From Catholic Roots to Zen Wisdom - A Journey of Growth w/ Frank Berg

Join us in the episodes where I reconnect with Frank Berg, an old friend from our college days at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. We explore Frank's fascinating journey from his roots in a large Catholic family in Wisconsin to his current life in Denver, Colorado, where he thrives as an entrepreneur. Frank shares how his religious upbringing instilled values of tolerance and service, and how his spiritual path has evolved towards Zen Buddhism, enriched by experiences such as silent retreats. This heartfelt reunion offers a unique glimpse into Frank's personal growth and the evolving perspectives that come with age.

Listen in as we navigate the complexities of personal growth, from the challenges of fitting into conventional systems during adolescence to the exploration of diverse academic paths in college. We discuss the importance of questioning rules, the impact of parental support, and the shift from a career in international diplomacy to entrepreneurial ventures. The conversation underscores the significance of embracing discomfort for continuous growth, highlighting how new experiences and stepping outside our comfort zones can foster personal development and happiness.

Throughout the episode, we reflect on the power of setting goals and the motivation drawn from surrounding oneself with ambitious individuals. We share insights into mastering work-life balance, productivity, and the nuances of remote work, emphasizing the importance of personal accountability and self-reliance in today's world. The discussion also touches on societal comfort, the challenges of men's mental health, and the role of camaraderie in fostering open conversations and support networks.

Transcript

0:00:13 - John
Hello and welcome to another episode of Unturned Stones. On today's podcast, I'm going to be interviewing Frank Bird. Frank, I met back in college in UWM and it's been a hot minute since we've seen each other. Frank, I met back in college in UWM and it's been a hot minute since we've seen each other. But to kind of surmise why I wanted to ask you on is, like the older I've gotten, the more I've like seen through this veil of like reality, like just the way things operate, and you're somebody that I've noticed just from you know things that you've posted online over the years that, like you seem to get the things that I, I myself have gotten, as well as like I've also just seen growth and what I think I used to know about you. 

Because back then, you know, back then I like you, I viewed people with one dimensionally because I didn't even know to view people in multiple ways. Right, I remember back then, like you were, just I thought, like you were this great guy, like you seem like a fun, loving guy, you were super fun to be around, uh, but like I didn't, like I didn't realize how much more depth to you there was, which I feel like I've seen over like the past few years, from like your social media posting and it's been cool because I'm like, because of it I was like, oh, like I bet you, frank, would be great to sit down and have a conversation with, yeah, but again it just it goes back to like this idea that in college, like I didn't realize like how much more depth to you there was. Well, I think there was less depth then probably, you know, you know that's because I had less depth myself. So obviously, you know, yeah, you did too. But I remember having just like very positive thoughts of you in the sense that like, like you were somebody I got along with very easily. 

We had a lot of fun, because we worked in the cafeteria together. We had like a pretty fun group of guys that we all worked together with, so like that was always just like a blast. But so, with all that being said, can you kind of just like introduce yourself a little bit to people, Just like a little bit about you, know your background, and then we'll go in from there. 

0:02:03 - Frank
Yeah, I appreciate that. My name is Frank John and I met back at UW-Milwaukee. I am from Wisconsin. I grew up here, I lived various places for some study abroad things and then, finishing up school, moved back to Madison, currently live in Denver, colorado, where I've been for seven or eight years and I love it a lot. Economically, I am an entrepreneur. I always have my hands in a bunch of cookie jars. I love Colorado because it affords me one of the best lifestyles that you can have for the money. To be honest, I love snowboarding, outdoors hunting, fishing, and so I've settled there and it's the most comfortable place I've ever been. Kind of live seasonally and back and forth between some places, but Denver is home base. 

0:02:55 - John
Okay, okay. Where in Wisconsin specifically were you born? 

0:02:59 - Frank
Platteville southwest corner. 

0:03:00 - John
Okay, and then do you have any brothers or sisters? Okay, and then do you have? 

0:03:05 - Frank
any brothers or sisters? Yeah, quite a few of them. One immediate brother. Large family my mom's one of 15, no twins. My dad had eight. Big Catholic family Okay, okay, irresponsibly Catholic. If I was going to do a stand-up, that's what it would be named. 

0:03:22 - John
Okay, okay, so like how many total? So is that eight, eight total siblings, seven total siblings, seven total siblings. Okay, and then a ton of cousins. 

0:03:36 - Frank
Oh yeah, for sure, we're actually having a cousin's dinner tomorrow night and planning. 

0:03:39 - John
that has been interesting, okay, so so like a very like Catholic-ish upbringing. 

0:03:42 - Frank
Yeah, I went to church every Sunday from the time I was born until I graduated high school. I think I probably missed three or four Sundays because I was sick. Not a super strict family in terms of the religious nature, but definitely a family of tradition. Family of tradition and I guess Christianity has been a big pillar in who I am today. For me, that means just being tolerant and taking care of other people, being of service. 

I think in any religion you look at, there can be a lot of contradictions and some people use religion as a tool to tell other people what to do, but it's never been that for me. In terms of spirituality, I've crossed the gamut of a lot of different categories, but I definitely have fallen into Buddhism and that has been a pretty powerful thing for me. Zen Buddhism more specifically, I've done a couple retreats over the years. The first one was Vipassana. That's a 10-day, silent, no speaking, reading, writing or looking at people in the eyes, and then I've done a couple Zen retreats since then, different centers, but it's pretty much my spiritual background, okay. 

0:05:03 - John
We'll come back to that, for sure. I want to ask more about the retreats themselves. So growing up then with seven other siblings, were you very close to your parents? 

0:05:13 - Frank
Absolutely Mom and dad in different ways. I think dad was pretty much work, ethic and fiscal responsibility, and then my mom was love and tolerance poetry, that sort of thing and fiscal responsibility, and then my mom was love and tolerance poetry, that sort of thing. Just one immediate brother growing up and then the rest are a lot older, okay, okay. 

0:05:34 - John
Were you very close with the immediate brother as opposed to the older? Yeah, absolutely. 

0:05:37 - Frank
Yeah, yeah, wrestling around sports. We were two years apart and there were a lot of people in his grade that were two years apart as well. So, like a lot of my friends had younger siblings in his grade and there was an interesting dynamic that I think is pretty common. A lot of families wait about two years to have the second kid. 

0:05:56 - John
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So then, like middle school, high school for you. How were those years Middle school? 

0:06:02 - Frank
was very challenging. It was I didn't like my teachers and they didn't like me. I was a class clown. Sixth grade specifically, I was in the office 180 days out of the year, or 160 out of 180. It was like 20 days out of the full year that I was in class and the rest I was in the office and the rest I was in the office. I was a very misbehaving child, I guess, but I think the school system doesn't really give that much leeway to energetic children and they get. I remember they had me on Ritalin when I was in second grade. 

