Episode 47 - Reclaiming Mind: Keep Calm and Vote on

In Episode 47, Preston and Michael talk about briefly about the upcoming election and ensuring that you seek truth and are discerning in choices for source of content and information, about how polarizing politics can be, but doesn't necessarily have to be. 

Transcript

Preston: 0:01

I haven't been on here forever. How are you doing, Michael?

Michael: 0:04

I'm doing good, man. As that's to say relative, it's always such a relative term. And good seems like sometimes watered down, but this past week has been a struggle. The sickness was real. The whole family had it. You had it last week it just makes everything take, it feels like more work and, makes me thankful that I spent the time kind of building up in advance of it to just get to the point where I had the. Energy and stored up to, to push my way through. Cause I worked the whole week. I didn't take any time off. But I worked from home and it was, it was a slog to be honest with you, it was one of the, probably like the hardest weeks I've had in a while. Just because of the energy level, prevailed and making it here. And one of the things that I'm excited about, certainly that we haven't mentioned to our listeners yet is the change of our, release date in the week to Mondays. And yeah, we just pulled a fast one on them last week and We were thinking as a team Scott, who's not here today, but but you and I had talked about briefly, giving us the weekends to get a little bit more diligent and have the time to, to edit and get some of that stuff done that we haven't been doing at the exact level we wanted to. Yeah, I'm excited about it. I think Mondays are going to be a good cadence but, yeah, it's been, so that was like the major decision related to the podcast this week, but yeah, how's it been for you coming out of the sickness?

Preston: 1:44

Yeah, it's been a it's just more been a pain in the ass if I'm like gonna be totally honest with you Cuz I don't know if I had COVID or the flu or a cold because it's like there's to me There's no point in going in getting tested because there's no exactly there's no cure for Either of them, any three of them so it's just

Michael: 2:01

like, same prescription, rest, water,

Preston: 2:04

rest, go to the doctor and whatever I do have, give it to folks in the office. And it's it's just, it's pointless to me. So it was just and my whole my wife had it, my kids both had it. And it was just It's been snowing here in Tennessee, which I know that's no big deal to y'all Minnesotans but down here, it's yeah, we get snow here, usually about once a year, and it will only last usually only last a couple hours, maybe a day, but it has been cold as balls here, like the roads are frozen. So everything's a bit of a no one has snow tires here and knows how to drive. So it's a, It's just been a weird week with even with work we been going in and delivering some stuff because they got main roads cleared out, but all the side roads are like skating rinks right now and stuff, which is. Fun, but there's

Michael: 3:02

I don't mind the cold. I don't mind the snow, but you combine it with driving in the ice and some of those types of things. Definitely not a fan, but have plenty of experience with it over the years, but I'll stay away if I can. Yeah. It's just

Preston: 3:17

not cause once the, even if you have experience and stuff, like when the roads. When it's raining and then freezing and you like have a skating rink road, it's like you, you have to have chains on your tires. And even then it's still eh, I don't know, but

Michael: 3:33

yeah, man, I, yeah, I'm looking forward to, I usually get a cold like once or twice a year that, and like you said, I wasn't sure if it was COVID or what, I'm still not at a hundred percent, but I can tell that I'm back on the way towards it. I have the energy today to go do a hard workout and some of those types of things, which is a good sign. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks and really crunched out a ton of work despite my condition, this past week. So that felt good to get a lot of stuff over the finish line and kicked off.

Preston: 4:13

Hell yeah. I got I got in the cold plunge today for the first time in over a week, which was mentally like really tough to do. Because the last time I got in, it was it's been cold here,

Michael: 4:29

but you don't break through ice, right?

Preston: 4:32

Yeah, it's like you take it just, it's never really been easy for me to do it. Like it's always like getting in is like always mentally a tough challenge for me once I'm in. I feel great. And like the next few hours, I feel even better. And it's I don't know why I make a big deal about this, but yeah, after not going in for over a week my, my pool was frozen solid. So I had to hatchet the whole thing, had to make a hole in stuff. So I spent like 20 minutes doing that. And it's that's the fun part when it's, when you got to get in and there's ice around you, like it almost levels it up to this.

