Transcript

Next-Gen · A Time to Sharpen

0:09
Is there anything worse than a dull blade?
0:12
Yeah, well, lots of things, I guess.
0:14
Poverty, war, stepping on one of your kids Legos in the middle of
0:19
the night. Ouch.
0:22
Seriously though, a dull blade is bad.
0:25
It's unusable. In fact, it's downright
0:28
dangerous. Knives need sharpening.
0:32
From Whetstone Boys Ranch in Mountain View, MO, comes a Time
0:35
to Sharpen, a bi weekly podcast that examines how we can all be
0:40
better versions of ourselves. Better teachers, better
0:43
counselors, better parents, better people.
0:53
Everyone likes new things. New phones, new systems, new
0:58
news. That's a weird phrase, but you
1:01
know what I mean. The problem is new doesn't
1:03
always mean better. On the other hand, old doesn't
1:06
mean wise either. That's the space we live in at
1:10
Whetstone Boys Ranch. The uneasy balance between
1:13
holding fast to what matters and staying flexible enough to grow.
1:17
Not throwing the baby, or in our case, the boy out with the
1:20
bathwater. Join us this week on A Time to
1:22
Sharpen as we talk about the next generation, what's worth
1:26
keeping, what's worth pruning and how to pass on wisdom
1:29
without turning it into a museum exhibit.
1:47
Welcome back to A Time to Sharpen.
1:49
This is Axel Limata. I'm here with Brandon Maxwell on
1:52
this new year. What's podcast?
1:55
How's it going, Brandon? Yeah, first podcast of the new
1:58
year. Yeah, there you go.
1:59
I'm looking at you through glasses.
2:00
We're both wearing glasses. I finally I had to break down
2:03
and get some man. OK?
2:05
I waited as long as I could. Yeah.
2:07
And I had to do it well. They they, they look good.
2:11
They look. Good.
2:11
Thanks, man. Yeah, appreciate.
2:12
It thank you but they they add how many IQ points to your
2:16
overall vibe. Well, it can only.
2:18
Yeah, it can only help because mine's probably on the lower
2:22
end. So yeah, it just definitely
2:23
boosts the IQ. But it's kind of annoying.
2:26
You're like me, like you have a hard time seeing up close.
2:28
So yeah, I have to keep them down on my nose so I can see in
2:31
front of me, but over the top. I know I.
2:34
Can't look through the glasses? Yeah, that's, I think that's the
2:36
the cue to old man wisdom is you, you reach that milestone
2:43
when you're looking over the top of your glasses.
2:46
It it gives it an extra measure of authority.
2:48
Yep, that's right. Kind of give that glare over the
2:51
top of them. Yeah, my arms finally just were
2:54
not long enough. Yeah, I just, I couldn't go, go,
2:57
go gadget. Arms and keep playing the
2:59
trombone. No, right?
3:01
So yeah, that's it's official. So actually it could be a good
3:07
segue. It is a good segue.
3:08
Talking about, you probably planned that.
3:10
Didn't I did? Well, I didn't.
3:13
I did when I in the moment, when I thought about the glasses, I
3:16
like this, but I didn't sit down before the podcast think about
3:19
it. So it's kind of in the moment.
3:20
So it works natural. It's natural.
3:22
That's what that's what this podcast.
3:24
Is to do we don't have a lot of ton of prep work, a little.
3:27
Yeah. But we just want it to be a
3:29
conversation and let it flow. Right.
3:32
Keep it real, keep it real. Yep, keep it, keep it 100,
3:36
whatever. That's actually a good segue
3:39
into what we're talking about today too, which is like we're
3:41
titling this next Gen. Next Gen.
3:45
That's the title you're going to see on Spotify or Apple or
3:48
wherever you get this podcast. And we thought at the beginning
3:52
of the new year, it would be a good time to talk about what it
3:56
means to prune, what it means to think about change without
4:03
throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
4:05
How do we navigate the differences between old and new?
4:09
Just because something's old doesn't mean it's bad, doesn't
4:11
mean it's good. Same thing with the new.
4:14
And we as it every generation thinks that the previous
4:17
generation is, you know, broken. And we we have all the answers
4:23
and that the once you become the older generation, you look at
4:26
the new generation and think they're all messed up.
4:28
They're all a bunch of OPS. Yeah, right.
4:30
Exactly. So we have to navigate that here
4:34
at the ranch because at this point we have 4 different
4:38
generations. Yeah, there's Gen.
4:40
Gen. X, which is the best one, of
4:43
course, which is us. And then you have the Gen.
4:46
Y, otherwise known as the Millennials, and that's a lot of
4:50
our coworkers. And then we have Gen.
4:53
Z. So at this point, we have a lot
4:55
of younger, younger employees who are Gen.
4:57
Z and and some boys, even some some of the older.
5:01
Boys. So I'd be like our mix, the
5:03
college age kid or people that are working that are in that
5:06
college age. Yeah, yeah, my kids, my kids are
5:09
a little older than your kids. They're they're mostly Gen.
5:11
Z. And then there's Gen.
5:12
Alpha, which most of your kids are going to be in Gen.
5:15
Gen. Alpha Asher.
5:17
Yeah, Gen. A Gen.
5:18
A Asher is kind of in that on that bubble as well.
5:22
But he probably identifies more with the, you know, cooked,
5:26
chopped Sigma. You know all those 6-7, all that
5:31
stuff is like they're. Doomed.
5:33
Yeah, they're. I saw, I saw real.
5:35
It was like Steak and Shake or something and and it was like
5:39
order 67 was going to come on up and there were like hundreds of
5:42
kids waiting for them to say 6-7.
