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Parenting and the American Dream - A Journey of Belonging · Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences

• 0:00
  Hello everyone and welcome back to Whereabouts Tales.
• 0:03
  Today I'm joined by my friend Max for a conversation that took
• 0:06
  us down a much deeper rabbit hole than I expected.
• 0:10
  We started by talking about the state of journalism and why
• 0:14
  truth is losing the race to entertainment, but we ended up
• 0:17
  talking about what it actually takes to build a dream life from
• 0:21
  the ground up. Max opens up about his personal
• 0:25
  shift from being a reporter of other people's stories to
• 0:28
  becoming a creator of its own, a journey that led him through a
• 0:31
  path of sobriety and eventually to the founding of classrooms
• 0:35
  not only abstract but also the company classrooms we get into,
• 0:39
  the raw differences of raising a family in America versus
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  Germany, the unique beauty of failed culture, and why finding
• 0:46
  during the process is more important than the result.
• 0:49
  This is an episode for everyone who feels like the world is
• 0:52
  moving too fast and is looking for a way to choose a slower,
• 0:56
  more intentional pace. So find the quiet spot and grab
• 1:00
  a coffee. Or if you're on the move, keep
• 1:03
  going regardless of whatever you're listening while driving,
• 1:06
  walking or running. Let's head back into the rabbit
• 1:10
  hole with Max and Ball and this is whereabouts stills.
• 1:18
  Enjoy. I, I have to start with the,
• 1:24
  with the topic that I missed in the last episode because I, I
• 1:28
  did some investigation. The topic was quite big, big
• 1:31
  the, the, the, the discovery that you made for a short while.
• 1:35
  So I had, I don't know if you know, but there are, there's,
• 1:37
  there are articles in the Telegraph as well.
• 1:41
  There are articles in, in Germany, a lot of newspaper.
• 1:44
  But the biggest surprise for me is exactly what you said is that
• 1:47
  that guy is still professing, he's still writing.
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  This is unbelievable. You realize again that the world
• 1:56
  is not fair. Nothing in this world is fair.
• 1:59
  No, it's not, It's not fair. And it's kind of I, I, I feel
• 2:03
  it's also that what I feel over the last 30 years, there's
• 2:08
  definitely a shift in journalism, moving journalism
• 2:13
  more towards entertainment. And that means even the even
• 2:18
  good papers, serious papers, you know, work on massaging stories
• 2:27
  to entertain, to sell to, you know, make sure they get
• 2:33
  advertised. And, you know, I, I, I feel
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  journalism in the, maybe in the 50s, sixties, 70s was like
• 2:41
  tougher or it, it was not as much an entertainment as it is
• 2:48
  today, you know, But I, I, I think people like Tom Como, they
• 2:55
  definitely were able to entertain their audience.
• 2:58
  And I'm sure they sold a lot of a lot of papers and magazines.
• 3:03
  You know, these stories I'm. Pretty sure that the the the
• 3:06
  fact that they lied that didn't affect their their financial
• 3:11
  situation. I'm pretty sure that people
• 3:12
  still both because they wanted to believe it's again, it's it's
• 3:15
  the story of the wishful thinking, right?
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  They they wanted to believe it that they they know a guy that
• 3:20
  you're those guys like right to put it like this.
• 3:24
  It's, it's it's unbelievable. I, I have to say I'm happy that
• 3:28
  you, you, you decided to start sub stack.
• 3:30
  I am. I am happily reading it.
• 3:34
  I'm I'm honestly I've just I'm 22 recipes in my daughter put me
• 3:40
  on a on a schedule. Says it every Friday.
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  You, you write something and you something you baked and what
• 3:48
  memories you have of it and you know, And so that's so I'm I'm
• 3:53
  on A and it, it seems like people want to know about me
• 3:58
  baking. I'm I'm glad to share what I
• 4:00
  know. I think people are searching
• 4:05
  reading sources and I think sub Stack is an amazing place for
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  this and and I think it's the place where you can really
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  support people enjoying writing. So that if you, if you like to
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  read, you have a lot of sources and there are a lot of good,
• 4:23
  really good journalists on substance.
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  Unfortunately, like you said, not on any of the big newspapers
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  because nobody has interest in long form.
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  I love the fact that it has like that there's a long form there
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  that people can really explore ideas and kind of go down that
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  road and not just like, OK, 3 paragraphs.
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  And then you're this is kind of as much space as you get get
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  for. So it's, it's really, you know,
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  I mean that we have one publication that does that
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  really well. And the US called the The
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  Atlantic. I don't know if you're familiar
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  with it. They do some good reporting.
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  I think I'm I'm always excited about what they do.
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  But yeah, Sub Stack is a great, a great venue for writers and
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  also and for people who want to read, you know, and they still
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  exist. They do exist.
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  Thank. God, but it's again, that lie
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  that media is trying to say, yeah, nobody has the attention
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  spam. Nobody's listening to anything
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  more than 30 seconds. Nobody's reading that we think
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  it has more than 5 rows. And then you see, in this case,
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  it's like subtech. I, I, I have AI think I told you
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  in the previous discussion that I have a New York Times
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  subscription and I have read, I think it was some days ago,
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  there was a deeper, maybe some weeks ago, I don't remember.
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  It was a deeper analysis on the situation in Iran.
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  And at the beginning of the article, it's always the, you
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  have the possibility to press a play button and there is an AI
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  voice reading the article. And I, what surprised me when I
• 5:57
  started to read the article is that the voice was 55 minutes.
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  So it was a long article because usually the voice that is
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  reading the article was like 6-7.
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  It's like 6-7 minutes in. Average, right?
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  That's the. Average that you see, but it was
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  55. I was so happy.
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  I said, OK, really a good article that you can read then,
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  right. It's like a book.
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  The good article is like a book. You don't have to finish it, but
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  it's if it's extremely interesting, you leave
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  everything down and like when you find a good book, you go
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  into it and read it. And I love to read your your
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  recipes on on Friday. I will read the soft stack in
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  the episode. I have to say I.
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  I was when I saw the post, I was so, so happy because I thought,
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  wow, this is so cool. This is so cool.
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  And I think it would be extremely nice if you could find
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  if you could do your some of your old articles that you have
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  written because I think we'll you will find a lot of people
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  still interested in in seeing all stories.
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  Yeah, I'm, I'm definitely, I I was put on a schedule.
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  My as I said, my daughter is who's running our social media
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  said, you know, Dad, people want to know this stuff.
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  So you, you have to write again. So OK, I'll, I'm, I'm doing my,
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  my wife actually is like there's some people who really are they
• 7:14
  have to write. That's just they have to.
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  And I'm, I'm always was very much envious of that because for
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  me it was always I find writing hard.
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  It's, it's to do it well. Is, is, is it's really hard.
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  So, but yes, I'm have a sub stack now, which is, which is
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  great. And it's, it's, so it's, it's so
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  nice to, to be able to share a little bit also through the
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  social media that kind of blew up on us food and community and
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  just sharing moments with, with your family and friends that are
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  not crazy hectic and they're not completely infiltrated by the
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  chaos of the world, you know, And I feel, I, my feeling is
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  that kind of what people also react so that it's just like,
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  there's like this moment there that, that there's some
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  happiness possible could be caused by a cake and in the
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  community. Max, I think there are two
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  things. First of all, the storytelling
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  in your reels and stories is amazing.
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  This is something that I enjoy every time the new reels is
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  coming I enjoy. Because my daughter, she's like
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  a yeah. So first of all, the
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  storytelling and 2nd, I have to say it's just you are you are
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  showing a different kind of life that people are not used to
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  anymore because in most of the cases, everybody's showing the
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  the grind, the rush. How can I get another job to
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  make more money there to run about there to get the to go
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  coffee, not to enjoy like even the fact that you sit at the
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  dinner tables or or after dinner, because that's the
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  feeling in the Rios. Enjoy that cake in in with a
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  group of people. This is something that it the
• 9:09
  world is not used to anymore and we are we are missing social
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  interactions. I think it's a side effect after
• 9:15
  COVID which did not really came back.
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  Yeah, yeah. And I, I find, I mean, so now
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  I'm, you know, I'm 66 and I have a six month old baby.
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  I mean, I'm amazing. I'm, I'm really, I want to make
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  a point. I mean, I did this with my other
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  kids to, to sit down, to eat, to, to spend and slow down and
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  talk to each other. It's just, you know, and.
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  I I I keep repeating the same thing.
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  I think I've seen it in either on the Reddit or somewhere.
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  There's a picture from a restaurant.
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  There was a board at the entrance of the restaurant
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  saying we don't have Wi-Fi. Talk to each other.
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  Pretend. It's not right.
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  Yes, yes. And then then you have
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  restaurants. I mean, I've seen restaurants
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  where literally everybody is that the whole family is on an
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  iPad or an iPhone and nobody talks to each other.
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  And then the food comes and they're still on, on the iPhone
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  while they eat. And it's just, it's just sad.
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  It's like, you know, and The thing is, you know what I mean?
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  Some things you can't or maybe you can't stop them.
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  I feel this especially amongst younger parents.
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  I feel the whole movement like an anti screen movement and
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  being people, being more conscious.
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  I feel the last 10 or 15 years, the children were kind of part
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  of this big experiment of like this being connected to all
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  this. And I, I feel we see a lot of
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  the terrible things that have come out of it, you know, So I,
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  I, I here in America, I feel there's, in some communities
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  there, there is definitely a consciousness and we don't want
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  to do that. Let's maybe try it.
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  Try it a different way, you know?
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  I think that we are relieving the the tabock industries
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  industry story again with the with the social media because it
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  does the same thing like when whenever the cigarettes came out
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  first every all the doctors said, yeah, do do cigarettes,
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  they are extremely healthy, they are good for you.
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  They are so on. Everyone was smoking in every
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  commercials. There was still remember the
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  commercial, the Camel commercials where the doctors
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  were smoking the cigarettes inside the offices.
