Battles of Life, Love, and Mind: Embracing the Inner Child w/ Nate Gorski

In this episode, we dive into the journey of Nate Gorski, a man shaped by diverse experiences and life roles as a son, a husband, and a father. Nate shares with us the complexities of his family life like learning his father was not his biological father when he was young.

The conversation also delves into the challenges faced by veterans dealing with PTSD, highlighting the drastic shift from military to civilian life and the concept of trauma bonding.

We also dive into the topic of fatherhood, examining the differences between a mother-child and father-child bond, the challenges of parenting, and the wisdom that children can offer us. We wrap up with a reflection on the importance of embracing our inner child's power, reminding us of the beauty in simplicity and authenticity.

Transcript

0:00:13 - Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to another episode of Unturned Stones. On today's podcast I'm going to be interviewing Nate Gorski. Nate's a close friend that I in my later years here with me and my wife we kind of serve in our running group of friends. Somebody that I've gotten very close with and have just built a friendship up over the past few years through running but turned into us doing things outside of running and it's a drinking and just general fun yeah. 

So I mean I've had a lot of conversations just about life. We talk about marriage a lot and through those conversations we kind of sometimes they'll go pretty long and from that kind of new Nate would be another good interview to do talk about his life a little bit and tell us a little bit about yourself. So just to to stop the podcast here to tell people a little bit about yourself. 

0:01:02 - Speaker 2
So Nate Gorski, 41, live in Hales Corners, married two kids, a nine and a five year old older brother. I'm the older brother. I've got a younger brother that's four years younger. Mom and dad are in the middle of going through a divorce, but very small family married into a fairly big family. 

0:01:38 - Speaker 1
You guys are born and raised in Hales. 

0:01:41 - Speaker 2
Corners? Yeah, no, born and raised in Milwaukee. 

0:01:43 - Speaker 1
In Milwaukee. Yeah, okay, and just like, at some point you got your parents bought a house in Hales Corners. 

0:01:49 - Speaker 2
Nope. So, born and raised in Milwaukee, I grew up in a duplex above my grandparents on the south side of Milwaukee, then, when I was a senior in high school, moved to the house that my parents are currently in, near the airport in Milwaukee, and that oh, I don't know why I was thinking your parents had a house, in Hales, corners, you're right. 

0:02:10 - Speaker 1
Okay, yeah, wow, but and yeah so I think I swear to God. I kept thinking that I've almost died. 

0:02:19 - Speaker 2
Your dad and you're living in Hales, corners no. 

0:02:22 - Speaker 1
But I think I put that thought in my own head Sure, yeah, okay, cool, cool. So you've been in Milwaukee your entire life. Pretty much, pretty much besides. 

0:02:30 - Speaker 2
Except for the military. So graduated high school in 2000,. Joined the Marines right out of high school in 2000. And then kind of bossed around a little bit. After the Marines lived in California for a couple years, but pretty much yeah, in Milwaukee. Okay, my whole life. 

0:02:52 - Speaker 1
So what was life like for a young Nate? I lived in. Milwaukee. 

0:02:56 - Speaker 2
Young Nate yeah, how far back do you want to go? 

0:03:00 - Speaker 1
Like you know for you when was like, when do you have like a lot of memories for you when you think of your childhood, sure Like, do you think back to eight-year-old, nate, ten-year-old. 

0:03:09 - Speaker 2
Nate? Yeah, probably go back to how Fourth-grade-ish give or take. Nate, okay, um young Nate. Young Nate I don't know. 

0:03:30 - Speaker 1
So you were an older brother. 

0:03:31 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I was an older brother. I was probably pretty mean to my brother, as most older brothers are, but yeah, just ran around the neighborhood all the time and heavily into sport. Family life was fun. You know, like we lived above my grandparents, they lived down below in the duplex, so like holidays were always big, a lot of people we always had, you know, family around, but then, like you know, pretty, pretty cultured, so like my dad's mom's originally from northeast part of France, so we were in the French immersion program, all of the schooling. So all of our classes in elementary school were in French, except for English class. As a fifth-grader I got to go to France for three weeks. 

Yeah like, stayed with the French family for a little bit and then my parents my dad and my brother came and met us over there. My mom stayed with the French family. I was like a chaperone, and then we went and visited someone like my dad's side of the family. Yeah, so very cultured as a young kid, which is like transferred over into like our kids, but like you guys like to expose your kids to just different things, yeah different foods, different music, different cultures. 

You know, try to. We haven't really traveled a ton outside of the state, but try to do that probably as they get older. And then, as a middle schooler, found out that technically I was adopted, so like I don't know my real dad. Supposedly he's somewhere in the area but I've never met him. I've never really actively like, wanted to, felt there was a need to figure out who that person was and try to find that person. But that was like as a middle schooler that my parents told me. 

0:05:46 - Speaker 1
Was that hard for you? 

0:05:47 - Speaker 2
I don't know I think I still have not really spent the time to really analyze it or think about it or try to figure out like where it's affected me in my 41 years life or like where it might affect me going forward or how it would affect my relationship with my kids stuff like that. 

0:06:15 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, in middle school, that would be kind of a weird age to have maybe kind of such a big thing dropped on you. Was it almost easier to not process it instead of to sit there and make a big deal of it? As a middle school kid of like? 

