Reporting live 🎤| Maintaining Your Identity While Performing to Hundreds of Thousands w/Adam King🎙️Ep.12

I don't see color. Kinda feels like. Like dismissing the issue Oh, yeah. It feels to me like. Like a blanket answer. Oh, I don't see color. So that's not the answer to the problem. It's disregarding the problem that I don't see color. You need to shake those people out of show and see what you need to see, because it's a huge dynamic of what we're dealing with. It's it's the dynamic and what we're dealing with talking about here. Welcome back to Authentic. On Air with Bruce Alexander.

I'm your host, Bruce Alexander. I'm a little intimidated as I sit here today because my guest is literally on air live in front of hundreds of thousands on OKC. local Fox News. While, my on air consists of 13 of my closest friends and acquaintances running up my download numbers on different podcast platforms. Adam King is here to critique my interview technique. After today's reflection. How do you handle the success of someone also doing whatever it is you want to be successful?

Are you tempted to imitate them? Are you jealous of their success? It took me over 35 years to stop playing the zero sum game. Are you appreciating other's talents and successes, knowing that it does not take anything away from you? Well, unless you are trying to be them, that position is already filled. However, the authentic, you will find a room and an audience wherever you put your heart.

While you mull that over, as always, I am genuinely interested and would love to hear any interesting, surprising or relational insights uncovered. So you can hit me up on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and authentic identity management. Adam King recently made the big transition to evening news anchor for the Cox Fox 23 News family. I personally and not a news watcher, but I really respect the role of the noble local news reporter. Not all of them fit that description.

My guest today instantly struck me as a genuine person and has yet to disappoint on that front. In a world where high priority is placed on pearly whites and slender friends, it would not be hard to be ugly on the inside. Not even though he is as handsome on the inside as well as you are. Please welcome to the show. Adam King spoke of our. Man as feeling I had to do a better job. This is the same. This is going to be like the same thing that it was the last three or four times. Flip it around.

Is he coming to you in the fist? More questions or just going to flip it around? It's going to be all right, man. Yeah, I'm already less intimidated because you're such a nice guy that that makes it makes it a lot easier. You could come in here and, you know, have this hot air about because you do an important job. But that's the appeal of stuff like this, right? Is is we always try to go for that vibe. I've never been like a I don't know. I've never felt like an important person.

I don't know if that's the right way to put it, but I just like when people talk to me right now like this. I want them to feel that way when we're talking on the air. My whole thing has always been like, I'm going to be the guys you're. You want to come talk to me and hear from me because I'm talking like we're sitting in the garage. You're sitting in the living room, like, have a drink and just talk about what's going on. Where does that come from for you?

Like, is that something you always had in your heart? I think it's just been, man. I think it's just the big part of that to me is when someone's turning it on or not being. And then you can tell. I mean, it shines through and like, I think if you flipped through now, maybe Oklahoma City is not a not a huge example because I think everybody does a pretty good job of it here.

But you can kind of tell like if you're getting somebody, even if you just were out in public and you see somebody, hey, what's going on? You can easily get like the sniff test, right? Like something's going on with you. I can smell it, I can feel it. And I don't ever want people to feel that way. I just sometimes you got to talk about tough stuff. It's like evening news or morning news. Like it's not all happy. People will attest to that.

So you got to try to at least make them as comfortable as you can. Yeah, absolutely. So is that depiction I gave in the show, is that still true? They still have a high priority on the looks of the reporters. I'd say it definitely matters more so than he'd like to admit. I think the pressure of that does not come from the stations themselves. And unless you're going to make like a major wholesale change, But I think it'd be like courtesy to like, hey, I think I'm going to come in tomorrow night.

I'm going to dye my hair blond, whatever. And I'm like, I think we should probably talk about that first. But no, I think that pressure, honestly now is more internal from the people themselves, which has been an interesting shift because I think maybe ten seven is for like ten years. I think even a little bit when I started, you could tell a little bit like because we're we're not we're all human, right? So we get into the room, we look around. Yeah.

You know, and, and I think we as we've moved away from that further on, as we get further further down the line, I think people have had a better understanding. They understand some of the pressure that can come with that. But I still think that pressure is more from people internally. But that's a problem I think is is solid news, right. I think that's that's with everybody and everybody fights that battle. Definitely. And we're going to talk about that a little bit there.

But you don't see a lot of plus sized anchors. I don't I can't think of any Sure. Like so I mean, maybe it doesn't they're not putting pressure on you to change, but maybe they're excluding an entire group. And I this is not a judgment call on my part. It's just, you know, from my observation. Yeah. Would you guys would you agree with that? I think there's definitely mold, right? I there's definitely a mold. And there's even some things with, like, uh, like facial hair.

One of the first stations I worked at in South Dakota was like, no shame. November, right? The local fire department. For some reason, I've always had a a good match and a good work with firefighters, police officers and military. We always get along. Maybe it's a similar mindset. Maybe it's a haircut. Oh, no. You insider out in any of the only vent. Every time I checked out a grocery store. Military discount. No, but thank you. I'm honored you'd even ask. Yeah, but, like, so we were.

I was going to do, you know, she November with the fire department. We're going to make a whole thing of it two days and maybe start to get a little scruffy. It doesn't take me long to get like a 5:00 shadow going, right? And Boss calls me to those officers, Hey, man, I don't know what we got going on here, but we're gonna have to get rid of that. I guess we know that apparently, if a person shows up on air with facial hair and specific ways, they're deemed to be less trustworthy. Oh, yeah.

So there's, like, some stuff about that that they're in a corporate setting that they're spending more money to find things. So I would I would definitely not be surprised if I heard there was a mold or something slotted out that they were looking for. I know in some positions they want some places want two females at the desk because it's it's more inviting or they want a male and a female and they want that dynamic.

So there's definitely different places looking for different things, that's for sure. So it's the optics of, I believe the way yeah, it's called, but it's not something you guys really pay too much attention to sitting behind the desk. You're just trying to do your best and bring what you can. Right. To be honest, I can't, man. Like I. I just. If I start thinking about that stuff, I got so much like in a in a in an hour. Right. Let's just. We're usually doing two and a half hours a day.

The morning folks are 4 hours straight, right? In just an hour that we've got anywhere from 100, maybe 120 pieces of news we're trying to break. Everyone averages about 30 to 45 seconds, maybe more, maybe less. And if I start thinking about like, what is going on, I'm not going to be able to connect. I'm not gonna be able to do a job that I've got to do. So I'll take 10 minutes, 15 minutes before you log it. Just make sure all my my suit looks good, all that stuff.

I'll do a little bit of makeup, do it on my own. It's like number one question I get in my life is, do you do your makeup like that, man? And do it for ten years? Getting pretty good at it. But once I do my final like check, it is business time. And as a male in that industry, I'm very lucky with that and very grateful for that. There's not a lot of there's not a lot of check ins that I have to do or check ups that I have to do.

Whereas like the female co-anchors that I've worked with throughout my entire career, right. They they probably focus on that just a little bit more because I think to a lot of the messages and things they get are more centered towards stuff like that sometimes. So, so with that, having to remove yourself from the, you know, the tiny thoughts and all that stuff. Is it difficult to bring yourself to the camera? I can actually deliver an authentic view to the audience. It was it first.

And I think especially like if you watched the first week that I just did on this evening side, right. I'm working with Jack and Wendy. I mean, when he's the best investigative reporter in Oklahoma City right now, I mean, she's doing stuff and getting in the behind the scenes and stuff that, like people are even thinking about talking about it, then she'll bring it up. It's a big deal. So it's like kind of intimidating to get in there.

And I went from the morning group where I was like the kind of the king of the castle and drive of the boat here. Like if softball stuff was going wrong, I was the one who is kind of dispersing it, telling people what to do. I you got to get a little tiny, right? Because you're like, I got to stand next to this. I got to stand up and stand next to this kind of titan here. That's the amazing things.

But I think what you just really do is you take a deep breath and if you can realize what you're reading now, if you're reading off the teleprompter, you can realize what you're reading and the significance, what it means to people as you're reading it. I think that's the key, because if there's something about, you know, a family where we had a family where somebody's got their son got shot in the middle of the street, you need to deliver that in a way.

Like if I knew you for 20 years, I was like, Oh my gosh, what is heard about you? That's how you got to talk about it. So I think it's it's as simple but as complicated as understanding the impact of what you're saying, right? If you're like, Oh, so-and-so's coming out with a new felt like, yeah, you can like let it fly a little bit as it's not. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, right, isn't that big of a deal. So maybe it's perspective, right?

You just realize what you're saying is perspective and then realize that they're not just words on a page. Right. That's somebody right here that and if we do it the wrong way and it's the first time they hear it, it's through our mouths like it's going to change your day. So change your life a little bit. So you've got to be very aware of that.

And I think that goes to that speaks to who you are as a person, is that you're not worried about how you look, you're worried about how people are receiving the information. And so because you care about how they're receiving the information, that helps you step outside of how I feel delivering this, right. I feel similar as I sit here talking to you. I want to I really want to deliver my audience a good a good conversation.

So if I'm sitting here thinking about, like, is he thinking about, you know, how stupid this sounds, you know, is my audience worried about my voice sounding weird? I start getting into all that stuff all my fears and doubts. I'm not going to be able to do that, right. So I have to I care about a good conversation, asking smart questions, trying to get, you know, following the conversation where it's going, being here in the conversation.

And I think I think it helps so much to get outside of the thoughts about yourself, because honestly, nobody is as concerned with you as you are. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. The people who the people who who care don't matter. And the people who that's like are the people who don't care don't matter. And the people who care like, babe, they're the ones that they'll be in your life. In your life enough consistently to make sure that you get what you need.

That's it's not just criticism. How did you evolve and make that shift to becoming I'm just going to say, more mindful, right? Because I think it's just being mindful of what's going on around you and across from you or like as you went on. Have you noticed? AS Yeah, for like show to show, right? Absolutely. It's been for one it's it's hard to separate out How am I doing as an interviewer versus me.

Like picking at myself as a person is like, oh that's no I whenever I do that, oh, that's like smack my lips and like, Oh, that's so annoying. If I, you know, do a deep breath and I didn't edit out all that. So knowing that, you know, yes, that irritates me. But most people are, they don't hear it the same way. So I'm like I try to look at it as did I listen? Well, yeah, that that's what's important if I listen to well, I was asking better questions.

If I was asking better questions, the other person was talking more because initially whenever I first started, at least in the second one, me and my wife, we have a pretty good rapport. So that was the first episode. The second episode I felt like I talked way too much. And it's not. It's not because I don't think that I'm an important person and I have things to say. I definitely have all that stuff, but I'm here every episode.

I really feel like it's it's my duty to give the guest a chance to to really on the platform and get out of the way for them to tell their story and ask a question so that so our audience learn more about you. And as I've focused on that, it's become easier and easier to get out of the way and just and let the conversation speak for itself. And that's a cool evolution, right? As you feel that, how did you get, you know. Like, man, it is really.

Self aware, really, even just like watch a couple pieces of tape or like, what's it coming back to, man? I really have to well, fast because I don't want to listen to myself. I'm like, You gotta fix this. Aren't you going to have to listen to this until you fix it? I'm like, You better fix it. I was like, Oh, my voice is so crazy. But other people like it, so I want to keep doing it. Yeah, that's everybody, right? Like everybody hear their voice. Ah, for the first time. Oh, my gosh. Is that me?

Oh, yeah. You know. Yeah, that's. That's, that's a very. I appreciate That is a comfort though. Oh yeah. So let's go back a little bit for people who don't watch the news. Can you tell our listeners who aren't familiar with you and your own words who you are, what you spend your days doing, and why you think I invited you to be a guest on the show today? Oh, man. Here we go. Let's try to get inside your head a little bit. Well, I think just I'm just a guy, man. I don't know.

We already talked about a little bit, but I'm just I'm not any different from anybody else that you see at the grocery store or on the street or any way that you're talking to. I'm just your neighbor, like I'm just another guy. I got lucky enough to get a job where I get to have a little bit of a platform and a little bit of reach. But it's just I'm just the guy, right? And I think some of that other stuff, too, is is. Goes just to show it.

So I got it for pretty you get into a pretty like almost structure and pretty set routine but I spent a lot of time like physical fitness going to be part of my life whether it's been my own or helping others through it. So I do a lot of work as a personal trainer and CrossFit coach in every city that I've been to.

And I do everything with people who just want to get healthy and move a little bit better, want to place the grandkids or like really high, low level athletes that want to compete on a really big stage. And I think that's given a lot of perspective, too, right? Because you get to see all the ends of the spectrum. It's really fun to watch somebody do something at a high level.

It is so much more rewarding to hear from somebody who's 67 years old to be like, Hey, I my grandkid wanted me to pick them up and I could do without my back hurting, which is really cool. So I spend a lot of time when I'm not at work doing that. Like that's before I go to the office today. That's why I'm calling today. And it's it's a different way to give back. But it's a it's a fun way to get something that you can you can see the change. Right.

So sometimes with you know, you give 20 bucks to some kind of foundation or charity or something, you know, you don't see it. And this is kind of where you can give back and see every day. So I'm trying to, you know, give back a little bit to what I do for work and then not work. And I'm kind of working on trying to help some other folks kind of keep it going. Right? So that was that. You know, you talked about physical fitness.