Michael: 5:08

Yeah, that's a little bit more extreme. My my brother, he's out in Colorado, right? I'm going to head down there for a one day work trip, but I'm planning on swinging out his way and Conifer. And he just got the giant, more commercial type of water bucket out there. Oh, he got like a water circulator, so it doesn't freeze or

Preston: 5:35

some My pool pump is gone. Cause I've been using it all. I didn't turn it off this year. And so like the middle of my pool is not frozen. There's like a little river in the middle, but the edges, it, I guess it wasn't moving enough. And it's it's about two and a half inches thick, like around the edges. Cause it's been, really

Michael: 5:56

cold here. Yeah, definitely be careful of that. Like pump can get ruined if it's frozen.

Preston: 6:03

The pump, that's why I haven't turned it off. Cause it's I don't want it to. So it's, the water's frozen above it, but like the, suction, everything's running fine. Like I've been keeping an eye on that big time because yeah, I don't want it to break, but, and I used it, I recorded it all, put a reel up on reclaiming man. So I got some content up on our reclaiming man, Instagram today. I know we've been awesome,

Michael: 6:30

but it's coming folks. Yeah. New year, new opportunities. So episode 47 today. It's the Southern Canuck himself and myself, I don't ever really like to refer to myself as the mastermind. I like to refer to, I like to refer to the three of us combined as the mastermind. Yeah, I get what you mean. But the concept itself stands, and even with two people. I was thinking about a lot of the people who do podcasts by themselves and listening to Ed Milet stuff where he does his solo stuff and just makes me very impressed that they can put together that articulate 15, 20, even a 30 minute, or longer podcast episodes where it's just them, they don't have anybody to bounce ideas off of, or they're help guide the conversation. But episode 47, we're back on reclaiming mind. We've been trying to cycle through reclaiming mind, body, and freedom as a measure of consistency in the podcast now, and you were talking about in polo, the election this year and just the impact that it has on our mindsets. What it's been for me anyways, as we've ramped up is just this eyeopening experience into how much censorship there really is from all of these different sources of media news. And so curious to hear what your thoughts are on it. And I'm sure it doesn't need to be a. Overly long conversation, but the same time it, could be one for hours with the kind of stuff that I've been listening to lately.

Preston: 8:08

Yeah, I just, I remember, I just thought when you brought up the fact that we were going to be doing sort of a mind episode, I've just been thinking about that a lot lately because I remember the. Not so much the 2016 election that was that was definitely an interesting one. It was, it got a little more interesting after the election was done as far as like the mental aspects. But the 2021 and since then having a strong, I don't know, like just having your thoughts together and your mind clear. To be open to, I don't know, being a detective is quite the right term, but there is just so much going on in our everyday life with information that just with the internet the internet has been such a blessing to the human race, but it has, we just are not quite adapting as fast as we need to be. With it. And so you hear these terms, misinformation, disinformation, and, it's you, can, if you do any kind of digging this, the amount of censorship news networks, the White House current administration has done there's just censorship left and right on. certain topics. We can't have this conversation without it becoming political, and we're not trying to necessarily pick one side or the other. More it's about how can we as Americans just get through this with a clear head and without losing your mind, because it's going to be A very rough, in my opinion, year with all the kind of news that's going to be coming down the pike and the potential for just an absolute F show for our country because of that, I think if everyone can just sit back and have a clear head. And just take things one step at a time and just try and process everything you hear and learn about without going crazy about it. I think, I know we can get through this as a country, but I know it is definitely going to be a challenge.

Michael: 10:35

Yeah. Challenging, divisive. Divisive, yeah. It's, we come into the season of the divided States of America versus the United States of America. And. It feels more like the extremes on these different political platforms. And I'm not going to really go into any of them specifically as much as just make this general statement that the extremes of any given, political belief system, they. Are what we see the most of in news. And so it doesn't give us an accurate representation of the majority of the people, it's, so that's the real hard part you talked about just being the detective and sifting through all the information that's out there. I think the best things that we can do and that I'm going to try to not try, but I will be doing this year are watching those debates and listening to them, from really ideally that live source. So they can't be censoring it and you get to get as much of as much as you can anyways, a sense of who that person is, irrespective of whatever their publicists and campaign team is. It's putting out there and so as hard as it is, I'm going to try to, yeah, Oh, no worries. No, I'm going to be relying much more on what I witnessed personally versus what I look at on the internet and see on social media or TV or whatever those other mechanisms are that are invariably skewing it. And so I'm just, and I'm going to, I'm going to base my. Decisions purely upon what do I hear them say, and then how does that line up with or not line up with some of what we're hearing on media and not from the opposition who, run all the smear campaigns and everything of that nature. Yeah, for, yeah. And for me, it's, I just remember that it doesn't have to divide us especially when it comes to my friends and my family.

Preston: 12:58

Depends on people's stance, because I know what you mean. I don't like that. There are certain people in my life that I'm just like,

Michael: 13:07

No, you're absolutely right. I'm not saying that we can't be judicious about who we surround ourselves with. In fact, almost more, more what I'm saying is the, we've talked a lot about surrounding yourself with people who are like minded and, the reason that it does it so much good is it takes away a lot of that tension. And if you know that, Hey. From a political perspective, people are going to have this broad spectrum of, beliefs. But the people who are closest to you, ideally you have some degree of alignment if not as much as possible. So you don't find yourselves in those conversations where you get into dumb arguments about things that, I feel like you can get sucked into so easily at this time. So

Preston: 13:56

Yeah, I used to love What am I? I've been, gosh, how would I say it? It's so I'm like a Canadian who's like a musician. I've got a very Republican stepdad. And so I feel like I have this kind of been all over the place my whole life. And I've always loved talking about different ideas. Once I don't agree with once I do, because inevitably you're going to learn something, yeah. And there's always an interesting perspective and a conversation to be had. And that's what got lost in the last, yeah. 40 years. I remember when, like COVID now, you were saying earlier, but like not mentioning specific events on

preston_the southern c... _ jan 21, 2024 001_riverside: 14:41

either

Michael: 14:41

side. No, I was just saying I wasn't going to in that particular case because I feel like it could go into a 15 minute rabbit hole on each of these different beliefs that are, very strong at the end of the day. Most of them opinions. About something that we have very little influence on and by and large, not to be overly pessimistic, but you look at some of the claims of what presidential candidates have said they're going to do versus what they actually do. And yeah, there's a pretty big disparity there. So at the end of the day, to me, it's more about who they are as people and how they're going to approach the position and the challenges that they have in front of. them that we have in front of us as a country. I love having conversations about politics too. So I don't want to say when I was talking about surrounding yourself with people who are like minded, it's not so you're just like confirmation bias all saying the same things. It's more so that especially during this season, it helps alleviate some of those tensions. And to your point, there's like just people that who have such strong beliefs or opinions about something politically, that it becomes. Polarizing for them and they say, Hey, nope, I can't be, or I shouldn't be around this person because of how sometimes they can get very. Indignant about differences in opinions. And

Preston: 16:11

yeah. The thing that worries me in a sense, the most is that I remember like I was going to say like COVID, whatever COVID kind of is at the moment, the strain that came out first thing in 2020, while I do believe it was definitely blown out of proportion, like it definitely killed people. And I do remember like my wife, when she first got it in. It's like late March of 2020, early April. And we were not as healthy as we are now. And it, jacked her up. It was pretty scary. And but at the time, Trump hadn't come out and endorsed hydroxychloroquine yet. And so her doctor was able to prescribe it to her, or I had to go pick it up at a pharmacy. And, turned her around like that. I don't know if it was that, I don't know if it was just coincidence, but I remember thinking like, Oh that's just nice. Cause you know, I don't know. It was just weird. And then he comes out and endorses that. And it becomes like that sort of Trump derangement syndrome takes over. And I remember having conversation with people. That were, I was like it did like wonders for my wife. I don't know. And they're like prove it. It was just very weird where this drug became political. Like everything has become political. And it's that's the part that worries me with a candidate like Trump. That's so frustrating about him. Is that just simple conversations become these bizarre political arguments when it's hold on we're just trying to mitigate a potential new disease with something that like, yes, it's off label, but it's let's try anything that works. And instead it's Oh, fuck you. That's a Trump thing. It's like, where it just becomes such an aggressive

Michael: 18:19

Reaction, to something. And you're right. It's, unfortunate how. Many things get conflated with a political view and they have nothing really to do with politics, but a politician's talked about it So therefore it sucks it into the vortex and yeah, all of a sudden you're arguing about something and you're just like But this is at the end of the day, the last thing that we need to be doing, as a community, as a country, there's so many things that we need to, to just, as opposed to make decisions that we are different from other people, we need to start to find the intersection of what's, what are the things that we have in common instead of the things that we have that are different? Because I think that's what, the founding fathers of our country were looking at when they drafted the constitution. They're like, Hey, what are the things that we have in common here? And these are the things that we should hold hold on to. And. And unite around and work to make progress towards these ideal states, right? And, then it's become such a flip side, polarizing divisive part of our, country that we, instead of looking for those commonalities are, looking for this person believes differently than me about any one of these pivotal issues. The environment or education or abortion or you name it, right? Yeah. And I could rattle off the list, but ultimately it's it's disappointing that we've, we can't seem to rise above that Oh yeah, we're always going to have differences of opinion, but why should we focus on those when those saw progress and those don't really allow us to move forward as it. country or as humanity, whatever way you want to look at it. So I, that's where I'm just very, like you said, I'm going to be discerning in the sources of media that I consume, the amount of time that I spend on it because I'm going to vote. It's something that we have the right to do. And I feel strongly that we should do it, but I'm not going to let it from a big picture perspective. It's not going to take up any more of my time than it has the past three years. For the past 10 years, I wouldn't say I'm trying to become more politically active and that's not to say that, I'm like, not invested into it. It's just that as opposed to ramping up the amount of time and consumption for, this type of stuff and these next several months, I'm just going to keep on focusing on doing like. Just the little daily discipline stuff that we've been talking about and think keeping focused on. Hey, what are my goals? What are the family goals that we have? What are the goals that we have as reclaiming man? And you know always love to have the conversations with people about what their views are It's just I'm still at the end of the day gonna try to bring it back to what do we have in common? We're all struggling to support our, families our, dreams and aspirations.

Preston: 21:46

Yeah, I think that's, you hit on it right there. The, I just heard someone talking to her the other day about George Washington, just like why he was considered to like why he was voted and picked as the first president. And they just, at the time they thought he was the best man that could unite everybody to be on the same page. And it's yeah, that's what we are. We're lacking in every candidate right now,

Michael: 22:19

but and even the bringing it back to the beginning of the conversation about energy level. It's not to say, I believe it's impossible for our elders to maintain a level of energy to some extent into their seventies and eighties. At the same time, when you're in your seventies and eighties, I, really firmly believe, or at least want to believe that at those points in your life, the energy that you should be investing is into your, purely into your family and your relationships and your legacy. And so I can see how becoming a president in your seventies fits into the legacy component. You leave your mark on society in the world, but from an energy perspective, you're, not at the same place that somebody is in their forties or fifties, who, in my opinion, from my overall like health perspective and fitness for duty perspective. You just have a much better opportunity to get a leader who is going to be able to, really fire on all cylinders. Yeah, and I have to use the high mileage oil, right? And they have to at some point be who knows what we have a lot of cool medical technology out there that makes it easier for people to live Into their 70s 80s 90s and beyond it's just a different equation there. So it's not an ageist type of Comment as much as it is just looking at the spectrum of candidates. A lot of our candidates are older, right? Oh, yeah And

Preston: 24:06

so that's even in, in just in government in general are extremely old right now. And and even just to compare really quick, like the Biden and Trump comparison they're both, what are they about four years apart from each other? So they're not like too

Michael: 24:22

far, but yeah, all the independent candidates are in there. I think early seventies or at least the leading ones. There's a couple of younger candidates on the Republican. On both tickets, right? Like in forties and fifties for, Republicans and Democrats. I don't think that they're necessarily going to emerge as the candidates here. And that's a tough thing for me to be just learning about.

Preston: 24:54

I just think like with, Biden and Trump, like they're just Biden has just fallen off such a cliff with his health in the last, since he's become president. And then even you look at someone to me like RFK Jr, who is running as an independent, who I find very fascinating as far as where he's a very interesting man politically to me because he's an environmentalist first

Michael: 25:19

I do RFK quite a bit, but he's

Preston: 25:22

old too, like he's, I think in his late 60s or 71. Yeah. So it's they are. The age thing, it's like you can have a, like a, I guess I'll use JFK as an example because he was so young and spry, but even he had his health issues and it's like with age does come an element of like extreme wisdom because you just have so much life experience and I don't think we'd be having this age conversation. As much if, cause there are, what am I thinking of? There's like other like 80 or 90 year old people that are like, even more spry than, a Trump is, so it's, such a weird conversation to have because.

Michael: 26:08

It is, but there's just that practical component of the conversation and it's just it doesn't matter how well you try to, unfortunately the people who are in their seventies or eighties now don't have access to the same medicine, didn't have access to the same medicine that we do now coming into our forties and fifties. So the people who are in their forties and fifties right now, they have a really good opportunity to, because of science primarily and advancements in technology. They have the ability, I think, to extend what that, they're saying 120, right? What that, life expectancy looks like. And I don't think that, unfortunately folks in their 70s and 80s now, they don't have access to it. And beyond that, they don't necessarily have the mindsets at that point to say, look, I'm going to completely shift my perspective on health or some of these other things. And so they're going to. Because they've built the habits their whole lives of eating the way that they eat and whatever misconceptions they have About fitness and well being, right? I just have to imagine that You know as we look at the next generations of presidents, we're gonna Hopefully be at the point where we have that combination of wisdom, which is what we, I think okay, the advantages of, age generally should be wisdom and is one of the most important traits in a presidential candidate, arguably, and, And so you can't really get that experience as a younger candidate, but there's that sort of catch 22 of, we also always

Preston: 27:47

a president could have like his, like a 50 year old president could have as like 80 or 90 year old, that's right. Yeah. It's

Michael: 27:55

surround yourself with smart and wise. Yeah. But exactly. And that in and of itself is wisdom, but yeah, it's just, those are some of the thoughts that I had as I was coming into this conversation, because it's just hard, it's going to be hard to make that decision for me personally, but at least in some regards, I have a general leaning at this moment still towards RFK based on what he's talked about doing, but

Preston: 28:29

I think he'd be such an interesting president for our country. I, I don't, when I see what's going on with him, like nationally poll wise, he seems to be doing very well. I don't know how. Him as an independent could actually win the overall vote in any way or capacity. But I just think he, I would just, I don't know. There's something about him that I just, when I hear him talk on

Michael: 28:58

podcast. I thought Vivek Ramaswamy was pretty interesting too. I

Preston: 29:03

really did too. And he's gotten like so much shit from people and it's they're the two candidates to me that have gone on independent podcasts and talk long form. Actually, I heard Christie on a few that he was much more interesting than I'd ever really given him credit for when I heard him talk long form. But Rebecca and RfK were, when you hear them talk for over an hour, free form with people who are asking kind of questions and they can conversate. It's, I just, I wish they would do the debates more like that. I hate that they do debates in front of an audience with the time amounts that they have, like they just, I think could

Michael: 29:43

accomplish. Yeah, he basically, yeah. Vivek had basically he dropped out this past week and, formally advocated for Trump, as the next most closely aligned. From a viewpoint and everything perspective, but, either way, it's just sometimes you see like those types of people who drop out and you're I'm bummed because I was like, those are the people who are probably the more like change agent type of personality and individual who's going to really effectively lead us through. A lot of the change that we need to go through and inevitably will go through. Yeah, it'll be an interesting year nonetheless. And, I don't know what are, your thoughts and enclosing on it? I would just say that,

Preston: 30:41

Keep a clear head, don't freak out. Whatever is going to happen, good, bad, or otherwise, It's just, it's going to happen no matter what, whether that's, we have a completely fair free election and the person you like gets voted in and it's super smooth and in a year from now, we're just happy as clams or a civil war breaks out and we're nuked by Russia and China because we're vulnerable in that meantime, it's like, whatever happens, it's this is the era that we're living in. The time that we're living in, we're living in history. Everyone always is. That's weird to say, but to just not worry about it take care of your family at home, love, love your kids, your wife, your friends. And we're going to get through this humans always have. And think of it more as a really fun, adventurous time. We get that we get to live in. It's it's exciting. It's our parents I guess they hadn't Vietnam in the late 60s, 70s. That was maybe like Vietnam in the cold war, but we're like, we're in a really unique, exciting time. It's definitely fucking terrifying. Don't get me wrong. That part of it is. When I think about it too much, I freak myself out, but at the same time, like I mentioned a few seconds ago, like it's the time we're in, there's nothing we can do about it. And it's just, let's enjoy it and have these conversations and, stockpile some batteries and gasoline and bullets like that, but too late for that. I'm not going to be able to the rich guys are all doing that right now, but

Michael: 32:18

If I had, as I would build a bunker, I'm just going to say it. Yeah. If I could, I might, people might label me as an extremist, but I'm really not. I just, somebody who loves bunker, like planful,

Preston: 32:32

It'd be great to have for that just in case moment, but it would also be great. Like in the middle of summer to let's go like 30 feet underground where it's nice and cool. Oh

Michael: 32:40

my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. I would, absolutely love it. Me too. Need to buy some land from the farmer. Who's behind us because I don't really have too much more property to put said bunker. Yeah. I could get some land someplace else farther outside of the city. Who knows? Anyways, all right, let's don't, let's not go down on that rabbit hole so people think I'm a mad prepper.

Preston: 33:06

Let's I don't have a cocktail right now. I was going to say we could pour something out for Scott because he's off in the, where is he at? Granada? Granada, yeah. Granada, Salem, probably. Happened to Pina Colada right now.

Michael: 33:19

What an inspiration though, that is to me even not being there, I know he's, it's mostly work related it's work trip that he's bringing a bunch of people on to do some, connecting and relationship building, which is absolutely key for any sort of leadership. But, as he's talked about what his dreams are, his ideal states and being able to sail, it's just really cool to see him taking those types of trips and, he's sailing and it's just, it's really cool. I'm excited to hear about that trip over the next couple of weeks once he gets back. I mentioned this to you earlier, but I feel like there's. Getting to be a decent lineup of some guests that will be on the show over the coming months. And so excited to bring some new stories on for people to hear. And, yeah. I think going to get Brad Dawson back on here in the next month or so, depending on his schedule. Probably get Bobby back on and later in the year too to, chat a little bit more about how things are going in his world. But, As always, appreciate anybody that you share Reclaiming Man with. Every time I talk to other men about it, I find that there's a, great level of enthusiasm about it. Please do share it with anybody who you think could use a little bit of additional support in the form of, guidance on reclaiming mind, body, and freedom and awakening from our sleepwalk toward extinction. Heck yeah, brother.