0:06:33 - Speaker 2
probably, you know, yeah, instead of high school where you might be like, oh, I want to find out who this person is, I want to try to track them down. We're in middle school. All the middle school, I think, is old enough. Elementary school is probably where you would have just kind of been told and maybe it would not have affected you. But I think, like everybody handles it differently, you know, some people get told things at a young age and then later on in life stuff comes up and then they go to track a person down that is related or is a mom or a dad or like other things that play into their life that they're in currently. That happened in the past. 

0:07:20 - Speaker 1
Did it change your relationship with your mom and dad at all? 

0:07:22 - Speaker 2
No, no, I mean so my mom is my biological mom. My mom is my biological mom. It's my dad, yeah, but yeah, I don't think it has had any effects. I mean, I've known like they got married. My current mom and dad got married when I was two, so I don't so I know, you know. So, other than like the logistics or the technicalities of my dad not being my biological dad, he's still my dad. Yeah, I kind of joked as a younger kid like you know, well, you're not, you know you're only my half brother or something like that, but even now, like he's my brother, yeah, emotionally if conflict and reality he is my brother. 

Yeah, I'm not sure. There's some stuff deep down that's gotta get dug out for it to like come to the surface, and whether I'm like keeping it down there or it's just down there because it's down there, there's not anything that has made it come to the surface, it's just where it's at right now Because your relationship with your dad's pretty good. For the last part, yeah, I mean we're not super close, you know like we don't like no no if anything, like man, young Nate, he rebelled, yeah, but no, we're close like everything is good. 

You know, it's just. We definitely have different interests and different similarities. I guess like are exactly the same. 

0:09:07 - Speaker 1
But so did you rebel more after? Did you feel like rebellious Nate kind of came out more? No, in the sense of like you're not my real dad you know. 

0:09:19 - Speaker 2
No, nothing like that. No, I never did the like. You can't tell me what to do. You're not my dad type thing. Okay, I just was wild. It's kind of wilder as I got older and maybe, like, let influence at a young age, you know, influenced me too much. Maybe call it a little bit of gullible, you know, peer pressure, whatever. 

0:09:52 - Speaker 1
Was he a disciplinarian in general or just all hackass yeah? 

0:09:55 - Speaker 2
but he grew up, my grandpa, his dad, was in the army and like, fairly high up retired out of the army, I did some tours in wars like Korea. So you know he was pretty strict on us, which, because he probably was very strict on by his dad and trying to change that mold you know where I was in the Marines like my wife would be like don't be like that. You know you don't need to be like that or you can approach it a different way. So trying to just be, you know, approach things differently, rather than maybe like continuing the same cycle. 

0:10:44 - Speaker 1
It's like now, like your, your dad, two beautiful kids, yeah, looking back to you. Yeah, of course, do you look back and like think to yourself how, like what it might have been for him to you know marry your mom when you were two years old and like for him to come in and like be your, like step in as this father role to you? Yeah, do you like to ever like look back and reflect on that at all the like you know, like what it would be like to be in, like step into marriage and to take on the role of being a father to a kid that wasn't yours, and like how that might would, like you know, change the way you'd interact with the kids or discipline them differently or whatever you know like be harder, less hard on them? 

0:11:24 - Speaker 2
I think thankfully I was such an early age that there's I mean, maybe I'm wrong. It'd be an interesting thing to find out from my dad, like was it easy? Was there really any like you know issues you had internally where it's like, yeah, this isn't technically my son, but you know they're young enough that they're not gonna really know a difference. 

0:11:52 - Speaker 1
Yeah, because I'm assuming, like being a dad, one of the things that I really connected you to kids the most at first because you know it's harder for dads to connect with the kid as much as a mom at first, because of the fact that you don't hurt this kid right, that it's as soon as they need you for something is really when you start to feel like, okay, I'm doing something, yeah, connected, or so probably at two years old, like you were a baby, you you probably show that need yeah, a lot, but at two I mean you're walking, you know, yeah, and maybe talking a tiny bit. 

So I think there is definitely a probably is a good age where a bond is form you know, but I just don't have like the connection with him, probably more so because of interest and like similarities, of liking the same thing okay, so your son Finn, he is so much like you, you know you could see Finn in, you can see yourself in Finn, everybody can see your. Yeah, can see Nate in fit yeah poor guy. Poor guy is good. 

Good could be a blast me and the wife, you know, and everybody else who is gonna experience Finn throughout his lifetime yeah, but so like do you and maybe I'm sure this isn't somebody I've thought about before but for for your dad, then he couldn't have seen himself in you because genetically he wasn't in that, not in right. You know, like you you weren't gonna have his facial features, you aren't gonna have his eyes or his ears yeah, how do you even the same likes or dislikes? 

yeah, so then that's kind of where this question is leading is then, for you guys did not have the same likes? Yes, that did you do. You think that pie fed into that because, like now with your own son, you see that like, as he's getting older and his personalities come out more like, you see how he's you he is, he is little mini-nay yeah, and he's, and I think he's gonna be the best version of you in the best version of Korean yeah but like, do you think, like, how does that, like, how would you feel, like process that, thinking about your dad, the fact that you know he was not genetically your dad, so he, he wasn't gonna see himself in you the way that you see like. 

0:14:21 - Speaker 2
So now you're telling me I should be more like open at least that's the way I'm thinking. I was like I probably should have been more open and like open the things my dad likes, rather than be like, oh, we don't like the same things because and I've never really thought of it that way where it's like yeah, we're not genetically the same, so most likely we're not gonna be interested in the same things or have the same likes, so I probably should be more open. 

0:14:54 - Speaker 1
I mean as a kid, you weren't gonna right you weren't gonna. You weren't gonna know to be more open right. 

0:14:58 - Speaker 2
But I'm saying now like I still even think now like I don't get our relationship enough of a chance because I'm like I like what I like and he likes what he likes, and they're not the same. So there's really no common ground. Yeah, we're like our son. You know we have a lot of the same likes because of that genetic aspect. So maybe I don't know. Yeah, to be more open going forward. 

0:15:31 - Speaker 1
Yeah just, and I don't think, you know like I don't even think it's about like having to change anything as much as just kind of being aware of it. 

0:15:37 - Speaker 2
Yeah, like keeping that. I was never aware of it yeah. I would say no, talking about it okay. 

0:15:44 - Speaker 1
So then, like your mom's, how it's a relationship there with yeah would throughout the years through your younger years with her. 

0:15:52 - Speaker 2
I think really good. I mean mama's boy, probably, and from what I've heard. But then, like I think as I got older it has slowly like changed. You know, my mom deals with mental stuff and some pretty serious stuff, so I think that's like made the ebb and flow in our relationship. Ebb and flow, you know, but that's where I don't like it. It makes me want to really make our kids' relationship, or like my relationship with our kids, as strong as it can be, because I don't want to repeat the cycle and I just want a really strong relationship with my kids. 

Yeah. 

0:16:47 - Speaker 1
Did your mom's mental health issues like? Were they prevalent in there when you guys were younger or did they come? 

0:16:52 - Speaker 2
out. 

0:16:53 - Speaker 1
Oh yeah, okay, so they just oh yeah, okay, it wasn't something that came out more recently. 

0:16:56 - Speaker 2
No, no, it's just again. It's ebb and flowed. Okay, you know there was one real rough patch as, like a middle schooler that I remember. You know that she went through that probably, you know, made us all go through something in some level. You know my mom's probably being the worst because it was her, but then we all experienced stuff. 

0:17:26 - Speaker 1
but so in that sense you've kind of had mental health be a thing that like you face head-on in your own family or like not face head-on, but you were like it was there for you to like see and know that it's a thing that existed. 

So in middle school, like in your older years, like how have you processed mental health, knowing that like you had somebody in your family who's struggled with it and you kind of get to see like the actions and consequences of how like mental health plays out Right? Especially, I mean, you grew up in the, you went to school in the 90s yeah, like in those like really like formative years for you in the 90s and you know, talked to other guests, like Josh, about this how you know back then like mental health was not talked about, especially for kids and whatnot. 

0:18:16 - Speaker 2
Right. 

0:18:17 - Speaker 1
Like, how did that affect? Like your view on it, did you? How did you look at what your mom was facing with at that time? Do you remember how you process what your mom was dealing with? I probably just ignored it. Okay, yeah. 

0:18:30 - Speaker 2
Which I still probably like ignore a lot of things when it comes to your mind, your brain, internally, mentally. But I try to like go into more recent years, try to pay attention to it and try to do something about it rather than just burying it. You know, you know, being in the military obviously, that they're not very. You know, back when I was in they were super sensitive either to that kind of stuff and you know the military tries to make you really really top. But more recently it's you know you can. You can talk about stuff, you can bring stuff up, you can. It's not, there's not a taboo to mental health, whether it be males or she males. 

0:19:38 - Speaker 1
Do you feel like like being a dad to a change of view on it at all? Yeah, you see these little humans form and they go through these emotions and you like now pay attention to their emotions because you're having to pay. 

0:19:53 - Speaker 2
You have to pay attention to their emotions because that's the way, yeah, they're your kids and that's how you can be the best parent, right, yeah, and you want them to be, you want them to be the best that they're, they're going to be or they can be, and you don't want to set them up for failure, you know. But they, man kids, will teach you a ton of stuff, you know. They will teach you patience and they will kind of like pick out like mental stuff, you know, like it's fear or sad or happy or anything good or bad mentally, like they will bring it out, you know. So there's no, you almost kind of have like your own little therapist. You can't really talk to them but like, in a kind of weird way, they will bring things to light that you maybe didn't know, or they want to bring the light, like they question your actions and behavior. 

0:21:02 - Speaker 1
Yeah or? 

0:21:02 - Speaker 2
you know dad is grumpy or dad is sad or dad's frustrated or dad's mad, like all those. Any emotion you can think of, you know, especially like if you're a person that wears them on your sleeve. They're going to see them and they're going to probably tell you about them because they're kids. 

0:21:27 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, like they're not shy about it. 

0:21:30 - Speaker 2
Right, there's no sugarcane, as my wife would say, so it sounds like a lot for your during your childhood. 

0:21:41 - Speaker 1
A lot of things you kind of just would not. I don't want to use the word berry, but like you, ran away from ran away from. Okay, because now, after high school, what did you do? Join the Marines. And you joined right away, right, right away, okay. So did you feel like that was a bit of like a running away for you? Like? 

