The JYLP Ep 0106 with Connector and Operations Manager Cameron 'Cam' Reid - Cleaning The Floors Well

[00:00:00] Intro: Junkard love podcast at what age do we learn how to have better conversations at what age do we learn to have better conversations with ourselves

[00:00:09] Cam: I've forgotten in the past too so I don't want to do that no I totally know what you mean yeah I uh it's funny if I start my morning and have zero interaction with anyone then it's I start realizing it like later on the day I'm like wow I haven't talked to anybody all day long that just it has a funny effect it has a funny effect on like your own brain sometimes you know it's like you're very much just in your head it's very it's hard to get out of that hard to like consider like oh yeah there's other people that like have other cares in the world that like I'm conversing with you know it's like interesting too when you can tell two people have that same kind of like day or that same kind of like experience and they get together and they're both kind of like strange and internal for a little bit and then it slowly arms up it's like oh yeah we're humans we can connect and that's like what we inherently want to do it's yeah you meet up with someone you realize you're living about six miles deep inside your own ass basically yeah completely just disappeared into yourself

[00:01:19] Jacob: I like a there's this guy I think I might have told you about this the other day there's this poet David White and he has this beautiful poem um the gist is basically When we're living alone when we're by ourselves we're living as a question everything is a question we're exploring you know our truths who we are especially if we're listening to philosophy or practicing meditation we're kind of unraveling and questioning everything about ourselves but when we're living with others we're living as a statement you know totally and the difference between our two selves is like it can be so vast and in like I think the balance of just being a human is trying to consistently Uh you know use the accordion of when you meet up with somebody like stop living as such a crazy question and try to live as more of a statement of those questions that you've been practicing and I don't know it's it can be I don't know like if someone if someone is going into public spaces and they're continuously living as a question you might after a while start to think they're a bit loopy you know we have to have those statement moments in our lives too it's funny because you I

[00:02:30] Cam: Thought about this morning and like part of me like this morning I was like wow I'm actually like kind of nervous like I've never like been on like a podcast before it's like it's a it's I was thinking about the formats I was like man me and Jacob talk super openly all the time it's like very free flowing and like very easy and I started thinking about like exactly what you're talking about here which is like by living as a statement and like I think that there's a couple things that I that I think about that I thought of this morning which is um living as a statement is inherent when you're like around other people that to do it like as a creative like as an artist like as yourself like I have questions for you as far as like you're able to live as a statement

[00:03:15] Jacob: Even outside of yourself even if or even outside of interactions with others as in like in your own internal time you're able to live as a statement and I guess inherently you would what I've always heard and what you think is like when it comes to Art when it comes to like uh you know trying to um get in touch with yourself trying to show a side of you a lot of it is for yourself but it's interesting whenever you think about like how much of it is for others I mean to say that you have an intention to like share your art and share yourself

[00:03:50] Cam: You're now taking that internal that uh that thought of a question and tur it into a statement I was thinking this morning like part of the reason why I am like a little nervous about getting on here is I was like I'm not used to that I'm not used to like sharing

[00:04:07] Jacob: Um I guess in a medium that

[00:04:12] Cam: Is bigger than like who can actually hear me right now you know what I mean it's like I'm so used to a medium of like hey like maybe five people can hear me or maybe like you know some of those like old like meetings that float on I would reach like 20 people or 25 people or something like that was always cool but the thought of trying to reach more than that has never been um it's never like dawned on me and something about that was like oh that's scary you know um so I wonder like how do you view your own art or your own creativity or your own living as a statement um and bigger than just like a real world because like the real world is in my theory it's you know I'm used to like me and you and like maybe a few other people you've actually like performed in front of audiences before like how much does that change the way that you view just who you are and the way that you're shared that's such a cool question

[00:05:16] Jacob: Um yeah man um I think we talked about this before you know a lot of times we think that an artist or a poet or a musician is like you know like when they're in front of a microphone performing that's when they're a musician when they're a poet but um artist kind of has this strange Arc to it because you're kind of intentionally always trying to be a poet in some ways you know you're always trying to be an artist like how I interface with the world in my everyday life whether I'm with people or not with people i'd like to think that I try to bring a lens of like how sounds so dorky really but like how would a poet see this like what like how could I how could I see this for more deeply than what the surface is kind of showing me um and I think that an artist or a poet or whatever

[00:06:09] Cam: You know when we spend a lot of time you know in our basements in our basements of our minds too you know just like spending a ton of time as a question like we were saying you're like digging stuff up you're working on yourself you're constantly learning about yourself you're constantly like shaving off parts of yourself you're trying things you're failing you're succeeding like consistently moving like you're not just I'm this exact person and I play this exact video game at this exact time every day you know like it's a constant shedding like a snake shed skin and then you go out in front of a microphone or in front of an audience and to some extent you're almost saying like all right here's what I what I've discovered like here's what I've learned about being a human you know and like the thought of like maybe you'll see the answer to my question the same time that I see it like my question is can I perform to this level in front of this amount of people I've never done it before let's try something new and everyone could be like holy [ __ ] we just saw it and you can't or like holy [ __ ] we just saw it and you can and like you both realize it at the same time I mean almost to the extent of like think like an athlete you know an athlete like the thought of trying to run like five miles you've never run five miles before right you try to do your five miles you make it to four you're like ah [ __ ] I'm going to do it tomorrow and you try for a couple weeks or whatever and finally you get there like wow I ran five miles today I didn't stop I totally did it and imagine like taking that to the level of like I don't know say like a marathon or even say um I don't know I guess even like a cyclist like T to front style stuff where um you can do all that in your own head and in your own time like not in front of people the minute you take it and put it in front of an audience it totally changes like this question is no longer or like this living life as a question is no longer just for me now it's like I'm trying to answer my own questions and make a statement at the same time yeah it's like I mean that's inherently scary as hell obviously you know it's like I think that's why I have a lot of respect for artists and people like yourself

[00:08:21] Jacob: In particular because um you are able to put something out there that is just so it's bold whether it's whether you want it to be or not like it's inherently bold you know

[00:08:38] Cam: Um yeah I

[00:08:42] Jacob: Mean I think that like you know we're all individuals of course we have our own individual Journeys but there's also uh you know a togetherness of We're All Humans too we're all having this experience and I think that some people regardless of you know what capitalism has their job title ads like what they submit on their taxes what their job title says like a lot of us have roles uh roles as a community of humanity and I

[00:09:08] Cam: Think like think back you know when Travis pada did a backflip on a motorcycle on a dirt bike like suddenly like he did that and it was televised it was filmed on camera and suddenly bro everyone's doing back flips like he just ripped it open so he gave permission to the other humans who are like they're using that route of MX as their way of self-expression of being of just like creating something out of nothing that wasn't there before it hadn't been accomplished to our knowledge um they're using you know Motocross and second somebody does it other people like holy [ __ ] I get same with the four-minute mile one person does it and suddenly everyone's just smashing the finish line and now the numbers are insane for how quickly somebody can uh R run a mile and I think that when we're in the audience or we're observers of somebody doing their

[00:09:56] Jacob: Thing their art their poetry their um there their expression of what they can do there's this thing in the audience where we're like that like you're doing that thing that you're pushing the edges of like I'm an individual you're an individual but together we're human you're pushing that thing for us like as much as there's a lot of ego involved the person performing there's like there has to be this ego of like you know you got to amp yourself up you got to like be the person you got to uh you know you're you're putting on the captain's side you're playing the role for sure but then there's also this kind of like lessening or like letting go of

[00:10:38] Cam: Like I'm doing this for me in more of a you know let me show you what I've learned that humans can do you know and I don't know I think everyone in the audience there's a thing within us that feels not like a new bit of knowledge but more of like a remembering of like a uh oh yeah that's what we're supposed to be doing like I wonder what I could do what's my a and how am I pushing it how am I not pushing it you know absolutely it's funny because as you were talking about that I started thinking I don't know my camera I'm not like looking at myself or whatever um I don't know what that's called but I don't have like my self view on because I was like if I don't see myself it'll just be like that much more natural of a conversation because I was like every time I've talked to Jacob I haven't seen myself so

[00:11:22] Jacob: Why would I well enough I suppose yeah exactly you didn't bring a mirror with you that day your shades are not nearly shiny enough you know they're just way too dull but no it's like I thought about that and like as you were speaking just now like saying um you know how

[00:11:39] Cam: Much an ego comes into that I started

[00:11:42] Jacob: Thinking about like Mitch Hedberg and how like he would always had the sunglasses on he had terrible stage fright but he still had something in him that was like I'm a funny [ __ ] and I need to get this [ __ ] out there I just don't really want to do it and like I wonder I mean he didn't have that long of a run right like unfortunately for the entire world and for him um and like how much does that play into like how much does like he and his desire to put his ego out there and

[00:12:15] Cam: Also like his or maybe his UND desire his desire to not have his ego out there how much did that affect like his comedy and his performance and I wonder how much we like missed out on I wonder how much um how different it would be had that not been a thing you know it's interesting to think of performers that are

[00:12:41] Jacob: Not specifically in his case I don't know if it was like a traumatic thing or

