MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
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MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
Navigating Life's Twists: Gregory Taylor on Stoicism, Career Shifts, and Personal Growth
Gregory Taylor, co-host of the popular podcast Seat 41A, joins us for an enlightening conversation about the twists and turns of life, and how his Air Force career catapulted him into the world of personal development and mentoring. We reminisce about unexpected career paths, such as my pivot from aspiring pilot to podcaster, and reflect on the definitions of success, drawing parallels to Vincent van Gogh’s fame that bloomed after his time. This episode sets a thoughtful stage for a deep dive into stoicism, a philosophy often misunderstood, and its vital role in shaping a balanced life.
Listeners are invited to explore the foundational principles of stoicism, as we unpack insights from thinkers like Ryan Holiday and the timeless wisdom of Marcus Aurelius. Through personal anecdotes, I share my journey into stoicism, sparked by a transformative lecture from Dr. Mark Bonick, and how these teachings have been seamlessly woven into my daily routine to enhance focus and self-mastery. Gregory and I discuss the real-world applications of stoic philosophy, from maintaining composure in chaos to effective leadership communication, all of which are crucial in balancing the rigors of military service with family commitments.
From a discussion on the complexities of leadership to embracing adversity with a stoic mindset, we cover strategies for self-reflection and personal growth that can elevate one's life journey. With Gregory’s insights, we delve into the art of balancing career aspirations with family values, and the importance of staying prepared for life’s unpredictabilities. This episode is packed with wisdom on finding passion in your career, nurturing meaningful relationships, and the ongoing journey of self-discovery, inviting our listener community to join us in this shared pursuit of personal development.
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Thank you, hi. I'm your host, nate Shearer, and welcome to the show. This is Mindforce, the podcast for love, life and learning, where your mind matters. Today we have Gregory Taylor, the co-host of Seat 41, alpha. Greg, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Nate. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We missed a couple times. Schedules are crazy, life's crazy.
Speaker 2:You know three kids on either side, so it makes it pretty difficult, but glad you're here I'd like to give, and I'm currently at. Langley Air Force Base in Virginia is where I'm stationed and I live just outside the base and I've been here for almost a year, although the family's been here for four. I did do a geographically separated tour for a couple years which was not a lot of fun, and then, all in all, 22 years in the Air Force. Before that I came from Milwaukee, wisconsin, born and raised in Wisconsin, but kind of lived all over. Most of my adult life was there. I went to college at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and failed out after my first year, you know so not exactly a resounding success and then joined the Air Force shortly thereafter to get some skills and do something with my life because I didn't see it going anywhere. And then was enlisted for eight years commissioned and then 14 years now as a medical service corps officer, which has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:I've been, I mean, what I guess would be the late afternoon of my career. Right now it's not quite the sunset, but the sun is getting lower in the sky and I find myself in this time wanting to talk with people more about kind of you know, hey, how can I? Before it was more inward, more focused on me. I was more focused on me what do I need to do, where do I need to go, how do I need to develop? And over the past three or four years it really that focus has flipped to like I've gotten pretty much everything that I want out of this career. I'm enjoying the ride, but I I've achieved all the things I set out to achieve when I first started. So now it's getting a lot of joy and a lot of satisfaction out of helping other people achieve their goals, which is it's pretty cool, and so that's my new goal right now. And that was a long and winding introduction no, that was awesome.
Speaker 1:I I think it's awesome that there's so many cool aspects of podcasting, because I know that question comes across probably for both of us, like, what do you enjoy about it? But being able to connect with other people, and even virtually, I think there's a lot of connection that's still there. It's interesting. I had no idea that you had failed out and myself I went to University of North Dakota. I wanted to be a pilot. My whole life Went to the best private or public school other than private Ambry Riddle. That was like twice as much money. You know, partied a little too much, probably majored in beer pong and some other activities and, you know, didn't really focus on school as much as I should have and accumulated some student debt and things like that. But it's interesting where you can talk to people and connect on so many different levels that you might not have ever known. And I want to touch on something real briefly that you might not have ever known. And I want to touch on something real briefly. I just saw a video on success and it was interesting because they were defining success and something I didn't know and hopefully I don't get fact-checked on this. I tried to do a little research right after. But it was very short-lived.
Speaker 1:Vincent van Gogh was an absolute failure. He sold one painting his entire artistic life for 400 francs or 300 francs and I did the math and the us dollar it was like 450 or something like that. And so he sold one painting and felt awful, like one of his final things before he died was talking about how the darkness of depression like overtook him because he didn't amount to anything. And now he has paintings that are priceless. You you couldn't walk into a museum and and say I got a few million, I'll take it. They'd probably just arrest you, they'd call security and like you're crazy, get out of here. Like there's no amount of money at this point that you could even pay to get it, even if you wanted to.
Speaker 1:He never knew that he died, he's gone and and that's just crazy to me and and I think it kind of touches on your point where we kind of focus on ourselves for a certain period and hopefully we live enough, you know, long enough to be able to shift and to take care of others and shift that focus, because I think most of us end up doing it, but if we run out of time we don't get to do that. Maybe he lived longer and he got to see success and helped other painters come along, but that was mind-blowing. Did you know that?
Speaker 2:you saying that makes me feel like I've heard that before. I've heard something along those lines that you know he really wasn't a commercial success until after he died, and I don't think this applies to Van Gogh, but there's some people that probably owe the amount of success that they had actually to dying young or tragically or whatever the case may be, and I don't think that's Van Gogh's case. He did live quite a long time, but it's one of those where had had things taken a turn or like a less interesting turn, you know, uh, with his life, where he just kind of passed away in old age after some time. Would he be? Would his art be as recognized today as it is? I don don't know.
Speaker 1:The butterfly effect. I guess you never know, that's right. Okay, well, today on the show we're going to be talking about stoicism and kind of what that means. I think there's a lot of myths and just kind of misconceived notions of different stuff on there. Would you like to give us like if you could give the elevator speech of what stoicism is?
Speaker 2:sure, I'm certainly not a philosophy professor. Take this as just greg taylor's opinion of what stoicism is. However, how I interpret it really is mastering the world around you through study of yourself. Think is part of that, as is practice in dealing with the vagaries of life and understanding why you react in the way you do, and studying, you know, is this the way that I want to live? You know, and you know, am I being consistent with my values or am I being regulated by or, you know, driven by my emotions? And that's, you know, to your point.
Speaker 2:To your comment, nate, about some of the misconceptions about stoicism, you know really has to do with emotion and showing your emotion and things like that. And I think what one of those misconceptions is is that if you are a Stoic or you practice Stoicism, that you are stone-faced and you don't react, you don't have emotion and the whole goal is to like, bottle it up and not feel anything. But I would say that that that is not the case. Uh, I think the the more accurate viewpoint of that, uh, of the emotions argument is just understanding why you would react in that way to a particular catalyst and then deliberately choosing.