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  And now we are living the same. At the beginning, nobody knew
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  how to handle it. I think our generation, my
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  generation doesn't know how to handle it because we are when we
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  are screwing, we're down screwing because we cannot
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  control ourselves. And I think for the kids, it's
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  important for them to, to get a feeling of it, but also to
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  understand the, the downside of it.
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  And the, the, the thing which is, you mentioned restaurants,
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  Max. And I think it's really worth to
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  mention that we, I've, I've seen a lot.
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  I, we are living in the world when we people are working,
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  parents are working a lot. And usually kids are in the
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  kindergarten or school until, I don't know, 5 or 6 in the
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  afternoon. Then you take them to a
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  restaurant instead of, instead of trying to understand how
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  they, they, they were, because they are not really sharing the
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  kids like when you're 6-7, they are not really sharing.
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  Try to talk to them, try to make them, to share something with
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  you. You decide to stay still on your
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  phone to get updated on your likes and shares.
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  And I don't know, whatever they are, it's so sad.
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  Yeah, I mean, it is also, you know, I, I, I also see that I do
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  live in a very, very privileged little universe that we created
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  here. We we are not, you know, and I
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  can work from home. I'd work on these different
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  projects. Now we have this glass rows
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  developing these new drinks, but it's not I'm not going to an
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  office and live in this in this urban world.
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  You know, I mean, this is not without hiccups either.
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  I mean, there's a lot of things that but it's definitely a much
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  slower way of, of looking at life and spending a day, you
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  know, where you kind of like, OK, I'm going to take the time
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  to make bake a cake. I'm, I'm going to make, make
• 13:12
  some food for tonight and not apart from that.
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  I think where we live in this valley here in Sante Nez,
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  restaurants are so expensive that it's food is very expensive
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  in America anyway, you know, in comparison to Germany, but this
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  is extra expensive here if you want to eat good food.
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  And so we just try to grow as much ourselves and cook at home.
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  And, you know, we also buy things, but we can't live off
• 13:46
  all the stuff there. I mean, we don't make everything
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  ourselves, but, you know, a good amount of vegetables and stuff
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  like that. That's all.
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  We grow it ourselves and, and spend some time then, you know.
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  Yeah, cooking, preparing, but it's all you want.
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  You have to want that. It's kind of like to me, it's a
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  total joy. And I know for a lot of people
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  it's a chore. And I understand that if they're
• 14:10
  tired, if you're tired after 10 hours of work and, you know,
• 14:14
  being in the traffic, you know, it's, it's, I think it's not
• 14:18
  that, you know, for a lot of people, it's just not that easy
• 14:22
  to do all of that, you know, so I mean.
• 14:24
  It's a matter of choices, Max, because I work long hours as
• 14:29
  well, I have to say. But I enjoy cooking and I think
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  the happiness of my son eating a meal that I cook is something
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  that you cannot match by any of the rest of any restaurant or
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  that you do anywhere. Right.
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  And this is, I think something that you you have to, you have
• 14:46
  to enjoy. No, no, no, you don't have to
• 14:49
  enjoy, but you have to know how to enjoy it.
• 14:51
  And I think it's relaxation, it's meditation, It's it's like
• 14:56
  making coffee. I know you have a, you have a
• 14:58
  coffee. You replace that, yeah.
• 15:02
  You replace the one with the other one devil with the other.
• 15:07
  But also making coffee as a process.
• 15:09
  It's a meditation process to brew it to, to, to, to, I don't
• 15:14
  know to do it. It doesn't matter what's the
• 15:16
  method that you're doing it with.
• 15:17
  If you do it in a pot, if you do it in an espresso machine, it
• 15:20
  doesn't matter. Just just a meditation.
• 15:22
  And we, I, I think it's, it's important to learn to enjoy
• 15:27
  every step of the way because looking forward to the next, I
• 15:32
  don't know, next promotion, next, next milestone in your
• 15:35
  life. Life goes by and you don't know
• 15:38
  when and how. Yeah, I mean, I, I completely
• 15:43
  agree with you. For me, everything is about the
• 15:45
  process itself. I, that's the that's the, the
• 15:49
  joy is the process. And I mean, I'm obviously happy
• 15:52
  when the the outcome is nice, but in the end, the outcome is
• 15:57
  not as important to me as the process of getting there and
• 16:02
  what you learn along the way. And I, I have, I think looked at
• 16:07
  life like that. I mean, I've done so many
• 16:10
  different things in my life life.
• 16:11
  It was always like, it was more of an exploration of things that
• 16:15
  I was interested in then, OK, this is my career.
• 16:19
  I have to be, I have to follow all these somehow it that never
• 16:23
  fit, that it should never fit me.
• 16:25
  And, and I found a way to kind of look at, OK, I want to learn
• 16:30
  how this works. And, and I found a way how to,
• 16:33
  you know, make a living that way.
• 16:35
  Most likely you don't get rich or wealthy that way, but you
• 16:39
  know, and nobody takes anything with them in the end.
• 16:42
  And it's, you know, so, so I think, you know, that that life
• 16:48
  that we have let's, you know, let's, I mean, to me that the
• 16:51
  the most exciting thing is learning something today,
• 16:54
  tomorrow morning at the yeah, I mean, all the things that I kind
• 16:58
  of like that are out there is that that's the most the
• 17:03
  greatest joy to me learn something.
• 17:06
  I think we all have a different definition of rich Max and I
• 17:11
  think that money is not our old definition of rich.
• 17:14
  And I think if you look around, it never made someone extremely
• 17:18
  happy. I don't know, maybe except one
• 17:20
  of. Them.
• 17:20
  Really. Yeah, I don't know.
• 17:23
  I don't know any of the cases also around me or the people
• 17:26
  that I know, also public figures that they'll say, OK, they are
• 17:29
  extremely happy because they have money.
• 17:31
  You see, like in all of the public figures and rich, they,
• 17:34
  they know they cannot get enough.
• 17:37
  And if they have, I don't know, a billion, they want the
• 17:39
  trillion and they're always, always going trying to go to the
• 17:42
  next level. And I think this is clear that
• 17:45
  that's not the secret tool. No, if you're if you're not
• 17:48
  happy without money, you won't be happy with money either.
• 17:51
  Exactly. So it's, it's really, and I,
• 17:54
  I've been at all different. I mean, I don't think I was ever
• 17:59
  at a where I felt rich or wealthy, but you know, sometimes
• 18:04
  it works better than others. But I, I feel every stage stage
• 18:10
  I really enjoyed because I, I learned something new.
• 18:14
  I was thrown into a different world or I choose a different
• 18:17
  world, you know, to kind of to explore.
• 18:20
  And to this day it's like I'm, you know, can't can't wait,
• 18:27
  can't wait to open the to open the book at night.
• 18:30
  I'm just reading or rereading. I don't know if you ever read
• 18:35
  that book called The Lady in gold.
• 18:38
  The movie is called The Woman in Gold.
• 18:41
  It is about the restitution of the stone climbed paintings to
• 18:45
  Maria Eichmann, who the Blochbauer family was basically
• 18:52
  chased out of Austria. These were very wealthy Jewish
• 18:57
  people who were sponsored a lot of art and sciences and the
• 19:01
  Klimp paintings were basically been stolen by the Nazis.
• 19:06
  And in the 90s, I think it was in the night and end of the
• 19:10
  night, 2000, the case went on for a long time, but Maria
• 19:15
  Eidman, who in the end lived, who was a niece of Adele
• 19:21
  Blockbauer, lived in Los Angeles.
• 19:24
  She got those paintings back from the Austrian government.
• 19:29
  And grandson of Arnold Schoenberg, Randy Schoenberg,
• 19:34
  was the the attorney who who made this all happen.
• 19:37
  But it's also interesting to just reread what actually
• 19:40
  happened in Austria during the Angelos.
• 19:44
  And, I mean, and I wish a lot of people would read these books
• 19:51
  again because we could learn a lot for our current situation
• 19:55
  and what's happening now. So it's.
• 19:59
  Yeah. Very much recommended.
• 20:02
  Also, by the way, a great movie called The Woman in Gold and
• 20:07
  Helen Marin is playing Maria Akman and it's really a
• 20:10
  beautiful movie. Can only recommend it, but yeah.
• 20:16
  I think the book recommendation sounds sounds extremely
• 20:18
  interesting. I read something in the in the
• 20:21
  same direction. I don't know if you know it's
• 20:22
  called the the happiest man on earth.
• 20:27
  It's an it's an interesting, it's sad, it starts really,
• 20:33
  really sad book, but it's it has a, let's say a good, a good
• 20:37
  ending of the story is a story of a of a family during also
• 20:41
  during exactly those times, how they got deported, how they got
• 20:45
  reported and the guy that managed to to escape.
• 20:48
  That's why he's called the happiest man.
• 20:50
  Because he. Managed to get out of the of the
• 20:53
  concentration camps, he said there is nothing that can make
• 20:56
  take take my happiness away right, right.
• 20:59
  And if you're you see. So it's the story is repeating
• 21:03
  only because we don't know it anymore, Max, that's the biggest
• 21:05
  problem. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's my,
• 21:07
  that's my fear. My fear is that it's, it's
• 21:10
  somehow it's too far in the past for a lot of people that they
• 21:13
  had. They have no recollection.
• 21:14
  And it's not, it's not present anymore.
• 21:18
  And it's. Yeah.
• 21:22
  All the all the people that leave those times are gone.
• 21:25
  And all the people that can, can report about those times are
• 21:28
  gone. Slowly, the generation that read
• 21:31
  the books that were written by those people are gone as well.
• 21:34
  And this is what's happening. And you see that the new
• 21:36
  generation, yeah, the guys, there are some guys.
• 21:39
  I'm not saying that all the generation is dead and nobody's
• 21:43
  reading anymore. No, but it's, it's not enough
• 21:47
  people. And I think we are, we are, we
• 21:49
  have a demographic problem everywhere.