Whenever I was, you know, my fitness, I never I still really hate myself because all of my all of my connection to working out was motivated by guilt and shame and fear. Right. What what motivates you staying in the gym? Like, I've you know, I've researched your career and like you said, every word that you've been you've been at different gyms. Being a trainer, coach, what what motivates that for you?

So we have something within coaches that we just call the aha moment where you get somebody going and it just clicks. Great. Some hey excited people who maybe aren't really physically aware all the time. So we try to keep things really simple. We tell you like a body part and the direction. I want you to take this knee and move it this way, this thing move this way, because that's how I kind of figure that out.

And then you can start to see things quick and not just when you talk to him in the gym, but when they get done. So every time somebody comes to me, the first 10 minutes of a 45 minute whatever, we're going to talk about what's going on in life, having a feeling and it's just seeing the excitement and people that things are going well and getting better, that it just man, it's it's the most amazing thing. You can feel like they get excited for somebody else.

I've always been a guy who takes the energy in the room and then kind of multiplies it, right? So if if I'm in a room with a bunch of people, I'm going to like, Yeah, All right, cool. That's called me popping around, buzzing around. And then if I'm in one that's kind of tense or something, I was go, Whoa, okay, what are we doing here? How do we what do we figure out?

So the motivation for me is, is to get the excitement and the positivity from people and then sort of selfishly, right, Like you get to ride that wave with them and I don't need to be in the driver's seat. I've had my time, I've had a lot of fun and got to go a lot of places and accomplish a lot of stuff in that realm. But I definitely want to ride shotgun like I want to be there for and I want to be a part of it. I want to be the first person that's like, Oh, this thing happened.

That's awesome. Like a hug and a high five. So that's why you coach, right? Yeah. What about what? Why do you work out now? I see. I've seen you didn't that before. We go to the same gym and. Yeah, you get. After it. Yeah, man. At this point. Let's see, I started trying to figure this out, so I was always a hockey player, right? I'm going to work throughout LA. Yeah, I started as a hockey player all my life, like since I was about three years old and it skates on by through Windsor High School.

Played a little bit after high school, played a little bit in college and played some tennis in college. I think it was before that though. So maybe sophomore junior high school, right? I'm pretty overweight and I think it's another thing that that what he's also a coach and twin brother. He's also a coach. He lives in West Virginia. I think it's one of the things that make us great coaches because we've been here and we've lived it. I think he was I believe it.

He was somewhere on £290. I was about 270. This is like right after high school, maybe we were just kind of like things weren't quite going. He's young. Everybody has that thing where they just kind of stop trying to find a new normal. And he lost about £100, like do his thing. Just unbelievable.

And we had a picture at a tennis tournament where we're playing doubles together and we looked at him, looked at me, and we're not identical twins, but we're very similar, I think, right now, even if the only difference we haven't had is a beard almost exactly the same and we had a picture of a side by side. We like two totally different people. I remember seeing that picture, Whoa, like, am I in a doing the things I need to do to, like, be the person that I want to be?

I don't think there was a lot of negativity towards it. I just remember seeing that and everybody I think that I've ever worked with in that regard that's had a lot of success has had a moment where they just it's not a negative moment and they just kind of step back and just kind of go, Whoa, I maybe didn't realize like this is where I was at. So that's what started me. I wanted to make some change and did that. And I think what keeps me going now, part of it's habit and routine.

I competed in the sport of CrossFit for like eight straight years and you can definitely that is something that it is not for the faint of heart. I mean, we're going before work for 2 hours, go to work after work for 2 hours, go home, go to bed. Everything is very regimented. Nutrition, very regimented, recovery is very regimented. So part of it's a little bit of habit, but I think it's just something that makes me feel good and I don't even care.

Now. Everything with CrossFit scored and measured and they want to know, like if you can do the same amount of work in less time, you become more fit, right? That's power output over time. But I don't even keep track of my scores anymore. I just go in and I work hard and kind of move around and have some fun. And some days I like really get after X. I'm feeling good. My knees don't hurt. Yeah, and I have other days where I'm like, You know what? Like this is enough for today.

It's been 130 degrees out for the past four days. I think I'm okay. I think we got So it has taken some time to find balance, especially comparing. But now it's just something I do to make me feel good. And again, I can get in there. Usually if I'm with a group of people, I find somebody and I cling to them and I'm just like, Hey, we're just going to make sure you have a good day. I'll get mine. It'll be fine. So I kind of ride that. Yeah, same almost the same thing as like a coach.

I want to see somebody else have her like a day, and then I'll have a good day. And he's fine. I mean, I've found that myself later in life is that, you know, giving to others really does help bring out the best in yourself. And so, you know, you do that in the gym, too, and that's awesome. Yeah. You know, and especially across the gym, it's a lot easier than when you go to, you know, the big gym down here because then you're just talking to some stranger there.

Like you never know how it's going to react whenever you're trying to, you know, boost somebody up as a stranger at the gym. Yeah, You. Still fine, though, right? Like, if somebody is moving a bar with something on and you're like, whoa. Because I think that's the other thing too, is in gyms anywhere, it's always, I only did this or watch how much did you squat this?

But like, or like, it's always about like what You cut out more and they don't realize, like, there's literally people on this planet that cannot get up out of a chair that on their own, like they have to have a button that tilts a recliner so they can get up. Like you not only decided to get out and express this stuff that your body could do, that you worked hard to get there. You actively chose to do it.

Yeah. So like, that's like a number one pet peeve of mine is and people were like, Yeah, but, and I'm like, well, you just say like, how about, yeah, I got this. Like, you know, it's just even just the phrasing, right? Like you can. But even then, even that, like big kind of Globo gym, I'd still, I'd walk by somebody and I'd be like, Oh man, that's not like I'd still stop and I'd be like, Hey, that's pretty. That's legit. Like, I want to stay away from you, because that's that's a lot, right?

So do you, do you have pretty positive self-talk? No. Yeah, not at all. Surprising. Not at all. I just I save it for everybody else. I, I think everybody gets that gets caught in a trap where they can be really critical. So I think the sort of what we talk about right I'm really working on right now is being mindful of it when it happens.

Yeah, I do think I'm the best version of myself when I'm positive and positive towards other people, I don't necessarily know what it means or what it feels like to take a long period of time and necessarily be positive myself. And I think again, it's this because a lot of things I've always done a lot of the hobbies and even the careers, right? They've all been comparison. Sports has a winner and a loser. And if you're not the one winner, something's wrong. Well, that's not true, right?

So it's it's trying to it's trying to figure that kind of stuff out. So it's definitely getting better. It's getting better with mindfulness. But man, is it that is tough and it's tough for everybody. I think that's another reason why I think it's so important to be positive to other people, because I think even the happiest people that, you know, the most upbeat and people that, you know, might have some stuff where they just can't quite get it, click in for themselves.

So I whenever I think about my self-talk, which can be very negative, it sometimes I try to I try to listen to my own advice which is try to picture yourself saying that to someone you love. Like if you do that, you're like, I would never say that to my wife. You have a very you have kind of like a a trick because you can picture saying it's to your twin brother who literally looks exactly like you and saying, Would you say that to him? No, I wouldn't say that to my twin brother.

Like I love like I love him. Yeah, but it's like you're doing the same thing. And so while it's wild, man. Yeah, I think it's the the, the, the thing I try to think about, especially it's about being mindful is I try to say things like to myself, like, would you let somebody else talk to me right now? Very similar to what you're saying. Which would you let somebody else talk to you that way, or would you let somebody say that to somebody? I know that's kind of my thing.

I have to tell people when I hear them say to themselves is, hey, like, take it easy on my friend over there. They're trying really hard. You know, they're doing their best. Yeah, give them a break. They're working hard and then I'll make you laugh and kind of break up. And then they kind of realize, like, what's going on? So I want to find some some ways to make that a little self-involved. I mean, that's hard. That's impossible. Possible, But that's. That's the stuff that we love, right?

It's the impossible journey where if you're never going to get to the end. You know, I'm. Just going to keep growing and figuring it out like, okay, I made some good steps today and then maybe I'll take some steps back. You'll figure it out and get rewired to get back to where you need to be. I feel like the reason why I've taken the positive steps in the last few years of my life is because I started listening to my own advice.

Yeah, I've always been able to like, dole out advice to the people that, you know, it's really been pretty sage and really kind and, you know, give yourself raised and don't, you know, don't take this from anybody, including yourself a lot and then turn around and been the hardest person in the entire world of myself because I've internalized so many different things.

But now that I've started to just I mean, listen, like, listen to the the nice voice in your in your head, not just the main one, because we all listen that mean one is like, okay, here, I'm down, here I am like, yeah, yeah, I probably should just go away, like, down like, but there's another one in there. There's just so much quiet to start out with. If you start listening to that, it gets louder and the other one gets quieter. Yes. You know, it takes time. It takes. Time.

What do you think was the most important thing that you did to be able to, like, remove yourself? Because I feel like you almost have to be able to take a step outside your own skin to kind of see and view that. What was what do you think? How for me, it was leaving the fire department. Oh, wow. Yeah. Now it was because the fire department was that that voice, the negative voice. It was that voice outside. Like hearing a lot of, you know. Yeah. You don't fit in here.

Yeah. You know, and I'm not saying that all firefighters are this way or even the fire department as a whole. My experience with the fire department was not good. And so being outside of that, having the weight lifted off of me, of going to a place every day where I knew I was going to feel so small and just like having time, I started to be able to hear that positive voice. Wow.

Like it was just being removed from that situation where I couldn't hear that positive voice at all because in the day the voice was loud. Because I was hearing it from both inside and outside. I would never get that full disclosure right? We've worked together a couple times in the past. It's kind of how we connected and every time we went to do something with you guys to talk about something, I would have never guessed at at all.

Because you're always happy and excited not just to be there, but for us to be there. Yeah, I loved what I was doing. Oh man. With the fire department like that. The work I was doing when we met, I was really I was really important to me. And I still am and I still respect that. I still think Project Life is a great is a great, you know, thing for Oklahoma City. But the way that I related to the people of the fire department was not positive.

And a lot some of that has to do with my lack of self-awareness and some of that has to do with the culture that to me is toxic. And that's you know, I definitely don't place all the blame on one place I didn't fit in. And a big part of that was because I didn't fit in. I tried so hard to fit in. I was never myself. And that's, you know, once that got, you know, off of kilter, I was never really able to come back from.

And it just kept getting worse and worse and spinning further, further out to where I was so different from the person that I wanted to be that I mean, if I had stayed there until retirement, I don't think I would have recognized myself. And that And how do I mean, yeah, sorry I flipped and that's what I do. How do you so how do you make the first step to get out of there? Because that's. Oh, it. Was it was not one that was it was not something that I brought up.

So I was facing a situation where I was accused of something that I didn't do. There was an investigation. I proved I didn't do it. And like much to mine and my unions, we agree that this this should cover it. They said, Now we still think you did it. I could have fought it. It would've taken up to a year and a half, two years. And that entire time I would have been on record as being terminated for being insubordinate, for having stolen, for having misappropriated city funds.

I would never be able to get a job anywhere like paying decent money ever again. Right. So I was I had to just sell my pride and say, you know what, I don't belong here anyways. Like, this is like God is giving me a very obvious sign that I need to get out of here because there's been lots of signs before this. But the money was too good, the security was too bad. I had a career. And that was the first thing I was going to say is family and everything. I mean, you could have then Sami said.

Wow. And that's what I mean. And that's why I put up with it for almost ten years, even though after year one I was absolutely miserable. The first six years I was in the fire department were the worst six years of my life because the first station I was stationed at, they absolutely hated me.

And you spend 24 hours at a time with these guys, 24 hours being isolated and being an outsider and people telling you that you're fat, you're slow, you're lazy, you're this you know, you're not funny, don't talk. We don't care what you think, like every single day. Yeah. So but it was, you know, I knew my dad was a firefighter, so I knew what the future I knew that there was. You know, all the security is like I can do for 20 years. We can do whatever we want. You can go wherever we want.

And it wasn't worth it. But I'm not saying it's not worth it for Logan. If you're if you walk in and you fit the mold, then it is the best job in the world. But if you don't and you can't get there and that's not right. How many people do you think are playing that game right now, though, with like, if I could just put my head down and a lot. A lot. That's a lot. And that's not saying, you know, just the fire department. That's a lot of defenses anyhow.

So I can just make it ten more years and like being outside of that now, I don't understand how I made it as far as I did, because having the freedom which right now, you know, the financial security is not there. You know, everything is kind of up in the air financially, but my security and myself say, oh, my God, it's so much better. But also my wife has the finances, so she gets to freak out about the money tight run. She is, you know, she is a blessing for me because she handles that.

And I'm aware of what's going on. I'm aware that at some point like this venture has to turn into some sort of money. And I think it will because I think that what we're doing is great here. But my my major concern is helping people get out of the situation. I was in. Like, if I can help one of five or ten people transferred out of a system like that to where you were just burying yourself to try to make it, then I have then I think it's worth it.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think the other the other piece of that too. That's interesting because there's probably a lot of people know your situation is a little different, but I think there's a lot of people that are sitting here right now going, I don't know what to do. I don't have houses, I've been working. I just I want to remind everybody about the times that they were like in college or just first moved out of their parents house.