Speaker 2:You know it is not good for me or it is not, you know, within my value structure to be angry about this situation. So I'm just not going to be angry, I'm not going to let myself be angry. So it's not that you bottle up those emotions or you don't feel angry, it's just that you're not going to be ruled by them. You know, try to keep that logical brain engaged and not go to the reptilian. You know response. So that would be stoicism to me and I think there's ways to fine-tune that in into, you know, kind of getting the most out of a life. You know, I don't know, that's, that's my, that's my layman summary yeah, I think that's.
Speaker 1:I think that's perfect and I I'm so glad you mentioned it too, because I think that's the most common misconception. That was actually the one I was going to mention Lack of emotion, that you don't care and you dismiss everything. But I think the core of that particular one is not spending or expending additional resources or additional worry on something that you can't control. That's that. Focus on that one. I'd like to read a couple. I've never read on the show, but I did pull up a couple. Hopefully Ryan Holiday doesn't come for me. I have no idea what the rule is for this, but Ryan, I love you. You're awesome. But I wanted to read these nine and Greg see if any of these kind of spur some conversation for here. So there's nine things. Nine things, he said, if you want a smooth flow of life, live according to nature.
Speaker 1:Happiness isn't found in things, but in virtue alone. It's all about what we value and choices we make. We don't control external events. We only control our thoughts, opinions, decisions and duties. We've been given all the inner resources we need to thrive. We must eliminate toxic emotions. Hope, fear and anger are always the worst strategies. We are, and must remain a unified self. We can't complain or blame anyone else. Best to deal with our own demons. No man is an island. Our personal development is bound up in cooperation with others. Persist and resist. It's all about progress, not perfection.
Speaker 2:Thought those were great it runs the whole gamut, I uh. So ryan holiday's interpretation of you you know the Stoics, I think is he's one of the most accessible authors out there, you know. So lots of credit, I think, to Ryan Holiday, and I don't know, at least for the C41A podcast. You know, as long as we're attributing people's thoughts to the, the actual author, and not passing them off as their own perfect.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to get that out there just to make sure we had that foundation and baseline, uh, because we did mention those misconceived notions and things like that. So hopefully those nine not that that's all encompassing and not that that wraps up the entire type of philosophy or things like that, but but hopefully listeners were able to kind of take a peek and hear those nine things and then get those ingrained in their mind so that I can transition to the first question. Greg, what initially drew you to explore more about this stoicism?
Speaker 2:I am so glad that you asked that question because I get to talk about one of my favorite people that's out there. I, through the military, I went to the Army Baylor program back in 2014, 2014 to 2016. So I was a young captain and went, and for those of you who don't know what the army baylor program is, it's a mha mba program out of fort sam houston. The school is accredited through baylor university and there are some baylor faculty that that teach, but it's primarily run by the dod, and so you have Army Navy Air Force faculty there and then a combination of those and the VA Coast Guard, a few other random sprinklings of employee types that are there. So there are some civilians. It's a really diverse cohort. Not all administrators either. There's uh providers, nurses, allied health professional, so on.
Speaker 2:Anyway, stoicism. I really got introduced to it by one of the professors there who was, uh, dr mark bonick. Hey, he, he had retired actually halfway through my school year, so it was the end of 2014. And in what maybe is a typical professor retirement, I'm not, I'm not sure, but his retirement ceremony was him giving a final lecture, ceremony was him giving a final lecture, and. And so here we were. You know most of the class. I think he was a very well-liked professor, so most of the class wanted to be there, but they were also, you know, required to be there. And then you know some of the form, some of his former students were there as well.
Speaker 2:Anyway, so there's an auditorium and he's giving this lecture and and it was all about his study of stoicism and how it really fits within his life, and that just kind of lit the flame for me and got me thinking do my own investigating, you know, grab a book here, book there, and and read a little bit. So I picked up some aphorisms, you know, as a start, just, you know, like little little snippets where it's not really study but it's just like hey, here's a, here's a quote from Marcuscus aurelius and here's a quote from um, you know, epictetus I can never pronounce his name correctly, I'm probably doing it, uh, incorrect, but things like that and then I was like, okay, well, let me study this a little bit more. I picked up, um, this book which I'm going to hold up to the camera. You may or may not be able to see it, it's backward actually.
Speaker 2:But uh, I picked up this one just as a, as a, an any day reader, you know, like a like a coffee table book, so I could just grab it, flip to today if I'm inspired and and it's great, and so those ones have have some quotes from the stoics and then an interpretation or maybe some lessons. It kind of reads like a devotional for people who like, uh, daily devotionals and and then I, I read into it a little bit more and doing a little bit more study, and then here we are, some of the things I put into practice. I try to use that as my centering focus. I find myself astray. I want to navigate my way back to a stoic mindset of, you know, master of myself, and then using that as a tool to influence the world.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah, I think it goes back to, like he had said, ryan Holiday earlier that progress and not perfection. Briefly, I'll show this artwork, which is probably an odd thing to do, but I guess it'll make YouTube at some point. But I donated my left arm to Stoic Principles and I did that specifically because, well, mainly my mom. My mom said we're going to get a tattoo. It better be important.
Speaker 1:So I think that's one of those things where it doesn't fix me, it doesn't make me perfect or anything like that, but it's those reminders where you know, taking a shower, getting ready in the morning, whatever it is, and it's there that the road might be difficult but I'll get there, or bad things are going to happen, or we're all going to pass away at some point, or things like. That's intentionally a permanent thing, which some people might say is too far, but in that intentional reminder that's there and it is permanent. And it's permanent for a reason because I want to remember those things and at some point I guess I'll have old, wrinkly skin, I'll have to deal with it, but I think even at that point there's still good reminders that, um, you got to use the time that you, uh are given wisely, and I think that's one of those important things, and it's it's tough. I think everything is about balance. I think we mentioned that on the show a few different times, but I think balance has to be brought up and foot stomped time and time again because, like the principle of passing away, you could go yolo I don't think they even use that term anymore, I guess getting old but you don't want to go so wild. You don't have a budget, you're not taking care of your finances or you know you're living life on the edge like that, but you also want to make sure that you're not wasting time. So you got to find balance and everything.