• 21:52
  And I think this is starting to be more and more obvious.
• 21:56
  And the, the new generation that is coming back doesn't really
• 21:59
  know the, because they are, you know, I, I, I tried to explain
• 22:02
  this always that we, we have a, a lower, so a lower numbered new
• 22:09
  generation. And then percent, the percent
• 22:12
  from there that are still doing the history, even though it's
• 22:14
  the same as it was in our generation, the amount of people
• 22:17
  is really low because the new generation, it's really slim
• 22:22
  Pecans. It's clear for there are a lot
• 22:24
  of countries. I have seen an interesting
• 22:27
  analyze this by Peter Xian. I don't even know Peter Jen.
• 22:30
  He's doing amazing geopolitical analysis and he said that, for
• 22:36
  example, China, China has a huge problem of with the new
• 22:40
  generation because they stopped having kids about 40 years ago.
• 22:43
  And because of that, the, the, the, the people who should have
• 22:47
  kids now, they're not there anymore because they're the
• 22:50
  average, the average age is about 40 and is the same, the
• 22:53
  same issue in Germany, apparently.
• 22:55
  They're not changed. The the same issue in Italy as
• 22:58
  well. So most of the countries have
• 23:00
  the same problem ever like you don't you don't have this new
• 23:03
  generation, new generation being smaller in in numbers.
• 23:06
  You even if you have the percentage of people that the
• 23:08
  same, you still have lower, lower people that know the
• 23:11
  historian. We kind of we kind of relive it
• 23:15
  a bit. I hope not to the end or not to
• 23:18
  the same scenario. I think something there's going
• 23:20
  to be a a crack which will switch back to a normal path,
• 23:25
  but it's hard. Yeah.
• 23:30
  At the moment, yeah, we went on really on really aside from the
• 23:36
  beginning. I have, I have to come back to
• 23:41
  the to the previous discussions and I have to say the moment in
• 23:44
  which in which you see it was the, was the moment in which you
• 23:49
  said you, you didn't want to write about others life anymore
• 23:54
  and you wanted to start to live your life and to make a story
• 23:58
  out of it. Can you, can you elaborate bit
• 24:00
  on that? Because it sounded so
• 24:01
  interesting when I've seen the when I've seen I've revisited
• 24:05
  the episode and I, I said, I I want to go deep there.
• 24:08
  What do you mean by what have you mean?
• 24:10
  But was you? You wrote a lot about the
• 24:12
  others, but you you didn't want to write about the others life
• 24:16
  anymore. Yeah, so I I feel I, I felt like
• 24:23
  a witness and a bystander who then obviously brought a story
• 24:29
  to an audience. I got to interview so many great
• 24:32
  people. I mean, I, I remember I got to
• 24:35
  interview Steven Spielberg when you know about his show of
• 24:42
  foundation, also about movies. But so I got to meet so many
• 24:46
  great people who were all doing great things.
• 24:50
  And I showed the world of my audience in Germany what these
• 24:54
  people did. And I just felt, you know, I
• 24:57
  mean, I, I, I don't want to do that anymore.
• 25:01
  I want to be, I mean, not that I felt I, I, I, I can do something
• 25:06
  that great, but I wanted to be creating something myself, you
• 25:12
  know, So as a musician, I wanted to make music.
• 25:15
  I didn't want to write about music anymore.
• 25:18
  As you know, then obviously you have to make a living.
• 25:21
  I have for 10 years of my life with my previous wife, I had a
• 25:24
  fashion company. I learned how to, you know,
• 25:27
  matter of fact, I, I became an entrepreneur.
• 25:30
  I never was in my life an entrepreneur before.
• 25:33
  And not that I'd like this world of garment business that much,
• 25:37
  but I learned how to be a business person.
• 25:41
  You know, I, I was the, I was the protagonist, you know, I was
• 25:44
  doing something and I, you know, and I feel when that ended and
• 25:51
  I, I had this lifelong love of wine, I said, you decide, OK,
• 25:56
  you going to learn how to make wine.
• 25:58
  You're going to, you know, you'd learn everything you can from.
• 26:02
  So I, you know, you make your own wine, you sell your wine.
• 26:06
  So I just wanted to do things. I didn't want to write about
• 26:10
  things anymore. It it, I feel I, it did not
• 26:16
  fulfill me anymore to report on others things, you know, even
• 26:20
  though what I did wasn't maybe not a, you know, it wasn't, I
• 26:24
  didn't make a great movie or I didn't make any, you know, world
• 26:30
  class wine that that the, you know, every wine writer wrote
• 26:34
  about. But I actually, I, I made
• 26:36
  something, you know, I, I created something and I put it
• 26:40
  out into the world instead of writing about other people doing
• 26:44
  that. And then and to, and I, I have
• 26:49
  to say that that switch has brought me a lot of happiness.
• 26:55
  It also has brought a lot of struggles because I'm, I'm,
• 26:59
  that's not my education. I'm not by, I'm not a
• 27:02
  businessman or entrepreneur by, that's by education.
• 27:06
  I'm, but you know, I, I feel by now I'm doing the same thing
• 27:10
  again with glass rows. So there's an idea.
• 27:13
  And so how do, how can we bring this idea to life?
• 27:17
  How can we find an audience for it?
• 27:19
  How can we bring it out? And, and it's, it's just so
• 27:23
  satisfying. I mean, right now I feel we
• 27:25
  created this non alcoholic drink.
• 27:27
  And I mean, I, within 10 weeks, I sold the whole first
• 27:31
  production. I, I'm sold out.
• 27:33
  I'm already have to bottle again in, in a, in a month it and it's
• 27:37
  like, oh, people are reacting to something that my wife Sarah and
• 27:43
  I created together, you know, so we, we cook this up and up.
• 27:46
  And how about if we pick grapes early and then we do this and is
• 27:50
  how, if we put this all, how do we package it?
• 27:53
  Who will be our will there be an and it there is an audience for
• 27:57
  it. And it to me, it's really
• 27:59
  satisfying to, to make something, you know, put it out
• 28:05
  there. I, I think we live in a, in a
• 28:07
  really cool time from this point.
• 28:09
  If you talk about the discussion about social media from before,
• 28:12
  I think we live in a cool time because you can find your
• 28:15
  audience with through the Internet quite easy.
• 28:17
  And I think there are people interested about anything.
• 28:19
  You just have to find the, I think you still have, find your
• 28:22
  100,000 people or 200,000 people, I don't know, 500, five,
• 28:26
  100,000 people that are interested in the same thing
• 28:28
  that you were, because I, that's the power of the Internet we
• 28:31
  have at the moment. And yeah, I think it's, I think
• 28:35
  it's amazing. And I, I can believe that this
• 28:38
  feeling of creating something and seeing people reacting.
• 28:40
  It's a, it's a, it's a different way of getting likes and shares
• 28:44
  on social media. I'm just, I'm just trying to, to
• 28:47
  make a small parallel in between, but I think it's right.
• 28:49
  It's the same thing Like you, you, you realize, oh, I made
• 28:52
  something and that something was not the picture.
• 28:54
  That something was really a product and people are enjoying
• 28:56
  the product and not coming back, which is which is amazing.
• 29:00
  And, and, and it also a little bit, Paul, it's like a high wire
• 29:03
  act because, you know, so many things can go wrong.
• 29:06
  You know, it's like it, you know, and you're like, OK, so
• 29:09
  now we put so much money into it.
• 29:11
  What if, if, if the pasteurization hasn't worked
• 29:15
  right and everything what you know, and then there's all these
• 29:18
  hiccups and then you have in your head some things that you
• 29:21
  think, oh, that's going to kill the project and the whole world.
• 29:24
  Nobody cares about that little hiccup, you know, and nobody
• 29:26
  said that didn't matter. So it to me to bring something
• 29:33
  to life and just see how it develops, put it out into the
• 29:36
  world, it's really satisfying. It's very satisfying.
• 29:43
  You are coming from a culture which at least in in the side
• 29:48
  when I'm living in Germany, is promoting hard work.
• 29:51
  You moved to a country in which grinding is the is the
• 29:55
  definition of life like they are pushing.
• 29:57
  You live the American dream. You can do that and that, but
• 30:01
  you managed to develop though some businesses with this, with
• 30:05
  this slow way of living that you, you have at least the glass
• 30:09
  rolls. I don't know about the the the
• 30:10
  previous business, but I see about this glass rolls.
• 30:15
  Where do you get this, this energy of doing things, but
• 30:19
  doing things in your own way? Where did you get the Because
• 30:25
  whenever I look in Germany, the hard work is supported, the, the
• 30:30
  performance of kids is encouraged since school and so
• 30:33
  on. And I want to ask you how, how
• 30:34
  did you manage to get out of this grind and to realize that
• 30:39
  this that this slow way of doing things, it's the way in which
• 30:42
  you can enjoy them? I mean, to me, the process has
• 30:51
  to. I wanted to feel joy.
• 30:54
  I, I can't, I can't work in, in, in a way where everything feels
• 31:00
  like it's a chore and I can't. So I, I love to work and, and I
• 31:07
  basically work all the time really slow.
• 31:11
  I would say, you know, not, not in this kind of like if you say
• 31:17
  it's, yeah, it's in, it's in it's time.
• 31:20
  I, I will put time away for this.
• 31:23
  I will put time away for this. I, you know, I mean, you
• 31:26
  probably saw that I, you know, I also do breed a little bit
• 31:30
  horses, you know, and, and ride. So there, you know, there's some
• 31:35
  days where there's no time for it, but I try to make time for
• 31:40
  all these things that I find important and, and I, I to me, I
• 31:48
  otherwise I can't feel joy. And if I can't feel joy, I if
• 31:52
  I'm miserable, then I'm, I'm unproductive.
