February 12, 2025 • 29 mins
In this episode, Karol interviews James David Dickson, the host of the Enjoyer Podcast. They discuss the unique culture and identity of Michigan, the challenges the state faces, including brain drain and political divisions, and the importance of local podcasting. James shares his journey into podcasting, his views on nativism, and the upcoming political landscape in Michigan. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
When I started this show about a year plus ago,
I would talk a lot about the importance of marriage.
I really wanted that to be one of the topics
that I delved into on this program, and it mattered
to me that marriage rates were in such steep decline.
(00:26):
It was something that I was very concerned about. I'm
still very concerned about. I think marriage is important for
society and very beneficial to individuals. You've likely heard all
of the arguments here.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Or maybe elsewhere. I've made them extensively. That married people
are happier, they're wealthier, they're more stable, all of the
good things, healthier, they have more sex. What's not to like.
But as I talked about marriage, I kept looking at
the data, and what I started to see is not
that people were coupling and just not getting married. It's
(01:02):
that they weren't coupling at all either. That was in
sharp decline as well. There are a lot of explanations
for why this is happening. Women are overachieving but want
men who are a higher status than they are, a
pool that is continually shrinking. And I'm not blaming just
men here for the decline of relationships. Obviously, there's a
(01:23):
lot of data that women all want to date the
same few guys. There's a lot of blame to go around.
I think it comes down to something even more basic.
People aren't even making friends. And that's something I've talked
about on the show a lot, because there's been this
great migration over the last few years, and it's very
hard to start your life again and make friends as
(01:47):
you already have reached an age where people just really
don't do that. But the thing is, I saw a
recent study that broke this down by education level, and
that was very interesting to me. The study found owned
that twenty four percent of people with an education of
high school or below reported that they had no close
friends at all. The numbers a little better for someone
(02:11):
college educated. Only ten percent of college grads say they
have no close friends. But it's important to realize that
in nineteen ninety the number was two percent for college
grads and three percent for high school graduates to say
that they had no close friends.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
It was a tiny.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Number, so this is a serious, serious jump. Also, in
nineteen ninety, forty five percent of college grads had at
least six close friends, which makes sense, right Like when
I think about college for my kids, I mostly think
of it as a social exercise at this point. Who
they'll meet along the way, what kind of people, and
(02:50):
who they'll stay friends with. I want that for them.
Do kids learn in college or anymore? Who knows. I
don't even think about that, but hopefully they come out
of school with a few close friends. That number has
fallen from forty five percent in nineteen ninety. Again that
college grads who had at least six close friends to
(03:12):
thirty three percent now, and again it's a much worse
decline for high school grads. In nineteen ninety, forty nine
percent of high school graduates had at least six close friends.
Now that number is seventeen percent. We should be worried
about fertility rates, marriage rates, but the fact is that
all relationships are in collapse, and that should really be
(03:33):
our first concern. I've had a couple of emails from
listeners asking how to help their kids make friends. Something
has happened, something has broken where it's not just something
natural that happens, it's something difficult that people find that
they need a way to get over it, and they
need to seek out advice for how it works and
(03:54):
how it happens. My own take is that it's, of
course the fault. We don't have to make friends. We
carry around a world of entertainment everywhere we go. I
don't know how we break that, but we're heading into
a very bad direction. A few years ago I wrote
for Spectator magazine an article called the End of Sex.
(04:15):
I wrote, quote, men don't really know who they're supposed
to be anymore, and women don't either. Is it anti
feminists to enjoy male attention? Is it okay to ask
out a colleague? Everything is so fraud and challenging that
it's no wonder people are opting out of sex. Who
needs the hassle. They'll get their dopamine hits from the
likes they get on their posts and all the internet
(04:37):
porn they can handle. Why bother with human interaction? When
life is un sexy, you get on sexy sex or
no sex at all. End quote. The truth is that
friendship making is very similar. People are getting the happiness
from their phone, so who needs that awkward small talk
of the initial stages of friendship. It's a problem. I'm
(04:57):
just not sure that anyone will listen to the solution
if it means giving up their phone. I'd love to
hear thoughts on this from listeners. How do you help
your kids make friends? How do you make friends yourself?
Drop me a line, Carol Markowitz Show at gmail dot com.
It's Ka R O L M A R. Kowicz Show
(05:18):
at gmail dot com. Thank you for listening. Coming up
my interview with James David Dixon. But first, after more
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three two five.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is James David Dixon, host of the Enjoyer Podcast.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Hi James, so nice to have you on.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
How are you, Carol?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Good? So what is the Enjoyer podcast? What do you
particularly enjoy?
Speaker 6 (07:03):
What I enjoy, Carol, is to like when I have
people on, the first question I always ask is what
do you enjoy about Michigan? And so you could be,
you know, someone in Washington State who's never been here.
Perhaps they admire the Michigan football team, you know what
I mean? So whatever it is, perhaps they admire me.
Whatever it is. We start, we start from that basis,
(07:24):
uh And and then that's that's kind of the sugar,
because the pill I give is that reality. So so
we enjoy Michigan and we appreciate Michigan. But we also
realized that there's some pretty serious threats and that's what
I spend the bulk of my time talking about, is
the threats and what we should do about.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I quite love Michigan.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
I spent some time at Hillsdale, so I really love
that whole area. I've also given a speech I should
have had that I should have had that that town
name cued, but it.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Was a little north of Flint.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I really really liked it.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Such a gay city, Midlands.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
This isn't gonna work.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I gave a thousand speeches last year.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
But I really like your state.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
I like the whole palm thing. I like that you
guys show, you know, on the palm where you are.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
So yeah, I'm like right down here, you know, under
the thumb.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Okay, people listening on audio. He pointed to the fleshy
area below the thumb.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
Not quite on the water, but yeah, east easterly in Michigan,
Southeast Michigan.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
So are you a Michigander your whole life? And did
I nail them?
