Reclaiming Man
Episode 52 - Reclaiming Man: Brad Dawson pt 2 Let it Go, Build Character
Brad Dawson returns for a continuation of the conversation about how he is Reclaiming Freedom and shares some great insights.
All right. Welcome to episode 52 of the Reclaiming Man podcast. We got Don Miguel, also known as Michael, the mastermind Beckwith in the house. He got me, Preston, the Southern Canuck Radomski, and we have our good buddy Brad Dawson, rolling back in for round two.
Brad:Lieutenant Dangle here. Oh, that's right.
Preston:Since the last time we have talked Brad has officially earned a name in the Redneck Rodeo and become a pretty much official member of the Nashville chapter, I guess worldwide.
Brad:Yeah, and when you're new to Redneck Rodeo You got to pull your weight. So
Michael:we've been getting dangle. That's right.
Brad:I say that cause I just spent like an hour and a half doing some contracts and stuff and yeah, I'm happy about it. I'm happy about it.
Preston:Yeah, it's good stuff. So he gets the name Michael, we gave him Lieutenant dangle because he's. Since I've, since he's been in Nashville, I don't know if you had that mustache back in California, but I don't think you did. Maybe a little bit, you did for a little bit, but he's got this like hideous mustache that he thinks it's like real good looking. And he actually wears it quite well, but there's, it just reminded me of a cop of some sort. And I was thinking about naming him like chips, but I was like, no, one's going to get that reference nowadays. It's just such an old show. And I don't even think anyone's going to get that Lieutenant reference, but there's, remember that show Reno nine one one. There was
Michael:just like, there was, I remember it, but I never watched it. So that's the that's the reference maybe. Yeah.
Preston:Go look it up. He's like the
Brad:best character in the show. Yeah, for sure. Hands
Preston:down. And so he
Brad:wears cowboy boots and like little Daisy Dukes shorts. He wears like little shorts. Perfect. I'm going to, I'm going to be him now. So the quick first chance I get to dress up like him, I'm going
Preston:to next Halloween show. I was just thinking maybe tomorrow, I think you should. Why not? Of course. Let's just freak Ryan out just be like, This is how we roll, bro. And he'll be like, oh boy.
Brad:I'll just be full on Lt. Dangle back there on the kit.
Preston:That's
Michael:cooler that way. I
Preston:don't know if we talked about having Yawn again there, Lt. Dangle Brad, but Coming into this, I don't know if we necessarily, if we want to pick up on your story where we left off, or if you want to have any idea, Mike, like what we were thinking about doing, it's freeform it's Friday night for us here in Tennessee and up in Minnesota for Michael. So we're just having a Friday night hang with the guys
Michael:podcast. Yeah, we're on reclaiming freedom. This is the 52nd episode. We, on March 9th last year, released episode one. So this is coming around to the seminal moment, which really excited to have you, you back for Brad. So you're
Brad:on
Preston:our official one year anniversary podcast there, bud. Love it.
Brad:Love it. Love it.
Michael:Yeah. So yeah, really excited to just check in with you and see a little bit like, I don't know, it doesn't have to be particularly guided at reclaiming freedom, but I think there's a lot in your life that you could say you have been. On that journey of reclaiming freedom, whether it's in the past from addiction or in the current state with the dreams of what you want to do musically and professionally
Brad:I definitely have reclaimed my freedom because I have no warrants currently and I'm not.
Preston:Did you have warrants last episode?
Brad:I did not. But progress. There was a time, there was a time where I had, things looming over my head. A physical consequence if, through my behavior. But you can be in your own prison. And be free, so to speak.
Preston:Oh yeah. I heard wrote a great song about that, yeah. My own prison. Just kidding. It's Friday night, buddy. Sorry. Yeah. No, you're good, man. I know you're trying to
Brad:go deep here. Creed is my, my generation, right? That was happening full swing. We, to this day, any chance we get to play Creed songs downtown, we do it. And they're like, they're like, like Nickelback, where it's like, They don't hate on Creed though Creed gets a pass for some reason Nobody hates on Creed really, they all just only a few people Oh my god, these like dudes come up and they bro out on the Creed song. Do you
Preston:think it's because they broke up before they could You know what I mean? If Creed had not broken up and kept going, would they have been, like, right there with Nickelback battling out to who's hated the most? I
Brad:just think Nickelback got more famous. I think they were more popular. They had more hits. I think Creed was a little more under the radar. Yeah, I could see that. Everybody knows of them, but it's just Yeah. They're certainly easy to an easy target, just like Nickelback. Exactly. Exactly. But, it's just one of those things, but yeah, like the song, my own prison was a great song and I think you can be in your own prison, out walking free and maybe not even know it. Right. Yeah, like maybe not even know that you're like the victim of your own closed mindedness or blindness. And there's a lot of these guys that, guys that get arrested and become institutionalized and they actually do better in there. They're actually more free
Michael:there than they are. Interesting way to look at it. I think you're right. But, because of this,
Brad:because of the structure. And what they really need. They can't, they don't have the will or where they're at in their life. They aren't able to create structure in their lives.
Michael:And yeah, and they're like the outliers, that it's like having too much freedom, so to speak, creates lack of freedom, or they get, trapped in the certain behavior, like just. Poor decisions, basically, but I'll been there. I think we've all been there for various reasons, but there's a different level that sometimes it. They require that much structure there, otherwise they just can't make the decision themselves. Yeah.
Preston:I would say even in just the way people choose their careers like an entrepreneur versus someone maybe like me who works like at a corporate job, like I'm trying to get out of that, but it's just to, to be an extremely successful entrepreneur, it's very hard because you just have no boundaries. You have to like really have your stuff dialed in and put together where it's really easy to just go work for a corporate company. It's like I show up at 9am or whatever time do my stuff for eight hours and then I'm done. It's I see that parallels with you mentioning the prison guys, where it's just yeah, the structure of a prison, it's just they function in that, it's just tell me what to do, I do it, and we're fucking good. But when I'm left to my own vices, it's just they can't
Brad:handle it almost. Yeah, it's oh my gosh, I'm in prison, all I want to do is get out. And then they go get out, and then they catch a charge, and they're right back in. It's I thought you want it out. Yeah, that's a whole nother conversation, which could be another episode there was a speaking on that real quick though. There was a Joe Rogan episode recently of this guy that did 25 years or something. I don't know if you guys saw heard that. That was appealing to me. So I clicked on it and
Preston:it's that one. The guy who's with him, like Rogan has him on every quarter because he's like a, what is that? Program that he's affiliated with. He's a lawyer, the innocence project. It's with the innocence project.
Brad:And so I was listening to that. And yeah, he just talked about that whole way of life. I have a lot of respect for somebody that can get out and change their life because it's, it's a tough thing. And it really shouldn't be because life is, and what we talk about and you guys talk about on your podcast and all the stuff that I've, been sharing and trying to live and these principles are so Simple. They're simple. They're not easy, but they're simple. And then you think why are they not easy? Because we have this human condition. Okay why is this human condition? Why do we have this human condition where we're in constant battle with ourselves over what to do next? And so then boom, we come back to this massive imperfect action. We come back to taking action, so I don't know what you guys had talked about reclaiming freedom. What I can gather from just that statement is when you claim something or you reclaim it reclaim claiming means it's yours. You own it. You've said, this is mine. You reclaim it means you lost it at some point. Now you're having to do it again. But claiming is an action, right? It's insinuating. It's a commitment. Like it's a verbal commitment. It's a decision, right? So you're making a decision to, which isn't really any action yet. But it's a decision. They always say in AA, I might've said this last time, cause I say a lot of the same shit over and over, but. As do we all. There's three frogs on a log. Okay? One decides to jump off the log. How many frogs are left? Three. On the log. See, you guys are with it, see? Everybody goes two. And I'm like, all he did was make a decision, he didn't jump.