[00:12:47] Cam: Was it just that he didn't have his ego just wasn't there to put him out there you know what I mean so I think like did he have some sort of ego death or something like that was there was there some like we can get deep on that but was there some reason in particular why he did not want to put himself out there yeah I mean the ego death thing is a fun you know convo in itself like I think a lot of artists a lot of performers a lot of the big times go through some level of ego death like that word that term is just instantly sounds so icky you know it sounds so like performative in a sense but dude I I don't know I mean what's that saying about uh you

[00:13:37] Jacob: Know the millions of ideas that are laying dormant in a graveyard you know like all those people who never acted on the on their intuitions on their feelings on their dreams on the things that they wanted to do you know they're just think about all those ideas just resting in a graveyard um I think the ones that do it the ones that we see are the ones that they followed that intuition they followed that like edge of I mean I don't know like where does a guy like Mitch Hedberg end up if he doesn't listen to that intuition if he doesn't get himself on stages how many Mitch Hedberg are there out there right now yeah and are they screaming at passing cars at a bus stop because they've lost their minds because they're not listening to that thing you know it's a we love to take credit for Stuff like we love to like I think that there's a way in which I didn't really choose and I know it sounds so corny like I didn't choose to be a musician I didn't choose to be a DJ I didn't choose to be a poet I didn't choose to be an artist it's like it's just like what else am I going to do you know it's like my specific experience here my internal dialogue tells me these certain things and then I make the decision or I like act on them or I don't it's like I don't have the like my internal dialogue isn't telling me like Jake you got to cut hair bro you were born to cut hair you were born to be a barber and like I can't stand to walk by someone with a bad fade I can't think of anything else like that's not my path mine is words and like I'm kind of a terrible musician but I like love music so much that I've just like it's all I think about it's all I try I'm just like continuously failing and a lot of this stuff but it's what my internal dialogue is communicating to me you know it's and you know I think in some way we're all an expression of what our internal dialogue is trying to

[00:15:37] Cam: Get out of us you know like some people is the way I talk about being an artist and a poet and like I've got to do this and express myself some people that it's just motherhood it's just them being a fantastic mom and then there's other people where they might even have kids but like this they'll tell you know I've never really had a calling like yeah I like being a mom but like I didn't really have that feeling of I'm destined to be a mother you know all talked to we've all talked to women who have that so I just think that everybody it's a matter of getting in tune with what's really going on in like stepping outside of our ego for a minute to where we can almost like practice what we got to do and then we get on a stage or in

[00:16:17] Jacob: Front of a mic and that's where we're living as the statement of our ego you know that's where like the ego has to exist you don't just get rid of it you don't kill it that's not a real thing you don't you don't your ego doesn't die you just become aware that you have an ego and then you observe how you're fueling it how you're a slave to it how it's moving you how you can move it how you can use it as a tool how it uses you as a tool you know it's a I think the process of being an artist of any form is a journey of self-discovery and you'll continually shed layers of yourself and sometimes that's on stage sometimes you do it in your basement and then you perform it on stage but um it's like you know the the actualized being the self-actualization the you know the dangerous word Enlightenment uh like an artist is I mean sorry but like if they're worth any shits they're going to go down that path like I don't know how you can be an artist and never turn your attention on itself and go like who am I and what am I doing you know absolutely to me that seems like it's the same thing like my artist Journey and me expressing those are my spiritual journey and I'm sharing it out loud totally now it makes me question it makes me question how much I look at like my own um my own ego in a way you know because the thought of the thought of like not wanting to be in touch with it the thought of like wanting to be like better than it or almost like being able to look down on your own ego and be like Oh I'm aware of it I can see it I'm separate from it I don't think being separate from it is a reality you know like to say you like an ego death I think that's just like the realization that like you kind of suck and like everybody else you know and that's not a bad thing to have it's like you can't just run around like being 22 and Invincible your entire life although we probably know some folks that are like that you know and it's like the classic um phrase like that guy's just never had his ass kicked or whatever you know only out here that just act wild nonstop like there's probably some politics like that but either way it's

[00:18:37] Cam: Um the thought of like having so much

[00:18:40] Jacob: Separation from it is kind of unrealistic um the I think what I found that I learned the most about myself and like the way that I move through life and the way that I view the world is by becoming super duper in tune like with my ego and like what my desires are what my drives are why do I judge myself where are these judgments coming from you know what did that look like what did that look like your initial opening to that like when you first like I mean even stumbled across the word ego or you first kind of got into anyia this sort of like spiritual stuff for you personally like what kind of started you on that path and I guess like just what did it look like at the beginning you know I think I knew at

[00:19:28] Cam: Some point that I was like just not happy just like I had a lot of anger issues when I was a child you know my dad was uh not a great uh role model when it came to like self-control and anger and things like that and so I kind of I've always I always kind of knew that you know I kind of knew that I could fly off the handle really easily and like this is talking about when I was like you know teens right and uh at some point I met a girl um you know first love kind of thing and she got me into like a lot of uh just like self-help stuff you know and it's probably a combination of a bunch of things happen at once one being like

[00:20:06] Jacob: Finding my way outside of like say like a we'll call it like Rebellion against like the Authority which was like parents and like school And all the traditional um means of this Is what you have to do every day right and then I found my way into like work and I found work that was um gratifying in a lot of different ways and I found that like work ethic and my hard work and just my desire to hustle um I just wanted to make a lot of money so that I had a lot of money to spend with all my friends and all my cars and all my projects and things like that and so um I started diving deep

[00:20:47] Cam: Into just going heart finding whatever I could that would just make decent money and um I just wanted to be the best at everything that I could do you know um so there's a combination of that So like finding um I guess you would Call that like finding

[00:21:08] Jacob: Um I guess selflove finding

[00:21:11] Cam: Self-love and finding um answering those questions you're answering those internal questions and learning about yourself and saying holy [ __ ] I'm better than I thought I was and it's like to do that on a regular basis and become like a master of your craft even if it's serving [ __ ] tables or even if it's sweeping a floor you know um probably the first time I ever meditated was I was a janitor at a machine shop and uh we worked on like we had all these uh massive tools we're working on like lays and um Mills and

[00:21:42] Jacob: Things like that and it had this like lenium floor that was in like every cafeteria from like 1994

[00:21:50] Cam: Through like that lenium that was like yellow before even got Sun damaged and like mud trapped on it and things yes yeah completely and uh they're all like 12 by 12 like one foot by one foot tiles right and for whatever [ __ ] reason this guy set up a machine shop in a place that had that and not like a stained concrete just like a concrete floor and so it would in a

[00:22:14] Jacob: Machine shop you have all this like lubricating oil like all these fluids everywhere there's metal shavings going everywhere everything's dirty everything's always being cleaned so that it can be welded everything's always being uh cut down and you always

[00:22:28] Cam: Need the oil to do it all the oil burns and it turned into this almost like when you caramelize onions and your oil just burns in your pan and it's that much harder to clean it's kind of like that all over the place all the time there's just shreds of metal everywhere right and so I was uh I got hired as a janitor there and the reason why is because I was I was huge in the cars and one of the guys that worked there was also huge in the cars we're on some Forum called Texas racing scene from like 200 I don't

[00:22:53] Jacob: Know eight or nine or something it is

[00:22:56] Cam: How we all get together and go Street RAC and that was what I was into you know so this guy was like Hey we're hiring if any of you guys are just like you know need some whatever job um you know this guy I knew him he had like clout on the internet because he had badass motorcycles and badass cars and [ __ ] like that I was like well I want to go hang out with this guy I'm G find out he sucked but the guy that worked at the Machine Shop was awesome the guy that own it um so long story short I started

[00:23:24] Jacob: Getting into like meditating and doing a lot of breathing exercises because I was just getting so [ __ ] baked like after

[00:23:33] Cam: Everybody left um that I would uh everybody would leave the shop at like 3 o'clock and I would scrub the floors I'd scrub those little lolium one by one tiles and I would get super freaking high and just like scrub and I started like I just wanted to like make it be the most efficient like um it didn't even matter how fast it went I just wanted to like do it very effectively right and so I started doing like basically like a wax on wax off like I had like a certain amount of counts for every tile that I scrubbed and then I'd like moved to the next one it was like very methodical and it was like because I was so stoned I got really [ __ ] into it was just fun know and then I like I started like focusing on my breathing and thinking like well I better like breathe right if I'm going to do this you know I better like make sure I've got my breathing like in control so that I know exactly like how many tiles I'm going to knock out on this row before I move the next and how many Strokes of the of the scrubber and you know whatever else so that's probably like the very first time I started getting in touch with like my ego um because I started realizing that I was getting a lot from that I was getting a lot from the work then I started thinking about like I mean I was in a relationship so I started thinking about like my girlfriend like awareness around like what it means to be in love and what it means to like have all these you know desires and like I never had I was kind of like a light bloomer you know I was like 18 or 19 in my first relationship had never lost my virginity before then or anything like that and so it was kind of interesting to like be going through all these like very transformational like life changes all at the same time with the coupling of like meditation and like at the time I didn't really know it but like I was like teaching myself breath work um and I was just kind of I was doing what I had learned in like high school band luckily I had like a band instructor that was huge into breathing exercises and he taught us about like how I can help you focus and that kind of transitioned into that um that janitorial job so um yeah to answer your question I think I first started um getting into self-actualization and um the ego and things like that at you know the age of like 19 or so when I was scrubbing floors at a at a machine shop that's so cool man I was just thinking about like visualizing you scrub on these floors and you may not there may not be a direct answer for this what do you think it is why did you want to do a good job rather than just get the job done I think that is like one of those