5:45
A lot of restaurants have actually eliminated the number
5:47
from their menus and because kids would congregate for this
5:50
reason and the IT was a countdown and and all the kids
5:54
went wild And when it was 6-7 and the and the caption I
5:57
thought was perfect, it said we really are living in the worst
6:01
time to be alive. Yes.
6:05
That's kind of extreme, but it does capture the feeling that
6:08
that the older generation pretty much always has towards the
6:11
younger generation is like, we're doomed.
6:14
This is it, yes. This is where it all ends.
6:18
But that. One just, yeah, I don't know,
6:22
you can obviously go down the rabbit hole and research the
6:25
whole 6 seven thing and it just is mind boggling how it's gotten
6:32
to where it's got. How it evolved, yeah.
6:34
So Yep. So I thought the the the verse
6:39
that would give us some focus is the Ecclesiastes verse in
6:41
Ecclesiastes about a time for everything to give us some
6:45
perspective on this. There's a time for love, a time
6:47
for time for hate. You know, I don't think it means
6:52
hate in the way that we mean hate, you know, these days.
6:54
But there's a time for peace, a time for war, a time to plant, a
6:57
time to reap or gather what time to to throw seeds?
7:02
Is it a time to gather? And it's a it's a beautiful
7:06
piece of poetry of ancient poetry turned turned into a pop
7:10
song in the 60s by the birds. Time to heal.
7:13
Time to heal. And so, you know, wisdom is
7:17
about knowing what time it is. It's when to when to conserve,
7:23
when to preserve, when to hold on to that which is working.
7:26
In our case, that would be like holding on to our mission.
7:29
And we're going to change our mission to sharpen the character
7:31
of young men. But we might, we might change
7:33
some of our methods and we're having to go through a lot of
7:36
that right now as we expand. And we got growing pains and you
7:39
got lots of different people with different ideas about how
7:42
to do things. And it's not like one way is
7:46
always better than the other, but you have to pick 1.
7:49
And so the people who are in charge of picking the one thing
7:51
that we're going to do can get some pushback from the people
7:55
whose thing doesn't get picked. Or we can have the problem of
7:59
like picking the thing but not communicating to people what The
8:02
thing is in our busyness, in our, in our, you know, daily
8:07
living. Yeah.
8:08
And you like any organization or tradition, you can get stuck in
8:14
the thinking of just, this is the way it's always been, you
8:18
know, or this is the way that we've always done it, and you
8:21
just get stuck in that, you know, you just get used to doing
8:24
it that way. And it's like, well, you know
8:25
what, there's a lot more efficient way to do it because
8:29
of this or that or these days it's technology, it's AI, you
8:33
know, I mean, it's everywhere. And so I think there's a good
8:36
mix between and the way that, you know, I think God designed
8:40
it with the younger generation and the energy and, and some
8:44
fresh ideas, albeit some, some crazy ones.
8:47
You got to have the, the wisdom to kind of hone some of those
8:52
ideas and, and make them a reality or make them practical.
8:55
But you also from the older generation, you got to be able
8:59
to open, open your mind a little bit and be like, you know what,
9:03
I we've done it this way, but there's a more efficient way.
9:06
And I'm going to have to be a little bit flexible myself.
9:10
So there's a good ham and egg or a yeah, ham and egg as they call
9:15
it in golf. You know, they just have, they
9:16
go together well. So like when you're playing a
9:19
scramble, you got a guy that's driving really well and the guy
9:21
that's putting you're ham and eggging it well.
9:24
But that's kind of the the idea of the relationship, the old man
9:27
or the next generation, older generation, younger generation
9:31
trying to work together, that's kind of the goal.
9:33
Is the ham and egg image meant to go along with the scramble
9:36
image as well? Yeah, cuz you're scrambling.
9:39
It's like, so yeah, that's kind of that's cool A.
9:41
Goal. Yeah, we don't need to be.
9:43
The word that popped into my head is recalcitrant.
9:45
Recalcit, of course that's. Yeah, that was right on the tip
9:48
of my. Phone that's on the tip that
9:49
recalcitrant yes so just stuck in our ways you know not moving.
9:55
It reminded me of the the one of your favorite quotes from the
9:57
Batman movie. What?
9:59
What does he say when he doesn't want to change?
10:01
I don't want to do that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
10:07
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Usually.
10:13
Watch that. At least once, you know, I've, I
10:15
just talked to Will about that. I was like, it's about time to
10:18
get some, some more Lego Batman in.
10:21
Yeah. All right, so, so many different
10:25
things to talk about here. You know, when we when we first
10:30
conceived this idea to the about doing a podcast, we talked about
10:33
like talking about grandparents and you know, we've had Mr.
10:37
Tucker, Gary Tucker on here, a current board member, Papa Tuck
10:42
and worked here for two years. We've had his sons on the
10:47
podcast and and son, I think we had one just with Dylan, right?
10:52
We talked about running the running program.
10:55
And so the idea of the role of the grandparent was what we kind
11:00
of knocked around first, like how we often times interact with
11:05
grandparents because they are a financial support a lot of
11:09
times, sometimes they are the caretakers, they have custody,
11:16
right? The guardians.
11:17
Sometimes from the from the negative side, we're dealing
11:20
with the trauma that's been handed down by grandparents.
