June 14, 2024 • 21 mins
What is the meaning of life? On this episode, Buck Sexton welcomes a longtime friend and guest, Mike Slater. Buck and Mike share a candid conversation filled with reflections on aging, balancing careers, and the profound impact of marriage and gratitude. Mike also shares insights from his role as host of Breitbart News Daily and his podcast ‘Politics By Faith.’
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to The Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, welcome to the Buck Brief.
We are very fortunate to be joined by our friend
Mike Slater, who we have known here for I don't know,
like a decade now. It's been a long time. Mike,
been in the game a while. Tell everybody what you're
(00:34):
up to these days, just so they know who it
is that we are talking to.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Are we getting old?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Maybe? Yeah? I like you, you're kind of going silver
Fox over there, buddy. I haven't seen it a while,
you know what I mean. You were blonde when we met.
You were like surfer dude san Diego blonde. And now
you know what I mean, you're like the h You're
not John Ham. You're looking like the other guy for
mad Men, whatever his name is.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, this is uh, this is four kids. And I
just had a haircut the other day, so I was
looking very gray all over the floor. You're like, when
did this appen? I saw billboard for a home and
garden show coming to town, and I was like, Oh,
that looks really good.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I should go to that. That looks fun.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I was like, oh wait, pretty old fucking I getting
Old Man Home and Garden Show. It seems like a
fun way to spend your Saturday. I don't know, I'm
doing all sorts of stuff. I think about you all
the time, Buck, because there was a time and I
don't know it's maybe still the case for you, but
there was a certain time when you were doing so much,
(01:38):
so much stuff. It was crazy. And I remember talking
to producer Matt Over at the First and I was like,
it was when I found out that you were doing
another hour on the first TV and I was like, wait,
that's a different hour on top of the on top.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Of his other shows that he's doing.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So you, to me have always been the standard of
way too much work and like way too much stuff,
And I don't know how you do all that much stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I've like chilled out a little bit since then. I
at one point my absolute peak, and any of my
dad bo I blame on on this period, I'm still
fighting it. My absolute peak was during the pandemic. I
was doing five hours of radio, two hours of the
first every day.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
That's that's how could that possibly be?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Because that doesn't imply any show prep either, No, I
mean no prep for that. That's seven hours of just
talking straight content, no time to think.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I think it was technically, I think it was. Technically
it was three hours of solar radio. An hour of that.
I think we simulcast on the first, but then there
was a separate show on the first that I was doing,
and then two hours of local radio. Anyway, but we're
actually here, so so yes, was I a beast in
the work department for a while, That would be, that
would be true. But I wanted I wanted you to
(02:57):
tell me what do you think the most? Like we
got people tuning in to listen to the news and
what's happening in the world. So what's the most important
thing in Mike Slater's world today? Like, what is the
thing that you were most focused on? Can be news,
it can be something else.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, I'll tell you one kind of not newsy thing
and then we can bring it in the news world.
So every Monday, so I host My main job is
a host of BRep Art News Daily on Serious XM
Patriot every morning from six to nine, which is great.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I've been doing that for a year. It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
So every Monday at six it's five o'clock my time,
Central time zone. It's it's like hard to I don't
know what do you do at five am on a Monday,
You know, moping and kroggy and go.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Back to sleep.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, right, I mean like when you like hit it
hard with Israel Palestine, like I can't. So it's like
we gotta do something different every Monday. So we started
doing this gratitude segment. So we open up the phones
and it's a simple question, what are you grateful for?
But it's not just a time fill, it's actually really important.
So I think what we need to do to say
this country. It's not through policy, although of course we
need that. I think we need like a true revival
in this country. I think we need we need to
(04:06):
get back to virtue. We need we need, we need
more virtue this country individually and collectively. And it was
Cicero who said that the parent of all virtues is gratitude.
So it's the root and the foundation of all virtues.
So we can't have virtue. We can't save the country
we don't have virtue. And Cicero says, we can't have
virtue if we don't have gratitude, so we need to
work out our gratitude muscles and talk about things we're
(04:27):
grateful for. And then you as we've been doing that
for like two months or so, I've gotten better at
like being grateful for little things around me all the time,
which has been nice.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
So we just we did today. It was Monday, and man,
we had an hour.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Usually we would do like twenty minutes or so just
to kind of get going, get geared up.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
We did an.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Hour of people call in talking about some really really
important things, and for some reason, somehow we got into
this whole conversation about alcoholism and people who have been
sober for twenty years, two years who are now doing
awesome things in their life, and this theme about wives
that came up, and just people were grateful for their
wives who have not who haven't given up on them,
(05:04):
and who have stayed with them and fought for their marriage.
And it was a really, really wonderful hour that I'm
still sort of reeling from this morning, which leads me
to my next question for you. Because I'm not I
don't get interviewed, I'm the interviewer. How is your marriage?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Man? How's married life because that was one of the
pivot points. Wow, that was one of the pivot I'm at.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I'm going hard on you, bot because that was one
of your pivot points, no joke when you first got
married and I was like, I don't think he can
do all this work and be married.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Well, I do less work. I do less work now,
which I hope, I hope my uh, you know, my
various bosses don't hear that. But I'm not in the
in the all out My career is my life phase
that I was in for a number of years, which
I don't yeah, which I don't really and I don't
really recommend. I don't know what to say. I mean,
I kind of I love what I do and so
(05:51):
that made it easier. But I mean there were sacrifices
and as I look back now, you know, as somebody
who got married at forty one, would I do I
wish I had gotten married younger and started a family,
probably if I were just looking at the way that
life tends to work out for people and what I
sort of see happening around me. But I would also
(06:13):
put in the mix that you know, we do these
things as we can, and you know, each each one
of us has a pathway that we're making a lot
of Like you make all these considerations, you do all
this calculation as you go, and then you forget. I
think often what the calculations were in that moment, and
later things can seem like they're a lot easier than
(06:34):
they would have been at the time. That's a that's
kind of a hindsight is twenty twenty thing? Right, you
asked about marriage. Being married is great. My wife is awesome.
I'm much more productive. I don't mean that in a
necessarily in like a professional way, but just every day
is about being the best version of me that I
(06:55):
can be and supporting my wife and trying to build
and we talk about this is very openly, just trying
to build the best day to day life together that
we can. And you know, we're trying to start a family.
We have not been blessed with a child yet, but
we are certainly hopeful that will happen sometime this year.
You know, it has been about a year now, so
(07:15):
we're hopeful of that will happen. But being murdered is
being murdered is great, honestly, And you know, I don't know,
I highly recommend it. I can't profess to be an extra,
Like there's some things I've done a lot of and
can tell people. You know, I've been in the trenches,
like I'm a I'm a nube to marriage. So so
far it's amazing and I highly recommend.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I want to speak to that point one second, but
let me go back to one thing. This It came
up this morning. I can't find this clip. I was
looking for it all day. Tucker Carlson was doing some
interviews somewhere I can't find. I can visualize, but I
can't find. He said, it's easy to sleep with a
bunch of women that you meet on some dating app
Like that's easy, but make the same woman happy for thirty.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Years and then you're a man.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
I love that, Like that's like you're growing up, Like
you just mentioned that you're becoming a better person, like
you got married man, just being a being a being
a man.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's how that goes.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I never forget my dad away like ten years ago,
maybe a little more like twelve years ago, and uh
he loved my wife and uh girlfriend at the time,
and I'm distinctly remember where I was when I called
him to tell him I couldn't wait because he was
gonna be so excited and like just the way he is.
And I told him, I said I'm going to propose
to Steph. And he was silent, and I was like, oh,
(08:30):
like what what truth is going to converge, like we
don't think she's right for the family or what and
he goes he didn't say, he goes, uh, you know,
now you're responsible for another person.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I was like, oh, it's.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Like hit me Like I was like, oh wow, okay, yeah, yes.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
And then and then he was like, oh, it's amazing.
So it's just growing up man. And anyway, just to
tie into uh into the news of the day.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, I actually I think
you stuffle on an important point. Though, may I may
I jump in here? I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You know, We're we're kind of interviewing each other here,
which I'm fine with, but I would just say the
the I don't like this. The older you can be
very old and very unwise and and lacking in knowledge
and virtue like that. So the older I get, you know,
the more I see, but the more I think I
do a crue life wisdom which does tend to come
with age. Right, those things are not always correlated or
(09:21):
but they tend to be the root cause of so
much bad stuff. Simplest way to put it, you know, misery, despair, divorce,
drug addiction and me go down. A lot of it
is I think rooted in narcissism and the debasement of
(09:45):
self that comes from people who, for whatever reason, and
there are many reasons, have focused on themselves so much.
And and I think that more and more people will
find and actually the the psychiatric literature is support is
more supportive this over time, that helping other people and
showing kindness has positive psychological benefits for the person who
(10:08):
does it, and the that when you focus on other people,
when you have responsibility for people, particularly your family and
those who matter, you tend to have a purpose that
gives you a sense of stability and a sense of
meaning that endures irrespective of the fortunes of finance and
(10:29):
life and health and all these things. But if your
life is about you know, I have a lot of money,
my wife is hot, I have a lot of friends,
I have a fancy car, I have Eventually, what you
find out is that that stuff one is transient is
ephemeral at best, as it is for all of us.
But also there'll be other things that happen that are
(10:50):
far more important than those things. And if those are
the things that motivates you, your foundation is weak when
the true challenges come. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Do I know what you mean?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
You mentioned the psychological literature on that. It's biblicalt too.
The Bible talk is all about dying to self, and
you can't be born again until you put off the
old self and put on the new self. And there's
that in a spiritual sense, but also that, you know,
just a normal day to day life as well.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
You got you got to get out of your head.
