The Eds: Have No Fear

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is The Eds with Eddie Judge and Edwin Adoyave.
Welcome back to The Ed's podcast. My name is Eddie,
and today we have a special co host, Shane Simpson.
He is filling in. Hello, Hello, Hell are you Buddy?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good? Good?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Thanks for having me good, Thanks so much for filling
in for Fred one today. Unfortunately he was not able
to attend. He's got some big things going on in
his life right now that have are very very important,
particularly with his wife's health, and I just want to
take this to a moment to wish him well and
a speedy recovery, and I hope that the entire family

(00:36):
gets through this unharmed. Absolutely, I'm excited.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Buddy.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Did you know that you were our first guest ever
when we launched our podcast, you were our first person.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
I do remember that it was a little while ago.
It was it was enjoyable.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
I want to say it's almost a year ago.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Uh way, really yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Because I think we started well a year ago. We
started in February and we did a podcast introducing ourselves,
and then we did another podcast talking about ourselves again,
and then I think the third podcast is when we
started interviewing house husbands.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Okay, yeah, and you get some good insight from house
husbands I have.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
You know, I've been really excited to get to know
the guys, particularly the ones I like. You know, It's
it's fun to hear their real story and hear who
they really are, because you know, I've I wouldn't call
myself a victim. I don't like to victimize myself, but
I think when you don't really speak your voice and

(01:38):
tell your true story and sure who you are, it's
hard to have anybody believe you know who you are.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Right and and in a way, you feel like you're
in the closet and you're kind of hiding out, and
you want to be able to express yourself a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah. Yeah, And one thing I learned is, you know,
and and Terry taught me this. He he loves talking
about himself. So it really is good for us to
talk about ourselves because who else knows us better than ourselves? Right?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
And maybe there's you know, some areas you feel that
you're misheard on or misunderstood on, and you want to
be able to provide clarification. We're really, like you mentioned,
we're really talking to ourselves.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Hey, so listen today's topic is about fear and any
type of fear, phobias, or anything like that. We want
to talk about fear and men relating to fear. We
might hit on a little bit about how women handle fear,
but personally, I don't know about you, but I use

(02:42):
fear as a tool. The more scared I am of
doing things, or the more the more something scares me,
the more I want to do it. Part of it
has to do with my addictive addiction to adrenaline. You know,
if it doesn't scare me, it's not big enough. It's
not scared eno if I really don't want to do it.
So it took me a while to get here thinking

(03:05):
about when was the last time I was afraid. I
think I was a kid. You know, we didn't know
anything as a kid, and I think that's where fear
really derives and cripples people. Is the unknown, right, Everybody
fears the unknown, and everybody is comfortable with what they
know and they stick to it. So I was looking

(03:27):
up the definition of fear and it made total sense.
And I'm going to read it out because it was
a long one, but it's to the point. It says
fear is a protective primal emotion that evokes a biochemical
and emotional response alerting us to the presence of danger
or the threat of harm, whether that danger is physical

(03:49):
or psychological. It is one of the seven universal emotions
experienced by everyone around the world, and it arises with
the threat of harm, real or imagined. While traditionally considered
a negative emotion, fear actually serves as an important role
in keeping us safe by mobilizing us to cope with
potential danger. I think it's precisely what fear is, right, Yeah,

(04:15):
pretty well. How do you handle fear in general? I mean,
is there anything you're afraid of?

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Well, you mentioned that it seems like you lean into something,
So something is potentially fearful for you, you like to
attack it and go head it head, you know, head first, right, Yeah,
maybe beat it, I mean, right and overcome it. Yeah.
I think that's the case for me sometimes, right. I
certainly can't say I attack everything and I'm just going

(04:44):
after it. But yeah, sometimes if I'm fearful for something,
I will go in head first. If it's if it's
work related, then I'll have to plan ahead of time.
But then there's sometimes some things that are fearful that
I might just, you know, wish I could go put
my head in the sand and kind of be buried,
right and kind of be like a what's it like
an Ostrich? Right, they put their head in the sand.
Give me an example of that of running away from something?

