Latest / The Vincere Project / Episode 21. Travel Is For The Mind
Transcript
- Vince: All right. The Vince Year project. We're back at it. Coming off a little break, a little vacation for the Mary. Vince's number one. And you know, take a little trip trip, a little break, check in, take a time out. I think it's so important. I think a lot of our friends and family that travel would say that. And even if people don't travel, I think they appreciate the idea of it. Some people don't like to travel. I understand that too. I don't identify with it. I kind of struggle to reconcile that. I'm all about the adventure. Go in all sorts of places, you know, and I think about my global experience. The only two times I've really thought, like I was definitely, definitely, definitely 100% not safe, were there were a handful of times in Kensington, Philadelphia when I was using drugs. Because I was involved with people and things and the circumstances of and the amounts of money were enough, you know, for for for bad stuff to happen. Like the minute you cross a threshold in the street, especially when you're in the trenches, you do enter a place where like the legit fear of Severe physical violence is a hundred percent real. And you have to be willing to be complicit in that andor pospose the threat of and be willing to follow through on that. So yeah, Kensington, Philadelphia using drugs. There's other cities I'm sure people have out there they can point to. Whatever, that was my experience. But Kensington, Philadelphia very, very much a dangerous place if you're there doing the wrong things. Alternatively, if you're not, I would bet you just stay the course, go where you're going, do what you're doing. I would bet nobody messes with you. You're gonna roam into it at some point, but I bet there's ways to avoid it. Not e an easy task. And then Bamako Molly rolling around with a master sergeant from 110 special forces, right? 10 Special Forces Group, just him and I doing civil reconnaissance cruising through Bamako Mali and the SUV. We end up in a market down in the middle of Bamako, right? And we're looking at roads and hospitals and all that stuff. And next thing you know, we're looking at the market, we get out, we're walking around to You see all the Al Qaeda propaganda up on the walls and t shirts and literature and the books and things like that. It's a little unsettling. Death to America kind of stuff, right? So we're kind of looking like NGOs, but not really. It's not Loviz work, right? I'm not James Bond. That would be misleading. But we're out there, right? We're just in civilian attire, kind of mixing in and doing our thing. And the call to prayer goes out. And mind you, in 2004 the year before I was in Iraq and Samarra, we were in some significant combat. Like I was definitely involved in some. significant significant OIF two combat in Samar in the middle of Soladin province, right? That's part of it, right? Not quite a crusade, but it was nice to to just do some reminding for Saladin's descent descendants, kind of what it is. Anyway, that's my stuff. So anyway, yeah, Bomakomali, but yeah the Calderpur goes out and then they're the monster that's emptying, right? And you know, look, they're they're coming out in their mandresses and all that stuff. And the reality is is like there's a lot of them, right? And it's just me and this dude. You could tell you know, he's more experienced. If I look over at glance, you can tell he has a heightened sense right away. So it's just measuring and knowing your environment, you're like, hey, we gotta get the we gotta get out of here. We have to go. And yeah, we can see the mom go air even in Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean, look, look, I don't think I necessarily go back to Kunar province solo on a mission like these idiots do on social media or they act like it's all cool beans. I just don't think I would do that. I'm gonna take my family there necessarily. But there's parts of Iraq I think I might revisit. Do you think that? I I I don't getting there might be a huge pain in the neck, but I I do think there's onesie twosie spots. I also think there's parts of Afghanistan but you could go to near Kabul and stuff that at this point. You know, if if you're there just doing the right thing, they're gonna follow you around and watch you. And if you step out of line, they're gonna throw you in the into the YouTubes. Cut your head off, right? It's just a different world and you gotta know how to to operate in that space. But travel, right? The importance of it, breaking the patterns, the habits, and Hollywood, Florida for us, man. It's a good measurement of the last. We've gone there four times in the last decade and kind of looking around and assessing and seeing and and how have we changed? What's changed? Could we what could we do better? How we've improved, how we not improved. And you know, my wife and I realized just like, hey, it's it's not a straight line, but I I remember, you know, I remember going down there on a different kind of budget. I remember going down there with some money and not some money, and it's it's a good way to break the pattern too. And here's the fun thing about Hollywood is it nobody speaks English. So yeah, you're you're in a state. Of the United States, but it's the it's Latin America capital of the world, actually, in my opinion. Miami maybe is, but it that's kinda what you get. I mean everybody from from Israelis to Italians, French Canadians, Germans, local yokels, right? All kinds of shades of local yokel. And then every every Latin American country on the face of the earth represents there. And it's beautiful. It's beautiful. I'm not I'm not mad about it. I mean I'm a Ruiz, right? Like I I love that, right? Like it's it's a good look, the diversity. All of this stuff. But we want the actual engineers and doctors. And I think that's what Florida allows. And and you know, Florida's infested with a lot of scammers and manipulators, liar cheats. It's it's like God took the earth and shook it upside down, all the crap went down to to South Florida in some ways too, right? So you have that balance. So fun place to visit. Wouldn't want to raise my kids there. Right? I'm sure people do, and I'm sure it's fine. just not not kind of my speed. I'm more of a suburban kitty at this point. I think that's That's just kind of what Mary and I come to. So not telling everybody what to do or recommend you. It's just I think you have to make the best intentions and and and then decisively act on the best intentions you've made for you, your family, right? That's that's what her end talked about, but and change, right? Because you think about it, Florida wasn't always that, right? 40, 50, 60, 70 years ago, it's evolved quickly, right? And was it look like 40, 50, 60 years? It could be better. It could be a lot better for a window, right? We don't know that. And yeah. But the cultural respect, I think that's the part in the travel, right? It's not like, dude. If you were to listen to social media, it wouldn't be the appropriate application or platform to express yourself or adventure or go see the world. Right? Like Fox would tell you one thing, CNN would tell you the other. And I think that's what Mary and I talk talk about. It's like we go and travel, then we manifest and look, we we calculate, hey, like where else could we go? What else could we do? And you know, she's like, I'd love to go here, there, whatever. And me, I'm like, Yeah, I'd like to go to like Palestine, Israel, that border. Kinda wanna see what's going on in south of Sudan and I'd love to get to Iran. I f I'm obsessed. Like I feel like I feel like I got to Afghanistan and Iraq, which is awesome but I feel like I got cheated because I didn't get Iran. I can tell a lot of Shias, a lot of Iranians at points, but I d I never got to go to Iran. You know, something to that. That's my stuff. I wanna go to Ukraine maybe? I don't know. El Salvador next. I think I'm I'm hoodwinking one of my battles into going to El Salvador and recon. Maybe we'll surf, maybe we won't. I we'll see. Maybe I'll find a a sixth wife. Yeah, whatever. But yeah, I'm I'm reconning. I'm gonna go recon I think El Salvador's on the book, but that's my stuff, man. It's all my stuff. Yeah. Experiential learning, I think that's what travel does though. I mean, once you start seeing the world, it doesn't limit you to a my perspective of your immediate environment. You become more accepting, understanding, and appreciative of cultures. But for yeah, Kensington and Bomacomali out of all the places I've ever been. Yeah, and it's maybe 'cause of what I was doing there. Right? Like those those are high risk endeavors, right? You know, when the in country brief when you go into Africa, they definitely give you a brief of like, hey, here's the rules of the game, what the expectation is. Right? Like you're you're you're definitely on your own for a bit if something happens. and you know, in Philly you're definitely on your own, right? When you're you're struggling with drugs like that. So I I I share those two perspectives as that's where I draw a lot of my empathy from. I know what it's like to be scared and fearful and understanding all those things and I can't say that I really roam the world in that space, but it doesn't mean I'm not aware of any danger that I'm in, right? And I think that's it. You know, high-risk situations, and you have to be willing if you're gonna to play high-risk games. So that transitions to the other phase, right? It's Mary and I going back and forth, like the business stuff, and we're just having fun, man. We're helping people. You know, we're like we're getting to help people and serve in different capacities and overdeliver. And I think it's a beautiful thing. We we feel like we have people that we get to support. And be in the trenches with them, at least hold space for them in a in a like an educational or emotional capacity. And we're building stuff on top of that and and that's the vertical, maybe, which you don't know, right? It's like, you how do you measure that? Man, I I I'm trying to figure it out. If anybody has this has suggestions, I I I'll turn the books over to you. You could tell me how do I equate what's happening on paper into the air, or is it just like people think it's some some form of mysticism? Like, hey, what do they do? Like It's not at all. Right? You know, it's consultation. It's finding a place that's safe and protected and you can process and talk about those things that like, hey, if I'm walking on a street in Europe and I see a gang of Moroccans, hey, I'm I'm heightened. Hey, if I'm walking through Guatemala and I see MS thirteen dudes or something, whatever, like, yeah, I have a heightened sense. If I'm in Rome and I see a a gaggle of gypsies, yeah, I'm I'm heightened, right? So you know, but the Bedwins roam around the Middle East, just the same. It's the same thing. You just Your environment is gonna teach you where you have to be. You know, you have people that will take advantage of you right here in the United States and they exist, right? Some of them will do it in a way you don't even get the payoff of the fear. You sign the the document, the bad interest rate and to terrible terms of agreement or out of desperation. You know, and that's predatory behavior is the same, except the United States has formed a very sophisticated way to do it and stratified it. You know, they it's it's a beautiful thing if you choose to keep playing levels of the game. Right? Like I never have to go into the street again. I never have to Being a robbery situation, dealing drugs, crossing borders, guns, ra you know, right on either side of it, 'cause if you you're out robbing people, you can definitely get robbed. You're involved in that, you become a target. It's gonna come from a place either really close to you or somebody you don't even know. Or it's through somebody close to you and then it's through somebody you don't know. So those are the games, you know, that's that's the darkness. And Iraq, same thing, right? You're working overseas, Afghanistan, you're got a bag of money and you're trying to leverage that money into US foreign policy and get information to hand off to the the people that are gonna snatch whoever or Gather more data and information about the things. Mary and I treat our business the same way, right? It's like it's all operational workflow, informational flow. We'll we'll we're flexible. We'll we'll run a counterinsurgency one day and then flip the switch and turn it over to a Rolling Thunder. And I think we're entering a season of Rolling Thunder here. It's just a matter of what happens with the this AI thing bubble, right? Because here's the thing, man. It's like it might not even be a bubble in terms of a business aspect perspective. Like it could just be something that nobody's ever seen before, right? The assumption is because The experts would tell you is like historical data points would tell us this is what's gonna happen next in the world. I I think it's more observational and behavioral. Like I just talk to people individually and I see what things have changed and how people travel and what that looks like and feels like. And when people are generally doing one thing, you have to consider attacking the other way, even though it's fearful and it could be scary. But I think we're in that weird, weird space where it's gonna be a really target rich opportunity. And I think I think that'll be for almost a decade. It'll stretch out over a long time is because that liquidity has to get dispersed again. Right? It can never be hoarded. So whether however that's impacted, right, and however that flows, that's that's that's the beauty of America. The most wealthy and the rich and the people operate from a place of power reserve the right to be benevolent. And the dynamic part is back to the travel for the mind thing, as Mary and I were talking about that. Is that People assume it's automatically who has the guns and the bombs in those countries. And I would say no, I think it's the people that have the networks and connections that extend to past borders, right? Because if you look at it through a global lens and filter, right, you know, you you you know, if if all the world fell apart, you'd rather show up with a bank account full of Bitcoin if you're in the right country. You know, and it's the doom and gloom proposition. So there's a little bit of war gaming, Mary Vince, how we think about things, but we build long runways for America. American citizens, we could tell people we're gonna keep doing that. Aggressively and finally going to the fall, right? We're going to the fall. We look at us, we're in training camp right now. The workouts get a little harder. You know, Mary came out on our retreat run, our family retreat run in Florida, and I'm out there waiting formation. You know, and sort of drizzle a little bit and she walks out. She doesn't say anything, she just gives me a thumbs up and she goes, Follow me, right? And big arm wave, follow me, and then she takes off sprinting. Like she's warmed up and running. I've been just sitting there finishing my coffee. And then we break into a sprint and start going on our little company run. We do the same thing with our kids. We do with our dog, right? You know, you gotta take lead. And when you're in charge, be in charge, right? Follow me. Yeah, that's what you're setting the standard for your kids. Follow me. Whatever you do, everything you do, lay on the couch, follow me. Go into the gym, do heavy squats, follow me. Investing, follow me. Spending money frivolously, follow me. Manicuring, healthcare. Taking interest, not curiosity in your relationships. The minute I I feel that somebody's curious in my life, they stop getting the show. But to people that are interested, man, I'm an open book. So the podcast is more about curiosity for clients and people to hear about the internal workings, how we do things. And you know, there's a limitation to access, right? Because it's valuable. You know, my clients believe that. I wouldn't overdeliver them. You the price to talk to Vince is the it's a it's a mid-level Yankee ticket at this point, right? So I gotta be as good as it's a kid Lombard's gonna be. That's how I look at it. If not better, because otherwise their attention's gonna go to the Yankees and I gotta give them attention to the things they're working with. You know, do it through thinking, feeling, emotions, behaviors, good modeling, tactics, techniques, and strategies to improve lifespan. That's what we're about. Yeah, but Hollywood Florida, man. Who would have thought? Nice little continuum of time. But yeah, South Florida. If you need to be out of the country, but you don't want to leave the country, go to South Florida. And if you don't want to travel, don't do it. That's good too. All right, we're done. I'll see you all in a week. It'll be good.