853: What Does "Woke" Actually Mean? - The Truth Behind the Buzzword

Brian Nichols  0:13  
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. Well, hey there, folks, Brian Nichols, here on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on of course, another fun filled episode. I am as always your humble host joining me from our lovely cardio miracle Studios here in eastern Indiana. The Brian Nichols Show is powered by our friends over at amp America, make sure you head over to amp america.com If you're looking for all the news you need to know without the corporate media bias or fluff. Also, The Brian Nichols Show is powered by our phenomenal studio sponsor, cardio miracle. Now, folks, if you want to hear about the best heart health supplement in the world that's going to help lower your blood pressure improve those restless nights of sleeping plus help improve that pump at the gym. Stick around. We're going to talk about cardio miracle later in the episode. But for today's conversation, we've got a good buddy returning to the show and we're talking about woke. We've heard this a lot you know that you hear the lady get on TV, she's being interviewed. And they go well, what do you say woke actually means and then you get the deer in the headlights look. And then they use that as an example of why all the folks who are arguing against woke ism. They don't even know what the heck they're talking about. So I said you know what we got to do. We got to put some some words into definitions. We got to make sure that we not just talk about stuff we know what we're talking about. So to help do that today. Joining me on woke watch returning to the show, Good friend Joe goalless. seryan Welcome back to The Brian Nichols Show. How you doing?

Joe Gulesserian  1:52  
Nice to see you Brian, how are you doing? Good afternoon.

Brian Nichols  1:55  
Good to have you on Joe. I'm scared to have this conversation. I know you and I have been prepping for this. This new little mini series we're kicking off your woke watch and we're worried are we gonna get taken away here by the big woke corporations? Are they going to come down? And I guess what bring the hammer down on this Joe I fingers crossed is not the case. Well, first of

Joe Gulesserian  2:14  
all, it's quite possible that the corporations themselves it's part of the scam. Okay. And we can go through all the components. But if you like I you know, I sat back and I said, How are we going to define woke? And I came up with this the quintessential definition of gold, okay. So it's a denial of rationalization. It's an abdication of empiricism. It's high Syria being passed off his virtue, and his perpetual emotional hallucination. So if someone says,

Brian Nichols  2:51  
My point of those break them down for us, well after. So

Joe Gulesserian  2:54  
for example, it's a denial of rationalization, where your emotions overtake anything you have to do with rationalization. I would say that they've thrown linear thinking right under the bus. And you can become anything you want to be, you know, I could be Bugs Bunny, and so on and so forth. The second one is an application of empiricism. empiricism is like when you have when you have complete evidence, you have hard, hard recent and knowledge. And that's what empiricism is it's used in, in social work, it's used specifically in science and so on, so forth and mathematics. So you need to base it on empiricism. And the other one is high Styria being passed off as virtue. So let me understand something I'm more upset than you are, Brian, therefore I write. So I screamed louder. I am great. There's no argument because I cannot say I'm in the I'm on the soapbox. I screamed as loud as you can. I jumped up and down. And therefore I'm right. And

Brian Nichols  4:08  
Joe, by the way, this is the whole the silence is violence mentality, right? Which means that what's the opposite of sounds and violence, say something, say anything. So what we saw and especially you go back to 2020, when the woke insanity really kicked off, right? It was you got to change your Facebook photo to a black square. Now, right? Because that's the way you show you're on board with BLM. And if you don't, the silence is violence. Right and that that has been the argument I guess this speaks to the woke isn't just just I'm standing up I'm screaming and hollering the loudest I can therefore I must be right.

Joe Gulesserian  4:44  
Exactly. Exactly. And I went to a wedding a few years ago and this fella he says you can be anything you want to be in you know I'm from Canada, and I couldn't be a cat. Well, no, because you can you can be head scientist for NASA. I go do you take you could play It became like Gretzky, do you think you could pass like Joe Namath? Or? Yeah, I'm sure it could do but you know, talks word salad. So we gave you a little bit of a definition. A quick joke.

