok.

They probably do have a TikTok channel or something, honestly, you'd probably go on there and watch it.

Meditating, yeah.

What have you ever tried when you're meditating to think about nothing?

I didn't, when I was younger, like when I was, I say younger, I'm 30 now, when I was 23, 24, that's what I would just focus on, it's like nothing.

But then I would walk away feeling like I didn't accomplish anything.

So then I would, again, it's one of those moments where I got struck by, I need to research some things and figure this out because in my mind growing up, it was like meditation was just silence, you don't do anything, focus on nothing, listen to some ocean sounds or something and move on.

But there are other ways of going about it and the one that really connected with me was like understanding how you actually physically feel.

I love that, going inward.

Yeah, and so I started practicing that and like when you first start meditating, it really is like finding five minutes to just do it because if you've never done it before, sitting silently for five minutes and just like basking in that silence is hard, especially when you have your phone, you have a job, you have stressors outside of here, external things that kind of weigh on you.

So we'll find those five minutes, get off of work and sit inside my room, deep breaths, think about how do my feet feel right now, how do my arms feel, how does it feel when I take deep breaths into my nose, out through my mouth, you know, thinking about a sip of water I may have had that day, like that was really refreshing.

And then from there, it expanded to, all right, I'm gonna go a little bit longer and think about more things.

There are definitely times where I like fell asleep too, I would like lay down and do that, like sit in my bed and like fall asleep.

The fastest I ever fell asleep, and this is like a trick that like, I don't know if anyone ever does.

Let's do it.

I just recollect my entire day.

So I lay in bed, I haven't been on my phone for like 30 minutes to an hour.

And I think about what my day was like from the moment I woke up.

Like when I woke up, this is exactly what I saw.

So this is what I thought, a play by play.

And I don't know if it's just so boring or it's like the meditative like reflection of it.

About, by the time I get to about 10 a.m.

I'm sleeping.

Not even lunchtime.

Yeah, not even lunchtime.

Cause most of the time I'm like, I remember, try to remember everything about my day.

What I looked at, how I felt when I got up, like man, my Achilles was hurting.

So I stretched my leg and then it felt pretty relieving.

So then I got up, I used the bathroom and washed my hands.

Did this, this, and this.

I brushed my teeth.

Remember my mom texted me at this time.

This is what we talked about.

I thought about what I was gonna say to her and blah, blah, blah, blah, and again, by the time I get to about 10 a.m.

if I get to noon, I didn't have a very eventful day, but I normally, I'm out, I'm asleep.

That's a good exercise.

And I feel like it also helps with your recall, your ability to bring back to present mind what happened in the past.

Yeah, I just need the, it's really the timeframe, like being able to actually sit down and do that because I don't believe that my ability to recall things is bad.

I think a lot of people, they feel like it's bad, is more of you are just doing so many different things at once.

Our computer is running so much, you have so many tabs open, that it's easy to miss things and forget things.

But when you're able to find that moment and again, meditate or lay down and just like kind of rest for a second, not talk to anyone, not be on socials, you start mentally closing some of those tabs and you realize like, I remember a lot more about my day than I realized or I even thought about.

Yeah.

What are you using Chrome or Firefox or Microsoft Edge?

Safari?

Yeah, I'm definitely a Chrome guy.

Me too, man.

Why is there so many Chrome guys out there?

It's so easy and I like the interface of it, but there's a study that is relevant to what we're talking about.

They took, I say they, I imagine it's a university.

I read it in this book called Reclaiming Conversation.

So this professor and students and faculty, they took two groups of people.

One was all men, one was all female, and they put them one by one in a room by themselves with a electronic emitter.

It would shock them.

Yeah.

But it was up to them whether or not they would shock themselves.

Like they were given the instructions of how to shock themselves.

And they told them, all right, you are just going to sit in this room by yourself without your phone and your smartwatch and no screens, nothing like that.

And the test is you just need to be here by yourself alone.

But if you'd like, you can shock yourself.

And it was actually like a ow shock, not just like a gentle thing.

It would actually hurt them.

Not too much, I imagine the IRB wouldn't have let the research happen.

It wasn't pleasant.

And the majority of men in the room shock themselves because they couldn't deal with that lack of sensory stimulation.

And the author uses this to make the illustration of we are so used to going outward.

We're so used to checking our notifications.

We're so used to seeing what's on TV.

We're so used to constantly ensuring every minute of our day is productive, dealt with productivity.

And what we're not used to is going inward and sitting down and figuring out what's going on inside of us.

And she said there's an elevator test.

And the elevator test is when you step in an elevator, what's the first thing you see people do?

And 99% of the time, it's going for your phone.

Because you can't leave the elevator and you just have to sit there.

And now I try to, because of that, I've always thought of that.

I read that book like five years ago.

I still think of that.

So whenever I'm in an elevator or whenever I'm sitting on the toilet, I say no phone and I'm just gonna sit there and be inward.

Focus on everything that's going inward.

Asking myself those questions.

Why am I stressed?