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, like what would be something that you have to
put your hand in the sand and go, I don't
want to know?

Speaker 2 (05:13):
You know, when I was thinking about what am I
scared of? Yeah, people might find this week, But something
that I really am fearful of is is going broke.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, it's out of money.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
And that comes from my childhood. Everything that was thrown
at me as a kid. Yeah, earn, you have to earn.
You're gonna go broke. You're gonna broke, You're gonna be
a bum. And it was always like that growing up.
So now you know, anytime Emily comes home with a
pair of shoes or something, what runs through my head
is we're gonna run out of money. And I'm thinking

(05:49):
I got a wife and five kids that I find
myself responsible for. Yeah, So to get back to your
question a little bit, when it comes to money, actually
avoid it. So if there's some bills to be paid
or something that's you know, it takes me, you know,
kind of hits me from the side, and it's something unexpecting.

(06:10):
Then I get really worried and I kind of put
it to the side, and I have a pile of
bills to pay on my desk that Emily can't get
after me for. So, for whatever reason, that's not something
I attack head on. That's something I kind of hide from.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
That sounds stabilitating, and I totally totally understand that. Similar
to me growing up with nothing and working my ass
off and building you know, what we have in my life.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
I have.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
I've had thoughts of failure, and the way I turned
it around was, well, I've been there already. I've been
there with nothing, and if I had to go back
and do it again, I've been there. I recognize it.
I don't like it, I don't want to do it.
It's not it's not fun. But I'm confident that I
can rebuild because I've built what I have and who

(07:02):
I am today. A lot more confident now, obviously because
I have the history of working my ass off and
doing whatever it takes to support family, support myself and
do the things I want to do. But now in
my fifties, that's kind of reduced. I don't want to
start over. I don't want to have to go back.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
It sounds like you know you've been there and you
know you can get out of it.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, yeah, But do I want to do it at
fifty I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
It's like I've been attacked by a dog. Maybe I'll
be scared of that happening again, but I know I can.
I can survive it.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
And yeah, be so bad, right, Gosh, there's so many
examples we can talk about now. I have had two
fears or phobias my entire life, and I was recently
able to eliminate one. Both fears are One was a
fear of needle actual like you know, syringe needles. Yeah,

(08:04):
and the other was a fear of spiders. Now, where
I got the fear of needles probably comes from either
the dentists or going to you know, shoddy doctors when
I was little, and when they poke you for whatever
vaccine or medicine or whatever, especially in your teeth, like

(08:25):
when they poke you and they hit the nerve or
they hit the bone, or they hit something, and as
a kid, it's traumatizing. It is so traumatizing. Absolutely, So
I think that's why I feared it, and fortunately it
worked out. I look at it positively. It worked out
well for me because in my early twenties, when I

(08:48):
was really getting into bodybuilding and working out, and you know,
watching all these guys around me that are just you know,
biceps are as big as my head and their bodies
are giant and enormous, and I'm looking at I'm admiring
them because I use that as motivation. But in the
back of my head, I'm like, maybe I should do
some drugs, maybe I should do steroids, you know, I

(09:09):
want to look like that. And fortunately the fear of
needles is what stopped me. I just did not want
to deal with the needles I and I thank god
in hindsight, you know, because of what I know today,
you know, the side effects and the risks and everything
that's involved with that lifestyle. It just wasn't worth the

(09:33):
risk for me. So that's the one fear I actually
got over in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
So but for your fear of needles, you really would
have gone down that direction in your pursuit of you know,
weightlifting and being fit. That really kind of that was
the that drew the line for you.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
I thought, yes, I have to say yes, and I
thought you were going. I mean to ask me the question, like,
if that wasn't a fear, would you have done it?
I probably would have because I was so into bodybuilding
and I wanted to get the results. But I don't
know if I was to go back. I mean, I
mean there was obviously other side effects that you know,

(10:17):
as a kid, people talk about it makes you smaller.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Oh yeah, But when you're a kid, you're invincible, right yeah,
and you believe everything you're.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
So I'm glad. I am glad I didn't do that.
But at the same time, I learned a big lesson
in my life, and that's you can get over a
lot of fears. And the way I got over this
fear was when I was in the hospital for almost
a year with my heart issue, you know.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
My APIs And what year was that? How recent was that?

