Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:04] There's two things that have come up in recent days that really connect to this whole platform idea that I need to put in the deck and that I, I want to share. And it all has to do with people that I can empathize with, people that I can relate to on some level, maybe just culturally because of being a relatively conservative, straight white male as an American, and also because of my upbringing, actually my, my upbringing really connects to so much of the way I see the world because I grew up in kind of a very paradoxical family where we were land rich but fiat poor.
[00:00:53] We were blue collar.
[00:00:57] My parents were missionaries and when we were back in the States, my dad worked as a contractor, self employed, but he was a contractor, sort of a handyman, which back in the 90s you could do very well doing that if you were good at what you do. And he was good at what he did.
[00:01:17] My mom was a teacher and taught piano and had a music curriculum.
[00:01:22] And then they would go and continue. Like when we were, my brother and I were in junior high, high school, college.
[00:01:30] They continued going back and forth as missionaries, but the rest of our extended family was very much white collar. Doctors and professors like, like university professors, PhDs, mathematicians, like Smart people, but very, very white collar.
[00:01:51] My dad was kind of the black sheep of the family. And, and on my mom's side of the family also, it was very, very much more of a sort of a yuppie upbringing that she had. And then in the 60s, you know, there were sort of two, two ways to go. You could become a hippie and sex, drugs and rock and roll, or you became a Jesus freak. My parents became Jesus freaks. So that, that upbringing though, and then the way that I have lived my life as well as an adult, really, we have incredible empathy and understanding of the human condition.
[00:02:34] From the highest echelons of power, whether it's government or corporate, to the most humble rural farmer in a third world conditions and being able to communicate with those people on their level and also just understanding what motivates them, what they enjoy, what their values are, etc, and to have a deep empathy for people of all walks of life and an understanding and having walked in their shoes at times in my life, as the apostle Paul said, I know how to be a base, that I know how to, to abound.
[00:03:14] Like I know how to be poor and I know how to be rich. I understand that, you know, the importance is to be content and grateful and have gratitude for what we have, what I have in the moment. And then it all Just comes back to purpose. Why am I here? What are my gifts and abilities? What is unique about me that I can bring value to the world? And so with that is sort of a background, it leads me to a couple things that I've noticed. Trends.
[00:03:40] And I'll start with the most current one and then go backwards.
[00:03:44] The most current one is the Ford CEO.
[00:03:48] I'm not sure exactly when. I think in the last week, last few days, talked about how they can't find mechanics, they can't find people to do these blue collar jobs in the US to fix cars, and that it's a problem across many different sectors is finding people to actually do these jobs.
[00:04:09] Now the interesting thing about this is he, he said that and there was just an outpouring on social media of people, guys who are, you know, in their late 20s, 30s, some older, that are like, yeah, the problem is nobody wants to work those jobs because you don't pay.
[00:04:30] Like, nobody wants to go be an H VAC contractor or a plumber or work in construction or be a truck driver or be an auto mechanic because it pays like 20 bucks an hour. And you can't really live in America on 20 bucks an hour.
[00:04:45] That's one.
[00:04:47] But even to get to that point, you have to go through all of the government regulations of trade school and then licensing programs. And then nobody is still going to hire you because you don't have any experience.
[00:05:00] And so you have to go get three, six months of experience or a year of experience, depending on what the job is, and do that at even lesser wage than what you can get working for Ford as an auto mechanic and making 20, 25 bucks an hour, barely, barely surviving after all of that. And then first of all, to get there, you have to either go into debt or you have to be in a place where you can spend a year of your life basically not making any money and spending money on the licensing and the education and all those things in trade school that you need to do in order to get those jobs. So the irony though is that many of those jobs, for example, we've seen many truck driving crashes in recent weeks and a lot of people have died and they're completely avoidable mistakes. And then it turns out that the drivers were either in the country illegally or they definitely got their, their cdl, their commercial driver's license, illegally.
[00:05:57] Some of them can't even read English, they don't know the laws, they're wearing flip flops, they're on their cell phones. I mean, it's truly insane. If ICE was really serious about going and deporting people, they wouldn't be picking people off at Walmart or sending eight agents to, you know, crash a car and, and pull people out of a car and send them back to Latin America or something. They would just go to truck stops and then they would arrest the trucking companies because Walmart and Amazon and probably UPS and FedEx and all these companies are hiring illegals by the hundreds of or thousands.
[00:06:35] So the reality is that there's not actually a shortage of interest in building.
[00:06:44] And there's a lot of chatter on Twitter right now on X.
[00:06:50] And this goes to an earlier idea that I had, so this is working backwards now.
[00:06:55] There's a lot of chatter from tech guys or from people who did fairly well in their 20s and 30s or 30s and 40s and, and the last few years things have got difficult or their jobs have been phased out by AI or other reasons, layoffs, etc.
[00:07:14] And so for those people it's like, oh well, you said learn to code, you really should have said learn to weld, right?
[00:07:23] But even that if you're used to, or if your bills are at a six figure or mid six figure level, if you were working at Google for 300k a year and you got laid off and you have ongoing expenses, you have an expensive mortgage on a couple million dollar house or whatever, it is like going, becoming a welder is obviously not feasible even if you were cool with doing that. And I think that most guys are cool with getting their hands dirty and doing, not back breaking slave labor or prison labor, but doing things worthwhile building stuff, getting calluses. I mean, that's why we go to the gym, right? Because we're not out chopping wood and riding horses and roping cattle and doing all that kind of stuff like we would have had to do in the 1800s.
[00:08:15] So there is an interest in building, there is a need for people to build.
[00:08:26] And I don't just mean the physical backbreaking labor of construction or the trades, but just in general the idea of building a civilization and doing something, being part of something that isn't just doing another AI sass, GPT rapper or something like it's. The conversations are funny on X because you have these, these Y combinator kids in their 20s that are bragging about how hard they're hustling, they're pulling 18 to 20 hour days working and it's like, dude, you're literally building another SaaS that the world does not need, that you're just hoping Becomes a unicorn. Because enough people are like, oh, this is cool. This will save me an hour a week. Did not have to work.
[00:09:19] It's not curing cancer or bringing world peace or even doing something like the big goal that Musk supposedly has, which is, you know, building another human civilization on another planet.
[00:09:32] It's just, it's AI slop, it's unnecessary. And yet this is what society has become. And there are so many people. I really believe that there is a hidden epidemic of men, especially white men, particularly in their 30s, 40s and 50s, whether they've made it financially or not.
[00:10:00] There is a lack of purpose and a sense of angst because we have been at the bottom of the hierarchy, the victimhood hierarchy. Victimhood is a currency.
[00:10:15] We have been at the bottom of that for 30 years. And for most of us, we didn't realize that was the case until it was too late.
[00:10:23] Because, and this is the irony, this is what they. They used our own virtues against us.
[00:10:30] Because those of us who grew up in, I would say, probably the 80s or 90s especially had a quest for greatness and a sense of, I'm going to do something great, of course, because I believe in hard work. I believe in being productive. I believe in being connected to reality. I believe in being a good person. And all of those values that are routinely mocked of, you know, the hillbillies in conservative rural America, the deplorables, which really are great values to have. You want people who are willing to be team players and hardworking and want to win and they're competitive and.
[00:11:09] But they're also moral in the sense of, you know, they believe in playing by the rules. They believe that their rules are there, you know, to make the game actually playable and winnable and worth achieving something within the rules of that. Because honestly, like, if you just cheat to win, there's not a real great sensation of achievement in that achievement comes through working hard and using your brain and.
[00:11:38] And winning by being better than your competition.
[00:11:44] That's. Then you have a real, true, genuine sense of achievement. So I think that there is a.
[00:11:50] A hidden epidemic of guys who are realizing, like, this might never get better for us and we have nowhere to go because we are so independently minded, because of how we are wired and conditioned, because weakness was not an option. Showing weakness especially was not acceptable.
[00:12:16] If you grew up in the 80s and 90s and you were in America especially, and you were competitive, if you were an athlete. I think David Goggins is funny.
[00:12:26] I don't need that to motivate me because I'm very self motivated, but I get him, I completely understand him. And, and sometimes when I see his stuff come across my feed, I, I enjoy watching it because it takes me back to when I was younger and the way that our coaches were, the way that my dad was, the way that my older brother was like, you would catch ground balls until you were blistered and bleeding and crying and then they would yell at you for being a baby and cry like it would be dark and you're getting hit in the chin with balls that are bouncing off rocks. Like, you just deal with it, toughen up like you want to be good or not.
[00:13:06] Your feelings did not matter because you wanted to win and the, the price of greatness was setting aside however you felt and just dealing with reality in front of you.
[00:13:21] The only way to win was to beat your opponent. Period.
[00:13:25] So I think that that is at the, the foundation of this problem because it, it leads us to be so independent and so resistant to show any weakness or to, to reach out, to lean on others, to say, hey man, like, I'm struggling with this, or like, I have this problem. Like, it's not going to get better on its own.
[00:13:57] And for most of us, like, we still have a lot of life to live. And especially with, with biotechnology and what's happening in science and health and wellness, like, longevity could be very, very, very different for Anyone that's under 60 right now. They say that if you live the next 20 years, like, you might live the next hundred years or 200 years, like, and maybe that's just hyperbole, but maybe not also.
[00:14:26] And so we got to figure something out to, to fix that.
[00:14:32] That chip in our head that says, like, no, I'm just going to solve it myself.
[00:14:38] Because the synergy that can come from getting so many talented, quality people together who are not. Because we're victims, not to say, well, we're at the bottom of the victimhood hierarchy. So we got to work together, guys. No, it's not that. It's that because of being there for so many years, the last few decades, and because of the shared values that we all grew up with, there's incredible synergy. If we can work together and be honest with each other about our strengths and weaknesses and, and our roles and what we want and our, our goals and all of those things, it's something that needs to take place within a framework that makes it easy for people to say, oh, I'm good at this, like, hey, I'll help you out. Like, I want to build this thing. And so if you bring people together, and that's really at the heart of the sovereign hub platform, creating a framework and a structure to where those types of people can all come together in a frictionless way to participate. And just like we figured out, you know, back in the day very quickly who was good at what on the basketball court or on the football field.
[00:15:59] It was pretty quick to figure out, okay, this guy's really good at this, this guy's good at this, I'm good at this. And so we can, if we're honest and we just want to win more than our selfish egos saying that, you know, I have to be the star player, even though, like, there's three other guys on my team that are way better at scoring than me, you can really build a team that functions incredibly well together and, and creates really awesome synergy to build great things.
[00:16:33] And so that's the, at the heart of what I'm seeing and empathizing with, with so many people out there that are like, whether just waking up or if they've been awake for a very long time, about what's happening geopolitically and what's happening with, you know, this push for a dystopian future, quite honestly, of complete control over every aspect of our lives.
[00:17:02] Part of the reason why a certain people group has done so well is because their core value system is to work together to, to get what they want.
[00:17:15] And so there is self interest, but there is also a sense of camaraderie and teamwork.
[00:17:23] And we're seeing it right now in real time that, I mean, one person's good at destruction and one person is good at wealth creation and, and in buying a, acquiring certain platforms and whatnot. And they work together to control everything.
[00:17:48] And I'm not suggesting that that's the route we go. I'm suggesting that the route we go is to create a network of people who have similar core values in the way that we were formed in our formative years, that believe in the protection of life and liberty, that believe in freedom, that believe that building is the highest form of, of expression, creative expression and achievement.
[00:18:30] But it's not about just destroying something. It's not about just fighting. It's about we can just do things. So let's go and build a new world that's as much outside of the system as possible.
[00:18:44] And I'm not claiming to have all the answers by any means, but I do believe that a structure like this that can bring people together and, and using the Technological tools that are available to us sort of seamlessly push and prod and pull and assist with removing some of the barriers and the awkwardness and the, the, the, the natural tendency of reservation that we have and just make it much more fun to make a team and go play pickup basketball.
[00:19:27] Right. Like too often, I think, and I'll speak from experience because I think that this is a good metaphor. So I, I put together a team in the Cambodian Basketball League.
[00:19:40] I bought into the league and, and took over a 100 Khmer team. It was the local guys.
[00:19:50] We changed the name and, and I, you know, made it a marketable thing, changed all the uniforms, made it really cool.
[00:19:57] And the first year I was sort of figuring it out, but it was, it was in a professional league. Right. So I felt like as the gm, the owner, like I have to really do this exactly right, get the right people in. So I, I scouted some, some guys, American guys, brought in two players, a point guard, a big dude.
[00:20:18] Teamed them up in the best way possible with the, the talent, the local talent that was, that was decent. They were sort of middle of the pack, but they were good enough that I thought with just a couple pieces like we could really make it and some training, we could really make it something.
[00:20:36] And we ended up winning the championship in the Cambodian basketball league in 2015.
[00:20:42] And I can compare that experience to just going to the gym or going to a park and picking a team of dudes to just run fives and pick up basketball and the, the level of pressure in each one.
[00:21:04] And I think what we do too often with, with business and with these projects, particularly startups or businesses that are looking to scale and the developing world mostly, but also just in, in business in general. I would say in like in the western countries is we look at it too much like putting a team together in a professional league versus just going and looking for the best guys at the park or at the 24 Hour Fitness gym.
[00:21:45] Like hey, you on a team, like you want to, want to run? Like do you get three guys together, you and your buddy and you find three other guys look like they're, they're decent or look like they would slot in well with you and you pick a team and you go. It's much more low pressure and we don't overthink that because you're just there to have fun and run and get exercise and ideally win.
[00:22:09] But it's, there's less, less overthinking, there's less self pressure that's put on because the goal is just to play to win, but you don't overthink it.
[00:22:27] I think in, in business, too often we do because it's.
[00:22:34] The goal is not so much just to build.
[00:22:37] The goal is this has to be perfect, it has to succeed, and it has to succeed this way and at this level, otherwise it's not worth my time.
[00:22:49] But is that really true?
[00:22:52] Like, if you are part of a project that you thoroughly enjoy and you use your talents and you, you believe that it was an opportunity of you, for you to use your abilities and, and your passions and to contribute value to the project, and it only returns a 2x instead of a 10x or 100x or it just is something that it works and it, it operates and makes a little bit of money, but it's not, it doesn't. It's not going to make you rich, not going to buy you a second or third home or a yacht or anything.
[00:23:35] Is there value in that? That is the question.
[00:23:40] Because if you don't think that there's value in living your purpose, contributing to building something that impacts positively other people's lives and also is profitable, I'm not suggesting that we go just throw money and time and energy at any project and if it loses money, it doesn't matter. I'm not saying that at all.
[00:24:03] I'm just saying maybe we should be more humble and more willing to say, what is my purpose? What do I really want to do?
[00:24:17] How can I contribute value?
[00:24:20] And what kind of projects, businesses, things that could be done, do I want to be part of?
[00:24:33] Because I know for me that I'm one of those people.
[00:24:39] If it's something I enjoy, it's not work and I'll throw myself into it.
[00:24:49] So when I see stories about Elon Musk and I see people making fun of the idea that, oh, he just works, you know, 24 7, except when he's sleeping.
[00:24:57] He doesn't even take time for meals.
[00:24:59] He just has food brought to meetings and whatever.
[00:25:02] That doesn't seem strange to me at all because I would love that life, like to just work on stuff you're passionate about all day and like, and in very, you know, very different sectors, different places in the world, and go and talk about those things and share about those things and be active politically in those areas.
[00:25:29] I mean, that sounds awesome. What else is there to life? Like, you want to sit around on the beach and drink beer? You want to sit and watch TV and watch the game?
[00:25:38] No, thanks.
[00:25:40] And at a deep level, I think that a lot of those Things I talk about sit and watch the game all day on Sunday or something. Those are escapes, I believe, especially for guys who feel like they want to contribute value.
[00:25:59] They've done it the right way their whole lives and it's. It hasn't paid off or it's not paying off anymore or they don't want to continue giving themselves so passionately to life the way that they were before because it hasn't paid off. Now at this point, and I'm telling you, this is something that is way more common than anybody lets on. It just is because we grew up with the idea that you don't show weakness, that you get your together and you pick yourself up out of the dirt, you dust yourself off and you get back in the game.
[00:26:49] I, I played varsity football as a quarterback as a freshman and I will never forget the reason why. I was a, I was a backup as a freshman, but I got to play quite a bit because the upperclassmen was a total.
[00:27:11] He got hurt all the time. He couldn't take a hit and I could.
[00:27:20] And I. Man, there's one of my favorite videos was my freshman year, I got hit, just laid the out on a long deep ball that I stepped into and this guy like, just like helmet under the chin. I mean this was the 90s, so it was before all this spearing stuff got completely crazy with penalties.
[00:27:45] And the dude, he was like a defensive lineman or linebacker or something, but he ended up going to Oregon State on a scholarship.
[00:27:53] I don't, I didn't follow him from there. I don't know if he went to the NFL or not, but he was a big dude and luckily it was like one of those hits where you, you just get laid out, but it doesn't hurt because it was like such a perfect hit and you just fly backwards.
[00:28:10] Wow. What just hit me, I run over by a truck.
[00:28:14] But that was how I grew up with an older brother who liked to throw me around and a dad who was adamant that you just, you have to be tough.
[00:28:27] And so they prepared me to where I was ready as a freshman to go in and take hits like that because, well, I'm tough. I'm tougher than the upperclassman guy and I'm better than him. So of course I'm going to be ready. Now that foundation, I think a lot of guys that, that grew up in the 80s and 90s can relate to that.
[00:28:49] What I'm saying that can mess with us now when you get into your late 30s and 40s and 50s because it's never gone away. It still is, like, at a. At the core of, of who we are. Right?
[00:29:10] And so there almost has to be a system to bring us together and be like, okay, this is sucking. I don't feel like I have purpose, but I want to have purpose, but I feel sheepish to be like, bro, you want to work on a project together? Because, like, I want to have purpose, but I want to work with you because, like, I think we'd have good synergy. Like, that feels really weak or gay if you grew up in that way.
[00:29:36] The way that I'm describing previously of, like, being tough and being independent, not showing weakness, fighting for everything that, that you get, being uber competitive, all of those things.
[00:29:54] And so it really is a passion of mine to, to solve this.
[00:30:00] And I think that there is so much wasted energy, resources, talent on a personal level that can be brought together and should be brought together to build a better world, to build that parallel society that we all have been talking about for years now.
[00:30:23] It's incredible to me to. To look back at some chat groups, different groups of people online, different friends that we made during those years of the shutdown, during the scam bid thing.
[00:30:39] Like, man, it's been five years, half a decade.
[00:30:43] What have we done?
[00:30:46] We keep thinking, like, there was this hope and the timing thing works out well if we just get Trump back in and it's another couple years and, oh, it's next year, Trump's going to get back in. Like, this is going to change things back to our side, and then we're going to have, you know, some. Some. It's going to be more rational in business, whatever.
[00:31:03] And so much of the angst and the anger and the frustration and the passion that was just so bottled up and ready to come out during 2020 and 2021 sort of dissipated when Trump got elected. And it's taken this whole year now to get back to the point of, like, oh, maybe what they're doing is actually diabolical. Maybe it's going to be worse for us than if just the whole empire had crumbled under the puppet of Kamala and whoever was running her from behind, because running her from behind, that's not the way to phrase that.
[00:31:41] Jeez, there's a lot of jokes that could go with. With Camelo. Anyway, let's keep it clean.
[00:31:50] The reality is the US Citizens are taking it from behind from a certain small nation in the Middle East. Okay, now I really digress. The point is there was a lot of anger and a lot of frustration that was looking for outlets and looking to come together during 2020 and 2021, during the lockdowns.
[00:32:13] But since then, it's sort of just like, ah, gone back to life as usual.
[00:32:19] And the longer it's like this slow boiling water. You know, the boiling frog analogy we've all heard a million times.
[00:32:28] That's what's happened. And it's not enough to simply be aware and be like, hey, guys, we should get out of this water because we know it's boiling and it's going to kill us all.
[00:32:39] Yeah, yeah, we should, man. Well, let's just all like, let's keep in contact. Let's just hang out here in the hot tub in the boiling water, and we'll all post frog memes. And when it's. When it gets to boiling, we're all gonna know because we're all awake and aware. So then we'll all just jump out at that point. Where the hell are you gonna go?
[00:32:58] That's the thing.
[00:32:59] Like, we need to get out of the water now.
[00:33:02] We need to build. And hopefully it's not too late now. But I think it's better to start now than to wait, right? When's the best time to plant a tree?
[00:33:13] 50 years ago, 20 years ago, five years ago? Or today?
[00:33:17] Not tomorrow, Today.
[00:33:20] It's the same thing with getting out of this system that we are under. In very, very real sense, we are boiling frogs.
[00:33:34] Just because we're awake to the fact that we are boiling frogs is not solving the issue.
[00:33:42] I think we're all too comfortable and we're all just wired in this way that we don't want to depend on anybody else and we don't necessarily want to reach out to anyone else. And so my goal is to create a structure, create a system that just makes it frictionless.
[00:34:02] You got an idea, put it out there, and five or 10 people are gonna be like, oh, that's awesome. I can contribute this. I want to be part of it. Let's build it. Let's go.
[00:34:12] Like, you want to play pickup basketball? Well, that's why we're all here. So let's freaking play.
[00:34:18] I see way too much, and maybe I'm just being pessimistic because.
[00:34:22] Because I haven't gotten involved in any specific projects, big project.
[00:34:27] But I don't think so because I've been hearing that this is an issue with a lot of different people and a lot of different groups, and that it's hard, that it's like herding cats, as I've said. Many times to get everybody together and get people moving in the right direction.
[00:34:46] But we're all here to play basketball. Let's play and let's go play with the idea that we're gonna win.
[00:34:58] I mean that's foundational. Like I'm not if some dudes like just at the gym making jokes. He's life. Like maybe he's good, but that's probably not somebody I'm gonna ask to like be on my team because I know he's not going to be there just to win and to be serious because he's just there goofing off. Even if he's good, I'd rather have the dude who's quiet that has the goggles on. Maybe he's from Europe, especially if he's from Europe actually, because they have the best fundamentals and it's just very serious and quiet. But you can tell like he's there to play and he's there to win. I want that guy on my team.
[00:35:34] But it's almost like in the boiling frogs and in this, this metaphor to extend it to like the people who are awake, the expats or people who are still in their home country. But they, they want to be a part of building a parallel society and a better world. They want to be a part of supporting life, liberty and, and creation of a new better system framework.
[00:36:02] Like we're, everybody's just kind of shooting around. There's, there's nobody that stepped up, been like, dudes, all right, are we going to play or what?
[00:36:10] Like we're all just gonna like hang out at the gym. There's like 20 of us here. We're not. Nobody's running. Let's go. You got five, I got five. Let's go, let's play.
[00:36:20] Let's turn on the scoreboard and let's start playing.
[00:36:26] And that's where I see a massive problem.
[00:36:31] I don't see that happening.
[00:36:37] And I believe that Sovereign Hub as a platform can help to facilitate that happening and getting people actively working together to build.
[00:36:52] Because that's why we're all here.
[00:36:54] That's why people are seeking community of like minded other individuals to find solutions, not just to about what's going. Like imagine if you're at the gym because you're gonna go play pickup basketball and everybody's just shooting around and talking and whatever and everybody's just bitching about the fact that nobody's playing. That there's. Why aren't we playing? Like someone needs to stand up and be like, yo boys, let's run.
[00:37:22] Like, that's.
[00:37:25] And I'm saying this from experience because I've been at gyms or parks or whatever where it's like, I don't just want to shoot around. Like, I came here to play, compete, let's play.
[00:37:34] Like, I've had this experience many times. And so that's why I'm seeing this in this world of sovereign individuals who are finding community and seeking like minded individuals and, and groups and they, they want to find projects to get involved with and they. We talk a lot about all the problems in the world and we talk a lot about building a better world, but where is it happening?
[00:37:59] We need to create a system to where that can happen.
[00:38:03] I. E.
[00:38:05] Somebody needs to stand up and be like, yo, let's get the show on the road.
[00:38:09] So if somebody else already said that cool, point me to them. I'm happy to go and see what they're doing and get involved there.
[00:38:20] But I haven't seen anybody be like, yo, guys, let's play. Let's get the show on the road. Let's. Let's do this thing.
[00:38:26] Let's build this.
[00:38:28] So I'm proposing my solution to do exactly that.