Speaker 1:So hopefully people aren't going too far one direction that might be another common misconception like, oh, if you're gonna die anyway, you might as well just live crazy. So I see it as like a compliment too, which is probably a weird thing because I'm a Christian myself and so sometimes people see it as a rival or a contradiction to religion, but I see it as a compliment, and so I don't know if that's an uncommon thing, but I think that you can live as a Christian the way that you're supposed to, but then also realize that the time is a finite and you know trying to focus on things and not getting wrapped up in emotion. So I see them working together. So the next question I had for you, greg, is now that you've kind of talked to us about how you got to stoicism. How has it influenced your perspective on life and the challenges of you know difficult things that come up?
Speaker 2:one of the first episodes of your show that I listened to, that there were some like introductory questions that would be handed out, you know, just as like a warmups. But I noticed that with this, with this episode, we've gone straight in. Can I help you?
Speaker 1:so I do have one warm-up question. I'm glad you reminded me because I forgot. I'll try to figure out how to put this somewhere else. I'm not good at editing. Where does the email hippopotamus come from?
Speaker 2:All right, so great. Another great question. I'm glad because I want to talk about this too. So there are two pop culture references that reference hip hopopotamus and where it came from for me was the band, if you want to call them that, or you know, they were kind of you know a YouTube influencer thing. You know from Canada. It's a band called the Flight, flight of the Concord, and I forget the names of the two individuals. I'll say one of them was James, but I think there are a lot of people in Canada named Jamie, or a lot of men in Canada named Jamie.
Speaker 2:Anyway, so, flight of the Conchords, they have a song and they talk about the hip-hopopotamus and the rhinosaurus, and I don't even remember the whole song, but just hip-hopopotamus stuck in my head. And then the other reference is from the adam sandler movie, big daddy, and so you have, uh, rob schneider is is there, and for those who who recall, who don't recall the movie, adam sandler, kind of unintentionally, is adopting this kid and he has. He, he is a child, he's a man, child himself, so he doesn't know how to raise a child and so he's using, uh, I think, strippers to help teach vocabulary to this eight-year-old and, and one of the words is hippopotamus. And then Rob Schneider is there too and he's trying to read it and he says hip hip hop, hip hopopotamus, and you give him all the easy ones, exactly.
Speaker 2:So whenever I decided that that was going to be my email, whenever I decided that that was going to be my email, I got it on Hotmail and Yahoo and Gmail. I grabbed them all because they were all available and then I saved them for myself. Although the only one I use is Gmail, I don't use it. That's awesome. Yeah, I saved them for myself. Although the only one I use is Gmail, I don't use it.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah, I had Nateskate 7. I was so excited, I was like the first one to get it, with no numbers and everything. And at some point I got hacked and I got my email stolen. So I'm still sad and kind of bitter. I don't have Nateskate 7 anymore because 87 is the year I was born. So skate seven anymore, because 87 is the year I was born. So I thought it was really cool and I put numbers in there and everything. So, uh, that's unfortunate. If anyone out there is listening stole it, just contact me and let's figure out a ransom or some way to get that back. I'd love to have it. But yeah, I should give you an opportunity to ask me a question, because that's usually what goes there. But I just got so excited on this philosophy Do you have one?
Speaker 2:No, no, that's okay, I I'm going to save my questions for for the end actually, if that's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And so the next question.
Speaker 2:Oh, go ahead. No, no, you had you had asked me about, uh, you know, ways in which stoicism has influenced my life, or maybe some anecdotes for that. Yeah, I'm still in Zeus, okay, so one thing that comes to mind, and I'm going to start with a quote from this book, and I've just got to find the right page. Okay, so this is Calm is Contagious, and this is Marcus Aurelius' talk. If, then, it's not that the things you pursue or avoid are coming at you, but rather that you, in a sense, are seeking them out, at least try to keep your judgment of them steady, and they too will remain calm and you won't be seen chasing after or fleeing from them. And then Ryan Holiday's kind of interpretation. The first thing he goes to is Navy SEALs, and one of the things that Navy SEALs say, I suppose, is that calm is contagious. So this is something that people have remarked about me, that people see me as as very calm in in chaos, and so I think a good example of that, you know, is in, like the MCC or, or you know some type of setting like that that they I just don't get flustered too easy, or at least it doesn't appear that I'm flustered from the outside, and I think this really ties to the things that I try to practice with.
Speaker 2:Stoicism is one of the and I'll tie it to one of the things one of the nine principles that you read from Ryan Holiday that you can't control the external, the things that are happening in the environment. You know I can't control what other people do. I can only control the ways in which I react to what other people do, to what other people do. So one of the things that I think about regularly is just how I need to take a minute when something is happening or I'm getting new information and take a minute and think about how does this really affect me? And if it's something that honestly doesn't change my life, or at least the things in my life that are important to me, then why am I being, why am I upset?
Speaker 2:And oftentimes what I find is that it's actually it's my ego that's under attack. You know, I am a person who likes to think that I'm right all the time. So when people challenge whether I'm right or not, you know and it doesn't even matter if they're right or I'm right not. You know and it doesn't even matter if they're, if they're right or or I'm right, it doesn't matter. But the challenge is a, a provocation to me. I mean, that's like the reaction that I have is you know how dare you challenge me? You know, and I'm, I'm the great and powerful odd and you know when in, in fact, I'm just an old man behind a curtain, right.
Speaker 2:But recognizing that the, that response is the ego talking, and I don't want to, I don't want to be driven by my ego, by my reputation, by, you know, being the smartest guy in the room or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2:You know that that's not what really gives me joy at the end of the day and satisfaction, and so I try really hard to, when I recognize that that's happening, is to dismiss it.
Speaker 2:And then the way that that manifests itself, I think, to others is that you know where other people are getting flustered when they're being challenged or whatever, or there's kind of a not confrontation, but you know a spirited debate if you will, but you know a spirited debate if you will. I take that in and continue to respond in a hopefully a rational and calm sort of way, and I think my calm puts other people at ease. My calm puts other people at ease. You know and and ultimately I think that that makes every helps everybody get over the initial amygdala. You know reaction, you know you get the, the um, what is it? It's not cortisol, but the adrenaline, uh, you know, flowing through the veins and you want to fight or flight. And you know, if you can push through that for the first minute or two, then your rational brain returns. And I think that's something that other people see in me and I really try to work at, that is to get back to rational as soon as possible. So I didn't give you a specific example, but I think.
Speaker 1:No, that was awesome. I do have one question for you, though, because I struggle with them myself, so I'd love to know what your thoughts are, especially you being in flight leadership roles for longer than I have. Sometimes, in my calm demeanor, I've had feedback that it's lackadaisical or don't care things like that. But I too, like if I can't control it or whatnot, like I'm going to work on it. Of course, I'm not going to dismiss it, but I'm not going to get worked up because I need to either research, I need to figure out how to tackle it, I need to get more resources, there's something I need to do, but I have gotten that a few times. Like it doesn't seem like you care. Have you kind of gotten that?