[00:26:09] Jacob: Like nature verse nurture questions um it probably has a lot to do with nurture um it probably has a lot to do with um just like I got a lot of work

[00:26:20] Cam: Ethic from like the people around me both my parents were entrepreneurs they both worked really [ __ ] hard all the dinner table conversations were like you know my dad was an architect and my mom was a permit expeditor and like they actually my dad got her into business and they realized they couldn't work together but they still were in the same business so they were like always throwing business back and forth between each other they always had the similar clients um and they I saw my parents you know we went from um you know at one point my Mom stole or my U my sister stole all my underwear and um just like threw it away just as a [ __ ] joke which is sick and uh I was like 12 or whatever we were super [ __ ] poor and uh my mom my mom lost it she was like I have no money for your underwear where's it at she's screaming at me running around I'm like I don't [ __ ] know where it's at I'm personally I'm like I don't really need it you know like what do I need that Mom I'm fine I've been wearing underwear this whole week she is just losing it on me and like every day I almost feel like it was a you know what now that I'm remembering it they stole a lot of it and then they realized how funny it was they stole it all so it was like a you know was a multifaceted approach to this and it was it was really just it was a dark time for me but it was it was hilarious it was really funny so they stole all my [ __ ] and so um my mom uh we were so poor that she couldn't buy me underwear and so for like a month I just didn't wear underwear and then finally like I don't know if she got it at Goodwill or what but she got like some really cheap under some hamy down undies bro I almost feel like she got me like little boy shorts and just like made me wear those or something as box or briefs um but I gu what I'm trying to get out here is like we were really poor and um I saw us when we moved here we moved to Austin in 1996 um broke is a joke um they both just like started up shop they didn't have income they just had some savings they literally moved here as like refugees from Sacramento just like the crime in Sacramento got too bad and business dealings went the wrong way from my dad long story like basically it was just a bad place for them to be so when they opened up shop in Austin it was like starting from nothing with three kids um and like no real Community we didn't have anybody here I don't I still to this day don't really know why we moved to Austin it might have just been like my dad was like we're going there's money there you know like very like he's born in 1935 it's like a very like old school like way of thinking about that right so um yeah I watched them go from like not having money to underwear to like one day in Middle School my mom like picks me up from school in alexas and I was like what the [ __ ] is going on here Mom yeah

[00:29:11] Jacob: It was really crazy to see it really crazy were you aware of like when you were that age were you aware of you know the economics of things were you aware like oh we're were kind of a lowincome family were poor like did you have those dialogues within yourself not really I knew that my friends had more like quite a bit like I knew like we moved into like a I wouldn't call it upper middle class I wouldn't call it lower middle class I would call it a perfectly [ __ ] middle class neighborhood um we leased the house or rented it whatever um and everybody else in the neighborhood bought it we didn't know that until later on but um my buddies that I met you know one of them his dad is like a tech engineer my other buddy uh his dad was a um excuse me was a president at like a Frost Bank both of them had like big two-story houses both of them had like big SUVs or like fans they take on road

[00:30:09] Cam: Trips and trucks and we moved there we

[00:30:13] Jacob: Had two identical 1993 era Toyota Previa minivans that both had over 200,000 miles on I'm so glad two of the same van I thought it was so weird like it's still so weird like why move on your parents end to be I was and like still

[00:30:31] Cam: To this day like I remember they sold one of them to this lady and like she drove it until like a few years ago seemingly like probably like 800,000 miles you know like the original OG Toyota you know people talk about the truck but the minivan is where it's at um but no so like we had these minivans and like my dad like sold one of them and bought a Buick and it was like an old Buick and we called it the roach mobile because every time you sat on the seats roaches are WR it was so bad it was so we knew that like I think my sister my sister was older than me by like five years she knew that something was up and so me and my two siblings kind of like caught on you know what I mean but we didn't realize we were like [ __ ] broke as a joke we're still having a great time you know we had buddies with more money it was cool hanging out with them because their parents probably felt bad for us they take us to dve and Busters you know what I mean so it kind of weird like thinking back on it now I'm like wow that's actually pretty [ __ ] weird um but uh no at the time we had no idea we just thought it was you know regular life I suppose yeah but do it's interesting like how our view as a child influences what we do later on in life like the there's there is a storyline that your parents could have also followed of like never taking the move to Austin never like they could have been making the exact same amount that year that they're making now you know like totally I think there's a move you know I mean kind of I'm stretching to really relate it back to what we're talking about with like ego death and stuff I think there is a move of noticing hey here's the hand that I was dealt but I'm G to draw some more cards or I'm G to like get a new hand you know like I think some of us can go our whole lives just feeling like Fate has

[00:32:20] Jacob: Handed us a certain hand of cards and those are the only ones we can play you know I think um I think the statistics could probably speak for themselves the amount of people that you know we kind of grow up and we end up making we're in the same class economically as our parents you know like we end up making a similar like if I had poor parents

[00:32:43] Cam: For me to grow up and suddenly be rich is like really a feet like I had to notice and look around and go okay you know if I do only what I was taught or if I only play the hand I was dealt I'm probably going to end up in these positions I am instead going to actively notice that bring awareness to that and choose to learn something new or do different things and try to route my own path so um absolutely I think there's a little bit of that within ego death right of like almost I guess just to really stretch the analogy of playing a new hand of cards of like noticing here's a path I could take and this one's already laid out for me and I don't have to do much to do this one but there's this voice inside of me that really wants me to try this idea or like go talk to that person or there's that corporation that for whatever reason I feel like I could work there and I'm going to go find out who the boss is and find his email and send him an email and I'm going to go like try to talk to him at the Starbucks or you know like these little things where we just we see ourselves somewhere like I think that I can do that even though I don't think that I was built for that like my you know I didn't come out of the factory ready for this I you know I wasn't the mold of my life doesn't seem to be exactly made for this but I'm pretty sure I can do it that right there is just that's what being a human is about you know like seeing more for ourselves and wanting it and actually taking steps to try those things absolutely there's something to be said about um to relate to that there's something we said about um a phrase I heard a long time ago from um like a mentor of mine was uh humans emerg through emergency and it's the idea that like the

[00:34:25] Jacob: Motivations nowadays I don't know if I want to go into the whole into all that or not a whole like

[00:34:35] Cam: Another realm nowadays I feel like um a

[00:34:39] Jacob: Lot of the motivations that I am

[00:34:43] Cam: Currently faced with is Um I don't have anything that's like an emergency I don't have anything that's like around the corner um that's going to like crush me I don't have any I don't have any um responsibilities I don't have any dependence I don't have dogs I don't have kids I don't have wives things none of those things are pushing me to be bigger or better than I currently am so all the motivation that I have to find in myself is either through like trauma Andor like the opposite of that right which is like I feel like that's always a great motivation to say I'm I know this and it's terrible and it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me and I never want to have that for myself again so I'm going to do the opposite in every way to get everything besides that right which I feel like that's a lot of people's motivation at the end of the day they're motivated by the opposite of their experience traditionally like a bad experience right but the other side Of that is like being motivated by something that's happened to you happening to you currently that is just so I mean I guess it is still trauma it's so unbearable like the thought of like my parents having three kids and not being able to like feed them and having to like ask family for money and having deing businesses in a city where everyone just wants to rob you all the time like at that time Sacramento was having a really bad gang problem a lot of Asian gangs are moving and there's a lot of like Rob is like early 90s you know you're talking about post um ellot riots and Rodney King all that I mean pretty crazy time to be on the west coast in general um and so I mean there's a lot going on out there and so for them they were motivated

[00:36:24] Jacob: By we've got to do better we've got to do something for our kids like we are we are [ __ ] where we're at right now and I think moving to Texas was very much like if I had to guess and now I'll call my mom later today and find out because I'm so curious now but if I had to guess it was Cedar Park is the fastest growing

[00:36:45] Cam: Suburb in the country Austin has a lot of great things going on for it like they saw like exactly where they wanted to be by the numbers and I think they were just like f it we're going to move there and uh we don't know anybody there but we know that we can get in business there and we know that there's opportunity there so we're going to do that you know it's weird because my dad was born in 1935 you used to move around a lot for opportunity you had to you didn't have the internet you didn't have um you didn't have like the social interaction that we have today where like we can just apply for a job and like do something online you can't just like create work out of nowhere you had to go find a job or you had to go find people that were willing to pay you for what you did and if it wasn't working where you were at you had to [ __ ] leave you had to go somewhere where that yeah that's not an issue that we really have to deal with anymore um

[00:37:42] Jacob: At least not in our society

[00:37:46] Cam: Uh people lately like a lot of the movement that we've seen in the US is not because of lack of opportunity but more of like they just want to you know you want to move out of LA and you want to move out of um all of California because you want to be a some people say it's a political Refugee some people say it's because everything is too expensive

[00:38:08] Jacob: Uh but the reality is like you could keep your same job and go live somewhere else and have double the house for half the money and not pay state income tax right yeah you want to go somewhere where you actually have like a freedom to go uh go for a hike on a at a park that is not overrun by people right you want to get out of a city that has been plagued by lockdowns and by um Co protocols like people moving out of New York City and things like that I mean you've seen a lot of exoduses from things like that but it's not so much because there's an opportunity somewhere else it's more of like they've already found the opportunity they just want to leave because they're getting away from um they want to have more freedom you know which I think is super interesting it's interesting to see um the differences there the differences

