Latest / The Junto Podcast / E26: Paradox of Constraints: Values to Help You Drive On
Transcript
- 0:00Music.
- 0:10Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto Podcast, where we promote the practical
- 0:15applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
- 0:18I am your host, Edgar Mills. Thanks for joining us.
- 0:23Music.
- 0:28Hello, America. Welcome back to the Junto Podcast, episode 26.
- 0:34Thank you all for sticking with me, for those of you who have been with me.
- 0:38And if you're a new listener, thanks a lot.
- 0:41I welcome your feedback. I hope that I'm putting out good stuff for you folks.
- 0:47Again, I do this podcast, well, one, because my friends kind of talk me into it.
- 0:52And as I carry on with it, I find that it's very therapeutic and it helps me
- 1:01reason out a lot of things and I get to do a lot of research and things like that.
- 1:05So anyway, thank you so much for listening. Thanks so much for listening.
- 1:11So not too long ago, I wrote a blog called Paradox of Constraints,
- 1:17and it was talking about how we should view constraints and lack of resources and things like that.
- 1:29Not so much as a barrier to our progression or our success or a locked door,
- 1:37but more as an opportunity to come up with a creative solution to a problem,
- 1:46an innovative way to get around or to get to our ultimate goal.
- 1:53I have faced many constraints and many closed doors in my life, as I'm sure you have.
- 2:02Most people do. Like, that's just, that's life. Life is tough sometimes.
- 2:07And you find a way, if you're dedicated, you know, to that idea or whatever.
- 2:14And in that blog, I gave some unique examples of Dr.
- 2:21Seuss's 50-word challenge or the movie director, Robert Rodriguez,
- 2:29how his first films were very low budget.
- 2:35Very creative and then became wildly successful and some other examples.
- 2:41Yeah, you can also from nothing create something.
- 2:47It's not easy to do at all.
- 2:50But in today's society, allegedly, supposedly free society, we as individuals, you guys know I'm very,
- 3:02I'm very big on individualism, being yourself,
- 3:06being your true self, and working hard to be the best that you can be for yourself,
- 3:12therefore being the best you can be for your family and friends and community
- 3:17and so on and so on and so on.
- 3:19We thrive these days as individuals, not through the largesse of government
- 3:25and not through the benevolence of the big major corporations.
- 3:32Those things aren't necessarily there to help us.
- 3:35They're not there to offer us resources or opportunity.
- 3:42Both big corporations and government are there to to amass as much money and power as possible.
- 3:51Maybe at the expense of you or maybe.
- 3:56Maybe because of you. Maybe that helps you in some way. I know it helped me.
- 4:01Look, I was in the military for 25 years.
- 4:03So to some degree, I did thrive off the largesse of the government.
- 4:08I wouldn't necessarily call that largesse.
- 4:11I earned every penny I got from the government, And I believe most soldiers do.
- 4:18But with voluntary association and emphasis on our rights,
- 4:25our freedom of speech, and among others, we can navigate scarcity or hardship
- 4:32with, you know, simple reason, critical thinking, folks. You know, that's why we're here.
- 4:38That's why we're here to promote critical thinking and bold creativity.
- 4:43Yeah. Yeah. So with that critical thinking and bold creativity,
- 4:48regardless of constraints, you can, you can do what it is you want to do.
- 4:56And you all know that I reference Ayn Rand a lot And in Ayn Rand's view,
- 5:02man's mind was the most basic and critical tool for survival Because good people,
- 5:11we all know that the natural state of man was essentially naked in the forest,
- 5:20and anything that was anything beyond being naked in an inforist relied on creativity.
- 5:28If you want to think caveman or you want to think Adam and Eve,
- 5:32however you want to think about it.
- 5:35You want to talk about constraints. Naked and alone in the forest is the biggest of constraints, right?
- 5:41You have no modern resources to help you.
- 5:46They somehow discovered fire. They somehow discovered that if I kill this animal
- 5:51that's probably trying to kill me and I cook it, man, it's going to keep me
- 5:57alive and nourish my body.
- 5:59It's amazing. If you think about some of the very earliest conveniences or like fire, for instance,
- 6:10you got to wonder how, I mean, really, like put yourself in the moment and wonder
- 6:15how did they invent this?
- 6:17Like it's crazy, right?
- 6:21So the earliest man had constraints, folks, far above and beyond any that we have.
- 6:28And yeah, it's even possible that some of the big corporation-y corporations
- 6:32are trying to keep us down. I don't really necessarily agree with that.
- 6:37But some of you do, and some of you think that that's the case.
- 6:43And as a Christian, you might look at constraints in your life or things that
- 6:49seem to be holding you back.
- 6:51You might look at those as tests of maybe, oh, maybe of your faith.
- 6:58But a test to give you something to overcome, to give you that sense of, I don't know,
- 7:09of meaning that you get from overcoming obstacles.
- 7:14And you can think, you know, David and Goliath and the big stories from the Bible.
- 7:19You can look at all those and you can get sort of that same sort of vibe of
- 7:23not only overcoming hardship, but embracing it, you know, to give you a deeper sense of faith.
- 7:33That's one way to look at it, right?
- 7:38But the question in the modern time here is how can we harness these roadblocks
- 7:47and these constraints and the paradox of constraints?
- 7:51How can we harness this to build meaningful, successful, prosperous lives without
- 7:57depending on coercive systems,
- 7:59without running back to the propaganda or being hyper-partisan on all things, all issues?
- 8:10Everything leads back to partisan politics. How can we get away from that?
- 8:17So what i have learned in my older years
- 8:21here is now look i was never a very optimistic guy
- 8:24i can tell you that i've always been a
- 8:27very realistic a realist if you will on on life on things on expectations i
- 8:37always said just expect the worst and be glad if it's if the outcome is not
- 8:43the worst. Well, that's kind of sour.
- 8:46That's kind of sour. These days, I say have realistic expectations for sure,
- 8:52but have an optimistic attitude.
- 8:54Hope for the best.
- 8:57Hope is not a course of action, but definitely strive for the best possible
- 9:02outcome and then have some realistic expectations, understanding that there
- 9:07will be some roadblocks and that everything is not going to come instantly.
- 9:12Success is not going to be instant. For some people, maybe it is. I don't know.
- 9:18In today's world, instant gratification, I've talked about the disposable society
- 9:23that we live in right now. you want a thing, you buy a thing,
- 9:26you toss that thing, you buy a new thing, et cetera.
- 9:29But I'm talking about building something, building some, building some kind
- 9:33of life, building some kind of career or building a family even.
- 9:39In my, in my career, it's always been the.
- 9:47Do minimal resources, like make it happen regardless of minimal resources.
- 9:52And I quoted, I think Ambrose said, in World War II, a commander,
- 10:00but it was in the Banner Brothers book, I think.
- 10:03Never have so many done so much with, never have so few done so much with so little.
- 10:09Yeah, something like that, right? That was a very SF-y sort of mindset.
- 10:14And Special Forces was very much like sometimes you'd have plenty of money and
- 10:19plenty of assets and plenty of things.
- 10:22And then other times you would have nothing.
- 10:25And I've told this story before, but when I was in, in 1st Battalion,
- 10:3110th group, one of the very first Afghanistan rotations that 1st Battalion did,
- 10:36my team leader and I, and,
- 10:39and I, I want to say the warrant, someone else, maybe one of the battalion warrants went with us because I.
- 10:47And our commander essentially said, hey, go to Afghanistan and find us a place
- 10:52to live and a place to work.
- 10:55And that was it, man.
- 10:59So off Mike and me went on an aircraft to Kabul.
- 11:03We get off the aircraft and we're thumbing rides, you know, across the country
- 11:09trying to find places to work.
- 11:11And this was, you know, so it was a weird situation because we ended up going
- 11:15under ISAF during that time.
- 11:17And, you know, we can talk details on that, but it was just,
- 11:20the point of that is the commander was like, hey, go do great things.
- 11:24We didn't have bags of money with us. We didn't have any backing of the SOTF
- 11:29because that was a different, ISAF was a different animal.
- 11:33But Admiral McRaven, who was the Saak Yor commander at the time,
- 11:38he was determined to get 1st Battalion, 10th Group into the fight of the Global War on Terror.
- 11:45Because up until that point, 1st Battalion, 10th Group had not been to Afghanistan or Iraq.
- 11:53So it was weird. It was crazy. But yeah, we created success.
- 11:58We created with very little resources.
- 12:02Ultimately, Task Force Atlas became a thing in Kabul and as a direct result of that.
- 12:12So we made do with very little resources and very little, I don't want to say backing.
- 12:18I mean, everybody was like, yeah, we support you. But it was more moral support
- 12:22than it was tangible, physical support.
- 12:26So that was crazy. It was unique, it was fun, it was a learning experience, and it was crazy.
- 12:34Optimistic attitude, have a mind for success no matter what you do,
- 12:41folks, no matter what you do, have a mind for success.
- 12:48And to do that, you have to have your values have to have to be success focused.
- 12:57You have to have a value for productivity.
- 13:01You have to have a good work ethic. And you have to be very sort of deliberate
- 13:07in your thinking and the way you solve problems and look at how a thing now,
- 13:14I might not get instant gratification or this thing that I'm developing may
- 13:22not, or this relationship that I'm developing may not help me today or this week or this year.
- 13:29But maybe two years down the road or three years down the road,
- 13:32this relationship will become a very critical relationship.
- 13:36You have to be able to look that far down the road, even farther than that.