Speaker 2:Yes. So my recommendation in those types of situations is you have to. Is you have to like, I don't know? I want to tie it to something else the. You know the five love languages, familiar with them, and how some messages just resonate differently with different people. You know, like uh um, acts of, or you know now I can't think of them, uh, off off of the cuff, but you know there's acts of service and then there's uh expressing gratitude and uh touch and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, words of information, acts of service. Thank you that. His words of information, acts of service, thank you. It's interesting in the example the writer he talks about think I think it was him he vacuumed like crazy because he received it in acts of service. He's like I'm gonna vacuum and his wife's like why is this dude vacuuming all the time? I don't even care.
Speaker 2:So he thinks he's killing it and she's like not receiving it at all because she needs to hear that she looks nice so I think you'll find that altering your, your approach occasionally to demonstrate in a way that resonates with your intended audience, that you do care, is the way that you get over that, you know. And so you're getting feedback in that moment that says that I want you to be upset because I'm upset. So I need you to be upset with me and we both need to be upset at that person. To be upset at that person and or this situation, right, and you have been there. Well, what I'm, what I'm not going to do, is I'm not going to, you know, pound my fist on the table and get all flustered and, you know, pick up the phone and curse somebody out. You, that's not the way that I'm going to let myself react in that situation, but I need to let the individual who's coming to me with a concern let them know that I've got their back, and this is mainly when other external people. So I'm going to use a semi-hypothetical example that there's a clinical department that has special I'm I work in it right now, by the way so a clinical department that has some special software and you know, our system administrators don't really know how to work on this software, but we're responsible for it, but we didn't. You know, don't get any training, um, and they're often frustrated when this clinical department comes to them and says you need to do x, and they're like ordering us around, right, or ordering my folks around, and then they respond back you know, hey, I don't even know how to do what you're asking me to do and b you know, you know you're not my boss, you're not the boss of me.
Speaker 2:And so they come to me and they're like you need to go and talk to that clinical director or that flight commander and tell them that you know they need to get in line, because we don't just drop whatever we're doing to work on your thing, right. We don't just drop whatever we're doing to work on your thing, right. And so I think how that really starts for me, how I start with a response to that right is, you know, try to take the individual and, in private, discuss with them. You know, what are their barriers to helping this, this individual, or helping this department, or what is it? What is it going to take for you to resolve this conflict?
Speaker 2:And and then hearing what they have to say, and then, um, you know, I, I think throwing in a few again, you have to read the room, but throwing in a few, you know you have to read the room, but throwing in a few, you know, like well-timed curse words or maybe a, you know, bringing in an anecdote from another situation. You know, some people respond well to like that is stupid as hell. Or you know, like F, that you know we're not doing that. Or you know, like um f, that you know we're not doing that. You know, and they're like, oh wow, you know, the lieutenant colonel just dropped an f-bomb, like that was awesome, you know. And sometimes that helps to connect with, uh, with the individual.
Speaker 2:I think it depends on who the individual is, but, uh, it starts with a chat in private, I think, and then it's really the follow through is to back it up with action. They usually want to see. You know, hey, I'm going to go down to that clinical department and I'm going to find out what's going on. I'll be back, you know, and then I'm going and I'm going to find out what's going on. I'll be back, you know, and then I'm going and I'm I'm obviously like stopping whatever I was working on, and now your problem is my most important problem that I'm working on and then, and then I come back and report like, oh hey, I talked with them, you know, I let them know what your concerns were. Oh hey, I talked with them, you know, I let them know what your concerns were. I proposed this, you know, alternative solution, do you think? But I didn't give them, I didn't commit unless you agree to it.
Speaker 2:So then I'm giving them kind of agency. You know, you get to choose. You know, do we do this thing or do we not do this thing? And you want me to keep fighting and I'm like, oh well, you know, since, or do we not do this thing? And you want me to keep fighting? And I'm like, oh well, you know, since, they came halfway, or if they're willing to wait three days for me to get to it, then you know like I can definitely get it done in three days. Like, okay, like let's go from there. And I think that combination of you know it's not intensive, focused, but but isolated on that individual and then action and then giving them an opportunity to be a participant or a decider in what happens next are things in which you can clearly demonstrate that you care about them, you care about the unit and its purpose, and you're going to protect them as much as you can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. What I took from what you said was knowing your audience, which is super important, but also remaining genuine. I think that's one thing, that different leadership styles and things like that. You might have to ebb and flow and kind of flex depending on what's going on, but you have to remain true to yourself. So if you're not the one that uses profanity all the time, like you had said, you use those well-timed ones, but you're not going to give up yourself and become different completely. You're just using it strategically or things like that. So remaining genuine. And then I think one thing you touched on it's super important. I wish we kind of talked about it more in the military as a whole.
Speaker 1:But that follow through I know as a prior enlisted person as well submitting ideas up through the different channels. There's, you know, so many different routing things and processes and levels and things like that. So sometimes it would feel like you submitted what you believe to be a good idea. Maybe it was good, maybe it wasn't, but you never heard back. So unfortunately, human nature is more towards the negative side. So you're like my idea sucked, I suck, and it just kind of goes that way and never hearing and maybe, oh, we don't have the money, we don't have the resource from the manpower or whatever. But I don't think you know, myself included, do a great job of following back. We, we like the action, we like the up front, but the follow-through is a little bit harder, except for, like in your example, like you're down the hall and straight back, you close the loop pretty quick, but if there's longer projects that becomes a little harder, right?
Speaker 2:that's one of the things, though, that I really try to insist on, and and this is feedback that I give up the chain as well is, you know, when I'm submitting a response to a tasker, or you know I'm I've been asked for information, I bring that information together, I send it up, you know, for somebody else to make a decision on something, you know, I don't, I don't let it go, you know, I, I, and then I'm asking you know, hey, here's what you asked for. Let me know when you know the big boss makes a decision or which way we're going to go with this. And then, hey, any update on this, you know, and I'll just forward, I'll reply all to a message that I, you know, the one that I responded with with you know, after like the appropriate amount of time, usually like two weeks, like, did anything come of this? Where are we at with it? Are you still sitting on this tasker, whatever? And? Um, I'm sure that my, my leadership can find that annoying at times, but I've also seen where those suggestions or that follow-up has generated change at at higher leadership levels, where they're like hey, you know.