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Am? You did? You did? So?
Speaker 6 (08:32):
You know, it's funny because we have Michigander, which I
started off I believe as a slur Abraham Lincoln and
then a letter h. And then we also have Michiganian,
and anyone who uses Michiganian, you know you're dealing with
the Detroit News reader. Because these papers do things to,
you know, to to separate each other. We have two
papers in Detroit, the News, which is allegedly conservative, and
(08:56):
then the Free Press, which is liberal, flamingly so right,
and so the politics separate them, but also little things
like michigany and versus Michigander. And so when the News
gives their annual award, they give it to like a
dozen people a year, it's Michiganian of the Year.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
So yeah, it's so interesting because I you know, Michigan
is a swing state.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
It's a it's kind of you know, a little bit
of both.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
It wasn't always a swing state, obviously. I remember it
being solidly blue and never you know, going.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Red really or rarely.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
But it's become quite the swing state in the last
few years. And it's so funny that it's so divided
even among like what to call themselves.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Oh yeah, absolutely, it's just is that is that.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Is that like the flavor of the state.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
There's a lot of Yeah.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
I mean, whether it's you know, blue and red for
political for politics, whether it's blue and green for Michigan
versus Michigan State. We we love these little these little
things that you know, the city suburb divide, the suburban
versus is you know, out state divide.
Speaker 5 (10:02):
We call them out state.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
If you don't live in kind of the main like
three to seven counties of southeast Michigan, you live out state.
People from Michigan might be learning that today. Yes, they
don't know what conversations happened about them when they're not
in the room. They're learning something today. So right, But yeah,
one of my goals in twenty twenty five is I'm
(10:24):
a Southeast Michigan guy. I love Oakland County, I love Detroit,
I love Ann Arbor, but I want to venture to
other parts of Michigan too, well outside my box.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
So we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
I mean, I again, I really enjoyed the whole area
around Hillsdale. I thought it was really beautiful and calm
and peaceful, arm and the food was really good, So
you know, I recommend it highly. So how did you
get into being a local podcaster?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
What was the draw to you.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
I mean, so many people love talking about national stuff
and it's it's tough to kind of focus on, you
know something. I don't want to say smaller because it's
not really smaller, just more precise or.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
You know, we're concentrated, more concentrated.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Thank you very much for the word sist.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
Yeah, you know, I think so.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
Before I did the Enjoyer, I was with the Macinaw
Center and we had a small news outlet called Michigan
Capitol Confidential.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
They still have it.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
They got rid of me because I wanted to do this,
and then they saw I had other aspirations, and just
as a quick aside, I think it's a great example
of how God can take you places that you wouldn't
even think to ask. Right, So, if I had what
I wanted, I'd be doing the Enjoyer podcast, and I'd
still be at the Macinaw Center and we'd be making
(11:44):
it work and going up to Midland every other Monday
and all that juggling the two jobs. But instead of that,
God said, no, we're going to get you out of there,
even if it was painful at the time and inconvenient
and all those things. And then what happened A short
time later, I end up the second the severance ends.
(12:04):
I start with the New York Post on their Swing
state team. So I go from working for an obscure
policy newsletter in Michigan to one of the biggest news
outlets in the world covering the twenty twenty four election.
Only God, I would have never thought to ask for
that myself. I'm not a greedy guy. I don't ask
(12:26):
for much, and so he just delivered so much more
than I could have ever wanted. But what I learned
at the Mackinaw Center is that limitation breeds creativity. We
could only talk about certain topics, and we had to
cover it as policy and not politics. So you're denied
(12:46):
a lot of the red meat and the lures that
we would normally use, and so you have to And
so I developed that. I realized, if I'm going to
get people reading about boring ass policy, I need to
give them something first, and so I look for the
angle of absurdity in stories like, for instance, Ford Motor
Company took one hundred million dollars from state lawmakers in
(13:11):
let's say June twenty twenty two August, So they're going
to use one hundred million to hire three thousand factory
workers in August. Two months later, they fire three thousand
white collar workers. They pulled the Oki dock of all time. Yeah,
that's one hundred million dollar Oaki dough. And so when
you connect those dots and show that angle of absurdity,
(13:34):
and what you want to look for is the fact
that is so absurd it can't possibly be real except.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
It is right. And then you draw that, then you can.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
Tell them about your boring at you know, policy, But
first you have to give them what they want.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
So was that Ford's story did it go Did it
end up going national because that seems like a big story.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
No, because of the nature of it. But it did
what it needed to do in Michigan.
Speaker 6 (14:01):
And then at the Enjoyer, I ended up just doing
a nice video calling out for and saying, Hey, this
company is not as good a citizen as you might think.
It's the most important company in Michigan. It's the reason
there are Dixons in Michigan and there are black people
in Michigan. But when you look at how they use
HB one, when you look at the one hundred million
(14:21):
dollar Oki dook, when you look at partnering with the
Chinese military company to build EV batteries. Harry Ford would
be disgraced by what he sees right now, and we
need better from a company that important. So it's not
super popular stuff. I don't think I'm gonna be invited
to get there.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
Huh, No, there's not. I've not been asked. I might
have missed it.
Speaker 6 (14:43):
I don't check my mail every single day, but I
might have missed it. But I don't think I'm going
to be invited to give the keynote addressed at Ford's
you know, a company banquet anytime soon. But what would
you rather do? Speak for your neighbors or speak to
a small group of elites?
Speaker 3 (15:02):
So what do you love about Michigan the most? What
do you enjoy about it? You know?
Speaker 6 (15:07):
One thing I do need to combat this year is
this myth? And everyone I asked this question, Oh, we
have four seasons.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
No we don't. No, we don't.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
We don't have spring. It goes straight from winter to summer.
There's no spring. Spring's a myth. It typically never comes
and if it does, it'll be maybe two three weeks.
So it's not the four seasons. And I don't think
for most people it's the four seasons. I think for
all of us, it's the people. Yeah, it's the people,
(15:36):
and specifically it's family. Michigan is family. And so when
you have a state like this that has they call
it a brain drain problem where our college grads leave,
that's because we're taking in so many h one beast.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
You can't find entry level work. And so that's what
makes it especially tragic.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
You know, this isn't you know people in Tennessee who
might want to go to New York and be a
big star someday. These are people, if they had it
their way, they would stay with their family and live
in their neighborhood all their life. And they don't, and
they're leaving by not their choice. And that's what said,
that's the tragedy of Michigan, because what happens is so
(16:21):
many people end up being denied a relationship with their grandkids.
Now there are people you see once twice a year,
your kid moves to New York or San Francisco. You
can't afford to move there, right, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
I actually heard that a lot in Michigan.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
I heard that a lot when I was there, that
that was the main concern that people were leaving. I
was on a very Florida high I had just moved
to Florida.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I mean not just it's it's been three years now.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
It was like a little over two at that time.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
But I was very It was hotter than fire back.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
It was super hot.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
It was super super I mean it still is in
a lot of ways, but we saw lot of people
moving in all the time. But yes, it was completely
on fire then. And I was very big on if
you don't like where you live.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Change your you know, change you know, I do something.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
It's hard to move. I can suge that my families
are all still in New York. But in Michigan. You know,
I heard from people that said, I don't.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Want to leave. It's not like you.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
It wasn't like I got tired of of of where
I live and I want to I want to change.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I actually want to stay, but I can't. And that's
real difference. That's not the same thing as what I did.
It's very tough to combat any ideas well.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
In the tragedy of it, Carol, is that we lose
two groups who are really valuable. You lose your recent
college grads who could be your future and they carry
your family's legacy with them, and then we lose retireeves
who stacked up cash and might have something to pass down,
some wealth. And so the retirees, some of those people
(17:56):
always want to move to a warmer place or split
time or whatever, but to lose the future. So what
I think we need Michigan needs to build a wall,
not to keep anyone out.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Keep Mulley, to keep our kids in. Yeah, we need
to have some kind of problem.
Speaker 6 (18:13):
A company like Ford should be part of the solution,
one of the most iconic companies on the planet. Kids
who grew up here do dream and should dream about
working at Ford someday, and every effort should be made that, hey,
you go get that engineering degree, you go do whatever
you need to do to add value, and we have
a spot for you. So we need a nativism. When
(18:37):
when I hear a street that at our a congressman
here in Detroit, or if Ivey Kramaswami talk about h
one B's, what I hear is Indians viewing the world
as Indians and being extremely comfortable with nativism. In that context,
they have no problem saying I want to do for
me and mind right. So nativism does not bother shre
(19:03):
does your conscience bother you?
Speaker 5 (19:04):
I know the reference, So I love that reference. And
that's what we we have to get.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
Comfortable, very comfortable choosing our own people, our own country,
even the citizens of the States. We live over this idea,
this kind of that there's special knowledge that could only
be conferred by foreigners, or there's moral authority that could
only be conferred by diversity. What if we thought of
(19:31):
ourselves as image bearers of God?
Speaker 5 (19:34):
And enough?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, what do you worry about?
Speaker 5 (19:37):
I worry about the twenty twenty sixth election in Michigan. Okay,
I liken.
Speaker 6 (19:43):
You know this inauguration week, you know, watching everything, it's
kind of like when your friend gets the toy they like,
or or they get, you know, the new video game unit,
and they got all like five new games for Christmas.
They call you over afternoon and you're sitting there hot chocolate, cookies,
(20:03):
games warm. It's great, but then you got to go
home eventually and you don't have that game. And so
we watched everyone celebrate America and it's great. It's great,
and we hope some of it trickles down to Michigan,
no doubt some of it will, but then you go
home and you don't have the game. And so what
I'm trying to get everyone excited about is Project twenty
(20:26):
twenty seven. Imagine this week two years from now, except
we've saved our state from a world where in twenty
forty we're going to be running on solar panels and windmills.
Project twenty twenty seven bad news, guys, you won't be
able to vote for Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Only for your kids, only for your future. I hope
that's enough.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
And so that's what we're going to be trying to do,
is make sure it is enough and make sure people
understand the stakes. We won, but we didn't win enough
to just to rest on Laurels, right, So I hope
everyone had fun, but there's a future to win.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Do you have a particular candidate that you want to
see in twenty seven?
Speaker 6 (21:17):
No, So twenty twenty six, it's the ultimate Battle of Michigan.
Free seat in the House. So we got one hundred
and ten House seats, thirty eight Senate seats, Governor, Lieutenant
Attorney General, Secretary of State, also the Gary Peters Senate seat.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
A lot of big jobs, a lot of opportunities.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
When I look across at the Democrats, I see Jocelyn Benson,
who is like, she's like if a Barbie doll was
made out of wood instead of plastic, kind of a
wooden Barbie doll. Dana Nessel, who is just so singularly unlikable.
All I have to do is say her name. You're like, oh, yeah,
that Dana Nessl's gonna have sometime. Then you have Pete
(21:59):
boodage Edge, who's a midget who doesn't even know when
the Lions play right.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
That's an unexceptionable also a Notre Dame fan.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
So that's not going to do you any favors, Pete.
And then you have Mike Duggan, who is such a
coward that, after being a Democrat all of his life,
the mayor of Detroit says, I'm not a Democrat anymore.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Sorry, Mike.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
I must have missed all the times when before the
Titanic hit the Iceberg, you were telling them Iceberg right ahead.
I must have missed all that, right, must have missed
your leadership in that moment. And so he waits until
the ship crashes to abandon, never led and didn't say
he didn't do what Donald Trump did, which is saying
(22:43):
the Republican Party sucks, I'm gonna take it over.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
That's what a leader would do.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
But a guy who's in it for himself says, oh,
those people make me look bad, so I'll go my
own way.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
It's not going to work.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
So I look over at the left and I see clowns.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
You see opportunity.
Speaker 6 (23:05):
We got a guy, Eric Nesbittt he's the Senate Minority leader. Uh.
Kind of this, this big strapping guy. Uh, it's not unusual.
John Engler was a senator in Michigan. Gretchen Whitmer was
a senator in Michigan. So it's not an unusual path.
And so where Jocelyn Benson might have name recognition right now,
(23:27):
Eric nessbitt has the advantage of if people don't know
who you are, then what they know about you is
what you tell them.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
You can define yourself.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
Yeah, you can define yourself and you can be known
for the first time. And so he has that same
opportunity that Gretchen Whitmer had, which is to define himself.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
Then you have Mike Cox, he formed an exploratory committee.
This guy used to be Attorney General of Michigan. He's
held state wide office in Michigan. He needs to get
serious about social media. His social media president reads like
his grandkids told him about it but didn't show him
how to use it, right, So he's just kind of
(24:07):
winging it based on what he's seen and heard about it. Uh,
he's gonna need to get serious about that, because Eric
Nestlitt is serious as a heart attack. So even if
it was just those two versus those four Democrats, I'd
like that race.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You like your chances?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Yeah, all right, we're gonna wait and see, and you're
gonna keep us posted because I feel like you, you know,
you're you're really representing local Michigan and telling us what's
going on over there.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
Absolutely, we're gonna get you in one of these shirts, Carol.
We're gonna get you making news local again.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Yes, So what advice would you give yourself at sixteen
years old?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Did you always plan to be here?
Speaker 2 (24:47):
No?
Speaker 6 (24:48):
But there was always signs, you know, from the earliest pictures.
My mom and her mom used to argue all the
time because I always had a pen in my hand
as a baby, and so I'd be running around. He's
gonna he's gonna poke his eye out. Now, if I
write some story and the cartel gets pissed and they
pluck my eye out, I guess Grandma will have been
(25:09):
right in the end.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Right they don't want, you know.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
So there was always a sign that I was gonna
be speaking out or something. My mom wanted to name
me David because she had a dream where she saw
me giving a speech and my name was David.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
So that's why I used the David. To this day.
Speaker 6 (25:28):
Mom's not with us anymore, and it's a damn shame too,
because she saw just it was like Moses. It was,
I mean literally the forty year journey to get here
and gets right to the promised land where you see
evidence of it. You can see the olive trees. Man,
even with old eyes, you don't make it.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
So I'm carrying on her name and all that.
Speaker 6 (25:52):
But my advice to that young person, I would say,
be nicer, Be a little bit nicer along the way.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
My whole thing is built around telling the truth. You
seem pretty nice, and that can come off, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
I think if people follow me on Twitter, who don't
know me personally, they might imagine that I'm more confrontational
than I am.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
That's who among us.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
Right, right, But I think if you were.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
But that's also because I'm talking about stuff that pisses
me off, and oftentimes I'm talking to people who piss
me off. So if I'm sitting here with a friend,
if I'm strategizing with the fellow traveler, you know, I'm
sure I could be charming and things like that. So
the other thing is I consider who you're spending your
time with. You know, when you It's the same advice
(26:39):
I gave my stepkid, which is any career field, there's
a type of person who gets in that career field.
Is that the type of person you want to be with.
I don't know. I went through this like misanthroat phase
where journalism was not a great fit, and then I
was a breaking news reporter in Detroit at that exact
same moment. So I've had to come through a lot
(27:01):
of that, fought through anxiety, seasonal depression, all kinds of things.
And so my advice is put one foot in front
of the other, and also God helps those who help themselves.
There's something you could do right now to improve your situation,
(27:21):
however bad it is, in fact the worst it is.
Probably anything you would do would be an improvement over
what you have. Yeah, so what can you do? Everyone
in this world has reasons why not? What can you
do today, here and now? Any plan you're serious about
does not start with the word tomorrow. So you can. Yeah,
(27:42):
you can tilt the playing field in your favor. And
as a man, it's your job to do it. The
second woman is born, she has everything she will need
to be a success in you think. So, men are made,
not born, And so the good news is if you
ask God to order your steps, then you have help
(28:04):
on that path going it alone. You know, if you
look at where the Israelite started and where they ended up,
that wasn't a forty year walk. It becomes forty years
when you're hard headed, when you're stiff necked, And so
ask for help, ask God for help, ask friends for help.
(28:25):
And if you're going to be a journalist, you better
get real comfortable asking for help. I'm now addicted to
asking for help. I seek out reasons, I seek out problems.
So I have to seek out a source who can
help me.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
I love that, so.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
And here with your best tip for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives, and maybe you've already
given it to us.
Speaker 6 (28:48):
The best thing you could do to improve your life
is get in the gym regularly, work out, regularly, bring
your body to a sweat. God gives you one and
only one body, so everything else you're going to run
through cars. You're going to live in several homes in
your life. You may even there's people who get married
(29:09):
multiple times in life, but you're given one body. That's
the first gift you were given. Your spouse was the
second gift you were given. What are you doing for
that body and for that spouse? So preserve your ability
to be there for that person. Preserve your ability to
be there with that person.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Love it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
His name is James David Dixon, host of the Enjoyer
podcast check it out.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Thank you so much, James.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Thank you, Carol, thanks so much for joining us on
the Carol Marko which show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
When I started this show about a year plus ago,
I would talk a lot about the importance of marriage.
I really wanted that to be one of the topics
that I delved into on this program, and it mattered
to me that marriage rates were in such steep decline.
