Leadership Lessons From The Great Books – True Grit by Charles Portis w/John Hill aka Small Mountain

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My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the Leadership Lessons from the Great

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Books podcast, episode number 98.

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Yes. We are crawling, tooth and

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nail towards our penultimate 100th

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episode. You’re gonna wanna be there for that.

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With our book today, written by an author who went

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to his grave, defying modernity, postmodern

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fame culture, and the Internet and social

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media. This book was penned by a writer who,

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if you were alive and writing today in his thirties, you probably

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wouldn’t have heard of him because his choices and posture

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defied the algorithm that runs so much of our buying

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and creating behavior.

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The author who, much like his contemporaries Tom Wolf and Nora

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Ephron, marched to the beat of his own

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drummer. Today, we will be covering we’ll

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be summarizing. We’ll be talking about the ins and outs

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of Charles Portis’ True Grit.

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Now we will be joined on this march into the literary wilderness

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at the open of our month of March, with our returning

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guest host from episode number 52, when we cover the way of the

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samurai by in a zone to Toby, John Hill,

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aka small mountain. How are you doing,

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John? Dude, I am so ready for this

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conversation. Congrats honestly on

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getting to 100, first of all, because we need to talk about that. Like, most

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people don’t do 10 of these kinds of things before they bail. So

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98, significant achievement, my friend. Well done.

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Well, you know, it’s one of those things where I thought

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I always had the vision in my head for this show. I I essays thought,

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okay. If I could do 5 years’ worth of episodes, that’s a

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corpus. That’s a thing. And I can do anything for 5

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years even if no one listens to it. Even if I only have, like, a

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1000 listeners, it doesn’t matter because I did 5 years

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of something. And then I can notch that belt, And it’s way more than

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that, but, you know, I can notch that belt and I can move on with

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the rest of my life. And it’s like, for me, it’s like,

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writing a book or cooking a meal. Right. It’s something

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that’s going to take time. It’s going to flow over the course of time. And

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I’ll be honest. There are days when I get up and I come to this

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microphone and I’m like, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna do this today. But

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then I get to talk to awesome people like you and our other guests who

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have been on and about halfway in, I’m like, oh no, this

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is fine. Actually, I’m usually about 10 minutes in. I’m like, oh, this is fine.

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This is, this is going to be interesting. Or I’ll get a guest. And

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again, all of our guests have been great. Occasionally you will

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get a guest where, or you’ll get a guest house, like our guest host, Tom

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Libby. Who’s now our, our almost semi-regular co-hosts are actually

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not semi regular. He’s our regular co hosts now.

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You’ll get Tom on and we’ll be talking about a book before we hit the

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record button and he’ll, he’ll say something to me like, I don’t know how we’re

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going to get anything out of this book. And then at the end of the

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recording, at the end of an hour and a half long conversation, or at the

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end of a 2 hour long conversation, he’ll look at me at the end of

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the recording and he’ll say, ah, okay. I

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saw it. So okay.

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I have a hard question as someone who makes a lot of content and, and

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I’ve also struggled with some of that stuff myself of, like, is this worth doing?

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Yeah. Do you think that that is your superpower, is being able

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to, like, pull stuff out of people to make the conversation great?

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Do you think that that’s what makes him a great cohost for you? How do

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you split that in your head? I think

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that like most things in the content

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creation business, and you and I were talking a little bit about this before we

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hit record. People are always looking for the hack or the

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shortcut or the thing that will, and this is why we’re going to cover true

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grit today. The thing that will make the algorithm like them. And I

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don’t I’ve never cared about any of that nonsense.

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I don’t really care if the algorithm likes me or not. I don’t really care

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if I get 10,000 likes on a platform. Would I

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like to get that for sure? I’d be crazy to say no, that I don’t

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want that. Not where I don’t want that for the show, but

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I’m going to keep doing this regardless of what the algorithm

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says. I’m going to keep doing this quite frankly, if I get no

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feedback from it, or if I get a lot of feedback from it, or if

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I get a little bit of feedback from it, because I believe in the show,

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I believe in the value of what we’re doing here. And so I think that’s

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my super. I also think that,

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the, and this is the dark side of that. The dark side of this is

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sometimes it could be a little bit self indulgent. So you’re going to have to

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like work, watch out for that. And there have been some episodes that I’ve done

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where I did step back a little bit and I was like, well,

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I could have pulled some more out of that for other people versus that just

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being, you know, kind of, oh, I’m gonna do this for myself and it’ll be

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fine. But, but I’m constantly going into

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the books looking for what can I give our

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listeners? What can I give a person who 10 years

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from now might pick up this might pick up this in a search for a

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particular book? This will pop up on Google. They’ll be like, oh, I didn’t know

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what that is click and they’ll listen to it and they’ll go, oh, I didn’t

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know that this particular insight could be pulled from this book. That’s the game I’m

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I’m playing. So I love them. And I I think I think that the order

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of operations there is the important part. Right? You said,

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you know, would I like to have those kind of results? Yes. But you’re not

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making your content purposefully to go try to capture those results

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because the work itself is worth doing in the way that you’re doing

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it. Plus, I think that

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I was actually going to post this on Facebook today and then I decided not

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Tom, but it is an insight that I think is

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worthwhile. It probably should have more, more traction

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or more popularity. But it is an eye. It is this

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idea that these large language

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algorithms that we’re using to

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aggregate all of the

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teratrillion of information that we’ve put on the internet in the

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last 40 years in the Western world anyway.

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Those algorithms are going to expose who’s real and who’s

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fake. 100%. 100%. And,

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and the people who are real, And I mean, genuine people who are

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genuinely real. And we already saw this a little bit with Google Gemini, not to

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date this podcast, but if you’re listening to this in the future, you may want

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to go Google, go Google that. But,

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you’re going to see who’s real and who’s fake. You’re going to see

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what people are doing. That’s that’s genuine and actually making a

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real connection and a real human style level of engagement

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versus people who are just playing. Quite frankly, playing the

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algorithm game in order to get virality and then to just take off and

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go. And I would, I would, I would also say that What those

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large language algorithms will do is it will separate the leaders from the followers and

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the leaders, the leadership and leaders have always been a tiny group,

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but my fear is that that group is just gonna get smaller

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rather than the franchise expanding. And we need the franchise to expand.

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That’s a super interesting point because,

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you know, I try to go watch the longest form

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content, read the longest form content I can because I know how easy it is

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to get good writers. Right? I know how easy it is to sound like, you

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know, you’re talking about over a 32nd clip, which is why,

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like, I love the Rogen style format, those super

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long forms because, like, if they run out of talking points,

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you know. You can hear it. Right? Like, some of the people who,

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I’m not fans of. I’m not gonna list any names out here. But, I love

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to go watch their long form shows because it’s like, let’s see if you can

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hold it together for longer than 3 minutes. Because if not, I now

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know kinda really where you are in the grand scheme of things, and no

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judgment. Right? Like, you know, it’s great. You can have great writers, but

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I only wanna deal with people whose, like, IP is actually attached

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in a meaningful way. Well, and we talk we’re we’re we’re we’re we

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talk a little bit about this. We’ve talked a little bit about this, without going

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too much into the details of like the secret, not really secret sauce, because there

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was no secret sauce, but sort of the nuts and bolts of the show. Right?

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This show, yeah, I write a script. Like the show is dead simple. I read

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a book, I write a script, I send it to the guest. The guest has

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areas where they can comment. We have a conversation before we start and then we

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press record and go. And then I read the book or read excerpts from the

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book or increasingly, read summaries of the book because I want to go get

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through the whole thing. And then we talk about a bad book and forth, bring

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forth ideas, pull things from it, and then we move on. It’s dead

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simple.

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But dead simple and holding

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someone for 2 hours or 4 hours. Like you and I have talked for

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4 hours and we talked for 4 hours about a book that was.

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What a 100 pages, maybe me and motors, massashi’s, you know, a book of 5

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rings, that’s maybe a 100 pages, maybe. Short re short read for

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sure. But when you look at the lasting impact of it, you look at, you

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know, like, it doesn’t have to be long, which is

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something I’m I’m always trying to be better about myself because I am not

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succinct in my writers, in my content creation, or anything. And so

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one of the coolest things about it is we can talk for 4 hours, and

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we can probably go again for 4 hours. Right? We could bring we could bring

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another actual practice martial artist, and we could go for 12 hours

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because of the depth of that book. Right? Oh, yeah. Which I think is

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important to to keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be long. It

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doesn’t have to be, you know, thinking fast and slow by Conumen for it

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to, like, have value. You know, sometimes it’s just a slog

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because it needs to be a slog, but choosing to force everyone on

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a slog because you can’t do it a different way also

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has some limitations. Well and and you talk about long form

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versus short form. For me, the content that particularly in the

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podcasting space that is not working these essays,

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And God bless all the people who are doing it and who are struggling, but

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there’s a massive tranche between. The people who were doing

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micro short content. And we do, by the way, we have these 2 formats on

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our show. So we have the micro, you know, 6 to 10 minute sometimes.

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Well, 2 to 4 minute, 4 to 6 minute at Tom max 10

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minutes, micro content that you can just pick up. And it’s just me talking,

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no guests, no music, just going. Then we, we, we

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cross the trench and we go up the J curve all the way into

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that 4 hour space, which has names in it

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that John is not going to name. I’m not going to name. It’s okay. You

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know who they are. You could find them. Right?

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And it and and and in between those two polls are a

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bunch of people doing half hour, an hour long shows. Yep. And

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and God bless people who are in the leadership development space. I’m

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not quite sure how you can talk effectively about leadership. And I’m

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going to say it, I’m going to say it, and maybe I don’t get invited

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as a guest onto those shows, and and maybe that’s fine. I’ve got my own

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show. It’s cool. But I don’t know how you cover the depth and

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breadth of leadership in under in in 30 minutes. I don’t know how

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you do it or in an hour. I genuinely don’t. And that’s

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and maybe it’s because I’m just not good enough to be that succinct. That might

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be it. Just like you, I’m not succinct either. I like long conversations with

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interesting people. So maybe it’s a me problem, not a problem of the format.

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But I do see a lot of those shows in that in that deep

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that deep ditch between what’s happening at the 4 hour

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end, what’s happening at the, at the 10 minute end at that micro micro end.

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And it seems like that’s a place where a lot of shows go to die.

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And I I I’d never wanted that for this show. So Man, I

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cannot tell you how many times I’ve gotten feedback because I’ve done a

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couple of hour long things. Right? We had a podcast and then the live stream,

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and they were longer because I I like the longer conversation as

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well. And the advice from everyone, oh, man, you gotta make it shorter. You gotta

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make it shorter. I don’t wanna make it shorter. I want the depth. You know?

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And, we’re launching a new show, and it’s supposed to be about an hour long.

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But I’m choosing very intentionally, at least on the front end, people who I

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know have the traits and characteristics of

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a long form conversation. They’re deep, they’re thoughtful,

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extremely aware of themselves. Right? They’re not trying to be too

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polished and professional because I think that if you if you,

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in poker, this is called bum hunting. But in poker, you’re trying to find the

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easiest opportunities to make money that you possibly can. So

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I wanna make a really high level show with deep thinkers and people

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sharing kind of what has worked for them. So at least

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during development, since the show is not live yet, you know, I’m being very

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intentional reaching out to people who I know already make good content, already are

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capable of having really deep conversations without it needing to be 3

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hours. Because I do think that some people will they need that time to walk

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into the depth, and then some people are just ready to jump in from Yeah.

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From the deep side. You know? So I’m trying to shortcut that a little bit

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because I do know how much time it takes to, like, you know,

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to get people excited about a 3 hour show. Right? I know it’s not for

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everybody, but, you know, I’m also trying to,

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interview, like, revenue people. So, like, hey, can I have can I have half of

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your day? No. No. Which

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is fair and fine. I get it. You know? Because because, honestly, if it takes

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half a day as me, as the interviewer, to get greatness out of

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people, I’m I don’t think I’m doing a very good job as an interviewer. Right?

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As an interviewer. Yeah. So I think I think that that’s the other part of

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it is who is getting value out of it? If no one is getting

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value out of it, then, you know, then, you know, there’s some hard questions.

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But Yeah. Distribution and the algorithm do play a big part on, like, is

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anyone getting value out of it kinda thing. You know? Exactly. Exactly.

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Yeah. We can, we could talk about this all day, but I’m sure people would

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like to hear about the book. I mean, compared to us complaining about, like,

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algorithmic issues, I’m sure that everyone would rather hear about this book. Everyone would rather

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hear about this book. And, and Charles Podcast and

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his literary life. So, let’s do that. Let’s

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so let’s let’s do that. Let’s pick up with, let’s pick up with true grit.

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So, this is an excellent

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book. This is an excellent novel. It is

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probably one of my top

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5 at minimum, top ten at max

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books. Oh, yeah. And

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there’s many, many reasons for why I love this book.

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But let me start off for those of you who have never read it. Maybe

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you haven’t seen either of the films. I also have a an object here that

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I’m gonna share for folks who are watching the video, I’m gonna show you something

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that I pulled out of a, I pulled out of a shop in Texas.

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So Charles Podcast and, and true grit, true grit begins.

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Now the movie actually, the Joel and Ethan Cohen movie begins with

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a quote from Proverbs, Proverbs 28, 1, the wicked

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flee when no one pursues. Now there’s a

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comma there or semi colon, depending upon which version of the Bible you’re

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reading. And then there’s, there’s a, there’s another line behind there,

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which the Cohen brothers did not put at the, in the opening their cold open

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to the film, which I think is actually important for what Portis was

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trying to get to in this book. So Proverbs

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28, one, the wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous

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are as bold as a lion.

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When you open up true grit, Charles Podcast begins

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with Maddie Jesan. And, he opens up with

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this description. People do not give it credence that a 14 year old girl could

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leave home and go off in the literature to avenge her father’s book. But it

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did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every

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day. I was just 14 years of age when a coward going

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by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down at Fort Smith,

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Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and

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$150 in cash money plus 2 California gold

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pieces that he carried in his trouser band. And from

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there, from that compound sentence, we are off. Maddie

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Ross is the driver for this book.

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Now her perspective is one of a middle aged

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woman looking back on what happened to her when she was a teenager,

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kind of a little bit with incredulity, kind of a little bit with righteousness.

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And we’re gonna talk about her Sorrells, her sense of moral righteousness because that’s a

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huge driver for everything that happens in this in this

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novel. But you begin to see just

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how just how righteous she is

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when, she gets on the train and

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takes the train, from from Yale County,

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all the way to, all the way to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and

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begins Tom, well, she begins to walk

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around and start talking to people and begins to assert herself,

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in in a way that only a 14 year old girl, who has

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no knowledge of sort of how the world is, quote, unquote, supposed to work

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does. Now I have, you know, full full disclosure. I have

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a 14 year old girl, a 13 year old girl who lives in my house.

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And so, eats my food. And so I

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know what I’m talking about here. And, there’s a certain

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level of moral authority that she brings to all of her

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interactions. In particular, her interactions with

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the, the man who owns the, who

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owns the, well,

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he owns the the wagon loading

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place slash horse trading place, right, horse

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trading location, in Fort Smith, a man

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named colonel, Stonehill. And she goes

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back and forth with colonel Stonehill, about the,

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about the value of the horses, about the value of the ponies. By the way,

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this is demonstrated both in both versions of this book that

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we’re turning to the movie, one starring, Jeff

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Bridges. That’s the Ethan Cohen film that was just recently released. And

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then, of course, the the the older film with,

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with your friend in mine, John Wayne.

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And, and she threatens colonel Stonehill with the attorney. She

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threatens him with lawyer Jane Noble Daggett of Dardanelle, Arkansas.

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And and and she threatens him in such a way

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that he

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well, he’s got his own principles of negotiation and what he

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wants to get for the horses, and she’s got her own principles.

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And the principles meet and clash.

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And the thing that you see in the first part of this

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book is that Maddie Ross

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and I’m going to be very gentle about this. Maddie Ross is no Gen Z

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er stuck to her phone. She’s no millennial who wants to

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be liked by everybody. She is fine with being disagreeable.

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She’s okay with that. And that sets the tone for many,

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many things that happened later, including,

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the entire, testimony that,

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Rooster Cogburn, who was introduced in this first part as well,

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gives, in a trial where he

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shot 2 men and then maybe or maybe

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not moved them to a fire. And, of

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course, when she meets rooster coming

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out of the trial after he has been, questioned,

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by the lawyer about how many men he has killed

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and whether or not he always works in

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reverse when he’s backing up. She says to

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him, and of course, this is the title of the book. They tell me you

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are a man with true grit. He

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actually doesn’t know what she means. And by the way, both Jeff Bridges and John

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Wayne nailed this part about rooster Cogburn’s character,

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but they nailed it in different ways. He actually doesn’t understand what

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she means because he is who he

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is.

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Let’s open up with the literary life of Charles Portis. So who was the guy

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who wrote this book? Well, Charles Mccole Portis was born December

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28, 1933 and died February 17,

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2020. Yeah, that’s right. He died before everything kicked

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off with COVID. And, he was an American

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writers. And now this is directly from his Wikipedia entry, which is

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very, very slim. I think Portis would have actually really,

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really liked this. He was the literary peer of Toni Morrison,

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Philip Roth, and, interestingly enough, the man he’s always compared to,

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Cormac McCarthy, which, by the way, eventually, at a certain point, we will read The

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Road, on this podcast. We’ll get to that.

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Charles Portis lived, observed, and was hyper aware of the contradictions and

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complexities of the American south and west and the real people

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who lived there doing real things. Now Portis

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wrote 5 books total. His 2 most famous were Norwood, written

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in 1966, and, of course, True Grit in 1968.

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And he is an author who was well,

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he had his own sense of weirdness.

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And I quote, as Tom Wolf says in the new journalism,

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one day Podcast suddenly quit as London correspondence for the Herald

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Tribune. Now he was a he started off as a journalist. Right?

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That was generally regarded as a very choice job in the newspaper business.

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This is Tom Wolf speaking. Portis quit cold one day, just

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like that without warning. And after writing his first two novels, Portis

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actually went out to went on to live the fantasy, Wolf says. Portis did it

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in a way that was so much like the way it happens in the dream.

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It was unbelievable. He sold both books to the movies.

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He made a fortune, and

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then he moved into a fishing shack in Arkansas.

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It was Tom, pardon my use of the word, it was too

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damned perfect to be true, and yet there it was, which

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is to say that the old dream, the novel has never died.

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Close quote. By the way, Portis made

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$14,000,000 from the movie adaptation of true grit

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with John Wayne. And that was $14,000,000 in 1960s, 19

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seventies money. And I quote also from

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Justin Taylor in old wheeled America who was writing in 2023,

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quote, Hortus is a comedian of the highest order, but he is finally, as

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all comedians must be, a moral philosopher. Because

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comedy, like prophecy, is always grounded in a critique of the

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world as it is based on a vision of the

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world as it ought be. And that comes

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through, I think, tremendously in his character of Mattie

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Ross, and less so in his character of

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Rooster Cogburn. And then there’s

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this. So I am holding up

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for those of you who are going to be watching the video. I

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found in a junk shop in Central

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Texas the original,

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Capitol record

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soundtrack to the original true grit starring John

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Wayne, Glenn Campbell, and Kim Darby as Mattie

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Ross. On the back, of course, is the

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pictures of the, of the folks, and all the songs on here are

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sung by Glenn Campbell. Now in the Joel Ethan Coen film,

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Glenn Campbell’s role was played by Matt Damon. Matt Damon did not sing.

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John Wayne’s part was played by Jeff Bridges. I already brought that up. And, of

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course, Kim Darby’s part was played by Hailey Steinfeld. I hope

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I’m saying her name correctly. But this is, this is a

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great, album. Side 1 is true grit with vocals by

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Glenn Campbell, Rooster, Maddie and Literature Blackie, a

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dastardly d, d, papa’s things, side 2 is true grit,

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Chen Lee in the general, big trail, Cogburn country, and then, of course, true

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grit b side vocals by Glenn Campbell. So I’m holding it up on the

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video. It has a great cover. I’ve been holding on to this for the last

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6 months because I knew I was gonna be doing this podcast, and I’ve been

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waiting to show it to John and he is laughing right now on the video.

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You’ll be able to see it because it is an example of old, weird America.

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I just I could not when I found this from Paramount Pictures,

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when I found that album, I was, my wife was like, what are you doing?

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We don’t even have a record player at home. And I was like, I need

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00:25:34,165 –> 00:25:37,030
to get this, though. It doesn’t matter. I need to have this. So I have

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it now. So with that, I’d like to kick it over

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00:25:40,870 –> 00:25:44,605
to John. Go ahead. Yeah. I you know, you said

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you had something to show me, but you didn’t give me any advanced

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notice, which I now appreciate. But I do feel a little bit

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broadsided by this because, me and my wife are

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big record collectors. And every time we go anywhere, including antique stores,

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she’s digging, digging, digging. Like, doesn’t care about

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anything else other than salt and pepper shakers and old vinyls. Like, it’s

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crazy. And so we have quite the collection here. She would lose her mind.

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And we were rewatching the movies over the weekend and readers some

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trivia and going a little bit deeper about it. And, Glenn Campbell

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is quoted as saying, you know what? Before that movie, I’ve never I’ve

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never acted in a movie. Upon seeing it, my record is

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still the same, which made

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me so like, I

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like, I saw that movie at a time. Right? Like like, my my

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my mom and my grandmother are are both huge John Wayne fans.

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Okay? So I had seen the movie is, like, part of learning

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about the greatness of John Wayne. Right? So Yeah. My my grandmother

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was just obsessed with, like, the western style of John Wayne, not so

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much the war stuff, but, you know, McClintock. I’m a quiet man. And

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then, you know, they’re always saying, like, fill your hands. You know? Like, this kind

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of this thing. And then I was like, where is this from? And then we

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watched the movie. I didn’t read the book until leaders, and it was kind

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of a because the the original movie doesn’t really follow

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the book as closely as the Coen version does, which I kind of forgot

433
00:27:12,845 –> 00:27:16,685
about. Yeah. No. It does not. And that was, by the way, a

434
00:27:16,685 –> 00:27:20,445
a knock against the original movie is that it seemed too much of a John

435
00:27:20,445 –> 00:27:24,160
Wayne vehicle. Yeah. Because it’s not it’s not really meant

436
00:27:24,160 –> 00:27:27,539
to be about him. If anything, he’s he’s the belligerent

437
00:27:27,679 –> 00:27:31,225
antihero. Right. But I think that

438
00:27:31,385 –> 00:27:34,425
and I’ll go ahead and say it early. I think the thing that the John

439
00:27:34,425 –> 00:27:37,965
Wayne film has that the Joel and Ethan Cohen film doesn’t

440
00:27:39,200 –> 00:27:42,980
is that sense of

441
00:27:46,934 –> 00:27:50,615
that sense of moral righteousness. Like, there are some there there there’s

442
00:27:50,615 –> 00:27:54,294
there’s elements that are in the book. And, yes, the Ethan Coghlan

443
00:27:54,455 –> 00:27:57,980
the Joel and Ethan Coghlan book or movie heumes very

444
00:27:57,980 –> 00:28:01,580
closely to the book. But Joel and Ethan I think it was Joel

445
00:28:01,580 –> 00:28:04,755
Joel Joel Cohen that wrote. I don’t think it was Ethan. I think Ethan produced

446
00:28:04,755 –> 00:28:08,115
that one, although I might be wrong. I’d have to go back and look. But,

447
00:28:09,475 –> 00:28:12,915
I think they stripped the more moralistic elements out of

448
00:28:12,915 –> 00:28:16,580
it. And without that, which you do get in Kim Darby, by the

449
00:28:16,580 –> 00:28:19,940
way, you do get in her in her portrayal of, of Maddie

450
00:28:19,940 –> 00:28:23,755
Ross, you do get the sense that she’s

451
00:28:23,755 –> 00:28:27,514
a moral actor in the world. And her moralism comes from

452
00:28:27,595 –> 00:28:30,715
and we’re gonna talk about this a lot today, but it comes from a particular

453
00:28:30,715 –> 00:28:34,540
a particular spot in her in her perception of

454
00:28:34,540 –> 00:28:37,260
the world. You know? Agreed. And you Yeah. And you kinda get at the end

455
00:28:37,260 –> 00:28:41,100
of the Joel Ethan Cohen movie when when as an and as a middle

456
00:28:41,100 –> 00:28:44,335
aged lady, you know, and I’m not giving anything away here because you can go

457
00:28:44,335 –> 00:28:46,815
watch the movie, but, you know, she she walks up to,

458
00:28:48,095 –> 00:28:51,700
oh gosh, the old west shooting show or whatever. And, Frank

459
00:28:51,700 –> 00:28:55,380
James doesn’t get up. She’s like, don’t get up, trash. Yeah. You

460
00:28:55,380 –> 00:28:58,740
know? You know? But there were elements of that all throughout the book where she

461
00:28:58,740 –> 00:29:01,975
was talking to people like that the whole time. 100%. We

462
00:29:02,615 –> 00:29:05,335
my wife and I watched both of them again, and I was kinda talking about

463
00:29:05,335 –> 00:29:08,695
the pacing differences between the two films. Right? Because the first one is so much

464
00:29:08,695 –> 00:29:12,430
more back story and everything. The newer version, yeah, I would say is

465
00:29:12,430 –> 00:29:15,950
closer to the book as far as like the overall view, but the pacing of

466
00:29:15,950 –> 00:29:19,725
it is very different. But the John Wayne one does do

467
00:29:19,725 –> 00:29:23,485
a better job of like showing that no matter what had happened

468
00:29:23,485 –> 00:29:26,180
to her father, Maddie would have carried out those same actions.

469
00:29:33,985 –> 00:29:37,585
Whereas in the Jesan movie, it kinda seems like, hey. Like, it got you

470
00:29:37,585 –> 00:29:41,424
know, she seems a very stalwart, right, person. Right?

471
00:29:41,424 –> 00:29:45,010
It’s a great word. But it kind of seems like she’s

472
00:29:45,010 –> 00:29:48,450
almost forced into this because of the nature of events. Whereas I think the first

473
00:29:48,450 –> 00:29:50,690
one does a much better job of being like, Hey, this is just who she

474
00:29:50,690 –> 00:29:54,404
is and she’s going to move people, you know? And, I think,

475
00:29:54,404 –> 00:29:58,164
I think there’s weight to that because I, I, I do think that a lot

476
00:29:58,164 –> 00:30:01,950
of people are much more concerned about being themselves and being direct and

477
00:30:01,950 –> 00:30:05,330
different things like that. And when you’re not brought up to be that,

478
00:30:05,789 –> 00:30:09,070
it’s harder to step into that spot and when when and if you have Tom,

479
00:30:09,070 –> 00:30:12,805
professionally speaking. Right? Right. Because Maddie was brought up

480
00:30:12,805 –> 00:30:16,565
as the smartest person, you know, on that farm. She’s handling the book.