Speaker 2:So what we're going to start doing is when we ask for a name for different opportunities or awards or whatever you know we're going to. We've got this tracker spreadsheet that we keep track of all the nominations and we're going to highlight the name of the person who was selected. I was like, oh, you know, that's great feedback, you know, because you send your airman up for like some you know opportunity and then you just never hear about it. And I was like, oh, it's like oh, no, like this other, this other individual from another section got nominated. It's like, okay, well, at least now I know, and now I can give that feedback back to the airman and close the loop with them and say like, hey, you know you weren't selected this time, but I'm going to keep, you know, putting forth an opportunity yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:It seems like that's the core of that whole thing is the close-the-loop communication. People will know that you care to a certain level just by closing the loop, so you don't have to change yourself, you don't have to get all emotional or whatnot, by just closing the loops Good stuff. I'd like to ask you a question, kind of transitioning into another common misconception um embracing adverse adversity. So I know we have team steps. Is it still team steps? We have the trusted care principles and whatnot, and one that I think a lot of people struggle with is the preoccupation with failure, and I think that's kind of the same thing in stoicism, where it's like it sounds like you're dwelling on the negative. What are your thoughts on embracing adversity?
Speaker 2:so the last time we chatted, you know, I think so, we had Lieutenant Radford with us and one of the things that she mentioned was about, you know, it's easier to stay ready than to get ready. That's one of the lines that that she says often, and it's a good, it's a good one, right, and one of the ways in which that adversity, or handling adversity through a stoic mindset, and that easier to stay ready than to get ready, is it's a great practice to be thinking about how situations could unfold in different ways. And you know, one great way to do that is when things are happening to other people or with other people in front of you, people in front of you, and I think you know a common reaction that we have, you know, when an individual, say, is getting, you know, berated, or you know they're obviously squirming because they're not doing the thing, or they're being made uncomfortable in one way, shape or form, is, I think, one of the things that we do is we look at them and we're like, oh man, I think one of the things that we do is we look at them and we're like, oh man, stinks to be them. I'm glad I'm not giving this briefing, because I would be getting raked over the coals too.
Speaker 2:One thing that you can do, though, is to rehearse. If I'm in this situation, how do I handle it? If I went with a prepared speech and the senior leader that I am delivering that prepared speech to took a right turn and went into a topic that I'm completely unprepared for? How would I respond to that? Just imagining a scenario where a program that I own I'm talking about that program and then someone just brings up hey, how can we incorporate AI into more things? I don't know, man, I don't know anything about AI. Anyway, rehearsing that, though Like I don't know, man, you know, I don't know anything about AI Rehearsing that, though, gives you an opportunity to exercise those reactions, and then, you know, eventually, one day something like that will happen to you, right?
Speaker 2:And if you're in regular practice of seeing things through and seeing ways in which you know things could go wrong, your experience that you can draw from, even though you haven't actually been in those situations yourself, you're still drawing from experience, because you were actively thinking about it when it was happening to somebody else, and so you can rehearse those outcomes. You can think through different ways in which, going back to the preoccupation with failure. What are the different ways in which this could possibly go wrong? And then, okay, so we failed to meet a deadline. Okay, if we fail to meet a deadline, okay, if we fail to meet a deadline, you know what are the repercussions of that.
Speaker 2:And then who would, who would I need to talk to in order to get reprieve, get that deadline pushed, or, you know, do some sort of um, you know, damage control after the fact. And if you, uh, if you rehearse those things, rehearse those conversations in your mind, then if that circumstance were to present itself later down the road, yeah, oh, yeah, I, you know, I've already kind of come up with a game plan. It's at least a starting point. You know you're not going to be able to prognosticate exactly what is going to happen and have it come through, you know, come to fruition exactly in that way, but you've at least, you know, started it.
Speaker 1:You have a skeleton of a, of an idea of how to respond absolutely, and I think that goes to leaders or readers right, and I know that's said and it's a little cheesy and you know, maybe it rubs some people the wrong way but you have all this wealth of experience of people that have done things and maybe done things not very well, and so why not learn from it, read it in the book and prevent doing the thing that didn't go very well? And so I think that's the core of you know reading and learning from others, and so I think that's the core of you know reading and learning from others. There's so much experience and the library full of books like don't do what they did potentially, or maybe do what they did because they, they're awesome.
Speaker 2:I would say the flip side, um is, is just as applicable, which is when you see excellence in action. You know it. It's worthwhile to study that. You know, what did they do that prepared them to achieve such great results? Um, you know again, maybe some of that is applicable to you, maybe it's not, but you know, I think I think it's easier to study greatness, you know, and we definitely do, from like a celebrity standpoint, you know, with, uh, with different biographies and autobiographies and things like that. But we, it's definitely it's good to study all of them and rehearse, rehearse those things. So rehearsal is the is the name of the game.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a better way to look at it too, because I think preoccupation with failure, or however you want to term it, makes it seem like you are focusing on it. I kind of relate it to personally. I remember when I first started riding a motorcycle and you're not in a cage, there's no protection around you, and as you're going down the street, I remember looking at different cars or a dog or a small child or whatever it was. You try to think through the scenario that's about to play out in front of you and you commonly think of the worst case. You don't really think of like the thing that's going to go perfect, because it generally doesn't go perfect.
Speaker 1:The kid does walk right in front of you as you're going, maybe faster than you're supposed to, or the person you know turns up in front of you or cuts you off or whatnot, and so that was one of the first times I remember you know kind of playing those things through my head and not to focus or dwell. I'm like, oh, it's so negative, this is so bad, but let me just figure out these different routes or different things, and so really looking for the escape route, or you know, however you want to term it, maybe that's like a better way. You're thinking through possibilities, maybe the focus on the negative, or failure maybe that word, you know, kind of has its own negative connotation that goes with it but you're trying to think of the routes that could occur. And and that's where I kind of learned at first I'm going to figure out if this does happen which I felt like nine times out of 10, the dumbest thing usually did happen, and so I need to, you know, get out of this lane or whatnot.
Speaker 2:All right, Nate, are you ready for my first question for you? Yeah absolutely Okay. So for your story, you know, at least from the Air Force perspective, you know you've had several drastic career jumps. I think it was the air traffic control first, and then contracting, then medical service court, right, absolutely Okay. So those were bold changes, or big changes. Maybe bold, maybe not, but how do you feel like the principles of stoicism helped you to prepare for such a significant life change?
