L.O.G. 132 You knew or should have known

Hello and welcome to the video version of The Human Behavior Podcast. I'm Brian Marren, the host and creator of the show. As always, I will be joined by human behavior expert, Mr. Greg Williams, who the show is affectionately named after. On the show, we discuss different topics through the lenses of what we call Human Behavior Pattern Recognition Analysis. If you'd like to find out more about what that is, please check the links in the episode details and go to our website to learn more. Please don't forget to follow us on social media—the links are also in the episode details—and hit the like and subscribe button to help support our work. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy the show.

All right, Greg, good morning to you. We're recording this. We both have kind of lives, I guess, a little turned upside down. You have family visiting you, which is, yeah, and then now I have, I'm visiting family here in Chicago. So, I am recording this from the south side of Chicago. Spent a little time on Western Avenue with some of my buddies from high school last night. So, maybe it'll be a slow conversation. Played a little real-life Grand Theft Auto.

Yeah, exactly.

So, today we'll be talking about, I guess, the overarching theme would be, "You knew or should have known."

Yeah.

And we can get into a lot of areas with this, but this is kind of spurred from a lot of recent high-profile stories in the news where you see, let's say, Burger King employees put up a sign saying, "We all quit, we're out of here," or name whatever restaurant or business. And there's a lot of social commentary going back and forth on this. And that's fine, that's great. I think especially in the U.S., we have this feeling of kind of like, "Oh, I want to stick it to the man" kind of thing, which I get, there's a lot in here. But I kind of want to take it from a different perspective, and you brought up something when we discussed this about entitlement and enlightenment, and a whole bunch of different areas. So, I'd like to kind of you start off that conversation with your thoughts on it, and we'll kind of go from there.

I love it. And Brian, you know how life has this pendulous way of things coming back into focus and going out of focus. And it's almost like that in crux in motion all the time. So, I remember in a general array, a colonel, rather, who's now a doctor, that she'll remain nameless, and we were talking about something, he goes, "Oh yeah, what we're going to do on that one is we're going to use the Socratic method." It's like, "Now we have to use what's called the semi-Socratic method." He's like, "No, no, it's the Socratic method." It's like, "Okay, one, take a look at what Socrates did. They sat around in a room and they held up a water bottle and they said, 'This is the meaning of life.' And then they took it apart and talked about all kind of related skills, and they walked away none the smarter but having fleshed out all of this other thing to achieve enlightenment."

So, what do I mean by that? Listen, you're not going to learn anything unless you go to a source, a font, a school, a person, a thing, and learn from it. You can learn from watching a sunset, but you're not going to learn a damn thing from being in a room of your peers and talking about something with an undisciplined background. That's entitlement.

And I'll give you an example of that. In Canada, soon after that meeting that I just lost my mind in—because I don't care if I'm right on this one, it feels right, so I'm going with it—a guy went to the speaker in a Walmart in Canada, whatever Canada is, it's like Walmart A. And the speaker hit intercom and got on and had a list of grievances. Now, what do we know about a manifesto?

Yeah, yeah, okay.

And he insisted on having his say and his way in that store and telling people why he quit. And then, last, a couple of seconds before he dropped the mic. First of all, if you think that you have the entitlement to drop the mic, you're wrong. Step back. You knew or should have known that you're not Taylor Swift, you're Taylor Not-So-Swift. Slow it down. Slow your roll. Okay?

So, you're not at the MGM Grand. You didn't just sign them walk because you knew or should have known when you took that application and looked at the information and everything else, that the hours are going to be long, your bosses are going to blow, you're going to have serial killers coming in and out of the door. You should have known that. That's like this entitlement, Brian, sorry, I'm going on a rant.

Yeah.

Entitlement—we'll read those poems about law enforcement, you know, "the quiet few profession." Hey, dude, you took that job. At the end of the day, it's a job. So, don't sit there and come back to me and go, "Hey, I scooped my core frame for my gun." So, this recent one, I believe it was like a day or two ago, at the Burger King where they not only manipulated the sign out in front of the store, but they told all the patrons, told them on the mic, and then put signs up around the store. And Burger King contacted the manager—the one that staged this coup, this walkout—and said, "Hey, listen, you're going to have to take that stuff down." And the guy gave him grief.

One, it's unprofessional. Two, you should have known. You knew better before you got into it. And third, you do not have the right to your entitlement before you achieve enlightenment. And the enlightenment, Brian, is what I'm talking about, is both the training and education commensurate with life: the skin needs, the resilience, the finding out that your dream job is a pipe dream sometimes. Yeah, and you have to change in mid-stride. Does that make any sense?

Yeah, and so to go specifically on a couple of things you said. One, you brought up a great example of like this Socratic method of, "We're going to sit around and talk about it like a bunch of philosophers." Well, the point was, they were doing that, but they were all well-versed in whatever subject they were talking about.

At the top of their game, Brian. Yeah.

So, the idea was a bunch of people who were experts in a certain area, "Let's bat around a topic." That's very different than what we get when we have influencers and TV news personalities when they come in and opine about something outside of their milieu. And you see that a lot. It's like, "Hey, let's bring this retired general on to talk about COVID." And you're like, "Wait a minute, what the hell? Where is he like, which battle did he fight COVID?"

Here's a guy who had a really bad strategy in Afghanistan, let's see what he thinks about this. It's like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute."

So, I get it. A long history of failure, right? Yeah. So, then you talk about, I like the entitlement versus enlightenment, but let's start with the "say versus the way." Like most people want their say, because this is a big part of it. And this is, we, it's interesting what we give a pass to as a society, right? Remember that, I just immediately thought of the, remember the flight attendant guy from whatever airline that said, "You know what, eff it, I'm out here!" and then popped the emergency thing and everyone went, "Ha ha, that's funny!" Meaning, we've all thought about that, or we've all had a boss that we hated, or we didn't like our work, whatever. But we all laugh. But again, like there's 150 people on that flight. What if someone was trying to get home to the funeral for their parents? It's not so funny now. You just screwed over everyone on that flight. Their whole thing has changed. Now they have to get off, now they cost the company money. And everyone says, "Oh, whatever." Yeah, but they pass that down to us as customers. The reason why your tickets cost so much is to cover expenses like that. And now everyone, and we don't think of that. And it's really what you're saying is that the lack of resilience is what you talked about. Yes. And doing this, "Hey, we're going to, we're going to stick it to the man and we're going to show people that we don't like this." And then they're going to go, "Okay." And then a week when that person still doesn't have a job, what are they going to do? Are they going to be knocking back on the door again going, "Uh, hey, that was kind of a bad idea"?

You've had a wonderful review from Burger King. How's your life at Donut Castle?

Well, and that's a big thing is, you know, it's really what we're looking at, but we kind of almost cheer that sometimes in society, even though you bring up the Burger King example too, but maybe that's the guy driving into work every day, stops there, grabs his coffee and his breakfast and starts his day that way. And now he doesn't have that. And now he runs late. "Oh, crap, I got to go over here now." Like, you that the spirals that come from that, like, it generally outweigh whatever benefit you felt that you got because that's a big thing. I feel like I did something about my situation when in fact all I did was probably screw over a couple other people, and now I'm out of a job.