• 31:55
  I'm not, I don't know. I'm, I always try to find find
• 32:02
  that I try to find some happiness with the with the work
• 32:05
  that in many ways I invented my own work.
• 32:08
  If you want, you know, I'm, it's just like, OK, this is what I
• 32:11
  want to do. I want to make wine tasting
• 32:13
  room, sell the wines. How do we produce it bottles?
• 32:16
  We got to make labels and all this kind of OK, then see how do
• 32:19
  people react? This is going to work and but I
• 32:25
  think it also has to do that this business right now is in
• 32:31
  the country. I mean, we are on a vineyard,
• 32:33
  you know, we low get grapes, there's goats running around and
• 32:37
  cows and sheep and, you know, dogs and it's, it is obviously a
• 32:45
  slower. It is not.
• 32:49
  The interesting thing is it is it's never 9:00 to 5:00.
• 32:53
  It's all the time. You know, if you if you live
• 32:55
  around animals in, in, in, in the agricultural environment,
• 32:59
  you're and every farmer in Germany will tell you that you
• 33:04
  work, you basically are always involved.
• 33:08
  It never lets up, you know, and, but the advantage is that you
• 33:14
  don't have this OK, from 9:00 to 5:00, I'm under the gun and I'm
• 33:19
  in an office where people are putting the squeeze on me and
• 33:22
  I'm, you know, where I have to fight.
• 33:24
  And, you know, so I think a lot of it has to do with the
• 33:32
  environment that you search out to work in and to live in, you
• 33:38
  know, so the moment you live in a in in a city or on a suburb,
• 33:45
  everything that changes already, you know, because the way you
• 33:48
  make a living is probably you go somewhere where you into an
• 33:52
  office or into the factory, you know, and then it gets more
• 33:57
  compartmentalized. So the work is separate from
• 34:00
  your free time. And, you know, everything has
• 34:04
  it's in these blocks, you know, and for me, one thing flows into
• 34:07
  the other. I mean, I'm probably going to be
• 34:10
  in the winery and check on something and then I'm going to
• 34:12
  check on the horses. And then we have a meeting about
• 34:15
  the labels and about the social media and then I'm, you know, I
• 34:21
  play with my daughter. So, but that could be in the
• 34:25
  middle of the day where other people are, you know, and I know
• 34:30
  I'm, I'm, I'm super privileged to, to be able to do that, you
• 34:34
  know, But on the other hand, I think, you know, I'm at my age,
• 34:38
  most people in Germany are already, you know, retired or,
• 34:44
  you know, I mean, maybe not anymore.
• 34:46
  I think a lot of people work longer now too, But I'm, you
• 34:51
  know, after me. I also don't look at life like
• 34:53
  that. I, I don't see any retirement
• 34:56
  for me. It's like I'm, I, I, I'm doing
• 34:59
  the things I love to do until I can't anymore, you know?
• 35:04
  But that's, but if you love those things that you surround
• 35:09
  yourself with, then it's also not a problem, you know?
• 35:13
  You you said that now that you, you have a privileged life.
• 35:17
  But I, I, I don't think it's the case, Max.
• 35:20
  I think it's just a matter of choice.
• 35:21
  Again, I think yes, you decided to do that for yourself.
• 35:24
  It's not like someone offered you like it said.
• 35:27
  OK, take this, Max. You don't have to do anything
• 35:30
  for it. No, I.
• 35:31
  Lost my choice. Yeah, no, I I created that life.
• 35:35
  But I, I, that's very true. But at the same time, I was, you
• 35:41
  know, it's really interesting. I talked to Sarah about it
• 35:45
  earlier that, you know, so many times in life we, there's a
• 35:51
  window that's open, that's not open the day before or the day
• 35:58
  after. And I feel I always had a way of
• 36:02
  looking through that window and then seeing a door into another.
• 36:07
  And so, and I think to be able to, that's something that was
• 36:15
  given to me, but I don't know by who.
• 36:17
  But I, I feel I have a gift of seeing those open doors and open
• 36:21
  windows and where things could lead and, and I have No Fear.
• 36:26
  I, I, I, I don't have any fear of loss of, of like, Oh my God,
• 36:31
  what if I lose everything? And then what, what do I do?
• 36:33
  Like, I, you know, then I'm going to start over again.
• 36:37
  I, I know enough things that I can always be, I think useful
• 36:43
  in, in a lot of different, you know, environments and, and
• 36:47
  worlds. And so, but I, I feel, you know,
• 36:53
  I mean privilege, I, I don't mean that by, you know, somebody
• 36:56
  gave me a lot of money or so it's just having the gift to
• 37:00
  find, find those situations, you know, find that, that.
• 37:04
  Makes sense. OK, now, now I understand
• 37:06
  because I always try to try to differentiate between the things
• 37:10
  because people think that you get everything from for granted,
• 37:13
  you know, and that's that's never the case.
• 37:15
  No, no. I mean, that was definitely not
• 37:17
  in, in my Case, No, but it's kind of, you know, you to
• 37:22
  recognise, to, to have open eyes and an open heart and, and to
• 37:29
  recognise where there's something that could lead to
• 37:33
  something so interesting and amazing.
• 37:35
  I mean that, you know, I mean, I, five years ago, I, I was
• 37:40
  single and I got a, a message on Facebook, PM message, you know,
• 37:47
  from a woman that I, you know, vaguely even knew on Facebook.
• 37:52
  I mean, she lived in Berlin and today I'm married to her.
• 37:57
  So, and I, I, I, I just said I got to find out.
• 38:02
  I got to find out who this is. You know, I've, I'm, that's so
• 38:06
  interesting that she sends me a message, you know, and so I'm,
• 38:12
  I, I, I don't have a lot of fear of, of, of, you know, I'm, I'm
• 38:17
  just curious. What, So what, what is this?
• 38:19
  What? And then and so many amazing
• 38:23
  things happened since then. It's kind of just, you know, I
• 38:26
  mean a whole musical life. I mean, I've always played
• 38:29
  music. We talked about music so much
• 38:33
  open because we started recording together.
• 38:35
  We have a couple of albums out. At one point, the Amarillo
• 38:42
  Symphony commissioned us to write some music with a friend
• 38:47
  of ours that where we have played basically with a
• 38:51
  bluegrass band and AD PS orchestra.
• 38:54
  It was, it was unbelievable. So I got, I mean, I, I'm a
• 38:58
  pretty decent banjo player, but I'm not the greatest.
• 39:03
  So, but you know what, we created something and I got to
• 39:06
  be on stage with the greatest players and, and I got to do
• 39:11
  this. I really pursued it.
• 39:13
  I mean, I, I have to say we worked really, really hard on,
• 39:17
  on, on this project. But so all of that would never
• 39:20
  have happened if I wouldn't have answered this private message
• 39:25
  that made me curious. And it's like, wow, Oh, great.
• 39:30
  You know, life is just like, wow, it's, it's all out there.
• 39:36
  I have found your YouTube channel and I watch the I listen
• 39:40
  to the music because the, the, the there is a YouTube channel
• 39:43
  with all the a lot of recordings of songs.
• 39:48
  And I have to say I enjoyed the I enjoyed everyone.
• 39:51
  I recommended. I, you made me discover a new, a
• 39:54
  new style of music that I wasn't aware of until now.
• 39:58
  And thank you for that. I'm I'm a music lover generally,
• 40:02
  but I think this. Did you did you find the things
• 40:05
  that we recorded these recorded under Sarah Shiloh Ray and
• 40:09
  Bluebird Junction? Yeah, OK, great, great, great.
• 40:11
  So that's, that's, and you know, that happened that, that came,
• 40:17
  came out of COVID, if you believe it or not.
• 40:19
  So my, my now wife, back then, I, we didn't really know, know
• 40:23
  each other. It was 20/20/2020.
• 40:26
  She was stranded in Provence. She couldn't go back to her
• 40:31
  apartment in Berlin. Everything was closed down.
• 40:34
  The world was closed down. I was in Santa Inez and we had
• 40:38
  just had one date, a coffee date, and then we were on the
• 40:41
  phone or on FaceTime every day and said how about we record a
• 40:45
  song together? She's an opera singer, you know,
• 40:47
  how do you I'm a folk or like a guitar banjo player.
• 40:51
  And so we decided to record a song together.
• 40:54
  I sent her a microphone to pull Boss and taught her how to do
• 40:58
  this. And then we matched those files
• 41:01
  up and out of that became a whole every month We we we
• 41:04
  recorded the new song together. Eventually I called my friends
• 41:08
  in in Nashville and in in Brooklyn and said, Hey, how
• 41:11
  about we create record a bluegrass tune together?
• 41:14
  And it was just amazing. I got to meet these are the
• 41:18
  people who we then invited to Santa Inez when we did our
• 41:22
  record. And I got to meet all these
• 41:24
  young guys and play with them that are just such astounding
• 41:29
  musicians like John Mylander and Mike Robinson and like just
• 41:34
  amazing, amazing, amazing musicians.
• 41:38
  And it's to me, it's, it's one of the great gifts that you, you
• 41:42
  know, to work with young people. It's just like.
• 41:45
  It's impressive. Just because you answered one
• 41:48
  private message on Facebook, it's impressive.
• 41:50
  It's really impressive. Like if you if I make now the
• 41:53
  connection together, I think that's crazy, right?
• 41:55
  So it's, it's unbelievable. Yeah, so, so, but, but, but what
• 42:00
  I wanted to say, I mean, what I want to say is like these signs
• 42:06
  are out there all the time. There's something where for
• 42:11
  everyone, you read the walks of life and there's these things,
• 42:14
  but we have to just see them and recognize them and then maybe,
• 42:19
  maybe hopefully act on them and say, hey, oh, I, I got to find
• 42:23
  out. I have to find out what that is.
• 42:27
  Who is the Why the? The the fear of failure is the
• 42:32
  biggest problem. You mentioned a few Times Now
• 42:34
  that you're not afraid and I think that's that made you go
• 42:41
  and try to walk every path because you're not afraid of.