0:22:03 - Speaker 2
kind of proud. I mean, I didn't know what I wanted to do, you know. So I was going to go to art school and then a good friend was like okay, I'm going to the Marines, you want to go? And I'm like I like physical hard stuff, like let's go. You know, which is funny because I didn't want my parents telling me what to do mentally. But like mentally I thought I was going to be able to handle you know, marine Corps drill instructor telling me what to do. I had 24, seven and I didn't have like an out. But it was probably good because I didn't have an out. You know, my parents I could ignore run away a couple of times, you know where there was no running away from Marine Corps boot camp. So it was good but mentally maybe made I don't know, mentally it made things worse, but just maybe like added more things mentally to the fire, you know. 

0:23:01 - Speaker 1
So I mean well also, what was that transition like? Like you know that, the first few weeks of boot camp, yeah. Like. What was that like? 

0:23:10 - Speaker 2
I actually think I liked it, like, like the rigidness. 

Yeah, just the structure and there was no, there was no option. It was that I was it and really like if I maybe would have done better in the Marines if I would have had boot camp all the time for 13 weeks, just started a new boot camp every 13 weeks for four years or 20, if I would have stayed in. But yeah, because like once I got done with boot camp and I as a 18 year old got more leeway and more freedom and, like you know, just wild mate. 

0:23:59 - Speaker 1
Wild mate came out from. 

0:24:00 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and again getting caught up in like just being too gullible or too too just yeah, too gullible. 

0:24:14 - Speaker 1
What do you feel like you're gullible about? 

0:24:16 - Speaker 2
I just party in too much and you know, not being serious about stuff, just getting sucked into things I probably shouldn't have done. You know I don't, it was all fun, but yeah, it definitely like changed things as far as my military career. 

0:24:42 - Speaker 1
You feel like there was bad influences, like from other Marines that you were in Lissidwit and stuff yeah yeah, but you're just young and you lean into those influences. 

0:24:52 - Speaker 2
Yeah, you didn't fight it at all. Full force, yeah, which I guess is what you're taught to in the military, the Marines is like, yeah, everything's just like fast and hard, you know, and intense, and I still have a lot of that in me. I've just learned how to read it and control it. 

0:25:16 - Speaker 1
And now, like I think one of the best things about the military, especially for young men, is it gives you like a brotherhood, and I think men desperately like deep down, desire being a part of a brotherhood of some sort. So like, that's why we play sports, that's why we like playing on teams of sports and that's why a lot of people who play at a ton of sports in high school really like chase that feeling in college and want to play college sports and whatnot. What's force did you play in high school? Football and tennis, football and tennis. Did you play it all four years? No, okay. 

0:25:48 - Speaker 2
Just junior and senior year. Okay, never made basketball. 

0:25:51 - Speaker 1
Okay, so for you was the Marines like, did you feel that brotherhood and football and did you feel like Marines or like the Marines like the next step of it? Yeah, I think it was the Marines, just like so much more about it, because I mean the way you suffer through boot camp and then the way you suffer with other Marines. It's there, I think, you form a different brotherhood than just a sports team, because a sports team could still be so like. Everybody's still clicking and spending in high school. 

0:26:18 - Speaker 2
It all depends what job you do in the military. Some jobs in the military are more intense, so that brotherhood is even more intense, I think, and then some jobs aren't as intense, so then that brotherhood they're still an intense brotherhood because a lot of the people you live with you know you're living with them or you're in like an apartment building type setting and you're with them a lot, so they really are your family. You know, even if you're married in the military stuff like that, you still see all those other people so much like they're your family and you see very little of your like true family because you might only get to get back home a couple of times a year sometimes. So yeah, it's a big brotherhood, sisterhood while you're in and again, it's just depending on the job. Some of those brotherhoods are more intense and then if you go off to war that just gets even intensified even more. 

0:27:35 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I don't know what I was talking about with this recently, but they say like that sometimes the PTSD for some veterans it's so much worse when they're back home than like when they're with the people that they went through this traumatic event with. They really don't almost feel the PTSD Because you're in the same room, in the same setting with the people who would do it. There's like this shared trauma bonding in some sense, whatever. But like when you're back home and all of a sudden you're alone every day or in civilian life that's like. That's when, like the PTSD really like sets in hard and all of a sudden it really starts to affect their life. 

0:28:12 - Speaker 2
On the structure. There's still structure when you're a civilian, but there's, I think, a little more structure when you're in the military. So I think, yeah, when that person in the military and granted I was not deployable, I never got deployed anywhere. So I got lucky, although I wish I would have went, but yeah, there's a reason obviously that I didn't get deployed. But anyways, like when you're, when that person is in the military, they have a little more structure and, like you're saying, they have the common bond of all those people that are always readily, readily around and available, where then when they get discharged and they're a civilian, they don't have all that access or those similarities. And yeah, that's a huge, another huge topic and issue. And everybody that I know, or like my best friend that got me to join, that did a couple tours, you know he's not horribly different or has, I don't think, like as bad of PTSD as some other people have. But there's definitely changes that happen because unfortunately, you know, war is war. 

0:29:31 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of. It's kind of having an effect on you. I mean, yeah, the only way to get life just has an effect on you. But when you go through some certain things as you get older that are actually like you know more impactful experiences like that. 

0:29:44 - Speaker 2
Or even an injury. Right yeah, I broke my leg just over seven years ago. Like there's PTSD there. You know you can't do the same things. Grant it through now. This time I've definitely healed a lot. But you know, ptsd, even an injury, is to people. It doesn't have to be just military. It can be an injury. It can be. You know parents that you know don't get along and you're a kid and you're watching. You know or hearing your parents fight. You know whether it's verbal or physical and you know that's going to leave. You know marks and scars and impressions on a person. 

0:30:34 - Speaker 1
Yeah, and that's how, yeah, how severe those marks are, how deep they are. I suppose it's kind of a pendulum experience. But ultimately, yeah, there's a lot of experiences that can really like leave you feeling like some part of yourself was like lost at some point somewhere, right, and that you're always trying to gain it back right, yeah, or you don't want to gain it back. Or you don't want to get it back. Yeah, that's very real. 

0:30:59 - Speaker 2
Just bury it. 

0:31:00 - Speaker 1
Yeah, and you were deployed in California, not deployed, you were in the station in California. So when you're done with the Marines, where did you go after? 

0:31:12 - Speaker 2
So then I came back home and bounced around a little bit, from like staying here in Wisconsin and then going back out in California, living in California with a good friend that I was in California and in the Marines with, and then eventually, you know, did that for a couple of years, living out of a backpack in a snowboard bay and ton of fun. But then came home and I was living at home and that's when I met my wife and rest in history. 

0:31:49 - Speaker 1
So there's a couple of years living out of a backpack. 

0:31:52 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it was amazing. 

0:31:53 - Speaker 1
Yeah, what years were those Like? How old were you? 

0:31:57 - Speaker 2
I was 20, mid 20. 

0:32:00 - Speaker 1
Okay. 

0:32:01 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and so that would have been like mid 2000s and ton of fun, like just I don't know, got to experience so much stuff and see so much stuff. And maybe I'm like a little bit of gypsy at heart because maybe I'm rough because I'm running from stuff. 

0:32:25 - Speaker 1
I don't know. I mean, at the time you probably didn't feel like you were actively running from anything. Yeah, because you're probably just enjoying life at that point yeah. Yeah, but also maybe a little aware, yeah, you were running away from something. 

0:32:38 - Speaker 2
I don't want to sleep on my parents' couch or be living at home, you know. But that's what it was and that's the choices I made. 

0:32:51 - Speaker 1
It's like early 2000s there. Like, were you actively like, did you see yourself working a 40 hour a week job, just getting up Monday through Friday and just kind of like no, I still don't see myself doing it. Because you have a bit of that gypsy soul. 

0:33:10 - Speaker 2
Yeah. 

0:33:12 - Speaker 1
So like what did you in those years as you were living that life, like the part of you want to just do that forever? Is that kind of what you almost, like you know did you? I thought I could. 

0:33:23 - Speaker 2
It'd be fun if I could. But then eventually it was like, no, this isn't my. Everybody kind of started to grow and adult and move forward with their lives. And then eventually it was like, yeah, this isn't my home. I don't know anybody out here Like I need. I'm going back to Wisconsin For some reason. I'm like I like deer hunting a lot and it was like I can't deer hunt out here. And it's like now I look at it I say no, I can elk hunt out there. Why can't I stay out there? But just like the military, I mean, I mean I truly feel everything happens for a reason, which is maybe why I don't like dig into my mental stuff as much. It's like, oh, just, it all happened for a reason. But it's also probably because I'm scared or nervous or just don't want to dig. But it's, it all happened for a reason. So I came home, okay, Do you? 

0:34:27 - Speaker 1
I don't, I want, like do you really probably romanticize that time right, like to look back on it that time, like you said, living out of a back? Oh yeah because I still would do it. 

0:34:40 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, you'd like, you'd go back to it. 

0:34:44 - Speaker 1
So was that transition to come back home really hard. 

0:34:49 - Speaker 2
Um no, because I really was like, I really wanted to come home, you know like, because I felt like Wisconsin was my home, but also just I didn't feel, I didn't feel like my place was there. So I was like no, I'm coming back home, you know. But then for a while there, like mentally it was hard because, again, living at home, living on my parents' couch, can't really build a relationship, you know, living at home, sleeping on your parents' couch, uh so it's hard to meet somebody. 

0:35:30 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. 

0:35:32 - Speaker 2
Like hey, I'll come over by you, but I can't come over by me. Um so when I met my wife I pretty much like moved out. I was like, yeah, I'm moving in with your own, and thankfully she took me. 

0:35:46 - Speaker 1
Um, okay, because like, yeah, I mean spending like your mid-20s or something like that. I do think you men go through a lot in their mid-20s. Uh, they say like our brains mature, like we finally finished our maturing around 25 twice a year. Like 50? 

0:36:04 - Speaker 2
Some men not all men, some even later. 

0:36:07 - Speaker 1
Some, some, some a little later. But uh, you know, like we yeah, we do kind of like we go through a lot in our mid-20s. Yeah, like by the time that we're in our upper 20s we kind of really start coming in ourselves a little bit more, yeah, Um, we're really the military. 

0:36:23 - Speaker 2
If people got to join a little older, I think people would stay in a lot longer. 

Um where when you're so young, you're so gullible, it can be brainwashed so easily, which I guess is good for the military because I'm going to weld you into what they want, but hopefully, like in today's military, that would be, I think a big thing is like counseling, where it's like if you could have a counselor when you join the military at a young age, that's like yo private so-and-so, Like you're really like maybe don't want to do these things, because if you don't do these things you could actually have a career in the military. 

0:37:08 - Speaker 1
Yeah, like really make you think about it further. 

0:37:10 - Speaker 2
Yeah, rather than you're just left to your own devices and for you again, not matured to try to figure those things out at the age of 18 or 19. 

0:37:23 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, because you can mature a lot in four years, but you mature a lot more in another four years. You mature a lot more in another four years. Right, you're like a lot. I do think men really like. 

0:37:33 - Speaker 2
But you're very immature at 18. 

0:37:35 - Speaker 1
Yeah, you're so immature. I mean no matter how mature you think you are, you will look back and be like, holy shit, I was immature. 

0:37:41 - Speaker 2
No matter how mature I might have seen, even compared to other people, you're still immature and there's a few people there's probably a few people that are very mature at that age, but I think that's such a small percentage and I could be wrong. 

0:37:54 - Speaker 1
And even those people probably look back and still think, wow, I still fought immaturely about certain things. Maybe they didn't act as immaturely, but they still. They probably still fought immaturely. 

0:38:06 - Speaker 2
And at that age too, when you're going into like a military or a boot camp, if you have all these other mental issues or other issues, a lot of the people just drink. Drink is huge Drugs. Drugs are huge in the military. Probably one of the biggest things or places there's drugs is in the military. Well, if you're all of a sudden at a young age, having to leave everything you know and go do this and everything again is intense and fast and hard. 

0:38:45 - Speaker 1
The way to decompress, it's a way to forget about stuff Because ultimately probably a lot of people were joining the military at 18 years old or trying to escape from something and then now you physically can escape from it by leaving your hometown, but then alcohol, you escape. Yeah, so you go to alcohol and drugs which like yeah, I mean you hear that a lot in the military that stuff does get used a lot, because there is also a little like there's not a ton to do, depending where you're stationed Some areas. 

0:39:16 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I was in the middle of the desert. So I mean I got into rock climbing at Joshua Tree, but yeah. 

0:39:24 - Speaker 1
You drink, you do drugs and especially work hard, play hard. Yeah, especially when a bunch of other guys around I mean they always say, like you get a group of guys together? That's usually when dump shit happens, Because we all try to help each other and press each other be funnier. 

0:39:42 - Speaker 2
But it doesn't change anything mentally. That's where really I think having that outlet in the military, but anywhere is huge and can be huge Even, like you know, insurance is and costs being able to see somebody. It'd be nice if that was different. 

0:40:10 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so now you met your wife. What age were you? 28. 28. And you guys, like, how was that transition for you to like? You had moved in with her Like not much longer after you guys had kind of started dating, yeah, pretty quickly. 

0:40:30 - Speaker 2
Pretty quickly, right away, right away Okay. 

0:40:36 - Speaker 1
Because she knew like she was looking to settle down and like yeah, she's four years older, yep. And for you at that point you probably were also I've always liked relationships, Didn't I still like? 

0:40:50 - Speaker 2
I like being around people. So it was yeah, I was like she likes me and she's gonna have me. You know, I mean that's not the only reasons, but yeah. 

0:41:04 - Speaker 1
So then you guys like what was that transition for you? Like to them, like live, because you probably never lived with a girl prior to that, I'm guessing. 

0:41:12 - Speaker 2
No. 

0:41:13 - Speaker 1
Oh, okay. 

0:41:14 - Speaker 2
I was truly like the first, like living with a female or a significant other and I don't know. I think it was good. 

0:41:24 - Speaker 1
Was there like extra accountability in life all of a sudden, with like the fact that like yeah, this is like a you want to. 

0:41:29 - Speaker 2
You want to be better for her. 

Yeah, yeah, but I was so like drilled again mentally as a kid that you know we had chores and we had to do stocks and we had to do things a certain way, which maybe is not that good mentally, like you should be more. It's good to get kids to do things, but to do it in a more open minded fashion, not so drill, instructed, military, only one way type. But no, that's probably one of the things that kept her, like you know, didn't get me kicked out of her place was like I took out the garbage, I did dishes, I would vacuum, you know, on the home we stuff, yeah, that supposedly most of us guys don't do, but I would think most of the new age guys, new age new age yeah. 

So you have to do it or know how to do it, or can do it, or want to do it. 

0:42:38 - Speaker 1
I mean it's funny, like those are little disciplines in life that like, yeah, I feel like a lot of people don't do them, a lot of people like don't take care of like little things like that. 

0:42:48 - Speaker 2
Right. 

0:42:49 - Speaker 1
You know it's physical housekeeping which is like no different than like it really relates to like mental housekeeping. So you're probably very good at physical housekeeping, right, but like sounds like you would maybe sometimes not be the best about mental housekeeping. Like trying to kind of address if something was bothering you in a way, or just like suppressing it. So like for you, being in a relationship is what's the word I want to look for. It's innately, like Innate. It's innate, it's innately like a deep thing. You have to like start addressing feelings and emotions a little bit more. Was it like a transition for you there? Like the fact that you're getting into a relationship, that we've got to be the person you married which, me is true You're going to get into deeper conversations and get into more of your life opening up to this person. 

0:43:42 - Speaker 2
Right, I think I honestly sorry, karim, still probably hide a lot of those things. So yeah, again, there's probably a lot that I need to Uncover, undig or dig up and focus on or figure out. 

0:44:09 - Speaker 1
Well, you have been. Yeah, yeah, we talk about that stuff. Yeah, you know what's important to you and what really matters, and kind of working towards that. 

0:44:19 - Speaker 2
Right, right. It's just finding the right outlets, yeah, and allowing yourself to be vulnerable, I guess, and trying to not like lie to yourself. Yeah, like I've got a temper, yeah, but it's part probably learn and part just it's been put in me, I guess. I don't know again, do? 

0:44:56 - Speaker 1
you have that temper when you're young. 

0:44:59 - Speaker 2
Probably, yeah, run over my brother playing football, you know, or chase him around sometimes, sometimes with things that probably shouldn't have chased him around with. 

0:45:13 - Speaker 1
But, like would there be like situations where you know something guy, you'd be very angry and he's just, you weren't able to reel in your emotions type of situations. 

0:45:22 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. And again, as a young kid, you don't know how to. You don't know how to see those things and then to dissect them or handle them. Yeah, and even as an adult it's hard. You know, adults, you guarantee you have a hard time. I have a hard time where it's like okay, stop. You know, like even with kids, parents have hard times where it's you can't, you shouldn't let a two year old get you upset. 

But they do they do, you know, but you as the adult have to figure out how to dissect that and just and really it's. That's just a kid, just like when you were a kid and you didn't know how to figure stuff out or express stuff. They're the same way, so, but that's where, again, like being a parent, will your kids do and will teach you stuff? Life, stop heavy stuff. 

0:46:29 - Speaker 1
So was that a big transition for you when your daughter came? Yeah. 

0:46:34 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean with her I think it was easier. She just was an easier baby where, like, our son was harder. But now that he's older we're closer, I feel like it's not as hard. I wouldn't say it like the closeness or the relating type stuff, I don't think matters, but just it was harder for me with our son because he was a harder baby. And again at the end of the day you have to tell yourself that's just a little kid, you know, and sometimes I back then I would look back or even now, if I talk about her to think about it. It's like why did I get that way? 

0:47:20 - Speaker 1
You know, like why did I let a baby or a one year old or a two year old or a three year old, whatever, let me or make me get like that you know well, I think this is a great thing to dive into because I do think a lot of guys probably struggle with like the beginning phases of fatherhood in some level right, because, again, you're not as bonded to the kid and if the kid is a little difficult, so like they're not just this like new thing in your life and it's a little extra responsibility, but they're cute and whatever, but like no, the kid cries a lot means a lot of attention is you know they give you like they start to become this bigger stressor in life and you still haven't bonded with them as much as much as the mother has. 

But like that is probably like a very hard thing to deal with. And I do hear this a lot that like daughters, when they're younger, are like they're just a little calmer, less destructive, it's like it's easier to just get. Okay, it's this cute little thing, I love it. 

0:48:21 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it's extra responsibility of stress, but you know, and whatever, boys are boys, but then boys are boys or they can be assholes. 

0:48:29 - Speaker 1
They can really, like they, destroy things, they can throw fits in ways that, like you know again, if you and if you haven't fully bonded to them yet the way that their mom has, because their mom is bonded to them the second that they're born, they're born because, they're bonded to them for nine months in their father. 

Yeah, I'd love to, I'd love for you to kind of expand on that for yourself, because you know we've talked about that a little bit and like how like it took eventually for you to like start feeling like, oh yeah, like Finn is a little dude and this little dude's starting to like really show his personality in ways that you could, you could relate to. 

0:49:01 - Speaker 2
Right. I mean you just you have to really step back and think you know and watch and listen and not and not like overanalyze, but think you know about it. He's kids are kids, are such good teachers, you know. So I think once a person allows their kids to teach them and I know it sounds maybe kind of goofy or like weird or confusing, but at least the way I've looked at it is once I've let, I've truly like let my kids in and let them teach me, and I've opened my mind and let it happen. It makes it so much easier. So, just like any other issues I might have or somebody else might have, mentally like, if you just truly just open up and listen, whether it's just to yourself or anything else that's out there, I think you definitely grow and learn and get help. A lot. 

0:50:26 - Speaker 1
It's like probably because kids, kids simplify things down, right, Right. Things don't always have to be complex to really learn something from it and kids kind of bring that reminder back. 

0:50:41 - Speaker 2
This whole issue is much simpler than we want to make it out to be Don't overthink it. They're not going to overthink it, they're going to react and at the end of it it's very simplified. 

0:50:53 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like there's I mean that there's a beautiful message in there of like, yeah, kids ultimately teach you more than you can learn from a lot of things in life, because there's the fact that you are not responsible for just like little human being and you have to be, you have to learn to be patient with them, because you don't want to just put your own stress and scars on them and that there's going to be errors in that road of taking that journey right. Because you have to learn. You have to learn how to control your anger when your anger wants to come out, because the kids are frustrating and whatnot. 

0:51:32 - Speaker 2
But if you really let our like, if we let our minds think of an adult as a kid, right, like so what conversations, you know, two people can have or groups can have, no matter whether it's male, female, what race, what ethnicity, what religion, stuff like that, it's gonna sound kind of goofy. But if I'm like, oh, john's a kid, you know like, take what he's saying and don't overthink it. You know, just let it be simplified or simple, that might be good too. 

0:52:12 - Speaker 1
For all of us. Yeah, like this planet's just full of little kids that grew up. 

0:52:18 - Speaker 2
Yeah, how fun is that? Yeah, yeah, we're all just grandkids. 

0:52:21 - Speaker 1
Quite literally what we all are. Some of us like to act like we're more important than others. 

0:52:26 - Speaker 2
Right, but some of us act like we're. Some of us act more like kids than others as well, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. 

0:52:33 - Speaker 1
That's not, honestly, cause life starts, life ends and if, in between there, you can let your inner kid get out and have as much fun as it can, then that's great. You know, and I, yeah, yeah, I think there's there's nothing wrong with that. I think as long as you're able to be responsible and hone shit in that you need to hone in then, yeah, that's a good thing. Let your inner kid out, have fun. It's probably why me and you have had like so much fun over the past couple of years and, you know, going out doing some shit, cause we, you know, ultimately we, we like to let that kid out, we like to let loose and raise a little bit. 

0:53:12 - Speaker 2
Some other people, our wives, might not always like when the inner kid comes out, but and make it. You know, I don't know life's short and you know, have fun, learn, live, live yeah. 

0:53:31 - Speaker 1
Is there anything that, like, you would go back and tell your younger self now as you're older? Like, is there anything that you would, you know, really want to like change Cause? Like I don't believe in regrets ultimately, but like I do still think there is like a profoundness to want to look back and be like okay, like sure, if I had this information back then maybe I would have done this to him. 

0:53:51 - Speaker 2
Yeah, oh, just, oh, man, that's a hard one. 

But on the on the regret thing it's, I have actually like a couple of regrets, three or four, and then more recently I've tried to tell myself, like they're not regrets, like everything does happen for a reason, and some of that stuff we have control in, some of that stuff we don't have control in, we're like if I were to go back to my younger self, just, you know, be true to yourself, and again the one you're young. 

It's so hard to see that or think that way, but like, I think if we all were somewhat individuals at a young age and like, truly like, did just us, this world might even be better, you know, and where so much of the world it's like, oh, I'm gonna do that because of that person, and then more and more people do that same thing, or I'm gonna wear this, or I'm gonna talk this way, or you know when, at the end of the day, like we're all the same, but like when you're young, if you just just do you, you know, come, I think we would have an even better society and world. And regrets try not to have them, but it's all right to have regrets, I don't know you know, I still feel I have them. 

But then I also am like, oh you know, if I would have stayed in the military, maybe I would have been deployed, maybe I would have gotten really bad PTSD, maybe I would have been killed. But because I didn't stay in the military, all these other things have happened. You know, the choices that happen, whether you make them or don't make them, it all has an effect. And I mean, I met, you know, my wife and have two beautiful kids, mainly thanks to her. But because I didn't stay in the military, you know, and because I didn't stay in California, you know, I came back home. 

0:56:06 - Speaker 1
So yeah, it's all good. Yeah yeah, you're ultimately the culmination of all your experiences. 

0:56:14 - Speaker 2
Right and you're always learning and you're we're always growing. You know, that's where seeing like my parents, or like older people with like their kids, so like my parents with me, like they're a lot more calm than they were when I was a kid, when I was, when I was like my kid's age at some place and why could she be like that back then, you know? But then it's like then, when I started to get like they used to get, it's like why are you getting like that? You know, like we're all here for such a short amount of time that should enjoy it as much as you can, you know. 

0:57:00 - Speaker 1
Good that you have that awareness and that you're kind of able to see that step back from it, see that like you're gonna someday look back to be like man. I ain't got any time I got angry or mad at the kids for something. 

0:57:11 - Speaker 2
What for what? 

0:57:12 - Speaker 1
Yeah, why. 

0:57:13 - Speaker 2
You know, and even mental stuff. It's like, again, we're only here for so long. So, you know, instead of burying it, you know, try to think about it and try to bring it to the forefront and learn from it and grow from it so that it's just good, it's not bad. 

0:57:35 - Speaker 1
Yeah, because, like, not everything needs to be like negative and like sometimes like we're not burying it, like you know, it's not that you need to dive into all this stuff, but just make sure that there was that you understand the lesson that you ultimately needed to learn from yourself, from it. 

0:57:51 - Speaker 2
Right. 

0:57:52 - Speaker 1
You know there's some lesson in everything that we go through and that lesson is always so. It's so specific to us for your own situation, for you. You know yourself whatever it is, and you're gonna only learn it from realizing why did I, why did that happen? Why did I react the way I did? 

0:58:11 - Speaker 2
Right. 

0:58:12 - Speaker 1
All right, there's a lesson I learned from it and now I can move forward, because otherwise you kind of get stuck on it. 

0:58:17 - Speaker 2
Right. 

0:58:17 - Speaker 1
Yeah, well, awesome. 

0:58:20 - Speaker 2
Yeah. 

0:58:21 - Speaker 1
Sweet, this was a great conversation. I really appreciate you coming on today. 

0:58:25 - Speaker 2
Yeah thanks for doing it and having me, and yeah, well, yeah, thank you. 

0:58:31 - Speaker 1
If you guys enjoyed this conversation, please like and subscribe, and if you have time, please go give the podcast some ratings on Spotify and iTunes. It really helped to get out there a little bit more and get more people to discover it. Otherwise, thank you again and have a great rest of your day. 

0:58:47 - Speaker 2
Thanks, click the like, button, subscribe Subscribe. 

0:58:51 - Speaker 1
Like, follow, follow John. Yeah, Well, I appreciate this. Thank you, this was awesome. 

0:58:58 - Speaker 2
Thank God, I need a cleaner. Thank you. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page