0:06:40 - John
Well, I was going to ask were you diagnosed as ADHD or ADD as a kid, then I almost certainly yeah. 

0:06:46 - Frank
Yeah, okay yeah, and the stuff they had me on. I remember on Ritalin I came home and I was like mom, I can't stop talking. She's like, okay, we're taking off. That that's no good. 

But I've always been a black sheep of sorts in many categories, because I don't necessarily like to follow rules just because they're put in front of me. Many categories because I don't necessarily like to follow rules just because they're put in front of me. I like to follow rules because they make sense to me. And so if somebody's not going to explain to you why these things should be, and they just say and you don't have a good relationship with that person, you're more likely not going to listen to them. And so that was. That was all of middle school for me, pretty much. And then you start maturing a little bit, go into high school, get your shit together. You're still a kid, but you're growing a little bit. And then when you get into adolescence, I think that has even more of a maturing aspect. And really when I I don't know, I mean after I started smoking weed, I think was tumultuous to begin with because you have a lot to deal with and a lot different perceptions of reality, but after it opens your mind a little bit. 

0:07:49 - John
I think that, um, it helps you see things from a wider picture yeah yeah do you, do you recall thinking that you had like that you had a mental health problem, or that you were dealing with mental health problems at that age, or were you kind of to you it would? 

0:08:06 - Frank
there were struggles that you were just kind of like I think um, like currently the lens of mental health almost um invites people who might not even have a mental health problem to want to sort of belong to that sphere because it's big and powerful. When I was in middle school I didn't think at all about it in that lens. I knew that I was like put in the special ed room because nobody else wanted to deal with me, but it was more of. I guess, when I think of mental health, sometimes it's kind of a depressive aspect or like you feel like like there's something wrong with you and I don't think I ever felt that. I definitely felt like aggressive and combative toward these systems that wanted to kind of place me in a category, but I didn't feel, I Didn't feel bad about it, I guess yeah, just more like you're a Square peg trying to be forced into a round hole type of feeling. 

Exactly, and my parents were never. I mean, they didn't like getting called to school either, I'm sure, but they weren't like you're doing something wrong, you know. They're always just like oh, you know, it's okay, we still love you, Just do better, yeah. 

0:09:21 - John
Yeah, which I'm sure is helpful, because there's a lot of kids out there who are in these situations and their parents get very frustrated with the lack of results. And then the parents aren't necessarily end up being a support system for the kid and that's the teacher stressing that the kid's not paying attention, and then parents. So it's great to like, it's great when you're, when the parents can be, so that's like wonderful to hear that your parents For sure. 

0:09:44 - Frank
It wasn't always that way. Like my father and I definitely have our our disagreements, you know, and it's interesting when you become an adult and you see the shortcomings that your parents have and where their toolbox is not the same as yours, and when you're forced to see that growing up, um, it can be a little difficult for sure, but we all learn how to work with each other and get through the madness. 

0:10:13 - John
So for you going to college. Were you concerned that you're going to have the same issues in college that you had? Because I guess did you have the same issues in high school as you did in middle school as far as paying attention and being able to keep like grades up as well with um, with the fact that you, you know, probably felt like you had a ton of energy and they didn't want to sit still in a, in a you know desk all day, um definitely still a bunch of energy, um, but testing and um, still a bunch of energy, um, but testing and um, understanding the material was always a strong suit of mine, and, um, the behavioral issues dwindled the older I got, for sure. 

0:10:54 - Frank
So, like high school, still had a couple of things in there at the beginning. Um, toward the end of high school, pretty well shaped up, ready to ship out, super excited going into college, and Milwaukee was this fun, ecstatic place with so much to do. I remember the first weekend we stayed down there was for a car show on the lake and we stayed at the Milwaukee Athletic Club and they have a rooftop that overlooks the city and I remember looking over at everybody running around and talking and cars honking. I was like, damn, this is so much different than the countryside. So I was super excited to go there, no worries at all, and the best grades I got throughout school or college specifically, were in my first year. So it was a super electric time and I loved every minute of it, except for maybe the last year where I had to. You're ready to be done and you still got things to finish and you're like, ah, come on. 

0:11:50 - John
Yeah, yeah, what did you? Were in business school, right. 

0:11:55 - Frank
I did almost every school there is. I ended up with global sustainability and economics with a peace studies certificate. So I started in business, ended up in social sciences. Toward the end I started taking a lot of political science courses. I got a master's certificate from American University in Bosnia. That was a post-grad program but it was also tied to the graduation of the undergrad. 

So after school I really wanted to work with the State Department in the United Nations. I did a program in New York for a summer where we met with 60 countries and 40 representatives to the UN. So many meetings and discussions and interviews with these people, and as I met them and the system I saw a lot of things that I didn't agree with and I didn't really want my soul to be resting in a place that seems manipulative and not forthright. So I decided not to do that and now entrepreneurial things are my. I view my life more in terms of freedom. I mean, of course we all need money, but when you think about a system in terms of the autonomy that it offers you instead of the money that it offers you, it opens up different doors than you would normally look at. So definitely, money is a large focus of the companies. But the biggest thing is does a new project or thing fit into the system and allow me more freedom or less freedom? Instead of more money or less money? 

0:13:39 - John
Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more. 

I feel like that's a thing that's been going around, which is like the new wealthy is making enough money to do whatever you want with your life, not making enough money to buy anything specific or live to afford anything specific. You can make $10,000 a year, but if it literally lets you do everything you want in your life because you set everything up, then you are wealthy in that sense and I think a lot more people are coming around to that now, because enough people realize they don't want to grind 60 hours a week at some job for 30 years just to retire with a pension. How many people end up retiring and dying because they went so hard for so many years trying to save up and thinking that they're going to retire and use all this money, but they just beat their health up, they beat their body up, they beat their spirit up that entire time and by the time they retire and they have nothing to do, everything slowing down ends up being bad for them because they never learned how to slow down at a young enough age. 

0:14:34 - Frank
Yeah, absolutely. I mean you could have 60 billion in the bank and if you're not happy and healthy then it's meaningless. Most of those people are pretty healthy, but sometimes not. I meet people with all sorts of means that aren't happy and I think since graduating, some of my largest focus has been happiness, and I'm super solid, where I am now Always looking for more introspection, um adventure, um and my overall wealth in terms of where I'm sitting psychologically and spiritually is is through the roof. Um could always have more money, definitely make more than enough to be happy with Um. Keeping the time free is the most difficult part, because we all commit to things and uh want to invest ourselves and um saying no is something that can be a little bit uncomfortable, but it's super necessary if you want to um keep the autonomy going and the freedom of choice, for sure. 

0:15:48 - John
So was there like a period for you post-college that, like, you adjusted where your goals were, or maybe like did you adjust what you wanted so that you considered yourself happy? 

0:16:02 - Frank
Absolutely. When I first moved to Denver, I was super broke. I was bartending. One of my managers was just a fucking dick. 

What brought you out to Denver to start? I went out there for a spring break trip with a bunch of buddies snowboarding and I was like you guys get to do this all the time, it's amazing. And it was the first place I moved for an environment instead of a job, and so I kind of figured everything else out. The first place I moved for an environment instead of a job, and so I kind of figured everything else out. When I was bartending and unhappy, I started picking up some work with this guy who ran a painting company and he got sick and sold me a bunch of his equipment before he moved back to be closer to family, and so it was really that step where I kind of jumped off the cliff into this entrepreneurial thing. I was like, oh shit, now I really got to figure something out. 

But that is the exciting moment where you're leveling up and reading everything and figuring out your next moves all the time, just like every breath you take is an improvisation. And that opened me up to everything. To everything, because as an entrepreneur you have to know everything that goes on. You're the accountant, you're the operations guy, you're the salesman, you're the tech guy, you're everything. And so that was the start of me not looking in a certain direction, it was just. Everything became open and so I started exploring all of my curiosities through books and I was always a reader, but after that I became a super avid reader and then, yeah, that was the moment where I started focusing on everything in my life in terms of happiness and spirituality okay, when you were younger, do you remember like chasing happiness, like as a high schooler or middle school? 

0:17:52 - John
did you like chase happiness at all um? 

0:17:58 - Frank
I guess middle school I probably didn't have enough wherewithal to be super aware in that arena. High school definitely, um, I think that's where we in adolescence often learn a lot of uncomfortable truths about the world, and so it can be kind of mentally, um demoralizing, and it's easy to be kind of depressed when you're a teenager because there are all these things that you don't know how to understand, but you you're sitting with them, um. So I don't know that I necessarily chased happiness, but life was pretty easy, especially looking back. You know you have very little responsibility. That'd be nice sometimes. 

Now yeah, yeah I have less responsibility than a lot of other people, but responsibilities, responsibilities are different too. 

0:18:46 - John
Yeah, yeah, do you. So once you got that painting business, you got the equipment from that guy, you started doing the painting business. You're officially an entrepreneur. What led you to want to continue doing more ventures? Because, as you kind of alluded to prior to the interview, starting is now you've got your hands in quite a few buckets. Um, so where, like where did that growth and that motivation come from to just continue to like really dive into being an entrepreneur? 

0:19:15 - Frank
yep, um, I think, um, once you do your first project, I mean, you start making more money than you have before, and that's intriguing. And then, if you have any company long enough, you're going to have some valleys in there as well. Either your competition isn't right for the market or something dries up and you're like, okay, well shit, what am I doing wrong here? And I think it's the intrigue of building something and the excitement that you get from that. So, like, for example, with my painting company, it's become very routine. Um, I mean, I I do a fantastic job if I'm in front of 10 people. 

I usually sell about seven other jobs, but it's not as fun as it used to be because I've already seen everything there is to do there. And so when you start a new venture or a new project, even if it's just a collaboration with somebody, artistically or anything new, has that novel exploration type thing, and I mirror that a lot in my outdoor activities too my snowboarding trips and backpacking. So, yeah, I think there's like an insatiable want for discovery somehow, and that is in order to build that up and nurture it. I need to start new ventures. I think Okay. 

0:20:43 - John
If you like hypothetical question, I think Okay If you like hypothetical question, like if, say, you had one venture and it earned you beyond enough that, like, you don't even really need to ever like think about another venture to just make more because it earns you enough. Like, what would you do if you, if your time you know you had all your time because, say, you had an entrepreneurial business and now standing by itself makes you a million a month, what would you do with your time then? Would you go discover more? Would you look to? 

0:21:08 - Frank
I think that I would definitely keep investing and growing, but I think, as we get to a point where everything's taken care of, maybe it's not natural, maybe it's chosen, but there's definitely a drive to help others, and so I already do that in many fashions. But I mean, if I was just loaded with life-changing money, I think a lot of it would go back into helping people achieve their dreams instead of mine. Okay, Okay. 

0:21:41 - John
Okay, because I'm assuming you're going to agree with the sentiment which I'll say here, which is, I think one of the worst things that can happen to a human being is they get too comfortable and then they lean into that comfort for the rest of their lives, because once you're comfortable, you never change. I think not changing is one of the biggest things you could do if you don't want to be happy. Just remain the exact same. So I believe that we are at a point in life where it's just a civilization. Life's gotten so easy we have AC everywhere, we have heated houses and cooled houses, we have cars to get around easily, we have screens and all the things, every little thing you need you can have. Nowadays. 

I make it in my mind always like have to have to, like intentionally challenge myself. Every day I have to try to do something I don't want to do or something I'm uncomfortable with, because otherwise it's too easy to like become stagnant and just fall into your comforts. And I can tell I go through cycles of it where, like, I want to fall out of my harder habits and I just want to like take the comfort, sleep, sleep in. Don't do this. You know that it becomes almost necessary in life to constantly do things to challenge yourself, and that it's even harder when you're really comfortable to choose to put yourself in uncomfortable situations. Do you find that you have learned that and like come across that at all? 

0:23:01 - Frank
Comfort definitely can be dangerous. 

And I think that when you're in that um, that comfortable mindset, where you're settled and it depends on how you look at it like you can be comfortable and still have a vigor for life and you wake up every day and you're thinking of new things to do. 

But if you're comfortable and you're you're settled and kind of unhappy with that, you can start to lose your perspective and your ability to see new things. And I think um exploration is so important that way because, like, for example, when you're traveling um, you're in a new country. Maybe you don't even speak the language, or maybe you do, but every one of your days is completely improvisational, every step that you're taking it and every place that you're in is new to you. So your brain is kind of forced into this mechanism of searching for new patterns. And when you're comfortable and you're living in the same house you've been in for 10 years and things start to become very routine, I think that piece of your brain might not be as sharp. So maybe we have to look for ways to keep working that muscle. 

0:24:10 - John
Okay, okay, do you. What things do you think you do to challenge yourself? 

0:24:19 - Frank
I definitely. Well, I mean the new ventures is a big thing. Putting myself in rooms where I don't know the most and where it's a little bit uncomfortable. I like being comfortable with making myself uncomfortable and throwing myself into situations like uh, I remember a paver patio project that I hired out for a customer a friend of mine and I had no idea what I was doing, but I said yes because I knew that I could figure it out, and so I like kind of throwing myself off the cliff and just figuring it out on the way down. 

Uh, a project I've started recently is recently is renting out server space through a cache. It's a decentralized cloud network and I didn't know anything about Kubernetes or networking or instances or creating these containers, but I've read three or four books on it and now I'm pretty damn good, and we've never lived in a more compatible time for this. I was talking to my father before this about mechanics that worked on cars in the 80s. There wasn't YouTube videos about every little part, and we have so much wealth of information surrounding us and now, with AI tools, I use ChatGPT every day. It's never been so easy to discover things and build whatever you want. I just feel like sometimes some people are a little bit afraid to jump out into that space and go grab it, but that's been a strong suit of mine for sure. 

0:25:55 - John
I very much relate to this idea. There's nothing I feel like I can't do, especially because we have YouTube. Now we have YouTube, we have Google. There's feel like I can't do, especially because we have youtube. Now we have youtube, we have google. There's literally nothing I can't do. There's if there's an I have a broken hvac, I'm gonna fix it myself. I gotta just change something in my car, I'm gonna do it myself. You know, short of me not having a time or something, I'm gonna do everything myself because I can literally learn it and do it probably better, if not as well, as somebody else. That's gonna charge me me way more for it. 

But when I was young, I don't remember having that thought that I could just learn stuff and do it, even though we had accessibility to YouTube and stuff like that was starting. I had the library. I could go check out books. As a kid I remember thinking to myself that I could just learn anything and do it. 

It was till my 20s, till post-college, where I was like till, I think I actually bought my first rental unit and started having tenants and doing my own work at the units and stuff like that. That was like there's nothing I can't do. There's literally nothing I could not learn and do within two to four hours to eight hours, depending how hard the job is. Do you feel like you had, like it sounds like. Now you're at a time in your life where, like you are confident that you can learn it and you'll do it. Do you remember as a kid having that thought to yourself? Do you feel like this was something that you also found you had the ability almost as an adult, more than you did as a kid or a teenager In the terms of like childhood. 

0:27:20 - Frank
I think about psychologies of siblings and how I was the rebellious sibling. I was always the one that was going out and doing everything and my brother, kind of, was less. That way I don't think it matters who comes first, but I do think that there's a difference in a family dynamic. So maybe if you're an only child it has a different thing. But as we grow up, uh, we don't have as many experiences and difficult things that we've done. 

Um, like soccer practices I remember in high school were a huge element of my belief in myself, because it's fucking hard. 

It was like three miles in the first practice and then you had another one after school and it was like you think you're gonna die there. Your heart's like beating out of your chest and you're laying on the ground and you're almost hallucinating because you're so you just ran so much. And then you wake up the next day and do it again and again and again. And after we rack up all these experiences, um, like climbing big mountains in color Colorado has been another one of them, uh, just like I look at a mountain now and I'm like, oh, it's a piece of cake, let's go do it Um, and you get into this rhythm while you're doing something difficult. Um, that is kind of mindless or meditative maybe, but um, doing these difficult experiences over time creates this um strong aspect of self-esteem, and so I do think that it's important that people do things that they perceive as super difficult, and when you're young, you haven't had that much experience doing those, so you're a little bit more apprehensive and fearful of, like the unknown. 

0:28:57 - John
That's a good point. As a kid it's hard to build up your self-esteem like that, to be able to be confident in yourself, to pick up anything and do it or learn it, especially when as a kid you're just very overwhelmed by the world. You haven't, like, characterized the world and put it into the little buckets in your brain yet of everything. So that makes sense. As you get older you're kind of and you do more. You, you, you complete more. You've seen yourself fail and repeat something and you know complete the second. That all builds self-esteem and you're right. 

I for myself, personally I think you're right. That's it was almost a self-esteem thing that was like, oh, eventually I was like I could do anything that I didn't think I could do prior. Um, but I never quite rationalized it as that. It's like a self-esteem thing that like you're confident in your own ability to learn. Yep and uh. It's funny. I feel like I never as a kid, nobody ever really told me that I could I could be a good learner, yeah well, they told me the opposite yeah you're not in this classroom. 

No, no, not you're a bad learner, yeah, um, well, okay, so with okay. So, yeah, well, okay, so great thing you brought up there. So, like climbing 14ers, right, that's a very physically challenging thing. That's not something a lot of people want to do, even if they'd love to be at the top of the mountain and have the view. Yeah, exactly what really brought up your love for that? Can you talk a little bit about what got you into that? 

0:30:21 - Frank
For sure, not to the point that you feel like you can look at any 14er and climb it and not be intimidated by it. For those listening uh, 14er is a 14 000 foot mountain. Uh, colorado has something like 59 of them. It's kind of a checklist item. A lot of people are so concerned with doing them that, in my opinion, a lot of 13 000 foot mountains are more beautiful because you get more vegetation and things like that. But the reason I started that is because of that energy where the people that you're surrounded by are doing these things and you see that, and so I guess the example of other people doing something that you didn't think you can do, but they've obviously done it, so it's an example of that's accomplishable, um, health-wise, I mean, it's fantastic for you if you're not too hard on your body. Um, and I've always been pretty health conscious. And the thing that really made well, my buddy kevin he's like my main hiking buddy the thing that made us step into like a second level of it was preparing to go to Peru and hike those mountains. So it was like having this idea of something in the future and kind of working your way up to it and just seeing some amazing countryside, you know, and you get up there and you can see for 50 miles every direction countryside. You know you get up there and you can see for 50 miles every direction and and the sense of accomplishment again like that's um, while you're hiking it it sucks, it's not completely enjoyable, but as soon as you're on that last third of the mountain on the way down, this realization of time in your mind like, oh my, my god, I just did all this stuff, but now it seems like it was nothing. It's a really interesting perspective to be able to have. 

Any long, difficult thing is kind of like that, like a large road trip. Maybe you're driving 14 hours a day and you get to the destination. It seems like it almost never happened. Now you're here, but at the beginning everything seems super insurmountable. 

I remember back in like middle school days looking at homework because I would let things pile up and all of a sudden there would be like 12 assignments that I'm supposed to do and instead of looking at the one in front of you, you look at the whole thing. You're like, oh fuck, I can't do all that. But if you just take one step at a time, that's where I think, have you read that One Thing by Keller Williams no, no, I don't think so. It pretty much just says like all of your free time, focus on the single thing that you aim to accomplish over the span of like two or three months, and by doing that, one thing at a time, you end up doing way more things than trying to spread out, which, technically, I should probably listen to more, but if a book gets boring you should put it down, you know yeah, yeah, yeah, I try to be better about that myself sometimes of uh not thinking there might still be another nugget by the end of the book. 

0:33:26 - John
Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah hopefully yeah, but maybe maybe there's not so would you kind of then like having an entrepreneurial schedule? Do you feel like like, do you have like a consistent monday through friday schedule? Do you have a consistent Monday through Sunday schedule? 

0:33:40 - Frank
Definitely not a consistent. 

I mean, like if it's a Monday or Friday, whether I'm in like sales calls with people or just talking to other friends of mine, Monday through Friday is just our societal thing. 

So if I'm not doing something on a Monday or Friday, I feel a little worse about it than if it's like a Saturday or Sunday. But also I think my main thing now has been working in sprints, working on something until you get tired of it, until you're physically tired. So I mean there'll be two or three week stretches where I'm just refinishing a basement or building a van or whatever I'm doing, just going super hard on that until your body feels like it needs rest. And then resting, maybe taking like a week off and going to the mountains or doing something you really love, and then, as soon as you feel rested, getting back into another sprint. And I found that to be super useful instead of having like a, a scattered version of work where you're jumping on one thing for a day or two, Um, and sometimes that's what's necessary, but getting into sessions of deep work, however you define. That is super powerful. 

0:34:56 - John
And uh, did it take you a bit of time to find what worked best for you? And did it take you a bit of time to find what worked best for you? 

0:35:04 - Frank
Absolutely and even just like what I liked and what I'm good at. You know, I think failures whether it be a project or just in mismanagement of your time not every day is going to be good, you know, and it's important to be honest with yourself when you've had a bad day, because that's not necessarily a bad thing. You just didn't teach you patience and better pre-organization of your mind. Most days I have a set of three to five core items that I want to get done and that's on a little note card or maybe my business book. But if I get those done, then everything else is open game, and sometimes you spend time with family or friends or maybe you'll jump into another project. But, um, I think having a little bit of planning, whether it's at the end of the previous day or the beginning of the current one, is the most effective thing that you can do would having a schedule without structure. 

0:36:14 - John
Do you find that like? Did you have like a period of time where you would like burn out often and like you have to like learn to manage that time better and like learn to step away, like you kind of had mentioned, step away, do something that you love, you know, but did you have a period of time where you, like were burning out at first, trying to do too? 

0:36:29 - Frank
much. Um, no, I think I was trying to do too little. Okay, I think, uh, I was a little bit too much, too relaxed with it and I would end up on I would be like half finished with something and I would want to jump into something else. And now I'm much more focused on completing the single task at hand and viewing them as dominoes instead of oh, I got to get everything done at once at the same time. Um, so I think I wasn't doing enough, okay, okay. 

0:37:01 - John
Do you like, on a day-to-day basis, kind of managing that if you've done too much, if you're feeling physical exhaustion? Is that something that, like you, take note of? Every morning you get up Like you know, how did I sleep, how did I feel, you know, am I pushing myself too much? 

0:37:25 - Frank
Like, is that something you like kind of pay attention to on a day to day, or is it kind of more you're just noticing on a week to week arc? I think, um, like, nutrition and health are two of my premier focuses in life. Like during the pandemic, I became very disenfranchised with the health system and all that. So I started reading books on herbalism, uh, nutrition, nutrition, what is that? Boundless by Ben Greenfield is the best health book I've ever read in my life. It's 42 hours long. It's an audio book. It tells you so much about your brain chemistry, about sleep, all kinds of things. 

So I feel like I'm very well oriented in, or I'm very in tune with, my body, meditation included. I do such a good job of rest and recuperation. I have a rec center pass for swimming, planet Fitness for working out. Reset, body and Mind has like compression and cold plunges, sauna, so my recuperation is like the best that I can get. I think, um, my main thing is I guess I don't have a problem overworking because that is so good okay, good, but that's something that, like you've been intentional to exactly. 

0:38:36 - John
It took a while to build that up. 

Okay, it wasn't just overnight, um, like you've you know you mentioned things like Um, like you've. You know you mentioned things like I've definitely, like you know, fallen into Ben Greenfield, somebody I spent a long time following. Um, I just haven't, I have I just feel like having that like specifically follow more recently, uh, but, like you know, he was one of the people that got me into like the whole biohacking and like new tropics and things like that. Uh, that it sounds like you kind of fell into that rabbit hole, like I had at some point, like how long ago did you fall into that? 

0:39:08 - Frank
um, boundless came to me two years ago. I was on a snowboarding trip and one of my buddies recommended it to me and I read that and that's another reason I like the uh, the adventures, because my car has become a university as well. You got six to eight hours hiking a mountain that's a book. You got a 10 to 12 hour drive maybe 14 if you're coming back to Wisconsin that's a book. There's so many times where you can fit in and that's why audiobook is my favorite format. You can do it while you're walking, cleaning the house, driving, whatever. Yeah, but about two years ago is when I fell into, like the, ben Greenfield. But the reason I fell into him is because of Tim Ferriss, and I've been following him for five or six years, something like that. 

0:39:54 - John
Yeah, yeah, Tim Ferriss was another great one that I started following back in the day. That's a big rabbit hole. Yeah, yeah, tim, back in the day, that's a big rabbit hole. Yeah, yeah, tim really like definitely redefines the way of kind of looking at life. You know his four-hour work week Just like talking about. I mean, you know, I never really thought about the fact that we're really not meant to be sitting behind a desk eight hours a day just pounding away at a desk. 

And just think you're supposed to have and yep, um, I I've been fortunate myself with, like my career where I've been able to like get a job where I could be full-time, remote and like that really like let me start realizing how much having to go to a job every day and like just the stresses of like I always have to be there this specific time, or like felt like you know, like you're always just around people, like the little stresses of like the job were like all of a sudden being at home. Like let me realize like, oh man, like being focused for eight hours a day, like because there were just people around you, like you feel this extra stress to be looking at your just it's stressful like being at home felt a little traffic on the way there, on the way back all the little things I was like, it made me start to just realize, like how much I needed to do a better job of like managing my stress, because I didn't realize I was stressed because whenever you're like low-key, chronically stressed, you don't realize it. 

Yeah, till you realize it. 

0:41:16 - Frank
Being in touch with your, your stress patterns and just like your overall makeup psychologically, is super important, and knowing how you function and what your stressors are really all you need is about three or four hours of deep work per day to get some significant amount of things done. You can do more in three hours than most people do in eight hours, easily for sure. 

0:41:39 - John
For sure For sure, especially if you plan well, you know what you're going to work on that day. And you're going to work on that one thing you kind of mentioned. You have three to five things. I found the best thing for me would be if I did a top three things for the day and that's the three things I'm trying to get done that day, and that's it. I try not to think about anything else. If I finish jokes, I can think about something else, but if I don't, I'm not going to think about anything else. So, like, just to like eliminate this idea of I got so many other things I got to work on, nope, these three things only, and then you're now all of a sudden trying to do eight things in an eight hour day. No, yep, do three or four things really hard in those four hours and then you can put the fluff work around around that time. 

0:42:19 - Frank
Yeah, exactly have a couple, a handful of extras that you can toss in there if you feel like it. For sure, for sure. Since you've gone remote, has that been easier to focus on your stuff? Man that's harder. 

0:42:33 - John
It's harder, to be honest, because there's definitely like the motivation of I have people sitting right around me. I'm just, you know, if my mind starts to get a little spacey or I start to lose that concentration, it's easy enough when you're working remote or working in my office here to just pick up my phone or go on social media or something like that, yep, as opposed to being in the office. That no, I was just kind of powered through and I'll, you know, get more done. But like, I'm just like mindlessly trying to power through, like when I don't want to focus. So it's harder because, yeah, I I find that the mental effort of having to check myself all the time is is exhausting, um, and part of that's kind of why I got this office, because it was really hard to do it at home, when I'd wake up, you know, walk 20 feet over to my office from my bedroom, um, and then with my you know the wife and the dogs and shit like that at the house, all of a sudden I'm like it's that much harder to focus that at least I got this office. 

It seemed to like help a little bit at first, like have my own space to focus, but then over time it just also became this well, I still have no responsibility here. Nobody's like checking on me, nobody's making sure I'm working, and you know there's enough times where, if nobody's and you know nobody's waiting on me for a task, you know, because it becomes this, okay, I gotta, I gotta force myself to work so that next week I'm not trying to catch up a little bit, or ah, shit, I knew I should have done that. Now next week I'm catching, like I, you know I I have to stay on if I don't, and I, it is extra work, it's extra stress. It's like it's been a weird thing where I like, love it, but I slightly hate it, but not in not enough to counter how much I love it. That that makes sense yeah, absolutely yeah, yeah, it's a weird. 

It's a weird thing and I I could see why. Uh, it could be very hard if I was new in my job and had to be full remote and I didn't have like senior engineers right there like being over my shoulder teaching me stuff, like that I can go talk to them, ask quick questions quickly. 

Instead you got to call them on Teams or whatever, if they don't answer, then Then you're like okay Message, yeah, it's just, the whole thing is a little weird and like a different, like atmosphere. Yeah, how do you think you'd personally deal with working remote if that was like? 

0:44:46 - Frank
your responsibility. That's been like something I've been focusing on. I would like to increase my remote skillset so that I can be bringing in more income. When I'm traveling, like currently, I'll sell contracts and I have to be back there to complete or provide them, so most of my stuff is in person. But I feel like I do a pretty good job of putting tasks in front of myself and being not only honest about completing them but enjoying it. 

If you're working on something that you choose and that you really want to be doing, then there should be enough energy there and focus to crush it. But a lot of times if you're working for somebody else, sometimes you get put on things that you're like I don't really want to be doing this thing, and so that's obviously more difficult. Yeah, if it's stuff that I'm choosing, then yes, then yes. But if it's like maybe I'll take a contract for some type of server management company, that might be a little more difficult and it depends on how it's oriented. I feel like a lot of companies kind of have this saltiness about remote work. They're like they don't feel like they're getting enough out of you, so they've got to, like, check in on you and ring your doorbell. Hey, what are you doing? Yeah, so as long as they weren't micromanaging about it, then I feel like that would be good, but I don't know. 

0:46:08 - John
It's definitely something I plan to dip my toes in yeah, and if you're doing that as an entrepreneur, I feel like it's better. Like you said, then if you're doing it for somebody else, because you are, you're picking a project, it's more directly like affecting you and more related to you, as opposed to I'm part of a big project team and a project for a massive company that has many teams on it, you know, and I'm just a remote contractor for them, exactly. You know, it's easy enough to just kind of be like lost in the books of it, as opposed to like, yeah, no, this is, I earned this contract for this person. I'm working remotely, you know, I'm doing something remote for them for this contract I earned for them. Yeah, it is more personal to you and you're, I think, more easily driven to want to be on time, not even just on time, but like there's equity in it, so you have an investment and whether you do poor or good, I'm a big fan of having equity in the results. 

0:46:59 - Frank
Yeah, and that's a big incentive for me because it's more money in my pocket every time. 

0:47:04 - John
Yeah, because then you don't want to be. It's going to incentivize you not to procrastinate until the last second. Yeah, exactly Because you don't want to give out a procrastinated result. You like to give out a result you looked over. 

0:47:14 - Frank
Oh, for sure. That's been. One of the biggest things I've learned is just like a lot of people use lead generation services and you'll pay for these leads and if you don't call them, you're not going to get the project, and that's the simplest thing you can do. But it's interesting like whatever mechanisms in our mind make us procrastinate, whether we don't think we deserve it or there's some obstacle that we're fearing there. Most of it's just some form of fear, but it has to hurt enough in order for you to change. And so if you don't have any equity in that and you're just losing money for a company, you aren't going to have the incentive. If you lose money for yourself, you learn real quick. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I could have just called that guy. That's all I had to do was call him and I didn't do it do just call him and I didn't do it, okay. 

0:48:11 - John
So to kind of like start like getting towards wrapping things up a little bit, yeah well, what do you think you would go back and tell like your 20 year old self, like what, what are like the biggest lessons you've learned? If you had to like maybe put them into like one to two or three, type like lessons that you would try to like say to your 20 year old self to hopefully get it through to your head at that age that you know these sort of things that you should focus on or work on. 

0:48:32 - Frank
Um, I would say probably explore a little more, do a little bit more Um, I mean, I definitely did a lot of things, but don't focus so much on the certainty of this thing, that you're focused on that. That is the thing that is surely going to bring you to the next step, because it might not be. Don't put so much faith in this single item. Try and have more things going at one time, because if you have one thing going and you lose that one thing, it's way more detrimental than if you have five or six things and you lose one of those. When you have so many not even necessarily streams of income, but sources of happiness or just things coming into your life. Diversify the inputs to your life. That's what I would say. 

Okay, because I feel like I focused on these single monumental things that didn't pan out and that caused some distress afterwards. 

0:49:41 - John
Would you change that advice if you were to give it to your 10-year-old self? Would you change that advice if you were to give it to your 10-year-old self. 

0:49:52 - Frank
10-year-old self would be more emotionally driven. Don't worry so much about what the world has to say to you, because you have all the information you need to know inside of yourself. 

0:50:00 - John
Okay, okay, okay, do you? Let's see, I had this thought for you. It's like uh, what do you think is the current trajectory of the state of men, and do you think it's, it's fixable if you, if you do believe it's negative, um. 

0:50:23 - Frank
I think that we have a lot of uh. I think that we have a lot of social inputs that are being pumped into society and ideas of what people should be. But I feel like we're coming. Our family units are getting closer. I'm super excited for our future. I don't think negatively about the state of men. I really like that. I've seen an influx of men's health discussion in general, whether it's groups that meet up or podcasts like this one. I definitely have faith. I mean, like I said before, there's so much wrapped into our genetics that I don't think can be changed or erased. When you get backed into a corner in an argument and your instincts come out, that's really when you learn who you are and what you're capable of, and I think that that is inside of everybody. You can't get rid of that. So I guess I hope that we go through more difficult things individually and in groups so that we do get to learn our makeups. But I have a lot of faith in where we're going. 

0:51:39 - John
So that question kind of comes from this place, where we're seeing as a trend in society that individualism has gone up a lot, which happens as life gets more comfortable and people, like you know, life seems like it's not going to go anywhere. Comforts are easy and everything's there and it seems like it's all permanent. That, like since the 60s and 70s, like individualism has just been on the rise and, as a result, we've had less family units and, like the family unit has decreased, we are seeing less kids getting married. We're seeing, you know, birth rates are declining in like a major enough way that you know it's like a pretty real concern on the economy. 

I definitely like consider whether or not I got to to pull my money out of this, the big index funds, eventually, because if there's not enough people feeding into them, something's going to happen because we're just not keeping up with the birth rate, the death rate compared to their birth rate. But every country is going through this. China is going through this and I think Russia is going through it too. I don't know if they're. China is going through it pretty bad and I think Russia's going through it too. I don't know if they're China's going through it pretty bad. 

But it's almost like that concern that we've gotten to the point in society where men don't want to be uncomfortable because life has just gotten easy enough that it's hard to get men to want to even push themselves physically. 

Go run, go lift some weights, go challenge yourself, push yourself, go do a cold plunge. I need these little things that, like people won't do just because they're uncomfortable, but like we're also as a society, we're chasing these like little things to do because life has gone so comfortable that we do things like cold plunging just to give ourselves some dopamine. Um, but it's almost. That question comes from that concern that, like too many people are more focused on their happiness in in almost a negative, selfish way, and I don't know, I don't even want to say it because, like I you know I'm not I don't believe in that telling anybody how to be happy if they're happy either, you know, um, but like people aren't interested in like putting in the hard work in the, in the idea of like passing on their genetics or having kids. I feel like that's been something that people are less interested in. Do you have any thoughts on that? 

0:53:54 - Frank
I think it's easy to look at aggregate stuff and data because we have so much of it, but then I look at the power of one person. We often think that we ourselves can't make a huge impact, but I've been shown through experience that just myself or somebody included, just one person like Andy Frizzella, for example. He started 75 Heart and that is a program that somebody sees somebody doing. I did it a couple years ago and I've done it. I had like 10 people reach out to me that actually did it, and so the effect of of like one system or one element of something that is so visible, and especially with the explosiveness of social media now, if one person is doing something that's super cool and people see it as desirable, I think that that can definitely infect people very quickly. But there are a lot of people that don't want to do difficult things and so maybe that will be a problem at some time. 

0:55:11 - John
Well, it's like that cycle that you know, I'm sure you've heard. It's like the hard men create good men create hard times, hard times create hard men, hard men create good. You know, yep, yep, yep, and it's like a 70-year cycle and like we're literally due for it in. Like you know, and uh, it's like a 70-year cycle and like we're literally due for it, and, like you know, around 2030 we're like it's been 70 years since over 70 years, or not 80 years, since you know, world war ii, but like we're like due for something to happen where we're going through this cycle we're definitely in some very transitionary times. 

Yeah, yeah, I'm like clear it doesn't mean that a world war ii is going to happen, but happen. But whether it's like some kind of pandemic happens something world, something like probably big enough will happen that we're going to, it's going to cause people to have to like step back and realize, okay, like life isn't as permanent as it seems, in the sense that the comforts we have aren't as permanent as we think they are. 

0:56:02 - Frank
Well, I mean we've seen a lot of pushing so far. We think they are. Well, I mean, we've seen a lot of pushing so far. I mean, government takes about half of your life's work, and so if that doesn't cause some stress on your life enough to notice that maybe you should do something different, then I don't know what will. But I definitely have faith in people. When you are forced, there has to be some catalyst. 

0:56:23 - John
there, though, there's something that is effective enough to make people realize, oh, this is uh, not a perfect trajectory and we should change some things yeah, do you think, uh, like, do you find it hard when you see people and like that you like you can tell they're stuck on like the rat race of life and like you like want to tell them how to get off this. What's the word? Hedonic treadmill? Is that the word Hedonic treadmill? Sure, where they're just chasing these things all the time? 

That's one thing for me is, I've come to this point where I feel like I've started to chase freedom, I've started to chase living a stress-free life more than anything else. And now when I see people living lives or like, I could tell they're still like they're still chasing things that are just going to cause them more stress. Like they, it's like it's hard to not want to like tell them otherwise or like for sure, and you know, impose my own knowledge on them. But I don't, because I'm like I don't know, I don't know what they know, that I don't know. Yeah, so I don't say anything because I also just don't want to be that guy. Do you feel like you get that too Unless? 

0:57:29 - Frank
somebody specifically asks me for advice, like if I have some investment with somebody and I've known them for some time and we have some rapport and intimacy, then I will reach out and be like hey, I think this thing, you don't have to listen to it, but to the average person I don't, because I think you can lead a horse to water, right, but in order for somebody to change something, it has to be painful, and by helping them out, you're almost taking away a little bit of that pain. And so I do think it's important to offer and be like hey, here are some resources, here's the title of a book, or point somebody in the right direction. But ultimately, I have reached out so many times and this is why I've stopped buying books for people, because a lot of times it just sits on the shelf. It's like why the fuck should I spend $300, $ dollars a year handing out books when nobody's gonna read them? Yeah, give them the, give them the title, put them in a direction, but they have to do the work ultimately. 

0:58:34 - John
No, that's, I mean, that's a very good point, because people have to go through the pain to actually be willing to make the change and if they never feel the pain, they'll never make the change. Yeah, I do. I do very much agree with that, and it's amazing how much sometimes you think you're helping somebody but in hindsight you are, you're doing the pain enough for them by every time helping them that they. It takes them that much longer to finally feel the full brunt of that pain and then they realize that they need to fix and you really did them no favors by being a helping hand along the way. 

0:59:05 - Frank
Yeah, that's. One element that I guess I should comment on is the current mindset in society that there are toxic emotions that like anger and anything that is uncomfortable is not to be approached, and there are, like anger is a compass for what you do not want, and if you don't allow yourself to feel angry and these ugly emotions and you ignore them, you're not going to get that compass and these emotions and directions that are hardwired into us. I don't think that any emotion is not meant for us, because that's who we are. I mean, you shouldn't go kill somebody because you're angry. 

You should be reasonable, but you should still listen to these emotions because they exist for a reason, and I think that as a society, maybe we're leaning too much into the happy, you know, everything's got to be lackadaisical instead of I mean life before 1940 was really fucking tough. 

1:00:11 - John
Yeah, Really really fucking tough yeah it wasn't ideal. 

1:00:15 - Frank
Yeah, twenties were a good time. But cycles, you know we will and we're going through a cycle right now Very revolutionary time. Technology is going to play a big role in that. We will, and we're going through a cycle right now Very revolutionary time. Technology is going to play a big role in that. I think. I mean Musk has a bunch of robots on the way, I guess. Yeah, we'll see how that plays out. 

1:00:39 - John
Yeah, I'm hopeful. I'm intrigued, but I'm hopeful, I believe. For the most part, people are waking up to a lot of stuff, which I think is great, and it's just to what level that will take hold and to what level we'll see changes come from it. Well, I'm kind of curious. No, you're right. I mean, you're right. I'm hopeful that the younger generation will pick up on the things that every older generation continues to mess up and that they'll continue to figure out how to get things in the right direction. And you're right, social media it definitely helps spread things very quickly. In that sense, too, it's a tool just like any other, once we can figure out how it can stop being negative for people. 

1:01:23 - Frank
It's definitely oriented in a way that fragments your mind if you're not careful. I mean, I've experienced it and I'm still somewhat aware of it, and I'm sure a lot of people aren't aware, yeah, and they just go in this cycle of just doom-scrolling. 

1:01:37 - John
Yeah, I mean, I'm aware of it. I literally have my wife put in the code to lock on my phone so it locks, like my social media apps or in specific parts of the day, nice, so so that, like I don't like you don't know the code. Yeah, because if you do it yourself and you're just bored enough, well, then you just put in the code to unlock it Anyway. 

So I'm like you know, honey, put in the code for me, because I, like you know, if I'm sitting at work I don't want to be able to open up Instagram, because I'm bored, because it Fra, it fragments my attention right away and all of a sudden I can't get my attention to be whole again on the one thing I'm focusing on. 

1:02:08 - Frank
And so there's something to that, too, increasing your support network or at least having somebody that you can bounce ideas off of or incorporate in your development, and so I think that's something that I'm pretty strong with too. I have my own development inside of myself, but I also have a lot of people that I can reach out to and have them help me with something like that yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that goes a very long way. 

1:02:31 - John
Um, and whenever I see people have like communities of that kind of stuff set up especially I've seen it more and more on social media of like men where like there's like it's becoming more popular. 

Yeah, because it used to be kind of taboo to reach out and now it's like if you haven't heard of something like that, it's almost uncommon yeah, yeah, yeah, I I need that kind of stuff, especially again, encouraging men to reach out, men to talk, because, like, I think therapy is great and I think therapy has a lot of benefits, but I'm not necessarily sure men need therapy. I think men need therapy in a different way and I think a lot of benefits, but I'm not necessarily sure men need therapy. I think men need therapy in a different way and I think a lot of therapy was invented for women. A lot of therapy was invented for women and a lot of techniques and how it was gone about was for women and then they try to use it on men as well and it kind of works. 

But men operate in a different system than women because we have very different brains and I do think a lot of times for men it's if you have the camaraderie of just being able to kind of talk, treat the shit with guys and share some stuff. That ends up being as therapeutic as it is, just that they're kind of having a deep discussion with it about somebody and break it down. And maybe for men they almost don't need to break it down and overly analyze it, they just need to make peace with it and be able to move on. So, yeah, it is great to see a lot of these groups popping up, because it's giving them an opportunity to have this camaraderie and talk about this stuff. 

1:03:55 - Frank
Yeah, I've had various therapists throughout the years A couple within the last two or three years and it was a remote situation and so there was less connectivity there, and so I kind of just let it fizzled out because it didn't feel right. But it does take a while, if you're going to approach therapy, to find a good therapist that works with you, and for me personally, I felt like the people were a little bit less experienced with life things, and so I wanted somebody that was maybe older and had gone through more than I had, instead of kind of right around the same. But it is these groups, yeah, super important. 

1:04:35 - John
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's kind of like the point of this podcast is that I think we end up feeling seen when we feel like somebody else is going through our experience almost more than if we you know more than we'll feel seen just by being able to express it to one person, um, but instead kind of being like, oh, they're also going through it. 

Oh, that's kind of how they dealt with it. You know, it makes you feel less alone in the world, so that's kind of like. A big part is, for me, is that if people keep hearing other people's stories and then they're like they'll relate to them and when you relate to a story, you just again it just takes away this. I'm not the only person going through this and now it's not okay, I'm battling by myself. It's oh, okay, other people are going through this and maybe eventually I can reach out to one of them and figure out how they went through something. You know, it opens up these doors and avenues and even if it literally helps one person like that's like I'd be ecstatic if I heard to help one person get out of a tough situation by listening to an episode you know. 

1:05:33 - Frank
Yeah, and that's why I'd like to thank you for having me on this, and I appreciate what you're doing. I'm excited to see what it grows into and it really can I mean, if you fall into somebody who's got 20 episodes on something, usually peruse through there and you find like four to eight of them that you really like and they speak to you in different ways. So I think it's important to have to keep it up. 

1:05:55 - John
You know, to have a diversity of discussions especially diversity of guests from all walks of life. That's kind of like something I really want is, just like you know, older, older guys, younger guys, like guys from you know blue collar guys, white collar, I want everything. I want every experience, so that there's something for somebody to relate to. Hell, yeah, yeah, okay. Well, thank you for you know, coming out here and being on the show today. This was a great time and, dude, it was great to actually reconnect with you here. 

A hundred percent Because a great time and it's great to actually reconnect with you here because, like, I wasn't sure when you'd be like in milwaukee again or if you were kind of permanently in colorado. So yeah, I'm all over the map, all the time so no perfect. Well, thank you guys for tuning in for another episode of uncurrent stones. If you guys enjoyed this, uh, please like and subscribe. Otherwise I will continue doing my best to schedule some podcasts and get some more content put out. Thank you. Oh yeah, man, thank you so much. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page