• 42:45
  Failing. You didn't that there was no,
• 42:48
  and I dare to say this even though we don't know each other,
• 42:50
  Max, but I think there was no big ego involved there.
• 42:53
  It's like when I I fail and I hit the wall, I just get up and
• 42:58
  walk in the other direction. I have to say, you know, you
• 43:02
  know, talking about America and Germany, it's like, you know,
• 43:04
  there are so many things wrong here.
• 43:07
  The one quality that I have found when I came here is that
• 43:13
  failure is not judged. That's never the end.
• 43:16
  You can start again. And people, you know, people
• 43:20
  don't judge you if if things go wrong, OK, you know, you know,
• 43:23
  you just, that just didn't work. But something else, you know.
• 43:25
  So I, I feel in Germany that is much, much.
• 43:31
  There's a much more judgement on that.
• 43:34
  You can't really fail, you know. So, yeah, so that's that.
• 43:40
  I I do like that quality about this culture, even though I'm,
• 43:46
  as I said right now, I don't know, you know, be, be
• 43:50
  immigrants here in this kind. I'm an immigrant in this
• 43:52
  country. You know, let's see how long I'm
• 43:54
  going to be, you know, they're going to want me here.
• 43:56
  You know, it's things are crazy right now.
• 44:00
  You know, it's definitely not the country that I came to.
• 44:05
  You know, when I came in the late 80s, that was very
• 44:08
  different, you know, very different.
• 44:13
  It's do you feel it or you just see it in the news?
• 44:21
  No, I've, I mean, I'm, yeah, I mean, you, you read it, you, I
• 44:30
  don't feel it from my neighbors and from my, you know, from in
• 44:33
  the world and not know, you know, but, but, you know, I
• 44:38
  mean, we work with a lot of Hispanic families here.
• 44:42
  They're all my friends, you know, they are, we love, love
• 44:47
  them. And they're also, they're all
• 44:48
  citizens. But, you know, things are just a
• 44:53
  little out of control right now, I have to say so.
• 44:57
  And, and scary, you know, and that's why I brought this book
• 45:00
  up, you know, but what happened in 1938 in Austria, you know,
• 45:08
  so, so, you know, you also kind of, yeah, I, I don't know if we
• 45:15
  should have a political discussion here, but I'm, I feel
• 45:19
  like last time in our, I probably came across as someone
• 45:25
  who's completely enthusiastic about America.
• 45:29
  And I am absolutely enthusiastic about, I believe in, in the idea
• 45:35
  and I believe in, in, in, in, in the great promise of this
• 45:38
  country. But I'm also right now don't
• 45:42
  recognize it anymore, you know, so I really believe in this
• 45:47
  belief in democracy. I believe in all these cultures
• 45:52
  working together. I believe in, you know, this
• 45:55
  might be very naive, but I, I, I, I want to believe that.
• 45:59
  And I've I've seen a lot of it work so great.
• 46:04
  That that makes two of us. I, I think I told you in the
• 46:07
  previous episode, I'm a huge US fan boy and I think the I still,
• 46:11
  I still say this, I said one of the previous episodes, I got so
• 46:15
  much, so much negative feedback. I said in one of the previous
• 46:18
  episodes that America is still the only country in the world.
• 46:23
  In the meantime, I've made some research, but I know back then
• 46:26
  like this, that's the only country in the world that was
• 46:28
  neither an did they had a king or it was not a communist or
• 46:38
  under a dictator until now it's the only one in the world.
• 46:41
  This is what I knew. Now in the meantime, I know
• 46:43
  there are three in the whole world.
• 46:44
  There was never were never in this case.
• 46:46
  But America is the biggest one and the biggest culture, and I
• 46:49
  hope it sticks like this. I hope so, too.
• 46:52
  I mean, we'll see how it's going to play out, but it's just right
• 46:55
  now I'm feel, yeah, that's it. I think right now I have to say
• 46:59
  I really do feel between sad and upset and because I really
• 47:05
  believe in this. I really believe.
• 47:09
  And I, I don't want it to be taken away, you know?
• 47:14
  I have to say this is yeah, makes two of us.
• 47:17
  I, I, I'm, I'm far away, but I still dream of of living there
• 47:22
  one day. And under the circumstances, I
• 47:25
  think it's hard at the moment. Yeah, yeah.
• 47:27
  But you mentioned this the, the, the, the fail and the fact that
• 47:35
  nobody's judging the fail. And I have to say this is
• 47:38
  something which is I see it in the German culture come they,
• 47:41
  everyone is trying to bring it up to promote the the fail
• 47:44
  culture, to promote the, the people actively making fails.
• 47:50
  But I think the the society is not ready for this because
• 47:54
  everyone is talk about fail culture.
• 47:55
  But as soon as you have something which can be close to
• 47:59
  a mistake, OK. Who's the plan exactly?
• 48:07
  Exactly. Yeah, sure, it's here.
• 48:09
  The most important thing is that who's guilty.
• 48:12
  I crashed. I work in a corporation.
• 48:15
  I crashed so many meetings by because everyone was opening the
• 48:20
  meeting with who's guilty for this.
• 48:23
  And I keep saying that I don't care.
• 48:24
  And I crashed so many meetings and so many discussions.
• 48:29
  Yeah, this is. This is something which is which
• 48:31
  is quite hard. I think that's also takes, I
• 48:33
  mean the things you can't really adopt this if if it's not in in,
• 48:38
  in, in the in the culture, anchored in the culture over
• 48:41
  generations, it's kind of you can't say you can't prescribe
• 48:45
  that, you know, and say, oh, that's how we do it now.
• 48:49
  We do it this way. You know that doesn't work like
• 48:51
  that. You know it's.
• 48:54
  It will not happen overnight. It will take if, if the society
• 48:57
  is designed to accept it, to accept it.
• 48:59
  It will take a lot of. Years, right?
• 49:01
  They will, they will be there. Max, you, you we talked about
• 49:07
  about the, the, the difference in in cultures.
• 49:10
  And I have to ask you one thing because we shortly discussed
• 49:12
  after the end of the the last episode about this, but what was
• 49:16
  the experience of raising raising kids in the United
• 49:19
  States? I, I would say I really loved, I
• 49:29
  could not have raised children's in Germany, children in Germany
• 49:33
  because I feel that this whole you can really do what you, I
• 49:42
  mean, I, I, my, my kids, you can do what you really want.
• 49:47
  There's no, I'm not going to put you out here.
• 49:50
  You. I just said my expectations and
• 49:52
  my, my oldest daughter became a queer pop star.
• 49:57
  I, I, I, I don't know if you looked her up.
• 49:59
  Her name is Zolita. ZOLITA tours all over the US and
• 50:06
  it's also a filmmaker who makes music videos that have like old
• 50:11
  fashioned narrative, very elaborate, very successful.
• 50:17
  My, my young, my now she's not my youngest anymore, but my
• 50:21
  youngest one is the youngest one that's working as like a ballet
• 50:27
  dancer that turned her experiences into a YouTube
• 50:33
  channel that became super pop popular.
• 50:35
  Luna Montana. You can so all these things, you
• 50:38
  know, if you talk and I've talked to German friends who
• 50:41
  brought kids up at the same time, like what, What are your
• 50:45
  kids doing? But that makes no sense.
• 50:47
  You know, I have a son who was a basketball player and played
• 50:52
  professionally for in, in the G League at least, you know, So
• 50:56
  all these things that you kind of realize your dream without,
• 51:02
  oh, the society expects you to go through these motions of this
• 51:06
  and this and this, you know, this is your job.
• 51:09
  And I, I feel there was much more.
• 51:12
  There's always enormous amount of freedom.
• 51:14
  We also, my, my kids grew up with all of our friends were
• 51:20
  artists, musicians. And so we, you know, we, we, we,
• 51:24
  we had a school. Everybody went to the grammar
• 51:29
  school, what he called it in, you know, the, the first four
• 51:32
  years. And obviously the funding wasn't
• 51:35
  there for music. So my friend Davy Johnstone, who
• 51:39
  was, was Elton John's music director and guitar player, was
• 51:44
  also my neighbor. And he said, OK, how about we
• 51:47
  going to put a show on once a year or twice a year, real
• 51:52
  professional fundraiser. We auction off instruments and
• 51:56
  we make, we tell the school the only money they can spend the
• 52:00
  money only on teachers, not on things.
• 52:04
  They cannot buy new computers or anything.
• 52:06
  And it has to be for the art and music program.
• 52:09
  So that's what we did. So all, all these parents and
• 52:12
  musicians came together and organized these big shows and we
• 52:16
  made enough money so we could afford a full time music teacher
• 52:21
  for our kids because the public school didn't have it, you know.
• 52:24
  And so I, I feel that our kids also kind of, you know, when
• 52:31
  you've been, when your children see that, OK, that's a lack
• 52:35
  here. OK, let's all get together.
• 52:37
  Let's do it. We, we can actually achieve
• 52:39
  something if we create something, you know, I feel in
• 52:47
  my feeling in Germany is more like, do you expect the state to
• 52:50
  work? And it has to that it's not your
• 52:54
  responsibility to pay for a music teacher.
• 52:57
  It's the state's responsibility or the, you know, and here your
• 53:04
  kids see that, oh, there's something missing.
• 53:06
  We, we care. So how, how about we, we raised
• 53:09
  the funds for it. Obviously it would be great if
• 53:11
  the state would pay for a music teacher.
• 53:13
  And if they don't, So what, what, what can we do?
• 53:15
  What we do it ourselves. So, and I think kids seeing that
• 53:21
  it just changes, they, they become more proactive and more
• 53:27
  kind of involved. I mean, at least in my case,
• 53:30
  that was like that, you know, no handouts, just nobody's going to
• 53:35
  do it for you. You have to do it.