(00:26):
It was something that I was very concerned about. I'm
still very concerned about. I think marriage is important for
society and very beneficial to individuals. You've likely heard all
of the arguments here.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Or maybe elsewhere. I've made them extensively. That married people
are happier, they're wealthier, they're more stable, all of the
good things, healthier, they have more sex. What's not to like.
But as I talked about marriage, I kept looking at
the data, and what I started to see is not
that people were coupling and just not getting married. It's
(01:02):
that they weren't coupling at all either. That was in
sharp decline as well. There are a lot of explanations
for why this is happening. Women are overachieving but want
men who are a higher status than they are, a
pool that is continually shrinking. And I'm not blaming just
men here for the decline of relationships. Obviously, there's a
(01:23):
lot of data that women all want to date the
same few guys. There's a lot of blame to go around.
I think it comes down to something even more basic.
People aren't even making friends. And that's something I've talked
about on the show a lot, because there's been this
great migration over the last few years, and it's very
hard to start your life again and make friends as
(01:47):
you already have reached an age where people just really
don't do that. But the thing is, I saw a
recent study that broke this down by education level, and
that was very interesting to me. The study found owned
that twenty four percent of people with an education of
high school or below reported that they had no close
friends at all. The numbers a little better for someone
(02:11):
college educated. Only ten percent of college grads say they
have no close friends. But it's important to realize that
in nineteen ninety the number was two percent for college
grads and three percent for high school graduates to say
that they had no close friends.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
It was a tiny.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Number, so this is a serious, serious jump. Also, in
nineteen ninety, forty five percent of college grads had at
least six close friends, which makes sense, right Like when
I think about college for my kids, I mostly think
of it as a social exercise at this point. Who
they'll meet along the way, what kind of people, and
(02:50):
who they'll stay friends with. I want that for them.
Do kids learn in college or anymore? Who knows. I
don't even think about that, but hopefully they come out
of school with a few close friends. That number has
fallen from forty five percent in nineteen ninety. Again that
college grads who had at least six close friends to
(03:12):
thirty three percent now, and again it's a much worse
decline for high school grads. In nineteen ninety, forty nine
percent of high school graduates had at least six close friends.
Now that number is seventeen percent. We should be worried
about fertility rates, marriage rates, but the fact is that
all relationships are in collapse, and that should really be
(03:33):
our first concern. I've had a couple of emails from
listeners asking how to help their kids make friends. Something
has happened, something has broken where it's not just something
natural that happens, it's something difficult that people find that
they need a way to get over it, and they
need to seek out advice for how it works and
(03:54):
how it happens. My own take is that it's, of
course the fault. We don't have to make friends. We
carry around a world of entertainment everywhere we go. I
don't know how we break that, but we're heading into
a very bad direction. A few years ago I wrote
for Spectator magazine an article called the End of Sex.
(04:15):
I wrote, quote, men don't really know who they're supposed
to be anymore, and women don't either. Is it anti
feminists to enjoy male attention? Is it okay to ask
out a colleague? Everything is so fraud and challenging that
it's no wonder people are opting out of sex. Who
needs the hassle. They'll get their dopamine hits from the
likes they get on their posts and all the internet
(04:37):
porn they can handle. Why bother with human interaction? When
life is un sexy, you get on sexy sex or
no sex at all. End quote. The truth is that
friendship making is very similar. People are getting the happiness
from their phone, so who needs that awkward small talk
of the initial stages of friendship. It's a problem. I'm
(04:57):
just not sure that anyone will listen to the solution
if it means giving up their phone. I'd love to
hear thoughts on this from listeners. How do you help
your kids make friends? How do you make friends yourself?
Drop me a line, Carol Markowitz Show at gmail dot com.
It's Ka R O L M A R. Kowicz Show
(05:18):
at gmail dot com. Thank you for listening. Coming up
my interview with James David Dixon. But first, after more
than a year of war, terror and pain in Israel,
there is still a great demand for basic humanitarian aid.
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has supported and
continues to support those in the Holy Land still facing
(05:42):
the lingering horrors of war, and those who are in
desperate need right now. Your ongoing monthly gift of forty
five dollars will provide critically needed aid to communities in
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generous donation each month will deliver help to those in need,
including evacuees and refugees from war torn areas, first responders
(06:07):
and volunteers, wounded soldiers, elderly Holocaust survivors, families who have
lost everything, and so many more. You can provide hope
during a time of great uncertainty. Give a gift to
bless Israel and her people by visiting SUPPORTIFCJ dot org.
That's one word, SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. Or call eight eight
(06:31):
eight four eight eight IFCJ. That's eight eight eight four
eight eight IFCJ eight eight eight four eight eight four
three two five.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is James David Dixon, host of the Enjoyer Podcast.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Hi James, so nice to have you on.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
How are you, Carol?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Good? So what is the Enjoyer podcast? What do you
particularly enjoy?
Speaker 6 (07:03):
What I enjoy, Carol, is to like when I have
people on, the first question I always ask is what
do you enjoy about Michigan? And so you could be,
you know, someone in Washington State who's never been here.
Perhaps they admire the Michigan football team, you know what
I mean? So whatever it is, perhaps they admire me.
Whatever it is. We start, we start from that basis,
(07:24):
uh And and then that's that's kind of the sugar,
because the pill I give is that reality. So so
we enjoy Michigan and we appreciate Michigan. But we also
realized that there's some pretty serious threats and that's what
I spend the bulk of my time talking about, is
the threats and what we should do about.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I quite love Michigan.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
I spent some time at Hillsdale, so I really love
that whole area. I've also given a speech I should
have had that I should have had that that town
name cued, but it.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Was a little north of Flint.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I really really liked it.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Such a gay city, Midlands.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
This isn't gonna work.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I gave a thousand speeches last year.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
But I really like your state.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
I like the whole palm thing. I like that you
guys show, you know, on the palm where you are.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
So yeah, I'm like right down here, you know, under
the thumb.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Okay, people listening on audio. He pointed to the fleshy
area below the thumb.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
Not quite on the water, but yeah, east easterly in Michigan,
Southeast Michigan.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
So are you a Michigander your whole life? And did
I nail them?