And you're exactly right, but you're further, you're further back, Brian. Go back to your example. You're spot on here, right on target. Go back to your example about the airplane and the guy that hit the emergency slide. Okay, let's not just talk about the orbit inside of that airplane and all the people that were disenfranchised now and had to make different plans and the pilot and the crew. Okay, so that pilot and that crew now have to be taken out of rotation because they have to investigate the incident. That plane is shut down for at least 24 hours. What about the airport? I'll guarantee somebody was hitting the red security protocol when that plane made an unauthorized stop and that slide came out. Emergency services were activated. Brian, we're talking about at least a million dollars and a bunch of moving parts for what? So you had your say and your way the one time in your life. But his career was ruined. Every good thing that he had done in his entire career now was measured by this idiocracy. And so you—and thanks to Bill Maher for the word, love it—you have to understand that this insistence on philosophy—and I'm not against philosophy, you know me—but this insistence that philosophy is the light that's going to shine your way out of the cave is ridiculous. It's this Socratic method that they were proposing. It's tantamount to you and me walking into a kindergarten class, right?

Yeah.

You and I are going to be dressed as French mimes. Now, take a kindergarten. Right, there's going to be no teachers, no mentors. There's not going to be, there's going to be like one chair and nine tables, you get what I'm trying to say? No things to play with, no things are distracting. And what you and I are going to carry in is a gas can. Yeah, there, you're going to put some matches over here. We're going to put a loaded .38 back there. We're going to put a pitchfork and some like razor blades and stuff. And we're going to, you and I, pantomime that we're leaving and walk out of the box and let the kids see their own devices. That's not how you teach stuff.

And let's talk about the enlightenment versus the entitlement. When you look to be enlightened, the idea of human behavior pattern recognition is being able to drive down the street and see a guy hitchhiking holding a gas can. You have to quickly assess, "This guy's an arsonist." "No, he's not an arsonist, he's, he's out of gas." Right? Well, how do you make that? Or, "This guy's got a handout when you stop because, 'Hey, I need a couple of bucks for gas.'" The idea is that the artifacts and evidence will show you the way. But that's enlightenment. All of a sudden, we have the epiphany moment. And Brian, you get that from books, you get them from study, you get them from scar tissue.

Yeah.

Our good friend on his podcast—gosh damn it, I can't remember the title of it, yeah—you know, and he was talking about how, you know, "You got to fall down to get up." And you said, "That's a magic," and that's a theme. That's how life works. From the time you're crapping out, you're crying, and you're crying when you're going into the grave, you know, and everything in between is learning. Right?

And it is, and you're, you know, I, you, you said, "We have this insistence on philosophy," and this is a good point to kind of talk about how we don't get into, different ideologies and different, like, even some of the stuff we're working on right now, or with traits, like personality stuff, like we don't care about that stuff. And the reason is, I know that's great for pop culture and pop psychology and all this junk that you see come out all the time with these shitty studies that don't go anywhere and never going to stick because everyone's trying to create some new thing or some new—we don't care about any of that because we care strictly about you, well, one, your intent and your behavior is what demonstrates your intent, right? And it's easier, I think, as a, if we're going to take a philosophical approach to look to HBPR and, what we do. A philosophical approach would be, "Well, it's elegant because, you know, you don't have to cloud your judgment, you don't have to cloud your way of thinking with different ideologies or personality traits or what is it." Like that's what I always get questions about, "Oh, this guy did this, does that mean this?" No, you can't freaking prove any of that. No, we'll wait. "But everything I read about psychopaths this," and it's like, "Yeah, it doesn't matter." The idea is, you know, when you, when you, and you can see through that and just look at someone's behavior, it becomes a little bit more clear and it's a little bit simpler because, you know, you're just, great, everyone can think what they want and say what they want, but what are they actually doing? And, and, and, you know, this is kind of what we're talking about and you said that this insistence on philosophy. Of course, you also brought up a cave reference too, like you went right back to Plato allegory. That, yeah, they're great for conversations. I always say that, we've worked with some philosophers before in the past and had great stuff and it's great. It's great for sitting around talking about these concepts and, "Let's have a bourbon and discuss the meaning of life and all that stuff." That's awesome, that's great. I love having those sometimes with the right people. But, but at the end of the day, like it, what's the actionable thing we're going to do with this? Or what does this really mean? Like, you can't, you know, changing the way people think or what they believe in, that's not going to get you anywhere. There's no point. Like, it's just people are going to believe or think what they want. There are still people who 100% truly believe that the earth is flat. That's great, like, "Okay, you're, you're, you're, you're a jackass."

That's only going to hurt your way of thinking.

So, so that way of thinking will, if I took a purely biological approach, that way of thinking will die off eventually. It might take a long time, but you will not survive because that's not in line with the way nature works. But, you know, you go back to that insistence on philosophy. It's like, "I, you think, say whatever you want, but what are you doing?" And, and, and let's judge people and go on what they do. And the same, and this goes back to these examples of these, you know, what we're talking about, this in entitlement. I like how you framed it as enlightenment versus entitlement. And we all have this, you know, "I'm entitled to something. I get to say this. I get to do this." And, but you're not socially acceptable, right? But we feel like we want to. And then when that stuff is applauded because, because, you know, it's different when it's a, when it's a local bakery down the street, it's one thing. When it's, you know, Starbucks or Burger King or these massive corporations, suddenly, suddenly it's, because it's easier for us to go, "Oh, well, it's just this," or, "You know, it's this big conglomerate, these evil people." It's the same thing with like government stuff. Everyone, when it's your local city town council, it's one thing. But then when it becomes a federal government, "Oh, it's this, it's this big machine and, you know, F the man." And you're like, "Yeah, yeah, but but not really." So, I mean, you're not getting anywhere with that.

That's as ridiculous as saying, "Let's discuss stoicism." Am I lying? If that joke is lost on you, folks, listening live, kiss my ass and go back and do your homework and then we'll see you on the next part where I'm talking. Okay? If you get what I'm talking about where and how did we come up as a nation with a definition for a populist? Okay? Yeah, I don't know what is the populist? I don't know what means that I'm going to stand on a shaky table with three legs and change the lightbulb that's not broken. Yeah, okay? Populist means nothing. You're committing to nothing.

And Brian, let me ask you this. Okay, all the books that we've read, and folks, I know I'm an idiot and hard to look at. Yeah, that's why I read everyone more than you. Exactly, you know, I'm an idiot, I'm trying to figure it out. Exactly. And I just hold up the book or send you a photo of a page. I've done that before. But the idea, Brian, is how many times did we see a learned person, a person many times that we, you and I, value, and they've done an interview with a sociopath or a psychopath or a serial killer and asked their opinion and then published it. Okay? What are you, out of your mind? The idea is that if you go to that and you're saying, "Well, yeah, but that psychopath is a subject matter expert on, you know, dismembering humans." Now he can tell you procedurally, but he doesn't even know what's going on. She doesn't, of course, know what's going on inside.

And so that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about this populace and stoic and philosophical unsteady rock that, you know, "Hold on, little brute," you remember John, not John Candy, the other fat guy that died, Chris Farley, like me. Yeah, Farley. And it was much funnier. Listen, how many times, I want to just ask you a rhetorical question, but I want to dig—how many times have you and I gone in and done a threat assessment or infrastructure assessment on a corporation? And we start at the front door with the person that's answering the phone and we go up to that person and go, "What's the mission statement of this building? What's the mission?" And they look at us and they go, "Dude, I answer the phone and buzz you in. Do you want me to do one of those two things? If not, leave me alone, I'm having lunch." Listen, those people are your first line of defense. The person that answers the phone is the voice of your company. And if you're not going to educate them and enlighten them to what you want the strategic and operational goals, they'll never accomplish the tactical goal. You can't, you can't do one without the other.