- 13:41You have to be able to look ahead and see how these things can help.
- 13:48If you have sort of unrealistic expectations that your wife or your company
- 13:56or your bank account is going to support you for infinity and beyond,
- 14:03you may find yourself wrong and becoming frustrated and then becoming,
- 14:10you know, kind of going into some unproductive despair there a little bit.
- 14:16So look at the reality of your situation think
- 14:21objectively and and and move
- 14:25toward your goal and I look I relate this
- 14:27to my current struggle and you guys have heard me talk about my current struggle
- 14:32is is building the range we have a plan for a 23 acre range and it's currently
- 14:40right now we're at the point where we're trying to get special use zoning approval.
- 14:47And that's a long process. It's a two-month process.
- 14:50Well, my short-sightedness last year or the year before is that I failed to
- 14:55look at, I knew zoning was going to be an issue.
- 14:59I just didn't realize that, hey, Floyd County, it's a two-month process. That's the way it is.
- 15:05So what that does though, instead of me getting mad and being poopy that now
- 15:11I have to wait, well, I'm trying to build relationships.
- 15:16You know, it gives me essentially, you can say, I don't know,
- 15:18I have two more months to prep.
- 15:20And that's the way I'm looking at it, folks. That's the way I got to look at it.
- 15:24I've been prepping for, you know, 10 or 15 years. I might as well,
- 15:27two more months is not going to kill me. Right.
- 15:30So I have a good attitude about it. I'm optimistic.
- 15:34I'm a little disappointed that I wasn't able to get the application in for the September deadline.
- 15:43But hey, it's all right.
- 15:46I do feel like it's going to work out. I don't like the fact that my fate,
- 15:52that the fate of the range is in the hands of a commission, a board,
- 16:00who, you know, probably five or six folks, maybe, I don't know,
- 16:04who may or may not like guns, who may or may not use politics as a weapon,
- 16:11who, you know, things like that.
- 16:14They also may be wide open to it.
- 16:18They may look at it as a revenue for the county or the city or whatever. Who knows?
- 16:24But I have good vibes. I'm putting the good vibes out there.
- 16:29And in fact, for those of you who pray in this audience, please pray for that,
- 16:35that there's a successful outcome.
- 16:38All right. Enough about that. Enough about me. Yeah, if you don't have realistic
- 16:43expectations, then you're going to be unreasonably upset when your unrealistic
- 16:50expectations are not met.
- 16:52So, you know, have an optimistic attitude and realistic expectations.
- 16:58I like to do everything with a little libertarian flavor, you guys know.
- 17:02So I'm all about the free market.
- 17:05Optimism in the free market is not blind faith. The free market functions perfectly
- 17:11well without any coercion, without any government fingers in it,
- 17:17without any actors who are acting with ill intent.
- 17:24It's not a free market if you're out there making active efforts to disrupt
- 17:31someone else's success.
- 17:34Competition is good, good people. Competition in a free market is good.
- 17:39That's what creates quality.
- 17:41Yeah, that's what creates quality.
- 17:44If I'm trying to start a range and someone else is trying to start a range and
- 17:47we both do, and there's two ranges in the same neighborhood,
- 17:51then it's who offers the best service, who has the most professional facility,
- 17:56and all those things. And I'm not mad about that.
- 18:01Competition is good. if anything it might grow the market more for for shooting
- 18:06and that's just a for instance i don't know that anyone maybe someone is i don't
- 18:10know the free market folks it's a good thing crony capitalism on the other hand
- 18:15is bad it's bad thing it stifles all right when you got when.
- 18:21I'm, let's say I'm trying to do my range and I'm trying to stuff money in the
- 18:27pockets of some commissioner.
- 18:29And then that commissioner, because I'm stuffing money in his pockets now votes
- 18:34against the, the, my competition, but votes with me.
- 18:37Well, I've done great things for myself, haven't I?
- 18:40But I have effed the other guy. And that was a, that was a market manipulation.
- 18:47I unfairly and unduly shut the other guy out by virtue of stuffing money in
- 18:55the pockets of a decision maker.
- 18:57Well, one, that makes me an a-hole. And two, that makes the decision maker who
- 19:03took the money an unreliable, untrustworthy a-hole.
- 19:07And if he'll take money from me to crush someone else, at some point in the
- 19:11future, he may take money from someone else to crush me.
- 19:14And those people are out there, folks. That's not just crony capitalism.
- 19:18That that's in all systems believe me
- 19:21there's plenty of underhanded business going on in the
- 19:24socialist societies communism basically
- 19:28thrives and lives on bribes so look
- 19:32free market and competition good people that's where it's at that's where it's
- 19:37at because you can have faith in yourself and then if you fail or succeed in
- 19:42a free market then you'll know and you'll come back stronger and you will innovate
- 19:47to adapt to that market, won't you?
- 19:51But if I know that it's just money keeping me in or out of the market,
- 19:55then it's a manipulation that it's not real data. It's false data.
- 20:03And unfortunately, people go off false data all the time.
- 20:07You do have to be willing to take risks. I am.
- 20:11The good news is I have a retirement from the military, so that that's a little
- 20:16bit of safety net isn't it and that's and i know most people don't have that
- 20:20and i'm i'm conscious of that and i'm very grateful that i have that safety net,
- 20:25very hard to earn that safety net. The difference is there is now instead of
- 20:30starting an empire at the age of 30, it's trying to start an empire at the age
- 20:35of 53, but that's all right. It's all right.
- 20:40You got to take risks and I, yeah, you got to take risks.
- 20:45I think optimism is a very, and that was a libertarian flavor, right?
- 20:50And then I always do things with a libertarian flavor And then it's sort of a Christian flavor.
- 20:55Optimism, folks, is you can say trust God's plan.
- 21:01Now, if you're a savage, godless, heathen, pagan, you know, whatever,
- 21:06you can say trust fate, you know.
- 21:08Put your trust in the universe.
- 21:11Yeah. But if you're a Christian, you put your trust in what you might say is God's plan.
- 21:17All things work together for the good.
- 21:21Well, we also know as Christians that good might not be for our good or specifically
- 21:28the good we think we want, but the good that we need, right?
- 21:34And folks, honestly, that's the way I'm looking at things these days is all
- 21:39things happen for a reason.
- 21:42And if a thing happens that I didn't want or didn't expect or whatever,
- 21:47then I have to know that that's ultimately the way it was supposed to happen
- 21:52and that I now have to adjust, pick up a new azimuth and continue on following
- 21:59what I believe to be is right.
- 22:01You have to be sensitive to what God or the universe has laid out for you.
- 22:10Now, when it comes to God, I don't necessarily think your path is written,
- 22:15but I think God knows any potential path you may take, and he knows the outcome of each,
- 22:21and he'll let you go as far as necessary for you to learn the lesson and then
- 22:27put you on to another path.
- 22:31The universe will do that too If you guys believe in fate or if you guys believe in Kismet or karma.
- 22:39It'll Karma We all know To be a thing that often comes back and bites you in the ass, right?
- 22:45If you're a shitty person when you were 16 or 17 And you have it Sort of atoned
- 22:51for that shittiness Yeah, when you're 53 and you're trying to do a thing that
- 22:56might come back to bite you in the ass Yeah,
- 22:59Go ahead and try to clean that slate, folks. Go ahead and try to clean it up
- 23:03because that, whether it's God, universe, or whatever, it'll bite you in the ass.
- 23:09So try to clean that up. Try to be a good person.
- 23:13Try to treat other people well and be humble. Yeah, try to be humble.
- 23:21Avoid entitlement. You're not entitled to anything. I told you,
- 23:25man's natural state was naked in the woods.
- 23:29Anything above and beyond that is to be earned.
- 23:33You earn everything after that. You're not entitled to anything.
- 23:37Nobody owes you anything.
- 23:38I don't care governments. I don't care the ills of colonialism, the inquisitions,
- 23:49the whatever, the ills of the world past. No one owes you anything.
- 23:54No one owes you anything. You still got to drive on. You got to make the best out of what you got.
- 24:00And if you want a thing, you go after a thing. If you want to be treated a certain
- 24:04way, you treat people a certain way.
- 24:07If you want X amount of money, you do what you need to earn that amount of money.
- 24:12And if you work for someone else, guess what? Maybe that's things you don't necessarily like to do.
- 24:18Depends on what your priorities are, correct?
- 24:22Now, for me, and I'm not sure if it's good or bad or otherwise,
- 24:25but my priority isn't money. I have a different set of priorities.
- 24:29My priority for the range that we're trying to build is legacy more than it is money.
- 24:35Now, of course, for there to be a legacy, it has to be successful.
- 24:40And for it to be successful, by default, we will make money.
- 24:44But I aim to build a lasting and enduring business with the range.
- 24:51And I aim to do that on the foundation of honesty, fairness,
- 24:58and the ideals of, well, libertarian ideals, free market, voluntary association,
- 25:09and the ideals of Christianity.
- 25:11When you treat people, well, you treat people like you want to be treated,
- 25:17do unto others and all that.
- 25:21You're not entitled to anything. I'm not entitled to anything.
- 25:24However hard you work for a thing, some people might say, yeah, you deserve it.
- 25:29Now, maybe you do through hard work, but not just through wanting it.
- 25:33Just wanting a thing doesn't make you deserve it.
- 25:35Constraints, folks, there's always constraints. There's always roadblocks.
- 25:38There's always doors to be kicked open or maybe just to pick the lock. You know what I mean?
- 25:45Depends on your style. Depends on how you do things. And once you defeat a constraint,
- 25:51once you solve a problem, right?
- 25:54On you to be a good steward of what you have just earned through hard work.
- 26:00Don't squander it. Don't crap on it and don't take it for granted. Yeah.
- 26:06Don't take it for granted. Don't become complacent. That's the word I was looking for, complacent.
- 26:12Once you've worked so hard for a thing and then you become complacent,
- 26:17well, that's sort of a byproduct of taking something for granted.
- 26:21Or for for these big rich guys who are self-made right these these big rich
- 26:26guys who started out with nothing they grew up in the ghetto their dad was an
- 26:31alcoholic or he beat him or he died young or mom you know all these things mom
- 26:36had to work three jobs so i had to quit school,
- 26:39and then you built an empire out of tenacity and hard work and just freaking
- 26:44grit and then at some point in your life, you're up here driving around in a
- 26:49Bentley and, and you got the big yachts and things,
- 26:52the materialistic things that have very little meaning.
- 26:56And then you, you have sway over people's lives. And then somehow that sort
- 27:00of, that power that you have sort of creeps in and corrupts you a little bit maybe.
- 27:05And, and now you, you sort of take for granted the way things are.
- 27:09Yeah. And then, you know, that's, that's about the time I suspect it'll bite you in the ass.
- 27:17I think, I don't know. I'm not at that point. I don't see myself ever being at that point.
- 27:24And I hope that I don't take for granted what I do have now,
- 27:27the little bitty tiny range that I have in my front yard, folks.
- 27:32I'm very grateful for it. Believe me.
- 27:35And, and we're almost, you know, we're, we're trying to build the bigger range,
- 27:38not just because I'm at capacity, but because it's always been the plan.
- 27:45But yeah, I'm thankful that right now I have, I have to not put on certain courses
- 27:52because I don't have the space or the capacity to hold enough people.
- 27:57That's awesome. That's an awesome problem to have. That's not a constraint.
- 28:01That's just a product of, of working hard and trying to build a,
- 28:04what, what, what we have so far.
- 28:07And if any of you out there ever see me getting to
- 28:10the point where it looks like i'm taking things for granted you know by all
- 28:14means speak up by all means put me in my place i hope to never get to that point
- 28:21i really do i don't think i will you know i i think there's some personality,
- 28:27traits in there that i just don't think i will ever be there yeah libertarian
- 28:34and christian flavors they are compatible good people yeah they are compatible all right.
- 28:44That I wrote, I talked about doing less with more, but also sort of from a creative
- 28:49angle, how, how can you, you know, sometimes if you don't have all these resources,
- 28:56you think you need to do a thing,
- 28:58it, it, you start like racking your brain, like, man, how can I make a thing
- 29:03happen? How can I do this?
- 29:05And then, you know, it comes to, you start to find ways to, to do things without
- 29:10these resources you think you need.
- 29:12I know a thing for me, not necessarily artistic, but sometimes artistic, is that a deadline.
- 29:19You know, I work very good under deadlines.
- 29:23And why do I work good under deadlines? It's because, well, I've spent a career having deadlines.
- 29:31I mean, the military is one big deadline. But as far as art goes,
- 29:36like if I I have a course coming up and I want to, I'm going to put,
- 29:39cause I do all the, all my own art for the ads, you know, and it's, it's simple stuff.
- 29:44It's, I guess you would call it graphic art, but most of it I do,
- 29:47well, all of it I do exclusively on PowerPoint.
- 29:51It's crazy. I know, but I never learned how to use all these programs,
- 29:56but I did learn how to use PowerPoint.
- 29:59That's so if I need, if I need to come up with an idea for a theme, for a thing.
- 30:07And I look at, and I'm sitting here looking at a piece of paper.
- 30:09I'm looking at a computer and I just like, man, you draw a blank.
- 30:13Sometimes you have creative blocks, folks.
- 30:15That happens with writing and that happens with, with art.
- 30:19You have a creative block and you just sit there looking and nothing,
- 30:23your mind just blanks out.
- 30:26It just leaves you in a lurch like, nah, I don't know.
- 30:31When you're under time constraints, sometimes, man, when you're out in the wild,
- 30:35you know, you're out having lunch or you're doing a thing or you're training
- 30:38with someone or you're traveling somewhere and that inspiration will hit you
- 30:42and boom, you can knock out,
- 30:44you can, you can learn, be sensitive to find the inspiration.
- 30:49Yeah. Be sensitive to the inspiration, but learn how to put ideas together in
- 30:55a kind of time constrained fashion.
- 30:57Just, just even if it's a little piece of an idea. You don't really know what you want to do with it.
- 31:01You just, okay, there's something I think I want to use. Yeah.
- 31:06Put that in your little safe.
- 31:09Stick it in there and hold on to it. And next thing you know,
- 31:13man, you're hammering out good work, great work.
- 31:16Time constraints usually, well, I don't know, usually for me,
- 31:20time constraints really push me to create or do a thing.
- 31:28Not always i mean like yeah sometimes i'll
- 31:31i'll i'll work an idea over for literal
- 31:34months before actioning anything depends
- 31:39on your priorities depends on where you're at what you're doing your life but
- 31:43don't take time constraints like oh my god i only have a week to do this and
- 31:49then rack your brain rack your brain yeah just take a piece of an idea sit on
- 31:53it for a minute and just a minute and then you know take another piece of another
- 31:58idea sit on it for a minute and get going and I'll give you a little anecdote.
- 32:04I don't want to say burned. I used some marketing guys when I was in Colorado.
- 32:09I thought that I needed to, I needed somebody more professional to help me sort
- 32:15of develop my website and,
- 32:18and sort of give me some ideas for how to make commercial, you know,
- 32:22not commercials, but ads sort of an artistic, but formalized sort of thing. Right. I don't know.
- 32:29I had a guy that come and did a course out there. And it turns out he was like a marketing guy.
- 32:35And he was like, oh yeah, we can, we can, we can certainly help you.
- 32:37And then he showed me some work that they had done.
- 32:40And they had done a sort of a makeover for Denver University,
- 32:44which is sort of a prestigious school, Denver University.
- 32:48And he showed me the digital stuff, like fly the website and the color scheme
- 32:55and like the whole theme.
- 32:57And man, I thought it was brilliant. It looked good. I didn't want that for
- 33:00my stuff, but I mean, I thought that particular piece of work was pretty brilliant.
- 33:04Then they showed me a logo that they did for a company, a sort of a rebrand and it looked good.
- 33:10It was, it was professional work. It was like, okay, that's nice, man. I like that.
- 33:15I didn't want that for my website or my company, but for that,
- 33:19for what it was, and was it a pet thing?
- 33:23Something? I don't know. I can't remember what that one, but yeah,
- 33:26I thought, man, wow, this is, this is good looking stuff.
- 33:29This looks good. It was structured good. The information on the,
- 33:32on the website was good and all that.
- 33:35And then I gave these guys my sort of world. I said, here, look, this is what I do.
- 33:41My website was granted when it first started, it was a little,
- 33:45little chonky, a little whatever.
- 33:48And, and these guys, you know, I think I spent three or $4,000. I think three grand.
- 33:56They asked me what my budget was. My budget was nothing. It was zero.
- 34:00I didn't want to spend three grand even, but I thought, okay,
- 34:03if I put three grand into this, man, I'm going to be rolling.
- 34:09I'm going to, it's going to look good. I'm going to, I put, so I give these guys my, my, my stuff.
- 34:15I'm like, here, here's what I get. Here's, here's my world.
- 34:19And I had some ideas of my own that I threw at them and then they they threw back some,
- 34:26sort of ideas to me so one of the main things I was concerned about was my I
- 34:32guess you want to call it pro forma or you know my financials and things folks
- 34:37those of you didn't know me know that I do not math I do not math.
- 34:42Hard. Math is difficult. So I had some numbers worked up and what I showed them,
- 34:49I'm pretty sure was already beyond whatever it is they were going to do for me.
- 34:53Because the guy who was kind of the, there was three of these guys.
- 34:57And one of the guys was like the money financial sort of smart guy.
- 35:01One of the guys was like a creative, you know, and then the other guy,
- 35:05the guy that took my shooting course, he was like the nucleus.
- 35:10He was the guy that put it together and made it, made it make sense and, and look good.
- 35:15And the money guy looks at me and go, and he, he says, well.
- 35:20What do you, do you know, EBITDA? Do you know what that, and I was like,
- 35:22well, yeah, man, I got the internet.
- 35:24I looked it up and then I showed him sort of my, my, my slide deck for my pitch, right?
- 35:29My, my sort of investor pitch or my loan pitch or whatever for money.
- 35:34And, you know, it was about eight slides and the guy's like,
- 35:37wow, man, this, this looks really, what, how'd you, I said, well,
- 35:40look, man, I, I read Guy Kawasaki's, you know, the art of the startup.
- 35:45He was like, oh, oh, wow. You know, wow.
- 35:48I was like, yeah, wow. It's, it's a book. You know, I got the internet again. I got the internet.
- 35:54I'm not, you know, so, and then they come back and I throw some ideas at them
- 35:59because it was looking, it was dragging on a little bit, you know, it was dragging on.
- 36:04And these guys, you know what you can see, I'll tell you what the only tangible
- 36:09result of that $3,000 was.
- 36:13If you go on my Osprey Shooting Solutions website right now,
- 36:16you'll see some on the bios for me and my team, you'll see some headshots.