Brian Nichols  5:11  
How insane is that? Right? Like have a mentality. I'm six foot five about 269 I'm a big boy, right? I go to the gym, I lift heavy weights. Now if I were to go to what a five foot 210 soaking wet female, they're not going to be able to stand a chance to do what I do in the gym trying to live literally over three times their body weight. So just the idea that our you can do anything you set your mind to is just at its core, just pardon the expression it's bullshit though. It's

Joe Gulesserian  5:43  
true. And so rationalization need not apply. Remember, reason is is what's the right word? It's heresy. That's what it is recent is heresy. And that's the whirlpool. These are these are, you know, woke us up is not as new as we think these were the pardon my language. These are the saps who fell for the Bolshevik Revolution. And later when their purpose was finished, they got whacked by Lenin as well. You got to remember, I think I might have mentioned your show that the Czar's family, the women in the Czar's family, you know, they're going for this. They wore red armbands in support of the Bolsheviks. And as you might know, if you know your Russian history early still with history, they all got killed by Lenin and company. So then. Yeah, and so I closely I mentioned that because I closely correlated, but you know, if you allow me, I'll take walk to another avenue, and let's talk about its financial implications. I'm not going to go into its moral implications. So I'm going to ask you, if you believe in equity, inclusion and diversity, fine, that's good. At the same time, if I'm not hiring on merit in my engineering team at Boeing, if I'm not hiring, on merit, the even in Silicon Valley, which they do, they have to hire on merit. And I'm hiring people that don't understand the mathematics behind algorithms, so on and so forth. Is that bad? Well, I'm going to tell you this way, you're good at loading me up here. I'm telling you, at least you listen to me. But in all seriousness, so what happens is, how do I reduce my productivity that way? My efficiencies that way? And I'll go to a deeper step if you hired not based on merit, what does that do to America's competitive architecture? And how does that diminish the competition of America? On the world global stage, stop, stop complaining about China. Just just get more efficient, stop complaining, stop the trade wars, you're not as efficient as they are, they are making the lowest cost and this is fact by BYD a $10,000 us car entry level the next one is about 24,000 us and instead of you know, saying you know what we need to produce you know, high quality technicians the best in robotics, the creme de la creme, the best in engineering, the best and clean manufacturing systems were turning around and slapping 25% and 100% it might go 200% tariffs I believe on EBT cards to keep them out of our markets.

Brian Nichols  8:41  
Well what what what does that mean though? Does that mean it's gonna be more expensive for the end consumer Joe

Joe Gulesserian  8:47  
correct. And and and I'm going to tie this in because it's such a such a deep deep subjects you know, because you know, as you know, I might you might not know this but I'm doing my PhD on vocals and now you know,

Brian Nichols  9:03  
I diversity are you getting that degree in Joe?

Joe Gulesserian  9:06  
Well it's called I went to the University assessing the street and

Brian Nichols  9:12  
Elmo and Grover and all my friends right yeah,

Joe Gulesserian  9:17  
that's good,

Brian Nichols  9:18  
sir. The urge to do an Elmo impression about woke ism. Definitely jumped in right there not I had self control. So

Joe Gulesserian  9:26  
yeah, well, I'll let you do that part there. I don't know if I do so well. Well, you could try my best but that's where we're at. So I'm going to you loaded me up on the VA dropped the tariffs let the free markets take over whatever's left of them. In my book. I said the new US after hurting and especially after Hoover. During Hoover and Roosevelt that was the end of the US free markets as we know them. But ask yourself if you are paying more for less As a consumer, especially in this inflationary environment, you're now this woke ism and specifically, equity inclusion and diversity is contributing towards inflation because you are diminishing your productivity. And I'm going to be very frank, I said this afternoon, so it was one of my friends even I have friends. Right. But ya know, you know, people feel sorry for me, they talk to me, and, and you know, what's going to happen here is, you know, overseas, these companies, they mean business. And that's what's really happening here.