So, so people go, "Well, what about psychology?" Well, psychology is grand, but we've named so many biases now that I have to update my list weekly. And that's ridiculous. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Now we have a sub, a three-to-a-confirmation. By, shut up! You know, what are we doing, Brian?

Yeah, so you know, you're looking at organizationally, these are examples of organizational lack of resilience or not understanding, like you said, the mission statement and what, you know, but I get all that. There's part of it, so, and to be clear, like, I don't know, I get some of these examples we're using can be, there's different ways to dissect them. So, you talk about the fast food one, like, yeah, my whole thing is like, look, if you're, you're paying someone the legally minimum amount of money that you can't, you legally cannot pay them less, so you're basically, this is minimum wage job, like, what are you expecting out of them? Like, you're, I expect minimum wage work, you know what I'm saying? So, there's, there's expectation management on both sides.

I think what I'm saying, like, but I would say the other side of the same coin you're bringing up is is Ray Kroc and a bunch of other amazing people starting the food service industry saying, "Do you want more sour cream on your chimichanga?" And I'm telling you that everybody that I know, specifically grown up in Detroit, was in the food service industry. I'll tell you that our CEO started at Taco Bell when they had a grease pencil thing to take your order and the Pintos and Cheese were 39 cents. And had it not been for those people behind the counter, and think of the valuable lessons they're learning. They're not just learning commerce, they're learning advertising, they're learning confidence and competence to sell yourself and your product. Kids are missing out on that nowadays, Brian, because they're looking into a phone all the time. They're spending all their time texting and stuff to tell everybody, "Look what I did today. I ate a sandwich."

I, I would say that, you, you know, okay, so social media and that kind of stuff, you know, does, and I, I think actually reality TV shows are one of the worst things ever for—

What's my favorite? Hold on, but I don't—what's my favorite doctor? What? Dr. Pimple Popper! Which I thought you were making a joke, I thought that was a running show.

Oh, no, and I found out, literally you've been using that one for like a year or something like that. And I just found out like a couple weeks ago when we're on a call that that's an actual show. I thought you were making that up.

Dude, they should be ashamed of themselves. Programmers should be fired if they can. But, but here's the thing though, like at the same time, if I'm a network programmer, guess what? I need to make money. And guess what people watch, Greg?

Yeah, I mean, this is that that's the other side of that. The demand signal came from the street.

I'm saying that the demand signal came from the film when Disney was pumping out films about cute rabbits and huggable stuff and everything else, all films were like that. And now we've gone to the dark side. And the character Loki is more important than Thor. We don't have this hero worship anymore. And that's what I'm talking about where we've got enlightenment, uh, last, the entitlement is first. "Hey, you know," and it started 25 years ago, Brian. It's 35, I'm getting old. Muppets. First, we have the Muppets, people, and Muppets and gloves are good. We made a cartoon about Muppets. Then we made Muppet Babies. And then somebody sat around and go, "Um, Muppets Suicide Squad?" And the Muppets went out and killed a bunch of people and raped the village. You see what I'm trying to say? That that natural progression doesn't occur in nature, Brian. That that that's the natural is is wrong. So society doesn't go, "Oh my God, that's wonderful. Can we see, uh, what's the movie, What the Hills Are Alive? What, the Sound—that's not the music we want to see The Sound of Music, but we want the Nazis to win." Who wants that? That's what I'm trying to say. And you're saying that because some programmer gives that to me, that that there was a demand signal. Dr. Pimple Popper. Look, people need that stuff, but that should stay in a dark closet on the other side of the thing. You get what I'm trying to say? Certain things like your Tinder addiction, these are things I don't need to see the light of day. You know, and I'm not embarrassed for you. And people need those, Brian. But—

Well, but, but I, I think we're starting, there's we're almost starting to conflate some of the issues here, though, because—

No, no, but it's okay to conflate them in a rational discussion. Just because you don't think that those points are right doesn't mean that they're not worthy to bring up. That's what I'm talking about, how we get to enlightenment. Do you see what I'm trying to say?

But there also is that, that's the other side here, there are people waiting through all this stuff going like, "Hey, this is this is effed up," or "This doesn't make sense. There's a better way to do things. There's this," like, you, you see all that that same side of it too. I'm always just interested in that when these different events occur, whether it's the flight attendant hitting the emergency thing, or the Burger King workers, or whatever, like how people kind of like, they identify with that, or they see something, they go, "Man, like, I would, I wish I had, I wish I could do that at my job," or whatever, right? And but that that's always there. Everyone, no one's ever completely, you know, happy with where they're at and what they're doing, right? That that's, that's actually what makes it—

What are you trying to tell me?

No, no, like, now you're not happy, but that's the idea is because you're working towards something better, right? You want something better. But that's that's human nature, that's what life is. It's, it's this, it's inherently, there's always an inherent amount of existential angst that we carry. Thank you, Kafka, thank you, you know what I mean? But but exactly, that's there. But that's, it's, it's accepting it and and moving forward. But I, I think I still keep going back to your entitlement versus enlightenment. And I like that because we all have this general feeling of entitlement. And yes, unless you've been constantly, like, I, I know I've had many humbling experiences in life where I found out like, "Hey, I'm not as important as I think I am," or whatever. I mean, that could be a battlefield. That could be where, you know, we're going to find out how small you are, right?

You go, "Hey, you know," right in the grand scheme of the universe, "I'm a speck of dust."

And it's hard for a lot of people to to see it that way. I think it's a good way to see it because it kind of gives you a little bit of a, "Hey, maybe don't take yourself so seriously," kind of attitude because a solar flare could freaking kill us all right now.

But see, your angst is coming through and it's well-read and you're spot on with the topic. I'm one hair's breadth to the right of what you're talking about and I think we're both going in the same direction, Brian. I don't think we're disagreeing. No, no, but this is what I'm trying to say. Okay, Denver school, Denver schools, the kids at Denver schools walk out more than any other school anywhere in the world. Okay? And so the news media, which is manned apparently by a bunch of miscreants that had never studied journalism, but again—

But you're doing the same thing right there like, "Oh, the me," it's it's another one of those, "Oh, the news media." They haven't even made a point yet.

But wait, yeah. And what happens is they go and they interview the people and the people said, "Well, the kids walked out because they're against the, you know, the fundamental money for the tax for this and that." Yeah, Brian, why did the kids walk out of school? Because someone gave them that idea. They wanted to be out of school.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. I mean, the simple answer, the simplest answer is, uh, there's one kid who had an informed opinion and wanted to make a point and just got everyone else on board because if I was in high school and someone's like, "Hey, we're doing a walkout at noon," I'd be like, "Yeah, let's do this." And they didn't care what the walkout was. Do you think F-girl gave a damn that it was going to become his U.S. Supreme Court decision? This is my point. People knew or should have known, look, if your actions are arbitrary and capricious, you're probably wrong. So, so this is—

