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- [00:00]
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Foreign.
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Welcome back to the big deal podcast. Husband wise Pekis. How are you doing?
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Good, how are you?
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I thought this week, big week. I thought this would be kind of fun. Actually. Tanner thought this would be fun. It was Tanner's idea. But the reason that we were going to do this podcast is to talk about all this crazy that's going on this week. I'm going to go first. Cool.
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Please.
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Book tour.
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Cody Sanchez is a financial expert who.
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Has more than 7 million followers across social media.
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She has a new book, the instant New York Times bestseller Main street millionaire.
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Book is out top spotted hit was 91 on Amazon, which was first author in the family. Main Street Millionaire, first author of the family.
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A
That's huge. That's a big thing to live up to now.
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B
That's pretty cool. We didn't sleep a lot this week. We went on all these Today shows, which was rad. I've had more face paint on than probably ever before. Also got an IV today while getting my hair done and makeup done, which was like peak. Just peak. Too much really. You know, great.
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A
Over consumption, just.
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B
Yeah. Not great. But I thought we could hit some of the highlights because there were some cool things that happened this week. Like first of all, met, I don't know a couple hundred people who are part of our community buying businesses. Bought the book. Had the biggest Barnes and Noble signing at this one Barnes Noble in New York. I don't know about anywhere. Which was kind of sweet.
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A
Yeah.
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Realized book signings take forever.
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Long time. Yeah. I bet your hand cramp was like obscene. Next level.
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B
It was mostly like a mouth. Like I just didn't want to talk at all.
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A
You were on the whole time. You were engaging in conversation because they were cool. Was a cool people I was proud of. It was very.
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B
Yeah. It was like every type of human represented there. Okay. But what I actually thought that I'd talk about is do you know we outsold Martha Stewart?
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A
No. Are you serious? Yeah.
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B
That. You know who we did not outso sell though is Jordan B. Peterson. Beat us.
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Jordan's been out for a while.
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Plus he's like brilliant.
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Speaks to a generation of young men.
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Yep, yep, yep, yep. So, Martha, just saying we coming for you. We're not coming for you in the kitchen because, you know, that's not my strong suit. That's yours, dude.
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A
I would love to learn from the message.
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B
Maybe you should have a cookbook.
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Me?
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B
Yeah.
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The lazy. The lazy man's cookbook or no, like hairy chested cooks. Find her. Find her heart through her stomach.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
Be a good one.
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B
Yeah, I'm into that.
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A
Absolutely. I think it is just like a slow. It's like a slow, slow process where you just end up changing the ingredients over time. So then you have your partner essentially eat everything that you already eat.
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B
This sounds like you might be really familiar with how to do this to somebody.
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A
It works.
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I love it.
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I don't hear any complaints.
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No complaints. Because I don't know how to do this. And it made me think about books overall. And like, I don't know about you, but I mean, mom and dad, you're listening. I love you both. You know, this is true, though. Mom gives these gift baskets that are like highly functional. Yes. They're like socks, body wash, a razor. What else might be in there?
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I had those little spongy things that you put between your center console and your car seat. And I think of her every time that I readjust them.
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B
It's just like.
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And every time I don't lose my wallet or my phone in the cracks.
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B
You're trying to suck up to her, but I feel like she watches qvc. It just goes, I like this. And I like this. And I like this.
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A
No, no, these are way too. These are. I don't. I'm actually would be really interested the source of these purchases because these are too. These are way, way too inexpensive to be on qvc. Like you there, right. You have to have a price point. Like you have to sell. You had to get product through the door.
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B
Like, true.
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A
I don't know, 655 for seat capture spongers.
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B
Yeah. You also got two years of like very potent smelling body wash, which maybe she was trying to tell you something.
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I think it's a signal.
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B
You a little smelly?
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A
No. Am I?
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B
No. You smell delicious. You smell like a man. So I thought I'd go with. Lately I've been asking this question I kind of like, which is what is the book or a few books that you personally keep going back to and reading?
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A
Yeah. I would start with a book that I got introduced to by a dear friend a few years ago when I was looking for what was next in life out of transitioning out of the military. And that was the Surrender Experiment.
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B
Oh, yeah.
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A
It's just like this great book about this accidental entrepreneur who started as like a community college professor and devout yogi and meditator in central Florida. And he, you know, came to stumble into. He makes it feel like this entrepreneurial journey where he was one of the first pioneers in software and how he didn't sacrifice his morals. He didn't sacrifice like his paradigm did not shift. He was the same man. It felt like at the end of his journey from what at least he communicated in the book.
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Great book. All right, so surrender experiment.
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A
Yeah. The other one I would say is Dune. I come back to Dune a lot.
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B
Yeah, you do. Do we should reread that book? It's huge. You re read that thing.
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I don't reread it in its entirety.
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So what do you do?
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I almost kind of treat it like, like a cookbook or like the Bible where you can just like go between chapters and I just randomly.
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You just kind of.
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I have notes and like I have a lot of pages, like dog ear, some things highlighted or some notes on the. In the margins. I think it's an incredibly important book for a person who feels that they don't have the power to change, to have impact because of their station in life. You know, he was the proposed prince of his father's dynasty and then he became the walking messiah of a, you know, almost forgotten people. Yeah. And you know, you've seen the movie or read the books, you know that it was done with like immense, immense strife and sacrifice and just a testament to, I think, a human will.
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B
Do you think you like it because you fought wars in the desert and it is wars fought in the desert.
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Maybe. I think it speaks a lot to my generation, especially the, you know, the global war on terror vets. I think it speaks to the impact a person can have in their own life. And I think it speaks to the fact of belief in a system. Not a system, let's say belief in like your. In your personal virtues. Yeah, right. Like you can't lie to yourself and lie to people. I don't think. I think it's pretty impossible.
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B
I don't know if I agree with that. Yeah, like that is what people do.
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Who run people typically really, they lie to themselves. And a lot of people, I think.
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We'Re great self rationalizers. I don't think that many people think they're evil. I think they think they're right, you know, and they like, can talk themselves into being the good guy even when they're the bad guy, you know? Yeah, it's like they deserved it. They didn't need this. I'm better, but I'm not sure. I've never been to war, so I can't imagine that part. But I do remember your last deployment. I reread Dune and I always liked that part where they talked about fear as the mind killer.
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Yeah.
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And that whole quote. And I remember when I was hiking Mount Baker and it was like that snowy whiteout or whatever, and we had the clampons or the crampons, whatever the fuck. And we're on those. Those roads. Ropes and the ice picks and people are falling all around in the little mini crevasses. I was so miserable and freaked out, and I don't like heights. And we were. And, you know, I didn't want to go any further. And I kept repeating that phrase, which is like, fear is the mind killer. You know, Let it pass through you. And. And I thought of you.
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Yeah.
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So. Yeah, I like that book a lot. You know. What's the other song that I listened to a lot when you were on deployment?
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What song?
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Iron Wine. Remember that?
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Oh, yeah. What's it called? Walking Far From Home. Walking Far From Home. Beautiful songs.
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Such a good song.
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He has a great. He's a really interesting background too. He's like a professor of film. Like you. University of Florida.
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So good.
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And he's been just this incredible artist as well.
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Yeah.
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Why? Why that song?
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Because remind I would thought about you. You're like, walking far from home. And he kind of talks about, you know, iron and wine. And I remember, you know, I think of iron when I think of, like, steel and iron. Back then, you know, as he was talking about, it would have been like a sword, but you got a different type of sword that was a gun. You know, think about, like, late nights and like, a foreign country with, like, a bottle of wine, just. Yeah. I wish I had the other one.
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That would have been great.
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Missed you.
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Missed you too.
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Okay, so we go to books.
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Your turn.
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Oh, mine?
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Yeah. You gotta tell me, which ones do you reread and go back to?
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B
You know, which one I reread is Shantaram.
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A
Yeah. That book is too big. There's no way you reread a thousand, twelve hundred pages.
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B
I don't think it's that long.
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It's itch.
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You're right. I probably reread that every couple years. No, but it's one of those books where you can lose yourself in it. And I always go back to, you know, the story I'm gonna go to.
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Absolutely.
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B
So why I think that labor is so important is I remember the story in there about the. And I reread it when we last went to India because it's about a man who escapes Australia. Kind of loosely based on a true story, but with, like, spiritualism intertwined into it. And he's a convict and he killed somebody. Manslaughter on accident, goes to prison, escapes prison, goes to India and gets caught up in India and organized crime until finally he comes to like, spiritual awakening. And it's a true story of this man who eventually goes back to Australia to, to pay recompense for his crimes and then goes back to India after that. And anyway, the story is beautiful and it's also beautiful if you're going to India because it's, it's like this perfect picture. But there's this one story about how the guy, the Australian, is like taking the shower in like a really shitty hotel. He's like three stories up or whatever in the shitty hotel. And it's so hot there and there's no air conditioning. He's like taking three or four showers a day. And he has a little guide with him who's a young Indian dude. And one day he gets up really early with his guide and he sees these guys hauling, you know, these huge barrels of water on their back up the stairs. And he's like, oh my God, that looks so miserable. What are they doing? And he's like, well, they're, you know, his guide says, well, they're filling your, your shower, of course. And he's like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I had no idea that that's what they had to do to fill my shower. I'll never shower again. And his guide kind of freaks out and is like, what do you mean you should shower six times a day? Look at these guys. You're giving them labor and work. Look how strong they are. Look at them be able to provide for their family. And I always go back to that because I'm like, that is a perfect example of what people don't understand when they think about capitalism's bad and labor's bad and they're taking advantage of people. It's like, no. To give somebody labor is so beautiful because it gives them an opportunity to be needed, useful, and then to provide for others.
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Yeah. It's a huge perspective shift. And I think it's like you have to consciously, like when you look at, in my beliefs, if you look at socialism and, or communism, that is a, that is a structure that has to be attended constantly.
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Yeah.
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Whereas capitalism tends to. Right size itself. And I think that is a perfect example of the trickle down effects of what happens when there is an exogenous effect and somebody decides to like to. Somebody decides to, you know, I don't know, mess with the system.
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Yeah, yeah. Basically good ideals Bad outcome.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Yeah, I agree with that. Well, actually, I was kind of thinking about that because this week. Or was it last week, I had sort of tweeted about war, as in my time along the border.
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Yeah.
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And I had talked about it before, but I think I got pissed. And, you know, sometimes I think both of our best, like, writings happen when you're really mad or worked up about something. And I was really mad because a bunch of people were talking about how open border policies are kind, and I don't believe that at all. I think it creates massive tragedy and violence. And so I was writing about, like, my time down there when I was in college, you know, and how I spent a period of time along the US Mexico border in Juarez, which is a city across from El Paso. Right. And you know what was interesting is you and I haven't even talked about it that much.
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No, we haven't. But what made you go down there in the first place?
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I got a grant from the Howard Buffett Foundation.
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Okay, but like, oh, like, what made me want. No, but it's like, okay, so you get a grant. So you're like, I'm gonna go cover narco trafficking on the border. Like, not like, oh, I'm going to go track snow leopards. Right. Or I'm going to study the, you know, I don't know, effects of, you know, water restriction or resource restrictions, you know, in the Southwest, you chose to cover narco trafficking.
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I don't know. I find it fascinating.
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Did you apply. Sorry, go ahead.
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No, tell me.
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Did you apply for the grant with the understanding of, like, this is what you want to do, or did you get to grant and then you're like, this is what I'm going to do with it.
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B
Yeah, you got the grant first. Basically. I was in the. What was it called?
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The journalism school.
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B
Yeah, Walter Cronkite School for Print Journalism. And my. It was a good school for that. Arizona is not the Harvard of the west, but anyway. And I started working with the dean of the Walter Cronkite School because I liked writing and it was in one of her classes and did, well, whatever, and she told me to apply for it. And there was a group of us that all did it, and we could choose different segments that we wanted to focus on. And I just. I think that maybe it's similar to you in some ways. I find it fascinating to go and see people that I cannot understand.
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Right.
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Like, I don't actually understand why someone would rape and mutilate a woman along the border continuously Like, I don't understand why you would want to be in a cartel with a bunch of other cartel members that are, you know, violent and hurt you too, and have a high probability of going to jail. Like, that's just such a different world than me. And I think part of me, I'm just massively curious about humans and like, the depths we can go to depravity and the heights we can go to, you know, Heavenliness.
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Yeah.
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And so I wanted to see the full breath of humanity. And so money, like, similar to you, money actually never interested me when I was younger. I really just wanted adventure, you know, My favorite book was Adventure Capitalist, which is where he like, rode a motorbike all around the world. And that's how I ended up setting that business up in Latin America. But back then, I wanted to tell stories that nobody else had covered before. And I found that adventure fascinating. And I liked that, like, slight sense of danger for whatever reason. And so, yeah, that's why I ended up going down there. And I. Another woman, Courtney Sergeant with, went. Went with me for part of it. And she was my photographer.
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A
Yeah, and I remember why just part of it. Did she not last as long or was it just.
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B
No, there were like, we had the different assignments where I would go down some places she would go down.
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A
Okay, got it.
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B
No, she's. I think she's still a journalist.
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A
And what, what was it? Was it just like, I'm going to reserve, observe and report, or was there some distinct element that you wanted to cover or like bring to light?
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B
You know, what I found is like, when you're observing things, things will just like emerge. So I went down there originally. Usually you start with a who. So I had this guy, Gil Gillenwater, who had something in Agua Prieta. I can't. Rancho Felice was the name. It was a nonprofit. It was a really cool idea. So basically, Gil made a bunch of money in real estate, becomes kind of spiritual, becomes buddies with the Dalai Lama of all people, starts this nonprofit in Mexico called Rancho Feliz. And the idea is this, you get a house in Rancho Feliz if you help somebody else build theirs. And so it is a self fulfilling nonprofit in that they have to be profitable, they have to help each other, they have to have jobs inside of the nonprofit. They can't let anything go into neglect or they get kicked out of the community. So it's kind of this like capitalistic nonprofit. Anyway, I thought that was cool. So I started with him and was like, he's got all these connections down there because I didn't know anybody. And I spoke Spanish, but not that well. And then we were in Agua Prieta for a bit. And that was kind of wild because I remember it being real cold there during the winter, and none of those places have heat, right? So Courtney and I sitting by that propane tank. And you really shouldn't do that all night, so one of us had to stay up. But anyway, that's where we started getting a few connections. And Alla Priena wasn't that dangerous, so we started there. But then we realized if we wanted to cover interesting stories, like, you know, things that were headline stories, we'd need to go to the bigger city.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So then we went to Juarez and El Paso. And the moment that I knew I wanted to cover what was happening there. I'll never forget. When you come from El Paso into Juarez, you cross the Rio Grande. There's a bridge that goes over the.
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Oh, yeah, I remember. Yeah. Yeah.
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B
And back then, and I don't know if it's still there, but there was this cross on the Juarez side, big wooden cross, and it was covered with pink ribbons and tokens, and every single one of those was for a woman who was missing. Las des parecidas. And it was a big cross. And in my mind, it's probably even bigger than it is, but I remember it being, like, towering to me. And I remember looking at it and thinking, my God, like, all these murdered women, you know, why? How? Who's doing this? And then as you walked the city, all along the city, you'd see crosses, like little memorials with, you know, like, the sons of Eddie, Anna or whoever, and pink little pamphlets of the missing women. And when I saw those, I was like, how can so many, like, beautiful young girls just go missing and nobody cares? And it's, like, right there, it's like stone's throw from El Paso. How could that be?
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A
Does you. When you look at it, though, is it just a different social dynamic? Like, not caring? Like, people grieve differently, people value human life differently. Do you think they had just become so socially conditioned to seeing it happen that it was, like, not a factor of if, but when I think that.
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B
Darkness or, like, I think that. I think that bad things love darkness.
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A
Bad things love darkness.
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B
Like, operators go out at night, right? Why? Because, like, the COVID of darkness. I don't know why, but it's just easier to operate when things are opaque. And the interesting part about Juarez is that most of the people who were there are transient. So they have these big maquiladoras, the factories there. Right. Where US Companies manufacture, like Home Depot parts. Lowe's has big maquiladoras. We went in many of them and they're like these assembly lines where they bus in women predominantly because the men fought too much. So it was almost, almost all the workers in there would be young women. So they're docile. They don't fight, they get paid less. There's no cartel activity there because they're young women. They bust them in from these like little shanty towns. Most of these women aren't even Mexican. They're like from Central America or South America or they're from South Mexico.
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A
Oh, wow. Okay.
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B
So it's a, it's a really vulnerable population.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Where these women are getting sent up north because they can make money and send it back to their family. And the money is real for their family that they can send back.
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A
So they, so they don't commute. They're. They're there the entire. Or they're there for extended periods of time.
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B
They're there for extended periods of time. And a lot of them are trying to get to these. Right. This is like a stop off on the way to try to get to the U.S. got it. Or to make money in the meantime. But they are super vulnerable because they don't have family, you know, or if they do, family gets separated easily there. And so I think there's this opaqueness there where like, you know, you usually would know everybody in a small town and there you don't, because you have all these people funneling through and then you have a bunch of people trying to cross the border there. It's one of the most porous sections of the border in a, in an urban area. I don't know if that's still the case, but at least it was back then. And then for whatever reason, it's like where the Sinaloan and the Snoring cartel were butting heads and so they were at war. Basically. When I was down there and I was reading that like last year, 2,000 people were murdered in Juarez last year alone, last year, which is crazy. When I was down there, they said that during that three year period that I was there, I wasn't there for three years, but like that rolling three year period, 10,000 people were murdered. I mean, I remember jailbreaks from the local prison where they brought in a fucking Apache helicopter to break somebody out of the, of the prison.
- [21:31]
A
One of them weren't cartel members.
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B
Yeah, yeah, sure. It's like what is a fucking cartel? Get an Apache helicopter. How does that happen? They buy it. Like, because that's from us. Right.
- [21:39]
A
I, I wouldn't even begin to know where. I think you would probably buy it on the black market somehow. And I have no idea. I. I don't know. We gotta look that up.
- [21:48]
B
Maybe that's why the budget is so big for the Department of Defense.
- [21:51]
A
Why? Because everything.
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B
Because everybody's just kidding. Everything. It's, it's like, don't they say that like they have gun. They say that Americans have X number of guns, but like 30 to 40% of them are in Mexico. Like they don't. They're not even all in the US.
- [22:03]
A
I don't know what the number is, but I know that there's like a significant percentage. Well, I mean, just for like, we all are aware of the gun violence that goes on in Mexico.
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B
Oh yeah.
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A
And there's supposedly one single gun store in the entire country and it's on a military base.
- [22:16]
B
Yeah. So they're not getting their guns from Mexico.
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A
No.
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B
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- [23:34]
A
And so you think it's a. It's A matter of resources. That solves it before ideology.
- [23:37]
B
Fuck.
- [23:38]
A
Yeah.
- [23:38]
B
I think money is protection and I think money is freedom. And, you know, why do we think that people who have less money have more violence committed against them? You know, why do they go to jail more often? I don't think it's because they are poor and bad. It is because they don't have as much protection.
- [23:54]
A
It's a result of the kind of the socioeconomic status.
- [23:57]
B
Absolutely. You know, I think that saying of like when you have something to lose, you know, you are more thoughtful on it is true.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And so it took me back to that and I kind of want to go back to the border to see like what I remember and what's real.
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A
But so your stance on this is a little bit. So if I can just extract it a little bit more is you think that the open border policy lends itself to more crime. It lends itself to more people being taken advantage. It leads to exploitation.
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B
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember you would just drive like not very far outside of Juarez and the wall just ends and you could just like hopscotch back and forth along the wall for miles. You know, Neftali Fuentes, a guy that I wrote the story about, a story about when I was down there, he had said he had crossed the border like a hundred times or something like that.
- [24:48]
A
I imagine it's not even that much. I bet there's people who've done it. Thousands.
- [24:51]
B
Yeah. Well, probably. Yeah. How do you have been. Yeah. And I don't know how it's changed, but like it was really common back then. And he would get like caught sometimes and shit, but, like it kind of didn't matter.
- [25:01]
A
Yeah. And one side or the other, they were just kind of released regardless.
- [25:07]
B
Yeah. And they had a couple organizations down there that would help people in the interim. So you kind of get the same like starter pack every time you got back.
- [25:15]
A
Yeah.
- [25:15]
B
From the border. So you could kind of get yourself set up again in Mexico. But, you know, I just saw such tragedy there because people are not kept track of and there's so much transientness. And that, I think is where a lot of terrible things happen, you know, and like, where else in the world do you see the, like hundreds and hundreds of women every single year being raped and murdered and left in the desert?
- [25:39]
A
Yeah.
- [25:40]
B
I mean, this happened for decades. And I think a large part of that is because there is a huge border crossing and there's all this friction. I mean, some of those deaths have to be because of things Americans have done too. And so, yeah, it takes me back there and simultaneously reminds me why it's so important that we all try to figure out how to get a little bit more freedom and protection. And you know, and I remember talking to a lot of the immigrants that were. We would help them before border crossings and write some stories about there's a series of old folks homes down there. And so a lot of people would drop off their elderly citizens at the Israeli derelict old folks homes before they were gonna try to cross into the US Cause they knew they wouldn't. The older person wouldn't be able to make it. And then you would send back money to try to take care of them. But a lot of times you'd lose contact. They would. And you know, I met multiple people like Carmelita who hadn't seen her family in like 10 or 20 years. So she's like, all by herself in this like, derelict place and subsisting off of like, nonprofit, you know, cash and no way. Oh, yeah.
- [26:47]
A
So there's this also there's like essentially generations, right. Because there's a lot of children getting sent over because they have to be cared for, Right?
- [26:54]
B
Yeah.
- [26:55]
A
And then there's the adult or working class or working age of men and women who come over for, to join the, you know, the workforce here in the US I never even thought about where the grandparents or where the elderly or where the first generations fall in line.
- [27:14]
B
Yeah. Back then you could look, one of those stories we wrote about that won a couple awards was you looked at the US Mexico border and what didn't make a lot of sense is as you looked at it, that the age demographic was really old. Like the border region was more red, if red represented old than most of the country. And the reason why was because a lot of these people were getting left behind. They called them los abandonados and they were the abandoned generation. And so we wrote a series of stories on that. I think we were the first to break that story back in the day. But you know, the part that I feel pretty guilty about from when I was young and dumb was just how excited I was to get some of the awards for that story. Like Las Desa Paracidas stuck with me more because I saw.
- [28:01]
A
Because you're a young woman.
- [28:02]
B
Yeah, I'm a young woman. And I saw brutally murdered young women. And just those images and the smell of a morgue will never get out of my, my nose like fully. But. But that had been sort of covered before. So like, it was so new to me. But had been covered. But the generation abandoned, that had never been covered before.
- [28:24]
A
No, I hadn't heard about this before. I had no idea. Especially living so close, you know, relatively the border. To the border.
- [28:31]
B
Yeah. And so when we got that, those awards and I went and took them back to Alla Prieta to the main person I wrote the story about, whose name was Carmen Dita, who was like 87 years old or something like that, but looked like 400 years old. I mean these people just. The care is so bad, you know, I have 99 year old grandparents who look 20 years younger than this woman. And I remember her saying to me, now that America knows about this, about us, you're going to help us. Right? You're going to reconnect me with my family. And that always stuck with me too, because I was so young, I wasn't going to be able to help her. And it was like, no, I know this is wrong. I know we could help, but we're not going to.
- [29:20]
A
What do you mean you could help? Like us as a nation or you.
- [29:23]
B
Us as a nation. Me individually, maybe like people, citizens. I don't know like any of those answers. But one, that wasn't what a journalist was supposed to do. I covered, I didn't influence. And then two, I knew that even though I wrote the story and we got all these awards, nobody was going to do anything different.
- [29:42]
A
Yeah. Isn't there like a law in journalism where like, don't intervene in nature? Like you see some of these incredible photographs. Incredible. Striking, I think is a better word. Right. Where there's a young malnourished child getting circled by vultures. Right. Or there's the famous one in Vietnam, right. Where they're executing around on the street. I mean a photographer's just snapping shots and I mean there's countless others. Is that like a rule? Is that like an unspoken law? Is that. I mean, you're supposed to be the.
- [30:11]
B
Quiet observer, you know, you're not supposed. At least that's how I was taught. You were supposed to be the one who documents, not the one who does.
- [30:21]
A
And it's easy to become a target then because you choose a side.
- [30:25]
B
Maybe I don't think that's it. It's that, it's. It's what's happened to journalism today. It's like.
- [30:31]
A
But they choose sides there in journalism.
- [30:33]
B
That's what I'm saying. But that's what's wrong, I think. Got it is it sounds better for you to. It sounds valiant to choose a side and to say this is what I believe, and I'm going to do this, and I understand why people would do that. But I think if you are a journalist, you know, your job, in as far as I thought. Thought it was, was to tell what you see and really try to remove yourself. I remember the dean who edited all of my pieces would ridicule me for the first or second drafts, because if there was any opinion in it, she was like, you are not. This is not an editorial. You are not an opinion writer. You are there to observe and document and tell the stories factually to what you see as humanly possible and nothing else.
- [31:14]
A
That's so striking because in that short amount of time since then to now, everything's littered with opinion.
- [31:20]
B
100%.
- [31:21]
A
I don't think you can find many without it.
- [31:24]
B
No. And in fact, when I was younger, I was. I thought I was pretty righteous. Like, I was like, that's why I didn't stay in journalism. You know, I was like, I don't want to write the stories. Like, I want to change them. Yeah, this is wrong. I want to tell them what's actually happening. And that's how I felt at the time, especially as, like, a young, young person so influenced by this. And she was like, this is not the. This is not the playground for that. Like, if you want to do that, that's somewhere else, but it's not here.
- [31:47]
A
Yeah.
- [31:48]
B
And I think that's really important, you know, and kind of to your point, even, like, the. The nature photographers, when there's, like, a little, you know, animal about to get murdered by something, it's like you're. It's the circle of life. You're not supposed to intervene, but that feels wrong somehow.
- [32:02]
A
No, I think. I mean, I think intervention's also top of mind considering what just happened a few hours ago. Yeah, right. With Daniel Penny being acquitted. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think there was a generation of young men hanging on by a thread to what was going to happen on this. Yeah. I mean, to hear, you know, he was a service member and to hear, like. I mean, she's. As a young man, what happens when you see, like, violence or purported violence or threats, and then you're disincentivized from. From intervening. I mean, like, it's insane. And you hear these stories, like our, you know, our friend in the security world, Spencer. Spencer Corson, you know, he's talked about times where you hear these cases where somebody. There'd be a domestic dispute going on, a man, like, just beating a woman senseless in public. Somebody intervening, turns out, you know, it's a husband, wife, pair that are, you know, drug addicts. Boom. This guy gets sued, right, For. For assault, and she doesn't press charges on her husband. And, like, it just goes down. And so to see Daniel Penny, where something like, like that happens when he intervenes, you know, a man was still alive when, When. When police arrived, whatever happens at. At the. At the scene of the incident. But at the end of the day, person protecting other people intervenes, and, you know, we put him through this incredibly difficult process.
- [33:31]
B
I know. What are we telling people who help other people?
- [33:34]
A
Yeah, I would. I would love to see, like, a, like a movement for like, a Daniel Penny law where it's like, give some protections, afford some protections to people who intervene. And, I mean, I know that would probably get tricky from the legal side of the house because there's so many nuances and variables, but, I mean, from a base level at least, now I think young men are now saying, okay, opt out. Well, yeah, opt out. I don't know. But. Because after this judgment, I think now it's like, okay, I'm not completely lost.
- [34:02]
B
That's true. But I guess they put that guy through hell. So.
- [34:06]
A
But.
- [34:06]
B
But again, like, and if that was me, that woman on the subway, and no one came to my aid, could you even. Im, like, yeah, what an awful society.
- [34:17]
A
Yeah, no, exactly. And I think you see it, like, from city to city. Right. I mean, I don't think it was anything that we would find in Austin.
- [34:23]
B
Texas, like, that it'd be interesting to see. You know, you kind of don't know. Right. Until it's true.
- [34:29]
A
I say it now, and I'm like.
- [34:30]
B
Well, well, I would say it more like this. Like, I remember the other day, you're just like, everybody thinks that they're going to do something and step in until it happens to them. Like, you know, this. You've had many incidents that, you know, I won't say that, or somebody's done something bad, and you have just. You stepped up. You've been like, hey, something happened. It's not acceptable. I do not allow, you know, violence to happen near me in this way. So, like, I'll answer the call, but I don't think a lot of people answer the call. I think a lot more people than realize it. Like, isn't there that. What's that phenomenon called where, like, tragedy of the Commons? Tragedy of the commons, yes. But there's another one that's like, where when something happens, but there's a crowd, they Assume, Assume that the other people are going to. To step in and they don't.
- [35:17]
A
Oh, I don't know.
- [35:18]
B
I don't know. Somebody will tell us in the comments. But basically that's the idea is like, you're basically like, ah, somebody else will deal with it. Somebody else will deal with it. And that's how like, terrible things happen in big groups.
- [35:30]
A
No mom mentality. But it's like the anti.
- [35:33]
B
Yeah, it's like.
- [35:33]
A
Because you could hide. You can hide like, you know, you can commit violence and hide amongst a crowd because if you're all guilty, no one is guilty.
- [35:39]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [35:41]
A
But if you single out an individual for it.
- [35:43]
B
Yeah.
- [35:43]
A
Or you make the assumption that somebody else will intervene.
- [35:47]
B
Yeah. Well, I remember when I was a journalist in Phoenix, I did a ride along with a cop and we got called to a house for domestic violence and he was like, oh, we're going to XYZ place. And he's like, it's this lady in this city. Like, he knows about the name. Yeah, it was like, oh, it's Sally and Tom again. And we get there and let's call her. Sally is like beat to fuck. I mean, she is like bleeding, she is disheveled. He's obviously fucked up. And she's like, oh, no, you know, nothing happens here. And the policeman tried to talk her. And he's like, something obviously happened here. What happened? You know, you called us because she had called the police to stop him from beating her to death. But then when the cops get there, for whatever reason, Stockholm syndrome or whatever, she goes back on it, which apparently happens a lot until the guy. And you know, whatever. So. So we had to leave. And I remember saying to the policeman, like, oh my. Like, obviously that man beat the shit out of her. What do we do? Like, and he's like, listen, if they don't press charges and they don't act unless we see something happen where we have a right to take that guy into custody, we legally can't do anything. And no witnesses because she was the one that called. And so there's nothing we do. And he's like. And the saddest part is he'll eventually kill her because that's what we see in a statistic way that's the same, like, statistically, that's terrible. Yeah. And that really stuck with me. And then I remember over the course of that night, the next place he got called was like a bar or something. And we picked up a homeless guy who just proceeded to piss all over the back of the police Car while we were in it. You know how there's like the cage front and so the thing just fucking reeked. And then we have to drop him off. The guy's gotta handle him and everything that he's gotta clean out urine like from all over the back. I mean just I can't think of a worse job, honestly.
- [37:42]
A
Sometimes I hope we have a major switch in how we think about service based jobs. I really, really hope that we significantly turn around how they're compensated, how we think about them. I mean I think to the entirety. Like teachers. I mean like your mom was a teacher for 30 years. Oh my. And what she had to deal with on a daily basis. Like I have so much respect for her and the fact that she was able to come home and be a wife and be a mother and be as like patient and as impactful as she was and still is for you and your family. Because I don't like that would drain all. Because think about it like how many unruly kids at times because you know, special needs and so not necessarily all of them were unruly but they had to be managed constantly. Right?
- [38:29]
B
Yeah.
- [38:31]
A
And so I could just imagine like how difficult it would be with one or two and especially of your own. But you know, a classroom full of 15, 20, even 10.
- [38:39]
B
Oh yeah, that was tough. Plus that was crazy. Like back in the day. I don't give her enough credit. I really should. 30 year special education teacher. She'd get up at 5 in the morning to go drive to Mesa, which is far from us to be there at like 6:00. So that school started at like 7. She had to prep stuff beforehand each time and she. That for 30 years and then they. Back then special education was always in a trailer.
- [39:02]
A
Not only that, but it was like it wasn't diagnosed. They didn't separate. No, no 100%. But also like the aptitude of the children. It wouldn't separate them by.
- [39:09]
B
No, you could have. Extreme. Extreme.
- [39:11]
A
Yes.
- [39:12]
B
Yeah. I mean she had one student who would like shove thumbtacks under her fink sit shoe and she would always find thumbtacks all over the place and so they'd be bleeding every like just crazy stuff and. And you know another one that would like get really upset and you know was a bigger kid and so would start like screaming and ripping off their clothes and then like run around naked and it's, you know it's. It was an elementary school and a middle school. So like young kids don't need to be seen all Those parts and stuff.
- [39:43]
A
And yeah, was, I mean, yeah, there's a support infrastructure has to change.
- [39:47]
B
Totally.
- [39:48]
A
People tell me how little teachers make. It's like you're, you're paying this person, expecting them to be in like new contributing member of society, yet we treat them like, you know, at, you know, minimum wage levels.
- [40:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, but she, I mean, she loved it for a long time. I think the reason she eventually got out, out of it, remember she told us, was because they ended up wanting the teachers to restrain the children. Like bodily restrain the children.
- [40:14]
A
Oh yeah, like the hug, you're saying, the power hug. That they recovered, that she was charged. She was just like they were trying to train teachers to do.
- [40:21]
B
I'm not gonna like, put my hands on somebody else's kid. And you know, I don't, I don't have any interest in that. And so she, she ended up retiring. But man, I think, like, I thought I would have a bad day and then I call her, you know.
- [40:35]
A
Yeah.
- [40:36]
B
You know what? The story though, that I think you should tell, if you want is to remember, of course, remember the story about the, the guy and the final night.
- [40:45]
A
And you're talking about that night when you had the, the military leaderhood to kind of give up his land where his family and generations had fought and died. Kind of. Okay, yeah. So, yeah, in, in the semi autonomous region of Iraq known as Kurdistan, there was like a, a local military commander who had deep family ties. You know, his family had been there for generations and he had built an incredibly successful telecom company in the region that had enabled cell phone usage in the area that just like hadn't been available in the area for, for decades. Right. Like lagging significantly behind modern infrastructure. And you know, he was a Peshmerga leader and the Peshmerga are as the fighting force of the Kurds. And each man participates as it participates in the, the peshmergar. It's like compulsory service, but it's like 10 days out of every month. I mean, it doesn't matter what walk of life you come from. You know, you serve in the Peshmer. And he had been a commander for the area. Incredibly well respected, incredibly well regarded. And this was during the, like, the counter ISIS campaigns and later, you know, Iraq War, Operation Inherent Resolve. And I remember the conversation that I had had, I had, I had with him because we were given an order to like leave our area because there was like an internal skirmish from, you know, Iraqis and the Kurds. And essentially this was towards the end of the conflict with isis, where they were declared military defeated in the country of Iraq. And the Kurds and the Iraqis, you know, have butted heads for a really long time. They had pushed a lot of disputes. And that's like, a nice way to put it. If you go back and you look back on what was done by Saddam Hussein against, you know, an entire infinite generation was just awful Kurds. Yeah. And when you have a conversation with this man, these are other people that he had fought with side by side for the last few years. The Iraq big of this. Yeah. Because now the Iraqis, you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And they had a common enemy in isis. And I think the hope always was that these two groups would. Would hopefully find peace. Right. In their want for a. Like, a peaceful, you know, to rebuild Iraq. And so this man who wielded incredible power, who had incredible influence, extremely wealthy, just sits there the night before we leave and talks to us about how this is just an accepting factor of history in the area, because.
- [43:51]
B
What is an accepting factor?
- [43:53]
A
Because the Iraqis were pushing the Kurds further away, back into, you know, traditionally older Kurdish territories, areas that they had, like, bled and fought and defended so that ISIS didn't move eastern from Iraq through Kurdistan all the way to the Iranian border. They held their position. They had fought them off. And you see the Iraqi forces the next day turn their weapons at the people with whom they've been fighting alongside for the last few years. And a lot of these individuals. Right. You know, men my age and younger, even a lot that were older, had not experienced the crimes against each other that their past generations were responsible for. And so it was, you know, a blood feud. It was. We were bred and born to dislike one another. And I mean, there's. There's a ton of, like. Of politics and ethnic dynamics that are at play, but you have this incredible helpless feeling because you spend time and lives and resources thinking that people change their ways or at least the course of history might alter slightly instead of reverting back to what it's been because there was the defeat of a common enemy. Right. There was, like, a common goal achieved with one another.
- [45:26]
B
So basically, the peshmerga and the Kurds helped the Iraqis defend against ISIS for years.
- [45:34]
A
For years.
- [45:34]
B
And the second that ISIS becomes eliminated, the Kurds live on really valuable land.
- [45:41]
A
Yeah.
- [45:41]
B
A lot of resources.
- [45:42]
A
Yeah.
- [45:44]
B
And the Iraqis come in and they take everything back from them.
- [45:48]
A
Yeah.
- [45:49]
B
So they wouldn't fight the hard wars. They'll let the other guys die.
- [45:52]
A
They Fought the hard wars. They absolutely did. I mean, the Iraqis lost a lot of lives, you know, taking back Iraq from isis. But this is an area that, you know, is extremely rich in energy resources. Right. I mean, it's like beautiful green rolling hills. It looks like central California.
- [46:11]
B
Kurdistan.
- [46:11]
A
Yeah. Kurdistan. People don't realize. They think of it as just like a, you know, forgotten, desolate desert. It's not. It's a beautiful, like, thriving metropolis.
- [46:19]
B
And that's not very much of Iraq. Right? That is a small portion.
- [46:23]
A
It's a small portion. Ish. But it's like. It's. It's more significant than you would imagine. Right. And so Kurdistan, Right. The Kurds live across, you know, western Iran, eastern northeastern Iraq, southern Turkey, and, like, northeastern Syria. And, you know, they're treated like there's a certain sect of Kurds that are treated like terrorists in. In Syria. The, you know, ethnic Kurds in Iran are, like, welcomed as their own. In Iraq, it's still like, a very heavily disputed area. And I mean, when I say similar, autonomous, it's like. It's like the China and Tibet dynamic. Right? Not too dissimilar. I mean, you have, like, movie theaters and you have, like, restaurants and malls, and you see, like, supercars, like, driving around and men are in suits. Like, it's a. In Kurdistan, it's a very. Like.
- [47:20]
B
What is it like in the rest of Iraq?
- [47:23]
A
Not that. Right. I mean, the rest of Iraq is like. It's. It's a very. Like. It's a. It's a poor country. It is not nearly as modernized. It's not nearly, like, heavy amenities that we do. And people also don't realize in Kurdistan, it's not all of one face. Right. I mean, you can be of many different denominations and many different faiths, which just, like, blows people's minds.
- [47:49]
B
And you won't get attacked.
- [47:50]
A
And you won't get attacked. You won't be persecuted.
- [47:52]
B
But elsewhere in Iraq, you would be.
- [47:54]
A
Absolutely. Yeah. The fun fact, the oldest continuously populated city in the world is the capital of Kurdistan, Erbil, Iraq.
- [48:02]
B
Yeah. Which is where you were.
- [48:03]
A
Right around there. In other places.
- [48:06]
B
Yeah. Oh, copy.
- [48:07]
A
Right, yeah.
- [48:07]
B
Cut that out. Yeah.
- [48:09]
A
So. So you see this guy, and you see resources. And so that's why I ask so many of these questions around it. Because, like, I saw a guy with resources. I saw a guy who changed. I saw him. Exactly. I saw him be the leader of these people who would do anything for him, who, like, fought and bled and stood there at the edges of existence knowing full well that the people who were helping him might turn their backs on him or would likely, if history had repeated itself as it did, and he had to go back to a life of which, how do I put this? He wasn't revered by his partners for what he did. It was thankless and he was taken advantage of. And so I always wonder, right, like, the price of intervention.
- [49:09]
B
Yeah.
- [49:10]
A
I mean, he. For him, it's an existential threat, right? He. He has to. But at least for just once had somebody allowed him not to live that fate. Just tough to see fair, Neil. And then it crumbles into, you know, like a civil war type thing. And it's. It's a messy, messy, messy subject.
- [49:36]
B
You know what's interesting, too, is, like, I say that money is the key to freedom, but it's like, to a point, you know, it's like money, but also, we really gotta watch out for too much power in the hands of the government. That. That happens.
- [49:53]
A
I mean, I think hands the government. But, you know, we talk about mob mentality, right? And I think we talk about the wills of people. I think you can earn your way into constraints and in confinement in and of itself. Like getting on this hamstrap. You talk about getting on this hamster wheel, right? Like, what was the old joke, you know, in one of your old firms? Was like, that guy wants to buy a Ferrari.
- [50:18]
B
Yeah, mine too. But he had to keep working.
- [50:21]
A
Exactly.
- [50:22]
B
Yeah. Well, I guess I think about it more like, I don't think most people realize in America, like, if you've never seen the fall of a civilization in some way, it's really hard to understand it. Like, when I saw how quick companies fell in Argentina under Cristina Fernandez, I was like, oh, my fucking. Oh, my God. Like, everything that we have is actually super delicate and interconnected, and if we allow too few in positions of power to control everything, they can pull it.
- [50:52]
A
All away because it literally changed overnight.
- [50:54]
B
It changed, like, basically overnight. And it, like, happens really slow and then it happens really fast is what they say about recessions, too, right? And I mean, the history of Latin America is all about that, right?
- [51:05]
A
Yeah.
- [51:06]
B
And, you know, and I saw the same thing, you know, happen. Like, I remember my brother was in. Was in Chile, like, locked up in his room. Remember during the. Oh, yeah, during COVID when they were having riots downtown all across. I mean, he couldn't leave and get anything out for, like, a couple weeks. And so, like, having seen that happen in those countries, I think I'm so much more protective of what we have here. In America. Because it's fragile.
- [51:31]
A
Yeah.
- [51:31]
B
And you saw it firsthand. Like, you actually. I wasn't in a center of power. I didn't know anybody in politics when I was, you know, seeing some of that stuff happen, Happen there. You, like, actually engaged with the people who are running things and then had to watch it fall, too. I mean, it leaves a mark.
- [51:50]
A
Yeah, no, absolutely. Because it makes me think about, like, you know, we talk, you know, you protect the house.
- [51:56]
B
Yeah.
- [51:56]
A
It's like, sometimes how.
- [51:59]
B
Sometimes how.
- [52:00]
A
Right. Or is it like, are you complete? Are you lying to yourself in terms of your ability to protect it all?
- [52:05]
B
Yeah.
- [52:06]
A
You know.
- [52:07]
B
Yes. You do what you can with what you have.
- [52:09]
A
Yeah. Watching civilizations crumble.
- [52:11]
B
Yeah. But I, you know, I do think, like, everybody talks about, like, yeah, go travel and see the world. And it's like, yes. But like, just because you've, you know, if you've been to Chicago, like, I remember when I lived in Chicago, like, you, you're down on, like, the Miracle Mile. You're, like, at the Merchandise Mart. It's gorgeous. Like, everything's great. If you only saw that area, you would never think that it was close to the murder capital of the U.S. yeah. Because you never went south. And if you never went south, you never saw how close you were. And yet so far from, like, a totally different world. And so sometimes I think, like, it's not actually travel that makes a difference. It's like, experience, you know?
- [52:53]
A
Yeah. I think. I think people like to substitute those words. Oftentimes they believe, Citizen the Coast can say that. That their travel is an experience. And it is and of itself. Right. But I mean, I still think it's important to understand what makes other cultures tick. Like I talked about earlier, when you have people feeling about the Desa Parasitas and los abandonados, like, what do. How do we view human life? How do we grieve? Because I would also argue that, you know, their system was better for elderly care. Right. I mean, you're. You take care of your grandparents.
- [53:30]
B
Yes.
- [53:31]
A
You're taking your entire families. Whereas U.S. in the U.S. you know, we. We send them off.
- [53:35]
B
Their communal system is way better. Yeah. Their systemic, nationwide system. Awful. But, like, they don't just. They don't just let go of their elderly people. No. You know what else made me realize, Like, I think I'd be curious your take. I think evil exists. I mean, they're absolutely evil. That will do really terrible, terrible things. And it's hard to believe it if you have seen it, but it's our job to, like, protect against that. If you have any resources at all.
- [54:02]
A
Yeah. I mean, I say often, and I think you probably would agree since of what your experiences were as a journalist, but, like, I don't think I'll. I don't think I'll be surprised by human nature ever again. You know, I mean, the ability for someone to do something just so evil and lascivious or just so offensive against another person or society writ large, and I. I hate that that's the view. Like, don't get me wrong. I wish it was. I did. I wish it wasn't a view that I held, but it's very difficult to be proven. Proven opposite.
- [54:33]
B
Yeah. I think you're a very optimistic realist. You're like, lots of can happen. Lots of good can happen, too. Well, I love you.
- [54:43]
A
I love you. This is fun.
- [54:44]
B
You exist in the world.
- [54:45]
A
Me too. You. I'm so proud of you. What a great week.
- [54:49]
B
Thank you. It's been fun. Yeah. I hope. I hope the book helps. I hope it makes a mark and people get a little bit more pushback on freedom.
- [54:56]
A
I do, too. We'll see.
- [54:58]
B
All right, see you guys next week.