Preston:That's like me deciding I want to go play down in Nashville on Broadway. It's I haven't done it yet. I've played a few games, but it's I'm working on it, but it's I'm like in that phase where it's that resonates with me so much because it's just I think about it and talk about it, but it's go fucking do it, Preston.
Brad:So listen to your buddy's frog story. So I was, I wanna, I was taking some notes'cause before I do anything like this or I go to a meeting or I share or not a meeting, but if I speak or I'm on a podcast or anything like that, I try to pray a little bit before and I try to gather some thoughts and I came up with this quote. Maybe somebody has said it and I stole it and didn't know it, but I think it came from the ether, but it's our brains are our brains so easily identify with what's right. And we'll even claim that, but we struggle to see the difference when it's inconvenient.
Michael:Yeah, I'm with you on that. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about it. So face value.
Brad:So like we're a lot of talk and especially if we got, if we're, somewhat intelligent. I am guilty of this to a T because I happen to be a bit gifted with Gab and I have some charisma and I've known that these are some of my qualities that I possess and I've really used them to my benefit in life, but it's also my biggest downfall because I know that I can just skate by and in most of the time I can just wing it and then, but I know when I get home at night, I'm like, yeah. Damn, I didn't really give it all I had. I had more, I could have put in more work I could have done more. Yeah, I might have fooled everybody, but I didn't fool myself And so we're a lot of talk man like and I wanted to talk about that today was one of the points that I just was like what are we gonna talk about and It's this there's so many people now with podcasts. There's so many Self help books. My pastor is just launched another one. Craig Rochelle with life church life dot Church It's got a lot of bestselling books and, I often lean over and I look at Abby and I go, man, he, we're talking about the problem. A lot. We just don't talk about the solution a whole lot. We will talk about the solution, but there's rarely, we skip over that. It's oh, we'll just pray, or there's just never clear cut instructions of what are you going to do? And I just go what do I do? Okay, I guess I have this problem. What do I do? And so, taking action is what you do, but that's so much harder for whatever reason. But then once you do it, like you always feel great about it. And so that past experience I've built on. So when you're that guy that just got out of prison and you're trying to do the right thing, like doing the right thing is really hard for you, right? You do it one time and you may not see a result. See, that's the other thing is you don't always see a result right away, and you do a couple of good things and you're like, Oh, I did this couple of good things. And look, my life's still crap, and I'm just going to go back to selling drugs or whatever. And it's you gotta commit, you gotta stick to it. And I haven't figured this thing out by any stretch of the imagination. And dang it guys, my phone is like 20 percent battery. I didn't notice that. Do you got a charger? You want to go? I should be good for a little bit. I might have to take a pause in a minute to go grab
Michael:a truck. Yeah, no worries. Keep on rolling. But
Brad:so I think where this starts and is accountability, right? And. I think a lot of people just really struggle with accountability and it's not so much accountability as it is the humility that it takes to be accountable because we're all in fear that we're going to be judged off of that. And at some point. I was beaten down so much in my whole image and everything was already destroyed that I just didn't really have any shame. Like it was like, it was just like, that's why it was so great for me. Cause it was like a bunch of other drunks and drug addicts in a room. And it was like, no judgment here. We're all pieces of shit, so to speak. And it's Oh, cool. So it's we can all just be.
Michael:The interesting thing about that, just to interject on it, it's like what you're afraid of the most is actually, what sets you free, which is the truth. As soon as you tell somebody your truth, whether that's something that is, morally or socially reprehensible or not, as soon as you're telling the truth to other people and they're not Connecting with you as a result of it. It's that's the thing, which is so counterintuitive. I feel like about, about AA where you're there and they're like, Oh, you're judgment free. It's well, you're judgment free because you're all just being honest about the fact that, yeah we're all. Pretty flawed. We're all pretty much victim to the same circumstance in a slightly different role.
Brad:But in life, it's like you're in with all these people that you don't really know. And here, yeah, here you are. Yeah. You're making a mistake. I'll refer it back to. Playing on Broadway, like Preston's going to get there. And there's this inherent fear of making this huge mistake. So that's probably the main thing that's just like getting in the way of him, like taking this gig. And I'm pushing him. We're at the point now where like Preston's going to take a guitar. The next one he sees, I'm not so lame gig finder that he can do. He's taken it. Like I've told him, I'm like, dude, you're taking a gig. Like you better, I better see you posting on there that I'm available when I see they're looking for a guitar player on there. I better see your message under there. I'm available. But like his big fear or anybody's big fear is I'm going to make this tremendous mistake. They're all going to figure out that I'm not good enough and I'm going to be, I'm going to look bad and I'll never be hired again. And it's all this, it's all this imaginary shit, right? It's it's not, what's going to happen. What's the worst thing that can happen? You get train wreck a song for a few bars. Like you're going to figure out the chord eventually. Yeah. If anything, just stop playing, like it's just, my
Michael:point is, yeah, stop planning and grab a drink,
Brad:stop playing, get thirsty man about you, get your senses about you. Gee, okay, fuck. And then you just jump back in there. But like the point is not that it's like our perception. Of what we think this is going to happen, and we just have this and then that's where fear comes in and then fear paralyzes us from taking any action at all. So I love, man, I just, I'll never forget the massive imperfect action. I just keep saying it because it's so good. It's like imperfect is the operative word here. Action is the operative word but we want it to be perfect action, right? You're never ready. I was just watching the combine on TV, right? I was watching the NFL guys Yeah, and I watched him make a bunch of mistakes like a couple guys drop balls right there. This is their Opportunity to make it to the NFL did anyone's balls
Preston:fly out while they were running the 440 or whatever Yeah, remember that dude that one? Yeah. Yeah, that was hilarious. No, that was his whole dick. I think sorry I'm getting it
Brad:must be nice. It might it must be nice I don't know that to have some, just be blessed enough or it could actually fall
Preston:out. I think back to our pre record button, I think you're talking about like having the Red Bull can size is about optimal. It's like having it be so big that it. It falls out and you trip over it. It's I don't know if that's a good anyway. Sorry. Oh,
Brad:I can't unsee it. Cause I went and looked at the video. I did go look at the video. I, yeah.
Preston:And it's funny. He gets up and it's just got he's blushing on the field. And
Brad:yeah, you shouldn't wear those shorts, bro. Whoops. But yeah. Whoops. But yeah, these guys are on national TV and they're in front of all these NFL scouts. Just trying to do their best. And some of them are like running slow forties. And I watch football and I'm really into it. And I can tell like these guys are faster than this. This guy's got better hands than that. But they all know, but see, here's the thing. They, if you go into that, let's take zoom out real quick. If I'm a scout. I'm wanting to see them make mistakes. I know they're going to make mistakes. They're under the spotlight right now. And it's like, that's actually, it's not going to disqualify you. They talk about that all the time. Oh, I had a, they'll talk to NFL players. I had a really poor showing at the combine. So anyway, your perception is out of whack. Now you don't go in there and just be like, okay, it's all right. I can make mistakes. But you got to understand, I think the, on this, I listened to the last little bit of the podcast and Jordan Peterson, with his order and chaos and that it's not just order and chaos. It's just balance. It's like the world is hung in this balance. And when I start to understand,
Michael:that's what that yin yang thing. I was like, I wasn't even aware of that. He's Oh, the line in between these is it's basically this illustration of straddling both order and chaos. And. Yeah, an acceptable amount of chaos that helps you basically prevent your world becoming, the sort of tyrannical dictatorship where everything is so dogmatic and black and white. There's too much order that you can definitely have in your life and it was super fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned
Brad:that. If we just remember that. In every situation. First of all, we're not that important. Like in a sense I don't like to say like a lot of times I think that it's just I'm going to have such a profound impact on whatever situation it is. And I'm just not that important. I'm not putting myself down. It's just, I don't have that big of an effect on the universe that this is going to be a whole implosion of everything because I dropped the football at the combine. You know what I'm saying? So we just have to understand that. And if you look at it that way, you go, Oh. Oh, if I dropped this pass, then that means I'm going to catch one very soon because that's how the universe works. Yep. Oh, totally. So it's like, order and chaos, it's just like balance. It's you can't really have one without the other. So this idea that we're just trying to eliminate all the chaos or all the negative or all the bad feelings or all the bad situations. Is really first of all, it's impossible and you have to accept, and I have to accept that I have to accept that there's failure, but failure is not inherently bad because it goes back to what we talked about on my podcast before is like these failures are what produce. And build character because it's all about how I deal with it. But I just think we just are taught maybe somewhere or we're just you know the bible talks a lot about this innate nature Of like in romans, it just talks a lot about like we have this inner struggle, you know it's it's what's part of what makes life so beautiful though It's because we have this decision this power of choice this will you know this will to choose Between what we want to do next and I think a lot of society today just influences it's just makes it very confusing. It'll tell you one minute that you know You're not good enough when you look at Instagram and you know, you're watching the drummer That's way better than you and you're like, he's 12, And you're like, I'm gonna quit and then on the other hand you've got society Lifting up criminals, or any other situation, that you may or may not agree with gender or whatever, it's like we're. Parading around some things that may or may not be right. And then we're putting down other people because they aren't good enough. So there's just, we're getting a lot of mixed messages that aren't really what life is about. And yeah man, so the other thing I was going to talk about was I've been watching, I've gotten into F1. Formula one racing. Is anybody, either of you at all? No, I'm not.
Michael:I was going to say not, I hadn't really been into it. And then I did watch documentary slash a movie or two recently about racing. First I watched Gran Turismo, which isn't formula one. And then I watched a formula one, but either way have quite a bit of respect, more respect for the sport than I. That I did historically after watching a couple different films recently.
Brad:Yeah they're building it up and there's a big push to make this a bigger spectacle and a lot of the like it has its real British hoity toity roots, right? And so a lot of those guys just don't really I think like that. It's getting to be blown up into this big thing I
Michael:wanted it more exclusive.
Brad:Yeah, they did and but anyway, so they're building it up into this big thing But so fucking British
Preston:of them
Brad:But it all started because we Wes who plays with Michael Austin, Preston. Yo, you guys were in
Preston:Vegas when that whole thing was going on, watching it, weren't ya? Yeah
Brad:Wes loves Formula One. Of course, it's such a Wes thing. Oh, yeah, totally, yes. Wes was like, he's just such an odd kid in the sense that He never drank alcohol. And when he started drinking scotch. I know. Yeah. Like he didn't start with light beer or like wine coolers, like it was straight to Lafraig scotch.
Michael:Kindred spirit. That was totally me. Actually. Yeah. Yeah. I was just like, you know what? I'm going to bet it was McAllen for me. I was like, Oh, he's just like gallon. I'm gonna drink some classy shit.
Brad:Yeah. He's like an old soul, and then and he's into Formula One, and so he would always be watching it, I don't get it. But I came from a racing family in Indiana, and we were into IndyCar. And IndyCar to me was just so much better than Formula One. It always was. But now it's shifting, and Indy's car's struggling, and Formula One's kind of got the stage now. And then we went to Vegas and played a couple of months ago where last year, I don't even remember last year. Yeah. And it was the Vegas, we were there during the Vegas formula one race. And I like heard the cars again. It was like when I was a kid going to Indy and I had been, and then I watched the documentary and I was like, I'm freaking hooked. And what I wanted to link this back to was like, first of all, it takes a lot of mental toughness. And these guys are like competing with the, the most money in the world, the highest stakes. Lewis Hampton is the highest paid athlete in the world. By the way, if you, it's not freaking Patrick Mahomes it was, I don't know if that's the case now, but Lewis Hamilton was the highest paid athlete in the world. And I wanted to tie this into was it's because they're not American, most of them, it's an insight into like how other cultures operate and they were just, and they're just, there's just a lot more class to in like the way that they just don't get but hurt. When things don't go their way, right? It's like they're really good at just taking at his face value. Some of the Americans could probably just be like, Oh my gosh, they're so tight.
Preston:Are you talking about like British, like the way the British handle it?
Brad:Just the international, because there's all these different cultures in that. Yeah. There's some Australians, there's some French, there's some Spanish, but there's a lot of British. And yeah, you can say, Hey, they're uptight. They don't cry. They're just not very emotional.
Preston:I know what you mean. Cause I always hear about stories like with like British bands where like, when they would fight, like you hear about Pink Floyd fighting,
Brad:but yeah, man, I don't know, Formula 1 is it's just cool, man, and these guys are, the pressure, man the pressure is so intense, and it's just, I've been into it lately, and I feel like there's a lot to learn from it. There's a just something with Being, being accountable and why that's tough for us to do. I don't know. It's in our nature to
Michael:I think you're right. Honestly, that's a big part of the reason when I think about this podcast and why I feel so compelled to continue it is the more that I. Put something out there, even if it's a very limited audience, it's still out there and it's documented and it's this record of us saying, Hey, this is what we're doing and it adds a little bit more weight to what you say. And then I have people that genuinely are asking me about it. Had a guy shoot me a text message this morning and. It was just, a pretty good format for that. Yes. Lots of people out there in the world that are making these types of podcasts with varying objectives. I don't know that everybody's really trying to monetize it. I think most people aren't, I think most of them are using it as this opportunity to, to share your thoughts and truly take advantage of the freedom. So that's a good piece of,
Brad:and everybody's there's a lot of different motives you could have, but I think there's only a couple places you can go to have. These conversations that are really appropriate in society. And one of them is church. And that one can be tough because you can be limited to whatever your denomination is and whatever they're talking about. And it's always them talking. It's, you don't get a chance to really say anything. Or you do, if it's a, it's in private, but you're confined to their ideas, right? So you're not that you can't grow. And benefit from it, but, or that anybody's wrong, you're limited. And then with Alcoholics Anonymous, that's another place you can go. And I discovered, I'm like, man, if people could just experience what we get to experience in Alcoholics Anonymous, but have it not be confined to our problem as it pertains to alcohol, because that's what's also said their traditions. And, but he also, but Bill W also said in his preface to the 12 and 12, which is a book that he wrote later. That he hoped that this, that these steps would eventually help the non alcoholic and I found that so interesting because I keep on encountering people and you guys are a perfect example. You guys aren't alcoholics. My, my guys at my I was. Or you were, but that's right.
Preston:I'm probably borderline one, one. I'm sure some people
Brad:would consider me one. But what's crazy is that it's like, being an alcoholic doesn't actually have to do with how much you drank. It's what happens to you when you put alcohol in your body or how selfish and self centered you are. So ultimately you're alcoholic before you even put a drink in your mouth. You're selfish and self centered. You drive yourself absolutely crazy. Your life falls apart. You can't deal with it on your own. So you have to use a substance. So now that's the solution. So then drinking becomes the solution to your problems and it works for a while. You have, get some release, you have fun, whatever. And some people can manage that and still have a good life. But the real alcoholic person that it like takes, gets the best of them. And then the solution actually becomes worse than the problem.
Michael:Yeah. And I think the alcoholic is, it's just a child category of addict like, in comfort crisis, Michael used to. Defined addiction just as anything that you can't stop doing that has an adverse impact on your life, literally anything, whether it's, you work out so hard that you have a heart attack and you die in your forties, because you've, there's these talk of these guys who are just like, they're in peak physical shape, but they literally cannot stop pushing themselves until their bodies give out. And it's something in there. It's like you everything from the healthiest foods is like, Oh, you do a plant diet. Oh, this is going to be healthy for you. Maybe for. A minute to cleanse your body, but longterm, if you just keep it up, it's going to, you're going to deprive yourself of things that you need. It's just, there's so many of those things that, I think the alcohol and like the AA and the 12 steps that, it's something that's good that came out of something that's terrible. Sure. The 12 steps are, maybe originally intended from Bill's perspective for the alcoholic and for the addict. But at the end of the day, there's I think very few of us who aren't addicted to something, whether it's our phones, whether it's social media, whether it's porn, whether it's drugs, whether it's lying, whether it's the don't know. There's so many different things that you can be addicted to. That's just the reality. And so that's why I think what you were just saying there in the preface of the 12 by 12, just absolutely. These are. Just steps in your life where take out, take away the alcohol and it's just like everybody should take a look at these 12 steps at some point in their life. Sooner the better. And we're
Brad:at this time where we're like, everybody wants to jump on this get better, right? Okay. Yeah. Build character. I love that. I love that. Everybody wants it's like a. It's like a hot topic now, like self help and building character, but when you get into building what a great movement. Yeah. But I think a lot of people are, they're missing a big point here. And it's like, they're Hey. It's to me, it's like a meme, right? Are you a meme person? Are you one of those people that posts all these really awesome memes all the time, and, but you don't do anything? They're very attractive. Cliches are really awesome, right? Oh my gosh! And that was, like, goes back to what I said. Our brains are, they easily identify with what's right. So you put a meme up. And that attracts attention because oh, my gosh, that's so good. And then you go back to your life. The meme can't really help you. It might open your mind a little bit. Hopefully it is a segue to some massive change that you're going to make in your life, but probably not. Definitely not. Probably not going to change your life. And so it's okay, we want to change and we want to build character. So what does that actually take? Okay. So it takes some kind of action, take some sort of program, some kind of plan. The only one I found. Like church doesn't really outline any real plan for you, which I get frustrated with. It's like just coming to
Michael:bed. Do you think and this isn't meant as by any means like a negative thought, but I just do you think you've spent enough time from a biblical knowledge perspective to say that definitively? No,
Brad:and I probably haven't, but I think that's part of the problem without getting deeper on Sundays is like, you got to get into Bible study and you got to like, Get around the right people that are seeking because everything is in there. I think the answers are all but reading them and, it could be laid out in a way, maybe a little easier with a Bible plan or something,
Michael:it's interesting because I think there's a lot of stuff in there, but it's like, it requires this persistence of and habit of spending time. Studying it. I think that's my personal experience and, so much farther to go on that journey. But if you're at the point where, you're looking for some of the plan, I think it's way more simple than we think it is. And it's much more universal than. We'd like to think it is it's less about the differences and more about what we all have in common. But I think it's, I don't know, definitely there's some conversation there. But one of the things that I was thinking of when you were talking about this was like, as far as the plan or the plays or, just like the steps, right? You have the 12 step program. What's the steps for once you're done with the 12 step program, they'll say, Oh, do it again. But but Tony Robbins I'm not sure how much you've ever listened to any of his stuff, but he's got His five to thrive his principles that, there's these things that you have to change. If you want to like truly change your state, it's like you have to change your physiology, like your body. If you physically have to change, maybe it's where you are or the amount of energy, like sitting down and you're pretty low energy state. A lot of times, when you're on your phone, you're generally just like laying down or sitting down. It's so you watch something or you read something, but you're not really inclined to do something. Like you said, you're thinking about it. Oh, we're trying to do I jump off this? Yeah, I think I'm going to jump off this lily pad or jump off this log, whatever it is, but you're thinking about it. You haven't done anything. And like the next piece that he had was like where you focus, like where your focus goes is where your energy goes. So if you're focusing on like negative things in your life and focusing on the past, which a lot of us tend to do, then we're going to continue to repeat those types of experiences because we're familiar and comfortable with those types of things to your point about like convenience. Like it's just, it's not convenient to, to make the change or to do anything. And then he has like big component into the language that we use. So how we describe ourselves and how he's really careful never to say I'm a, I'm an anxious person or I'm a depressed person because as soon as you start to label yourself, even I think in the case of AA, I think that's one thing I disagree. I very rarely will say, Hey, I'm Michael. I'm an alcoholic. I say, I'm Michael, I was an alcoholic. yeah.'cause I don't wanna, and that's true. Find myself that way.
Brad:And that's why I was like saying about how being an alcoholic has nothing to do with how much you drink. The term alcoholic. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's actually means I'm human
Michael:Yeah. But then the plan, so you just, I know it took me a little bit to get here, but like the plan the steps he says you have to create a compelling future. He's like the key to change is creating a compelling future, something that's different from where you are currently. And then once you have that compelling future, so it's okay. Preston on Broadway, me, I want to be a day trader, but I also want to be a musician and I want to do them both. At my leisure, whenever I want to, without having to worry about money creating a compelling future. And so that's basically that's the reason to build skills to, bridge the gap and put in the time and the effort and work on mastery, but that's you know like ultimately what he says is the key to changing your identity and as soon as you identify as You know somebody who's a Broadway musician. It means oh, I'm doing it consistently or And in my case, I don't say I'm a day trader I say I'm a category manager and people are like, what's that? I'm like exactly yeah, it's a So it's just really interesting to think about a lot of times, like you said, the church is a great place, but I think there are people who have walked the path before us, and there's just different things that we have to do to either find mentors or see someone who's mastered what we want to do and start to learn from people who have mastered it and then, emulate people when we don't know exactly how to do something. We're just like I'm gonna try to imitate it. The people who have successfully done it and in the music world, it's crazy because there's such a different, like you said, there's a different level of pressure when you're in Nashville because everybody's skill level is at the mastery level, generally different levels of it, I would say arguably they're putting in the time. Yeah. It's
Brad:funny. I was going to tie this back to F1 because yeah, they. You think, okay, they're all at their highest level. No. Sometimes there's these rookie kids that come from F2, and they just get put in the car. And it's so hard to believe me, these kids, they're literally kids, man. They look like that one kid, in this season, looks like he's 12, and he just gets
Preston:called in. Are they coming off go
Brad:kart training and stuff like that? Go kart, and then they get into F2. To F3 and F2, but you got to be really good in F2 or whatever in F3 to get there but all of a sudden they're just called up And they're put in this new car and it's like they don't get a whole lot of time to really I mean I'm sure there's practicing and stuff that we don't see but honestly for the gist that I get is that they're not doing a lot of that. They don't want to use that car's 50 million dollars or whatever. They don't want to like These cars are seriously 50 million dollars of research and development and people put into it. And then they just put this kid in there and he's racing against Fernando Alonso, who's been like racing for 30 years, and he's like bringing Aston Martin up right now. That's like the new guy on Broadway. It's sure everyone's at a high level, but Not really it's like you're going to rise to that level quicker than you think, you're going
Michael:to yeah. And being surrounded by those people, that was what I was going to get at is once you're surrounding yourself with people who are hungry for the same things, like there's two outcomes is either going to help you. Keep on pushing to find potential that you didn't realize you had because you recognize oh This place that I thought was like a high level of accomplishment or skill for myself now I see is okay There's people that are way better than me there's people that I'm better than because everything has a hierarchy Sure, there's always a hierarchy to some extent but like I feel like we have more potential to change our status than we think we do. Most of those are like self imposed limitations. And the mistake thing is it's so liberating to be able to make mistakes because that is, from my perspective, musically, how you make music, like how you make true, spontaneous, like soul driven music. It's not by being concerned about playing the wrong note. It's about knowing that. It just can take you someplace else.
Brad:And I keep going back to Formula 1 Yeah. How many of those guys have not put one of those cars into the wall? Oh
Michael:my gosh, the same thing. Yeah, you're going to, if you're pushing yourself, you're going to make mistakes. And if you're not making mistakes, and you're not pushing yourself, Then you're
Brad:not pushing yourself. And they will, honestly I feel like they should be more pissed off at them when they crash. Yeah. But they're like, Are you okay, mate? Are you okay? And then he's he's a little less fortunate, but we'll try again next week, and it's he just destroyed like a 20 million dollar car. And it's let's just do it again next week. Yeah, they might lose their job. That's
Michael:it, man. That's the playbook. If it keeps happening, maybe you're trying to find it, find a new career.
Brad:But what I wanted to get into and segue to this is, So we're doing all this because we want to build character. At some point when I was sitting in an AA meeting, I was like, Oh, dang, like the light bulb went off. And I was like, Oh, I'm not here to just get sober. I'm here to build character. Because if I don't build character, then I can't stay sober. Because I'm going to feel like shit about myself all the time, and I'm going to be back to, coping with it however I know how, which is usually with drugs and alcohol. So it's okay, I'm building my character, how do I do that? It's not just a meme, it's not just reading about it, it's not just talking about it, it's not just listening to a podcast. That's where you take But it's what action do I take? When I started thinking about this before the podcast, I was like, man, this just sounds like the same stuff I always say, and it's not going to change much because the solution is the solution. I started thinking about how conscious and aware are you of building your character when you're. When you get off of the podcast, when you get out of the meeting, like when you go out into the street, when you go out into the world, when you interact with your wife, when you play on your gigs and you interact with people there, when you work, when you're at work, how aware are you of building character in those situations? Are you just reacting as you always do? And so then I was like, okay, there's this. mental toughness that comes in where I think there's some prayer and stuff that can help, talking about it, listening to things, yes, can help, but how aware are you? And I started going, man, that's, I think my problem is I'm, I forget that I'm building character when I'm out on the gig. I just forget that I need to be in. That mode, right? Of treating those around me of watching my tone, of watching my selfishness and my fear in situations. When it comes to songs or when it comes to another person in the industry who is saying some shit about you. Like, how do I not react negatively and do what my instinct instincts tell me to do, which is fight this guy or whatever. Yeah. Like how tough are you mentally? And where does that, I'd like to be interested in hear from you guys. Like, where do you get that power from when you're trying to change your life and you're trying to reclaim your freedom or anything, and you're trying to grow and build character, where does that power come from to make? To make a different decision in a situation that you've been in multiple times, that you've made the wrong one before, like you were sensitive and you felt threatened. Somebody might have said something outta line, they might be wrong. Where do you get the power to not snap on them to let it go? Where do you get that power from? Like I, or how do you do that? Like what do you guys, what are your comments on that? Because I think I have an answer to it, but I'm not a hundred percent there. I think what I'm going to say first is that I think it just comes from practice that you got,
Preston:I would, yeah, I would say it would, I would say it comes from a lot of failure to, you mentioned that earlier, so much of how we learn is by failing and. And just getting older and becoming less less high strung as men, I've never really been a like a sort of a, I guess you would call it like a high testosterone, like just fucking mad man, like out to want to fight and stuff on a Friday night. That was just never My character, I don't know why, I couldn't give you an answer, but I think just as we, as men as we age, we just we mellow out more. That doesn't mean to say you just got to wait it out, because it's if some you got a 21 year old listening to this podcast, you're like fuck man I gotta wait another 20 years before I can handle this, so it's
Brad:they also have energy and real quick I just don't have the energy anymore from my experience. I don't have the energy to participate in this anymore because I realize it gets me nowhere,
Preston:I think that comes from, it's like you, you don't have the energy probably because you have done it enough times and it's got a Before when you did have the energy and it maybe it got, where it was a failure and you're like yeah, why am I going to put in the energy again to just have a negative outcome with this aspect where it's like, I think learning to just walk away from situations as you get older.
Brad:It's just knowing the difference between, because there's time you need to do something and you've got to take action. And I'd struggle with that sometimes still, I'll be honest I'm back on the vape, I'm over here vaping, and it's
Michael:the Serenity Prayer, it talks about what we can control versus what we can't control. And I think that's the, one of the first pieces to the answer, which I think ultimately leads to wisdom. You're just what leads to wisdom? Generally, it's not just experiencing your own failures, but it's also seeing other people make mistakes and learning from their mistakes as well. And so when you see somebody making a mistake, first of all, it's understanding that they are probably in the exact same boat that you are or have been, whether it's a, something that's coming at you because they're defensive about some inadequacy that they feel or all sorts of different things, look at it psychologically, but I think just purely from like its most basic form, it's experience going through those types of situations that really get your blood to boil and recognizing that there are certain pieces of it that you do control and you can't control. Sure. Sure. In, in proverbs, I'm not going to get it exactly right, but effectively it's, wisdom should lead to understanding and what's understanding understands like discernment and having the Capability of knowing what's the right decision, beyond your thoughts, because those are less easy to control in the moment, you still. We hopefully develop, like you said, through practice, the ability to hold our tongue, because that I think is purely through practice, but then eventually it says through that understanding, we, if we hold onto that, it should lead to peace where we're at peace with the fact that other people are going to say stuff that. Makes us want to punch him in the face and by rising above it, you actually, there's this much better sense of, I hopefully they're not going to punch you in the face. And then how do you, I'm not going to say you don't protect yourself. And yeah, that's not
Brad:what I'm saying at all. But the accountability part of that is then going what's my part? I got to slow down. If someone reacts towards me, Or because ultimately I do think they're reacting to something. Yeah, it could be something you did. It could be something within them. And so a lot of times the hard part for, anybody means, as well as seeing my part in it. So some I've learned now that I take a step back and I go, wow, did I do something that I could possibly not be aware of right now? And that's why I was asking you guys earlier about what. We can talk about a situations going on in my life and there's just this guy downtown and I did his podcast and Preston listens to it. I got really excited to be on it and got on the podcast. We have a great one. I think it was doing really well. And then they pulled
Preston:it. It was a killer episode. It was like, a really neat podcast that talk, it's these two guys that work downtown, one's a drummer, one's a bass player, and they're just, they interview guys that work downtown, and it's what do you do downtown? What's your journey? What's your story? And it's just like everyone, every guest they've had on is very interesting. And, I'm biased, like Brad's episode was like really cool to me. Cause I was like, Oh, that's my buddy. Like on there, like I'm hearing, I know most of Brad's story, but it's just, Sorry to interrupt. I'm just you're good.
Brad:You're good. Backstory in that. I was so excited for this man. And it was so good and it worked out. I got to meet these guys and it was like a goal. I was like, I got to try to get on their podcast and I got on it. Worked it in the right way and communicated with them and they put the, plus I had a booking job and stuff. So anyway, I get on the podcast and it's a great episode. And a couple of days later, I'm like promoting it. And all of a sudden it's pulled. And I'm like, why is my episode not? Oh, maybe it's a first thought is something negative. And I go hold on. Maybe they're editing it. They were trying to put video on it. I said, first of all, just. I was already like, spinning out, right? Yeah, I'm like, oh just we'll see what happens. Shoot him a message, shoot him a message. Nothing for a day. And then I get this long message from him saying that, the most ridiculous kind of accusation. It's like, some females had come forward saying that I had made. Some like, sexual advances towards them, and that when I did, when they didn't respond, I proceeded to try to blacklist them from playing downtown. And I was just like, whoa, dude. These, this is serious stuff. I was taking it really seriously. Fast forward, we kept start thinking that maybe this dude has some issues. I had to go first. I got really mad and I wanted to go like tracking down, and I'm like, okay, get these thoughts out of your head and I
Preston:want to share about anything. It's not going to solve anything. And I want to
Brad:share about this as somebody like, mind you I am definitely somebody that went through a lot of stuff and was On the other side of living a good life before, and it's not always permanently eradicated. It's that's really what I wanted to share on this podcast. And this story too helps it is like how to identify how the people can listen to the podcast and identify with us as men who have been through stuff and are still going through it. And I never want to seem like this holier than thou person that like has it all figured out. I really want them to know that. Turning 40 next week and having 10 years of sobriety, huge stuff coming up for me. Like I still, it's a work in progress and it's not getting down on myself. It's just always keeping my foot on the gas, right? Or the break, I guess I should say most likely, like I need to have my foot like ready to just, because it's stuff can creep up, you can grow and change and build your character, but you can always go back to your old behavior. In a heartbeat. You can give in.
Preston:It's the ego. It's just, it's
Brad:the ego and it's it helps us and it hurts us. So I don't want anybody at all to think that I have it like easy or something, and I want them to know, and I want to share this story because it might help somebody and help them realize oh my gosh, like this dude can stay sober and he could still do it in spite of this, like extreme claim. So this guy makes these claims. I'm livid and I'm start thinking, I go, okay I've been. I've been a kind of guy to hit on girls and stuff before, and I haven't been the best man in my marriage and we've talked about that. Preston knows about that. Me and my wife know, have talked about that. It's really, that's our personal stuff right there. But I started thinking about that, and I go, have I done something? Have I? I start racking my brain. I'm like, told Preston about it. I was really upset about it. I just didn't know what to do. I had all these messages typed out to him and I ended up reaching out to a few of the girls that I'm real close to and I said, Hey, I just wanted to ask if you would ever just directly and I'm like, have you ever felt uncomfortable with me on stage? I really want to make sure with, cause there's a lot of talk online about women being mistreated downtown. And so I just, in this kind of reclaiming, man, it's like we have to be careful as men in a world. There's these things that can happen where there can be claims made. We can commit things. Accusations can be made. It's part of being a man. It shouldn't be. But I think it is unfortunately in society now. And I started reaching out to these girls and every, I really hoped that one of them would have said yes. Because that would have made sense, or no, that would have helped make this whole thing make sense and all of them
Michael:like some degree of credibility to what this guy is saying. Instead of yeah.
Brad:And he won't tell me who he won't tell me the accusations. He won't tell me anything. And I'm just going and every single girl, every single one's what Brad no there's a lot of douchebags down there But you're not one of them and just everyone kept confirming I even to some of them I even was like offering them a gig because I had a gig that I needed a singer for so I was like you know What I'm gonna offer some of these girls that I think could be the ones to make these claims You know offer them the gig and try to open up a dialogue and say hey, you know all of them were like Oh, I'm busy. Call me anytime like nobody ghosted me every single person replied. So now I'm even more confused and I'm just like Yeah, I'm talking to Preston about this, through, through this whole thing. And he's been a lot of help, man. I appreciate you for hearing it, being there for me and just giving me an idea. And we've come to the decision that I might write him one more message and just tell him I took this really seriously. Because my whole thing in building characters, if I hurt somebody, I really want to know how I can make that right. And maybe I am unaware that I did or said something. But the more I think about this man. Yeah. The more I think about this, I think this dude, I think he, yeah. Something might have gotten said and he took it as an opportunity to white knight the situation and he I would like instead of
Preston:saying like something like accusatory of that. I would like the whole situation just seems there's a bizarre aspect to it and. When you mention, because there are, not that music is like a man's world in a sense. It's there are like so many like badass chicks down on Broadway that are just absolutely killing it. But you have to understand, like there's, you're working these late night shifts, like girls are going to their cars at night, like there's just an element where women just. Women, it's not that they live in a different world than we do. It's just that they do, yeah, they do. It's like they, like I can walk to my car at night. It's like after one in the morning or 2 a. m. And it's like zero. No, I don't have zero thoughts because it's I've got 3, 000 of equipment I'm carrying. And it's I definitely think about that, but it's I don't think I'm going to get raped. You know what I mean? That never crosses my mind. I do think I might, maybe my gear will get stolen, but I can get that back. And it's but women, they just have a different, a different world that they live in. So it's yeah, that definitely plays a part downtown. And there are, we've all heard the stories. I got guys just take advantage of that where it's we're in a band and it's it's that does exist to some extent and I'm not accusing Brad or saying he didn't do anything. It's I don't know, but it's like, there is just a weird element of this whole situation to where it's just if we're going to do this, if we're going to accuse people of this, that, and the other, it's like then let's really solve this problem and figure it out, so to speak.
Brad:Yeah, because when he posted about it, he didn't use my name or anything. I'm glad he didn't. And I
Preston:think that was good on his part, too, because it's Again, it's a weird element because it's just yeah,
Brad:if you're this advocate for women's rights, it's then let's fight for women and we need to really, we're not, he's not doing anything to protect or change that situation.
Michael:It's just seems
Brad:off. Yeah, it's very it's so off. And I, and so anyway, I wanted to get vulnerable and share this so that people know that I'm
Michael:glad that you did because it's the, those types of things, like those are the, so outside of our control and yeah.
Brad:And I know easily, I could have easily, the way that the, that you spin out in your head over it, especially a guy like me, who's trying to be a good husband and who's trying to grow and build my character. And it's nothing has happened like this in a long time, to me, things like this don't have, I've never had this happen to me ever, but,
Michael:but it's those types of things where you think about. Okay. Yeah. Building your character. It's this laborious process is like, I don't even know how else to describe it. It's, day after day, discipline, obedience, humility, all these different things that talked about that we learn about that we read about to your point that are easy to say hard to do, but it seems like one of those little things, which is a big thing. But if it's an allegation, that's not true. It has this this big alarm that goes off like everything that I've been working for is just all at risk, right? And
Brad:so it's just, yeah, but going back to I'm trying, like what I said earlier about trying to build character and where am I? Where is my awareness? In that moment, right? So in that moment, am I going to make the right decision and let it go? Am I going to react? Yes. What am I going to do? Because I feel justified. I feel justified in reacting however I feel in that moment in anger or whatever, next stupid decision I'm going to make. Thinking that I'm going to fix this and add to the problem, add to the problem and comment and then make myself impressed and was a big help to say, Hey, anything, it sucks because anything you say
Michael:openly about this is just going to make
Brad:you look bad, because it's just going to seem like you're trying to, and so we decided I'm not going to say anything. And it just led back to this Where you get the power from question now all leading up to this I've had no nothing really bad going on in my life so the prayer and the meditation the going to church the building character. I call it my spiritual bank account, right? So like I've been making all these deposits in my like spiritual bank account. Oh, yeah, like the big shoe falls Or whatever, let's, the yang, the chaos, when the
Preston:yang comes out,
Brad:you know, yeah, is my account, is there substantial funds in the account to make a withdraw to deal with this
Michael:and it's such a good analogy because it's, you're paying the price, you're paying the price of. You know what? I am going to remove my ego from this. I'm going to remove my negative emotions from this and you're going to pay the price of, in this case, it's just like the potential is okay. Who else is this guy spreading this misinformation and lie and rumor and gossip, and theoretically ruining reputation and then saying okay. But my character, I'm building my character and therefore, the evidence is who I am, not what this guy says about me. And coming back to the truth, which is, it's hard, but when you're talking like reclaiming freedom and one of those thoughts, it's immediately try to spot the lie. What's the lie here? And what's the truth? And the truth is what you know about yourself. And you went back and you did a moral inventory. You said, I'm going to, you know what, I'm going to take this. Seriously, I'm going to use something that I learned with 12 step program, I'm going to look back at myself and
Brad:so reclaiming freedom, what it takes to reclaim freedom is letting go of the lie. Yeah,
Preston:because And who knows, Oh, go ahead. And that's exactly
Michael:what the show is about, because, we The tagline originally that we admittedly used I borrowed from, some guru from India I heard on Ed Mylet was, like we need to awaken our next generation's mind from their sleepwalk toward extinction. And, but that's the truth is there's so many lies that we've been fed. That's where it's we're reclaiming man and reclaiming freedom because we're misled into believing that the right response, or it's okay to In many cases, it's okay to just Lash out or respond back or social media blast somebody and just, make those types of things much worse. And
Preston:I almost I almost wondered too, about this sort of situation that Brad's in, if there was this girl that reached out to this other guy about this situation I wonder if they're like, I almost wondered too, if there was just like a misunderstanding of a situation. Oh,
Brad:totally. I'm sure it was. That's what I mean. And I was a booker down there. And so to get in the details, which it doesn't really matter because I saw the point, but like the details are like, I could have fired somebody for reasons of their own doing. And that, and they're still hanging on to that. My past career working in the adult and film industry, if we hadn't talked about that, I worked in the adult film industry. There could be, there's rumors going around about that. Maybe there's some, maybe there's someone that industry is discrimination, it's discriminatory towards. It's discriminating towards women and they have a resentment there. There could be a lot of reasons, but like the letting go of it, I'm starting to become okay and proud of because Preston helped me with this a little bit too. It was like, that spiritual bank account is going to take care of this. I have to do nothing good for you, man. I actually have to do nothing right doing. Yeah, that's sometimes the hardest thing. And I remember someone told me that name 1 time. It's if you don't know what to don't do anything. Because if you don't know what to do, you're probably not going to make the right decision and you're going to make it out of haste. You make it out of emotion. You're going to make it out of whatever. Yeah. And what's really cool about this? And you just said, Michael, that my character is my character. It doesn't matter what people say. It's so true. Because downtown, I started to realize when I started poking around at people and what they knew or what they'd heard about this post. Nobody drew a conclusion to it. It hasn't affected my work at all. That's right. I've gotten some more gigs. All the girls said we have great relationships. A couple of them fell for me. They're going to keep their ears and, ears open for if they hear anything in the female world because they have their own I figured out press and they also have their own face a girl, like a girl, Chad, right? And I said, girl, I actually really support women down there. And I, I always think about protecting them in situation. We've had to, I've had to get security to remove. Patriots. Yeah. From, doing things towards the girls and stuff. And so it just gets me though, because it's here I am an advocate for women in this industry. And one in particular who she always rants about, it's almost uncomfortable. And she'll rant about how I helped her in her career. And she felt that she was discriminated against as a woman. And I really pushed hard for her to get booked at tin roof when I was working there. And there's just, I have this, the facts, and then I have the lie and It just becomes hard to let it go and I actually just felt like it wasn't that hard. Once I thought it through and I talked with friends and I like, just took the steps that I needed to take. Yeah, it's just blown over. It's just like already blown over. And a couple people, most people's reactions were a few of them said, Hey, this guy's been inappropriate to me. They said negative things about him. A couple of them were like, Oh, he's just upset because he doesn't get a lot of work and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm not here to shoot him down, but it's he's struggling with something.
Michael:What's happened now and I'm
Brad:I actually, yeah. Genuinely feel for this
Michael:dude. I was like,
Brad:not in on, I'm putting him down. I'm going to go pray for you. Bless your heart. That's not yeah. This like genuine
Michael:dang, what's going on in it. Yeah. What's
Brad:going on for the grace of God there. Go I like. I've, I haven't been in that situation per se, but I've been in a situation, I was that type of person where I needed to do things like that. I might have torn other people down to build up my image or whatever. And here I am, like, I learned, my ex taught me a lot about this because she was so troubled through her addiction and I learned to pray for her. If I could hate somebody, she would be the one to hate. And I had just learned that it got so exhausting. Oh, I fought her for years. I went through a court battle and I won and winning wasn't enough. So I would just want to say that like in that battle where I felt justified and I ended up winning custody of my son, guess what? I didn't feel better. I wasn't like, yes, I won. And now everything is solved. I actually ended up feeling bad that maybe I mean
Michael:what, yeah, what you're getting on is the. The freedom of forgiveness, because it's not just for the other person. It's for yourself, like to be letting go. Like you said that you're able to do
Brad:and I got to be an ultimate, I got to be careful with the holier than now. I can't be like, Oh, bless your heart. Oh, he, I can't be there either. I can't be like, I'm above you,
Michael:but it's not, it's forgiveness also for your sake. It's like perhaps a little bit selfish way to look at forgiveness because forgiveness generally Oh, I'm. Letting go somebody else's past, mistake or direct harm against me, I'm letting that go. So that's for them. It's actually for you. So emotionally, you don't feel compelled to do what you used to do to take the next step towards grabbing a drink or whatever it is. So now that
Brad:now I'm praying for him. I'm praying for him, because I think he's got something going on, and it's really blown over, but
Michael:Not good for you. Yeah, a cool story, and I'm glad that you shared it, and I think it, it fits in so well with what we've, we haven't talked directly about praying for people, which we should, but it's a, That's certainly the other side of, you are in a situation where I feel like most people say, Hey, you defend yourself, you protect yourself, you stand up and you make sure that you're not like mislabeled or misunderstood, getting back to just. I think what I said earlier, but it's just knowing that, hey, who you are stands for itself. If you want to
Brad:treat people. Yeah. And if you want freedom, stop injecting yourself into these situations, right? Yeah. If you want freedom, let it
Michael:go, man. That's a great, I think that's a great place to wrap it up.
Brad:If you want freedom, you got to let it go because you're going to end up carrying it around. You're going to pay the price. It's like drinking the Kool Aid and hoping that they
Michael:die. Yeah, whether it's, yeah, letting go, yeah, what, no, what, but whether it's letting go your fear of failure and the massive imperfect action piece that you talked about, or letting go of somebody else's offense against you and moving on past it in my case it's letting go of the. The fear and uncertainty of, diverging away from corporate America and what society says I should do same thing with Preston and man, it sounds like you're a little bit farther along the journey in some regards than we are, but, I just really appreciate the perspective that you bring. And I think it's a great episode. Preston, anything you got in the, in closing here or anything, Brad, you want to say in closing? I, yeah, I
Preston:would just say what you mentioned, like just as far as Brad being further along in the journey, it's who knows where we're all at, but it's I definitely, my favorite thing about both you guys and like Scott as well is just I love being inspired by what you guys all do in your sort of different avenues. I'm trying to go down a similar road with music as Brad. So it's there's a little bit of a different inspiration there, but it's just just watching you guys all struggle, grow, succeed overcome things. It's just, every time we talk or polo or text, it's just alright, they're getting it I gotta go get some more. It's just really, I appreciate you all, because you just make me want to be a better man, husband, buddy, and all that stuff, so.
Brad:Man, right back at you, and I'll say this, it's, we have to go out there and do it. We have to take chances, because the smooth seas don't make good sailors, right? We've gotta go put ourselves in the mix. Yeah. We've gotta jump off the freaking log. We have to go put ourselves right in the middle of it. How are you gonna know, how are you gonna win if you don't play?
Preston:Yeah. Yeah.
Brad:You play the lotto a lot before you win it. I guess if you ever do, I don't know, but you're gonna run
Michael:outta money.
Brad:You you make 0% of, or you, you miss a hundred percent of the shots. You don't take, you don't take Yes. It's we just have to go shoot our shot, like you have to go, that's probably not the right term to use in this situation, but
Preston:you've definitely shot your shot. Yeah. Yeah.
Brad:But it's you gotta go do it, you gotta go do it. And I love that. I love going out there and just seeing where I measure up and you'll learn real quick what work you need to do. Yep. You'll get it. Your ass handed to you and then, but I always, it's always a pleasure me and Preston, I want to make a couple little plugs. We got a gig. Redneck Rodeo's playing second floor tomorrow at 9. 30. Tell
Preston:If you are listening to this and have a time machine, definitely go back to March 2nd, because that was the fucking awesome
Brad:show. Yeah,
Preston:we've got a couple of days. We've got our regular front man. Brendan is he's got some out of town stuff for our next couple of gigs. So we got this guy, Ryan Michaels filling in and he. We've never played with him. So I've actually never met him in real life, but he seems like a really fricking bad ass dude. I'm like the rodeo
Brad:is evolving and it's doing its Nashville thing and I've been working on it and I've managed to land us a wedding. We landed it cause somebody was at the new year's eve gig and we landed. Awesome. We got the contract back. I don't know if I told you, but he signed it. Yeah. Oh, hell yeah, he did. And put all that together and we got it all figured out and and then we've got the, we've got the 4th of July gig out there, Riverbend Ranch, June 29th. And so it's moving. The other thing I wanted to throw out there was and I wanted to talk about more, but I'll hurry and wrap it up is that I, and this is just another gift, man. It's another gift of doing people. It doesn't have anything to do with how skilled I am as a drummer, honestly, because I'm in a lineup of guys that are probably far better than me. And I don't say that to talk down on myself. But I just know that I'm being brought into this circle to, to learn. And so I met Tom Hurst, great guy. He played for Tracy Lawrence, big country artist, played for Sister Hazel. I treated him well when I was a tin roof guy and I booked him a gig and I was just doing my job. I wasn't really thinking that I was. Doing anything right by him. I just, thought he deserved it and booked him and he really appreciated that and he's got this event called loud jams And loud jams is on held maybe they're starting to do a couple a year it'll be on march 4th in downtown nashville at the woolworth theater. I'm trying to get pressing to go but it's a celebrity lineup just celebrity, they're just more like Live players that play with a lot of big names.
Preston:Yeah, they're like the hot the a lister hired gun guys Exactly.
Brad:So they're just a laundry list of just incredible players and it's a there's gonna be a hundred and nine different musicians playing like 20 Something songs. Oh, that's cool.
Michael:Yeah, that's gonna be
Brad:rad. I'm going up to play one song And if you caught it on my post, it's a, I put that song free your mind. It's a invoke. It's an old 90 song. So we play like all these really off the wall tunes that nobody ever plays. So it's going to be really cool. There's going to be Steely Dan songs, Jefferson Starship, just like ran tears for fears. Invo. Yes. And it's these, all these killer players just jumping on stage. No rehearsal. All we know is that we know what song we're going to play and we just get in there and do it. And so it's going to be really cool. I'm stoked for that. My, it's my birthday week. I'm going to be 40 years old, which I'm
Michael:making me wish I was making me wish I were in Nashville,
Brad:dude. I just wish I'm starting to come around to this being 40 thing. And I wish you were here, man. You got to come down here. Great
Preston:age, dude. Like I remember turning 30 and thinking Oh, all right. We're 30. But now like turning 40 is once you do it, it's it's so liberating. Cause it's just especially since you're a musician and you play yeah. It keeps you youthful in a way that most people don't
Michael:quite understand. We also have to remember that our life expectancy keeps on increasing. And they say in the next 15 years that we're going to reach the, escape velocity on the longevity equation. So what used to be halfway through your life is nowhere, anywhere close. And yeah. That's a, I think something where I'm like do I want to live longer or not? But I'm planning on a hundred. So I feel like you should plan on a hundred as well, Brad. Yeah. Testosterone,
Brad:TRT treatment. I was going to, some guys have been asking me about that lately and then we could get into that, but we're running out of time and next episode we'll bring you back. I wanted to talk about some of what I do to stay young. I'm lucky to be. Just gifted with a baby face, but I also do things that help keep me young and I didn't realize that my regimen is crazy. I started looking at it the other day and I was like, man, I should probably share this with people. Like what I do, cause I do take a bunch of different supplements and I have this really cool routine and,
Michael:all right, we're definitely going to bring it, bring bring it back on for the routine and regimen because that's fits right in with exactly what we like on like the reclaiming body stuff.
Brad:Yeah. On the body line. I want to share some stuff that people have some missed, some stigma around, testosterone and TRT and a lot of people are interested in it, but they just don't understand it. They don't know I've been through the whole trip and now have established like a really solid routine and a good solid mentor and supplier that's completely legal. And there's nothing, shady about it and I'm doing it in a healthy way. And so it just gets a lot of stigma. around the bodybuilding industry and stuff too is just, being unhealthy for you. So yeah, if we want to talk about that, I'd love to chat about that. And man, love you guys. And I'm always anytime, man, anytime we'll
Preston:make it happen. And
Michael:Dude, this was a blast. I appreciate you doing it because I have a couple other guys that are slated to interview in the month of March. So the interview rotation is going to be real. So again in June or something, whenever you feel like you want to do it again. But I think, having your on the show regularly. Relatively, I don't know, once a quarter or whatever. It's you got a lot of good stuff to care. So thanks so much for joining us. And it's a Friday night and we're recording. So I love it.
Brad:I'm going to go get crazy on Friday night and sit on my couch and watch the rest of this off F one. I'm probably going to go upstairs and play Fortnite with my son. There
Michael:you go. All right. Hey, check out grand Turismo. You'd like that. I watched it. Oh, cool. Yeah. Dude, I cried. Me too. Dude, that
Brad:was a good movie. That was a really good movie.
Preston:Was that the one with Eastwood?
Michael:No. Okay. That's Gran Torino. Go Turismo. Just much, much more recent. Just making
Preston:sure you guys knew who you were talking about. Yeah.
Michael:Sure. All right, guys. Have a good night. All right.