Speaker 1 (10:47):
It was in twenty eighteen and I found myself in
the hospital. I got three oblations and like seven cardio versions.
But every time I went in, you know, they had
to take my blood, so the nurse would I would
sit down and the nurse would look you know about
this big old needle, and I literally had to do

(11:07):
this to force myself to look at that needle going
into my vein. And after about six or seven of those,
I got over it.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
You're like, okay, I could do that. That might go
for many things, Right, if you have a fear of
skydiving and you do it six or seven times, you
might overcome it, right, Yeah. Yeah, And I guess you
had a greater good, which was becoming healthy. So becoming
healthy you had to set that aside because you wanted
the end results, right, So you had no choice in
a way, or you did have a choice and you chose,

(11:39):
you know, becoming healthy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
And I think it goes back to my theory of fear, Right,
if I fear something, and like I read that that
definition fear to me has always been sort of sort
of a negative connotation, like if you fear something, how
do you get over it? How can I win this?

(12:03):
Because I'm not gonna let fear win. So I could
have made the choice of you know, just covering my
eyes or looking the other way while they're taking the
blood and getting through it. But I forced myself. I
made the conscious choice to say I'm gonna look at
this needle going inside me with the whole goal of
getting past this fear. I don't like to be afraid

(12:26):
of anything, and the one thing I'm still afraid of
is spiders, of all things.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Well, that's very interesting. So at first I thought you
meant you just got used to it, and so it
normalized it for you and you were okay with it.
But you're saying you actually made a conscious effort to accept,
you know, what you had to go through and be,
and you leaned into it, and you you embraced it
in a way, in some way. Yes, that's that's much

(12:54):
more fascinating actually.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
With the goal in mind to get over it, you know,
because it's I can't figure out why I was even
afraid of needles. I mean needles, people getting needled all
the time, you know. So it was an unnecessary fear, right,
and that's probably where spiders fall in, an unnecessary fear.

(13:18):
But looking back to see what I why I was
afraid of spiders, it might have been when I was
a kid and I was watching some stupid horror movie
about giant spiders and it's scared of living hell.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Me Like, okay, who wants to be with a spider
pretty ugly. Yeah, I'll support you in that, In that
fear you choose to get over it, I'll help you
with that too.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
I you know, every time I see somebody handling a tarantula,
it drives me insane. I just I see that it's possible,
but I just don't know if I could cross that
that barrier, you know.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
But it's not limiting your life in any way either, right, Needles.
You could argue it might if you choose to walk
away from it, because you might not get the treatment
you're looking for. But spiders, is that really stopping you
from pursuing anything? No?

Speaker 1 (14:14):
No, In fact, I've taken a how do I put this,
I've taken a path where I when I do see
a spider, I try to help it get back into
you know, it's it's nature. You know, if it's in
the house, I'll get a cup or something and you know,
help it and get it out. So it makes me

(14:35):
feel good and it kind of makes me reduce my
fear of spiders. But you know, then you find these
images of the spiders they have in Australia that are
as big as your head. And yeah, I'm not gonna
help that one that's gonna be dead. I'm gonna get
my machine gun and I'm gonna shoot the hell out
of that thing.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
So your fear of needles reminded me of something which
is a fear. Although I never classified it as a fear,
it was always a worry. I was always worried about
becoming addicted to things. So an example of being addicted
to energy drinks. So nothing gets energy drinks. In fact,
I wish I could take them sometimes or use them sometimes,

(15:23):
but I worried that that'll be my go to. Yeah,
it's become very dependent on an energy drink at the
morning and afternoon and at night rather than just relying
on my own self. So I've never had a sip
of energy drink for that reason. And it's actually because
I fear that I don't have the self discipline to
overcome getting addicted to it. And the saying goes for medications.

(15:46):
So I have a gold I have stones in my
gollbladder and they activate, and when they activate it it's
pretty bad. It's a lot of pain. And they can
give you vike it in for it, and I took
it once and I was like, oh no, wonder why
people love this. You know, it's like threw the stones.
I don't care about that. Stuff was really good. Yeah,
you feel really good. Yeah. I never went back and

(16:08):
got another prescription for it again. I control it with
my diet and everything. I was fearful to just always
go get VICINGDF vike, a Viking or whatever painkiller they
provide me, and then I become dependent on that and
then now addicted to it. So I stayed away from
that and learned other ways to accommodate my Goldblader stones.
But that's another story.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
So it sounds like you're saying that you actually were
afraid of being addicted as the fear of addiction. That
totally makes sense to me, and that's one of the
biggest reasons why I like to practice abstinence, and I've
done it for many years. There was a period of

(16:49):
time when I was running my dad's law firm, and
I would bring in, you know, cases of Monster or
Red Bull or some energy drink, and we would be
ultra productive for three straight weeks, and then I would
take everybody off of it. We won't be very productive
that week. But that practice, I think allowed me to

(17:11):
have a sense of control because I could understand that that.
I guess, fear of addiction is a real thing. Yeah,
I've witnessed it in various circles, from you know, being
addicted to drugs to being addicted to alcoholic to being
addicted to anything. Really, it's a real thing, and I

(17:32):
can see the fear in that, Like, I don't want
to get caught up in that, you know, I don't
want to be dependent on anything. Do you drink coffee?

Speaker 2 (17:40):
No, I don't drink coffee. I just never I've never
had an appeal to it. I've never cared for it.
And my thinking would be the same because I do
see a lot of people drink coffee the morning, my wife,
my father, a lot of people around me, and I
provide it, you know, if they want to come, and
I'll run the errands and go grab them stuff. So
I'm not against it, you know, I'm not going to
lecture them. But yeah, I see the dependency on it,

(18:04):
you know, Emily, as most people can't function until they
have that morning coffee, and it's it's worrisome, you know, Emily.
To be fair, Emily was very, very dependent on her
coffee when she had her hip problems. She had a
lot of hipochronic pain, so that would help her get
through it. And we didn't know that at the time.

(18:24):
I just always tease her for being so dependent on
it and I and it worried me. Yeah, she had
her hip replacement and she recovered. She's not so dependent
on them right now. Now she enjoys it. She certainly
will get it every morning. But if for some reason
our schedules are off and she's not allowed to run
down to her Pete's coffee and grab it, she can
actually survive the morning, which is really refreshing. And the

(18:45):
abstinence that you had mentioned is really commendable because you're resetting, right,
You're getting back to the roots and feeling your body
and making sure that you're okay without it. Yeah, And
I know my father does that with coffee about once
a year. He'll go two weeks without it just to
tell himself that he has not dependent on it. Right.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, And it's definitely a psychological tool for me to
be able to have a lot of self control, because
what I do know about life is I can't control
everything outside of me. But if I can control my desires,
my addictions, my weaknesses, whatever I can control about me

(19:27):
my thoughts, which are hard to control. You know, thoughts
are going to come in. I have no responsibility, But
what you do with it is what you can control.
So what do you use to give you energy? Where
do you get your energy from?

Speaker 2 (19:44):
You know this might sound corny, but I just I
have a lot of responsibilities with the family and my kids,
and my concern on a daily basis is they're well being.
And I don't want to make it like they're better
than other children. And I don't mean their well being
like they have, you know, nice clothes and fancy things,

(20:07):
but just that they're well rounded and become independent. So,
you know, I have my oldest daughter's now twenty four,
soon to be twenty four, and she's married, and my
concern was always that she would get to that point
where she's now and a very independent person and not
having to call me all the time for things, not
because I don't want her to call me, but because
I want her. You know what, if I'm not around

(20:29):
one day, right, I don't want her to have a
troubled life. And I don't want to be in my
seventies and my kids are struggling with just being you know,
self reliant. So every day I wake up, actually every night,
I go to bed thinking about that the next day,
what do my kids need and making sure they're okay.
And then I wake up and it's just go, go,

(20:49):
go go. It's it's homework, it's it's disciplined with school,
it's you know, how they treat each other. It's making
sure they have all the things that they need. You know,
my second daughter in college, and I call her about
if I don't hear from her sooner about every other
day to make sure she's okay because she's she's got
a little bit of a transition period going on right

(21:10):
now that she's struggling with. So that's my motivation is
just constantly thinking about them and what they need. And
that's the only thing that kind of gets me going.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
And that's interesting. I've had a lot of friends share
those emotions because it sounds like it's a psychological strength
of yours that you utilize to keep you motivated. Right,
it's not physical. You're not drinking anything, You're not you know,
injecting yourself with anything. You're not really doing anything physical
to give you that energy that you need to keep

(21:42):
powering through your day to accomplish what you need to
accomplish so that you fulfill call it your fear right
to to say, Okay, I did great today and I'm
not afraid tomorrow's another day.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Y I do it right.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
And I've had a lot of fears. When I was
part of Entrepreneurs organization, I was surrounded by a lot
of entrepreneurs and it was sort of like half of
them were driven by fear, the fear of failure, the
fear of having no money, the fear of you know,
not making it, and then the other half were driven

(22:16):
by success like like seeing progress right, Meaning they didn't
use fear as a tool or an emotional tool to
drive them because it was more debilitating to think about
the fear than it was to just power through and

(22:38):
think about all the great outcomes that you're going to
have and not let fear hold you back. Does that
make sense?

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah? Absolutely. And some people, you know, they want to
be the best at something and that might be their
motivating factor, right, or some people, yeah, scared of I'm
sure there's billionaires out there that always think they're going
to go growth, so they're always striving for more and
more and more. Right, because it's we're going to be enough. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
So I remember my dad used to say this to me.
Maybe it's a lawyer thing, but he used to always,
you know, motivate himself by by fear. And some of
the comments would he would say, or what we started
talking about, where we're not going to make peril this week,
I guess we're going to be living in our cars,

(23:24):
Like I'm not living in my car. Dad.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
What was his thinking when he would say that? Though?
Was his thinking to Was he really thinking that to himself?

Speaker 1 (23:33):
I think that was his motivation. The fear of living
in your car, or the fear of failure or not
having enough money to you know, to pay the bills
or you know, to keep the wolves away from the door.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Right, that really was a concerning at he really him
we might be living in our car next week.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah, yeah, that's what motivated him. I never understood it,
but I get it, but I never understood it. I
just I don't like the feeling of being debilitated by anything, right,
And the only thing I can think of right now
the top of my head would be like if somebody
was standing in front of me with the gun pointing
at me, and my family. I don't know what I

(24:14):
would do. You know. The default reaction would be like, hey, everything,
you can have whatever you want. You can have all
my money, you can have all my cars, you can
have all my shit. Just leave my family alone, you know.
And would I be scared? Hell yeah, I would be scared.
I don't know how I can get over that, right,
because I'm scared for my family. I'm not afraid for me.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
You know.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Also, I'm the kind of guy that will go jump
out of an aeroplane just for fun, even though it's
scared of living hell out of me. Right, But I
don't do it because it affects my wife in a
negative way. She had two things in life that she
didn't want me to ever do well three. The third
one is obvious, you know, it's infidelity. I'm not going

(24:54):
to do that. I can control that. But the other
two or jumping out of an airplane and skydiving and
riding a street bike. Now I got away with the
street bike thing because we made a deal.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, what was the deal? Was there just some safety
measures to.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Be taken or the honestly, it's gonna be it's gonna
sound ridiculously dumb, but.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Not if it helped you overcome it, or it helped
her overcome it. So what was it?

