Episode 379 - Josh Smith

Summary

Summary of "Cleared Hot" Podcast Episode 379 featuring Josh Smith

Introduction

In Episode 379 of Cleared Hot, host Andy Stumpf engages in a dynamic conversation with Josh Smith, the founder of Montana Knife Company (MKC). Josh brings a multifaceted background, including military service, entrepreneurship, and community leadership. The episode delves into pressing issues such as local housing crises, environmental challenges, business growth amidst supply chain disruptions, and political critiques, all woven seamlessly with personal anecdotes and industry insights.

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1. Local Housing Crisis and Urbanization in Montana

Josh Smith opens the discussion by addressing the rapid growth of Kalispell, Montana, highlighting its status as the fastest-growing town in the state last year with an influx of approximately 8,000 residents. He underscores the strain this growth places on local infrastructure and housing affordability.

“Kalispell was the fastest growing town in Montana last year, I think it was 8,000 people. Calm down.” [31:33]

Josh compares Montana’s housing market to that of Texas and California, emphasizing the stark differences in affordability and land availability. He points out that while a starter home in Texas might cost around $250,000, similar properties in Montana are priced between $500,000 to $600,000.

“In Texas, she can buy, you know, like five acres in a 5,000 square foot house. I mean, it was crazy what you could buy down there.” [49:18]

2. Wildfires in California: Causes and Rebuilding Challenges

A significant portion of the conversation centers on the devastating wildfires in California, exploring both natural and human-induced causes. Josh elaborates on the complexities of rebuilding post-fire, including issues with insurance, power lines, and ensuring community safety.

“Once you get a fire going like that, I don't know how you stop it... there's a lot of mitigating risk and threat to life that the power companies have to come through and just make sure everything's actually safe before you can even start.” [22:55]

He discusses the logistical nightmares of rebuilding, such as managing gas lines and power transformers, and the long-term implications for displaced families.

“And then power-wise, you have junction cans and transformers. And you can't assume any transformer is dead.” [22:55]

3. Business Growth and Steel Industry Challenges

Josh provides insights into MKC's operational challenges, particularly the recent bankruptcy of their steel supplier, Crucible. The acquisition of Crucible by Aerosteel in Europe presents significant hurdles in securing American-made steel, which is vital for MKC's production.

“Our steel's American made... All the steel that we bought is American made. The entire industry is trying to figure out a couple things.” [65:00]

They delve into the potential impacts of tariffs under the Trump administration, discussing the need for industry-specific carve-outs to prevent price hikes that could cripple businesses reliant on specialized materials.

“I think there's going to be some kind of carve-out where it's like, hey, this deal is tariffed because, hey, bridge builder guy, you can buy that same steel over here in Pennsylvania.” [65:00]

4. Political Critique and Government Transparency

The conversation shifts to a critical analysis of government transparency, especially concerning high-profile cases like Epstein's. Josh emphasizes the importance of exposing wrongdoing regardless of political affiliations and advocates for balanced criticism across the political spectrum.

“Why can't we just say that this is not the best utilization of our tax dollars?” [70:10]

Andy and Josh discuss the polarized nature of political discourse, arguing against partisan attacks solely based on ideology and stressing the need for objective evaluations of government actions.

“Why can't we be critical of both the left and the right? Two things can be true at once.” [73:58]

5. Personal Anecdotes: Family and Knives

Josh shares personal stories that humanize the discussion, including his experience gifting a chef's knife at his wedding. This anecdote not only showcases MKC’s products but also highlights the practical challenges of integrating high-quality tools into daily life.

“I realized that my middle son Tyler, who is one of the smartest people on earth, was opening a box that was full of staples with it.” [42:08]

They laugh over the unintended uses of quality knives, emphasizing the robustness and durability of MKC's offerings.

“He wanted to open envelopes. I don't try to get into knife fights, but I do open a lot of boxes.” [57:32]

6. Aviation: Helicopter Ownership and Pilot Training

A lively segment features Andy discussing his recent purchase of a Messerschmitt helicopter and the journey of obtaining a pilot's license. Josh expresses a keen interest in helicopter training, highlighting the complexities and safety aspects involved.

“Flying a helicopter is not the hardest thing in the world. But it's not easy by any stretch either.” [98:43]

They delve into technical details about helicopter operations, auto-rotation, and the logistical challenges of maintaining and operating such aircraft in Montana's remote areas.

“When you pull this thing out that a company that actually cares about what you guys are doing, built this blade, will stand behind them, guarantee them for life.” [92:54]

7. Future Outlook: Community and Business Sustainability

Josh and Andy discuss the future trajectory of Montana Knife Company amidst growing economic and environmental challenges. Josh emphasizes the importance of building sustainable businesses that contribute positively to local economies and support a well-paying workforce.

“We need some actual manufacturing companies that need professionals to come and work. We hire professional videographers, engineers, machinists...” [37:53]

They also touch upon the declining school enrollment in Frenchtown, attributing it to high housing costs and the trend of young families moving away in search of affordability.

“Our enrollment in our school here is actually dropping in Frenchtown, if you can believe it.” [38:40]

Conclusion

Episode 379 of Cleared Hot offers a comprehensive exploration of the intertwined challenges and opportunities facing Montana Knife Company and the broader Montana community. Through Josh Smith's insights and personal anecdotes, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of local economic dynamics, environmental crises, and the resilience required to navigate them. The episode underscores the importance of sustainable business practices, community engagement, and balanced political discourse in fostering a thriving and resilient region.

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Notable Quotes:

• “Kalispell was the fastest growing town in Montana last year, I think it was 8,000 people. Calm down.” [31:33]
• “Once you get a fire going like that, I don't know how you stop it... there's a lot of mitigating risk and threat to life that the power companies have to come through and just make sure everything's actually safe before you can even start.” [22:55]
• “Why can't we just say that this is not the best utilization of our tax dollars?” [70:10]
• “I realized that my middle son Tyler... was opening a box that was full of staples with it.” [42:08]
• “Flying a helicopter is not the hardest thing in the world. But it's not easy by any stretch either.” [98:43]
• “We need some actual manufacturing companies that need professionals to come and work...” [37:53]

This structured and detailed summary captures the essence of the episode, providing valuable insights for those who haven't listened while maintaining engagement through direct quotes and clear sectioning.

Transcript

[Josh Smith]

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what big wireless does. They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right. We're cutting the price of mint unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a [e-mail] Switch $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month.

[Ryan Reynolds]

New customers on first three month plan only.

[Josh Smith]

Taxes and fees extra speeds lower above 40 gigabytes.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Details ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna go with a slightly different format for this Monday and I'm curious to hear how it is received. I think it was pretty cool. Two weeks ago I flew down and I visited Josh Smith and did a podcast with him. He is today's guest and if you consume the podcast through a medium that has video, YouTube or Spotify, you'll notice that I have two main sponsors on every thumbnail. One is Montana Knife Company, the other one is Black Rifle Coffee. And today is an awesome day cause I get to combine the two. But I flew down there and we did a little bit of a vlog to show you behind the scenes and then also a podcast. And then his team did an amazing job and put those two together. So if you're on an audio only format today, you might hear some things or hear us talking about some things. You may not be able to. You'll be able to follow, but it might have a little bit less context if you're in a video platform. And today I would recommend perhaps consuming this via video because you'll get to see the vlog aspect and the podcast aspect. I think it's a really cool blend and I'm curious to hear what the audience thinks. I definitely would not be able to do this with every guest because of the proximity that I have to Josh, but it's also not a bad idea so I can play with it a little bit. So again I said Josh Smith is the guest for today episode 379. Founder of Montana Knife Company if you listen to the podcast, you've heard me do a bunch of ad reads about them. They're just down in Frenchtown, Montana getting ready to move into Missoula when their building is done. It's a really cool brand. Born and bred here in Montana, roots in Montana and definitely growing globally. So that's the episode we're going to get into before we get into that Give me a second. Let me talk about the other co presenting sponsor of the podcast. You guys know what I'm talking about. It's Black rifle coffee. Let's pay the bills real fast. This episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. Let's mosey on over to their website, shall we? What do we have here? We have a buy one, get one free coffee bags and K cups. Very straightforward. We have the roast. They offer some new releases. They've actually dropped a good amount of new merchandise from soft goods and drinking coffee type of offering. What do we have here? Spring product drop. Gear up for the season with our spring product drop, a limited run of premium apparel and gear designed for the BRCC lifestyle. Each drop features exclusive designs, high quality materials and rugged functionality built on those who live boldly. Let's click on this. What's it look like? Okay. Some coffee cups, some stickers. Is this a 50 cal mounted on top of an old school RV? I support that. Coasters. Oh, I love this mug. We saw this one in the coffee shop. All right, I like this. So they're doing some seasonal releases and what I'm talking about with is their energy drink. I just tapped. I just clicked on that tab. This is one of the best sellers in our store week over week. I am not an energy drink guy. This is not my jam. But people are loving this. Four flavors. Punch, Wildfrost, Ranger Berry and Project Mango. 200 milligrams of caffeine and it's not coffee. It's definitely an energy drink. If that's your thing, I highly recommend you check it out. Go to blackrifflecoffee.com let's get in the show. Okay, got the red smoke. Sun run north or south? West of the smoke.

[Josh Smith]

West of the smoke.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay, copy.

[Josh Smith]

West of the smoke.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I'm looking at danger close now.

[Josh Smith]

It, baby, give it to me. I mean, it cleared hot. Clear hot. Andy's coming to do a podcast down here and he's flying down from Kalispell. He owns Black Rifle up there. It's pretty badass. So we're going to do that. We just had everybody up at our property for our Tuesday morning meeting. Had the whole team up there. Yeah, he came ripping by. I think somebody just filled their coffee style. Jesus Christ. Now he's just showing off. Just burning fuel. He's actually gonna land this time. That thing hauls ass, dude.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You can tell that's a completely different machine than what he flew down.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. Holy hell. That makes me want to have one of those things. Drizzle how nice. How nice would that be? The commute to work in, though.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Not as cool as a three wheeler.

[Josh Smith]

Your three wheeler still beat the helicop, huh? Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I had to give Michael that brief this morning.

[Josh Smith]

I told I always walk up to helicopters with Hank. That way, if he gets clipped in the head first, I know I need to.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So I don't touch the spinny or anything. That's loud.

[Josh Smith]

It's probably not going to interact with. Yeah, this thing is cool. There's not a lot of leg room in the back seat, Hank. I don't know if you'd fit in the back seat.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I was on a zoom call, and.

[Josh Smith]

And I like it. Like, scared me and I liked it. There was.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I don't know if scaring is a good metric for anything. All kitchen knives. I figured you guys could sharpen.

[Josh Smith]

Perfect. He wants to sharpen these.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That actually would be interesting. I don't.

[Josh Smith]

We could get one to Dris this.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You still don't understand how this works.

[Josh Smith]

I don't just choose to remember the things that are important to me.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You have a podcast.

[Josh Smith]

Anything Aiden says isn't important to me.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You have a podcast, though. You should understand how this works.

[Josh Smith]

I know.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How much time do you have? Busy. CEO of Montana Knife Company.

[Josh Smith]

Like an hour and a half.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Should we start?

[Josh Smith]

I have to go get my real id. My birthday's coming up in a couple weeks, and apparently that is be coming into effect, like, in a month. You won't be able to get on a plane.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You will if you have a passport.

[Josh Smith]

It's true. Who wants to haul a passport?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Not me.

[Josh Smith]

Domestically and not me.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But I don't think in Kalispell I could get a real ID appointment between now and when it goes into effect.

[Josh Smith]

I was actually surprised how easy it was to get one here because I thought it might be tough, but apparently that goes quick, so.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, it's just a. It's just a DL.

[Josh Smith]

It's stupid.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's a different one. And I don't think they actually confirm your identification anymore any more than your normal driver's license. I mean, it's you. It's the same requirement for information.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. I have to bring, like, two things that prove my address. Right. So something that's been, like, an electric bill or something that's been mailed to my home address.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay.

[Josh Smith]

You have to bring birth certificate and, like, a passport.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay.

[Josh Smith]

I mean, there's a fair amount, but. And then you get a little gold star in your license, and I don't know why gold Star. The driver's license. I don't know why my regular driver's license still just can't work. I think it's all ridiculous.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You might be a Salma Ben. Josh.

[Josh Smith]

It's. I might be.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Have you been traveling a lot?

[Josh Smith]

A little bit.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I asked because I've never sat down at a podcast table and been given a water of this size. But I have been given a bunch of these on airplanes. Are you stuffing your backpack full of waters?

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. And. And also robbing the carts in the hotels of all the soaps.

[Ryan Reynolds]

All right.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. I'm not sure where we got those. I. Again, I don't buy the waters around here. Have you seen the size of Hannah? She probably thinks that's a full size when she holds it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I mean she's a little.

[Josh Smith]

She's a little.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I have so many questions though. First question is who thinks this is enough water?

[Josh Smith]

It's. We have a water shortage in parts of the world so we're, you know, doing our part. I don't know.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The earth is 70 nowhere that I go. Yeah. Earth is 70 water.

[Josh Smith]

I saw was a podcast with Tucker and he was interviewing. I don't know if it was some chic from Jordan or Bahrain or somewhere over there. And they were talking about their water supply being out of the Gulf. Are they doing desalination? And that's a hundred percent their water supply. They. They were talking about if. With the Iran nuclear stuff. If they had a. Like forget about the Iran. Like Iran having a nuclear bomb. Just power plants or whatever. If they had a nuclear accident and they had that get into the Gulf into the water and poison that water that every single one of those countries around there all use desalination. And they would all be out of water in three days.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Have you traveled much over there?

[Josh Smith]

Only to uae.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Did you spend a lot of time.

[Josh Smith]

Or just kind of pass through like 10 days.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's an interesting spot in the world. I understand from a. Maybe an entrepreneur or a business methodology why you would want to go there. I could not do it.

[Josh Smith]

Could not do just like traveling.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I could not live in the Middle East.

[Josh Smith]

Oh no.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I would melt.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I don't do well.

[Josh Smith]

A thousand percent.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. With triple digit temperatures.

[Josh Smith]

I will say Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Like we spent all our time in Abu Dhabi. Yeah. And this is. That's what we 2005.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's where we pass through for the Triple 7.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You go through areas that look like wasteland, not like a nuclear wastelander. I'm not talking about ghettos. Or anything like that, Just undeveloped. And then the most incredible skyscraper you've ever seen.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, it's.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's a little jarring.

[Josh Smith]

It's unbelievable. I mean, we flew into Dubai and then drove to Abu Dhabi and I mean it was, you know, that road for 80 miles or whatever it is, was lit the whole way. It'd be like driving from here to Kalispell and having a street light every, you know, 500ft. And then honestly, like being in the city. Of course that's back in 05 or 6. So height of the Iraq war. Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

What brought you over there?

[Josh Smith]

I made a sword for one of their shakes.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I remember this. You told us on one of the episodes.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. And so he flew us over there and we. We actually were a guest at a hunting show there. So it's. It was like shot show but in the Middle east it was all hunting and most of it was based around falconry.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Was this the blade that you made that you completely ruined the gold for?

[Josh Smith]

No, I ruined a blade though. That's. I've ruined many projects that I worked on.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Did you nuke your entire gold supply on one of these?

[Josh Smith]

I nuked my entire gold supply on a knife for just a stateside customer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. About a 12, $13,000 mistake or maybe more current price. Today's prices would have been probably 25 grand.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

But no, I went over there and, you know, was uncertain about security and whatever else and we were there and I never felt so secure in a large city in my life. I mean, walked around, went to restaurants and did whatever and it was friggin amazing.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Have you ever been to Singapore?

[Josh Smith]

No.

[Ryan Reynolds]

One of the cleanest countries probably on planet Earth.

[Josh Smith]

Really.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Risk from a crime perspective. Almost nothing. I traveled over there a bunch. Not recently actually, but I did a stint. I was working with a guy I met through fundraising, actually. He worked at Barclays and I was kind of on the circuit speaking with them. But I would hit Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia once, but was over there a half a dozen times. One of the coolest places I've ever been.

[Josh Smith]

Really.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Zero risk whatsoever. Like spit your gum out on the sidewalk and you're going to end up talking with the cops.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Type. Nobody's messing.

[Josh Smith]

It's kind of funny if you actually, you know, uphold your laws how and, and are serious about it. How people will actually obey them.

[Ryan Reynolds]

What do you mean?

[Josh Smith]

Well, like in our country where we tend to let people just walk in and steal something unless it's less than a thousand bucks. It's not A big deal or so.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I was at Huntington. I was. I was doing a speech in LA last week, two weeks ago, which, by the way, I spent more time in traffic than doing anything professionally while I was there.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But I walked over to the pier near the hotel I was staying at, and it said on a sign on. On the door, everything is priced at like $985. And the non criminal discount is applied at checkout. And I'm thinking that's not a bad way to solve that problem.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So they put it over whatever the price was.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Non criminal discount applied at checkout.

[Josh Smith]

Interesting.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Which I think, though, probably drives your staff nuts, because how many people are going to come up to you and say, what's the actual cost of this? What's the actual cost of this? And it was a souvenir store.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So maybe five bucks was the actual answer.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. When I was down there last year, I just walked down on the pier, I was waiting, went down to do Mike Rose podcast, and I was just kind of killing some time.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How did you get linked up with him, by the way? Because he seems awesome. I've loved that showed Dirty Jobs.

[Josh Smith]

He is awesome.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

Okay. I now remember. I was trying to remember exactly which way. There was a customer of ours down in Nashville that loves our stuff and he works for Dave Ramsey. Okay. The get out of debt guy.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yep.

[Josh Smith]

And Mike was doing some event there, and this guy coordinates a lot of Dave Ramsey's events, and he was telling Mike about us and gave Mike one of our chef's knives and was telling Mike all about mkc. And Mike was like, that sounds awesome. Connect me. So he connected us, and then Mike had me come down and do his podcast, and then him and I just hit it off. Mike is exactly the guy you would hope and think that he is.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

It's such a good dude.

[Ryan Reynolds]

His show, the Dirty Job show, it falls into the category of one of those train wrecks that you cannot stop watching if you don't have an appreciation for the things that make this clock tick. And by that, I mean our society after watching that show. I don't know if you have a soul.

[Josh Smith]

Exactly. No. And he. He did such an amazing job with that. And he. That's actually what I really raised my kids on, because we didn't watch lots of TV with the kids when they were young, but that was one of the shows on television. Like, you guys want to watch Dirty Jobs? We'll watch it all you want. Like, and. And at that point, there was Reruns and it was on all the time. It was interesting because Mike kind of like fell into that because his mother called him one day. He had been like doing voiceover stuff and television st. Whatnot and just kind of your typical la, you know, celebrity type television personality.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But how did he even get into that stuff?

[Josh Smith]

He. I think he. He had. He told me all of it. Like he was in acting classes when he was young. He was in. He's a hell of a. Like a singer. He did Singing player. Yeah. Plays and, you know, worked his way. Just the various paths that take you to where you got. And his mom called him one day. She's very blunt. And his mom said, you know, your grandfather, who. His grandfather was like a blue collar worker guy. Your grandfather isn't doing so well and you should consider doing something before your grandfather dies that he would be proud of.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So she really sugarcoated it.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, she really sugarcoated it. And so he was thinking about it and he's like, I don't know. So he went down and he just took a film crew the next day and he went down to downtown and found us crew working on the sewers and just said, can I just film. I mean, he didn't have the idea of dirty jobs yet, but can I just film what you guys do? And he got down in there with them and was in the sewer and he said it was like, no, exactly what you would think. It was awful. And filmed it and then ultimately ended up creating dirty jobs and one of the best shows that's ever been on television. It's great.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Excuse me.

[Josh Smith]

Bless you. Would you mind opening a couple windows?

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's bright in here.

[Josh Smith]

Hot in here.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You have a sweatshirt on.

[Josh Smith]

I do, yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. It's okay. No, he seems fantastic. He can write like a son of.

[Josh Smith]

A too, that guy. Also just like. He just has the ability to just talk. Like when he. I saw an interview that was just done, some guy walked up to him at, I think it was SEMA or some kind of a show that he was just at and asked him about the skills gap in our country and, you know, all the things that he talks about with college. And he just went off talking about and stating and rattling off all of the numbers and the percentage of people on welfare and the amount of people who are in debt, college debt, and like all the various things. And he just has a way of talking where he's just easy to listen to and he's so good at telling a story and by the end of it, you're just like. Yeah, whatever you said, I agree with that.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I cut you off before. So you were in Huntington Beach. We were talking about the non criminal pricing.

[Josh Smith]

Oh, yeah. Well, just going down to the beach. Gorgeous beach. But walking down there, the. The garbage and the homeless and in one of the most beautiful places in America. I mean that California is unbelievable, but.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. And it's mostly not beach, but that's what makes the postcards.

[Josh Smith]

Exactly. No, it's. I mean, we live in Montana. It's a beautiful state, but there's no more beautiful state than California. I mean the diversity between the mountains, the skiing, the vineyards.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's what I was going to say. You could go, you could be at the beach. You actually could do this. You could be at the beach in the morning surfing.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

In the LA basin. And by the afternoon be snowboarding or skiing if you wanted to. Yeah, just by driving east a little bit. And up the mountain you could go down to Mexico. There's the Redwoods up north. They elk hunt. There's actually a good amount of hunting in California. More of the northern parts.

[Josh Smith]

Yep. Desert, the whole wine country. Tours. Oh, God, the. What is it? The 13 or 18 mile or whatever. Drive around like the pebble beach area.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So down by Monterey.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. I mean you drive that. That stretch of that coast and whatnot. I toured that when I was down there one time. Just killing some time is unbelievably beautiful.

[Ryan Reynolds]

They have some problems in that state.

[Josh Smith]

They do.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I'm from that state.

[Josh Smith]

Is that where you were born and raised? I guess so.

[Ryan Reynolds]

California. Santa Cruz.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Coastal. What most people think all of California is.

[Josh Smith]

That's where you grew up. Did you grow up surfing and doing all that? I grew up beach guy.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I did junior lifeguards when I was younger and I mean I dabbled in surfing. There were people who, I mean, surfing was offered as.

[Josh Smith]

Were you on Baywatch?

[Ryan Reynolds]

No, no, I was. I was a child at the time.

[Josh Smith]

Oh.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And I did not actually go out on any rescues because I was a child. They offered surfing as an elective in my high school. That's how the surfing culture is there. Steamers Lane is very well known, probably. Mavericks is probably the best one known in California. Depending on the type of wave you want to surf. But that's more up by San Francisco. We're more towards San Francisco, but I mean, I was around the water.

[Josh Smith]

Did you enjoy growing up there? Was a good childhood.

[Ryan Reynolds]

My family had been in there for generations, so thankfully for me it was very difficult to get in trouble.

[Josh Smith]

Really.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So it was a great place to grow up, but it was an even better place to leave. I, I have a few friends that have stayed there. Nothing against those friends whatsoever. The view of the world is very different if you stay inside of that bubble versus getting outside of the bubble, traveling and then come back.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. We would have philosophical, we would have philosophical differences on some of the major what I'll say, challenges that our country has and the solutions to said challenges.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But nothing against them. I mean, just review it differently.

[Josh Smith]

Were you, did you grow up somewhere close to where those fires happened?

[Ryan Reynolds]

The fires Insane. Oh, yeah. So most of that was if you go east of Santa Cruz up towards San Jose, which is, you know, the hub for most tech. Highway 17 is in that area. And then, and that stretch right there is kind of where it burned and then north along the coast, I think along Highway 1.

[Josh Smith]

Okay. That when I, when I flew in there for that podcast, as we're dropping in there.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Oh, you're talking la.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Santa Cruz is four miles north.

[Josh Smith]

North. Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But they actually had. Here's the thing. I am shocked that the LA fires hadn't happened before.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So my brother in law is a San Diego city fire captain. The Santa Anas are not unknown.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

They whip. And for people who don't know what Santa Anas are, it's an eastern wind. So it's coming from. And again, this is something people don't think about in California. They just think it's beautiful beaches and ocean, which it absolutely is. 50 miles inland. It's high desert.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Beyond it there. I mean, Palm Springs, if you go southeast of Palm Springs, it's like desert desert. So when the wind starts whipping in from the east, it's like a hair dryer.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And it's just waiting for a spark. And during that season, those guys are on call. They're gone for a week or two at a time. It's not like it's unheard of. I was shocked that it actually hadn't happened earlier than that in la. And from my understanding of what did happen, it had a lot to do with the angle of the wind because those Santa Anas, if they're a little bit more northernly, I guess it didn't have as much of an impact, but it was the perfect angle. And if they released yet how much of that was natural versus I haven't.

[Josh Smith]

Heard like what was arson.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And I believe there was a healthy.

[Josh Smith]

Mix of both because I think maybe there was one or two of them started potentially from power lines as well.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Then they also, I'm pretty sure, openly talked about catching people who were starting.

[Josh Smith]

Those fires as for sure.

[Ryan Reynolds]

In addition to that. Yeah, I don't know how that city recovers. 10,000 people displaced. I don't know. How would you get insurance again if you wanted to rebuild in that area?

[Josh Smith]

Well, and when, when we were dropping in there to fly in, it boggles the mind when you look at those areas on the outskirts la, how packed, how close those homes are together. I mean, just for miles, it's just absolutely, you know, they're a foot apart for miles. I mean, once you get a fire going like that, I don't know how you stop it. And like you say, I don't know how it hasn't happened before and, or how they're going to keep it from happening again. Because, you know, the, the rebuilding part too, like, yeah, what people don't understand, and I understand what Trump was saying and I agree with some of how he, the, the idea that he was trying to push them to cut some red tape and help rebuild. But you also can't just go into those areas and start bulldozing stuff immediately because like when I, when I was a lineman, when you have a fire like that come through, there's a few things to think about. One, gas, like gas lines are coming out of the ground, you have, you know, regulators and they're shut off. But if people start just stripping across the ground with a blade or whatever and you break all that stuff off, now you have blowing gas. Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So you're talking about like the low.

[Josh Smith]

Pressure home supply gas, the natural gas lines. Yep, that, that supply, that thought about that though. They're not low pressure. I mean they're medium pressure, they're low pressure after they go through a regulator. But when they come out of the ground, they're still at, you know, line pressure from the main that they're coming from. Yeah, but when you, you have a burned out home there and you just take a backhoe or a bulldozer and you just scrape off that lot, you have gas lines coming out of the ground on every single one of those. So you have to go through and mitigate that danger and make sure that all those gas lines are taken care of. You then power wise, you have junction cans and transformers. And what you don't know is what's still hot and what's not hot as far as energized. So you can't just assume, you know, well, that transformer is dead over there. This one must be dead too. So there's a lot of mitigating risk and like threat to life that the power companies have to come through and just make sure everything's actually safe before you can even start. And then.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, when do you even do that? Because then did you hear it switch from the fire danger to a mudslide danger?

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Because all of the vegetation that was holding, that was one of the issues too. Those areas north of la, you're, you're proximal to la, but you can feel like you're a little bit out of it because you have this lush vegetation.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That burns. So do you let the vegetation grow back? How do you mitigate that risk also while it's gone? And you need to do all that. They got a torrential rainstorm which means you're going to get covered in mud.

[Josh Smith]

Well, and this, and this goes back to something that we dealt with when. So when I was still alignment, they had had, they have fires down there in California all the time, but they had had some major, major fires that burned up a ton of homes maybe seven, eight years ago. Paradise Fire six or seven years ago. And it was found to have been started by a power line that, you know, touched a tree or whatever. And so the citizens that had, that was, that were affected by that turn around. They sue like PG and E. Right. They sue the power company. Well the issue with that is guess who is going to pay for that? It's going to be the rate payers when they come out of that. Right. And then you start turning this thing into. And this is where the discussion came to Montana. It's like, okay, it's hot and dry in August, crazy hot and dry drought. Does the power company make the decision, hey, we don't want to get sued if we happen to actually accidentally start a fire. So we're going to start shutting the power off every day at 1:00 until 9:00 at night.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Or you could bury the power lines.

[Josh Smith]

That's easier said than done. Like go try and bury that many power lines through a major city, you know, I mean like it's not that hard.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, I don't know anything about electricity.

[Josh Smith]

Or power lines even like on Maui, burying power lines. It's made out of volcanic rock. I mean at times ditching power lines is easier said than done. You know, when it's volcanic freaking rock.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You know, just saying it lowers the fire danger. The other, I'm not saying I understand the mechanics.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. But the other, the other thing with these power lines is, is, you know, like in Montana, when we trim trees and vegetation away from our power lines, we have the advantage that shit doesn't grow around here for like six, seven months. In California, your vegetation is growing 12 months out of the year. You know again, who's going to pay for all that? Right. And even if you do that, like you were talking about the brush management and the trees and all that stuff in just subdivisions, like who's going to pay to keep the brush, you know, to a non dangerous fire level in an entire state that's already broke.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, now that that fire has happened and they were already dropping some policies because of the limits that California had put on them, who is going to. So let's say they allow the vegetation to come back and they are able to get everything back safe from power and gas. What insurance company.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Is going to insure that? And how are you going to get a building permit, let alone a construction loan?

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Without insurance.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. Bank's not going to loan against it. No. And a lot of times insurance companies will loan. I know because I burned my house down. Will, will, will ensure you against like your own kind of accidents. Right. If you're burning pine needles or you cigarette or candle or something like that. But they won't on the act of God stuff.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So floods, force measures.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. And even as far as rebuilding that there again with the infrastructure that all has to be put back in, all those gas rig stations that all got burned, like everything has to be inspected and brought back up to a safe standard. Power lines have to be rebuilt, all the junction cans, transformers like substations. I mean there's a massive amount of work that has to happen before you can even hook a house up to that system, to that grid. So they have a long road ahead of them.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Families do in the meantime. 10,000 families displaced.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. I don't know. It's a challenge. I mean we raised $325,000 through that hell or high water deal that we just did. Half of that we're going to, we're actually going to build a family a home in North Carolina.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Sweet.

[Josh Smith]

With half of that we're I guess kind of announcing it here, but we're working with Tulsi Gabbard's sister. Tulsi started a foundation when the Maui fires happened to help rebuild houses in Maui.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Makes sense.

[Josh Smith]

None of this was real public. They just did it out of the goodness of their heart. They didn't, they haven't actually done anything to talk about in public. Then when North Carolina Happened. They just took their organization and went to North Carolina to help people and they've been going just house by house building some houses here recently. So we're going to build one of those houses and then we're also going to go down to California and we're trying to work out the logistics of this. But we're going to go try and find just individual families that have been affected and write checks or basically like Visa cash cards to those people because it's going to be months, if not years before they're building homes. So what we're going to try and do is go help some of those people to address that question you just asked, like, what are they going to do in the meantime? Yeah, I mean, you know, when my house burned down, I had to live in a hotel, but then I went and bought a camper.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, but that works at the size and scale of one, right?

[Josh Smith]

No, that. By the thousands, I have no idea.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's what I don't understand.

[Josh Smith]

Even the businesses that burn down, like how do they rebuild? Even if you rebuilt a business, like how long is it going to be until you have enough people around that are living there and functional to help support your business? I mean, I don't know, It's a, it's a nightmare. And who's to say that's not going to happen again in two years?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, it's going to depend on, do they over manage the place where that pe. The people wanted to live because it was the way it was. One of the selling points of that area. If you remove that, does it still have the same selling point? I don't know. I've heard.

[Josh Smith]

And if the government's going to pay to do that, then is. What about Northern California? Are they gonna, are they gonna go log around all these small little towns that are, you know, you look at like a sealy Lake in Montana, like is the government pay to gonna thin the forest around you because you happen to live in a forest like that? You could spin this out to all over the country. People choose to live in areas that are subject to hurricanes, floods, Mississippi river, you know, Delta, all that Montana forest fires. And obviously there's four forest fires in every western state. Yeah. At the end of the day, Mother Nature, she's a bitch. And if she wants to slap you, she just will. And I'm not sure you can weed eat enough bushes out of the way to keep her from doing her thing.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Funny you mentioned Sealy Lake. Have you heard anything about them selling the lodge there? I've heard this is a contentious issue.

[Josh Smith]

No.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Where we live apparently some out of.

[Josh Smith]

Like the golf course lodge.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Now the one on. Oh, I'm sorry, it's not Sealy Lake, it's Holland Lake. The Holland Lake Lodge.

[Josh Smith]

Oh no, I haven't.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. I think there's an out of town, out of state developer that was looking at it and there is a very what I will describe anecdotally as an allergic reaction to somebody from out of state coming and doing that.

[Josh Smith]

I mean if it's for sale and someone wants to write the check for the amount it's for sale. I'm not sure how you can stop them.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Foreign, what are your thoughts on non Montanans moving into Montana? Josh?

[Josh Smith]

I hate all of you.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's fair. That's fine.

[Josh Smith]

I mean you can waste time stressing and thinking about it or you can go do something productive.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So Kalispell was the fastest growing town in Montana, I think last year.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

For some context, I think it was 8, 000 people. Calm down. Los Angeles. It's not exactly East LA yet.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And having come from San Diego where I could probably while taking a piss, open my bathroom window and touch the stucco on my neighbor's house.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And it would legitimately take me somewhere between 20 minutes to two hours to get to work.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And I never knew which day I was going to get. It was a roll of the dice when I went to the freeway.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I get it. It's interesting to me to hear people say that Montana is only for Montanans and they're worried about the secret coming out because I feel like the secret's been out for a bit. The movie A River Runs through it not exactly coming from this century actually.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The show Yellowstone. Yes. That probably didn't help too much. But we have some new restaurants in Kalispell. The airport is being rebuilt and expanded. You can't have one without the other. I just, I can't figure out. I follow the. I can't believe I'm gonna say this. The. It's a Facebook page. Flathead Valley 41 1. Anytime anything happens within six comments. Californians, right? Yeah. There was a. What was the most recent one? It was somebody spray painted something out of towners come to. Of course it was local kids. It was local kids doing local kids.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But everything traffic. Oh, I can't believe they're building a larger Costco. Californians like don't you guys want a bigger Costco?

[Josh Smith]

I. I choose to worry about things I can actually affect or control. I mean because there's, I mean we live in this era right now where you can get on Instagram and get mad about anything all the time. I mean, politics, whatever. I tend to be decent at like read it, say, well that sucks, I hate that. But then also instantly forget about it and go do something that I can actually like. How can I affect my employees lives and make them better? How can I build my company something with my kids and my family, my wife, whatever. Right. Go mow my lawn.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How many people do you employ that are not from Montana originally?

[Josh Smith]

That's a good question. We should figure that out.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Because what I'm saying here is you're part of the problem.

[Josh Smith]

No doubt.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You're bringing in non Montana. You're a piece of shit.

[Josh Smith]

No doubt. Yeah, well you're not the first person to say that. So get in line.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I also can't figure out, I've heard it all the way to, you have to be a fifth generation Montana before you can call yourself that. Or I've heard people say you got to stay here for 20 years, then you're Montana. Everything in between. It's very interesting. Sliding scale.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. Well it's interesting because people ask me if I'm from Montana, I am fifth generation Montanan, but I'm not really because I was born in Colorado Springs.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You're not a Montana at all, right?

[Josh Smith]

My parents immigrated to Canada two days after I was born and then they, they, it was 81 when the interest rates were insane. They, they couldn't afford to make it up there. My grandpa lived up there running a ranch and so they moved back down to Montana because my mom was born in Bozeman. So I've lived here since I was six months old.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But doesn't cut it.

[Josh Smith]

I'm an out of stater. Yeah, I'm a piece of too to some people.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, you are the enemy.

[Josh Smith]

And the thing is with, with Montana, like sure, if I could have waved a magic wand in 1985 and just said no else, no one else coming in and we all get to split up the ground that's left. Like okay, I guess if you're king, you wanted to just keep Montana to yourself. Like that I guess would have been fun. But it's not the reality of life. And you know, we, we've actually been dealing with this. Even with our new building that we're building. We're helping finance a water line that's actually going to eventually serve. We're basically helping bring city water to this section of Missoula where they want to they want more development. The county does. The county's been working with us. So we're building this water line that's going to serve a commercial subdivision and then eventually a subdivision for homes.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That makes sense.

[Josh Smith]

We're helping build that and then the county's going to buy it from us when we're done. And it's just a public private partnership deal and we're essentially helping push along what we need quicker. But it's going to be a benefit to that area.

[Ryan Reynolds]

We had to do something a little bit similar with the coffee shop when we tapped into the water line.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Not the whole thing, but they basically said 10ft in each direction, you get to upgrade this because it kind of helps us. But also you're getting your water as well. So let's just go ahead and help each other. I get it.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And so they did not buy it back from us.

[Josh Smith]

People are. But people are complaining about these subdivisions. But then at the very, in the very next breath, people complain about the housing prices. Right. So my daughters, two of them have just graduated in the last three years from Frenchtown. And I look at them, how are they, you know, one wants to be a school teacher, the other one's trying to become a veterinarian. How are they ever gonna afford to buy a house here? Well, if you don't build any homes, it's a supply and demand thing. If we don't build anything around here, it's gonna become Big sky and Whitefish. Like, go try to buy a house in Whitefish. Good luck.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That is where you will find the million dollar or close to 1,000 square foot home.

[Josh Smith]

Right? Exactly. Now if you want your children to be able to stay here and afford to buy a house, you're going to have to build some homes. I mean, it's a pure and simple math problem with supply and demand. And so it's. And then when you look at, when you look at industry, it's funny, I was at a public meeting where some old, they're always white haired and like 75 and they're worried about their pension and their taxes going up. And they were complaining about this water system going in and they were like, well, we need some industry, you know, to come in here and provide jobs before we build this water system. And it's like, yeah, we actually, you can't build a building over 14,000 square feet without a water line to provide fire suppression. So it's a chicken or egg thing.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

By us building the water system, we've now allowed that opportunity to build big buildings. Our building's 50,000 square feet. Because of what we're doing now, companies like ours might move into that area and then they're going to hire people. Right. And the wages, I don't know what the average wage of our company is, but it's up close to 100 grand, you know, 85 to 100 grand for an average wage. Those are good jobs as compared to the other thing that could have gone on that property would have been a hotel. And you're going to hire some people to clean some rooms and maybe one or two managers.

[Ryan Reynolds]

They're not going to be making six.

[Josh Smith]

Figures service level jobs. Right? Hotels, some restaurants, some gas stations. We need some actual manufacturing companies that need professionals to come and work. We hire professional videographers, engineers, machinists, Right? And then those people are going to make a good wage. They're going to turn right back around and spend that money in our community. Our enrollment in our school here is actually dropping in Frenchtown, if you can believe it. And I think it's based on price. The only people that can afford to buy homes around here don't have young kids. You generally see people moving here who are retired or sold their companies. They've raised their kids. Our enrollment three years in a row now in Frenchtown has dropped. Even though you can't afford to or you can't find a house here to buy.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I can see that going another way, too. I look at my oldest son's generation. He's 21. Starting a family for him is not a priority. Yeah, it's an interesting. Not that it was a priority for me at 21. I think that his generation has a different thought process about relationships, though he is working as hard as he can, riding his motorcycle as much as he can, because, you know, this summer comes on a Wednesday in Montana. So get it in when you can. Yeah, He. What his generation seems to be doing is they'll find two to four people to go in to get a place where they can because it is relatively unaffordable. The price of housing even in Kalispell is going up. So what you find is that people of that age bracket will kind of come together and live together, but that's not bringing people to the school district.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

They're not starting a family. It's not a priority for them to start a family. We were having a conversation the other night and he said, I don't think that I'm ever going to have kids. And I just asked him, like, of course, live your Life however you want to. But why do you. Why do you think that you would never want to have kids? And also, I also didn't think I was gonna have kids when I was 21 either.

[Josh Smith]

Sure.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You know, things change and priorities change in life. And he just said, I just don't feel like it's something that I would want to do or something that is important. So it could be a combination of things.

[Josh Smith]

I definitely think. I mean, there's no doubt the numbers show that people are having less kids than they were before. I mean, every generation from.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Because they're terrible and exhausting, as you know.

[Josh Smith]

It's true. Yeah. They try to open boxes with chef's knives and price staples out and like that.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I am not joking. I. I had to take. I had to take five minutes. So for. People don't know what we're talking about. Josh came up when Leah and I got married. It was a proto chef knife. Right? Yeah, it was ready. And he gave us a chef knife at our wedding, which was the most fun wedding ever. Zero speeches.

[Josh Smith]

It was awesome. Like, ceremony was a little long.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

What is it?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, I told you why. My dad accidentally skipped a page.

[Josh Smith]

30 seconds.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He hit the legal requirements and I. He was so nervous. He was terrified he was gonna say my ex wife's name.

[Josh Smith]

Oh my God.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He. And he made the mistake of telling me that before. So I was needling the out of him before that.

[Josh Smith]

Of course you were.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I had no choice. So the way he got around that was he said anytime he was going to say both of our names, he made sure he said hers first because he was worried because he had habituated himself for so long. Me and my ex. So you give us this awesome knife. Yeah. The ceremony. It was probably. I'm gonna say the ceremony was under three minutes.

[Josh Smith]

No doubt about that. I wasn't sure if it was. If it was maybe under two.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It met the legal requirement. I'm not so much sure how much past that bar it actually went. And then we went straight over to eating and drinking and having a good time. And the band was awesome. But you give us this chef knife. It's a proto. They're not even out yet. I had a nice butcher block. Magnetic. It's just sitting there. And I come home one day and I'm looking at the knife and it is. It's like a cat with titanium claws had just sat there and just. And I realized that my middle son Tyler, who is one of the smartest people on earth, was opening a box that was full of staples with it. And it just. And I. I literally. I put the knife down, and I just. Like, this is one of those moments where I'm being tested. I want to go insane. And I didn't.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And he basically was like, yeah, it's my bed.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Like, it is your bed.

[Josh Smith]

Well, it was. It was a tool, and he needed a tool at that moment to do a job, so he used it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

God.

[Josh Smith]

No. It's. It's. It happens with kids. But I do think the. The other thing is, is you see kids, I think they're very smart and practical. A lot of kids are these days, and they're looking at, like, where. How are they going to raise a family when they can barely afford to. To pay rent in the tiny little place they're in?

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's what Riley, my oldest. It's. It comes down to economics, and I'm trying to think back. I. I left living with my parents. They dropped me off for boot camp. I did a night in a hotel with another dude as we were beginning our naval journey. Got on an airplane, flew to Chicago, got on buses, ended up in Great Lakes. So I finished up my time in Great Lakes. I went to Virginia beach for my A school, which is like your occupational school, but it's full on open birthing barracks. I think two or three high bunk beds, but you're used to that from boot camp anyway, so whatever.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Then went to San Diego for buds, but that's. You're living in the compound as well. Finally got out and checked into team five. First time I ever lived on my own. I didn't even live on my own. I had. I had a roommate. We had an apartment. This carpet was from the 40s.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It was rough carpet.

[Josh Smith]

You had to rake.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. Well, I didn't own a vacuum, nor did I buy one, so in two years, I never vacuumed it. But I'm trying to think of what the rent was. It was a couple hundred dollars per month from each of us. But, I mean, my first Navy Paycheck for two weeks was $800.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So I think it was eating the vast majority of what it was that I was making. But I didn't care because I was independent.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He's not that way.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. No. And I. I. The. I also think you have a lot of young kids. I've heard kids say, like, I'm just. I just don't want to bring kids into this world. Like, it seems like this world's messed up and whatnot. My answer always is, is that's rough. I don't think there's been any time in history that people haven't looked at something going on at the time. Like, I don't think anyone looked at times during the Great Depression and thought, this is a perfect time to have kids.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Or how about World War I or.

[Josh Smith]

World War II or Vietnam? I mean, there's always been something, right? And that's what I always say about just life in general. Like when. When people talk about how, you know, like, well, it's impossible to start a business today and it's impossible to succeed and whatever. And I'm like, I'm not sure it was any easier for my grandparents in the Great Depression.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

You know, I think it's always hard.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, my dad was talking about the price of housing up here. I think. I think my oldest was there. My dad loves to say this. My first house that I ever bought was 20 grand.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But if you ask him what his salary was, it was fraction of what he was making, you know, so it's not like he was in relation to what the house cost for. And I'm also not sure. My dad's a liar. I'm not sure the house was actually 20 grand either.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He's just fading off into old age. Just saying now, guys, a nightmare. He just got a new phone. He had an iPhone 6. Yeah, he finally got it upgraded. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know, I work with advertisers, and they will send you oftentimes a portion of a script, maybe a framework or a skeleton, and talking points that they want you to hit. And I have the same thing in front of me right here for better help. But I just don't know. I don't think there's a script or a talking point that can really unpack the value that therapy and counseling has had in my life. You could talk about, you know, you could read a compelling story. I just don't know if it captures it. And maybe people are here, are tired of listening to me talk about the impact it's had on my life, and I don't really care. And this is one of the sponsors where I really support the mission because of the tremendous impact I've seen in my life and the life of other people. Let me be right up front and tell you it's not magic. It's not easy. It's not overnight. You don't go and just chat with somebody for an hour, and all of a sudden your life is radically different. It's incremental at Best, it's hard work. It takes commitment. It takes the willingness to work through things you may not want to. So you can get to a very low trajectory towards a distant horizon of where you want to be. It's worth it. The best analogy I think I've heard of is with a vehicle. You can of course wait to service your vehicle until all of the lights on the dashboard are going off. Or you can be preemptive in nature. You can be proactive. You can have somebody look underneath the hood to make sure that everything that should be working properly is. I look at counseling and therapy is the same way. Not saying that everybody needs to go get it, but if it's something that you're thinking about, if it's something that you're struggling with, in my own personal experience, it's had tremendous impact. So let's talk about BetterHelp here. Specifically, traditional in person therapy. It can cost anywhere between 100 to 250 bucks per session. I've actually seen it more expensive than that. Then adds up fast. With BetterHelp online therapy, you can save on average up to 50% per session. It's a flat fee for weekly sessions, saving you big on cost and time up front. And it should feel accessible, not like it's a luxury. The beauty of being online is that you don't have to physically be in the same place as the person that you're talking to. One of the main selling points for me with BetterHelp is that they have over 30,000 licensed therapist, so you have a lot to choose from and you can change therapists at any time. Not everybody is a great fit for everyone. Don't give up on therapy. Find somebody that you can connect with and then devote the time. Your wellbeing is worth it. Invest in yourself. Visit betterhelp.com clearedhot and you're gonna get 10% off of your first month. That is better. H E L P Hoteleco limapapa.com Clear. Todd, back to the show, calls me, why doesn't my headset work anymore? I turned Bluetooth on. Why isn't this working? Bring it to the house. I had to explain to him, explain to him that, you know, the Bluetooth is a different thing and it's a new device and all this stuff, right? It's a journey. So again, I don't know if his actually, his house ever cost $20,000.

[Josh Smith]

But I, I definitely do think though, there is a bigger disparity now between wages and what homes cost, especially in our area. Now that becomes the Question, like, do you stay here? Right. Because you can buy a beautiful colonial home in Georgia for 250 grand. When I moved, Jess, buyers, she was telling me they were looking at. They've been looking to buy a home here. And she's one of my employees here. She. She's been looking at houses and she was showing me the exact comparison to a place in Texas. And a kind of average starter home here is like 500, 600 grand.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It didn't used to be.

[Josh Smith]

And in Texas, she can buy, you know, like five acres in a 5,000 square foot house. I mean, it was crazy what you could buy down there.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. But also Google summertime temperatures.

[Josh Smith]

Correct? That's the thing, right? Like, yeah, you can also buy a house in Johnstown, Pennsylvania for not very much money. But like, also, you might not have a job.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And eight years ago, when we moved up here, I was doing that exact same exercise based off of what it was in California. You're always going to be able to do that somewhere. And it comes down to what you said. What are the pros and cons? The con that we, my ex and I, agreed upon was there's more opportunity for our kids to just do shit outside of a metropolis, right, in Montana than in San Diego. And we needed to make the decision because my oldest was one year away from getting into high school and I wanted him to have a year of time for a social circle. Because I went from knowing nobody and starting in high school and as a young man, that's. It's. Life sucks enough anyway. As a young man, right, starting high school, knowing nobody except for your sister, who doesn't want to be known to be your sister. It's dog shit, FYI. So it was a little bit of a shit or get off the pot. But when we were looking at it, we were blown away by what you could buy. Like, we're going to be able to sell this house in San Diego, which we timed completely randomly. I'm not a real estate entrepreneur by any stretch, but we bought it on a short sale at one of the lowest times in the market after 2008.

[Josh Smith]

Yep.

[Ryan Reynolds]

In the crash, we offered them so much under what it was already being short sale offered for that I was laughing like the bank is going to say no, right? Almost an instantaneous yes. I was like, son of a. Holy. Yeah, yeah. Gated community. Like, I need to be in a gated community. I can never even remember the code to get in. We were looking at what we would be able to buy and even just the Eight years I've been here, that shit's gone, right? I don't know. I don't know how my oldest would live here and he's already talking about leaving. All three of my kids are now talking about where they're going to land next.

[Josh Smith]

And that's what I, that's what I do think is sad. And that comes back to the question about like, well, are you going to support the local subdivision that's happening down there in that field? Like, yeah, we all love to look at baby calves when we drive by and a green field, but you know, is your kid going to be able to stay here? Right. And I don't know that there's a right or wrong answer. It's. Everyone's got their own opinion on that. But you're right, I don't see how kids are going to stick around. I also see our culture maybe eventually and it's probably already happening, but shifting to more like other cultures where you see multiple generations living in one home. You know, where it might turn into a situation where, yeah, where you know, the grandparents aren't necessarily in an old folks home somewhere. They're in the spare bedroom and the parents are in the other bedroom and the kids are in the basement. I mean, I do see it being a case where like the 25 year old newlywed couple is living with the parents and eventually when the grandparents are gone and you know, maybe their parents are gone, they have that house to themselves and by that point their kids are probably living with them. Like I do see that being probably one of the things that you see, which honestly might not even be a bad thing if, if it means family and family nucleus becomes a little bit more important to people. You know, there's advantages and disadvantages to that. It's not real handy living with grandma and grandpa or mom and dad, but.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I'm putting dad in a home. I just started telling him, yeah, I just look at him like, you're gonna eat tapioca and somebody's gonna wipe your ass.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, soon.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, he sold his home and seeing, I mean, you want to talk about crazy, I mean, I'll leave the numbers out of it. But he sold his home in Santa Cruz, where I was born, which was, it was also amazing to watch the home prices there because the Silicon Valley just over Highway 17, there's fantastic wealth derived from that area, but it's a little bit inland. It's, you know, it's San Jose and it's, it's southeast of San Francisco and south of Oakland. And yeah, you can find some really cool areas. But a lot of those people brought the money over Highway 17 and they would commute and you watch the, especially along the shoreline. And they would do kind of the classic, well, let's buy a 1950s home. By the way, we're actually going to just completely scrape it and build a, whatever it is, multimillion dollar, which, fine, if you got that kind of money, go for it. But the price of real estate started going up, so my dad walked from that sale with seven figures.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And I mean he's renting now because why reinvest that when you're looking at what you could do with that money? So he can pay for his own swiping, by the way.

[Josh Smith]

I do, I do think though you are going to see similar to down there how people commute into those cities. You know, hour, two hour commute. You know, the other options that people like kids, your kids age up and Kalispell are going to have is like, well, I want to buy a house, but I might have to buy it out in Eureka and drive into Kalispell every day. Like here. I think you're going to see people buying houses in Superior. It's already happening out in Superior St. Regis. And it's like, you know what, it's a 45 minute drive, but it's beautiful. I'm not stuck in traffic. I'm driving along the river bottom looking at elk and bears and mountains.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, my middle son is going to MSU and he's in the dorms right now. As I, for whatever reason, all freshmen have to be in the dorms. I'd never went to college, so I don't know if that's a normal thing.

[Josh Smith]

Yep.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But they're looking at apartments and he is already looking way like up near Manhattan.

[Josh Smith]

Yep.

[Ryan Reynolds]

To commute because it just drops the price substantially.

[Josh Smith]

Yep. And I, so I, I definitely think that's going to be the other option that people like. The trade off is either leave the state entirely or spend an hour each way in the car. You know, you're going to see kids doing that.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I've played both of those games, pros and cons.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, yeah. It's. It's an interesting world. I mean, I don't, I, I thought actually a couple years ago, that year and a half ago, as we saw inflation going up, rates going up, that we might actually see like a correction up here, like the 2008 nine. I was sitting there back then with zero money, looking at all these homes around Flathead Lake Going, oh, my God, I wish I could buy them all, because I knew it would rebound like a slingshot out of that around Flathead Lake and all that.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Right. Did that crumble in 2008 as well?

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, big time. I mean, you could buy a house up there for 300 grand around the lake, and now it's $2 million. You know, I mean, it was. It was crazy, but I thought that might happen this time. But it didn't. Like, these interest rates went up.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It hasn't happened yet.

[Josh Smith]

The other thing that's happening around here, though, with interest rates being up is no one wants to sell their house. Right? So even if they have to move. Brandon. Brandon moved down here from Kalispell. Well, God, if he's got an interest rate at 2.8% or some shit. And why would you sell that in Kalispell?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I mean, I would say rent it out. That's a rental down here.

[Josh Smith]

That's what he's doing.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

And so that's the other thing that's really froze up this market is, you know, people aren't selling. They're buying houses, but they're not selling houses. So Clark and Travis work on programming that equipment out there, along with Dylan, these guys. So you see, like, that process on the screen right there, that's literally what they're building to run in those machines.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Michael, you need to learn how to do this immediately. You know how to code, right? Yeah, basically, he does not. Do you have an inert knife? Michael really likes knives, but I don't trust him with one. Do you guys have a dole blade that he could practice with? A year of carrying, perhaps? I don't even want him to think he could train with it. I'm fine with it being rubber, like a dildo. He just needs to carry it for a year and show responsibility so that.

[Josh Smith]

I can handle it real nice. Where's those knives? Let's. Aiden, you want to grab those? He has a cooler job.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He didn't sit on my lap. I told him, as we're taking off, you'll appreciate this. I said, you have one job. I need you to hold my coffee. And he keys up and goes, hold your cock like, no.

[Josh Smith]

That's what I thought. All right, sweet.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So you gave me this as a gift a long time ago. I came home one day, and my fucking son was opening boxes with staples on it.

[Josh Smith]

It looks. It does look like prying staples.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I picked this thing up and I said, tyler, did you get any packages? He goes, yeah. How did you know? I'M like, what did you open them with? He goes, well, I grabbed a knife. I'm like, the fucking gift that Josh gave me. And I'm looking at this. These are clearly. Clearly staple marks. So he's just in there just like. Or just like you.

[Josh Smith]

This is why we can't have nice things, because we have children.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I had to sit down. I almost lost my. On him that day. I had to sit down at the dinner table. And just because you had just given it to us, too, for our wedding. You gave us that. I'm like, I'm one of these at the table. Just like. Like, I'm not going to do it. Not going to do.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, well, we'll sharpen those things up.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I'm just not good at sharpening knives. But this is. I have this on a knife block. It's literally every knife that I have, the chef knife that I have.

[Josh Smith]

It's what we do.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Do you keep these Kydex sheets? Because they're not. They don't do you any good in the kitchen. But to come down here, put them in a bag, it is perfect.

[Josh Smith]

That's why we ship these with these sheaths so people can send them back. And because we do receive these back sticking out of the side of boxes. And it's like, hey, it came with.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I had them in the drawer. I'm like, why did I save these? And then I'm like, I'm a genius. It still freaks me out. You check the sharpness of a knife that way. Really just dragging your finger along the blade.

[Josh Smith]

Now that I'm doing flight training, I have lots of questions.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think it's hilarious.

[Josh Smith]

You think? I mean, I'm basically a pilot already. I. I've been in school for two days. Takes talent to hold them and not get the edges together. So I have your screwdriver slash, staple removers.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Are they done?

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, they're good to go. We'll. We'll go get them. I'll have somebody.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I don't feel comfortable with you walking around behind me with that like that, so. Trips and shivs me. What do you think the next four years will hold when it comes to that?

[Josh Smith]

I. I think it's gonna just be from Montana. I think it's going to be more of the same. I mean, people are going to keep coming, and it actually, somebody put it to me a really good way. During COVID you know, we got this influx of people during COVID escaping California and Washington, all that. And I was like, man, this is pretty crazy. It'll Be good. When it slows down, he's like, it's never going to slow down. Like, why is that? And he goes, this guy, this is a guy in California. He goes, only a fraction of the people moved to Montana that want to move to Montana. He's like, the people that moved during COVID were the people who maybe they had sold their businesses or their kids already graduated school or whatever their situation in life. They were free at that moment to just say, screw it, we're out. But there's way, way, way more people that are like, my kid's got, you know, he's junior in high school, two years left, I'm going to go. Or my business is five more years and I'm going to sell it or retire. He's like, there's a decade worth of people that all have plans that the minute their plans fulfill themselves, they're out. And so he's like, that pipeline is never going to stop coming. And that's the thing around here you can either get grumpy about, or you can just realize, like, The Montana in 20 years isn't going to look like the Montana of today.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And still going to be pretty badass.

[Josh Smith]

Still going to be better than the alternative. Exactly. So I don't. I think coming up here and buying a house for $700,000, though it seems insane to those of us that saw prices 10 years ago, probably still a smart move, you know, in 10 years, I don't think you're going to gotten hurt by it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's your daily dose of financial advice from Josh Smith. I will provide none because I have the worst timing ever on every type of investment notes, man. Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

I mean, it's going to be interesting with Trump, with everything that he's doing. If we do see, you know, serious inflation again. I mean, I think he is trying to somewhat kind of break things so he can rebuild it the right way. At least that's the theory.

[Ryan Reynolds]

People are kind of losing their minds.

[Josh Smith]

They are. And he's only really got 18 months to do it, because when those midterms hit, things better be headed back the way that people want and think they should be. Or else, you know, Republicans will lose the midterms. And then at that point, nothing gets done.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

You know.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, it remains. I'm curious to see. I just don't think he's been in office long enough yet to really even get a pulse on what the changes, the impact the changes are what, eight weeks?

[Josh Smith]

I mean.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

How the hell can you expect. And that our system Is great. But also in another way, how do you get anything significant really done and then get to see the results of that in two years before the midterms hit?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

I mean, forget four years. In two years, if things aren't. If everyone doesn't agree that it's going well, they're not going to get the opportunity for the next two years because, you know, two or three seats flip and it's over.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How do you manage the uncertainty of that with growing the business that you have? I mean, the first time you and I met, I think there was just that little.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It was your garage.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Which that is. What is that? That's over your right shoulder somewhere closer to your house.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. Yeah. Just basically two car garage.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

Glorified.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Then you built this place and immediately recognized you needed more space, which I told you was going to happen.

[Josh Smith]

And then we went. We actually had our company meeting this morning up at our new building. Just I wanted the employees to be able to walk through it and I wanted to explain to them what's going to be what before it's all done. That way they can feel like they kind of get to watch the process. Yeah. And as I saw everyone in there, I was like, I'm not sure if I made this big enough.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You keep posting pictures of that building. I'm gonna be clear on this. I am not an architect. Your building doesn't have a roof.

[Josh Smith]

It's true. But you don't have to pay for air conditioning that you need to go.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Back to the table on that.

[Josh Smith]

Well, I'm generally in it, so that's a horrible idea. Probably the reason why that'll only save.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You at least probably $700,000 in regards.

[Josh Smith]

To the economy and all that other stuff. Again, it's kind of like everything else I have the theory on. I control what I can control, so I don't worry about within reason. I don't.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How far out do you guys think, like when you're making your steel orders, how far out do you guys.

[Josh Smith]

18 months.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay, so you've already got steel purchased.

[Josh Smith]

For then We've got steel purchased for a solid 12 right now.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay, so into 2026.

[Josh Smith]

Yep.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay.

[Josh Smith]

Yep, yep. And so we are.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Where does it come from?

[Josh Smith]

Well, that's actually a really great question.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So is this coming from China?

[Josh Smith]

No. So our steel Canada, our steel's American made or has been. And this is what's interesting. A couple months ago, our steel supplier, the entire knife industry, frankly, steel supplier, filed for bankruptcy. It got sold out of bankruptcy to a steel company in Europe, Aerosteel. So the Aerosteel bought Crucible. Crucible was the only steel that could atomize steel into a powder form and make the steel that we all make or we all use for making knives as a powder technology. Steel that we have been dealing with this for the last few weeks. So at least for the next probably 8 to 12 months. All the steel that we bought is American made. We have more steel actually still coming in that's still American made. But the entire industry is trying to figure out a couple things. One, the question. First question is like, well, is there another source in America? The answer to that's no.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, just because it got bought by a European company doesn't mean they still couldn't produce here.

[Josh Smith]

They shuttered it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Really?

[Josh Smith]

Yep. Oh, I mean, I actually asked the questions and looked into trying to buy it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Why did they shutter it after buying it?

[Josh Smith]

So this is kind of the, the condition of the steel industry. Crucible Steel. Crucible Technologies has gone that. I think that was their third bankruptcy as a company. Well, when you are short on money and you run a giant steel mill and you're short on money, you probably don't do a lot of maintenance. Right. So when I looked into buying it and I start to. Started to get serious about looking into that, I was told you're basically buying such a dilapidated problem that you would be better starting a steel manufacturing business in your field.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So you'd be buying a lemon, essentially.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. A giant potentially. I don't know this, but potentially environmental nightmare, you know, depending on their processes and what they do. Safety nightmare, compliance. Right. You know, there was a lot of issues with that facility. So Aerosteel bought it and really what they were buying was the technology and the customers. Right. They have the steel mills in Europe, in various places in Europe. They can make all that steel over there. And they basically just took a competitor off the board.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I was going to say. So it's a little bit of a chess move. But doesn't. Isn't there immediately inherent cost of getting that across the Atlantic?

[Josh Smith]

So that's the question. I mean, that's literally what we are trying to figure out today right now is like, are tariffs going to apply? I'm talking to some people in the Trump administration about like, could we even potentially, if tariffs will apply, can we get a carve out, you know, like with. When you look at tariffs, okay, tariffs, whether you agree with them or not, let's just assume that, that they're a good move, that that's A smart move by Trump. Let's just go with that one for a second. The problem is many people are not.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Going to go along with you.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. Just so you know, I understand. Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So there's people right now listening, like, going, fuck you, Josh.

[Josh Smith]

But assuming that we should tariff steel or any other good coming into America, the question for, for us, for manufacturing is, well, what are our other options if there are no other options? If Trump is trying to force you to buy American versus buy cheaper Chinese or whatever. Right. Cheaper European or whatever it might be? What if the answer is, hey, this product is not made in America, period, in a story. And it isn't going to be. I mean, you would have to, it may be years if you wanted to start a steel mill today to try to get to the place, and good luck getting the permitting and whatnot to build that. If you have no other choice, should there potentially be carve outs where it's like, hey, this deal is tariffed because, hey, bridge builder guy, you can buy that same steel over here in Pennsylvania. But hey, knife industry, we understand you have no other option for steel, so we understand you need that for your industry to survive and your customers and whatnot. We don't want to jack up your prices 25%, so we're going to carve that out and make that unterraft. You know, I think that's the, that's the nuances of what Trump's doing right now. And I think they're well aware of it and they've said it, Musk has said it, like, we're gonna break some and then we're gonna figure out what we broke and then try to fix it. So that I'm trying to figure out how we might be involved in, in the try to fix it part, where it's like, hey, here's what's happening. Can we fix this part of that policy?

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's a risky game. I, I agree wholeheartedly in concept with the idea of doge. You know, sometimes you need a scalpel, sometimes you need a sledgehammer. I just hope that those wielding the tools are choosing appropriately on those both ends and everything in between.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, yeah. It just, what I'm glad is that they are doing something. It's the first time that in my adult life I've seen our government at least appear to be trying to fix, you know, our deficit issue, frankly, our national debt, like, what are we passing on to our children? And I think we've all known, or we should know that if we're going to fix that deficit issue, then probably everybody will suffer in some way. Maybe it's tariffs on MKC steel, or maybe it's tariffs on coffee coming in for black rifle coffee. Maybe it's your trail crew, your kid that's on trail crew loses his job. Like, I'm not sure that anyone's going to come out of this unaffected.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I have been in social media, I have just come to the conclusion wholeheartedly is not a reflection of real life.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's not a reflection of my real life. I should say the interactions and things that I see on social media are not reflective of the people. I sit and talk with people at the coffee shop all the time.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I talk with people at restaurants. I talk with. I travel a lot as well. I talk with people in airports. I just don't have the same type of interactions there is. And it comes from the left. And I'm not being hypercritical of the left. I'm just saying what I've seen when it comes to specifically doge. People keep saying, well, they're not finding any fraud. All of the spending that they're showing, it's not fraudulent. And what I want to say to those people is, are you okay with what that money was being spent on?

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So perhaps it's not fraudulent, but maybe we could call it wasteful. Maybe we could call it not the best utilization.

[Josh Smith]

Is it necessary?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Is it necessary? And there is an unwillingness to acknowledge. And maybe it's because they feel it's the, if you give an inch, somebody will take a mile. There's an unwillingness to acknowledge that the system is in any way. If the ideology or the program came from the left.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Why can't we be critical of both the left and the right? Two things can be true at once. Yeah, you could be a little bit more socially liberal and you could be fiscally conservatives. Let's just critique evenly across the board. Like you're telling me these taxpayers are okay with some of these absolutely insane programs that are being exposed.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And yes, I'm aware you could go on the website and it was always there, but nobody does that. And the fucking people allocating the money know that nobody's going to do that. Why can't we just say that this is not the best utilization of our tax dollars?

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. And I got a bunch of hate from the right the other day because I, I posted something basically kind of quote unquote against Trump over the, over the, over the Epstein thing. I said I basically was critical of the Trump administration that, hey, this is like, you guys said you were going to release it, then you threw up this stupid optics thing you did with some influencers and then in the end you actually gave them nothing anyway. And now you're saying, well, we're still going to come out with more, but it's going to be heavily redacted. And my point is when it comes to pedophiles or any people of any, whether they're of power or not power, anybody with kids in any way, right or left or if it's Israel or it's whoever, I don't care. Trump himself, like, whatever, it should be exposed. And you know, I got a bunch of hate of basically, like, you know, I thought you were a big Trump supporter and how dare you go against Trump?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Or does that mean you can't be objective? Does that mean that you can't?

[Josh Smith]

Like, yeah, I like most of what Trump's doing right now, but right there I think they're bumbling that horribly, like, come out with the information. I don't care what it is or who it affects. You know, the issue that I worry.

[Ryan Reynolds]

About is people who are afraid to give any criticism. Like, because I agree with you. If you said you were going to do it and then you didn't, you have arrived at a place where I think you deserve fair criticism.

[Josh Smith]

Yep.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Criticize. Like, it doesn't have to be some ad hominem attack where you attack the person. Let's criticize the fact that you promised this and didn't live up to it. That doesn't mean that I think you're a piece of. It doesn't mean that the rest of your policies. But that's fair.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. And there might be some things that.

[Ryan Reynolds]

There'S going to be some redaction, like let's protect sources, let's protect methods. But I fall in line with you when it comes. I don't think we should protect names of people that want to diddle kids.

[Josh Smith]

When it comes to Epstein stuff. There's nothing that I think needs protected if it's, if it's something else in regards to national security stuff around a alien program or whatever. Like, well, actually, it's not aliens. We take it easy, sir. You know, fine, go ahead and redact things, whatnot. If you really think it's, it's for national security. But when it comes to children, I don't care if it means that the leader of Israel is under the bus and our relationship with Israel goes to like, don't care if, if it means that other People see that, hey, when it comes to protecting our children of our country, it doesn't matter who it is or what we're going to. We're going to expose it. You know, and the fact that they maybe ran potentially a, you know, government, Israel might have run a government operation against our own government officials, like that's a problem. You know, that would be a problem.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I. Here's my suspicion based off absolutely no knowledge, data, awareness or understanding about what's actually going on.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think that if they brought it out unredacted, there would be a far too close tie between our own government entities. And Epstein.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I would not be shocked that he was somebody who the government was knowingly either facilitating or leaving alone to gather information to use the people for leverage.

[Josh Smith]

Yep.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And that would. That might break people's brains when it comes to trust of our own government.

[Josh Smith]

And when it comes to abusing children. Break it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I tend to agree with you.

[Josh Smith]

Break the government on that. If, because if, if our, if our morals have gotten that low that we're were using children to, you know, run a psyop against whoever for whatever.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

Break it like that's not the government.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And I don't think you would be. Let's, let's. Again, I'm hypothesizing here. I have no data. Let's say it was the agency. So let's say the agency via. Directly or through a subcontracting entity, which they do. It's a really easy way to get a cutout from being with underneath government scrutiny. And then you can funnel money through a different direction. But let's say it's at the agency. I think people would struggle to not throw the entire agency under the bus and want to burn that to the ground when then. The reality is, if that was the case, it would be a very small group of people inside of the agency. But what I want to see them is burned at the stake.

[Josh Smith]

Exactly. Yeah. And if. And if. And if the program has to be torn down and, and rebuilt with ethical people, then I guess that's what we have to do. But I agree. Go find those people. But the problem is for both sides of the government, it's going to be people from both sides for sure. It's a left and right issue. It's definitely not. If it was just a left issue, the Republicans would already come out with it. And that's the hypocritical part. I don't like, like, yeah, what's right is right, wrong is wrong there. I know there's a lot of gray area in government and in military and a bunch of the things that we do around the world.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But much like your blades in front of us, it cuts both ways. That's the thing I don't understand why can't. It's okay. It's also even going outside of criticism. I see people shouting down left or right, anybody's thoughts without trying to understand where that person is coming from. And it's okay to try to understand, in my opinion at least to try to understand where somebody is coming from, because you can understand them without agreeing or accepting their premise, but it gives you a better idea of who they are as a person and why they may think those things.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's also loss. You Trumper or what's. What's the. What's the. You to the left, if you're on the right, you're a Nazi or fascist. What is it to the left?

[Josh Smith]

Communist?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Is it communist?

[Josh Smith]

Okay, maybe.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Whatever. All the stupid magical terms. Anyway, It's. Yeah, the people keep doing that. It's absolutely idiotic.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. You know, no, it. The thing with our country, what I. What's unfortunate we don't have a. A glass ball to kind of look into the future, but what we might find is some of the small pain points here and there. Stock market being down or a little bit of inflation or whatever might fark. Pale in comparison to the pain we might feel if we don't address these issues at all. And we let this spin out another 20, 30, 40 years. And now our children, grandchildren are dealing with it because the national debt issues are, you know, our, Our issues with our, with our dollar, you know, with countries using potentially other currencies to trade on. Like, there's some serious issues that we, that we better address or we're going to find ourselves in a bigger bind than. Than we are today. That's for sure.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Would you ever run for office?

[Josh Smith]

No. Nope.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I don't think I could be. I don't think if you put me at gunpoint, you could get me to do it.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. So I've had a couple people that we both know that have tried to, like, talk me into doing something like state politics and then eventually like national.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You should at least be the mayor of Frenchtown.

[Josh Smith]

It's not incorporated. We don't even have a mayor. So start there. Yeah, the mayor.

[Ryan Reynolds]

First one could be you.

[Josh Smith]

I'm the mayor of my building. All right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Do your employees know that?

[Josh Smith]

But they don't respect me. No, I will say, like, I. That's Where I give like Tim Sheehy a ton of credit.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That guy, the out of towner billionaire who's not from Montana who just tried to buy a ranch.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, he's just a piece of that. That, that really bothered me because.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay, people listening. That was the, that was the attack against Sheehy that I received almost every day via text or somebody knocking on the door. Unfortunately, I was never there. Leah always got the brunt of that. I always missed the door to door people.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

God, I would have loved it. I would have wasted so much of their time.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, tell me more. Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The amount of text. I knew the election was over because the text messages stopped. I couldn't block numbers fast enough, but that's all it was. Out of town billionaire, this, that or the other crisis for Montana. Out of towners are bringing in money.

[Josh Smith]

But that guy, here's what's interesting about that guy. Gets out of the seals, gets out of the navy and moves to Montana. So he's just, at that point, he's just a veteran who just decided like, okay, I'm going to land somewhere in the U.S. where do we want to land? We're getting out of the military. Let's go to Montana. Goes to Montana, starts a business and grows that business to several hundred employees and worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It was aviation based, right?

[Josh Smith]

Yep, yep. Working in the firefighting space with some of the technologies that they used in the military to keep firefighters safe. Starts that business, grows it up and sells it. Now is that not the ultimate veteran success story? I mean, we have veterans. The big talk is like, you know, we have veterans killing themselves and depression. And how do you transition? Now here's a guy who transitioned to the ultimate success. Not to a female. Andy, careful with that word.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, Choose a different one.

[Josh Smith]

And. And hired hundreds of people and donated millions of dollars to Montana, like the Bozeman's children hospital. I mean, he's very. Has done a lot of philanthropy. Philanthropy.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Is that where he built his business out of? Was Bozeman?

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay.

[Josh Smith]

Yep, built all that. Then got approached by Steve Danes a couple years ago explaining, hey, it's, it looks like this election is going to come down to one u. S. Senate seat and we really need to beat tester. Will you run? And his answer was no. And then Dane started explaining it more like, look, we need a solid candidate to go against this guy. You're a seal. You've, you transitioned out of the military, you grew this business, you've done all this stuff. You're you've got young kids, family, like you're a good dude. So basically agrees, agrees to do it, runs, ends up winning. And in my, in my mind he has really no reason to have wanted to do that other than service to his country because he's got a business still worth millions of dollars that he's still trying to run to this day. Like he still has to run that business. He has a beautiful ranch in eastern Montana where Greg Putnam is running it and they're, they're trying to basically set up supplying local beef to local restaurants and, and help bring that supply chain of our food to more of a homegrown type situation. Versus like Cisco.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Have you ever seen a tinier seal than Greg Putnam?

[Josh Smith]

He's pretty tiny. Yeah but he puts that hat on, you know, he's gets a little bit bigger.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He's coming up next week to do an episode with me.

[Josh Smith]

Seems like most seals, most special ops guys are pretty small. You're like, you're big for a special operations guy.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well imagine I have all my gear and I, whatever reason you have to drag me.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, it's no wonder you got shot.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, well I just wasn't good at my job either. But it would take three of those little micro to drag me. I think I could put them in a pocket and just cruise along, just hook them up like a little leash. Like let's go Greg.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, but that guy, I, I, I was telling my wife, I said imagine getting your life to that point where you have millions of dollars, you have this beautiful ranch, you also have little kids at home, going to school in Montana. Yeah. What reason do you have to want to leave and go to that shithole in D.C. and do that and sit in meetings all day with a suit and tie on. Like not me, I'm selfishly, I'm sorry. Like that's if you win, I'm going to go to my ranch.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's if you win.

[Josh Smith]

His entire family got drugged drug for 18 months.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I honestly would never be willing to do that to my children. I would never be willing to do that to Leah.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Because doesn't even matter if it's complete fantasy. They just throw shit against the wall.

[Josh Smith]

And it's not even people in Montana that it's all driven by D.C. i mean when I was talking to Tulsi, we went to her swearing in. I was talking to Tulsi's husband Abe when we were at dinner after her swearing in and he was talking about how horrible it got during that confirmation process. He's like, dude, I thought politics were bad. I thought running for office was bad. They found multiple more levels of, like, dirtiness that they tried to pull and do and the things they make up, and it's all coming from big money in D.C. and then they bring that into a state like Montana and they go door to door trying to feed that shit to people who are just trying to live their lives. But no, I. Running for office after seeing what Tulsi's gone through, seeing what she. He's went through, and getting to talk to Sheehy a little bit.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He has an office in the podcast studio building.

[Josh Smith]

Does he?

[Ryan Reynolds]

So it used to be the only reason I knew who Tester was is because I would walk from the coffee shop to the podcast studio, which, as you know, is a couple blocks right on the same street. I never saw Test. I've never met Tester, but he had a guy working in there who had a glorious golden retriever. One of the regrets of my life is that I never got to pet that dog. That dude was always in there. Never saw Tester once. As I was walking by the other day, I saw it change from Tester to She. So it must be just a state building, really.

[Josh Smith]

Just change the paint.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He's never been in there either.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, no, not yet. I'm sure he'll come to your podcast.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I'm sure he would too. He. So I have one touch point with him. I reached out for help with my FAA medical. Solved in like 72 hours.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. So speaking of that, people might not know this. Montanans.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Montana Zinke. Yep.

[Josh Smith]

Has a little link on his website on his homepage. So if you are trying to get a permit or you're trying to get a suppressor, you're trying to get whatever, and you're a Montana resident, you go to his homepage and you click on that and you just fill out a little form and say, hey, I'm trying to do this or that or whatever. I'm having an issue with the government in whatever way that that is. They will call you back at times less than 24 hours later. And. And I have personal experience with this. They are very helpful, which is very impressive that our. Our. Your U.S. representative for Montana is there to actually help Americans, and they do coffee with Montanans every week.

[Ryan Reynolds]

There's another side of that coin, and trust me, I. I am fully aligned with that. The frustrating part for me is that our government, these massive agencies, are so inefficient and unwilling to actually do anything unless they get a little Bit of a push.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That again, this is where I fall back. So one of the things right now, you know, they're Talking about stripping 70 to 80,000 people from the VA, the Department of Veteran Affairs.

[Josh Smith]

Yep.

[Ryan Reynolds]

There are a lot of people up in arms. I know there's a new. Doug Collins is the new secretary of the va, and the first thing he said was, listen, listen, this isn't going to impact patient care. And in my, in just my understanding of the bureaucracy looking at it from the military side, I'm looking at the VA, I believe there's people are focusing on the four of the 70,000, 80,000 employees that might be let go. There are currently 480,000 employees at the VA.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

There is a world that exists where patient care might get better because there might be an office full of people all doing the same thing.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And because they're all doing the same thing, they're wildly inefficient.

[Josh Smith]

Bogging it down.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Bogging it down. There is a world where the veteran treatment might actually drastically improve by reducing the number of people working at the agency.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And that one, I understand is a mental pretzel that people have to get their way through because all they're seeing is threat to veterans, which might be the case. We're going to have to see how it plays itself out. In my experience with the government, I look at it as a rare opportunity where efficiency actually might be regained.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I'm dealing with the Department of Transportation right now, just trying to get a right away permit right where we're building our building to remove a little bit of dirt in a, I mean, I grew up in excavation. This is a small, like one day project.

[Ryan Reynolds]

We consider just doing it.

[Josh Smith]

Oh, yeah, I got, I got shut down, so I couldn't.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Have you considered doing it at night?

[Josh Smith]

That would be the next move. I, I, I actually I did get in a little bit of trouble because I started last March trying to get them to accept a meeting to come out and talk to them about what I wanted to do. We communicated and I, and I provided all this communication. I'm actually filing a complaint in D.C. on this because we tried all summer to get them to come out and meet us on site and talk about this project. We couldn't get that. So I told the excavation guy, like it, start digging. He started digging. Two hours later, they showed up on site and shut us down. And I'm like, well, at least I got a meeting.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How'd they know you were digging?

[Josh Smith]

It's right by the interstate. You can see like.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, but who drove by and who tattled on you?

[Josh Smith]

Good question.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Snitches get stitches.

[Josh Smith]

Exactly. So we then went through the process of permit and whatnot and I hired an engineer firm. They came back with a bunch of questions. We, we got all the engineering, hydrology, geotech reports, all the grading, site, drainage, all that got all the way to the end and they denied it. And literally, I've gone through this three times now in a row. The only real reason that they can come up with is they're busy, they just don't have time. And honestly they don't have to do anything other than stamp a permit. Literally. And again, it's that case when I had my first meeting with those guys. I have a photo of it from November 15of their officials on a meeting with me talking about a right away permit. And I'm like, this is like me and you could solve this in a half hour. Yeah, it's like provide, make sure it's all engineered. Make sure the drainage is right. Tell me what kind of grass seed you want back down on it. I'll spray the weeds on it for the next 18 months to make sure it's back to how it should be. Fix the fence, which was already rotten. So I'm going to pay to build MDT a new fence. And efficiencies can be had. Yeah, well, they are not. So they're being a pain in the ass.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I don't have a ton more time.

[Josh Smith]

Tell me you bought a helicopter. Yeah, let's talk about that.

[Ryan Reynolds]

No, we're going to talk about your knives because you're running out of time. So we're gonna run.

[Josh Smith]

You don't want to talk about your helicopter.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Let's talk about on the next one. You're the one who has a timeline today. I don't.

[Josh Smith]

Well, I don't care about what I have going.

[Ryan Reynolds]

We can talk. Let's do the knives first, we'll do the helicopter second. Run out of time. So this is going to come out on the 28th. You're going to have a tactical drop. I believe all four of the knives are in front of us. So just run me through what these things are.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, yeah. This knife I'm holding is actually pretty cool. We took the famous V42 knife dagger. And there's a lot of history, history behind that. A lot of veterans will understand what that is about. Was made for the devil's brigade, which was actually the kind of the start of special operations. Yep. In Montana with a group from Fort Harrison and a group of soldiers from Canada. But that knife was pretty long, not necessarily the most practical knife to carry.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's like a small broadsword a little bit.

[Josh Smith]

We reduced that down to a blade that you actually really could carry. Made some changes to it. But also it's not an exact replica obviously, but made this to where I feel like this. If you want to carry a dagger, you want something for self defense. This dagger is pretty cool. And we called it the V24. Inspired by V42 was victory for 1942. So V24 was. We started this last year in 2024. So that's what it is. Victory for 2024. You've got the battle goat here. This is kind of the sister. I don't know. Oh yeah, I do have the war goat here. So we've got.

[Ryan Reynolds]

If I'm being honest, I get confused with the goats because they're.

[Josh Smith]

There's lots of goats.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, there's lots of goats.

[Josh Smith]

Herd of goats.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You got the mini. Which by the way is fantastic for opening envelopes. I don't try to get into knife fights, but I do open a lot of boxes.

[Josh Smith]

It basically is the same blade Speedgoat because we had a ton of of of guys actually carrying the Speedgoat is just their everyday carry in the military. We thicken that blade up a little bit. Made a little more robust, made the war go. Which is more of a ring carried dagger or knife for, you know, extracting that blade out quickly, maybe not losing control of it. But also a lot of people don't like a ring. So we did one here with more of kind of a bird beak design on the end of this. It's also really nice and it gives you a positive kind of place to pull that knife out if you are in a self defense situation. We see a lot of military or law enforcement officers carrying these.

[Ryan Reynolds]

They're super lightweight. You have enough stuff on your kit.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

As it is.

[Josh Smith]

Yep, exactly. And then we have our task force knife here. This is just kind of that more robust, thicker, heavier blade that if you want to price staples out of boxes like your son or pick a pair of scissors.

[Ryan Reynolds]

A multi hundred dollar knife please. As a suggestion.

[Josh Smith]

Exactly. No, this is just a really robust kind of do everything knife. So that's our tactical. That drops coming up like March 27th I think.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Right. Basically when the show comes, comes out. Is it Brandon, the man smarter than both of us is the one who put all this together so we could do this. Yeah, Release it.

[Josh Smith]

The, the. What I want people to know with our tactical knives is, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a hunter. That's why I started a hunting knife company. But I wanted to bring the same kind of quality and the same feel that we're doing in the hunting space into the, the military world. So whether it's veterans, active duty guys, we want to provide 100American made, high quality blade. And then if you are carrying that and you're on the other side of the world or whatever, at least you know when you pull this thing out that a company that actually cares about what you guys are doing, you know, built this blade, will stand behind them, guarantee them for life. We'll resharpen them for free. And, you know, there's a lot of great knives out there. I just, I hope people understand how much we appreciate our servicemen and women, our law enforcement officers. I mean, frankly, the story of Montana Knife company or frankly, like a black rifle coffee, that doesn't happen in any other country in the world like our, our country.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I don't, I don't have any examples off the top of my head. That's a broad statement.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, I, Well, I honestly believe the freedoms that we have in our country to start a company in your basement, whether you're, Evan, making coffee in your. In your basement or me in my garage making knives and scale it to 90 employees and be doing what we're doing and be able to do it in. I mean, mailing knives to other countries is damn near freaking impossible, so.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Really?

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Because of their requirements.

[Josh Smith]

Yes. A lot of these. I mean, we have to fake it for mailing knives to Canada. We have to call it culinary. We can't. If we. You put knife on there, it gets shipped back.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Are you sure that you want to talk about these things on a podcast?

[Josh Smith]

I don't really care. Canada is going to be our 51st state soon, you know, anyway, so, you know, there's very.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I, I used to make that joke all the time and I plan to continue to do so. There's a varying response to it depending on the city that you live in. Yeah, they're very. Also polarized left and right.

[Josh Smith]

I feel I'm a little upset at Trump that he stole my idea because I've been saying for years, I've been.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Calling him the top hat of America for a decade.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. Alberta, Saskatchewan. I would like to have most of British Columbia. Well, they can keep Vancouver if they want. I'll even trade, trade them maybe some land down here. Maybe we'll just trade them. California.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Do we want Toronto?

[Josh Smith]

I've never been there, so I can't say. Okay. But my guess is most of the crazy politics is coming out of that part of the world. I'm not so sure we want it, but sure either. Saskatchewan. Pretty cool. Alberta.

[Ryan Reynolds]

A lot of people on Alberta are like, yeah, let's go 51st State Coove is like, get. Why don't you guys line up a mile of dick and just eat that?

[Josh Smith]

I don't know what happens to the mail system the minute crosses the imaginary line just north of you.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I don't even understand how the mail system currently works as it is anyway.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, it's crazy, but yeah, I would agree there. Canada's freaking awesome.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I love Canada.

[Josh Smith]

I love it up there.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. The fact that it's. I wish it didn't take me as long to get. I mean, it's 60 miles from Kalispell, but God damn, it's 120 mile drive. Yeah. Because first you have to go west for 40 miles.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Maybe in a helicopter. A little, little shorter though.

[Josh Smith]

Exactly. So speaking of a helicopter. Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So there you go. Get your helicopter stuff out.

[Josh Smith]

Well, I'm just interested in all this stuff because I'm thinking about getting my pilot's license, which I told you you.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Shouldn'T do because you'll die.

[Josh Smith]

You didn't die.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You and I are not the same thing.

[Josh Smith]

I mean, you're as I am.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How's your Jiu Jitsu journey going?

[Josh Smith]

About like my interest in starting joined.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Pay full price and never did it. I'm trying to save you time, money, but I can. Aviation might cost you your life. Jiu Jitsu, you might be a little sore.

[Josh Smith]

Well, I don't know. If I mouth off to the wrong person at Jiu Jitsu, it might cost me my life too.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You won't.

[Josh Smith]

You'd be fine. So what. What made you decide to buy a helicopter?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I mean, the fact that it presented itself.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Is one thing. I don't want people to think that I am not a wealthy man. Let's put it to you like that. And I did not go into it alone either, so.

[Josh Smith]

Right. Well, sharing. Sharing in buying of planes, helicopters, a lot of times with the right people can be a really good way to go.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It would not have been possible without the help of somebody else. And I need to make sure that they're okay with me talking about it publicly before I disclose. It's not that big of a deal, but I just don't want to speak for sure. One that the opportunity presented itself. It's a unique helicopter. So it's an MB Messerschmitt. And I forget what all the other B's and the O's stand for because it's German and I don't speak German.

[Josh Smith]

Well yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

105. It's a P model. So it's an. It actually flew with the German military was an anti tank helicopter they had to pull.

[Josh Smith]

What year is it?

[Ryan Reynolds]

81. Okay. But just over 4000 hours on it which is absolutely nothing for an airframe. They had to pull 400 pounds of wiring out of that thing to DeMille it.

[Josh Smith]

Really.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I'll show you on the side because I'll do a walk around before I take off. There's also like mounting attachments for. Unfortunately the rocket pods that did not come with.

[Josh Smith]

Can we get those back?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I don't think so. We'd also have to get back to 400 pounds of wiring. And let me just tell you, I don't know where they pulled it from nor do I know how they would get it back in there. But it flew with the German military. Did some time overseas in I think Saudi Arabia and then it was in Boulder City. And it honestly was the price point and capability. So it's the same in principle helicopter that the Red Bull team has that they use for acrobatics.

[Josh Smith]

So what did you have to do to you. You were a licensed pilot. Airplane pilot. Right. What did you have to do to get licensed to fly helicopters?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Helicopter specific training. The ground school that you are now thinking about doing. I suspect you'll quit within 30 days is. I didn't have to do that. So I. To get the licenses that I had I went all the way up to my ATP fixed wing which is the same license that Delta pilots have in major carriers. So the knowledge portion of those tests like general airspace, things like that talking on the radio. That applies.

[Josh Smith]

Right. And they like all the IFR stuff.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And IFR is a little bit different. I still have an IFR rating fixed wing. I'm not current. So I'd have to get recurrent in that some of my IFR training would count in a helicopter. But you'd have to retest again in a helicopter.

[Josh Smith]

Okay.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So for me the helicopter was an add on rating. I was adding on to the licenses I had and I found it to be really beneficial because flying a helicopter is not the hardest thing in the world. But it's not easy by any stretch either. And I can't even imagine trying to Learn how to safely control a helicopter and at the same time, studying for basic aviation principles of airspace and talking on the radio and speed and all of these other things. So I was able to shelve all of the book knowledge stuff. And when I would go do a lesson with my instructor, Kyle, it was like, this is do helicopter. And that's all I had to worry about.

[Josh Smith]

That's why I was told. I was told to go through and get your. Pretty much all your ground school stuff done. So when you go learn to fly.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It'S easier that way.

[Josh Smith]

You're not also trying to learn how to talk on the radio, or at least you have a decent basis of knowledge to then kind of apply it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. It's not the hardest thing in the world, aviation in general. It's not the easiest either. Where we live, we're a little bit remote. Like, even coming down today. There's clouds in it.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And you know, I'm checking the weather yesterday because I knew we were coming down. I have alternates. I know where I can get gas anywhere within the flight range of the helicopter. I know where I could divert to. There's always. You just. You could. Also cool thing about helicopter. I'm just gonna land and shut this thing off, Let the weather go through.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So, you know, primary. Secondary.

[Josh Smith]

There are a lot of days you can't fly down here, too. I mean, in Montana, with. And I'm not sure about what the icing is like with a helicopter, but, like, with a small. Like a Cessna, very few helicopters or.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Even small aircraft are certified for flight into known icing.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. So, I mean, between the amount of fog we get and just. Just days where it's kind of misty out, maybe it's raining at the house, but it's freaking snowing up high.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Like, you're gonna be limited either way.

[Josh Smith]

Yep.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The drives are still beautiful, but, yeah, the helicopter is badass. It's. And I'm gonna use it just for content and doing cool stuff. Like, already talking with Brandon about doing cool stuff with MKC, doing some hunting stuff. I mean, 100 chance I'll be looking for critters later in the year.

[Josh Smith]

It does seem like you're the kind of person that always. And I feel like I'm a little bit this way. Like, you're always trying to learn or grow or.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Or I think it keeps you.

[Josh Smith]

Once you master, like, let's say a couple years from now, you've mastered the helicopter.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That will never happen. It's. It's why I like jiu Jitsu as well. So the guy who trained me in that, that specific airframe, he, I think, to my knowledge, is the only person in North America who's able to sign you off in that airplane. In the United States, you don't need a type rating. But he gave me, put me through a typewriting course and I achieved the type rating and doing it over 10,000 hours. I think he's certified in 17 helicopters. And he'd be the first person to tell you you never master it.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And I. That's. That's the kind of stuff that is very interesting to me. Jiu jitsu, the same way. I don't. I mean, I. I've talked with people who have been doing it for 30 years.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And they are still seeing things that they hadn't thought of before.

[Josh Smith]

Sure.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Exposing themselves to stuff that they hadn't even considered and they. They just enjoy the journey.

[Josh Smith]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I don't think I would be interested at all in something you could master in a few years.

[Josh Smith]

Right. Yeah. Makes sense. Cool. No, it's super cool. I mean, you landed the damn thing in my yard when you came over the. You were hauling some ass when you came over the. The building here. That's pretty cool.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Didn't seem that fast to me.

[Josh Smith]

It's very cool.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's a different perspective from the air, right? Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

Right?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. Well, I don't often have helicopters go.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Over 100ft up, but I'll come back anytime.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Cool, man.

[Josh Smith]

Awesome. Well, thanks for coming down doing this.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. What were we going to do for the tactical drop? You were going to do code Andy for 75 off.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah. Yep. Go ahead and type that in. Thanks. Is this your pre trip?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, just walking around real quick.

[Josh Smith]

Do you want me to tighten some bolts on it for you?

[Ryan Reynolds]

No. This is where Montana Knife Co. Would look good, though.

[Josh Smith]

Yeah, look. That looks a little loose.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's good. Just check in oil. Supposed to be a little bit loose.

[Josh Smith]

So can you. Long line out of here.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Do you have a.

[Josh Smith]

Do you have a. An attachment under there? You could get one could or are going to by hunting season. To haul my elk out, we would.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Just put it in the back in the luggage compartment.

[Josh Smith]

Is that what does this open up? Is that what this is? Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

This whole thing is luggage. This is where you need the bear paws. You see how heavy the back end is? The bear paws just flatten it out.

[Josh Smith]

Oh, really? Yep.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's just plastic. I'm putting them on next week when you take off.

[Josh Smith]

Can I Hang from the.

[Ryan Reynolds]

If you want to run or just.

[Josh Smith]

For a little while. Where did they have the missing areas attached to this thing?

[Ryan Reynolds]

All this stuff right here. These are all brackets. All that stuff is for the external.

[Josh Smith]

So when you. When you practice and you test in this, do they have. You get like. Do you have to auto. Do you auto rotate it all the way to the ground?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, we did a whole bunch of stuff like single engines. We'd be in a hover. You'd kill an engine.

[Josh Smith]

So how does the auto roll rotate work?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I mean, so instead of pushing air down, the air rushes up through the blades and it keeps it spinning, and it leaves you enough kinetic energy that you can pull the collective, which is essentially the up down. You have enough kinetic energy stored in the blades that you can slow your descent down and stop your forward speed and hopefully just put it right where you want it to go.

[Josh Smith]

And you did that. How scary is that to auto rotate yourself to the ground?

[Ryan Reynolds]

It is less scary than you would think.

[Josh Smith]

Really.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's not. It's a non. It's not that it's a non event.

[Josh Smith]

It's.

[Ryan Reynolds]

You're falling out of the sky slower than you think. You guys can stay right here when I start it up if you want. You want to get it? Michael Y.

[Josh Smith]

How many gallons an hour does it burn?

[Ryan Reynolds]

About 43.

[Josh Smith]

43. It's about like a forward.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Where's all the gas to work? Mass noise. Here we go. That's noise in aviation right here. Ra.

[Josh Smith]

That's pretty cool, dude.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's pretty badass. God.

[Josh Smith]

Well, I guess not every day if someone dropped in for a podcast by helicopter with T Mobile. No, trendspotter has to deal with trendspotty service because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network switch. Now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid cart. Visit your local T Mobile location or.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Learn more at T Mobile. Com.

[Josh Smith]

KeepAndSwitch up to 4 lines via virtual prepaid card.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Allow 15 days qualified unlock device, credit.

[Josh Smith]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

Ineligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card is no cash access and expires in six months.