What is going on?

Do I feel worried or do I feel upset or do I actually feel sad?

That's tough.

It is hard.

And I mean, even just the question of asking yourself, why am I stressed, is I've definitely found myself stressing myself out more.

And sometimes you're able to eliminate a lot of things and be like, why am I stressed about this?

Why am I anxious about these things?

I'm just creating this for myself.

But then I think sometimes you get in a place where it's, I'm creating this for myself and you become frustrated with yourself.

And I think a part of that is a symptom of social media.

Like you look at other people, especially Instagram, you see people living like these great lives and like, oh, they're not stressed at all.

They're not dealing with this stuff.

So why am I dealing with these things?

It's hard to self-reflect and be accountable for, hey, I'm creating a stressful environment for myself by interacting with these people or not doing these things.

Or I feel bad about X, Y, and Z because I'm am or am not doing these things.

I'm putting these things off.

That's the next level, like maturity thing that, I mean, people are mature that don't know how to do it.

There are people in the world who never experienced that.

Like they just cannot get over that hump and actually like deal with it.

Why do you think that is?

Man, I don't know.

There's tons of factors.

I think a part of it is like denial.

Denial of I can possibly make my life that much harder by putting something off or not reflecting.

I think also acceptance that like we are imperfect.

Like we can say that we're, I'd say I'm not perfect, but then when something is brought up to me that I'm not doing correctly, how do I take in that information and not take it personally?

Like it's not an attack on my character.

It's just something I don't know how to do.

I know that's something that men struggle with a lot.

Like being told that we can or cannot do something or we don't do something up to par is a huge part of like character development for a lot of men.

I always suggest to the teens, especially the guys, we do this thing called guys group.

And I talk about ego death.

Like we have to go through an ego death at some point in your life.

Where you, you know, normally for a lot of minutes after like that first like real breakup they have, I mean as like an adult, maybe they didn't do something right.

Maybe they got cheated on.

Maybe they were the one in the wrong.

But taking that time to be comfortable with self, understanding who you are, understanding that the way people perceive you and the way that you like treat yourself can be the same in some factors.

It can be different too.

We put on facades a lot.

And then working through that and becoming like happy with who you are as a person and knowing that there's things you can grow in.

You come out on the other side of that ego death, a lot more well-rounded person, a lot more calmer, feeling a lot better about life, hopefully feeling a lot better about life.

And I think that's a part of it.

Just like being able to, all right, this is how I used to perceive myself as a 17 year old, now being 22, real life is set in.

I can't be this like fictional superhero I created myself out to be.

I'm not perfect.

Some people just don't get that.

And I don't know, maybe it takes a mentor saying it.

Maybe it takes a really bad like moment in your life.

I know for a lot of people that I've personally dealt with, like older men, they would have gone to jail.

Yeah, I went to jail or went to prison for 10 years and they had to sit down.

And at that point it's like you have no other choice other than become reflective and figure out like what you're doing with your life.

That's like my, if I was to create a playbook for people, especially like young men, that is the one thing.

I'm like, once you hit about 18, 19, I would say just do your ego death thing, focus on self, focus on the people that really like care for you, your family, find a craft or a hobby, lean into it, create some skills, some opportunities for yourself and then just like live in the moment, like love the moment.

Like go outside, listen to music, like just take deep breaths.

Don't think you have to race with other people.

Don't think you have to be the certain person to achieve goals.

And I don't know, for me, that was super helpful.

Like again, 23 to about 28 for me was like, that was my thing.

Like I'm just gonna, yeah.

Did you get dumped real bad?

Oh yeah, it was terrible.

Terrible moment in my life.

I just, I'm always the type of person I date for long times.

Like I want to have like long-term relationships and the relationship I had just wasn't very healthy.

It was toxic and I couldn't see the forest for the trees.

I couldn't see that because I just cared so much and I love so deeply.

And I wasn't the, this is not me blaming her.

I think like there were things I wasn't doing as like the boyfriend and the man in her life to like create the environment in which, how do I say this?

In a relationship, it's about submission.

Like you submit to a relationship.

When you become married, you're like, not submitting, but like you're agreeing.

Yeah, you're agreeing to, I'm not getting married just because I love you.

I'm getting married because I wanna love you even when it's hard.

Like we're through those things.

For better or worse.

Yes.

So I didn't create the environment for that.

Things didn't work out.

She left me.

And I was sitting in the worst possible scenario.

I'm like I'm back at, I'm at my dad's house or something.

I'm feeling really low.

And I just made a list for myself.

These are the things I want to do.

I'm gonna go back to the gym.

That's always on the guys list.

I'm gonna go to the gym.

I'm gonna go work out.

I'm gonna save this money.

But then it was like other things that I think I really kept up with.

Telling the people I care about, I love them.

I'll call a different person each day.

I text them like, hey, I love you.

I'm thinking about you.

How are you doing?

Check in with them.

At that point, it was leaning into my job.

It was right before I got the position, that year I was like, I'm gonna lean into my job and really just focus on creating the best year for these kids and giving them my best self.

Taking a walk every single day.

If I wanted to eat out, I'd walk to it.

So I was like, I'm gonna walk to wherever I'm gonna eat out at.

Like things like that give me out of my comfort zone, listening to different albums and different types of music.

And over the course of that year, I became so accustomed to that.

It just continued on.

I kept on doing it.

And the whole time I was like, I'm just gonna remain single.

I just need to focus on these things.

So I come on the other side of this thing.

That was the first time I really grew my hair out too.

One of my friends had mentioned like, oh, you went through ego death.

And I'm like, what is that?

So I started researching it.

I'm like, oh, I thought I was one way.

This is who I am, my ego, how people perceive me, how I perceive myself.

I killed that and realized and actualized who I really could be.

And I mean, if I had to put myself into who I am, laid back, calm, pretty nice, I'm pretty nice.

I say some mean things from time to time.

I'm not perfect.

I like to reflect, I'm very caring, but I also, I'm inquisitive.

Like I want to learn things.

I'm curious, you know, I want to grow as a man and realizing those things about myself and then just like pushing myself to do those things has been like self-beneficial.

Like people that meet me, they say, oh, you're one of the calmest people I've ever met.

And I'm just like, really?

Cause I feel impatient, but I think it's from the job and just changing my perspective and on life and everything.

Yeah, I want to see that playbook.

I think it'd be dope if you wrote out some of those things that you live by, if there are still those things, like telling I love you to one person every day, listening to different music, which is super good.

It's like taking a different way home from work.

That idea of, they talk about crossfit muscle confusion or something like that, but this idea of constantly doing different things keeps us on our toes and helps us grow quicker because we don't get complacent.

But if you wrote out some of those things, I can put it in the show notes for other people to be able to, if you want to share, but I think that could be really helpful.

And it could also be, a lot of people who write books, they have a blog that they wrote and one entry in this blog ended up being the thesis of a book.

So this could be a good thesis or a good foundation if you ever wanted to do a playbook.

Because I think about that too, but I was thinking about whenever on the last podcast you were on and I was in the room watching you, you had this super cool way you ended it.

What'd you say you said?

Like be kind, but remain dangerous?

Oh yeah.

It was like treat everyone with respect, but stay dangerous.

That's really cool.

Yeah, it's just a, it's a mindset of like, you know, you can love everyone, you can respect everyone and still hold yourself, like hold yourself value higher, I guess like, I don't know how to fully explain it.

It's like, I think about like MMA fighters or really great martial artists like Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee was probably one of the nicest people people met.

Like they would meet him and like, oh, it's just this little guy, like I can't believe he's this martial arts master, but they knew he was still dangerous.

They knew like his abilities and everything.

So I think I apply that to myself in the sense of like, I never doubt anyone I go around.

I always respect people, get to know them.

I think everyone brings value to my life, but I never underestimate what I'm capable of in those same situations.

And I think that's just kind of the gist of it.

Like treat everyone with respect, learn from everyone, but stay dangerous at the same time, sharpening your sword at the same time.

It's that idea of carry a big stick, but speak softly.

Or the meek, let me think here, the person who knows how to use a sword, knowing how to use a sword, but choosing not to use it.

We had one of the MMA instructors for a local gym.

And I was talking to him and I was like, I would bet whenever you train in mixed martial arts, you actually prevent your likelihood of entering into a fight.

Because you respect it way more.

And you recognize that very rarely is a violence going to do something, even if you win in this certain moment and the guy runs off, who's to say he's not going to come up and slash your tires, right?

Do something like that or go after someone you love or smash a window or show up with a gun.

There's all of these different things.

And you recognize that.

And you also, every guy wants to be someone who knows how to be Bruce Lee, but also be super kind.

You know, like we want to have that.

And that's why that really stuck out to me was Remain Dangerous.

But I view the podcast in some sense as a opportunity for younger people, particularly like in your 20s to learn from people, but also find ways or find examples that showcase this stuff.

So whenever you talk about writing a playbook, for men, that perks my ears up because that's kind of my thinking as well is how can I collect conversations that can provide examples of all these different things in a way that it's convenient for people to come to the podcast because not only do they get to be entertained and learn about you falling down on a dirt bike, you're not even a dirt bike on a dirt hill, on your bike, on your mongoose with backpacks, but then they can also learn about the concept of ego death.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's that walking that path and really blazing that trail.

So many other people are doing this, right?

But what does that look like for me personally?

Right.

So there's this thing that I remember reading about when I was like a teenager, I wanna say, or maybe like early 20s.

In New York, they had these things called human libraries.

Yeah.

And you can go and you go in, you could talk to people from multitudes of walks of lives.

And it was just like, you can talk to someone from a different country, someone who's been a convicted felon.

You could talk to a mother of four.

And it's just an opportunity for people to interact with each other.

And at the time when I read this podcast, they weren't a thing, but they weren't as prevalent as now.

I think now it's like Wild West, everyone can kind of do it.

All the things, everyone has access to it.

But back then it was like, I always wanted to do that.

I always wanted to go talk to these different people and figure out the different ways of life.

And how could I apply these teachings to myself?

And like, how could I learn from these people?

All that being said, your podcast definitely is like one of those human libraries.

Because I was going through your catalog, I was on Spotify listening to him.

And I'm like, he talked to a multitude of people.

And these people from the community here in Lawrence, and I'm like, I've interacted with some of them.

I've seen some of them.

It was really interesting listening to the one you had with Christy.

Because we worked together, but we never actually talked about her time as an athlete.

We've talked about work.

We've talked about like some things in her personal life and everything, talking about her kids.

But she's never fully got a chance to share like her feelings and thoughts of like how she got to the point she was.

Like she reached the highest point ever with like sports.

Yeah, just drive and you know, a little bit of like, I think with like all athletics, it's a little bit like luck, like avoiding injury and stuff like that.

But the story she shared about playing against that team and talking to the coach and him being like, oh yeah, like you can come play with me anytime.

Like this is crazy.

Crazy.

And so it's just like, it's amazing that we now live in a time where so much knowledge is afforded to us.

Like we have the access to hear, I can listen to someone talk to Joe Rogan.

And like they share some really profound things to me.

I would never have access to this person at any other point in time.

Totally.

And I think about that here.

I think with Christy, that drive was palpable and being in the room.

And I recorded that in the studio at the club.

So being in that room with her and hearing about all of those stories.

And like you said, reaching the peak, getting Mount Everest, it takes a ton of skill, a ton of drive, a ton of luck.

And at the same time, it's almost, it's not a mistake that she got there.

Because people rarely go up to head coaches on the opposing team in general.

In addition to that, people rarely go up to a head coach to make a pitch for themselves whenever they're in high school.

You know, like whenever I was in high school, I was trying to, you know, probably copy someone's paper or trying to do something that wasn't going to help me land one spot closer to winning an Olympic gold medal.

But if you were to go to one of those human libraries, who would be, like what book would you like to look at?

Like, is there a certain category of individual or maybe a certain story that you're curious about?

One, I want to talk to like a, I'm going to say this nicely, a really old person to see their views on how life is now.

I mean, how modernized it is and the accessibility to a lot of different things.

I know my grandmother is still around.

She's 87.

So, but she is against a lot of like the modern things.

She doesn't want to get food delivered to her house.

She must rather get in the car and go drive there.

No, you're not going to drive there, grandma.

Someone will get it for you.

Like how drastically life has changed for them, how some of them feel like...

She talks about how because we have so much access to things, it's created an environment where people don't want to put in the work.

We feel as though we are entitled to these amenities.

It's not like food, it's like access to knowledge.

What did I do to deserve to be able to look up all this history about the agricultural revolution?

Let's just throw that out there.

When she was a kid, she had to go to the library and go find these books and research these things and actually put the time in.

Now I can go watch several podcasts.

It just popped on your TikTok feed.

Yeah, I can go watch Crash Course on YouTube and listen to Hank Green tell me all this stuff.

I want to talk to a really old person, just hear their viewpoints, hear how life has changed so drastically for them, if they're with the times, if they're against certain things, and how they think things are going for the common American person.

It's going to sound crazy.

I'd actually want to talk to someone who's viewed as racist.

It really boggles my mind that anyone could wake up and hate someone else for the color of their skin.

It's definitely a them problem.

But anyone who could wake up and hate someone else because of who they love or where they're born, I'd want to get in their mind and be like, I don't want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but there had to have been some factor, some event that sparked that in them, because we're not born to hate like that.

Yeah.

What questions do you think you'd ask?

Because you'd have to go beyond the surface level of like, why are you racist?

You would have to say something.

So what questions do you think could peel back the layers?

I think I would ask some questions along the lines of like, at what point did you align with other people?

Because I think it's one thing to have your personal views.

Myself, other people, we could have personal views about things.

But when I hear someone else say that view out loud, I have to receive it some sort of way.

And some of those views are like, really, really out there, I believe.

So like when you heard this crazy statement from someone else, and you were like, that's it right there, I agree with that.

What was the defining factor?

What made that ring true for you?

And then sometimes it's probably like a thing or a person or maybe it's an event.

I would ask them about their upbringing, where they grew up at, the dynamics of their town they grew up in or where they were.

I would ask them if they had any trauma involved with people of that race or gender.

Sexuality is a big thing now.

Is there any trauma involved with that?

Like someone hurt you or did you witness someone get hurt by someone like this?

And then I would ask them if there's any like in their mind, is there any hope that we could coexist?

Because again, like you can feel any way you want about me, but as soon as you try to impose your will upon me, like you want to make my life harder because I'm a black man, right?

What or is there a possibility that we could coexist that it just wouldn't matter?

Because I mean, I've met people who have Confederate flags on them, and they're the people like, oh, it's just representation of the South and everything.

I talk to them about, you know how that affects people of color.

You know what that meant for people of color historically, and you still choose to align with that.

So is there a way that we can coexist alongside that?

And a lot of them are like, yes, we can.

I don't have any issue with you.

It just represents my heritage or just where my family's from and so on.

Just hearing that I think will be kind of interesting.

I mean, I can't say that there's a redeeming quality in it, but I also can say that everyone brings some sort of knowledge of value to my life.

So being able to hear from someone else, their walk of life and what brought them to that point could be changing for me.

Super interesting.

You'd be a good podcaster.

I don't know, man.

I'm nervous now still.

I don't know.

But then you'd be able to ask all the questions.

See, it seems fun, but then I don't know.

I think you do a great job.

You're very calm.

You leave me in the stuff.

You're like, can you speak on this and get me talking?

I feel like I haven't even been on topic this whole time.

We started on the club and now we're talking about human libraries.

So good though.

Because of that phrase, you said everybody has a value.

Not everybody thinks that way.

Oh, yeah.

That is true.

And you also said you're inquisitive.

So being curious and then seeing each individual as someone who has a value and someone that you can learn from, those are two characteristics that drive people into something like this.

Because I heavily identify with both those stances.

Yeah.

The value thing is huge because I mean, that's something I definitely preach to the teens in my job.

Like you have worth, whether you believe it or not.

You have skills and talents that you may not have even found yet or have seen.

Or maybe the thing hasn't been created yet.

Because I know there are kids in my job now who have leaned heavily into the ChatGPT and AI realm.

And they are running with it.

And they're like, yeah, I did this, this, and this.

And I use AI to...

One kid was like, yeah, I've been using AI to help me and my friends do these papers.

And it's wrong.

They're cheating.

They're like, I don't know why you stopped doing that.

But they're using the prompts and they're figuring it out.

Yes, yes.

And before, I would say these kids probably...

They would go in the gym.

They'd go hang out.

But they never really had something that perked them up.

So then we start talking about it and they're like, oh, you can do it for this, this, and this.

Have you ever thought about trying this?

And it's like the thing that someone may really spark their interest and create that moment for them may not even exist yet.

It could exist in like two years.

I'm one of those people, I look on the internet and I see people that dudes painting a picture with like a rose, but it's upside down and he's blindfolded.

And I'm like, how do you even figure out that talent?

But there's probably a kid somewhere who sees that and they're like, I think I can do that too.

I can build this thing out of Legos and then when it falls, it falls into a picture as well.

And it's like, to us, it's like this inherent superpower.

But we just have never thought to try something like that.

And I think that just like, there's gonna be moments in people's lives where there's gonna be something here in the next couple of years where I'm like, that's it right there for me.

I wanna try that.

I wanna do that.

You think?

Oh yeah.

It was when the last year, well, in the pandemic, it was the guitar.

I played music growing up.

I did like violin and stuff like that.

But something about the pandemic, I was bored at the house like, I'm gonna get a guitar.

So I found one on Facebook Marketplace for like 30 bucks and started messing around with guitar.

You should have brought it and played it.

I don't know, man.

I'm not that good at it yet.

But in that time of me messing around with guitar, I'm like, this may be my thing, but I'm really interested in bass guitar.

So then I'm like, I'm saving to get a bass guitar.

I have a ukulele now.

It's like building up and trying those different things.

In the next couple of years, I'm starting the journey of fatherhood.

It may be something like Sparks, like my kid's doing some sort of art activity.

I'm like, you know what?

I really want to get some canvases and try this with her.

I don't know, painting is my thing or something.

How are you feeling about being a dad?

Dude, it's like the most nerve wracking, like weirdest situation.

I've always been, again, a distant co-parent, so I feel like I've gotten experience.

But nothing is the same as like, I now have to ensure this kid is safe 24-7.

Like before it was the eight hours they're with me at school or the three hours they're with me at club.

But now it's the real deal.

It's like everywhere.

It's funny because I see you smiling about it because you've probably thought a lot about it.

I think about it every single day.

I mean, it's getting close.

Her due date is July 17th.

So like in the next like, yeah, next two weeks.

And I mean, she could theoretically come at any point in time.

Right.

So it's just...

You may finish this podcast as a dad.

Possibly.

I don't know.

You'll be there for that.

I feel like the phones would have been blowing up, the bad phones.

My girlfriend is, she's like, if I text you during work, you need to be able to leave.

And I'm like, okay, yeah, I got you.

Wow.

That's so exciting, man.

So you're going to have a little girl.

Yeah.

Pretty nerve wracking.

Because you know, it's like, I have a sister, I have sisters, but how do I interact with this, you know, human, this new human, and coach them up and like, teach them and like, mentor them, love them effectively, when I feel like I have so many shortcomings myself, you know, it's like you have to find love for yourself, but then also create this space and environment for this future adult, this human.

I use the term human lovingly, but I don't know how I'm going to do it.

I mean, I take it one day at a time, but...

When are you going to tell her about ego death?

I don't know, like it's weird, because I hope that she has like a personality like mine.

Oh, yeah.

I've always been really quiet and like reflective.

Mom would joke about when I was like a little kid, she's like, we have to come check on you, because you would be so quiet in your room.

I'd be like reading or playing with toys or something.

They had to come in and look inside the room, make sure I was like still alive.

So if she has that, then maybe earlier on, we could talk about some of those things, some deeper things.

But if she just like, you know, wants to go, and she's like a kid, I'm going to let her do her thing, you know, try to put her in some sports or some music stuff and spark some interest here and there.

But I'm going to let her, you know, be herself and just try to love her as much as possible.

Wow, you'll be an awesome dad, and she'll be awesome too.

I have yet to be a father, but the more and more I hear from my friends and just the men around me, the experience of fatherhood is...

you can't duplicate it.

Right.

I mean, I personally didn't grow up with my dad.

Shout out to my dad.

I love him to death.

I didn't grow up with him, so have an opportunity to write that and create a different environment for someone else.

It means a lot to me.

But it's scary.

It's scary because I don't know what's going to happen in three years.

You turn on the news now and there's so much stuff going on in the world.

So it's like, how can I shield her from all these things, but also make sure she's prepared for stuff.

And it's a crazy thought because she's not even here yet.

She's going to be like a baby.

But I'm already thinking about, man, when she's like 10 years old, the climate of the world could look like this and I might have to be doing this, this, and this to make sure I have money set aside.

And it's nerve wracking.

Mm-hmm.

Has there been things that have gone by the wayside as you are thinking more about being a dad, for instance, maybe the time I play Fortnite, I'm gonna spend doing something different or because I know once you become a dad, then your priorities shift.

So I definitely gonna have to step back at the club.

I've been starting to do that with the help of Christy and Chris Walsh, like our director of operations.

Delegating more tasks.

I mean, I'm the type of person, I show up to work at 9, 10 in the morning, I'm leaving at like 8, 9 at night.

Like I'm at the club all day.

So being able to step away, spend time with my family is gonna be huge.

Video games have been, I don't know, I'm a gamer, I like the game, but it's not never really been an issue for me to walk away from it.

I can just put it down.

I think it might be something that me and her may share as she gets older.

I'd love for something like that.

Or if she starts beating you at games.

That's fine.

That's cool.

I'll put her in some tournaments.

If she shows aptitude in anything, I'm gonna push her to do great in those things to where she feels good about it.

If she just wants to be casual with stuff, we already talked about this, me and my girlfriend talked about she's not gonna be an iPad kid, we're not gonna give her an iPad.

We're not gonna give her any devices or anything.

But when she's of age and she can do stuff, I'll probably get her one of those, they have those Atari things that has all the games on it.

Something really simple.

Over-stimulate her or anything, just the classics.

You can play Mario, you can play...

Like Snake.

Yeah, some simple, where she gets the concept of a video game, but not necessarily like, you're not playing Call of Duty right now, you're not going overboard.

And we just want to keep her as, you know, away from over-stimulation as possible, and hopefully push her to like, doing art and like, reading or doing like, sports and stuff and having what we consider a normal childhood.

Because I don't think some of these kids get a normal childhood based on the fact that the access they get to knowledge, internet, the stuff you can see on the internet, it just, it changes you.

Mind-boggling.

These kids, the teens I work with, are so much more mature than I was as a teen.

And at first, I thought I was just crazy for thinking that.

But then when I'm having conversations with like, an eighth grader about NFTs, and like, why they failed, or like, a kid's like, yeah, I created this, I've been selling this at my school, or hey, I'm the candy guy, so like, I'll get to go to the store and buy this candy at Five Below, so that everyone Venmo's me their money, and I take orders on Venmo and stuff, and it's like, that wasn't around when I was a kid.

That wasn't a thing.

So like now, it's just so different.

And I think the pandemic definitely accelerated that, because they were forced to lean more into the digital sphere.

They got sent home.

They're at home.

They now have all their iPads and devices, and the parents still have to go to work.

So for that distance learning time of like three, four months, I think it pushed a lot of kids to just a different way of thinking, a different life.

And it's been interesting as an adult seeing that, knowing how I changed, but watching legitimate kids just be different people.

It makes me, I hear professors, I talk to them, and they're like, for some reason, the students are performing worse than any class ever, and they can pinpoint it back to distance learning because they were away from the classroom, away from the socialization, away from, oh, he's over there, John just got an A, dang it, I got a B.

Now it's like, hey, what score did you get on the test?

And then they send you back a GIF of Homer Simpson fading into the bushes.

You can't tell anymore.

So having all of that around you, it's no longer there, and they can pinpoint it back to being removed from the classroom, being at home, to where you can open another tab and watch Mr.

Beast give 10,000 people glasses or fix their vision or watch him give away jets.

Or you can watch Who Knows What on anywhere, on any other platform.

See, and I mean, as a person who works with youth, I am not the biggest, I don't push the way the current school system is.

I don't think you're really like, it teaches kids basics and things, but it doesn't push them to excel in the things that are really important to them.