You mentioned narcissism.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It's one of that's one of my favorite Greek visuals
is it was named after this guy, narcissist who couldn't
you saw this girl and you're like, uh, he didn't
find he wasn't in love with her, she was in
love with him. He was a love But he found
that his true beauty when he looked into the reflection
of the lake and it was it was it was
a reflection.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
He just couldn't.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
He just stared at it forever and then he died
because he couldn't eat any food or anybody. He's die
and it's like, oh, like, that's so much of our
world today is just narcissists. We literally have a thing
called the selfie, and I think we just like blew
past the idea that the word selfie was invented, and
like the front the front facing camera, that's like one
of the worst things that's ever happened in our lives
(12:00):
and it was just perfect for us, and that's going
to be the death of us.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
There's no there's no doubt. Well, I want to die
to self I am.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
I am guilty of having taken a SELFI or two
here or there with friends and I don't I don't
post like solo selfies, but you know, with friends or
something else and or yeah, exactly with doing the blue Steel.
But I would say that my criticism would be that
it's it's not the it's not the the act of
a selfie or the notion of a selfie. It is
the selfie culture that has been built around all of this,
(12:29):
whereby there is a a fixation with perception that exists
out there in the ether or out there in the
in the internet, and those people don't matter, you know,
likes clicks on the screen. And now we work in
a business where crowd approbation is uh, you know, the
it is how we make a living. So I'm aware
(12:51):
of that, but ultimately, for me, it's do people like
the work. I think there's a difference between do people
like the work product that you are creating and do
you just want people to tell you how pretty you are?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
That's these are these are different things or they're they're
not the same thing. And I think that it's important
for people in our I think that there's a lot
of narcissism in our business. Wde Honestly, I think there's
a we don't be a fascinating podcast. We got to
sit around and get people who are incredibly I don't
know how many of them have this degree of introspection
and and honesty, but I know for a fact that
(13:29):
there are people who are incredibly successful at what we
do who are deeply miserable in wish that they had
made different life choices.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Oh oh man, dude, that is so and not just
but so many of these industries. Oh, I'm so glad
you said that. I'll just share my go to story
on it, and we could do more. How much more
do you want to chat? How much more time do
we have?
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I don't know. We're going to get into life. We
got to do like a real you know what. You
you have a show, I'll come on your show. We
can do a longer because I just scheduled doing we
do like a fifteen twenty minute podcast. Here it's usually
just like news quick hits, but you wanted to discuss
the philosophy of light, so here I am like, you know,
we want to do this. We'll do this. I just
need to schedule it in for a different time.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I don't don't.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I don't do news Bright part News Daily, it's more Newsy.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I don't. That's not my scene.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
You have a deep dive podcast that you do, like
where we talk about life and issues, because I'll join
you on that.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yes, totally.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
So the best thing about Brian Partners Daily is well,
there's a couple of but one it's on serious exam
so there's no commercials. It's just like game on. We
just do like a forty five minute segment and it's
like nice. So it's like long form. So yeah, you're
always welcome. There are you kidding me, We do it there.
But then I do have another podcast if I can promote.
It's called Politics by Faith. So the idea is we
look at the politics of the day through the lens
of the Bible and history, buying these things into one
(14:43):
so that that's the thing. If I were to promote
one thing, that podcast Politics by Faith, available on the
iHeart radio app and everywhere you're listening. My go to
an example of miserable people, miserable slash successful people is.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Hugh Hefner.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
So Hugh Heffner, like, oh is God among men? And
look at these parties and look at what he's doing.
He's the luckiest man in the world.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
It's all so gross, man.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Disgusting when it came tumbling down. But it started because
his mom never said I love you, and he never
hugged his mother. And then his fiance when he went
off to war, he came back and she was cheating
on him with another man. So the two most important
women in his life betrayed him in profound ways. So
of course he went on to treat women like garbage
and and just went on to live this disgusting, this disgusting,
(15:28):
gross life that but was like heralded as the pinnacle of.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
A man's life. It's like, oh that it was all
such and such a lie. He was miserable on the inside.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Oh yeah, no, I've seen that with him and certainly
a lot of people who are very wealthy and have
a tremendous amount of celebrity. I know it's a cliche,
but it's a cliche for a reason, right, I mean,
when something is true a lot, it's because it has
happened a lot and people know to be true. Hold on, wait,
you know, speaking of the business, I gotta pay some
bills and get to some of this sponsor stuff, like,
for example, I do love the Second Amendment. Do you
(15:59):
own any firearms? By the way, are you fire arms?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Gar? Yeah, my buddy.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
I asked my military guy how many weapons I own
I should own, and he said, you should own enough
that are described as an arsenal.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
That's fair. I like that. Actually, my older brother has
a has an arsenal. I have I have more of
like like he could outfit a platoon. I could do
like a fire squad pretty well.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
So I don't want to.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I don't know if you respond, but I asked my
father in law father in law's dad, so older generation.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I said, how many guns are you on? He goes,
I don't know. That's the best. I love that answer.
You're like, I lost county.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well, let me let me hop into a Barckreek Carsenal.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Here.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
They're amazing. I went and visited them in North Carolina
at their facility where they make all these guns. I've
got two Barkreek Carsenal rifles. I've got a pistol. They're grizzly.
The grizzly is phenomenal. It's kind of like I don't know,
a souped up Glock nineteen. It's got better grip, better handle,
feels better. I like the weight distribution better. Go to
bear Creek Arsenal's website see what they have. This is
(16:58):
a veteran owned and operated gun manufacturer here in North
Carolina all America. Support the Second Amendment and they're just
great people and they really want to give you the best,
most reliable, accurate, durable firearms you can possibly get for
prices that are truly mind blowing. I mean, the value
proposition for these guns. I've never seen anything like it.
(17:19):
Go to Barcreek Arsenal dot com. Slash buck use my
name buck as your promo code. You'll get ten percent
off your first order. Exclusions apply. That's Bearcreek Arsenal dot
com slash buck. Use promo code buck for ten percent
off your first order. So, uh, we only got a
couple of minutes.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
How did you get a sponsor of a gun manufacturer?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
That's amazing. I got I've got ars from them, now
I got pistol. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Dude, we got to hook you.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
You and I gotta talk, buddy. You don't reach out
to you, your old friend Buck, you know what I mean.
It's like you got to reach across. I know you're
a satellite radio guy and I do terrestrial, but you
can reach across the fence. You know, we can hang out.
There's no there's no side, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Check out their website now, this is this is good stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
That's amazing. It's amazing, honestly, Like, I love their products.
They're they're the only thing I look at this. I'm like,
So it's a little bit like, uh, you know, when
you'll see you'll see like the version of something that's made,
or you know, you'll see like tail and all, and
then they'll be like the sort of CVS talent on
and you're like why is when you realize, like, well,
this is the same product, except one of them has
(18:21):
a name on it that makes it more expensive. Imagine
if the tail and all that was like the store
brand was better, like actually you know, tasted better or
whatever and was cheaper. But people pay, they pay for
the name, and that's you know, that's why you know,
we all know the famous gun manufacturers out there, but
these guys at Barrack Creek make awesome stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Anyway, when you when you asked me if I about guns,
I did not. I made that Arsenal joke. I didn't
know that you were gonna do a spot for bar
Creek Arsenal. So that just worked out too perfectly.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Thank you, No, I ap. I appreciate that we have
before I I have to I have to hop and
then we'll set up a time where we can talk
about life, because I think we're solving a lot of
life's problems. Here. You've got you got three I don't know,
you got three minutes to tell everybody the most important
things that come to mind. What do they need to know?
Is everything gonna be okay? It's twenty twenty four, Trump
gonna win? Is everything gonna be all right?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Things are gonna get way way, way worse, way worse.
That's my comforting thought, is that things are gonna get
way worse than they are now. So pace yourselves, everyone, like,
buck up, We.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Got a long way to go. This is a new low, but.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
It's not near rock bottom. That's my encouraging thought. The
thing we're gonna talk about on tomorrow show is this
new pepole. Just to tie it in today's conversation where
they asked Biden supporters and Trump supporters like different life questions,
and this one that was most concerning to me is
exactly what we're talking about. It was, is do you
consider here? It is is it good for society to
(19:50):
promote marriage and having children? It is it beneficial to
society promote marriage and having children? And it's like, obviously yes,
who's the person that says no? Only nineteen percent of
Biden voters say yes? Like what and but only fifty
four fifty nine per and a Trump supporter say yes?
(20:11):
Come out, people like what do you mean? Is it
good for society to promote marriage and children?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
What are we talking about?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
So We're gonna make some big picture political points about that,
because we are living on different planets.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Man, if we can't even agree on some of these basics.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yeah, marriage and children, good stuff. I'm one of four.
I gotta work. We got to catch up here. I
don't have any but we're working on it. I think
four would be great. If we can get to two
or three, that would be nice. But you know, it
takes time, and Mother Nature has to do or the
Almighty has to do his thing, and and you know,
hopefully it all works out. Dude, Slater, this has been fun.
(20:46):
It's been fun. You let me know when you want
me to come and hang out. We'll talk long form
about whatever you want. And now you know, I know
next time I'm going to make sure I schedule for
a time when I got nothing else afterwards, because if
you want to get like biblical and the meaning of life,
we're gonna need more than fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
But we'll That's all I do.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Man, the deepest philosophical issues. So go check out the
Mike Slater Show and and check out his podcast, and
uh be a good person, because Mike, Mike, he's super nice.
Now I'm embarrassing he's among the nicest people I have
met in this business, among the nicest Mike Slater true story,
like most friendly and reliably kind of people. Mike Slater,
(21:27):
there you go, so uh and for me, that's high praise,
by the way, because there are a lot of a
lot of jackasses running around this business, all right. Anyway, Slater,
great to see you man, good looking to you, and
we'll talk soon. Okay, do it again, Thanks both, care
Sata
You're listening to The Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, welcome to the Buck Brief.