• 53:36
  You got to go out and do it. I, I, I, I do, you know, I still
• 53:43
  think obviously every child is also different, you know, I
• 53:48
  mean, one of my kids went to NYU, to School of the Arts on a
• 53:56
  full scholarship. The other one decided not to go
• 54:00
  to college at all. She was a dancer, you know, and,
• 54:03
  and I think overall it's kind of it worked out.
• 54:12
  I mean, sometimes I wish, you know, in in Germany, at least in
• 54:17
  in my time, there was a consensus of consensus of what
• 54:21
  people should know and you should be able to talk about.
• 54:25
  But that's obviously has changed everywhere that's in Germany,
• 54:29
  you know, I mean, this whole the course I can mind build on that.
• 54:34
  What you know, the that this general, the stadium general
• 54:39
  where you know, all these philosophy and this, you know,
• 54:46
  it's not that common anymore in in Germany either.
• 54:49
  You know, it's maybe a little more than in America where
• 54:53
  people are very much specialists, I guess.
• 54:57
  But I feel what, what I liked about raising kids here is that
• 55:01
  they become, if there's a lag somewhere, said, OK, let's get
• 55:05
  together. Let's, let's find a way to to
• 55:08
  fix it. We, we do it together.
• 55:10
  You know, we don't rely on the government to do it.
• 55:16
  So. Yeah.
• 55:19
  Do you have the feeling that they they did, They were
• 55:23
  supported by the by the school to be happy.
• 55:27
  They were encouraged to to find a way to to be happy to enjoy
• 55:31
  what they are doing. I to be honest too, I, yes, I,
• 55:37
  but I find we have a lot of discussions about this word
• 55:41
  happiness. My wife and I and I find this a
• 55:45
  very interesting topic because America writes in their
• 55:48
  constitution the pursuit of happiness, you know, and I find
• 55:53
  there is this and that I find is a fault this people think they
• 56:01
  are entitled to happiness in America and that creates severe
• 56:07
  depression because that doesn't work.
• 56:09
  You know, I, I find a lot of mental problems do exist because
• 56:15
  of these expectations. I have to be happy at all time.
• 56:18
  And if I'm not happy at all time, I got to take a pill, you
• 56:21
  know, And I, so I, I, I find that I think they've very much
• 56:31
  encouraged to be happy. But I, I, I feel that there's
• 56:35
  also this huge expectation of, OK, I have to be happy.
• 56:41
  Something is wrong with me if I'm not happy all the time.
• 56:44
  And that's what I find. I have happiness.
• 56:45
  And and that's at least what I try to teach as a parent is like
• 56:48
  happiness is what you, you could look for it and it's could be
• 56:51
  this little moment again, like that window you got to watch.
• 56:55
  You got to be be present, live in a very present way to see
• 57:00
  where this happiness, we can grab it for a minute and then
• 57:03
  it's gone. And then it's going to come
• 57:05
  again. When you see it, it is, it is a
• 57:07
  process. It's always it's there, but it's
• 57:10
  also elusive and you know it. But this guarantee, OK, we have
• 57:14
  to be happy, this happy culture. I find that problematic.
• 57:19
  You know, I find it has to happiness is an active like
• 57:23
  love. It's, it's, it's something, you
• 57:26
  know, sounds so cheesy, but love is a verb and happiness also,
• 57:31
  you know, it's a, it's a verb, you know, it's something, it's
• 57:37
  not a state. It's an action, yeah, the, the,
• 57:43
  the most probably. But yeah, I, I, I still like
• 57:47
  your, your, your answer a lot. And I, I think it's important to
• 57:52
  understand that maybe if we enjoy, if you learn to enjoy the
• 57:55
  ride, not the, not the goal. We, we are, we are enjoying much
• 58:03
  more of we are happier, more time to, to, to put it in the
• 58:07
  same way, because the goal, the goal, it's only like the end.
• 58:10
  And that's usually like a 10 seconds thing where you say, OK,
• 58:14
  now I'm there, Now I have everything now, OK, what's the
• 58:16
  next goal? Because you don't, you don't
• 58:18
  get, you don't get to spend the time with the goal.
• 58:20
  And I, I think if you learn to enjoy the ride.
• 58:23
  My, my, my goal of the question was that were they, were they
• 58:30
  pushed rewards things that they enjoyed or do they had to do
• 58:36
  the, the checklist because I'm, I'm telling where I'm coming
• 58:39
  from. So my son is my son is going to
• 58:42
  be 8 this year. So he's seven.
• 58:43
  He started the 1st grade this year and we get, we get every
• 58:49
  like every twice a semester or something like this.
• 58:52
  We had the checklist. So he did mark these checks.
• 58:54
  He didn't mark these checks and they are stand up things which
• 58:56
  you cannot really push left and right.
• 59:00
  Have you had something like this for your kids or it does just,
• 59:04
  let's say, an open mind? I don't think it's that extreme.
• 59:09
  You have to, obviously, if you go to high school, you have to
• 59:12
  still do your, but I think more than anything, you choose the
• 59:21
  level of where you want to be at.
• 59:23
  In America, you can do just your normal English classes, which
• 59:27
  are kind of boring or if you're really into reading and books,
• 59:30
  you do what AP classes, they're called Advanced Placement
• 59:34
  classes. And if you're really into it,
• 59:36
  you can then you're amongst people that are really into
• 59:38
  writing or in math. So you can choose your, it's
• 59:42
  almost like within the school system, you can choose your
• 59:44
  level of engagement. But I feel that my, my kids all
• 59:51
  had this real interest that were not school interests.
• 59:53
  I mean, one was a ballet dancer and at one point in high school,
• 59:57
  she didn't go as she could. She's, she went basically only
• 1:00:01
  for three hours to school in the morning.
• 1:00:03
  And then she went dancing and did homeschooling for the rest
• 1:00:08
  of the time. My, my oldest one was always
• 1:00:12
  into photography, film and music.
• 1:00:14
  And so she kind of pushed the envelope on that end.
• 1:00:18
  And, you know, also went to school obviously, and got good
• 1:00:21
  grades there. Otherwise she wouldn't have
• 1:00:23
  gotten a scholarship at NYU. But and my son was basketball.
• 1:00:28
  That's what he was dream. He wanted to play basketball and
• 1:00:31
  that's what he did. And so I feel, you know, it's
• 1:00:40
  very hard for me to say if my kids are typical American kids
• 1:00:46
  because my, my ex-wife is Danish.
• 1:00:50
  So we're so there's these two Europeans with their quirky
• 1:00:54
  ideas. So, yeah, but I, I feel for, I
• 1:01:07
  mean, overall, I think I would not have enjoyed raising my kids
• 1:01:16
  in Germany because I find the demands are very standardized
• 1:01:23
  and everything is so you have to fit more into a box of, OK, this
• 1:01:29
  is in America. There's so many different ways
• 1:01:32
  of going to school. I mean, my, my ballet daughter,
• 1:01:37
  she went to New York to a ballet school, but that was a high
• 1:01:40
  school too. For one year.
• 1:01:42
  She got a scholarship there and basically was integrated high
• 1:01:47
  school and dancing, you know, so a real professional dance
• 1:01:54
  school, you know, ballet school. And so I find that American
• 1:02:01
  education can be really, really terrible.
• 1:02:05
  I mean, like really terrible, But you can also, if the parents
• 1:02:09
  are looking out for something and see a talent and a kid, then
• 1:02:13
  there's all these different ways of going to school.
• 1:02:16
  I mean, there's also obviously a lot of people who don't send
• 1:02:18
  their kids to school. They do only homeschooling.
• 1:02:20
  Most of the people who do homeschooling in America are
• 1:02:23
  basically religious crazy people.
• 1:02:25
  But there are also people who say, you know what, I don't find
• 1:02:30
  that curriculum. I, I, I, I want much more art.
• 1:02:34
  And, and I have thought about it too, you know, So, you know, if
• 1:02:39
  in, you know, in, in Germany, I think it's, there's also an
• 1:02:43
  advantage to it that everything's standardized.
• 1:02:46
  So everybody has a general knowledge, you know, we can
• 1:02:48
  expect if you have your Abitur, you everybody kind of knows
• 1:02:53
  there's an advantage to that. But it also is not always ideal
• 1:02:56
  for the children because children are not cookie cutter.
• 1:03:00
  Everyone's different, you know. So everyone learns different and
• 1:03:05
  some learn visual some more, you know.
• 1:03:10
  So I find there is more flexibility if if the parents
• 1:03:14
  care, I really care about education.
• 1:03:17
  There's a lot of different things you can do.
• 1:03:19
  I mean, there's a preschool here in where we are, it's called the
• 1:03:23
  Forest School where the kids literally there's no building.
• 1:03:26
  They're just out under the trees and they have to wade through
• 1:03:29
  creeks to get to the area where they're going to school is.
• 1:03:34
  I mean, that's a preschool. So they don't, it's not like
• 1:03:36
  reading and writing, but you learn about plants and it's all
• 1:03:39
  outdoors and, you know, or you can go to a normal kind of
• 1:03:44
  Montessori school or to survive off schools.
• 1:03:46
  And there's all that's a thousands of different things
• 1:03:50
  that, you know, some better than others.
• 1:03:53
  But I find there's much more flexibility, you know, to give a
• 1:03:58
  child what it needs. But again, it also depends where
• 1:04:04
  you are. I mean, in, in states like
• 1:04:06
  Alabama, there's no funding for school, you know, nobody, there
• 1:04:09
  is no money. You know, across the board.
• 1:04:13
  School is pretty bad there, you know, but in California there's
• 1:04:17
  a lot of, I mean, if you're not in the LA school district, which
• 1:04:21
  is kind of can be questionable. Further out, there are some
• 1:04:26
  really good public schools, you know, really that didn't make a
• 1:04:30
  great effort. You know, I mean, in hopes, we
• 1:04:34
  all hope, obviously, that there will be a ban on on telephones
• 1:04:38
  very soon, you know, and that that's coming here.