And you had a couple of weeks in there where you were just like, I don't know how this is going to come together, Right? But guess what? Guess what? The kicker here, you may have figured it out. And sometimes, like you just you just got to remember that whatever happens, you're gonna figure it out. And self-preservation is the most 100% guaranteed unbelievably strong drug, for lack of a better that there is out there. You're not just going to sit there.

It's a it's a perfect performance enhancing. Yeah. You're not just going to sit there and let everything fall apart around you. Like self-preservation is incredible. Sometimes. You just got to remember like, you will figure it out. And what I what I really appreciate the art department for is as much as that struggle, you know, did crush my soul a little bit. It gave me the financial security to be able to dream bigger.

This, you know, build a dream for a life where not only am I financially secure, but I'm actually happy as well. Because whenever I went into the fire department, we I was unhappy and financially insecure because, you know, I was coming from a job at a restaurant and I was a, you know, an assistant restaurant manager making under $35,000 a year. And so it was to go from that to making almost $100,000 a year whenever I left, you look at the world completely differently.

Your your short term and long term goals become so different. My wife my wife is because she is, you know, the one looking at finances every day. She is afraid of going back to that. And sometimes she just can't see the big picture. My job is to keep the dream alive. Like I have to stay focused on that and say, like, we're going to do something where I don't have to sacrifice my family myself or, you know, a good life to be happy. And I think that we're going to get there.

Oh, yeah, And I'm with you, man. I don't think we've ever I've ever seen a part of you that's not constantly mentoring for that. Because whether it was now after we got going, you take classes just like that makes you happy, you know. Yeah. Whether it's a drawing like an and again, like the stuff that you pour yourself into, you can tell you can't help but get good at it or get better at it. Thank you And I am definitely that is something I kind of attribute to my ADHD. As I got

with it. Writing like this. Let's go. Let's go. It is for. Four more hours. That's what. I was. I was so I started doing the podcast thing and once I once I got going, I just went to record as many episodes possible because we're going to move in a month and a half or two months or so and during that time, I don't know what it's going to look like to try to record a podcast. So I was like, I want to be able to continue going for a month at least without recording anything.

So I was like, Let's just get as many recorded. And I was doing recording, editing, artwork for the covers, you know, YouTube videos, all this stuff without really ever having looked at what I was doing. So I made a workflow of post-production. I just after I recorded everything I do and I was like, I do this for every video. And I did it didn't feel like it because I think I'm just in. I just want to do it.

And it was kind of scary Once I looked at it and there was, you know, a workflow that was like this long, I was like, Wow, that's a lot of stuff. I don't think about this too hard. I just keep going, keep. Doing it, stay in it. And hire some more people as soon as you can. Hello, authentic audience. I hope you're enjoying today's episode with Adam King. I really loved getting this season storyteller and investigator in the hot seat.

It only gets better as we find our rhythm Check back in Thursday when Episode 13 Blackman Don't do yoga. Making tough decisions and setting hard boundaries with Ramsay, the moon hits the airwaves. I sit down with comedic yoga practitioner, veteran and black ex-pat Moon Ramsay to discuss how his authentic journey was shaped by his military experience. American expectations of black men, massive weight loss, the end of his marriage and his introduction to yoga and much more.

This is a conversation you will not want to miss, as I am challenged to embrace a unique and unfamiliar perspective. And I ask a moon to answer some hard questions and be vulnerable as we dig deep into his story. Also, check out episode 11, where all the hats how to confidently embrace the many roles that come with cultural Consciousness. With Robert Ruis for a really unique perspective on authenticity that we have never had on this show.

And that's provided by the dynamic community builder and mariachi musician. Now let's get back to this great conversation with Adam King. Let's let's get off of me because as much as I do enjoy talking to that's my man, man, I know it's harder. I try not to resist the conversation like I want to. I want to follow where it's going to go. But we you mentioned briefly about being it's when a lot of the twins I have ever known, it is a big part of their identity to have been a twin.

Is that something that you that you identify with and you had also talked about developing, for one, because he had, you know, made a pretty significant change. Is that something that you struggle with kind of going your own way? Because now you're doing something different than your twin? Oh, man. So I do. Garza I have an older sister. She's a year older than I. She's awesome. She's a teacher at a charter school in Columbus, Ohio.

So she's doing some really important work and helping some kids out there. So she's she's a big part of this, too. But I do think as far as being a twin goes, he is undoubtedly the best friend I've ever had and will ever have. I talk to you every day. So I'm here. He's in West Virginia. We talk every single day. Sometimes it's text messages. Sometimes it's like, get on an Xbox and just kind of mess around. We were absolute. It's sort of like the movie Step Brothers, dude. We were like enemies.

Like Blood Feud. What? Romeo and Juliet enemies till about my sophomore year of high school. Maybe we just kind of figure it out like, Hey, this is going to be a lot better if we do this, like, on the same team, right? And then ever since then, it's just like we just had the moment where, like, we're fighting in the front yard and like, in the movie swung the bike at each other and they just knocked him in the head

at the just the right time. And it just I don't know what our moment like that was when it just clicked and ever since then. So I don't think I don't think that I would be anywhere near what I am, who I am, I'm doing in any facet of my life without that dude. Just being able to talk to him every day. If he's having a tough time or I'm having a tough time, you've instantly got a judgment free soundboard to throw that off of. Hey, I'm thinking about doing this.

Do you think it's even Do you think this is the right call? And he'll say, Look, man, I don't I don't know anything about it, but this is what it looks like from where I'm sitting. And he just I don't know. I just I think the one thing that people will never understand about being a twin, because I will it will be a part of my identity because he's such a great part of my life.

Is that No. One and it's kind of sad, but I don't think anyone will ever have as good of a friend or as close of a friend in their life as I do. Right. And I think that's something that I wish everybody would get the chance to have in their life. I mean, I'm 35 years old. I've had literally my best friend. I just didn't know it since. For every second that I've been a lot, he's been right there. And so it's it's a pretty deep, pretty tight bond. Yeah, it's it's just really cool.

So it's just something I wish people could understand. They just never will. What do you think makes that that friendship so special? Is it the proximity in time or is it the fact that you shared a womb or is it I mean, is it really that that thing that exists between you two where the sometimes words don't need to be said. 100%? Not only is there shorthand, there's just facial features, Eye gestures. Yeah. I think what what makes it so close is probably a little bit of proximity, right?

Like we just said, all that time, we've been right next to each other. I think a little bit of it is shared trauma. I think that's that's a really thing where you can not that not that either of us have had of a crazy grind of life. Our parents are incredible. We've we've both worked really hard, which is a great phrase. And I worked hard. If you ask everybody, I'll tell you, they worked hard. But like we when we went through lows in life, we didn't go through them alone.

We went through it together. So through vulnerability there and that shared trauma, I've seen him in his lowest. He's seen me in my lowest. We've both been there for each other, whether we've wanted them to be there or not in those low moments. And that's what makes people you can count on. Like availability is your best ability. And he's always been there. Whether I want him to be or not. And I've always been there for him. So I think that's that's probably the biggest part.

I think about the people that you've had really jarring, positive and negative experiences with the people that you're close with because you've shared, you know, in those moments, those intense moments, you know who people really are. You know more about them than anybody else. I mean, I wish I could say that the same are true for me. It's not necessarily mean. My brother are as close as we could be.

I think our shared trauma has created something where we're just not very good at having long term relationships like, you know, that's just a fact of life. But I love my brother to death. To death. And when he comes around, I love being around him. But I've got situations in my life that don't allow me to go to him that often. And he has things going on with. He doesn't come to me that often, and neither one of us is great to being on the phone. And we don't talk though.

And that's, you know, it's unfortunate, but I have found other friends who have, you know, been a good job to to proxy that. And he is you know, he's always welcome in my life. It's just like I'm not that great at keeping up with relationships. And I really I, I really wish I was like I wish I was the person who was able to to pick up the slack whenever somebody did call for a couple of weeks. But I just and I'm not and I'm working on it like I'm not going to say that's just how I am.

Well, that's how I am. It's not how I want to be. So I'm working on it. And especially if we're moving from Oklahoma City, where I've got so many friends that are important to me, I'm going to have to get better at that girl. So I'm just going to be, you know, what's my family, a super. I'd be okay with being alone with just my family, but then my kids are going to move out at some point. And if I don't figure it out, then I'm not going to be close to them either. And that's that's terrifying.

Yeah. I mean, I guess that's. Is it a is it a anxiety of like making the first move? What went through some anxiety there? There's there's the the time that lays dormant. The tension just builds for me. It's like so if I see somebody every week, there's no tension. I see them every month. There's a little bit of tension. I see them every six months. There's a lot of things like, you know, and it just it builds up.

And my brother used to like whenever he was in the military, he'd come back and he'd stay with me. Like whenever wherever he was, he'd come back and he'd come back and stay for a week or whatever. And that's when we always just reset. And then things began. Well, then he stopped, you know, touring and stuff because that's what you do. And he got married and we he stopped coming to stay with me. And that was like the pattern. And then I never did anything to repair that pattern.

Yeah. And so then the time just grew and grew. So it was like all that tension, which is it's not really bad between us. It's just now I'm like, I call it we got to talk about I think so much about it's way over and over, analyze it. Goodbye. It's like you're just going to say hi and just check on people. But I still do. Like I talked to him recently about tensions. Low Yeah, I should call. Again while the tension still up.

You know, being actively aware of that and trying to continue improving and all these different fronts, you know. Fives are high right now. My lines are high, but either flat or something like that. Hi, Bob. This is just a graph on a chart, as you can see. Viser never get hired. We're in all time. That's so interesting.

So when you go to do I've always been a guy who at least trying to be self aware if something makes me uncomfortable, it's usually a red flag or a sign to me that I need to spend more time there. I like doing it right. So when I started working on news two, especially like my first job in South Dakota, I packed everything my car that I owned, which is not a lot for fusion shout out and I drove 23 hours west.

It was literally Highway 90 West and it took me from just outside to Cleveland, Ohio, all the way to Rapid City, South Dakota. And the number one thing I did not want to do when I was there was essentially cold call like, Hey, we think we've got the story item, you're on it, go figure it out. And the first thing you have to do is like, call these random strangers, right? Hated it to this day, depending on the story at least.

Favorite thing in my life, you are more likely to get an email from me that's like, Hey, what's going on? Because it's to me a little less confrontational, even though there's no tone that gets conveyed through an email. But it was like, okay, you got to start making these calls, so you got to figure this thing out because like, this is your job. Like if it's the one thing you don't like about your job, you just have to get comfortable.

So is that like a way that you go to solve some of those things? Like bringing tension is to spend more time in the discomfort. Or I'm definitely not a person who is averse to that discomfort. It's it has more to do with like the act of this conference versus the passive discussion. Got it. And those relationships can be the passive discomfort. And so I just I put them away to handle the active discomfort and the active excitement. Like, so it's like this podcast o'clock Love it.

And there's a lot of active discomforts that come with it, reaching out to people, talking about it all the time, trying to get people to listen. There's so many things that I am afraid are going to be taken the wrong way because it's like me, me, me, me, me. But when it's really just like, listen to the conversation, you know? But I I'm dealing with that all the time. And before that it was school, and before that it was,

you know, studying for driver. And so it's there's all these acts of discomfort that I'm constantly moving from. And my my wife tells me that I just never sit still long enough to really sit with myself. And she is probably right to a degree. But at the same time, I am evolving in so many other ways. But there's definitely this part of me that's that's being ignored that I probably should and likely. Well, no, that's been said not as. Much as I. Can just kind of says.

No. Now I. Have to spend some time with that and I, I need to get better at my relationship management skills and dealing with that discomfort of not calling people because, you know, it's been too long. You know, So anybody who gets a phone call the next two weeks is brought to you by. This podcast. Well, by the time this one comes out, hopefully I'll be like instant long enough so they won't know it was the, you know, no idea that I was on the outside.

But I just decided, you know what, we're going to or we're passing somewhere like before people start. Talking. Yes, exactly. People out here starting to murmur. They're starting to say stuff. So that brings me back to talking about your brother. And then that's when that when this. Do you ever feel a responsibility to maintain a certain degree of of sameness? So you don't, like, outpace your brother? You don't change too much. No man. Because we're so our trajectories are so different.

Yeah. They're so different. And he's always kind of done his own thing. I think it's always something I've admired about him. He's just he's never really he's never really cared. I don't know if that's the nicest way to say it, but he's kind of never really cared. He was going to do the stuff that he wanted to do, and he knew everybody was going to be cool with it. Maybe they'd be like, throws, throw a fit about it, or make a big stink about it in the moment.

But then when they realize he's doing what he wants to do and he's good at it, like it really is cool. So I don't ever feel I remember feel like it's this game that we're keeping up to. I think the other part of that too, is that he's just so cool about it. When something good happens to me, he's the first person I talk to about it. He's like, Do, that's amazing. Something good happens to him. He does the same thing. I'm just as excited for him.

So I don't think we're I think we kind of see it as like a rising tide kind of thing. I think he's doing well. I'm doing well. Just glad he's doing well. I think we're legitimately feel like we are two people on the same team. I mean, the only way we could make that even more true is like if we broke a bunch of laws in a couple of different states and got married. Right. You know, But it's just like it's just we're so excited for each other that I hope he doesn't feel that way.

We never talked about it, but I know for me, like he could I could stay right where I'm at for the rest of my life or have a bunch of bad luck. And he could keep going and I'd still be the first person or if I five every time. Desperate. Yeah, that's very good. Now, let me tell you, being a married person, because you're not married. I'm not married. So just getting married doesn't mean you have somebody on your team.

Like you would think that that would be an automatic sign up for a team member. It is not. That's a conversation you have to have and it's like it's a role you have to assign and it's something you have to practice. And that goes both way. My wife and I just got each other's teams like two years ago because we never had the conversation.

Yeah, we never realized that we had all these different, like, misconceptions about what we thought marriage was or we thought that that person was supposed to be doing. And there's almost like unspoken bitterness because there was no definition of anything. So that's, you know, that's a piece of advice that I will hand out freely to anybody who ask is that marriage does not guarantee any sort of TV like team. It's it's an invitation.

Yeah, but you have to you have to cash in, you know, and so that's you didn't ask but it's so like talking about your different trajectories, your trajectory has taken you to a career that you seem to really enjoy now, but it seems like you sacrificed a lot to do what you do today. Tell me some about your journey going from that 23 hour drive to today. Oh, man. I think the number one thing that I've that I've lost and this is kind of delve into it and really think about it is family time.

I think my parents are fantastic. My sister, great brother we've covered. And you know, he's an absolute rock star. You just don't get the time with family. That's not something that you get back. It's oh, she's seen some stuff. And even through had my grandparents passed away that that growing up with all through high school and I was around I was really close with and then I'll move forward in life happens and stuff happens and you don't necessarily get the chance.

It's not a chip that you can just cash in in the last couple of days. So I think that's the number one thing is, is when I look back and thing that if if I was going to have a regret and I don't think I regret it right now, but if there's one thing I was going to say, like, maybe I wish I could've handled this a little differently as I would have found a way to do that with more family time. It's just the nature of the business. So you've got to go somewhere and start small.

I think another another piece of that would be in just relationships. And obviously with folks you tell how is the relationships? Interpersonal relationships are something I really value.

And I think the the group I got so lucky in a career that invites you to be a nomad and never really get close to people and hunker down people the group of people I worked with at my first station in South Dakota, we were working during the week and then we would work together on the weekends because when you're brand new, like you're going to work the weekend. That weekend group was all it was. Me and three other folks. I still stay in touch with them. They're some of my best friends.

Have we fallen off a little bit as we've all kind of progressed and got busy? Yeah, but I still think they're all people that if I call them tomorrow, they'd be there. But some people aren't that lucky. And I know the first station, I've got two or three people I'm so really tight with those. When I worked at San Antonio, there's maybe one of those people that I still talk to because they all went from there and dispersed it around and we got back here.

And I will say the the morning crew that I just got done working with, with Shelby and Elliott and Kayla. Oh, my gosh. I mean, I can't it's too far apart to compare the two groups together, but as the most fun I think I've ever had working in this industry is with those three in the morning. And that's wild because we're all getting up at 2:00 in the morning. We should all be better able, but they're incredible.

So I think yeah, I think the big sacrifice is the family time and maybe not getting to develop. You get to meet a lot of people you say have a lot of relationships. Most of them are a very surface level. So that deep, the deep connections, like if I was going to have a wedding tomorrow, I do this all the time, which probably says something about me.

If I was going to have a wedding tomorrow and I had to have four grooms, I have a best man and four groomsmen, I tell you, my best man was going to be as easy. Everybody now knows that. I don't know that I could get to four. And there's something about that that bothers me. Like, I think I could get to four, like just by like, this is going to happen. They are going to make it.

But I think you would get to like, I kind of work backwards and go like, okay, if somebody was like, Oh, number four, they made the cut. Now, like everybody's been to a wedding with like this guy standing up there. That was my wedding. And I don't talk to any of the people who were in my wedding. It is crazy, right? It's crazy. Sounds like sometimes I'll just like, think about that. I know where the thought comes from. I'm like, I don't know that I could get to four.

And then the people that would be there that really knew me would be like, This makes sense. Now you can get by with like, with like, know her brother and I. That's a that's a good guy move, Right? Get him in there. I like get down for like, does everybody in their life have four people that they know that well and everybody would be like, that makes sense. So that like, you know how. Jealous of you are of you are sort of the people who have like eight or nine groomsmen and bridesmaids.

Like, I'm so jealous of that. I'm like, I could never come up with that many people to be in a wedding. Yeah, but I mean, sure, I could come up with them. Yeah, but it's I mean, a lot of these people as like we are, we've had the same group of friends since we were in third grade, and we're all just so close. I'm like, What the hell is that? Like, I know.

I've had that my, my best friends are all except for my, my best friend Tommy, who became a five part figure, that he's my longstanding friend. That's, you know, almost ten years now. Outside of that, everybody else is shortly after I moved here. So I'm like eight years or so, six years or so, like five years, just like outside of that, there's nothing. Yeah, I don't understand how people have that. I, I don't know that I want my, my wife as a friend.

She's, she went to elementary school with and so they're, they go way back but they you know they falling off and she she has all these like these deep ties to parts of herself that don't really exist that much anymore because now she's a mom and she like the things that are important to her now are not the same as they were then.

And relationship is kind of indicative of then her because they you know, they had high school and started to go different ways, but they were, you know, remained in touch. So it's like I kind envy that. But at the same time, it seems like it can kind of like change you to your past sugary. I know.

I kind of like though I like hearing you talk about as a guy who like, feels the tension and sort of the anxiety, only keeping up with relationships to be like, man, this guy's got like eight, eight or I think, yeah, that's correct. Thinking about that. Which has to position in that is crazy. Thinking about it that way. Like actually thinking about keeping up with a guy.

Jeremy And instead that sounds really sounds like a lot unless you guys are all in the same area and it's just like you have a guy is not even now, it's all been maintained. That sounds great. You're playing softball twice a week together like Fantasy Football League or whatever. You know, it's the same guys would do it since high school. Yeah. And I see somebody with like seven or eight or nine. I'd be like, again. First of all, it's just my brain.

I would take a step back and I would start working backwards. And they're all standing there. I go to the outside, I've got like number nine, the guy who's this guy? Who is this lady beater? Okay, It's like so-and-so's, whatever. All right, fine. He gets a pass. Eight. Well, he met him two months ago at the fair. He shouldn't even be there. So he doesn't even count. So now he's down to eight, right? I go through. I just start knocking them off.

So I got to, like, type four and be like, even, you know, you get to to the line. I'd be like, Now we're not going to give that one two. That's down to four, right? I'd like find a way to justify it. And then I we're not, we're not doing it. So, so it seems like like four it seems like the number for you, like there should be you should have four solid good guy friend that is that right? Like, is that do you think that's the number. I think that that's the, the, the, the core.

You got to have like a core four and then so it'd be like you and then four other guys. That makes five right. So you could all. Yeah. Because then you're like if you're going to ride together in a car or an SUV, right. You can't go outside of five. Like. So it's, it's about, it's about efficiency. Yeah. You said, yeah, you should have a car, like a sedan, maybe an SUV. You could find weasel, a sixth one in there if we're starting to get to, like, minivan status. Well, let's go.

Let's tighten this thing up. So you. I'm lucky because all of my friends already have minivans, so, you know, we all have like, over. Come on. And so it's like, Hey, guys, let's go party, grab the minivan. I think like, how many people outside, you know, how many people outside of four or five really going to know, I don't want to see the real you. But but no, everything. I mean, I don't think that you can really share everything with everybody.

But, you know, we talked about this in the show before, is that you have to be mindful of what parts of yourself you share with one degree of friends. So I've got like a group of families that we're friends with because I'm not just friends with the husband or wife. I'm friends with both of them. And I've been very lucky in that because like I, you know, my wife met the wives. Well, you know, initially with our kids homeschool co-op. And then I met them and I got along well with the wives.

So then we all hung out and I'm at the husbands and the husbands didn't suck because, like, they kind of soccer like, oh, oh, no. There was there was one husband who used to come and, you know, I was a firefighter, right? So he would talk to me all the time about wanting to burn stuff that and I was like, this dude, he is troublesome. He makes me nervous, like, get this guy. He's like, I'm afraid going to commit insurance fraud or he's like, or he's just, you know, wants to really do it for fun.

It was always the same joke. And I was like, uh, it was funny the first time kind. Of we got together. And this is like the fifth time you made this joke and you make me nervous. So that was not a friend who made the cut. Yeah, we're getting to a degree at that point. To where it's like insider trading. Yeah, exactly. People are going to be like, I know too much. Exactly. And like, you're trying to get some, like, inside information like me. Have you covered for you?

You're like, Hey, we should probably just keep an eye out on this street corner. Like, wait a minute. Exactly. So, but then I met these women and their husbands were cool, and now so I've got like a core group of four families that we're friends with. And so it's like, that's eight people because I'm friends with both the husbands and the wives, and they know me pretty well.

Like I also because I'm pretty I'm pretty out there with who I am to start out with, you know, with once you come to my house and you have a meal, you're going to find out quite a bit about me because I'm just now you're here, you're trying to have a good time. I want you to know straight up, this is who I am. So you have a chance to get out before it's too late. Yeah, it's Olive Garden also. And here you can only get outside of Berkeley. I like Olive Garden, though. So do you.

Have you traditionally your life gotten along better or find yourself making friendships more easily with men or women? 100%. Right? One. It's not even close. Not nice. Really. Not even close. It's not even close. Which my wife loves. Oh, yeah, that's right. Now, you've never been a huge fan. Right? Oh, see, I wonder why that is, too. I'm the same way. I'm the same. I know. For me, it has been a lot about intimidation. And for one, people think I'm intimidating.

Like other men are too intimidated by me. So they, like, attack me, you know, they like break me down and, you know, say negative things about me. And because of that, I'm intimidated by them. But I'm like, this dude has the ability to say things about me that are going to make me feel really small. Women don't tend to do that to men. Men don't tend to do that to women. Usually, if we don't like each other, we just don't speak because it's like, That's fine.

Yeah, But if you're friends with a woman, they're not really going to show up and break you down. Like, that's not how those relationships work. Like, if you do, it's like kind of like kid sister, big brother type, you know, joking where it's is generally fun. Yeah. With men, it's not like that. It's like if you're not somebody that you'd go into battle with, then you shouldn't be friends like. And that's, that's a lot, you know, that's a, it's getting there. For me it was always pretty hard.

Yeah. You know, either you love me or you hate me for some reason. And usually I win you over. If I have no time. But men usually thought they hated me. There's just something about my friends. They're just like, I don't. I don't like this guy. I don't want to, you know, don't want to give him a chance. I just intimidate. It's. I just. They're towards the women who were easier to to have a chance to get to know them and just. Yeah, intimidation. You say.

Yeah. My lines always I just felt like solemn. I mean, I think I go to work and I've got to turn it on. So there's a there is a brief point when I get home or I get off work or I just like, I just need to shut down. But in in my life in general, on a lot of energy, on a lot of again, like I want good vibes and pushing good vibes, I understand that stuff goes wrong. So I don't think it's like a toxic positivity or anything, but I'd be a lot.

And at first I think with guys, I think they see this like energy that comes out of that and it's really positive and it's not necessarily machismo, it's just like general excitements. And I'm like, Okay, this guy's kind of weird. What's his deal? I see. Why is he like this? He's kind of like bouncing around a little bit like a cartoon character. I don't know him down with this, um, and I was like, Look, guys, like, we're going to figure this thing out.

I'm like, black mold, man. Like, I'm going to grow on you. You figure it out. You're going to think, you're going to think you got rid of me. And then two weeks later, I'm going to show back up like that. And then more with more, it's like we're just going to be just going to like, you may not learn to love me, but you're gonna learn to live with me and we're all going to be okay. I think I can tell you, I think I've never considered myself to be a manly man that I don't.

I'm not a tough guy even playing hockey like I wasn't. I was a goalie. I'm not a fighter. I'm a bleeder. I think I've been in, like, three fights my whole life. Yeah, I'm not. I'm just not here for it. It's not my thing. I'll stand up for myself. I, like, pull up my chest a little bit if it's situations like what it calls for. But definitely not my not my default. My default is not aggression towards another human being. I can even think of three fights that happened in my life.

I cried when they were done. So I was like, I don't like bullies. Yeah, I like what happened. I'm so sorry. Know, so I just I don't think I've ever kind of similar thing to what he said. I think you said it really well. Right. I think there might have been something in some ways where people were like, I don't know that I can go to battle with this guy. Like, is he going to be what we need when it all hits the fan? And I am loyal to a fault. I'm a great friend.

I'll be there for you. I just express it a little differently and I think that throws people off just at the beginning. Like I said, they kind of like similar to you too. They learn what I'm about and get to know me, so we got to get through that as I think that caused some struggle, especially like later college years. You kind of especially as you're coming into your own. I mean, I took the opportunity to go to college to like truly and really be myself.

And I think when I went to South Dakota, I doubled down on that. I kind of said, like, I liked what happened here. I'm going to keep being what I am and I'm not going to filter this for anybody any more. And I just you got to deal with that, right? Like, I think a lot of people can't do that. So kind of thrown off by it like, Oh, this guy's just saying this or doing this and like, wow, what foreman's like. And I think I think women are more receptive to that. Whatever that could be.

Say a lot of different things about woman to woman relationships and what those consist of and how they're structured. Don't know about that. Now we can speak to that here. Not that. Know. But so sometimes there's a thought that maybe that that straightforwardness and honesty and for lack of a better unfiltered gets received well in a place where maybe filtration might be very common.

Yeah. So as you as you're talking, it kind of hit me that I think it's because men are and like they're they're we're basically the pack and everything is filter to that pack mentality. Whenever you come into a group of dudes, if they sniff you and you don't smell like them, they're going to test you. And if they test you and you don't react like an alpha male, then you're a beta and they don't want you. You know, they're going to it's like they're going to, you know, push you down.

They're going to say, you better you can be here, but you're shut up. And you better just, you know, let us run the deal. And that doesn't feel right. As A human being who actually thinks things that feels terrible. And you go to a woman and you you know, they don't sniff you. They talk to you. Yeah. And they you questions and you answer them and you're thoughtful about it. And you share your vulnerable and you share things and they say, Oh, okay, interesting.

And then they more questions and you feel accepted. And so then it's easier to continue being yourself. I definitely that's where it comes down to for me is that one said, I know who you are already because I can smell on you and I don't need it. I don't need to find out anything else. The other said, Oh, tell me more. And I like I like the second one. I'm going to keep going with that. But like even the A-Team had Murdock, even even that Avengers. I like Ant-Man.

Like every every even in, like, pop culture, right? Every group of had one, at least one who was like her, like, let's look at this a little bit differently. If you think about the guy the guy groups that you've known in the past didn't that wasn't that role already filled? That's true. Yeah, that's a good point, because. There's always some kid who was somebody's little brother who was always around anyways. Yeah. And so they had to get to know him and they're like, you know what?

This guy's annoying, but he keeps showing up, so he's going to be our he's going to be our Murdock. He's going to be a hit man. He's a really weird guy. So it's like whoever I show up and I'm like, I would like to be a weird guy. Sorry. Spot. Say that sex tape is already filled. That we don't want any more weird. Guys. Get out. Yeah, we've hit the quota. We added one and we got one. We got until. And if the group is bigger than that, then may we get a second one?

But there's a ratio here, which is the time. We got to scale properly. We only have five seats in the car. We do not actually confess to. Maybe you can ride on the roof. Yeah, we'll track you down. You can do it, guys. It's real. Nice. Yeah. So, I mean, it's interesting to hear that experience from somebody else, and that's the beauty of the show is that you always think that you're going through all this stuff by yourself and like nobody else has ever been through the panels I've been through.

But going through that, you know, interviewing people on the show, thinking people have it together, thinking people, you know, are soaring high, whatever. Everybody has struggled through a lot of similarities one way or another that you're not by yourself. Like if you ever get into that way of thinking for a second and the only one dealing with this, it's never true.

And that's, you know, that's that negative voice in your head trying to kind of make you feel alone because isolation is the quickest way to break somebody down. And 100%. Can leave stuff right now. I know some of that. Like I thought we were going to get like, hey, you know what, deep stuff. But it's better than like congressional hearings about UFOs. Oh, yeah. Now we're we're not going to go there on this show, hopefully ever the you know, is it I think that stuff is oh, my gosh.

I can't I guess you have the bandwidth it takes to get into that. The the amount of deception that happens on like just in the whole world. Yeah. Is too much. It's that I'll let you do that. Yeah. I'll lose. Like I want to let you guys, you know, break through these walls and find out that you're in better investigative journalism. That and I just want to talk about being the being who you are here.

Investigative journalism starts to involve congressional UFO hearings and whether it's a waste of tax dollars or not, then they might be missing some stuff on your home front. And my gosh, I think that the waste tax law, I was there because I want to know. But I want. To know, too. But just let it let them deal with it like we don't have to put a politician to the screws to be like, why are we. Talking about this? No, man, just let him do it Now, that's not what's going Oh, my gosh.

It Yeah, that's it. Because otherwise we're just going to start rolling. Exactly how long before you know it's going to be a whole different feeling. We like politics, like a political podcast. So I'm like, Wait, how did they get here? Somebody help me. Help me, help me. Joe Rogan, How do we get here? All right. I'm going to get a hard reset here. There it is.

We had to do it. We had to get there. If I loved your podcast Hero, I love how this podcast, he can move from talking about the most intense thing to then like I was watching him and Thielmann talking about the ridiculous conversations. It was a was ejaculating exploding because of the heat. And this is like I actually having Theo bonds in it. So it sounded like it was a joke. Yeah. Now look it. Up. Look it up. And he has like Jamie pull it up for us. It's like he went to a high brow look it up.

And it. Did. And it was like, this is a real thing that's happening. But it was. He just navigates all these things and it's all fun. And, you know, I appreciate that he does it because I want to try to stay focused on the realm of being yourself, because he's already doing that. And certainly in art form, exciting. It's definitely an art form and he's got much more he's more interesting asking very interesting people.

I want to start with everyday people and so people can see themselves in my guest and I can understand that they're not alone. Can you tell me a common misconception about the news or news reporters? That is not true. And that is and if there is one that is that is true. Can you speak to that as well? Yeah, I love I don't watch the news because it's all so bad. I love that. I love hearing that. I said, when was the last time that you watched the news?

I'll concede the argument that a lot of it is bad and there's two routes that we can take on this. The route that I don't like a little bit of shifting blame where it's well, it's when we put the good things on you don't watch it like it's we've got a lot of years of research that shows like the old adage in newsrooms for a long time there in the late eighties early nineties was if it bleeds, it leads. Like that was a thing that was said that was like that,

that something they said it didn't blink. Mhm. That's crazy. Think about that. Compared to what we talked about with connecting with the impacted with things that we say and what it would have on someone's day if they heard it for the first time. Yeah. You turn on your television in 1995. At that point the news is appointment television, you're going to sit down there maybe with your family and see what's happening in your city, and the first thing you get is like, boom, boom, boom.

So I totally understand why that would have the rap that it does. I just cannot stand that I've made it a point since I've been in news to find positive stories, to tell. Whether it's new nonprofits or events that are going on are just really cool stuff. Like it can be anything from, you know, any kind of fundraising that people have going on to the kid who wins the mullet champions and like this is just cool, fun stuff to talk about. We just did one about beat baseball.

They had to beat baseball series. And Norman, for anyone with visual impairments, our students are getting after it now. They're crazy. So everybody looks at that and talk and sees those people having the best week their life and tell you that's bad news. You're not watching. Right? So that's a definitely a misconception that we try to fight a lot. And I do think one of the things that that does hold up is the idea of the watchdog.

I think we in our in our circles, we hold each other up, especially what they keep the people who are in charge accountable for so much that we see that does go on and the stuff that they want to see, whether it's in meetings or board meetings or whatever, and any kind of, you know, like a school board meeting, it's the first thing and it's exciting. I might always have that executive session, man.

They always have those times where they they shut the walls down and close things off, and that's your money. You know, you're sitting there and when you pay your taxes every time you get a paycheck and some of that money goes away, some of that money is going to them. And I think we really take pride in making sure that we can keep track of where that stuff's going and that's going to the things that you want to go to.

You know, if people are taking money in the money from your taxes, going to the jail and it's not being spent in a way that helps improve the jail or, you know, the the conditions in the jail and we want you to know about it or even if it's something that, you know, they spend what anybody spends money on, something where we think maybe it should be, we're not going to tell you that it's bad. We're gonna tell you what's going on. And then you can see the impact of that through people's actions.

I think the the idea of the watchdog dog kind of mentality, keeping the powerful accountable and making sure that that the things that you want to happen with your leaders a very old school like pre constitution of the United States ideology that right of of checks and balances we take that pretty seriously. That's good that I mean you answer the question so I've personally taken like I said I don't watch the news actively but I follow I follow you. I follow.

Ashley Holden's is no longer she's out there in Arizona now, I think. But like, you know, I follow a couple of different news stations. So if there's big news that way, I get it through, you know, Instagram or Facebook or whatever, versus sitting down and having to see a lot of stuff, I don't really want to know.

Like, you know, we talk about bandwidth and I'm trying so hard to to develop as a person, as a father, as a husband, whenever all that outside noise comes in, it makes me want to then try to develop as a you know, as a person giving as a better community member. And then also before you know it and I'm paralyzed, I'm not improving doing anything. So I hope to be a person in the future who is more civically minded, again, being more involved with things that are happening outside of this house.

But it's like right now I'm trying to get my own house in order and focus on that stuff. But I appreciate people like you who whenever a story kind of, you know, goes beyond for you. You mentioned in your, you know, whether it's positive or negative or something that just really interested you, you'll tell us things like, oh man, today on my story I got to do or you know, seven years ago I interviewed the master sergeant from a full metal jacket on or, you know, like, I love seeing that stuff.

I like it. That is really interesting to me. So can you tell me a story or two that from your time doing this that has really stuck with you and it's kind of changed your perception of of reality? Whoa! Oh, man. The ones that stick out, the first thing that comes to mind above and beyond everything is the honor flight. So again, city I've worked in has been a military town. I'm not military myself. My grandfather on my mother's side was one of the guys that was a role model for me growing up.

His name was Carl Dale. He served in the third Cavalry in World War Two, was one of the mounted police officers in Cleveland, Ohio, that actually made the movie Kill Irishman. He was one of the investigators that that movie was based off on an incredible guy. I've always had a held military really high regard. I think it's just the way I was raised in the people I was around.

So for the Oklahoma honor flight, they take a bunch of veterans from various different various different eras, and they put them on a plane flying out to Washington, DC. They can see all the monuments. It's literally a 24 hour. We left Tuesday morning. We got back, Oh, you're back Tuesday night, right? So, you know, 24 hours people stayed on Monday night, early Tuesday morning. But it's all guys who couldn't make the trip themselves so they could either couldn't afford to.

They've never been there. It's their first time getting see. So you get to see guys who served in Vietnam go to the Vietnam Memorial, find somebody's name on a Vietnam memorial, and then they'll take a piece of paper and some and a pencil or something. I'll scratch the name on a piece to have that. These guys I mean, you're talking about some of the most rough and tumble dudes you've ever met. They just melt, man. And we followed a guy and he told us a story.

Thankfully enough, he wanted to talk about. There's some guys we get up to the stop like, Hey, we're going to do Vietnam, South Korea, And they're Vietnam vets. We're Like, I'm not getting off this bus. I'm not going to see that memorial. These people couldn't give a rip about me and what we did. I'm not I'm not going, which I totally get. This guy was, hey, this I was a field medic. Try to help this guy. He didn't make it. I know. He's on the wall. I got to go find his name.

So we followed this Guy through the whole thing, went with him to the memorial, kept our good distance. Right. Let him do his thing like I found his name and couldn't even. I mean, he goes to put his hand great visual for a podcast. It was a put his hand up to scrape this and his hand is shaking. He can't even get the lead to the paper because it's all I mean, it all floods back and hits him all at once.

And it I mean he doesn't even get the paper pencil the was falls out of his hand while you're like okay like that's something where you're like this is just something that means a little more. Yeah. And that's the kind of stuff where you feel a responsibility to share that kind of stuff with maybe people who won't get because I think there's a lot of people 18, 19, 20 years old right now that are doing a lot of really good things.

And they're fighting for a lot of rights and they're saying a lot of things out loud that need to be said. But I think some of the people that maybe they're saying them, too, are the people that went and did the work so they can say those things in general. So you're barking at the wrong tree for lack of a better. And I think that was a moment where I was just like, whoa, that's I mean, that's that's probably the biggest one. I think a lot.

There's been some local election and local corruption stuff for me. What I want to ask. Oh yeah, that's. A good question. It makes you think about like journalistic integrity, right? So there are so many different things about that specific story that make me how do you feel? For one, how does make you feel sharing something so personal like that with an audience of, you know, hundreds of thousands to how, like, my first thing I want to do is go give that guy, Hello?

And then Thursday, I want to go pick up the lead and and, you know, describe for for him. So he is able to take that talking with him. But your job is to not get involved. 100% is the hardest part of the job. So in that moment, I mean, you're dying for that guy. You're dying on the inside. I have no idea what that guy's feeling, but I know it's none of it's good. Not a single to this positive.

And I will say this, too, like it's it's it's not I don't know how this will be reflected on in the journalism community. And, you know really care I when something like that happens, I give that person a job. If I go to a community or if I'm at somewhere where we know a shooting happened two or three days ago, I proceed with caution. And when the person is nice enough to take their time to talk to me about it, so that actually hurts them. I give them a hand.

I ended many like just like every interview with you and I ended with a handshake. If it's something that caught somebody deep and I know that they've gone to a place they didn't want to go to, I come in and give them a handshake. I follow up immediately with a hug because you just got to be sure at some point and you got a human. It's more than a job. So so maybe as far as like removing I don't write like this part of being able to tell the story. Going to follow. Okay. With that, you're right.

My cat opens the door and lets himself in. Yeah, it's going to take a while. I don't just go help in this weird kind of thunder. There we go. Oh, though the path is clear. He's trying to, like, keep his time in the spotlight. All right, so we're back. Welcome to the Alexander Circus of my life. And I want. A life happening. So we're talking about journalistic integrity. Yeah. And so. So for you, it's about just being human in that moment.

I think that's what it's about, man, Because that's at the end of the day, like you're earning people's trust. And if they don't trust you, they can't tell you anything. And you got to show them that you're not you're not able that you're not going to violate that. I do. I do have moments where we'll get done with a story and I'll ask somebody at the end say, hey, are you sure you're okay with us sharing this, which I think is something that a lot of people do. I think they get the story.

They say, okay, we got the cam. Let's get out of here before we say something where I'm like, Hey, are you sure? Like, we don't have to wrap this If you're not comfortable. With has it ever has? I never said you're a couple times. A couple of times. I want to tell you what, like when you're up a deadline that stinks, right? When you get an interview at 3:00. And I was like, you know what? I'm not okay with this.

And, you know, in one area you're like, I hear what you're saying on the other side of your brain, like we have. This is really good, but I think you can't you just got to make sure because again, it's. So So what do you do? You just you just pull the plug on the story and would. You find another way to tell it? You find another way to tell it.

So the cool thing about telling a story, any capacity is, is you're working with a couple of different senses, you're working with site, you're working with peers. So there are times where like if that happens, I'll go to a neighborhood and like where something happened, I'll close my eyes, I'll stay in the middle of the street. It's from not smart kids. Close my eyes and I'll listen. And whenever I hear, boom.

Okay, so maybe instead of my vehicle telling the story, this person in their heartbreak or whatever emotion has happened, maybe there's a Styrofoam cup rolling down the street. Mm hmm. That's pretty quiet day here on Fill in the Blank Avenue. You can hear this as a neighborhoods feeling a loss today. As a you find you got to get creative. You got to be outside the box here, but you can find another avenue

to tell the story. Yeah. So and maybe that instead of you know so maybe having the sound from home, from the mother or the family member, maybe just talk to your neighbors. Hey, like, it's kind of crazy. It's here. I mean, what are you thinking? Like, what's going on with you? Yeah, it's not like we're just trying to stay aware and stay safe so you can, you know, every new story you're kind of looking for two different voices, not including your own. Right.

So my idea, my idea of a story is the people are telling a story, and then I'm connecting. I'm just the connector. I get you from one in that one soundbite to the next soundbite. So I actually lay them out in order. I feel like I want them. And then my voice will just be the facts to get you from A to B, And I'm the facts that are the emotion. So you can kind of find some different ways around it.

But it is it's definitely it can be tough, but I think it's something, again, just a little humanity goes a long way because I think when you talk about misnomers with the news, they just want their story and then they're out of here, man, you'll never see them again. Oh, me so quick to Lisa, quick to judge. So what in which with you specifically, you know, doing the the project life stuff, I work with several different news stations.

You were one that always followed up with what you said you're going to do. Everybody says he will send you will send you. You know what? We're going to hear this or we'll send you a clever all this different stuff. Mostly It never happened. You always followed up when he said you're going to follow up. You you know, the conversation we were supposed to have we had. I appreciate that so much. In a world where it's not it was not common for me.

Everybody was you know, they wanted me because the story was timely and they're like, yeah, we can we can get a pop off of this. And what's saying like, you know, that's America relationship is like, I wanted the attention for project life. So absolutely we can write and I'm okay with that. But then we we promise something else but fulfill that in that engagement like it's a it's a deal just whether it's transactional or not. Let's just make sure we fulfill all of it.

And most of them were not like that was it was it was frustrating. That's a bummer. Here. It's like, I'm looking forward to seeing what this you know, what this video looks like or looking forward to using, you know, a clip of it or post on, you know, the department, Facebook or whatever. And then it didn't come. It was like, well, okay. Well, I was thinking about like, you're into like you're going to tell your boss is like, hey, look at all this stuff.

We did this, this and this and promote this thing. And they're like, Oh, really? Where's that? They like we did, I swear, like I'm making it up. Exactly where they would saw it on the news. I'm like, okay, well, you know, luckily my capital with that part was pretty good. There was no questions about whether or not they thought I wanted to be on the news too much.

I I gotten accused of wanting the attention and I didn't really care about the attention for me, accurate about her for it, about so I cared about project like any attention and you know eventually getting to my and being able to provide the service that provided which you know I still will say if you guys aren't you smoke alarms all 316 people got out of the city are okay so you don't go by fire, get yourself smoke logs because it is the easiest way to go to sleep safe at night

makes your body wakes up. Say so. I still push that. Yeah, because it's important. But that's on my job, you know, it's sort of toxic. I that's like it's such a when you get down to it, it's such an important job. Whenever you're talking about telling somebody's story, I mean, and you have to take it in a way where like I get to help facilitate you tell your story. I don't have to do anything to manipulate it at all. It's not in my hands to take it and mess it up after this.

Like, maybe I can mess up the sound quality. Or I could, you know, make those things I guess I could do. I can actually delete the whole thing. But outside of that, there's not a whole lot I can do. You have to take this and you have to, like, paint a picture with different aspects of the story to try to be as true to the situation as possible. Like, is that hard? Some of them, yes. And some you know, so the ones that are harder are the ones that are more fun.

So the the any time there's like breaking news, right. You kind of just stick to your stick to your what? You know, right. The who, what, when, where, why you give them that stuff. You give them the facts and you kind of let them decide. So that stuff kind of writes itself. The vehicle which you do that might change here and there depending on who you talk to. But you have you have a lot of sound from that.

Were there as more of your sound like from officials or like public information officers, it might change the way you do it just a little bit. Maybe you have really good video that you got from a store security camera or or like a police officer body cam or something like that. That would change what you do have a fit on that stuff.

It stays the same and stuff where you feel pressure is, where you start getting more and more towards the sides of like humanity and things that are going on that are really cool. We'll go wild. For example, slight flex. When I was working in San Antonio, we were a hub station and that means is we a lot of the things that happened in other places and we're kind of broke, broken up into regionals, almost like conferences and college football used to be.

So we like San Antonio is southwestern has kind of area. And when I was working in San Antonio, we had a station affiliate in Little Rock, Arkansas and that river flooded like crazy to the point where we almost couldn't get a flight in or out because it was a mess we got a flight in somehow. There's a small town out there called Dardanelle. We went and covered. The whole city was basically underwater. Unbelievable. So we're going live all day long for all the different on the parent company.

I work for Safeway Broadcasting live from my broadcasting affiliates and we had about 4 hours where like we need a story from here. Okay, here we go where we got to start. And also we we start driving around very limited. You know, a lot of places you can go and there's all we see a bunch of sandbags and from a local high school like, okay like this, we got something our God, we start talking high school kids football program.

They're stacking sandbags not just of high school, but people's houses. So we're cool. We're going to follow these kids around. We get the video of them putting sandbags. To me, that's so far in the beginning, it seems like a very straightforward story. There's flooding in this town. Look at what these high school kids are doing to save their city. Right. Free cut and dry. I'm like, I know exactly how we're going to tell this story.

In my head, I'm already going through the checklist, going, okay, I need this and this and this. And you talk to them and you talk to them a secret. We get to the first house. Everything's going as planned. They're stacked sandbags. You talked to people on the house? Oh, my gosh. It's great. We're so grateful. These kids are unbelievable. Start doing this thing. Go back. Go back. Get more sandbags. Cool. We're going to follow you guys around.

We don't know where we're going. So we get the same house stacking sandbags in the second house. Take a step back, take a break. I'm working with a photographer. Thankfully, Paul's a rock star that weekend. He's got a bunch of shots. I'm looking around. So how it usually works is, again, great podcast visuals. He's looking laughs. We're trying to paint a picture. He's looking left and shooting video on the left. I'm looking everywhere else.

So he's down the barrel of the camera and I'm looking everywhere else for sight sound. Anything we can get that looks good. So He's right here, focused right down in front. I look over to the basically 180 degrees away from him. There is a little. Girl. Going through, the garbage, everything that was trashed from her house that completely flooded. We're talking toys and dolls, playsets and stuff like this.

And this sitting on her and her in a chair and soaking wet front yard, playing with two Barbies on a tree stump, just playing like it's a normal day, like, whatever. Like it's just they got a little wet by you going to. Do. How to pay. I know, Paul, You're going to pay for this man. We got to start over all our deadlines in an hour, right? I'm like, I start over. He's like, What are you talking about? So this is it. This is story. Don't get me wrong.

Like, this is a great story. We'll keep all this. They're going to get this. This is going to be good. These high school kids are heroes. We showed an after school girls story. Are you kidding me? She has no her. She's out there playing the front yard. Her parents are sitting inside the window. Once we start learning more so much it's her parents are sitting outside the window crying. Just can't comprehend what's going on.

So I'm like, There's your emotion, There's your if you want somebody to understand and fathom what's going on, it's not from these high school kids are doing doing the work. They you it's this family. You're like, Oh, here we go. So you just kind of reset up and retool and you get gone. When we told the story through them, we had the high school kids like a couple of sandbags in front of their house because they were going to use and say, hey, let's get these you're definitely part of this.

But so stuff like that and you get going and you think it's going to be one thing. You go out there like, okay, you got this great story, high school kid. Sam This is good. Sara Thud, Good, loud, sound You got everything is all the story. And all of a sudden you see this shatters So you're going humanity long answer short question When you go to humanity, that's what makes the difference. You know that's what makes it you can you can you can have everything you think you need.

And then at the 11th hour, it can totally pivot as you see, totally crazy. And then that went from a puff piece to, you know, a heart wrenching story. Crushing. You know, and just, you know, a fraction of a second 10 seconds. Yeah. And that's a story you easily could have passed. You know, you could have passed that opportunity and, you know, not captured the devastation that we know really what's happening in this town.

And you just throw everything away and tell that story because it was important. Yeah. And shout out to again, Paul Sanchez, the photographer I was working with there, he still works in Texas. He's incredible because he could have been like, no, like, we have everything that we needed to get right here. Like, we're not we got to get this done work. And he also says, like, man, you're right. Like and he stepped up to the plate to get that point your team and it takes two to make that happen.

But yeah he just and you just all of a sudden boom just went directly exactly what you said. It went from a cut and dry piece where we kind of showed you the first 3 seconds of that story. Everybody would have known what would out and where it went to, and it totally changed. And what's it one of the better things I've learned. So, I mean, I spent a little bit of time in the arena of news in college, like newspaper writing. And then my second camera, I took Bill writing, reporting.

So I know a little bit about it. From what I understand, when you start at the beginning, you do everything yourself. Like, you know, you might be like, I saw a video where you were using your iPad set up to be your own your own cameraman as you're doing your stand up. How like, tell me about how that has transitioned even now from morning to being an evening anchor. Do you do anything besides report it yourself now. Man. So this is such a crazy process.

When I went to college, Bowling Green State University in Boulder in Ohio, shout out, Just get them in there when we can. We were even learning tape to take editing. If I told a journalist now that started, they had to learn how to shoot in order and cut linear tape to tape and you couldn't mess up or your take their heads would expand. So that's a super get off my lawn thing to say. But it's unbelievable. They are. They're like, Oh, well, it's on the SD card.

We'll just like re put it in and just start over. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, you have no idea of. So yeah, starting off I was what was called an MJ still exist today really getting worked on. That's a multimedia and shoot right? Edit everything from tip to tail. They are in control. It's a very important workflow.

I think it gets a bad rap in our industry in the tier of of payment, they're actually paid the least, which is very interesting to me because they are has to become some of the most skilled people in the field. They do it all, they shoot their own stuff, they write their own stuff. To me, being an MJ was a better workflow, easier workflow for me than the next step up, which was as a reporter, working with a photographer as an energy.

I know in my head this is what I need to get this done as I'm shooting the video. And I know and I have already writing in my head so it can you learn to be efficient. It's really important for any reporter to start as an MJ because you learn that efficiency, you learn speed, right? Speed and precision all at once when you. So that's your kind of your first step. Everybody now starts there. Some people have made very long, very good careers there.

When you move up a step from that air quotes on step Up because again, it's just pay scale. That would be a reporter. So now you're working with a photographer, the photographer will shoot at. So they'll shoot the video, they'll edit the video. The reporter will arrange all the interviews and not the interviews, write the story, write the script, sort of decipher the information and do what's important.

That becomes a lot of collaboration where you have to be able to tell, talk to the photographer back and forth, Hey, this is what I'm thinking. So now you have to have these thoughts of how to put the story together, but you have to have it out loud and with another person who may be like, We can't do that, or I don't know how to do that or I don't understand what you're saying.

Can you describe to me better so it becomes more of a partnership where you kind of work together from there you sort of branch off into two different. So when you're a reporter, when you're a reporter with a photographer, you can be sort of one of three pieces.

You either settle in as an MJ, you can report the morning, which is a little different, but you're still reporting with after you report in the evening or during the day side with the photographer or you can be an investigative reporter, which now becomes instead of turning things daily, you're doing these in-depth projects where you're working hard and it becomes a lot of, you know, open information requests and you're you're going deeper.

So you get like a week or two at a time to sort of put these things together. Those become more like three minute movies. And then the responsibility is still all on the reporter to do the like, to fill the paperwork, set up all the interviews and it's all on the journalist's point. Yeah, a lot of places that I've been have had teams, especially when you get into investigative, they're teams, so there's usually like two or three investigative reporters.

There's like a projects behind the scenes that will help. I know Fox here in Oklahoma City, we have incredible really our team is like one person behind the scenes and she is a rock star. So yeah, but it's still as far as getting the information, interviews, it's on the reports to figure that stuff out and. Then you kind of take what you have and you start putting it together. Then you go to that anchor side, which is a little bit different, right? So you're kind of coming in.

It's more considered and viewed as a leadership position because you are the face of what's going on. And most of the time the delivery method, you're conducting traffic and you have a lot of editorial say on, what's going on? So usually your anchors are the people who have a lot more experience. It's also a bit of a different skill set, right?

When a reporter does 99% of their work behind the camera and then they present their story at 5:00 or the deadline is the anchor is a presenter first, and then whether you have interviews in studio or stuff that they're sort of breaking down. Second, you still have to have all the knowledge the reporters have. They just have to be able to present and deliver in different ways. So there's kind of a convergence there. And for me it was I wanted to anchor, I wanted to try it.

So they started like giving me an anchor in South Dakota for three years, which was great. But it's like Market 172. It's super small, so you can be an anchor in a small market just by staying. Yeah. So when I got to San Antonio, they were kind of how what our how maybe you've got some experience. That's great. So they start having me do like Saturday nights and I was always one of my things was I don't know how to say no most of the time.

Most of the time getting better at it, but so they'd be like, Who wants to work Saturday? Sure, I'll, I'll take her on Saturday when I could use the reps and I said yes every time. And so instead of who wants to do this, it was just like Adam's going to do it right? So we started filming on Saturdays and Sundays. Then people in the mornings would like take a vacation or have sick days or something like that.

So then they'd start putting me in there in the mornings and I just because I was the guy, I kept being the guy that you get experience, you develop a skill set and then you just end up being a guy. So then I came in Oklahoma City, first time to be an anchor full time and. Oklahoma City is nuts, man. I moved here on a monday, got here on a monday, Then there was Tuesday, the Wednesday. So the third day I was here was the day Rudy Gobert like did the microphone thing after the Thunder game.

Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Everybody remembers that right when he there and then like they shot the game down to know the game was my third day in Oklahoma City. Wow. So it was interesting to be a leader in that environment and you kind of grow through it. So where we are now, not just learning the city and stuff like that, but now too. Yeah, so there's it's it's two different mindsets.

I still think and I'm biased because I've been one, I think the multimedia journalists, the energy is the lifeblood of what makes your newscast go. You're one of the least You didn't if your station didn't have five, some with six on the Solange's, what you see on air, which is not going to happen. Well, so. I'm a little confused because if you're an anchor now and you've been one since you've been in Oklahoma City, what were you doing on the field Whenever you interview me.

I'm a storyteller, man. Yeah. You don't stay in the house like you're supposed to. I think most people don't. Now, I think more and more so. There are some folks that, like, get out of the house or that stay in the house and stay there and they just leave. That's what they do. I think everybody that I've ever looked up to has been get out and tell stories. You know, the guy that I followed that was my mentor in San Antonio I still talk to these days. David. He's been forever.

He's never been a stay in the house guy. Wendy Suarez here for Fox, 25, has never been a stay in the house. Kind of it's important we can contribute. We still have that skill set right. We all came up through that route. We just took the right turn and said a left turn right. We took the red pill and set a book on a river and we still have that skill. So I think it's very important as a leader that you don't ask someone to do something you're not willing to do.

So if we're telling people you got to do a better job with these and we're not doing it, it's what are you doing? So plus, I just love doing it. I love meet people. Like if I wouldn't have gotten out of the house, so to say, like, wouldn't have met you wouldn't be here, right? Like, so I the the thing about this job that I love the most is getting to meet people and talk to people that I wouldn't get a to talk to. I'm not giving that up.

You're just your detractors may say you're taking a chance from somebody who's, you know who come up in your position because you got your seat at the table and you're going out and taking that story whenever you get assigned to some, you know, up and comer, Do you feel any responsibility to like let the people who learning that MJ part to have some of that like hey, I got a good lead on a story, you got to follow it up. B Or do that. Sure.

So what I'll tell those people too, is if at a job site and the foreman picks up a shovel and starts digging a hole, if anyone is saying that they're detractor and taking the work away from somebody else. I mean that. Well, from so my time in the fire department. Yeah. What happens is if your major picks up the shovel, you take it from them. Okay. Interesting that that that's the mentality of the fire department. I never want somebody who's got more time than you working harder than you are.

I bet. So in that case, if somebody like Adams, you did that last story, it was great and everything. Let me help you in. This sure is happening. To a degree. Yeah, I think so. And I think it's brilliant. That's a cool part of what we do, right, is that whether it's background knowledge or contact, right. I keep every day in the newsroom as, hey, I'm doing a story about this. Does anybody have a way I can get in touch with Fill in the blank for somebody. And it's I mean, 100%.

We throw it, throw them in the right direction and give them everything that we have. If I've done the story before, you give them the background that you had. So I think it's that's an interesting way to look at it, too, because part of our our job is now coming to work with two or, three ideas that you think are really important. So while again, we've got everyone that is kind of with me here, they're bringing their three ideas or so I'm going to bring my three ideas or so.

And some of those overlap like, Yeah, you go ahead. Or maybe, maybe we have two different ideas or two different ways. We're looking at the same idea now. It gives us a chance to cover this story in a better way, more in-depth way. And we've really made it a point on Fox anywhere to take the first 10 minutes of our newscast and focus on one issue. Now, a lot of this last week has been back to school. Friday, we did a lot of work at the border.

So we've we've we've really focused on people want to see us get more involved. So we've done that. And that's a great way to mention to get involved, Hey, I want to do this, you know? Okay, cool. Go ahead. You do it from this angle. What's a different angle? I can do it from now. We're working together and we have a nice rising tide rising. We've come up with more in-depth reporting. We've got more information out there. They've gotten some foothold, the area, whatever it is.

And then I can use what I've got to help them and everybody kind of wins. Is it is it true, like as I'm thinking about this now, hearing you talk about it, it still seems like it's kind of a we're working together separately. Is is that kind of how it is? It's like, okay, you're you got a similar idea. I'll approach it this way. You approach them that way and then we'll see what we've got. Yeah, kind of.

Kind of. Again, I think it's, yeah, because we'll talk about, you know, we can do let's go, let's do this right. You name any subject you want, pick a subject, pick it up. The coming of. Fall. Okay, so tonight our leading our broadcast here is the coming of fall. Right? Fall sky. So when you talk about the coming the fall, there's like, 100 different things you talk about. We'll see. Because I've already been sent right back to school. I saw this coming fall.

You've got spring or fall sports, so now you've got even in fall sports, you've got high school football camps coming up. Well, it's 100 degrees outside every day. How are what are they doing to stay safe back to school? What are they doing for school safety? Is the curriculum change? What's going on? So you can already see how these things start to just these ideas like multiply.

So we try to find an umbrella or what we'll call it is a bucket and we'll take our ideas and throw them in these buckets and then we'll decide, okay, here's what we got in this back to school bucket. So it is a little separate, but together, right? We're following the same subject, but we're all going to tackle it in our own different way. And then it comes together at the end to make like kind of that whole thing. See. So let's let's say we're you.

We'll stick with that same umbrella, that school. Adam King says, you know, I really want to dig deeper into the football camps and in this this, you know, extreme heat and see what's going on there. And M.J. says, yeah, I want to cover that, too. Okay. Do you say, well, let me I'll back off. Or you say, okay, let's together and let's let's brainstorming and we'll see how we can attack this together.

We'll do the brainstorm and see how we can attack it together, but we'll do it in about 4 minutes. Oh, yeah. Then that was all the time we'll stand together. And that. Pretty much. Yeah. So Wolff will burn that. Sit down it. It'll basically go like this. Like if you're there, I'm MJ and I'm me. I'll go. Okay. Who do you got three guys to talk to about this? You're talking to coaches or you're talking to athletic directors? You're talking parents. Are you talking to football players?

Like, who do you have ready to go if you needed to get out the door in an hour and talk to somebody who do? Yeah, And that's who I am and we'll see if they're different. Great. We found a way to make this different. If they're the same, then we got to figure out what we got to do. So there's so many ways we can find ways to make these different that I want to say. Very rarely does it come down to the fact that it's going to be you

or me doing the exact same thing. What if this MJ says, I like your people if I want to go with you? Oh, well, that that like, it's that that won't happen because just resources that point right like we we've got we've got too much ground we got to cover to make a newscast happen. So yeah, we, we'd split it up. We'd split it up. We wouldn't get them. In on my day. So I can work with you.

I mean, you can I would tell you, take your time off as your time off, but you could if you wanted to come in and go check it out. You totally could. And we've done that with like interns and stuff all the time. Oh, come with. And so. When I'm, you know, thinking I'm is the person who is not like me, who's not asker, who is basically trying to like shadow you and, you know, just like keep showing up in the place. And for somebody like me, it wouldn't be obvious.

I'd be like, okay, you do it fine. You can have that. Instead of saying like, do you do you want to work on this? Is you want to go like, do you feel like I have something I can help you with? Yeah. What's now like if I know that I absolutely to give that to people, if there's something I can offer them and they want, I just ask me. I'll give you whatever you want. Yeah, but a lot of people are afraid to ask.

And so I'm curious if, if that freedom of information exists within it, within, you know, your career where if people kind of see that kind of show interest in the way you do things, is that something that you share or is it almost like the way I do things? That's that's my style. And you go find your own way and let me know when you get there in the wheel well, attack it from different ways. Yeah, we'll definitely share because we're on the same team, which has been really cool.

And I think in this instance where that stuff will come from will be if someone who's maybe a little newer has got what they think is a finished project, and then they'll come to me and say, Hey, can you take a look at this? Or maybe they don't ask me. They were just like, Oh, so and so it's on is I'm just going to I'm going to take a peek and see what it looks like. So it definitely helps in that instance to be vocal. But I definitely understand what you're saying.

Why are we making sure that the people who aren't vocal are still getting the opportunities that need or crave? And that's what it that means that the opportunities they crave to get better. And I, I think they are. But I also think that depends on the leadership and the culture that you have in the newsroom, which would start from anchors on the way down. So if you have anchors that are that are kind of rigid and not very helpful, it's going to kind of kill that environment.

It's going to make people that are already nervous to ask them, never going to ask them. Whereas I try to be a leader where if anybody wants or needs anything, like you've got to say something. Right. And and it's, you know, I understand that can be hard, but I think that's on me as a leader to. Make sure that we've created an environment where they feel comfortable doing that in any capacity. Right. And we could get them through that.

So they definitely will get their opportunities as long as as long as I'm doing a good job helping them look out for them. So have you watched any of the like I love newsroom type shows? Yeah, the NEWSROOM is one of my favorites. Good morning show. Have you watched that stuff? I have not watched the newsroom because I thought the newsroom was too close. I am going to watch it now because everything that I've ever seen with I'm a huge fan of the show. Billions and show time and same writer.

Aaron. Sorkin. Yeah. And Zucker were brilliant. Yeah. I did not know. Of for the production team and radio on Billions. So I'm like, okay, this is just going to be a style show that I can jibe with. So do you. Like West Wing? Oh, yeah, Yeah. And I watched the morning. Show watching it with my daughter right now. Yeah.

There you go. I love it is amazing. Yeah. So it from that what I've learned, you know, I like you saying the newsroom is it's a little too close is good because like I take a lot from Aaron Sorkin, I'm like, it's got to be pretty true. Yeah. Yes, he does research. Yes, sir. Is that the culture in the NEWSROOM is less about the anchor saying the culture by like, you know, and speaking it and more about the culture being set up to please the the head anchor. Great question, man.

So the the overall temperature of the newsroom is going to be set up by your news director. First and foremost. They they said just, you know, this is what we're doing. This is our goal is we're working towards and most of the time they are hires for anchors will be somebody that they know will echoed that sentiment.

So if you want to think of horrible sports metaphors again, you want to think of the news director as the coach, and then the anchor is going to act like the team captain and then the coach is gone. The team captain is going to keep pushing that culture and let people know what's going on. Unfortunately, folks, it's not like Anchorman. You just like walk in there and be like, this is what we're doing today.

But the the morning show on Apple TV was an interesting because there is a lot of stuff in there that I feel is fairly accurate. I wouldn't know. They're more model of like a national obviously like Good Morning America. Yeah I think did everything but call it good morning. Absolutely. So there's going to be some things in there that are different, but there is lot of stuff in there that kind of reigns similar as far as dynamics, which I thought was really interesting.

So, yeah, the news director sets the tone. The anchors are really responsible for keeping that going and keeping that that vision and everything clear and keeping the relationships and the vibes going. So a lot of the times too, because with us, like our news directors in there from about 8 to 5 or six, depending on the day and what's going on now, I'm there from 2 to 10 at night. So once the once the news director leaves, like I'm helping push the ship in the right direction,

so is Wendy. Right. So not only is there has to be connection with me and the news director to know that we're seeing things on, I now see a really good working relationship with with the two anchors together. Right. They have to figure out where they stand with each other, how they're going to push that forward. If if one person's really vocal, does the other person need to kind of step back and lean in a different way. A lot of interesting leadership dynamics are, too.

So in both The Good Morning Show and Good Morning America, the culture for being very misogynistic it was you know, it was called out like really hard. Is that something that that you notice still today and in your in your piece of that are you outspoken against it? Definitely outspoken against it. I've never worked in an environment that I have perceived to be that way. I know that as a white male. Right. That's very easy for me to sit here and be like, Everything's totally cool, right?

I'm not blind to that. I totally understand that. I think the environment still exists a little bit, maybe more than a little bit. In some places. I've seen I've seen the inboxes of direct messages, Facebook messages for me and my male journalist friends. I have seen a few because I don't ask to see them because I don't want to. But I have seen some of the inboxes for Facebook and Instagram of my female coworkers as anchors or reporters in the field is pretty gross and it's pretty gross.

The things that people feel they have the liberty to just write in and tell a female is beyond me. If any of that stuff came out of my mouth, my mom would be around the corner, hit me upside the head. Right? So I don't know where. And it's not everybody. I'm not speaking for everybody. It's the very select few that are writing it. But, you know, if I have five messages, she's got a hundred. And out of that 100, most of them aren't great.

Really, Whether. It's either I can't believe you chose to wear that or interesting hair. Yeah, it's just like all this superficial awfulness, just awful stuff. They enough pressure already, right? Especially with, like you said, what the industry has been getting through that and making it work. So I've always been outspoken about that and I've always made it a really, really interesting point.

And I really hope that the people that I've worked with will see us to learn to make those women that I've worked with as comfortable as possible. So I just yeah, that's the it's the direct message that I just it blows me away.

So like in this, in this leadership position you're sitting in now, do you, do you have opportunities to address the staff and do you use those opportunities to talk about things like, you know, being respectful of sexual harassment type stuff and, you know, misogyny ism also, you know, being more true to this show about allowing people to show up as themselves and accepting them. Is that is that something that you have an opportunity to, you know, address?

I won't like address a room like I won't get up in front of a room and people sit down and be like, Hey, guys, like everybody is cool. I will address that in my action and demeanor every day. So I really make it a point to stay positive. And everybody I come in, even the people that are only going to be there for an hour or two more, I'll come in. Hey, what's going on? We got good stuff going on in a super positive. Here we go. And people, people are weird, man. Like we're all weird.

And I think if if as a person who grew up feeling weird, it feels like you just said some things where you can echoed that sentiment as well. Right? If I were to just have like one person, like, lean into that with me a little bit, I'd have been fine. Yeah, but it was everybody. Like as soon as I was weird, pulled away. So I make it a point to lead by example. And if somebody says something kind of weird, like, I'll lean into it with them and I'll be like, Hey, do it like this.

Let's try like a spot where you talk about this. It's okay. So it's not so much of a get up in front of the room and address it because h.r. And they do all that stuff too, where it's like, hey, be cool. But as far as the letting people know they can be themselves, that is super important.

I think it's again, because of just where i've how i've done it and where I've been and where I'm going and what I felt that I think it's important to let other people know that they can feel it too, and it's okay to feel that stuff. So yeah, it's not it's not maybe as an official capacity, but I'm also always been more of a lead by example as opposed to a lead by like, this is what we're going to do. And this like this is not to call you out.

Sure. I'm going to be not trying to put you on blast, but I I'm curious if you've ever considered the effect of somebody who is so lead by example. This person's always doing it right. Right. That when you look when you have somebody like that who you can look to, that does it makes you feel good in one way. But when that person stands up and not only leads by example, but says, Hey, I want everybody to put attention on this thing and do it, everybody's like, Oh, crap, Yeah.

Adam, who always leads by example, is speaking on this thing and that holds a lot of weight. And it's something that you generally only have to ever talk about one time because everybody then knows where you stand on it. Yeah. And then as new people come into the team, they say, Adam doesn't put up with that crap. So you better none of that, you know, of those racial jokes or, you know, whatever.

It's important to see people like that, especially who don't look like me being outspoken about that kind of stuff, because it makes you feel so much more welcome whenever it's not just me and you. I know you're talking about that to everybody because I'm not like I'm not privy to the conversation you have with John and April. And it's whenever it's just us talking. I'm like, I know that I've had people in my you know, in my life tell me face to face, like, we're cool, dude.

Like, I really like you and then put me on blast in front of the team and really put me down and say, Oh, yeah, like, yeah, he's so, he's so fat. Like, you ready to work? Workout harder, Bruce And he's like, You just had a conflict. One of the best conversations I've ever had taken at being friendly, having a great time.

And then soon as we go out in front of the officers coming out of the butts, so but then having somebody in a different situation stand up and say, hey, this isn't okay, it makes you feel so much safer and I'm not challenging you. I'm just I know something to think about and to chew on because you are a white male and there's no way that you can ever understand how being so different, as soon as you walk into a room, feel both being female, I can understand that. But also being a minority.

Like both of those things, you can see as soon as you walk into a room is that I'm different. Yeah. And usually I'm one of the only ones who love like me in a room. So when somebody stands up and say, We're going to be accepting of everybody and they get to be how they are and just do their best job, and that's all that matters is like, Wow, this place is amazing. Right? Yeah, I think that's a good point, too. I think it's definitely something I think is just a great point to bring up.

It's something to be more aware of, right? I think I think because that's a great point to say. It's one thing to live it and do it. It's definitely another thing to say it right. And I think I think that's 1,000% right and maybe a little bit of a spot and I can be more I know you're not saying it to put anybody on, but I do think like that's part of living, right, is you when somebody says something. That's right. That's right. Right.

I think to do something like that, too, will help make it right. That's a great point. And that's something about know Me honoring myself is I couldn't let you leave and not say that thing because that's something that's close to my heart. And being willing to step into that discomfort and say like, I really am not trying to put you on blast, but have you thought about this? Because I did.

I've been in so many situations with with white men where I've had conversations with them and they just like I never considered this thing because it's never been a problem for me. You know, I talked to the guy at the fire, to the fire department who literally grew up around all white people, went to school with all white people, never considered what his problem of his privilege was like because everybody had it.

They'd never been approached with somebody who just didn't have those things, who had to worry about driving because you don't know how a cop is going to react when you get pulled over. Like those. Those types of things are totally taken for granted by a lot of people. And I don't want to go off my soapbox because it's something that's important to me. Not that everybody feels bad that, Oh, poor me, you know, I go through all these things.

No, understand your privilege and use it as the use the power that you have to help people live a more equitable existence. Yeah, it's a great point for for any any position or any I mean, anybody who's got any of authority at all, I mean, that could be could be working in a newsroom or it could be working at the store or even just in your friend group, right. Like you can have an equity, an influence, any influence at all, right.

You can have equity and influence in a group of friends and you be like, Hey, guys, like this, ain't it? Yeah, absolutely. And that would make a huge change or not the game.

And you know, I've mentioned multiple times in many different venues that white men are the silver bullet whenever it comes to like conversations about injustice, equity, race, because you are the majority for one and other people listen to you without all these preconceived notions as to what or why you think what you think. As soon as I start talking about inequity, it reminds I, Oh God, he goes again because I'm just another black guy who's upset about the way the world is treated.

Someone somebody who hasn't been through that stuff says, Hey, look like let's look honestly at equity and in the way that people are treated on this, you know, in the society. And let's have a real conversation about it. Everybody takes the conversation much more seriously. They're much more honest about it. They're much more open to it because they're not immediately on the defensive.

Yeah. Do you think that's and I totally agree what you're saying, too, because it's we've watched it play out, especially over the last three or four years more than anything. And I go, what point do we get to a spot where like the loud voices, because we saw a couple of places where it spilled over and overflowing, right? Like the voices got so loud, like, we're not letting you just roll your eyes and brush this off again.

And then you get to a place where, like, Seattle happens, like, or Minnesota happens and you're like, What eyes? So do we think that's ego? Like where does the eyeroll come from? Because if someone really is it a lack of is it ignorance? Because ignorance is an excuse, right? Like a sign doesn't suffice for not creating positive change.

So do we think it's it's ignorance where people because I think people who really understand the issue and kind of understand the direction and while again, we've we've mentioned I will never truly understand and I completely agree with that, but I'm definitely learning and I'm definitely trying to get a grasp on what has happened and will happen if nothing changes and help push that in the right direction. But where do we like?

I just don't understand where that because I've never been an was guy, like you said, like someone's like, Oh, here we go again. And that's that's never been me. And it's like, at some point folks like, you got to stop rolling your eyes here because it's not this isn't one in a thousand. It's like one out of five. So and you could make a really good argument. It should be five of five or four out of five. So. So when when does that change? And I know that's like a question for a bigger deal.

I think I think the biggest like that eyeroll comes deeper privilege or lack of understanding of privilege and you know, whichever it slides on the scale. But you know, if you've had great privilege and you have some awareness of your privilege, you there's a possibly your eyeroll or your eyeroll, or if you had, you know, some privilege, but you have no understanding of what your privileges are, all comes because you especially somebody who's had very little privilege.

It's really easy for them to say, I've had to work just as hard as you. Sure, you might have had to work just as hard as me, but you still started in a place where you didn't wear your identity on your skin. Like, it's just like you can't you cannot debate that fact as much as, you know, people want to say, Well, I don't see color. That doesn't help because my other people did. And they treated people who look like me a different way because of it.

So I'm not saying color is not the it's not the answer to the problem. It is a matter of being aware of how you have had a different starting point in this life. Whatever you've been through, whatever other things took away from that starting point, you still never had to wear your starting point on your skin. You know, socioeconomic status. It does affect the way that we're all treated, but it's different. You know, it's it is also something your family had a chance to change.

Yeah. And that's that's unfortunate that they didn't for you. You still can't roll your eyes because somebody else is upset about their situation that they had no choice over. Yeah, I don't see color if he feels like like brushing the problems. Oh, yeah. It feels to me like. Like a blanket answer to oh, I don't see color. So that's the answer to the problem is not disregarding. The problem is that I don't see color.

You need to shake those people on the shoulder and see what you need to see because it's a huge dynamic of what we're dealing with. It's it's the dynamic and what we're dealing with and talking about here. So I almost to a degree that sounds to me like more privilege, right? It is. It's must be nice to not see color something that's really nice. And I got to worry about it because for a lot of folks out there, like it's the only thing they see.

It's the only thing they base the decisions off of and thus the disparity that gets created when that is the only piece of information you're making. These large decisions that impact entire peoples lives on, including how this is going to go really into a deep new snowball here. But if you really want to talk about you want to talk about you make these decisions based on color alone, which impacts neighborhoods and zip codes.

And we've statistically shown that where you are from and the zip code that you are in and the people that you are surrounded by, where are they, where the money goes to those It's just it's a mess. It's an absolute mess. So now I'm getting riled that yeah, if people let's say I don't see color are actively to me ignoring the problem and not it'd be like be like oh 50 or like give them a statistic about robberies like gone and armed robberies and they're going like, wow, it's not right.

Robberies are just going to happen right? No, like, let's not like, oh, I can't. I just can't like, I get all. Yeah, it's just don't say like you need to see it if you say you don't see it, it's, you need to see it because once we all see it now we can recognize some of the systemic influences that that's having. And then we can start to answer some questions because it's not like taboo for some people.

And unfortunately on the other side of that privilege is is white guilt, which then also shuts people down from being able to look at the problem because they they feel too bad to talk about it. They feel so overwhelmed. They look at the situation. They just they just can't. And once again, that is reverting back to privilege is like you just can't. Well, I just have to. Yeah, I was just like, okay, sorry that it must be nice to be like, Oh, I'm having a day.

Maybe we'll get to that tomorrow. Must be nice. And, you know, and these things are important to me, like, I've got my views and my opinions, but on this show, my, my main role is just to ask the question, are you thinking about it? And is it something that that you allow to shape your identity? And I hope it does.

And I hope that, you know, it makes you ask the question on a daily basis, am I doing enough to help support, support people being their best selves, You know, in my space, like, you know, especially as you're rising in the leadership positions, you get to help affect what the space looks like. And unfortunately, you can only be so passive before you become a person who is cosigning behaviors that you don't like and that that point you have, that you have to be proactive in saying.

I mean, you don't have to, you know, everyone, but I'm part of the problem. You have to be part of the solution or else, you know, once again, you're just passively being part of the problem. And I'm like, once again, I'm not saying that that's what you're doing, right. I wasn't done that, you know, there's much deeper than I what happens. I'm going to try to read this because I don't know what your day looks like. And we've already gone over to our and.

This is what happens when people get together. So I figured out my superpower. It is to make people forget any obligation that they have and sit down and just be in the conversation like that's my superpower. And I did not realize I had that. But everybody who I've sat down with, especially my last guest, Peter Evans, he is like, I didn't think we were going to get through 30 minutes. 2 hours later, he like, Wow, what just happened? Yeah, I was like, you just I just.

I just allow you to come in and be here, be yourself and just have a conversation. And it's been amazing.