Speaker 1:I don't know stoicism specifically because I feel like I've been doing that more in the last four to five years, mainly just been an MSC. But I will say hopefully not to veer off from your question too much the military has prepared me with so much resiliency. And I know it's sort of a buzzword and I almost hate to use it because it's kind of becoming that way, but I honestly do not know what I would do without the military. I lost my dad, I've lost my grandparents, a divorce I still do, co-parenting with another military member, so we're never at the same location. And that's been challenging and there's been so many things that I've gone through and they've been difficult and the road has been hard. But I don't remember a time where it felt impossible, maybe like 99% hard, that's a thing, but always possible. And I think that goes back to going through the difficult situation, getting to the other side of it, going through retraining or a new base or the divorce or the death or whatever those things are. And so that's why I try to open with my flights and try to kind of talk through some of those negative aspects with them and I don't want it to be a Debbiebie downer or anything like that, but I think it touches on what you had talked about earlier is that ability to connect with somebody and, you know, kind of have that empathy with them. I won't have the exact answer, I I never will but at least be able to open up and move through that. But I think the military has really given me the ability to move through difficult things and I think that's, you know, really core to what we do.
Speaker 1:We don't have a normal job and so sometimes some of the things frustrating like we had the CB-22 crash, that was really difficult and it always drives me nuts and I touched on it in another episode really briefly. But always in the newspaper the articles will always say routine training accident, like it's not routine, like it's not a. This isn't a normal job. If you can go to work and not come home at the end of the day, that's not really a routine. It's not like faxing stuff and like pushing papers around and whatnot. If you can not come home, that's a pretty, pretty interesting job and and so I think the hardships that we go through they are difficult and I wonder, you know we could have probably a whole separate one on like BMT and where BMT is at and things like that. But you go through those different difficult things and be kind of broken down and maybe it works and maybe you know there's different ways, Um, but I think there has to be some level of difficult situation. Uh, back to the adverse adversity question that I had. I think it's required.
Speaker 1:You don't get resiliency from easy life. You never build anything up. You have to be able to look back and say, wow, that was that was. That was really, that was really hard, but I made it. That's where that comes from. There's no, and so we use the word and we throw it around a lot, but we don't really like to talk about the difficulty of getting through those situations. That's how you build resiliency.
Speaker 1:It doesn't just magically. You wake up like stretch and I'm resilient. That's that's not how it works. It goes through those difficult things and I like to be able to use those and help people. That's what makes those situations suck a little bit less. They're not good. You have conquered it, you have gotten past it. But I think that final part almost like the five stages of grief you have that last portion, that's acceptance and acceptance. I see that as helping others. It did suck. I had to their side but hey, I know where some resources are. Hey, let's get you over there and then that terrible time is softened, not that it ever goes away. I don't really believe in like poof. There's like a magical time with grief or anything like that. It's always there. It lessens over time, but it does make things better. Hopefully that was mainly on track, not necessarily stoicism, but the military difficult times will make you more resilient.
Speaker 2:I think it's a good descriptor of how you got to the place that you are currently yeah, that I think that goes back to.
Speaker 1:Sorry to jump in there, but I wanted to touch on the the success portion of van gogh. In air traffic I never like felt like I fit, it wasn't that thing. And I know, like a lot of the things I say are cheesy but I say them because they're true. So I mean you can call me cheesy but if if I feel it, I got to say it, I never felt that thing that like got me out of bed that I wanted to fly into work through air traffic and contract and nothing against either, and they're both great career fields. I just never felt the click, the light bulb above the head or whatever you want to call, until the day I shadowed. I shadowed and you know, talk to the different people found a job that changes every couple of years and I remember like I told people in another cheesy line, but I was like this is the thing that I have to do. And I was at seven and a half years, I had the eight year cutoff and I only had one chance to apply and you know, blessed enough that it worked out. Kind of funny, lieutenant Colonel Dieter came over to announce it to me, told me. I didn't get it and we tried next year and I'm too devastated to be able to say anything to actually say no, I don't have any more shots. This was the one and done.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, I think anyone listening like success. You need to sit down and define it for yourself and try to figure out what that is. If you want to be a garbage man and you sit down and become a garbage man, awesome, that's what you wanted to do. But then also keep in mind it takes time. So that's one thing that I've heard from a lot of people with getting their degree, I want to do four years and be done with my degree.
Speaker 1:I worked full time and got my degree over 10 years after I made some poor choices in college. So it took me 10 years because I've only taken one class at night with the TA and whatnot, and so that's not a normal timeline. But I got to MSC. I got to the thing that I wanted to do. I have the fit and I have something that I want to wake up and help people and that clicks. So sometimes it takes longer than you'd like, but you know you can have three different groups on base and three wildly different career fields, but sometimes it takes all that to get there.
Speaker 2:So I'd like to offer to you a contrasting story, which is my MSC origin story anyway, just as an illustrative example for another principle that I want to bring up. So for you, when you got a taste of the medical service corps, you're like, wow, this is what I've been looking for.
Speaker 1:If I can paraphrase what you just said, I mean, my first commander got fired and I wanted to quit my first year. But we can go into that a little bit.
Speaker 2:So for me, I was enlisted and I wanted to cross-train into a different career field. I was just done with what I'd been doing. I wasn't being challenged, it was just not as fulfilling as it once was. So I tried to cross-train, couldn't be released from my career field at the time, so I was going to separate from the Air Force. I was like you know what, all right, I'm done. I had a good run and I talked to my flight commander at the time, who was a Medical Service Corps officer. I talked to my flight commander at the time and who was a medical service corps officer, and mentioned to him you know, these are my plans or whatever. And he was like, hey, have you thought about medical service? You know, because I think you've got some potential there, you should look into it.
Speaker 2:I didn't have my bachelor's degree completed at the time, but I was in similar state to you. You know I was at close to seven years. You know it's kind of. I needed to finish the degree in the next six months and then, you know, I had one shot to apply and and one and done and I made it. So, uh, but I would say that I went into it, not like begrudgingly, but I wasn't. I wasn't as as passionate about it I. It was more a career change of convenience because I didn't want to be where I was, but I didn't necessarily want to leave the military yet. You know, I was eight years in at that point, seven years in, and so I commissioned.
Speaker 2:And the reason I bring that up as just an alternate story is because it's something where, from 2009, when I got picked up to now right, when I got picked up to now right, the passion wasn't there like at the start, but it's definitely something that has grown as my experience and understanding within the career field has grown. And it's another, another book that I really like which is so good they can't ignore you uh by cal newport. It uh, one of the things that that is highlighted in there right is is that skill is a better predictor. Developing skill in a career field is a better predictor of longevity in that career than passion is right. So, like some romantic relationships, right, the passion fades over time like familiar kills passion. Once you know how sausage is made, you're no longer as excited to eat sausage, you know, and I know that's a kind of a crude way to think about it, because I just mentioned relationships.
Speaker 2:But my point is that, even though I didn't go into joining the Medical Service Corps with this burning passion to be the best msc officer that I could be and imagining all the amazing opportunities that I would have, I I did it. And then, once I was there, I found things to get passionate, and and that started with knowing how to be good at my job. And then, as I became more skilled in doing the work of a medical service core officer our true core competencies, you know, which aren't logistics and finance and it and so on but, uh, you know communicating, leading people, you know self-inspection, you know so on and so forth. So you can go on. But as I got more skilled in those areas, I found the things that really resonated with me and then I focused on those.
Speaker 2:So we've heard it's another cheesy trope out there, right, but you know there's no such thing as a bad assignment, right, and it's more about the people and the mission at the end of the day than it is about the geographic location. Now, sometimes there's definitely some hardships with a geographic location, but finding something at each assignment or with each job as a medical service corps officer, finding something to get excited about and then cultivating that excitement into passion is the is one of the keys to fulfillment, and you know really experiencing the joy that the, that fulfillment, and you know really experiencing the joy that the field office offers you. Anyway, so I'll leave it there. You wanted to say something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just find it so interesting. Chief Bass, I mean we could go down a long list of chiefs. I'd love to actually see the statistic. If it's out there, maybe I should try to Google it or research. But you have so many different people that'm just doing my four, I'm heading out and they do 32 and become, you know, the chief master charger in the air force or whatever the scenario is. I've met so many chiefs. I'm getting my school, I'm paying off my honda civic and then I'm out of here. So I mean that's, I mean I feel like that lines up perfectly where it's not there initially, but you find the things along the way. You found the people that drove you or you know they're all the people. I guess have different reasons for staying, but I'd say the the mass theme or leader with that is probably the people along the way.
Speaker 2:So four years can turn into 32 absolutely and here, here I am at 22, so I still have 10 years to go. I don't know, I don't know that I'm going to make it a whole nother 10, but um, I'm definitely enjoying. I'm enjoying today, yeah. So you know, that's enough living in the moment.
Speaker 1:Do you have more questions?
Speaker 2:some of the notebooks I know I, so I have a couple more quotes that I wanted to share. And, um, and this ties into the point, this ties to the point that I just made, and so I'll read this and I'll just ask for your thoughts on this. So, how to have a good day, and this is Epictetus speaking. God laid down this law saying if you want some good, get it from yourself. I like that one. It's a simple thought of if you want good things to happen, be good in the world that you exist in. And back to my, cultivate joy and passion from within that comes with you know, skill and expertise. But also, you know, if you want to feel more gratitude, be more grateful of the things that are are happening around you and the and the lessons or the blessings that it, that it brings to you. If you want to feel more love, love more people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that really goes into people say, oh, how was your day, had a bad day. It's like, did you have a bad day or did you have a bad five minutes? Because I feel like a lot of times it's a bad five minutes and there's that TikTok or whatever it may. Or the guy asked you know if you had this amount of money and you know the money went bad, or whatever, would you throw away the rest of the money? And he's, you know, implying or later on talks about you threw away all the other seconds in the day after you know a few minutes of the day and whatever that number is. It's kind of big math equation. But you basically threw away the rest of the day and whatever that number is. It's kind of big math equation, but you basically threw away the rest of your day because you had a bad five minutes.
Speaker 1:And I think that happens quite a bit and you're the only one that can control that and so that's a perfect example. Glad you brought that up for stoicism and getting us. We talked about some of the misconceptions, but I think that's a good, actual, actionable tip or practice like focus on the things that you can control. You're not dismissing everything else, but get yourself back on track. I think you had mentioned that, getting back to center and pressing on with the day.
Speaker 2:It was probably a bad five minutes and then get after it so one of the things that I was hoping that you would say when I asked you about your career transition right, was that you were looking at the things that you value and, you know, seeking an opportunity that matched with those values. That was, at least me predicting. What you might say you didn't go that route is perfectly fine, you know it's not. It's certainly not a wrong answer or anything like that. But, um, I was hoping to jump on the point, so now I'll just ask you more directly is have you spent some time thinking about what is really important to you and like how you want to spend those seconds of those days, you know, like what you know. You don't have to spill the beans because that can be, you know, like really personal certainly but yeah, I mean, I am trying to to focus more on it.
Speaker 1:I know we we've talked a little bit and I've talked with a couple different people, gooch and a few other people and now that I need names in front of me I can't think of them but Walski and Gooch and a few other ones, hrabowski and Pig and a few other R-coded planners and whatnot, and it is a difficult thing. I don't know if you know what you're getting yourself into in a lot of different situations. I signed myself up for the fellowship and very excited for the opportunity and don't want to speak ill of an opportunity at all, but I do want to be real with the situation and it comes with second and third order effects that maybe you didn't realize when you applied. So applied love, readiness. I'm really torn between readiness and logistics. Not that this is a functional question at all, but I'll always be a little bit of a log dog. But yeah, it's difficult because you had the one year fellowship here and now we're off and I've been having conversations with my wife and she saw the comment from pig, uh, saying something about tdy's and whatnot. He was out for another four weeks and and so I'd kind of commented and said I'm not sure if it's going to get any better, because the comment was kind of like oh, it's just the fellowship I'm like, but I don't think it ends at that point. You have that 12 months, but then it kind of transitions to more time away and I am at 15, coming up in April, and so five more after that. So I don't know, I don't, I really don't know. I'm trying to just make sure we move from assignment to assignment. Everyone's happy as we move, but being gone, being away from the family and whatnot, is a difficult thing. And so back to your question, focusing on what's important.
Speaker 1:So before my focus was more on myself, I think, and so I kind of alluded to it a little bit, but I didn't really go down that road like you said. But I felt like I used to bring up questions and improvements and things like that in my smaller units and it always felt like it was on deaf ears, and so I don't know if my ideas weren't any good. That could definitely be a possibility or the closed loop communication wasn't quite there. But I wanted to help people make change and do that, and so I continued to look at OTS and different ways of commissioning and moving up through that because I wanted to have more of an impact and so that was kind of me matching myself at that point, before I had the family, and now, with the family, trying to navigate and try to figure out what that looks like keeping everyone happy and not being too disruptive as we move.