[00:38:55] Cam: Of uh of how we used to how we used to uh move about the country to now you know I don't know where I was going that I don't know how much that ties into there but no I love I feel like it ties into I mean that's the fun thing about a podcast is it could just really like dig in and out wherever it's so fun I feel like podcasts always you're like oh you're really over far in here and then you bring it right back around and everything seems yeah conversation we've had honestly yeah no yeah the last the last good combo we had um we I and I could edit this out if you don't want me to incriminate you incriminate you but we ate a handful of shs and just talked for six hours and it was just a beautiful conversation um it was bad it was like there was so many parts of it that I was scared of like where's it gonna go next and then it would just pop up like wow there it is yeah but dude I mean a lot of times if you're trying to plan things or overly structure them you get in your own way I mean like we've talked about this with podcast I just had a meeting with someone who's starting talking about her own podcast and um she kind of asked me like what do you do note wise you know when you're interviewing someone like how do you know what questions to ask them blah and I told her I was like so for one for this podcast you're my friend and I wanted to free flow I don't have any notes like I mean I have my like these are notes that have nothing to do with this podcast but I on otherwise if it's my first or you know first few times meeting somebody they just wrote a book they sent me their book they want me to interview them about like whatever their skill is all the page of notes um and a lot of times they're just like it's more of the act of writing the notes before the podcast or the night before that kind of helped me wrap around it but during the convo I end up just being there with them and like the notes are a rip cord if I need to like shoot I'm drawing a blank I can tell they're finishing their sentence I don't know what to say I'm gonna look at my notes but most part well you never know like I mean if you've never like even conversed with someone before so you read their book you can read all about them but if you've never like had that oneon-one and like obviously like we have this screen here you know like that is a whole yeah that's a whole thing that like it complet I'm not going to say it kills your experience by any means but it does like it definitely changes um it just changes the naturalness whatever you want to call it like how free flowing the conversation can be um there's things that are actually there's variables that become

[00:41:20] Jacob: More sensitive over Zoom um if we're

[00:41:24] Cam: Sitting face to face in person like if we're s sitting out you know we're at that Airbnb there's like a beautiful River next to us there's bugs there's wonderful scenery I could be talking with you and like looking around and you wouldn't for a second falter you would just like we're all here but in Zoom we could be talking and you're listening intently and suddenly I'm like looking over my shoulder or I'm like setting a text or I'm like the

[00:41:47] Jacob: Engagement is easier to unhook on Zoom I've noticed um and I just try to treat that with the delicacy that it deserves um sometimes it's you know it comes with being the producer in everything of the podcast you're hosting like I can't say hey Jamie pull this up or you know like hey bright brighten my Iris like I'm the one also doing that so I'm being the one who's running the podcast as I'm the host or the performer whatever but um

[00:42:16] Cam: Anyway before I forget I'm sorry I like brought us off on this side quest I was curious how old so how old were your parents when they had you and I'm curious do you think that influenced you to have a different perspective on the world I mean there's this corny saying of being an old soul you know I'm sure you've heard that but like I feel like you're definitely an old soul I feel like your perspective on things uh can qualify as the old sness um I don't know do you oh I think you mind have froze are he still there no it seems good now good stuff well I'll just reiterate the question so yeah totally curious what age were you uh what

[00:42:56] Jacob: Age were your parents when had you and then I guess like how did how do you think that kind of affected your life I mean you probably growing up the kids your age probably had different aged parents than you did right totally yeah totally and yeah to say you mentioned um you kind of consider me like an old soul and like it's I've always felt more comfortable around older folks anyway like I have a bunch of uh half siblings I'm one of like I think I'm one of 10 siblings um and so I've got two blood siblings like full blooded whatevers my two sisters um who I've got yeah and uh but then I've got um what is that three then I've got seven other siblings um and so a lot of them are older so like they were always around it was very much like my dad was really good at keeping the family together and like very much like was The Matriarch that kept everyone coming around and he was the glue of the family right and so a lot of holidays we had um lots of siblings around and lots of uh I mean they were all shoot they're all 20 30 years older than me so I think right now my oldest sibling is like uh 64 years old right and I'm 33 so um what is that he's uh 31 years older than me so um for to say that uh I had a different experience than a lot of you know my friends a lot of other people my age is completely freaking true completely true so my dad was 56 I believe when he you

[00:44:28] Cam: Know whenever I was born um so let's pause for just a second there is a lag I'm now noticing yeah so to go back to uh my experience growing up with a with an older parent so my parents were uh 20 years apart so my dad was born in 35 and my mom was born in 55 um so pretty big age uh age Gap I think they met like my mom was 30 something and he was 50 something so um but yeah growing up uh with an older parent I didn't realize it was weird until I did kind of thing you know you know it was just normal until like you know and even like when people are in their 50s and 60s he aged pretty well he didn't really look like he was super old until he was in his 70s I would say but then like I started realizing like oh wow all my buddies parents are like not that old like this guy is definitely way older and so um yeah I would

[00:45:29] Jacob: Say the difference

[00:45:33] Cam: Was the difference wasn't realized until

[00:45:35] Jacob: I was older in my ears right but a lot of it was like I was raised like if you think about it half of me or half of my experience is maybe even more than half just because of like uh the nature of the way That uh the family unit um Was uh created for his generation so generation was that actually I don't know like what the generation was CU I think he was pre-baby Boomer 1935 is like pretty early on you know yeah so my

[00:46:07] Cam: Mom could have been like his daughter you know like she's 20 years younger than him right so for me to be my mom's

[00:46:14] Jacob: Daughter or my mom's son um is because weird here man yeah right so it's interesting because I'm technically like two generations maybe even in some Realms three generations away from my dad meaning that whenever you look at generations of people in the way that they're raised in the way that like say like you know Generation X and Y and whatever we want to call it they're raised by the reason why they are dubb that generation is not just because of the way that they were brought up in like a um a pop

[00:46:53] Cam: Culture uh kind of like uh geopolitical Norm sense it also has everything to do with their parents and how their parents are raising those children so their

[00:47:05] Jacob: Parents experience as children generally um I would say that basically everybody in the world has some sort of trauma to do with their upbringing and when they raise their children they don't want it to be the same and it's interesting to say that sometimes they end up being the exactly the [ __ ] same as their parents and sometimes they end up being the exact opposite so if you think about it in those terms um I am really just the opposite of my dad's upbringing from like the [ __ ] 30s and 40s right and I'm also the opposite of my mom's upbringing of like the 60s and 70s right or 50 or 50s and 60s essentially um so I'm like a weird mut of these two generations I don't really fit into like a genin why or whatever what is our generation do you know cuz you're were born in 1994 I think or 1993 1991 but

[00:48:01] Cam: Millennial regardless you're in 1991 I just think you're it's messed up um we can edit that out don't show my age wait what are you 90 93 91 yeah 91 you're 91 oh yeah we're both 91 yeah okay that's right so what is our generation do we have any idea um we're Millennials we yeah okay so I don't know the exact cut I think the exact cut off is like 80 9 or 88 or something I don't know I know I'm Millennial that's all I know okay so we are millennials but I like in some in a lot of ways I was raised as a millennial but then in a lot of other ways I was raised with values and traditions and morals um of a generation that would Place me more in like a basically like in like the 60s to 7s

[00:48:55] Jacob: Era does that make sense yeah alth

[00:48:58] Cam: Boomer Millennial yeah it's very [ __ ] weird it's very [ __ ] weird um because like if I didn't hold a door open for a lady I would literally get smacked like things like that or like um I was taught that uh the dinner table is always to be set with like every setting you know like we set the dinner table every single night had dinner together every single night The Simpsons was always on mind you um but uh we always had dinner together if we missed dinner it basically meant you weren't going to eat maybe for that night and the night the morning after um I was taught to like I had to like help the family business there was no like when I got done with school I went home and like we were always I mean mostly me I was a man of the house I was the only boy so um yeah I was always uh fixing my

[00:49:49] Jacob: Dad's computers and the fax machine and

[00:49:52] Cam: The modem and I would build all his offices I would go with him to like summertime was not summer camp summertime was I went to work with my parents and generally it was like I w't working in the field but it was like I was going to um help him measure up buildings I was going to help him he had me like fire contractors when I was like 14 years old like weird stuff like that where I'm like I don't can you imagine being fired by your boss's 14 year old and like not for not for nothing but like my BOS my dad was like the architect of aob website which is like very not the boss right so he would go in and he would just like take up the Reigns and just start like calling the shots on [ __ ] he was just he loved that he thought he was just in charge of everything so he would go in there and he'd fire people that didn't work for it was crazy and like half the time they listen to him they're like well I guess I'm fired I don't know that was but we should do that more often we should start go to job sites that we don't work at and firing people just to some chaos see what happens like this is really wild right you're done for the day yeah sorry Steve sent me down here he said he said you're done for the day man sorry I go home so that's not gonna happen no you're out of here you're out of here Buster yeah well man it's really interesting I thanks for elaborating on that I just think it's so interesting to think of like the things that you were taught your childhood and then I mean you mentioned you grew up you know you're going to get a smack in the back of the head for not holding a door open for a lady and I totally hear that but then we also now live in this world of and it's not it's not for the most part I'll say really like I'm not going to let the internet paint how reality really is for the most part every woman is every person is grateful you hold the door open but there is this like small percentage more and more of like I can hold the [ __ ] door open for myself like I'm not lady like treat me