• 1:04:42
  I mean that there will be no more phones in school.
• 1:04:46
  So I mean, it's, it's happening. I I don't understand how poor
• 1:04:52
  these poor teachers, how they even can teach with kids who
• 1:04:55
  will have phones in the classroom.
• 1:04:57
  I mean like, it's just. I think it's hard.
• 1:05:02
  It was hard to have control. So when I was in school and we
• 1:05:05
  had no phones because you're, you're a kid like you, your
• 1:05:08
  attention spam is not that long. And, and I think it's, it's hard
• 1:05:11
  to focus. And I think the but now with the
• 1:05:14
  with the phones, like you have the permanent something in your
• 1:05:17
  hand that can get your attention.
• 1:05:19
  It's it's crazy. It's really crazy.
• 1:05:21
  It's really and it's super addictive.
• 1:05:23
  I mean they are made to be addicted.
• 1:05:27
  To be addictive, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:05:29
  I love the with the result of discussion about Australia.
• 1:05:33
  Yeah, blocking social media for for kids on that.
• 1:05:37
  I think under 16 if I remember correctly.
• 1:05:40
  I think it's coming everywhere. I think people have learned and
• 1:05:45
  I think it's more that that's really a movement.
• 1:05:50
  And I, I, I just, you know, feel bad for what happened the last
• 1:05:54
  10 years, I mean. But it's it's again, a a money
• 1:05:59
  printing machine because if you talk about about social media,
• 1:06:02
  it was it was made to make money.
• 1:06:04
  There is no never the idea to be educational, never the idea to
• 1:06:08
  to to use it for something good. I read the careless people.
• 1:06:15
  It was a book written by a former communication manager
• 1:06:20
  from Facebook. Yes, which I don't know if you
• 1:06:24
  know the book. She went into the into the
• 1:06:26
  company and she said she wanted to because she had a political
• 1:06:31
  as she was the political years on Facebook, correct.
• 1:06:33
  And she she went there hoping to do a change in the world, hoping
• 1:06:38
  to do to do some things to help some countries with the power of
• 1:06:42
  of a social media, because you have a huge power.
• 1:06:45
  And then she realized that that that nobody cares about that.
• 1:06:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely.
• 1:06:52
  It it was always about money. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:59
  If we talk about if we talk about kids, the like you said,
• 1:07:08
  the, the, the power of choice is amazing.
• 1:07:12
  And I think that that was the, that was the most important
• 1:07:15
  thing. But I see in Germany a lot the
• 1:07:19
  the need to category categorize people into people that have
• 1:07:26
  studied and people that have not studied.
• 1:07:31
  Do you see this this happening? To a certain extent that's true
• 1:07:35
  too. So if somebody didn't go to
• 1:07:37
  college, at least the system is just a little bit different.
• 1:07:40
  So in America, people go to high school, then high school over,
• 1:07:45
  and then what they do when they go to college, the first two
• 1:07:49
  years is basically again, it's just almost like a higher
• 1:07:53
  education, but they still have to do math, whatever.
• 1:07:55
  It's not like he's become a doctor, study medicine.
• 1:07:59
  When you come out of high school, you have to do another
• 1:08:01
  two years and then it's almost like it's fishing, food, phone
• 1:08:06
  kind of thing. And then you can specialize.
• 1:08:09
  So I feel everybody here expects some that you go at least to
• 1:08:16
  these two years of two years of college, whatever college it is,
• 1:08:22
  you will be judged if you just have high school.
• 1:08:25
  I think that's here too. OK, OK.
• 1:08:31
  But, and then you have then I mean, there are community
• 1:08:35
  colleges that are not really that expensive, but I mean, any
• 1:08:41
  form of higher education is that like high quality higher
• 1:08:45
  education, you know, status higher education is very, very
• 1:08:51
  expensive. And it's just to, to get in
• 1:08:55
  there somehow. It's just, and then it's, you
• 1:08:58
  know, I, I question though, if college and university as we
• 1:09:04
  know it today is really as important as it was 30 or 40
• 1:09:13
  years ago. I mean, obviously when you
• 1:09:15
  become a doctor and like a surgeon and stuff like that, But
• 1:09:19
  I mean, there's a lot of stuff that, you know, I don't think
• 1:09:23
  it's the, the path to success. You know, we have a lot of, we
• 1:09:30
  have a lot of people who come out of colleges who just make
• 1:09:34
  coffee at Starbucks. And I'm not nothing against
• 1:09:36
  that, but that wasn't the expectations that they, they in
• 1:09:38
  that they're saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars
• 1:09:42
  of debt. You know, it's the only debt in
• 1:09:45
  America that you can't walk away from.
• 1:09:47
  You know, you can file for bankruptcy for anything but the
• 1:09:52
  education that you took a loan on that you can't walk away
• 1:09:57
  from. It's really interesting.
• 1:10:00
  It's for me talking about the good and the bad things of the
• 1:10:03
  American culture is for me hard to understand how you allow a
• 1:10:08
  kid to borrow 300,000. Dollars.
• 1:10:12
  Insane. Insane.
• 1:10:14
  It's insane. Yeah.
• 1:10:16
  Like you set him up for a hard 20 years from the beginning,
• 1:10:22
  Yeah. Doesn't matter what if, but that
• 1:10:24
  means if they even, you know, find ways to pay that back, they
• 1:10:29
  might be settled. Put that until the end of their
• 1:10:31
  lives. And it's a, you know, I mean, I,
• 1:10:34
  I always feel that, you know, good.
• 1:10:40
  I mean, if you could have, if you can educate your public,
• 1:10:44
  that's a great asset. You know, the, you know, free
• 1:10:47
  education is something, you know, but that's, that's not the
• 1:10:52
  American way, That's for sure. I mean, it's and I have nieces
• 1:10:57
  and nephews that go to Harvard. They got accepted there and they
• 1:11:00
  love going there and they're really excited about.
• 1:11:04
  But there's a lot of different levels of colleges and someone
• 1:11:11
  who doesn't go at all. It's definitely a, it's also
• 1:11:17
  considered to be a right Somehow, somehow it's a rite of
• 1:11:19
  passage kind of growing up, you know, that's how Americans go
• 1:11:23
  leave school or leave, leave home and grow up, you know,
• 1:11:28
  learn how to be. That's how they get socialized.
• 1:11:32
  And so not going to college. It's kind of, yeah, it's
• 1:11:41
  probably similar. I would say similar.
• 1:11:45
  It's part of the culture. Like it was, at least in
• 1:11:48
  Romania, was going to the army as a young kid, like there was
• 1:11:52
  the mandatory Army Service that you had to do.
• 1:11:56
  That's how the college is in now, right?
• 1:12:01
  Exactly. I think the I think the
• 1:12:04
  important part of it is to to the, the living alone part,
• 1:12:07
  because that's somehow helping you to to understand that the,
• 1:12:12
  the, the clothes are not washed by themselves exactly.
• 1:12:15
  Dishes are not washed by themselves and the food is not
• 1:12:17
  too cooked by itself. So right, I think it's something
• 1:12:20
  which is which is helping a lot to understand how life.
• 1:12:23
  Is I did 100% true, but at the same time, in comparison to a
• 1:12:29
  German university, you still help.
• 1:12:33
  They're holding your hand. The professors, everybody make
• 1:12:36
  sure people are accountable. And like, I mean, if I didn't
• 1:12:39
  show up for my folio zone, nobody cared.
• 1:12:44
  I mean, you were on your own. I, I, I went to three, I went to
• 1:12:47
  tubing and Fleburg and then in the end I finished in Hamburg.
• 1:12:51
  And, you know, if you didn't show up, you just, you know,
• 1:12:55
  didn't, didn't pass, you know, in in America, because they pay
• 1:13:01
  a lot of money, the college professors make sure that you,
• 1:13:06
  you know, don't fall through the cracks you.
• 1:13:09
  Are motivated to stay. Then yeah, exactly.
• 1:13:11
  So, So I, I think so in that respect, it's a little bit
• 1:13:17
  different. It's a little bit more like
• 1:13:18
  school, but outside of the home, you know?
• 1:13:25
  Max, my initial plan for the discussion today was to go into
• 1:13:29
  the glass rows topic, but we enjoy talking to each other.
• 1:13:34
  I realized that more and more and I would kindly, kindly ask
• 1:13:39
  you if we could if we could do that in a in another one.
• 1:13:42
  Sure. We can go with that.
• 1:13:43
  Yeah, yeah. Oh, thank you so much.
• 1:13:46
  I had so much enjoyed talking to you, Paul.
• 1:13:48
  It's really it's, it's a real that, you know, I thought the
• 1:13:51
  other day we talked. It's like, you know, doing this,
• 1:13:56
  there's some things that become clear to me in our, you know,
• 1:14:00
  that our kind of that I always kind of knew.
• 1:14:02
  But when you say them out loud to I mean, obviously now we're
• 1:14:06
  not complete strangers anymore, but we we kind of it it to
• 1:14:10
  explain yourself. You kind of find your positions
• 1:14:13
  and yours and, and it clarifies a lot of things.
• 1:14:17
  You know, it's so I to me, it's actually really it's, it's, it's
• 1:14:22
  very, I very much enjoy that about it.
• 1:14:26
  You know, why do I feel the way? I feel like it becomes clear to
• 1:14:29
  me you know it's if you string a whole sentence together and and
• 1:14:35
  string it out loud. You know, like you said, you
• 1:14:39
  think about things, but you don't say the mouth of I have to
• 1:14:41
  say, Max, I, I, I met, like you said, you are not strangers
• 1:14:45
  anymore. And this, this makes me happy.
• 1:14:46
  But I met, I met so many people doing this in the last year.
• 1:14:50
  I, I have, I've passed one now one year since I started this,
• 1:14:54
  this small, small project of mine.
• 1:14:55
  And I have to say I enjoy every step of the way.
