845: Ideology vs. Identity - Separating Beliefs from the Self

Randy Wilinski  0:00  
Hey, what's up, we are live on another edition of the venture, I'm gonna mess up my own name vocation venture. Hey, the cool thing about this podcast is that we get to talk about whatever we want to. And it has to be something you're passionate about. It has to be something that you absolutely love, or the parts of whatever you're doing that you absolutely love. So I want to bring that to people so they can see maybe themselves in that see their potential, see where they're going. And today is going to be no shortage of that. Because every area of this gentleman's life that he touches, I think he brings passion and enthusiasm. So I'm about to bring Brian on here. The first thing you got to know about him first and foremost, husband, father, sales executive, he runs a team of that he has a huge podcast, which I didn't even realize until we reconnected and we'll talk a little bit about that too, because I'm like, teach me teach me Yoda. Teach me your ways. And also, what else? Is there anything else? Hey, if there's anything I missed, we'll have him bring it out and tell you about it. But let's jump in. Let's get it started right away. We only got an hour max. I don't even know if he'll give me an hour. He might be like I got calls to get to. What's up, Brian?

Brian Nichols  1:07  
Brother, how you doing? Randy? It's good to talk to you. And I will give you an hour, I will give you two hours, whatever you want to take.

Randy Wilinski  1:15  
It's a marathon. This is a deep dive into your whole life. Let's do it.

Brian Nichols  1:19  
Love it. Randy. Thanks for having me on. I'm really looking forward to our conversation,

Randy Wilinski  1:23  
too. This is so great. So just to recap for people how we first got introduced, I saw you speaking at an event in Wisconsin, and you just big energy, big smile, big personality. And then I stayed connected with you on LinkedIn. I'm like, Oh, I love the content. You know, this is the thing. This is why you post content, because people forget about you, your best friends forget about you, oh my god, you do that, like you post content. And I'm like, I gotta reconnect everything he's doing. I love what he's doing with video. It made me think of you. And then we just started talking about our shared interests. I'm like, can I have you on? Will you be on my podcast? And then I found out you're like, you know, big time podcast sponsors, almost 1000 under your belt, dude, that's, I mean, that's a big accomplishment. Most people give up after like, 12. And they give up after like a year. They don't stick to it for like this. So it's true, man.

Brian Nichols  2:12  
Well, listen, I'm not trying to toot my own horn. But you know, it's been a, it's been a long time coming to where, you know, I am today, from the podcasting standpoint. You know, I started the show back in 2018. And I had no idea what the heck I was doing, you know, one of my buddies, Chris spangle. He does a lot of work here in Indianapolis with the Bob and Tom show. And he does podcasting. As a side hustle. And I started connecting with him. And he was basically like the driver of the technology behind the scenes, because I had no idea you know, what's an RSS feed? Randy, I don't know what that is stuff like that. So I started talking to Chris, we start having more and more of a conversation, I started learning more about the tech and then fast forward to today, you'd mentioned it, like we're under 1000 episodes, you know, we're like 870 or so total. And the whole genesis for the show was just like, you know, you look, I'm a sales guy, right? You see a problem the world, and you want to help bring a solution to the table. And the problem I saw in the world was that, like everybody was talking about politics, and they were hating each other, they couldn't have a coherent dialogue, or just heck a conversation about issues that they disagreed with. So how can we talk about these issues, not just the issues themselves? But how do we solve these problems? So my show really, it turned into a political slash I just a solutions show. It started more in the world of politics, but quickly evolved to I'm having entrepreneurs on my show, I'm having business leaders on my show who they saw problems in respective areas, and they said, I think I can solve that. And instead of saying, hey, you know, Mr. And Mrs. government official, can you come here and help us with this, they say, I think I'm gonna be able to fix this myself. And we can do it, you know, 10 times, 20 times faster. And at 1/10. The cost, let's do this. And that was one of the best things I got to see is that we can solve the problems that we see right now, just like we do in the world of business, Randy, like, I find myself in the contact center space. And we're helping solve, you know, customer service, customer experience issues for companies. The same thing is true in any other area in life, as long as there is a legitimate problem that you can bring a solution to the table to solve. People are going to be listening. So thanks, man, that was kind of the the little bit of a sneak peek into who I am, I guess that the peek behind the curtain if you will.

Randy Wilinski  4:34  
I love it. And the thing with what your podcast is, when I looked through them, like look at the diversity of topics that you're on, and then from hundreds of things that were in there, I had to look at the sales stuff, which you had quite a bit on, you obviously have a lot of in politics and it's 100% Like why aren't we able to go you can believe something different than me and that's okay. You're not the enemy. You're not evil. You're not a bad person because you grew up with a different experience which shaped your values, you had different parents? That's all Okay, can we be respectful? Can we have a dialogue? You probably have a reason for believing what you believe. Tell me why you believe that. I think that's the only times I've ever get frustrated with people, if they get angry because they so much identify with their belief that they can't even question it or talk about it's like, well, what's the point? You're just dogmatic? You're just there's no point in having a conversation unless I just want to get regurgitated on just what you believe. Let's talk back and forth. Why do you think where did it come from? And usually, I can say, I've never had it so bad, where I didn't learn something or could not see. Okay, if I had that same thing, if, if that's, if that's where my parents came from, I might think the same thing or if I had these privileges, or these shortcomings, whatever it would be, maybe that would also shape it. So can we understand that we're all humans, most people just want to love their families. They want to work hard, they want to be successful in life, and they might see different things and they might be 100%. Wrong. And that's okay. I might be wrong about things too. So like they could be wrong about it. That doesn't affect what I believe it doesn't affect what I know to be true. Like, it doesn't challenge and I think that's something that maybe has happened too much is like people's identity is so confused, that now they start latching on to like, whatever they like externally becomes a

Brian Nichols  6:14  
danger of the isms, I will paraphrase my favorite comedy movie hero, and that is Ferris Bueller. Where he says, isms, in my opinion are not good to quote John Lennon. I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me, he was the walrus, I could be the walrus. But it wouldn't change the fact that it's so hard to bum rides off of people because I don't have a car. But going back to the ISM, the isms are the issue right? When people aren't able to in their own world identify who they are, what they believe why they believe it and how they got to those conclusions. Instead, the natural thing is to find that proverbial ism, and attach yourself to that. So whether that is conservatism, liberal, ism, socialism, libertarian ism, whatever that ism is, I see this far too often, where people will now become that isn't right, it's no longer I'm John Doe, who happens to believe X, Y, and Z is I'm a blank. Oh, and my name is also John Doe, the ISM is not who you are. The ISM is something that you happen to believe or maybe a principle or a value you bring to the table. But that's not who you are. It's a part of who you are, but itself is not you. It is part of what makes you you. And it's good to understand how you got to that ism, versus just, you know, the emotional connection to an ism, which is very dangerous. And we don't have to go through the historical examples to explain that. But any ism that gets people on board just by an emotion, super scary, and that's why I wanted to make my show more focused on how can we talk about the issues without the isms, right, how can we talk about the solutions without the ISM attached to it? So I think that speaks to exactly what you're talking about man, like, we got to be able to have a dialogue, avoid the very, the very, I guess, ideological isms that can really peek into these conversations. And let's just talk to each other, like people. And that right there. That's what's missing, being a human being having a legitimate conversation with somebody who maybe agrees with you. But more likely than not, they don't

Randy Wilinski  8:22  
know, at least not on everything. Plus, you just think they

Brian Nichols  8:26  
shouldn't agree with you and everything. If you do that's a big red flag, I'm waving there from the top of the mountain, then

Randy Wilinski  8:31  
get get in a different room where people think differently and challenge you because even if they just challenge what you believe, it either reinforces why you believe in it, or it makes you have to seek out and go you know what, that is a point I've never considered and then you can grow as a person. So and then also, there's got to be like a CrossFit ism. Like, what's the CrossFit ism, because it's the same thing, right? Like, this is the only way do you do this, oh, my God, you've got to do this, everyone I know. And we've all been there. I've tried CrossFit, I get it, I kind of I kind of dig it. But it's a it's a cult. And that can be your ideology. It can be whatever you subscribe to. And it's the only way to think or view the world. It essentially becomes a cult, and then you've got your cult leaders who you look up to, and you just regurgitate whatever they say. It's like, wait, wait, is that a soundbite? Or did you actually think that through and so that's, that's where it's cool what you're doing like, Well, really, really

Brian Nichols  9:22  
quick. I don't mean to jump in. But like this also, while we're really talking about some very, I guess, weighted topics today just at the onset, so we're going

Randy Wilinski  9:30  
to deep I thought this is gonna be about business about context. Like the psychology and fabric of society and pulling it don't worry, folks,

Brian Nichols  9:39  
we'll get there we'll get back to business. This is where when you don't have some underlying, unifying value behind the scenes that brings people together and I mean, whether people love it or hate it, but this is the role that organized religion has played for generations, right? It was always that that on underlying structure that a society was built upon not just in terms of the worshipping of a particular God or religion, but also the structure that it put in place, the value that it brings to the table, the morals, the principles, and a lot of that has gone missing in contemporary society, if we look at any any use of modern religion, and it's been just dropping dramatically over the past 50 years, and you're seeing that, especially here in America, where you lose that unifying religion, for something there in and instead, back to what we were just talking about being replaced with those isms, right? So instead of somebody having a community and having a network of folks within a religious institution that they could build that relationship with. Now, they're going on to the interwebs. They're finding a collective group on social media like Facebook, and they're going into that group of other folks who believe the ISM and this is where we get really scary, dangerous territory. Randy right is where you start to avoid the the tough conversations. Right now, what you're doing is you're finding yourself in a bubble of people, that's right, who think and act and speak like you do, which then creates the perception that oh, well, this is my tribe. This is now my, the C word the cult, right. This is the group of people that one of us want to say mentality, right? Yeah, exactly. It just like and yeah, and Wolf of Wall Street. But like, if, if you are so intoxicated, by the the, I'm with a group of people who look and speak and think like me, that really puts you in a dangerous spot, because now you're not subjecting yourself to people who don't think and speak and act like you. And that right there is what makes society by and large, great is that you have to be able to interact with people who don't think like you who don't speak like you who don't act like you. And to be able to not just say, Oh, well, your belief is wrong, right? But like, bring value to the table. Just don't say you're you're wrong, say I think my idea actually can help solve this problem better. And here's why have that intelligent dialogue versus and again, I hate going back to this point, but the isms if you are so rooted in Islam, and you say, well, this would work if everybody else did what they're supposed to do. That's not that's not a solution, then that's, that's, again, back to the isms. That's an ism. That's not something that's actionable. So if your idea can only live in a utopia, where everybody looks and thinks, like you, right, exact like, what are you doing, that is not a real tangible thing. So that is exactly why I think these conversations are so important, why I actually love podcasts versus your traditional news, your news channels, because news channels. You know, Randy will ski here on CBS Evening News, I have Brian Nichols on for three minutes to talk about a very important topic in only three minutes, though, versus podcasts, we can have a long form conversation about anything in hyper specific detail. And we can go any route you want to go focus on any rabbit hole, you want to go down. And we can have more context brought to the table, which isn't just you know, more of a service to us having the conversation. But it's also a service to the folks listening to the conversation because that that context that's normally missing from your traditional corporate media news. That's where you get that value in the podcast. So that's why I love podcasting. That's why I think that the podcast medium is so great. And Randy, it's why I'm so glad to be on here today. So thanks for that, man.

Randy Wilinski  13:44  
We get we'll put a pin in this because I think this is such a good topic. But I want to make sure we get to our show. Business. Yeah, no, no, not just business, but your podcasts, I would love to hear kind of the, you know, we'll get Alright, let me put the pin, I said, there's gonna be a pin that I went on a big statement. Let's get back to it. What you're saying is 100% true. And a lot of people will go, hey, you know what, go watch Fox News and watch MSNBC and then figure out the middle area. And you could do that, but I feel like they're both just they only want to tell you it from one angle. And that might give you a more rounded, that's gonna be pretty painful. And most people don't want to sit there and just totally disagree with with something the whole time, what I think is more palatable, and you touched on it with podcasts, have a conversation with an actual person that you know, disagrees and just be open and curious. You're going to learn more about what they think and why they think and where it comes from. Then then by getting all these different points of view from hyper specific people that have their own agendas. The average person might have their biases, but they probably don't have an agenda like they're, they've gotta get it to you. And if they can ping pong back and forth with you and share an idea and they'll listen to an idea. Now that's a good person, like I've had that where there's people around me that we always see we might tease each other. We might go look what's happened I could say Send a message. But there's good things in that in that it can go both ways. Whereas if you're only in one camp and you don't even look over the fence and go, Hey, what are they doing over there? And why? And what is the truth? There wouldn't be a whole group of people that, you know, gather around an idea. There was no part of it that had any truth. It might, it could even be 80% wrong, but there's some truth over there where they wouldn't even be able to collectively and what's the truth?

Brian Nichols  15:22  
Right. Did you watch? Did you watch TED last? So wait,

Randy Wilinski  15:25  
that sounds familiar, but no. Think of the bear. So I was thinking Ted, and I'm like, wait a minute. No, Ted last. So we don't know that name. And I can't even think of it. But now tell me.

Brian Nichols  15:35  
So Ted, last? Oh, that was the Jason Sudeikis show that was on Apple TV. I think just wrapped up its final season. Ted lasso. Yeah. Jason's to Vegas.

Randy Wilinski  15:48  
last a while you're talking? Yeah.

Brian Nichols  15:51  
Yeah, you do your thing. So Ted last. So he was an American football coach, he gets signed to be a United Kingdom, soccer coach, different football. But the guy was brought in to be the coach, the owner of the team was like, Oh, he's gonna do terrible. And I'm going to be able to have this be a big fu to my ex husband who used to own the team because he loves the team turns into this whole thing. Ted lasso becomes a you know, a good coach for the football team, soccer team. But there's one there's one scene, I think it's in the final season or second to last season. And Ted is, he's in the bar. And the ex wife's, sorry, the owner of the team's ex husband comes into the bar. And he starts you know, being being cocky and arrogant, and starts challenging Ted some. And Ted says, Oh, you wanna play some darts. And he starts telling the story about when he would go to play darts, when he was a kid. And he just starts pegging peg and bull's eyes. And the the moral of the story is to be curious, and not judgmental. And that's how in the story Ted articulates it, you could have learned that I played darts by asking me some questions like, hey, you know, what did you do when you're growing up? When you were hanging out with your dad, when you would go to the bar? And oh, when you would play darts, how did you do? And oh, you were you're knocking away bull's eyes every single night curious, not judgmental. If you go in with preconceived notions, or you go in, as you mentioned, Randy with an agenda, then you already have a laser focus of your end destination in mind. But if you're genuinely trying to understand and you're genuinely trying to satisfy this curiosity, you have you have to go in without expectations, without the understanding that you might end up at your end destination, or Hey, me, you're gonna end up somewhere else. And that's okay. Because as you said, everybody kind of ends at some end position, based on some kernel of truth. Now, it might not be necessarily the full truth, it might be a piece of the truth, but they got to some endpoint based on something. So we have to find out what that something is, I always talk about on my show, and part of my sales training, when I teach STRS and BDRs is to meet people where they're at, on the issues they care about, not what you care about, or what you think they should care about. And that starts with understanding who you're talking to. What do they care about? What what are their main drivers? What are their main fears? And if you don't know, ask them, like, ask the question, because at the end of the day, you're talking to a person. And, Randy, I don't know if you've experienced this as you've been going through and having conversations over the past five years, especially in a post COVID world, but it feels more and more that these conversations that people have, they've really become surface level, they don't really want to dig into the weeds. And I think part of that is because number one, we're not in an environment where we're all together, like we were even back to 2019. And before it was just a different environment, but even to where we are right now. And that difference plus the political and the climate that we find ourselves in right now as a country as a as a planet. It's not the best. So I think we are also all walking on eggshells, afraid of these dialogues, afraid of these deep dive conversations when in reality, and in all actuality, it is those exact deep dive conversations, those exact deep dive dialogues that are going to be the very thing that saves us not just as individuals, but also as that collective society because a society that can't work together or talk together is a society that's doomed for collapse. So yeah, I hope I hope that brings some confidence.

