243. How to Navigate the Nuances of Political Conversations with Eric Garcia

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Speaker 1 In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Speaker 1 Hello, everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have a tremendous episode for you.
A conversation with Eric Garcia, founder of Garcia Financial Group.

Speaker 1 You may know him from his podcast, Stuff About Money and His Brand Plan. Wisely, Eric is one of my favorite people because we are able to have conversations that I believe

Speaker 1 would normally be combative in our current environment. The way people speak to each other, the way people think about those who may disagree with some of their

Speaker 1 ideals or some of their

Speaker 1 components of their belief structure. Oftentimes these conversations become very combative.

Speaker 1 And what I wanted to have with Eric was a conversation around, in this case, we talk specifically about politics.

Speaker 1 And what I wanted to show you, the audience, is that when you respect someone, when you care about someone, even if they disagree with your viewpoint, you can have a very productive, very interesting, very engaging conversation around topics that are normally combustive.

Speaker 1 And, you know, Eric and I don't align on all things. We don't see

Speaker 1 different political issues from the same vantage point. However, I appreciate his opinion.
I know his opinion is coming from a good place. I know he's a good actor.

Speaker 1 And we're able to discuss all these things and have a tremendous time doing it. And, you know, honestly, and I share this in the show, I think that

Speaker 1 I do not think that it is a virtue to act as if you don't pay attention or don't comment on politics.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying you need to, but for so long in our society, in an effort to just find peace in our lives, which I completely understand that part of it, we have stuck our head in the sand, we have kept our mouths closed, we have looked the other way as those who were loud and extreme spoke for us.

Speaker 1 And it is my belief that it is, you know, our obligation as individuals, as those with opinions, as those who live and are citizens of this country to not necessarily shout from the mountaintops.

Speaker 1 That's not what I'm saying, but to have a vantage point, to take ownership of our opinion, of the way our country is being led and the things that are happening in it, and to have a perspective.

Speaker 1 And I wanted to share that. I don't care if you agree with my opinion or you agree with Eric's or you fall somewhere in the middle.

Speaker 1 I will tell you that what I hope you guys take away and I am trying to cultivate more is a sense of openness.

Speaker 1 Bruce Lee, I just read Bruce Lee's striking thoughts and he has this incredible concept that he kind of attacks from a bunch of different angles.

Speaker 1 But essentially, the idea is the value of the cup is its emptiness.

Speaker 1 And I want to start to cultivate that idea more in my life as I continue on my own journey to peak performance and to being the best version of myself.

Speaker 1 And in that way, I want to have more conversations with people who have opinions that I don't necessarily agree with because I want to better understand those opinions.

Speaker 1 And I want to have those conversations in a way that is productive and compassionate and understanding and hopefully fun.

Speaker 1 Because there is no way that we

Speaker 1 should

Speaker 1 or that we were built to always agree with each other. But I do think it is our obligation to find ways to be civil and understanding and to give grace to each other despite our differences.

Speaker 1 And I hope that this conversation conversation is an example of that.

Speaker 1 And to that end, my friends, if you find value in this conversation, as I've said on many podcasts before, I don't run ads on this podcast.

Speaker 1 I don't run ads on purpose because I don't want to ever be driven in one direction or another.

Speaker 1 And the value of this podcast to you, I hope, and your return of that value is only in that you share the podcast or you go on Apple, you go on Spotify, you leave us a rating or review.

Speaker 1 That helps more people find this show. Sharing the show helps you, helps more people find the show.

Speaker 1 Even if you share the show to dissent against something I say or to disagree with something I say, I think that's fine.

Speaker 1 The more people that find this podcast, that listen to these ideas, the more people we can bring in, we can gather more information and ultimately figure out to our own unique selves, our own unique belief systems, how we become the best version of ourselves.

Speaker 1 So if you love the show, please share it. or go on Spotify, go on Apple, leave us a rating and review.
And for that, I give you nothing but love. Let's get get on to Eric Garcia.

Speaker 1 Before we get there, though, I just want to talk about something you brought up and have you share maybe a little more thought on this. You said you think it's incredibly healthy and important that

Speaker 1 we

Speaker 1 continually challenge our thought processes.

Speaker 1 Maybe expand on that a little bit because I agree with you, but I'm very interested in. why you think that's so important and maybe how you do it.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So as humans, we have shortcuts, these heuristics. We call them heuristics, right?

Speaker 1 In the psychology world, like these shortcuts in the financial space, we have these heuristics, these shortcuts, right? The rule of 72, how fast will it take my money to double?

Speaker 1 Right. These, these really kind of quick things, because it takes, we don't want to waste brain energy, right? We're lazy.
Humans are lazy. in general.
We want to find the fastest way to do things.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 there was a day and age where physically, you know, we're talking about staying fit. You had to be physically fit to operate, to be able to

Speaker 1 operate in this world hundreds and hundreds of years ago. If you were overweight and out of shape, you didn't survive, right?

Speaker 1 But we're in a world today where our minds are, you know, we make money with our minds these days, right? And we can get really lazy in our thinking processes.

Speaker 1 We get stuck in these ruts where we start to believe things that might not even be true. We start to believe half truths.

Speaker 1 And if we're not critically thinking through things, we can shortchange decisions that we make. We make poor decisions.
So

Speaker 1 that to say, I think it's really important

Speaker 1 that in the same way you go to the gym to, you know, to work out your biceps.

Speaker 1 I don't do a lot of curls, actually. They're just natural.
To work out your, you know, your, your hamstrings, right? Your, your lower back. I've seen you deadlifting.

Speaker 1 Right. In the same way you go to the gym to do that.
I think we need to be doing the same thing with our minds.

Speaker 1 And if we, if we just constantly read things that are in agreement with us, we're in our little echo chambers and we're never challenged and we never become sharp. Right.

Speaker 1 One of my favorite proverbs is, and most people have probably heard this, as iron sharpens iron, so one person should sharpen another.

Speaker 1 If you've ever seen the process of iron becoming sharper, it's a very dramatic, painful, I would imagine, right, sparks experience. But that's how iron gets sharper.

Speaker 1 So, all that to say is, if I want to become sharper in my thinking, it's really important for me to have conflict. When I say conflict, I don't mean like bad conflict per se.

Speaker 1 It's really important for me to be challenged in my thinking.

Speaker 1 So, for example,

Speaker 1 so for example,

Speaker 1 let's say

Speaker 1 I'm pro-life,

Speaker 1 okay?

Speaker 1 That I

Speaker 1 believe abortion is bad,

Speaker 1 it should be abolished.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I want to grow in my, in what I believe. I want to be confronted with the best possible pro-choice art, pro-choice argument out there.

Speaker 1 Like, I want to know, not the straw man argument, not like, oh, you're pro-choice. You don't believe you think all, you know, you think we should kill babies.
right?

Speaker 1 That's, that's, if you ever talk to someone who's pro-choice and really listened, that's not where they're coming from. Not all of them in particular.
So like, I want to be challenged.

Speaker 1 Like, I want to know what your best argument for pro-choices. I want to know what your best argument, pick, pick your topic du jour,

Speaker 1 right? It could be how you manage your business, right? I want to be challenged and I want to hear your best argument against what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 And what I find is that makes me sometimes it moves me, right? Man, I've been holding on to this for too long. I need to let go of some things that aren't relevant or that aren't that are hurting me.

Speaker 1 Um, and then sometimes it strengthens, it strengthens what I believe already.

Speaker 1 So if we don't take time to be challenged, then we'll never, we'll never, we'll never grow.

Speaker 1 So let me leave you this one, give you this one more analogy. I love planting things in my garden.
Okay.

Speaker 1 If you've ever seen, if you follow my Facebook, you see I'm planting things. I love, I just planted an avocado.
I'm really excited about it.

Speaker 1 If you take a plant and you plant a plant from seed in a greenhouse, right, protected from the elements, no heat, you know, no wind, that plant will grow. Okay, it'll grow nice.

Speaker 1 The second you expose it to elements,

Speaker 1 it's probably going to die. But if I take that same plant and I plant it outside, exposed to the elements, and it withstands hurricane winds and

Speaker 1 the heat and the cold, that thing is growing deeper roots and it's going to become a stronger plant. It's going to be a healthier plant.
It's the same thing with our thinking.

Speaker 1 If I live in a very protected bubble, this is why, look, this is why you see this all the time.