481
00:30:16,565 –> 00:30:20,005
She’s doing all these things. She is brought up with a with a lane of

482
00:30:20,005 –> 00:30:23,750
authority that creates this righteousness and and, you know,

483
00:30:23,750 –> 00:30:27,590
thinking that I think most people today don’t have until they find it

484
00:30:27,590 –> 00:30:31,325
much, much later professionally. Well and and, you know, Kim

485
00:30:31,325 –> 00:30:34,684
Darby was I mean, she was in her twenties. Yeah. She was

486
00:30:34,684 –> 00:30:38,340
21 when they when they made that thing. And, apparently,

487
00:30:38,340 –> 00:30:41,620
John Wayne was not a fan of her because he wanted his daughter to be

488
00:30:41,620 –> 00:30:45,460
in that role, and they told him no. And so, apparently, they didn’t say,

489
00:30:45,460 –> 00:30:48,585
like, 2 words off camera to each other, which is kind of an interesting thing.

490
00:30:48,585 –> 00:30:52,265
But, apparently, John Wayne was not the greatest human on set, you know,

491
00:30:52,265 –> 00:30:54,800
just going back and looking at some of that stuff. Not here to judge the

492
00:30:54,800 –> 00:30:58,560
guy. Not you know? I wasn’t there. But It it book me many years. You

493
00:30:58,560 –> 00:31:01,760
talk about growing up with your your grand your grandmother being a really big fan

494
00:31:01,760 –> 00:31:05,515
of John Wayne. So we’re it’s weird.

495
00:31:05,575 –> 00:31:09,335
So, in my family, my

496
00:31:09,335 –> 00:31:13,020
father was a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, but didn’t care a whit

497
00:31:13,020 –> 00:31:16,700
about John Wayne. And, and it kind of Sorrells makes sense

498
00:31:16,700 –> 00:31:20,445
because my father was from me. My father was born in, in the in the

499
00:31:20,445 –> 00:31:23,745
the, late 19 forties. And so Mhmm. For

500
00:31:24,205 –> 00:31:27,804
African Americans in the late 19 forties were born at that time and then came

501
00:31:27,804 –> 00:31:31,110
of age in the late sixties and went to Vietnam in the seventies,

502
00:31:32,049 –> 00:31:35,570
yeah, they grew up watching John Wayne, but it was more like an American

503
00:31:35,570 –> 00:31:38,975
institution that was representative of, quite frankly,

504
00:31:39,755 –> 00:31:43,195
white male culture. And they and they wouldn’t have framed it that way. That’s how

505
00:31:43,195 –> 00:31:46,540
we frame it now. They would have just said, John Wayne is racist Doesn’t like

506
00:31:46,540 –> 00:31:48,620
black people. That’s how they would have framed it. And they would have just moved

507
00:31:48,620 –> 00:31:52,300
on with the rest of their lives. Right. Whereas Libby Eastwood seemed a

508
00:31:52,300 –> 00:31:55,905
lot more. Oriented. You’re right. A lot

509
00:31:55,905 –> 00:31:59,505
more realistic. That’s interesting. I’ve never thought about that before. I’ve

510
00:31:59,505 –> 00:32:02,980
never really been a Clint fan. Like, I’ve never really done the

511
00:32:02,980 –> 00:32:06,360
job. It’s never really done anything to me. And honestly, like, rewatching

512
00:32:06,500 –> 00:32:09,720
this and, like, recently rewatched McClintock

513
00:32:10,095 –> 00:32:13,695
recently for, like, the first time in years, many, many, many

514
00:32:13,695 –> 00:32:17,455
years. And, I’m like, oh, yeah. That doesn’t have the same pull on

515
00:32:17,455 –> 00:32:20,190
me that it used to. Right? Yeah. I don’t know how much of that is

516
00:32:20,190 –> 00:32:23,650
just age or that being out of time or my shifts.

517
00:32:23,870 –> 00:32:27,470
Just I think it’s probably all of that, but I also think

518
00:32:27,470 –> 00:32:30,915
that John Wayne

519
00:32:31,055 –> 00:32:34,675
is fundamentally in a different way than Clint Eastwood fundamentally

520
00:32:34,898 –> 00:32:37,870
essays going to be, a frozen

521
00:32:38,570 –> 00:32:42,250
in his own era. Yeah. And and because because the

522
00:32:42,250 –> 00:32:44,970
movies he made, it’s easier to kind of put them off to the side, I

523
00:32:44,970 –> 00:32:48,395
would say. Right. Right? Because, like, everything is about him being larger than life. Right?

524
00:32:48,395 –> 00:32:51,995
Like, you watch, like, Writers and even The Shootist, which is, like Mhmm. Like

525
00:32:51,995 –> 00:32:55,650
like that’s that’s movie star movies from a guy

526
00:32:55,650 –> 00:32:59,330
who’s, like, the first movie star almost. Whereas Correct. You

527
00:32:59,330 –> 00:33:03,024
know, the way that they’ve worked with, like, Clint and everyone else now,

528
00:33:03,024 –> 00:33:06,544
they’re way more approachable. They’re they’re they’re human beings in and of themselves a lot

529
00:33:06,544 –> 00:33:09,940
of times. Well, not only that, but, like, Clint also did movies

530
00:33:10,000 –> 00:33:13,460
that were much more of a challenge for him

531
00:33:13,760 –> 00:33:17,585
because he couldn’t step over John Wayne. Yeah. John Wayne was too

532
00:33:17,585 –> 00:33:21,025
big a star, so we had to go to Italy. You know? He he did

533
00:33:21,025 –> 00:33:24,385
raw hide in the fifties, couldn’t get hired to do anything in

534
00:33:24,385 –> 00:33:28,039
America, runs across Sergio Leone and goes to

535
00:33:28,039 –> 00:33:31,799
Italy. You know? And he’s like, okay. Well this. Yeah. He’s handling that information

536
00:33:31,799 –> 00:33:35,405
for me. Yeah. He’s doing the movie’s there. And it was

537
00:33:35,405 –> 00:33:39,245
there that he figured out, I think, although he’s never said it,

538
00:33:39,245 –> 00:33:42,605
but I think it was there. He figured out that, oh, there’s something more to

539
00:33:42,605 –> 00:33:46,130
this movie game than just showing up and being the guy from raw

540
00:33:46,130 –> 00:33:49,350
high. That’s fundamentally

541
00:33:49,650 –> 00:33:53,434
different. And and actually, I would trace Eastwood’s growth and

542
00:33:53,434 –> 00:33:57,195
direction alongside or parallel to sort of

543
00:33:57,195 –> 00:34:00,575
the new directors, when they were new of Scorsese,

544
00:34:01,740 –> 00:34:05,500
Spielberg, Lucas, well, Lucas was Spielberg and

545
00:34:05,500 –> 00:34:09,175
Lucas were the next generation, but Scorsese, what’s his name,

546
00:34:09,335 –> 00:34:12,855
who did Apocalypse Now? Coppola, thank you. Knew eventually I would have it.

547
00:34:13,094 –> 00:34:16,875
But Scorsese, Coppola. I like how you thank yourself.

548
00:34:17,409 –> 00:34:21,250
Thanks me for the help. I would like to

549
00:34:21,250 –> 00:34:22,790
thank me for showing up every day.

550
00:34:26,484 –> 00:34:30,005
But it’s it’s this it’s this parallel

551
00:34:30,005 –> 00:34:33,844
idea in in Eastwood’s career that you don’t just have to be

552
00:34:33,844 –> 00:34:37,590
a movie star. Right? There’s not just one path. There’s all these other

553
00:34:37,590 –> 00:34:41,370
paths. John Wayne was very happy being directed by John Ford.

554
00:34:41,590 –> 00:34:45,205
He was very happy being the the guy. Yeah. He just wanted to be

555
00:34:45,205 –> 00:34:47,864
handled. He just wanted to be handled. Yeah. He didn’t wanna

556
00:34:49,125 –> 00:34:51,764
and, you know, we’re speaking a little bit of the school because the because the

557
00:34:51,764 –> 00:34:55,610
guy’s gone, you know, but, like, eventually but you see this with everybody, though.

558
00:34:55,610 –> 00:34:58,670
Right? They build the team. Right? DiCaprio

559
00:34:59,050 –> 00:35:02,755
loves, you know, working in Scorsese films, and Scorsese loves writing

560
00:35:02,755 –> 00:35:06,515
films for him because he knows what he’s capable of doing and stuff. And, you

561
00:35:06,515 –> 00:35:10,170
know, I I sometimes see people go after people. Right? Because even the

562
00:35:10,170 –> 00:35:13,210
Coen Writers have their regulars who they love to have in movies and stuff like

563
00:35:13,210 –> 00:35:16,010
that. And people are like, can’t you find someone new? It’s like when you know

564
00:35:16,010 –> 00:35:19,575
who to write for, like, and you and you

565
00:35:19,575 –> 00:35:23,275
can trust them with the book. You know? There’s there’s something

566
00:35:23,655 –> 00:35:27,440
special and unique that if you’ve not created something creative that has to

567
00:35:27,440 –> 00:35:31,220
be performed by someone else that you probably don’t actually understand yet.

568
00:35:32,320 –> 00:35:35,599
Now once again, we have talked about the movies, so we have not talked about

569
00:35:35,700 –> 00:35:38,255
Podcast. Portis would be happy about this. He’d be like, yeah, that’s fine. I’m gonna

570
00:35:38,255 –> 00:35:41,555
take my $14,000,000 Tom go to my shack in Arkansas. Absolutely.

571
00:35:42,734 –> 00:35:46,350
I love that about Charles Portis. I love it that he only

572
00:35:46,350 –> 00:35:49,950
wrote 5 novels. I love it that he said the $14,000,000 was

573
00:35:49,950 –> 00:35:53,555
enough. I’m going to retreat and go do the thing. Like

574
00:35:53,714 –> 00:35:56,355
there’s a, there’s a, there’s an article in one of the links that I sent

575
00:35:56,355 –> 00:35:59,395
you or an essays. One of the links that I sent you, I think it’s

576
00:35:59,395 –> 00:36:02,615
from, it’s not for old weird America. It might be from the literary hub

577
00:36:02,960 –> 00:36:06,240
where they were trying to reach out to him. The author, the journalist was trying

578
00:36:06,240 –> 00:36:09,859
to reach out to him and, you know, he’s like,

579
00:36:10,160 –> 00:36:13,395
well, I mean, yeah, you can come to Arkansas and interview me if I have

580
00:36:13,395 –> 00:36:17,235
time in my day. And you could always find him at the bar, like having

581
00:36:17,235 –> 00:36:20,880
a drink, just hanging out. And no one would know that he was Charles

582
00:36:20,880 –> 00:36:24,640
Fortis. The man had 0, apparently social media presence didn’t care about

583
00:36:24,640 –> 00:36:28,225
any of that nonsense. I’m sure the Cohen’s

584
00:36:28,285 –> 00:36:31,885
reached out to him and his essays, when they,

585
00:36:32,125 –> 00:36:34,365
when they did the, when they did the film and I’m sure he was like,

586
00:36:34,365 –> 00:36:38,010
yeah, that’s fine. Just make sure the check is signed with my name.

587
00:36:38,630 –> 00:36:42,330
I never had a wife. He never had kids. He just wrote his books

588
00:36:42,865 –> 00:36:46,385
and hung out and fish. And I think that that’s what got, what got Tom

589
00:36:46,385 –> 00:36:49,825
Wolf. I think that’s what got taught because Tom Wolf is so the opposite. Tom

590
00:36:49,825 –> 00:36:51,045
Wolf wanted to be.

591
00:36:53,549 –> 00:36:56,670
Well, you mentioned handled. Right? He wanted to be handled by the New York

592
00:36:56,755 –> 00:37:00,545
literature press folks. Right. Bonfire. I mean, you don’t

593
00:37:00,545 –> 00:37:04,305
write a book like bonfire of the vanities where you’re just lambasting everybody in New

594
00:37:04,305 –> 00:37:07,905
York in the eighties without wanting to attract some attention to yourself. I’m Sorrells. On

595
00:37:07,905 –> 00:37:11,630
the other hand, everything that I’ve read about the man,

596
00:37:12,090 –> 00:37:15,530
he didn’t care about any of that. And by the way, dollars

597
00:37:15,530 –> 00:37:18,605
14,000,000 the interest on $14,000,000

598
00:37:19,785 –> 00:37:23,305
is fine. The interest payment is enough to feed you for a year. What do

599
00:37:23,305 –> 00:37:26,730
you what do you need? You have you have no expenses. Well, I mean, in

600
00:37:26,730 –> 00:37:30,010
one of those articles you sent me, it talked about that he got $300,000 at

601
00:37:30,010 –> 00:37:33,130
the time just for the rights of that movie. Like Mhmm. That man doesn’t need

602
00:37:33,130 –> 00:37:36,535
to do anything else. If he’s already, like, kind of planted the flag and said,

603
00:37:36,535 –> 00:37:40,375
you know what? I don’t wanna do it this way anymore. Like Mhmm. I

604
00:37:40,375 –> 00:37:44,010
think I think there’s a big story here for everyone who is, like, starting a

605
00:37:44,010 –> 00:37:47,610
business right now, because I think there’s a lot of people who were deluding

606
00:37:47,610 –> 00:37:51,315
themselves Tom points of failure because they’re trying to

607
00:37:51,315 –> 00:37:54,515
go build a big, huge conglomerate and things. That way it’s going to be sexy

608
00:37:54,515 –> 00:37:57,635
and everything else like that. When really you just need to show up and do

609
00:37:57,635 –> 00:38:01,350
your job. Right? Do the writing, do the outreach. Writers? Whatever

610
00:38:01,350 –> 00:38:05,190
that looks like. It doesn’t have to be great and sexy, but it

611
00:38:05,190 –> 00:38:08,795
needs to book. You know? And there’s a lot of

612
00:38:08,795 –> 00:38:12,635
people, I think, right now who we were kinda talking about this before we hit

613
00:38:12,635 –> 00:38:15,995
record. They’re doing it for the star power. They’re not doing it for the sake

614
00:38:15,995 –> 00:38:19,500
of the work itself. And the thing that I I I appreciate this about this

615
00:38:19,500 –> 00:38:23,100
book and, the essays you sent over because I read

616
00:38:23,100 –> 00:38:26,780
them gave me a whole new perspective on the guy because I don’t really know

617
00:38:26,780 –> 00:38:30,565
that much about Portus. That this book, like, this book, my

618
00:38:30,565 –> 00:38:34,244
copy of it is, you know, because we’re collectors. You know?

619
00:38:34,244 –> 00:38:37,740
And Mel had read it as well, and so she came home with this very

620
00:38:37,740 –> 00:38:41,420
old version. I don’t even know the date on this thing of mine, but and

621
00:38:41,420 –> 00:38:45,180
we’re it’s just always been on the thing, but I’ve never read anything else by

622
00:38:45,180 –> 00:38:48,905
him yet, but I’m going to now. And

623
00:38:48,965 –> 00:38:52,325
it’s just if you’re doing it for the sake of the

624
00:38:52,325 –> 00:38:55,730
work, it shows up differently than when you’re doing

625
00:38:55,730 –> 00:38:59,490
it, like, the star power kind of, like, situation. And and we see this with

626
00:38:59,490 –> 00:39:02,310
actors, and we see this with musicians. We see this with

627
00:39:03,015 –> 00:39:06,855
everybody who’s doing anything. There’s the there’s the marketing path. There’s the, hey,

628
00:39:06,855 –> 00:39:09,974
look at me path. And then there’s the, hey, like, I do good work and

629
00:39:09,974 –> 00:39:13,580
I don’t care if you like it or not. And sometimes they can be together.

630
00:39:13,720 –> 00:39:17,340
But more often than not, you do have to kind of go pick

631
00:39:17,400 –> 00:39:21,240
1 or the other. This is something that I have been hit

632
00:39:21,240 –> 00:39:24,805
with with hit with as

633
00:39:24,805 –> 00:39:28,585
feedback, particularly sharply in the last couple of years.

634
00:39:29,285 –> 00:39:33,110
So consistently over the course of my career, such as

635
00:39:33,110 –> 00:39:36,790
it were, the last 20 years of me doing stuff, I’ve

636
00:39:36,790 –> 00:39:40,365
always been accused intermittently, usually of being

637
00:39:40,365 –> 00:39:43,885
spread too thin, which sometimes I am like currently I’m probably spread too

638
00:39:43,885 –> 00:39:47,184
thin, and not focusing on one thing nearly enough.

639
00:39:48,100 –> 00:39:51,320
And if I just focused on this one thing, I’d be genius. Okay.

640
00:39:52,900 –> 00:39:55,515
And, and, and really in the last couple of years and within the last 6

641
00:39:55,515 –> 00:39:57,915
months, people have been coming to me saying, if you just focused on this, you’re

642
00:39:57,915 –> 00:40:01,214
just focused on this. You’re just focused on this. And

643
00:40:03,300 –> 00:40:06,740
I’ve always pushed back on that. And by the way, it’s

644
00:40:06,740 –> 00:40:09,780
personal feedback. It’s also professional feedback. So it’s becoming at me for a lot of

645
00:40:09,780 –> 00:40:13,555
different areas. Right. And I always push back on that by saying, thank you.

646
00:40:13,555 –> 00:40:16,994
I appreciate your perspective on what I’m doing out here. I’m

647
00:40:16,994 –> 00:40:20,820
peripatetic. I have multiple different interests in a lot of different areas, and I

648
00:40:20,820 –> 00:40:24,660
like to do a lot of different things. And

649
00:40:24,660 –> 00:40:27,460
I’m focused on doing the work for the sake of the work. And I like

650
00:40:27,460 –> 00:40:30,435
it, how you made that distinction. I’m doing the work for the sake of the

651
00:40:30,435 –> 00:40:34,055
work. I’m not doing the work for all of these other multiplicity

652
00:40:34,195 –> 00:40:37,560
of things. I’m doing the work to get famous. I mean, if fame

653
00:40:37,560 –> 00:40:41,020
comes, okay, I’ll take it. But I’m not doing that.

654
00:40:41,480 –> 00:40:44,940
I would be doing these 5 things that I’m doing currently

655
00:40:45,395 –> 00:40:49,234
If anybody were paying attention to me or not. 1000%. Because this

656
00:40:49,234 –> 00:40:52,855
is the book. Yeah. For me, that’s the work. And I get it for you.

657
00:40:53,075 –> 00:40:56,460
You have to, you know, put on a suit and get in a car and

658
00:40:56,460 –> 00:40:59,900
drive somewhere, or maybe you put on your flip flops and you show up on

659
00:40:59,900 –> 00:41:03,645
camera and you get on Zoom somewhere. Like, whatever you gotta do, I

660
00:41:03,645 –> 00:41:07,005
get it. And that’s the only thing you have in your in your psychological space

661
00:41:07,005 –> 00:41:10,750
to handle. I get that. That’s okay. I

662
00:41:10,750 –> 00:41:14,590
can handle multiple things in my psychological space. I’m

663
00:41:14,590 –> 00:41:17,730
okay. But are all those things aren’t paying you?

664
00:41:22,244 –> 00:41:24,805
I I really do. You let you let me worry you let me worry about

665
00:41:24,805 –> 00:41:28,510
that. Yeah. I, you know, I, you know, if you

666
00:41:28,510 –> 00:41:31,710
have the view of my bank accounts, then, you know, we can we can talk

667
00:41:31,710 –> 00:41:35,470
about all the data points. Right? Which is the other part that people kinda

668
00:41:35,470 –> 00:41:38,935
get lumped in with this. Like, I’m, the thing that I’ve learned about myself,

669
00:41:40,115 –> 00:41:43,635
is that if I don’t have an outlet of some way, shape, or form and

670
00:41:43,635 –> 00:41:46,609
for a long time, that was martial arts, and before that, it was poker. For

671
00:41:46,609 –> 00:41:50,369
a long time, it was those things together. But when I stopped training martial arts

672
00:41:50,369 –> 00:41:53,650
in my first school, it was as I was starting this business. Right? And I

673
00:41:53,650 –> 00:41:56,785
also was not playing poker. So what that meant was all

674
00:41:57,325 –> 00:42:01,085
all all of my focus, all of my thinking, all of

675
00:42:01,085 –> 00:42:04,605
my concerns and fears and you know, was put into

676
00:42:04,605 –> 00:42:07,970
just this very small box, which is my business.

677
00:42:07,970 –> 00:42:11,590
Right? And, if I don’t have a puzzle

678
00:42:12,050 –> 00:42:15,815
to work on, I will create one inside of the business. Right?

679
00:42:15,815 –> 00:42:19,654
Mhmm. And my grandmother who passed away, in February 2020,

680
00:42:19,654 –> 00:42:23,290
she’s the one who was the the reason why I read true grit and and

681
00:42:23,290 –> 00:42:25,770
have seen all these John Wayne movies. One time I was working at a job

682
00:42:25,770 –> 00:42:29,375
and she goes, what happens when you get it figured out? Right? Because I job

683
00:42:29,375 –> 00:42:32,974
hopped a lot. Right? As a salesperson, you know, it’s not quite as detrimental to

684
00:42:32,974 –> 00:42:36,550
job hop. And I was like, what do you mean? She’s like, you’re gonna get

685
00:42:36,550 –> 00:42:40,310
bored, and you’re gonna figure this out, and then you’re gonna get bored. What happens

686
00:42:40,310 –> 00:42:44,125
then? You know? And, you know, I was 24, 25, and

687
00:42:44,125 –> 00:42:47,744
I was avoidant of this quality about myself. So I was like, no.

688
00:42:47,965 –> 00:42:51,390
No. Those other jobs were were garbage, bad leadership, bad

689
00:42:51,390 –> 00:42:54,849
bosses, you know, all this other stuff. And she was like, okay.

690
00:42:55,710 –> 00:42:59,470
And, like, was just can can fine leaving it just

691
00:42:59,470 –> 00:43:03,005
like that. You know? Fast forward, you know, she’s gone. I’m doing some journaling and

692
00:43:03,005 –> 00:43:06,305
thinking, and and this comes back of, like, holy crap.

693
00:43:06,365 –> 00:43:10,010
I need the puzzle. I need something to engage

694
00:43:10,010 –> 00:43:13,690
my mind in a worthwhile way. And when I don’t have it in front of

695
00:43:13,690 –> 00:43:17,335
me, I will create it. So to that end, the past

696
00:43:17,555 –> 00:43:21,315
year, I’ve been practicing guitar. I got a guitar, and I’m working with a

697
00:43:21,315 –> 00:43:25,070
coach, and I’m also starting to do woodworking as, like, a as a more

698
00:43:25,070 –> 00:43:28,910
physical outlet because guitar is great, super great for my brain and my

699
00:43:28,910 –> 00:43:32,285
thinking and stuff like this, but it wasn’t it wasn’t in my body

700
00:43:32,285 –> 00:43:35,885
enough to really kind of take over for the martial arts. So now,

701
00:43:36,125 –> 00:43:39,810
actually, this weekend, I spent kind of building my workbench for the

702
00:43:39,810 –> 00:43:43,570
garage because I’m gonna get into, you know, woodturning and building

703
00:43:43,570 –> 00:43:47,395
bowls and cool stuff like that just as another way to

704
00:43:47,395 –> 00:43:50,375
have a puzzle outlet. So that way I don’t create it inside of my business.

705
00:43:50,675 –> 00:43:54,515
But I I think, first of all, I think if you’re

706
00:43:54,515 –> 00:43:57,820
running a business and you’re not making content, you’re choosing to make it difficult for

707
00:43:57,820 –> 00:44:01,180
no great reason except your ego. And when you can make your content around the

708
00:44:01,180 –> 00:44:05,005
things you’d be doing anyway, like the work, you know, reading the books

709
00:44:05,005 –> 00:44:08,605
that you would be reading anyway, taking the like, publishing the notes you would be

710
00:44:08,605 –> 00:44:12,125
writing anyway, publishing the interviews with other peers in the same spot who are

711
00:44:12,125 –> 00:44:15,790
capable of having qualified conversations, why not make

712
00:44:15,790 –> 00:44:19,330
that content? You know, why not try to help out, help out other people?

713
00:44:19,630 –> 00:44:22,955
And that’s when I think it really gets beautiful and good. But I think when

714
00:44:22,955 –> 00:44:26,395
you’re making content, because, like, you think it’s gonna help the business, not because it’s

715
00:44:26,395 –> 00:44:30,235
something you’re you’re really invested in doing is when you start trying to chase that

716
00:44:30,235 –> 00:44:34,079
star path. Right? And then it’s gonna hurt when you wake up and

717
00:44:34,079 –> 00:44:37,520
realize that the, that the sexy business thing that you’re trying to make sexy, but

718
00:44:37,520 –> 00:44:41,275
also keep real is not hitting either one of these marks. It also

719
00:44:41,275 –> 00:44:44,815
moves you away from the fame machine that social media is.

720
00:44:45,355 –> 00:44:48,494
1000%. For sure. And this is the

721
00:44:49,190 –> 00:44:52,710
this is the love hate. And I don’t know. I I really shouldn’t say

722
00:44:52,710 –> 00:44:56,150
love. It’s neutral than hate for me. It really is. It’s neutral than

723
00:44:56,150 –> 00:44:59,941
hate. Most of the Tom, I’m neutral about social media platforms because I

724
00:44:59,941 –> 00:45:03,565
readers they’re businesses and they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. Mhmm. It’s fine. Algorithm

725
00:45:03,565 –> 00:45:06,630
gonna algorithm, to paraphrase. Right? Like, it’s fine.

726
00:45:07,730 –> 00:45:10,310
Whatever. And,

727
00:45:11,965 –> 00:45:15,725
I’ll post content and I know content gets suppressed. I’m not complaining about it

728
00:45:15,725 –> 00:45:18,225
because algorithm going to algorithm. It’s fine.

729
00:45:20,690 –> 00:45:24,450
But when you’re creating content for the business and the content

730
00:45:24,450 –> 00:45:28,230
is a lead generator to something else, because it has to serve a purpose.