That makes sense. Let's let's go to that of the consequences because this is where we come in with the "You knew or should have known." Yeah, right. Like, and that's an important distinction. You know, because everyone at some point, you know, gets in over their head or gets, you know, you know, you so, yeah, something you thought something was going to go one way and then all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, wow, this this just got real." You know, that's the military's a perfect example. You're like, "Oh, yeah, I want to do this and this looks cool and I've been thinking about this since I was a kid and I want to jump out of planes and do this stuff." We all made that. And then, yeah, and then then you eat your first, you know, V-bed and you go, "Oh, crap, this just got freaking real and now I'm going to die." Like, okay, like we all have those different moments, whatever scale it's at, and which is important. But but then, you know, when you get to the "know or should have known," that's my whole thing. It's like, "Well, I signed up for this, so, you know, like, yeah, I'm a, I'm a major contributing factor or responsible in this as well. I didn't have to do this." And that's when you get into these different situations too because you, we talk about the, the Burger King example, but it's no different than, remember the guy, the police officer up in the Northwest or whatever, who who did that earlier in the year or whatever it was and they had this big video rant from inside his police car from the front inside on duty and you're like, "Hey, guy, you're entitled to your opinion. You're not entitled to do that." And that was the big thing is that you can't, yeah, that's on duty and not in your car and not live, right? Like that that that erodes trust just as much as, you know, those those, uh, um, fast food workers, right? So, you know what I mean? Like, it does the same thing. Overall, the net result to societal norms is the same thing. Like, so if you choose to do that, you're contributing to to the to the issue here. You contribute to the problem of the sense of entitlement. Like, you don't get to do that. I'm sorry. Like, okay—

What I'm telling you is in essence, when I talk about some of the examples about journalists or about the Denver, about these other things, what I'm trying to do, I'm trying to offer artifacts and evidence so anybody listening could understand that if your actions are arbitrary and capricious and nobody else has asked for them, there's probably a reason for that. There's probably a reason. Now, one half of that coin is going to say that you're a unique little snowflake and what you're creating is necessary and wonderful and, you know, Jonas Salk, you're going to come up with a great vaccine. The other thing is you might need to reassess where you're standing because you might be in the crap. And what I mean by that is there's an artist that jams a color paint balloons in his ass and then flatulates out DaVinci. And so if you buy one of those, you're as stupid as this guy and you're contributing to the decline of Western civilization. And, and my thing is that sometimes walking out of the class for the wrong reason or protest, and you don't know about it, goes to that category. But why do we do it sociologically? Why do we do it? Yes, we need to be a part of a tribe. And that tribe is so demanding of my, my, my psychological health that I'm willing to set aside logic sometime, Brian, to accept that relationship.

And this is an important, this is kind of what I obviously wanted to get into too, is that we're bashing it, but we're also saying this is part of, there's, there's, there's sociological reasons why that occurs, right? We need to feel—

It's inevitable and it's essential. Yeah.

Yeah, and it is for cause, because that would be the other thing. It's like, "Well, maybe these, you know, yeah, the Burger King employees, now maybe that leads to Burger King the corporation going, 'Hey, you know what, we got to take care of our people better.'" You know, there's something going on here, you know? And that that's that that's the whole thing. The same thing with the, with the, the cop example and his cruiser, like making the video. It's like, "Well, maybe that gets it out there and then people go, 'Crap, you know what, we're not, we're not doing something right.'" Because that's the other side of the coin. Those are the sociological imperatives. So, although we're saying it in a lot of cases, it demonstrates a lack of resilience or a sense of entitlement. At the same time, it's, it's a sociological imperative, it's necessary.

Exactly. Right. For these things to occur.

Yeah, so let's take them for what they are. I think, I think that what, what, what happens is we misunderstand, we don't get the right lesson, right? The lesson isn't learned from it. People go, "Yeah, that's awesome. I want to do the same thing," or "Atta boy," where it should be, "No, wait a minute, let's dissect the issue here and jump in to see, that's the point, what, what, why did this occur? And is it, is it arbitrary and capricious? Or was there something serious going on that needs to be addressed?" And that's where we miss it. We take it, we, we take it as the, "That's that's awesome. I would love to do that," or "I want to do that at work," or "Let's get some people." And it's like, "No, no, that's not the lesson learned here. The lesson learned is, did this expose some sort of stress fracture that needs to be addressed?"

I love that. Or was this, or was this someone being a jackass?

You know what I'm saying? Yes.

I, I, and there's a, and sometimes a rich history of jackass-ness in our country. But I want to ask you just another simple question because this is how I learned. I've, I've had fast food jobs before, some of them in, you know, I failed a lot in my my time, so, uh, I would take a job at a place like the one that put the razor blades in the apples for Halloween and it closed up soon after. You know, those kind of jobs where they leave nowhere. Burger Chef and Jeff the Burger Chef was great, they're gone now. Um, and all of them had that same sign. You get a little rubber looking thing, it sticks on a letter, you slide the letter into the little thing, and then you can put, you know, "We out of meat" or whatever you want to put up on the message board. I know how long that takes to go and get the things and turn the three into an E and do all that crap. So, if you saw the sign in folks, do your homework, look it up, the Burger King walkout, they said, "We all quit," okay? And then below it, "I can't, uh, sorry for the inconvenience." That's exactly what it said. I wish I had it, uh, the photo to show you, Brian. How long do you think that took him? Do you think it took him less than a minute? And it took a significant amount of time there to get letters. They had to put it up, they had to get a ladder, people had to hold the ladder, all that other stuff. What I'm saying is before that, did any one of them say, "Hey, look, we're going to stage a walkout if things don't change here"? And then you say, "Oh, yeah, but you lose the element of surprise." Ask Custer how that worked. Okay?

The other thing is, if I'm going to do that, did they make, look, many places are owned by like, like uh, uh, 7-Eleven, zoned by uh, uh, you know, whatever, whatever, but you get what I'm saying. So, did I do even the most basic research and check my contract and look and call those guys? Because everyone has an FAQ, everyone has a complaint, everyone has a—and sorry for the gang signs, apparently I just insulted whites, Asians, and and Martians with my counting. But do you get my point that if they didn't try something to de-escalate the situation, then their actions may have been arbitrary. If your actions are arbitrary and defy logic, then they're counterfactual probably, or like you say, they're conflating the actual issue and then we're going in the wrong direction. I mean, I have mentors in my life, I would have gone to my mom or dad, significant other, gosh damn, somebody, a teacher, and said, "Hey, I'm facing this at work. Is this normal?" And when they go, "Tommy, that's normal. Bend over, you know, here it comes again," or whatever, right, then I learned that maybe it's a life lesson. But if somebody comes up and goes, "Now that that's, you know, you may be a whistleblower." The idea is, you knew or should have known, and if you didn't, why did you sign up for the job, Brian? I used to have to take my Kawasaki 125 because it was the only thing I could afford to put gas in, and I would drive up to to Kennedy Pool in East Detroit. I would do all the filter changes, all the garbage, all the bathrooms, scrape off all the gum, do all that other stuff. Then go over to the city truck and do the garbage route, which was DPW is right down the road. Then go to school. Okay? After school, I had to do the swimming workouts and the ballerina lessons and stuff and piano lessons, you know, classical piano, none of that's true, folks. And the idea is that, but I did have jobs and, and, and then by 6:00, I remember there was many times that I would fall asleep in my gosh damn wrongly heated ramen. My parents, I love them to death, were the worst cooks in the world. So, they would like put the ramen in the package in the bowl and then add hot water to the whole thing, you know? And you remember those little cereals that used to have to cut open and pour the milk into the box? I had many that didn't have that liner because they didn't do the research, right? So, my point is, we've all had these experiences, and you can't, you do not have the right to disrupt the normal flow of society just to say so there. And that's what I take umbrage with. I take umbrage that that you want your say, but you haven't done the explanatory storylines or the spirals to determine what that's going to do. Now somebody right now is going, "Yeah, but protest's the only way to solve anything." Again, kiss my ass, that's not true. Brian, are there other means of of doing it prior to to protest, you know?