We are very fortunate to be joined by our friend
Mike Slater, who we have known here for I don't know,
like a decade now. It's been a long time. Mike,
been in the game a while. Tell everybody what you're
(00:34):
up to these days, just so they know who it
is that we are talking to.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Are we getting old?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Maybe? Yeah? I like you, you're kind of going silver
Fox over there, buddy. I haven't seen it a while,
you know what I mean. You were blonde when we met.
You were like surfer dude san Diego blonde. And now
you know what I mean, you're like the h You're
not John Ham. You're looking like the other guy for
mad Men, whatever his name is.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, this is uh, this is four kids. And I
just had a haircut the other day, so I was
looking very gray all over the floor. You're like, when
did this appen? I saw billboard for a home and
garden show coming to town, and I was like, Oh,
that looks really good.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I should go to that. That looks fun.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I was like, oh wait, pretty old fucking I getting
Old Man Home and Garden Show. It seems like a
fun way to spend your Saturday. I don't know, I'm
doing all sorts of stuff. I think about you all
the time, Buck, because there was a time and I
don't know it's maybe still the case for you, but
there was a certain time when you were doing so much,
(01:38):
so much stuff. It was crazy. And I remember talking
to producer Matt Over at the First and I was like,
it was when I found out that you were doing
another hour on the first TV and I was like, wait,
that's a different hour on top of the on top.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Of his other shows that he's doing.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So you, to me have always been the standard of
way too much work and like way too much stuff,
And I don't know how you do all that much stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I've like chilled out a little bit since then. I
at one point my absolute peak, and any of my
dad bo I blame on on this period, I'm still
fighting it. My absolute peak was during the pandemic. I
was doing five hours of radio, two hours of the
first every day.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
That's that's how could that possibly be?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Because that doesn't imply any show prep either, No, I
mean no prep for that. That's seven hours of just
talking straight content, no time to think.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I think it was technically, I think it was. Technically
it was three hours of solar radio. An hour of that.
I think we simulcast on the first, but then there
was a separate show on the first that I was doing,
and then two hours of local radio. Anyway, but we're
actually here, so so yes, was I a beast in
the work department for a while, That would be, that
would be true. But I wanted I wanted you to
(02:57):
tell me what do you think the most? Like we
got people tuning in to listen to the news and
what's happening in the world. So what's the most important
thing in Mike Slater's world today? Like, what is the
thing that you were most focused on? Can be news,
it can be something else.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, I'll tell you one kind of not newsy thing
and then we can bring it in the news world.
So every Monday, so I host My main job is
a host of BRep Art News Daily on Serious XM
Patriot every morning from six to nine, which is great.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I've been doing that for a year. It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
So every Monday at six it's five o'clock my time,
Central time zone. It's it's like hard to I don't
know what do you do at five am on a Monday,
You know, moping and kroggy and go.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Back to sleep.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, right, I mean like when you like hit it
hard with Israel Palestine, like I can't. So it's like
we gotta do something different every Monday. So we started
doing this gratitude segment. So we open up the phones
and it's a simple question, what are you grateful for?
But it's not just a time fill, it's actually really important.
So I think what we need to do to say
this country. It's not through policy, although of course we
need that. I think we need like a true revival
in this country. I think we need we need to
(04:06):
get back to virtue. We need we need, we need
more virtue this country individually and collectively. And it was
Cicero who said that the parent of all virtues is gratitude.
So it's the root and the foundation of all virtues.
So we can't have virtue. We can't save the country
we don't have virtue. And Cicero says, we can't have
virtue if we don't have gratitude, so we need to
work out our gratitude muscles and talk about things we're
(04:27):
grateful for. And then you as we've been doing that
for like two months or so, I've gotten better at
like being grateful for little things around me all the time,
which has been nice.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
So we just we did today. It was Monday, and man,
we had an hour.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Usually we would do like twenty minutes or so just
to kind of get going, get geared up.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
We did an.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Hour of people call in talking about some really really
important things, and for some reason, somehow we got into
this whole conversation about alcoholism and people who have been
sober for twenty years, two years who are now doing
awesome things in their life, and this theme about wives
that came up, and just people were grateful for their
wives who have not who haven't given up on them,
(05:04):
and who have stayed with them and fought for their marriage.
And it was a really, really wonderful hour that I'm
still sort of reeling from this morning, which leads me
to my next question for you. Because I'm not I
don't get interviewed, I'm the interviewer. How is your marriage?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Man? How's married life because that was one of the
pivot points. Wow, that was one of the pivot I'm at.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I'm going hard on you, bot because that was one
of your pivot points, no joke when you first got
married and I was like, I don't think he can
do all this work and be married.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Well, I do less work. I do less work now,
which I hope, I hope my uh, you know, my
various bosses don't hear that. But I'm not in the
in the all out My career is my life phase
that I was in for a number of years, which
I don't yeah, which I don't really and I don't
really recommend. I don't know what to say. I mean,
I kind of I love what I do and so
(05:51):
that made it easier. But I mean there were sacrifices
and as I look back now, you know, as somebody
who got married at forty one, would I do I
wish I had gotten married younger and started a family,
probably if I were just looking at the way that
life tends to work out for people and what I
sort of see happening around me. But I would also
(06:13):
put in the mix that you know, we do these
things as we can, and you know, each each one
of us has a pathway that we're making a lot
of Like you make all these considerations, you do all
this calculation as you go, and then you forget. I
think often what the calculations were in that moment, and
later things can seem like they're a lot easier than
(06:34):
they would have been at the time. That's a that's
kind of a hindsight is twenty twenty thing? Right, you
asked about marriage. Being married is great. My wife is awesome.
I'm much more productive. I don't mean that in a
necessarily in like a professional way, but just every day
is about being the best version of me that I
(06:55):
can be and supporting my wife and trying to build
and we talk about this is very openly, just trying
to build the best day to day life together that
we can. And you know, we're trying to start a family.
We have not been blessed with a child yet, but
we are certainly hopeful that will happen sometime this year.
You know, it has been about a year now, so
(07:15):
we're hopeful of that will happen. But being murdered is
being murdered is great, honestly, And you know, I don't know,
I highly recommend it. I can't profess to be an extra,
Like there's some things I've done a lot of and
can tell people. You know, I've been in the trenches,
like I'm a I'm a nube to marriage. So so
far it's amazing and I highly recommend.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I want to speak to that point one second, but
let me go back to one thing. This It came
up this morning. I can't find this clip. I was
looking for it all day. Tucker Carlson was doing some
interviews somewhere I can't find. I can visualize, but I
can't find. He said, it's easy to sleep with a
bunch of women that you meet on some dating app
Like that's easy, but make the same woman happy for thirty.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Years and then you're a man.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
I love that, Like that's like you're growing up, Like
you just mentioned that you're becoming a better person, like
you got married man, just being a being a being
a man.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's how that goes.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I never forget my dad away like ten years ago,
maybe a little more like twelve years ago, and uh
he loved my wife and uh girlfriend at the time,
and I'm distinctly remember where I was when I called
him to tell him I couldn't wait because he was
gonna be so excited and like just the way he is.
And I told him, I said I'm going to propose
to Steph. And he was silent, and I was like, oh,
(08:30):
like what what truth is going to converge, like we
don't think she's right for the family or what and
he goes he didn't say, he goes, uh, you know,
now you're responsible for another person.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I was like, oh, it's.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Like hit me Like I was like, oh wow, okay, yeah, yes.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
And then and then he was like, oh, it's amazing.
So it's just growing up man. And anyway, just to
tie into uh into the news of the day.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, I actually I think
you stuffle on an important point. Though, may I may
I jump in here? I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You know, We're we're kind of interviewing each other here,
which I'm fine with, but I would just say the
the I don't like this. The older you can be
very old and very unwise and and lacking in knowledge
and virtue like that. So the older I get, you know,
the more I see, but the more I think I
do a crue life wisdom which does tend to come
with age. Right, those things are not always correlated or
(09:21):
but they tend to be the root cause of so
much bad stuff. Simplest way to put it, you know, misery, despair, divorce,
drug addiction and me go down. A lot of it
is I think rooted in narcissism and the debasement of
(09:45):
self that comes from people who, for whatever reason, and
there are many reasons, have focused on themselves so much.
And and I think that more and more people will
find and actually the the psychiatric literature is support is
more supportive this over time, that helping other people and
showing kindness has positive psychological benefits for the person who
(10:08):
does it, and the that when you focus on other people,
when you have responsibility for people, particularly your family and
those who matter, you tend to have a purpose that
gives you a sense of stability and a sense of
meaning that endures irrespective of the fortunes of finance and
(10:29):
life and health and all these things. But if your
life is about you know, I have a lot of money,
my wife is hot, I have a lot of friends,
I have a fancy car, I have Eventually, what you
find out is that that stuff one is transient is
ephemeral at best, as it is for all of us.
But also there'll be other things that happen that are
(10:50):
far more important than those things. And if those are
the things that motivates you, your foundation is weak when
the true challenges come. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Do I know what you mean?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
You mentioned the psychological literature on that. It's biblicalt too.
The Bible talk is all about dying to self, and
you can't be born again until you put off the
old self and put on the new self. And there's
that in a spiritual sense, but also that, you know,
just a normal day to day life as well.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
You got you got to get out of your head.
You mentioned narcissism.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It's one of that's one of my favorite Greek visuals
is it was named after this guy, narcissist who couldn't
you saw this girl and you're like, uh, he didn't
find he wasn't in love with her, she was in
love with him. He was a love But he found
that his true beauty when he looked into the reflection
of the lake and it was it was it was
a reflection.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
He just couldn't.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
He just stared at it forever and then he died
because he couldn't eat any food or anybody. He's die
and it's like, oh, like, that's so much of our
world today is just narcissists. We literally have a thing
called the selfie, and I think we just like blew
past the idea that the word selfie was invented, and
like the front the front facing camera, that's like one
of the worst things that's ever happened in our lives
(12:00):
and it was just perfect for us, and that's going
to be the death of us.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
There's no there's no doubt. Well, I want to die
to self I am.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
I am guilty of having taken a SELFI or two
here or there with friends and I don't I don't
post like solo selfies, but you know, with friends or
something else and or yeah, exactly with doing the blue Steel.
But I would say that my criticism would be that
it's it's not the it's not the the act of
a selfie or the notion of a selfie. It is
the selfie culture that has been built around all of this,
(12:29):
whereby there is a a fixation with perception that exists
out there in the ether or out there in the
in the internet, and those people don't matter, you know,
likes clicks on the screen. And now we work in
a business where crowd approbation is uh, you know, the
it is how we make a living. So I'm aware
(12:51):
of that, but ultimately, for me, it's do people like
the work. I think there's a difference between do people
like the work product that you are creating and do
you just want people to tell you how pretty you are?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
That's these are these are different things or they're they're
not the same thing. And I think that it's important
for people in our I think that there's a lot
of narcissism in our business. Wde Honestly, I think there's
a we don't be a fascinating podcast. We got to
sit around and get people who are incredibly I don't
know how many of them have this degree of introspection
and and honesty, but I know for a fact that
(13:29):
there are people who are incredibly successful at what we
do who are deeply miserable in wish that they had
made different life choices.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Oh oh man, dude, that is so and not just
but so many of these industries. Oh, I'm so glad
you said that. I'll just share my go to story
on it, and we could do more. How much more
do you want to chat? How much more time do
we have?
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I don't know. We're going to get into life. We
got to do like a real you know what. You
you have a show, I'll come on your show. We
can do a longer because I just scheduled doing we
do like a fifteen twenty minute podcast. Here it's usually
just like news quick hits, but you wanted to discuss
the philosophy of light, so here I am like, you know,
we want to do this. We'll do this. I just
need to schedule it in for a different time.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I don't don't.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I don't do news Bright part News Daily, it's more Newsy.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I don't. That's not my scene.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
You have a deep dive podcast that you do, like
where we talk about life and issues, because I'll join
you on that.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yes, totally.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
So the best thing about Brian Partners Daily is well,
there's a couple of but one it's on serious exam
so there's no commercials. It's just like game on. We
just do like a forty five minute segment and it's
like nice. So it's like long form. So yeah, you're
always welcome. There are you kidding me, We do it there.
But then I do have another podcast if I can promote.
It's called Politics by Faith. So the idea is we
look at the politics of the day through the lens
of the Bible and history, buying these things into one
(14:43):
so that that's the thing. If I were to promote
one thing, that podcast Politics by Faith, available on the
iHeart radio app and everywhere you're listening. My go to
an example of miserable people, miserable slash successful people is.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Hugh Hefner.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
So Hugh Heffner, like, oh is God among men? And
look at these parties and look at what he's doing.
He's the luckiest man in the world.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
It's all so gross, man.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Disgusting when it came tumbling down. But it started because
his mom never said I love you, and he never
hugged his mother. And then his fiance when he went
off to war, he came back and she was cheating
on him with another man. So the two most important
women in his life betrayed him in profound ways. So
of course he went on to treat women like garbage
and and just went on to live this disgusting, this disgusting,
(15:28):
gross life that but was like heralded as the pinnacle of.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
A man's life. It's like, oh that it was all
such and such a lie. He was miserable on the inside.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Oh yeah, no, I've seen that with him and certainly
a lot of people who are very wealthy and have
a tremendous amount of celebrity. I know it's a cliche,
but it's a cliche for a reason, right, I mean,
when something is true a lot, it's because it has
happened a lot and people know to be true. Hold on, wait,
you know, speaking of the business, I gotta pay some
bills and get to some of this sponsor stuff, like,
for example, I do love the Second Amendment. Do you
(15:59):
own any firearms? By the way, are you fire arms?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Gar? Yeah, my buddy.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
I asked my military guy how many weapons I own
I should own, and he said, you should own enough
that are described as an arsenal.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
That's fair. I like that. Actually, my older brother has
a has an arsenal. I have I have more of
like like he could outfit a platoon. I could do
like a fire squad pretty well.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
So I don't want to.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I don't know if you respond, but I asked my
father in law father in law's dad, so older generation.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I said, how many guns are you on? He goes,
I don't know. That's the best. I love that answer.
You're like, I lost county.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well, let me let me hop into a Barckreek Carsenal.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Here.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
They're amazing. I went and visited them in North Carolina
at their facility where they make all these guns. I've
got two Barkreek Carsenal rifles. I've got a pistol. They're grizzly.
The grizzly is phenomenal. It's kind of like I don't know,
a souped up Glock nineteen. It's got better grip, better handle,
feels better. I like the weight distribution better. Go to
bear Creek Arsenal's website see what they have. This is
(16:58):
a veteran owned and operated gun manufacturer here in North
Carolina all America. Support the Second Amendment and they're just
great people and they really want to give you the best,
most reliable, accurate, durable firearms you can possibly get for
prices that are truly mind blowing. I mean, the value
proposition for these guns. I've never seen anything like it.
(17:19):
Go to Barcreek Arsenal dot com. Slash buck use my
name buck as your promo code. You'll get ten percent
off your first order. Exclusions apply. That's Bearcreek Arsenal dot
com slash buck. Use promo code buck for ten percent
off your first order. So, uh, we only got a
couple of minutes.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
How did you get a sponsor of a gun manufacturer?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
That's amazing. I got I've got ars from them, now
I got pistol. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Dude, we got to hook you.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
You and I gotta talk, buddy. You don't reach out
to you, your old friend Buck, you know what I mean.
It's like you got to reach across. I know you're
a satellite radio guy and I do terrestrial, but you
can reach across the fence. You know, we can hang out.
There's no there's no side, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Check out their website now, this is this is good stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
That's amazing. It's amazing, honestly, Like, I love their products.
They're they're the only thing I look at this. I'm like,
So it's a little bit like, uh, you know, when
you'll see you'll see like the version of something that's made,
or you know, you'll see like tail and all, and
then they'll be like the sort of CVS talent on
and you're like why is when you realize, like, well,
this is the same product, except one of them has
(18:21):
a name on it that makes it more expensive. Imagine
if the tail and all that was like the store
brand was better, like actually you know, tasted better or
whatever and was cheaper. But people pay, they pay for
the name, and that's you know, that's why you know,
we all know the famous gun manufacturers out there, but
these guys at Barrack Creek make awesome stuff.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Anyway, when you when you asked me if I about guns,
I did not. I made that Arsenal joke. I didn't
know that you were gonna do a spot for bar
Creek Arsenal. So that just worked out too perfectly.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Thank you, No, I ap. I appreciate that we have
before I I have to I have to hop and
then we'll set up a time where we can talk
about life, because I think we're solving a lot of
life's problems. Here. You've got you got three I don't know,
you got three minutes to tell everybody the most important
things that come to mind. What do they need to know?
Is everything gonna be okay? It's twenty twenty four, Trump
gonna win? Is everything gonna be all right?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Things are gonna get way way, way worse, way worse.
That's my comforting thought, is that things are gonna get
way worse than they are now. So pace yourselves, everyone, like,
buck up, We.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Got a long way to go. This is a new low, but.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
It's not near rock bottom. That's my encouraging thought. The
thing we're gonna talk about on tomorrow show is this
new pepole. Just to tie it in today's conversation where
they asked Biden supporters and Trump supporters like different life questions,
and this one that was most concerning to me is
exactly what we're talking about. It was, is do you
consider here? It is is it good for society to
(19:50):
promote marriage and having children? It is it beneficial to
society promote marriage and having children? And it's like, obviously yes,
who's the person that says no? Only nineteen percent of
Biden voters say yes? Like what and but only fifty
four fifty nine per and a Trump supporter say yes?
(20:11):
Come out, people like what do you mean? Is it
good for society to promote marriage and children?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
What are we talking about?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
So We're gonna make some big picture political points about that,
because we are living on different planets.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Man, if we can't even agree on some of these basics.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yeah, marriage and children, good stuff. I'm one of four.
I gotta work. We got to catch up here. I
don't have any but we're working on it. I think
four would be great. If we can get to two
or three, that would be nice. But you know, it
takes time, and Mother Nature has to do or the
Almighty has to do his thing, and and you know,
hopefully it all works out. Dude, Slater, this has been fun.
(20:46):
It's been fun. You let me know when you want
me to come and hang out. We'll talk long form
about whatever you want. And now you know, I know
next time I'm going to make sure I schedule for
a time when I got nothing else afterwards, because if
you want to get like biblical and the meaning of life,
we're gonna need more than fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
But we'll That's all I do.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Man, the deepest philosophical issues. So go check out the
Mike Slater Show and and check out his podcast, and
uh be a good person, because Mike, Mike, he's super nice.
Now I'm embarrassing he's among the nicest people I have
met in this business, among the nicest Mike Slater true story,
like most friendly and reliably kind of people. Mike Slater,
(21:27):
there you go, so uh and for me, that's high praise,
by the way, because there are a lot of a
lot of jackasses running around this business, all right. Anyway, Slater,
great to see you man, good looking to you, and
we'll talk soon. Okay, do it again, Thanks both, care
Sata
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Buck Sexton
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