[00:51:44] Jacob: As a human not a lady like there's kind of is a you know a changing dichotomy so it's interesting to think of like you were given these morals and values but you're also around people who are similar to our age that um you know

[00:51:57] Cam: And a little younger than us are the generation under us more and more uh is not used to those Traditional Values like there sometimes those Traditional Values they come from a place of being sweet and kind and like helpful but they're almost offensive now to some like the same act could be somewhat offensive so um I don't know I think um I wanted to relate it back to like what

[00:52:17] Jacob: You were talking about earli about um you know you don't have kids you don't have um like your responsibilities

[00:52:24] Cam: Quote unquote are kind of like they can be self-centered like you're kind of responsible for yourself and that's about it um and I think about that a lot too is like I'm at a point where like I want kids and I want a wife and these things like I want something to like push behind me and like remind me that I need to not focus on my dang self so often you know or like these things that I want to do and what I think is important and so I almost want I almost want the responsibilities to like take

[00:52:51] Jacob: My hands off the reins and so like I just do what I know I need to do rather than what I want to do you know sometimes so anyway um I don't know if that Sparks anything for we can make all kinds of problems for ourselves that like the reality is that like all of our problems are relative to like all of our other problems so it's like the problem of like oh I woke up and I expected it to be a rainy day and now it's too hot and I don't want to read a book now it's like that's not a problem if like your child has colic and you stayed up for the last three days and your wife is like ready to leave you because she's like I don't think I can hand this and we can't pay our mortgage and now I can't even sleep work and I'm caring about the fourth draft of some poetry that I wrote like you know yes problems are different it is wild it's wild like even like the generations

[00:53:41] Cam: Of trauma change throughout your

[00:53:44] Jacob: Experience like everyone's trauma is the worst thing that's ever happened to anyone is just as equal as the worst thing that's ever happened to anybody else so like whether you're born in the

[00:53:56] Cam: In Compton and you learned that you only

[00:53:59] Jacob: Need to sell drugs and you were burned with cigarettes when you were a kid and like you dropped out of school at age seven and you are just a gangster right and you have whatever Trauma from that if that is your trauma or if you're Donald's Trump daughter and you got EXC commed from a communicated from a family and you went from like having millions at your disposal to now you only have like hundreds of thousands at your disposal your trauma is both equal unfortunately for of us to be like that's [ __ ] but it's still equal you know what I mean so like yeah I mean your trauma of like not being able to finish that fourth uh paragraph or the fourth draft of that poem is just as bad as like your baby having colic and your wife would it leave you know as as far as like a dayto day goes I suppose yeah i' see uh for every listener who has a child and they're just yelling at their uh at their listening device right now like how dare you compare me raising a child to you trying to finish a line of poetry I hear for you um but yeah I mean it really is like I love I feel that's one of the more important things of it's so easy to like compare ourselves and make ourselves a victim but like dude that is a profound thing for everyone to learn is like the worst thing you've ever experienced is the worst thing you've ever experienced the worst the like the most pain that you've ever gone through there's no reason to really compare it to the worst pain someone else has gone through like there it's just different problems you know like my pain my level nine pain is me

[00:55:31] Cam: You know hungry when I was a teenager someone else's level n pain might be literally their XBox being taken away and I know that sounds so cheap but like so I dated um I had the opportunity to date a girl um who had a child recently and like I had to learn a lot like I haven't spent a lot you know I'm nieces and nephews but I live far away like I don't really spend a ton of time with kids and um I got like it was I learned a lot in you know just those like four months of just watching her you know she wants you know a bottle of warm milk before bed and she doesn't get it and so she starts to become like so stressed out and then she's screaming it's unreasonable right like me you know I have all these years of experience like I know it's not reasonable like the way for you to get that thing of milk is not to scream I know that but to her dude she's learning about being a human and learning about her emotions it really is the end of the world for her at that moment and it was really cool for me to like you know watch how like I want to control the situation like I you know I don't want her uh you know I have a reaction my body has a reaction to her yelling her being uncomfortable or whatever you know but she's just a little girl there's also this separate reaction of going like oh yeah she's just how I was when I was I was that age she's learning what it is to like be without something that you want and it like really sucks doesn't it and it takes you years to really go like okay I want that thing and I don't get it and that's okay you know but the the learning process of being a human like you know it's in stages and it's all a different um bag full of goodies that were handed and sometimes we can be still 25 30 years old and we're just still kind of pissed that we're not getting our warm milk before bed and like it still hurts you know like it's an act of

[00:57:14] Jacob: Learning to like be okay with these things um yeah going like let me ask you like for your experience like as a child and growing up cuz I'm sure they had to like made you think like just dealing with or just uh not even dealing with but just being around and being subject to raising a child you know how much did that remind you of your experience as a child and like your own parenting and was there anything that jumped out at you that was brought up in the sense of like I definitely want to do this differently from my parents or wow um now I kind of see that they were just humans too you know maybe this is I guess was there anything that made you think back to your experience as a child and that would shape the way that you view um parenting or ideal parenting in your own shoes I feel like you need to start your own podcast this is such a good question uh I like all of your questions have been so good so far man uh I feel like all of our conversations you always have good questions bro thank you um thanks man I appreciate yeah I You know it's interest so I feel like When I reflect back on my childhood I think that was really loud to me and this is something that's um common with the personality types like the mbti um INFJs that's what I am as an infj um I'm not going to stop you now but can we link to that later talk about that later oh yeah I'll send you the thing I'll include it for anybody listening if you want to check that out if you've never done your personality type I'll put a link to the one I like in the description as well um yeah

[00:58:47] Cam: So a commonality like you can go on the Reddit subreddit and it'll be a common thing uh when I was when I was Younger I kind of had this awareness of like yes I'm a part of the family but I'm also watching the family I feel like I was like you know we're all sitting on we're all sitting in the living room watching The Simpsons we're watching TV but I also had an awareness of I'm watching the family watch the TV and uh it after a while I started to realize that like not everyone around me had that sort of like sense of things um and So something that gets me and something that stands out to me is when we do things and we all do it you know so this specific example um the girl that I was dating for a while um her child was you know around three or four and what you do when the child is in the room is you're talking about adult things and you say her she wants this like you're talking about this child who's right here and what's something that was really loud to me is like when I was younger I was really aware of those conversations and I would always be like why are they talking like I'm like I'm not right here like it was always really confusing like we're having this separate story line about me when I'm not right here like it was really confusing for me to continuously extrapolate outside of what we're actually doing and talk about what we're doing as if I'm not there but then the next instant I need to be paying attention to what you say to me about me this is about I need to follow directions like what you know that was a very confusing thing um and so I think that I tried to you know I'm sure I probably failed with this but I W with this girl that I was dating I tried to like include her daughter on everything that was happening whatever I was doing even if it's an adult conversation that she doesn't know what I'm talking about I'm still going to explain it to her I like she I don't think she has to understand all the words that I'm saying or like I don't have to answer the wise of everything like she's still even learning how to communicate herself and put words together and speak but I

[01:00:44] Jacob: Felt that like just saying what I'm

[01:00:47] Cam: Doing out loud including her made this we situation um that I have no I guess that was something that was really loud to me was the absolutely separateness when I was younger it really threw me off I didn't get why people did that it was really confusing and I don't think that they got why they did it a lot of times I'm like are you are you people even aware that you're doing this like in the answer is no completely it s i mean that to me the

[01:01:18] Jacob: Immediate reaction that I have when you saying that is like you were forced to grow faster to grow up quicker than maybe other kids around you like in whatever way for whatever reason and it's I feel the same way about that I feel completely the same way about that there's something that um triggers you to just have to like take on responsibility in AIDs that you wouldn't think you'd have to right and like in doing that I think that parents in

[01:01:44] Cam: Inherently the child is a burden on them like they don't know how much responsibility they are they just know that like they are a CH they're just a child right and parents have to children as at least from my experience um they have to view children as like a as a burden as something that they are responsible for and so like talking to them about them in front of them is very much like yeah we want to include them but also like we don't have [ __ ] time for that [ __ ] we to [ __ ] figure out how we're gonna feed this little bastard you know like how are we gonna feed it we don't know what it wants we don't care what it wants we don't need to be a part of this conversation because it's not going to be able to work and bring home the money you know it's interesting to think like that and

[01:02:27] Jacob: I wonder like talking back to like this the generational differences in like parenting um you know we're very much a lot of our peers are very much a

[01:02:41] Cam: Product of like the um the the oh God what do you call it the trophy for showing up generation you know um the participation award generation right we got Pat On The Backs because we showed up and we're very like coddled in a lot of ways and you kind of still see a lot of that um you know we're also the generation of like people getting cancelled because they got uh recorded um smacking their baby at a Walmart right and at the end of the day I don't have kids I don't know what it's like to raise kids but I can tell you right now maybe sometimes your baby needs to be smacked I don't know I don't know I'm sure the urg there to your babybody yeah doing it to Walmart in front of everybody maybe that's not the way to do it but like nobody wants to go

[01:03:30] Jacob: And um nobody wants to go and make their child into like the traumatic version of their own childhood yeah well I think when it comes to when it comes to being a parent there is these you know it's funny I just mentioned like there's these two separates that are confusing for a child of like the these realities of um you know like

[01:03:57] Cam: You know we're watching TV but I'm also watching us watch TV there's kind of like these sep so the kid as much as truth is one of the most important things and it really needs to be like the fulcrum of how you how you raise anybody let alone an adult

[01:04:14] Jacob: Raising a kid there's a level where my

[01:04:17] Cam: Kid doesn't need to know that every bite

[01:04:20] Jacob: Of food he eats gives me stress about paying bills that month um something that I think you know we've talked a little bit about trauma like we all have our own trauma something that my parents did um that affected me later on um and again like I love my

[01:04:39] Cam: My mom and dad very much like we've worked through a lot of these things and I'm not saying this to like hold anything over of them they're wonderful people and they're very self-reflective about these things now too but so like I was um a condom ripping baby so I was an accident and like my mom in her Young unaware State

[01:04:57] Jacob: You know she's early 20s like mid 20s whatever she would constantly say things like you were an accident baby you were an accident we didn't we didn't want you we didn't we didn't plan to have you and so I internalize these things and like now I still do with self- worth issues and like um being a burden on people is huge I grew up my teenage years um I would like live

[01:05:18] Cam: With friends for a few times during the week and um I was always very aware like I'm another mouth to feed like these I didn't earn this food but paying their own money and feeding me and I'm just always really aware of being a burden on people um I think there's a way now that we

[01:05:34] Jacob: Would realize of being parents where it's not that I need to lie to my kid and tell them hey we're rich like we've got like I know you don't see a pool in the backyard but like pretend that you see a pool in the backyard like you know you're not lying to your kid but there's a way of I don't need to know that we're

[01:05:51] Cam: Going to we're kind of struggling to pay the electricity bill like when I'm 6 years old I don't need to know about the bills so I think there's a level of being truthful with your kid but also creating this world where they can play I think a you know a good parent successfully does this and again if you know don't beat yourself up if you're not successfully doing this I know it must be more difficult than I could put into words but like there's a way that your child needs to have this illusion of them just exploring the world like they you need to until they're 18 they need to not even know about bills as far as I'm concerned they need to not know about the electricity they don't need to think that they were an accident in any sort of way you know that's why I man I don't know how I don't know how people raise a kid or have a marriage without God I mean and I'm not trying to like say a Dei or I'm not trying to strike just Christianity or anything but like things like faith and um trust and like knowing that everything's going to be okay like those things I don't really know how do you contact those very important things of like you know just living a human life let alone raising a young adult to have standards and values and you know a successful life when they're on their own I don't know how you absolutely you tune into those things without some form of God or higher power just some sort of system you know it's interesting that you bring it up because it's something that we have both talked about like on our walks like one of the last walk runs that we did we talked about what it would be like to have like a spiritual type of like conversation or a group like somewhat of a men's group somewhat of a um something to connect with each other and to talk about these Concepts and what they mean something that like in I think the way I phrase it or the way that I personally view it is um I don't currently have any sort of

[01:07:43] Jacob: Belief system into like a um into a

[01:07:47] Cam: Traditional religion I would say um and so for me it's like I've always wondered like not always but the question of like code like a moral code has always been something that I that I Ponder and even like a lot of times in my journal I try to like I like simple things I like just simple words to describe a code I don't want to have like long paragraphs and um you know like I don't want to like a whole like Constitution for how I want to live my life but more of just like if I can narrow it down into like something that I could say less than 10 words you know and I think some of the things that I that I write down in the mornings the current ones that I've decided are the closest thing to a moral code that I personally have is like courage acceptance love patience uh truth Andor

[01:08:38] Jacob: Honesty um and I think there's one more but that's the gist of it right there um And by not having any sort Of community or even like organization that reinforces those things specifically through like Parable through like written word whatever you want to call it through like agreeance on uh on these Concepts and what they mean for all of us and how they always change specifically through life like

[01:09:14] Cam: I'm imagining myself back in um Catholic Church as a child like listening to the pares and most of the time not paying attention but every once in a while something grabbing me and being like wow that actually makes a lot of sense and I do actually believe that you know you should be good to your neighbor you know things like that you shouldn't help out someone in need or oh this guy's tire is flat on the side of the road why wouldn't I take the time to stop and help him like my I really don't have anywhere to be that bad you know so I didn't silence my phone but um the thought of not having something like that um particularly when raising a family is um it's something that I've always said I've always said if I have kids I'm going to take them to I'm going to go to church right I don't know where I don't know what church but I was like I've always said like there's so much to be said about having a community that all believes in like similar values um that

[01:10:10] Jacob: Gets together regularly that talks

[01:10:13] Cam: Openly that has trust in each other um that ideally you would like have some donuts with because who doesn't want donuts on a like all of those things I remember going to church and like liking a lot of those things about it but being raised Catholic I specifically remember the day that I looked around and everybody was like singing in hymns and whatnot and I was just really turned off I was very Like something about it just made me Realize we're all just followers nobody there is a leader and we're all following something that I didn't actually believe because I was like at that point I hadn't read the Bible but I had listened to enough of it to know that it wasn't you know realistic and so in my head I was like okay well why are we all just blatantly following this thing and nobody's really asking questions at least the questions that I think are important and if we do ask those questions they're pretty much answered like non- ansers you know um so I think that it would be a lot easier to swallow the concept of spirituality and

[01:11:20] Jacob: Religion in general um if there were solutions to those questions that I'm Pro posing right now you know yeah well I think a lot of those you hear the term baby you know throwing out the baby with the bath water you hear that when it comes to religion and God and spirituality and I think that is really like a big core of what of what goes on there is uh you

[01:11:46] Cam: Know dudes like us have those experiences where you look around you're like oh I don't like there was parts of this that I resonated with but like overall you guys are having a different experience than me here you know like I don't know I wish that I could believe everything y'all are apparently believing but I don't so what do I do with that I had times when I was young where um uh I wasn't I wasn't like raised in like a Christian background or anything um I feel like my parents are probably more apt to like poke fun at it more than anything there wasn't really much uh now my parents would say probably they claim more of like a my mom's side would play more of like a pagan um version of spirituality but um there was times where I went and I would go with like a girlfriend or something girlfriend's family and I would leave going okay well I'm burning in Hell according to these people like I'm [ __ ] like I would leave just not feeling good about anything and going according to these people I am like just I might as well set myself on fire right now because that's where I'm heading you know and so that wasn't that didn't give me any of the answers that I that I looked for but I also had these very um

[01:12:52] Jacob: It was just like a common response to any anything to do with religion or spirituality like I just had like such a reaction to it of you know when I hear words like Faith or trust or whatever I have all these preconceived ideas and all these like I don't even let those words in when the word God Lord God is so scary to so many people yeah so yeah our body just tends up like oh don't you tell me about a giant man in the clouds like don't you talk about this deity you know of like but I think um if we give ourselves if we let ourselves really explore what that stuff means for us personally and I don't even mean like us personally in a conversation with a pastor if that's how you get there that's cool but like us personally as in you read this you're by yourself in your room and you read this stuff like what does it really feel like within you like what does it really mean to you know

[01:13:49] Cam: I think we should all be given

[01:13:52] Jacob: Permission and the tools and um the amp ification from one another to explore spirituality as individuals like being a human we all like there's you know eight billion humans each of us should have our own relationship individual relationship with God or a Jesus or a Buddha or Avatar whatever it is like you know there's layers um not to deity not to just make things a deity but um we have like a language there dude there's Pathways in our brain there you know you've heard the term godsize whole there's something within us of being a human in the human psyche that has room the puzzle pie puzzle pieces for like God and spirit and the soul and um like yeah you're a part of this family and you work at a grocery store and your employee badge says Frank but also you're at one with everything you know like there's paradoxically room for all of it and we should all I'm getting on such a rambling Sid Sprint I'm sorry cam I love it I love it yeah um but yeah I just I think there's a lot of baby with the bath water that happens there and um I hope dudes like us like dudes our age having more of these public conversations kind of points things within each other of like man if the

[01:15:13] Cam: The people around you or the way that you learned about these things didn't work for you or you know you're in these rooms looking around going oh I'm not resonating with what you guys are resonating with that doesn't mean dump the word God and never look up look it up again or slam the Bible shut and never open it I think it means you've now been invited on a self-exploration journey that maybe none of these people have the answer for you and maybe the answer is this is a door that opens from the inside you know so we should all we we all have that it's part of Being Human we all have a spiritual journey and nobody tells us what that looks like that's all for our for our own selves to experience and it does bring me back to us talking about um like a format of a format of conversation um that Austin is such a

[01:16:02] Jacob: Hot bed

[01:16:05] Cam: Of new psychology these days Austin's such a hot bed of like new ideas taking hold and like openness to them and people just very interested in um what all these other super [ __ ] interesting people are doing in their City I think I honestly after

[01:16:26] Jacob: Traveling around so much I honestly see

[01:16:29] Cam: Austin being the

[01:16:34] Jacob: Next the next San Francisco but not the next Silicon Valley but not for Tech the next LA but not just for um fashion and And culture next New York but not just For art I mean philosophical spiritual

[01:16:50] Cam: Aspect to it there's something here that is not and I'm not even there I'm in Moab and I can feel it just in our conversation it's rad there's something there that is just it just draws people in like I've listened to a couple podcasts the last few days and like brne brown lives in freaking Austin like know that of course

[01:17:12] Jacob: Yes very cool very cool do um I sent

[01:17:15] Cam: That podcast the other day about those guys that were talking about like anthropology and kind of like I would say there's some geopolitics mixed in um but both of them were like history Andor anthropology guys uh that were talking about like how America could be like 11 different culture uh countries based on like culture and based on history and why they moved why different religions and different people moved into different places and both of them singled out Austin and both of them they both live in Texas one of them both definitely lives in Austin and both of them singled out Texas as basically being able to be its own country because it's not similar to any of these other like 11 Colony countries they're talking about for a lot of reasons and specifically Austin as much as they talked about like LA and New York being its own type of like culture and its own City and something that um you would almost consider like Paris France as its own City and like uh even like Fran or

[01:18:15] Jacob: Like Munich Germany how like those two places are not really like any other place in the world Tokyo um obviously I

[01:18:22] Cam: Put I would put New York in there I would definitely put La in there and these guys are saying that Austin is right in there with them same as Miami um those play like they are not like any other place in the world and to say that like there's not um that the interesting thing about this podcast was talking about how they don't um see a lot of like Americans and westerners taking uh hold of their own culture taking like pride in their culture Texas is a

[01:18:51] Jacob: Outlier in that Texas culture and Texas is a big deal now as much as I love the

[01:18:58] Cam: State of Texas I say that I'm from Austin when I go places I love being a Texan I love having pride in being a Texan but I take even more pride in being from Austin yeah seriously I don't say Texas I say Austin specifically yes because and there are people flocking here from all over the world and it's not just because it's cool originally I thought it was just because it's cool so much more than that and so curious to see where it goes like even to the like

[01:19:30] Jacob: It's almost like how these Mormons call

[01:19:33] Cam: Salt Lake and Utah they Zion like there's something about Austin that is like I don't want it like that's kind of a crazy relation there but uh there is

[01:19:42] Jacob: Something about it that the new age of um like kind of like a lesser ego and like a more um I don't know man there's

[01:19:54] Cam: There's a friendliness to Austin that LA and New York don't have there's a pride and a proudness of it that like the medwest the Midwest doesn't have there's

[01:20:05] Jacob: A Like Love Thy Neighbor aspect to it that really nowhere else in the country has that's very Tech and there's

[01:20:14] Cam: Something very open to new ideas the rest of Texas and a lot of the basically everything east of the Mississippi doesn't have yeah think that are a very cool conglomerate of all these things together and I am personally incredibly excited to see where it goes

[01:20:33] Jacob: Yeah I think uh I was just thinking to add to add to that I think um something that I was drawn to is kind of like the punk rockness which also I I think if you want to interlay the word punk rock with cowboy I think that actually makes a lot of sense like Cowboys are punk as like they're doing it their own way they're making the path they're like oh there's no Trail here I'm going to [ __ ] make the trail myself you know um the cowboy punk rock is I was really drawn towards that and I also was thinking you know at the beginning of a conversation cam we were we were you know mentioning Travis Pastrana he did the first backflip on a on a Motocross on an MX bike I think there's

[01:21:11] Cam: Something about Austin that like there's a lot of edge pushers here like the edge you know all the comedians who are moving here which is you know that's a whole another chapter of like funny philosophy and we need comedians like they're very important um I don't want to modificate comedians that can get so dorky but really them this turning into like the comedy Hub of the world of the Free Speech kind of Hub of the world uh again all this sounds so dorky to name but there is something about like people across the US are looking at Austin and like we keep breaking the four-minute mile and people are like dude I need to go there and like break my four-minute mile you know and I think me as a Creator I don't really know it's hard for me to I've been almost 5 years here it's hard for me to put my finger on exactly but I was drawn to that like there is some sort of um at the edge of like I said you know being a poet being an artist being a musician I want to push the edges of what it means to be just a human a person um and it feels like this is a playground for that there's people to my left and right you know and every yoga class I go to there's someone who is also just exploring the depths of their Consciousness all the stage t I work with like you know they're out here making 20 bucks an hour and eating garbage food but they're also like if I listen to their album they just put out yesterday they're a brilliant musician you know there's all these people who are just pushing the boundaries of what they're doing um I'll

[01:22:41] Jacob: Add that you have that in other places but there's not like that uh you have that um the thought like Denver is kind of this funny place where everybody goes to find themsel right but it's very cold it's a very cold Community like Denver is not open to me to me it's not very

[01:23:00] Cam: Open it's not very friendly um it's very like uh in a lot of ways it's kind of fake Austin doesn't feel that way Austin feels warm and welcoming and very much

[01:23:11] Jacob: You feel like you're a part of it you don't feel like you're surrounding the outside of it you don't feel like you're an afterthought or even

[01:23:21] Cam: Just like um you don't really feel like

[01:23:24] Jacob: You're an outcast it feels like everyone can be a part of something here I love that about it I love that you can feel like you are in the community and maybe I am biased because I from there pretty much I've been there since I was you know five six years old but even when I leave and come back I it takes me like a day or two to like refind it but I'm immediately reimmersed in what feels so real and so friendly I well I mean I I was very like how we met we met through floon you were working at floon and um I mean I was I felt instantly part of the community there I mean you definitely had a hand in that just I it's a gift you have earlier we were talking about are different gifts you know a mother shows up as a mother so well like yours is we've spoken about this off camera but like yours part of yours is definitely bringing people together the community aspect is part of you uh making people feel comfortable and welcome and um you're really good at like bringing out the best in people and then bringing them all into one place and then like I feel like a picture you put your hands on your hips and like all right go I know you're all awesome like you have that skill um and so I got to experience that too but so this is something we've talked to we're getting a little bit up here in time cam but I think it'd be cool to kind of round about on this community thing you

[01:24:48] Cam: Know we're both in Austin we're both you know we're born in 91 we're around the same age we've talked about this a few times like we've met up doing like kind of running club things um we' both agreed man there's a for this mix terribly yeah I know I can't wait yeah can't wait till get back we're gonna have to end it again but um I know I think uh putting our money where our mouth is you know I've talked I'm really want I got my met mindfulness meditation teacher certification I want to do something with it if I can be useful I want I want you know I want the

[01:25:24] Jacob: Puppet of the universe to put his hand up my butt and use me as a puppet you know use me for good so um I want to try to contribute to this community so I guess I think it'd be cool to end this cam with like a brainstorm of um how do we use this

[01:25:39] Cam: Awesomeness of Austin and this presentness of us being dudes without you know we specifically don't have kids we're looking for meaning we know the spiritual stuff is helpful we know like mindfulness meditation all that sort of stuff is helpful we feel better when we link up with people and do physical activity or make friend groups or communities do we start doing a once a week thing do we do a zoom call do we meet up twice a week to go running like how do we make action out of our

[01:26:07] Jacob: Ideas and um capitalize on the momentum of like this community thing trying to be built through us like how do we not stop it how do we add to this thing trying to you know grow through US absolutely I mean I will obvious ly I will uh address my uh

[01:26:26] Cam: My main drawback which is my location is I'm just not there for a while which is a biggest bummer because ideally I would say we just go start a meet up and just start doing something um where we get a few people together and have like somewhat of a spiritual conversation over a walk with like a Sit afterwards

[01:26:48] Jacob: And what I was imagining earlier um when talking about uh um religion and like a moral code and things like that like what it means to me I basically imagine Like somewhat of a leaderless like AA Format of you know we're not necessarily

[01:27:10] Cam: Trying to heal any specific trauma um we're not trying to like keep anybody from jumping off a bridge there's other resources for that but I think it's more of how do you intentionally want to positively move forward with your life and how can we all share in ways that we want to do that and how can we all share in the reasons why we find ourselves here how can we all share like our beliefs of how we want to live our day-to- day because if that was like a weekly reminder to me if there was something that I was able to look into my own perspective and like I think both of us are great storytellers I think you're an excellent Storyteller one of I mean one of your greatest gifts and greatest traits is being able to get other people to tell stories too and I think that I am super um open to sharing and open to telling my stories and I even like hold myself to a higher standard of telling them because when I'm around you I feel I feel that I feel like I'm lifted up by uh by your company in that way um so I think if people are we find folks that are interested in that folks that are interested in sharing and why um they want to be a part of something and we can share ourselves and the thought of uh taking a walk around the lake and having a few a few people in on that or even having like individual groups like you break people up if it's big enough and you say you guys go over here and you go over here and we go over here and whatever and say if you have like I don't know like think of like a child's care like a Kids Care Facility like 1 to 7 1 to eight something like that for everybody that does it I guess that's kind of like bigger picture but ideally having like a regular weekly Meetup um where we go for a walk and then afterwards like have a talk and just talk about like what life is and what life has been and where we're at and why we feel the way we do in my head that sounds like a great idea maybe we just try it and see what happens yeah dude I think it's yeah it sounds so yeah like and it really doesn't have to be super structured I feel like we successfully just by talking about the things we're inevitably interested in and want to talk about I mean like you said I feel like every time we meet up we end up in the spiritual realm of conversation it's just what's fun you know it's what's adventurous and what's right there you know it's right there on the surface to be plucked out I um there's this term and I

[01:29:35] Jacob: Kept hearing it in my head as you were talking um creating a container and like it sounds it sounds kind of cheap but it is perfect like how could we create a container once a week it's nothing too crazy you don't have to sign anywhere you don't have to do an NDA like you could be anybody you could be going through anything you don't have to wear anything or you know rep us or whatever like it's just we're going to be here at this time talking about this stuff come on in you know okay absolutely and I even it's interesting because we talked about I wondered if there's anything else out there was I saw on Instagram the other day it looked super cheesy but maybe that's just what this is um it was something like called like

[01:30:16] Cam: Meditation Bros or meditation dude you know what I'm talking about have you seen this no but I it's probably specifically targeted to me because of our conversations I'm sure uh but it was like an Instagram advertisement of like sign up and come and join us we're a bunch of bros that like to get together and like meditate talk about life and [ __ ] and well clearly Bros are desperate for this stuff man I mean let's be honest like there's a lot of people who are not even just males but like dude a lot of us are lonely as all [ __ ] yeah a lot of us humans we're just looking for something real too you know I mean we're

[01:30:57] Jacob: We're entrenched in reality TV versions of everything that's going on whether it's politics or you know the geopolitical [ __ ] or um just entertainment in general actual reality TV you know it's like everything is Kardashian ified and so for us to link up and be able to set our armor down without the judgment and just like hey man I'm having a human experience aren't you and the other person's like yeah dud dude like that's what we need You know me too absolutely I Think there's something to be said about

[01:31:32] Cam: Um having like a premise of why you get together you know and I don't know what exactly a premise could be but whether it's just connection you know because I can tell you right now starting my day with this conversation with you is going to set me off on a on a trajectory uh that's going to be different than yesterday you know um just being able to share with you and be able to connect with you on such a level is going to make me just feel good all day long it's like we are connecting uh we're connected individuals we seek connection we love to connect something about like laughter like laughter is not for yourself like laughter is for connection right and love it makes you feel good so like why wouldn't you do it kind of thing you know so I wonder like how much we could take that into it and say how well can we just connect with one another what if it is literally just like we get together and we sit around and we talk to each other and that's what we do it's like we have like a one-on-one like setting of like you know you just have conversations with people and connect and then you share about what do you think um what do you what are you thinking right now and you share with like in a group setting it's like you go from a one-on-one to a group and then just see where it goes yeah I mean I there's the there's a saying in the meditative world uh yoga specifically Namaste you've heard that and it and it means the light in me sees and honors the light in you and I think that

[01:33:00] Jacob: By us creating containers or holding

[01:33:03] Cam: Space um and just sharing like what's going on within us or like hey here's some things I'm going through suddenly it shines a light or allows space for the light of someone else to take the stage like suddenly you know someone might show up they were not even thinking about these things they were not planning on talking about them but like here I am sharing about my childhood trauma and soing they're like they feel okay to talk about theirs and suddenly they just process something they did not even realize they wanted to process needed to process but there was room for it and so they showed up and suddenly now that thing that maybe he's been plagg them for 20 years has just been vocalized and their body feels a little bit lighter you know so I think the Light in Me loves and and gives permission to light in you whatever it is yeah just by showing up and living authentically or living or just sharing what the hell we're going through as a human it opens the space for the person the other people around you know it really does yes dude I just had a rad idea yeah okay what about this here's like another like uh it's just like a taper off of this I guess or like a sidearm what if specifically because you and I are both in the event industry where like we can find ourselves in other places and wondering like where we fit in what we're doing whatever what if we had some sort of Meetup that was like for that reason like the thought of having something where it's like we almost like aren't

[01:34:33] Jacob: Even dependent or don't even really care how local you are we're specifically targeting like you aren't local or you're just here for a day or you're in the event business or you're here for a week or you're a traveling nurse and you don't have anybody or whatever it is so good I love this typically angling towards like people that just don't have anybody to connect to you know yeah

[01:34:58] Cam: How cool would that be it's like you find a way to like Bridge connections with people that like we have been in that like it's coming from a place of servitude where like you and I have both been in another place like me right now in this strange land where I don't know anybody here and my connection like my day is going to change because the connection I'm having with you right now how much you do that on like a weekly basis with like other people in the city people that just they don't have anybody to connect with and they don't have any um they don't have any friends or whatever it is and you just start with that like how cool would that be to say you know this is like we're benefiting we're trying to like serve from a place that we've all been at before yeah yeah I heard man I heard this term this morning the room is not the room it just makes me think of like um uh I'm sorry I'm trying to sew too many things into this but like yeah like a Community without a place like a floating Community like the community is like we're creating an in-person Community but we all travel so like the meeting spot's never the same um the time and space is never the same but like our uh we all travel and we create this like we create this space when we decide we all have this thing we want to accomplish together and we meet up and suddenly that thing is sprouted I mean it makes me think of like dude because I travel a lot too for work and in the event industry the way to connect is drinking unfortunately that's like it's a big part of our in the event World um you know so sometimes more than less and I'm not just saying like it's a bunch of Alcoholics or anything but it really is like and after you work 18 hour days it's nice to have a beer you know and I haven't drank for a couple years myself but like I still there is instances of that just shedding the day and being able to just BS with your co-workers about whatever went on that day or even not even talk about work and just Bond and you know complaint or whatever it is with the people you're traveling with or at a hotel bar whatever it is nice but you know you like me you know I don't drink anymore and so I avoid those areas like I don't even want to go have you know fries and a burger or whatever like I just don't even want to be around it I end up just putting headphones on and having like a spiritual practice to recharge on my own but if there's a container we could create or um encourage other people to create on their own too of a place to meet up that's not just drinking when you're traveling I think inevitably it'll be spiritual you know I think it be R man what if it is something like in this format too what if it is some sort of um it could be a um wow it could be like a zoom format it could be a uh like a digital format as well I guess it doesn't have to be in person you know even just for you and I and um for any anyone else in the same person position um I don't know how that would look or how that would work especially you know just because of uh time uh schedules and and things like that but yeah that's another that's another thing to look at too so I mean I think putting our putting a best foot forward to making it happen not saying like Hey we're going to start this and now going forward every Sunday at 2 pm we do this like you know we don't have access to that right now but I think leaving this conversation with the intention of trying to sprout that and then going forward I think I would just like to even with my recent meditation t-shir certification stuff I would like to um not that I want to like lead all these things all the time like I think there's a way for me to maybe connect us maybe I could guide us through a quick little meditation then I would love to like just be another person and not um you know I'm not I'm not fully prepared to start my cult at this time I have a lot of paperwork to do before I start a CT so dang d s great uh but yeah I love this man I think I think that's so cool I think there's a lot of room for this and I think there's uh we'll probably find that you know there'll be some fellas and ladies alike listening to this part of the podcast that will be like hell yeah that sounds really cool so we should dive more into this man 100 perc 100 perc rad I've got so it's I do need to go and I think that we are at time much but um I have so many more ideas now than I had in hour ago and so

[01:39:19] Jacob: Yeah I'll be calling you later on yeah that sounds good too well man we'll to do podcasts more often like I said I love talking to you it's always a pleasure man so anytime you have like a Wellspring of ideas that you want to get out to the world hit me up and we'll schedule podcast man I always love talking to you absolutely I would love to yeah I uh Kim thank you so much man thank you for doing this we've been talking about getting a podcast on for a while there'll be many more I'm sure um thank you for allowing the free flow just hang out part of things like uh it was very fulfilling to me it was so fun hanging out with you man I had I am so grateful that you even asked

[01:39:56] Cam: Me to do it I feel embarrassed to say that I hadn't even really looked at your podcast until like the last night and I started looking I was like oh my God he's got like over a 100 episodes he's got a bunch of people on here I was like I feel so grateful to be even asked for this you know um I really appreciate it and uh it's given me an outlet uh to share in this morning that I never would have thought of um and uh yeah man I love the connection that you and I share and I love uh the the ideas that we can both just kind of like free base and just not have to worry about where they go it's very enlightening to know um that you know we haven't known each other for that long the connection that we have is pretty rad um so yeah uh great stuff man and um yeah I'd love to share some more ideas with you later on yeah absolutely man yeah I'm grateful for I'm grateful for our connection and how we met and um really like the whole community of homies around you that I've got to

[01:40:56] Outro: Like you know meet and interact with and um it's made my time in Austin incredibly valuable so I'm grateful for grateful for your friendship man this was really cool hell yeah well I appreciate everything Jacob yeah well uh listeners you know the drill if you haven't drank any water at this point in your day what are you doing dude drink some water get hydrated if you haven't stretched today stretch out move around move that fascia get movement get outside if you haven't got side love yourself um if you want to hear more from cam comment below um cam if you'd like I can include your Instagram and whatnot in the description reach out to questions and uh yeah I guess we'll see you next time that be right hey do me a favor and Link that um that personality test in there because I'm curious about that yeah everybody uh look below it'll be I think it'll be the mbti uh I think that's what it what it's for but regardless yeah it's like the infj ENFP uh whatever whatever uh it's valuable when I first learned about I'm just continually going I'm sorry uh when I first learned about it was like a pretty much brought me to tears moment For me personally some someone who like deeply wants to understand himself um and when I read the synopsis like took the test a couple times it gave me the thing here's what you are here's how you think bro for me when I was reading it was like deeply moving I was like I've never felt so seen by any text Before this moment so anyway I'll include that check it out do the thing below and um C love you buddy we'll see you next time absolutely love you too buddy have a bad dayat Brother knowledge is Power reality is junkyard love podcast