731
00:45:28,725 –> 00:45:32,405
Now you’re going to get caught in the, in the, in the virality trap. You’re

732
00:45:32,405 –> 00:45:36,005
going to get caught in the space of trying to do what

733
00:45:36,005 –> 00:45:39,600
TikTok wants, which is not what’s best for your

734
00:45:39,600 –> 00:45:43,280
business. It’s not what’s best for your leadership or your team. It’s what’s best

735
00:45:43,280 –> 00:45:46,954
for TikTok. And I think that that’s a point that’s been made

736
00:45:47,015 –> 00:45:50,855
multiple times by multiple people, and it always needs to be

737
00:45:50,855 –> 00:45:54,680
made again because your people need to hear it. Absolutely. Writers? There’s always a vanity

738
00:45:54,680 –> 00:45:58,280
metric, and there’s always a metric that matters. You know? I have a I have

739
00:45:58,280 –> 00:46:02,095
a podcast. It’s a 0.01% podcast in the world of sales and

740
00:46:02,095 –> 00:46:05,135
business. Right? We have 85 episodes and everything else like that. But in the grand

741
00:46:05,135 –> 00:46:08,835
scheme of things, you say those things, it’s not that big.

742
00:46:09,110 –> 00:46:12,870
It’s really not. And to your point, I think, I

743
00:46:12,870 –> 00:46:16,645
think the other side of this that we’re kind of not talking about is that

744
00:46:16,645 –> 00:46:20,485
if you post enough, if you create for long enough, you know, your sample size

745
00:46:20,485 –> 00:46:24,260
becomes indicative of what you should be expecting. Writers. Right. And

746
00:46:24,260 –> 00:46:27,300
the thing that you said a second ago about doing this for 5 years, I

747
00:46:27,300 –> 00:46:30,420
can do anything for 5 years, and then I’ll know. Like, that is you collecting

748
00:46:30,420 –> 00:46:33,195
a big enough sample so that you’re not lying to yourself. You’re not choosing someone

749
00:46:33,195 –> 00:46:36,955
else’s best practices over what you’re able to do. And I talk

750
00:46:36,955 –> 00:46:40,735
about this with people because I post about consultative selling,

751
00:46:40,990 –> 00:46:44,510
not flashy selling, not high pressure selling. I don’t talk about marketing. I don’t talk

752
00:46:44,510 –> 00:46:47,470
about all these other things that people are, like, super excited about. I talk about

753
00:46:47,470 –> 00:46:51,125
having better sales conversations, which most people are trying to get away

754
00:46:51,125 –> 00:46:54,725
from sales conversations entirely. Right? They’d rather market all the way to conversion

755
00:46:54,725 –> 00:46:58,265
versus, like, having to have a conversation with people. Yeah.

756
00:46:58,490 –> 00:47:01,609
So I’m not gonna get the reach that other people are, but when you do

757
00:47:01,609 –> 00:47:04,670
it, I’ve been posting daily on LinkedIn since 2017,

758
00:47:05,210 –> 00:47:08,835
2016, somewhere around there. Like, I can go look at my data

759
00:47:08,835 –> 00:47:12,355
now and I can tell when I’m actually being algo suppressed versus like, I’m just

760
00:47:12,355 –> 00:47:15,890
not writers well, you know, I’m not connecting with the actual people who

761
00:47:16,130 –> 00:47:19,730
normally read my stuff. Because if you do enough to actually

762
00:47:19,730 –> 00:47:23,170
collect a collect a benchmark, the benchmark stands on its own

763
00:47:23,170 –> 00:47:26,835
merit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it’s you and sometimes

764
00:47:26,835 –> 00:47:30,675
it’s the algorithm, but very often, if you’re going

765
00:47:30,675 –> 00:47:33,540
to take ownership, we actually just did a short episode about this. If you’re going

766
00:47:33,540 –> 00:47:37,240
to be a leader, you need to take ownership and accountability. And of course

767
00:47:37,700 –> 00:47:41,045
it doesn’t start with the algorithm. It starts with Absolutely.

768
00:47:41,905 –> 00:47:45,505
You. Just like with Maddie Ross, it started with her. Just like with Rooster

769
00:47:45,505 –> 00:47:48,245
Cogburn, it started with him.

770
00:47:50,020 –> 00:47:53,620
Real quick. What I love Yeah. Is they talk about this very

771
00:47:53,620 –> 00:47:57,380
topic in the book. They do. I have notes on it here. I’m so

772
00:47:57,380 –> 00:48:00,485
glad we kinda segued here because I thought that this was amazing. Okay. I’m on

773
00:48:00,485 –> 00:48:04,325
page 40. Yes. I’m on page 40 and 41 of my book, which is a

774
00:48:04,325 –> 00:48:07,385
hardback. It’s it’s an older version. But essentially,

775
00:48:08,450 –> 00:48:10,550
let’s see here. Where’d it go? Where’d it go? Where’d it go?

776
00:48:13,410 –> 00:48:17,175
But the magazines of today do not know a good story when they see one.

777
00:48:17,255 –> 00:48:20,935
They would rather print trash. They say my article is too long and

778
00:48:20,935 –> 00:48:24,695
discursive. Nothing is too long or or too short if you

779
00:48:24,695 –> 00:48:28,440
have a true or interesting tale or what I call a graphic

780
00:48:28,580 –> 00:48:32,420
writing style come combined with educational aims. I do

781
00:48:32,420 –> 00:48:36,180
not fool around with newspapers. They’re always after me for historical write ups, but

782
00:48:36,180 –> 00:48:39,845
when the talk gets around the money, paper editors are most or,

783
00:48:40,565 –> 00:48:44,325
the for historical sorry. The paper editors are most of them are

784
00:48:44,325 –> 00:48:47,450
cheapskates. Mhmm. I think because I have a little money, I will be happy to

785
00:48:47,450 –> 00:48:51,290
fill up their Sunday columns just to see my name in print, like Lucille Biggers

786
00:48:51,290 –> 00:48:55,115
Langford and Florence Mabry Whiteside. And, and then it

787
00:48:55,115 –> 00:48:58,894
kind of goes on again as well. It says, where’d it go?

788
00:49:01,030 –> 00:49:04,410
The paper editors are great ones for reaping where they have not sown.

789
00:49:04,790 –> 00:49:08,550
Yes. Absolutely. What an insight. I by the way, I I I’ve

790
00:49:08,550 –> 00:49:11,835
I’ve marked that too in my in my copy. I did. I did too.

791
00:49:13,355 –> 00:49:15,995
Another game they have is to send reporters out to talk to you and get

792
00:49:15,995 –> 00:49:19,579
your stories free. Yep. I know the young reporters are not paid well, and I

793
00:49:19,579 –> 00:49:23,339
would not mind helping those boys out with their scoops if they could ever get

794
00:49:23,339 –> 00:49:26,960
anything straight. She thought about the same stuff. Right?

795
00:49:27,020 –> 00:49:30,685
With without and it was funny because when I jumped back in and

796
00:49:30,685 –> 00:49:34,445
started reading this book, I, like,

797
00:49:34,445 –> 00:49:38,030
I don’t I wasn’t ready for how it’s written because it just drops you in,

798
00:49:38,030 –> 00:49:41,550
and you were Oh, yeah. Going. Right? And they do a really good

799
00:49:41,550 –> 00:49:45,355
job of showing how rigid and

800
00:49:45,355 –> 00:49:49,115
how moral and how righteous that she is and how she carries it. Right? From

801
00:49:49,115 –> 00:49:52,690
the jump all the way through. But I was reading the first, you know,

802
00:49:52,690 –> 00:49:55,730
up to that point of page 40 in my book, I was kinda like, oh,

803
00:49:55,730 –> 00:49:58,210
this is gonna be a slog. This is gonna be a slog. Like, this is

804
00:49:58,210 –> 00:50:01,415
not well like, in my head, I was like, this is not very well written.

805
00:50:01,415 –> 00:50:04,875
But when you take into consideration what it’s supposed to be Mhmm.

806
00:50:05,095 –> 00:50:08,395
Right, a memoir for 30, 40 years later

807
00:50:08,740 –> 00:50:12,580
from a very direct woman, which is not always easy

808
00:50:12,580 –> 00:50:16,355
for women to be direct now because, I coach I coach women in

809
00:50:16,355 –> 00:50:20,115
in sales roles who struggle with being direct because, you know, sometimes that’s

810
00:50:20,115 –> 00:50:23,900
not okay. They get labeled as a business bitch to you know, it’s not

811
00:50:23,900 –> 00:50:27,260
my language, but it’s common in the in the place of being too direct, too

812
00:50:27,260 –> 00:50:30,860
focused. And, Maddie is a really great

813
00:50:30,860 –> 00:50:34,445
representation of, like, what a direct woman can

814
00:50:34,445 –> 00:50:37,965
be. Right? The other part of this is you just have to make the decision

815
00:50:37,965 –> 00:50:41,690
that no one else’s opinions really matter. Right? Tom Maddie is steeped in that.

816
00:50:41,770 –> 00:50:45,609
But until you make that decision, you’re you’re probably not as

817
00:50:45,609 –> 00:50:49,275
rooted as you think you are in your conversations and your thoughts. Let’s talk

818
00:50:49,275 –> 00:50:52,875
about that because this is where we’re going now. This is, again, the segue

819
00:50:52,875 –> 00:50:56,395
into beautiful segue into into the next pieces of,

820
00:50:56,954 –> 00:51:00,700
of true grit. So as we move forward in the book,

821
00:51:00,700 –> 00:51:04,460
by the way, when you read true grit, and this is just a

822
00:51:04,460 –> 00:51:08,205
structural thing that you’re going to notice, There’s no chapter headings in the book.

823
00:51:08,205 –> 00:51:11,965
So when you go in there and read it, there’s no chapter headings. And

824
00:51:11,965 –> 00:51:15,725
that goes directly to that whole idea that John was just talking about. It’s a

825
00:51:15,725 –> 00:51:19,390
brilliant, brilliant, observation of it just

826
00:51:19,390 –> 00:51:22,510
dropping you in, and you’re, like, you’re in the car and you’re going for the

827
00:51:22,510 –> 00:51:26,325
you’re going for the you’re going for the gold. Right? And Portis, I think

828
00:51:26,423 –> 00:51:30,165
writers it this way because, he wanted

829
00:51:30,165 –> 00:51:33,684
you to get the sense that you are, you are, you are inside

830
00:51:33,684 –> 00:51:37,450
events as they are occurring. And you’re

831
00:51:37,450 –> 00:51:40,990
also experiencing this person’s life as it is occurring.

832
00:51:41,609 –> 00:51:44,915
And then you’re going to drop right back out again. You’re gonna drop in and

833
00:51:44,915 –> 00:51:48,355
you’re gonna drop out. And and that’s it. There’s bookends on Matty

834
00:51:48,355 –> 00:51:51,760
Ross. Right? There’s bookends on Rooster Cogburn. There’s

835
00:51:51,760 –> 00:51:55,360
bookends on Libby. Right? You know, the Glenn Campbell slash Matt

836
00:51:55,360 –> 00:51:57,780
Damon character. Like, there’s bookends on that. Right?

837
00:51:59,485 –> 00:52:03,245
And so, but, but inside those book, what happens inside of those

838
00:52:03,245 –> 00:52:06,865
bookends is critical. And so in the next part of this

839
00:52:07,165 –> 00:52:10,860
book, as we are going from rooster and Maddie

840
00:52:11,000 –> 00:52:14,680
meeting outside of the courthouse, we move into

841
00:52:14,680 –> 00:52:18,035
rooster’s life and we get a little bit of a glimpse as to how he’s

842
00:52:18,035 –> 00:52:21,735
living. And now this book was written in 1968.

843
00:52:21,875 –> 00:52:25,609
Now there was there there are terms in this book that

844
00:52:25,609 –> 00:52:29,230
if you read them will offend modern ears. Right.

845
00:52:31,049 –> 00:52:34,355
But because we actually

846
00:52:34,815 –> 00:52:37,935
I believe fundamentally in free speech. I always have to say this at least one

847
00:52:37,935 –> 00:52:41,359
time per episode. I fundamentally believe in free speech. I also

848
00:52:41,359 –> 00:52:44,960
fundamentally believe that we have to take the author as he was in his

849
00:52:44,960 –> 00:52:48,099
time, which is why I don’t get upset about Ernest Hemingway

850
00:52:48,560 –> 00:52:52,365
using the n word or Mark Twain using the n word. We

851
00:52:52,365 –> 00:52:56,045
could talk about it in the terms of 2024, but neither of

852
00:52:56,045 –> 00:52:59,529
those gentlemen were writing in 2024. I have a

853
00:52:59,529 –> 00:53:03,369
random question about Yeah. Go ahead. You because I’ve never gotten I’ve never

854
00:53:03,369 –> 00:53:06,805
gotten asked this before. Yeah. Go ahead. How do you

855
00:53:06,805 –> 00:53:10,425
feel about guys like Quentin Tarantino and how they use

856
00:53:10,724 –> 00:53:14,085
that that word? Because, like, I know he gets a lot of flack for it,

857
00:53:14,085 –> 00:53:17,850
but, you know, I’m also I I’m only asking this because you

858
00:53:17,850 –> 00:53:21,610
said the thing, you know, like like, I’m taking them at their Tom. You

859
00:53:21,610 –> 00:53:25,435
know? So you’re talking about Django Unchained. So

860
00:53:25,435 –> 00:53:28,635
I’ll let me give you my I’m talking about just in general because, like, you

861
00:53:28,635 –> 00:53:32,109
know, like, that’s not the only movie where he’s a little bit prolific. It’s not

862
00:53:32,109 –> 00:53:35,390
the only movie, but it is the movie that sort of put the stamp on

863
00:53:35,390 –> 00:53:39,230
the on the on the on the rear end of the on the southbound

864
00:53:39,230 –> 00:53:42,725
end of the northbound cow. That was where he was going. Right.

865
00:53:42,945 –> 00:53:43,445
And,

866
00:53:46,385 –> 00:53:49,770
and I read the script. I got a I got a

867
00:53:49,770 –> 00:53:53,450
unreleased script for Django, through some connections that I had

868
00:53:53,450 –> 00:53:57,085
and, previously leaders ago and read it, and they

869
00:53:57,085 –> 00:54:00,845
wanted me to give them feedback. And the feedback that I gave them

870
00:54:00,845 –> 00:54:02,865
was, I don’t think you could make this movie.

871
00:54:04,730 –> 00:54:07,870
I don’t think this movie can be made. The cultural sensitivity

872
00:54:08,890 –> 00:54:12,555
that is current, the, and this was way back. This

873
00:54:12,555 –> 00:54:15,775
is like probably 2,004, maybe 2,005.

874
00:54:16,875 –> 00:54:20,320
So it was early. It was early before this movie got out. Right.

875
00:54:20,400 –> 00:54:24,000
Yeah. And I used to have those deep connections. I don’t have them any anymore

876
00:54:24,000 –> 00:54:26,400
because I’ve moved on and done other things in my life. But I was like,

877
00:54:26,400 –> 00:54:28,880
I don’t I don’t think you can do this. I don’t think this movie can

878
00:54:28,880 –> 00:54:32,355
be filmed. I think he’s leaning into something

879
00:54:32,355 –> 00:54:36,194
here that doesn’t necessarily need to be leaned into

880
00:54:36,194 –> 00:54:38,970
because this was way before this was in the

881
00:54:39,610 –> 00:54:43,390
this he was writing this script during a time when the backwash

882
00:54:43,450 –> 00:54:47,285
of the 19 nineties film culture was still fairly strong.

883
00:54:47,505 –> 00:54:49,684
And so you could be a little bit transgressive,

884
00:54:51,825 –> 00:54:54,005
and no one would kinda jump on your stuff.

885
00:54:55,559 –> 00:54:59,240
And then he released it. I can’t remember when Django came out. I could find

886
00:54:59,240 –> 00:55:02,975
out, but he releases it and he doesn’t get nearly

887
00:55:02,975 –> 00:55:06,415
as much flack for it as I thought he would. And I

888
00:55:06,415 –> 00:55:09,235
thought, well, clearly, I was wrong about that.

889
00:55:11,460 –> 00:55:14,819
And the reason I think I was wrong, it’s taken me many years to kind

890
00:55:14,819 –> 00:55:18,660
of understand, but the reason I think I was wrong is B

891
00:55:18,660 –> 00:55:22,055
is multivariate. But I think the core of it is

892
00:55:22,055 –> 00:55:22,555
that

893
00:55:28,950 –> 00:55:31,610
What we do now,

894
00:55:33,350 –> 00:55:37,125
we are not thinking far enough ahead

895
00:55:37,125 –> 00:55:40,964
in the future of the ramifications or the consequences. Oh, yeah. So it’s

896
00:55:40,964 –> 00:55:43,865
so it’s easy to look at the past,

897
00:55:44,970 –> 00:55:48,750
And this is why I’m never a fan of statues being torn

898
00:55:48,810 –> 00:55:52,490
down or bases being renamed. I will never support

899
00:55:52,490 –> 00:55:56,175
that. This is why, because when

900
00:55:56,175 –> 00:55:58,434
you rename the base or tear down the statue,

901
00:55:59,934 –> 00:56:03,650
what you’re saying is we are better morally than those

902
00:56:03,650 –> 00:56:06,870
people then, except the problem is

903
00:56:09,224 –> 00:56:12,585
Django Unchained or pulp

904
00:56:12,585 –> 00:56:16,425
fiction or name your movie

905
00:56:16,425 –> 00:56:20,190
here may be censored in the

906
00:56:20,190 –> 00:56:23,870
future by a group of people with moral claims that

907
00:56:23,870 –> 00:56:25,810
don’t match what’s here currently.

908
00:56:27,535 –> 00:56:31,075
So let’s step a little bit lightly on the moral claims.

909
00:56:32,575 –> 00:56:36,109
Let’s try Tom contextualize utilize what actually happened in the

910
00:56:36,109 –> 00:56:39,650
past. Let’s raise people to understand that historical

911
00:56:39,790 –> 00:56:43,395
context and appreciate it. And then here’s the other thing.

912
00:56:44,095 –> 00:56:47,694
If you want to put a statue next to the one that

913
00:56:47,694 –> 00:56:50,835
talks about what’s going on with that statue, do that.

914
00:56:51,450 –> 00:56:54,990
Spend a little public dollars doing that. You wanna rename the base?

915
00:56:55,690 –> 00:56:59,369
Actually, here’s a better idea. Put the one name of the base on the

916
00:56:59,369 –> 00:57:02,522
top and then put another name of the base on the Tom.

917
00:57:03,645 –> 00:57:07,325
Do that because here’s the thing, just erasing the

918
00:57:07,325 –> 00:57:11,090
history. Doesn’t eliminate it. And it actually doesn’t eliminate the hurt that

919
00:57:11,090 –> 00:57:13,810
may have been caused by that history. And by the way, the people who may

920
00:57:13,810 –> 00:57:17,650
be hurt by that history, not all of them, but many of

921
00:57:17,650 –> 00:57:21,325
them are no longer in this mortal coil. Agreed.

922
00:57:21,785 –> 00:57:24,285
Meanwhile, the people who are dealing with

923
00:57:25,530 –> 00:57:29,290
Jamie Jamie Foxx dropping the n word every 5 seconds are alive

924
00:57:29,290 –> 00:57:33,070
right now. Yeah. And that’s eroding us right now.

925
00:57:33,305 –> 00:57:36,665
I I I so I so I I think it’s multivariate, but I think that’s

926
00:57:36,745 –> 00:57:40,505
that that for me, that’s the core reason right there. It’s this high sense

927
00:57:40,505 –> 00:57:44,090
of moral superiority while we’ve got this other thing going on over

928
00:57:44,090 –> 00:57:47,530
here that we’re just like, oh, that’s just entertainment. So it’s

929
00:57:47,530 –> 00:57:49,870
like virtue signaling in your opinion?

930
00:57:51,205 –> 00:57:53,545
Yes. And virtue signaling to what end?

931
00:57:54,965 –> 00:57:58,700
Well, I think, like, I like the things that by the way.

932
00:57:58,700 –> 00:58:01,579
Maybe I’m wrong on that. Maybe that’s bad analysis. I’ve been willing to listen to

933
00:58:01,579 –> 00:58:05,365
different analysis on that. But for me, I get

934
00:58:05,405 –> 00:58:08,725
I like I said, I read the original story, and I thought this can’t happen.

935
00:58:08,725 –> 00:58:12,265
We’re we’re we can’t do this. And, apparently, I was wrong.

936
00:58:13,870 –> 00:58:17,710
That’s interesting. I, like, I wasn’t thinking about, like, statues and and

937
00:58:17,710 –> 00:58:21,145
bases and stuff like that. I mean, personally, I

938
00:58:21,545 –> 00:58:24,345
and maybe this is weird, but, like, the the line I’ve been drawing in my

939
00:58:24,345 –> 00:58:27,945
head because, like, I’m not really heard so much about, like, renaming bases, but, like,

940
00:58:27,945 –> 00:58:31,500
I see a lot about the statues coming down and stuff like that. Mhmm. And

941
00:58:31,500 –> 00:58:35,200
maybe this is head trash. Maybe I’m making this, like, a convenient easy way

942
00:58:35,339 –> 00:58:38,800
to hide, but, like, I think a a statue is

943
00:58:39,180 –> 00:58:42,904
reverence. There’s an argument to be

944
00:58:42,904 –> 00:58:46,664
made for that. Yeah. It’s it’s leadership almost. You know? Like like, holding

945
00:58:46,664 –> 00:58:50,120
this person up as, you know, the example, you

946
00:58:50,120 –> 00:58:53,960
know, versus a base with a name, you know, like, some of

947
00:58:53,960 –> 00:58:56,680
the some of the and and maybe this is me just trying to make it

948
00:58:56,680 –> 00:59:00,365
convenient, so please call me if that’s true. But, like, you know, a base that

949
00:59:00,365 –> 00:59:04,204
has a name that just might be leading back to someone who’s who’s

950
00:59:04,204 –> 00:59:07,885
had some, you know, less than stellar experiences with people of the

951
00:59:07,885 –> 00:59:11,470
world is different than, like, a statue saying, like, hey. This

952
00:59:11,470 –> 00:59:14,690
guy this guy is worth public

953
00:59:15,630 –> 00:59:19,015
public homage. Well, okay. Let’s talk about

954
00:59:19,015 –> 00:59:21,195
statues for just a second. So

955
00:59:22,375 –> 00:59:25,735
university no. It wasn’t university. It was Penn State. Penn State

956
00:59:25,735 –> 00:59:29,470
University. Joe Paterno. Okay? No. Almost no one

957
00:59:29,470 –> 00:59:32,830
remembers this now. But at the time when Joe

958
00:59:32,830 –> 00:59:36,644
Paterno’s, was being Joe Paterno’s legacy was

959
00:59:36,644 –> 00:59:40,484
being tainted by the scandal of, child abuse by one of

960
00:59:40,484 –> 00:59:44,005
his coaches. I can’t remember. Stuff. Right? Jerry’s yeah. Yeah. Jerry

961
00:59:44,005 –> 00:59:47,730
Sandusky stuff. Exactly. Mhmm. At the time, I

962
00:59:47,730 –> 00:59:51,170
was coaching rugby at a college that I will not name

963
00:59:51,170 –> 00:59:54,925
here. And, the the I was assistant coach

964
00:59:54,925 –> 00:59:58,685
on staff and the the coach, she made the

965
00:59:58,685 –> 01:00:01,805
point, female coach, she made the point and it says stuck with me for years.

966
01:00:01,805 –> 01:00:04,590
She said, this is why you don’t put up statues of people while they’re alive.

967
01:00:05,370 –> 01:00:08,910
And she just walked away. Oh, dip. And I was like,

968
01:00:09,930 –> 01:00:12,845
that’s an excellent point

969
01:00:13,865 –> 01:00:17,625
because when someone’s dead, what you’re

970
01:00:17,625 –> 01:00:21,280
doing by putting up a statue to your point is worship and reverence.

971
01:00:21,660 –> 01:00:25,339
Absolutely. For sure. There’s a very strong argument to be made about idol worship around

972
01:00:25,339 –> 01:00:28,140
that, which I would object to that just be if it if we were if

973
01:00:28,140 –> 01:00:31,648
we were object if we were tearing down the statues because they’re idol worship, not

974
01:00:31,648 –> 01:00:35,052
a problem with that. I’d be I’d be all on board with that. I’d be

975
01:00:35,052 –> 01:00:38,456
like, yeah. Absolutely. That’s that’s correct. That’s the correct alignment of where we’re thinking about

976
01:00:38,456 –> 01:00:42,270
the reality. But when we

977
01:00:42,270 –> 01:00:45,250
are putting up statues of people who are alive currently,

978
01:00:48,055 –> 01:00:51,815
We don’t know the whole story. The first report is often the

979
01:00:51,815 –> 01:00:54,714
wrong report. Absolutely. For sure.

980
01:00:55,575 –> 01:00:59,329
And so we don’t need a first report. We need a second or third or

981
01:00:59,329 –> 01:01:03,010
fourth report. Now the statues that we’re talking about tearing down, like Robert e

982
01:01:03,010 –> 01:01:05,990
Lee, we’ve gotten all the reports on Robert e Lee.

983
01:01:06,965 –> 01:01:10,805
Agreed. We’re never gonna be able to go get Robert e Lee’s

984
01:01:10,805 –> 01:01:14,509
ghost and make him be 2024. Like, it’s never

985
01:01:14,509 –> 01:01:18,269
gonna happen or 2025 or 2026 or 2027 or whatever you’re listening to this

986
01:01:18,269 –> 01:01:21,865
podcast. Mhmm. It’s it’s never gonna happen. And so what

987
01:01:21,865 –> 01:01:25,464
exactly are we trying to do by tearing down the

988
01:01:25,464 –> 01:01:29,305
statue of Robert E. Lee? Are we trying to tear down that object of

989
01:01:29,325 –> 01:01:33,079
leadership, or are we trying to do something else?

990
01:01:33,079 –> 01:01:36,839
And I just I want us to be honest in our

991
01:01:36,839 –> 01:01:38,940
sales process of what you’re selling

992
01:01:40,744 –> 01:01:44,505
because I’ll buy it if you’re honest. Yeah. But if you’re

993
01:01:44,505 –> 01:01:48,125
not, we’re gonna know. We’re gonna know. And we may not know where the dishonesty

994
01:01:48,185 –> 01:01:51,820
is. We may not know where to spot that, but Absolutely. We we’ve

995
01:01:51,820 –> 01:01:55,660
got a sense. We we’ve been selling to each other ever since well, either

996
01:01:55,660 –> 01:01:58,704
Adam and Eve were the cavemen depending upon what your perspective is, but we’ve been

997
01:01:58,704 –> 01:02:02,484
selling to each other since the beginning. 1000%. Right?

998
01:02:02,545 –> 01:02:05,905
We’re really good salespeople, and we could spot a scam. We may not know where

999
01:02:05,905 –> 01:02:09,680
it is, but we could spot a scam. And, you know, I think

1000
01:02:09,680 –> 01:02:12,320
about this a lot. Right? Because both and I both you and I live in

1001
01:02:12,320 –> 01:02:16,080
Texas. Right? Not not super far apart from each other. Right? Like like,

1002
01:02:16,080 –> 01:02:17,825
if we decided to hang out as humans

1003
01:02:20,464 –> 01:02:24,005
nothing crazy. But, like, reading this book

1004
01:02:24,625 –> 01:02:28,230
really brought to light this thing that I think about.

1005
01:02:28,450 –> 01:02:32,289
Imagine not having access to global news. Right? Like,

1006
01:02:32,289 –> 01:02:35,329
I try to put some pretty big walls between myself and the news cycles and

1007
01:02:35,329 –> 01:02:38,244
stuff like that because it just winds me up, and then I can’t do anything

1008
01:02:38,244 –> 01:02:41,845
about it. I’m trying to be a stoic person. Right? Yeah. It just

1009
01:02:41,845 –> 01:02:45,600
doesn’t serve me. But imagine, you know, only being

1010
01:02:45,600 –> 01:02:49,359
able to read the Granbury Gazette, the

1011
01:02:49,359 –> 01:02:52,820
Fort Worth Tom telegram. Right. Right? You’re not.

1012
01:02:53,255 –> 01:02:56,935
The the info you’re the the information you’re actually getting news

1013
01:02:56,935 –> 01:03:00,640
on is a microscopic pen

1014
01:03:00,799 –> 01:03:04,559
in relation to the actual events that are going on around the world. But that’s

1015
01:03:04,559 –> 01:03:08,240
what I like so much about these two things is or or those two points

1016
01:03:08,240 –> 01:03:10,420
is they’re talking about how

1017
01:03:11,665 –> 01:03:15,185
tightly the narratives are confined. You know?

1018
01:03:15,185 –> 01:03:18,650
And not you know,

1019
01:03:18,869 –> 01:03:21,349
the the thing we’re talking about it now is when you wanna be real with

1020
01:03:21,349 –> 01:03:23,990
people, you just don’t get, like, the mileage and the push. But, like, back then,

1021
01:03:23,990 –> 01:03:26,710
if you wanted to be real with people and didn’t fit their agenda, you just

1022
01:03:26,710 –> 01:03:30,095
didn’t get anything. You didn’t get anything. Writers. Well and people were

1023
01:03:30,095 –> 01:03:33,934
comfortable pushing back on you. And and this is again reflected

1024
01:03:33,934 –> 01:03:37,539
in in sort of how we how we look at the book.

1025
01:03:37,760 –> 01:03:41,460
So, you know, colonel Stonehill.

1026
01:03:41,520 –> 01:03:44,555
Right? You know, Matty Ross tells him, you know, you’re not looking at things in

1027
01:03:44,555 –> 01:03:46,954
the right light. And he goes, I’m looking at it in the light of god’s

1028
01:03:46,954 –> 01:03:49,615
eternal truth. Who says that out loud?

1029
01:03:50,420 –> 01:03:53,700
Well, you you know what? I can tell you exactly who says those kinds of

1030
01:03:53,700 –> 01:03:57,060
things. Right? Writers the people who say those kinds of things are the people who

1031
01:03:57,060 –> 01:04:00,724
go all over salespeople because they’re because they’re doing a job. I

1032
01:04:00,724 –> 01:04:04,085
can’t believe you would ever think that I

1033
01:04:04,085 –> 01:04:07,750
need your help. Can you? Right? And they get all high and

1034
01:04:07,750 –> 01:04:11,589
mighty. Like, it’s salespeople have to deal with trying to be

1035
01:04:11,589 –> 01:04:15,214
like Maddie Ross without actually being like Maddie Ross the

1036
01:04:15,214 –> 01:04:19,055
majority of the Tom. Because sales leaders and lots of leadership, especially

1037
01:04:19,055 –> 01:04:22,255
people who think they understand how sales works but haven’t ever actually stood in the

1038
01:04:22,255 –> 01:04:25,930
stream, love to task everyone else to go be die hards that they’re not

1039
01:04:25,930 –> 01:04:29,530
willing to do themselves, which is eternally frustrating as a sales coach and

1040
01:04:29,530 –> 01:04:33,345
trainer because they’re not even capable of

1041
01:04:33,345 –> 01:04:36,865
showing up and doing these conversations to the level of quality that they’re

1042
01:04:36,865 –> 01:04:40,560
expecting of everyone else to do so. And then it’s convenient because they get to

1043
01:04:40,560 –> 01:04:44,320
say, well, I’m not I’m not I’m not really a salesperson. You know? It’s

1044
01:04:44,320 –> 01:04:48,125
like, book. But you’re gonna go put massive goals on other people

1045
01:04:48,125 –> 01:04:51,885
around things that they cannot control because you think you can read the

1046
01:04:51,885 –> 01:04:54,525
math, but you just told me that you don’t know how to do this job.

1047
01:04:54,525 –> 01:04:58,250
Like, all day long, man. It’s it’s every conversation I have. It’s very

1048
01:04:58,250 –> 01:05:01,710
frustrating. And I have to tell most of those people, no, because

1049
01:05:02,535 –> 01:05:05,975
my my only real big role is I won’t work with tyrants. Right? And if

1050
01:05:05,975 –> 01:05:09,095
you’re gonna tell someone else how to how like, what to do on the stream

1051
01:05:09,095 –> 01:05:12,299
that you’ve never stood in, you are a tyrant. I’m sorry. You need to take

1052
01:05:12,299 –> 01:05:15,819
some calls. You need to take some conversations. You need to realize what it’s like

1053
01:05:15,819 –> 01:05:19,420
to move a meeting and have that potentially, like, ruin your

1054
01:05:19,420 –> 01:05:23,165
month before you start telling other people, just don’t take no for

1055
01:05:23,165 –> 01:05:26,765
an answer because that’s not actually how the real world works. So Right.

1056
01:05:27,085 –> 01:05:30,630
I love this negotiation piece of Maddie and the, and the Colonel

1057
01:05:30,630 –> 01:05:34,330
because she’s given it to him. Right? Oh gosh. She’s yeah. She is delivering

1058
01:05:34,470 –> 01:05:38,230
it. She has a plan from the jump. She like, and I think that the,

1059
01:05:39,255 –> 01:05:42,475
I think that the first movie does a better job of showing just how

1060
01:05:43,015 –> 01:05:46,695
strategic and thoughtful and intentional she made. She went into that

1061
01:05:46,695 –> 01:05:50,170
conversation with a plan. Right. And I I have to talk about this with people

1062
01:05:50,170 –> 01:05:52,650
all the time. If you don’t have a plan in a conversation, you are someone

1063
01:05:52,650 –> 01:05:56,305
else’s plan. Correct. So she goes into there with a plan.

1064
01:05:56,305 –> 01:05:59,744
She’s pushing and pushing and pushing, and she knows the levers that she can do.

1065
01:05:59,744 –> 01:06:03,080
Like, you know, I have a lawyer. We have a refund. You know? It’s it’s,

1066
01:06:03,160 –> 01:06:06,120
you know, you know what what is gonna play and what’s going to advance and

1067
01:06:06,120 –> 01:06:09,960
what’s gonna get it shut down. But I’ll that exchange in the book

1068
01:06:09,960 –> 01:06:13,555
and then in both of the movies, I think is very well done

1069
01:06:13,555 –> 01:06:17,395
because our culture is not built around haggling. Right? And we’re moving

1070
01:06:17,395 –> 01:06:21,160
rapidly in a direction to where people are doing everything they can to

1071
01:06:21,160 –> 01:06:24,920
avoid salespeople. Now salespeople have kinda done this to themselves. Right? Like, I’m

1072
01:06:24,920 –> 01:06:28,680
not I’m not saying that, but, you know, the people who were just

1073
01:06:28,680 –> 01:06:32,434
doing the job versus the people who were who were handing out all these touches

1074
01:06:32,434 –> 01:06:36,194
and outreach and goals and everything else like this, you know, we gotta give the

1075
01:06:36,194 –> 01:06:38,790
people who are just doing the work a little bit of little bit of it

1076
01:06:38,790 –> 01:06:42,570
literature benefit of the doubt that they’re not making all the decisions because they probably

1077
01:06:42,570 –> 01:06:46,224
wouldn’t be doing terrible, terrible outreach the way that they

1078
01:06:46,224 –> 01:06:50,065
are currently. Well and here’s another character who’s who’s living with

1079
01:06:50,145 –> 01:06:53,960
who who needs the benefit of the doubt. And you what you what you

1080
01:06:53,960 –> 01:06:57,740
said to me about, you know, the leaders who don’t

1081
01:06:58,760 –> 01:07:01,781
have no clue what it is to sit in a essays

1082
01:07:02,235 –> 01:07:05,535
and, you know, potentially have that fall off the cliff.

1083
01:07:05,595 –> 01:07:09,195
Right? We’ve gotta talk

1084
01:07:09,195 –> 01:07:13,010
about Libby. Oh my god. We gotta talk about We gotta talk about

1085
01:07:13,010 –> 01:07:16,609
this guy. Okay. So first of all, what, a piece of trivia that I learned

1086
01:07:16,609 –> 01:07:19,835
which blew my mind was that Glyn Campbell was not supposed to be the actor.

1087
01:07:19,835 –> 01:07:23,195
It was supposed to be Elvis. Did you know

1088
01:07:23,195 –> 01:07:26,075
that? I did not know that it was supposed to be Elvis. Yeah. It was

1089
01:07:26,075 –> 01:07:29,369
supposed to be Elvis. But it but he couldn’t do it. So so that’s where

1090
01:07:29,369 –> 01:07:32,650
the Glenn Campbell thing kinda kinda came along. And then

1091
01:07:32,890 –> 01:07:36,625
Wow. Yeah. Like That would have been a totally different movie. Totally

1092
01:07:36,625 –> 01:07:40,465
different movie. 1 I mean, astronomically different. I don’t think

1093
01:07:40,465 –> 01:07:44,145
I don’t think he could have done the job that Labief does

1094
01:07:44,145 –> 01:07:47,850
in the first, movie well. Now I think Matt Damon does a

1095
01:07:47,850 –> 01:07:51,310
better job than Glenn Campbell, but he’s a better actor with with better skill.

1096
01:07:51,610 –> 01:07:55,375
And and then also the movie being paced so differently is is very Yeah. The

1097
01:07:55,375 –> 01:07:59,215
pacing is different. I struggled a little bit

1098
01:07:59,215 –> 01:08:02,895
with Matt Damon in his role in in in with him as

1099
01:08:02,899 –> 01:08:05,349
Libby only because I thought

1100
01:08:07,010 –> 01:08:10,770
and this is a John McWhorter linguistic, you know, sort

1101
01:08:10,770 –> 01:08:14,525
of critique. You’ve got 19th century words falling out

1102
01:08:14,525 –> 01:08:18,365
of a 21st century guy’s mouth. Yeah. He’s like Brad Pitt in

1103
01:08:18,365 –> 01:08:21,930
Troy. He doesn’t do a good job of, like, affecting, you know,

1104
01:08:21,930 –> 01:08:25,689
an accent. Tom makes sense. Right. You’re Brad, you’re I’m

1105
01:08:25,689 –> 01:08:27,950
glad you brought that analogy because, you know

1106
01:08:29,984 –> 01:08:33,664
and I know Brad Pitt’s, like, 60 now, so he’s not he’s he’s he’s

1107
01:08:33,664 –> 01:08:37,444
now I mean, he’s now grown man. He’s long since a grown man. But,

1108
01:08:39,450 –> 01:08:42,649
I always thought of him as an actor as just being a sort of a

1109
01:08:42,649 –> 01:08:46,330
glorified pool boy, basically. Oh

1110
01:08:46,330 –> 01:08:49,655
yeah. Oh, yeah. Whereas Matt Damon,

1111
01:08:51,155 –> 01:08:54,755
Matt Damon has worked to

1112
01:08:54,755 –> 01:08:58,150
reinvent himself multiple times over in multiple

1113
01:08:58,150 –> 01:09:01,990
different films. Right? Okay. So and I can give him

1114
01:09:01,990 –> 01:09:05,755
credit for that, and I appreciate the

1115
01:09:05,755 –> 01:09:09,534
fact that he’s done that while also seemingly,

1116
01:09:11,189 –> 01:09:14,949
you know, avoiding scandal, avoiding political nonsense that sort of ruins

1117
01:09:14,949 –> 01:09:18,630
actors’ careers these days. I don’t think the guy tweets. I

1118
01:09:18,630 –> 01:09:22,325
appreciate that. I suspect who he voted for, but I’m

1119
01:09:22,325 –> 01:09:26,085
not it’s not confirmed. Thank god for that. I can go watch a movie with

1120
01:09:26,085 –> 01:09:29,420
him, and it’s fine. You know? I don’t have to be seen there the whole

1121
01:09:29,420 –> 01:09:32,619
time thinking, you know, like, I don’t I don’t under I don’t have any of

1122
01:09:32,619 –> 01:09:35,500
that I don’t have any of that any of that, what do you call it,

1123
01:09:35,659 –> 01:09:39,434
mileage with with Matt Damon. Do you carry that

1124
01:09:39,434 –> 01:09:42,994
a lot in movies and stuff? Do I carry that? No.

1125
01:09:43,234 –> 01:09:46,969
Well I I I tend I I try. Right.

1126
01:09:46,969 –> 01:09:49,929
Right. We’re way off topic here, but I try to give topic. We’re in the

1127
01:09:49,929 –> 01:09:52,670
weeds. I try to give people credit for the art,

1128
01:09:55,355 –> 01:09:58,875
And then I try to give them a wide berth. Now, like some

1129
01:09:58,875 –> 01:10:02,470
people go too far. You know? Like like, I still have Kanye

1130
01:10:02,470 –> 01:10:06,070
albums, but I’m not listening to his streaming stuff. You know? Like but I’m not

1131
01:10:06,070 –> 01:10:09,905
gonna go burn the albums because the musics are Right. Amazing.

1132
01:10:09,905 –> 01:10:13,745
Right? Like, sorry. Not not gonna even kind of equivocate on

1133
01:10:13,745 –> 01:10:17,490
that. But then it’s like, you know,

1134
01:10:18,350 –> 01:10:21,310
I know people who really high who who really hate Kevin Hart because of some

1135
01:10:21,310 –> 01:10:24,750
of the stuff that he’s kinda said about, you know, the the gay and trans

1136
01:10:24,750 –> 01:10:27,425
community and stuff like that. And, you know,

1137
01:10:29,165 –> 01:10:32,925
I’d I’d rather someone be real than than get a fake apology on social

1138
01:10:32,925 –> 01:10:36,340
media because, because your publicist or your team told you that you should go

1139
01:10:36,340 –> 01:10:40,040
apologize out of fear of being canceled. Like, well, I think

1140
01:10:40,180 –> 01:10:43,985
ideally we don’t make stupid, stupid statements anyway over the megaphone of social

1141
01:10:43,985 –> 01:10:47,745
media, but, you know, he is meant to be a polarizing figure because he

1142
01:10:47,745 –> 01:10:51,449
is a comedian. Right? Right. I really

1143
01:10:52,070 –> 01:10:55,750
thank you for the for the essays on this because I was not really able

1144
01:10:55,750 –> 01:10:59,514
to kinda think about this book as a comedy until

1145
01:10:59,514 –> 01:11:03,255
I’ve heard those 2 things. But it very much is, like,

1146
01:11:03,395 –> 01:11:06,934
it’s absurd, kind of absurd to think about. Yeah. Well,

1147
01:11:06,994 –> 01:11:10,770
like so talk about absurdity. Libby, you know,

1148
01:11:10,770 –> 01:11:14,290
runs into Maddie Ross. Not in In the middle of

1149
01:11:14,290 –> 01:11:17,955
nowhere. In the middle of nowhere. And knows who she is and knows her

1150
01:11:17,955 –> 01:11:21,715
mom and, like, everything is okay. And, like, in the movie, she just wakes up

1151
01:11:21,715 –> 01:11:25,250
and she the guy is in her room. Right. Creepy as

1152
01:11:25,250 –> 01:11:28,950
hell. Book, creeper. Like,

1153
01:11:29,250 –> 01:11:32,690
that’s okay. Now I’m off put just from the jump on that.

1154
01:11:32,690 –> 01:11:36,435
1000%. Yeah. And and by the way, I think both Kim Darby and

1155
01:11:36,435 –> 01:11:40,195
Hailey how how Hailey Steinfeld, I think

1156
01:11:40,195 –> 01:11:43,315
they both captured that, but I think that’s just that’s just the thing that women

1157
01:11:43,315 –> 01:11:46,990
have about men who show up creepily. Like, I don’t think that’s anything to them

1158
01:11:46,990 –> 01:11:50,590
as as far as their their acting chops go. I think that’s just how

1159
01:11:50,590 –> 01:11:53,965
women respond. Yeah. And then to deal with it as a woman, I would say.

1160
01:11:53,965 –> 01:11:57,485
I would say. Exactly. And then Labeouf doubles down with

1161
01:11:57,485 –> 01:12:01,199
Rooster Cogburn. And he doubles down with rooster Cogburn, which

1162
01:12:01,199 –> 01:12:04,639
is amazing in this part of the book. He doubles down with rooster

1163
01:12:04,639 –> 01:12:08,400
Cogburn on number 1 being a Texas Ranger, which amused the heck

1164
01:12:08,400 –> 01:12:12,175
out of me. But then number 2, on being

1165
01:12:12,175 –> 01:12:16,014
a Texas ranger. He had nothing else. Nothing. Nothing else underneath his

1166
01:12:16,014 –> 01:12:18,434
character to kind of lean him. And,

1167
01:12:19,920 –> 01:12:23,620
I think Damon gives more depth to that character, particularly

1168
01:12:23,760 –> 01:12:27,200
at the end where he shakes, he shakes Maddie Ross’s hand and then sort of

1169
01:12:27,200 –> 01:12:30,505
rides off. That doesn’t happen in in the original film.

1170
01:12:30,885 –> 01:12:34,025
Glenn Campbell kind of kinda plays it a little more.

1171
01:12:34,805 –> 01:12:38,590
I won’t say goofy, but he does play it as a

1172
01:12:38,590 –> 01:12:41,950
grown man who’s dealing with a little kid. Mhmm. And he’s like, why am I

1173
01:12:41,950 –> 01:12:45,705
dealing with this little kid? I’m a Texas ranger for God’s sakes.

1174
01:12:45,705 –> 01:12:48,125
And that ties into what you were saying about

1175
01:12:49,111 –> 01:12:52,820
leadership understanding how sales works. I don’t have to understand

1176
01:12:52,820 –> 01:12:56,143
how sales works. I’m the leader. That’s Libby.

1177
01:12:56,500 –> 01:13:00,205
That’s that’s him. And so, you know, he his character gets pushed

1178
01:13:00,205 –> 01:13:03,905
along. He gets pushed along. And, you know, eventually,

1179
01:13:04,045 –> 01:13:07,645
rooster, decides that, that, you

1180
01:13:07,645 –> 01:13:11,380
know, we’ve had about enough of this. Right? And I’m not gonna not

1181
01:13:11,380 –> 01:13:14,980
gonna deal with you. And, of course, he draws down on him. Mhmm. And

1182
01:13:14,980 –> 01:13:18,725
Labeouf backs off. And now there’s this constant tension between these

1183
01:13:18,725 –> 01:13:22,165
two men, and it is I mean, you can read into a

1184
01:13:22,165 –> 01:13:25,820
patriarchal tension, which is typically how most people would read it, I

1185
01:13:25,820 –> 01:13:29,580
think, these days. But at a deeper level, this is a

1186
01:13:29,580 –> 01:13:33,295
tension of competency. And that’s what you get in the true grit in the

1187
01:13:33,295 –> 01:13:37,135
in the Ethan Cohen movie, the newer one. Yep. You don’t get so much

1188
01:13:37,135 –> 01:13:40,755
of that tension in the original, but it is definitely there.

1189
01:13:40,960 –> 01:13:44,800
And I think they don’t get it there because the time in which that

1190
01:13:44,800 –> 01:13:48,239
movie was made, 66, 67, 68, I think it was shot in 66 and

1191
01:13:48,239 –> 01:13:51,235
67, and then it was, of course, released in 68. But,

1192
01:13:52,675 –> 01:13:55,235
but I think that that tension didn’t exist because

1193
01:13:56,250 –> 01:14:00,010
and here’s what’s different about our time than it is than it was

1194
01:14:00,010 –> 01:14:03,610
then. If you were

1195
01:14:03,610 –> 01:14:07,115
a 20 year old guy, you were a grown

1196
01:14:07,115 –> 01:14:10,635
man. Yeah. That’s the that’s the most

1197
01:14:10,635 –> 01:14:14,300
fascinating part of this, right, is realizing just how different

1198
01:14:14,360 –> 01:14:17,659
we are. She’s 14

1199
01:14:18,280 –> 01:14:21,725
going off and doing this thing. And while, like, it’s part of the shock of

1200
01:14:21,725 –> 01:14:25,565
reading the book is just realizing my daughter’s 12. Right. Like, man,

1201
01:14:25,565 –> 01:14:29,409
I’m not hey hey, dad. I’m gonna go no. You’re not. Well,

1202
01:14:29,409 –> 01:14:33,170
I’m going I’m going with you. Let’s go, you know, kinda situation and stuff

1203
01:14:33,170 –> 01:14:36,105
like that. You know? So part of it was just this kinda shock and, like,

1204
01:14:36,345 –> 01:14:39,165
it’s funny to bring this up because, like, as I’m reading it,

1205
01:14:40,265 –> 01:14:43,645
I’m having this moment of, like, oh, is my dissonance here

1206
01:14:44,440 –> 01:14:47,800
just because her age or how much of it is

1207
01:14:47,800 –> 01:14:51,560
because it’s a woman or a female, right, you know, in the book?

1208
01:14:51,560 –> 01:14:55,344
Because you read, like, you know, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, you know, these

1209
01:14:55,344 –> 01:14:59,105
other kind of heroic younger kid going off and doing

1210
01:14:59,105 –> 01:15:02,720
adult things on their own and stuff like that. And I’ve I’ve not read those

1211
01:15:02,720 –> 01:15:05,920
books in a very long Tom, and maybe maybe it would it would ring the

1212
01:15:05,920 –> 01:15:09,760
same alarm bells as a parent and an adult that reading this did. But, you

1213
01:15:09,760 –> 01:15:13,585
know, I’m also trying to test to, like, figure out, like, is it weird

1214
01:15:13,585 –> 01:15:16,704
just because it’s a little girl and I’m not used to that? Or is it

1215
01:15:16,704 –> 01:15:20,520
weird because, like, she’s taking off and crossing state lines and going into, like,

1216
01:15:20,660 –> 01:15:24,280
territories that, like, we don’t have any jurisdiction in.

1217
01:15:24,580 –> 01:15:27,952
And I’m gonna go into the Choctaw Nation. Good luck. And

1218
01:15:27,952 –> 01:15:31,415
literature can’t like, is so righteous and so driven, can’t

1219
01:15:31,415 –> 01:15:35,175
even understand where the perilous nature of this

1220
01:15:35,175 –> 01:15:38,890
thing is. Right? Yeah. And then the you know, he’s challenging

1221
01:15:38,890 –> 01:15:42,490
her. Hey. There’s not gonna be food and inns and beds and stuff like that.

1222
01:15:42,490 –> 01:15:46,185
And she’s like, well, we went on a hunt last summer. It was fine. And

1223
01:15:46,185 –> 01:15:49,864
it’s just like, oh, man. I I can remember being a very

1224
01:15:49,864 –> 01:15:53,545
young salesperson trying to sell investments to people, you know, and I’m

1225
01:15:53,545 –> 01:15:56,680
talking about, well, you know, you can you can do this over here. It’s gonna

1226
01:15:56,680 –> 01:16:00,120
be fine. And, you know, I’m talking to people that were alive during the depression

1227
01:16:00,120 –> 01:16:03,775
who have books older than me because they were alive during the depression, so they

1228
01:16:03,775 –> 01:16:07,395
don’t throw anything out. So, of course, I don’t resonate.

1229
01:16:07,535 –> 01:16:11,300
Of course, it’s BS. Of course, it’s like talking to their, you know,

1230
01:16:11,300 –> 01:16:14,900
nephews, grandson kind of situation. Right? It was

1231
01:16:15,060 –> 01:16:18,804
Yes. It was it was, you know, I didn’t I

1232
01:16:18,804 –> 01:16:22,165
didn’t realize whenever I was doing that job. You know, I was 30 years old.

1233
01:16:22,165 –> 01:16:25,210
I looked all of 22. I didn’t have the hair or the beard yet. And

1234
01:16:25,210 –> 01:16:28,830
also, like, I wasn’t really settled as a professional. You know?

1235
01:16:29,050 –> 01:16:31,530
I was just out there trying to make some money, you know, and keep things

1236
01:16:31,530 –> 01:16:35,054
moving and stuff like that. So, you know,

1237
01:16:35,114 –> 01:16:38,795
if you there’s a way to communicate with other

1238
01:16:38,795 –> 01:16:41,675
people who are on the level that lets them know that you’re on the level.

1239
01:16:41,675 –> 01:16:45,360
And I talked about this in my in my coaching and teaching world

1240
01:16:45,360 –> 01:16:49,060
because, like, if you’re doing outreach to people and you’re trying to get a meeting,

1241
01:16:49,280 –> 01:16:53,125
if you can’t communicate that you’re on the level, the default

1242
01:16:53,125 –> 01:16:56,425
assumption is that you’re not even worth being, like like, talked to.

1243
01:16:56,885 –> 01:17:00,405
Well and and and Rooster, let’s talk a little bit about him because he’s the

1244
01:17:00,405 –> 01:17:03,739
old grizzled veteran. Right? He’s that old grizzled

1245
01:17:03,800 –> 01:17:07,639
veteran sales guy who shows up with the rumble suit. He’s

1246
01:17:07,639 –> 01:17:11,475
got a 2 day old, you know, whatever beard. He

1247
01:17:11,475 –> 01:17:14,835
smells vaguely of the last beer he drank. You’ve run across this

1248
01:17:14,835 –> 01:17:17,815
guy. But he walks into the room and he closes.

1249
01:17:18,610 –> 01:17:21,969
And then he walks out, and he says, you have a good day. And he

1250
01:17:21,969 –> 01:17:25,810
goes right back to his hotel bar and posts up there, like in

1251
01:17:25,810 –> 01:17:29,525
Glengarry Glen Ross, greatest sales film ever May, has another

1252
01:17:29,525 –> 01:17:33,045
drink with Jack Lemmon, complains about how hard how hard sales is.

1253
01:17:33,045 –> 01:17:36,725
Right? Yeah. And you’re sitting there, and you’re going I don’t

1254
01:17:37,470 –> 01:17:40,370
like, Matt Damon in Ocean’s, I think it was Ocean’s 12,

1255
01:17:41,790 –> 01:17:44,990
when he walked in and he insulted the, I always think about the scene where

1256
01:17:44,990 –> 01:17:48,595
he walks in and he insults the, the the the whatever

1257
01:17:48,675 –> 01:17:51,475
whoever it is that Brad Pitt and George Clooney are trying to scam and about

1258
01:17:51,475 –> 01:17:55,075
their daughter and something, and he walks out. And Brad Pitt and George Clooney are

1259
01:17:55,075 –> 01:17:58,570
messing with him, and they go, you just insulted his daughter. Yeah. Blah blah blah

1260
01:17:58,570 –> 01:18:02,010
blah. You said this. Yeah. You said that. And and this course, the 2 grizzled

1261
01:18:02,010 –> 01:18:05,705
veterans screwing with a rookie. And Matt Damon goes, no idea what

1262
01:18:05,705 –> 01:18:09,304
just happened there. Yes. That is that is

1263
01:18:09,304 –> 01:18:13,030
every person after a cold calling session. You’re right. And

1264
01:18:13,030 –> 01:18:16,869
Rooster knows what happened there. He knows exactly what he knows

1265
01:18:17,030 –> 01:18:20,570
let’s see. Rooster knows exactly what’s gonna happen with Choctaw Nation.

1266
01:18:20,975 –> 01:18:24,435
He knows exactly how hard it is to go get Tom Chaney or Chelmsford,

1267
01:18:24,895 –> 01:18:28,594
by the way, played in the, in the Ethan Cohen film by Josh Brolin,

1268
01:18:29,420 –> 01:18:32,219
in a in a in a great not a great role. I don’t think they

1269
01:18:32,219 –> 01:18:35,340
gave him enough to work with or not Josh Brolin. Yeah. It was just Brolin.

1270
01:18:35,340 –> 01:18:38,225
Yeah. Yeah. It was Didn’t give him enough to work with. Yep. Didn’t give him

1271
01:18:38,225 –> 01:18:41,745
nearly enough to work with. Right? Like nearly enough. That dude is an amazing

1272
01:18:41,745 –> 01:18:45,105
actor. Right? And I had forgotten who played him in the newer one. Right? Because

1273
01:18:45,105 –> 01:18:48,860
in the old movie, you know, not a big part. You know?

1274
01:18:48,860 –> 01:18:52,300
Yeah. I you coulda you coulda walked an extra on and given him a SAG

1275
01:18:52,300 –> 01:18:56,115
card, you know, in for that performance. But, you know, Brolin, I

1276
01:18:56,115 –> 01:18:59,795
was expecting a lot, and it just kinda seemed like he was, you

1277
01:18:59,795 –> 01:19:03,460
know, trying way too hard to play a half wit because there wasn’t

1278
01:19:03,460 –> 01:19:07,300
really enough to really do anything else. Tom, man,

1279
01:19:07,300 –> 01:19:11,045
you know, the other part is is, like, as a

1280
01:19:11,045 –> 01:19:14,425
culture Mhmm. We do spend a lot more time

1281
01:19:15,525 –> 01:19:18,005
on a on a hold on. Let me say this the right way. On a

1282
01:19:18,005 –> 01:19:18,825
path of education.

1283
01:19:21,980 –> 01:19:25,500
Might not be correct, might not be valid, but, you know, we we’re

1284
01:19:25,500 –> 01:19:29,074
connected a lot more to sources of knowledge, good, bad, or

1285
01:19:29,074 –> 01:19:32,594
or otherwise than people were back then. Right? So whenever Right. It’s so

1286
01:19:32,594 –> 01:19:36,320
funny, in the book when he’s lamenting and talking about how

1287
01:19:36,320 –> 01:19:40,159
nothing goes his way. Writers. The, the auctioneer does

1288
01:19:40,159 –> 01:19:43,915
the same thing. It’s so funny because Maddie in the book, you know, she keeps

1289
01:19:43,915 –> 01:19:47,455
running into these people who were just victims of uncontrollable situations.

1290
01:19:47,915 –> 01:19:51,739
Yes. And she’s such a force of nature. It creates this real

1291
01:19:51,900 –> 01:19:55,659
really interesting contrast. Right? Now Oh,

1292
01:19:55,659 –> 01:19:59,395
by the way, the original Yeah. Sorry. The original pardon me. The

1293
01:19:59,395 –> 01:20:02,435
original, Tom Chaney. I I forgot about it, and then I had to look on

1294
01:20:02,435 –> 01:20:06,179
the back. Robert Duvall. Or no. Robert Duvall with Book

1295
01:20:06,239 –> 01:20:09,860
Ned Pepper. Tom Chaney was played by

1296
01:20:11,440 –> 01:20:14,255
I think it was Strother Martin, if I remember correctly. I think that was the

1297
01:20:14,255 –> 01:20:17,375
guy who that was the guy who played it. Is. Dennis Hopper’s in that movie

1298
01:20:17,375 –> 01:20:21,110
as well. Yes. Right. Yes. When they when

1299
01:20:21,110 –> 01:20:24,550
they’re when they’re they’re, shooting the 2 guys over the soft key and all yeah.

1300
01:20:24,550 –> 01:20:28,310
Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. I’d forgotten I’d forgotten that he was in that movie, and

1301
01:20:28,310 –> 01:20:32,065
then I was watching the credits. And, I was like, Dennis Hopper? That’s crazy. Well

1302
01:20:32,145 –> 01:20:35,505
and Libby Ned Pepper was such well, anyway no. Sorry. You’re so you’re talking about

1303
01:20:35,505 –> 01:20:38,965
Josh Brolin talking about pursuing education. Mhmm.

1304
01:20:39,570 –> 01:20:43,330
I think that and and and to the larger

1305
01:20:43,330 –> 01:20:47,170
point, you know, Cogburn knows all these things. Right? He he knows all of

1306
01:20:47,170 –> 01:20:50,035
the stuff, and he knows it so well

1307
01:20:50,975 –> 01:20:54,575
that he can sleep in a bed, and both Wayne and Bridges got

1308
01:20:54,575 –> 01:20:58,280
this. He can sleep in a bed that’s broken down,

1309
01:20:58,980 –> 01:21:02,739
shoot a rat, live with a Chinese immigrant, and

1310
01:21:02,739 –> 01:21:06,375
get up and go do his stuff anyway. Now there’s this section in the

1311
01:21:06,375 –> 01:21:10,215
book which is kind of touched

1312
01:21:10,215 –> 01:21:13,975
on in the original film, and then it’s totally completely abandoned in

1313
01:21:13,975 –> 01:21:14,960
the Ethan Cohen version

1314
01:21:21,120 –> 01:21:24,845
If you put it in. And he’s, like,

1315
01:21:24,845 –> 01:21:28,685
making it up on the spot. We’ll change it to this person because, yeah, I

1316
01:21:28,685 –> 01:21:32,145
think I shot that guy once, you know, kind of thing. And and, like,

1317
01:21:32,280 –> 01:21:35,880
playing fast and loose with your expense reports, you know, is such like a it’s

1318
01:21:35,880 –> 01:21:39,480
such a sales thing. Right? Like, you know, like, like, we can

1319
01:21:39,480 –> 01:21:42,255
expense this thing and then it gets, like, snapped out the half cord, and then

1320
01:21:42,255 –> 01:21:46,015
you’re you’re trying to justify why you spent the money. Like, man, I’ve

1321
01:21:46,015 –> 01:21:49,855
I’ve I’ve been on both sides of that, honestly. Well, like, he’s out he’s

1322
01:21:49,855 –> 01:21:53,469
out in the middle of nowhere. No one from back east

1323
01:21:53,469 –> 01:21:56,989
knows. And this is the other thing. I’m I’m fascinated with the old west pipe

1324
01:21:56,989 –> 01:22:00,030
for a number of different reasons, but the one of the biggest ones is

1325
01:22:00,705 –> 01:22:03,505
and and you and I both you mentioned both you and I both live in

1326
01:22:03,505 –> 01:22:06,485
Texas. There are Texas is so big

1327
01:22:07,345 –> 01:22:11,090
that there are parts of Texas that

1328
01:22:11,090 –> 01:22:14,310
I don’t even know where the heck they are.

1329
01:22:15,330 –> 01:22:18,955
Yeah. And I live here, Much less

1330
01:22:19,335 –> 01:22:23,175
living on the East Coast, it’s another universe out

1331
01:22:23,175 –> 01:22:26,900
here. And that’s the brilliance of and I

1332
01:22:26,900 –> 01:22:30,180
always talk about well, not always, but one of the things I’ll talk about sometimes

1333
01:22:30,180 –> 01:22:34,020
around this area is manifest destiny. Manifest destiny gets crapped on a lot

1334
01:22:34,020 –> 01:22:37,264
these essays, as an excuse for colonialism, racism,

1335
01:22:38,125 –> 01:22:41,565
sexism, bigotry, patriarchy, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

1336
01:22:41,565 –> 01:22:43,105
Okay. But

1337
01:22:45,050 –> 01:22:48,830
but manifest destiny was also

1338
01:22:49,130 –> 01:22:52,915
rooster cogber making it up as he was going along and

1339
01:22:52,915 –> 01:22:56,215
ensuring that a variation of

1340
01:22:56,275 –> 01:22:59,815
civilization was allowed to continue

1341
01:23:00,675 –> 01:23:04,489
so that people like the, the guy in little house

1342
01:23:04,489 –> 01:23:07,929
on the prairie, who’s just trying to live, can actually live

1343
01:23:07,929 –> 01:23:11,535
there, can actually live there and actually like

1344
01:23:11,695 –> 01:23:15,455
make a living. Right? Now were there Indians there? Should we

1345
01:23:15,455 –> 01:23:19,135
not have taken over their land? For sure. Should we have done a better deal?

1346
01:23:19,135 –> 01:23:22,719
For sure. I’ll caveat all of that if you will

1347
01:23:22,719 –> 01:23:26,080
caveat to me that no one back east knew what the hell was going

1348
01:23:26,080 –> 01:23:29,495
on. Oh, man. Like, I have a

1349
01:23:29,495 –> 01:23:33,195
clue. I’m from Texas. The expense sheets and pay rooster.

1350
01:23:33,655 –> 01:23:37,350
Yeah. Like, I’ve lived here my entire life, and until I joined the military and

1351
01:23:37,350 –> 01:23:40,730
went to Georgia, realizing

1352
01:23:41,030 –> 01:23:44,815
just how different it is Yeah. For people on the

1353
01:23:44,815 –> 01:23:48,575
coasts. Right? Yeah. We had a we had a particularly heated

1354
01:23:48,575 –> 01:23:51,395
moment to where, a white guy

1355
01:23:52,380 –> 01:23:55,920
who’s from Seattle, Washington. Right? Very,

1356
01:23:55,980 –> 01:23:59,715
very not the south. Yeah. Says

1357
01:23:59,715 –> 01:24:03,315
to an African American fellow that he looks a little bit

1358
01:24:03,315 –> 01:24:06,375
like a monkey. And he has no idea

1359
01:24:07,180 –> 01:24:10,320
about the weight of that term because

1360
01:24:11,020 –> 01:24:14,699
he was he was just giving the guy crap. You know? He wasn’t making

1361
01:24:14,699 –> 01:24:18,445
a a bigger judgment call. But, man, I’ve never I’ve

1362
01:24:18,445 –> 01:24:22,284
never seen sides chosen so quickly, right, amongst the group of guys that

1363
01:24:22,284 –> 01:24:25,565
are all supposed to be on the same side. You know? And it’s you know,

1364
01:24:25,565 –> 01:24:28,820
he has no knowledge about that. But

1365
01:24:29,360 –> 01:24:33,040
to your point, there’s there’s cities in in in the state that we both lived

1366
01:24:33,040 –> 01:24:36,735
in that if you walk into the biggest hub of

1367
01:24:36,735 –> 01:24:40,415
commerce Mhmm. In that city, you would

1368
01:24:40,415 –> 01:24:44,140
probably be looked at just like you would have a 100

1369
01:24:44,140 –> 01:24:47,200
years ago if you’d walked into that situation in the same thing. Like,

1370
01:24:47,900 –> 01:24:51,520
it’s still there. You know? And some people

1371
01:24:51,580 –> 01:24:55,265
are choosing to create it for themselves, which is a whole other conversation. But

1372
01:24:55,585 –> 01:24:59,425
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I and and, yeah, that’s a whole other that’s that’s

1373
01:24:59,425 –> 01:25:02,260
that’s a little bit that’s a little bit beyond where we need to That’s a

1374
01:25:02,260 –> 01:25:04,599
whole other podcast, Rob. That’s a whole other episode.

1375
01:25:06,340 –> 01:25:09,745
But I think that Labeef represents

1376
01:25:09,885 –> 01:25:13,425
that civilization too. He represents that civilizing force,

1377
01:25:14,364 –> 01:25:18,079
but it’s a civilizing force. It’s cocksure and arrogant. Mhmm. Whereas

1378
01:25:18,079 –> 01:25:21,219
Rupert Cogburn is the civilizing force that knows

1379
01:25:21,920 –> 01:25:25,619
kind of like John Wayne in in the man who shot Libby Valance, another

1380
01:25:25,760 –> 01:25:29,245
great film where, you know,

1381
01:25:31,998 –> 01:25:34,285
Libby Stewart is gonna bring the law book,

1382
01:25:35,390 –> 01:25:38,990
and none of that matters in the

1383
01:25:38,990 –> 01:25:42,830
particular situation that you We used to love that. I think I think I think

1384
01:25:42,830 –> 01:25:46,655
that I think that is the nineties eighties kind of,

1385
01:25:46,655 –> 01:25:50,355
like, time period. Right? You know? And so that’s why people love

1386
01:25:50,490 –> 01:25:53,770
Clint Eastwood and John. You know? In in these kind of movies to where it’s

1387
01:25:53,770 –> 01:25:57,530
about the street smart guy telling the book smart people that they don’t really know

1388
01:25:57,530 –> 01:25:59,950
what it’s like and stuff like this. But,

1389
01:26:01,195 –> 01:26:04,574
man, you know, we it’s so easy to just look at that,

1390
01:26:04,954 –> 01:26:08,480
you know, plot device Mhmm. And be

1391
01:26:08,480 –> 01:26:10,420
like, oh, yeah. Right?

1392
01:26:12,240 –> 01:26:15,675
Some people are bad. You know? Yeah. Right. Yeah.

1393
01:26:15,974 –> 01:26:19,675
Some people need a shorter leash. Right? They don’t need

1394
01:26:19,895 –> 01:26:23,735
the the, you know, the loudspeaker Sorrells media. They don’t

1395
01:26:23,735 –> 01:26:27,389
need all of that stuff. Right. And, I like what you said

1396
01:26:27,389 –> 01:26:31,230
that, he doesn’t tweet. I appreciate that. You know, he doesn’t,

1397
01:26:31,230 –> 01:26:34,844
he doesn’t do any of these things. I think I think that’s in

1398
01:26:34,844 –> 01:26:37,565
care about any of that. Sorrells didn’t care about any of that. He cared about,

1399
01:26:37,565 –> 01:26:40,870
he just wanted to writers. He just wanted to share his stories. It like the

1400
01:26:40,950 –> 01:26:43,910
way that I talk about it now with people is like, he was fine making

1401
01:26:43,910 –> 01:26:47,750
art. Yeah. And I I’ve shifted a lot on

1402
01:26:47,750 –> 01:26:51,445
this because in the beginning I was very much kinda, why doesn’t my stuff

1403
01:26:51,445 –> 01:26:54,885
get more of a push and all this other stuff? And why why is everyone

1404
01:26:54,885 –> 01:26:57,684
holding me down and all this other stuff? Right? Part of it, I was choosing

1405
01:26:57,684 –> 01:27:00,659
to because of how I wanna talk about the work. Right? Right.

1406
01:27:02,559 –> 01:27:05,920
But, man, I I think that part of it

1407
01:27:05,920 –> 01:27:06,420
is

1408
01:27:11,264 –> 01:27:15,025
it’s tied to, like, so much of the other stuff. Right? Mhmm. How are you

1409
01:27:15,025 –> 01:27:18,560
doing that work? And is it unpopular because it’s unpopular, or is it

1410
01:27:18,560 –> 01:27:22,320
unpopular because you’re wrong? You know? Right. One of the things that I talk about

1411
01:27:22,320 –> 01:27:26,099
with people is, like, okay. If no one likes the girl you’re dating,

1412
01:27:27,135 –> 01:27:30,974
nobody. She’s probably not

1413
01:27:30,974 –> 01:27:34,630
great. Right? And you should probably but you can’t tell your friend that.

1414
01:27:34,710 –> 01:27:38,389
No. When you’re dating. Right? No. Yeah. But, like, afterward, I told you, bro.

1415
01:27:38,389 –> 01:27:41,530
Told you. Told you. Everyone tried to tell everybody. Everyone Everybody knew.

1416
01:27:42,389 –> 01:27:45,655
You’re the only one who didn’t get it. Yeah. You know? Right. Right. So there

1417
01:27:45,655 –> 01:27:48,795
is that thing of, like, are you doing are you are you are you unpopular

1418
01:27:48,855 –> 01:27:52,075
because you take unpopular stances? Are you unpopular because you’re actually, like,

1419
01:27:52,800 –> 01:27:56,099
not on the level? Well and and and Maddie,

1420
01:27:56,800 –> 01:28:00,239
to turn back to her for just a second, you know, she’s narrating this book

1421
01:28:00,239 –> 01:28:03,945
and looking back as a middle aged woman. Right. And so you would

1422
01:28:03,945 –> 01:28:07,784
think that that moralism would be softened over the

1423
01:28:07,784 –> 01:28:11,510
course of time, because that’s what we say. People get older, their, their

1424
01:28:11,510 –> 01:28:15,290
perspectives become more nuanced. They get to be a little bit more,

1425
01:28:15,349 –> 01:28:18,344
whatever, soften the edges round off. Writers.

1426
01:28:20,014 –> 01:28:23,554
But not no. No. No. Not Maddie Ross. Like The

1427
01:28:24,014 –> 01:28:27,700
She she locked in, and and she was

1428
01:28:27,700 –> 01:28:31,380
uncompromising. And the thing that we, we sort of skated around it, it skated around

1429
01:28:31,380 –> 01:28:34,760
it, and now we need to actually hit it. The thing that made her uncompromising

1430
01:28:34,980 –> 01:28:38,425
was her religion. It was her Christian Christian religion.

1431
01:28:39,765 –> 01:28:43,445
And that’s the other thing that makes this book an anachronism. And I, I

1432
01:28:43,445 –> 01:28:47,110
worry that over the court, not worry. I wonder if

1433
01:28:47,110 –> 01:28:50,950
in 50 years, anybody will remember Charles Fortis. They’ll

1434
01:28:50,950 –> 01:28:54,010
remember the movie, probably. For sure. But in the book,

1435
01:28:54,805 –> 01:28:58,325
I doubt it. I don’t think anybody’s gonna read it in 50 years if because

1436
01:28:58,325 –> 01:29:02,085
we now live in a for good, better, or or or or or for

1437
01:29:02,085 –> 01:29:04,850
good or bad, we now live in a post Christian

1438
01:29:05,550 –> 01:29:09,150
America. We do. We live in a world where the the thin

1439
01:29:09,150 –> 01:29:12,875
veneer of cultural Christianity that used to bind

1440
01:29:12,875 –> 01:29:15,375
people together, even people who didn’t believe,

1441
01:29:16,635 –> 01:29:19,800
they would at least nod to cultural Christianity. They would at least say, yeah, the

1442
01:29:19,800 –> 01:29:23,640
10 commandments, our laws are based on that. That’s cool. We’re

1443
01:29:23,640 –> 01:29:26,460
way the heck away from that now.

1444
01:29:27,000 –> 01:29:30,825
And, I think the further and further we

1445
01:29:30,825 –> 01:29:34,305
get away from that, the more and more we’re gonna struggle with meaning. We talked

1446
01:29:34,305 –> 01:29:37,139
a lot about meaning this podcast last year a lot,

1447
01:29:37,920 –> 01:29:41,300
because I firmly believe that without the Christian underpinnings,

1448
01:29:41,520 –> 01:29:45,355
because I’m I’m a partisan for Christianity, I say this at least once an episode.

1449
01:29:45,355 –> 01:29:49,135
That’s my thing. You know, that underpinning

1450
01:29:49,275 –> 01:29:53,117
for me is the

1451
01:29:53,117 –> 01:29:56,951
is the cornerstone in Western civilization. It’s the thing that if

1452
01:29:56,951 –> 01:30:00,420
you if you pull that sucker out, the whole thing the whole thing falls

1453
01:30:00,420 –> 01:30:03,925
down, because what are you going to

1454
01:30:03,925 –> 01:30:07,685
appeal to? Like, maybe it is okay for

1455
01:30:07,685 –> 01:30:10,485
me to eat my neighbor if my morality and their morale, if morality is just

1456
01:30:10,485 –> 01:30:13,770
relative, then I can just eat my neighbor. Right? Like, there’s not a problem. There’s

1457
01:30:13,770 –> 01:30:17,550
no issue there. Man, I have said I have a very polarizing

1458
01:30:17,610 –> 01:30:20,645
opinion to you on this because I am not a spiritual person at all. I

1459
01:30:20,645 –> 01:30:24,005
am not religious. Right? I spent my time doing Southern

1460
01:30:24,005 –> 01:30:27,685
Baptists and then realized that I got tired of, like, constantly

1461
01:30:27,685 –> 01:30:31,200
being sold. Right? Sure. That’s what it felt like. You know, lots of lots of

1462
01:30:31,200 –> 01:30:35,040
pressure, and don’t you want it, you know, blah blah blah. Can’t why can’t

1463
01:30:35,040 –> 01:30:38,485
you just believe? Why can’t you just sign up for Jesus today? Yeah,

1464
01:30:38,485 –> 01:30:42,085
absolutely. Right. I, I, I know a couple of really

1465
01:30:42,085 –> 01:30:45,740
cool people that I knew during this Tom. And because of

1466
01:30:45,740 –> 01:30:48,800
these interactions with them, my perception of them is colored because

1467
01:30:49,260 –> 01:30:52,540
while I’m sure they’re great people in and of themselves, it just felt like a

1468
01:30:52,540 –> 01:30:56,295
sales rush the entire time. And I don’t

1469
01:30:56,455 –> 01:31:00,235
I I hate the conversation of, like, well, if you’re not religious,

1470
01:31:00,615 –> 01:31:04,300
you don’t really have any morals. Right? Because a lot of people go there and

1471
01:31:04,300 –> 01:31:08,060
it’s, like, way too polarizing of a situation. Because I will say

1472
01:31:08,060 –> 01:31:11,235
you have I will say you don’t have any morals. I would say if you’re

1473
01:31:11,235 –> 01:31:14,855
not religious, where is your moral bed bedrock then?

1474
01:31:15,075 –> 01:31:18,755
That’s a good point. Right? And and Where’s the lie? So important distinction. Right? Like,

1475
01:31:18,755 –> 01:31:21,250
I’m not trying to say that you were saying this, but people have asked me

1476
01:31:21,250 –> 01:31:23,890
this question before. Well, John, if you’re not religious, where do your morals come from?

1477
01:31:23,890 –> 01:31:27,490
You know, the laws book know, the laws have a big part of

1478
01:31:27,490 –> 01:31:30,855
it, And now that I’m now that I’m older and I’ve done the kung fu

1479
01:31:30,855 –> 01:31:34,635
path, right, Tom to instructorship, and now, like, I try to follow stoicism

1480
01:31:34,695 –> 01:31:38,530
and, you know, like, I’ve got I have a a guide and a

1481
01:31:38,530 –> 01:31:42,290
compass. Now what’s hilarious is, like, this last week, I was talking to someone about

1482
01:31:42,290 –> 01:31:45,905
this thing on Facebook. Mhmm. And, he kind of got a little high and

1483
01:31:45,905 –> 01:31:48,625
mighty around the idea that like, Hey, if it’s not attached to God, you’re just

1484
01:31:48,625 –> 01:31:52,390
wasting your time. And it’s like, cool. We can’t have conversations anymore. At least

1485
01:31:52,390 –> 01:31:55,830
not about this. You know? He works in the same space. Right? So we can

1486
01:31:55,830 –> 01:31:59,170
refer back and forth, but, you know, after being told that Tom

1487
01:31:59,389 –> 01:32:02,845
that my work on my own philosophies doesn’t matter because it’s not attached

1488
01:32:02,845 –> 01:32:06,625
to, you know, an an idol that he sees absolutism

1489
01:32:06,765 –> 01:32:10,125
in, you know, like, why would I go back to that conversation with that

1490
01:32:10,125 –> 01:32:13,580
person ever Sure. Again in the future? Right? Because I’m not

1491
01:32:13,820 –> 01:32:17,100
I I don’t expect anyone to shift in their thinking to my way, but I

1492
01:32:17,100 –> 01:32:20,675
do expect to be treated as an adult who has some thought and some intention

1493
01:32:20,675 –> 01:32:24,355
in how I go about making my decisions. So whenever people just

1494
01:32:24,355 –> 01:32:27,800
kinda backlash with, like, well, if you just read the Bible or if you just

1495
01:32:27,800 –> 01:32:31,560
went to church, you wouldn’t have Tom it’s like, no, I would still be doing

1496
01:32:31,560 –> 01:32:34,955
this work even if I was thinking in that way because the work

1497
01:32:34,955 –> 01:32:38,795
itself is important. Now, the place that I’ve come to

1498
01:32:38,795 –> 01:32:42,335
because there for a while, I was fairly I was fairly vocal

1499
01:32:45,580 –> 01:32:48,940
about my lack of faith, if you will. And now the place that I’ve gotten

1500
01:32:48,940 –> 01:32:52,505
to is you look at the positives

1501
01:32:52,724 –> 01:32:56,425
in all of these areas, whether it’s stoicism or Christianity or Buddhism

1502
01:32:56,485 –> 01:32:59,864
or anything else like this, and you look at the negatives, and it’s alarming

1503
01:33:00,469 –> 01:33:04,230
how much they line up of being consistent. Mhmm. Now the trappings and

1504
01:33:04,230 –> 01:33:07,805
the labels and some of the practices are going to be very, very different, but

1505
01:33:07,805 –> 01:33:11,585
the structure of these things is more aligned than it’s not.

1506
01:33:11,645 –> 01:33:15,245
You know? And, I think I think if I had

1507
01:33:15,245 –> 01:33:19,080
not read all the philosophy stuff and not been in a in

1508
01:33:19,080 –> 01:33:22,760
a role that is so focused around performance and your mindset and your

1509
01:33:22,760 –> 01:33:25,980
behaviors and your attitudes around it, I think I’d be a lot more

1510
01:33:27,075 –> 01:33:30,835
probably stuck. But I’ve had I’ve had sales managers and

1511
01:33:30,835 –> 01:33:34,675
sales leaders tell me, hey. We’ve we’ve already hit our goal on that one.

1512
01:33:34,675 –> 01:33:37,160
Go tell them that we’re out so that way they’ll buy this one. I’ve had

1513
01:33:37,160 –> 01:33:40,200
I’ve had people try to get me to go lie on their behalf so that

1514
01:33:40,200 –> 01:33:43,800
way I can hit a number for them. And I and I don’t do

1515
01:33:43,800 –> 01:33:46,395
that. Right? And then it’s like, well, John, you know, you should do what I

1516
01:33:46,395 –> 01:33:50,175
tell you to know, man. Sorry. I’m not gonna compromise myself for your goals.

1517
01:33:50,635 –> 01:33:54,280
And And that’s the thing you see with Maddie Ross. Yeah. That’s the

1518
01:33:54,280 –> 01:33:57,820
thing I was getting to is her comp her uncompromisingness

1519
01:33:58,520 –> 01:34:01,875
comes from her religious bedrock. Yeah. Your uncompromisingness

1520
01:34:02,415 –> 01:34:05,315
comes from your exploration of philosophies

1521
01:34:05,855 –> 01:34:09,535
and worldviews and, you know, sort of cobbling that

1522
01:34:09,535 –> 01:34:13,310
together. And

1523
01:34:13,370 –> 01:34:15,770
we talked about this a little bit in the episode that we just did on

1524
01:34:15,770 –> 01:34:19,405
Malcolm X because Malcolm X, his

1525
01:34:19,405 –> 01:34:22,785
entire worldview came from Islam. Yep.

1526
01:34:23,885 –> 01:34:27,185
And you know, it was interesting. We, we pointed out on that episode that,

1527
01:34:27,810 –> 01:34:31,270
you know, he was converted to Islam in prison in the 1950s

1528
01:34:31,970 –> 01:34:35,350
when he was serving an 8 to 10 year bid came out,

1529
01:34:35,795 –> 01:34:39,635
started talking, hooked up with Elijah. Mohammed, struck up with the nation

1530
01:34:39,635 –> 01:34:42,966
of Islam, you know, changed his name to Malcolm X from Malcolm

1531
01:34:42,966 –> 01:34:46,719
Literature. And then during the course of time between, you know,

1532
01:34:46,719 –> 01:34:50,400
the time he got out of prison and his assassination in, in the in

1533
01:34:50,400 –> 01:34:53,835
the mid 19 sixties, he went he actually traveled to

1534
01:34:53,835 –> 01:34:57,275
Mecca and and went on the went on,

1535
01:34:57,594 –> 01:35:01,180
went on the pilgrimage. Writers? Came back and was

1536
01:35:01,180 –> 01:35:05,020
changed because he saw the differences between what they were doing

1537
01:35:05,020 –> 01:35:08,720
in Arabia, Saudi Arabia, with their version of Islam

1538
01:35:08,825 –> 01:35:12,265
and what we were doing here or what, you know, the black nationalists were doing

1539
01:35:12,265 –> 01:35:15,565
here with the nation of Islam version of Islam. And he saw the

1540
01:35:15,920 –> 01:35:18,960
the cracks in the, in the facade. In the veneer. Yeah. In the veneer. Right?

1541
01:35:18,960 –> 01:35:22,800
Absolutely. And

1542
01:35:22,800 –> 01:35:26,094
the point that we made on the podcast, and this is where I thought you

1543
01:35:26,094 –> 01:35:29,295
were going to struggle with the book the most, and this is where I think

1544
01:35:29,295 –> 01:35:32,975
most folks will struggle with the book, particularly in, again, a post Christian,

1545
01:35:32,975 –> 01:35:36,639
postmodern era. I genuinely think we’re there. I think we’ve been

1546
01:35:36,639 –> 01:35:40,260
there for a minimum 10 years, probably max 15,

1547
01:35:40,880 –> 01:35:44,585
for a whole variety of social reasons that are way too deep to get into

1548
01:35:44,585 –> 01:35:48,265
right now. Do you quantify like, how okay. You say that you say that

1549
01:35:48,265 –> 01:35:51,885
statement. Right? Yeah. And then the the person that I am. Yeah.

1550
01:35:52,620 –> 01:35:56,380
What illustrates that? Like Oh, gosh. If we if we went and we

1551
01:35:56,380 –> 01:36:00,225
tried to do a quantified analysis, would that mean that that

1552
01:36:00,225 –> 01:36:03,905
more than half of our nation is not I will give you

1553
01:36:03,985 –> 01:36:07,045
I I will actually give you a statistic here. Please. 8083,

1554
01:36:08,050 –> 01:36:10,390
folks were surveyed. I think it was about 2 or 3 years ago.

1555
01:36:11,490 –> 01:36:15,170
Only 17% of the sample survey. And I can’t remember, I can’t remember how big

1556
01:36:15,170 –> 01:36:18,775
the sample survey was, but only 17% of the survey attended church

1557
01:36:19,635 –> 01:36:22,375
more than more than once a month.

1558
01:36:23,715 –> 01:36:27,450
So 83% of that sample attends church once a month or

1559
01:36:27,450 –> 01:36:31,290
0 and still calls themselves Christian. I don’t

1560
01:36:31,290 –> 01:36:34,810
think you can you can effectively engage in that

1561
01:36:34,810 –> 01:36:35,310
space

1562
01:36:38,925 –> 01:36:42,625
without some more buttressing

1563
01:36:42,925 –> 01:36:46,610
of the belief system. Now now on the on the backside of that

1564
01:36:46,690 –> 01:36:49,090
now what wait. On the backside of that too, I’ll also say this is the

1565
01:36:49,090 –> 01:36:51,910
other data point on the backside of that. We saw this with post COVID.

1566
01:36:53,715 –> 01:36:57,475
The numbers of churches that are declining in membership, and we don’t

1567
01:36:57,475 –> 01:37:01,315
see it in Texas. So you have to go Of course. Writers. You have

1568
01:37:01,315 –> 01:37:05,060
to go outside of Texas to see this. Yeah. The

1569
01:37:05,060 –> 01:37:08,739
megachurch. Come down to Texas, guys. Right. Come down to Texas, guys. But if you

1570
01:37:08,739 –> 01:37:11,140
go on the I mean, I lived in the East Coast for I lived in

1571
01:37:11,140 –> 01:37:14,885
the East Coast Tom the northeast for 25 years. Mhmm. The number

1572
01:37:14,885 –> 01:37:18,185
of megachurches there, that concept doesn’t exist.

1573
01:37:19,525 –> 01:37:23,300
So when you say the line that you said Yeah. The the

1574
01:37:23,300 –> 01:37:27,139
bigger concern is you have people or in and if and if I’m way

1575
01:37:27,139 –> 01:37:30,820
off base, please correct me. Sure. The the major concern is you have people going

1576
01:37:30,820 –> 01:37:34,565
around saying that they’re making decisions based upon Christianity,

1577
01:37:35,105 –> 01:37:38,545
but they’re not steeped enough actually in the knowledge, the

1578
01:37:38,545 –> 01:37:42,260
values, the morals to really to really know whether or

1579
01:37:42,260 –> 01:37:45,940
not their actions would line up with that, but they’re kinda hiding. For

1580
01:37:45,940 –> 01:37:49,300
sure. So so is that the concern? That’s the

1581
01:37:49,300 –> 01:37:52,905
concern. Okay. So it’s not that so it’s not that you think that

1582
01:37:52,905 –> 01:37:56,265
people, like, need to go to church. No. I’m not saying that. If you’re gonna

1583
01:37:56,265 –> 01:37:59,350
go out and be like, hey, I’m making decisions from a biblical stance, you need

1584
01:37:59,350 –> 01:38:02,230
to be in church. Yeah. I I would think that that would be helpful. Yeah.

1585
01:38:02,230 –> 01:38:05,990
Probably. I I I mean, here’s the thing. You know, if I think

1586
01:38:05,990 –> 01:38:09,745
that would be helpful, actually. Yeah. Like, you know, we’re both martial artists,

1587
01:38:09,805 –> 01:38:13,165
and we both have, like, shifted our lanes. Right? And while I while I still

1588
01:38:13,165 –> 01:38:16,179
do my forms and everything else like this, it would be absurd for both of

1589
01:38:16,179 –> 01:38:18,099
us to sit here and be like, you know what? I’m just as good at

1590
01:38:18,099 –> 01:38:20,659
my old art as I am and, like, the stuff I’m working on now because

1591
01:38:20,659 –> 01:38:24,020
you’re not putting on the practice, you’re not putting on the work, and rest

1592
01:38:24,020 –> 01:38:27,655
accumulates on on anything. You’re not showing up at the dojo. I’m not

1593
01:38:27,655 –> 01:38:30,795
showing up at the studio to do my old art. Yep.

1594
01:38:31,895 –> 01:38:35,335
Like And if you if you’re not running forums and figuring it out and building

1595
01:38:35,335 –> 01:38:39,060
a community for yourself, those skills are decaying. Just like, you

1596
01:38:39,060 –> 01:38:42,580
know, if if if I stopped taking my own calls and setting my own meetings

1597
01:38:42,580 –> 01:38:46,144
and everything, eventually, I would become one of these people that I don’t like.

1598
01:38:46,144 –> 01:38:49,304
Writers? Exactly. Which is why I will always have a lane of either

1599
01:38:49,925 –> 01:38:52,804
setting my own meetings so I’m attached to that book, and I know how much

1600
01:38:52,804 –> 01:38:56,170
it sucks whenever it doesn’t go your way. Or, you know,

1601
01:38:56,170 –> 01:38:59,950
eventually, I will be hopefully selling at a place to where

1602
01:39:00,330 –> 01:39:03,405
my stuff has got a little bit of growth to it. You know? Like, not

1603
01:39:03,405 –> 01:39:06,605
like a household name, but, you know, one of the bigger names. But at that

1604
01:39:06,605 –> 01:39:09,265
point, what I would like to do is, you know, sell under,

1605
01:39:10,150 –> 01:39:13,989
like a, like a pen name. Right? So that way I can still come on,

1606
01:39:13,989 –> 01:39:17,815
but not there’s this one video that just drives me crazy

1607
01:39:17,815 –> 01:39:21,015
where it’s a Grant Cardone video. Right? And he walks in and someone’s on a

1608
01:39:21,015 –> 01:39:24,555
call, and Grant Cardone just he he he’s like he’s like, hey. You wanna call?

1609
01:39:25,120 –> 01:39:28,000
He just grabs it. He’s like, yeah. This is Grant. And then closes the deal.

1610
01:39:28,000 –> 01:39:31,760
And everyone’s like, yeah. It’s his name on the

1611
01:39:31,760 –> 01:39:35,554
entire sign. If he can’t close that deal, that would be the

1612
01:39:35,554 –> 01:39:39,155
problem. Right? Like like, all of this stuff around

1613
01:39:39,155 –> 01:39:42,515
authority and content and everything else like this, like, leads to a place to where

1614
01:39:42,515 –> 01:39:46,270
you’re you’re you’re you’re making it easier to be heard. You know? But by that

1615
01:39:46,270 –> 01:39:49,949
same token, Grant is Grant had that guy and

1616
01:39:49,949 –> 01:39:53,635
everyone else who’s selling on their authority and their name and their prestige absolutely

1617
01:39:53,635 –> 01:39:57,315
is as disconnected from what it actually takes to be a salesperson than in the

1618
01:39:57,315 –> 01:40:01,075
day to day as these leaders who were looking at data points all day in

1619
01:40:01,075 –> 01:40:04,700
Salesforce and HubSpot and wanting to tell the salesperson, hey. You know what? We’d really

1620
01:40:04,700 –> 01:40:07,660
like you to, like, improve your close rate a little bit, but not give him

1621
01:40:07,660 –> 01:40:11,440
any information or knowledge on how to do that. You said the word there,

1622
01:40:12,215 –> 01:40:16,055
authority. That’s the word I’ve been that’s the word I’ve

1623
01:40:16,055 –> 01:40:19,735
been I’ve been leading into. Maddie Ross takes her

1624
01:40:19,735 –> 01:40:23,440
authority from the Bible and from her biblical belief,

1625
01:40:24,140 –> 01:40:27,900
grant Cardone takes his authority from grant Cardone.

1626
01:40:27,900 –> 01:40:31,645
Although recently I heard he’s a Scientologist. I did not know that. That was an

1627
01:40:31,645 –> 01:40:35,264
interesting There’s a lot of people in the coaching space who are pushing Scientology

1628
01:40:35,485 –> 01:40:38,525
with, like, their own labels. Like, it’s it’s really common than you would think that

1629
01:40:38,525 –> 01:40:42,020
it would be. I know a I know a mega coach who it’s it’s Scientology

1630
01:40:42,320 –> 01:40:45,140
rebranded under his own stuff. Interesting.

1631
01:40:45,760 –> 01:40:49,125
Yeah. Did not know that. Thank you for that data

1632
01:40:49,125 –> 01:40:52,965
point. I’ll put that in the back of my head and chew on that

1633
01:40:52,965 –> 01:40:56,460
for a little bit. But Grant Cardone is selling off of I’m Grant

1634
01:40:56,460 –> 01:40:59,820
Cardone. Okay? That’s where he’s getting his authority

1635
01:40:59,820 –> 01:41:03,265
from. Where are we the the thing for leaders is

1636
01:41:03,345 –> 01:41:06,785
from where does your authority come? And Yeah. A guy like

1637
01:41:06,785 –> 01:41:10,545
Malcolm x spoke with moral authority in questioning the United

1638
01:41:10,545 –> 01:41:14,340
States during the civil rights struggle because he came

1639
01:41:14,340 –> 01:41:17,860
from a position of moral authority based on his

1640
01:41:17,860 –> 01:41:21,700
religion. Yep. Maddie Ross came from a position of

1641
01:41:21,700 –> 01:41:25,304
moral authority based on her religion. And by the way, as a female

1642
01:41:25,304 –> 01:41:28,985
character in literature, I rank her as up there with, like, you

1643
01:41:28,985 –> 01:41:32,480
know, Wendy and Peter Pan, Alice and Alice in Wonderland, and most particularly

1644
01:41:32,480 –> 01:41:36,240
Dorothy in the wizard of Oz. Very rarely do you have a woman. I

1645
01:41:36,240 –> 01:41:39,764
mean, think about the wizard of Oz. I love this movie because everything

1646
01:41:39,905 –> 01:41:43,205
moves in the wizard of Oz because of something Dorothy

1647
01:41:43,264 –> 01:41:46,405
does. That’s really interesting.

1648
01:41:47,400 –> 01:41:51,179
Same thing in True Grit. The forward motion of the novel

1649
01:41:52,840 –> 01:41:55,645
is because of Mattie Ross. You know,

1650
01:41:57,225 –> 01:42:00,665
not to be the sales guy in that when you’re a sales guy, everything’s a

1651
01:42:00,665 –> 01:42:03,005
sales opportunity, but, you know, most of them are.

1652
01:42:04,210 –> 01:42:07,110
As as I’m reading this book and I’m seeing her run over,

1653
01:42:07,890 –> 01:42:10,870
right, certain people. Right? Oh, yeah. And then,

1654
01:42:11,945 –> 01:42:15,565
you know, she tries to run over Rooster, and it doesn’t work.

1655
01:42:15,945 –> 01:42:19,304
Right? They they eventually become kind of collaborative in their

1656
01:42:19,304 –> 01:42:22,050
negotiations. And it’s so funny because,

1657
01:42:24,270 –> 01:42:28,110
I feel like Maddie and most of her conversations can push people around just

1658
01:42:28,110 –> 01:42:31,455
like most people can do in a b to c type sale. Right? They’re not

1659
01:42:31,455 –> 01:42:34,735
aware. They don’t do this a lot. It’s easy to manipulate them and talk them

1660
01:42:34,735 –> 01:42:37,950
into the things and force the value perceptions and stuff like that. And so then

1661
01:42:37,950 –> 01:42:41,230
you think like, oh my gosh. I can I can sell b Tom b? And

1662
01:42:41,230 –> 01:42:44,610
then you go and you meet Rooster Cogburn, and you try to move him

1663
01:42:44,885 –> 01:42:48,565
with your ideas and your agendas, and it just doesn’t work. And that’s

1664
01:42:48,565 –> 01:42:52,085
what, like, selling b Tom b is. These people are savvy. They’ve been here

1665
01:42:52,085 –> 01:42:55,850
before. They they have had more of these conversations than you have,

1666
01:42:55,910 –> 01:42:57,910
and you’re just going to show up and be like, is it a question of

1667
01:42:57,910 –> 01:43:00,870
time or value, and think it’s going to get heard well? That’s not how this

1668
01:43:00,870 –> 01:43:04,695
works. You know? They have more authority than you do

1669
01:43:04,695 –> 01:43:08,375
in those situations, and so you can’t you know, there’s a lot of talk

1670
01:43:08,375 –> 01:43:12,130
about framing and forcing authority and taking authority away and everything

1671
01:43:12,130 –> 01:43:15,650
else like this, but you fundamentally can’t put

1672
01:43:15,650 –> 01:43:19,125
authority on someone who has real authority

1673
01:43:19,585 –> 01:43:23,185
and isn’t concerned. Not only

1674
01:43:23,185 –> 01:43:26,869
that. And I’ve been selling b Tom b my entire training career.

1675
01:43:26,869 –> 01:43:30,389
All I do is sell b to b. Mhmm. I would I I mean, I’ve

1676
01:43:30,389 –> 01:43:33,750
done projects where I’ve sold b to c before, and it’s Sure. To me, it’s

1677
01:43:33,750 –> 01:43:37,535
so easy. My god. It’s it’s easy to go backward. If they

1678
01:43:37,535 –> 01:43:41,295
come to the meeting, you’re good. Oh. Right? Whereas in b Tom b,

1679
01:43:41,295 –> 01:43:44,699
like like, if you’re if if they come to the meeting, great. They got an

1680
01:43:44,699 –> 01:43:47,700
opportunity to take a break from the real actual work. It doesn’t mean they’re invested.

1681
01:43:47,700 –> 01:43:50,619
It doesn’t mean that they’re they’re aware of a problem. It doesn’t mean that they

1682
01:43:50,619 –> 01:43:53,575
see you as someone who help them or anything else like this. They just were

1683
01:43:53,575 –> 01:43:56,615
like, well, I don’t wanna do cold calls, so let’s go to the webinar. And

1684
01:43:56,615 –> 01:44:00,450
then you got some poor sales guy over there, like like, telling everyone, I got

1685
01:44:00,450 –> 01:44:04,210
one. No. You don’t. You don’t have anything. You got nothing. You got someone

1686
01:44:04,210 –> 01:44:07,330
who’s avoiding of the work and they’re coming out with you so that way you

1687
01:44:07,330 –> 01:44:10,844
can be avoiding of your prospecting. Congratulations. We’re all You got 4 more

1688
01:44:10,844 –> 01:44:14,284
meetings. That’s what you actually, no. It’s not 4 more. You got 4 months more

1689
01:44:14,284 –> 01:44:17,852
of meetings. Yes. That’s what you got. And then a and then a a disappear

1690
01:44:17,852 –> 01:44:20,670
into the ninja vanish smoke. Into into the Ninja Vantage spoke. Into the Ninja Vantage

1691
01:44:20,670 –> 01:44:24,030
spoke. I had that actually had that happen to me, like, 2 weeks ago. Disappeared

1692
01:44:24,030 –> 01:44:27,115
into the Ninja Vantage spoke. I was like, well, okay. I got 2 big noes

1693
01:44:27,115 –> 01:44:30,075
last week. Right? And I I think I think that this is an an important

1694
01:44:30,075 –> 01:44:32,955
point if you are a leaders, if you’re in a leadership shop, you have to

1695
01:44:32,955 –> 01:44:36,760
talk about that it still happens to you. Right? You know, because people are

1696
01:44:36,760 –> 01:44:39,720
like, well, John, you don’t get what it’s oh, you want to talk about how

1697
01:44:39,720 –> 01:44:42,975
I don’t get it? I can show you my DMs where, like, I I booked

1698
01:44:42,975 –> 01:44:46,495
on a wrong thing, and a guy wanted to, like, try to sue me because

1699
01:44:46,495 –> 01:44:49,775
I booked on his free discovery and not like, hey, chat with us kind of

1700
01:44:49,775 –> 01:44:52,830
thing. Like, when you when you’re rooted,

1701
01:44:53,929 –> 01:44:56,570
and this is the part that I love about the book, and I don’t think

1702
01:44:56,570 –> 01:45:00,125
anyone else is gonna get this point except for maybe you, when you are

1703
01:45:00,125 –> 01:45:03,965
rooted, everyone else moves. Yes. And if

1704
01:45:03,965 –> 01:45:07,645
you are not rooted Yes. And this is what Seneca talks about. You’re not

1705
01:45:07,645 –> 01:45:10,880
gonna find yourself in the crowd. And until you do find yourself, the crowd is

1706
01:45:10,880 –> 01:45:13,280
the last place you need to be hanging out at, and once you do find

1707
01:45:13,280 –> 01:45:15,760
yourself, you know where you know where you don’t want to be? The crowd. The

1708
01:45:15,760 –> 01:45:19,485
crowd. Right? Because you’re you’ve ruined it for everyone

1709
01:45:19,485 –> 01:45:23,005
else. You’re the poker player who’s read one book and understands all the math and

1710
01:45:23,005 –> 01:45:26,150
play, and everyone else is like, man, can you believe how lucky that guy is?

1711
01:45:26,230 –> 01:45:29,989
You’re the sales guy who who has done hundreds of thousands of calls and

1712
01:45:29,989 –> 01:45:33,750
conversations. And then whenever someone is like, well, we can meet if you’re cheaper, and

1713
01:45:33,750 –> 01:45:37,495
you realize that’s not worth going to. That’s actual practice authority

1714
01:45:37,495 –> 01:45:41,175
and knowledge and stuff like that as opposed to, you

1715
01:45:41,175 –> 01:45:44,989
know, trying to cultivate hope. Right? Right. When you’re a revenue person

1716
01:45:44,989 –> 01:45:48,770
and you’re cultivating hope, you’re just setting yourself up to fail and get fired. And

1717
01:45:49,230 –> 01:45:52,875
you have to be no nonsense. You have to be, I’m gonna push as hard

1718
01:45:52,875 –> 01:45:56,554
as I think that I need to push, and then we’ll we’ll make

1719
01:45:56,554 –> 01:46:00,239
adjustments. And I love how they do how they show that in the

1720
01:46:00,239 –> 01:46:03,599
book. Right? I think they do a better job of that in the second movie

1721
01:46:03,599 –> 01:46:07,119
than they do the first one, right, of her being thoughtful and strategic and

1722
01:46:07,119 –> 01:46:10,735
intentional and stuff like that. Because it’s not all hard talk. She’s working

1723
01:46:10,735 –> 01:46:14,415
towards a goal. She knows how much money she wants from him for this entire

1724
01:46:14,415 –> 01:46:18,260
situation, which is allowing her to have that, no.

1725
01:46:18,420 –> 01:46:22,019
My lawyer, Jane Noble Daggett, would not be happy with me accepting anything less than

1726
01:46:22,019 –> 01:46:25,824
$300. That’s right. Yeah. You know? Like, it

1727
01:46:25,905 –> 01:46:29,665
it’s that having a clear goal, being practiced, and then

1728
01:46:29,665 –> 01:46:33,480
also running wild with that authority, whether it’s

1729
01:46:33,480 –> 01:46:37,320
actually true and validated or whether, you know, the fake

1730
01:46:37,320 –> 01:46:40,535
it Tom you and make it stuff of sales and marketing and entrepreneurship, like, kind

1731
01:46:40,535 –> 01:46:43,415
of bothers me because, like, people will just lie to try to get a deal

1732
01:46:43,415 –> 01:46:47,094
and stuff like that. But on the other side of it, you do kinda have

1733
01:46:47,094 –> 01:46:50,310
to, like, drink your own Kool Aid a little bit. Right? If you’re putting yourself

1734
01:46:50,310 –> 01:46:53,350
out there and hanging a shingle, you’re you’re supposed to think you’re good enough. Right?

1735
01:46:53,350 –> 01:46:56,695
You go to a restaurant from a chef Well, and you’re supposed

1736
01:46:56,755 –> 01:47:00,275
to, you’re supposed to be able

1737
01:47:00,275 –> 01:47:03,955
to no. Not even that. I’ll frame it this way. I tell

1738
01:47:03,955 –> 01:47:07,739
young entrepreneurs, the

1739
01:47:07,739 –> 01:47:10,860
first sale I just told us to somebody last week, the first sale you have

1740
01:47:10,860 –> 01:47:14,335
to do. I don’t care if it’s B2C, B2B, whatever your business is.

1741
01:47:14,335 –> 01:47:18,114
That’s almost irrelevancy. The first sale you have to do

1742
01:47:18,255 –> 01:47:21,830
is your partner. Your, your, and you’ve, I’ve talked about this before on the podcast,

1743
01:47:21,830 –> 01:47:25,670
but your wife, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whatever situation you’ve got going

1744
01:47:25,670 –> 01:47:29,385
on, that’s the first husband, whatever. That’s the first

1745
01:47:29,385 –> 01:47:32,045
sale you’ve gotta do. If you can’t close that,

1746
01:47:33,225 –> 01:47:36,665
don’t bother with your project. Mhmm. Because the because the

1747
01:47:36,665 –> 01:47:40,320
dynamic at your house is gonna be a

1748
01:47:40,320 –> 01:47:43,920
constant distraction, and you’re

1749
01:47:43,920 –> 01:47:47,120
gonna be you you talked about this earlier. You’re going to be going to your

1750
01:47:47,120 –> 01:47:50,865
business to solve all the games that you have to play or to solve

1751
01:47:50,865 –> 01:47:54,305
all the puzzles that you have to play, and you’re gonna wind up hiding in

1752
01:47:54,305 –> 01:47:57,489
there because, you know

1753
01:47:58,510 –> 01:48:02,190
or or even worse, you’re gonna be hijacked by that business,

1754
01:48:02,190 –> 01:48:04,449
which is even worse. Yep. Now,

1755
01:48:05,935 –> 01:48:09,735
yeah, you have a $100,000,000 company, but you

1756
01:48:09,735 –> 01:48:13,450
hate it. You hate it. You hate your clients. You hate the team. Like, I

1757
01:48:13,450 –> 01:48:16,970
was talking to someone about this because he, he’s like, man, I gotta go I

1758
01:48:16,970 –> 01:48:20,335
got a great podcast out to you. I was like, great. What’s your goal? And

1759
01:48:20,335 –> 01:48:23,455
he goes, well, to make the podcast. I was like, great. Start. You don’t need

1760
01:48:23,455 –> 01:48:26,035
anything else. Start. Yep. And he was like,

1761
01:48:27,455 –> 01:48:31,070
you know? And when when you put in poker, this this is called being

1762
01:48:31,150 –> 01:48:34,910
putting someone to a decision. Mhmm. Right? And there’s an allegory in sales

1763
01:48:34,910 –> 01:48:37,950
that you need to put people to decisions. Hey. Mhmm. You don’t want this. I’m

1764
01:48:37,950 –> 01:48:41,425
leaving. That’s putting it to a decision in the form of a takeaway, you know,

1765
01:48:41,425 –> 01:48:45,265
kind of situation. And so the guy goes, well, I said, okay. What

1766
01:48:45,265 –> 01:48:48,440
happens if you make a 100 episodes and you don’t make any money? He goes,

1767
01:48:48,440 –> 01:48:52,120
that would be fine. I said, cool. Start. What are you waiting on? You know?

1768
01:48:52,120 –> 01:48:55,100
Let’s do the Jocko thing. You don’t need anything. You need conversations.

1769
01:48:55,560 –> 01:48:59,205
Go. That’s it. And he goes, well, you

1770
01:48:59,205 –> 01:49:01,925
know, as much as I’d be okay doing that, I’d still rather do the show

1771
01:49:01,925 –> 01:49:05,540
that makes a bunch of money. And I’m like, cool. Like, you’re not really clear

1772
01:49:05,540 –> 01:49:09,320
on what’s important then. Right? So so anything that,

1773
01:49:09,700 –> 01:49:13,415
you know, a shiny object syndrome that could have a little glint to it. It’s

1774
01:49:13,415 –> 01:49:16,534
gonna pull your focus from the thing because you’re not sure that it has it

1775
01:49:16,534 –> 01:49:20,375
over here. And that’s okay as long as your goals are aligned with the

1776
01:49:20,375 –> 01:49:24,060
idea that you’re not making art, because art you make for yourself and

1777
01:49:24,060 –> 01:49:27,580
the individuals that will appreciate it, you are making a business focused

1778
01:49:27,580 –> 01:49:31,280
podcast, which means your decision trees are gonna be fundamentally different.

1779
01:49:36,225 –> 01:49:39,440
Back to the book for just a moment. Yeah. Sorry. We get we get super

1780
01:49:39,440 –> 01:49:43,200
tangent. Like, we do we do conversation. I like, I’ve been I’ve been I’ve

1781
01:49:43,200 –> 01:49:46,960
been making notes. I’ve been I’ve been practicing myself of, like, making

1782
01:49:46,960 –> 01:49:50,405
sure we talked about some things because I,

1783
01:49:50,405 –> 01:49:54,165
like, I there for a while, I was trying

1784
01:49:54,165 –> 01:49:57,989
to become my version of Maddie, this person. Right? Whenever I first

1785
01:49:57,989 –> 01:50:01,450
met my sales coach and I found out who I was and started doing assessments

1786
01:50:01,590 –> 01:50:05,425
and on a path of self awareness, I realized that I do have this

1787
01:50:05,425 –> 01:50:09,185
little nurturing aspect to me. Writers? And then I decided, you know what? I’m gonna

1788
01:50:09,185 –> 01:50:13,025
murder this person so that way I can be all business, brass tacks type. You

1789
01:50:13,025 –> 01:50:16,800
know? And I spent probably 4 or 5 years trying to, like,

1790
01:50:16,800 –> 01:50:20,560
kinda destroy that side of myself in the form of

1791
01:50:20,560 –> 01:50:24,295
being more businesslike. Mhmm. And now finally, I

1792
01:50:24,295 –> 01:50:27,575
can turn and I can face that and appreciate that it does make me different.

1793
01:50:27,575 –> 01:50:31,370
It does make me, like, wanna come onto this this conversation

1794
01:50:31,370 –> 01:50:34,570
and talk about a book that no one is reading and hasn’t read for a

1795
01:50:34,570 –> 01:50:38,330
very long time during the work day because, you know, business John would be

1796
01:50:38,330 –> 01:50:41,815
like, no. More outreach, outreach, more meetings, and everything else like that.

1797
01:50:42,115 –> 01:50:45,795
So it’s I think it’s I think it’s easy when people

1798
01:50:45,795 –> 01:50:49,320
see that that Maddie character. Right? And they either turn

1799
01:50:49,320 –> 01:50:53,000
away or they turn to it. You know, it’s important to know that

1800
01:50:53,000 –> 01:50:56,735
depending upon the work that you’re doing and your pattern and precedent and

1801
01:50:56,735 –> 01:51:00,415
path, Maddie was never in a situation where she didn’t have that

1802
01:51:00,415 –> 01:51:03,775
authority. So then when it came to people who didn’t know who she was, it

1803
01:51:03,775 –> 01:51:07,550
was already there. But I like the thing that you said, you have to

1804
01:51:07,550 –> 01:51:10,190
go sell your partner on it first. I think you actually have to sell yourself

1805
01:51:10,190 –> 01:51:13,950
on it first, because if you’re if you’re not yourself sold on the fact

1806
01:51:13,950 –> 01:51:17,485
that I am enough, my opinions and my knowledge and my experience is enough for

1807
01:51:17,485 –> 01:51:21,325
you to pay me on my own merit Tom my own rate. You’re not

1808
01:51:21,325 –> 01:51:23,769
going to sell your partner on it, and you’re not gonna sell anybody else on

1809
01:51:23,769 –> 01:51:26,570
it either. It’s gonna be a lot of maybes and a whole lot of, you

1810
01:51:26,570 –> 01:51:30,409
know, smokescreens, which is what we call them in sales. No. That’s a good

1811
01:51:30,409 –> 01:51:34,255
point, and there’s a line

1812
01:51:34,255 –> 01:51:37,535
in Braveheart. Man, we’re brilliant at all the movie references today. There’s a line in

1813
01:51:37,535 –> 01:51:40,995
Braveheart where, where,

1814
01:51:42,719 –> 01:51:46,400
Oh gosh. I can’t remember the character, but it’s the old syphilitic old man. That’s

1815
01:51:46,400 –> 01:51:49,975
in the, that’s in the house, you know, I don’t

1816
01:51:49,975 –> 01:51:53,815
remember any other. Yeah. I don’t remember. It doesn’t Robert, the Bruce’s father. That’s

1817
01:51:53,815 –> 01:51:57,175
who it was. And, Robert, the Bruce is like, I want to go off with

1818
01:51:57,175 –> 01:51:59,010
basically, basically, I want to go off with the Braveheart. I wanna go off with

1819
01:51:59,010 –> 01:52:01,910
Mel Gibson because he fights and he’s uncompromising

1820
01:52:02,770 –> 01:52:06,150
and the father goes, yeah, it’s easy to admire uncompromising

1821
01:52:06,450 –> 01:52:10,014
men, but you have been passed land and title because you

1822
01:52:10,014 –> 01:52:12,835
compromise. And when I was

1823
01:52:13,534 –> 01:52:17,290
15 maybe and saw that movie, I was like, I

1824
01:52:17,290 –> 01:52:20,570
said it. I remember I said inside myself, yeah, I’m gonna go off and be

1825
01:52:20,570 –> 01:52:24,385
on compromise. I’m

1826
01:52:24,385 –> 01:52:28,184
gonna be 45 this year, kids. I guess I might as well publicly announce that.

1827
01:52:28,184 –> 01:52:30,245
I would never thought I would say that out loud.

1828
01:52:32,065 –> 01:52:35,510
And, you know, after 30 years,

1829
01:52:37,410 –> 01:52:40,710
I see Robert the Bruce’s father’s point.

1830
01:52:41,570 –> 01:52:45,364
Same. Now with that being

1831
01:52:45,364 –> 01:52:49,145
said, I believe that sometimes

1832
01:52:49,364 –> 01:52:52,770
compromise and I’ve, I’ve, I’ve said this in a couple of different podcast episodes, episodes,

1833
01:52:52,770 –> 01:52:56,449
couple of different episodes I think in America, we don’t know how to hit the

1834
01:52:56,449 –> 01:53:00,185
center of the target on much of anything politically, culturally, socially. We

1835
01:53:00,185 –> 01:53:03,705
swing wildly back and forth, and we have for numbers of years. Tom might actually

1836
01:53:03,705 –> 01:53:06,985
just be part of our national character. It seems to be such a thing with

1837
01:53:06,985 –> 01:53:10,770
us. Right? We all waffle a bit. Oh my god. We’re all over the place.

1838
01:53:11,150 –> 01:53:14,270
We wanna have it essays and both ways and up and down and side to

1839
01:53:14,270 –> 01:53:17,965
side. Mhmm. And maybe that’s because of

1840
01:53:17,965 –> 01:53:21,585
the conceit and the creed of freedom that just so runs

1841
01:53:21,645 –> 01:53:25,300
through, through our, through our, our, our national, our

1842
01:53:25,300 –> 01:53:28,760
national documents and international character. Okay.

1843
01:53:30,420 –> 01:53:33,995
Freedom to engage in hedonic pleasure, but also freedom to be accountable and responsible and

1844
01:53:43,690 –> 01:53:47,449
the, the ambush, and they meet Quincy and moon

1845
01:53:47,449 –> 01:53:50,489
and, and those kinds of guys. Right. Look. Cause, so those, those are sort of

1846
01:53:50,489 –> 01:53:54,215
that little group waiting for Ned pepper is sort of representative of,

1847
01:53:54,275 –> 01:53:57,895
I think that was Charles Portis’s dig at the 19 sixties radicals, actually.

1848
01:53:58,115 –> 01:54:00,995
Like you’re gonna be, you’re gonna be these people who are gonna like, just wait

1849
01:54:00,995 –> 01:54:04,650
and change the world. Well, like, he doesn’t like hippies. This. Yeah. No. He does

1850
01:54:04,650 –> 01:54:08,090
not like hippies. And they’re kinda and they’re kind of the hippies of that book.

1851
01:54:08,090 –> 01:54:11,875
Right? Because they’re not they’re not they’re not part of, like, normal society with,

1852
01:54:11,875 –> 01:54:15,715
like, the marshals and everything, or they’re not, like, really bad because they’re

1853
01:54:15,715 –> 01:54:19,075
because they’re still young. You know? They’ve not, like, actually turned to a life of

1854
01:54:19,075 –> 01:54:22,900
crime yet. Yet. I had not really thought about that. But, you

1855
01:54:22,900 –> 01:54:26,740
know, that really is kind of the first part in the book to where her

1856
01:54:26,740 –> 01:54:30,265
momentum in and of itself is not enough for things to make sense.

1857
01:54:30,565 –> 01:54:34,405
Right. And they are and they aren’t convinced in any kind

1858
01:54:34,405 –> 01:54:37,980
of way that her momentum has any authority

1859
01:54:38,040 –> 01:54:41,100
whatsoever. And it’s really interesting because

1860
01:54:44,744 –> 01:54:47,864
regard I’m gonna frame it this way. Regardless of what you may think of what

1861
01:54:47,864 –> 01:54:51,385
has happened over the last 4 years

1862
01:54:51,385 –> 01:54:54,830
since COVID Mhmm. One of the

1863
01:54:54,830 –> 01:54:57,570
more interesting responses by Americans,

1864
01:54:58,670 –> 01:55:02,505
and I really didn’t think I knew there were going to be,

1865
01:55:02,505 –> 01:55:04,505
I knew there was going to be a slice of America that would do this,

1866
01:55:04,505 –> 01:55:08,105
but I didn’t realize what the percentages would be. The numbers is always the

1867
01:55:08,105 –> 01:55:11,840
issue. Writers. What are the numbers? Right. I didn’t realize that there was a

1868
01:55:11,840 –> 01:55:15,600
sizable chunk of Americans who were just going to pull

1869
01:55:15,600 –> 01:55:18,400
a rooster Cogburn or a,

1870
01:55:19,775 –> 01:55:22,655
Well, no, we’ll use rooster Cogburn who we’re just gonna pull a rooster Cogburn and

1871
01:55:22,655 –> 01:55:25,775
go, those guys back east don’t know what they’re doing. We’re gonna do whatever the

1872
01:55:25,775 –> 01:55:29,580
hell we want. And I didn’t because that’s

1873
01:55:29,580 –> 01:55:33,420
that’s also part of that freedom piece. That’s part of the slice. It’s

1874
01:55:33,420 –> 01:55:37,175
all embedded in there. It’s and it comes from, honestly, we talked

1875
01:55:37,175 –> 01:55:41,015
about this last year on the podcast with the Rollo Jesan. We were talking about,

1876
01:55:42,215 –> 01:55:45,735
the, the declaration of independence and the federalist papers and the anti federalist

1877
01:55:45,735 –> 01:55:49,500
papers. So the person who was the leading Anti Federalist

1878
01:55:49,880 –> 01:55:53,720
charge was Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry didn’t

1879
01:55:53,720 –> 01:55:57,485
trust the founding fathers. He was actually invited to go to the constitutional

1880
01:55:57,485 –> 01:56:00,525
convention. This is an interesting historical thing. He was invited to go to the constitutional

1881
01:56:00,525 –> 01:56:04,364
convention by Thomas Jefferson because Thomas Jefferson couldn’t go because he was over in, over

1882
01:56:04,364 –> 01:56:07,960
in France. Mhmm. And Patrick Henry wouldn’t go because

1883
01:56:07,960 –> 01:56:09,820
he, quote, unquote, smelled a rat.

1884
01:56:12,575 –> 01:56:16,015
And by the way, that’s the anarcho libertarian strain in

1885
01:56:16,015 –> 01:56:19,775
America, and we talked about it on podcast, Rolo and I. And that’s the kind

1886
01:56:19,775 –> 01:56:23,199
of people who go up into the Kentucky mountains and you leave them

1887
01:56:23,199 –> 01:56:26,880
alone. Just leave them alone. Just leave

1888
01:56:26,880 –> 01:56:30,535
those people alone. Right? They’re they’re book crap crazy

1889
01:56:30,535 –> 01:56:34,315
sometimes. You know, their their principles don’t line up with logic or reality,

1890
01:56:34,695 –> 01:56:37,480
and they all will all fight their cousins. And God help you if you go

1891
01:56:37,480 –> 01:56:40,920
and you turn up the Sorrells or that hornet’s nest Yep. Because then they’ll all

1892
01:56:40,920 –> 01:56:44,680
turn and start fighting you. Yep. And I thought that

1893
01:56:44,680 –> 01:56:48,355
that strain around COVID had actually been

1894
01:56:48,355 –> 01:56:51,895
bred out of Americans, and I was shocked to discover

1895
01:56:52,275 –> 01:56:55,990
that it was still there. Because because to me, from my perspective,

1896
01:56:55,990 –> 01:56:59,670
from where I’m sitting, that’s been buried for a while or it’s never been it

1897
01:56:59,670 –> 01:57:02,710
hasn’t been pushed hard enough. It it wasn’t really pushed hard enough in the eighties

1898
01:57:02,710 –> 01:57:06,225
or in the nineties because everybody was getting rich. And then in the early 2000,

1899
01:57:06,225 –> 01:57:09,985
you saw a little bit of it start to show up in, ironically enough, occupy

1900
01:57:09,985 –> 01:57:13,825
Wall Street. Mhmm. That’s where it first started to show up. And then occupy

1901
01:57:13,825 –> 01:57:17,659
Wall Street gradually floated over to being the Tea Party,

1902
01:57:17,960 –> 01:57:21,340
which gradually floated over into some other things that we’re experiencing

1903
01:57:21,400 –> 01:57:25,045
politically in our culture right now. And and by the way, that’s a strain that

1904
01:57:25,045 –> 01:57:27,225
unites the anarcho libertarian

1905
01:57:27,500 –> 01:57:31,125
writers and the socialist anarchist

1906
01:57:31,125 –> 01:57:34,690
left, both share the same DNA in our country, and

1907
01:57:34,690 –> 01:57:38,150
that’s really weird for people to see. And so

1908
01:57:40,105 –> 01:57:43,724
you look at Maddie Ross and you look at her engaging with

1909
01:57:44,025 –> 01:57:47,864
the the the folks in the in the in the house, Quincy and Moon

1910
01:57:47,864 –> 01:57:51,420
and all of that, And they’re they’re it’s the

1911
01:57:51,420 –> 01:57:55,260
19 sixties version of that sort of libertarian, a narco. We’re just gonna

1912
01:57:55,260 –> 01:57:58,445
kinda do our thing, and we’re just gonna kind of ignore you. And if you

1913
01:57:58,445 –> 01:58:01,005
just go away, leave us alone. We’re gonna eat our soft key, and and you

1914
01:58:01,005 –> 01:58:04,685
can just sleep. And rooster Tom we’re gonna be fine. And rooster cawburn has

1915
01:58:04,685 –> 01:58:08,090
nothing for any of that. He’s like, no. I’m not just know.

1916
01:58:08,710 –> 01:58:12,470
Just know you gotta play. Just know. Yeah. And then Ned Pepper

1917
01:58:12,470 –> 01:58:15,735
shows up, which

1918
01:58:16,195 –> 01:58:19,635
ties into something that I said last year, which is, okay. You

1919
01:58:19,875 –> 01:58:23,255
you’re you’re basing your meaning on on external

1920
01:58:24,820 –> 01:58:28,360
authorities. That’s fine. Go ahead. Base your meaning on external authorities.

1921
01:58:28,579 –> 01:58:31,539
What are you gonna do? And we looked at this with crime and punishment, and

1922
01:58:31,539 –> 01:58:34,955
we looked at this also with the Gulag Archipelago. What are you gonna do when

1923
01:58:34,955 –> 01:58:38,415
genuine evil shows up? Because it always does eventually.

1924
01:58:38,795 –> 01:58:42,540
And, like, I think I think that they do I think they do a

1925
01:58:42,540 –> 01:58:45,980
better version of this in the Jesan movie. Yes. Mister

1926
01:58:45,980 –> 01:58:49,420
Cogburn and Ned and Lucky Ned Pepper are the same

1927
01:58:49,480 –> 01:58:53,195
Jesan, just Yes. As a a couple of different

1928
01:58:53,195 –> 01:58:56,955
coin flips and decisions gone the other way. Right. And then you

1929
01:58:56,955 –> 01:59:00,780
have Maddie who’s who’s righteous. Right? I mean, she’s almost like the person who

1930
01:59:00,780 –> 01:59:03,420
you ask, like, hey. Is it is it is it wrong to steal bread to

1931
01:59:03,420 –> 01:59:07,155
feed your family? And they’ve never been hungry before. Right? So, of course it

1932
01:59:07,155 –> 01:59:10,615
doesn’t make any sense. You’ve never, like, actually had to be put to that situation.

1933
01:59:10,675 –> 01:59:14,195
You know? So it’s this, like, philosophical knowledge that she keeps running

1934
01:59:14,195 –> 01:59:17,600
into around the whole thing. But, in the Jesan

1935
01:59:17,699 –> 01:59:21,460
book, you know, like Ned Ned is as practiced and

1936
01:59:21,460 –> 01:59:25,139
as competent as as Rooster, like that ain’t gonna fly. You got 5

1937
01:59:25,139 –> 01:59:28,155
minutes, Get out of here. And he’s like, we’re gonna need longer than 5 minutes.

1938
01:59:28,155 –> 01:59:31,435
He’s like, you better get going. And he goes, I’ll lead him astray, I think,

1939
01:59:31,435 –> 01:59:34,830
for, like, 6 hours. He’s like, nah. Nah. Nah.

1940
01:59:35,610 –> 01:59:39,130
Like, he knows where he is. He like, they’re they’re the same

1941
01:59:39,130 –> 01:59:42,515
character just Yeah. With with a black hat and a white hat.

1942
01:59:42,755 –> 01:59:46,375
Right. Right. And that and that also is part of the dynamic

1943
01:59:46,675 –> 01:59:50,370
of the, I think that’s part

1944
01:59:50,370 –> 01:59:53,890
of the dynamic of the the 19

1945
01:59:53,890 –> 01:59:57,450
sixties that’s playing underneath this Oh, interesting. Okay.

1946
01:59:57,650 –> 02:00:01,385
Underneath this, underneath this this novel and then

1947
02:00:01,385 –> 02:00:04,845
fundamentally underneath the first film, less so underneath

1948
02:00:04,905 –> 02:00:08,450
the the second film only because and this gets back to

1949
02:00:08,450 –> 02:00:11,970
my assertion about, you know, being post Christian. I think we’ve kind of

1950
02:00:11,970 –> 02:00:15,090
muddled we’ve kind of merged and muddled. And this has happened over 20 years, by

1951
02:00:15,090 –> 02:00:18,744
the way. We’ve kind of merged and muddled our meetings together, and we’ve kinda, like,

1952
02:00:18,744 –> 02:00:22,525
made it a we’ll all just be a a soup kind of thing.

1953
02:00:23,010 –> 02:00:26,770
And then when a person like Maddie shows up and says, no. We’re not

1954
02:00:26,770 –> 02:00:30,450
gonna be a soup. Now you’re the nail that’s sticking

1955
02:00:30,450 –> 02:00:32,790
up that’s gonna get hammered down. Yep.

1956
02:00:34,595 –> 02:00:37,875
And, you know, again, religion is easy place to make this, but you can also

1957
02:00:38,035 –> 02:00:41,710
honestly, you can. We’re speaking, like, well in the future. So so

1958
02:00:41,710 –> 02:00:44,510
all these things have kind of come true that you can’t just, like, go out

1959
02:00:44,510 –> 02:00:48,110
and do whatever. So, you know, we’re we’re kinda, like, speaking, like, hey. Gravity works

1960
02:00:48,110 –> 02:00:51,769
when we already know that gravity is, like, very well established. Right? But, like Sure.

1961
02:00:52,037 –> 02:00:55,574
She’s going around, right, in, like, in period, going around telling people that they need

1962
02:00:55,574 –> 02:00:59,180
to be law abiding citizens when no one around them is abiding by any laws,

1963
02:00:59,180 –> 02:01:02,940
and there’s no real pressure to do so because you’re days

1964
02:01:02,960 –> 02:01:06,675
essays away from a lawman. Right? Well, like, the the

1965
02:01:06,675 –> 02:01:09,655
speeches that the guys give who get hung.

1966
02:01:10,855 –> 02:01:13,875
Writers? At the beginning when she first shows up to a Fort Smith. Right? She

1967
02:01:13,875 –> 02:01:17,570
goes through a hanging. And they don’t have the speeches in the first movie, which

1968
02:01:17,570 –> 02:01:21,329
which I thought was, like, a huge bummer. The okay. So

1969
02:01:21,329 –> 02:01:25,145
the other part, 2 things that I wanna make sure we talk about.

1970
02:01:25,145 –> 02:01:28,505
Can we talk about the weirdness of the random hanging person in the middle of

1971
02:01:28,505 –> 02:01:31,970
the of the forest than the second one? Yes. That is that was weird

1972
02:01:31,970 –> 02:01:35,570
to me. And then, you said something else that I think is very

1973
02:01:35,570 –> 02:01:39,315
interesting. The my wife made this comment that the John

1974
02:01:39,315 –> 02:01:43,155
Wayne is kinda Disneyfied, the the movie. Right? Because,

1975
02:01:43,155 –> 02:01:46,034
like, on the exit, she’s just talking to him, and he runs off with the

1976
02:01:46,034 –> 02:01:49,780
horse and jumps the fence and everything else like this. Right? Whereas, like, in

1977
02:01:49,780 –> 02:01:53,380
the book, right, and she doesn’t lose her arm Mhmm. Either. Right. Right? No. She

1978
02:01:53,380 –> 02:01:56,760
doesn’t. Yep. I think it would be very interesting.

1979
02:01:57,665 –> 02:02:01,205
I think she is still that Jesan, much, much older

1980
02:02:01,585 –> 02:02:05,170
because of the trauma of in the in the the

1981
02:02:05,170 –> 02:02:08,930
life change of that injury. Right? And and then I’m sure

1982
02:02:08,930 –> 02:02:11,410
she carried around all, oh, yeah. You wanna make fun of me because I lost

1983
02:02:11,489 –> 02:02:14,975
you know what? I lost this arm doing. And then she’s as bad as as

1984
02:02:14,975 –> 02:02:18,495
every veteran who I’ve who I’ve ever met. I’m also a veteran, so don’t come

1985
02:02:18,495 –> 02:02:22,335
at me. Like, who wants to, like, go around wearing shirts that essays, don’t mistake

1986
02:02:22,335 –> 02:02:25,936
my kindness for weaknesses, like some sort of weird billboard that you’re tough.

1987
02:02:25,936 –> 02:02:29,360
Writers, book Lord, put it down, go find something

1988
02:02:29,360 –> 02:02:33,005
else. But like, I think, I think the Jesan book

1989
02:02:33,005 –> 02:02:36,605
does it or the, the, the second movie does a better job of kind of

1990
02:02:36,605 –> 02:02:40,410
showing that staunchness of how it plays out. But I think it plays out

1991
02:02:40,410 –> 02:02:44,090
because of the trauma of the injury and the righteousness that comes forward after after

1992
02:02:44,090 –> 02:02:46,670
a big injury like that. So I think

1993
02:02:49,115 –> 02:02:52,815
the application to leadership is this.