Well, it's the, you know, what are you, what are you standing on? It's the, it's the the drunk using a lamp post, right, analogy where, where, you know, the idea of the—

Funny, funny, you come up with that analogy when you're at home and your dad's in the other room, but go ahead.

So, it's, it's like when people come up with an anecdote or story or something that happens to highlight an issue. And it's, it's the lamp post. It's the idea, is it's supposed to illuminate an overall arching issue. But people often use it like a drunk uses a lamp post to lean on. Like, "No, this is all I've got right here. This is the, this is, this is what it is." And it's like, "Well, hang on." And, and, you know, you, you brought up the knowing kind of where you fit in, sort of like, right? So, you brought up like the whole protesting thing. And, and I, I get it, I, I think it's, um, you know, it's a natural part of a democracy and what it's all about. And, and, but what are you tying that to? Are you just out there like, what's the actual message? What's the change? What's, what is it that you're, if you're going to do that action, it should be tied to some objective, some overall strategic objective. And what you learn is a lot of times people are, are not doing that. It's the same thing. Walk out because I don't like the way I'm getting paid or my work. Yeah, but but what do you, what, what's your solution? What are you trying to do precisely? And it's usually just, "Well, you know, I just, I just want to get paid more." Something's like, "Okay, but why?" Like, I mean, you signed up for this saying you would do this. Now you're not going to. That's fine. You, you have the vote with your feet, right? We always say, leave, just like if you're, you're, you know, you don't, you're frustrated with that situation, you don't want to be there anymore, bye. But like, the though, what you're getting into is this, if we're going to make a point, what is the point for? Because now, well, it becomes so routine and we see it and we accept it and see it as normal. So then it continues the cycle. But then the issue is like, did that change anything? Or are you, I mean, do what, what was it all for? And that's, that's the whole lessons learned part that we don't really—

Need to stand the test of time, Brian, will it? And so I use the Geddy Lee defense. Geddy Lee, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a point, uh, choice." Geddy Lee—gosh damn—high-pitched bastards, great, uh, uh, uh, amazing band. He's on the guitar, the drummer just died. But the point is—and somebody's going to call in, God, it's just—the point is, Brian, that when you take a look at it, in many aspects, working at a place like McDonald's or Burger King can be an incredibly enlightening experience. That's what I'm talking about. You learn a lot about people, you learn food preparation, you learn OSHA standards, you learn safety. And I'll tell you right now, a post-COVID job in Gunnison pays 26 bucks. Yeah, you know who's paid 26 working at a McDonald's on the line? You tell me that, you know. So, so people got to look back with us. I, I mean, uh, uh, wages were, you know, a buck 37 an hour, you know, when I started. People would go, "Yes, but things didn't cost as much," which is true. Yeah, yeah, the fear of nuclear war, you know, missiles on Cuba's doorstep. But all this other stuff, every, every generation has that. We have to level the playing field by saying that's less important than—and look, we don't care about motive, we care about intent. So, what are your intentions by your actions? And do your actions and statements mesh up? Does that make sense?

Yeah. Is there any incongruence in what you're saying and doing, believing? Like that would be suspicious to me. Well, and this goes back to the whole point of, or the whole, you know, the theme of the discussion of, "You knew or should have known." Right? You know, we, we get that feeling of, "Wait a minute, I'm in over my head," or "I didn't know it was going to be all this." And then suddenly it's someone else's fault. And, and that's, but that's what he, I mean, humans do. We do that as a society. We, it's very easy for us to point out and say, "Oh, you're responsible for this." But when it's our turn to accept responsibility for some, it's, "Well, no, I had all these other factors and there was this," and suddenly we try to try to try to shift the blame. So, I know that's that's part of what you're talking about, but it is.

But again, I'm 30,000, you know, I'm not, I'm, I'm not no ground zero, no.

No, yeah, I get that. It's, um, we're just kind of using some of these examples because they're topical and relevant, but, but in no means are we doing a deep dive on that specific case. Um, and, you know, this is what we get into, you know, your say versus your way. You know, yes, when we say most people want their say, not necessarily their way. You know, it's, it's, it's part of that is getting that off our chest or declaring something or being a part of it. And I want to have, I want, I think I should be, that's half the time people, "I want to talk to the manager." What do they really want? They want to, they want to say, they want their say. You could prop a mop up with a pair of sunglasses and let them vent and Brian, they'd be better off for it. And so would you.

Well, that's the big thing is sometimes letting people have their say and that, you know, you know me, you, you always say what I mean when I'm in the middle and I go to, "Go on, go, go on." Yeah, but you do that, and the greatest thing is the person after the second "go on" goes, "I'm being a dick." I love that. You know what I would tell the Burger King guys? You know what I would tell that team, Brian? I, I would say, um, there were a couple of brutal mass killings at the end of the last administration before this administration took power. And every, every politician said, "We're going to do something about the gun violence. We're going to go after it." Yeah. And to date, nobody has, right? And nobody has. And we can go back to '85, '75, '65, right? Yeah. Always a huge issue that's on there. And then somebody's going to turn around to you and somebody's going to say, "Oh, well, the NRA," or "the classic obstructionist," or "this or that." Brian, it's the same issues in society. We're working too long, we're getting paid too little, there's not enough food for the poor, there's not enough jobs for the rich. Whatever the issue is, and all I'm telling you is there's got to be sort of a structure in the adaptive human's life, the resilient human's life where they follow a process rather than let their emotions become their guide because emotions being your guide means that you're going to claim entitlement. Intellect being your guide, you're going to claim enlightenment. It's just that simple to me.

And and also, it's simple. No, no, it's that simple to say, "No, no, right, right, right." Agree. We talk to a philosopher. We know this is as we, we can sit here and say logic this and provide a framework, but we also know that your emotions and your unconscious kind of brain drive so much of what you do. That's the struggle. This is when it that's always been and that's always been the struggle, right? Okay, you know, and that's that's science, that's everything. That's, you know, logic and reason versus emotion and, and, but you like nature, you nurture, everything you need, you need both. So, you have to have both. You can't just have everyone who just follows pure logic. Like, no, no one, you know, if, if everyone, I always do that. If everyone just was when they were a kid, listened to their parents and ate their vegetables, like, that'd be a boring ass freaking world. You wouldn't create anything. Everyone sure would. Okay, wouldn't be, you wouldn't have that. But you also wouldn't have, you know, any anything fun or exciting. But, but, um, you know, when you do that, is it's, it's playing in, is am I, you know, am I using some sort of logical framework to articulate what's on, or am I just completely emotion-based? And understanding when someone's in that moment, that's why I say people, we always say people want their say, not necessarily their way. You give them their say, all of a sudden it's like they they run out of gas.

It's, it's, it's because it's because because they end when the logic and the, in the science and the news that they haven't amassed is gone, there is when the emotion runs its course. Right. When that emotional response runs its course. Exactly. Right. You'll know then and there, do they have something? Because once the emotion runs the course, are they still going to say, "Look, this is what I'm trying to do." Okay, that's someone who's using logic and reason. You know, I mean, they're not just, you know, not just expressing what's on their mind topically at that time where it's boiled up to this situation where it needs to, the, the pressure valve needs to, need to, uh, release to to let off that steam. So, I mean, there's, there's, it's, it's continual that we see these things. And, you know, I always wonder sometimes, go back a week or two weeks later, what, what is that person doing? What are they thinking? Where are they at home watching The Price Is Right, rolling a joint going, "I have no money, I have to go get another job." That's what they're doing.