Brian Nichols  10:38  
Well, Joe, let's, let's dig into that point. You just raised, dei is actually causing inflation. Now, most folks, you instantly Oh, so what first of all, what's inflation? Inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods, right. But more often people just instantly attach inflation to some economic policy, right? Oh, the Fed printed too much money, oh, we spent too much money, oh, it just go through, we gave out too much money, we printed $8 trillion in a day and a half it felt like so that's usually the mentality people have when they look at inflation. But to your point, dei actually is causing inflation. So help people connect those dots from I think inflation is economic, where it actually it seeps into other areas that you traditionally wouldn't think of.

Joe Gulesserian  11:26  
Right? I agree with all the money printing the monetary points that you made. I agree with that completely, Brian. But in addition to that, we'll keep it very, very simple, because I used to work in plants right upon that math or life, and I still am around plants. So you've got, you've got your assembly lines, your competition is producing 1000, you're producing 400, because you're virtuous, that is going to eventually all those cost factors are higher, it's your unit cost per output, and my accounting side is coming up. If your variable costs are going to be higher per output, you're going to spread that to the consumer. And so this will, of course, contribute towards inflation. And the concept of paying more for less will continue. And that will contract and contract economy. I'll just say one more thing here. These trade wars, you gotta remember some of these people, it doesn't matter what candidate I'm not gonna go there. I put a 25% duty now they're talking 100% on EVs. What they do is, generally speaking, they create distortions in the economy. And like you said, it gets passed off to the consumer, and you're basically telling your domestic firms and companies it's okay to be mediocre. Keep hiring like this. And that's what exactly happened. Just ask yourself the question, if we had stopped the Japanese in the late 1960s Datsun, which is before understand, Honda, of course, we know Toyota, if we said no Japanese cars by 19 6970. In the 1970s, especially after 7374, the the opiate crisis, American cars were unreliable, they were boats. And they caught us flat footed because the Japanese had low cost efficient cars, just like China has to. And I want to tell you, and I don't want to get off base. China is now the largest exporter of cars in the world. They just overtook Japan. And they have the supply chains. They have the know how, and they don't hire based on Wilkerson, they just hire and merit right you gotta hire on merit when it starts costing money. That's what you do. And even Blackrock got kind of slapped back a little bit. They've got still a fund, an ESG fund a habit here somewhere, there's so many stocks that keep track of its your viewers can listen to ES gene you. And this is the one where you know, its environmental, social and governance. That's what they're really after here. And guess who they own Microsoft, Google, the whole works there. They're all fixing up the world. You know, just let's, let's get rid of the carbon. It's all part of the agenda. And once we get rid of the carbon, the temperature is fine. And how do we measure it? How do we measure heating of the earth? Well, that's very debatable. So I saw one professors, US professor, he was very, very good. He turned around, he goes, Well, what temperature Do you want me to doubt the thermostat too? It's all part of the narrative. And now that we're on that subject of evey cars, I'm not against evey cars, they have their place in the equation of transport. But you know, the nickel, the cobalt than lithium, if you've seen those mines in Africa, perhaps we should take those who have never been to those mines or have never been to Africa. And you know, maybe they can do some virtue signaling various children working in those mines. It's a foreign So the successive economic abusive kids,

Brian Nichols  15:04  
Joe, talk to us about because this is where I think a lot of the policy questions start to jump in is like, Well, don't corporations, don't businesses have different responsibilities? Right? Like, they're they're not necessarily focusing entirely on just promoting good services, they also have to focus on that bottom line, right? So shareholders, stockholders, whatever the terminology is of the day, how much does that play into the policies that are made from these large corporations? And frankly, do you see situations where the policy actually goes against the intended goal?

Joe Gulesserian  15:41  
Well, you're asked these complicated questions. I've got a thick here. Let me take a breath. Okay. So the the, the question is, who's, who's which goal? are we defining the government's role or a business's goal,

Brian Nichols  15:56  
let's say the businesses role, right, because because if you're a business, your goal in your role in this case, should be to create either the best goods, the best services, whatever it may be for your your customer, and thus, in turn, create the value which is then passed on to the shareholders to the stockholders versus what we've seen, right. And as you mentioned, today, dei taking over even though it's sounding like a do good policy, and this could be both from government trying to institute this, or companies just doing this because they think it's the right thing to do, and actually going against the intended goal of the company itself, which is, again, to create good, valuable products that solve your consumers problems, and then in turn, you can pass the revenue, or rather the profits to those stakeholders and shareholders. Does that make sense?

