Life Liberty and the Pursuit
Welcome to the Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit podcast. Come join Eric and Matt who are freedom-loving, meat-eating, gun-shooting American guys as they discuss a broad spectrum of topics ranging from States' rights, culture, and the 2nd Amendment to scotch, bourbon, and cigars. Eric & Matt are both former US Army combat veterans who served together while deployed to Iraq during OIF III. Eric is most notable for his YouTube channel Iraqveteran8888 which has over 2.75 million subscribers currently as well as his outspoken and no-compromise stance regarding the 2nd amendment. Matt, founded Ballistic Ink, a branding and merchandising company that serviced 2A content creators and the firearms industry. He also is a partner of Alliance jiujitsu Roswell located in Roswell GA and trains daily and competes regularly. He is very passionate about the 2nd amendment and freedom. Come along for the ride!
Life Liberty and the Pursuit
LLP #125: Do Nice Guys Finish Last?
Ask us a question. We will answer it on the podcast.
Do nice guys really finish last? In this thought-provoking episode, Matt and Eric dive deep into the psychology of masculinity, leadership, and what it truly means to be "nice" versus being effective. Drawing from military experience, relationship dynamics, and business principles, they examine how emotional control and boundary-setting separate respected leaders from forgotten followers.
The hosts explore Coach Corey Wayne's influential "3% Man" philosophy, highlighting how maintaining composure during chaos creates safety for others. They share personal stories about leadership challenges, including Matt's experience setting boundaries in a new relationship that ultimately led to marriage. Through listener comments and their own insights, they establish a crucial distinction: kindness requires courage and boundaries, while "niceness" often masks weakness and people-pleasing behaviors.
The conversation takes fascinating turns through practical examples, from the classic "where should we eat?" question that plagues relationships to the transition many men experience from valuing material possessions to prioritizing meaningful experiences. They examine how leadership positions can be inherently lonely, requiring the emotional fortitude to absorb negativity without passing it along to others.
Whether you're leading a military unit, building a business, or nurturing a relationship, this episode offers valuable perspective on why establishing clear boundaries and maintaining emotional stability matters more than being universally liked. Listen in and discover why the strongest men aren't those who never say "no"—they're those who know exactly when to say it.
Welcome back everybody. This is Eric and Matt, and this is Life, liberty and the Pursuit, your beacon of freedom and the American way of life. Tune in every Monday for a new episode as we dive into the world of liberty and what makes our country great. Welcome back everybody. This is Matt and Eric, here with LLP. I hope you're all having a great week and thanks so much for tuning back in. Llp is your home for all things normal in a world of craziness, your beacon of hope in a world gone, completely freaking mad At least I'd like to think so. Maybe we're mad too, but hey, you can be mad with us. So welcome back nonetheless.
Speaker 2:Yes, everything is normal, nothing out of the ordinary here.
Speaker 1:Everything's normal.
Speaker 1:Today's completely normal, not unhinged episode, not at all, completely not crazy episode. We're going to talk about why nice guys always finish last. Now, look, even he and I, we threw around this idea for a while. We're thinking about it like, wow, this can go anywhere and we knew that this could go anywhere, in such a way that we actually listed you guys, the listeners, as some help to provide some commentary, to let us know what your thought process is on this whole idea. We don't have any sponsors in today's show. We don't have anything to sell, you guys, all we're doing is selling hope and we're selling some reality, a dose of reality. And, by the way, if you are a company that wants to sponsor the podcast, let us know. We have some space available on the show. If you want to get some sponsorship slots going, we're happy to shout you out and help you sell some stuff and get you some of those war bucks that's right which are so elusive these days, it seems to be.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. Nobody wanted to be associated with this show. He said leave us out, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're the misfits here. Okay, like we're not afraid to kind of take a step back and point the finger at ourselves and you.
Speaker 2:That's right, mainly at you.
Speaker 1:Now, when we have this Lotus statement now, obviously it cannot be necessarily just completely true that that nice guy is always finished last, but when we look at that statement as this sort of universal euphemism, what does it usually entail? When you think that statement, what do you think when someone says that you know it's always been associated with.
Speaker 2:You know, nice guys finish last because they're not willing to be as ruthless or take the risk that is needed in order to win. That doesn't mean that they're incapable of winning. It just means that they're not aggressive or ruthless enough to do what's needed to be done in order to win. That's the way that I've always interpreted it growing up. Whether that's in sports or life, you're just not willing to compromise your own morals or do something that might go against your initial values in order to win.
Speaker 1:Sure, okay. I would say that when I hear that statement, what it's always meant to me, when we hear, okay, well, nice guys always finish last, right, I think that it has to do with the sort of mindset of a person not being willing to stick to their guns and stand their ground and stand up for what they believe in and to be a pushover in many, many ways, which, for one, females hate that. And look, guys, today we're going to talk about the fair race or fair complexion or whatever you want to call it. What do we call the fairer? The fairer sex?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're going to be talking about that in today's show and I'm going to be giving a shout out to someone who I respect a lot, and that's coach Corey Wayne. Giving a shout out to someone who I respect a lot and that's Coach Corey Wayne. If you guys don't follow Coach Wayne over on Twitter, make sure you follow him. He's got some awesome books and this is just kind of a shout out to him. He's a really great guy and I tell you he opened my mind and my eyes up to many things in relation to this sort of subject matter. I went down there to his studio and recorded some podcasts with him and it was real exciting to just hear some of his takes. And, of course, I was there to kind of provide commentary, mainly on 2A stuff. I know this is a gun channel and I'm not trying to make this like the relationship advice channel. That's not the idea here and that's not what this video is. This podcast, rather, this podcast is more about talking about general manhood, which can obviously affect every aspect of your life. Not just that, but in the case of Corey Wayne, he really did open up my eyes to some of the things that I could do to be much more effective as a leader and much more effective as a man and, ultimately, much more effective as a partner to anyone.
Speaker 1:A partnership can be anything. A partnership can be a business partnership between you and a friend and you agree on something and you hold each other to a standard and you come up to some mutually beneficial agreement that works for everyone, right, but you also hold each other to the fire in that agreement. A relationship can be you know, obviously, husband and wife, man and woman you're dating. You're whatever A relationship could be. Husband and wife, man and woman you're dating. You're whatever A relationship could be.
Speaker 1:Hey, maybe someone you deal with in the workplace that you don't like. Maybe you have to because of your vocational situation. You have to deal with people in your everyday life that you actually don't even like. But you're forced to deal with them because you work with them. So you have to try of keep the peace, to keep your sanity and go to your day-to-day job.
Speaker 1:So a relationship can also be a negative thing, Like, hey, you're forced to be around a certain person. Or maybe you work in a type of environment where you have to deal with the public all the time. Maybe you deal in public relations in some way, be it like maybe you're a customer service representative or you answer the phone or you work in a call center, or you're working in some capacity where you have to deal with the public Right All of those things equate and relate essentially to this overall idea of how to manage relationships in your life and how to manage being a man, how to be a man in those situations and be a leader, and I think that's what this, this whole podcast idea beckons upon OK, and what it what it really calls to.
Speaker 1:And you know, corey, coach Wayne really opened up my eyes to a lot of things. He's got some really good books on the subject that I highly recommend. I'm going to put a picture of a few of those. I think one of them is called 3% man, talking about, hey, to be the 3%, to be the upper 3% of masculinity, the upper 3% of the dating pool, whatever it may be. To be that 3% man and I guess I'm not really trying to make this a giant paraphrasing of his work. I would want people to go and check out his published works because he's great.
Speaker 1:But in my mind when I think, hey, nice guys never win, they always finish last it's like no one wants a pushover. There's a fine line between getting what you want through you know good leadership, values and focus and masculinity and just letting people walk all over you. I mean, no one's going to respect a person who just lets someone always walk all over them and take advantage of them. There's a fine line between being taken advantage of and going hey, I'm a nice guy, where I'm going to come up with a mutually beneficial situation that works for us, but it's not going to come at the cost of me giving up my morals, my values. It's not going to come at the cost of me just being a pushover in this environment, right? So when I think of it, that's what I think.
Speaker 2:That's a very that's a very good observation, and I could, I could totally see that. I think you were looking at it more from a personal and relationship aspect, and I was looking at it more from, like, the sports aspect. Sure, because that's just, I view everything through the lens of, you know, athletics and sports. Sure, so well, you think about your students there, the Jiu.
Speaker 1:Jitsu Academy, matt, I mean what you teach your students about winning and losing, right, we all are going to lose. We, right, we all are going to lose. We all are going to win. It is, it is. It is inevitable that you cannot always win. You can, but you should never always have that mindset of always losing either. How do you come to terms with accepting that both of those things must occur? Right, your students have to learn that there's going to be losses, there's going to be victories. And how do you make amends of those two things? How do you get them to focus on being better despite all of the things that could happen?
Speaker 2:Right, I wanted to touch on something that you said that reminded me of a scenario when you said you need to work with people that you don't necessarily like, you have to get along with them right. And I think that's something that we learned when we were in the army, because in the army, you don't necessarily like you have to get along with them right. And I I think that's something that we learned when we were in the army, because in the army, you don't have a choice. You can't quit like you can't. You can't be like, oh, I'm gonna quit and find another job. Like. It doesn't work that way. Like you're assigned to your unit, you, you are who you're with, you're in your squad, whether you like them or not they're your family, exactly whether you like it.
Speaker 1:They're not not just your workforce.
Speaker 2:They're your family, you live with them and you might not like them. Honestly, Sometimes they've been in situations where you don't get along. You have people from all over the world and you throw them together in a hodgepodge of a team and you have to make it work and you don't get along with everybody. It's not a kumbaya, homogenous thing. Oftentimes, yeah and you know we had a saying it was like hey, I have to work with you, but I don't have to go and hang out with you and have a beer with you after we get off or after hours, but while we're working, like, keep it professional. Like if they say, hey, so-and-so and so-and-so, you go do this. There was no like, I don't want to do that, Like, you just have to make it work and you have to do it Damn good Like, because otherwise you have to do it again and that is a cornerstone of masculinity.
Speaker 2:It's like learning.
Speaker 1:It's the ability to separate yourself emotionally from what you're dealing with and go hey, this is the reality of my moment right here. This is the reality of what I have to go through, this through, this is a situation that I'm going to get through and at the end of the day, I'm going to be alive and well and I'm not going to get upset about it. But I think the nice guy is the type of person who would take everything personally, get emotionally responsive about something, get upset, yell. All of those are signs of emotional immaturity. They're all signs of the lack of emotional control which, yeah, in a professional sense, no guy wants to be around.
Speaker 1:Someone who's emotional all the time and just gets all uppity about every little thing and tries to disrupt the overall energy of the unit, the energy of the workplace, and very much that same energy can translate to relationships, right? No woman wants and look, guys, we're getting in this territory. The truth is, no woman wants anything to do with a guy who can't emotionally deal with himself, who can't compose himself, who can't lead, who can't you know, take the moment and allow her hysteria to exist in its own little world of hysteria and he's just look. The best relationships, it seems, are like when there's some unhinged girl or unhinged woman and a guy who's just calm as a cucumber and no matter what, it just rolls off his back like armor like he's wearing armor, emotional armor, that does not allow any slightest thing to get him upset or to break his calm or break his cool.
Speaker 1:Nothing drives a lady more insane than that and that is in one of those aspects, that nice guy who is going to try to more or less allow a little emotion to overcome the moment. That's not his job to do that. It's the woman's job to be emotional. It's the guy's job to just be a cold hearted bastard in the right context, Right. But it's kind of like knowing, like how to constantly evolve within the subject matter of that context and sort of go, hey, like when, when do I need to be Stonehenge and when do I need to be a wave in the oceans? Like those two things are different. They're flexible, they're they're pliable, but they're there and they're constant and they're still strong. You know, both are strong, but in a different way, and I think that it's important, like the nice guy mentality. You know, we listen a lot of times to our grandparents.
Speaker 1:My grandma was the kind of woman that you would tell me, you know, hold open doors for little old ladies and help little old ladies across the street, little old ladies and help little old ladies across the street and, you know, do nice things for people and treat every woman you meet like she's royalty and take good care of her and be a good guy and be an upstanding person. And when I think a nice guy, that's the kind of things I think about. You know, acts of chivalry, acts of selflessness, acts of protection, right, Like someone is trying to hurt someone and you intervene some way that helps them. Right. Like someone is trying to hurt someone and you intervene some way that helps them. Right. And it could even be like the tiniest little things.
Speaker 1:You're at a grocery store and some little old lady can't reach the can on the top aisle. Are you going to be a guy that just walks by and watches her struggle and doesn't do anything? Or are you going to be the guy that takes some initiative and goes let me get that for you who notices that Other men notice it right. Another guy goes let me get that for you. Who notices that Other men notice it right. Another guy goes well, damn, I should have took the initiative. Well, what did you just do? You made the world a better place, because now that guy, next time he might take the initiative where you did, where he failed and women see it and women go well, damn, my man wouldn't do that, he wouldn't take the initiative. And that affects her relationship, that she's going to think differently of her guy based on how that guy reacted to that that moment doing something without being asked to do it, but because it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 1:And that's not being nice guy, that's just being a moral guy.
Speaker 2:There's a two different things this is true, and there's also like there's also women that want they. They want to make sure that you're going to react accordingly, react appropriately, and I'll use, you know, a personal story, you know as, as an experience of like this started dating. I remember this because I truly believe this one thing probably impacted the rest of our relationship and it was when we first met. What was that moment? It was? We had just met, we went out with a bunch of friends it was probably like a big group of us and we went to go do karaoke. I know very stereotypical asian people and karaoke it's uh, we all do like some damn karaoke.
Speaker 2:We do like some karaoke. Um, that's all right, but, um, I'll allow it. We went, we went to do some karaoke. I remember we were like you know, if you guys have never been to like a asian karaoke place, it's. It's operates a little bit differently. It's not like your typical american dive bar karaoke where there's a stage and you get up on stage and everybody's in front of you and you take turns singing asian karaoke. You get a room, so you go into like this big place and they have like individual rooms and then they just bring you liquor. So, like, you order the liquor, they bring you the liquor and you're singing, you're in your own little private room.
Speaker 2:You have your own group. Yeah, it's like a private group, yes, and there'll be like 20 rooms. So it's like you just get one room and you'll have like microphones and you'll have your own TV. What, yeah, you're just like partying, you're drinking that sounds fun like a jackass, just in private, yes, and then like, and then you just pay by the hour, so you'll rent the room. It's like, you know, 25, 30 bucks an hour. You stay.
Speaker 2:People usually go there, say, for like three hours. They drink yeah, I mean, you're paying for the alcohol, of course. Um, so I digress. Uh, we're, you know, singing karaoke and then we're finished up and we're gonna go somewhere else. I think we usually pre-game at the karaoke place and we go somewhere else.
Speaker 2:And we had just met and I forgot what it was Like. Somehow we had, we got, we were talking and something like we got into like not an argument, but we just had a disagreement and, mind you, we this is like we didn't know each other. So I was like, oh man, I don't, I don't agree with that. And she was originally riding with me and I left her. Like I left her there, bro, but she was with her friends as well, I see. So it's not like I left her there, like I knew she had a ride. It was like her best friend that she rode with.
Speaker 2:And I tell you what yeah, that did not. If anything, it probably made her pursue me more because she saw that I was willing to like and you're laughing because my wife is our editor, so she has to listen to this story and she's going to be editing this podcast that that made her, I guess, not respect but value their relationship more, because she realized, like I'm not a pushover, I'm not. You can't just say whatever you want and I'm going to just go googly eyed and just like be a piece of like mold in your hands, like I'm going to stand up for myself. I'm like, no, I don't agree with that, I think that's not true and I just left her. And then now we're married. 15, 16 years later.
Speaker 2:So I mean, when you look at it like you know, there is a point in time where you can't just be a pushover and you can't just do whatever you need to do to, like, make them happy, Like you got to stand up for yourself and stand up for your morals and your values and go from there. Women value strength.
Speaker 1:I truly believe that they value strength and they and they value a person who doesn't want, who's not willing to be a pushover. And that's what really it all comes down to. When they say nice guys finish last, it doesn't mean that, oh, because a person is good and nice, that that's why they finished last. It's because in our, in this context of this podcast, when we say nice guys, we mean guys that maybe are a little too nice. Like you know, they don't stand up for themselves when the time comes. They don't, you know, interject themselves into the situation. You know they're just people pleasers and don't get me wrong, like there are situations in life where you know you might want to be a people pleaser.
Speaker 1:I mean like, yeah, look, a lot of people have no filter when it comes to their kids, no boundaries when it comes to their kids. I mean if, if your little girl came up to you, wanted to play tea and put makeup on you, you would let her, and that's we remove all the boundaries for people that we love more than anything in the world, and children. I guess it's like a special kind of love that you can't necessarily. You know there's not going to be a boundary there. So, anyway, we're going to look at some comments, all right. So I asked the question on Twitter. We'll kind of get into some of y'all's responses, which I think some of these are interesting. I think they're going to be opening up some conversation for you and I to have.
Speaker 2:It's always a good thing because you get to see, you get to pick the brain of so many different people.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let me refresh this page because when I checked about 20 minutes ago, there were a lot of comments oh wow, 91 comments. So we may not be able to read through all of them, but I want to see what you guys think. I want to see what our viewers think. Okay, let's see. Now, obviously, some of this is going to be in the guise of relationships, but some of it is not always necessarily about relationships, and what's so strange is when you use the blanket term of oh well, nice guys always finish last. Some people are going to take that as relationship related, some people are going to take it as business related, so on and so forth. So it's interesting to see where people's heads are at when you make a statement like that.
Speaker 2:Yep, just like we looked at it two different ways.
Speaker 1:Renegade says that nice guys are weak men. There's a difference between being nice and having manners, showing kindness when you should choose violence. A nice guy is a weak freckles man who is usually internally very angry at the world. Okay, interesting Traveler says that really depends on what you mean by nice guy. If you mean that nice guys that say they're nice and yeah, they finish last, then they should finish last. If you mean genuinely decent men who just don't have a lot of force of will, then they will also often finish last. If you mean that all decent men finish last, then not necessarily, but it often does happen. So I mean that's kind of a generalization of what we've talked about already.
Speaker 2:I mean there are many different camps of that okay Way to agree and disagree at the same time. Traveler.
Speaker 1:Robbie says. Robbie J says I don't think it's true at all. Being a nice person doesn't mean letting people walk all over you. It's true at all. Being a nice person doesn't mean letting people walk all over you, but it does mean going out of your way to help good people when they need it. In my experience, people that behave that way are, on average, doing better than everyone else. Nobody likes mean people. We're social creatures and we benefit massively from our social connections. Mean people have fewer, and so they tend to do more poorly in life.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't know about that man. What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:I don't know man. I've met some pretty successful, mean people.
Speaker 2:I can see where you're coming from, I guess on a friendship level, but in business you do fall into two camps, you fall into that super no-nonsense, aggressive, almost borderline it's hard to say like you have to be ruthless in order to kind of step up. You have to be willing to step on the backs of others but not necessarily do it. It's almost like you have to be willing to do it but maybe not do it. I don't know. There are certain things in business that if you don't have that attitude you will get taken advantage of. So I guess that's what I mean. When you have to be willing to do certain things, that just means you have to have your eyes open enough to where it doesn't happen to you. So if you're in business with a partner you always kind of have to have a set of eyes behind you. There's a reason. This stereotype is you don't go into business with friends because bad things always happen. You can't say, oh, it won't happen to us, like it most certainly will, all right.
Speaker 1:That's a very good. That's a good point, matt, and I think it's just important. It's like the way that I look at it, robbie, robbie J. One way that I look at it is that have you ever had to discipline a child? And you know, maybe, robbie J, one way that I look at it is that have you ever had to discipline a child? And you know, maybe you have to.
Speaker 1:They say spare the rod, spoil the child. That's right, you've heard that term before. So you had to discipline a child, whether you did it physically or you had to yell at them or whatever you had to do to get the point across. And the kids may be a little upset. And then you come back to him and you go look, don't sweat it, let's go get some ice cream, it's going to be okay. Did you learn something? Yeah, okay, well, then you learn.
Speaker 1:That's kind of how business is Like. You may have to come in hard and go well, look, this is what I need, this is what I want in this particular situation, and the other person might initially kind of go whoa, whoa, okay, that's, that's a big ask, right? But but then you kind of go but for you I'll do this. So it's like establishing your dominance in the business situation, like, hey, these are the things I require in order for us to engage in this business transaction. But for you, because I like you, hey, because we're such good friends, or because, hey, I really value your business, I'll do it for this, I'll back off a little bit and maybe give you you know. We'll kind of meet in the middle and then, if the other person that's their opportunity to go, well, I appreciate you doing that. But no need, we'll meet back here, maybe move the line a little bit further towards towards them and take a little bit more of the responsibility way, and both parties see the sort of, let's just say, mental gymnastics that is occurring to make the business transaction happen.
Speaker 1:Then they go wow, I respect this person because they're not willing to give up what they want out of the situation. They're willing to define in clear terms what they want. And you know what? I think they respect me because they know that, hey, while they were willing to give a concession based on our previous experiences, I'm like, no, that won't be necessary, and you kind of push the line back in their direction a little bit, and that way no one feels slighted. But you established what each party wanted. You gave each party what they wanted and you compromised a little bit for each other a mutual compromise, because really all business really is, at the end of the day, it's a mutual compromise.
Speaker 1:It is compromise of all right. What will you do for me in exchange for what I will do for you? And what you get out of the situation makes you happy and what I get out of the situation makes me happy. I'm not going to compromise on what I want, especially if I do business with other people and they know what I come to expect and they you know whatever pay me at the rate that I expect to be paid at, or they do a certain amount of business that I expect to do with a long-term client or something like that. So it's also about being willing to say no. The most powerful thing a person can do is say no. It is the most, is the strongest form of negotiation there is is to say no and walk away and mean it.
Speaker 2:You have to be willing to walk away and you got to mean it. But one of the big things is, when it comes to partnerships, is you just have to one pick and choose your partner or partners very wisely. So they're not, they're of good character. So I mean, I'll use my my jiu-jitsu academy as example. I have a partner and my partner is our head instructor. We were not friends before we started this jiu-jitsu academy. It was someone that was. It was an advantageous relationship. The relationship was established because the business, because of the business. It wasn't we, it was someone that was. It was an advantageous relationship.
Speaker 1:The relationship was established because of the business Because of the business.
Speaker 2:It wasn't we weren't friends and say, hey, we should do this. It was, hey, this is a great opportunity. Would you like to be a partner in this business? He said, yes, he's an amazing partner. He's great. No ill will, no very, you know, just a nice guy.
Speaker 2:You know, um, it helps that I'm not greedy, you know, we, we definitely make sure everybody's taken care of on both sides as much as we possibly can. Um, and I mean it's been, it's been a great experience so far. I'm I'm not concerned about, you know, some of the things that we talked about, because we vetted the person. We're like, hey, this is just a good dude, so I'm happy with that, he's doing a great job. But on the other side you guys that are in this gun tube world probably noticed there's a company named after a dinosaur, had some business issues with the family and that's exactly what we talked about. You know, like one person started the company, got squeezed out and now we're here. If you guys don't know, then go look it up. But, um, I would highly recommend, you know, making sure your partners, whoever you're going to bring in and give equity to, are good people.
Speaker 1:Sure, let's read some more comments, shall we All? Right, let's see. Jeff says nice guys finish. Last is what people say to excuse or justify their bad behavior.
Speaker 2:Hmm, define bad behavior Interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I could see that maybe as being a mechanism but in the context of what we're discussing, just because you stand by your you, you stand by your values, you stand by your morals and your you stick to your guns, so to speak. That doesn't mean you're bad, so to speak, at all. But I can understand, maybe, how someone would use that as some sort of a dumping mechanism to just defer. Yep, maybe nice, let's see. Did OC the cunt.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God what the heck kind of name is that? Well, anyway, that person says maybe nice guys don't want to run in the same races as cunts. Well, interesting way to put it, but hey maybe you're right.
Speaker 1:It's a very, very unique username there. That's a unique way to look at it, I suppose let's see. Sadie says all right, we have a lady here, a lumberjack lady, sadie. She says it depends on what's at hand In blue collar work. I have found that to be the case. Anyone willing to step on others and cut the lower man, or even their peer, ends up getting a better pay and contracts. Hard earned money is much more rare than dishonorable men and women these days.
Speaker 2:See, I mentioned it. I said you have to be willing. So I said you have to be willing to step on the backs of others.
Speaker 1:Maybe not necessarily that you will do it, but you have to have that killer mentality. So you know what to look for, you know it's crazy that I don't know about the type of industry that she would be involved in, but some of the industries I've found, like, for instance, construction okay.
Speaker 1:Where you know you have, you own, a construction company, you do clearing and grading or something like that. Or you know you own multimillion dollar machines. You know you employ bunches of people and you know you're relying on those big contracts to come through consistently to keep everybody busy and, more importantly, make you know payments on those freaking machines. It costs a lot of money, right, right, and there's a lot of cutthroat stuff that goes on in that industry, right, and a lot of it is buddy-buddy. Who knows who. And, yeah, a given contract might've been maybe a little higher than a few of the other bidders, but it's all in who you know Like. Oh, this person kind of rub elbows with you, have a good relationship with. So, yeah, even the person who put in a little bit higher bid might actually get the contract because they know the right person or they've been in business a long time. And that does come down to relationships. That's not necessarily a good or bad guy, finished first or last type of scenario. However, there are a lot of situations where someone might come in and scoop a contract up and just do a little bit of a tiny bid below. Maybe they have a little bit of knowledge of the people that are giving out the contracts and they go well, we'll do it for 500 bucks cheaper, or whatever $1,000 cheaper, and they go. Well, 1,000 bucks is 1,000 bucks, here you go and they get the contract out. So the people that are willing to play bloody pool when there's blood in the water and the sharks are circling, believe me, they're going to get the prey.
Speaker 1:So I guess it is in some cases about being hungry. There may be a larger company who they're not concerned over the volume of jobs they're getting, because they have a bunch of revolving door of jobs they're getting all the time and maybe they don't need to really fight so hard for every little contract because they put in so many bids in so many places. Maybe they're a countrywide operation that can send people wherever and maybe they don't have to rely so much on scooping up every little bid that they can. So now I guess it just depends on the context. That's true, let's see All right. Cooper Thowell says, of course, being nice requires no courage whatsoever. Being kind does, but being kind involves telling the truth and having standards for yourself and enforcing those standards always, regardless of how small or large they may be.
Speaker 2:I think I would agree with that, but I think that Cooper, you might be confusing nice with, I guess, not nice, Because you said you have to be willing to stand up for yourself right and do the right thing. That's not necessarily nice.
Speaker 1:The right thing may not necessarily be in your best interest.
Speaker 2:You can say, like, the right thing isn't always what everybody wants. So sometimes that would put you in a bad position, like, hey, I have to do what's right, right by who Is it right for the whole group of people? What if you're working with? What if you're in a group of 10 and you said, hey, in order to save seven jobs, you have to let two people go? Well, the nice guy would say, well, I don't want to let two people go, I want to make sure everybody has a job. But if that's the case, nobody has a job, yeah, everyone gets laid off. So who's the bad guy? Now, you know you have to cut two people in order to save seven jobs.
Speaker 1:Leadership involves making unpopular decisions, right, and you don't have to look any further than what's going on in our country right now. I mean, we're on the potential face of this crazy nuclear war, right, I mean World War III, essentially. Imagine that you're a person who's in a room with a bunch of other folks that are on the same mindset as you are and you're all trying to decide the way to go about this, how to sort this out. What do we do? We know that if we do that. Answer A we have an envelope with solution A. With solution A, all right.
Speaker 1:Solution B, solution C, and each solution has its own fallout and consequences. And we go. Solution A is going to piss off 75% of our voter base, but it's going to achieve the fastest result, you know, geopolitically right. Solution B more Goldilocks zone. We may put more of our service members abroad at risk, but we're going to have a better political outcome here locally. So it's like they have to make the decision based on the fact that they know they're going to piss a bunch of people off, no matter what they do. So how do you perform a triage in a way that pisses off the fewest people and still simultaneously benefits the most, and how do you do that in a way that doesn't make it look like all you care about is your own stock portfolio as well?
Speaker 1:Because I mean these people are all tied in with the military industrial complex. They're getting some juicy insider trading and that's a whole level of drudgery that we're not going to go over here. But I think that's a good way to look at it. Gorilla Hayes says that nice yes, kind no. People who are nice are typically people pleasers who don't stand up for themselves or those they care about versus kind. You set boundaries in an assertive way while still being polite, and you stand up for the people when necessary, bro you nailed it.
Speaker 2:That's fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a great explanation, for you know one of the yeah, that's a great explanation and based on a lot of my conversations with Coach Wayne, you know, go back to kind of the relationship side is, like you know, women, women.
Speaker 1:What he explained to me is that a lot of ladies, most you know, they really want leadership. They want, you know, a dominance and assertiveness. And they want leadership. They want to feel safe, they want to feel secure, they want to feel like they can be emotionally unhinged if they want. You know, because when a woman is in a position where you know she's got to, let's just say, be accountable to a whole bunch of things, whether it's responsibilities in the home or whether it's, let's just say, I don't know, making money or whatever it may be, it could be anything, it could be taking care of the kids, it could be whatever. When a woman feels like she has to be ultimately, let's just say, responsible for a great deal of ongoings in in the home front, you know she begins to question the leadership of the male and, you know, think damn I didn't really think of it in that way that, like you know, you really want to take as much off of that person's shoulders as you can.
Speaker 1:But it is a two-way street, I mean, obviously, and both roles in that particular process are there to essentially round out each other's energies, right, woman safe and keep her, you know, clove and fed and a roof overhead, and to provide every possible avenue for her to feel safe and secure. Right, then there also must be a role that the woman serves in that environment as well, and that's, you know, keeping the world from just completely collapsing onto that guy's. You know environment, right, the guy's maybe working two jobs, or he's working his nine to five, maybe he's working 10 hour day, 12 hour day, works his butt off, you know, maybe the lady's a stay at home mom or stay at home, whatever, right, right, in that situation, yeah, guy's going to come home. He can be tired, you know he's going to, you know, feel like he wants to relax for a while and he wants to know that he's coming home to a household where, you know, the lady's keeping up things at the house and, like you know, making a home. I mean, us guys can get by with some cinder blocks and freaking, blow up mattress and a bull crap TV and some weights in the corner and you know some stale ass pizza in a box in the corner, like we're not that hard to please. Like if you look at how a lot of single guys live, like you know, they just kind of they're pretty basic. Yeah, they bum it, man. Yeah, they bum it and they kind of I don't know they indulge in that to some degree. They indulge in sort of the bummery of that moment, if you will. Yep, but it's like when a guy you know, if a guy is trying to, let's say, attract or you know guys in the dating world, he's trying to attract partner, that you know that idea, maybe they have an idea of what kind of partner they want to attract. And when you're only going to attract as much as you bring the situation yourself Right. And it's like if you wouldn't date you, why would somebody else? It was like if a person, if a man, doesn't concentrate on being the best version of himself that he possibly can be, then how can he possibly expect his partner to value him if he doesn't?
Speaker 1:And I think that in terms of relationships per se, that could also coincide with business, right, would you rather do business with someone who you know takes care of themselves well, business wise, they're very successful, they have a proven track record, they have status, they have a bit, you know, to do with society. They're a person, maybe a power. Those are all things that not only a female seeks out. You know she wants a person who's important, who has some status, who has something to show. And I think that business is the same way. If you had two friends, let's say, or two colleagues, or two contacts within the business world that you knew you could do business with, would you rather do business with the person who's had a proven track record over the last 20 years, or someone that's got the startup where it's like. Well, I mean, yeah, the startup involves a certain amount of risk, which you know, hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And with great risk comes great reward if it's adhered to properly.
Speaker 1:But generally some people might want to take the safe road and go. You know what? This guy has been doing this for 25 years. We're going to trust his firm to handle this area of business for us and we know we want a proven result, we want a consistent result and sometimes that comes with a certain amount of that person being the best version of themselves that they possibly can be. They've developed themselves professionally in a way that they can't fail.
Speaker 1:And I think that those things can be said about a man even in his own world. Let's say he's single and he's living in his own world. Well, are you going to the gym and working out and getting strong? Are you eating good, taking care of your body? Are you trying to look good? Are you keeping yourself clean? Are you keeping up on your personal hygiene? Are you doing well in the business world? Are you trying to show the best version of yourself that you could possibly be? And if that answer is no, well then can you really be upset when things don't go successful for you in the business world, the dating world, just life in general?
Speaker 2:Yeah, personally, you have to be willing to put in a little bit of work.
Speaker 1:People notice that they notice laziness, but they also notice when you succeed, when you're like wow, this person's on a glow up. If you can't look at yourself and say, wow, this person's on a glow up, hey, you in the mirror, you're on a glow up. If you're not, then you shouldn't even try to engage in certain aspects of a personal life because you're not ready.
Speaker 2:And it happens all the time, even personally. We run into people at our Jiu-Jitsu Academy. They're like, hey, I'm just not getting better. I've been here, I've been training for a long time, I'm not getting better. Well, have you been putting in a little bit more time? You come to class and that's great, we appreciate you coming to class, but did you start lifting? Did you start eating healthy? Did you start putting a little bit more time on reviewing what you learn? That would be the equivalent of going to school.
Speaker 2:If you're in college or high school, going to class but never doing homework and then complaining that you're to make you smarter, you still have to do stuff outside of that to get smarter, just like if you're going to lift weights. You can't just lift weights to get stronger. You have to eat healthy. You have to change a lot of stuff in order to get the result that you want.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to kind of go back a little bit, eric, because you mentioned about leadership and specific roles, and I think it's very important.
Speaker 2:There's two things that I heard when I was younger that made an impact and helped me understand the mindset that you have to be in when you are a leader, and the first one is and it's a cliche, but here's like heavy lies the crown, like when you're in a leadership position or you're the family leader. Let's just look at it from a family aspect. You're the breadwinner or you're the family leader. It's a lot of responsibility To have that responsibility. You have to be willing to take on and absorb a lot of that, a lot of the problems, a lot of the negativity. You have to let it roll off of your back because, eric, you mentioned something about you know you have to just let things go Like people will say things, people will talk. You just had to let it roll off your back. That's part of your responsibility and part of your, like your superpower as that leader is to just just don't let it get to you be armored you know you have to have that certain level of armor per se um.
Speaker 2:And then the second is, you know it's lonely at the top. So if you think of, you know, your leadership as a pyramid and you're at the top, there can only be one. And it's so funny because I was talking to Lisa, because my wife, she just stepped into a leadership role at an organization and she wasn't used to it. And I used to tell her she's used to. You know, when she was at work she would like hang out with her, with her coworkers, and she would, you know, have all kinds of like. You know she would come in on time and you know I said you are in a leadership role. Now you can't do that. I'm not saying not to do it, but you can't do it as much.
Speaker 2:And I use an example of when we were in the army how often did our platoon leader hang out with us? Eric Like very rarely. How often did our platoon sergeant hang out with us? Like they would stop by and like, check in, but they're not eating lunch and dinner with us, they're not out in the field with us. There you would see the two leadership roles. They would hang out together, like they would constantly be together, because they're giving each other like, hey, so-and-so is doing this and they're they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. But when you're the leader, it's lonely man, and that's something that you have to kind of accept, um, that you can't do certain things, you can't hang out with certain people, you can't. This is, this is not something that you do, um, and you have to get used to it, you know, yeah that's true.
Speaker 1:And you know, I think, kind of going back to, I had thought about something when I, when I was, uh, you know, talking earlier about you know, let's just say, the female paradigm of you know how they view leadership roles and things like that.
Speaker 1:There's also, I think, that a lot of women particularly also like it when you know a person's kind of mysterious and a person's kind of you know there's something about them that's quirky or unique, that stands out. That's exciting, you know. And I think that as much as we kind of view that as a female to male trait, where like, okay, girls, like a guy who's kind of mysterious but interesting, and they always do something, they can kind of discover about them and it keeps them on their toes and keeps them guessing and keeps them wanting to know more, that's great, I mean, obviously that's a good trait. But even in the leadership role it can be a very similar thing, like the best leaders are the ones that always kind of keep let's just say, in the situation of military kind of keeps their men guessing a little bit, like, keeps them in a point where it's like all right, well, lt and a platoon sergeant are keeping their cool. So I'm going to be cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, if a person can keep their cool even in the most stressful situation, it will make others follow you, right? So just like okay, let's just use something like the Vietnam War, for instance. Ok, I wasn't in Vietnam, but talk about a lot of the situations in Vietnam where a really hectic situation breaks out in a very short amount of time. Ok, you're on patrol, your patrol comes under an ambush. All of a sudden you're getting hemmed up and it's just absolutely crazy. And you're calling on the radio and there's just utter chaos breaks out instantly, instant chaos.
Speaker 1:If a person in that moment embraces what being a leader really means is to go hey, I cannot let my men see me get upset. I can't let my men see me act emotionally. My men cannot see me act in a way that I wouldn't want them to act. Because if we're all men and we're all in our masculine, well, guess what If the strongest person, right? If someone looked at their platoon sergeant and thinks that they're the dad of the platoon? Well, if dad's upset, guess what? The kids are going to be upset, right? So it's even more important for a leader in those moments to keep his calm and show his composure, because then the men are going to accept orders and they're going to be like you know what, he's got it under control. I trust him. You know what I mean. I may not know everything, but you know what I feel like that person knows everything. I feel like in this moment he's got it under control. We're all going to get out of here alive If I just do what he says. We're all going to survive and guess what? That's what it comes down to and I think that, going back to the relationship side, that's kind of how females are wired too, like if they see consistency and they see that every time their man makes a decision, it ends up being, you know, successful and that he keeps his cool and there's a composure and maybe, but with a little bit of like a mysterious factor about what could happen, like maybe a little bit of unpredictability. That's way better.
Speaker 1:And it's just interesting to see psychologically how women react in that environment of uncertainty, right when you're strong and you take the leadership role, versus how men let's say you're under the leadership of men, whether it's in a company or in a military, and how they react to the way you handle the situation, the masculine and the feminine. Those two are very similar energies. I mean, obviously it's like the masculine energy is more of the logical and strong and bold and assertive type of decision making process, and the female side, the feminine side, is more of the emotional driven you know more of the way that they feel in that moment and they want to have the safety. A woman wants to have the safety of knowing that in that moment she can be as unhinged as she wants to be and it's completely okay that she's in a safe place to do that. And if she doesn't feel safe, she's never going to completely, you know, beat your woman. I mean, let's just face it.
Speaker 2:But that brings up a good point is that if you have that track record of consistency and success, then you can be a little ambiguous and a little, you know, mysterious per se, because they trust you. But if you have a track record of just being unhinged and like making really bad decisions, then she's probably going to be a little bit hesitant about any decision that you make. And that was the same thing. I think we were talking about this the other day. I was like you know what? We had good leadership when we were in Iraq because we knew that they always had our best interests. It was never like, oh man, they got us doing some wild mission. It was like, all right, I trust, I trust them enough to where, whatever they throw you into something, exactly yeah, they're not gonna be like, hey, man, just go and go and die like we. There was never a point in time where I was concerned about any orders that were given to me or if there were something you were going to be put into that might be sketchy.
Speaker 1:They're going to say, hey, this is sketchy. Yeah, they're at least going to tell you then they've done that. They've done that. They said, hey, this is going to say, hey, this is catchy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're at least going to tell you. Then they've done that. They said, hey, this one's going to be a little hairy, and you understand like, all right, well, we should probably pay attention on this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I felt like they always had our best interest, we had great leadership, and that's what you want to convey to either in your company or your family, to your loved one or family.
Speaker 1:The ever famous question All right, what do you want to eat? Let's go, okay. So how do you handle? So, all right, you and Lisa are going to go out and have some food or something. You know you've established that you're going to go out and eat something. This is sort of a trick question, I want to say. I kind of want to know where people are at on this. I mean, maybe you guys let me know in the comment section below, but I feel like it's this giant trick question. Oh my God, yeah, it's a total trick question. Why? Why do you think it's a trick question? All right, where are we eating tonight? I want to eat. Well, where are we eating?
Speaker 2:Where do you want to?
Speaker 1:go, what do?
Speaker 2:This is truly one of those.
Speaker 1:I want to know if you think the way I do on this yeah, this is one of those universal like gotchas, all right.
Speaker 2:So it's like, if she's like, hey, what do you want to eat, I'm like I'll eat whatever you want to eat, like you pick. And it's always like, no, just pick something and I'll just start rattling off stuff. And they're like, no, no, no, just tell me what you want to eat then, because I'm not going to sit here and guess, but it, for some reason, it feels like that it's in their dna, that that is a, a female dna thing. I don't know what it is, I don't know why.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what it is I'm gonna tell you how I handle it. All right, I don't want to know what you guys think I mean. Let me know if I'm wrong here, if I'm out of bounds, if I know that we're going to go out and maybe grab some food or something. The way I try I may not always do this, but I try to handle it this way I try to go. Okay, before I even ask her what she wants to eat or where she wants to go, or even if she wants to go, I'm already going to have about three or four things planned. I make a plan. I say okay.
Speaker 1:If she says we're going to go out to eat, I'm going to suggest all right, we are going here. I'm not going to say do you want to go here? I'm going to say we're going here, and then that way it paints it more as if I actually made a decision, not that I just placed it on her. I think ultimately, the psychological part of that, matt, is that a woman doesn't want to make a decision. They want to be led. They want you to tell them where you're going to eat.
Speaker 1:And she should have the ability to say no if she wants. I mean well, hey, are you hungry? Yes, Well, I thought we would go have Thai tonight. Would you like to go have Thai? Oh well, you didn't give her the option, you just you told her where you're going to go. So now, if she says, well, I'm not really in the mood for Thai. What else are you thinking? Well, we could go to that really nice pizza place up there in the east side of Atlanta. You know, we go have some nice pizza.
Speaker 2:How about?
Speaker 1:that. Why don't we go? Well, I'm not really feeling pizza, Okay. Well then, what about we go to that nice burger joint that has whatever? So it's like I'm provided. I've not only planned something cool and made that the assumption or assertion, but I've given multiple options and given her the right of refusal. But there's a difference, I believe, psychologically, between the right of refusal and not having a plan In their mind it does something to them.
Speaker 2:I can see that.
Speaker 1:And they want a guy with a plan. They want a guy who can plan and, believe me, it's not always easy. It's not always easy to have a plan or to make a plan and, believe me, it's not always easy. It's not always easy to have a plan or to make a plan and you think that you're good at coming up with the logistics of how you're going to keep all the men in the platoon fed. I mean, I think about what a PL or a platoon sergeant goes through. All right, I got to make sure all my men have got their meals. I got to make sure I'm handling the rotation who's going to be out and in.
Speaker 1:And, ok, yeah, there is a, there is a managerial logistics to like managing a platoon, the military Right or company size element. The logistics just get bigger and more complicated, but the same basic logistic idea is still there. It's still beans and bullets Right. An army marches on its stomach Right, and you think that's hard. Marches on his stomach Right, and you think that's hard. Oh God, oh, my God. I couldn't imagine being in charge of of a company that is, a co-ed company with women and men.
Speaker 1:Now you have to consider all these other things. You have to consider the needs of the female soldier in addition to the needs of a male soldier, which those needs can be similar from a survival aspect, but also they do require special consideration.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they're drastically different from outside of beans and bullets.
Speaker 1:Right, and you think in those moments, oh, that's no big deal, taking care of a company of men Like, hey, you know, we know we got this figured out. You know, hey, all of my S shops, everyone's got their role, they know what their role is. We've got a well oil machine. Everyone knows when we need to order stuff, when we need it, supply's on track, all the logistical finance side's all on track. That's one thing to have a well-oiled machine of people you can delegate tasks to.
Speaker 1:But in your relationship, in your private life, you become sort of the leader and everything's expected to be decided ultimately by you.
Speaker 1:In that moment and I tell you this all goes back, matt, full circle, to my conversations with Corey and I really I was excited about making a podcast about this and just kind of going long form off the tilt and just kind of really going after this, because he really did open up my eyes to what it means to be a leader in your own life, not necessarily even just relationships or business or any of those individual things that we'll sign up kind of compartmentalize in our own lives, right, all of those things are related but still different.
Speaker 1:They're still different parts of our lives, right. The relationship you have with your wife is not the same relationship you have with your business partners or your students at your you know, jiu-jitsu academy or something like that. And I just think it made me realize that for years I was really doing it all wrong and it really put a lot in perspective for me in a really positive way. So it goes back to the original question, matt. Okay. So after everything we've talked about, after all of everyone's opinions, you've heard my opinion. So, as a blanket statement, matt, do nice guys finish last intrinsically wholly.
Speaker 1:Yes, they do. I think the answer is yes, yes, yes, I think the answer is yes. Because, you cannot be a people pleaser and be a man. You just can't.
Speaker 2:I think that I think it was Cooper. I think Cooper, jeff Cooper, no, no, the Cooper, the guy that left us the comment about kindness and the kindness being different than you know nice or mean different than you know nice or mean. I think that was a great explanation on the differences, one you don't want to be a pushover and you want to be kind, and kind is different, all right, you can be nice and you can have values and morals, and you can uphold those values and morals but also be willing to uphold them and say no, yeah and not, not go with the herd and be willing to walk away from certain situations based off of you know, your, your values and morals.
Speaker 1:And and and even being willing to walk away from you know, even the things that you cherish the most, if necessary. A man has to carve his own path, sometimes in life, and sometimes that path may take you in a direction that doesn't involve the people in your life, as much as that hurts, but again it's. We're being manly here, we're being assertive, we're being you know being leaders, and if you're going to be a leader in your own life, sometimes you have to accept losses.
Speaker 1:This is true, and you have to accept that some people get left behind in that and that can be a very profound and powerful thing for a person to realize. It can also be a lonely and dangerous thing. Like you said, leadership is loneliness and sometimes, being a leader in your own life it can be a lonely place to be. It can be a place where you feel, man, nobody understands me or relates to me or knows the kind of person I really am, and you can feel quite alone in those moments. And I think those are the moments as a man that you know you have to really dig your heels in and be like look, we're not going to screw this, we're not going to allow this to get the better of us. We're going to turn this around and be like, look, we're not going to, you know, screw this. We're not going to allow this to get the better of us. We're going to, you know, turn this around and be the best version of ourself we can be and move on.
Speaker 1:And some people just piss excellence and that's great. For those that do, it's a wonderful trait. I'm proud of those people. I'm not jealous of those people. You know. I think that's another interesting aspect is like the kind of men that have jealousy, yeah, like over every little thing. That's a sign of weakness too it really isn't.
Speaker 2:You can't be jealous about every little thing and, and the more that you you mature emotionally, the more you notice it and you pick up on it, because everybody will be around that guy and like they, just it just seems like they always have something negative to say or something about somebody else after everything. Like, oh, like, so-and-so is doing. Oh, he's only doing as well because of this, this and this, and oh, this person has a nice house. Oh, it's not that nice. Like that, like they downplay yeah, they're, they're all. It's always like that, that negative nancy guy nobody likes a coper.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nobody likes someone that just consistently tries to cope about everyone else and a person who is always consumed with someone else's success. Yeah, what are they not doing? They're not achieving their own success, exactly so they're not playing the game. They're losing at the game because they they are so poor at that part of the game that all they can think of is why is this other person doing so much better at the game, when they should be concerned about how can I play the game better, how can I be better? And that's the difference. Honestly, I believe that's the difference between the left and the right. Politically, the left goes well. How can I change the rules of the game to make my loser-ness better?
Speaker 1:And a right wing person goes well, all right. Here's the game, here's how it's played. I'm going to observe and learn from the people who do really well and I'm going to replicate their results. And, hey, if I do better, cool, hey, better is good, but I'm also going to hey. I'm going to learn from successful people and I'm going to follow their lead and be better, and not, oh well, how do I change the rules to help me do better but harm you in the process?
Speaker 2:Those are two different mindsets and I think that's the left versus right paradigm in that show that and not having a victim mentality and just understanding like time is a constant. You can let's just say, for example, you have 20 years like whether you sit there and complain for 10 years about not being successful and not being as successful as somebody else, or just continuing and you know, doing what you're doing to get ahead. I mean it. You can't go through life and and always have to blame somebody or think that you're a victim, just like life is a constant, like you're gonna, you're, you're going to die you're gonna have ups and downs, you know you're gonna live your life.
Speaker 2:There's a it's a finite amount of time, like. Don't spend half of it complaining about you know something not being fair, just deal with it.
Speaker 1:I know, and I think it is a cornerstone of masculinity and manhood for a guy to just be an impenetrable fortress of not giving a fuck. I mean, that's really just what it comes down to. It's like if you can become so stoic and non-caring that the world just can throw every disastrous thing at you and it just doesn't matter. You've won. It doesn't matter how much money you have or how rich you are. Those things are irrelevant. What matters is can you weather the storm, can you persevere even in the darkest moments and just not care? Can you find the beauty and luxury and simplicity of everyday life in its smallest moments and enjoy it? I think that person has a much greater grip on reality than the person who thinks that, oh, whoever has the most money in their bank account when they die wins. I fell victim to that mentality.
Speaker 2:I think we all have.
Speaker 1:We all have.
Speaker 1:At one point in time, you know what my life has been in the last 10 years. Yes, right, you know the kind of person I've been like. You know what this room used to look like. You know what my music studio used to look like like. You know the kind of things that were ultimately important to me. And those things may not necessarily draw the same level of importance for me anymore, cause it's like I've kind of passed the point of of understanding that the physical, you know the, the things, the stuff, the, the, the. You know, I don't know the, the worshiping objects, objectifying materialism, materialism, that the materialism is, is not where it's really all at.
Speaker 1:And uh, it took me. It took me 40 years to learn that.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's a long road. You know, and I think we've all like, once you mature, like and you know you, we like to believe that you know, you reach the full maturity of your, your you know, um, you reach the full maturity of your you know intelligence and you reach the full maturity of, like, your emotions when you're, you know, in your mid 20s, right, but you think that you've experienced everything and you know everything.
Speaker 1:Oh God. No, I was an utter screw up. Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:I mean sometimes like you're going through life and you'll be 40 years old and you're like you know what. This just doesn't do it for me anymore. These things don't do it for me anymore. I could be utilizing my time so much more better. I could be utilizing my money in different places. You know, like for me. You know, obviously everybody likes material things. You know, you have nice watches, nice cars, all this nice stuff. But then now it's more like oh well, maybe we'll fly here and we'll do this tournament with my daughter and maybe we'll do a family vacation over here. And it turns into more of like how can I create a better experience for my family versus okay, so I got nice things. Now you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that Rolex watch in the drawer. Is it really going to do it?
Speaker 2:It's kind of like not, it's, not, it doesn't do it for me anymore.
Speaker 1:It doesn't seem to matter anymore, does it? I mean, and that's kind of, I've been the same way, Like I used to always like think, all right, I'm going to buy the crazy expensive gun, I'm going to buy the crazy expensive guitar, the motorcycle or the car. Like I went through that phase Believe me, I really did and I'm so like happy and proud that that. I've gotten to the point in my life where I don't really care about the material anymore, Like once you'd let it go and you just realize that that's not where the happiness really is. It's like it does. It does kind of release you from a lot of burden.
Speaker 2:It does, doesn't it Like? It feels like you're like oh, I feel so much better now Dude, totally, totally.
Speaker 1:Well, great show.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:I hope you guys understood where we're going at on today's show. I know this wasn't exactly politics or guns, but sometimes we like to kind of go off into the ethereal a little bit and sometimes that's fun too. I was thinking of flights that we could do and I want to do a cigar flight. I know we had those other cigars that we got in those I think the J J, h, p, huffman or whatever those.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that we've got a lot of those to try out and we may. I thought about maybe setting up like some sort of a gazebo on the property or some kind of like cool outdoor sitting area, so like maybe we'll do some of our flights out there, and I do want to get back to doing some flights. I know that was one of the successful things that we did on the show before. I don't know how I'm going to approach the alcohol Matt, because I don't really drink anymore. No look just tasting it.
Speaker 2:I don't honestly like I don't drink that much either Like if any I mean we're both pretty healthy people much either. Like if any, I mean we're both pretty healthy people, we work out a lot, we train a lot and before that I might've, but now it's like we have to figure out how we're going to manage.
Speaker 1:I think we, I think we should do some like retardedly hot peppers.
Speaker 2:We did that, but we can go hotter.
Speaker 1:So like we, we can do some crazy hot peppers.
Speaker 2:I think we should do like maybe, like I think we should do a beef jerky episode and test different types of beef jerky. Oh, dude, I got this. Who doesn't love beef jerky? So there is a meat snack store that's like right down the street from my house and it's owned by a south african guy. Yeah, and they do like biltong. They do it's called drawers, like dried sauces. Everything is air cured, so they basically just mix it and they hang it, and I brought it with us to when we went to Virginia. We were doing that range day in Virginia and we drove, we drove up. I had that with us and I know Chad ate it and Chad fell in love with it.
Speaker 2:Man, he was like oh my God, this is so good, but I'll bring some of that dude. That was really good. That sounds like fun yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, guys, thanks so much for tuning in to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. We've got a lot more on the way. Remember we post every Monday at 9 am Eastern Standard Time on our RAC Veteran 8888 YouTube page. If you want to see this podcast in video form, you can see our ugly mugs over there. Otherwise, check us out on all the normal places you would expect to find your podcast Apple Podcasts, spotify, stitcher. We're all over the place. You can download the audio as well. So thanks so much for tuning in. We've got a lot more on the way. Let us know in the comment section below. Do nice guys finish last? We want to know what you think. This is such a point of opinion with so many people and I would love to know what you think. So thanks so much. Anything else, matt, before we head on?
Speaker 2:Nope Great episode.
Speaker 1:All right, have a good one. Y'all See you next week. Bye everybody. Thanks for listening to Life, liberty and Pursuit. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify and anywhere else podcasts are found. Be sure to leave us a five-star review. We'd really appreciate that you can support us over on Ballistic Inc by picking yourself up some merch and remember, guys, dangerous freedom. Have a good one.