But with that, I can see how, like there are good things in distance learning and there are bad things.

The good things are is that kids were introduced to like being self-sufficient.

And like a lot of kids figured out school is not really their thing, but in that they weren't given other options.

It wasn't like, hey, school may not be your thing.

Let's try woodworking.

Yeah.

Let's try developing a skill somewhere else.

It's just now, like you said, they can go on social media, they go on the YouTube, there's like kind of filling time.

Again, I'm not big on how school is set up now.

I don't think it necessarily creates like an environment where kids are excelling and like what they're passionate about.

It just creates like either a worker or someone who's like Jay didn't upset, they had to go through it because a lot of the teams I deal with are like very upset about school.

They're like, I don't like it.

The social interaction part of it, I can get, like everyone goes through that.

When they're like, my teachers don't really care, I don't know why I have to learn this type of math.

My passion is, I don't know, music or dance or something.

Like the arts are being forced out of schools because of the funding.

It's like, where's that line where we're like, you know, we're not creating a space where kids can like grow and like learn and become like full people.

They're just learning to become an adult who hopefully gets a job, hopefully maintains it.

I don't know, man.

I'm not crazy about the school setup.

It's, and with that criticism, I always have to ask myself, well, what's my better proposal?

Because particularly whenever you're educating a whole bunch of people, you want to do it at a rate to where most parents can afford it.

Yeah.

And then it's really hard to standardize education because you were better at some things that I wasn't, and I was better at some things you weren't.

But Montessori schools are really interesting.

Yes.

Right?

Going at different paces and Annie, my wife, she went to one, and she was doing, like she was in third grade or whatever, but doing seventh grade math because she just excelled at that.

And rather than being like, nope, we're just sticking with multiplication for the whole year.

Right.

It's like, okay, let's talk algebra too, right?

Because you can handle it.

And it's worked out.

I mean, she's brilliant.

And it's worked out really well for her, so it definitely makes me interested in exploring that whenever we have kiddos.

That's definitely been the thing that I've been pushing.

So my girlfriend's homeschool.

I'm not a homeschool person.

I don't think that's the right move.

I want the socialization aspect of school.

I love that.

I know kids sometimes are against it because of...

I mean, you're dealing with immature people.

Your peers are going to perceive you a certain way.

You're going to perceive things a certain way.

That side of it, I think, is good because you have to work through conflict and discourse.

You have to wake up every single day and learn to be presentable.

Without that aspect, I think a lot of people will be worse off without that socialization.

But Montessori is what I want to do.

I want her to have the opportunity to really lean into the things she's interested in and she's good at, but also still have the socialization aspects of school.

It's just as hard because they're expensive.

And like you say with the standard, the cost of school, we talk about how there are common human rights that should not be denied based on money.

I don't think food and clean water or shelter should be behind the wall of money.

Education should not be either.

I think that's where we as a culture have definitely failed the youth.

And we continually not make the change.

It's hard.

Yeah, it is.

Super hard.

So I want to respect your time, so we'll start wrapping up soon.

But any questions you have or anything you want to explore?

Where do you see your podcast going in the next two, three years?

Two, three years?

So where do I see my podcast going in the next two, three years?

I need to talk to your NFT guy.

Maybe I can turn every single frame.

So like as I'm talking right now, and I'm doing what, 30 frames per second right now?

So just from then and there was like 300 frames.

Turn every frame into an NFT and then sell that and become a billionaire.

Where do I see the podcast going?

Man, hopefully it's still active in two to three years.

My goal is to maintain at least one a week.

My real goal, and I have talked about this on the podcast, but is to get to two a week, Monday and Thursday of conversations.

And then lately I've been doing these, like going out and talking to strangers is something I'm going to be adding in.

So I've been working on getting content for that.

And then I've had this other idea in mind of like talk to people over the phone.

So like, and the reason why is I started this podcast and I wanted to showcase what it looked like to talk to people face to face.

So I've yet to do a virtual conversation.

The, I believe that face to face conversation is the cornerstone for like relational relationship fulfillment, relational fulfillment, talking to someone in person.

I see you at the club, I'm like, what's up, man?

And I get to ask you about what's going on.

You get to ask me what's going on.

And we grow that way and we build community that way.

Now, texting is awesome.

FaceTime, awesome.

Phone calls, awesome.

They're awesome whenever that's all you got.

If you are deciding on, should I text my mom or should I not text her for the week?

It's like, go ahead and text her, right?

So what I've been thinking about is incorporating a whole bunch of different ways that you can talk to people and a whole bunch of different ways that you can build relationships and build a community that's healthy.

In your playbook for young men, something that you've probably thought about and you're thinking about is you are as good as the people around you.

Yes.

Right, and your network.

So because of that, we need to make sure we at least have a network and we have a good network.

So hopefully in a few years, it's going to be maintain it with good conversations and then get people on here.

Maybe we'll do it over the phone, maybe with strangers, whatever, but providing content that encourages and inspires people to connect with those around them.