Joe Gulesserian  16:47  
It makes sense to me, the large corporations are doing this your small businesses just naturally, you know, if you if you, you know, I'm gonna be honest with you, if you're hiring, and, and you are hiring based on the prejudice, you are hurting your business, so any reasonable business person understands that, but the large corporations are echoing the political narrative of government, and they're, that's where their equity, why I, I'm the donor, why? I'm going along with government. This is the scary part government. I'm talking about the larger corporations. I'm talking about Silicon Valley. I'm talking about BlackRock, I'm talking about the whole gang, they're pretty well, even Boeing, does the you know, the ones they just joined with government. And when you join government, and when you join businesses together, that's pretty well, the clearest definition of fascism. That's what really happens or totalitarianism there, they are not arguing with each other, they are being part of one. And I really think government should get out of the Evie business specifically, let the free markets decide. Like I like Eevee cars. I again, I've said before, but it's up to the free markets to decide, governments have never been more virtuous than people, or corporations. And I would argue that governments are the are the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to morality, at least for the last five 6000 years of recorded human history? Why would I take any cue from them? You know, you know, I think, kind of think of anything they've succeeded at except failure.

Brian Nichols  18:41  
So, Joe, as we're going towards the back end of today's conversation, I know these episodes go fast, Joe, but believe it or not, this goes towards not the corporate side. But let's go to the consumer side, right, you? And I'll give the context to my question. We see so often people in the audience in society, they see these issues happening. And they rightfully point an issue and say, This is wrong, this is stupid. This is backwards. But they don't know or frankly can't see what tools are before them to help enact change. So when we look at these big woke corporations in our woke watch today, what would be a plan of attack for a just an average consumer of these companies? What can we do? Can we do anything, Joe? Well,

Joe Gulesserian  19:36  
the nation is fragmented. So if you just turn around and say I'm going to boycott it, but the idea is, is to shareholders themselves of corporations, turning around and saying, okay, IBM, your shares worth $200 I believe that based on the amount of inefficiencies due to your firm virtue signaling those shares, we believe our work worth $185 and start putting pressure on Wall Street to turn around and say, You're not hiring based on the meritocracy. And I'll give you an example. That's why the Chinese are exporting cars all over the world. They're hiring a meritocracy. What are you doing? And how much is this costing. I mean, that's, that's at the core, when you go after their financial statements, when you go after their share prices, remember, my share prices go up, I get my bonuses. That's why I'm there, the principal agent argument. So that's what they can do. You've got to hold them accountable at the share price at that area of what they're going to price their shares on, and I can go on about this all day long. But we have to come up with some kind of an equation, you know, and the CFA Certified Financial Analyst do this kind of stuff. The shares are worth too much. I'm sorry, you've got you've got people on the line, you're working in your engineering, you're working in your marketing, they're terrible. And by the way, a lot of these ESG a lot of these companies that you're talking about, they've got progressives sitting on their boards, and most of them don't even know the industry. And I will later some other show, I will show you my industry, which is health and beauty care how they virtue signal to sit there and sell you a 15 to $16 bottle of shampoo that it could make for $1.10.

Brian Nichols  21:32  
And Joe, half of the stuff that they make isn't even good for you, right? I mean, let's just address that elephant in the room. I see so many folks that go out and they're supporting these big woke corporations and the stuff they're supporting is literal poison. Like, if you're going out there and you're trying to defend companies like Bud Light. Yeah, you're defending a company that literally serves you poison. And I'm not just saying because beer tastes like this. I'm saying that because alcohol is actually poison. So like, if you're trying to look at a company and you're like, Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna raise my voice against this company. Like at least make sure that you're paying attention to the garbage they're giving you to like, don't go and buy another garbage company. It's literally poison

Joe Gulesserian  22:13  
click. You know, we I think we spoke backstage earlier go about Pop Pop Tarts. Right. And you know, they've got their woke symbols on there too. Why would you ever feed your kid that kind of sugar and Pop Tarts? You know,

Brian Nichols  22:28  
because the government told me it's part of a complete nutritious breakfast job. And I trust the government. Exactly.

Joe Gulesserian  22:34  
Exactly. And you know, me so anyways, I you know, but you know, before the show ends, I just wanted to let you know that you know, I have a Kabbalah autocracy application form is I think that, that to Brian to Kabbalah, there's an app, I signed up, you signed up. So I think between you and I, we should have maybe a two or three page application form a woke application form to join walk, Inc, you know, so I gave you about a quick like a set definition, you can just have a walk application for I don't do this, this beat to be mean or anything like that, you know, I believe in the concept of human progress, but we have to live in the rational society. And we have to impede the level of you know, I think my father said this, he says, Joe, eventually the insane are going to become the majority. And that's where we're at right now. Cuz we've got to ask yourself, who's running the asylum? You know? So that's

Brian Nichols  23:32  
the scary part is that, you know, I, I use the term idiots very loosely, but it does feel when we look at our current situation, that the idiots are in fact running the asylum. And that's concerning. Because for every one of us out there who look at this and say, This is insane. This is crazy. There are other folks who say we need more of this. We need more Dei, we need more, you know, removing of meritocracy, we need more woke ism, Joe. And that's the part where we need to continue having these conversations. So my call to action to you, Mr. or Mrs. Member of the audience, if I am allowed to say that and it doesn't violate any woke pre pre pre submission.

Joe Gulesserian  24:12  
You offended me if I had Mr. Mrs. You can't say you have found Oh,

Brian Nichols  24:17  
sorry. They them. Joe, I want to just say to you in the audience, like, if this is a conversation that you got some value from right, like this is a topic I hear. I hear Ben Shapiro, he goes on. He says on his work with corporations, they do this, this and this. And then and then what like we're just going to complain this we need to understand the context that the nuance that is behind how these work corporations got to where they are and recognize the very real incentive structures that we play a part in. Right, Joe and I think that's the part I want to just highlighting to wrap things up today. It's not just one of those things where we had to look at the situation and as I pointed out in the show before, just point and say bad, it's one of those things now where we can start to do something different and now It starts with us by changing the way we behave the way we purchase and involve ourselves in this economy. And I think, you know, just a call to action to the members of the audience today would be stop supporting these big woke corporations, if you can go support your local mom and pop shops, because, as Joe pointed out earlier, not only are they not going to do this work stuff more often than not, it doesn't make fiscal sense for them to do that. Because, you know, they live in the real world where there's real consequences, they don't have hundreds of millions of dollars in fund money, that they can just toss it programs and say, I hope this makes us look good, then they understand that there are very real black and white dollars and cents that need to be considered when you're going into making a successful company, and especially for those starting out at the ground floor. So that's my final thoughts for today. Joe, what do you got for us on your end?

Joe Gulesserian  25:48  
Well, I think you've kind of said it all. And you know, I think systemically put there, I think I would probably again, go after these corporations at the level of their share prices, you know, you can do the boycotts fine, not everyone's going to do that. But I think also, people who listen have to understand the strategy behind this, this focus and all the peripheral things that go around this, this brand, they are trying to break down to community and family structure, where you listen to government, as opposed to your core family and the community. So that's what they're doing. Government has all the solutions for all the problems state, they cost that they want the family broken to pieces, and it's outside of the scope of this conversation. And you must get the middle class out of the way. So you can implement your tirely this is all a game. A lot of these people that are buying into all this virtue signaling are not only going to go bust, a lot of them are just being used. And you know, they want to believe in something they and this is their new belief, you know, the carbon credits which we didn't even get into maybe next time. We'll talk about carbon credits and how they're being sold on the futures in the spots markets. But this whatever we do, it's they're attacking the family structure and rationalism.