1994
02:02:53,275 –> 02:02:55,375
I think that

1995
02:03:01,000 –> 02:03:04,520
at a certain point, you have to

1996
02:03:04,602 –> 02:03:08,355
book, whole, right? You have to,

1997
02:03:08,355 –> 02:03:11,495
you have to bring all the disparate parts of yourself together.

1998
02:03:11,682 –> 02:03:14,614
Writers. That’s a lifetime process.

1999
02:03:15,430 –> 02:03:18,970
And one of the things that the Jesan film

2000
02:03:19,270 –> 02:03:23,110
shows and the book Tom, is the struggle that Maddie

2001
02:03:23,110 –> 02:03:26,255
had to kind of unite

2002
02:03:27,035 –> 02:03:30,715
and and and and negotiate all those pieces of her. Yep.

2003
02:03:30,715 –> 02:03:33,980
Never had her. I never married. I never had time for it.

2004
02:03:34,300 –> 02:03:37,500
Right. And how she talks about it at the end of it? Exactly. People wanted

2005
02:03:37,500 –> 02:03:41,340
my men wanted my money, and I wasn’t interested in any of that. Now, by

2006
02:03:41,340 –> 02:03:44,655
the way, you could read that through a feminist lens. Oh, you can read that

2007
02:03:44,655 –> 02:03:47,935
through a sales lens. John, we don’t talk to salespeople here. You can fill out

2008
02:03:47,935 –> 02:03:50,655
the bid, and then we’ll oh, we can’t even have a conversation about what you’re

2009
02:03:50,655 –> 02:03:54,489
really looking for. Absolutely not, John. We don’t talk to salespeople before the decision step.

2010
02:03:54,550 –> 02:03:58,310
Like, because you just wanna sell me. No. I’m trying to figure out if I

2011
02:03:58,310 –> 02:04:01,349
can actually help you or not. But when you wanna see it as a sales

2012
02:04:01,349 –> 02:04:04,855
conversation or a guy who wants to take your money, it’s going to have a

2013
02:04:04,855 –> 02:04:08,535
remarkably, like, very consistent effect, like, showing up that

2014
02:04:08,535 –> 02:04:12,120
way. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And you shouldn’t be surprised. Imposing it.

2015
02:04:12,360 –> 02:04:16,200
Yeah. You shouldn’t be surprised that it’s showing up that way. Yeah. Whereas

2016
02:04:16,200 –> 02:04:19,660
in the first movie, I I find it interesting that your wife said Disney fied.

2017
02:04:22,475 –> 02:04:26,315
I would say the thing that was missing in

2018
02:04:26,315 –> 02:04:29,150
the Cohen film is the thing that makes the original,

2019
02:04:30,730 –> 02:04:32,510
the original how Wallace production,

2020
02:04:34,250 –> 02:04:36,750
robably more

2021
02:04:37,755 –> 02:04:41,515
loved, and it’s this sense of humor. I

2022
02:04:41,515 –> 02:04:45,275
think that’s one of the big things with that with the with the Ethan Cohen

2023
02:04:45,275 –> 02:04:49,100
film. The humor was kinda drained from it, like the Roger Deacon’s photography.

2024
02:04:49,320 –> 02:04:52,655
Roger Deacon is a great cinematographer, but everything that he shoots

2025
02:04:53,054 –> 02:04:56,655
for, the Coen Writers is is drained of it’s

2026
02:04:56,655 –> 02:04:59,795
drained of color. Like, everything is drained of color. Okay.

2027
02:05:00,350 –> 02:05:03,470
And and so I think that that that sense of humor and I think that

2028
02:05:03,470 –> 02:05:06,770
that was missed, by the way, because the podcast is was writing this

2029
02:05:07,230 –> 02:05:10,335
tongue in cheek. He actually loves these people.

2030
02:05:11,275 –> 02:05:15,035
Yeah. And he wants you to laugh at them and laugh with them,

2031
02:05:15,035 –> 02:05:17,700
and he wants it to be obviously a rye. He wants there to be some

2032
02:05:17,700 –> 02:05:21,460
humor in there. You know, he kinda knows he’s kinda giving you the nudge and

2033
02:05:21,460 –> 02:05:24,660
the wink about the morality with Maddie. And, you know, he’s putting her in these

2034
02:05:24,660 –> 02:05:28,195
kinds of situations. You don’t get any of that. The, the Collins take it dead

2035
02:05:28,195 –> 02:05:31,494
serious. Whereas in the how Wallace production

2036
02:05:32,514 –> 02:05:36,230
with John Wayne, Yes. You’re too old and too fat to be

2037
02:05:36,230 –> 02:05:39,670
jumping fences. By the way, we used to say this all the time we had

2038
02:05:39,670 –> 02:05:43,365
in college. One of my college buddies, he was a

2039
02:05:43,365 –> 02:05:47,125
smoker from Tennessee and I’ve never talked about him on the podcast before, but

2040
02:05:47,125 –> 02:05:50,540
man smoked like a Reagan chimney and he loved old

2041
02:05:50,540 –> 02:05:54,219
westerns. He loved, he loved all of them. And he, I mean, he knew obscure

2042
02:05:54,261 –> 02:05:57,340
Writers that I didn’t even know about. And I thought I had like deep film

2043
02:05:57,340 –> 02:06:00,525
knowledge. And so we were talking about true grit one

2044
02:06:00,618 –> 02:06:04,365
Tom, and and we’re standing outside. This is in Northern

2045
02:06:04,365 –> 02:06:07,985
Minnesota, and it’s cold. And he’s smoking, of course, because that’s what he does.

2046
02:06:08,430 –> 02:06:12,190
And I said something to him, like something to the effect of

2047
02:06:12,190 –> 02:06:15,230
it’s guys essays around with other guys. Right? Mhmm. I said something to him, like,

2048
02:06:15,230 –> 02:06:18,614
you’re too old and too fat to be running around out here smoking.

2049
02:06:19,554 –> 02:06:23,395
And and he literally pulls the cigarette out of his mouth. He blows the cigarette

2050
02:06:23,395 –> 02:06:26,039
smoke all over the place. He goes, well, come by and see a fat old

2051
02:06:26,039 –> 02:06:29,400
man sometime. And he just walks away. That’s

2052
02:06:29,400 –> 02:06:32,920
amazing. Like, it’s so funny. Amazing. It’s so

2053
02:06:32,920 –> 02:06:36,735
funny because, I think there

2054
02:06:36,735 –> 02:06:40,575
there is this weirdness of John Wayne out of time. Right?

2055
02:06:40,575 –> 02:06:44,280
Right. He’s a he’s a big personality. He’s a big person. But, like,

2056
02:06:44,280 –> 02:06:48,119
in the movie, like, he doesn’t seem so

2057
02:06:48,119 –> 02:06:51,639
old. Like, that was how most people were back then. Right? Like, you know, like

2058
02:06:51,639 –> 02:06:55,364
like, they’re not going to the gym. You know? Like, the gym is your regular

2059
02:06:55,364 –> 02:06:59,125
chores. You know? And so If every ad in magazines was

2060
02:06:59,125 –> 02:07:02,920
either whiskey, cigarettes, or cars with big fins,

2061
02:07:02,920 –> 02:07:06,760
if you look at the magazines from, like, 1919 Yeah. 55 to, like,

2062
02:07:06,760 –> 02:07:10,425
1975, that’s it. That’s all people did in America, apparently.

2063
02:07:10,485 –> 02:07:14,325
Live live the lifestyle because, like, hey. No consequences for any of these

2064
02:07:14,325 –> 02:07:18,005
actions. You’re gonna be just fine. And David Ogilvy will write all of

2065
02:07:18,005 –> 02:07:21,130
the copy underneath all of those ants. Yes. He will.

2066
02:07:21,510 –> 02:07:25,325
Absolutely, he will. But, like, in the in the newer

2067
02:07:25,325 –> 02:07:28,865
one, I feel like they did a better job of showing bridges, like, kinda

2068
02:07:29,405 –> 02:07:32,865
later in life, kinda washed out, and stuff like that.

2069
02:07:33,170 –> 02:07:36,630
I think the book does a really better job at kinda showing in a really

2070
02:07:36,690 –> 02:07:40,530
interesting way some of the insights of his backstory about, like, talking about

2071
02:07:40,530 –> 02:07:43,745
how all the buffalo are gone, which, is a guy who really likes Buffalo and

2072
02:07:43,745 –> 02:07:47,505
has one tattooed on his arm. I was like, oh, very interesting of

2073
02:07:47,505 –> 02:07:51,170
like tying that to a place in time. But I

2074
02:07:51,170 –> 02:07:54,469
think I think Bridges does the part of looking a little bit

2075
02:07:54,610 –> 02:07:57,910
older, disheveled kind of situation. They were,

2076
02:07:58,505 –> 02:08:02,264
k, I found this out, about the same age when they were filming that.

2077
02:08:02,264 –> 02:08:05,945
Now, apparently, Reister Cogburn is supposed to be about 40, which back in that

2078
02:08:05,945 –> 02:08:09,710
time, probably 40 was was like 60. But both both

2079
02:08:09,710 –> 02:08:13,310
Bridges and John Wayne were like late fifties. I think I think Bridges was like

2080
02:08:13,310 –> 02:08:17,150
actually 60 whenever he was filming the thing. If I if I remember the

2081
02:08:17,150 –> 02:08:20,895
data correctly. Well, he looks I mean, he does. He looks

2082
02:08:21,595 –> 02:08:25,115
he looks like he’s Yeah. Whereas John Wayne John

2083
02:08:25,115 –> 02:08:28,610
Wayne’s still like like, his coats and his wardrobe and everything, you know,

2084
02:08:28,610 –> 02:08:31,330
like, like, they’re trying to make him look a little disheveled with, like, the eye

2085
02:08:31,330 –> 02:08:34,934
patch and everything, but, like Yeah. He’s wearing that crystal clean

2086
02:08:34,934 –> 02:08:38,695
brown kinda like, you could you could go down to down to

2087
02:08:38,695 –> 02:08:42,534
north side Texas. Right? Down to north side Fort Worth, like, down the street from

2088
02:08:42,534 –> 02:08:46,170
me, and you would see people in Carhartt’s that look exactly like that jacket. Exactly

2089
02:08:46,170 –> 02:08:49,310
like that jacket. Writers? So it felt very,

2090
02:08:49,930 –> 02:08:53,565
like, it felt very much like an old Writers movie that everyone

2091
02:08:53,565 –> 02:08:56,925
knows as a movie. Whereas I feel like the newer one is like, they’re trying

2092
02:08:56,925 –> 02:09:00,145
to immerse you in it. And I think they do a better job of it,

2093
02:09:00,320 –> 02:09:03,040
but that one part of them being in the middle of it and seeing that

2094
02:09:03,040 –> 02:09:06,470
person there, and then there’s, like, the the weird trapper and everything, like Mhmm.

2095
02:09:06,720 –> 02:09:09,905
That part. Now it only makes sense because of the plot device of having a

2096
02:09:09,905 –> 02:09:13,425
breakup with Libby and everything, which doesn’t happen in the book and the original movie

2097
02:09:13,425 –> 02:09:16,880
and everything. So Yep. That to me would be a very interesting

2098
02:09:16,880 –> 02:09:20,639
conversation of, like, how did you decide the

2099
02:09:20,639 –> 02:09:24,364
thinking behind the choices with the pulls essays and the and the

2100
02:09:24,364 –> 02:09:27,005
things you decided to keep the same? I think that would be a very interesting

2101
02:09:27,005 –> 02:09:30,525
conversation. Alright.

2102
02:09:30,525 –> 02:09:34,230
So, we’ve resolved nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing at nothing at

2103
02:09:34,230 –> 02:09:36,630
all. And we are we are at the end of our we are at the

2104
02:09:36,630 –> 02:09:40,230
end of our time today. So okay. I have some

2105
02:09:40,230 –> 02:09:43,324
questions for you. Can I go first? Go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead. Ask me some

2106
02:09:43,324 –> 02:09:46,125
questions. I know. I just ruined your whole format of No. It’s fine. It’s fine.

2107
02:09:46,125 –> 02:09:48,685
The format is l below. This is what this is what makes me the best

2108
02:09:48,685 –> 02:09:52,200
slash worst guest. If if you were going

2109
02:09:52,200 –> 02:09:55,960
to sit a brand new leader down and you, and you tell them,

2110
02:09:55,960 –> 02:09:58,520
Hey, this is forced material. I need you to read the book. I need you

2111
02:09:58,520 –> 02:10:02,205
to watch the movie. I need you to watch the newer movie. Mhmm. Which one

2112
02:10:02,205 –> 02:10:05,645
do you do you put that person on? And let’s take away the idea that

2113
02:10:05,645 –> 02:10:09,140
reading is a deeper comprehension level than just watching a movie. Right? Just for

2114
02:10:09,280 –> 02:10:12,560
how it does and tells the story. Which one do you think is the best

2115
02:10:12,560 –> 02:10:14,580
place for a new leader to kinda sit in?

2116
02:10:20,985 –> 02:10:24,125
Honestly, I would probably have them watch the Cohen film.

2117
02:10:24,505 –> 02:10:28,000
Same. Only but only because I

2118
02:10:28,000 –> 02:10:31,600
think a new leader in the year we’re in contact

2119
02:10:31,840 –> 02:10:35,595
context. Right? I think they’re going to resonate more with, with that

2120
02:10:36,215 –> 02:10:39,515
perception of. Of, of Maddie’s

2121
02:10:39,575 –> 02:10:43,310
moralism, the perception of, you know, having a plan

2122
02:10:43,310 –> 02:10:46,350
a kind of fail and having to fall back to a plan B. I think

2123
02:10:46,350 –> 02:10:49,090
they’re going to resonate with the idea of,

2124
02:10:52,245 –> 02:10:56,005
how do we assert moral authority and what does that actually look like? I think

2125
02:10:56,005 –> 02:10:59,650
they’re going to resonate a little bit more with, the

2126
02:10:59,650 –> 02:11:03,489
concepts of. Particularly if I tell them a little bit

2127
02:11:03,489 –> 02:11:07,304
about Podcast, not, you know, linking external success and fame

2128
02:11:07,304 –> 02:11:11,085
to the work like we’ve been talking about. I also think

2129
02:11:11,145 –> 02:11:14,445
that, they’re going to resonate with,

2130
02:11:16,070 –> 02:11:19,530
Jeff Bridges as rooster Cogburn, his bold actions there.

2131
02:11:20,230 –> 02:11:23,930
So, you know, the word grit is a word that,

2132
02:11:24,835 –> 02:11:28,675
Angela Duckworth made famous in the business world, but it

2133
02:11:28,675 –> 02:11:32,250
is a word that unfortunately due to the

2134
02:11:32,250 –> 02:11:36,030
course due to the passage of time, is now no longer

2135
02:11:36,090 –> 02:11:39,469
referenced. And I think that’s very interesting

2136
02:11:39,610 –> 02:11:43,295
because right now, what we need, and I would in

2137
02:11:43,295 –> 02:11:46,947
particularly say to male leaders, particularly young male leaders, young male

2138
02:11:46,947 –> 02:11:48,994
leaders, and by young, I mean

2139
02:11:50,820 –> 02:11:54,420
18 to 34 young male

2140
02:11:54,420 –> 02:11:56,520
leaders need a lot of grit right now.

2141
02:11:57,955 –> 02:12:01,095
And I don’t mean grit as an authoritarianism.

2142
02:12:02,035 –> 02:12:05,795
I don’t mean grit as in, as in being abusive or being over

2143
02:12:05,795 –> 02:12:09,475
weaning. I don’t mean any of that. Andrew Tate and Harvey Weinstein book

2144
02:12:09,540 –> 02:12:12,440
share the same DNA. Not talking about that.

2145
02:12:13,300 –> 02:12:17,115
I love that. I’m not talking about that. Okay. What I’m talking

2146
02:12:17,175 –> 02:12:21,015
about is the grit to take on ownership

2147
02:12:21,015 –> 02:12:24,795
and accountability for everything that is within your sphere of influence.

2148
02:12:25,040 –> 02:12:28,880
Yep. And to do it in spite of the fact that the slings

2149
02:12:28,880 –> 02:12:32,239
and arrows will come. Yeah. You’re going to get that

2150
02:12:32,239 –> 02:12:35,965
from, understanding Charles Portis’ life, understanding the

2151
02:12:35,981 –> 02:12:39,324
book, and understand and seeing the new movie kind of kind of, I think, delivers

2152
02:12:39,324 –> 02:12:42,570
that message a little bit better in a little bit better way. Yeah. But, yeah,

2153
02:12:42,570 –> 02:12:44,650
I would hit him with the new movie first, and then I’d be like, yeah.

2154
02:12:44,650 –> 02:12:47,290
You gotta go you gotta go read the book to get the whole idea here,

2155
02:12:47,290 –> 02:12:50,755
but that’s what I would do. I agree. I’ll I I think I think the

2156
02:12:50,755 –> 02:12:54,535
book I think the second movie does a really good job of just that juxtaposition

2157
02:12:55,315 –> 02:12:59,000
of, you know, everyone thinks that they can just run

2158
02:12:59,000 –> 02:13:02,440
around like Maddie, and it’s going to work. Right? And then and then if it

2159
02:13:02,679 –> 02:13:06,355
and then if it’s not working, you need to go do something else. Whereas what

2160
02:13:06,355 –> 02:13:10,115
I talk about people with is, you know, you can’t force that on

2161
02:13:10,115 –> 02:13:13,650
on anyone. Writers? You have to meet them where they are. So

2162
02:13:13,650 –> 02:13:17,409
I would pick the same movie just because I, you know, I

2163
02:13:17,409 –> 02:13:20,949
think most people need to understand that you’re gonna have

2164
02:13:21,010 –> 02:13:24,845
hard days as a leader. You’re gonna have to go say some things that aren’t

2165
02:13:24,845 –> 02:13:28,525
popular. You’re gonna have to go let some people go that you

2166
02:13:28,525 –> 02:13:32,040
potentially brought onto a team. Right? And I think I think

2167
02:13:32,040 –> 02:13:35,480
that that second movie does a really good job of showing how you have to

2168
02:13:35,480 –> 02:13:39,055
live with the actions. Right? Past it. You know, you don’t you don’t get to

2169
02:13:39,055 –> 02:13:42,175
ride off on a horse and everything is okay and there’s no lasting impact of

2170
02:13:42,175 –> 02:13:45,935
it. You know, these the everything that

2171
02:13:45,935 –> 02:13:49,310
made him great as far as, like, being the being the hero that she

2172
02:13:49,310 –> 02:13:53,150
needed leads to all of his other struggles. Right? Right. And you

2173
02:13:53,150 –> 02:13:56,385
have to as a leader, you have to know that you’re carrying both. Right. The

2174
02:13:56,385 –> 02:14:00,224
greatness that is you is also attached to the things that are going to

2175
02:14:00,224 –> 02:14:03,850
drive some people nuts and that

2176
02:14:03,850 –> 02:14:07,530
that’s how it has to be. Writers. No one is just going to lay

2177
02:14:07,530 –> 02:14:11,175
down for you all the time and people shouldn’t. Right.

2178
02:14:11,175 –> 02:14:13,975
They’re supposed to push back. You’re supposed to kind of have to give a reason

2179
02:14:13,975 –> 02:14:17,675
and a thought behind why you’re doing what you’re doing. If we’re not doing that,

2180
02:14:19,390 –> 02:14:23,230
we are tyrants. Right? We’re just expecting people to run and jump and do certain

2181
02:14:23,230 –> 02:14:26,590
things be because we said so with no contextual reasoning

2182
02:14:26,590 –> 02:14:30,075
why. Well, and and and in the world that we live in today

2183
02:14:30,715 –> 02:14:33,915
and by the way, I’d like to thank John Hill for coming on the podcast

2184
02:14:33,915 –> 02:14:37,510
today. We could have talked about this book for literally hours, and and

2185
02:14:37,510 –> 02:14:40,950
we just began to to scrape the surface. So go pick up your own copy

2186
02:14:40,950 –> 02:14:44,410
of True Grit by Charles Fortis. Watch the Cohen movie.

2187
02:14:45,035 –> 02:14:48,715
Watch even watch the the Hal Wallis, John Wayne John Wayne film.

2188
02:14:48,715 –> 02:14:51,995
Take a look at that one as well, and read up a little bit on

2189
02:14:51,995 –> 02:14:55,210
Charles Fortis and his life and the kinds of decisions that he made.

2190
02:14:56,710 –> 02:14:59,670
There’s a great scene at the end, and it’s in the close to the end

2191
02:14:59,670 –> 02:15:03,130
of the book end of the 3rd act in the Jesan film,

2192
02:15:03,845 –> 02:15:07,205
And then the back end of the 3rd act in the first film where and

2193
02:15:07,205 –> 02:15:10,485
in the book where, where John Wayne,

2194
02:15:10,885 –> 02:15:14,580
rides out against against Ned Pepper. And Ned

2195
02:15:14,580 –> 02:15:17,900
Pepper challenges him. He says, you know, I I I love this line, you know,

2196
02:15:17,900 –> 02:15:19,800
you know, 4 against 1. Right?

2197
02:15:21,935 –> 02:15:24,975
You know, what’s your intention? Do you think the 1 on 4 is a dog

2198
02:15:24,975 –> 02:15:28,255
fall? And rooster says, I need to kill you in 1 minute, Ned, or see

2199
02:15:28,255 –> 02:15:31,220
you hanged at Fort Smith at Judge Parker’s convenience. Which will you have?

2200
02:15:31,780 –> 02:15:35,620
Lucky Ned Pepper laughed. He said, I call that book talk for a one eye

2201
02:15:35,620 –> 02:15:39,220
fat man. And, of course, rooster said, fill your

2202
02:15:39,220 –> 02:15:42,125
hand, you son of a bitch. Yeah.

2203
02:15:43,864 –> 02:15:47,625
Which, you know, he gave him some options. He gave him options. It was

2204
02:15:47,625 –> 02:15:51,340
not, like, as I tell everyone, as a consultant, your job is to give people

2205
02:15:51,340 –> 02:15:54,995
options and then help them understand the weight of those options. But

2206
02:15:55,155 –> 02:15:58,115
if you’re running around as a coach or a consultant and people are like, they

2207
02:15:58,115 –> 02:16:01,875
didn’t listen to all my advice. Welcome to the party. That’s how it works. Right?

2208
02:16:01,875 –> 02:16:05,660
That’s right. And honestly, that’s your first learning lesson that

2209
02:16:05,660 –> 02:16:08,300
not everyone is gonna hear it the way that it naturally comes out of your

2210
02:16:08,300 –> 02:16:11,485
mouth, and you might need to put in some work and some effort into how

2211
02:16:11,485 –> 02:16:14,445
it needs to come out of your mouth. That way, it can be heard regularly

2212
02:16:14,445 –> 02:16:18,205
and consistently. Well, in the 4 that you are fighting against, the

2213
02:16:18,205 –> 02:16:21,679
dog fall you’re fighting against in this world is the algorithm, of

2214
02:16:21,679 –> 02:16:25,199
course. It’s social media, it’s

2215
02:16:25,199 –> 02:16:28,179
circumstances, but it’s also other people.

2216
02:16:29,695 –> 02:16:33,375
And book, we are supposed to engage with other people. I

2217
02:16:33,375 –> 02:16:37,055
fundamentally believe that in order to lead them. But we are

2218
02:16:37,055 –> 02:16:40,469
also supposed to have accountability for those exact same people.

2219
02:16:41,010 –> 02:16:44,790
We’re supposed to have accountability for what they do and for what they don’t do.

2220
02:16:45,010 –> 02:16:48,501
A non decision is still a decision. And so

2221
02:16:48,795 –> 02:16:51,434
even a sales guy. And I’m not even a sales guy. Like, like, you’re not

2222
02:16:51,434 –> 02:16:54,555
even a sales guy saying that. Like, I’m like, I’m like, oh my gosh. Are

2223
02:16:54,555 –> 02:16:58,070
you allowed to say that? Like, but that’s true. Said it out

2224
02:16:58,070 –> 02:17:01,290
loud. I’m gonna say it out loud. If they can’t make a decision,

2225
02:17:01,750 –> 02:17:05,270
that’s a problem. Right? That’s a problem. And if if you can’t figure out

2226
02:17:05,270 –> 02:17:09,096
that, a, if someone is just not decisive enough to make a decision versus

2227
02:17:09,096 –> 02:17:12,855
someone who doesn’t want to wasn’t to give you the decision that you want, you’re

2228
02:17:12,855 –> 02:17:15,340
not even on the level. Like, Like, you’re not you’re not ready to be a

2229
02:17:15,340 –> 02:17:17,659
leader. You’re not ready to be in sales. You’re not ready to do anything else,

2230
02:17:17,659 –> 02:17:20,219
and you’re definitely not ready to get on your high horse on LinkedIn and go

2231
02:17:20,219 –> 02:17:22,079
around talking about how people don’t get it.

2232
02:17:24,525 –> 02:17:27,184
The less of that from everybody out there

2233
02:17:28,365 –> 02:17:32,205
and, more of listening to the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast. Because

2234
02:17:32,205 –> 02:17:35,219
this podcast will help you

2235
02:17:35,680 –> 02:17:39,520
figure out where the dog fall actually is. So

2236
02:17:39,520 –> 02:17:42,900
once again, I’d like to thank my guests, John hill for coming on today.

2237
02:17:43,686 –> 02:17:47,125
Look, connect with him, connect with him as a, as a

2238
02:17:47,125 –> 02:17:50,820
consultant, as a consultant, connect with him on LinkedIn. We

2239
02:17:50,820 –> 02:17:54,020
will have links to all as usual, to all the places where you can get

2240
02:17:54,020 –> 02:17:57,480
ahold of him. Go buy his book. Go listen to his podcast.

2241
02:17:57,780 –> 02:18:01,334
Go hire him when you wanna figure out how to be a

2242
02:18:01,334 –> 02:18:03,594
better sales leader.

2243
02:18:05,254 –> 02:18:08,475
And with that, my name is Ehsan Sorels,

2244
02:18:09,940 –> 02:18:10,601
and we’re

2245
02:18:13,860 –> 02:18:14,360
out.