Randy Wilinski  19:34  
My goodness, though, that's, you know, the word that jumped out at me when you're talking is people's egos, you know, get your ego out of the way you can't be ignored. Yes. You can't be interested or curious as to what a prospect wants and actually they need if it's all about you and what your agenda is, you can't be curious as to what your fellow man or woman is interested in as far as their politics and whatnot. If it's all about knowing I have to convert virtue, I have to change you to my way of thinking, because my way is the only way of thinking and your way as wrong. So let me just beat you over the head with stuff until you You decide. And that happens again. So it's a it's a human thing, right? That's a human nature thing. I think the other reason things are surface level is a little bit of the climate that has been created by a lot of social media and by the media in general, where people are afraid to speak their mind. It's a weird world that we're in, but we have to navigate that. And there has to be some people that are brave enough just to be authentic, and say what they have to say, Hey,

Brian Nichols  20:31  
Randy, I mean, really quick, like, let's get real for a second, right? Back in 2020. Now, for folks in the audience, this might make you a little upset. And that's

Randy Wilinski  20:44  
a trigger trigger for all you.

Brian Nichols  20:45  
Good morning, folks. Warning, I'm flashing on the screen right now. But back in 2020, I was one of those guys who was saying, you know, I don't know if we should be just arbitrarily locking down society and determining half the group of people are considered essential, and the other half are non essential. take that a step further, I don't think that we should be arbitrarily forcing every single person in society to get an experimental vaccine, despite any pre existing health factors, or situations or any, no context,

Randy Wilinski  21:17  
just painted, like everyone has to do whatever we want a one size fits

Brian Nichols  21:21  
all cookie cutter approach, like however you want to label it. This, this approach really bothered me. And I said as much back during all the insanity and I'm just gonna say right now I'm so

Randy Wilinski  21:34  
popular at the time, I was not popular.

Brian Nichols  21:36  
I had a lot of very good friends look at me, like I had nine heads. But I'll tell you what, I had a CEO at my old company at Stratus ip, who not only did he have my back, he was saying, Brian, speak your truth, speak what your you believe, because this is how conversations happen. I mean, I think back to I had this conversation with my old CEO, and when all the insanity was happening at the time, and he had gone to some some meeting, and they're talking about how to bring diversity, equity and inclusion into the workplace. And it was talking about no different hiring practices and stuff. And he and I are just shooting shooting the crap one day after work. Yeah. And he goes, You know what, Brian, I have enacted zero of these policies. And yet, I can walk out of my office right now and look into this building. I have a predominantly 5050 split between men and women. I have a literally a cornucopia of different folks from all different backgrounds, ethnicities, religions, who are working here. I mean, we had this build itself by accident, it wasn't intentional. And to have that conversation, it was so refreshing because those conversations traditionally aren't comfortable, or, frankly, conversations that you don't want to have in general with anybody because you're like, am I gonna say the wrong thing, and I'm gonna get in trouble. And back to COVID. That was very much how I saw a lot of my peers, not at my old company, but just in the world. They were afraid to speak their mind, they were afraid to say, you know, maybe this isn't the best approach. And listen, I know a lot of folks are still saying, you know, Hey, we should have done this, Hey, we should have done that, hey, that science is still out. That's okay. But we need to be able to have a conversation, right? If we can't even ask questions. It's not a conversation. It's, it's a dictate. And if it's a dictate, then just say as much say, Hey, listen, we're going to forcefully make everybody do this. But be honest, be transparent. Don't, don't say hey, you know, we're going to roll out this, this thing, some people should take it, or we're going to be mad at your employer, I don't know we're going to talk about it. It creates anxiety, it creates uncertainty. And then oh, by the way, you can't talk about this. You can't bring different perspectives to the table. Because we might ban you, we might censor you, you know, you're right. Like that is where the the frustration and I think to where we are today. Now, it's almost on the opposite side. So many people have gone through four or five years of insanity, that now they're like, I'm just gonna find the people that think like I do. Because eff this, I don't want to deal with all this craziness. Again, I'm gonna be with my tribe. And that's where things get scary. So I'm trying and I think that's what we're doing today. How do we bring that conversation bring back even when you disagree? How can you have an intelligent, thoughtful dialogue, and not lead the conversation as enemies, but at least understanding at least where the other person is coming from how they got to where they are, you know, walk in their shoes, if you will have some empathy, stuff like that?

Randy Wilinski  24:27  
Yes. I've worked with a lot of people that are in the DEI space and some wonderful people which what you're talking about. What's funny is that sometimes they'll get corrected by people that they're not speaking the right way, or they're not saying that or they don't have the right priorities. And it's like you guys are infighting when the goal for all of us should be Hey, we just want an even playing field. We want everybody to be able to participate. We don't want anyone shut out. But everything is based on merit. Right? And I think that's where you get the divide politically in this and that is how much do we need to push this and how much do We need to do that. And some people think, because of all these reasons we have to push it. And other people are like, No, we got to do this. And then maybe there would be no change. So it's like, you can see arguments on both sides. But I think it's always interesting when people go, Well, how do you create an atmosphere? Like, would you say, Hey, I don't, I didn't have a dei officer. But I have a diverse workforce, because we just are open to people. And if you're good at your job, and everything's open, you're going to naturally get some of that, right. And I've seen, there was one I was talking with, because when I was doing speaking and training more heavily, there was a, this is a perfect example, this was in a small town in Iowa. And they had got someone come in from a dei thing. They're like, we want there to be, you know, 12% representation of minorities in these positions. And they're like, how are we going to do that? There's only 6% of the population here. I don't care, I want to do it. Well, that's the problem they actually got. And what was the lady was telling me, which was so funny. They got a dei expert from outside that contradicted the leader and said, You guys are right on target, you're at 6%. I did all the demographics. I looked at the stuff this is great. It made that leader that tried to come in and force ideas that didn't make any sense from like a math perspective, to like, just be the thing. And it's like, no, we're doing a good job. Maybe we could do better, are there ways, but the person who was the expert actually confirmed that they were doing great as they were, and they didn't need to arbitrarily do it just based on feelings that didn't make sense. Those are the kinds of things that will frustrate people. So you get people frustrated, like how am I supposed to do that? I can't, like forced to look for people that don't exist. But then also, are there things like people do have that the big one of the big words would be like unconscious bias, literally everybody has that you can pick any person on the planet, and they've got their hangups, they've got their beliefs, they have their experiences that happen. And so they all operate. So it is good to question that it's good to think like, Am I making a decision based on logic based on reason? Or is it based on something where I just, I'm doing it arbitrarily. So those are the conversations that are good, but at the same point, you have to have such a good argument that it stands on its own, it doesn't need to be forced, I don't have to not question it. I should be able to question things, and it should be okay, without being demonized. And you've definitely you know, whenever it happens, especially at the big companies, there was a big one I remember with, with Google, where the guy was a very liberal leaning. I mean, if you've ever worked with any programmers, typically, and especially the Silicon Valley, and whatnot, this is a very, you know, liberal type group of people, all the programmers I ever worked with, they definitely lean that way. It's more of like the the elite mindset high thinking, like, how could we make a utopia this type,

Brian Nichols  27:31  
which, by the way, Randy, like, I'm not interrupting, but like, because they're a programmer, they're in their mind, I can create the perfect program, just like if you were to go in left leaning, you take that to its very end and degree, that's communism, right. And that is, at the core of communism is central planning. And that is a programmer. So that makes sense when you look at the persona, if what you're talking about, right.

Randy Wilinski  27:58  
Exactly, yes. How the world makes sense to them. But there was the one guy who got fired, and he was pointing out some things and it's funny. Then I took that I had a conversation with someone, I, so he got fired, because he was like, Hey, we don't have the people. If you're arbitrarily forcing this. You have to have the people in the workforce. He was bringing up some stuff, they didn't like it. And he wasn't trying to be rude. He was just being a questioning guy. And he definitely would have said I vote Democrat, right. But he got fired because of his views on it. I took that to someone who was like the head of I think she happened to be I think she had said that too. So she happened to be, you know, very left leaning, she worked with like the Girl Scouts, and they were trying to get stem and I said, Hey, that's awesome. If you want to get more women in these different XYZ and programmers, you got to start as as kids, and you've got to get the pool. And I get that maybe there were things where that was stereotypical, like, you can't do that. That's not a girl thing. I get that there could be some things like that. But right now there's like nobody trying to stop girls from learning how to program as far as I know. Could there be some dads out there that don't I don't know. But like in general, the doors kind of open for get the interest at the young age level and then increase the pool. I think that's what his complaint was. He's like, there's not a pool for what you guys are trying to force and you're, you're excluding people so you can force what you want. And that's not right, either. Don't exclude people because of whatever work and fix the problem the problem is, you need a bigger pool of candidates go create the pool, where should you do that? At the 10 year old level, get the 10 year olds that from different areas that might not have been encouraged to do it before get them into it. That's how you fix problems. And that's worth going well why don't we have it? Well, we don't care why we don't have it. We're just gonna force what we want. It's like no fixed fixed a problem. You know, you're putting a bandaid on something you create resistance you're you're not thinking through the whole scope of things like go to the actual problem and try to fix it.

Brian Nichols  29:49  
Really gonna hop in here because that's all I have to say this isn't even necessary politics. This actually This is just a societal issue, right? You're you're actually hitting on I just did an episode with one of my good buddies, Michael Pickens, and he does a lot of like mental reprogramming. And one of the things that we talked about, so my episode was called the ozempic era right now. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm not picking on anybody who, who's taken part in ozempic. But the idea of, because it becomes this shot that's been going around, and basically, it helps facilitate weight loss. Now, by the way, as a guy who used to weigh 385 pounds and lost 180 pounds of fat, I know a thing or two about weight loss, you don't just treat the symptom, right, you have to treat the root cause of the problem. And unfortunately, ozempic is very much one of those things that just treats a symptom versus the root cause. Now going back, Randy, what you were talking about earlier, you know, let's talk about the education system. Right? Why? Why are maybe girls not having as much opportunities in the STEM field? Is it because of the way that they're being taught in earlier education? And let's look at education. Is it education? Or is the education system we have in place based not on education, but rather on the idea of schooling, which goes back to the Prussian model of schooling? That's actually what it's called? And it was the idea of how do we take a populace and prepare them to go into the real world to be good little factory workers, right. And if you think back to your experience back when you're going through through school, does that not represent your experience in public education? And, exactly, and that speaks to we are not training our kids, or educating our kids to actually become educated. We're teaching our kids how to be good little rule followers and task doers, right? Like, you want to go to the factory and be a good little factory drone, you're going to be great after graduating, the public education system, great two thumbs up. But if you look at I forget the specific numbers, but if you look in Silicon Valley, 80%, I believe with the number of all Silicon Valley CEOs did not graduate from a traditional Prussian government schooling model, but rather, they went through a Montessori schooling model where they themselves could instead of being forced fed a curriculum that they could not give to flying flips about, but instead are actually able to invest their time, energy and efforts into areas that they find personal value, and they get enjoyment from that then helps create those those incentive structures to help promote them forward. Right. So we go back to the idea of a meritocracy, right, you're passionate about something, you start to work harder on something and you become better at that thing, versus the competition. Now all of a sudden, you have a skill, a service that you can bring to the marketplace that has value and has tangible value. And now you start to see like, Oh, this is how markets are created. It's not by some guy sitting, you know, in a Ivory Tower, saying, you know, we really need to have more doctors in our neighborhood. So we're going to take more doctors, no, that's not what this happens. What happens is, you have a bunch of sick people in your community, and kids growing up who see all these sick people and say, I wish I could help make my community better. And then of that group of kids, maybe a handful of them actually start to focus more on medicine and on health care. And then maybe a few of those kids actually go off to school. And then they set up their clinics in that hometown. And they're able to make the world of difference, right? That is how it happens. And when we whenever we see how you know, things aren't the way we want them to be? The answer is not to wave your proverbial magic wand to make it so the rat, rather what we talked about today, ask questions, right? How did we get to here? And are we doing the right things right now from a structure standpoint, to help position and put kids in place to actually do best to focus on the things they care about that they're passionate about? Like, Randy, I'm sorry, I'm just gonna say it. My four year degree from my college has been sitting on my wall, and that's the most value it's gotten is a nice new wall, in terms of my actual application to my real life. Rarely, if ever, am I using now there are things as a political science major. So there are things I use every single day in terms of just theory and ideology and trying

Randy Wilinski  34:21  
to be cast right there. That's the podcast. There. You got, like,

Brian Nichols  34:25  
when you talk about the average person who goes to college, why, what are you going to college for? Because everybody else is because you were told that this is when you go to graduate high school and you go to college for four years, and you live a little bit, you learn life and then and then what you got, you go off to real real life and you're 150 $200,000 in debt. Because that's the way that we're told to do it. That's the way the system is supposed to work, or is it because people actually want in this case? And the answer is no, people didn't just go to college because there's like a I really am passionate about my liberal arts degree. Nobody's really passionate about liberal arts, like people are going to college and say they get a piece of paper and hang out with friends. And I'm sorry, that's the truth. So instead of saying, hey, maybe we should go ahead and magic wand, forgive everybody student loans and make college a public good. Let's start asking did I know here we go, I'm gonna put my hard hat on, do we actually need everybody to go to college? And that's a question we need to be able to actually ask, right? Like, not everybody needs to go to college, because not everybody needs a an education from college to do a certain skill or bring a certain service to the marketplace. Like, nobody taught you how to do podcasting. Nobody. I mean, no, Chris spangle taught me how to do podcasting. But you know, there you go, but like, nobody was saying, Brian, you're gonna be a podcaster. And you need to fill this role, because this role didn't exist 15 years ago. And that's the difference.

Randy Wilinski  35:58  
Now, you've hit on something, we could go deep into that one, but we do need to rethink the value that we've put on college in the sense like, you are not valuable unless you go and do that. And that is only what responsible people do. You actually should be following Hey, what is your vocation? What are you passionate about? What is maybe your calling, because people might go and get degrees, you know how many people I know that, that are like lawyers or some something where they went engineers, and they do a totally different thing, like that hyper specific degree. And then they left that because they hate the environment. I was

Brian Nichols  36:32  
a lawyer. And now I decided I'm going to go start a restaurant

Randy Wilinski  36:36  
pizza, exactly. I worked with someone that was in sales, and they were a lawyer, they had a lawyer degree, they could have continued, they just they pivoted and went into sales. It's like how interesting, right? And then I knew one other person was actually the same thing. Maybe it's just the lawyer profession. It's grueling, I don't know someone will have to have to vote in there. But another person, they were going through school for that, and then they pivoted out of it. It's because there's so much pressure that you only have value, if you do these certain things. And at the end of the day, whoever's putting that pressure on you, maybe it's all in your head, maybe it's your parents, they're not going to be the one working it day in and day out. And you might be a person who's physical, you might be someone who wants to turn a wrench, we need more plumbers to be honest with you. We got too many people that are about to get outsourced by AI. And we got nobody to fix though. The wiring

Brian Nichols  37:23  
like Randy, I got I gotta jump in here to could you imagine back in like, 1907, right, that there was a college course to be a milkman. You say? I'm just saying just imagine that like, imagine there was right. And that in order to be a milkman, you had to go get this two, four year degree. Okay. Imagine that. The milkman position doesn't exist anymore. Like, it's not even a profession. So the fact that somebody back in the day maybe could have gone to I don't know if it's real or not, but like, could have gone to college. Or a milkman degree, right, like, okay, yeah, it's a little rough of an example. But the point is, why are we bringing generations of kids off to these, you know, institutions of higher education, to get degrees for hyper specific areas that, frankly, might not exist in 1015 50 years? Right? Like, I'm gonna pick up my dad for a second. Hey, dad, my dad got a degree back when he was a college student in animal husbandry. Which, what

Randy Wilinski  38:32  
was or what horses?

Brian Nichols  38:34  
No. So my dad was a farmer. Right? My dad was a farmer. And it was how do you help promote the next generation of livestock? So helping bring animals together to do the act of love and to make more animals? Right? That was a degree that my dad got. Now my dad is not a farmer anymore. My dad is an elections Commissioner. He does Board of Elections stuff for every every primary and general election in his home county. My dad's degree helped him at the time. But does it have value for his job now? No. And this goes to I think what we talked about earlier, Randy, is that we have to really rethink College, just across the board. It's not just the next step. It's not like, Okay, you go to go to elementary school, you go to middle school and go to high school, and then you go to college? No, like, let's take a step back and re examine, does everybody need to go to college because there are certain jobs that not only do you not need to have a college degree, I dare say sometimes having a college degree can hurt you. Because here's the dirty rotten secret is if I'm hiring somebody, and I see a four year degree on their resume, that means nothing to me back 50 years ago, that might have meant something right? It meant okay. The person has a four year degree from Harvard. That means that in order to get to Harvard, they have to have a certain standard that they're hitting In order to be successful and graduate from Harvard, they have to maintain a certain threshold and maintain certain academics. But now I get that degree. And I see that on the resume. That degree doesn't tell me anything. That degree tells me that the person decided to go to college after graduating high school for something for fun for education. That could be

Randy Wilinski  40:22  
right. So they want to skirted right by doing the bare minimum, but they got the degree. This

Brian Nichols  40:27  
is the scariest quote I ever heard was Don't forget, even your your doctor could have been last place in their class to graduate but they still passed out like, Yeah, but like, if we're in a situation where we have so many people who just they look at college as just the next step. I mean, yeah, it creates an artificial market, you have all sudden college prices skyrocketing because, well, we're told that in order to be successful at all, you have to go to college, right. So if that's just the next step, well, of course, colleges can start to charge arbitrary amounts for their tuition because there's a demand that's 100%, created by an artificial force, and oh, by the way, government is going to go ahead and pay these loans to the colleges. So the colleges aren't afraid, they're not afraid of not getting their money, because they know that the dollar is going to come in who has to bear that burden. It's the actual student. So it's a double edged sword. On the student side, there's zero risk for the college and the government handout side. So you kind of see now, how we got to this system, where it is today, and how the incentive structures don't work. And this goes back to what we're very first thing we talked about Randy, is the way the incentive structures work is if there's a problem that needs to solve, and I have a solution, then the incentive structures purchase basic economics of supply and demand will dictate what that price is. But if there's artificial demand, and an artificial supply, I can do artificially increase the price. And that is exactly what college has gotten do today.

Randy Wilinski  42:02  
You I mean, human nature is a very tricky thing. And the way you intensify it and the things you punish and the things you reward, you have to be very careful with them, just getting people behind the idea of hey, wouldn't it be great if you didn't have your student loans anymore? I know one person who's working at a job, it's like the stereotypical thing where they're $200,000 in debt, and they're working or whatever, like $15 An hour job. And then whenever they want to do something, they're so afraid to do it, that they can't do it without getting another degree or going back to school. So it's like this mindset that if I want to do something, I have to first go do this. And that's how they've gotten themselves in all this trouble, because they keep going and getting degrees for things they're not using for markets that there aren't, and then they're huge in debts. And if someone comes in and wipes it, how did that create any value for anyone? And then what if you just have people like, I know people, they'll go for a little bit, they'll decide it's not for them, they don't want to pay for something they're not going to use? Well, if it's paid for for you now, might as well hang out. It's a good time. We're drinking beer, we're having parties on the weekends, all my friends are doing it, it's like, you do have to be very careful how you incentivize humans because they will almost all humans will take advantage of that. I mean, I'd be surprised if there was anybody that had college debt that was against it, that also wouldn't be on the other side going. Yeah, but I'll let you pay it off if you want to, right, like humans are selfish that way. And they will take advantage and then the people who said you know what, that's not for me, I don't want to do that I want to go work with my hands. I'm gonna go get a two year degree I've got it paid off or I'm gonna go into an apprenticeship program they look at that and go hey, wait a minute. Like I didn't make that choice as you made that choice for me, but then there's there's so rents in life

in one area and figuring that out as early upping that out as early like if you want to be outdoors, boom that cuts you off to this type of jobs and you're in this area now what do you like doing what are you good at? Let's get you as close as possible because then you're going to be happy. And I think you had this I saw this in one of your podcasts what's the riches are in the niches the niches is that up Brian quote, I think you

Brian Nichols  44:19  
know, I probably I probably borrow that from someone who borrowed it from someone so I am not going to claim originality on on the riches are in the niches.

Randy Wilinski  44:30  
It's a quote, it's your quote in my book.

Brian Nichols  44:32  
But it's true though. Like Like if you look at it's fine. I just had a call yesterday talking just about this very thing. You talk about like think of people who are hyper focused in a specific field and here Randy, let's play a game like think of we like football. Think of like who would you look to as like the quarterback guru.

Randy Wilinski  44:59  
Like who is was obviously going to be one of the top people. It's funny, you know, until the recent, you know, breakup that we had is you always gotta go with Aaron Rodgers. That's my tribe. That's my team. It's Aaron Rodgers now he's betrayed me, so he's nothing. He's never

Brian Nichols  45:15  
Rogers will give Aaron Rodgers the opportunity that work. Okay. Okay, so he's the let's say, you know we're 10 years in the future. And Randy, congratulations, you You were recently appointed the head coach of the Green Bay Packers. Congratulations again. You now have the opportunity. You can hire a quarterback coach, do you want to go and hire Jason Witten? Who is my all time favorite tight end for the Dallas Cowboys? Or would you want to hire Aaron Rodgers? Who is your all time? Well, maybe one of the all time leading quarterbacks for the Packers but one of the all time greats for the Packers, right? Who would you want to pick?

Randy Wilinski  46:02  
You're gonna pick obviously whoever has experience having done it that's been there and can walk somebody new who's never been there exactly how they did it.

Brian Nichols  46:11  
Why? Because they lived it. Right. And that right there speaks to the riches are in the niches because Aaron Rodgers has seen things that no other position in the NFL could see and nobody else in the regular world would be able to see he has seen what it takes to be a successful winning NFL quarterback. And he has seen what happens to other people when they do not pay attention and they do not do the necessary actions to be a professional quarterback. They don't end up in the league too often. That's why the NFL is nicknamed for a while was the not for long League, because you could be in the NFL for two years and then you're going in serving sandwiches at Subway. So is as Aaron Rodgers, you now let's say it was down to Aaron Rodgers versus Jason Witten. And you're trying to think okay, who am I going to hire to be this quarterback coach? Aaron Rodgers has much more of an argument on his side to say listen, Randy, I won NFL MVP what three times four times. I'm a Super Bowl winning quarterback. I can make silly throws across my body. I can still win a game against the Dallas Cowboys even though Dez caught it just saying that it still hurts by the way 2014 That will still forever be like the worst travesty in NFL officiating history but I'm not gonna let that ruin our conversation today. Randy, we're gonna

Randy Wilinski  47:39  
want to get a clip of that we're gonna watch it right now just to traumatize you don't do that don't

Brian Nichols  47:46  
end the show. Now. In all seriousness, right, like Aaron Rodgers versus all time great Jason Witten, like probably one of the best tight ends in NFL history. Aaron Rodgers has the ability to ask for more money because he's going to be able to bring something that only he has context and perspective of, or at the very least, only a few people like him, maybe him what Peyton Manning Tom Brady? A few. Patrick mahomes. But he's still kind of young. He's still learning even though he's won three Super Bowls. But like, there are, yeah, there are folks you can learn from. And you're going to want to go towards the people who are more focused in that specific area. And when you are someone teaching that, now you can ask for more because not just the value that you're bringing, but it's only value that you can bring. And I think that speaks to where a lot of people also just by and large, they get so frustrated when they they look at their employer, or they look at their lot in life and are like, Well, why am I not being compensated X or Darnit? Randy, I deserve more, I deserve better. Okay, show me, right. And this goes back to what we're talking about. It's not the piece of paper, it's not that shiny degree that you got that saying I deserve this. But rather, what are you doing with that shiny degree to help bring value, like if you got the shiny degree for $200,000, but you're bringing a million dollars worth of value to every single customer, great investment. But if you pay $200,000 for the degree, and you can get 100 200 bucks, maybe from people actually valuing that degree, it might not have been a good investment. And instead of saying Poor you, I'm going to forgive that investment. Just like in business. You learn from mistakes, and you learn from successes. You learn what works and what doesn't work. That doesn't mean that the pain isn't real. The pain is absolutely real, but the pain is the thing that we learn from the pain is the thing that we use the teachable moment to avoid in the future pain itself is not a bad thing. When I lost 180 pounds, I felt pain every single day, but it was in pursuit of something bigger, well, small or in this case, but something better, right, something better for me, from a health standpoint, from a mental health standpoint, and from a physical standpoint, and yet, I felt pain. I go to the gym six days a week, I feel the pain when I lift a heavy weight, but it's in pursuit of something more. And when you lose, it's a pain that you feel to help you learn from where you went wrong, and what you can do better for next time. So it doesn't hurt as much or best case scenario, Randy, it doesn't hurt at all.

Randy Wilinski  50:31  
I think that we could do a whole podcast literally just on pain, and mindset, because people have this idea that because their body, and maybe their mind even naturally wants to avoid pain and seek pleasure, that there's no purpose of having pain. But that is exactly where you learn the most. It is where you figure out who you are. It's where you see and really learn the lesson if you couldn't be in pain, and someone comes with a magic wand and removes that you don't learn the lesson. You don't even appreciate it properly. Like there's a lot of things, you have to be very careful how you incentivize people, we think about that. What's the stereotypical thing of like, the rich kid that gets everything they want? And they're never happy? And They're Spoiled, rotten, and they're just a terrible human? Well, you got to watch how you do that with humans. How do you incentivize them? And what lesson were they supposed to learn that you circumvented? Not let me just take that away. You were supposed to figure out something, but I think that's too much for you. I know better than you. You made a decision. You don't have to live with it anymore. And you can think about that we we talked about being fathers. And it's like that's something I think about right you get you can be so soft in the idea that oh, there's no consequences. Like I talked about this when we were doing trainings for generations, like it's going into diversion. But like, the world was very tough for silent and Boomer generations, their parents, things were very tough. They were harsh on and they were and like they didn't like that. So they pivoted and how they parented, but then they also complained that all our kids are soft, it's like, of course, the world is so much easier. Everything in life is easier than it ever has ever been before. There's no delayed gratification, it's instant gratification, you get mad if the Wi Fi isn't working on the airplane, like Oh, we didn't even have that three or four years ago, just a matter

Brian Nichols  52:16  
of tube flying 700 miles an hour and you're upset, you can't get do bars on your Wi Fi. Pretty much,

Randy Wilinski  52:22  
pretty much. It's a we have changed the world, we have changed things and we've made things easier for everyone. You know, what's interesting is nobody's happier. Mental health is a crisis. People can't deal with life, it's just gonna get worse. You see people freaking out about all kinds of things. Take an iPad away from a toddler, you see an absolute meltdown, right? They even have iPads before, you got to play with a stick and mud. And like, I'm not a person where it's just like, the old ways are the only ways they are the best ways. But you have to look at the situation and go, Oh, I see how we've created this. Like you had super highly critical parents that were just like, tough love was the only thing and tough was the emphasis on it. You know, love was on the other then they went all love. And then everybody's having mental health crisis? Well, when you dealt with things being tough, you just get stronger. You own you work out, you get stronger your body naturally, like it's a snowball to right, it was super hard at three when you said you were 380 pounds. Like it's hard to do anything. But as you build muscle martial as you build muscle, your body burns at a higher rate, which means burning fat is easier. As you get stronger and do it you start to enjoy. Like there's so many things about that journey and things being tough. It's more satisfying. If you just had the ozempic. And I love to watch that one. I saw that I saw you do that one of your podcasts. But of course, the easy solution, which is not without its cost. Like there's no magic wand. thing things aren't magic, there's a cost. You might like you might say it's worth paying the cost or whatever. But but in general like the other way, the hard way, is the best way. And we don't like that. Where's the magic way? Well, there is no magic. We don't have magic in this world. Whenever you wave the wand and do what you consider magic. There's a huge cost over here. Yes, that's an example. It's the same with making choices like a bad choice.

Brian Nichols  54:20  
I don't I don't mean to do this. But like everything in life at the end of the day is kind of economics. Right? So in economics, we talked about the term opportunity cost. So you're you're making a decision. What is that costing you from? And it could be a bunch of different factors, right? It could be economic factors, it could be personal factors and you're losing out on something. Right. And we as a society, I think we've gotten way too, I guess comfortable with the idea that we don't have to have opportunity cost like it used to be okay, you want to sit down and write out an essay, you're a college kid, that midnight deadlines coming up and you had to sit down and you had to work hard for three hours to get that essay written and formatted properly just so you can get it in at midnight and get the A versus maybe there's an easy button now and you can sacrifice the effort and you can sacrifice the the attention you need to give to crafting a great essay by just having Chad TPT write it right. And you tell Chad GBT, your prompt you hit that submit button, boom, you got to break brand new essay. And now you present that to your teacher, you get the great score, and you're on your way. But what happened? Randy, right, what happened? Yeah, you hit the chat GPT button, and you created this essay that helped you move forward. But you lost on something you lost on the creating of an argument, you lost on the structure of an argument you lost out on how to present words in such a way that helped make your point more not just articulate, but also help the reader understand the argument you're making and help embrace that argument. You're just deferring to a robot. And what happens if the robot doesn't do a good job, you don't know, you don't know the robot did a bad job because you have nothing to base it on. So now all of a sudden, you fast forward 10 years, and you find yourself maybe in a job interview, and the job interviewer starts giving you some tough questions and ask you to present what's what's a tough time that you had where you had to, you know, build something and make it better. And you got pushback from a co worker? And you're like, how do I articulate this? How do I present this in a manner that not only answers his question, but I can tell a story. I can elicit a narrative, I can help add in, you know, supporting details, facts and figures. And make not just a strong argument, but a compelling argument to get him to say, Oh, I get it. I see your point. versus just a okay, I heard you. Great. Next question. And that is where I think we are as a society really starting to miss out is when we're hitting that proverbial easy button. Right? Go back to I think it was Office Depot or Office Max that that was Easy button. Right? Like, yeah, that that was easy. We embrace that as a society. And we keep on looking for the easy button, whether it's chat, GPT, doing your essay, whether it's ozempic, helping you lose a couple 100 pounds, whether it's named the thing, right? We are neglecting to acknowledge that for every easy button we hit, there is a really hard button on the road that we are going to have to hit. And the problem is, is that your hand is it's weighted down and just constantly going slower and slower till you have to hit that this is gonna be hard button. Because you took the easy way just like a drug, right man, like, oh, I had a bad day, man, my boss was a jerk, and I lost his huge account, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna drink a 10 pack of booze and drink on handle of vodka. I don't drink anymore. So I'm just kind of guessing we do nowadays. But like, that's right. But you get that short term that has a satisfaction. But that short term fix, right? You feel good, you feel numb for a little bit. And then what happens? Hangover. I mean, that is the perfect example of opportunity cost. You're sacrificing your good feeling for that short term fix when you take the substance. We're doing that as a society. We're taking the short term fix in lieu of long term health. We're avoiding the hard conversations now for fear of the hard conversation, but we are having to pay for that in the future. And right now, actually, the hard conversations we're supposed to be having are hard conversations that were created by the lack of hard conversations 1520 4050 years ago, and now we're paying for it now. Just like you mentioned, the boomer parents who they said, Wow, man, life was really tough for us, we will make life a little bit more easy for our kids. And now you know, their kids. They're like who raised the softies. What's happening? They don't know how grown a lightbulb without getting electrocuted. Like what are we doing here? And it goes to this cycle, right. Where I think we're at a point right now, Randy, we have an opportunity. We have technology that brings us together in ways that we could never have been brought together before. We have ample opportunities now to talk about issues that were frankly taboo issues 15 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago, we talked about one of them earlier today, but like we are now at a point where not only do I think we have the opportunity to talk about these issues, but we also get the chance to talk about issues from the past that we never really we'd never really addressed. We never really focused on because believe it or not, I know you believe it, but for folks listening, the issues that we're dealing with today, they weren't issues that were created yesterday. I mean Talking about the education system here in America, that education system literally goes back to the 1900s, late 1800s with the Prussian schooling model, right? Like, that's how old some of these, these conversations go back to and beyond right, farther and further away. But unless we're able to take a step and say, like, hey, timeout, are we teaching our kids the best way possible? Like God bless Gary Vee, because Gary Vee Gary Vaynerchuk, or anybody playing a long game, right? Like he is one of the loudest voices outside of politics, who was like, kids don't need to go to college. And he's like, not well, not every kid. And he's been a very loud voice, not just talking about that. But talking to parents, the people who are actually helping their kids make these decisions of what's next. And he's doing this not because, you know, it's some self interested thing that he's going to be getting value from it, because he is seeing a very real problem. And he's trying to help start a conversation. That's just one example. But there are lots of things whether it's education, foreign policy, cultural issues, you name the the issue that we are facing, as a country right now, I can almost guarantee Randy, these issues did not pop up overnight, they started decades ago, generations ago, countries ago countries 1000s of miles away, and they're still rearing their ugly head. So until we're able to start addressing root causes, instead of constantly doing this ozempic type approach. working consistently have symptoms to treat. So let's stop treating symptoms, let's start dealing with the actual root causes of these problems and offer tangible solutions versus quick fixes that make us feel good for a short term only to have the problem rear its ugly head 20 years down the road bigger and badder than ever be.

Randy Wilinski  1:01:53  
You could literally put that into to anything like humans nature is to avoid problems as long as they can to kick the can down the road to not run something head on. And it does have it goes on and on and on and on. And it can stem really far back. Yeah, I do think of some of the things when I hear like they were doing this in the 70s. They're like, Man, this this stuff, would they were screwing up stuff before I was born like you're

Brian Nichols  1:02:18  
away from this, Randy, this blew me away. All right, I'm listening yesterday to this old interview with a top climate scientists in the 1970s. You know what the number one fear of from a climate standpoint was in the 1970s global cooling, global cooling. So here's what they were going to do. They're still makes me laugh, and it shouldn't. But it does. There was a proposal to pump chemicals into the atmosphere, specifically stop the sulfuric acid to go into the atmosphere to help reflect or refract some of the sun's rays from getting through the atmosphere with a small, small, small, little, you know, consequence of having acid rain, you know, even though a little bit of acid rain, but it would be worth it because it would help stop global cooling. But wait, hold on, what are we dealing with today? What's the big bugaboo from every single millennial and college student, I see global warming and I stop and I say wait guys, hold the phone, are your solutions you're presenting much like ourself uric acid solutions from the 1970s. Because if so, I'm just gonna say it, maybe the solution you're bringing to the table is actually going to be causing problems down the road that next generations will have to deal with. So again, it is also very indicative on us to take a step back and also control we can control. I had one STR named David, back in the day, I love David still one of my best buddies, and David used to come into my office and he would just sit down, he'd be like, I was like, what, David? He's like, Oh, Brian, like, XYZ is happening, and I just don't know what to do. And I'm like, Okay, talk to me about X, Y, and Z. Like, what, what, what, how does it impact you? He's like, Oh, well, you know, it doesn't impact me directly. But you know, it's one of my friends and but then he starts going through and I'm like, okay, so how can you? How can you control this situation? Maybe like, I don't, I don't think I really can. And I was like, then you let it control what you can control. Do your best forget the rest like we are there. In the grand scheme of things. We are ants on this home we call earth right? And the arrogance that we can dictate our global temperature one way or another good or bad on a whim. Yeah. Which I mean, we are saying we can do that. But like the fact that we can put it in the way we want it to go right that we have Some superior intellect that we can just make the world exactly as we want it to be. That right there scares the crap out of me. Because the best intention folks can have the worst outcomes in their their policies actually being enacted, you can have the best utopian vision and it can turn into complete catastrophe just by one person not doing things right. Here's a real life example, right, by the way, so you guys don't think I'm just talking to my butt here. You go back to Communist China back in the 1950s. With Mao Zedong. I had a lady on my show a while back, her name is Lily Tang Williams. She's running for Congress right now, actually, up in New Hampshire, she born and raised in Mao's Communist China. And one of the things that they did back in communist China was it was sparrows, sparrows were evil, they were bad. They were killing crops, they were horrible. So the great leader Mao said, No sparrows, you see sparrows, you kill them, you get them off your property. So what ended up happening led to a famine, right, because sparrows are actually played a very important role in the ecosystem there. So then moving the sparrows out of the way, even though it was done in the best of intentions, ended up leading to the worst of consequences with literally millions of people starving to death in communist China. So it couldn't be a communist, it could be a right wing conservative, it doesn't matter who it is that's putting these do good policies into action. What matters is that we have to take a step back and acknowledge we can't control everything, we even if we have the best of intentions, we can't make things exactly the way we want them to be. We have to work in this this environment of conflicting ideas, conflicting values, conflicting interests, and bring a solution to the table that makes the most sense to solve a problem. But also being able to do so without the big deal forceful, one size fits all approach. And that I think, right there the competing arena of ideas, the marketplace of ideas, here, you know what, Randy, we're gonna bring it back to business because this is a business podcast.

Randy Wilinski  1:07:01  
Someone's been waiting for a business

Brian Nichols  1:07:04  
to look at the marketplace, not just of ideas, but the marketplace of goods and services and products like it is a competition I'm in the contact center space, I work for an amazing company called sharpen CX, we were basically the the David and Goliath story where the David's in the contact center space, because a lot of the old legacy players they approach things much through this one size fits all approach. But what if, Randy, what if some arbitrary third third party was like, You know what, XYZ contact center solution is the best contact center solution in the world. So you know, what we're gonna do, every company in the world has to use their contact center solution for their business, I have some some hesitation, I have some red flags that pop up. Because when you do that, now, what you're doing is you're eliminating competition, you're eliminating the marketplace of ideas. And instead, you're creating a situation where you do only have that one size fits all approach. Now, I think it makes more sense to have a an open and fair competition amongst competitors. Because I want to have the best solution, we add sharpen, we're creating the contact center of tomorrow, and creating contact centers that people love, or at the very least don't hate as much. Whereas the old players, they have their solution in place, they have their legacy customers in place, as long as they can, you know, hit the button, it turns on, they're able to get their their MRR every single month, they don't care. But we care. And that I think speaks to when you you have a solution, whether you're an individual, or you're a business, and you're bringing real tangible value to your market, you have the chance not just to change the way the marketplace acts, but it's going to benefit you personally financially, but also it's going to help better your customers better your your environment, better your society, like I would much rather have a world where I can pick up the phone and have my issues addressed from you name, the company you're calling into, have it addressed in one, two minutes, if that because you're able to have all the self service options you wanted. Or you're able to talk to a friendly agent who was able to know all your needs, wants desires based on past interactions, or whatever it may be that you have for your solution that you're bringing unique value to the table. That's something that we can all look to and say that's a tangible good. So let's create an environment where we can have more competition where we're gonna have more of these discussions and disagreements, right? Because when you have a disagreement, you could dig into the the why the why behind that disagreement is a real disagreement, or is it an ism disagreement? I went full circle, but like let's really focus on that, right. It's like I've been doing this for a while. But let's really try to do that. Let's have these conversations that can be uncomfortable can be you know, challenging and controversial, but gives us the opportunity to really understand who it is that we're talking to why they believe what they believe. And if we can find some semblance of common ground to move forward, let's do that.

Randy Wilinski  1:10:12  
I'm a little late to the party on the boom ticker got hit right there, it was a little late, but boom, I love it. Now you, you have so many things in there. Like, again, we could unpack it, we could go in 100 different directions, I think the biggest thing people should look at is, where is the money? Where's the incentive for solutions? Because I think one of the biggest concerns we should have from an environment is how we're poisoning the water. But that's, for whatever reason, nobody cares about that. And that's the thing that's going to cause the most problems. Like it's people want to focus on something for whatever reason, it's like the biggest, hottest buzzword and everybody's talking about it, but it's like, poisoning your water is gonna give you very immediate drastic things. How about we go clean up? We've put all this plastics and things. How about all these micro plastics? How about us? Sounds like I can't believe that's there. But they also go, Well, who are the countries that are contributing to that? They're like, well, it must be America. No, there's big industrial companies. Or they're practically companies, countries, that they just don't care. And they put all their garbage and it goes on that you can tell by the currents and where it swirls from. And so we have to figure out how to do something with that. But nobody wants to do that. They want to talk about this one thing, and then it almost just seems like it's like, where can they make their money on it? But anyway, that is the that is it, we're gonna have to call that we got into hardly any business, I still think that last one that you tried to say was business was really more philosophy that you put, you put a business dress up a little.

Brian Nichols  1:11:39  
I tried, I tried, though, you know, where that's the thing. I You

Randy Wilinski  1:11:42  
never know where a conversation is gonna go. And hopefully people are like, this is interesting, that's intriguing. You know, I thought we'd get to context centers, I thought we get because it said every, I'm passionate about customer success. I want people to have amazing things, I want them to leverage AI, I want people to upgrade their customer service people to get them to do more, because AI is coming for them. That's the whole I'd love to have a part to at some point, absolutely. podcast, I want to be a part two will try to be focused on customer service. But you know, it's gonna come back to some sort of political winds that are blowing at the time or something like that. But it's kind of fun. Because if people even if they disagree, hopefully they're like, You know what, I could have a conversation with either those gentlemen. And maybe they might believe differently, maybe they'd agree with exactly what I say. But it would just be a conversation, I'm not gonna yell at anybody about it, I don't think you're gonna yell at anybody because they believe differently. And that's, that would be to sum this up of what's the point of it, I can believe the exact opposite solution. And that's okay. Maybe you'll provide something that I adjust that and I'm welcoming that. And so anyway, that's hopefully what we got what we've accomplished here today.

Brian Nichols  1:12:48  
So Randy, I must say to, to that point, the one of the biggest critiques I have consistently, consistently gotten from my audience, over six and a half years of doing this podcast is, Brian, you're just, you're way too nice to your guests. And I'm like, what, and they go, you didn't push back hard enough. And I'm like, that's not my job. Here. My job is to have a conversation not to engage in an argument or debate. Now, granted, there have absolutely been shows where I've gone through, and I've had more of a debate. But that's not the goal of my show. The goal is to have really thoughtful conversations with people across the board, people we agree with people we disagree with, because guess what, that's life. So if we're not able to do that, in the confines of a political slash, nonpolar, I mean, heck, by show, it's political, but like a lot of the stuff we talk about is overtly non political. It's just like, here's a problem. Can we bring a solution to the table outside of needing to have, you know, Mr. or Mrs. City Councilman, or Mr. or Mrs. Congressman, give us the green light. And if that's the case, then like, I don't even see it necessarily being a political show, in some instances. Now. I know, it's political. I know, we talk politics. But like, at the end of the day, I think we have to get out. And this is where I started, get out of the isms, right? start focusing on what do we need to do to make this world a better place? And it starts with us having conversations, especially with people we disagree with, and if you find yourself like, Oh, I gotta talk to that person. I don't want to like, that's more reason why you should. So maybe start small, right? Like, go online and, like, try to have a dialogue I know, with someone instead of trying to score online points, or if you see somebody you disagree with, instead of going to the comment and saying You're such an idiot, go into their messages and DM them and say, Hey, listen, I don't understand and I want to understand help me understand your position. I guarantee you have so much more of a productive dialogue with that person. But the key underlying rule is you have to make sure that both parties are doing so in good faith. You have to be you have to like if If you're if you're going into a conversation, and you have some, like hidden motive or intention, and that's always like right below the surface, that's not that's not you going in with good intentions, that's you going in with a motive. And likewise, don't go to somebody who, you know, their job is to go out and sell whatever thing that they're, they're promoting, like somebody who's just asking a genuine question or like, Hey, I think we have a solution to a problem. Let's talk about this, like, go in and approach it that way, you're gonna have way more success, you're gonna feel better, because you're gonna understand where the person is coming from. And hey, it might change your mind. And that's okay. So I hope that I've got some value

Randy Wilinski  1:15:39  
sales and everybody or politics and sales, everybody is in some form of selling, you're selling your kids on when to go to sleep at night, you're selling your spouse that you're the best person that they could get. You're selling people on a product doesn't matter. It's persuasion, whatnot, you are not persuasive. When you hit people over the head, when you hammer an idea when you berate them. Imagine if you did that with a customer. You think that solution is good, that solution enrolling for this long and they're gonna go Yeah, well, you know, screw you, I'm gonna do whatever I want, which is what people do in politics, but then they waste their time doing that same thing to other people. That isn't your goal that you would like more people to come to your your way of thinking in sales? Would you not want your customer to buy your product? Because you believe it's the best one? Do you not believe your solution might be the best for the environment or best for government or best for kids? How are you going to communicate that to them? And firstly, I know that you're open to having that conversation and their ideas, and whatever they currently believe is good. And you can add to it, you can build on it, you're there in welcoming. So there's the connection is like selling and selling. Your ideas are no different. There's that's it. It's all here. Sales

Brian Nichols  1:16:48  
is everything, bro. Sales is everything. Yes.

Randy Wilinski  1:16:51  
persuasion and people. All right. Well, we'll have to break this party up. It's been. I mean, isn't it I love having a good discussion. I'm sure there's plenty of things that we agree on. And even if there weren't, it wouldn't matter. Because like we're two people trying to figure out the world and bumping ideas and bringing them together. So everybody needs to have these types of conversations. And they're not, there shouldn't be anything scary about go talk with people, you know what, and maybe they'll maybe there'll be more open over one beer, maybe 10 beers is too many. But one beer might be a good place to start.

Brian Nichols  1:17:25  
I learned the 10 beers was too much for me a long time ago. So that's why

Randy Wilinski  1:17:28  
we're getting more random because we're good for the weight loss that good for the weight loss, that's

Brian Nichols  1:17:31  
for sure. Weight loss and a lot of other areas as well.

Randy Wilinski  1:17:35  
Spiritual and we could go on and on. But hey, at any rate, it was an absolute pleasure. I love the passion that you bring to whatever conversation that you're going to have like you're just whatever you're talking about. You're you're all in. You're super committed to the idea, but yet, I still don't get the idea that you couldn't have your mind changed. So this is an awesome conversation. We'll do it again. We'll see if we can sneak in something else. Maybe I have to learn how you built your podcast. That's what maybe that could be an offline secret. Teach me to

Brian Nichols  1:18:02  
you give me a shout. That's people helping people man this out, make it work.

Randy Wilinski  1:18:07  
That's what it's about. All right. Well, we'll cut it from there. It was an absolute pleasure, everybody. We appreciate you. We love you. We'll see you again some other time. Adios. Have a good one. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye. Be great.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai