The JYLP 0112 with David Crayk - 'True Teachings' - Interviewing My High-School Theatre Teacher

[00:00:01] Intro: Junkyard Love podcast. At what age do we learn how to have better comprehensive Junkyard Love podcast? David Crayk, welcome to the Junkyard Love podcast, my brother. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. Like I've said a million times, I'm over the moon. I'm so excited. I love it. Thank you, man. Thank you for the opportunity.

[00:00:23] David: The pleasure is all mine, really. Yeah. Just see seeing you again and seeing you flourish is, you know, amazing to me.

[00:00:31] Jacob: Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a beautiful thing to be able to have our teachers on our Facebook still like it sounds like this low like oh it's Kind of nice but it's actually very beautiful. How does that feel for you as a teacher to have your students in like You know you have your couple years with them and you get to know them intricately and then you watch them grow for 10 15 years later. What is that even like? Uh it's pretty amazing. Um, I

[00:01:01] David: Have about I think about 650 former students on my Facebook and um, you Know, just see them flourish like you said, see them have kids, be parents, um, all that stuff. And, and what's really cool through Facebook, I've kind of been able to not only keep tabs on them, but I've actually like visited them and gone to their weddings and things like that, you know? So, you can't really put a value on that. I mean, it's just amazing that you're able to do that and you know, this technology kind of gives us that opportunity, you know, and uh you're right. You know, I only knew him for a short couple of years, but now, you know, some of them are like 50 years old and stuff, you know, they're grandparents. So, it's really cool to see them, you know, like progress through their own lives. And of course, you know, there's a double-edged sword to everything. And, you know, unfortunately, some people haven't made it that were my students.

[00:01:54] Jacob: And that's, you know, tragic, of course, but uh, you know, that's kind of the way life rolls. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to be able to have that open connection with them and kind of like drop in and see what they're doing and also, you know, if they ever need some advice from old uh Mr. Crayk, you know, they can they have that open door. You know, we have our magic rectangle that's just an open window to great perspective and advice if they want it. You know, it's funny quite a few have taken advantage of that opportunity over the years. what have they said like what are kind of the you don't have to share like super details but like what is the kind of thing that someone approaches you with of like hey can I get your perspective on this? Well, I think you know, um, a lot of times it's the posts that they make on and then I kind of like throw out something to kind of soothe their whatever is ailing them or something like that and then they'll message me privately and tell me this is what's happened. You know, they'll tell me something that's happened in their life and then from there I just give them kind of my perspective on it. And

[00:02:58] David: At the very least, it kind of, you know, gives them an opportunity to realize, hey, this is going to pass. I can I'm I have what it takes to get over this. And I've talked some people off a ledge, frankly. You know, they've just wanted to throw up their hands and give up. And whatever encouraging word that I said to them ended up telling to take the step towards the future, you know, instead of just throwing up their hands and giving up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a really powerful position to be in. Um I've had my own instances of those same things. I was just talking with a friend the other day. He uh he texted me uh he's another another Kelsea guy class 2010 and he texted me this long text. He's like, "Man, I just I was driving and uh it was wet outside, you know, there was a big puddle and he said he was about to smash the puddle, but last second he noticed that there was there was a guy that he would have just totally douched if he hit it." And so he like kind of swerved and he like I guess he kind of made eye contact with the guy of like I see you know and he kept going and then he was he parked and he was going to the gym or something and the guy approached him and the guy was like held out his hand and said hey man I just want to say thank you for not splashing me like you know it you didn't have to go out of your way to not splash me and I noticed that you did so thank you and he kind of expressed that he was having a tough day and that like really helped him out.

[00:04:16] Jacob: So, it's just like, man, us just acting off these like little intuitions of not even necessarily like I'm going to save this guy's life, but just being encouraging to someone or giving them like a hey, you're okay is pretty powerful stuff, you know? It could be everything. It could be something so small to us, natural to us a lot of the times. Like a lot of us are so loving, you know, if we just lean into it a little bit, you know, something so little to us could be massive to someone else, you know. Well, I think it's really a surprise to them that I am still monitoring them or following them and you know, sometimes they say some things that alarm me that realize that they're hurting in some ways and uh just the fact that you know that I can say something to them, something positive, which is what I used to do with them. I said positive things back in the day and of course you know they all trust me and

[00:05:10] David: Then they just they're okay after that.

[00:05:12] Jacob: Then they go forward, you know. Yeah. And like you said, that positive thing. I mean, you know, and I don't even a lot of times try to solve their problem. I just say, "Hey, listen. You can do this. This is going to pass. This is kind of the way things are, you know, you got to, you know, keep going forward." And

[00:05:28] David: Then everything's cool. Yeah. Yeah. A

[00:05:31] Jacob: Little encouragement goes a long way. Yes. Especially from a from a figure

[00:05:36] David: That they trust, you know. Um I So

[00:05:40] Jacob: What was that like? I mean now and then even you know when you cuz I think about me like my sister and I were talking about you know like we didn't we didn't necessarily at that time we certainly didn't have a father figure that we you know and I don't want to project like you know project father figuress all over you know um but I wonder like do you do you contemplate that like you know are you aware when you're a teacher of hey I kind of know that these kids don't really have someone they're looking up to at home so I'm going to lean in a little more or is this Is this really just like a non-intentional natural state for you to be in? I guess like what's that position like? So, I

[00:06:19] David: Think back in those days I made, you know, my learning environment a safe place for people to be. And, you know, let's be honest, I wasn't attracting the football player, cheerleader type, you know, the ones that you would call the cool kids, right? I attracted kids that needed a place to be, a safe place, and I provided that safe place. And man, along the way, I made it super fun for them, and they're like, "Whoa, this dude, you know, he's making things safe for me. He's there's no judgment here. He doesn't allow it, you know, we're kind of like this cool community. we have our thing here, you know, and uh so they, you know, word of mouth kind of spread and the next thing you know, my classes were bustling at the seams, you know, and you know, there were some kids that I spent a lot of time with more than others, like for example, your sister. I mean, I spent a lot of time with her cuz she helped me with almost everything that had to do with the technical side. I mean, I relied on her heavily. In fact, there's many times I'd tell her, "Hey, Katie, you got to go to class sometime." You know, it's like you can't. And I would have kids that would show up that weren't, you know, like, "Okay, why are you here? You should be in another class." But they wanted to be there. And, you know, I think pe I think

[00:07:30] Jacob: Kids naturally saw me as that person that they could look to, father figure, whatever it was. I don't think I leaned in anymore for anybody unless they came to me and I thought they needed that. So, yeah, it just come it pretty much came naturally for me, you know? everywhere I've gone. It's a It's a It's a good place to be. It's a like we were talking about before and I probably said on this podcast a bunch of times, we're talking about um you know how you can kind of work on yourself in a way or like your relationship with yourself allows you to show up and then be an environment for others to then do the same, you know? And it's cool, you know, when you're a teacher, especially and we had that great theater at Kelso, too. um like

[00:08:14] David: Your space of like just your uh your personhood, you know, that people felt comfortable in. It extended, you know, like it extended to that theater there. Just like a car when we're driving, like you can kind of you can kind of sense the edges of where your bumpers are. You kind of know where everything is. It kind of becomes you in a sense like the room you're in if you know if you're a powerfully um if you're a powerful being that like allows other people to feel safe in that environment like you became that stage too, man. Yeah, you're right. And what's really interesting is I mean, you know, we always met in that back room first, but then once we got to the stage, everything kind of came to life. And as kids grew confident, you know, they started doing some magical things there. You know, they just felt really good in their own skin. They just started creating things. And man, we saw some magical things on that stage. Like I was in Bend a couple of weeks ago and I saw this they had this kind of like community comedy show where this guy kind of organized and at the end they had this group of uh improv people, you know, they went up there and they would throw out some kind of idea and do the improv. Yeah. And the whole time I kept on thinking, you know what? If they could have just seen these kids at Kelso, I don't know, 20 years ago or whatever, how many years ago it was, they could realize that they look like amateurs up there, even though they are these older people that, you know, that's their thing, right? That's what they do for fun, right? And they had this kind of little uh improv troop they had a kind of a cute name for. But man, some of the things that happened on that stage was just amazing. I mean, to this day, when I go and see any kind of play or anything, I realize just how close I got to almost being professional even. It was just it's scary. Yeah. The natural talent I think back like some of those guys that were in that class, like I mean, they're just awesome guys anyway, but like just the talent that was displayed. And I remember so we did um I can't remember if it was my senior year or my junior year, but it was it was one of your times we did a like a like 10 skits or something. It was basically like an a improv night,

[00:10:18] Jacob: But there were skits, SNL kind of thing. It was like a variety show. We included the choir. Yeah. They did musical numbers in between. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, thinking back to that, I mean, I maybe if I watched a video, it wouldn't be as gut bustingly funny, but I think I feel like those were some really funny skits. Like those guys were smart, man. They we had some funny stuff in there. Yeah. You know what's really interesting? You know, those were in the days when we had these things called rubrics, right?

[00:10:45] David: And I don't know if you remember this or not or I was even doing this at the time when cuz you know that I was there eight years so there's a stretch of people right um so I had these rubrics and you know you it was you know you would rate whatever their skid or whatever performance they did from one to four and of course beforehand I introduced the rubric and what I was looking for and kids over and over again hit the

[00:11:10] Jacob: Fours right I mean it was not a stretch for them because like you said there was so much talent there and I seem to be able to bring it out, right? But I kept on saying to myself, okay, we have these rubrics to go by. So, and all the kids are pretty, you know, sure that they can meet these rubrics. Very few even got threes. I mean, everything was just coming out was dynamic. But then I started I got this inspiration. I was like, you know what? I want to take it to another level. Can I take it to another level? So, I come up with this idea. It just came to me. I mean, I don't know what inspired it other than I just wanted to take it to another level to start giving out fives once in a while. And I and when I gave out a five, kids would go, "A five, but it only goes to four." And I go, "When you get a five, that means you did something extraordinarily amazing." And and they go, "Well, so then afterwards people go, well, we should have a rubric for a five, you know, so we know how to achieve that." I go, "No, when you when everybody sees the five, everybody will know it." And I will definitely know it because, you know, I'm a trained eye. But I said, 'It'll be so overwhelmingly cool and amazing and entertaining and just dynamic that everyone will know, hey, that's a five. Y and of course, I started giving kids instant feedback after they did skits, so the other kids could hear me say what I was going to say, and I never rarely said anything negative at all. So after a while these kids kept coming to me man did I get a five? Did I get a five? And the next thing I know the level which was already high went to this stratosphere. It went

[00:12:45] David: To the strat I think you had already graduated actually when I had come up with this inspiration and I was seeing some magical things. I mean it was just it would and they were like trying to top each other. It was like oh my gosh I got to get a five. I got to get a five. you know up. Yeah. And it was pretty special period of time there. Well, it's I mean it's so crazy to it really is fascinating to raise the bar and realize how valiantly and wonderfully people will rise raise right to it. You know what I mean? Like uh it reminds me of the Travis Pastana. He was the first one to land the first backflip on a on a BMX or a dirt bike. I know. I know who

[00:13:26] Jacob: He is. Yeah. Yeah. And then so you know right after that within weeks, days or whatever it was, everyone's nailing back flips. It's like you know the four fourminute mile same thing, right? And it is it is so cool that by being inspiring, by just being encouraging, by like saying, "Hey, I think you could do better." And they're like, "Okay, I guess we'll try to do better." And every was like, "We could we could do better."

[00:13:49] David: It's exciting. It's uh contagious, you know. It's very fun to be inspiring and encouraging. And I'm sure your attitude as the teacher, even when you're out of earshot, I bet you the peer-to-peer conversation was like fairly encouraging as well. Yeah, the word of mouth there was amazing. It got to the point where there was so many kids in the class, it's like we had to start thinking about, okay, maybe we have to put a waiting list or something. And what's really weird is I actually got called into the powers that be, you know, I won't really go into that too much. And they actually thought I was recruiting. So I was like, "No, it's just that these kids are taking it to the streets themselves and selling this." In fact, you know, if the kids weren't included in the class, someone were just showing up like I said before, and I'd have to say, "Hey, why are you here?" You know, it's like, you know, you're going to get me in trouble here, right? Told me I could come. they thought I was recruiting uh so that I can make more money, you know. And of course, I've never been, you know, monetarily, you know, motivated, you know. This wasn't about that. This was just about the magic that came. And what was really cool about this, I never really defined what a five was, but everybody knew where what, you know, I wanted something better, and that's what they just kept going for. Yeah. Yeah. Knowing that it's attainable, knowing that it's that it's there and that you could hit it, you know. It's and also I think what's fun about acting and creating is you know when you're trying to it's just like jamming with a band like you know that you could hit that thing where you guys just get in the groove and you're going you're like we oh we're in it now you know we're making a song we're jamming like we're creating the thing you know just knowing that it's available um and knowing that the people around you and you are collectively working towards it

[00:15:34] Jacob: Is that's like this guy um uh Rafe Oh jeez, I forget his name. Darn it.

[00:15:42] David: Rafe Kelly maybe. Um, he is like a

[00:15:45] Jacob: Parkour guy. Uh, you know, like a like like run running and like jumping and doing like tricks and whatever. And they talk about serious play. And uh he he breaks down parkour as being serious play. It's like this athletic endeavor of people together that they just, you know, end up they turn the world into a into a jungle gym basically. Um, and and I like to I think since I heard about that, I always see other areas where serious play is a thing. And um, you know, we're talking about our teenage years for sure. You know, we're we're outside of our adolescence when we're talking about this, but I think even in drama class, in improv class, in in acting, that's definitely a place for serious play. Like you can finally set down the whatever you think you need to be, whatever. You know, you're mad at your mom cuz she made you do this and whatever. You know, you got your teenage things, but in your class, you get to set it all down and have some serious play. You don't have to be yourself so much. You could just express and have fun and you could be laughter with your friends. You know what was really cool about that whole thing is when I showed up on the scene and as you know, usually

[00:16:55] David: You have a textbook with the class, right? And there was no textbook. So everything that you got, Jacob, I created pretty much. I mean, I borrowed some stuff, you know, that I knew like some of the drama games, but some of those drama games I come up with myself and kids would just like, "Okay, what are we going to do today?" They were like coming and it got to the point as every year went by, I had to keep topping myself. I had to create move, new games. I had to come up with new exercises for them to do. Like, you know, I think, do you remember Uncle Joe's funeral? We did that elaborate thing, Uncle Joe's funeral. It doesn't ring a bell yet, but might. Well, anyway, so I come up with these scenarios. Uncle Joe's funeral, heroes, bomb shelter, and all these kind of scenarios, and they all had to create characters, and we went in this deep dive, you know, like they created their own story as it kind of evolved, right, and created their characters and stuff, especially like the one the heroes that was, you know, they had to create their own superhero. And I told him, you can't you can't duplicate it. You got to come up with your own original superhero to fit into this. And I would give them a scenario, right? And this I mean, we would spend I don't know, four or five weeks doing this thing. And it was just it was like almost like we produced our own movie on the stage, you know? And I just it just kept getting crazy like that. And then I they come in the next year and they go, "Okay, what which one are we going to do this time?" you know, we did Uncle Joe's funeral because, you know, the first couple years I used Uncle Joe's funeral until, you know, because it was so brilliant, all the different characters and Uncle Joe's funeral, I kind of gave the characters, right? And then they had to choose them and then kind of make the character their own. But as time went by, they started creating their own characters when the scenario. So, so I just kept building and building and building. But man, they challenged me to come up with new stuff all the time, you know, and it just it's just amazing because it was kind of a mystery like, okay, what's he gonna do today? You know, they would come in, what are we going to do today? What are we going to do today? We're all so excited and it was just like almost overwhelming, but for some reason, I was able to keep that challenge and being a kind of a creative person, it fed into that whole love of of creating things, right, for me. And it just kept challenging me, you know, and I just kept on somehow I delivered.

[00:19:08] Jacob: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's very inspiring. I think I said something like that in a message, but from my standpoint

[00:19:14] David: When I was younger, I think I saw you I always just loved I admired any adult who could kind of like break the adult mold, like the like what we're so serious and we go to meetings and like I don't know. For some reason, I had this like when I was a kid, I just I wanted to just like you're playing a game and you don't know it. like just chill out for a second. Like let's just, you know, let's just talk. I had this like weird thing. And uh I don't know. I never got that from you. Like it didn't seem like you were trying to ever play any games. You were just who you were. Right. Right. Right. You know, it's like And here was another thing, too, is I mean, you got to be honest. I got the unmotivated and I took the unmotivated and motivated them, you know, and it just kept happening over and over. And then what So here's an example I'm talking about. Sometimes through word of mouth, I'd get a guy that really didn't really fit in there, right? Because I had a certain type of kid that was kind of flourishing there. And they would show up and they would do one of two things. They would either go, "Oh, I want to check this out cuz it's kind of fun." Cuz every day in my class pretty much was fun. And I don't think any teacher could say their class was as fun as mine. I'll stand to the day I die to say that. And or they would come in and try to bully me, like, you know, misbehave on purpose. and do all that and you know what I would just go okay what's you know what's this guy about you know and he would come in and a lot of times it would be seniors for some reason the older kid older kids would do this and the other kids would take this kid aside and say listen it off this is

[00:20:46] Jacob: Mr. Crayk, you're going to respect him.

[00:20:48] David: If you don't want to be here, transfer out because we want to have fun and you're delaying our fun. In fact, I would just say, well, you know, that's one of the things I would say, well, we're not going to go to the fun as long as we're misbehaving. And so, I never really had to control my class. I'd just have to say something like that and they would just police themselves. And it got to the point where you get a guy like that, they would police them. They would police them for me. I wouldn't even have to go and talk to them. Yeah. And the kid would do one of two things. he would leave or he'd stay. And I'd often have those type of kids that would stay and flourish. And then they would come up to me on their senior, you know, when they were graduating and say, "You know what? I wish I would have taken this when I was a freshman because it you taught me so much more than any other class in a lot of for life skills.

[00:21:34] Jacob: Like I became confident. I you know, I felt good about myself. I always felt good when I was in your class. It was always positive." And I realized that, you know, me, I have this kind of side where I pick on others to make myself feel good. And I didn't have to do that anymore. What a great class this is. You know, it's like I wish I would have taken a long time ago. Yeah. And I got that over and over. Yeah. That's powerful, though. I mean, to like be able to reach that kid who refuses to be reached, you know what I mean? And you did it by not saying like I'm authority and you need to do what I say, but you did it by fostering the environment to where like you know you're I'm going to use the word cronies. You're cronies basically like came in like hey man this place is cool. Like if you lean in it's like we're going to have some fun here. Let's do this thing you know. Right. Right. And you know it was a beautiful thing because I didn't really have to you know do any kind of disciplinary stuff cuz everybody just was like hey we want to have fun. We get it. Every once in a while have to remind them, you know, because as a group they might get a lot of hand and mainly because when you're playing, I mean, I'm not going to re in that too much, right? I wanted the play to happen, right? Because like you said, that's what I really accentuated. And there were certain things that they love that I didn't do a lot. I made them special. Like I had this game called Silent Froz. I don't know if you remember that one. I don't know. My memory, man. I'm sorry. I'm sure I had a blast. Well, anyways, when I say silent, you just walk around on stage silent and move. And then I'd say freeze and you'd have to freeze. If you move, then you'd have you'd be out in the audience, right? And if I said bomb, you had to hit the floor, right? Yes. And that game was so fun for everybody. They just they

[00:23:19] David: Like, "Hey, let's play Silent Froz." Because, you know, I'd always have two or three uh you know, things like clump

[00:23:25] Jacob: Or up sideways down or something that we would do to warm up, right? And but silent frozen bombs I always I'd go in we're going to do silent frozen bombs and they would go oh you know they get they'd start cheering almost right and there was I can't remember who he was there was one guy was like it was hard to eliminate him but I you know and of course I had these little tricks it really you know I knew it was my own creative thing but it was a really a take off on Simon says in a way. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. So, how do you see in in retrospect now that you look back or I mean maybe even during that time you were you were acutely aware of it. How do you see how you taught differently than maybe other teachers? And I'm not just saying like at Kelso High School. I'm just saying like teachers or like um anybody with a teaching opportunity to young people. Um as a young person,

[00:24:19] David: If that teacher isn't inspired with what they're doing, it's hard for the kid doesn't necessarily get inspired. And I feel like, you know, you led with your inspiration, like it's just at the front of your chest, you know, and that I feel like that's why, um, I mean, someone like me when I was, you know, I was I was a little, you know, kind of a punk rock kid, like I didn't really like other people telling me what to do, but I would just I was so willing to do whatever you had going on, you know. Um, so I guess I wonder like and I also think about I'm always thinking about like new teachers who might be listening like how may maybe they could approach their own teaching life too. Um yeah, I guess maybe just being inspired as a

[00:24:58] Jacob: Teacher or a leader versus not being inspired like where do you see the importance of that? Well, um, you know, obviously as a student when I was growing up, I had a role model that I looked to and you know, at that time, of course, I never knew I was going to be a teacher someday, even though this guy really totally inspired me. And frankly,

[00:25:22] David: When I became a teacher, there's a guy named by the name of Greg Shook. And this is I grew up in Southern California. And this guy looked like Warren Batty, you know, when he was rightly good-looking, like Warren Batty. I don't know if you know anything about him, but he was kind of a legendary guy with the women. This guy would I mean, we'd see him at lunchtime today sometimes and he had a sports car back in those days when everybody had these fuddy duddy cars and he always had his, you know, it seemed like he was dating a beautiful woman. And so it was like I was completely drawn to him. And then

[00:25:57] Jacob: He used to he's taught this thing called contemporary affairs. And of course this was during the Vietnam War, so we had a lot to talk about, right? Uh this shows you how old I am. But um and he dressed

[00:26:09] David: Like I don't know, he look dressed like

[00:26:13] Jacob: Um well, he kind of dressed like Steve McQueen, you know, he was just this cool guy, right? and he'd walk in and he had the toe uh some pointed toe boots and and just everybody was just like, "Wow, this guy's terrific." And he had this complete charisma. And so when I became a teacher, that was kind of my role model for what I wanted to be. And to me, it's like even though you have to have your own style, I kind of borrowed from him in a certain way. And he was kind of a rebel. And I've always been kind of this rebellious guy. I mean, I gotta tell you that um I really thought outside the box most

[00:26:50] David: Of the time I was teaching there, you know, when you were in my student and that didn't go over very well because when you dare to be different, which is my lifetime motto and that's what definitely way Greg Shook was. Um you

[00:27:05] Jacob: Become a target for those of the powers that be and sometimes it's a green eye of jealousy, right? And they want to try to think what's this guy doing? what's he have you know and for me to transfer that whole thing even though Greg Shook was my model and what's really interesting about him is he would talk about the Vietnam War and he'd have all these great insights and we were all learning and we're all like I couldn't wait to get to his class right because it was so exciting but then one day the administrators came to him and said where's the books and he started had he says I'm sorry but I got to take the books out so we'd have these books and then we'd start reading the you know the boring stuff and we're like and then finally he I think he did it maybe two class periods and then he when we showed up the third class period he started reading the books and he said ah what the heck and he threw the book against the wall and just said collect the books up we're going back the way I want to do it and you know I mean there's a lot of risk to that you know and not and I never had a textbook to go by while I was there you know I didn't have it all you know you know mapped out so and you know when I came to school I had fun, too. I mean, I was making all of you guys have fun, too. Not making you. We You joined in the fun. But, man, that wasn't like work to me then. I mean, I've taught other things over the years, right? A good teacher can teach anything. But when you bring your own style and your own creativity and your own curriculum and your own, it becomes your baby, right? And you start tweaking it, you see the results of it. And I

[00:28:40] David: Mean, you know, you talk about somebody's love language and their love tank being full, you know, like mine is words of affirmation. I can tell you what, kids would come in every single day and give me words of affirmation. And of course, I would return it, too. Yeah. I never was negative. I didn't judge them, you know, and if you're a teacher and you want to be in that little box that they put you in, it's going to be a hard day for you. And it's getting to the point now, you know, where teachers hands are kind of tied. They can't get as close to students as I once did. I'd like to see

[00:29:14] Jacob: Them go back to that. Do you do you see a world where we might be leaning more back into that? I don't actually I see I see it going the other way. Yeah. I don't In fact, the call the people that I know that are still teaching, they just can't wait to get out. And it used to be such a joy to go to class and teach people like you and your sister and you know I can name constantly you know just down the road and there was kids that were so unsure of themselves and so not feeling good about the being in their own skin and they you know they were getting picked on you know outside of our class.

[00:29:51] David: They'd come in our class, they were a different guy. And as time goes by, they started getting confidence to stand up to those people. Mhm. And they started creating things and started getting, you know, say, "Hey, I can do things." And there's a lot of former students that have gone into the creative side or still trying to figure out a way to write to make money being creative, right? That were all in that program at that time because I know I follow them. Yeah. Yeah. And the ones that have walked against it are really unhappy people, but the ones that stuck to that are seem to be happy. Well, so when when you have conversations with people who are still teaching, um I don't know. I guess I try to think I was almost afraid that you would say that actually because I, you know, you kind of hear that, you can kind of get it. I mean, I think it be must be so difficult to be a teacher regardless of any subject. Just, you know, I think of things like technology. I'm sure that if I was a kid, I'm sure that I would be right now when we have like chat GPT in these things, I'm sure that I would be such a smartass to my teachers about like they're trying to explain something, but I've got the answer on my phone from chat GPT. I'm sure I would, you know, it just it must

[00:30:57] Jacob: Be so difficult. Um, so those people that you talk to, I'm sure they reach them some ways, right? I'm sure there's like certain students they reach. like what uh what do you think people in today's modern climate are doing to still reach their students in some way? Is there anything? Well, I

[00:31:15] David: Think that if they make their class interesting and it has a lot to do with their subject matter, then that's how they reach people. If they make it interesting and fun, that's important.

[00:31:27] Jacob: But unfortunately, when they when they reach to do that, they have the administrators tell them, "Well, wait a second. We have to do these certain things, right?" And you know this really they have to really be careful getting close to kids like it wasn't a problem

[00:31:40] David: Before. And um I would have a feeling

[00:31:43] Jacob: That I would have even more trouble with the powers that be if I was a teacher today cuz I would there's no way I would compromise. I'd still be that guy, you know? Yeah. Yeah. You want me to stop being human to this person right to their face cuz it doesn't work on paper.

[00:31:58] David: Like come on.

[00:32:00] Jacob: You know, you got to have the human element in there, you know? It just be because we're all robbitons, you know, just walking around feeling, you know, waiting for the bell to ring, right? Yeah.

[00:32:11] David: Yeah. Yeah. For what? Like what, you know, what's your end goal, you know, like what's um I remember back in those days, you know, we'd be you'd do our warm up and then we'd have whatever we were working on at the time and we'd all like meet in groups and get ready to create and the next thing you know, the bell would ring and everybody like, "Wow, you know, I don't want to go to my next class." Right? I mean, if you can get that kind of excitement, uh, that's a really great thing. And you know what? Those 45 48 minute class periods or whatever it was might have drugg on when you were taking algebra, but they didn't drag on when you were in my class. They were like, "Oh my goodness, I want to I want to keep doing it. I want, you know, I don't want to stop. It was hard." And I'd say, "Well, we got to go." You know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're interested in something, it's so nice to be able to lean into it and it's and it's worthwhile, especially when there's an adult saying like, "Hey, you're having fun and like that's what you're supposed to be doing." Like, it's good that you feel excited, you know? You don't have to be nervous about the test that all the time, you know? Um I think the

[00:33:12] Jacob: Um I don't know. I mean, I even think back. So, I was I for me, it's very easy to love your class. Like even before I just I loved acting and all that stuff. I feel that um I mean I felt at home obviously immediately when I walked in. Everybody felt that way when they walked in your class. But it was just super exciting for me. But even you know uh history for example was not ever anything. I think even at a young age I was always very much like how are you guys so sure that it happened like this? That is an insanely like what a what a leap. like someone wrote this down and then you believed them and then this person wrote that like history was always something when people were telling me I'm like are really that's what happened? But I will say there was this gentleman um I don't know if you ever knew him but he was around the same time Mr. Clawson uh he was he was a history teacher there and I remember like he would show us videos and he got my attention cuz and I don't want as I'm saying this I don't want to like incriminate everything. it's been so many years, but um he would basically show us world war or he would show us war movies and he would pause it at certain points and more or less say like that's That didn't happen. Like he would kind of like break it down and tell us he would give us his personal experience, show us a little bit of like what the movies and Hollywood say and then he would tell us what really happened and then kind of explain the portrayal of like why it was said to be this way or hey, you know, Hollywood is going to obviously add a romance in there that's going to make you like focus on these different things. I remember that stood out to me.

[00:34:41] David: Um because he was, you know, he was someone who was willing to like kind of break the thing because he wanted to teach us something that was like he was actually passionate about. He wanted to tell us like what his view of the world really was. And suddenly when they break that when they pause the movie and say, "Hey, that didn't happen. That was bullshit." Suddenly you get guys like me who are paying attention. I wasn't paying attention before and suddenly I'm like, "Huh, this guy's being truthful to us." So I just think like any subject, you know, if the teacher can kind of there I think there's a reason why that teacher even began teaching in the first place, you know, there's like something that they want to lean into and express to other people and um yeah, I don't know. I think as a student, we could feel when they're hitting it, you know, we could feel when they're when they're on that pulse because we get to be a part of that. It's beautiful thing. Yes. And you know, as we know, uh, history that we learn in the books, there's a lot of things in the gray areas that we're learning now because of technology. And you can just almost Google it. And of course, even when you

[00:35:39] Jacob: Google it, you have to go, okay, maybe this isn't true, too. So, you don't It's getting to the point now where we were like, people are rewriting history. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how much it's such a kind of a weird sentence and it takes you down a path that you want to be careful with, but how do you know you could trust those Google results? You know, like ju just because master daddy Google says it happened doesn't mean it was exactly that way, you know, and you know, that's just a part of like getting older and learning about perspectives and you know, the old like the winners of history are the ones who write history and that sort of stuff. So there's a man in this information landscape we have here. It definitely is I think everyone can resonate just trying to figure out what the what the hell is truthful what's actually going on. But I think the best bet for me I'm always I love trusting my intuition. I love when the person across from me is speaking truthfully and I sense that they're speaking truthfully. I love just 100% allowing that and trying to like I don't know. I like trusting my intuition is what I'm trying to say. No, I get it. Yeah. Um, okay. So, leading

[00:36:48] David: Off with talking about new teachers. So, so new time teachers who are coming into the world of teaching. Um, even people who maybe think of young people who might be maybe inspired to try to see they're saying, "Hey, look, we've got other teachers who are saying they want to get out of here. They're not really able to the administrative stuff is like getting in their way. They're not able to teach." But you got people listening right now who are probably like, "Nah, I don't accept that. I'm going to find a way to teach these kids.

[00:37:13] Jacob: I'm gonna I'm gonna find my way." Um, what words of encouragement might you have for those people? Well, hey, we need good teachers. And, you know, I think if you want to be a teacher, you really obviously can't be in it for the money. And you have to really give something of yourself. Use your own style. Stay true to yourself. It's

[00:37:32] David: Always the best advice that old

[00:37:35] Jacob: Shakespeare to thine own self be true you know it's like if you feel comfortable while you're in front of these kids and you're leading them and they're looking I mean that's one of the things that really put a lot of pressure on me even when I left the campus right I had eyes watching me and that's a heavy responsibility you know you have to be a solid role model for them and in this day and age of technology you know obviously you have to embrace technology you're almost forced to do that and there's a you know with technology comes a lot of ways to create you know you know stuff to supplement what you're told you have to teach and I think is you know you go into that creative side and you create stuff that's fun for the kids that's engaging or something they do I mean we learn a lot more through experience and taking action than we do by just reading stuff right so um you know if you can make it an active thing then I think you'll be successful. And you know, I don't want to dissuade people from being teachers at all. I'm just, you know, I'm disappointed that it's kind of gotten to that. But I'm sure there's some wonderful people out there that want to be teachers that are going to inspire the next generation of youth. And hopefully you got a good

[00:38:49] David: Grasp of technology because you definitely have to have that. And you know, I mean, I had a little technology in my class. I was teaching kids how to do, you know, run the lights and the sound and all that stuff, but man, that technology is like archaic compared to what they have now and it's actually easier. So, if you can take that technology and turn it into some kind of activities for them to do to where they can learn through those activities, then man, you're mining some gold. Yeah. So, that's what I would say would be my advice to them. Yeah. Yeah. And I think they'll find it. I mean, and I think that h as we always have as humans, as a society, is we as our

[00:39:28] Jacob: Technology advances, we find new ways to utilize it and we come up with um ways of solving problems. Not only do we discover new problems, but we find ways of solving them in uh creative creative ways that we never would have thought of before that technology. It expands us. So, I mean, as much as we want to try to predict it being the same in a couple years, it might be a whole new different thing that we can't even like put into words or try to uh piece together what it may look like with the AI advancements. It's happening so quickly that I'm sure there's going to be plenty of bad about it. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of negative about it. I'm sure, you know, we're all still dealing with the Tik Tok attention span and we all have our own, you know, I'll sit there on TikTok myself. I'll sit there on reels myself. So, you know, I'm right in the middle of it and everything, but I'm optimistic. I think I'm excited about what the possibility of our advancements in the technology will be. Um I hope it doesn't lead people further into themselves and

[00:40:30] David: Less connected with one another. Um but but we'll see. I try I try to insert optimism. You know, I would hate to see a bunch of students just sitting at home in like their little pods and just talking to their laptop AI teacher that day or whatever, you know, just cuz I got I got so lucky to experience great teachers face to face that I couldn't imagine who I'd be without it. Well, there's a lot of that going on though already where they just sit there at home and they learn, you know, through the technology. And you know, I had a granddaughter that was living here for a while and she was going to the local school and I mean I was like, "Do you have any homework?" and she's like, "No, we you know, we have our we get our iPads out and they do all their assignments on there." And when we visited the classroom at the beginning of the year, the teachers much said that. So, you know, I don't really know how that looks because it wasn't like that when I was teaching. But, um, it

[00:41:21] Jacob: Just seemed like she was kind of apathetic to learning, but that was, you know, that's a singular example, right? There was probably plenty of kids that engaged the learning and were learning quickly and creating amazing things. I mean, it's amazing the students um nowadays are creating things on their own that are going to shake the earth. Like there's somebody I think was like 18 or 19 years old and she commit she figured out a way to attack cancer cells that's they're starting to use now. So, you know, there's an example what I'm talking about. She was just like a high school student. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. So, you know, hey Yeah. There Yeah. There's clearly somebody there was clearly somebody on her path that like either encouraged her or lit a fire under her butt by not encouraging her. Whatever it was, but you know, it's still going on. Encouragement or giving her the opportunity or, you know, presenting the information that she needed and she took that and synthesized it and come up with this, you know, amazing thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's exciting, man. I'm looking forward, like I said, I'm optimistic. Uh I want to take the time machine back a little bit if you'll if you'll join me, sir. Uh hop into the Delorean. Um, all right. I want to go back to before you were a teacher. I want to go back to I think I think I'm kind of wanting to think I want to get inside your mind before you were a teacher or like kind of what inspired you to teach other people or maybe I think it's probably a natural state of your being, I would say. And it probably just seemed inevitable that you would end up uh, you know, inspiring people in such a way. Um, but I also love to I don't know. I just I want to wrap my head around where you were at before you decided to teach before you or any instances where you noticed that your

[00:43:05] David: Input or your leadership like people are

[00:43:08] Jacob: Listening to or you could actually affect change in other people and going, you know, I could actually teach people. I have something worth knowing that I could effectively teach people. Um I know that there's one of my rambling questions that are impossible to answer, Dave, but No, it's all right. Take me back, man. What was it like before you started teaching? So, you know, I always was a really great student and I liked school and I when I first got out of high school, uh, you know, Vietnam was still kind of there, right? And, um, so we were all waiting to maybe potentially be drafted and stuff and so I started going to college there at Fullerton College in Fullerton, California, and I was going to be an elementary teacher. And man, college for the first time, I really wasn't prepared for it. I wasn't mature enough. And so I

[00:43:51] David: Ended up dropping out and kind of putting my dream to the side to be a teacher someday. And I think it had a lot to do with not only that gentleman that I mentioned, Greg Shook, but also my grandmother was a teacher, Laurel Belra. And I just had this really great relationship with her and uh she um she kind of inspired me to be even consider that. But when I so I went off to the military and a lot of things happened there in the military when I was there and it was kind of like that dream of

[00:44:28] Jacob: Being a teacher someday got put pushed aside, right? I was just busy with raising a family, being m I was married at the time and I had three children

[00:44:39] David: Almost immediately when I was a young man. And so I was kind of overwhelmed with being a good father and trying to raise my family and provide for my family. And the military kind of gave me that sort of um avenue for where I could, you know, take care of my family. But then my whole earth was sha shaken. my um my wife, my first wife, ended up just leaving all of us, me and the three kids to our own designs. And so, you know, I went from, you know, this happy family man to this guy that had to take care of three kids. And I was trying to get my college degree. And where I was stationed at, they had this degree program in this thing called health uh in healthc care management. And so, I changed my dream to being a teacher to working in a hospital, like being in charge of a hospital. And this program taught me how to, you know, do all the things from maintaining a boiler room

[00:45:34] Jacob: To um uh you know, doing the business office in a hospital. And so I got my bachelor's degree in that. And then I got out of the military after my first wife died in a automobile accident. Of course, we were already we were divorced. She was ex at that time. And so I knew I permanently had the kids forever. And I got out of the military and I got this job as a um carpet cleaner of all things and I was like working really late at night and I was just so disappointed and my future

[00:46:07] David: Really looked bleak. I mean I was just it was so overwhelming take care of three young kids by myself as a single dad. This is in the 80s now that I didn't really couldn't focus on anything else even though I did complete my degree program and got my degree in healthcare management. So I tried to get a job in healthcare management and then I found out I had to have a master's degree and I went oh my goodness it's like they wouldn't even look at my application almost at that time. There was just so many people in that field too and they all had master's degrees. So I was competing against people I couldn't compete against. So I mean I had to pay the bills. So I kept doing the carpet cleaning. Well, this one guy

[00:46:47] Jacob: Came to me from this church I was attending. And I told him how frustrated I was with, you know, and I just didn't feel like I had any direction. And he told me, "You know what? You should go substitute teach." And I was living in this town called Riverside at the time. And there

[00:47:03] David: Was a school district real close by called Marino Valley. was connected to um March Air Force Base, which is there in Riverside, right on the outskirts. And I said, "Oh, you know, I always wanted to be a teacher, but man, it's just too late for me. I can't see myself." He goes, "No, you have a bach bachelor's degree. All you have to do is, you know, pass a couple tests and they'll start hiring you as a substitute and see what you think." You know, so I thought, well, there, you know, okay, I'm going to clean carpets at night. I'm going to, you know, substitute teach during the day and then find try to find some time for my kids in there too, which so I was pretty busy. So I started substitute teaching and almost immediately I knew I was in my place. I knew this is what I was meant to be. And I right away I started connecting with kids, really troubled kids, too. A lot of them. It seemed like I do really better with the kids that have some angst, you know. Yeah. And um you know, and the other kids did they, you know, I mean, it's not that I didn't attract some of them, too. But basically, the next thing I know, I mean, they were hiring me as a substitute to be the long-term teacher when a teacher like had to have a baby or something like that. So for the first two years of my teaching, I did it as a as a substitute, but they never knew I was the substitute because the I was I took the classes over and I was basically their teacher. Yeah. And uh there was a couple I started teaching from day one. And what's really interesting, I am actually still in contact with that cla that first class of kids that I taught. Wow.

[00:48:40] Jacob: How old are they nowish? Uh they're like well the oldest one is like 52. In fact, I just went to his wedding this um this summer. Yeah, it was a

[00:48:51] David: Beautiful thing. And then of course, you know, he treated me like, you know, I was royalty while I was there. You know, him and his new spouse. And you know, he walked his wife down the aisle and everything. Well, I mean, they kept on taking pictures of me with each other. You know, I was a pretty major part of the of the ceremony. But anyways, um, so right away I, you know,

[00:49:11] Jacob: I could tell that this was my jam. You know, it's like, hey, I found my place and I got and then I went to Cal State Sanino and got my teaching credential and then I ended up getting my master's degree in special education, you know, and then eventually I got my master's degree in teach in teaching.

[00:49:27] David: Uh, so, you know, as I kept going forward and then I got my first teaching job, you know, real teaching job, which I think was getting paid like $10,000. That's what they paid teachers back in those days. Crazy. And yeah, it was pretty crazy. And uh so I just, you know, leaped from there. And it was never a stretch. I always felt really natural. Um, I always, you know, because I was this kind of rebellious guy that was creative, I always did things outside the box and the kids loved it. And so I

[00:50:02] Jacob: Just kept getting reinforced, right? And it just kept going forward and forward and forward and now I'm a retired guy and that's kind of how I always knew that I was going to be a teacher and it just went really well for me. I mean, what a blessing to find out your calling. I mean, it was a calling really. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Hey, man. I'm glad you didn't just live this whole life cleaning carpets. I mean, you know. Yeah. Can you imagine that? I mean, I'm sure I wouldn't have done that. I might have figured out something. Maybe I got my master in healthcare management. Yeah. But hey, it was my destiny. It was my destiny. Can I can I ask you a little bit about, you know, you mentioned some hardships during those times as a single father. I mean, I'm just picturing you, you know, trying to work during the day and then carpet cleaning at night. Can I ask you about your mindset around that time? Did you ever deal with anything like depression? Um, you know, I talk on this podcast about I like to talk openly about things like suicide and stuff so it's not so stigmatized. Um, did you deal with anything like that around that time? So, what was really interesting is um I was actually in a really good frame of mind um afterwards after I got through the adversity. But there was a time when I was like completely overwhelmed and I was pretty depressed. And I had this other guy that came to me and it's always seems to be somebody is like a I don't know what you call that, but they show up the right time and say the right thing. And he told me he said, "Man, you're like a ship without a rudder. You need to sit down and write some goals out of what could make you happy, right? And then go about trying to achieve that. And if you focus on that, then you're going to be happy someday. And so despite the fact that I was probably severely depressed, of course, I didn't have a lot of time. I mean, think about it. I was cleaning carpets at night. I was substitute teaching during the day. And then I had to spend some time with my kids and get some sleep somewhere in there, too, which is about that time was maybe three or four hours a night, if that, you know. Um, so I wrote down all I started writing down these goals, right? I started saying, "Hey, this is what I want in a, in you know, a spouse, a future spouse. This is what I want to do. I want to finish my degree. I want to get my teaching credential." And I started like I wrote it down and I actually put it up somewhere where I could see it. And little by little, I started to achieve those things. I got my degree. I got my credential. I got um

[00:52:32] David: You know an advanced degree. I met a woman that I fell in love with. That ticked off all the boxes for a woman that I was looking for. And that truly made all the difference in the world because right away she took on me and my three children. And so they had a child, you know, they had a mother which is really what they needed. And you know, I was worried that I was never going to be married again. I never thought anybody would be with a guy with three kids, you know? It's like, you know, well, who would take that burden on? But, and I'm still married to that woman to this day, 38 years later, which is pretty cool. And I mean, she made Yeah, she made all the difference in the world. And that guy telling me to sit down and write down my goals and make it visual, you know, and do some kind of concerted effort to try to start, you know, start working on those things. I even had down what I wanted in a wife. And my this woman that I met that I'm married to now, she ticked off all the boxes, man. She just, you know, it's just she just everything that I wanted in a woman, she was it. And luckily enough, I found that she, you know, fell in love with me, too. And we got married. Yeah. So, my life changed right away. But I'd have to say my whole life I was o I kind of fought

[00:53:44] Jacob: Depression. I pretty much my whole life.

[00:53:47] David: I'd be I'd say it's been maybe in the last 10 years that I don't really I'm not depressed anymore. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean there was even some point where I had to take medication like when I was teaching you even just to control my impulses you know because

[00:54:02] Jacob: You know when you get into depression those kind of things about self harm and all that comes into your mind even though on the outside looking in people think you have an idyllic life you know and you know there's a lot of things with brain chemistry too that where you just kind of go why do I you know things are kind of going good for me why am I feeling like you know I want to throw it all away you know and I really had to fight that impulse to sabotage myself, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, but I managed to do that. Well, uh, for one, thanks for sharing that. I really appreciate you diving into that. Um, I love I'm sticking to what something you said earlier, a few minutes before I asked that, you said something about taking action. You used the word action. Um, and it's something I've been thinking a lot of lat lately about. I've spent I spent a lot of like the last six, seven years thinking about, reading about, listening to, exploring with other people, self-reflecting, everything to do with like depression and um how our culture sees it, how our society sees it, how we treat it, what causes it. I really just spent so much time diving. I really I turned my obsessivecompulsive disorder on depression in myself basically and just I think about it a lot. Um I'm kind of I'm on the other side too. I don't really consider myself to be a depressed person. Um I deal with depression for sure, but um I think um and there's power in as much as it's

[00:55:28] David: Been useful and important for me to lock my door, turn off the TV, and just sit with

[00:55:36] Jacob: Myself, journal, explore, um you know, figure out what the hell is going on, right?

[00:55:43] David: But I really and especially those

[00:55:46] Jacob: Last like year I think action getting outside of wallowing in my self-pity in my apartment getting outside of trying to fix myself all the time trying to realizing that I've just been telling myself that I'm Alan Watts has this the backwards law you know um it is an act of telling yourself that there's something wrong with you by consistently trying to fix something about yourself right it's kind of this mind bender you know and I'm never trying to say like wow your depression isn't real. You know, you're feeling what you're feeling. But I think there is this magical, beautiful uh warm blanket of action of opening the door and seeing um you know, you've probably heard this too, Dave, like you know, all spiritual teachers tell us like serve others. That's the way out. Like if you can find someone who needs help and you could help them, suddenly you realize it's been hours since you've been thinking about yourself and your depression and whatever. You're in action. So, um I guess um I don't know. Does that spark anything for you? Like the actionable act of getting out of our own minds? Like do you see that as a genuine like I think that's like a secret of the universe or something? There's something really magical about that trying to trying to take action. I think you hit on it really, you know, majorly when you said something about service. I mean, I pretty much my whole life was in service to other people. I was a teacher for over 30 years. And every day that I came in, they filled my love, you know, I mean, they just told me words of affirmation about how great I was. I mean, and then you start weighing that out about, okay, am I really depressed? I mean, all these people like what we're doing here, right? And, you know, so I didn't really think about all that much and I was really having a good time and I'd have to say generally I was happy. Um, and now even when I'm retired, I don't think I've ever really been happier because I'm doing things. And that's what you said, action, right? And I and here's another thing is I've been helping others. I've been spending a lot of time with other people now. And I've changed from being a deliverer of information to someone that listens to

[00:57:52] David: People and observes them. And I don't

[00:57:55] Jacob: Give them advice unless they ask for it. You know, sometimes I just say, "Well, what do you think?" And then they start saying, "Well, this is what I think." And I said, "Okay, take action." and the next thing you know they're okay, right? And uh so yeah, service to others is really key. I mean, right now I am I'm on a board of a uh

[00:58:16] David: It's a ministry um and they work with

[00:58:19] Jacob: People with addictions. Um, and so I've kind of become an adviser to this whole group and it was kind of it needed to be

[00:58:29] David: Kind of like I don't know operated more successfully or it needed to have its rough edges sanded. And so that's kind of what I've been doing. And as a byproduct I've been interacting with addicts and I've been kind of a

[00:58:45] Jacob: Spiritual adviser to them. I mean, I have them call me a lot and really all I've ever done for them is just listen to them, right? And a lot of them are doing a lot of good things. And you know, and of course, as an addicted person, you always have to worry about going back to your addiction, right? So, there's that, too. And one thing I don't do, and I never did when I was a teacher, I didn't really judge people, you know, and you know, I just I just try to accept them. And what's really interesting is, and this is true about kids, if you if you're not genuine, they they sniff out the Oh, quickly. And it's like, so that's where my success was. They knew that the love that I showed them was genuine. And now that I'm working with addicts, they can tell that I'm I truly love them and I care about them. And that's not easy to communicate people, especially when everybody's so self-absorbed, you know, but you're right. If you step outside yourself and you do things for others, you don't got time to think about your own problems, man. Yeah. Or you hear these other people that are like, you go, "Oh my gosh." And not only do you is your life going, you know, sour, but you keep making decisions that make things worse, you know? And when you when you when you're hearing those stories, you're like, man, my life is fantastic. I mean, you know, it's like and it really is fantastic. If I look at my life, it's like, oh my goodness, how could I complain, you know? Yeah. And uh but it truly, you know, I've lived a life of service like you said and uh and you know, I just I think that is

[01:00:22] David: The key. It really is. Yeah. Yeah. I

[01:00:26] Jacob: Think so, too. I mean, there's a that's like I said, you know, there's all these spiritual adviserss, all these spiritual teachers, they have some way of kind of telling us that. And um it's I've heard it. I've heard it. I've heard it. And then I start taking action in my own life and doing things that I'm genuinely lit up by that I know that are helping other people cuz like I like you mentioned earlier, you know, you get the messages. I have my version of that, you know, and so I can see firsthand like, okay, this thing that took me all this time and I made it and like hopefully it was worth it. Well, even though I didn't get it for the response, I did it because I is something fulfilling for me to do. Um it does feel good for someone to say like hey man that thing you said impacted me like that helped me understand my situation I'm going through. It's like ah okay like one person was positively affected by that. Like that feels really good. It's reaffirming you know. Yeah it is reaffirming. But you know what's really interesting is you do it out of self-sacrifice and you do it to help that person out of genuine care. And like I said if you're not genuine they're going to sniff that out, right? because they know what fake looks like, right? Fake concern and all that stuff and they're used to people letting them down. But that's another thing, too. I've been consistent in, you know, lots of people's lives and so they know I'm going to be around. You know, they can call me anytime I want. I don't say, "Oh, hey, I'm too busy or anything like that," you know, and if you go about

[01:01:48] David: Doing that and have that attitude, the reaffirming stuff comes almost naturally. they start telling you that, you know, like when I was a teacher, I mean, I didn't ask for them people to say, "Hey, you're my favorite teacher and I love you." And I'm having 50-y old men tell me that, you know? I mean, I'm having people that they're in their 40s and 30s who I'm long removed from that look, man, he really influenced my life. I mean, how reaffirming is that? Yeah. And it wasn't about attaining money. It wasn't about taining recognition. And because I did things outside the box and kind of was a rebel and kind of

[01:02:29] Jacob: Just threw myself at everything that came with risk, you know, it made me a target for, you know, you got a lot of people there want to like, okay, I want to take this guy down, you know. Yeah. And unfortunately, there's people like that. But, you know, when you when you serve others and like you said, it feels

[01:02:49] David: Good inside when you see the results of that. I mean, seeing you do this podcast, what a great I'm living vicariously through you, man. I mean, you were on my stage. Now you're on your own stage, right? I mean, what better thing that could that be for me reinforcing what I did was right for you, right? You know, maybe just a small part, but hey, who cares, right? You never know. You never know how you're going to influence people. I have this thing. It's like a theory. It's called matrix of influence. I call it the matrix of influence. So what I always wanted to do is I always wanted to and I truly thought about this even from the very beginning.

[01:03:26] Jacob: I wanted to put this guy David Crayk into everybody's life and who he was about and what he represented. And when

[01:03:34] David: They took my class or they had some kind of, you know, connection with me in some way, I wanted them to take that little piece of me out into the world, right? And I never knew if it was going to work or not. So I just was always myself and I always brought what I could bring and was creating and just providing them the opportunity to excel and through their success they ended up taking it or leaving it right I mean sometimes they weren't as influenced by me but I always try to be positive no judgments you know just be humble and

[01:04:10] Jacob: Show them love and then they go out in the world and take a little bit of Dave Crayk with them right and in a way it's kind only way you can have any kind of this kind of a taste of immortality because you know I mean like I said I have 50-year-old people that really still think see me as a significant person in their lives and so what I set out a long time ago over third like almost 40 years ago has really come to fruition through the lives of other people and I'm hoping that they're going to take that little piece that I gave them and they're going to spread that little piece of Dave Crayk everywhere. Yeah. And it's like a matrix of influence. It's kind of like, you know, I influenced I'm sure I influenced thousands of thousands of people and then those thousands of people take a little bit of what I do into the world to somebody else and then they take it and you know there's probably people that I don't even know that have been influenced by me. Yeah. I'm the setting. Oh, guaranteed. Yeah. Yeah. The ripples of influence. What do you call it? The matrix. Matrix. Matrix of influence is what I Matrix of influence. I love that, man. I think that's so powerful. I love to really think about Yeah. I'm think about I mentioned my buddy not splashing that guy with water with his truck, you know? I mean, maybe that guy went out and he did something nice for somebody else or, you know, he's in a little bit better mood, you know. reality is this that really is what's going on here, you know, like we are very powerful with each of our interactions and um it's like

[01:05:42] David: Self-expression and just being able to

[01:05:45] Jacob: Open as yourself is just people are drawn to it, you know, and like you said, students and kids especially, they can tell when you're when you're bullshitting. They've got intuitions that we can't put into words.

[01:05:56] David: They're before words even happen, man.

[01:05:58] Jacob: We're communicating. There's so much communication happening without the words. So if you just try to say, "Hey, all that stuff isn't real, but the words I'm saying are real." Kids are like, "Okay, you're doing that thing where you lie to me, and I'm what am I supposed to do? Like, I'm playing with your game, or am I pretending you're being truthful?" Kids are so smart like that, you know? Yeah. Yeah, they are. Yeah. I mean, we

[01:06:19] David: Had so many wicked smart kids on my stage. It was just crazy. I mean, there was so much talent. The place was oozing with talent almost the whole time I was there. It just and you know I gave them the opportunity to start showing their talent and stuff you know and that whole thing it was and I don't know why it came to me like one of my favorite poets is Robert Frost and he wrote the road not taken right yeah so the road not taken is real famous about the going to the path and he took the one that's less traveled and made all the difference so the dare to be different which was originally you know my creation right I knew I had to have some kind of thing for people to latch on to. I made those had those shirts made of actually through Alysia

[01:07:01] Jacob: Huckabe who whose dad's Rick made the shirts for me and had the drama, you know, comedy and tragedy because there's always two sides to everything, right? And then and then I only gave those t-shirts out when they were in my plays.

[01:07:14] David: That's the only time they got those t-shirts. Nobody got them. And those became treasured. Yeah. People because they realized, hey, you know, I was in the play and I, you know, g gave them a little rec recognition. But to have people take that dare to be different into the world, which is what I hoped and really what it was trying to say is, hey, screw you to all those detractors. I'm going to do what I want my way. And you know, when you I told everybody, if you dare to be different, there's some risk to that because people want to put you in a box all the time. And if you resist that, I mean, all the great people resisted that. All the people that created things throughout history, they resisted that. So, I don't know what caused me to come up with that slogan, but that slogan's followed me throughout my whole life pretty much, you know, at least for 40 years. Yeah. And it, you know, I mean, I can say that

[01:08:06] Jacob: To any of the kids that I took there in the drama program. They know exactly what that meant to them. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's been profound. My sister and I talk about it all the time. I mean, I honestly find ways I probably I mean, I mention you all the time. You've been mentioned on this podcast multiple times. I bring up the dare to be different, dare to be different. It had a profound influence on me. I think I had this at that time I already had this natural like I want to be different. I think I'm different. I want to I loved punk, you know, go to warp tour and you know that's not that punk rock, but to me it was punk rock at the time. I remember uh the lead singer of Rise Against. He was on he was on I thought they were just the coolest band anyway. I love their music. They are cool. Yeah.

[01:08:44] David: Yeah, definitely. Uh man, they're so good. Uh but he was on the stage at Warp Tour. I remember him like saying things about the government. He's like, "The government doesn't want you blah." And I remember just being like, "Dude, you could just say stuff like that." Like, you're just allowed to I just I was so inspired by him just being an artist and like expressing something that like the other people, you know, we're not allowed to say that, you know? It awoke that within me just by seeing him express who we who he was. So, it just go ahead. Oh, what I think is really most brilliant about it is the kids that I imparted that motto to were in high school where they were almost forced to try to conform, right? And they were trying to find out who they were, right? And of course, when they came into my arena, I made them say, "Hey, be who you want to be, right? It's you don't have to be. I'm not going to tell you who to be. You know, I'm going to give you all these opportunities to express yourself, but hey." And you know, and of course, I was the only one that necessarily judged them. I mean, I had to give them a grade, right? So, and I also had to, you know, I'm trying to make them better actors or whatever, right? In part that. So, I in some regards, I had to judge them and their performance, but I never really judged them as people. I accepted them completely. And, you know, they were

[01:09:59] Jacob: Trying to form who they were going to be. And, you know, I really I think I gave everybody the confidence of saying, "Hey, I can be who I want to be." Craig says, "Dare to be different. I'm darn it. I don't want to, you know, be like this guy over here that's, you know, wearing the same clothes as his buddy over there or whatever. I don't have to jump on any trends. I can set my own trend. I can do what I want. I mean, and I'm safe to do it in here, you know. Yeah. And uh and I'm going to take that off and I a lot of them took that off into life. I mean, we've had we have a lot of successful people from that group of people and you know, I mean, varying success and then of course, we're not going to really judge what is success. I mean, if they're happy, they're happy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Success. Hey, for me, man, success is liking myself. I'm able to be myself and like myself. I'm proud of what I'm able to express, you know? I think that's successful to me. I never really had a ton of money or nothing, but I got a ton of other currency, man. I got I'm rich in other ways. So, I'm feel pretty successful myself.

[01:10:57] David: Anyway, what's really weird is throughout my whole life, I never, you know, passed money. I mean, if you knew how much money I spent over the course of my career back into my classroom, right? I mean, people would go, "What? You spent I mean, it's over well over $100,000." Imagine if I had $100,000 now, I could probably do a lot of fun things with that. But I poured it back into my classroom, right? Because I didn't want the kids to be without. I wanted to do these special things. And it was all about giving to them. And what's really interesting when I ended and everything was over, you know, I'm not a, you know, I'm not teaching actively anymore. I mean, you always are a teacher. Um, I was blessed. I mean, I have enough money to live out the rest of my whole life and probably leave some to my kids. I mean, I don't know what how that happened, but I managed to be blessed, too. I mean, if you've seen my house here above the beach in Oregon, I mean, you would go, "Wow, that's something a teacher got." you know, because we you must be honest, they underpay teachers, but um you know, the the monetary rewards which are fleeting anyways come on top of it. So, it's like

[01:12:05] Jacob: When you talk about a happy um relaxed man, it's me because not only did I get blessed by all the interactions I had with all of you, but you know, now in my golden years, I'm able to enjoy my golden years like no other time. I mean I you know I'm blessed in all so

[01:12:26] David: Many ways. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Well

[01:12:28] Jacob: And you also Go ahead. Go ahead. No. Monetarily, whatever, possessions, all that kind of stuff, which really don't mean much, but you know, a lot of times people go after the dollar, right? That's what their career is about. I say don't follow the money. The money comes. It just comes. I don't know how it does, but it just does. And you just have to have the faith to go forward and do what your muse tells you to do, your

[01:12:52] David: Muse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've always felt that money is like the symptom of you doing, you know, what you want to be doing. It's like it'll it just always seems like it figures itself out. Um I want to say so you just mentioned the muse. I can't resist that. Have you read Have you read Steven Presfield's um The War of Art? Have you heard of that or read that book? No, but it sounds like something I should put on my reading list. Oh, dude, it's so good. It's a pretty short read, too. Um I listen to on Audible. He's a great read. He's such a great writer, Steven Presfield, that he takes I imagine him to just blah his books out and then he takes every single sentence and condenses it down into a line of poetry. That's the way I see it. Like every sentence stands on its own so well. Well, he's a great author, but anyway, he talks about um the muse and uh as a creator, as um uh you know, an

[01:13:43] Jacob: Artist, what you do is you yourself out of the way so the muse

[01:13:49] David: Can come through. Um yeah, it's

[01:13:52] Jacob: It's not so much about just takes you out of the equation, you know, like it's like you just remove yourself and you get yourself into the environment like he talks about. He doesn't wait for inspiration to write.

[01:14:05] David: He puts himself in an environment to hear inspiration or whatever because at 9:00 a.m. every day he sits down to write, you know, and so he makes himself like an open vessel for the muse to come through by making his schedule happen. So, um, man, I want to explore this a little bit more. The muse, um, I will mention this out loud just because I understand some people trip it up. I do want to branch into words like spirituality. I would like to even talk about God here eventually too.

[01:14:34] Jacob: Um, but I know those are like such heavy words for people. So, just when I'm talking about it, know that I'm kind of talking about like the universe, God, spirituality, our higher self. I kind of do clump a lot of these things in and I just don't want anybody like shut off this conversation because I use the word spirituality. So, just as that caveat, um, hey, tell me about like the muse spirituality like how do you see this? Do does that ring a bell to you at all? Like you kind of get out of the way and the muse works through you. Does it feel like that at all in your experience? Well, what's really interesting is it's kind of a frame of mind that I get into. It's like sometimes it comes at the most weirdest times and I it's like I get this urge to create. So, I really feel like I'm open to creating all the time, right? And that being that open to that, it just the inspiration comes like I was telling you about Dare to Be Different. It just kind of that whole idea came to me. And um I write poetry a lot and um sometimes

[01:15:32] David: I go months without writing poetry and then all of a sudden it's like I'll write four or five poems and it might be that I listen to Jethro Tol or something and all of a sudden I want to write music. I just what something's been happening lately even though I've done this throughout my life. Um, I run into this guy and he's an interesting guy and he's a former vet that's got

[01:15:56] Jacob: PTSD and he

[01:16:00] David: Um he struggles with life really hard, but he's amazing musician. The dude sounds like Bob, you know, and he sings like Bob Dylan, which is really kind of cool. But, uh, him and I, we went to this thing on Thursday nights. It's kind of like a place where people create. Creative minds called to create. it's called. That's cool. And um so we would sit there and he would go, "Okay, we should write a song together." And I said, "Okay, let me you know, let's come up with a melody." And we were in this thing and we're just sitting there and he was just playing the guitar. And all of a sudden, this melody came to me. And of course being a poet and a writer and all this kind of stuff that I've always been it the words for the song just came out

[01:16:48] Jacob: Like as we were singing writing the songs I started writing the lyrics and I you know kind of hum the um the melody that was spinning around in my head and he started banging it out on the guitar and next thing we got this song called Jesus Keeps Us Straight that we recorded and we performed and everything else and You know, I mean, I'm not saying it's a terrific song, but I think it stands some pretty on its own, right? And the whole idea is, you know, I was trying to have a relationship with this guy that really needed me. He was looking to me for advice a lot cuz he struggles with life, you know, and um, you know, out of that came the song, you know, so uh, I could

[01:17:33] David: Have said, "Nah, I can't write a song."

[01:17:35] Jacob: No, all that stuff, right? and have self-doubts, but I didn't. I said, "Yeah, I could write a song. I could do this." And that's part of the deal, too, is there really I don't think there's anything in this earth, oh, I can't dunk a basketball, but that if I put my mind to it, I couldn't achieve. And I've always had that attitude. And I think, you know, I've always been a creative type and a rebellious type, and

[01:18:01] David: Inspiration comes to me almost constantly.

[01:18:05] Jacob: I mean, I got books and books and books of poetry that I've written down, and I don't really care if people think it's good or not. It doesn't matter, you know? It's just that I have the urge and

[01:18:16] David: I can't resist it. I have to create. It's just who I am. So, I've been open to that pretty much my whole life. I mean I mean if you even go back to my English class back in the 10th or 11th grade I was writing this poetry beyond my years you know at least to the you know the teachers right and so that and you know and then when you get those kind of um feedback and you get positive reinforcement this is hey maybe I have this talent we all are so talented at something there is something that we do really super good you know and to be open to the fact that you know to have those ideas that we oh I can't do anything or you know so sort of self-defeating prophecy kind of words towards ourselves then we can be open to that muse but if you're open hey I can do anything I want to do

[01:19:07] Jacob: It's possible I just have to you know put the pen on down on the paper or I have to listen to my brain and it gives me a melody or um you know I'm with somebody else that has some talent and we take our talent and create something together. Yeah. You know, you're around other creative people. You're going to create something, man. You can't help yourself. Yeah. I mean, we're all listening to our muse then.

[01:19:35] David: And man, some really amazing things can happen. Look what happened on my stage. That's kind of what happened. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Yeah. It reminds me of um Terrence McKenna has some sort of quote about uh you know trusting the universe and you jump off the you jump off the cliff and you realize it's uh it's actually just a feathery bed you know he says nature loves courage and uh

[01:19:57] Jacob: I really believe that and I really think I also wonder if you have an um a perspective on this what about those of us those of us who are you know deemed creatives like we've touched that we know that like okay I can I can kind of be this conduit of creation and make beautiful things and it feels really right relationship to me. It feels really like okay I'm doing something that like I think maybe only I can do and it feels really you know it's re reassuring reaffirming as I'm doing all these things. Um, but on the opposite side, I've also noticed that

[01:20:29] David: That intense energy doesn't just go away if I'm not creating. It actually kind of like it can kind of fester in me actually. If I don't find creative outlets, that doesn't mean that my connection to like this intense energy stops. I think that I'm just kind of learn I can be just kind of an intense guy. And if I don't find ways to express myself, if I don't find ways to like write poetry and make music or do my art here or um even like I've just I've been on the journey of uh just got my meditation teacher certification and so even like filtering my creativity and my uh passion into that is just so fulfilling to me. But um do you see

[01:21:09] Jacob: Or do you think that when creatives don't have an outlet but they continue to get that like intense energy do you see that it being troublesome um do you see basically I'm saying I think creators have to create or we really get in our own heads and we really like get we have a lot of heaviness that we carry around. Do you see that to be true?

[01:21:32] David: So, so like I said, I'm bombarded constantly with creativity. So, I either have to put it down to pen or I have to create something or negative things

[01:21:42] Jacob: Happen. And you know, I think it's true. If you look at all the creative types in the world and you look at their personal lives, most of them have trash personal lives and they, you know, they they start being on substances and they get addictions and that ends up destroying their life. And what's really bad is when you get if you don't when you when all this energy comes your way and you don't create it does bottle up I think and then it manifests itself in negative ways. I mean cuz Yeah, I think so. And uh that's why so many of them that are creative types I mean there's a guy that I mean it just was terrible to hear his passing. Chris Cornell used to be the lead singer for Sound Garden. Great looking guy. beautiful family he had. Um, what a storyried career he has. He's one of the greatest singers I've ever heard. I mean, let's face it, the dude can sing

[01:22:40] David: And he and he committed suicide. I mean,

[01:22:43] Jacob: It's because he's probably bombarded with all these what he would call demons, right? But if you continue to create, I think, and you release that energy, then those kind of things don't happen. you don't turn it in on yourself cuz that's a danger. That's probably why I've dealt with depression my whole life is because there's been some times in my period of time where it's like I should have created and I you know I stagnated. Yeah. Right. And so, you know, then I turn everything in on myself, do pity parties and self-doubt and, you know, start saying I'm not a good person and all that kind of stuff. And then, you know, luckily I have some coping mechanisms that got me back on track, right? But not everybody has those. And that's what happens to these tortured artists. you know, they end up turning things in on themselves and or they lash out their relationships or they numb the pain, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because when you have all those, you know, those things come hitting you constantly as a creative person, it's hard to channel it. Yeah. I I wonder if you had this when you were younger, did you have uh I had this weird like uh fan like the 27 club? I had this like

[01:24:02] David: Weird so for one I had this and this is like a much deeper thing and I've talked about it on other areas of the podcast but I will say I had this kind of knowing that I was going to be part of the 27 club. Um I know it's kind of intense to like just throw on the conversation but it was just kind of like I really had to face it. I really had to like when I dug it out I really had to be like really look right at it and go what am I doing? I'm like thinking this is the coolest thing ever. Like oh you know they'll really appreciate me as an artist once I'm gone. And it was like this weird obsession with that, you know, Jimmyi Hendricks and all the and Kurt Cobain and all these the 27 Club. I'm sure everybody listening is if they're an artist, Jim Morrison. Yeah. And so Amy

[01:24:39] Jacob: Wine Amy Wine House now, too. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know and I wonder

[01:24:45] David: If you had this when I was younger anyway. I definitely don't feel this way anymore. And I had to really face it and deal with it and work through all my, you know, quote unquote demons and stuff around it. But uh I thought it was so sick. I thought it was this cool thing. I don't know what it was like. It was something that I almost wanted to happen in this strange way. Um I

[01:25:04] Jacob: Idolized it. I don't know what it was, but um I don't know. Did you experience that at all? I mean, you said you dealt with like some levels of depression. You're clearly a creative person. You're around a lot of creative people. Maybe even if you didn't, do you see it in other people, you know, around the ages of say 18 to 26? Do you see other people kind of idolize this 27 club? Um I don't know. What do you think about that? I think you know what's really all of us are kind of preoccupied with people of celebrity right famous people and often especially when you're talking about people like Kurt Cobain I mean he spoke to a generation of people I mean he was pretty influential Jim Morrison spoke to

[01:25:45] David: A generation of people he was a poet his lyrics are pretty powerful one of the greatest things I would do in my class I would teach all the classic styles of poetry Right. This is when I cuz I had to teach jinglish along with drama. Right. And the kids would groan. Oh my gosh, we have to do poetry. Oh my gosh. You know, and so then we'd go through this journey. And there was this one part in my poetry unit that I had. I

[01:26:09] Jacob: Would read them this poetry, you know. I would just start reading this poetry and I said, "Well, who do you think this is?" And you know, they would come up with all kinds of names. Oh, Robert Frost. Oh, you know, whatever. Any of

[01:26:21] David: Them would say, "Well, I have no idea."

[01:26:23] Jacob: And I say, "It's Tupac Shakur." I say, "This is Tupac." They're like, "What? This Tupac? He was a poet." I go, "Yeah, look at this book." Oh, yeah. You know, it'll be up here for you to borrow if you want. And then I started sharing some of his poetry. Brilliant stuff. You know, I mean, he's another guy had a tragic end, right? But I think, you know, we're with through that preoccupation and we think that they're, you know, everything they do is cool. I mean, that's why we call fans, right? It's, you know, you're a fan of them and fanatic is, you know, the the shortening of that is really means fanatic. You're fanatic for these people. So to, you know, to say that, hey, I want to be that great. I mean, these people live in our hearts or minds or depending on what influence they had on you. I mean, I'm still remember Jim Morrison. I listen to the Doors once in a while. Kurt Cobain, I mean, Nirvana thing, that was amazing when that happened. I mean, I was just I mean, I was I was an older man, but you know, I mean, I wasn't that old. I was in my 30s, but uh and that was a long time

[01:27:30] David: Ago, but man, I mean, he's just he was speaking to a whole generation of people. So, yeah, I' I'd say we kind

[01:27:38] Jacob: Of like glorify that, you know, and I think we, you know, we look to people that are icons like that, you know. Yeah. So that's, you know, I mean, people are impressionable. They want to latch on to something. They want some direction. They're not they don't like looking inside because they when they look inside like that, then they find out that they're fragile and they don't, you know, they don't they're not talented like Kurt Cobain. I mean, who could be that talented, you know? Yeah. It's like you're talking about uh what's his name? Dave Gro, right? He's had this famous uh career with the Foo Fighters. amazing career with them. But you know what? He's second fiddle to that guy even higher than him, you know,

[01:28:22] David: In the Stratosphere Rock guys. But um you know, yeah, I think I'm trying to think of who that would have been for me. Um I would say it's probably like

[01:28:35] Jacob: Maybe James Dean or Yeah. You know, there's another guy that from a generation people wanted to be like James Dean, you know, and he died really young, too. I don't know. Was it a Was it Is he a member of the 27 Kobe? He might be. I feel like he is. I feel like I've heard his name in that. I bet if we looked it up, he probably is. Yeah. But anyways, I'm just saying is every generation has those people that speak to them and you know, I mean, I was I've

[01:29:00] David: Always interested in music. So Kurt Cobain, I mean, his I was like, "Wow, this is this is this is different, you know. It's like this is so different, you know." Well, I mean, and at that time I could only imagine. I mean, I obviously love Nirvana, but I don't know that I was like exactly I think I was too young to like really feel that I was on the pulse of it. But it sounds like from what I hear, it's like, you know, there's all these 80s bands and like they're all kissing the makeup and they're all performative and they're wearing the leather pants and then Kurt Cobain came out with his flannel and was like, "Fuck that, you know, like and that's sick. That's cool, you know. That's dressing like that in the Northwest, you know. There's tons of kids that even young kids are looking like Kurt Go, you know. Yep. Dang right. Yeah. I still definitely I wear my flannels and people still make I'm here in Texas, but people like, "Oh, I could see your Pacific Northwest shining through right now." Yeah. Yeah. Well, you maybe should wear your flannel with a cowboy hat.

[01:29:54] Jacob: I'll tell you what. Yep. Yep. I didn't I haven't got a cowboy hat. I will say that pretty much within a month I said y'all and now it's just a part of my vocabulary. I'm a y'all now. It's I say y'all way more than you guys nowadays. So yeah, y'all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um well, so on the 27

[01:30:13] David: Club part, I just wanted to bring that up. I just think that um for me anyway, I think that I was idolizing kind of the wrong parts of it. I think I as I started approaching that age myself, I started thinking of like, oh, like what have all these ideas and all these things I want to do and I haven't done them and maybe they'll be looked at if I if I'm gone. And I just I think that I started idolizing the wrong parts of it. Um, when I could have been I could have been idolizing the outcomes of my own long-term impact. Like instead of like how much could I get everybody to watch me before I'm 26, it's like what about doing a podcast where if I keep doing this for 20 years, like you know, I

[01:30:54] Jacob: Might be able to really impact some people over the course of 20 years, you know, instead of like trying to be trying to be like the brightest right now. I want the most attention right to the top. It's like what about long term? Just doing what you can day in and day out like the long-term benefits. And I just feel like my mind has um it has peace there, you know? It's I think a lot of this I got to prove myself before I turn 27. It has this like you know this just gripping this pressure that doesn't need you know really just need that opening of the fist like just the allowing of your art to come through rather than trying to like catch it all and make everyone look at it right now you know. Mhm. Yeah. You know 27 is pretty young. Uh I mean most of us live to 77 80 or something nowadays. So 50 years to give up where you could be creating and influencing people, you know, just so you could be the brightest star and then fizzle out. Yeah. Yeah. You know, to me it just Well said. Yeah. It's just better to do the long to the long haul. It's more courageous. I think so too, man. I think so, too. I like it. Um, thank you. Thank you for expressing your views on that. I want to ask you a little bit more about your spiritual practice. So, uh, not only your spiritual practice, um, just kind of your way of centering yourself and everything, but also if it correlates, can you tell me about your ways of, um, you know, back then and even now as you get older, what are your ways like when you notice that you're kind of in those spots? Maybe you've had like maybe um, you notice, oh, okay, I've been kind of like depressed. I kind of have been, you know, maybe ignoring the phone more than I want to or whatever this looks like for you. How do you pull yourself out of those times? And then outside of that, um, even outside of your break glass in case of emergency situations, I would love to know kind of like what your spiritual practice looks like on a day-to-day basis, like what is that like for you? So, one of the things that I do and you can call what at your will, pray or meditate, and since I've done that, and I've also, you know, I mean, you can say what you will, but I've always been a Christian person, right? I believe in Christ. And so I've been every day I study a different scripture in the Bible and then try to apply it to my life. And

[01:33:11] David: Since I've done that and it's been since I've retired pretty much and actually really more intense in the last couple of years I and along with that I become more of a listener and observer of people. But um since I've been doing

[01:33:28] Jacob: Those things, studying the scriptures, praying and meditating and unplugging, you know, not like going right to watch the UFC fights or something, right? Even though I do enjoy that, but um and kind of spending some time in

[01:33:45] David: Nature. Like I took on this sport called um disc golf and it's kind of like you go every time you play it, you're out in nature. And the whole time I'm playing cuz I'm pretty terrible at disc golf. I mean, you know, someone would probably say, "Oh, no. You're pretty good, Dave." But, you know, compared to some of the really good ones, I'm really, you know, way average, right? But, of course, at 68 years old, who cares if I achieve anything? The bottom line is I'm out in nature. I'm getting exercise. And that's another thing, too, is I've been working on keeping my body more fit. I've been going to the gym and stuff like that.

[01:34:17] Jacob: And I It sounds really weird, but it is kind of a spiritual practice. It's disciplining yourself, right? And with unplugging and disciplining yourself and studying the scriptures and all that stuff, all of a sudden I started hearing like when I'm presented with a problem or something, I get this little voice in my head that tells me almost immediately what I should do. And I've been listening to that voice and it's made all the difference in the world. It's been so powerful for me. Oh my goodness. And not only what's really cool about it is I've been able to impart this kind of way that I'm being and this vibe that I've I'm sure I'm translating to other

[01:34:56] David: People and it's been helping others too.

[01:34:58] Jacob: And so that's kind of how what I mean by being spiritual is I've kind of disciplined myself to a certain degree to do certain things like complete change over the way I used to be. And since I've been doing that, I've been getting this little spiritual guy in my brain and I'm not bargaining with them anymore. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And not bargaining anymore. Right now, I'm listening to them and I'm taking action. I'm listening and doing what this little voice is telling me.

[01:35:26] David: Does that voice does that little voice ever have you do anything like kind of like I don't know. Is that really what I should do? Like I mean, you say you don't bargain with it, but There was a time when I bargain with it when I first started turning towards being more spiritual, but now I've been listening to it and nothing better than when you listen to it and then something great happens, right? Yeah. And you get that reinforcement and then you're like, "Okay, well, why would I bargain with it? Why would I, you know, start up saying, "Hey, maybe I shouldn't do this." No, I throw caution to the wind and it hasn't failed me. Now, do you do

[01:35:59] Jacob: You I mean, it kind of just gets into words, I guess, and it probably severs something that doesn't need severed, but So, do you would you call that intuition? Would you call that like spirit, soul? Like, do you have any names or does it matter to you? Is it? Well, I don't think it really matters. Even though, you know, in a Christian point of view would say that, oh, that's the Holy Spirit, right? But it really doesn't matter. Frankly, I'm being guided by whatever's in my brain, right? And I think we all, even from a, you know, from an early age, we really know what the right thing is to do. It's when we start like saying, "Well, that doesn't feel good or no, you know, that doesn't make me get recognition or how could I get more?" Yeah. Yeah. You know, that doesn't give me any more money or that maybe I shouldn't listen to that. And we do that. I mean, as human beings, that's kind of what we do is we start bargaining with it and not listening to that voice. Yeah. Which is telling us really what we should do. And when we ignore it, then some consequences could happen, man. Yeah. Yeah, man. Oh, you know what I heard the other day? These people were talking about, it's not exactly this subject, but I think it does relay. They were saying um they asked like the smartest man or like the person with the highest IQ um or someone who studies people with high IQs or something. Basically, like what is the difference between someone who is like high IQ versus low IQ? Um and in the

[01:37:23] David: Sentence that he said was basically the person with high IQ does not listen to the voice inside

[01:37:32] Jacob: That says I'm not getting it.

[01:37:35] David: So it's like this constant just like

[01:37:38] Jacob: Trust of like just lean into it.

[01:37:40] David: Like don't second guess yourself. Just kind of like and I don't know I it was crazy when I heard it. I really made me sit back and contemplate. I was like, "Wow, that's actually pretty, you know, and I don't want to make any big theories about IQ and I think there's a whole discussion about IQ that doesn't really even fit in here, but it's just as far as us trusting like that little voice and not trying to I love how you said don't bargain with it, you don't bargain with it." I think there's something really powerful about that. Yeah. Just as soon as you don't listen to it and you start bargaining with it, chances are you're going to make a bad decision. Be honest with you. And then you're consequences. And then life beat you up. And when life beat you up and you learned the lesson and if you would just listen to your voice, then you would have avoided that lesson. Yeah. Yeah. There's something about it. And I think it also is something just like when you make promises to yourself and you follow through with them, you're able to trust yourself more. I think when you like commit to following that voice and you kind of trust that voice, it just becomes more intuitive to follow as well. I think there's something pretty sick about that happens as well. Yes. Yeah. Very powerful. very

[01:38:43] Jacob: Powerful. Well, so Dave, I just want to My sister is listening as far as my knowledge. Um, timewise, if you're willing, I would love to kind of float into I did uh promise a Q&A to those who might be tuning in. Hello nerds. I hope you're enjoying the episode. If you'd like to listen to the last bit of Q&A, it's 40 minutes of Q&A. It's wonderful. It ties a bow on everything. It's on my YouTube channel, The Junkyard Love Podcast, Junkyard Love, and Jacob FTI, Jacob from the Internet. Go check it out. Please hit subscribe, follow, all that. Hit the notification thing. It helps me out. If you liked any of this stuff, share it. I will never copyright you. If you want to clip any of my stuff, do it. Clip it. Share it. Cheers. We'll see you next episode. Reality is Junkyard Love again.