Brian Nichols  27:16  
Joe gola, Syrian, I love connecting with you and I'm looking forward to having these woke watch conversations more frequently. And frankly, folks, I think this is a conversation that you guys are gonna get a lot of value from as well. So if you did offer today's episode, please go ahead. Give it a share. When you do tag yours truly on your favorite social media apps x.com, formerly known as Twitter, Facebook, as well as Instagram, you can find me at BEA Nichols liberty. Also don't get in touch with me. Email me, Brian at Brian Nichols, show.com. Joe, where can folks go ahead and reach out to you if they want to continue the conversation? Also, I heard you have some light reading that folks could pick up if they want to check out you know, to get a practical MBA. What does that look like?

Joe Gulesserian  27:58  
Well, that the practical MBA that says my website for my book, that's practical, we

Brian Nichols  28:04  
call setting you up for a segue there, Joe?

Joe Gulesserian  28:07  
Yeah, there you go. And of course, I've got a channel on YouTube, I put up videos like this one here. And I'm very easy to find and find on LinkedIn. And I have an Instagram as well. If you just look up my name, I'm very easy to find nowhere to run nowhere to hide.

Brian Nichols  28:27  
Joe, I love these conversations. I'm really looking forward to continuing our breakdown of woke watch. And folks again, if you got some value beyond going ahead and giving a share, please go ahead and continue the conversation. Yes, we love to hear your thoughts. And you guys make sure you let us know your thoughts. So if you're watching us on your favorite video platform like YouTube rumble, wherever it may be head down below into the comments, let us know your thoughts. Did we give you a proper definition for woke? Do you disagree? We want to hear about it. continue that conversation down below. And if you are brand new to The Brian Nichols Show, or you've been listening for a while and you just haven't subscribed yet, for whatever reason, Well, now's your chance. So hit that subscribe button hit that little notification bell and no matter where you're watching us or listening to us. So if you are listening to us that means you're listening to our podcast version which is on Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube Music literally wherever it is you consume your podcast but a special shout out to you podcast listeners because believe it or not, that is one of two places where you can find the entire archives of The Brian Nichols Show in our entirety but that's literally one of only two places because yes, those woke corporations they were after us Joe they nuked The Brian Nichols Show his ability to earn money over on YouTube a while ago we were deemed harmful, hateful content. Now he was harmful because of our coverage of COVID. And they said we had a few videos on there that we're going to continue to get hit for so we had to remove some of our content from YouTube. So what did we do? We kept it all over at our good places like our PA I can also on our website, Brian Nichols show.com. So, of all 850 Plus episodes, that is the only place you can check out all of those videos in episodes in their entirety. So one more time, Brian Nichols, show.com. And a final plug, and that is to please support the folks who support us. And that is our phenomenal sponsors, the non woke ones. So for example, we got our good friends over at cardio miracle. They're doing amazing work. And if you checked out that ad in the middle of our episode today, please go ahead and give them some love. Use your special discount code for 15% off your order, the wellness company, we have our good friends at evil's CBD and more. So again, just want to give them all a phenomenal shout out they are helping us keep the lights on and half frankly, really good conversations here with our good friend Joe Golarion. Joe, any final words for the audience? Before we wrap things up today?

Joe Gulesserian  30:48  
Well, all I can say is I agree with your sponsors with wellness and cardio. And those are my final words because you know, after listening to this, you some people's blood pressure will go up. So the cardio and wellness will be excellent, excellent. I recommend that they get it so I pretty well. So simply put it I mean, there's so much deeper we can go into. But some of the areas that it covers maybe some other day we'll talk about what do we mean by stakeholder capitalism, and who gets rewarded for risks? So again, yeah, that's the best way to sum it up for me. We'll take it from there really enjoyed myself with you. Today. Bernie is our student. Thank you for having me on your show again.

Brian Nichols  31:28  
Absolutely. Joe and yes, stakeholder capitalism. What is that? I guess that's what we call a setup for our next conversation. So make sure you guys hit that subscribe button CMC single time we have a conversation digging into woke watch with our good friend Joe. So with that being said, Brian co signing off. You're on The Brian Nichols Show for Joe goalless area and I'll see you next time. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai