649: Living By Your Principles - Brian Nichols on "In Liberty and Health"

Brian Nichols  0:01  
Instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show.

Kyle Matovcik  0:14  
RT everybody this is episode. I don't even know. I think it's 161 in liberty and health. Today, I got a happy healthy warrior here with me. And I don't know if I want to make his announcement forward. He's announced on Twitter, but this man, you know, has a lot going for me in the near future. So anyways, Brian, welcome back to the show. How you doing,

Brian Nichols  0:33  
dude? Thank you, brother. I know what you're talking about that behind the scenes. So my wife and I are expecting our first so stuffs getting real. It's it's hidden. It's hidden, like overdrive, though now, like the next three months are getting ready for real life to take to take over here with the new addition to the family. So no, really excited. And then oh, yeah, we're doing stuff with the program, too. So that's also been a lot of fun behind the scenes. But thanks for having me on. And looking forward to being back. Yeah. David.

Kyle Matovcik  0:58  
Well, I'm really happy to have you back. And, you know, I think we all agree that that stuff that you're doing right, there is literally the most important stuff of the liberty movement, like this podcasting, talking about, you know, Libertarian Party versus Republican Party, all that bullshit is way in the rearview mirror when it comes to raising a family. I've been talking about a lot like recently, but you know, I just got married. And it's, it was kind of like, thank you. It was real for me. And I'm curious about your thoughts on this and kind of what your experience was. When I was flying to Florida with my wife, because we got married on a beach. I was like, we're like doing this. And then like, she's walking down the beach, and I'm turned away counting seagulls. Because it was a long way. And then, you know, we're finally saying our vows. And for me, I'm like, Holy fuck, like, I'm 28. And I'm here, like, what is life? So I don't know, did you have a moment like that in your relationship?

Brian Nichols  1:52  
Oh, I mean, I'm not sure like, if necessarily like kind of like, holy holy shit moment, like we're here. But more so like, just the real like, I think it's more so a moment of reflection for me is like I've had, so we talked earlier, I'll rewind a little bit, I'm usually up like four in the morning or so. And I'll use a lot of that morning time for me to like, get my day started and do some reading, I'll do some light stretching and go to the gym, like that kind of stuff. And, like, there was one moment where I was kind of just like reflecting back. And I think it's more so of talking to like talking to yourself 10 years ago. And it was actually funny, I was texting when my buddies from high school were, we've been like, it's one of those friends that you talk to maybe once or twice a year, and you pick up literally where you left off, like nothing changed. They'll have like, a full fledged week of conversation, then you won't talk to each other for another like four or five months. And I texted him, and I was like, Dude, can you imagine because we used to do like sports and stuff. Like, I was like, imagine we were in the weight room together. We were both injured at the same time and football season. And we were weightlifting. And I was like, just imagine us there. And then like, telling us where we were going to be when we're in our late 20s, early 30s. And it just it it makes you really appreciate where you are. And also gets you excited about where you can go. And to see where I am right now, you know, in the process of starting a family. And you know, I've seen a lot of folks here in the liberty movement, all in that kind of same, same boat, we're all changing priorities. You know, this, this what we do the Liberty stuff, yeah, it is important, it is a priority. But we make the most impact at home, and we make the most impact in our immediate circles. That's why I think we was we as a greater liberty movement. We spent far too much time discussing the nuances of like federal issues, and they are important, don't get me wrong. But where can you make the most change, right? It's in your immediate circle. It's the Jordan Peterson, clean up your own room. First, clean up your own community. first focus on bringing good people or good solutions to your your community and help make things better. They're same thing with your home environment. You can't go out and try to do a podcast telling everybody else how to make their world better. When internally your entire life is on fire. And you'd like going back to myself. And then we talked about this last time, like I used to weigh 385 pounds, like I was a big boy. I've had issues with alcohol dependence and like all these kinds of things that I've had to face over my past, I think it's important to also appreciate where you are, but that it requires you to take overcome those things and to aim for really stuff that matters, right to focus on those things that matters. And we sometimes get so caught up in trying to make everything else around us better that we forget that we have to start internally. First, we can't build up a new building without a strong foundation first. So I think for me, it's just being able to take a step back. See, you know, where you were as a kid and thinking like, wow, what will it be like? What will the future look like to see where you are now and then to really just appreciate and focus on that personal development and personal growth from where you were to where you are. I think that's it Times is like the biggest aha, that I get, if that makes sense. Nothing makes sense. I hope I made sense.

Kyle Matovcik  5:05  
Yeah, man, you're good. And I find myself doing the same thing quite a bit as well, where it's kind of bizarre for me. And we probably went back and forth about this, as you said in the last show, but um, I was 250 pounds at one point, and I struggled with probably what was depression, suicidal ideation and plenty of other issues. And then to think in my, you know, mid teens where I had those feelings, up until the time, I was probably 24, to look at myself now and say, Holy shit, I'm married, I've had a house for five and a half years, we have plenty of good wealth, and my life is on track to be absolutely phenomenal. And everything I've wanted to be, same as you, if I would have looked at myself long hair, dude, go on all these concerts and shit. When I was, you know, 15 1617, I would have been like, there's no fucking way. And, you know, the other thing is, there's also some humility in that, because I'm sure you've probably had this experience as well. When you talk to some older people that you're kind of networked with. You look at it, and you realize Holy shit, they actually had a lot of valuable wisdom that at the time, I said, No, you're full of shit. So like, the one thing I always think about is my early automotive career, I was making 725 An hour literal minimum wage here in Pennsylvania, changing oil and rotating tires that weighed over sometimes 100 pounds, and getting just treated like absolute dogshit, right. But I look back at that now I say, Oh, well, that crafted me into an individual that can bear this responsibility that I have today. And that also transcends not only just, you know, all the responsibilities in my daily life, but that means that I can also help affect that in my local area, and to the people that matter most to me, and they see the example I'm reading by that set example. And I think that's what a lot of people in the liberty movement need to do. And it's kind of also to touch on like, the political stuff. When you see somebody like Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis, as these elites, right. It's not inherently a bad thing. But you see, they lead by example. And, you know, we could talk all day about the times right, failed, but they still lead. And people follow that example. So that's where I think that's a long tangent. But um, I think that's what the liberty movement needs to represent going forward.

Brian Nichols  7:15  
No, for sure. And while you're talking about the importance of leadership, and libertarian sometimes confuse leadership with with the the inevitable power vacuum that We rightfully identify when we see areas where unchecked power will then go unchecked. And I think it's important for us to differentiate the two that leaders need to be powerful, but at the same point in time, their power needs to be put in check. But that doesn't mean that the leadership is inherently to be questioned. Because it's somebody in a power position. It is a power dynamic, naturally, we're going to be very weary of anybody coming to the table trying to lead by your power, because libertarians inherently are against the idea of power. But it's not necessarily the idea of power, as it is that that almost like the end mind and goal, like you have this dedicated vision that folks follow. And I mean, we talked about this a lot, where you'll see in sales and in business, the idea of paralysis by analysis. And I've had some great conversations with some of the best minds in like the marketing worlds and in the, the more tech in such world and like a lot of the mindset that they have, for better or for worse, and I would say for worse many times is to almost focus on the perfecting the product first, and then launching versus you're never going to be perfect, you're always going to be improving, you're always going to be getting better. So to be able to not get stuck in that paralysis by analysis, and that paralysis by trying to make things perfect, but instead, lead forward. No, you're gonna make mistakes, learn from those mistakes along the way, and then learn from others as you're going through this journey. But look to those who have had success. And I think that's one thing too, that drives me crazy about libertarians is that we we look to those who have had political success, not with what can we learn from them, but these are bad people. And we should do the opposite of what they do. So we end up instead of running good, credible candidates, we almost run the weird neck beards that don't really have any position. But let's, I'm sorry if that's a little insulting some folks but like, let's be real for the past 20 years, really for the libertarian movement? I mean, as long as I can think of the Libertarian Party before I was involved in since I have been involved. A lot of the folks that have been running as either candidates or have been running their their different chair, county chairs and stuff. They have consistently been more in this mindset of perfecting the social club versus bringing the libertarian movement into the political party lens and what's the goal of a party, if anything to win elections, but also to use that platform to help spread a message and we didn't do that we And we neglected to do that, I think many times because of the fact that it wasn't the intention of those individuals to grow the movement, but rather to feel more important in your kind of self selected group, and push those away who have had success because they were weary of what what does success mean? Success means all of a sudden that the pool grows, right. And as the pool grows, all of a sudden, the little fish that were considered big ish fish in that little pond are now really small fish because the bigger fish are coming in, and the pond is getting bigger. So as the movement continues to grow, you're going to see that change, you're going to see Jeremy Todd, he's a good friend of mine here on the program, he does some stuff for celebrity, he talked about this once he's like, Hey, if I have an ability to like, become irrelevant in the liberty movement, because there are people who are better than me, that can then take my mantle forward and do things like sell Liberty better than I have done my job, that means that we become irrelevant. Same thing true here, bro. Like, I'm gonna go and enjoy time in the future with my family. If other folks who come and take the mantle of selling liberty and do it more effectively, please help us do that. But in the meantime, we have to be focusing on what works and what works is the basics, look to what works, look at the candidates who have had success, look to the strategies that they implemented, what worked, and then be able to incorporate those into our our processes here. And shameless plug. That's why I'm doing actually doing a thing over my Patreon now to help a lot of like local candidates is called Candidate School. And one of the big challenges folks have is like, if you were to be a candidate for your local and state offices, consultants cost 10s of 1000s of dollars. That's a huge barrier to entry for folks. So I'm like, hey, 10 bucks a month, join a Patreon group with me. And we'll have like experts who are both folks who have won their elections and lost their elections, because like, you can learn so much from folks who have also lost elections and learn what didn't work. But you know, we're having electoral experts on the show candidate experts, canvassers, you name it. And we're talking about strategies, round table conversations to like, actually talk about what works, what has worked, what can we look to, and refer back to? And I guess, you know, on that whole tangent here, it goes back to look where we've had success, look to others who have had success, even though we don't have to agree with them, looked at what they were to accomplish, and then learn how we can implement that that process into what we're doing here.

Kyle Matovcik  12:12  
Yeah, there's so many people that like tie their identity to like, you know, the Libertarian Party, and they're so you know, it's to a fault, because they're not able to do, like you said, looked at people who've had success. So we all like to quote Ron Paul as we absolutely should. But nobody looks at his success and thinks, Okay, what did he do? And the one thing I kind of knocked some of the Republican people for was look at how Rand Paul and Thomas Massie did. These are two people who criticized Trump for where he was bad, but always stood on principle and their constituents love them. Yes. You know, I want to know who ran against those guys. But they got crushed. And you know, what, what did they do? They stood on principle, they weren't afraid to go against their own party. But they're also not afraid to go with their party when their party was right. And then when a time came during 2020, they weren't afraid to stand up for the people and say, You're sending all our tax dollars here. So my main takeaway there was if you're principled, and you have a good record of being principled, that people appreciate that, so it's

Brian Nichols  13:18  
really quick, what do you just sit there, it wasn't necessarily record, or not necessary, the principles, it was the record of sticking to those principles. Right, exactly. And this is one thing we'd like, you know, Bernie Sanders, up until recently, I was Bernie Sanders, because even though he didn't share my principles, he had his own principles, he at least held himself to his principles, right. And now he's lost a lot of that support from folks like me who respected him for that, because he has sacrificed his principles in the name of political expediency. So now, when you look at his record, you look for that consistency. It's not there, versus you look at somebody like Rand Paul, you look at somebody like Thomas Massie, let's go back and look somebody like Ron Paul, right? They were consistent from where they were to where they ended up. And that's something that folks are looking for is consistency, because consistency equals trust. And if you can trust somebody based on their record of consistency, then you by default, will be able to trust more likely what they're going to do going forward. That's why Ron DeSantis, for better for worse, has garnered so much support in Florida and beyond Florida, because during COVID Yes, he dropped the ball at the onset. But what did he do? He admitted he was wrong. He took a step back and he started talking to different people, folks that we were talking to in the liberty movement, folks like Jay Bhattacharya, folks like the folks in the Great Barrington declaration, right, having these conversations and then once presented with new data and new evidence, took a step back and then we re evaluated things and then he set a consistent path forward in Florida, and was basing things on what he was already had done in the past. So when people are moving to Florida in mass, they're doing so because they look to see hey, I think I can trust this guy on this really important issue. Go to the opposite end of the spear Drum states like California states like New York, my old state where you are now in Pennsylvania, I escaped that state because I couldn't trust my officials. I couldn't trust the elected officials in Pennsylvania. And you know, what they showed I couldn't trust them. So they just instituted a new mask mandate for kids in the public schools again, so that there's something right there. I didn't mean to interrupt, but like, trust is paramount to it. And the trust is only garnered when it's tied to the consistency because the consistency is the data that reaffirms the emotion that is the trust.

Kyle Matovcik  15:33  
Yeah, dude. Absolutely. And as we kind of talked about consistency, that also applies to obviously the health realm, because if you can go to the gym, then you know, that's going to consistently improve your health, I got this little piece of paper here, because I did a podcast, you can't really see it, unfortunately. But um, it's literally a full body workout that I've given them my wife, and then now she's starting to go to the gym two days a week, right? Well, if I just went up there and said, No, you have to do push, pull legs, six days a week, one day off, and you have to go to failure, every single set, she's gonna look at me like, I'm a fucking loser. She's gonna say, I can't do this. So you have to start, you know, sometimes at a relatively low level. And it's actually kind of goes back to a point that you're making earlier, paralysis by analysis. And I want to talk about this a little bit, but um, you know, coming from the automotive world, I get this a lot because I work on I work on Cadillacs. Dude, I've had screens out of these things that are like, bigger than me, right? So you're looking at $100,000 car that somebody wants to be perfect? Well, I say perfect. I mean, they don't want to hear a fucking sound going down the road. So when it comes to tearing this thing apart, it's like, well, what do I do, but you know, the thing is, you got to do something, right. So find the smallest thing you could chip away at. And just start doing that, start figuring out what bolts to turn where you need to pull something off what you do start small, it just figuring out where you can actually kind of move the needle a little bit. And I think a lot of people, as you were saying earlier, when they run for office, they're looking to set everything up, rather than just hit the ground running and try to fix as they go along. And I mean, even ties nicely into the point about Ron DeSantis, going by the data admitting he was wrong, which is huge for me, right? Because it shows that they're open to you know, new data, which is, you know, a very, very rare thing anymore. But um, you know, process by analysis, being able to start small, and then being open to changing paths whenever you're wrong. It's huge. And it's very, very important. Yeah, well, and

Brian Nichols  17:25  
this is where a lot of libertarians lose folks is, we sometimes let our principles almost, we almost let them push people away, because we're trying to hold people to our principles. And that's not how it works, right, everybody's holding themselves to their own set of principles, their own set of rules. So we are consistently going to be disappointed when we are holding others, to our values to our principles. Now, it's one thing to try and get them on board with our principles and our values. But to judge them for not being on board from the onset and not acting in that manner. That doesn't yield us any success in converting them over or at least getting more people who are on the sidelines to say, maybe there's a different way of doing things. I actually just did this episode this past week, funny enough that this topic came up here. And it was the idea of the power of positive selling and how criticizing less, can help you sell more. And I use the example funny enough in that episode of my weight loss, and we talked about this last time is that it wasn't the folks who were telling me I was fat and saying like come on, dude, like you want to have luck. Like with the ladies, you might like feel better about yourself, go lose 100 pounds fatty like, that didn't work. What did that do? That actually was like a trigger for me to eat more and to like go down and negative a negative rabbit hole versus when I was given a feeling of love of empathy by someone who cared about me, in this case, a family doctor, that's when seeing that they actually cared about me. And not just like from a doctoral, like, I have to tell you that you need to lose weight, but like, you're not going to be able to enjoy your life slash you're not going to be around to enjoy life. And I care about you. I've watched you grow up. And I want to see you continue to grow up. So please, like, don't do it for me do it for yourself. And that was like, oh my god, like yeah, that hits home like, I'm 17 years old being told that I might not make it like because I'm I'm 385 pounds. And it was at that moment when I was not criticized but shown that love and that understanding that that flipped that switch for me. The same thing is true in other areas in life too. We seem to forget that. We seem to think that like just because we have the great ideas. We have the great principles that instantly other people will be on board and they'll they'll just jump in because our ideas are the best. That's not how it works though, right? Like I can tell you I'm in the sales The world I'm in the cybersecurity world for anybody who's out there in that world. And in the world of wine, there are so many choices and that's why blood of tyrants, wind as tyrants losing their heads, whether you're looking for a new go to that home, or watching the press your friends at a party, a lot of times wine has you covered. And if you're trying to get rid of some errands in your life, well, if we've got that covered, too, and the Brian Nichols show.com, forward slash wine and get $5 off your order, one more time, Brian Nichols show.com, forward slash wine freemen don't ask permission. So take a sip, you'll be glad you did. We're there's something called endpoint security solutions. So talk about like the best of the best technology to help keep your company safe. And I'm confident that the company I partner with they have the best technology, the best soccer center, the best student swim team. And I know for a fact that if you put them against anybody else, they're gonna win from a technology standpoint. But if I only went in talking about that with the customer, and I didn't focus on what the customer actually needed to be addressed, then I could just be I could be talking about aliens and rainbows and unicorns, and it still wouldn't, I still would have the same impact as me just talking about how great my product is. Versus if you can find what it is that is that driver, that emotional thing that that person is looking for and address that because and I don't know about you, man, I see this all the time is that in this world right now, people are just looking for some connection, I read, do you want to hear something horrifying and sad? One of the top apps from the App Store this year, you know what it was, it was an AI chat friend, like, just just something to talk to. And it's not real like that, that made me sad. That That means that there are that many people out there who are just looking for some type of connection, some type of like authentic relationship with someone, and they're willing to get that from a fake AI, just just to get a feeling of there's something that cares about me. So if we can stop being the Walk Score, because sometimes we turn into the walk squad with our principles, but instead of going back to my favorite expression, meet people where they're at, on the issues they care about, because at the end of the day, we are all tuned into the same radio station, you know, it is w i f FM, what's in it for me, and if not, are not listening to other people who are tuned into that radio station as well. That we're gonna be white noise, we're gonna be that staticky noise in between radio stations to them. So when we all of a sudden start addressing those issues, saying, Hey, listen, did I hear you like, I too used to weigh 385 pounds, and listen, I get it, it sucks. But here's what happens when you start to lose weight. Here's what you start to feel not just like physically, but emotionally. Now I'm relating to that person on the things I know, matter to them, versus saying, dude, you need to lose weight, you're gonna die like that. Great. What does that do for me like that? That's criticizing me? Hey, you want to have better luck with losing weight? Like, okay, asshole. Thanks. I didn't know that already. That is a different approach. And if we don't implement that approach, we're going to continue to see like a lack of success. But when you look to those who have had success, what are they doing? They're having the success by meeting people where they're at on those emotional triggers that are driving them. And if we don't start doing that other people are going to continue to do that. We're gonna lose, dude. So yeah, that's that's why I think we just got we got are focusing more on I know, emotions, right? Like, people are like, Oh, my God, emotions, but like emotion, sell people make decisions on emotions. And then our reptile brain afterwards, we try to like, Okay, how do I rationalize this? And then we start looking at the facts and reasons, then we start looking at the features and benefits and we kind of work backwards. Yeah, we're like, oh, that's why I did that. Okay. But like the thing that actually made us make the decision, it was emotion. And we have to acknowledge that if we don't like pardon the expression but like the autistic libertarian, like my principles, or else like that doesn't win, even if the right and that's the part that's the hardest is like, yes, you're right, your principles are right. Now what? And that's, that's where we have to start answering is that now what yes, we're right. Now what? What are you going to do with it? How are we gonna get more people on board? You can't good idea. And the death doesn't work that way. You have to mean more than that. You have to show the value in the show, and you can't really solve the problems they see.

Kyle Matovcik  24:18  
Yeah, so that kind of goes to like Donald Trump's story arc, where you look like 2015 And it was all about Make America Great Again, I'm gonna bring back your jobs. It was a very emotional appeal. Yes. Because I mean, if you look, statistically, I mean, he really didn't deliver on any of these promises. But the fact is, he sold that to people as like I said, an emotional appeal and then come 2020 He didn't have that same emotional you know, zeal, were saying, What

Brian Nichols  24:42  
did you have? Think about it? It was either make America great again, and then keep America great, dude. We went through us summer of peaceful, fiery but mostly peaceful protests, and he's just Americans rage. That's great to you.

Kyle Matovcik  24:57  
On Fire, this is Biden's America dude. You're,

Brian Nichols  25:01  
you're the president. Yeah. Literally are America like literally? Yeah. And

Kyle Matovcik  25:06  
I felt like his messaging in 2020. And then even like the baits, he was like, you know, a fish out of water just unleashed. And and yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny to watch him go for the jugular, because that's where he is strong. But at the same time, it's like, dude, people lost their businesses, their livelihoods. We're likely seeing now the effects in the ticked up death rate. Now, people want to blame that on certain experiment, which I think that's climate change. Yeah, yeah. But I think there is a that is perhaps to blame. But peeps, it just frustrates me when people forget that we literally went through lockdowns and destroyed people's lives. And now we're likely seeing the price of that all throughout the globe. And people just seem to want to let that go. Sorry. I don't want to let that go. So we have Donald Trump saying, let's keep America great. And people lost their businesses. People had to stay locked in their homes. And you have this guy saying, Oh, look, everything's great. Let's keep it this way. That doesn't sell in that egomaniac. You know, it, just like I said, it doesn't sell to people. So when you look at someone like Ron Sanchez, who said, Oh, I see the problem here. Let's sell it this way. That's why now he has so much appeal, because he's, you know, he was able to course correct and then sell people basically on the idea that, hey, I'll keep Florida free.

Brian Nichols  26:25  
Well, what did Trump do? I mean, let's kind of there's two parts here. The first part that Trump's strategy, his initial campaign strategy in 2016, which was effective was, they're not coming after me. They're going after me to go after you. And everything in the campaign was I am the face of the attacks against you. They're not attacking Donald John Trump. They're attacking you the basket of deplorables. Right. So everything in the campaign was the voter centric. What changed in 2020? Donald Trump centric? Yep. Election, right. Like it I still hold out for years, exactly. The four years of of he was right. By the way. He's right. He did spend four years being attacked by the Democrats and saying that the election was handed to him by Russian collusion, but doesn't matter, right? It doesn't matter. And again, going back to what we talked about before, it doesn't matter if you're right. What matters is, is your message resonating to your average person, and you just hit the nail on the head. What hit literally what hit home was people losing their businesses losing their livelihoods being told, Hey, you're not essential. You're gonna stay home, and you're essential. You can go to work. Okay, well, I'm gonna feed my family. Figure it out. And that was right there. A lot of the stuff caused by Trump Trump's the one who promoted Fauci, Trump's the one who promoted the China style lockdowns, Trump's the one who fast tracked literally operation warp speed for an experimental mRNA vaccine. Am I allowed to say that sorry, I'm gonna get you banned. But like, this was all done under Trump. And he can't get away from that because during the entire time he was doing this he was owning it. He this was success. As recently as I think like a couple of months ago, he was touting the vaccines are very good vaccines that save you said millions of lives, but now we're seeing might be causing some lives as well. So we're seeing right now, Trump, he's he's at this issue where it's like, how do I number one, turn the conversation away from me to the voter again, but number two, disassociate from the things I actually did that I thought were successful that were actually successful. But now that I'm running in a primary against the guy who did the right thing, I have to differentiate and how do I do that? And Trump's in a pickle. So once you do Trump trading cards and and Ron DeSantis, sit there and he hasn't announced yet, but he can just say look at Florida. Look at what we've done. He has arrived, we continue to have millions of people flooding into our state and why all those blue states like California, New York, Pennsylvania, they're all losing folks in mass. The only blue states really gain any voters or residents has been New Jersey. And it's because they're taking the voters who are escaping from New York City saying I'm out of here. We're out of Philadelphia, they're like I'm out of here. I'm going over to South Jersey like and who can blame them dude, Philadelphia homicides are up like I think 400% It's insanity in Philly right now. I lived there for seven years I was like nope, it's a different city even like how weird it was a liberal city from the beginning I moved there in 2015 to I escaped in 2022 Oh my god like the place was a night and day like it was a horror movie like restaurants used to go to all time. Close your walk down word nice areas in town. Homeless people encampments, you go down to the subway in Center City, Tent City downs down there, like what is happening to these blue cities and I'll tell you what's happening every knows what's happening. This is decades of unchecked leftist policies finally coming home to roost. Sorry. That's the That's the fundamental reality I will woke up last night, like at two in the morning couldn't get back to sleep. And I was like, fuck it, we're going to the gym. And I, I was like laying there in bed. I have some some in laws who they're just they are so not the parents parents are great, but some married into in laws that are just like so down this like leftist rabbit hole. also live in Philly and just like very judgmental of anybody who questioned the COVID propaganda. And like, I remember when I was leaving the city, and they were like complaining about, you know, all the COVID disinformation and stuff. I was like, Hey, dude, you know what can have that opinion. And it's fine. I'm just not gonna share your city with you. So I'm gonna leave and take all my tax dollars with me. And you can pay for all this nonsense yourself. And you can just see kind of like the like the what face like we talking about? I'm like, dude, like, all this stuff that you think is like this great, you know, these great leftist policies and like all the things you want to put in place for, like COVID disinformation and stuff like that, like, that's fine. do that here. That's great. But guess what? People like me, the people who like weren't sane people two years ago that are now considered conspiracy theorists, we're out. And we're taking everything that we used to bring the city with us, I'm taking all my tax dollars, I'm taking all the money I used to putting the economy going to the bars and going to the restaurants and going to the theater events coming with me. It's going to different areas, areas that don't hate me areas that don't actively despise my values and actually go to areas of people who have my shared values and goals. How about that, like, that's, that's the thing I'll take, and I'm going to guarantee that you fast forward and 10 years, the area that I have chosen, versus the area that I have left is going to be in a much better spot because it is of those shared values. And it's not of these insane leftist policies that are finally coming home to roost. So yeah, and rent.

Kyle Matovcik  31:44  
Your good Yeah, and I fortunately live about an hour north of Pittsburgh, so I really don't have to worry about the city stuff coming out here. I mean, I see flags everywhere. So I mean, I could probably look out on my front porch and see at least half a dozen. But um, the thing that I kind of noticed with the midterms and obviously want your thoughts on this as well, is that a lot of people talk about fraud, and you have to be careful how you word this, because YouTube will pull the video down if you say it a certain way, which is just, it's ridiculous. It's beyond retarded. But um, I really don't think there was that much fraud going on. I think what we observed was that the blue areas got more blue and the red areas got more read. I think that's all there was to it. And people want to say like, Hey, Nana, you know, my, my guys can't lose like they're doing the Trump thing. And not that I think there was absolutely zero. But I think people just failed to acknowledge that these areas that locked down hard, the people who liked that are okay with it. They're not gonna go nowhere. The people who hated it, they're not going to tolerate it. So yeah, look what happened in Florida. It was kind of I had Hector rousse on and I think he's a good guy. I think his run like no, I agree with some point.

Brian Nichols  32:56  
He was on my show. Same thing. I was like, What the fuck are you doing? Dude? me like he made a very good argument. I heard him. Yeah, he does. I just I was like, I, I don't I don't see it. Like, I think it's wasting our resources. Like, yeah, you can be the foil to, like, go be the foil that Lindsey Graham. We're gonna be the foil to Bernie Sanders or AOC. Why Ron? DeSantis. But like, why? I'm like genuine. Why? And? And that is the question. I know, he's not perfect. But we have to stop going towards this. Like, again, this ideal perfection spiraling exactly like we will continue to alienate, we have to instead are building coalition. That's why the Democrats did so well, up until like 2016 was because they were doing like this coalition building of different groups, but they're focused on like, the racial stuff, versus the stuff that actually matters, the like, the stuff that we share, and values and principles and building those those relationships, finding common ground, that's where we will win, because those issues will transcend the racial issues, they will transcend the socio economic issues we're looking at right now, folks who are more of a Hispanic background moving into the south, they're leaning Republican, because they share more values with Republicans than they do with the Democrats. Right, which was scaring the shit out of Democrats because that wasn't supposed to be the plan, that the folks who were coming from Mexico were supposed to be religiously Democrat, because we were letting them in. And that didn't mean that that's not the case. And that right there speaks to why it is so important to to not just scream about values and how important like our ideas are, but rather talk to people say hey, what is your issue, let's find some common ground, build that relationship, build some common trust and and like then use that to go forward into other areas

Kyle Matovcik  34:42  
yet and I really liked the theme that we've kind of built throughout the show here, but um, building trust with people also requires you know, having, as you said, a relationship with people right, and you have relationship capital with people, then they're invested in you, right? So the best way to get people to invest in you is by once getting you know, if you build a relationship with somebody, they to trust you, and then therefore they're more likely to listen to your ideas. And then maybe you could sway them towards a more liberty leaning direction. And, you know, just sitting here screaming artistically in the corner, which, you know, we all do sometimes, you know, it's okay, sometimes we have to let it out. But um, you know, just doing that doesn't really appeal to that many people. So it is very important that once again, we present ourselves as wholesome people. Yep, well developed individuals with, you know, a solid ideology. And then as you say, we have to meet people where they're at. And then hopefully, they, you know, trust us and have a good relationship with us. So that way, they're more convinced of our ideas.

Brian Nichols  35:35  
Let me ask you, and I'll add, I'll start my question with my experience. So I'm finding the most conversations I'm having with folks who are interested in our solutions have been by and large, small business owners, entrepreneurs. And I would say like, you're not politically independent, per se. But more so like that person who has been, like politically agnostic, if that makes sense. Like they've they've kind of been in the John Mulaney skit mentality where he was doing the horse in the hospital that are you familiar that? No, not now. So basically, John Lee does a skit where he's like, you know, back in 20, before 2016, didn't really think too much about politics, because I thought the person in charge was kind of a intelligent person. Whereas 2016, and he uses the analogy that Trump was a horse in hospital and just like being let loose and like he didn't know what to do. And then he suddenly like, got more involved in politics and more interested, he's like, Well, we've never had a horse in the hospital. And you go back to well, why wasn't he involved in politics beforehand? And it's because folks were just kind of taking the blue pill, right? Like they were in their own little matrix. And they weren't really involved. I'm seeing more of those folks who were like, what is happening around us, like folks really work? Who back in 2017? They were kind of like, I won't say more me, but like, now I'm hearing them be like, Yeah, dude, like, what is up with the FBI? And I'm like, really, really, you wanna talk about the FBI like it being corrupt? I brought that up in 2017, you were thought was a conspiracy theorists. And like, That, for me has been an exciting. So I'm saying like, those three areas I'm finding are more open to a different way of doing things. What are you seeing on your end? Like, who are the folks that are entering into like a, hey, help me, help me learn what your world is? Because I'm curious, and I want to learn more, because maybe you want to do things different?

Kyle Matovcik  37:31  
It typically comes in like, holy shit, I'm paying so much money for everything right now. And then it's everybody's gonna have an inherent bias when it comes to political stuff, right? I mean, everybody knows that, you know, some people are going to default a little bit more to the right, some people are going to fight a little bit more to the left. But when people go to the grocery store, like I went there the other day, and I took a picture, I think I got to 12 packs of Diet Pepsi, dog food, and I think a carton of egg whites. It was 52 fucking dollars, like, holy shit. Yeah, so. But when people hear about that, then they're curious, like, what the hell's going on here? But it's like, okay, well, you remember those stimulus checks you got in 2020. Now, look what happened? Yeah, that seemed nice at the time. But now you realize you're paying the price. And this, you know, the price you're paying at the pump, same deal. We printed all this money, and then our hostility towards energy policy, and you know, fracking and stuff like that. And I've been meaning to do another pod or a podcast on fracking, and actually how safe that technology isn't how effective it is. And the abilities lovers think

Brian Nichols  38:39  
it's like, it's like, the end of the world?

Kyle Matovcik  38:40  
I don't get it. No, no, it's not there. There's so many technologies, I wrote a paper I wrote a paper on it when I was in college, but um, you know, the fact that we've had such hostility towards using this kind of technology that's going to affect your price at the pump. So the stuff that like, matters to people every day, right, once again, what their purchasing power can do for them is kind of where people are most receptive to the message of libertarianism and like, hey, the government is stealing your retirement, your purchasing power right out from underneath you and then selling your kids off to you know, our debtors all over the world. So, you know, we need to speak to them about this and then tell them look, the solution is You we need alternative currencies, we need to go back to what the Constitution originally said where, you know, we should have more of a free market and currency not a monopoly on you know, this stuff that comes out of our wallet and is being worth dramatically less and less and less day by day.

Brian Nichols  39:37  
What about culture issues? Are you hearing anybody like bringing up the the trends, the trends, what are the trends, trends of the kids? Yeah, I couldn't think of that headway. They are expressing the trends of the kids and then like the grooming of the kids, and then what was the other one that like, drag queen story hours? Is that anything you're hearing as conversations or is that all like conservative echo chambers?

Kyle Matovcik  39:57  
I think that's largely on Twitter. Um, Now where that is happening, I think I need to be stopped. And I think the people who are perpetrating that are bad people, and I think they should be punished. That being said, I don't hear it every day from people. But when people find out that it is happening, they're absolutely fucking disgusted by it. And I think all sane people, or even the people who are like might be a little bit more open to that, like on the left side of stuff much Tim Poole discussing. That's okay. Um, yeah,

Brian Nichols  40:25  
do a little bit. Yeah. Did you watch the recent episode? I think it was a Michael Knowles, Mike. And Luke, were debating, and this conversation came up. Luke, Luke radowsky, there from Dr. Chang, he was on and it was Michael Knowles. And they're going back and forth. And this conversation came up about, like, what is considered like the societal discourse? Like, wait, where are we like, all on board? Like, you? That's gross. And the example was, I think, that Michael gave us like, you know, punching a grandma on the face versus like, giving a kid $100 Check. Like, you know, we all are like, yeah, the punching the grim in the face is objectively the bad thing. And like, why, why is that objectively the bad thing? Why do we all in our, like, in our soul? No, that's wrong. And it's like, how do you then take the what we know in our soul is wrong, and set that as the standard without government being the standard, and then it was a conversation going into the difference between community and government. And like, Michael's argument was government is, if anything, an expression of community, gut feelings, whereas loop was more of the well, we need to emphasize more on just the community doing the societal standards, by their actions in their practice. And it's this very, this very fine line. Right. And this is, I think, where sometimes we get I think Luke made a great argument, by the way, I think his argument was solid. The problem is, again, when we lead with arguments, we, we sometimes like get lost into the weeds like we're now talking about, well, how do we determine what is the age of consent? And when you start going down the age of consent stuff, what are we doing? Like that's not a conversation any libertarian will have any success? And because now you're talking about what age it is okay? To digital kids. No, like that. People? No, no, no, no. Freaking doing here. That's not the conversation you're leading with the conversation you should be leading with is like what you talked about? Why is gas so expensive? Why can't I get more food, my grocery cart? Like, those are the issues I'm seeing for sure, like 10 out of 10. So I just want to see there because I hear this a lot. And you see this on on Twitter, you see it on social media, beyond Twitter, but like the idea that this like this, this social, cultural, Marxist approach to like training the kids and grooming the kids like It's like permeating everywhere. Now, I'm always on board with like, school choice, get kids out of government schools. Absolutely. But like, I'm not leading with that as the reason behind that argument. You know, it's like, you have to be able to reframe it, I guess, based on where people are seeing the problem come from, it's like, if you if you saw somebody who was going 100 miles an hour on the interstate, and the person, like a person to pour them, they're like, well, they were going 100 miles an hour. It's like, why were they going 100 miles an hour? Well, like maybe their kid just got into a really bad bike accident and had to rush into the ER, right? And understand the context of why that person was doing what they were doing. I know, like, then you're like, well, you're just getting down a slippery slope of explaining things. It's like, No, you're going back to we're talking about you're trying to understand why people do what they do, and then make the parameters of the frameworks work within that system. I'm going to delete it out myself. But like, going back into what we originally were talking about here, really me back in? It is I think we get way too, emotionally attached to those cultural conversations, because the cultural conversation itself evokes an emotional response. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Kyle Matovcik  44:04  
So yeah, and it is important for us to kind of build culture, but at the same time, you know, as you were saying earlier, if you just tell people, well, Public Schools shouldn't exist or take your kids out of public school for most free. It's not a realistic situation. So why can't we say like, Okay, well, if we have public schools, which we do, then it is clearly preferable that they don't do things like this. You can't have the either or I was I also started a shit show on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, over a reoccurring theme for you, man. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I'm pretty good at throwing bombs, but I'm also somewhat gutted a deer in front of a middle school I saw Yeah, in their front yard. And my question was, does it violate the nap? The answer's no. But also, there's some children that probably don't want to see a gutted deer. So why don't you do that in your garage? Or Put in the back yard. And there were some people saying like, Oh, well, you should know where your food comes from like, Okay, well, I also don't think you should have to show children how to have sex to understand where they came from. Now, once again, you can teach kids about this kind of stuff without violating the parents trust or that kids, you know, consent, you can say, hey, you know, I'm, I'm the adult of this child, and I want this kid to understand where their food comes from. But okay, well, we can have that conversation. But you know, obviously, when we start getting into the trance stuff, then that's

Brian Nichols  45:29  
really I mean, like, there's like a video that came out of a school board meeting, where a mom was reading the book that was in the library, and then the school board member goes, please stop. There are kids present here? And the moms like, no kidding. That's the boy. Yeah. This is the and that right there? I think that nail on the head, yes. Yeah.

Kyle Matovcik  45:52  
So these things aren't inherently you know, outs, or, you know, they're not harming people necessarily. But let's call it what it is, it's fucking wrong to show kids sexually explicit material. And if we can't agree on that, then like, you know, bring the baby you're already dutiful can't protect the most vulnerable Wolf Among Us that we're doomed. And you know, we should always prioritize the health, the wellness of children over everybody else. That is always the most important thing, because people hate it. When people go for their kids, and all that, like, they're, they're the bearers of the future. They're the bearers of this country. So we have to make sure that their lives are taken care of, to the utmost degree. And that wasn't the reason of another shitstorm, the children need to come first and a need to be taken care of. And that means taking care of yourself. So that way, you can better take care of all the other people like they say on the airplanes, put your mask on first, double your children's

Brian Nichols  46:46  
Oh, and this is like, I know, this is like a not another like, oh, Brian's not making a libertarian argument. But like, this is why the border conversation is so important right now, even though we don't want to have it's like you can't bring I get it like, yes, there is a demand for work. There's a labor shortage, yes, that's not the same thing as having millions of illegal not necessarily your the word illegal, it's millions of people who are in need, flooding your border, if that was the case, we didn't take every person who needs help here, America would have 8 billion people because we are literally like the most privileged country in the world. Anybody living here is going to have a higher standard of living than anywhere else, of course, like, but we can't do that. You can't do that. It's like your point. It's the same thing with like a boat, right? Like you're trying to save people on the life raft. And also 30 People are swimming towards this one little boat, and they start pulling the boat, guess what, the boats going down and everybody's down with them. We can't do it. And this, I guess it goes back to why we sometimes as libertarians get way too in these arguments like, Okay, well, let's talk about let's debate the closed border versus open border conversations like no, let's address the reality of what's happening right now that we have to live in this society. Real time. It's not this, like weird thought experiment where, you know, we can talk about this and then test it and be like, Whoa, let's see how that worked. Like, no, no, people are literally experiencing folks flooding over the border into their communities right now happening, and now they're having to face it. And it's funny seeing theories like Philadelphia being like, we have more undocumented folks being brought up here in buses from Texas, like, how can we how can we deal with this? It's like you're a sanctuary city. I thought you were supposed to be okay with this stuff. No, but little little border town that has 10 20,000 people on the Texas Mexico border that gets flooded with 80,000 immigrants in a day. They're okay. They're fine. They if they're used to it, like come on, this is where we lose the argument because nobody takes it seriously. Like you're living in freakin fantasy lala land. And we're trying to like address things that are really happening. And that's where we jumped the shark, we lose the argument. And then folks don't listen to you. Because then they're like, oh, yeah, these guys are just talking in their their own make believe world, their own utopia, which is almost the exact same argument we give the commies and our leftist friends, because that's what it is, it is a utopia, we have to acknowledge the reality of that there are as much as there are good people in the world. And I think inherently people are good. But there are bad people in the world. And there are people who will do harm they there are evil people who will go out and and cause destruction and mayhem. And we have to acknowledge that we can't just like go in with the the preconceived notion that everybody shares our same values are same principles. I live by the golden rule. I believe that you treat others the way you want to be treated. But I know for sure that there are folks out there who do not follow that rule in the slightest, and would go ahead and cause as much destruction as they could if it meant they were gonna get ahead. Jail then that reality, man, that's just real world.

Kyle Matovcik  49:48  
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And it is something that we definitely should have woken up to over 2020 Is that like, we have to be in this reality and meet people, as you said, meet people where they're at and then give them solutions to their problems. I know you're in a little bit of a time limit. So I'll ask you a few more questions. We'll get on out of here if you're good with that. Yeah, yeah. Nice. Brian, what gives you hope about the future? And, you know, long term short term? And what do you kind of look forward to?

Brian Nichols  50:18  
I have hoped for the future because there's more conversations like this happening. I believe we're going to see, and this is happening right now behind the scenes, more individuals out there who are collectively waking up to this isn't right, something is off here. Now whether or not they're on board with us to be determined. But I think it's a rare opportunity. Right? I'm, I'm an I'm a sales guy by trade, we're talking about finding your your target market, who's your niche that you can go after, for too often, the liberty movement has been this attempted, one size fits most. And what we got was in return consistently less than 5% in the votes. And we got a squishy, not really growing party that represented, according to Gary Johnson, social liberty, social liberalism and fiscal conservatism, versus when we started focusing on okay, what is it that are like the top issues that we can lead with, and who's the audience that we should be speaking to, who's our buyer persona that needs what we're selling? Once we started, take that into consideration, and lead with that, and we do this more consistently, we're gonna find that that niche that we're going after that target market of folks who are like, quote, waking up, it's going to keep growing. And the benefit that we have is that when you look at the old, the old status quo solutions, Red Team, Blue Team, Republican Democrat, those two teams already come with them, preconceived notions that folks will carry to the proverbial like, checkout counter, right. But with us, there is as much uncertainty as there is potential. So we have to be able to then like earn their trust, we are the RC Cola of, of political parties, right? And if let's just say all of a sudden, all these Coke and Pepsi drinkers just started going crazy, right? Just start screaming at each other. And other RC Cola or other Pepsi and Coke drinkers are like, is it in the drink? Should we be concerned? Should we try something else? RC Cola would have a great chance to be like, Hey, listen, if you're concerned about the way that the Coke and Pepsi folks have been acting toward each other, well, hey, listen, we have not just a good drink. It's a great drink. And here's why. And then go into like, Hey, you liked the sweet taste of Pepsi. It's got the sweet taste of Pepsi like a long drink, you can just sit and enjoy like Coke. Just like that with coke. And talk to those folks on the issues that they care about. And then be able to sell them some RC Cola now is it going to be the like the instant takeover of market share from RC Cola? Absolutely not. But you build up that you build up that little bit and you build that snowball and starts to grow. All sudden people are like, wow, RC Cola is pretty good. Hey, you're a Coke drinker, right? Have you tried RC Cola, not only does it kind of tastes like Coke, but it has you stopped screaming at people do and all the sudden that that group starts to grow, word of mouth starts to become a thing all sudden, the one person who bought your product now becomes a superfan they become your sales aren't more or less, they're going out and sharing your product without you having to ask them to do so. That's when exponential growth mode happens. But we only get there once we get those those few people interested first and get them on board. So it's knowing who should we be going after. And in this case, I would say let's look to the folks who they are the movers and shakers in their communities. They are the movers and shakers in their industries, whether it's business, whether it's an industry, whether it's a thought, you know, a political interest group, you name the topic, right? Go towards the individuals who are the leaders, the thinkers, the movers the shakers, get them on board, and then watch what happens when you are able to earn their trust, and get them to start becoming your advocates on your behalf. That's where I'm optimistic because I see if we continue to build relationships, meet people where they're at, I'm sorry, guys, I know every time I say that you guys should get $1 meet people where they're at on issues they care about, we will then be able to build that up and have more long term success because of that approach versus just screaming about how awesome our principles are. So I think that's, that's what I'm most looking forward

Kyle Matovcik  54:32  
to. Nice. Yeah. And that kind of goes to a theme that I've been talking about a lot recently, but it's become your own hero. Everybody's waiting for a hero but you know, nobody's gonna step up and do it for you. No one's coming to save you. And that should be the most optimistic message in the world because it means you have the ability to save yourself so yeah, Brian if he'll go anything else go ahead give your plugs we'll say our you know, our salutations on the other side. Rock'n'roll

Brian Nichols  54:57  
Well hey guys, if you enjoyed what we're doing We're here for The Brian Nichols Show. We'd love to have you join the audience. So please join me at Brian Nichols show.com. By the way, I'm rocking my new magic money tree shirt, which has our magic money tree with a unicorn and leprechauns. And the magic money tree is of course, the Fed. If you want to go ahead and get your shirt plus, we have so many other political shirts and tees, you name it, we have it over at the shop. So head to Brian Nichols show.com. The the shop link is right there and use code TBS at checkout for I think it's 10% off your order. And then as for me, you can find me on Twitter, Facebook, pretty much anywhere. We have social media at B. Nichols liberty, Brian Nichols show we are going live five days a week, really excited to have amazing guests who are bringing a lot of great solutions that we need to bring to the table to the audience and showing how we can sell those ideas. And as we talked about, instead of winning arguments, or winning hearts and minds by meeting people where they're at and the issues they care about, I love to have you join me Brian Nichols show.com Thanks.

Kyle Matovcik  55:52  
So of course, well, hopefully everybody goes and checks your stuff out. I enjoyed talking to you as always, it's very enlightening and very uplifting. So um, everybody make sure you like subscribe and share as always tell people do at the end of the show instead of the beginning of the show. You think it would told you the beginning, but um, yeah, guys, until next time, thanks for checking out. You know, leave good reviews and make sure you go check out Brian. Take care guys.

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