- 36:22And for me, my son and my best friend, Timmy, you'll see some nice clean headshots and.
- 36:31Essentially a thousand dollars per headshot folks. They got us. They got me.
- 36:36So, but I want to say this, man. So one of the guys, he was German and the artistic guy, apparently.
- 36:44I mean, go figure, right? Artistic German.
- 36:46And so I had an idea of like the table of elements.
- 36:50And I thought this was a good thing. I thought we could relate that to shooting
- 36:54courses and have each course have its own sort of element and,
- 36:58and kind of do it like that.
- 37:01And it's not a hundred percent original idea. You know, there's some stuff out
- 37:04there with that, but I wanted to have an educational vibe.
- 37:08So I thought, man, table of elements, I'll have sort of a chalkboard sort of background type thing.
- 37:14Yeah. I think, you know, do something like that.
- 37:17So I come back, you know, a week later, a couple of weeks, and this guy shows
- 37:21me a sort of a really rudimentary table, like a, thing.
- 37:25And it had the rifle on it, had like a little silhouette of a rifle.
- 37:30And it was one of the most elementary.
- 37:35And I looked at it and we were sitting in their shop. And my friend,
- 37:39Timmy was sitting there with me.
- 37:41And these three guys were sitting around and we may have even been sipping on
- 37:44some brandy or something. And he shows me this.
- 37:48And I said, you know what this looks like? And he says, yeah, what?
- 37:51Yeah. I says, this looks like what a German thinks an American AR-15 looks like, but has never seen one.
- 38:00Of course, my best friend laughs. The German guy looked completely defeated.
- 38:05And then the guy, the money guy was like, oh, well, I was like,
- 38:09nah, this, this ain't going to work. Don't, this is, this is not what I want.
- 38:14So ultimately we got the headshots we parted
- 38:18ways they got three thousand of my dollars and I
- 38:21got nothing usable yeah nothing usable so that was a lesson learned for me and
- 38:27I was I was a little bitter about that but I was very optimistic going in but
- 38:31you know what I didn't have I didn't have realistic expectations and at the
- 38:36end of all this my best friend Timmy sits with me.
- 38:38And he says, you know something, Edgar, he says, you're, you're a bit of a perfectionist
- 38:42and you kind of have OCD and things like that.
- 38:45He says, don't, don't look to anyone else to, to work on your,
- 38:50your dream. He says, you do your thing, man.
- 38:53And he says, you'll know if it's, he says, you'll know when you have what you
- 38:59like, don't let anybody else do it. And I thank him so much for that, man.
- 39:04I didn't thank him right then for it. I was like, what, really seriously but looking back I'm.
- 39:11Those words. You know what? I need to call him and tell him this man.
- 39:15Maybe you'll listen to it on here.
- 39:16But him saying those words to me hit, it hit hard. I was like, yeah, you know what?
- 39:21Yeah, I'm dependent. Not that I'm saying depend on yourself only,
- 39:24but I was looking to these guys to do something for me that I thought I couldn't do.
- 39:30I thought I was constrained by my own creativity and my own,
- 39:34well, you know, smarts really.
- 39:37And ultimately at the end of the day, I just built in my own constraint by having
- 39:42to deal with dudes that did not have any grasp of my vision whatsoever.
- 39:48And it, and it, and I want to say, it's not that I couldn't articulate my vision
- 39:53because I articulated the shit out of it.
- 39:56These guys knew I can talk to you about my business folks, my,
- 40:00my shooting business, and I can get very passionate and I can be very detailed
- 40:04and I can tell you all about it.
- 40:07And I could, the vision should be crystal clear. and these guys just didn't get it.
- 40:11So yes, that was a $3,000 mistake that will never ever happen again.
- 40:18All right, man, how'd I get on that?
- 40:21What do constraints do for us? So I talked, I mentioned a little bit ago about
- 40:26being sensitive to what God or fate or the universe has in store for you.
- 40:32Being sensitive to what is right.
- 40:35When you're doing a thing, does this feel right?
- 40:37Because I strongly believe if you're doing a thing and it feels right,
- 40:41then you probably, and I don't mean superficially right, I mean like it feels
- 40:45right, deep, then it's my opinion that it probably is.
- 40:51So be sensitive to what God or the universe, whatever it is you do,
- 40:56or your stones, your crystals.
- 40:58I'm not promoting idolatry or what do they call it, necromancing and all that
- 41:05shit. I'm not advocating or condoning or whatever.
- 41:10Different people believe different things. Be sensitive to what's in store.
- 41:15Be sensitive to what you're supposed to be doing.
- 41:19And when you face constraints, oftentimes what that does to you,
- 41:23if you don't have unlimited resources, what that does is sort of gives you some clarity.
- 41:30It clears out all the noise and the clutter.
- 41:34And it causes you to focus on what you do have. Yeah, that's right.
- 41:39And when you focus on what you do have,
- 41:44and what can you do with what you have, even in a creative way, like, okay, I have this.
- 41:51There's only so much literal, so many directions I can go like literally.
- 41:58Now you can focus on making one of those directions the best.
- 42:05Clutter. Silence is the noise. How many of you are walking around with so much noise in your brain?
- 42:11The social media, man, that creates noise right there. Clear the clutter out of your life.
- 42:18Start with your garage. Yep, that's what I've done. I've started cleaning my garage.
- 42:23Clear the clutter. You can see clearly. So don't look at constraint as a negative.
- 42:27Look at it as a positive. Okay, that helps me focus.
- 42:30That's a clearing of the noise.
- 42:34I talked a little bit of mysticism. Yeah, you believe in fate.
- 42:39You believe in something other than God, or maybe that God acts through different things.
- 42:46Fate, ultimately, is just a consequence of our actions in our choices.
- 42:54Now, what guides us to make certain choices? Maybe that's a little bit divine,
- 42:59but if you look at fate, this is going to happen.
- 43:04It's written in the stars, right? But fate really is ultimately a consequence of our choices.
- 43:10Yeah, that's really what it is.
- 43:14So not only do you need to be sensitive to what God has in store for you and what you think fate is.
- 43:20But you also, folks, listen to me and listen good. You need to be sensitive
- 43:24to objective truths, objective facts.
- 43:29And I'll give you, for instance, and I'll keep using me as an example in this range business.
- 43:35Does your skill support your dream?
- 43:39Yeah. Does your skill support your dream?
- 43:42I think my skill fully supports my dream. And I think I prove that on a daily
- 43:48basis with my my clients.
- 43:51So that's an, that's sort of an objective fact.
- 43:56Have you done a, is the market there for what you're trying to do as far as business goes?
- 44:03Does the market support what you want to do?
- 44:06Well, Rome is a unique market. Northwest Georgia is kind of a unique market.
- 44:12But based on a whole bunch of analysis, yeah, I think for us,
- 44:17I think the market is wide open for what we want to do.
- 44:20I think it will support. Yep. So if you have a dream and a passion project,
- 44:25but there's no market for it, it's just something you really love,
- 44:29have a realistic expectation there.
- 44:33Or if you think you're going to be the next rapper, the next Jay-Z,
- 44:38do you have the skills that Jay-Z has or had?
- 44:43If you think you're going to be the next EDC DJ titan, one of my very best friends
- 44:53loves EDC music, electronic dance music.
- 44:58He's always talking about these various DJs. Look, I clown on the DJ business. I clown on it.
- 45:05But apparently, it's a very technical skill.
- 45:09Do you have that technical skill? If you want to go be the big EDC guy wearing,
- 45:14you know, big like Hello Kitty costumes and stuff,
- 45:19do you have the skill to work the buttons, man, to turn the steel wheels,
- 45:24you know, do you? I don't know.
- 45:27You need to be, you need to have objective facts there. You need to look at
- 45:30things objectively and think, does what I want.
- 45:35If you think you're going to be the next artist, yeah. Yeah.
- 45:38Or if you think you're going to be a brilliant writer, I write blogs,
- 45:41not because I think I'm going to be a brilliant writer, just because I like
- 45:44to, to, to express myself using the thesaurus.
- 45:48I like to use, you know, words that I don't normally speak with.
- 45:53I'm a very informal guy in person, but you can write a little more formally
- 45:59because I did go to school.
- 46:01I don't math very well, but I write pretty good. I did enjoy literature and
- 46:05English and grammar and things like that.
- 46:09I didn't mind that stuff at all. I liked it. Math, on the other hand.
- 46:15Be sensitive to not only what the universe has for you, but be sensitive to objective facts. Yeah.
- 46:25And the Christian, what's the Christian spin on that?
- 46:28Well, Christianity does, in fact, promote free will. Yeah.
- 46:35In fact, yeah.
- 46:38Yes, you have free will. You can choose to believe in Jesus,
- 46:44the Son of God, or rose from the dead, or you don't have to.
- 46:48They're giving you the path. Christianity is giving you the path.
- 46:53They're not by any stretch making you go on it. Not by any stretch.
- 46:58So you have free will, right? So from the Christian perspective of all the things
- 47:04I just said, being sensitive to objective facts, Be sensitive to this guidance
- 47:09that you get from if you follow Jesus, you pray for a thing.
- 47:14Well, prayers are answered in very different ways, good people.
- 47:17I know the atheists and all the people who poo-poo on Christians,
- 47:23they joke on prayer. They joke on it a lot.
- 47:27But prayers get answered. They do. They do in different ways.
- 47:30And people assume when a prayer gets answered that that was going to happen
- 47:35anyway. That's just fate.