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Am? You did? You did? So?
Speaker 6 (08:32):
You know, it's funny because we have Michigander, which I
started off I believe as a slur Abraham Lincoln and
then a letter h. And then we also have Michiganian,
and anyone who uses Michiganian, you know you're dealing with
the Detroit News reader. Because these papers do things to,
you know, to to separate each other. We have two
papers in Detroit, the News, which is allegedly conservative, and
(08:56):
then the Free Press, which is liberal, flamingly so right,
and so the politics separate them, but also little things
like michigany and versus Michigander. And so when the News
gives their annual award, they give it to like a
dozen people a year, it's Michiganian of the Year.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
So yeah, it's so interesting because I you know, Michigan
is a swing state.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
It's a it's kind of you know, a little bit
of both.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
It wasn't always a swing state, obviously. I remember it
being solidly blue and never you know, going.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Red really or rarely.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
But it's become quite the swing state in the last
few years. And it's so funny that it's so divided
even among like what to call themselves.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Oh yeah, absolutely, it's just is that is that.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Is that like the flavor of the state.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
There's a lot of Yeah.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
I mean, whether it's you know, blue and red for
political for politics, whether it's blue and green for Michigan
versus Michigan State. We we love these little these little
things that you know, the city suburb divide, the suburban
versus is you know, out state divide.
Speaker 5 (10:02):
We call them out state.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
If you don't live in kind of the main like
three to seven counties of southeast Michigan, you live out state.
People from Michigan might be learning that today. Yes, they
don't know what conversations happened about them when they're not
in the room. They're learning something today. So right, But yeah,
one of my goals in twenty twenty five is I'm
(10:24):
a Southeast Michigan guy. I love Oakland County, I love Detroit,
I love Ann Arbor, but I want to venture to
other parts of Michigan too, well outside my box.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
So we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
I mean, I again, I really enjoyed the whole area
around Hillsdale. I thought it was really beautiful and calm
and peaceful, arm and the food was really good, So
you know, I recommend it highly. So how did you
get into being a local podcaster?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
What was the draw to you.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
I mean, so many people love talking about national stuff
and it's it's tough to kind of focus on, you
know something. I don't want to say smaller because it's
not really smaller, just more precise or.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
You know, we're concentrated, more concentrated.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Thank you very much for the word sist.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
Yeah, you know, I think so.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
Before I did the Enjoyer, I was with the Macinaw
Center and we had a small news outlet called Michigan
Capitol Confidential.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
They still have it.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
They got rid of me because I wanted to do this,
and then they saw I had other aspirations, and just
as a quick aside, I think it's a great example
of how God can take you places that you wouldn't
even think to ask. Right, So, if I had what
I wanted, I'd be doing the Enjoyer podcast, and I'd
still be at the Macinaw Center and we'd be making
(11:44):
it work and going up to Midland every other Monday
and all that juggling the two jobs. But instead of that,
God said, no, we're going to get you out of there,
even if it was painful at the time and inconvenient
and all those things. And then what happened A short
time later, I end up the second the severance ends.
(12:04):
I start with the New York Post on their Swing
state team. So I go from working for an obscure
policy newsletter in Michigan to one of the biggest news
outlets in the world covering the twenty twenty four election.
Only God, I would have never thought to ask for
that myself. I'm not a greedy guy. I don't ask
(12:26):
for much, and so he just delivered so much more
than I could have ever wanted. But what I learned
at the Mackinaw Center is that limitation breeds creativity. We
could only talk about certain topics, and we had to
cover it as policy and not politics. So you're denied
(12:46):
a lot of the red meat and the lures that
we would normally use, and so you have to And
so I developed that. I realized, if I'm going to
get people reading about boring ass policy, I need to
give them something first, and so I look for the
angle of absurdity in stories like, for instance, Ford Motor
Company took one hundred million dollars from state lawmakers in
(13:11):
let's say June twenty twenty two August, So they're going
to use one hundred million to hire three thousand factory
workers in August. Two months later, they fire three thousand
white collar workers. They pulled the Oki dock of all time. Yeah,
that's one hundred million dollar Oaki dough. And so when
you connect those dots and show that angle of absurdity,
(13:34):
and what you want to look for is the fact
that is so absurd it can't possibly be real except.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
It is right. And then you draw that, then you can.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
Tell them about your boring at you know, policy, But
first you have to give them what they want.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
So was that Ford's story did it go Did it
end up going national because that seems like a big story.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
No, because of the nature of it. But it did
what it needed to do in Michigan.
Speaker 6 (14:01):
And then at the Enjoyer, I ended up just doing
a nice video calling out for and saying, Hey, this
company is not as good a citizen as you might think.
It's the most important company in Michigan. It's the reason
there are Dixons in Michigan and there are black people
in Michigan. But when you look at how they use
HB one, when you look at the one hundred million
(14:21):
dollar Oki dook, when you look at partnering with the
Chinese military company to build EV batteries. Harry Ford would
be disgraced by what he sees right now, and we
need better from a company that important. So it's not
super popular stuff. I don't think I'm gonna be invited
to get there.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
Huh, No, there's not. I've not been asked. I might
have missed it.
Speaker 6 (14:43):
I don't check my mail every single day, but I
might have missed it. But I don't think I'm going
to be invited to give the keynote addressed at Ford's
you know, a company banquet anytime soon. But what would
you rather do? Speak for your neighbors or speak to
a small group of elites?
Speaker 3 (15:02):
So what do you love about Michigan the most? What
do you enjoy about it? You know?
Speaker 6 (15:07):
One thing I do need to combat this year is
this myth? And everyone I asked this question, Oh, we
have four seasons.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
No we don't. No, we don't.
Speaker 6 (15:16):
We don't have spring. It goes straight from winter to summer.
There's no spring. Spring's a myth. It typically never comes
and if it does, it'll be maybe two three weeks.
So it's not the four seasons. And I don't think
for most people it's the four seasons. I think for
all of us, it's the people. Yeah, it's the people,
(15:36):
and specifically it's family. Michigan is family. And so when
you have a state like this that has they call
it a brain drain problem where our college grads leave,
that's because we're taking in so many h one beast.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
You can't find entry level work. And so that's what
makes it especially tragic.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
You know, this isn't you know people in Tennessee who
might want to go to New York and be a
big star someday. These are people, if they had it
their way, they would stay with their family and live
in their neighborhood all their life. And they don't, and
they're leaving by not their choice. And that's what said,
that's the tragedy of Michigan, because what happens is so
(16:21):
many people end up being denied a relationship with their grandkids.
Now there are people you see once twice a year,
your kid moves to New York or San Francisco. You
can't afford to move there, right, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
I actually heard that a lot in Michigan.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
I heard that a lot when I was there, that
that was the main concern that people were leaving. I
was on a very Florida high I had just moved
to Florida.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I mean not just it's it's been three years now.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
It was like a little over two at that time.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
But I was very It was hotter than fire back.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
It was super hot.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
It was super super I mean it still is in
a lot of ways, but we saw lot of people
moving in all the time. But yes, it was completely
on fire then. And I was very big on if
you don't like where you live.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Change your you know, change you know, I do something.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
It's hard to move. I can suge that my families
are all still in New York. But in Michigan. You know,
I heard from people that said, I don't.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Want to leave. It's not like you.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
It wasn't like I got tired of of of where
I live and I want to I want to change.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I actually want to stay, but I can't. And that's
real difference. That's not the same thing as what I did.
It's very tough to combat any ideas well.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
In the tragedy of it, Carol, is that we lose
two groups who are really valuable. You lose your recent
college grads who could be your future and they carry
your family's legacy with them, and then we lose retireeves
who stacked up cash and might have something to pass down,
some wealth. And so the retirees, some of those people
(17:56):
always want to move to a warmer place or split
time or whatever, but to lose the future. So what
I think we need Michigan needs to build a wall,
not to keep anyone out.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Keep Mulley, to keep our kids in. Yeah, we need
to have some kind of problem.
Speaker 6 (18:13):
A company like Ford should be part of the solution,
one of the most iconic companies on the planet. Kids
who grew up here do dream and should dream about
working at Ford someday, and every effort should be made that, hey,
you go get that engineering degree, you go do whatever
you need to do to add value, and we have
a spot for you. So we need a nativism. When
(18:37):
when I hear a street that at our a congressman
here in Detroit, or if Ivey Kramaswami talk about h
one B's, what I hear is Indians viewing the world
as Indians and being extremely comfortable with nativism. In that context,
they have no problem saying I want to do for
me and mind right. So nativism does not bother shre
(19:03):
does your conscience bother you?
Speaker 5 (19:04):
I know the reference, So I love that reference. And
that's what we we have to get.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
Comfortable, very comfortable choosing our own people, our own country,
even the citizens of the States. We live over this idea,
this kind of that there's special knowledge that could only
be conferred by foreigners, or there's moral authority that could
only be conferred by diversity. What if we thought of
(19:31):
ourselves as image bearers of God?
Speaker 5 (19:34):
And enough?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, what do you worry about?
Speaker 5 (19:37):
I worry about the twenty twenty sixth election in Michigan. Okay,
I liken.
Speaker 6 (19:43):
You know this inauguration week, you know, watching everything, it's
kind of like when your friend gets the toy they like,
or or they get, you know, the new video game unit,
and they got all like five new games for Christmas.
They call you over afternoon and you're sitting there hot chocolate, cookies,
(20:03):
games warm. It's great, but then you got to go
home eventually and you don't have that game. And so
we watched everyone celebrate America and it's great. It's great,
and we hope some of it trickles down to Michigan,
no doubt some of it will, but then you go
home and you don't have the game. And so what
I'm trying to get everyone excited about is Project twenty
(20:26):
twenty seven. Imagine this week two years from now, except
we've saved our state from a world where in twenty
forty we're going to be running on solar panels and windmills.
Project twenty twenty seven bad news, guys, you won't be
able to vote for Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Only for your kids, only for your future. I hope
that's enough.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
And so that's what we're going to be trying to do,
is make sure it is enough and make sure people
understand the stakes. We won, but we didn't win enough
to just to rest on Laurels, right, So I hope
everyone had fun, but there's a future to win.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Do you have a particular candidate that you want to
see in twenty seven?
Speaker 6 (21:17):
No, So twenty twenty six, it's the ultimate Battle of Michigan.
Free seat in the House. So we got one hundred
and ten House seats, thirty eight Senate seats, Governor, Lieutenant
Attorney General, Secretary of State, also the Gary Peters Senate seat.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
A lot of big jobs, a lot of opportunities.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
When I look across at the Democrats, I see Jocelyn Benson,
who is like, she's like if a Barbie doll was
made out of wood instead of plastic, kind of a
wooden Barbie doll. Dana Nessel, who is just so singularly unlikable.
All I have to do is say her name. You're like, oh, yeah,
that Dana Nessl's gonna have sometime. Then you have Pete
(21:59):
boodage Edge, who's a midget who doesn't even know when
the Lions play right.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
That's an unexceptionable also a Notre Dame fan.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
So that's not going to do you any favors, Pete.
And then you have Mike Duggan, who is such a
coward that, after being a Democrat all of his life,
the mayor of Detroit says, I'm not a Democrat anymore.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
Sorry, Mike.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
I must have missed all the times when before the
Titanic hit the Iceberg, you were telling them Iceberg right ahead.
I must have missed all that, right, must have missed
your leadership in that moment. And so he waits until
the ship crashes to abandon, never led and didn't say
he didn't do what Donald Trump did, which is saying
(22:43):
the Republican Party sucks, I'm gonna take it over.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
That's what a leader would do.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
But a guy who's in it for himself says, oh,
those people make me look bad, so I'll go my
own way.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
It's not going to work.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
So I look over at the left and I see clowns.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
You see opportunity.
Speaker 6 (23:05):
We got a guy, Eric Nesbittt he's the Senate Minority leader. Uh.
Kind of this, this big strapping guy. Uh, it's not unusual.
John Engler was a senator in Michigan. Gretchen Whitmer was
a senator in Michigan. So it's not an unusual path.
And so where Jocelyn Benson might have name recognition right now,
(23:27):
Eric nessbitt has the advantage of if people don't know
who you are, then what they know about you is
what you tell them.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
You can define yourself.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
Yeah, you can define yourself and you can be known
for the first time. And so he has that same
opportunity that Gretchen Whitmer had, which is to define himself.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
Then you have Mike Cox, he formed an exploratory committee.
This guy used to be Attorney General of Michigan. He's
held state wide office in Michigan. He needs to get
serious about social media. His social media president reads like
his grandkids told him about it but didn't show him
how to use it, right, So he's just kind of
(24:07):
winging it based on what he's seen and heard about it. Uh,
he's gonna need to get serious about that, because Eric
Nestlitt is serious as a heart attack. So even if
it was just those two versus those four Democrats, I'd
like that race.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You like your chances?
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Yeah, all right, we're gonna wait and see, and you're
gonna keep us posted because I feel like you, you know,
you're you're really representing local Michigan and telling us what's
going on over there.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
Absolutely, we're gonna get you in one of these shirts, Carol.
We're gonna get you making news local again.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Yes, So what advice would you give yourself at sixteen
years old?
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Did you always plan to be here?
Speaker 2 (24:47):
No?
Speaker 6 (24:48):
But there was always signs, you know, from the earliest pictures.
My mom and her mom used to argue all the
time because I always had a pen in my hand
as a baby, and so I'd be running around. He's
gonna he's gonna poke his eye out. Now, if I
write some story and the cartel gets pissed and they
pluck my eye out, I guess Grandma will have been
(25:09):
right in the end.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Right they don't want, you know.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
So there was always a sign that I was gonna
be speaking out or something. My mom wanted to name
me David because she had a dream where she saw
me giving a speech and my name was David.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
So that's why I used the David. To this day.
Speaker 6 (25:28):
Mom's not with us anymore, and it's a damn shame too,
because she saw just it was like Moses. It was,
I mean literally the forty year journey to get here
and gets right to the promised land where you see
evidence of it. You can see the olive trees. Man,
even with old eyes, you don't make it.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
So I'm carrying on her name and all that.
Speaker 6 (25:52):
But my advice to that young person, I would say,
be nicer, Be a little bit nicer along the way.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
My whole thing is built around telling the truth. You
seem pretty nice, and that can come off, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
I think if people follow me on Twitter, who don't
know me personally, they might imagine that I'm more confrontational
than I am.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
That's who among us.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
Right, right, But I think if you were.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
But that's also because I'm talking about stuff that pisses
me off, and oftentimes I'm talking to people who piss
me off. So if I'm sitting here with a friend,
if I'm strategizing with the fellow traveler, you know, I'm
sure I could be charming and things like that. So
the other thing is I consider who you're spending your
time with. You know, when you It's the same advice
(26:39):
I gave my stepkid, which is any career field, there's
a type of person who gets in that career field.
Is that the type of person you want to be with.
I don't know. I went through this like misanthroat phase
where journalism was not a great fit, and then I
was a breaking news reporter in Detroit at that exact
same moment. So I've had to come through a lot
(27:01):
of that, fought through anxiety, seasonal depression, all kinds of things.
And so my advice is put one foot in front
of the other, and also God helps those who help themselves.
There's something you could do right now to improve your situation,
(27:21):
however bad it is, in fact the worst it is.
Probably anything you would do would be an improvement over
what you have. Yeah, so what can you do? Everyone
in this world has reasons why not? What can you
do today, here and now? Any plan you're serious about
does not start with the word tomorrow. So you can. Yeah,
(27:42):
you can tilt the playing field in your favor. And
as a man, it's your job to do it. The
second woman is born, she has everything she will need
to be a success in you think. So, men are made,
not born, And so the good news is if you
ask God to order your steps, then you have help
(28:04):
on that path going it alone. You know, if you
look at where the Israelite started and where they ended up,
that wasn't a forty year walk. It becomes forty years
when you're hard headed, when you're stiff necked, And so
ask for help, ask God for help, ask friends for help.
(28:25):
And if you're going to be a journalist, you better
get real comfortable asking for help. I'm now addicted to
asking for help. I seek out reasons, I seek out problems.
So I have to seek out a source who can
help me.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
I love that, so.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
And here with your best tip for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives, and maybe you've already
given it to us.
Speaker 6 (28:48):
The best thing you could do to improve your life
is get in the gym regularly, work out, regularly, bring
your body to a sweat. God gives you one and
only one body, so everything else you're going to run
through cars. You're going to live in several homes in
your life. You may even there's people who get married
(29:09):
multiple times in life, but you're given one body. That's
the first gift you were given. Your spouse was the
second gift you were given. What are you doing for
that body and for that spouse? So preserve your ability
to be there for that person. Preserve your ability to
be there with that person.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Love it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
His name is James David Dixon, host of the Enjoyer
podcast check it out.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Thank you so much, James.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Thank you, Carol, thanks so much for joining us on
the Carol Marko which show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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