• 1:14:58
  I enjoy every discussion. That's why I do this.
• 1:15:00
  I do this based on the, on the guest availability because I, I
• 1:15:03
  have, I, I really have to say the, the, the, the, I learnt so
• 1:15:07
  much first of all, from every of my, of the people that I will,
• 1:15:10
  I, I talk to and I have, I have, I've met amazing people that one
• 1:15:17
  of my previous guests said that this is a free therapy session.
• 1:15:24
  Exactly. It's because I get, I get to
• 1:15:27
  speak out the things that I thought about that I thought for
• 1:15:31
  myself and this I get that here, I get to speak them out. 100%
• 1:15:36
  true. Your your trip towards
• 1:15:41
  grassroots Meg started with wine and maybe just to tease a bit
• 1:15:46
  the the next episode, I want to ask you, you, you said a few
• 1:15:51
  times the story about your, your going towards sobriety on on, on
• 1:15:58
  the on the in the Instagram videos.
• 1:16:00
  I've seen it a few times, but I have to ask you one question
• 1:16:03
  that is somehow proceeding that I never had the feeling that you
• 1:16:06
  are a professional drinker. Let me put it this way, to try
• 1:16:12
  to put it politically correct. I didn't get the I didn't get
• 1:16:16
  the feeling that you are a professional drinker.
• 1:16:18
  Yeah. And you said you were doing the,
• 1:16:21
  the, the January, the January with no alcohol.
• 1:16:28
  And what, what was the trigger for this?
• 1:16:30
  Was that an yearly event with something that you were you were
• 1:16:34
  constant always doing? I have to say, when you live on
• 1:16:38
  a vineyard, when you are around wine people a lot, when you make
• 1:16:42
  wine, you do drink a lot of wine.
• 1:16:45
  And I have to say I, I do enjoy everybody brings you something.
• 1:16:50
  Try this, try this. And like I, we just screw this.
• 1:16:53
  And then so, and I also do enjoy cocktails.
• 1:16:56
  And so it becomes kind of a habit and I don't, I never felt
• 1:17:02
  like I, I never felt sick, you know, like, I mean, some people
• 1:17:05
  get really sick from drinking alcohol.
• 1:17:08
  But but I felt, it's kind of like, you know, obviously the, I
• 1:17:13
  mean, we wouldn't have to if, if, if I would have in my
• 1:17:17
  previous life, I wouldn't be able to have such a nice
• 1:17:21
  conversation at 9:00 at night. I'd be probably tired, you know,
• 1:17:26
  because I drank already all day long and I drank in a cocktail
• 1:17:31
  at 5:00 and then for dinner and a couple of glasses of wine, you
• 1:17:34
  know, so, but OK, so, so that's this habit.
• 1:17:40
  And I thought, you know what, why not?
• 1:17:43
  Everybody's doing this right? Genuine thing that's like, let's
• 1:17:46
  see, what, what does that feel like?
• 1:17:48
  Is that a problem for me? I didn't know or not or so I
• 1:17:54
  three years ago I did that and you know, it was kind of strange
• 1:17:58
  the 1st week because, you know, you define yourself almost like,
• 1:18:03
  OK, ah, today be opening a pinot and and then this it's that.
• 1:18:09
  One goes so good with this. It's the white one.
• 1:18:12
  It's identity, you know, And that felt strange, but then I
• 1:18:18
  felt great. I felt so, you know, and I'm
• 1:18:22
  also, you know, I do a lot of physical things.
• 1:18:25
  I write and I'm like, in addition to that, that year we,
• 1:18:29
  we're doing the the music project and I needed to work at
• 1:18:32
  night. And then suddenly it was
• 1:18:34
  February, March, April and I didn't drink.
• 1:18:37
  And I'm like, oh, this feels so good.
• 1:18:41
  And but then you get into social situations and I tried to drink.
• 1:18:46
  I'm literally said, you know what?
• 1:18:48
  I'm not a sober person like that.
• 1:18:51
  I'm, I don't, but I really did not like it anymore.
• 1:18:54
  I didn't like how I felt. I just did not make me feel
• 1:18:57
  good. And then I just stopped
• 1:19:01
  completely. And, and that is what in the end
• 1:19:06
  led to glass rolls. Because what I'm really missed
• 1:19:09
  more than the feeling of alcohol is to have a a drink of
• 1:19:14
  something where I have some, something on the nose and
• 1:19:18
  something develops on my palate and something in the finish.
• 1:19:21
  And it's like, how can I have that?
• 1:19:23
  That's such a great experience drinking something beautiful,
• 1:19:26
  you know? So how can we come up with
• 1:19:29
  something that has that where I feel the same way of I feel when
• 1:19:36
  I drink a good wine without the effect of, of alcohol, you know,
• 1:19:42
  And you know, I mean, it's also, you know, The thing is then I
• 1:19:46
  saw an interview with John Mayer of all people, great guitar
• 1:19:51
  player, great singer who got sober.
• 1:19:56
  And he said, you know what? I had this moment.
• 1:19:59
  Where to decide? Do I want to be 100% of what I
• 1:20:05
  can be right now? I, I want to go on tour and I
• 1:20:07
  want this and I like, I want to, or do I want to be 70 and play
• 1:20:12
  for 3030%? I'm playing and partying and I
• 1:20:17
  decided I wanted to be 100% of what I.
• 1:20:21
  All, all the things I want to do.
• 1:20:22
  And to me it makes it made a lot of sense.
• 1:20:25
  And I'm not judging anybody who makes a different decision, who
• 1:20:29
  says I want to party for 5050% of the time.
• 1:20:33
  But I, for, for me, at that stage in my life, I felt like,
• 1:20:37
  you know what, I whatever I still have left, I want to be
• 1:20:40
  completely conscious and be very present.
• 1:20:44
  And the interesting thing is it has really changed how my memory
• 1:20:49
  works. Not drinking.
• 1:20:53
  I mean, number one, I have a lot of recollections that I
• 1:20:56
  completely forgot about. And for some people that might
• 1:20:58
  be beneficial to forget and that's why people also drink.
• 1:21:03
  But I also feel like learning, learning new music, learning new
• 1:21:07
  things, learning so much easier then you don't have like a brain
• 1:21:15
  fog A. Constant one.
• 1:21:21
  The the reason why I'm asking you, Max, is that I have I have
• 1:21:25
  I have someone I have somehow made the same experience and
• 1:21:29
  I'm, I'm more or less sober since more than a year now.
• 1:21:36
  And for me it started in the January of 24th just because I
• 1:21:40
  realised that I it doesn't bring me any benefits or maybe the the
• 1:21:45
  benefit are not matching the this the the second day or I
• 1:21:51
  don't know how to put it in a good audience.
• 1:21:53
  I I wasn't a professional drinker as.
• 1:21:55
  Well, yeah. To keep it political correct,
• 1:21:57
  But but I have the feeling that I am, I am judged by the by the
• 1:22:03
  social, by the in, in the social events.
• 1:22:07
  I have the feeling that people are looking with what's wrong
• 1:22:10
  with you? Yeah.
• 1:22:11
  Do you have that feeling? Do you get that?
• 1:22:14
  I mean, I, I, I don't go to a lot of social events at this
• 1:22:19
  point. I do, but I'm, you know, I'm
• 1:22:22
  live on this farm and but yes, I find it stronger in Europe than
• 1:22:29
  it is in when we visit Europe. I find it people ask you, you're
• 1:22:35
  either pregnant or are you, are you an alcoholic that but it
• 1:22:40
  does, you know, so it's like what's wrong with you?
• 1:22:43
  And I find in America, especially in the on the coasts,
• 1:22:49
  if you live in New York or in California, the the pressure to
• 1:22:53
  drink is not that strong anymore.
• 1:22:55
  I feel there's a lot of people who even here in wine country,
• 1:22:59
  I've got I can a handful of wine makers I know here in this
• 1:23:03
  valley don't drink. They don't drink.
• 1:23:09
  So you know, it's you know, and I'm again, I'm not judging
• 1:23:14
  anybody who drinks. It's, it's, it's, it's
• 1:23:16
  everything is a personal choice. I, I'm in and I most of my life
• 1:23:21
  I drank and I was very proud that I'm not a drunk.
• 1:23:24
  You know, I was very proud that I could go to in any situation
• 1:23:27
  and drink also a lot and behave myself really well and be I was
• 1:23:33
  never a slut. And it's you grace like that.
• 1:23:36
  And I just did not want to do this anymore.
• 1:23:39
  I, I, I there was just the upside was so, so great.
• 1:23:46
  And what it gave me was so little that I said, you know
• 1:23:50
  what? That's just it's a no brainer.
• 1:23:51
  I, you know, it's like, yeah, feels great.
• 1:23:57
  That's the net inception that's at the inception of, of class
• 1:24:02
  rows where Sarah and I are having yeah, I, I cooked
• 1:24:07
  something amazing. We're sitting on our patio and
• 1:24:09
  said, and now, now we're drinking mineral water.
• 1:24:12
  What could, what could we do? And then we start, you know,
• 1:24:14
  using all kinds of syrups and fruit and stuff like that.
• 1:24:18
  And it was too sweet. And So what can we do that it's
• 1:24:21
  dry and it feels like a so. And and that's where we started
• 1:24:25
  experimenting with Elderflowers and Yuzu and all kinds of
• 1:24:32
  different things. But this story in the next
• 1:24:35
  episode. Exactly, yes.
• 1:24:41
  Max, thank you so much again for your time, it was a pleasure.
• 1:24:45
  I have to say my day starts much better after this talk.
• 1:24:48
  Oh fantastic. I will go peaceful to bed.
• 1:24:52
  Thanks for tonight. I really appreciate it.
• 1:24:55
  Thank you. Great conversation.
• 1:24:57
  Looking forward for Nexon, Mike. Mike, right.
• 1:25:00
  OK, bye.