Speaker 1:We'll be at mildenhall for the next three years, so that'll at least give us three years there. They'll take us to 18. We'll kind of have to see where it goes from there. But yeah, I think that's that is a really important thing that you bring up to try to have the listeners and whatnot, because I like actionable things. We talk a lot of different things in theory and whatnot, but action what can you actually do this week or that month and then get after it? So I think that's a good thing for people to think, sit and figure out what their focus areas are. My focus areas are shifting.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, just I want to pull on a string just a little bit and again, we don't need to get into a ton of personal detail, right, but one of the things that I heard from you is that you know, actually physical presence with the family is one of those things, is probably on that values list, on that short values list, right, and, and that that's. You know that the your current career path or your, your near-term career you know assignments is is going to present challenges to that, because you're physically going to be somewhere else, right, and so this is just like kind of a small, a small thing, right, but acknowledging that that is something that you value, I think, when you're, when you're traveling one thing, or when I, when I've traveled, you know I was, I was doing our code planner stuff and I was tdy all the time as well um, you know, while I'm, sometimes I can really become self-absorbed because you know the rest of the folks, like, aren't with me, and so that geographic separation creates a little bit of distance from an awareness standpoint, right, you know, I don't have to balance schedules today, because what the kids are doing, I can't really have any influence on what the kids are doing. I can't I can't really have any influence on, on what the kids are doing, you know, picking them up from school, like watching them participate in an extracurricular activity, whatever the case may be, um, so I I naturally, I think, distance myself from them when I'm awake, and so, recognizing that that's a value of mine, I have learned that I need to be deliberate about scheduling time to connect electronically, to connect electronically, and also I write things down as memory joggers of you know, like we're just doing like a little like serial chat, you know, while the kids are eating breakfast in the morning, like hey, what's going on today, you know? And then, when I connect with them in the afternoon, I ask them about the things that they mentioned in the morning. But I have to write that down in order to actually like retain what those things are.
Speaker 2:You know, because a whole, you know, a whole bunch of stuff happens to me directly in the inner. A way in which your values can drive your actions at, you know, at a very local level, is A acknowledging that those are your values and they're what's really important in your life. That's one of them anyway, right, and then, what deliberate action can you take to retain as much of that as you can, knowing that the military necessity is that the family's in Milton Hall and you're in Germany for a week or two or something like that, but then you'll be back eventually, and so how can you maintain that through separation and it's something we all do from time to time, but, uh, I don't know that everybody deliberately makes an effort. Um, keep that in the forefront and then you can allow yourself to go astray, I think, while you're away, because you know other people, other things influence you yeah, that's good stuff.
Speaker 1:I'll have to keep that in mind because I do the same thing. My wife will probably go nuts when this one goes alive and she hears it. But for some reason, for me it's like if I put my nose down and I just knock out the thing, that makes me I don't know like. I like, I guess, stay busy, get the thing done and get home. So, um, the distance not physical distance, cause there's that's already built in but the emotional and virtual distance definitely creeps in. So I'm like, oh, let me get it done, I'll just get home. But being intentional, I think, is definitely a a good thing. So to keep that in mind, um, yeah, those are.
Speaker 2:Those are life lessons, man. I've I've spent three and a half years geographically separated from the fam out of that 22 year career and the last one, um, you know, the last one one was close to breaking things.
Speaker 1:You're heading out the door. I am. Yeah, words on that I mean it.
Speaker 2:You know it is what it is right. I'm definitely going into this beach vacation with a with a commitment to myself that I'm not. I'm not going to let those things that you know were the worst of me when it came to, you know, being present with my family. I'm not going to let those things take hold. You know, have positive habits from the onset and and just really dedicate myself to to doing that and, and that's at least my strategy Uh, and you know I've got some like a plan, the B plans and so on, to uh to exercise as, as needed. You know, cause, who knows what's going to happen and what, what my true availability will actually look like, um, when, at the end of the day, um, I'm trying to create some protected space. That's just there makes sense.
Speaker 1:You got those non-negotiables. As you're going in, I think having those, even if you know things get a little distracted or whatnot at least you've thought of them beforehand my problem is is I'm, I'm, I'm a social guy, or well.
Speaker 2:I have many problems, but one of them is that I hammer, I'm a really social guy, you know, I like, I like talking, I like connecting with people, and so when there are people around me or I can, I could be, you know, in a space with people and chatting and and and what you know, I seek that out and the people that are remote, are, you know, can become secondary in my mind, because not that you know, they're secondary in my life as a whole but it's just like, hey, I'm going to go hang out with these folks and do this social activity because that really energizes me and I enjoy it.
Speaker 2:And you know, sitting in my room and you know, on FaceTime and chatting about, you know, people's school day and chatting about people's school day. I like those things as well, but I also like hanging out with people and learning new things and meeting new people and perhaps I'm going to charge you the same way you know yeah, so.
Speaker 2:So I have to. I have to what? At the end of the day? What is the thing that's more important to me, right is is showing my kiddo that I care about what's going on in their day and I'm interested in their life. And you know what are honestly shallow experiences in socializing with relative strangers, or you know coworkers or whatever, although gratifying in the moment contributes nothing to my you want to have a big full row, maybe multiple rows of that retirement.
Speaker 1:No one wants an empty row.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking more golf tournament, you know, like a scramble, and then Could you do a disc golf one? Hmm, I'd have to learn. I would be open to it, but I would also have to prepare myself. I couldn't just walk into a disc golf. Yeah, it's just for fun. I don't know, maybe they have one in Ooh that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, as we come to a conclusion, what would you say would be the big takeaway? What's a? What are the listeners taken from this wonderful conversation?
Speaker 2:All right. The biggest lesson you know for stoicism and for people who might hear this right is that you have the ability to influence the world around you through the understanding of yourself, and you're stuck with yourself for the rest of your life. You know, and so learning about yourself, however unpleasant that might be at times, is worth the effort, and I think the payoff that you're going to see with developing a greater understanding of yourself is that you're going to be able to navigate life better than maybe you are currently, and that is a worthy goal to attain and, like you said earlier, it is strenuous, but the level of satisfaction that you're going to get at the end for having worked on that strenuous task will be yeah absolutely Work on yourself, that self-reflection.
Speaker 1:It's easy super easy to judge everyone else, but sitting down and self-reflection can be really difficult. So I'll double down on the challenge for everyone out there Self-reflection as you end each week or whatever interval, but a little bit of pause and reflect on yourself will pay dividends later on. I'd like to encourage all the listeners to share their thoughts. Throw some questions over to me on social media or email. We're on Buzzsprout for the audio and youtube for the video. Greg, thanks for coming out.
Speaker 2:it was a great chat yeah, thanks for having me and, um, I already kind of threw my email out there as we were talking, but hiphopopotamus at gmailcom is, uh, where you can me and, honestly, if, if anything that I said resonated with anyone listening, I'm happy for you to reach out to me as well and I would love to have a conversation Absolutely. I wanted to be back on the podcast sooner rather than later. This is a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, let's get seat41 Alpha out here.
Speaker 2:Man C41 Alpha just needs to get together. It has been tough.
Speaker 1:It has been tough, but we're going to do it Sounds good. Well, I love you all. See ya, thank you.