11:23
So grandparents, you know, had a really, I don't know, they
11:29
struggle with addiction or maybe they had PTSD, you know, and
11:34
they did the best they could, or maybe they didn't, maybe they're
11:37
abusive, right? And so that next generation,
11:41
next Gen. topic, but like started to overcome those
11:45
problems and started to get it together, but carried on the
11:49
trauma that was passed to them. And then it can sometimes like
11:52
rear its ugly head with, with the generation after them.
11:55
And you can be like, you get blindsided by it.
11:57
Then it was like what, what happened?
11:59
Like I thought we did everything right.
12:01
I tried to correct all the mistakes that my my parents
12:04
make, but we, we really can't help but pass down some of that
12:09
stuff. The Bible says that the
12:10
blessings and curses like the generation, it passed down from
12:13
generation to generation to generation.
12:15
And so that's just the way things God is, the way God has
12:19
designed it. Yeah, yeah, it's, I don't know
12:25
if we all have our our stories of just our parents.
12:29
Like you said, you want to be, you want to take the things that
12:31
you don't like about the way you were raised and change those
12:35
and, and be better. And sometimes in our effort to,
12:40
to want to be better, we end up kind of getting back into, you
12:45
know, making a mistake for our kids.
12:47
I guess one example I'm thinking of is just like you always hear
12:50
parents like we never had anything growing up, you know,
12:53
and we were so dirt poor and I just want my kids to have things
13:00
that I didn't, I wasn't able to have.
13:02
And that's a natural response. That's not, we want our kids to
13:05
have nice things. But like the, the backside of
13:07
that is like you're entitling your kids.
13:10
A lot of times you see them having all, we just flood our
13:13
kids with stuff and they don't have to work for anything.
13:17
There's no struggle. And so I think we lose, even
13:21
though our intentions are good, we lose the sight that that old
13:25
man wisdom that you know, what struggle is, is OK Struggle is
13:28
good from the standpoint of it. It creates who we are, our
13:31
character and and we don't want to take that away.
13:34
Yeah, we had a podcast called Helicopters and Snow Plows where
13:37
we talked about that for, you know, a good 30-40 minutes.
13:42
And so, yeah, that's so true that we have a tendency to
13:45
overcompensate. It's a natural kind of
13:48
psychological phenomena that happens.
13:50
Phenomena. Phenomenon.
13:52
Yeah, phenomena. Phenomena.
13:56
Phenomena is the plural. Phenomenon is a singular.
14:01
Yeah, a phenomenon. Yeah, I think phenomena is the
14:05
plural. Yeah, I like that
14:06
overcompensation. That's I think that's what we do
14:10
a lot. And, and what we're talking
14:11
about today is just trying to keep things in balance of taking
14:16
the good from both sides, taking the good from the older
14:18
generation and taking the good from the younger generation.
14:24
And you did a Chapel this morning, glass half empty, glass
14:27
half full. We did our, our gratitudes.
14:30
And so it's being able to look at the glass half full in both
14:34
generations and be able to take the good from all that, right
14:41
and learn and grow. Yeah, The the other word that
14:43
pops up is overcorrection. Like Ken Baxter, you know, Ken
14:49
and Lee from Lexington, KY at Southside Church and he, he gave
14:57
driving lessons. It was 1.
14:59
I don't think he was like a formal driver, driving
15:02
instructor, but he was in a bad accident.
15:04
I don't know if you know this, but in the like early 90s, maybe
15:09
late 80s. Yeah.
15:10
Well, there's a whole family was in the accident and nearly
15:12
fatal, but yeah. And the person that caused the
15:16
accident was a younger driver who had gotten off the road just
15:21
a little bit that that front right tire and just
15:25
overcorrected and just and was head on collision.
15:30
Happens a lot around. Here.
15:31
Yeah, yeah. And so he, he made a point of, I
15:35
remember if my kids weren't of the driving age when we lived
15:37
there, but he would take teenagers, he'd say, all right,
15:39
we're going to go out for a drive.
15:41
And I want you to intention, you know, get up to 30 miles an
15:44
hour. Let's do it safely.
15:45
Of course, we're not going to be exposed to oncoming traffic and.
15:49
And pull off the side of the road and see how it feels.
15:51
Yeah, like expose yourself to that, that come that impulse, so
15:56
that compulsion that you have to overcorrect so that when you
15:58
because it inevitably it will happen to you at some point,
16:00
you'll you'll nod off or, or you'll have to move off to the
16:04
right to avoid something and then come back and not, not flip
16:07
the car or whatever. So we have to resist that
16:11
temptation in our personal lives to overcorrect for the mistakes
16:14
that that we've made or that the mistakes of the previous
16:18
generation as well. So, yeah.
16:21
All right, so let's maybe start with some of the the
16:25
grandparents stuff. Some of you, you brought in some
16:27
Patrick McManus stuff. Oh, yeah.
16:29
I thought some some old man observations.
16:32
And since we began with some of the old man jokes with our
16:34
glasses and everything, why don't you read us?
16:37
If you're not familiar with Patrick McManus, he's a he's a
16:40
humorist. Is he still alive?
16:43
I believe so. I'm not 100% on that, but I I
16:46
believe he's still alive and humorist.
16:50
You know, he does a lot of this stuff is just hilarious.
16:53
Yeah. You know, outdoor writer.
16:55
Outdoor writer kind of a a Mark Twain Will Rogers homespun kind
17:01
of wisdom funny stories I. Think he used to write for
17:04
outdoor magazine, Outdoor Life. Yeah, it's kind of the Backpage
17:08
there, but yeah, I think it's never.
17:11
I think his book Never look a gift, fish in the mouth or
17:16
something like that. So he's always got some quirky
17:20
book titles. They never shoot canoes, do
17:24
they? That's another one.
17:26
But anyway, one of the titles of of the chapters in that book is
17:30
called How to get an Old Man. And so he just has a lot of his
17:35
writings just talk about, you know, either his grandsons or
17:39
just like the neighbor kid or just the that generational feel
17:45
of just an old man in the, in the outdoor settings.
17:48
And so a lot of his writings about that.
17:49
And so I'll just read a few of the kind of the the themes of
17:53
that chapter. How to get an old man?
17:55
How to Get an Old Man is is what it is titled and so I'll just
18:00
read a few of those. I want to talk about old men as
18:04
natural resources. Old men are treated like a rare
18:06
wildlife. They're valuable, elusive, and
18:09
best approach with patience, bait, and low expectations.
18:15
Inverted wisdom. The old man may not actually
18:17
know much, but he sounds authoritative, which is often
18:21
more important than being right. Mentorship by osmosis.
18:27
Learning doesn't happen through instruction, it happens by
18:30
hanging around quietly while the old man mutters, ignores you,
18:33
and does things the way they've always been done.
18:37
I'll read a couple more. Grumpy affection, insults,
18:41
complaints, and apparent indifference are actually signs
18:45
of acceptance. Warmth would be suspicious.
18:51
Let's see one more. Let's see do patience as
18:54
currency. The more time you invest without
18:57
demanding results, the more likely the old man will
19:00
eventually acknowledge your existence.
19:03
Yeah. So there's there's some others
19:05
there, but you kind of get the gist, right.
19:08
Just taking the good with the bad.
19:11
But the the old men are set in their ways, but they've they've
19:15
been through some stuff. You know, he talked about he
19:17
uses a lot of the outdoor settings where it's just like
19:20
they've battled the weather, they've battled the the elements
19:23
and and their metal has been tested and there's value in all
19:27
of that, that we don't tap into a lot.
19:30
You know, a lot of times we we see the outward appearance of
19:34
old and slow and grumpy and we kind of dismiss the wise and
19:40
patient and and understanding part of it.
19:43
Yeah, so. Yeah, I I thought about
19:47
something we've repeated often, which is more is caught than
19:50
taught. So it's just the it's the
19:52
presence, it's the being around. It's the not you can't rush, you
19:56
know, we learned that here with the boys.
19:58
You can't rush change. You can't rush transformation.
20:02
You know, you're not going to get a a new boy in 30 days, you
20:06
know, or your money back. This is.
20:08
Not that kind of. That was the, the, the, the,
20:11
the, gosh, I just drew a blank on the, what's his name, the
20:15
Todd Wilson. Yeah, yeah.
20:18
The what? The family man.
20:20
Oh yeah, he talked about the book How to Have a New Kid by
20:22
Friday. Yeah.
20:23
He's like, I don't want it in 30 days.
20:25
I don't want the the book that says how to have a new kid by
20:27
Yeah. I like how he says too.
20:28
He's like, OK, well his wife gave it to him like on Monday.
20:32
He's like, well why don't, why don't I just start reading on
20:34
Thursday? I mean, why should I even start
20:37
reading on Monday? I just want Max efficiency,
20:42
yeah. It's hilarious.
20:43
So yeah, all men have been around.
20:45
They, they know that they know these things and they apply them
20:50
just naturally without even thinking.
20:52
So I know Jeremy and I and, and you to some extent have been
20:55
able to hang around my dad and work with him on the truck and
20:59
to see how he does stuff. And we always walk away with a
21:03
couple one liners or a couple funny stories that that stick
21:06
with us and that we kind of come back to and joke about.
21:10
And, and there is a an element of like good humor and ribbing.
21:15
Like McManus is obviously kind of saying that some of that
21:18
stuff tongue in cheek, you know, warmth is to be suspect.
21:24
Suspicious like. I know what I know what he's
21:27
saying, but he's saying it kind of tongue in cheek.
21:29
And so, yeah. And, and that, that idea,
21:34
especially working with, with young men, that, and we did a
21:38
whole podcast on this as well about sarcasm like that, that
21:44
harshness that's necessary. Iron sharpens iron to, to bring
21:49
about the, the usefulness or the sharp edge.
21:52
I mean, you can't do it with a cotton ball.
21:54
You know, has to be another piece of steel or, you know, a
21:58
whetstone to do that. But it doesn't need to be, you
22:02
know, a hand grenade doesn't need to be a bench grinder.
22:06
There's an element to which you have to be upfront and, and, and
22:11
blunt with, with speaking the truth and confronting behaviors.
22:16
Yeah, yeah, there's got to be, it's got to be a balance there.
22:21
I think another thing that that we both talked about before the
22:25
podcast, how we both live with our or near our in laws, right.
22:29
So we live in to to all intents and for all intents and
22:34
purposes, not intensive purposes, but intense and
22:38
purposes, multi generational homes.
22:42
And that comes with a lot of perks, a lot of benefits, but it
22:47
also comes with some challenges. Sure, because I don't, I don't
22:49
know if you're in laws are this way, but but my mother-in-law,
22:53
she has some opinions about some stuff, right.
22:56
And she doesn't always feel the need to to parse it out, you
23:01
know, Speaking of old men. You know, meddling.
23:04
Well, you know, I wouldn't call it.
23:06
Yeah, you got to choose. I wouldn't use that word because
23:11
I know she's probably listening. To this, yeah.
23:13
I wouldn't say meddling, I would say she has.
23:16
She has concerns that she feels need to be expressed and she
23:21
should feel free to do so at the right time, right.
23:27
And you got to pick your moments.
23:28
And we don't always pick our right moments.
23:30
And we have to do the same thing with her.
23:32
And we make the same mistakes in terms of like communication and
23:36
and you know, you don't want to let stuff bottle up either.
23:39
You got. To you know, I yeah, I
23:40
appreciate that more than the the alternative.
23:43
It's like she is or or grandparents that do that.
23:47
I mean to a degree they're they're at least plugged in.
23:49
They're they're observant and they're present.
23:54
They see what's going on as opposed to just checked out and
23:57
not really, you know, presumably not caring about certain
24:03
situations or just wanting to make a difference, want to be
24:07
proactive, wanted to be intentional, right.
24:09
So sometimes they overstep their their bounds with some of those
24:13
ideas or whatever, but at least they're, they're plugged in, you
24:16
know? So I'd rather it be that way
24:18
than the other way. Or just let everything shove
24:22
under the rug and never right say anything about something and
24:26
yeah and things. And vice versa, you would
24:28
sometimes have to create boundaries and say, I understand
24:31
that's the way it was done back then, right?
24:33
Yeah, it works. Both ways.
24:34
Yeah. And maybe you don't have the
24:36
full context understanding what's everything that is
24:39
happening here. And so, yeah, it definitely
24:41
works both ways. Yep, All right, so so next Gen.
24:47
works in relation to like our families, in relation to the the
24:52
social dynamics here at the ranch.
24:54
Like I wanted to talk a little bit about that in terms of the
24:56
generational qualities. Like I just made a a little list
25:01
here and I would we need to have some counselors and therapists
25:04
on the podcast. I mean, we've we we never have
25:09
never had foster on. We'd like need to have them on
25:11
at some point. We have two new counselors,
25:14
which we'll have on. Yeah.
25:16
Katie was invited multiple times, but didn't, didn't want
25:18
to, didn't want to be on on the podcast or it was busy or
25:22
whatever. It just didn't work out.
25:24
Kurt, I don't think we ever had him on right.
25:29
I don't think so, no. OK, I was thinking maybe we
25:31
should. So we should, yeah, it's not for
25:34
lack of trying. I feel like we have tried, but
25:37
we need to be more intentional. I I think definitely Aaron's
25:40
going to want to be on and Zach, I mean, they both got the gift
25:43
of the gab and they'll enjoy getting on and and talking about
25:45
it. But anyways, a good thing to
25:48
bring up during that discussion will be family dynamics and, and
25:52
the, the generational conflicts and sibling rivalries and
25:57
generational trauma like we've been talking about.
25:59
But like, like generational differences are a thing.
26:03
So I'll just read these off here.
26:05
Gen. X.
26:06
See if this describes you Brandon, and be honest, this is
26:10
for posterity. OK, Skeptical independent duct
26:15
tape resilience. Yeah, yeah, I would say so.
26:22
Yeah, Gen. Xers, I think that that pretty
26:24
much if we were to pick three things.
26:26
Duct tape resilience. Duct tape, resilience, it's just
26:28
going to make it happen, Make it work.
26:29
Yeah, I just got to figure it out.
26:31
Yeah. That's a big part of our
26:32
generation. Some of that's because of the
26:33
skepticism. We're not willing to take other
26:35
people's advice. We got to, yeah, got to reinvent
26:38
the wheel, sometimes stupidly and make our own mistakes.
26:41
But you know, we're not afraid to try.
26:43
Yeah, we're not afraid to, to mess it up.
26:45
Millennials are purpose driven. You know, they want, they care
26:49
more about the why. You know, our generation was
26:52
like, it doesn't matter why there is no why.
26:55
It's all meaningless. You know, we just got to do
26:57
something. Do or do not.
26:58
There is no. Why?
26:59
Let's just do some crazy stuff, extreme sports and everything.
27:03
Yeah. And there's purpose in just
27:04
doing that, even though it's like dumb.
27:08
But millennials, they want purpose.
27:10
They get burned out. They get overwhelmed by their
27:13
emotions sometimes and and shut down have a tendency.
27:16
And they're meaning, meaning hungry.
27:18
Some of that's because their parents did not instill meaning
27:20
in them. Their parents were just like,
27:21
yeah, do whatever you want, Just figure it out.
27:24
That's what I did. Yeah.
27:25
Worked out great for me. Not.
27:27
But you know, right. That's what our kids, that's
27:29
what our kids kind of got from us sometimes.
27:32
Gen. Z irony fluent.
27:36
That's a good one. Iron what?
27:37
They're very ironic. They speak in iron.
27:40
Yeah, they speak in sarcasm. Other justice oriented, you
27:44
know, social justice, all that stuff using the right terms, the
27:48
right jargon, you know, not offending anyone cancel culture
27:53
that kind of thing is is more prevalent in in their group.
27:56
They don't see anything wrong with that like, yeah you know
27:59
they, they're they're not doing right to cancel them.
28:03
We're a little more comfortable with the conflict and allergic
28:06
to hypocrisy. They're allergic to hypocrisy.
28:10
So they they don't like it when they see it in other people and
28:13
they they try not to be that way themselves, but probably don't
28:16
like it being pointed out in them either.
28:18
They might react rather strongly.
28:21
And then Gen. alpha still loading raised by algorithms.
28:26
So we're going to see, we're going to see what?
28:30
But it's, you know, I mean. I mean, we've seen.
28:33
September 11th was the, the kind of foundational thing for like
28:37
Gen. Z like, like my like kids who
28:42
grew up in that post 911 world is what I'm saying.
28:46
They have a whole different set of expectations, you know, and,
28:51
and so for like Gen. Alpha, it's going to be like
28:54
living in the world of AI and of phones and an immersive kind of
28:59
like screens and everything that's going to have some kind
29:01
of impact on them, which. Is even with kind of a couple of
29:06
generations, I mean, there's some of that, but just like post
29:08
COVID, like how much stuff even changed across the board for
29:14
that, you know, and I think the generations handle that stuff
29:19
differently. That's going to be a big one,
29:21
too. And I think about, well, I just
29:24
got done reading a book called The Next or the What's it?
29:31
I just had it the the worst. Oh, the worst hard time is what
29:38
it was. Oh yeah, you referenced that
29:40
last time about the dust. Bowl oh did I reference that
29:41
yeah so but you with what we're talking about and you've
29:45
probably talked to you know maybe some older generational
29:50
people or that kind of lived through some of that or were
29:53
affected by that of really how they held on to so many things.
29:58
A lot of people kind of almost were hoarding became hoarders
30:02
because like they just they thought that in any instant it
30:06
was all going to be gone or it could be gone.
30:08
And they just were really wanted to to save and kind of lived in
30:14
that scarcity mindset. It was like I got to hold on to
30:17
this because it could be be gone.
30:19
And so but it just effects, you know, living through those
30:21
certain times and difficulties and struggles and, you know, it
30:26
affects generationally how we do things and that gets carried on
30:31
to our kiddos. It was important to conserve.
30:34
You know, you didn't, you didn't live in a consumer culture.
30:37
You couldn't go out to the store and get it if you lost it or if
30:40
it broke down. I love the phrase around here,
30:43
you know, wear it out, use it up, wear it out.
30:48
Make do or do without. Yeah.
30:50
That's a Ozark culture, yeah, characteristic.
30:53
And I I have, I have vibe with that to to use a, a, a Gen. a
30:58
term. But yeah, in World War 2, like,
31:02
for example, like gun gum wrappers, like you were
31:07
encouraged to not throw away the tin foil in the gum wrapper.
31:10
Oh really? But to save it.
31:12
And they would have like not rallies, but what's the what's
31:16
the word to maybe it's a rally. No, I know what you're talking
31:20
about. To try to get everyone.
31:22
Everybody to bring in. Yeah, all of that just to, you
31:26
know. For recycling and for war
31:30
purposes. Exactly.
31:31
So you think a little gum wrapper?
31:33
Nowadays we just don't even think anything of it.
31:36
But that was an important resource, you know, turning off
31:40
the lights and being real conscious about that.
31:42
And what were the books that you used to get books?
31:47
And you could take a little coupons out of the books to use
31:49
them? Rations.
31:52
I think. There were war rations.
31:54
You could only buy, you know, 2 cans of beans a month, you know,
32:00
and you had to have the ticket to buy whatever it was that was
32:03
scarce, whatever resource needed to be shipped overseas to
32:06
support the troops or whatever. So yeah, I mean, we don't, we
32:09
don't think about that stuff. But that's like ingrained in in
32:13
a generation of people who grow up thinking a certain way and
32:17
being exposed to certain things. And we just minimize that in in
32:22
cultures that are different from our own.
32:24
Yeah. Not just generational, but like
32:26
different countries, different, different experiences,
32:28
everything like that. Like, one way is it's tough for
32:30
us. Like as staff, we're we're
32:32
trying to we're trying to help teach boys who are growing up in
32:37
a world that that we don't, we don't understand, you know what
32:42
I mean? So when they say to us, you
32:44
don't understand, Mr. Liam, but you know, you don't get it.
32:47
And we're like stupid teenager, you don't know which they're
32:50
kind of right, you know? And we do have to accept with
32:54
humility the fact that I'm never going to be able to fully
32:58
understand what it's like to grow up in a world and to not
33:01
have any other frame of reference than than what they
33:03
have. Yeah.
33:04
And so, yeah, just having that humility, I think, and and
33:12
listening to other people and trying to understand where
33:15
they're coming from is just so, so important if you want to make
33:17
a difference. Yeah, I heard that phrase from
33:19
my daughter the other day. Did you almost in regard to?
33:23
Like you don't get it. I'm.
33:26
Trying to remember, I don't know, I was probably talking
33:29
about just just school and just the gravity of it all and
33:35
expectations and time. Time management.
33:39
Yeah, I think it was more around some time management and just
33:44
trying to challenge her to step up our game a little bit.
33:48
Just at the end of the conversation, it was just like,
33:51
you don't understand that. It's just like, yeah, you're
33:54
right. So, yeah, I think it's like we
34:00
we talked about with the just being vulnerable our ourselves
34:03
and admitting that, yeah, there's pressures that our kids
34:07
have that we didn't have, you know, that with with again,
34:11
technology and phones in the digital world.
34:14
But there's still, there's not a whole lot new under the sun as
34:18
well. You know, it's still the same
34:20
principles and there's life is hard and there's ways to handle
34:24
hard things. And those values are universal,
34:30
right, Comes with being able to go head head into it headstrong
34:35
and with the right attitude, the glass half full kind of attitude
34:42
and being just having some grit. You know, I think that's what
34:45
the old man like. Not having the warmth is kind of
34:52
what the old man is teaching is like.
34:54
Boy, you got to have some grit. You know, it's life is tough and
34:58
it's going to bring some pretty oh, it's so I like that Rocky
35:04
quote. You know, when he talks to his
35:05
son, he's like, let me tell you something you don't already
35:09
know. Life will beat you down and
35:11
knock you to your knees, you know, and he's just like,
35:14
basically life's life's going to beat you to your knees and you
35:18
got to be able to have grit. And so that's it with the old
35:22
Niner. And the old cult too, about
35:24
like, life is hard, It's harder if you're stupid.
35:26
There we go. There's an old I mean, he's
35:28
going to tell you to pull out some Freddy quotes.
35:30
So there's give me another couple of.
35:32
Them John Wayne, I think he was maybe attributed with that
35:35
first. He hadn't come up with it, but
35:37
that's who I've I've heard it attributed to.
35:39
But yeah, that's one of my dad's phrases.
35:43
Give me another 2. He's got another one that's a
35:45
shirt that says or that I think my mom will wear sometimes.
35:49
Have you seen it? It's like, I don't know if this
35:52
my parents ever did this, but I've seen this somewhere.
35:53
It's like I'm with stupid and it's got an arrow pointing over
35:56
to stupid and he's got another one with the the scarecrow.
36:00
It's this big, like a big picture of the scarecrow from
36:04
the Wizard of Oz and says if I only had a brain.
36:08
And then oh, there's another one too.
36:09
If no brain, no headache, no. Brain no headache.
36:11
Yeah, yeah. And then there's a if we knew
36:13
what we were doing, we wouldn't be doing this.
36:15
Yeah. We've used that one.
36:16
He's. Just one after the other, the
36:18
the hits keep coming. One of my favorite ones of
36:22
Freddie, which I didn't actually hear him say.
36:24
I think, Nathan, this is second hand from from Dahlstrom.
36:29
It's not really old man wisdom. It's just Freddie funnyisms,
36:32
Freddieisms, Freddieisms. It was like somebody told a
36:37
stupid joke or just that stuff we hear all the time here.
36:40
That's like ridiculous. And it's like, you know what?
36:44
I don't know who's Dumber you for saying that or me for
36:47
listening to it. Yeah.
36:49
Yeah, you got to pull that one out every once in a while for
36:51
sure. For sure just the unexpected.
36:58
Yeah, I, we talked about having Matt on the podcast at some
37:03
point and something that we came up with when he was here was
37:07
this idea of the hard fast flexibles.
37:11
And I think we should just do a whole podcast about hard, fast
37:13
flexibles when, when he's on. But it it, it relates here
37:19
because like you have to be true to your principles.
37:23
You have to be preserve the things that matter, but you also
37:27
have to be flexible enough to adapt your methods to meet the
37:32
needs and the expectations of of a another generation of kids.
37:37
Like there's the old. We went to the Science Museum in
37:40
Saint Louis. Caleb and I did when we were
37:44
visiting Emma and it's free by the way, you should go.
37:47
It's great. They got good stuff there.
37:49
Of course, there's all things you have to you can pay for once
37:51
they get you in. Parking is 1.
37:53
It's like $20 to park there, but you can't park on the street if
37:56
you, if you look around, get lucky and it's in a pretty good
37:58
neighborhood. So anyways, they had, they have
38:01
a whole section where you can like build stuff and learn
38:04
certain principles about physics and engineering and design.
38:07
And one of them is like this. It's like a building that you
38:11
can build and it has a, a vibe thing that vibrates and shakes
38:15
on the bottom to simulate an earth earthquake.
38:17
And, you know, the, the ones that the ones that don't fall
38:22
are the ones that have some flexibility or something built
38:25
into the ground that that has. Yeah, it can't be stiff because
38:28
if it's, you know, bend, don't break, we have that, that, that
38:31
idea. So you have to have that
38:33
flexibility in order to survive the tough times.
38:35
You can't be too rigid. And you know, that's something
38:39
that we talk a lot about on this podcast.
38:41
But the idea of the hard, fast flexible has been useful for me
38:45
to just as a concept, if I come into, if I get into one of these
38:50
power struggles about change or not change, it's like, well,
38:55
it's, it's not change or not, it's both.
38:57
You have to find the place where where both of those things can
39:00
happen simultaneously. So.
39:03
I fear change. Weeds World.
39:08
Weeds. World there.
39:09
We go. We got our movie quote.
39:11
In Yeah right and like culturally, in terms of truth,
39:14
in terms of like theology and apologetics like, you know, we
39:19
don't believe in relativism, you know, but you know the Bible
39:24
allows for a certain amount of flexibility, allows for
39:27
differences in personality. It allows for all kinds of
39:30
things, you know, the Constitution has been so, you
39:34
know, effective because it allows for those, those
39:37
differences and allows for us to modify and to change and to to
39:42
extemporize. Extemporize.
39:45
I think that's a word modify, you know, all these things.
39:52
Yeah, I like that there's, there's flexibility around
39:56
truth. You know, there's universal
39:58
truths, and I think that's something that as a faith-based
40:02
organization. And a strength of our program is
40:07
everything is just, I mean, the thread that runs through
40:09
everything is we strive to just be rooted in the the truth of
40:14
Christ's principles. And that is, you know, you can't
40:19
waver on those things. You know, there's flexibility
40:22
in, you know, and, and maybe how you dispense that to the next
40:27
generation and different nuances like that.
40:30
But the truth is the truth. And whether you choose to buy
40:34
into that or not, it is still is.
40:38
And so I think that's the goal for us as parents, for as
40:42
teachers, as counselors, is being rooted in that truth, but
40:46
flexible enough to be able to, you know, the goal is to try to
40:50
figure out how to motivate like what's going to motivate our
40:52
kids? What's going to motivate the
40:54
students that we have here based on their personalities, based on
40:58
that's where the IT gets tough is knowing all the stuff, the
41:02
traumas or personalities and what's going to speak to this
41:06
kid to get them to to know the truth on their own accord and to
41:11
start making some of their own decisions.
41:13
You can't, you can have the best program in the world or the best
41:18
setup in the world, but if they if they're not going to own it
41:21
themselves and and start making some of their own decisions, I
41:24
mean, nothing's doesn't matter. Yeah, you know.
41:27
So yeah, the image that you know, another image is like a
41:30
fire, like passing the torch from one generation to the next,
41:33
like fire has to be passed from. You can't, you can't freeze fire
41:38
and just hand it to someone and say, Hey, preserve this.
41:41
You know, fire has to be constantly if to tend to it.
41:45
We talked about this Nos podcast about being on having a fire in
41:48
our home and who's in charge of the fire and, and how do you
41:51
build it? And how do you, how do you tend
41:53
it? How do you make sure it stays
41:54
hot enough to provide the heat that's needed?
41:57
You can't just leave it alone. It'll die, but it's, it's, you
42:01
have to constantly adapt. And then the other metaphor,
42:04
which is biblical is, is the idea of pruning.
42:08
Like you have to ask, like the question is not is it?
42:12
Is it old? The question about pruning is
42:14
like, is it alive? Do I want to keep it going?
42:18
And does it need to be tended to to bring it back to its original
42:22
glory? Or if it's dead and sucking life
42:24
from the Organism and it needs to go, you got to cut it off.
42:27
You can't be afraid to do that. And being too nostalgic about
42:30
Oh, I love that branch. It was such a nice.
42:32
Branch, it's always been there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:38
I think that probably covers the gist of.
42:42
The next Gen. the next Gen. you know, I, I didn't, I skipped
42:48
over our introduction. So maybe we'll end end with the
42:51
introduction. I was going to because we got
42:53
into the old man stuff. I was, yeah, I was going to talk
42:56
about Christmas and about the how we are so biased towards
43:00
what's new. You know, we have to have the
43:02
new phone and the new clothes and the new trendy thing.
43:08
And while that's good and and attractive and glitter, we often
43:13
times forget the value of the of the, the stuff that's tried and
43:17
true and everything. So, yeah, just spend some time
43:22
at the beginning of the year here thinking about the pruning
43:25
imagery, thinking about what we can change in our in our
43:29
families to make them better while still being respectful and
43:33
appreciative for the things that are working.
43:36
You and I have that problem. We, we look around and we see,
43:39
oh man, all these things I got to do all these things I have to
43:42
fix, you know, the siding on the House or this has to be
43:46
repainted or this has to be installed or this has to be
43:48
blah, blah. And, and we forget to just say,
43:50
you know what? This is a pretty doggone, you
43:54
know, good house and a nice piece of property and all these
43:58
good things. And so, you know, take stock,
44:01
but take honest stock of what you have.
44:03
And. Yeah, and what you can do to
44:07
make it better. All right, Well, thanks,
44:10
Brandon, for making the time to do this.
44:11
And thank you to Thomas Brown. Speaking of generations.
44:16
What is? What is?
44:17
Is John Thomas. He's not a Gen.
44:20
Xer, so he'd be a bet he'd be a boomer.
44:23
A boomer? Yeah.
44:24
So we have 5. We have 5 generations of
44:26
employees here at the ranch. Yeah.
44:29
And ironically, he probably connects better to those Gen.
44:33
A kids than than almost anyone else.
44:36
I mean, he's the the guy we call when a a 12 year old is having a
44:40
blow up. Yeah.
44:41
And like, call in the old man, the baby boomer to come in and
44:44
and and help this guy kind of get settled into.
44:47
It's just nickname. The Bridge.
44:49
The Bridge Thomas. The Bridge Brown.
44:52
He bridges the gap. I like it.
44:55
Yeah, like it. Nice.
44:57
Did you listen to the intro, the last podcast, The Self-care 1?
45:00
No. It was good.
45:01
You should listen to that. He piped in a bunch of good
45:03
sound effects. Yeah.
45:05
Because we had the the thing about the pregnant causes
45:09
awkward. Of silences.
45:12
Well, on that note, it's like he's like, I have no idea what
45:16
you're talking about with the six seven thing.
45:18
I didn't know what to right. I didn't know what to do with
45:21
that. And I'm just like, wow, that's
45:23
actually I'm impressed. Yeah, Mr. Brown, that you work
45:26
with all these teenagers and you still yet don't know what 6-7
45:32
is. Yeah, or I mean, nobody really
45:34
knows. Nobody.
45:34
Something stupid. Yeah, but good stuff.
45:37
All right, Well, we hope you guys have a good two weeks.
45:40
We will. We'll be back with another
45:42
installment and we look forward to talking to you then and we
45:46
hope that's been helpful and we appreciate your support and hope
45:50
you're off to a good year. So thanks for listening to Time
45:53
to Sharpen. I was just going to say go out
45:56
and get you an old man in the meantime.
45:59
Exact. I agree.
46:00
So I approve that message. All right, all.
46:02
Right, we'll see you. Bye.
46:10
Whetstone Boys Ranch is a therapeutic boarding school
46:13
located in the scenic Ozarks of southern Missouri.
46:17
It was founded in 2011 to serve families from around the country
46:21
who are struggling with challenging behaviors from their
46:23
12 to 16 year old sons. Our mission is to sharpen the
46:27
character of young men. Please visit
46:30
whetstoneboysranch.com if you want to learn more about our
46:33
program or about how to contact us for help.
46:36
Thanks for listening and we hope to catch you next time on A Time
46:39
to Sharpen.