- 47:37Well, you believe the way you want, and I'll believe the way I want.
- 47:42Prayers get answered every day, folks. And in prayer, you know,
- 47:45even if you're not asking for a thing or an outcome or anything,
- 47:49you're just praying for somebody's soul.
- 47:51You know what I mean? Somebody you know who's a goddang heathen.
- 47:54Hey, please put your hands on this dude or this lady.
- 47:59You know, it's a reflection. When you're in prayer, you know,
- 48:02and you're in reflection, the only difference is you're talking to God. Yeah.
- 48:08Answer back? Well, with a voice that comes, a deep James Earl Jones voice that
- 48:15comes through the heavens.
- 48:16It's very deep and it surrounds sound.
- 48:20Nah, I mean, maybe. I'm not saying that's impossible. I'm just saying, you know, probably not.
- 48:26It's probably going to be something like you're just out in public and then
- 48:29you have just some frigging epiphany.
- 48:32You know, you see some homeless dude there who looks like he's about to die,
- 48:36and you happen to have some Chinese takeout next to you, and you're like,
- 48:40hey, man, you want some food.
- 48:43You might think that's not God guiding you, but it is. Yep.
- 48:49Never mind that. You might have an effect on people in ways you don't know just
- 48:53by the way you act out in public.
- 48:55At any rate, be sensitive to it. Be sensitive to it.
- 48:59And from that perspective, folks, constraints, things that are roadblocks,
- 49:04that might be just there to guide you in a different direction, folks, a pivot point.
- 49:11Maybe you were heading in the right direction and then you got,
- 49:14maybe you got off azimuth and you reached some obstacle that like,
- 49:20okay, do I need to go over it, under it, around it?
- 49:24Or do I need to change directions completely yeah now
- 49:29if you got to do a lot of backtracking hey man that just builds character yep
- 49:33that just builds character so be sensitive to that all right now i'm going to
- 49:38get a little anti-state here real quick for libertarian flavor folks you know the libertarians are,
- 49:47small government right don't don't accept what the state writes out as fate
- 49:52Now, that said, if the state rejects my special use zoning document.
- 50:01Has had a hand in my fate, haven't they?
- 50:04Am I going to go just dig on land, that land anyway? No, no,
- 50:09I'm not. That's going to be something that causes me to change direction.
- 50:13That's all that's going to do. The government has over-regulated every piece of our life.
- 50:20Every piece of our life, the government has over-regulated because one,
- 50:25they don't, they think If they can live your life better than you and two,
- 50:30they want to control you. I'm not going to go off on this, folks.
- 50:33Don't tune out. I'm not going to go off on this.
- 50:36The state is coercive. So regulations and things that dictate whatever your
- 50:43field is, whatever it is you're trying to do, get around that stuff.
- 50:48Just learn as much as you can about it before you go down a path.
- 50:52And that's what I told you. I came up short in that on this zoning stuff.
- 50:58But don't accept, well, you have to accept law and regulation to a degree,
- 51:04but that don't mean you can't continue on.
- 51:07And that don't mean you can't find loopholes just like rich guys do. Yeah.
- 51:13Rich guys find loopholes. We can do that too, just through, through adamant study.
- 51:20So, so yeah, don't, don't just cause they say, oh, you can't do that.
- 51:25Or, you know, the board, they don't like to see this.
- 51:28And well, they don't like to versus the illegal. There's two different,
- 51:31that's, that's different things.
- 51:33So don't, don't necessarily be, be, be an individual, a freestanding,
- 51:38autonomous individual and follow your path.
- 51:42You hit the state, you hit, you hit the constraint of the state,
- 51:46figure out a way around it over, under, around, calling something by a different name.
- 51:52There's ways, there's ways folks, you can find ways.
- 51:56So I know some of you out there, well, I have sort of a diverse audience, I think,
- 52:04I know when I mention God, some of you cringe.
- 52:10But look, the only other competing ideology that I have in my life is objectivity.
- 52:17Now, everybody says, hey, Ayn Rand was an atheist.
- 52:21How can you follow Ayn Rand so adamantly and still be a Christian?
- 52:24Well, because I'm a critical thinker.
- 52:27And yes, I've done a paper on this, folks. I've done a paper on this,
- 52:31and I say this every so often.
- 52:33Go back to my blogs on thegentopodcast.com and read Objectivism versus Christianity.
- 52:41Are they compatible? Yeah, they're compatible. Are they 100% congruent?
- 52:45No, but they are compatible, folks.
- 52:47Yeah. because they both reject victimhood and they both embrace and enforce
- 52:56individual responsibility.
- 52:58Yes, individual responsibility. Individual agency.
- 53:03You made your bad decisions. Whatever reasons why, motive is irrelevant why
- 53:10you made the bad decision.
- 53:11A bad decision will come to fruition. And once that...
- 53:18Once you realize, like, yep, I've made a bad decision, don't blame other people.
- 53:23Yep, it's not time to blame other people. It's time to go, all right,
- 53:27this is now a constraint.
- 53:28The result of that bad decision has now led me to a roadblock,
- 53:34an obstacle, a constraint, and now I must correct, course correct,
- 53:40un-F myself, and drive on.
- 53:43That's the way, folks. That's the way. Yeah.
- 53:47Oh let's see i'm not a big journal
- 53:50you know everybody talks about journaling these days writing down
- 53:53things in a little daily journal i don't do that i write down ideas that i want
- 53:57to talk about i don't necessarily journal though do i meditate i don't know
- 54:03i'm looking for and what i'm looking at here is ways to help develop this sort of mindset of optimism,
- 54:15and resilience,
- 54:16sort of, along with realistic expectations.
- 54:20But be optimistic. Man, do. I was not optimistic through, like,
- 54:25even the majority of my adulthood.
- 54:29Only in the past, man, maybe even since retiring five years ago.
- 54:36Maybe the military was part of the reason I was such a grumpy son of a bitch.
- 54:40But only in my latter years am I really appreciating the power of positive thinking
- 54:48and optimism man that is that's terrible that I'm just that I wasn't open to that before,
- 54:55yeah I've always look I think I've always been a problem solver I trust my gut
- 55:00on a lot of things I think I have a good foundation of skill and and not education but you know life,
- 55:08experience and things that, yeah, I was a good problem solver.
- 55:13I'm still a good problem solver, but sometimes maybe I complained when I shouldn't have or didn't need to.
- 55:21Yeah, man, I don't know. I'm just now having this realization as I'm talking
- 55:25to you guys that, man, the majority of my life has been spent being a grumpy son of a bitch.
- 55:31I once had a team leader and we didn't like each other too much.
- 55:34I wasn't on that team very long And he called me a curmudgeon.
- 55:42And I was like, well, shit, you're half the reason I'm a curmudgeon.
- 55:45You know, the military, the dumb shit in the military makes you a curmudgeon sometimes.
- 55:51Yeah. He called me a curmudgeon.
- 55:56Though, I'm very, I'm very mindful folks. I'm very thoughtful about the way I do things.
- 56:01Now, the things I say to people, now I'm passionate.
- 56:05Yeah. And I'm, I'm a direct communicator and I don't believe in, in hiding information.
- 56:11You know, if I'm having a business meeting with somebody, somebody,
- 56:15I don't strategically hold back information.
- 56:18If they want to manipulate some, if they want to do things shady,
- 56:21that I'll, we'll see that sooner or later. And then I'll just shut that shit down.
- 56:27But I don't strategically hold back information. I let everybody know what my
- 56:32intentions are, you know?
- 56:34And so, and that's not, how, how do I get to this mindset?
- 56:38Well, I think being direct is very helpful in maintaining a good attitude.
- 56:46I know that sounds crazy because I was direct when I had a bad attitude,
- 56:49but well, I guess it depends on
- 56:52And your attitude kind of depends on your directness of how that's taken.
- 56:58I guess if I had a more optimistic attitude, I could still be direct,
- 57:01but people would just take it in a better way, I imagine.
- 57:03Yeah, man, my military career probably could have been a lot smoother had I
- 57:08known then what I know now. Oh, shit.
- 57:12And then think to yourself, you know, as you're journaling and you're meditating
- 57:16and you're thinking about, okay, how do I make good things happen?
- 57:19How do I make my project get off the ground?
- 57:22How do I get in touch with people who are supportive or we could have mutual benefit? Yeah.
- 57:31Well, think to yourself, what actions do you do? What voluntary actions do you
- 57:37do that align with that goal and that purpose?
- 57:43You know what I'm saying? Your priorities, folks, and I've said this 8 million
- 57:47times, is you got to have your priorities in order. What's important to you?
- 57:52The things that are important to you, let's say the number one thing.
- 57:55Well, okay, I would have to say my grandson is probably my wife,
- 58:00and then my grandkids are very high, high, high on my priorities in life.
- 58:05So things I do, of course, they are a consideration. Of course they are.
- 58:13So for instance, if I end up deploying, for instance, if I take a contract and
- 58:18go overseas again here in the future, which I really don't want to,
- 58:22but, you know, money is a powerful,
- 58:26persuader, not out of greed, but out of, you know, I'm still,
- 58:29look, folks, I hate to admit this. I still, I'm paycheck to paycheck.
- 58:32Yeah, I am. Okay.
- 58:35Money as a major part of life. But how did I get on that? I'm not sure.
- 58:42What I'm saying is, is the decisions you make every day and the actions you
- 58:47take every day, do they align with what your stated priorities in your life are?
- 58:53Excuse me. And that's one of those things where you just have to be honest with yourself, folks.
- 58:59Yeah. You just have to be honest with yourself and answer that question to yourself.
- 59:04All right. Being sensitive to what's out there for you, what God has for you.
- 59:09So now we have some priorities. We're sensitive to God's will or the will of
- 59:16the Norse gods or Krishna.
- 59:22We're sensitive. We know where we want to, what direction we want to go.
- 59:26We think we know what's important in life. How do we make it happen? How?
- 59:31Well, very few people are lone wolves.
- 59:36I have also discovered in my latter years post, well, I learned this in the
- 59:41military too, but networking and building relationships, good people,
- 59:47whether it's logical relationships,
- 59:50like for me, it would be other people in the gun business.
- 59:52That's a logical relationship, but also unlikely relationships.
- 59:57Relationships, I don't want to say, well, I don't want to say it's an unlikely
- 1:00:02relationship, but one of my, one of the people I consider good,
- 1:00:05you know, sort of friend and, and maybe colleague is a guy named Nathan,
- 1:00:10who he's not in the gun business and he don't train people that shoot.
- 1:00:15He trains people, you know, they do outdoor adventure, you know,
- 1:00:19camps and, and climbing and hiking and like coaching, spiritual coaching and things like that.
- 1:00:26So yeah, that's kind of an unlikely relationship for a guy who teaches people how to shoot guns.
- 1:00:32But because I also do land navigation and because I also do mountaineering and
- 1:00:38other leadership development stuff, you know, I reached out to that,
- 1:00:42you know, cold called that dude.
- 1:00:44And then because we, we had some mutual relationships.
- 1:00:48Yeah. And now I think me and him are good, good buds.
- 1:00:52And yeah, it was kind of an unlikely relationship that developed.
- 1:00:57And these are important to have in life.
- 1:01:00These are important to have in life. And you can build these through some common
- 1:01:04goal or some mutually beneficial goal, or it doesn't have to be transactional either.
- 1:01:12You just, maybe you just like, like somebody, you go have a cup of coffee once in a while.
- 1:01:18Understand that everything isn't transactional, good people.
- 1:01:20And if it is for you, then I don't know, man.
- 1:01:27And I read this somewhere. I don't know who said it. I wish I could start researching
- 1:01:31these quotes a little more.
- 1:01:32A measure of someone's character is how they treat people who can do nothing for you.
- 1:01:38Yeah. Every relationship doesn't have to be transactional. You don't have to,
- 1:01:42there doesn't have to be a benefit in me going up to the coffee shop and seeing
- 1:01:46my bud Mark and say, hey, how are you doing, man? What's new?
- 1:01:49I haven't seen you in a while. That doesn't have to, there's not,
- 1:01:54just be genuinely interested in what your friends are out there.
- 1:01:58You haven't spoken to them in a while.
- 1:02:00Yeah. It doesn't have to be transactional, but Hey, in order to build successful
- 1:02:04business, you do need a network of people who care about you and,
- 1:02:08and look out for your interest or get, or, or throw you some, throw you some,
- 1:02:13some opportunities here and there or throw you some contacts or, or,
- 1:02:19you know, just come out with you, to support you a little bit.
- 1:02:23Yeah. To, to be able to, to be innovative and to be able to,
- 1:02:27to move forward under heavy constraints, under like lack of money. So this is a thing.
- 1:02:33There's a guy that I sat down with just recently and he said,
- 1:02:37and my friend, Justin has said the same thing to me before, but this guy said,
- 1:02:42Hey, money's not the problem.
- 1:02:44And I said, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute.
- 1:02:49If, if, if I knew if money wasn't the problem, I would have a frigging tactical
- 1:02:54wonderland by now that would be successful and just killing.
- 1:02:58You know what I mean? Money is my only problem.
- 1:03:02Do you know what I'm saying? When it comes to building business,
- 1:03:04if you have the skill and if you have the plan and you have the functionality
- 1:03:11and you have the groundwork laid,
- 1:03:13and you have the policies and the SOPs and the curriculums and all these things
- 1:03:19that you've been working on for the past decade and two decades,
- 1:03:24the only problem is money.
- 1:03:26Yeah, the only problem is money. For me, that's for me.
- 1:03:30To me, money is the constraint, the one and only constraint that stops money,
- 1:03:38progression. And I'm working and I'm trying to figure out how do we navigate that.
- 1:03:44So how do we navigate that? Well, I'll tell you how. I had a meeting with this
- 1:03:47guy because I built a relationship with a fella who come out and shoot.
- 1:03:52I told him, hey, this is what I got going on. He's like, oh man, interesting.
- 1:03:56He sits on it. He thinks about it for a while. And then he comes back to me
- 1:04:00later on and goes, hey man, what do you think about XYZ?
- 1:04:04And now we're all three sitting in a coffee shop together talking about money's not a problem.
- 1:04:10Hopefully that works out for the benefit of everybody involved.
- 1:04:15But I wouldn't have been able to get money without that relationship.
- 1:04:18Well, I'd be able to raise some money, but not what I'd need to build the project completely.
- 1:04:27You need to collaborate with other folks. And I think I did a podcast on this,
- 1:04:34you know, way back, you know, collaboration, team building,
- 1:04:39build a team of people, even if they're not going to be like physically working
- 1:04:43with you on the rent, like just a network of people who either through mutual
- 1:04:48benefit or just have your best interest at heart, you know? Yeah.
- 1:04:52So if you're not as resourceful, you know, find someone who is resourceful and yeah, sure.
- 1:04:59You got to provide value to them for sure.
- 1:05:02But Hey man, There's a lot of ways to skin a cat, and you might have to go through
- 1:05:07a lot of them to get that cat skinned. Yeah.
- 1:05:11So on collaboration, right, on that, from a sort of objectivist Ayn Rand sort of perspective of that.
- 1:05:21Now, I don't know if you guys read Atlas Shrugged or not, but building a network
- 1:05:26of rational individuals who share sort of some similar vision as you.
- 1:05:32Maybe not the same, but like maybe just a general idea.
- 1:05:37Ayn Rand, that's what happened in Atlas Shrugged, isn't it?
- 1:05:41They slowly, John Galt slowly built a coalition of people who believed sort of the same system.
- 1:05:50And they believed in trading value for value.
- 1:05:53And, you know, in the business world, that's what you got to do.
- 1:05:56Value for value. whether that value is money for labor or services,
- 1:06:00or whether it's barter, service for service, you know, whatever.
- 1:06:04And look for people who can help you be more productive, right?
- 1:06:10Ones, even unlikely ones. Oftentimes, you can mutually benefit each other,
- 1:06:19even if your fields are completely different.
- 1:06:24It doesn't have to be in the same field. It doesn't have to be anything.
- 1:06:28You guys can just seek to help each other be more productive.
- 1:06:32And that was very much a theme in Atlas Shrugged, for sure.
- 1:06:37And we know that within the Christian faith, yeah, building a community,
- 1:06:43that's what a church is, is a community of people who probably live in fairly close proximity.
- 1:06:49And hey, love your neighbor. It says it right there in the Bible in the New Testament.
- 1:06:55Love your neighbor. Love thy neighbor, if it's King James.
- 1:07:00And you can build like-minded little, little networks that way.
- 1:07:07If you want to build, if you want to do a nonprofit, I bet a good place to,
- 1:07:11to do that is, is from your church friends, you know, a charity,
- 1:07:16a little soup kitchen or some, some thing, some youth program.
- 1:07:21That's, that's probably a really good place to do that is, is go to your church
- 1:07:25and find some likely candidates who are like, yeah, that sounds good.
- 1:07:30That aligns with the way we believe.
- 1:07:33We agree with what the long-term goal might be or whatever, and boom, bam.
- 1:07:39I think in a church, yeah, a church is simply a community, a physical structure
- 1:07:45church, right, where people go on Sunday.
- 1:07:48The church is a different thing, right? That's the whole, that's the flock.
- 1:07:52That's everybody, the church and all the people involved.
- 1:07:59And if in that Christian faith, you're trying to build allies and you maybe
- 1:08:05find some unlikely allies up at the pub, you know what I mean?
- 1:08:08There might be some heavy drinkers out there who maybe they don't go to church.
- 1:08:13Maybe they're a little bit heathen. Maybe they still chase women.
- 1:08:16You know, who knows what.
- 1:08:17But they see value in what you're doing because it talks to them maybe,
- 1:08:22I don't know, spiritually, but like they just agree they have some compassion for whatever.
- 1:08:28And that might turn somebody who you might otherwise, I don't want to say be enemies.
- 1:08:34That's a strong word, but you might not associate with otherwise.
- 1:08:38The next thing you know, now you're playing softball together and you got,
- 1:08:42you know, you got a partnership and a nonprofit.
- 1:08:46Don't isolate folks. Don't, don't, don't live in a bubble.
- 1:08:50Don't live in a bubble and don't stay in your damn social media bubble either.
- 1:08:54Your, your echo chambers, you know, break out of that. shit,
- 1:08:58we're seeing the results of all that, of that isolation and those echo chambers.
- 1:09:03We're seeing the results of all that. And it's carnage and it's horrible.
- 1:09:06And it's, and it's, it's disgusting.
- 1:09:10So get out of your echo chamber, get out there and talk with people,
- 1:09:15throw your ideas out there.
- 1:09:17Don't do it from a, don't do it from a place of judgment.
- 1:09:21No, no, no. Do it from equal ground. Yep.
- 1:09:26And then in this network building, right, from a libertarian perspective,
- 1:09:34yeah, voluntary association, folks, that's one of the principles of the libertarian
- 1:09:39platform, of the libertarian ideals.
- 1:09:42Networks thrive through voluntary association.
- 1:09:46People you want to do business with. You shouldn't be compelled to do business with anybody.
- 1:09:52And cronyism is not voluntary association, folks. That's still coercion.
- 1:09:57There's an exchange of money, and it's under the table. It's behind closed doors. It's nefarious.
- 1:10:04Cronyism is bad.
- 1:10:07Government favoritism is bad. Government should not pick winners and losers.
- 1:10:12The government's only job in life is to ensure that the rights as laid out in
- 1:10:20the Constitution are not violated.
- 1:10:22Well, even the rights beyond the Constitution. But the government spends more
- 1:10:26time violating those rights than they do defending them.
- 1:10:30Cronyism and government favoritism, it's garbage.
- 1:10:34But in the libertarian, and I'll give you a perfect example,
- 1:10:38is the Great Create coming in November, folks.
- 1:10:41That is a perfect networking opportunity right there to meet people who care
- 1:10:45about freedom, who care about individuality, who care about,
- 1:10:49I don't know, alternative lifestyles,
- 1:10:53people who care about, well, people care about politics even.
- 1:10:59And, and, and mingle about, you might meet somebody who's a cryptocurrency guy
- 1:11:04and you've been curious and you've been like, man, man, do I need to get into this or not?
- 1:11:08And you got somebody who's fully knowledgeable right there to,
- 1:11:10to let you know, they're not going to coerce you, man.
- 1:11:13They're not going to tell you bullshit to, to get you to sign on a dotted line.
- 1:11:18They're just going to tell you what it is. Here's what's up. Here's how it works.
- 1:11:22You know, here's a, here's a website. Check it out.
- 1:11:25Yeah, man. The great create perfect network opportunity.
- 1:11:29And you might meet business partners there. My friend Jake, he also hosts my
- 1:11:35podcast on his network, Peaceful Sea Productions, or the Peaceful Sea Network. Yeah.
- 1:11:42Now, I don't know if that's monetized or not.
- 1:11:45I don't know how any of that works, but I know that's a whole other audience
- 1:11:48that has access to my podcast.
- 1:11:52Yeah. That's a simple thing, man. That's a simple thing.
- 1:11:57I've got their link up on my website for the Peaceful Sea Network.
- 1:12:00You click on that and boom, you got access to all these sort of libertarian-esque podcasts.
- 1:12:07Some of them are political. Some of them are about crime, things,
- 1:12:13banish big brother, all kind of stuff, man.
- 1:12:18All kind of stuff on there. You should go check it out.
- 1:12:21In fact, thejuntopodcast.com. There's a link down there to the Peaceful Sea Network.
- 1:12:27You should check that out. Yeah, networking, making friends,
- 1:12:32building allies, whether they're unlikely allies or not. Yeah.
- 1:12:36And why would we look for unlikely allies?
- 1:12:42You know, like...
- 1:12:45Markets. Name a thing. Name your business, mine being the gun business.
- 1:12:50There's untapped markets in little pockets of society.
- 1:12:55And I'll give you, for instance, I've said their name before,
- 1:12:58and I'll say it again. Hopefully they don't mind.
- 1:13:01They might disagree with some of my politics, but the Atlanta Pink Pistols has
- 1:13:05been out here on a few occasions to train as a group, you know, as a private group.
- 1:13:12They believe in the Second Amendment. They come out and shoot guns.
- 1:13:17They get professional instruction from me.
- 1:13:20You know, I get a little bit of money from them, and we treat each other nice,
- 1:13:26and we respect, and we shoot guns.
- 1:13:28Talk about all the important things about shooting guns.
- 1:13:31I would say, was that an unlikely ally? I don't know. Maybe, maybe.
- 1:13:36I also have church groups that come out. Now, the church groups and the pink
- 1:13:40pistols are unlikely allies for sure.
- 1:13:42I'm just sort of a middleman on that, really.
- 1:13:46I'm not putting them together necessarily, but hey, if you like to shoot guns, you like to shoot guns.
- 1:13:51If you find yourself at a match and you're a God-fearing church-going Christian,
- 1:13:59and then you're on deck and then the shooter is the transsexual,
- 1:14:07that might feel a little awkward to you.
- 1:14:10But hey, that's the way it is sometimes.
- 1:14:16So embrace the variety of life, good people.
- 1:14:20You don't have to jump in somebody's lifestyle just to interact with them. You know what I mean?
- 1:14:28Be a rational human being, for crying out loud.
- 1:14:33Unlikely. Unlikely candidates. Unlikely candidates for helping,
- 1:14:39you know, not spread a message.
- 1:14:41My message is shooting guns safely.
- 1:14:44I believe every American should be armed, personally.
- 1:14:48But don't turn away the unlikely allies. Don't do it.
- 1:14:54What kind of, well, anything you do. You know, there's risks and there's rewards. There's a payoff.
- 1:15:03Sometimes it's not good. Sometimes it is. Sometimes there's not a payoff.
- 1:15:07Sometimes you get burned like that $3,000 marketing endeavor.
- 1:15:13But if you're out networking, right, and you're out trying to build a genuine network of people who –,
- 1:15:22You cannot be coercive. You cannot use manipulation. You have to be forthright. You have to.
- 1:15:30Otherwise, if they come to find out later that you are not as advertised,
- 1:15:36the whole thing could blow up in your face.
- 1:15:40So i don't i don't even know that that needed to be said so much as look,
- 1:15:45treat everybody with a base level respect and do not manipulate people do not manipulate people,
- 1:15:51all right so what i'm encouraging you there is do reach out to people do try
- 1:15:56to build a network of likely and unlikely candidates likely and unlikely people
- 1:16:02that you may or may not i got I got a good story.
- 1:16:05I was on a podcast with a guy, Mike Kurchina, and he told a story on that podcast.
- 1:16:12And this was one of his podcasts that a guy was standing in line at like a coffee
- 1:16:17shop and he had ordered, Mike had ordered his coffee and he was waiting.
- 1:16:20And this guy was all tattooed up and, and, you know, look like a,
- 1:16:25you know, whatever punk, punk rock type dude.
- 1:16:30But Mike was like, man, this is a curious looking guy.
- 1:16:34He approached him. He was like, hey, brother, my name's, what's your,
- 1:16:38what do you do? What's your situation?
- 1:16:40And this guy ended up being a very.
- 1:16:45Very unlikely, he didn't look the part, right?
- 1:16:47And it turned out to work out, right? And I'm pretty sure Mike either podcast,
- 1:16:53did a podcast with this guy, interviewing him. Yeah.
- 1:16:56Because he was in an unlikely profession. And I want to say it was to do with,
- 1:16:59you know, high tech sort of, defense industry type tech.
- 1:17:04And I know some of you think that's gross. I think it's pretty gross,
- 1:17:08but the guy was an interesting guy and he had some very interesting things to talk about.
- 1:17:15So yeah, you might crash and burn. Somebody might tell you to get bent.
- 1:17:19Yeah. You might crash and burn. Somebody might tell you to get bent.
- 1:17:22You might be out there trying to have an honest conversation with the masses
- 1:17:25and somebody shoot you in the frigging net.
- 1:17:28Yeah, you might be trying to have an honest conversation and some irrational
- 1:17:33factions may look at that in a completely distorted way.
- 1:17:41Isn't it? All right, good people.
- 1:17:45Moving on. I hate to go dark. I often do. I'm still optimistic. I promise you I am.
- 1:17:51Sometimes I just slide dark a little bit.
- 1:17:55So in order to defeat these constraints, in order to overcome these obstacles, whatever they are,
- 1:18:04it is of the utmost importance, folks, that you have to be honest with yourself
- 1:18:08and you have to be true to yourself you have to know and acknowledge your limits,
- 1:18:16and don't and don't have a pity party because of
- 1:18:19them just acknowledge that like yes this is where i'm this is where i'm weak
- 1:18:24this is where i'm strong whatever acknowledge your as you are and then from
- 1:18:33there make a way forward if you lie to yourself you're building,
- 1:18:39you're building a foundation on sand so be honest with yourself that's very important.
- 1:18:46Refuse to to participate in this perception is reality this fake reality be
- 1:18:57rational use objective truth and objective facts to get to where you're going.
- 1:19:05There is no my truth. I've said it. I'll continue to say it. There is no my truth.
- 1:19:10And if you try to build on my truth and some perception is reality,
- 1:19:16this is my perception, so this is what exists, you will then,
- 1:19:21once again, you're building on a foundation on sand, folks.
- 1:19:26Objectively analyze what resources you do have.
- 1:19:31Yep. And objectively analyze reality as it is, the objective reality.
- 1:19:38Not from your necessarily point of view.
- 1:19:42You're going to see it from your point of view without a doubt,
- 1:19:44but you need to be able to step out of yourself and see it from reality.
- 1:19:48And you need to be able step out of yourself again and see it from the opposition
- 1:19:52point of view yeah be honest with yourself don't don't buy into any of this
- 1:20:00fake reality that's that's so that's pervasive out there you know.
- 1:20:07To quick, you know, if something's too good to be true, it probably is.
- 1:20:13So don't, don't compromise your, your values and yourself over some quick win,
- 1:20:20some easy win that ultimately isn't a win at all.
- 1:20:24That, that honesty that with yourself, right, that honesty with yourself will,
- 1:20:32will keep you in a constant state of.
- 1:20:36Okay, here's what I can do, here's what I'm going to do, and then I'm going to reflect on it, right?
- 1:20:40You may grow. Throughout a process, you may grow. I've grown throughout this
- 1:20:44whole process of the range development, et cetera.
- 1:20:48I have grown a lot, exponentially. It's insane.
- 1:20:53So be true to yourself so that you can honestly analyze what you've done right,
- 1:20:59what you've done wrong, and then adjust as needed.
- 1:21:05Yeah, adjust as needed, and then continue on with some genuine faith in your
- 1:21:12God and in yourself, and then purpose.
- 1:21:16Yeah, and then drive on. Any dishonesty with yourself is going to cause this
- 1:21:23internal sort of doubt, this self-doubt, And then this negative self-talk.
- 1:21:31And then when you're laying in bed at night, you're going to be poo-pooing on
- 1:21:33yourself. And you're going to be thinking, man, am I?
- 1:21:37I refer back to the imposter syndrome. I wrote a blog on imposter syndrome.
- 1:21:42And you're thinking, man, I'm not good enough to do this. Who am I kidding?
- 1:21:48All right, that's what that negative, that's what not being honest with yourself
- 1:21:51does. And then it builds up this negative self-image and erodes your trust in yourself, right?
- 1:22:02Because being true to yourself means you're going after what makes you feel
- 1:22:08good and feel right and feel happy.
- 1:22:12And whatever your measure of success is, you know, some people it's money, strictly.
- 1:22:19Some people it's getting married to a pretty lady and having a bunch of babies.
- 1:22:24For some people it's having a cool ass motorcycle.
- 1:22:28There's lots of levels to that, but, you know, So be honest with yourself and
- 1:22:34then be honest with yourself and keep the self-talk positive, right?
- 1:22:41Keep the self-talk, the internal, keep that positive.
- 1:22:46And then be honest with everyone else as well.
- 1:22:49Do not accept anything under coercion or manipulation because it'll go away.
- 1:22:56Anything you gain from coercion or manipulation is going to go away.
- 1:23:02I promise it. I promise it.
- 1:23:04And some people may see that complete honesty as a constraint.
- 1:23:08Well, I'm telling you to embrace the constraints, right?
- 1:23:13Embrace them and use them as a guide. That's what I'm telling you.
- 1:23:19And you can take that for what it's worth.
- 1:23:21I said earlier that I do not use strategic omissions or lies.
- 1:23:29I don't mislead anybody on what I got going on at all.
- 1:23:33Never, ever. I don't mislead people on what my capabilities are,
- 1:23:38on what my intentions are, or anything like that.
- 1:23:44Dishonesty in business is contradictory to any libertarian or Christian ethic whatsoever.
- 1:23:52Yeah. So you may not be a libertarian and you may not be a Christian.
- 1:23:57Well, guess what? Dishonesty is still wrong.
- 1:24:02I know progressive left dishonesty is a tactic.
- 1:24:07Don't use that tactic. In communism, dishonesty is a tactic. don't use it.
- 1:24:15Have a strong ethics system. If you don't have it, look it up.
- 1:24:19Go to the internet. Look up ethics.
- 1:24:22Follow them. Yep.
- 1:24:25To almost through the lens of almost everything I do, I sort of use my Christian
- 1:24:33values, my loose Christian values, right?
- 1:24:36I don't think I'm a selfish guy at all, and that's a very Christian thing.
- 1:24:41But then the virtue of selfishness that Ayn Rand shares with all of us,
- 1:24:46that's, I believe, to be two completely different, it's the same word exactly,
- 1:24:53And if you look up the definition, it's going to mean the same thing.
- 1:24:57But rational selfishness is how you get better as an individual.
- 1:25:03But then selflessness as a Christian is how you help other people get better.
- 1:25:10If you're selfish as a Christian, you're not helping yourself or anyone else get better.
- 1:25:15And if you're selfless as an objectivist Ayn Rand follower,
- 1:25:23well, you can be selfish in your own endeavors and to be selfless as a Christian
- 1:25:31and still accomplish both of the same goals.
- 1:25:35I've said that a million times. Those two philosophies are not contradictory, folks.
- 1:25:41Rational self-interest benefits everybody who comes in contact with you.
- 1:25:46Rational self-interest in business. Everybody does that already in business.
- 1:25:52If you're an honest business, how can I help you and how can you help me?
- 1:25:58Well, you know, in retail business, it's you give me money and I give you a product.
- 1:26:04Well, in the free market, if that product's shitty, people will stop buying it.
- 1:26:09And you either got to step up your game and make better quality or you go out
- 1:26:13of business. So there's rational self-interest there.
- 1:26:16It's in my interest to make a better product.
- 1:26:20It's in my interest to be a better instructor. Yeah.
- 1:26:26To be as good of an instructor as I possibly can.
- 1:26:30Because I believe when I display a certain level of skill and articulate concepts in a certain way,
- 1:26:39well, what I believe is that makes the customer feel like they're getting quality
- 1:26:44for what they've paid for. Yeah.
- 1:26:47So it's in my interest, my rational self-interest, to be better at everything I do in this business.
- 1:26:56And then by virtue of being a Christian and being selfless, you know,
- 1:27:01I do the free everyday carry course once in a while.
- 1:27:03Sometimes I'll volunteer my efforts to someone, a church or something.
- 1:27:09Or sometimes I'll go speak like a school or something like that.
- 1:27:15Yeah. To try to, you know, maybe spread a little, hopefully knowledge a little bit.
- 1:27:21Yeah. Now, so in these endeavors, you know, reflect on self-reflection.
- 1:27:27You know what I mean? Sit around and think about what am I doing? Could I do it better?
- 1:27:33Things like that. Think about the things that are the roadblocks and the constraints
- 1:27:37in your endeavors. And think about, okay, how is it?
- 1:27:41Is it a malicious constraint? Is there some way to defeat the constraint completely?
- 1:27:46Or do I have to go around it?
- 1:27:47Do I have to figure another way to get around it? You know, think about that.
- 1:27:52Consider what is your objective reality? Not just how you feel, but objectively.
- 1:27:57And then think to yourself, this is my reality.
- 1:28:01And in my reality, how do I create value for everybody who interacts with me? Yeah. Yep.
- 1:28:09Constraints can spark genius.
- 1:28:14They can force your hand to where you execute at your highest level ever or
- 1:28:23where you've created the most brilliant work of art that you've ever created
- 1:28:27because you were pushed into a corner.
- 1:28:32Yeah that can happen when you're
- 1:28:36when you have a realistic a sort
- 1:28:39of realistic optimism yeah and when you're sensitive to your purpose on this
- 1:28:45earth and when you make these when you when you build this strategic network
- 1:28:52and when you're honest with yourself and other people Yeah. Yep.
- 1:29:00Constraints can be the impetus for greatness if you have all those things.
- 1:29:06So consider these values I talked about.
- 1:29:10Consider these libertarian ideals. Even if you don't vote libertarian,
- 1:29:14that doesn't mean you can't appreciate libertarian ideals. Yeah.
- 1:29:21I wish you would, but you don't have to. You can still appreciate libertarian ideals.
- 1:29:27And you can still be sensitive to what your purpose on this planet is.
- 1:29:32So that's what I'm leaving you with, good people.
- 1:29:35Embrace libertarian ideals and characteristics.
- 1:29:40And treat other people in that perspective, regardless of who you vote for.
- 1:29:47And then be sensitive to what you were put on this planet to do.
- 1:29:52Everybody has a purpose on this planet.
- 1:29:54And if you believe that God puts you on this planet for a reason,
- 1:29:58no, that's what I believe.
- 1:29:59If you believe that you emerged from a single cell organism and that your purpose
- 1:30:06is self-driven, okay, whatever, drive on with that.
- 1:30:10Be sensitive to whatever you think your purpose is, I guess.
- 1:30:16Uh be sensitive to purpose yeah that's
- 1:30:21where it's at folks that's what i've that's what i've wanted to talk
- 1:30:24about this evening and i appreciate you guys listening okay again
- 1:30:28october is full of shooting matches please check them out on ospreyshooting
- 1:30:34solutions.com november december we have land navigation courses on to teamguys.com
- 1:30:41and if you need to get caught up on the podcast,
- 1:30:45we are on all the platforms,
- 1:30:49Apple and Spotify and iHeartRadio and all the other obscure ones.
- 1:30:56Podbean, we're on there. We're on all those.
- 1:31:00And please, if you're not on those, then just go to thejuntopodcast.com.
- 1:31:06And there you can listen to the newest, the three latest episodes,
- 1:31:11and then you can read all the blogs as well.
- 1:31:15Please, folks, please do it. And in so doing, you know, put some thought into
- 1:31:21them and then give me some feedback.
- 1:31:23I'm sure there's plenty of you out there who disagree with much of what I say.
- 1:31:27I'm happy to hear it. I may not entertain you. I may. I don't know.
- 1:31:32But I feel like this, if not helps someone get some perspective,
- 1:31:39well that's what I hope it does anyway folks is
- 1:31:42I hope that I'm helping you sort of get some perspective on things whatever
- 1:31:50the topic of the day is so anyway good people I appreciate you thanks very much
- 1:31:56for listening treat each other well yeah have good manners folks treat each other.
- 1:32:03Music.