That's the goal.

Yeah, this is good for me because I'm going to be going on some podcasts soon.

So I'll have to be on the receiving end of the questions.

Would that be a weird experience for you?

I think it could be a weird experience for me because it always reminds me the responsibility I have.

I've been on a couple of podcasts and just that feeling of not knowing what's coming next.

And then having to...

Like you've done such a good job navigating.

Me, you're talking about one thing, and I'm like, what kind of bikes you have?

Like way out of left field.

You've done such a good job navigating that.

But that is like the unpredictability aspect of being on the other side will be fun.

And it's refreshing for me to hear that because it reinforces to me, be a good steward of this.

Yeah.

Be a good steward of, be kind, ask questions that will really bring people out in the best light.

And maybe I'll learn some tricks, you know?

But they're both going to be virtual.

They like really far away.

Yeah, one's in like Seattle.

The other guy's in Kansas City, but he just does a virtual show.

But his are live.

That's cool.

Yeah, it's going to be live streamed.

So there's a comment thread and everything.

You're from California, right?

Oklahoma.

Oklahoma.

Your transition to being here inside of Lawrence, Kansas, has that been like, how long have you been in Lawrence for?

Three years.

And I love Lawrence.

I met my wife in North Carolina, and she got an opportunity to the University of Kansas.

So in the middle of COVID, we packed our bags.

We showed up.

I'd never been to Lawrence, Kansas before, and we showed up in our Penske truck.

And I remember getting out of the driveway and walking in and being like, all right, I guess we're in Kansas.

We went and we got spin pizza over here in West Lawrence.

The next night, we went to Burger Stand, but it was to go, and I didn't really like Burger Stand until I ate in person.

And I was like, okay, this is how the food's supposed to taste.

I think a lot of restaurants got screwed over by COVID.

Of course, we know that, but one of the reasons we don't think about is they're forced to do to-go food.

And sometimes to-go food, no matter how good you cook it, like if it sits in a cardboard box for 15 minutes, it's not going to be as good as on the plate fresh.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of those places like downtown, they're not meant to be taken home.

It's like eat it in the moment there.

And also like the ambiance and like being out, like enhances a moment.

I mean, like going out to Burger Stand, it's like a thing.

Like I remember when I first got here, my friend was like, yeah, we got to go to Burger Stand.

I'm like, go to where?

Like Burger Stand, we're going to this like place that says CASBALT.

If you say Burger Stand, I'm like, where are we going?

And go downstairs, like order burgers here.

And it's like the whole experience of it.

It was a hard transitioning from, you said North Carolina.

So I'm assuming you're in like, were you like a bigger city in North Carolina?

Sort of.

It was like, I went to grad school out there.

So it's this beautiful city with these tall pine trees.

And you're a couple hours away from the mountains and a couple hours away from the beach.

And the university was called Wake Forest.

So it was in a forest and it had a gated community.

It was, it's weird because it's a private university and you have to pay like $350,000 to be there for four years.

But 10 minutes down the road, there is households that impoverished homes.

And I didn't pay 350 to be there.

I wouldn't have been able to even get a 10th of that.

But thankfully there is a grid.

They paid me to go there, which was a blessing.

And then here we are.

We made it.

I met my wife.

That was probably the best thing that happened in Winston-Salem.

I met incredible people.

And when I look back on what was the best thing to happen to me there, even though I got a grad degree and I got a couple jobs there, it's the people, man.

And I'm constantly thinking of the people.

All right, last question for you.

What is one thing you wish more people knew about you?

One thing more people knew about me.

Yeah, that you wish more people knew about you.

That's a tough one.

Because I feel like I'm an open book, honestly.

If anyone want to know anything about me, they just ask me, not answer the questions.

Probably for as much as, and this is maybe geared more towards the youth I serve, the teens.

For as much as they may see me and think that I have things together, I don't, and a lot of adults don't.

We're still learning and growing every single day.

For as much as you see someone, they're confident, they're good, they still have their own insecurities, they're still working through stuff.

I say all that to say, don't doubt yourself, run your race.

It's important to just love yourself and push yourself.

Don't feel like you have to accomplish things to make other people happy.

Do it for you.

I lied to you.

I actually have one more question.

This is going to be an interesting question because I'm not sure anybody's ever asked you this, but you mentioned you and your girlfriend are going to be doing a screen free, right?

But there's going to be one day where your daughter's on YouTube and she watches this podcast.

What's the message to her?

Your mom and dad love you a lot.

And even though we may seem stressed out, it's all going to be okay.

You know one message you need to say to her?

Subscribe.

Like, favorite, subscribe.

Hit the little bell, too.

Yeah, hit the little bell.

Well, thanks for being here, man.

No problem, man.

Thank you for having me.

Of course.

It was fun.

And I imagine that maybe we'll be able to see the floral t-shirt on the podcast in the future.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Hopefully.

All right.

Well, folks, we'll see you next time.

And that's it for this week's episode of the Talk to People Podcast.

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