Speaker 1 People who grew up in very restrictive households maybe you know maybe a particular uh faith uh they're not exposed to to different ways of thinking and they go off to college and then they go they go buck ass wild because they've never had they've never had to deal with adversity they've ever had to deal with other ways of thinking and then all of a sudden like oh my gosh what what is this so anyway all that to say um

Speaker 1 I think being challenged is not a bad thing at all. I think this is one of the most important concepts in our society today and things that we need to talk about

Speaker 1 as a group, as a collective, as individuals thinking through our own lives. And

Speaker 1 I wrote a bunch of things down that you said, and I couldn't agree more with what you're saying.

Speaker 1 One clarifying question for you before I move into just a few other thoughts that I had. What is bad conflict? Because you said, you know, we need to have conflict in our life.
And then you did did a

Speaker 1 wouldn't be a preface because you said it afterwards, but you said, but not bad conflict. What constitutes, how do you delineate between good conflict and bad conflict? Yeah.
Okay. So

Speaker 1 this is not thought out at all. So that's okay.

Speaker 1 But I would say bad conflict is where, let's say you and I, and let's just kind of keep it in the context of you and I are.

Speaker 1 arguing about some

Speaker 1 position of fate or some position of politics, right? Because those are the two things that are the worst, right?

Speaker 1 I would say if we're entering the conversation and not in good faith, then I would say it's bad conflict. And that's what you see online, right? You see people engaging in conversation or

Speaker 1 argument or

Speaker 1 engaging in arguments and it's not in good faith. So for those who may not know that term, what do you mean in good faith? In good faith means like,

Speaker 1 Ryan, I disagree with you and I think you're an idiot and a fool.

Speaker 1 That's in bad faith. Like, Ryan, I disagree with you.
I want to learn more about why I disagree with you, but I recognize you as a human being who's smart and intelligent.

Speaker 1 And I want to understand what you believe and why you believe it.

Speaker 1 I'm entering that argument or that discussion in good faith.

Speaker 1 Another good example of this would be like where you say Nikki Haley says, you know, that she's for the war in Ukraine, and you don't realize that her entire family, it, you know, her entire family owns a military uh consulting company and it is in her personal best interest financially to have the war in ukraine because then she gets paid and so do all her family members to go over and consult so so we would call that we would call that conflicted okay yep so that's a conflict of interest

Speaker 1 yes So I would, I would call that, I don't know if that's necessarily in bad faith, but I would call that that Nikki Hale, if that's, I don't, and I don't know, I don't, I'm assuming that's true if you're saying it, but she's

Speaker 1 a chill for the military industrial competition yeah we call that we call that that's well that's a conflict of interest trump trump has lots of conflicts of of interest

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 you think i what do you think those are i mean

Speaker 1 again i'm i'm not advocating for i've gotten some recently because people think i advocate for trump i'm not advocating for trump i i'll be honest with you the most fascinating thing for me about trump is the psychology of trump derangement syndrome i'm just fascinated by it i don't think he's the best candidate for our country as a whole i wish we had better options i I think he's better than Biden by far.

Speaker 1 I mean, you're literally voting for people. You're literally voting for the dark

Speaker 1 side of politics if you vote for Biden.

Speaker 1 He's a fucking corpse.

Speaker 1 But my point is, I actually don't even love Trump.

Speaker 1 If I thought he had a shot, and I will probably vote for him in New York because the freaking libs down in New York are going to vote for Biden no matter what. I probably would vote for RFK.

Speaker 1 I love RFK. I don't agree with everything RFK does, but you know what I think love about RFK? And I'll move on to my ideas around Trump derangement syndrome.
Is

Speaker 1 here's what I know. Robert F.
Kenney Jr. loves this country.
He does. You don't have to agree with that.

Speaker 1 I think some of his thoughts on crypto, some of his thoughts on some other topics are a little off the wall.

Speaker 1 I think he doesn't necessarily have, I think he, I think he, I think he has some odd views on some capitalistic things and taxes. However, in general, you know what I know what I know for a fact?

Speaker 1 The dude makes his own decisions and loves this country. And I don't think you have to agree with every point that someone has to vote for them.

Speaker 1 I for me, at this point, considering our other options, a pure and undying love for this country,

Speaker 1 to me, even though he's a Democrat who's had to go independent because the Democrats are so fucking corrupt, it's not even funny. That, I mean, anyone who wants to say Trump is corrupt is like,

Speaker 1 can I pause you real quick? Can I pause you real quick? Can I give you a little pushback? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please.

Speaker 1 Like that comment right there

Speaker 1 would make it very difficult for you to engage a conversation with a Democrat because you think they're all because you think they're all I don't think they're all corrupt.

Speaker 1 I think the Democrat Party is corrupt. I also think the Republican Party.
I'm about to say, you don't think the Republicans are corrupt? Oh, I do, 100%. I think it's a uniparty.
I think it's crazy.

Speaker 1 That's the thing that people don't understand. My, that, when I get shit for, for, for my views, it's literally, I think they're all terrible.
I think they're all awful.

Speaker 1 And I can't stand that these are the options or that our government, people, I don't think people quite realize how terrible and uniparty our government has become.

Speaker 1 I mean, they are all corrupted to a point where, you know, it's disgusting. It's literally disgusting where we've gotten to as a country.
And I don't love Republicans.

Speaker 1 I was a registered Democrat my entire life until Obama's second term when I feel like he completely flipped on what the reason I voted for him in his in 2008, which I did.

Speaker 1 I voted for Obama the first term. I felt during that first term, he did nothing except for the Affordable Care Act, which I think was a complete farce versus what he originally positioned it as.

Speaker 1 I no longer trusted him.

Speaker 1 And I hated hated that I had to vote Republican in the next election. I then was a registered independent until about a year ago when I become so disgusted in the

Speaker 1 Republican, or

Speaker 1 I became registered and independent. Yeah, I'm still registered independent.
I'm still today registered independent.

Speaker 1 I never, I thought about registering as Republican, but then I did more research on them, became so disgusted with them that I'm like, I can't stand any of these people.

Speaker 1 And I don't know what to do about it.

Speaker 1 Here's one thing. And I promise I'll shut up on on this thing.
No, no, that's fine. This is good.
So

Speaker 1 I am of an opinion, though, and I'm really interested in your take on this. So I am open about my political beliefs.
I'm open about it. I don't care if people don't like it.
That's fine.

Speaker 1 You don't have to like my views. You don't have to agree with my views.
I can still like other people. And I have plenty of friends who have these liberal beliefs that I think are fucking bananas.

Speaker 1 What I do believe, though, is I think they, I believe that they believe they have those views for the right reason. And I'm completely, that's what I've said.
I'm completely cool.

Speaker 1 I can wholly and utterly disagree with your final decision if I believe that your initial reasoning for getting there was pure, right?

Speaker 1 So if I believe you're trying to help people, which like I'll take, I'll give you a good example.

Speaker 1 My sister, my sister is a hippie liberal and I can't stand her viewpoint because I think it is, it's borderline Marxist. The problem is she's 33 years old.

Speaker 1 She has this pure, saintly heart and all she wants to do is help people, right?

Speaker 1 And she has been corrupted into believing that any of these scumbags, let alone the Democrats, are somehow the party of the nice people who are helping the little guys.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, Casey, you don't understand. Like

Speaker 1 your viewpoints are Marxist. Now, there are Democrats who have very pro-American views.
And I love those guys. I have no problem.
It doesn't matter to me what party you're part of. But like,

Speaker 1 it's this.

Speaker 1 they people get like i don't it doesn't bother me that she has the views she has i don't agree with them because i know where it's coming from this pure place of she she wants to help the underdogs and help people but and then let me get to my actual thought here my thought is i feel like it is a complete and utter cop out this i don't follow politics stuff or i don't get into politics or i'm not into politics i'm like you know what you're a chicken shit because the reason our country is in the place that it is and the fucking dirtbags who are running our country on both sides and across the board are currently running our country is because so many good people go oh i'm not into politics.

Speaker 1 I'm like, yeah, you're not being into politics is the reason we have gotten to where we are. We need to have be able to go back to the point where, dude, I don't know exactly what your politics are.

Speaker 1 It could be completely different from mine. But you know what? I know you're a good person who cares about other people.
And we should be able to have a conversation in which we disagree on topics.

Speaker 1 And at the end of the day, we bro hug it out and it's all good. And you still believe what you believe.
And I still believe what I believe.

Speaker 1 And it's all good because we're pointing in the same direction. Or, or maybe, maybe, maybe you moved me a little bit.
Maybe I'm not going to be able to do it. Or maybe vice versa.
Right, right.

Speaker 1 Maybe maybe we've maybe because we don't have all the answers right if we ever think that we have all the answers then

Speaker 1 then what fun is conversation so i'm going to give you a good example of this so well let me let me tell you what let me make

Speaker 1 please make one comment then you said you were going to ask my opinion on something so yep make sure you close this out with a question so i can so i can respond to you because you i'm not good i'm not good at interviewing dude it's just no no but but you got to ask me a question because you said so much and like i don't want to just you know respond to things that are that are relevant but here's why politics are important

Speaker 1 politics are important because politicians write policy.

Speaker 1 Policy is important because policy impacts people.

Speaker 1 Here's what's interesting.

Speaker 1 And this is something I've learned over the past 15 years, and just kind of shutting up and listening and not necessarily sharing my opinion, but like hearing from other people.

Speaker 1 And I know some people, some people are going to hear me say this, and they're going to say, oh, there goes Eric.

Speaker 1 He's, you know, he sounds like he's a liberal Democrat or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 what government does impacts you you and I a lot less than it impacts people who are more marginalized, right? The Affordable Care Act, right?

Speaker 1 Okay, if it you go past universal health care, okay, big deal, my insurance goes up a little bit. But my business partner

Speaker 1 who has an uninsurable condition

Speaker 1 all of a sudden got insurance. Yep.

Speaker 1 Not only did he get insurance, last year he just had a double lung implant surgery, which would have been impossible impossible if it wasn't for the Affordable Care Act.

Speaker 1 How many other people who are poor, who don't have access to health care, were impacted?

Speaker 1 Is it perfect? No, I'm not advocating

Speaker 1 for that. But think about that.
Policy impacts people, right? Big thing right now is immigration. Well, you know,

Speaker 1 does it really impact my day-to-day? I mean,

Speaker 1 contrary to what some people say, there's not a bunch of illegal people running around murdering people.

Speaker 1 There's more Americans out there killing people than

Speaker 1 there are people who are here illegally, right? That's rhetoric that we hear.

Speaker 1 But like policy directly impacts people who are immigrants, who are in this, like who have, who were born here without documents. They're not citizens.
They've lived their entire life here.

Speaker 1 They're in their early 20s.

Speaker 1 And every day they're worried about, oh my God, a policy is going to be written that's going to send me back to a country that like, sure, that's where my parents were from, but like, I don't know that country.

Speaker 1 I've been in this country. Like policy is important because it impacts people.
That's why it's really important to say, you know, you say liberal, Democrat, conservative, whatever.

Speaker 1 It's like, man, tell me what you believe, why you believe it. Yes.
When you hear the compelling reason, okay, so my parents are Cuban. They came to this country.

Speaker 1 If you know any Cubans who came here in their 60s or even in the 80s, they're all going to be like hardcore,

Speaker 1 hardcore, for the most part, Republican. You know, they love Trump.
They love the strongman. Right.

Speaker 1 I disagree with a lot of that.

Speaker 1 But, you know, when Obama became president you talk to cubans they're like oh my gosh he's communist why is he communist he wants to do universal health care well why do you think that's communist because we had universal health care in cuba and it sucks

Speaker 1 okay well that that's kind of like okay we're we're we're we're jumping a little bit to to big extremes here you know well you know on the left they say oh well trump is trump is hitler why is trump hitler right because some of the things he says okay maybe maybe we're we're taking some a few steps here i don't know but like let's stop and let's listen to like like why do you think that rather than me just saying i think you're crazy i think you're stupid i don't want to listen to you like why do you think that i'm kidding this is the i dude i love this and this is what i'm talking about why we need to have these why i think the i don't follow i don't talk about politics thing is a complete chicken shit cop out because these are the nuanced conversations that we need to have right

Speaker 1 so when i say i lost faith in obama I voted for Obama because I believed in the initial vision of the Affordable Care Act and what he's talking about and exactly what you just explained for your business partner and for other people.

Speaker 1 I mean, most people, I've shared this in part, but I grew up in an incredibly poor town of less than 900 people, right? My friends used to refer to my house as the crack house.

Speaker 1 Like, we had just enough to get by. Like, there was never like not food in my house, but we just, you know, we got by.
We did not have stuff.

Speaker 1 And like, I didn't take a vacation until I paid for it myself. The first vacation that I ever went on, I was in my 20s.
First vacation I ever went on ever as a human was in my 20s.

Speaker 1 So like, like, you know i look at and i looked at these things and this is why i was a democrat for so long is because i really i what i knew of and was able to understand of bill clinton's you know what bill clinton did i know people can come in and say he did in general bill clinton was a pretty good and i know he made mistakes and i'm not advocating for all this kind of stuff and take away the like moniker winsky but like i mean

Speaker 1 let's be honest take that away like like

Speaker 1 I mean, if we're honest, if we're honest, the only president or one of the few presidents in in modern history that didn't have any scandal was like personal scandal was probably Obama.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, if you believe married to, I mean, you look at

Speaker 1 his wife's a female, right? Some of these wackos out online believe these wacky things, but I agree with you, right? In general, you seem to be a family man with two kids.

Speaker 1 And look, I actually don't believe Obama. I, what I believe, so, so, so, my issue was that I actually think Barack Obama in general is a, is a good human who wanted to do the right things.

Speaker 1 What I think happened is he got into office and got absolutely corrupted.

Speaker 1 What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. And in exchange for that, I need your help.

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Peace. Let's get back to the episode.

Speaker 1 By the, by this, whatever this machine, dude, it's a monster. It's a machine.
I think that he got, I think he got absolutely leveraged by

Speaker 1 whatever this dark area of our government is that we hear about, see about, but don't necessarily understand. Because

Speaker 1 that guy standing on stage in 2006, when he announced, when he first announced that he was, he comes out and he gave that talk that unifying, it's not about white, you know, Black America, white America, it's about America, whatever it was, I'm butchering it a little bit, but like,

Speaker 1 like that talk, if you, if you, you could not hear that talk and not have shivers if you believe in this country. You just couldn't, right? And that was, that was the vision of, that I grew up with.

Speaker 1 I mean, like these ideas today that somehow our country is this racist like hellscape where everything is based on gender is, in my opinion, is completely manufactured. It's not the way I grew up.

Speaker 1 And I grew up in an area where if racism was a big deal, it would have been a big deal in America. Now, that's not to say that racism doesn't exist.
Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 1 I have plenty of black friends who would tell you of brown friends.

Speaker 1 I think, I I think here, and again, this is. But my point is,

Speaker 1 my point is, and I'll just finish this thought. Yeah.
I believe what

Speaker 1 I lost faith in him because I felt like he gave in to forces that were beyond his control. I do think he's, you know, was a good guy and was trying his best and got absolutely snowballed.
But

Speaker 1 my point in saying that is, if I were to say that. in my Republican circle of friends, they would absolutely castrate me, right?

Speaker 1 They would say all the things you just, he's a fucking Marxist and this and this and this. And he did all these things.
things and we can't have that discussion and to me it's like

Speaker 1 we need to have it like i voted for trump twice i will probably vote for him again if i don't vote for rfk but it is only because the other the when i weigh the options it is not because i like him do you think that i don't think he's a great representation of our country you're kidding me but One, I think policy-wise, action-wise, are actually much different than the things he says.

Speaker 1 And two,

Speaker 1 when weighed against the other options that we've been presented with so far, I have not seen the other option being better.

Speaker 1 But it's not because I like him. And that's the problem.
People immediately go, oh, you must be some sort of, you know, racist, homophobe. You hate women.
And I'm like, no, that's not the case at all.

Speaker 1 I just weigh him against these other options. I mean, they can't say that.
You just said, you just said we're going to send the men into battle first because we need the women.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, you need to value.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, I do. I do value.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Men are disposable. So what did you want? What did you want my opinion on? My opinion.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So my opinion is,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 I think we're getting to this, and this was really my question, was how do we start to wade through these things? How do you have these conversations in

Speaker 1 private, semi-public, public forums in a way that is productive, that doesn't become shouting, that doesn't become, you know, I wrote something down while you were talking the first time that

Speaker 1 the best argument is rarely the meme. is what I wrote down.
And I think this is part of the problem is that we live in this society where everyone just throws memes at you.

Speaker 1 Oh, wait, Eric, you believe in the Affordable Care Act? You must be a communist, right? And we throw this fucking meme at you. Here's how we have these conversations.
You ready? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I don't have faith that many people will do this. Yeah.
Right. But here's the secret.

Speaker 1 When we engage in conversation with anyone, especially on topics that are volatile and

Speaker 1 emotionally charged, number one,

Speaker 1 I think it helps to have a relationship with that person.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 The stuff that happens online, man, like I don't even, I don't, I have a rule. I've got two rules when it comes to social media.

Speaker 1 Number one, never respond to anyone's political comments, even if I agree with them, and never post anything political.

Speaker 1 And if I post anything about faith or religion.

Speaker 1 It has to be, it's typically from a very personal narrative from my experience. not like this is truth and everyone else is wrong.

Speaker 1 It's something specific about my faith and how it has impacted me and changed me.

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 the social media is not the platform to do it, because we're avatars on social media.

Speaker 1 It's easy for us to say, I can say something really harsh to you on social media that I would never tell you if I was staring you in the eye. 100%.

Speaker 1 So, so, number one, okay, if you're going to have really charged,

Speaker 1 how many people have you moved

Speaker 1 to your idea, to your camp by yelling at them? My guess is very few. Yeah.
So why even bother? Like, why even it's pointless.

Speaker 1 If I want to have a meaningful conversation with someone who I disagree with, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to run to a point of commonality. I am going to get to know you, right?

Speaker 1 I want to know where you and I see eye to eye.

Speaker 1 Oh, man,

Speaker 1 you love your kids. I love my kids too.

Speaker 1 Oh, man, you're a good, you sound like a good father man like okay we have a point of come i have something of a point of refuge that we can come back to really quickly if it if it if it starts you know going off the rails but let's let's say like let's say i'm pro-biden you're pro-Trump okay yep like um like like hard pro like let's let's say you're like and and for the record this is not the case let's say you are not just pro-Trump but you're like that like really that 30% of like hardcore white national

Speaker 1 the MAGA version of Trump the MAGA version yeah like you are you are the caricature of Trump and let's say let's say I am like let's say I'm not Biden let's say like I am like uh the caricature of the AOC Bernie camp okay like you and I we don't see even hearing those words makes my skin crawl but yes right because I wanted I wanted a very extreme that's why this is a good that's a good thought experiment I like it um and let's just say for sake of argument I'm the reasonable one when I say reasonable not necessarily in beliefs, but just in terms of like, hey, I want to get to know Ryan because I want to convince Ryan to

Speaker 1 get him off of his like, yeah, even if I don't pull him to my side, like he's, he's, he's getting into some dangerous stuff here. Yep.

Speaker 1 So what I'm going to, the first thing I'm going to go do is, man, I want to find a point of

Speaker 1 commonality between the two of us. What is it? Like, certainly.

Speaker 1 We are humans. We have lived the human experience.
We've had pain. We've had joy.
We've been part of families.

Speaker 1 we've been friends with other people, we've been in bad breakups, we've had heart, hardship. Like I want to find that commonality and I want to, I want to form a relationship with you.

Speaker 1 I want to get to know you. And then once I get to know you, then I can ask questions like, hey, Ryan, I'm really curious about this.

Speaker 1 Why do you believe this?

Speaker 1 Right. Because if I come to you like that, you're going to probably come off of your pretty soon, you're not going to be as hard.

Speaker 1 You're going to come off of your kind of, you're not going to be as defensive.

Speaker 1 You're not going to be on the attack attack because you realize like hey i'm not attacking you there's a really good story i don't know if you've seen this this is actually a really good example of this there's this black guy who's a musician um this was back in like in the maybe like 80s or 90s uh i think it was in massachusetts okay

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 he was playing at a bar where there was a bunch of kkk guys and they they would come and they would listen to his music and he befriended

Speaker 1 I don't know, I don't know what they call him and like the member.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like the, not the grandmaster, but like the grand falcon, whatever. I don't know.
Like he befriended this guy. And over the years, this guy would really liked his music.

Speaker 1 The black guy became friends with this guy. He actually went to a KKK meeting with, because the guy loved this musician.
Yep.

Speaker 1 This guy was really endearing to him. And

Speaker 1 long story short.

Speaker 1 This guy, I can't think of his name, but if you Google Black Guy who, you know, KKK, you'll find there's a beautiful video on it. This dude has collected over like 50 KKK robes from

Speaker 1 I think it's more than that. I think it's like 300.
So you've seen this. Like, yeah, like, what did he do? Right.
Number one, here's this guy who is clearly hated by the KKK,

Speaker 1 but yet found a point of commonality, music. built a relationship with this guy.
The KKK guy stopped attacking, was no longer the defensive.

Speaker 1 The black dude, clearly incredibly like

Speaker 1 gracious yeah

Speaker 1 um and in the end he has changed the hearts of a lot of people yeah now it probably came at a cost to him like and then that that's grueling you know i would imagine that it's very difficult and patient work but man that's what i'm talking about yes right he was in his he was in his full no one would have thought he was crazy to

Speaker 1 to walk away and not do that. We think he's crazy for what he did, but then what a beautiful story.
So

Speaker 1 there's this quote that I will eventually have tattooed on my body at some point. And the

Speaker 1 end part of it is grace upon grace. The full is for from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace.

Speaker 1 And I think about this quote a lot in my life because I obviously have the ability to be bombastic. And I talk in hyperbole because I think it's fun and funny.
But I also know.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I think for those who have had real conversations with me, not, you know, kind of some of my more chaotic podcast conversations, which I just find fun.

Speaker 1 I try very much to live in grace and be understanding. And I think that, you know, when we go back to this topic and

Speaker 1 we think through these conversations, when I say I do honestly believe that it is cowardly to shy away from political conversations, conversations about religion, that being said,

Speaker 1 I do not mean the polar opposite. I do not mean we rush into these conversations and throw our views onto other people.

Speaker 1 The thing, I'll tell you, the number one thing that I struggle with with Christianity the most are Christians who take their, and this is obviously not what you do,

Speaker 1 but Christians who throw their belief on other people, right? Like it's like, and

Speaker 1 you brought up abortion. I'm not going to go into that topic per se, but that is a topic that.

Speaker 1 oftentimes at its extremes is fueled by a religious belief, one way, you know, one way or the other. And

Speaker 1 my point that I always bring up in that conversation is I don't have the answer. I'm not smart enough.
I haven't done enough research and I struggle with it on both sides.

Speaker 1 And I actually talk to my mom about it a lot because she's a really hardcore Christian.

Speaker 1 But my point in saying that is like,

Speaker 1 we have to,

Speaker 1 we have to, I shouldn't say we have to.

Speaker 1 My hope is that in all conversations, be they silly conversations about the insurance industry, religious conversations, political conversations, et cetera, is that we

Speaker 1 divorce ourselves from telling others how to live, that we live exactly the way we want to live, and that we be willing to share why we've decided to live that way, but we do not pontificate onto others why they should live the way we've chosen to live.

Speaker 1 I think that explaining to other people, you know, and dude, this goes for silly shit. Like, you know,

Speaker 1 I got lit up pretty good the other day talking about inbound marketing in the insurance industry. People get worked up about that, right? Like, like,

Speaker 1 I should have used that as an example: inbound versus outbound.

Speaker 1 I'm not even kidding. This might be worse than if I had like brought up Trump or that, like, God is real, and everyone who doesn't believe him is an asshole.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like, you know, you would think that me saying, and this is, so this is what I said, and I'll tell you, and this is, this is why it goes back to having grace for people, right?

Speaker 1 So, I made, I put this little post in this little video, and

Speaker 1 my take on this particular topic was that when someone raises their hand and calls our business,

Speaker 1 we should solve their problem and round out accounts later. That was my take.

Speaker 1 Bro, you would have thought that I was questioning. For the record, for the Holy Trinity.
For the record, bro.

Speaker 1 For the record, I listened to that episode and

Speaker 1 I agree 100% with you. It's

Speaker 1 solve people's. So this kind of goes back to

Speaker 1 this, kind of what we're talking about, right? Like in financial planning,

Speaker 1 when people hire me as their financial planner, if I come to them and say, okay, Ryan, I'm your financial planner now. We're going to do a state planning, tax plan, all this stuff.

Speaker 1 They're like, no, dude, like, I just need you to help me figure out X, Y, and Z first. It's like triage.
I call it financial triage. Like, what is the problem? Let me solve.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you're hungry, right? So you're talking about, let's, because I want to, I want to, three, three points I want to make about

Speaker 1 the verse that you referenced or grace upon grace, the quote that you referenced um

Speaker 1 but um it's like if i want to share a message with you let's say i'm a christian and and i want to share a message with you and you're you're like hungry and i come to you and you're like hey dude do you have food for me i said no but i got this really good message for you like i the message is good i think it's a good message right um but like you're hungry like like dude like feed me.

Speaker 1 Like, no, no, I got this good message for you. Like, let me feed you.
Let me satisfy your need.

Speaker 1 Let me get to know your name,

Speaker 1 right? Let me get to know what's important for you. Then let me share my message with you.
But like, there's something real, there's something to be said about, like, solve the problem.

Speaker 1 Yeah, solve the problem first. Now, you can say, well, the problem is Ryan doesn't believe in Jesus and he needs to believe.
I get it. I get it.
But like, that the problem, we've come to this.

Speaker 1 We forget that

Speaker 1 we're supposed to live in community with each other. We're supposed to live in relationship.
Like the world isn't these one-off interactions. Like, I get to know you.
I live in community with you.

Speaker 1 You see me live. I see you live.
Let's say, let's say I'm living. Let's say, let's say I got my life right and you're struggling.
And sure, I'm there.

Speaker 1 Like, Ryan, you really, you're making bad decisions. You're making bad decisions.
One day you're going to come to me and say, Eric, I need your advice on something, right?

Speaker 1 Because we've been living in relationship. Okay.
We've been living in community with each other. And I think that's really important when we're having these conversations.

Speaker 1 I have no problem talking politics and religion. Number one, when people say, don't talk politics and religion, I say, well, how am I supposed to really know you?

Speaker 1 yeah right like if there's anything that shapes us we're all being shaped by something we're either being shaped by our faith or being we're being shaped by the secular world that just is doing its own thing we're being shaped and i want to know

Speaker 1 the next thought can i give you i'm going to give you an example of this yes i had someone reach out to me recently about about taking a full-time position at their company right and um

Speaker 1 I told them I had reservations about that.

Speaker 1 It wasn't a hard note, but I had reservations. And I wrote them this letter, whatever, it doesn't matter.
I finished the letter by saying this.

Speaker 1 I gave them five reasons why they should not hire me. Right.
So I said, you know, you don't here.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying, this isn't me saying I don't want to work with you, but here are five things that you should consider before you bring me in. Right.
And I listed these five things.

Speaker 1 The last thing was this.

Speaker 1 I believe strongly

Speaker 1 in the original values of the American experiment, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

Speaker 1 I skew towards a conservative mindset, and every decision I make is passed through a filter of Judeo-Christian values. If those things offend you, then we need to have a conversation about that.

Speaker 1 And my point was not to get political. It was not to get religious, but I wanted to be very clear that these are the filters that I use, right?

Speaker 1 These are the filters that I use to make my decisions, for better or for worse, the heuristics that allow me to operate my life, these are what they are.

Speaker 1 Have you ever had a podcast before where heuristics was used twice?

Speaker 1 No, but I love that word.

Speaker 1 You know, and

Speaker 1 it, I think, you know, to your point, and then I get back to what you're saying. I just, it was, you were saying it, I was like, oh my God, I literally just did this.

Speaker 1 It was like, I put that in there and I've never done that before, but I just, I've gotten to a point in my life where it was like, I just wanted to be up front. Like, this is what you're getting.

Speaker 1 If you bring me in, if you really want me, if this is what you really want, like, this is who you're getting.

Speaker 1 Like, don't come in, don't have me come in and be like, we can't believe you're this thing. I'm like, this is what I am.

Speaker 1 Like, so even, even in your statement, even in your statement, these are my filters. If you tell me that, I'm not going to push back, but my follow-up question would be: okay,

Speaker 1 what do you mean by conservative? Because I don't even know what that means anymore. Yep.
And second, tell me more about the values, the Judo-Christian values that you use as a filter. Because

Speaker 1 human history is littered with people who have have picked and, you know, I'm not saying this is you, but we pick and choose which values we want.

Speaker 1 And again, the reason I use the word filter and not as rules, right? Because one, I'm a highly imperfect person.

Speaker 1 And even if I would love to live in perfect harmony with some of these ideas, I don't always because I'm not perfect. I and

Speaker 1 that's the journey we're on, right? We're sojourners, right? Exactly. And the reason, another reason I use filters and I use filters a lot

Speaker 1 and I think in terms of filters, is because filters can be changed, right? I can change out a filter fairly easily from my life. If something's not working for me,

Speaker 1 let's say a

Speaker 1 staunch, pure capitalistic filter that's normally associated with conservative viewpoints has been my life. I don't believe in that.
I actually think. that we need to have baseline social services and

Speaker 1 financial safety nets, right? right?

Speaker 1 Which would be off of a standard conservative Republican viewpoint, which is why I'm not a Republican, is while I think unfortunately some of those programs get corrupted, I very much believe that they're important and social safety nets are important to the longevity and sustainability of our society.

Speaker 1 So like, they're filters. They're not hard and fast rules.
They're filters. I want to make my three points because they're really good three points.

Speaker 1 Here's your three points. No, no, no.
Before I make those three points, I want to say one thing. Okay.
Yes.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 this is a uh, um,

Speaker 1 when you think of capitalism, who are some of the fathers of capitalism that you think about?

Speaker 1 Uh, well, Hamilton is obviously the original, but I don't know more than you know, some baseline reading about his viewpoints.

Speaker 1 You know, I think of you know, the really hardcore guys are the um the robber barons, the railroad guys

Speaker 1 before them, before that, you think, even before that, Adam Smith, right? Adam Smith, both the names.

Speaker 1 Yeah, if you go all the way back, yeah, Adam Smith

Speaker 1 is an interesting story. If you follow his life, he grew up on the coast watching the market.
So

Speaker 1 he watched the marketplace. So it's really interesting to hear his thoughts.
Adam Smith has another book we never hear about called The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

Speaker 1 Now, I've looked at it, and

Speaker 1 it is

Speaker 1 a book that I probably would never read because it is very, very difficult. The language is very, very difficult.
But if you go listen to some summaries on it, it's exactly what you said.

Speaker 1 We hold Adam Smith as like the father of capitalism, right?

Speaker 1 But he held some beliefs that people would say, whoa, that is not capitalistic. That is not a capitalist.
So anyway, all right. You talk

Speaker 1 just one more on a gamble with that is Machiavelli.

Speaker 1 Everyone. I wrote my three points down so I won't forget them.
Yes. So everyone,

Speaker 1 you hear people reference Machiavelli all the time.

Speaker 1 If you actually read the Prince One and then read some of his other writings and things that he's done,

Speaker 1 his quotes, ideas, and concepts are so commonly misconstrued. It is, and often and never put in context into what he was actually talking about, right?

Speaker 1 It's this like kill or be killed mentality, which is, which

Speaker 1 he was framing only in scenarios in which those types of actions were necessary to be successful. All he was doing was saying, in the real world, sometimes you have to go to war.

Speaker 1 And if you're going to go to war, here's some ways to actually win wars, et cetera. And people reference him as like, whatever.
So I think it's very interesting.

Speaker 1 And again, this goes back to the best argument is often not the meme is that we create these memics for ideas or for individuals or for what they stand for. And they are very rarely.

Speaker 1 the full context version of what someone actually believed or what they were trying to say.

Speaker 1 Context. If you're reading anything.
So one one of my goals this year is to read more dead people.

Speaker 1 Oh, I love that! Yeah, so like people who are no longer here, but their ideas have what would be one or two that are on your list. Um,

Speaker 1 you know, I'm always trying to read a little bit more of Jesus, that's always interesting to me. Um, let's see who else.
Um,

Speaker 1 um, oh my gosh, um,

Speaker 1 I recently read a biography on Justin the Martyr,

Speaker 1 who was like

Speaker 1 an early, like 200, 300

Speaker 1 philosopher. So you would actually really like him because he kind of he dabbled in stoicism.
He dabbled in

Speaker 1 Pythagorean, the guy Pythagorean, like there was like these math cults and he dabbled in all these and ended up, ended up on Christianity, but he's fascinating. Yeah.
Well, Jesus was a stoic.

Speaker 1 No, not totally. Not totally.
No, I mean, dude, if you read it, this is he grew up in Rome. My conjecture, my conjecture at the same is that, dude, he obviously he is the son of God.

Speaker 1 First of all, the Stoics, the Stoics don't, don't,

Speaker 1 typical Stoic philosophy. 100%.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying he was a Stoic. I'm saying, I shouldn't say that.
I shouldn't say he is. But that's like saying Jesus was Buddhist because some of his.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but Stoicism was Stoicism was one of the prevailing. philosophical concepts at the time in which he lived.
So I mean,

Speaker 1 Stoicism had a really, really high moral standard. So that's why, like, like, like Stoics were, like, were super moral.

Speaker 1 They tended to be, in some cases, very,

Speaker 1 they tended to be aesthetics where they, where they would, like, you know, not participate in and they didn't overdrink. I mean, they were very moralistic and ethical.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, there's tons of overlap and commonality.

Speaker 1 I didn't mean to blaspheme there. I know I was blaspheming.
No, that's not blaspheme. That's not.
In fact, there's a

Speaker 1 part in Acts where, you know, where Paul's in Acts chapter 17 where it says that he was in the synagogues reasoning with the with the the the teachers so the the the you know the the um the rabbis and and whatnot and then he was in the next verse he's talking to the the poets and the stoics and the next verse he's like in the marketplace talking to the common people and this is really interesting so point of commonality so here's paul who's spreading this message.

Speaker 1 He's in this very cosmopolitan town. He's in the marketplace.

Speaker 1 And it says there are statues to all these gods in the marketplace and there's one statue to the unknown god this is what paul says he says wow y'all have all these gods that's amazing right like congratulations you're clearly a very faithful people and you even have a god to an unknown a statue to an unknown god let me tell you about this unknown god his name is jesus so like he comes in found this point of commonality

Speaker 1 And then shared his message. Really cool.
All right. All right.
Hit me with three points. Hit me with three points.
We're way over time. So, context.
So, everything has to be read in context.

Speaker 1 Okay, let me back up. All right.
So, you said something about Christians, and they just kind of share this message and they just kind of throw it kind of like hardcore, right?

Speaker 1 Well, not, I didn't mean all. I mean, they're that,

Speaker 1 yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm not getting defensive here.

Speaker 1 Just be clear for the audience. I know you're not.
And you talked about your tattoo that you wanted to get grace upon grace. Yes, yep.
All right. So,

Speaker 1 um, we're told that Jesus was full of grace and truth, grace and truth. I think what happens is, and you can take this outside of Christianity, sometimes we're just full of truth,

Speaker 1 right? Like, I'm just going to come with you at heart. Like, I'm going to point out everything that I see in your life that is like untrue or wrong.
And we're like, no grace.

Speaker 1 And then sometimes we come in just full of grace. Like, oh, Ryan, I love you.
Yeah, you made a bad decision, but it's okay. It's okay.
At some point, I need it. I need to introduce truth.

Speaker 1 So it's grace. and truth.
It's both. It's not just one or the other.

Speaker 1 All right. So I was thinking about that when you said grace upon upon grace.

Speaker 1 The second point I wanted to make about truth was:

Speaker 1 you've heard of the fruits of the Spirit, right? Our kids learn how to sing it.

Speaker 1 Paul talks about it.

Speaker 1 Do you know what? I think there's like seven,

Speaker 1 seven fruits of the Spirit. Do you know what's not a fruit of the Spirit?

Speaker 1 So, like, so like for those who are listening who might not know what that means, like, there's, as Christians, we believe that

Speaker 1 when we put our faith in Jesus, you know, we

Speaker 1 are given the Holy Spirit as our helper, right? To help us work through this life. And he lives in us and just helps us become who we should become.

Speaker 1 It doesn't mean we're like perfect people, but that's the beautiful thing about Christianity is that God has come to us and we have access to him now. It's not like something we're trying to attain.

Speaker 1 He lives with us through the Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit.
What is not on the list, ironically enough, is truth. Truth is not on the list.
Love, joy, peace, faithfulness, kindness, goodness,

Speaker 1 gentleness, self-control, I think, right? Is that because it's subjective? I don't know. Well, do you think truth is subjective?

Speaker 1 Do you think Paul is saying that truth is subjective, that the truth of Jesus is subjective? I think that... I don't know how two things can be both true that are mutually exclusive of each other.

Speaker 1 Then what is my lived truth?

Speaker 1 Is that a made-up term? No, I think that's a...

Speaker 1 When you say, I don't think it's a made-up term.

Speaker 1 That's an honest question.

Speaker 1 I think that is a statement that's indicative of our times, where

Speaker 1 we want to become like our own,

Speaker 1 you know, we want to become our own,

Speaker 1 we want to be in control of our own life. I want to be, I am, I, I am becoming my own little God, and what's true for me is true for me, but it'd have to be true for you.

Speaker 1 Right? So, I'm going to live out my truth. What do I believe? And

Speaker 1 I actually think that's more of a modern idea where

Speaker 1 we live in this world where we're very individualistic, particularly in the West, right? We have a lot of, we're very suspicious of institution.

Speaker 1 Right. I mean, you got to think for most of modern history, we were part of institution, right, wrong, or indifferent.

Speaker 1 But now we live in a world where we can do what we want, how we want, what we want. So we're going to live out our truth,

Speaker 1 which I believe isn't actually true because

Speaker 1 I think just

Speaker 1 sorry, I can't help but have a thought on this I honestly believe the reason that

Speaker 1 a large contributing factor to the rise in depression is our our is the fact that we have moved away from institutions and again I we would have to categorize and contextualize institutions because I think they get convoluted from the original meaning and the meaning that we use today um because people will say like you know, the FBI is an institution.

Speaker 1 That's not what we're talking about. I think in the context of what we're speaking about here.

Speaker 1 But and I think that this lack of sense of community, as we've grown so distrustful of institutions, is a large contributor to the depression that we feel today.

Speaker 1 And then we justify our depression through this idea of lived truth or made up terms and ideology.

Speaker 1 And then we start to create false gods around things like, you know, on the right, it might be MAGAism, and on the left, it might be wokeism, as it's people facing the same problems trying to, trying to, you know,

Speaker 1 find this meaning in their life that doesn't, that, that used to to come from so who are you pushing back on i didn't hear you push back on anything i said uh no i wasn't pushing back and i was sharing i had to share that thought in my head because i because i i agree i agree with you wholeheartedly i guess

Speaker 1 here's what i here's what i would say here's what i would say we're getting we're getting into philosophy and we can we can go on for 17 more hours and that's right my no my my my like calendar is clear because i knew i was going to be talking to you um

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 so I have a problem when someone says what's true like like

Speaker 1 certainly there's there's things that are not mutually that we we there's things that we have to hold in tension right yeah in perspective i think right and it's really hard like okay ryan says this i disagree with him is he wrong am i right i don't know both things we could both possibly be right or we just have to hold it in tension but if i say that jesus is the son of god and you say no he was a he was just um you know just a prophet like those two things are mutually exclusive of each other I'm wrong or you're right.

Speaker 1 So if you say, well, I'm going to live out my truth believing believing that Jesus was just a prophet. And I say, well, I'm going to live out my truth believing that Jesus was the son of God.

Speaker 1 Those things are mutually exclusive of each other. We obviously, we live in a secular country and we live in relationship with people who hold these two things

Speaker 1 and we can live in harmony with each other. But I mean, I would say, well, you're wrong and I'm right, or I'm right and you're wrong.
I mean,

Speaker 1 that's just the way it is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So that's why I talk about like, live out my truth. Like, I want to know what you mean by that.
Tell me what, what do you mean by that? Right. I don't mean anything by it.
I think it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 And I get it. No, I get it.
And there's something, sometimes there's something really beautiful about that. But like, my truth for me is I like to travel a lot.
Okay. I'm going to live out my truth.

Speaker 1 You know, my truth for me is I think it's okay to steal if I really need something. Ooh, wait a minute.
Whoa, whoa, time out. No, you can't do that.
Right. So like,

Speaker 1 or is it? Is it okay to steal? What if they're really hungry? Right. So like, ooh, now we start getting some really interesting ethical debates here, which, so, so, my truth, your truth.

Speaker 1 I think it's important to have these conversations. Again, we're all being shaped by something.
If you say, I'm going to live out my truth, what are you being shaped by? Like,

Speaker 1 I don't want to be shaped by my own emotions, Ryan. Emotions are terrible, are terrible masters, terrible.
And oftentimes, oftentimes, when we say, I want to live out my truth, it's, it's

Speaker 1 now, if you say that, look, if someone here listening is says that, I'm not, I'm not saying you're a bad person, but I'm saying is stop and think: what does that mean to live out my truth?

Speaker 1 Is it I want to do what I want to do, how I want to do it? Like, I'm living, I'm being, I'm being, I, I am mastered by my emotions. Have you read The Untethered Soul?

Speaker 1 Is that um Michael Singer? No, no, not Michael Singer, Michael. Uh, hold on, no, that's not right.
I'm Untethered Soul.

Speaker 1 Come on, computer. Untethered.

Speaker 1 So, as you look that up, yeah, Michael Singer. Yeah.
Untethered Soul. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So he

Speaker 1 I think he does a very good job of removing

Speaker 1 of removing

Speaker 1 this. The argument that he makes, he does weave in

Speaker 1 some Jayo Christian stuff. He does weave in some Buddhist stuff, but it's not the point of the book.
And never does he lay on either one. The point of the book.

Speaker 1 at a very high level and i think this is an incredibly important to me this would be like required reading if you're improving if you're interested in improving your philosophy and psychology.

Speaker 1 And the reason is because

Speaker 1 what he lays out is an argument for the detachment of the soul from your mind and your body.

Speaker 1 And I think that this is one of the most crucial aspects of living a healthy, happy, a consistently healthy, healthy, and happy life as much as is possible and day to day.

Speaker 1 We're all going to have ups and downs.

Speaker 1 And the reason I believe that is because, for exactly what you just said, your mind, your emotions, your feelings are your are your mind's way of sending data points to your soul doesn't mean that those data points are right and we should listen we should listen to them yeah yeah we should listen to them like that board on your car man when that check engine light goes off i better listen to it yes so so this is this is i think the thing where where we get so our body is the same way you have some pain is that pain like you're dying or is that pain like you used your arm you you did a ton of curls and your biceps are bulging is it like what is that and you know is your so so what what what he lays out is this idea that emotions feelings etc

Speaker 1 uh that the the voice that that voice that you hear is not you when when we hear a voice in our head that is not us that is our mind speaking to us and giving us data points and and same thing with our body right and to be able to extract ourselves from that allows us to see them for what they actually are which are important and valid data points but like any experiment or whatever you take the data points in and when you're detached from them right like people always say detach from the outcome and sales the same kind of thing right detach yourself from these see them for what they are and you can actually operate in in the real world where instead you get you know your mind you know, uh, you see a negative, you see somebody post something that's the opposite political party from you, and your mind is flooded with all these senses of urgency and hate and anger and frustration.

Speaker 1 All of a sudden, you're like angry and frustrated because someone posted a meme on freaking Instagram from the opposite political party.

Speaker 1 And you're like, in here, in here, assuming let's, let's, let's just kind of play along here. Let's say you are a, you, you are a, um,

Speaker 1 you would say that you are a Christian. Yep.
And you're getting that angry. And as, as Christians, right? We're called to put on the mind of Christ to become like Christ.

Speaker 1 That's the journey that we're on is how do I become more like Jesus? How is Jesus? Jesus was kind, but he was also strong. I mean, Jesus was revolutionary.

Speaker 1 Like if you read it in context, Jesus said some things that were like really jarring to the culture at large, right?

Speaker 1 So here Jesus is about to be crucified on the cross, right? We're in Lent. We're about to have Easter, by time maybe this publishes will be in Easter.

Speaker 1 And one of the things that, and I think about this, anytime I'm in conversation with someone who wants to hurt me, or I disagree with, right?

Speaker 1 Jesus's words as he is being spit on and beaten on his way to be crucified. He says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Speaker 1 Jesum, Pete, could you imagine that? Here Jesus is

Speaker 1 saying, Man, forget, God, forgive these guys. Father, forgive these guys.
Like, they don't know what they're doing. They're beating me.
Like, they are just acting out of pure ignorance. Forgive them.

Speaker 1 Wow. So, here is some, some dude posts some meme online that pisses me off, and I'm going to get all angry.
Man, God, man, bless his heart. God, forgive that guy.

Speaker 1 Ryan doesn't know what he's talking about. Yeah.
Poor Ryan. Right.

Speaker 1 Or just let it go by. Like

Speaker 1 we're all being shaped by something. Yep.
Right. What are we being shaped by? Right.
So again, to go back to the second point, truth, I'm not saying truth isn't important. Right.

Speaker 1 We know truth is important. All I'm saying is the fruit of the spirit are words that the right might label liberals.
Like, oh, look at that liberal.

Speaker 1 He's so kind and gentle and self-control, patient, right?

Speaker 1 Like, like, no, these, these are, this is how our lives, our lives should bear this fruit i should be patient i should exhibit self-control i should exhibit kindness and and goodness what does kindness look like you know kindness is is elevating you taking care of you um not hurting you right but that doesn't happen in our in our world in our culture so kind of go back to your original yeah question of like how do we have these conversations well man if i'm gentle with people if i'm kind with people if i'm self-controlled right i'm feeling angry right now my emotions are on on on my emotions are high right now let me exhibit self-control let me take a deep breath.

Speaker 1 You know, let me spend a couple minutes contemplating my day or meditating over my day. What were those times of high emotion and low emotion? What happened? Okay, oh, this happened.

Speaker 1 It really pissed me off. How can I change that? Oh, did I hurt someone that I didn't mean to because of my emotions? Let me go back and seek out Ryan's forgiveness.
Even if I disagree with him, man.

Speaker 1 You want to talk about being able to have conversation with someone you disagree with? Go to them humbly and say, you know, Ryan, we were talking and I know we don't disagree.

Speaker 1 We will probably never agree.

Speaker 1 but the way I talked to you was demeaning and demoralizing. And I just totally robbed you of all your dignity.
And I'm sorry to forgive me. Yeah.
Whoa.

Speaker 1 Like, you want to talk about having now the opportunity to share what you believe with someone, hopefully, you know? Wow.

Speaker 1 That's big. So I want to wrap up because for a couple of different reasons, but

Speaker 1 I want to leave you with this and just have you react. I went and saw Jordan Peterson's newest tour, We Who Wrestle Wrestle with God.
It's fucking phenomenal. Absolutely highly recommend it.

Speaker 1 You know, what brought me back to,

Speaker 1 I've always been a Christian, but I probably stepped away from the faith and a practicing stance for a lot of my 20s, just, you know, our own journeys and things happen. And

Speaker 1 Jordan Peterson's very much the individual who brought me back. He has a series on Genesis.

Speaker 1 um it's 18 episodes two hours long a piece where he breaks down genesis in his podcast it's from like 2017, 2018. It's absolutely phenomenal.
And it brought me back,

Speaker 1 it brought me back to God, essentially, you know, in a practicing way. Not that I feel like I ever lost it, you know, but it brought me back to a practicing.
Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I went and saw Jordan Peterson live, his new tour, We Who Wrestled with God,

Speaker 1 took my girlfriend. We sat front row, got to meet him, shake his hand.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think I saw you post pictures. Yeah, it was amazing.
But what I wanted to say to you is, and

Speaker 1 not to the God part, to to,

Speaker 1 I believe that Jordan Peterson is one of the best at

Speaker 1 working through,

Speaker 1 I'm going to say an argument, but I don't mean it in the

Speaker 1 conflicting way. I mean it in developing a thought process in our brain.
Yeah. And he uses a two-step process that he has never described, but it's how I've broken down his process.

Speaker 1 Because what I love about Jordan Peterson the most is not actually his conclusions. It's how he gets there.
And he basically uses,

Speaker 1 there are other aspects, there are other pieces in here, but I don't want to get too convoluted. He uses the Socratic method followed by a steel man technique.

Speaker 1 So what he does is he will create an argument. God exists, right? Okay.

Speaker 1 And then he'll work through the Socratic method. If, if this, then what? If this, then what? If this, then what? If this, then what? To the point where he gets to a conclusion on that argument.

Speaker 1 Then before he pins that argument on the wall is what he believes to be truth. He will then steal man the other side of the argument all the way down through the Socratic method.
Okay,

Speaker 1 if this, then that, if this, then that, if, and then he puts those two things next to each other.

Speaker 1 And by the time you get there, if you can't steal man the other side of the argument, then you don't truly believe in what you believe is his thought process.

Speaker 1 And we had you think about that for a second. Could you define, I know what you mean by steal.
This is kind of what we were talking about the entire conversation, right?

Speaker 1 The most best argument is typically not the mean. Can you define steel man? So let's say, um,

Speaker 1 let's say that uh uh uh you you brought up the fact that you think the affordable character is a good thing.

Speaker 1 If I was going to strawman your argument, I'd be like, that's because you're a fucking Marxist, right? That's straw manning your argument.

Speaker 1 That's taking the lowest combinator version, a huge logic leap and applying something wholly negative and universal to the top of it that isn't actually what you believe.

Speaker 1 Steel manning your argument would be, Eric is a kind Christian who believes in people and understands that not everyone comes from the same economic or emotional situation or societal situation that I do, and that there are certain circumstances in which having a backstop around healthcare are incredibly important.

Speaker 1 And that while he may believe that it's not the perfect solution, it is the best solution that we currently have to make sure as a society we're taking care of our people, right?

Speaker 1 That would be steel manning

Speaker 1 possible argument for that. Yes.

Speaker 1 So, so, so, straw manning is you're a Marxist bastard, and steel manning is you're a kind, caring person who, while you may believe there are flaws in this system, believe it's the best option that we have.

Speaker 1 And if you can't steel man, everyone can strawman an argument, but if you can't steel man your opponent's argument, you don't actually understand it, and you cannot stand you, your argument is less valuable.

Speaker 1 So, what I have started to trying to do in all things,

Speaker 1 you know, and this even goes back to the trivial inbound versus outbound in the insurance industry conversation is, and it's, and it's why I brought Charles Speck on the podcast and did that argument with him was because I wanted to be able to say,

Speaker 1 I wanted to be able to steel man the other side of inbound for people so that they understood why I believed in inbound so much and show the other

Speaker 1 case. And I think that If we do this in your words, which I think are perfect good faith,

Speaker 1 we can have deep, rich, meaningful conversations about highly uh about high energy topics such as politics and religion and and other things um but we have to we we have to be able to understand where our where our the other person is coming from yeah so

Speaker 1 yeah so you started talking about jordan pierce and you talked about his his his i'm keeping you on i'm keeping you on tabs here man yeah uh you talked about his socratic method for working through an argument um you wanted me to react to something what do you want me to react to um

Speaker 1 Because I want to react. I just don't know what you want me to react to.

Speaker 1 I hate that you hold me to that because I'm so bad at finishing what you're talking about. No, no, no.

Speaker 1 No, I think, I guess my thought process is,

Speaker 1 I guess,

Speaker 1 my question is.

Speaker 1 I don't know that I have a question there. Maybe you want to react to what I think about Jordan Peterson.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you, where do you? Is that the question? I guess.
Yeah. I just, I.

Speaker 1 Sometimes when you said something that just hit me so strongly in terms of my agreement with what you said, and I couldn't help but share his process because I feel like he's one of those guys that gets straw manned a lot.

Speaker 1 And when you really dig into his work, I think he's one of the most important thinkers of our time. I think he is.
I think a guy like Jordan Peterson, I don't know, I'll be in full disclosure.

Speaker 1 I don't know a ton about Jordan Peterson. Okay.
Yeah. But when you deal with guys who are philosophers, and he's, what he's a psychologist.
Yeah. Yeah.
So like clinical psychologist by trade.

Speaker 1 He's a clinical psychologist by trade. And

Speaker 1 he's a philosopher. He's, he's, he's a modern day philosopher.
Yep.

Speaker 1 And I think it's really, really important to, you have to, with philosophers, you really have to read like a body of their work to understand them.

Speaker 1 And you can't read a philosopher at a point in time in their life because they're not always moving, but they're always moving. Yes.
Right? Their arguments are changing.

Speaker 1 They're becoming more sophisticated in how they understand things. The way that the way they present things are different.

Speaker 1 So I haven't listened to

Speaker 1 Jordan Peterson enough to form a complete

Speaker 1 opinion about what I think about Jordan Peterson. But I will say this.

Speaker 1 I do like how you broke it up. I do think that's a good way, you know,

Speaker 1 if you're thinking through philosophical stuff, I think you have to think about it that way.

Speaker 1 I like how Jordan Peterson sometimes will think out loud.

Speaker 1 That's what's hard with philosophers is like they think out loud and you're trying to follow them. And sometimes you can't always follow them.
Like I listened to one of his.

Speaker 1 One, I downloaded one of his podcasts recently to listen to it on an airplane just because I want to, I want to, like, I know his name is becoming more and more popular, particularly in our circles.

Speaker 1 And I want to be, I want to be educated on him. And this particular podcast was probably the wrong one for me to listen to because he kind of meandered.

Speaker 1 I'm like, dude, like, just get to your point on this. Like, what are you trying to say? Yeah.
But

Speaker 1 I think wrestling with stuff is important.

Speaker 1 So I love the fact that you said Jordan Peterson brought you back to your faith or he helped strengthen your faith because I think whenever we're wrestling with a truth, it's really important.

Speaker 1 What I would say, and I've heard some people kind of, I think with humans, we got to be really, really careful how we elevate certain people.

Speaker 1 Because, as Christians, the goal is not to become like Jordan Peterson, it's to become like Jesus.

Speaker 1 Um, yes, there are some, there are some people who are very influential in my life, and I look back, and some of those people have like done terrible things.

Speaker 1 Um, some people I've never known personally, they were kind of mentors through books, and come to find out they're just freaking creepy ass people who did some terrible things things to people. And

Speaker 1 they're like, oh my gosh. Right.

Speaker 1 So when we put our faith in humans,

Speaker 1 we can be let down. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, but people, people like my relationship with you, you know, because of this, and this might not be my relationship with everyone because everyone's not a professing Christian, but my relationship with you, our relationship together should be one.

Speaker 1 that helps us become more like Jesus, more loving, more kind. We should become more hopeful for other people.
We should become encouraging, right?

Speaker 1 The hard parts, the bombastic parts of us probably need to be shaved a little bit. They probably need to be filed down a little bit.
Because why would I want, why would I want

Speaker 1 something in me that's, that's not, um,

Speaker 1 that's edgy to prevent me from being in a position to like point you towards something that's good for you. I think you're very right.
And I'm not calling, I'm calling you out on your podcast.

Speaker 1 No, I know. I know.
I think you're right. I think you're right.
And just think about your life. You're 43 now.
Today's your birthday. You're 43.

Speaker 1 As you look back, there's things like, man, when I was 20, I did some stupid stuff. I said some stupid stuff.
When you're 60, when I'm 60, and I'm not speaking as like, I've got it all.

Speaker 1 When I was 42, I said some stupid stuff, just so we're all clear. Right.
Like, that's the thing. We're on a journey.
That's why grace, grace.

Speaker 1 That's what the beautiful thing about the Christian faith is, is God is graceful. And in our, you know, one of the things that I love most.

Speaker 1 Speaking about reading dead people, I read a bunch of Mother Teresa once, right?

Speaker 1 Mother Teresa, doesn't matter if you're a Christian or not, like, you know, you know her name as just like this amazing servant of marginalized people, right?

Speaker 1 In Calcutta, just like the poorest of the poor.

Speaker 1 You read some of her writings and it would blow you away. Like

Speaker 1 talking about like, you know, the closer I get to God, the more I realize I'm a sinner, right? Who in their right mind would call, who would look at Mother Teresa and say, God, she's a sinner.

Speaker 1 She would.

Speaker 1 Right? Crazy, right?

Speaker 1 The more I learned about God, the more I realize I don't know him. This is Mother Teresa.

Speaker 1 right so like we're on this this journey that will that should never run that should never paul even talks about i'm running the race i i'm running this race and i hope to finish i completely agree dude and i uh i gotta wrap up i think that i could i could go like you said i could go for another three hours i love this stuff i i think that every time and i'm gonna say this and i mean this with all sincerity every time you and i have a conversation i feel like i come away with it having questioned in the most positive way, in the absolute most positive way, questioned things that I do that I want to continue to improve that I haven't put enough effort into.

Speaker 1 And please take that as the ultimate compliment that I could give you. So this didn't have anything to do with anything that we originally set out to do.
What were we supposed to talk about?

Speaker 1 Have we started recording yet? I have no idea. I have no idea.
But dude, I just appreciate the hell out of you.

Speaker 1 I think that I think our conversations are wonderful.

Speaker 1 And I enjoy every single one of them. So thank you so much.
Awesome, man. I appreciate you.
I'm going to shampoo.

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