Listen, we talk about CHUDs—incredible film, Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. We do that and it's not to mean insulting, it's to give a point where you are in your life because there's a trajectory to every life. And there's deficits and novel circumstances and external stimuli that that arouse us or or turn us off. And so, if you're huffing unleaded fuel and you're breeding like a junkyard rabbit and you don't know where your next shelter or food is coming from, you're in a phase of life that if you maintain that amoebic lifestyle, reacting to heat or cold, reacting to hunger or your sexual urge, Brian, you're going to be in neutral. And neutral on that Prindle gets you nowhere. If you have ensconced yourself in your opinion and live in a gated community with bars on your doors and you only watch one thing or only read one thing, you've closed yourself off from the rest of the society and you're going to sooner or later grow moss and you're going to be the Morlock to the Eloi in your own time traveling fantasy. If however, you take a look at situations and you live them with a fidelity-filled rigorous structure and you say, "I'm going to suck the marrow out of life. I'm going to wake up every day and have fun. I'm going to learn new things. I want to achieve enlightenment and leave the entitlement behind," I think it's going to be a much more fulfilling life. You're going to have a lot less stress. I, I really feel that. And so therefore, that's my philosophy. That's how far I like philosophy. And you know what, look, I think I'm relatively happy. I'm certainly fat. I mean, I'm living in a shelter. Oh, come on. Yeah. Part of that's got to be okay, right?

But but again, we've got a show that's in North Macedonia, is number one.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's, it's, we shout out to those who is there. Oh, and shout out to everyone. And I get, I keep forgetting to mention like we have a massive amount of listeners from Ohio, like that area. So, so like, I mean, it's blown up, so shout out to all you folks listening there, do appreciate. I'm horrible at giving the talking to the actual players. Love Cleveland, Cincinnati. I mean, come on. But, but, um, no, you, you know that goes back to everything you talked about. Yeah, that that's, that's great. But it's also, it's somewhat counterintuitive to, um, you know, our our natural human tendencies, right? Why people evolve and why people die. You're exactly right. It's where do I want to stay? Don't you? Why do I want to like, it's, it's warm and it's safe back here all the way back here in the cave. But to go out there, man, it's scary. It's dangerous. It's going to question my thoughts and, and, but my beliefs and, you know, some people can find beauty in that and be comfortable with it. But, but it is, you know, we all fall victim to it at some point. So, meaning even us sitting here talking about this, there are certain areas where, where we, we, we have our own faults or or intransigent on on topic where we, we will not change our opinion on something. And someone's going to wait a minute, you're talking about being enlightened, but it's like, yes, but but we also fall, we also fall victim to the same things. Like they're, everyone has it in some way, right?

Let's talk about your MMPI because I know you've been itching to do that because at the beginning you brought up a different let's call it metrics, okay, for human personalities. And I hate it. People come up to you all the time and they ask you questions about it. Yeah, my most often questions are never there. They always ask you the intellectual questions. And they ask me, "Where do you get those expanding belts?" "You know, how do you, why can't you wear a tutu or a moo moo?" You know, the big one feet like Homer Simpson. But, but listen to me, the MMPI is a rigid structured design created in World War II for a Maslow specific group of people, you know what I'm saying? Yes, I'm bagging on Maslow again. Again. The idea is what you can't do is you can't apply, look, you know what's the problem with with with politics and religion and all those things that are hard to talk about is what we do is we look for the differences rather than yeah, for the similarities. We're not willing to accept how complex those issues are. Precisely. So we also aren't willing to look at how simple life is. Yes. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Okay, so pierogies are Polish, unless you talk to a German. And if you go to Hungary, they're piroshky, and it's the same thing, right? Now, are our people that are cooking food are coming and going now, it's not the same. Yeah, all noodles are the same whether you're in China or whether they're in Italy and it depends on what they're made. But but what, what does that matter? Well, how close to the ocean I am or if I'm in exactly where they have to do step farming and it's very arid, I'm going to have a lot more Kalamata olives in a Mediterranean diet. We love Greece, by the way, North Macedonia called, Brian will be there in a couple months. But the the idea in Japan, we want to go to the Ginza. Call us. But the idea, Brian, is that I'm joking, but I do want to, I do want to, when you take a look at an MMPI, everything in life wants to put structure and put something into an ice cube tray. And I remember sitting with that Gunny Gunny Fontenot in the Marine Corps and he goes, "Yeah, but what does that fall into?" And then I go, "No, it doesn't fall into that, it falls into kind of like these three, but then if you're in the morning, it's probably five and if it's in the afternoon, you have to also take this page and hold them up like this." And he goes, "No, no, just give me the top three." And it's like, "No, life isn't dead, life isn't binary."

And and and some computer program right right now is going to say, "Yes, it is."

No, the idea here is that these issues are complex and and fidelity filled. But on the other side, if you scrape away some of that external granularity, you're going to notice that the core competencies are identical. And all I'm saying is brilliance and core competencies is enlightenment. You walking around telling me your opinion all the time is entitlement. Which do you want to be judged as? That's that's what I'm saying.

No, that that's, it's a good point, especially with the, the, you're here the personality test you're talking about there and having it as an ice cube tray. I, I don't even get into it. I freaking hate all of them. I just think it's not well meaning, they're so inconsistent. Like what do you, it's supposed to say, "Okay, these are your tendencies." I, I would say that, but it's like, "We're going to put you in this category." It's like, "Yeah, but if I take this test tomorrow morning at the same time, I'm going to fall into a different category, basically."

So, go away. Go one further. You take that test while you're in the bathroom masturbating. Yes, everybody else in the house is awake. You take that test when you're sniffing glue in the back of your job. Do you, do you understand that that subjective nature? Yes, is, is that somebody is putting restrictions and structure on your life?

Well, here's the other thing too, Greg, I'm the one answering the questions. Like, I don't go back to interviewing this, like, I don't, I don't go to a personal trainer and they say, "Well, what do you think?" They don't ask me, "Hey, what's your max deadlift or squat? Hey, what's your body fat?" Like, "What do you think?" You know, they're the ones that tell you, "Hey, dude, like, this is what you need to work on, this is where you're at."

Like, I'm going to go interview the guy in prison and say, "So, what's your motivation? And what's your best, were you abused as a kid?" How many times we fall into that? And, and, and I'll give you a profile. And, and I, I've developed profiles, Brian. Yeah, but, but we go to the FBI—and not to bash the FBI, the FBI is trying the best that they can, and for data analytics, they're geniuses, okay? Yeah, for research science and research, yeah, geniuses. But when it comes down, they say, "Okay, well, you know, let's say arson's going to be a trait. This is a trade." And just because of the volume or the weight of something, we threw that away. We threw away the scales of justice, meaning weight of evidence. Why? Because it was misattributed. And people would come in and say, "We have all these letters to Santa, he must exist." Remember that show, remember Miracle on 34th Street? Okay? And somebody right now is going to write and go, "Greg is a communist, he should be up." That's not what I'm bashing. I'm bashing, that's not evidence. Volumes of opinions don't create evidence. That's intellectual laziness. You call it all the time. Yeah, and I'll say it's also operational laziness, Brian. It's laziness at the operational level. The strategic thinkers never go to the tactical. They never walk the shoes of the tactical. And therefore, they're myopic. They can't see the forest for the trees. That's entitlement, right? That's not, uh, being enlightened by going down and walking in somebody's shoes and seeing the world through their eyes for even a few minutes every day.

Yeah, well, because it's, it's taking it, taking another human's perspective is is a very, very difficult thing to do because—

I agree. I think I think it's inevitable too, Brian.

Well, to get to your, your in, in enlightenment. Yeah, that, but that's that's very, very hard to do is we, we jump to those conclusions that we know that we fit versus questioning. But this gets into the complex, like you, you brought up a great point because I said, you know, we, you talk about politics and religion and different, different ethos, different from thoughts or belief systems, right? And I said a lot of times my issue is they, people don't want to accept the complexity of them. They want to boil it down to a message, like a politician's a perfect example, "Oh, you're taxed this way because they did this," or something, you know, it's a simplified message, right?

Right.

And, and I, I don't, I don't, I never, I don't ever like it because it's overly simplified. We don't, we don't want to accept the complexity of it. We want something simple. But at the same time, then you said, "Yeah, but we also don't affect it, sometimes life is really simple." And I'm like, "Yes, you're absolutely right." Like, we have these very simple needs and wants and desires and, and, you know, if we stick to the simple things that everyone needs, it's a little bit easier to understand, right? And it makes you be able to kind of wade through the complexity a little bit. And, you know, that that's that's the problem is we don't get taught, you know, how to think. We, we get taught, "Here's what to think," or "Here's what you need to do," or "Here's what you need to learn," not "Here's how." And, and this is a, this is a big thing with, you know, everyone's freaking out about all this, "Hey, we got to stop this misinformation or disinformation or these other things." And you're like, "Crap, it's freaking been there forever." Like, this is not something new. So, now we have instant communication, so we see it and we're clearly getting the weight of it because, like you just said, now all of a sudden, "Well, 10 million people have an opinion on this." It's like, "Well, that doesn't mean it's an informed opinion and it doesn't mean it's scientific." You know what I'm saying? It doesn't, it doesn't just by sheer volume, you can't breach science and logic.

And Brian, if somebody comes up with a better way, look, there was a time that that somebody was going, "Uh, the world was flat." And we've changed. Now there's still seven guys that, you know, the Flat Earthers. Yeah.

You said that they're going to die off.

Yeah, well, we could either go after them and attack them or they hide in Kansas or we can let them burn out and spin into the sun. But that's the idea behind the CHUD where are you? Uh, uh, you know those stupid platitudes but but sometimes they're fitting. Uh, uh, instead of saying, "Hey, uh, if you're not lead dog in the sled, uh, your view never changes," and then show a sphincter of a Alaskan or a malamute, right? I would say, "Uh, what's an egg roll called in Mexico?" I would literally give that analogy to a person and say, "When you stop for a minute today and take a look at the similarities between us, you'll understand that the differences are much less important." And I would say that to Burger King too, Brian. I would say, "Go back to that team at Burger King and say, 'I want you to sit around for a minute. I'll buy you lunch, okay? You guys are all coming in again.' The ones I fired, I'll buy you lunch. And, and I want to sit around a table and tell me what your four or five top things are. 'Well, I got to keep the light bill on, you know, I've got kids and I want to do this and all that.'" What do you think the guy that owns the business is doing? Do you think that everybody's just a big corporate fat cat and they don't care about anybody else?

And that's how we, that's how we perceive that. Like, why? Because media and movies.

Well, it's, it's once it gets to a big enough size, it's no longer, we don't see it for the mom and pop place down the street, you know what I'm saying?

Yesterday.

Once it gets to a certain level, we, we go, "Oh, it's, it's this big conglomerate." It's like, "Wait, that guy started with one grocery store in that neighborhood." My point, my point. So yesterday I had a run-in, we had a bunch of stuff that was going on in our life and one of the rare times that we actually bought food in town that was prepared by somebody else and brought it home. That's very rare at Rogue Man or West. So, he went to a place that's Mario's on one side and it's The Dive on the other side. Husband and wife team, their marriage is not doing so good. One's got the Mario's and one's got The Dive. Um, ordered from home, which is another rare thing, there's no delivery in Gunnison, for the love of God. Yeah. Uh, what would you do, a stagecoach here? You know, if some guy rides a horse? Exactly. So, I drove the 30 minutes to town, grabbed the items and was coming back. And what made me happy is not only is business coming back to Gunnison, but I saw the owner of Mario's who came out to make sure that I got my order right. And I saw the owner of of The Dive that was over there doing plate service for for the places. These people are just like you and me. But if we sort of do this, again, not to bash Maslow, but if we create a hierarchy, the hierarchy allows us entitlement, where are we? "I'm ahead of you, kiss my ass." That's not what we need. What we need is a training and education to the point that it foments our enlightenment, so we understand that that guy at the end of the, he's got a nut that he's got to reach, he's got this many burgers he's got to meet, or he can't hire that kid from Kenya to come over and and do his thing. And we don't, we don't take, and, and Brian, what I'll say is rather than being a stoic, how about investing in the gift of time and distance? Invest in just nanoseconds each day to step back and assume, "Hey, why is that person in this way? Why why are they acting this way? Is their cup full? Should I shut up for a minute and listen to this person rather than be on trends?"

No, and that doesn't kill everybody at the store. And that's that's what like, you know, a lot of people even like our buddy John McCaskill and stuff teaches with mindfulness stuff and like we're like, "Hey, that's actually, people want to be like, 'I want to be situationally aware and I want to know what people doing.'" I was like, "Okay, go do this. Go do this mindfulness stuff." Because yeah, Stephen, I mean, Adam Parr, that's what they're trying to tell you. Yeah, yeah. And you're going that that's going to allow you that what you just talked through, taking that split second and going, "What is, asking yourself a question that's going to get you to understand a situation and be more situationally aware and be predictive," you know, than than anything else than studying.

Exactly. Right. Meaning just at a base level doing that now. Yeah, we go into the science of it, you can learn all that stuff. But but meeting just as a person walking through, that's what I tell people and like, "Well, how do I know how to do this?" Or like, you know, you always give the question of, "Where do where do you sit in a restaurant?" And do this. And you're like, "Dude, you want to, you know, learn, learn to do the Heimlich before you go to a restaurant. Don't worry about it." Right? See, see, you know how many people that we say that to, Brian, when we're out on the road or we're, we're doing a broadcast or we're doing something and they miss the entire point and even know the point is, "You can't be being a white and and and belt grades are from rolling around and the first thing goes is the the grass rubs out and you know the the first the sweat you know yeah turns it yellow off and then all of a sudden uh what happens, you roll around in the dirt and it becomes brown belt." You know, you can create any analogy like that. Those are merely platitudes. But what it is is the architecture of learning. Your enlightenment doesn't come all at once. There we were, there were people where enlightenment came at once and they're so remarkable, we know him. We know Muhammad, we know Jesus, we know different people that had these amazing epiphanies. But that's not us, Brian. That's not obvious. We have to, right, we have to learn the old fashioned way by rolling up our sleeves and getting into the ring. Andy Reece getting into the ring.

So, so how do we, you know, this kind of, because the, the, the topic of the conversation is "You knew or should have known." Like, can I can I use that saying and apply it to some sort of almost as an analytical framework to look at some of these situations, like where we feel like someone's been been wronged or they're, they need something that's like, "Well, did you, did you know or should you have known?" Because there's some situations where no, people are treated unfairly or or they get thrown into something that they did not sign up for. I mean, but, but most of the time, "Well, did you, did you read the end user license agreement when you downloaded that thing? When I clicked, 'Okay, I accept,' did you read through everything Apple said on that? Or did you just click accept?"

Yep. Yeah, and I'll tell you another one, Brian. Did, did, when I went to work at a fast food place—and we're not bashing that, dude, again, I'm on the other side that fast food teaches more about life than college courts at some time—when you walked in, did you talk to the other employees? You know, you've heard me talk about going to a dojo and talking to the people in the dojo and, "Why did you come in this?" And not talking to the guy that's trying to sell you the membership. Well, I believe the same thing. Did you sit down with somebody that's working at the Burger King, "Go, what's best, what's the worst, what's all that other stuff?" And not the person they give you, somebody in the lobby, somebody that's emptying the trash cans. You know, I, I remember meeting that guy, Brian, where, where was he from, Ethiopia or Eritrea? When, when we, uh, dropped off our rental slide and it was cold and windy and he goes, "I often hate this place." He goes, "I love where I came from because I only had to do this much work for all the stuff that I had." He, he goes, "You guys work too much in these conditions." That's the idea. If you don't, if you don't put things in perspective in your life by asking a couple of the right questions—and I'm not talking about devoting, you know, a week to doing market research on Burger King, Brian—I'm talking, ask a couple of the right questions, take a look around. "Uh, how long's your break?" City Market's a great one because it's right here in the center of town. Now, I'd like to see where their break area is and how big it is. We people have to go to do those. We need to get City Market to sponsor us because you talk about—

Oh my God, you know why? Because I'm always there trying to get something to eat.

But, but you get my point is that, uh, do a little bit of surveillance. Uh, go in and ask a couple of questions. Look, I'll tell you one of the greatest things is that, uh, look like, uh, Vancouver, we're going to Vancouver. Let's say this is theoretical. And, uh, there's a Sun Gas Station in Vancouver that we're planning on on buying a sandwich from. So, enter in Vancouver, Sun Gas Station, hot spot or crime or murder. You get what I'm saying? And do a little bit of research. And if it pops up and says, you know, "The Whack-a-Mole Killer lives right down the road," maybe you don't want to go there. And that's what I'm saying, Brian, and I'm saying, look, there, there's a a peg for every hole. So, if you're not, you know, perfect for them, go find a company that you are perfect for. But you got to start somewhere. Don't just stay, you know.

The, I think that a good one is is what we've been talking about is this, you know, what I always look at is when I'm reading through some post on social media, when I'm scrolling through Twitter, or someone's ranting about something, is this entitlement or is this enlightenment? I mean, it's almost a good, it's a good litmus test, right? And because even us talking like we, you know, we sit here, we have a podcast, we're having this conversation, so like even to this is like, "Or is this, is this entitlement or is this enlightenment?" Because it's kind of both in a way, you know what I'm saying? Like we're doing that in a way. But that's that's okay. But have we earned our bona fides to do that? Okay? And the answer is yes. That's where it comes in. Are we staying in our lane and our purview of what we do? And yes, we always try to do that, right? And, and, and if we get out, we'll talk to make the mistake. We'll say, "This is opinion-based testimony," won't we? You know, and we try to say that, "Yeah, if I'm wrong, I'll change my opinion," or, or if we get into an area where I go, "All right, well, this is a little bit outside what I know, so I'm going to stick to this," you know, but, but, you know, this is what I think. Um, and, and that's a good way to do that. And I like the, I think it versus enlightenment and, you know, where do you want to be? It, it's, you know, so, Brian, well—

Instead of going, "Are we going to talk about stoicism?" That's freaking hilarious. Oh my God. Well, write that one down because we have people, people doing that stuff like ranting on social media about stoicism and you're like, "Wait a minute, that's the exact opposite here." Exactly. And, and, "Where should I call to get your book?" So, so, rather than—and it's an incredible title, "You knew or should have known"—I would say today for anybody that's in the audience, take your business card and take a Vis-à-vis black marker and on one side write "entitlement" and on the other side write "enlightenment." And, and Brian, I say stick it in your left hand pocket, not your right pocket where you carry your change. And then a couple of times this week during the week, instead of reaching for your app on your phone, look at that and go, "Which am I right now? Where am I in this curve right now?" I, I think that would let the scales fall from your eyes much more than other exercises. It's free and everybody can do it right now.

And it's, um, I don't know, like there's, there's value in that and and there's, I mean, let's, let's boil it down to to, you know, Darwinian theory and and what what's adaptive and what what survives. And that's the whole thing is that these failed crap that's out there, like it won't survive. And then they're going to have to come up with something new. So, that's why consistency and being genuine and thinking like that matters. It has more currency now than ever before. It has more value, right, than ever before. So, that's that's the beauty of it is like you don't have to worry about that other junk methodology because it's going to die. It will die eventually. Like, it might take some time, but if it's, if it's if it if it doesn't work, it won't ever work. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like communism. It's never worked. The countries that that claim to be socialistic, yeah, how good they're doing.

Yeah, yeah. Do five minutes of research every day. Look, Brian, you, you eat right, so you look good and you stay healthy and you avoid diseases. You, uh, exercise so you stay flexible and you can live a full life into your late ages. The brain is a muscle and if you don't daily work on expanding your intellect, which is enlightenment, then you're going to go further back into that cave and no amount, well, that's entitlement.

And that's that's what I wanted to kind of almost, that that's the perfect ending on it is the, is the, it's, it's okay to get out of the cave. Like it's scary. It's, it's, it's, it's weird. There's some strange people out there, you know, but you'll figure it out, right? It's getting, getting out of that.

Tinder. Yeah, we should get, they should sponsor us too, for the love of God. Yeah, yeah, you're, you're right on, Brian. We can do that. We can do an entire episode on my, my past experience with dating apps where hilarity ensued. SnipersOnly.com was a mistake, I'll tell you that. I will just tell you that Lee Boyd Malvo, that was a mistake. Wow. Wow. That was, that was probably my worst joke in a week, but I will chalk it up to the medication. SnipersOnly.com.

Okay, well, on that note, folks, brought to you by Snipers. But getting through that, I like that, known or should have known, entitlement versus enlightenment, the Socratic method, we covered personality tests, things that are very arbitrary and capricious, complexity and simplicity. Like that, that's what it is. But that that's what we're, what we're in. That's what we're all talking about. That's what actually everyone is talking about, right? It's just like we talked about when Walt had us on with that great discussion and talked about like, "Look, everyone in some way is just trying to manage uncertainty." That's it. That's all we're doing as human beings. So, so how do you want to manage that? Do you want to curl up and stay with what's comfortable or do you want to be able to get out there and get your, yeah, get in that open water, you know, get out of that small pond and get out in the to the big ocean where the sharks are at, you know?

Even the CHUDs come out of the sewer every night. Just remember that.

That's another movie. That's a good, that's a good line to end on, I think. Even the CHUDs come out of the sewer at night. All right, well, thanks everybody. That's not motivational, Brian. What is, right? What's my takeaway on that? Someone's going to listen to this podcast and then feel worse than they did when they started it. That wasn't our intent. So, so, uh, no, that's good. We appreciate everyone listening and following along. Don't forget you can always check out our Patreon site. We're always adding stuff to that as well and help support the show and follow us on social media. Tell your friends about it. Scroll down and hit a review or hit five stars if you liked it. That that helps out with, uh, with with getting us out there a little bit. So, we do appreciate everyone listening and following along. So, on that, Greg, I think we'll go ahead unless you have any final last thoughts.

That's it. I'm hungry now.

All right. Let's talk about mango. I know we talked a lot about food. Let's go eat. All right, thanks everyone for tuning in. Don't forget, the training changes.