Speaker 1 (25:20):
The deal was when she was off the show for
two years, I think she was asked to go back.
And around that same time, my youngest son, Spencer, was
trying to have a relationship with his dad and they
ended up. I think his dad ended up getting Mahrley Davidson.
I mean, my son never rides a bicycle. Why would

(25:41):
he be a freaking motorcycle?

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Right?

Speaker 1 (25:44):
And we get the receipts and the all that stuff
and the mail delivered to us, and she looks at
me like, did you get a motorcycle without telling me?
I'm like, no, I would never do that, you know,
I would never do that for you. And that gave
me the opportunity, long story short, to stay, well, he's
got a motorcycle. How come I can't get a motorcycle? Right?
And then she says, I'll make you a deal if

(26:05):
you let me, if you agree to go back to
the show, you can get a motorcycle. So okay.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
So with the quick pro crow was you know, yeah,
I'll kind of let something slide that I'm not okay
with if you let something slide that you're not okay with.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah. And it was scary.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
I mean, the scariest thing about riding a street bike
was riding it on a freeway. It scared the living
hell out of me. And it only took riding the
freeway two or three times when I realized it's the
safest place to be because everybody's going the same direction.
Grant it. You know, we're going seventy eighty ninety miles
an hour, but everybody's going the same direction, so it's

(26:42):
a safer than crossing the streets.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
Going through a green light, yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, or somebody. Most accidents happen, you know, from stupidity,
you know, the writer doing stupid shit, and the other
is you know, accidents where somebody just turns in front
of you. And that's how shit happens. When I'm writing
on the street, I don't do anything stupid. I write
really slow and very defensive. But on the freeway I
feel good. I can go eighty ninety miles an hour

(27:08):
and I still feel safe even though all the other
cars around me are going the same speed. But it
took me a while to get there.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, I was scared. I was really afraid. So you've
overcome quite a bit. Then you've you've not been scared
of being fearful. Right, you tried to sing it on.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, and there's a stereo type of men that are
not afraid.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Right.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Do you view that as a as a current situation
with our men today are younger men or is this
a you know, generational thing like when we grew up,
you know, the whole you want something to cry about,
I'm going to give you something.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Like, Okay, I'm not crying.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
That's how I grew up. Anyways.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Well, you know, it's funny because when generally speaking, when
we raise kids, if a little girl falls down and
skins her knee, what do we say, oh, princess, it's okay. Yeah,
When a boy falls down, what do we say? Generally
we say walk it off, It's okay. Scars and all

(28:11):
that stuff. Right, And so you can't help but say
that that has an effect when they're older. You know,
when the girl gets hurt emotionally or physically, you know
how they're how they view it versus the male how
he views it.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, Now, if you were to swap those two and
you raised the boy like a princess, and a girl like,
you know, a man up. Would you have you seen
kind of have you met anybody like that? Like I've
met some pretty tough chicks.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Like Yeah, you know, I don't I don't know. It
have to make a difference, right, I mean it's nature
versus nurture, right, Yeah, it's a combination of both. So
what we're talking about nurturing and and how you raise them,
and you know, it's it's kind of scary to think
about how much influence a parent or an adult has
around a child. Yeah, I mean, you can make them

(29:04):
think and feel just about anything. And that's that's what
I was talking about earlier. I always get concerned that,
you know, I don't want to be the one that
causes them harm or damage later on in life. You know,
we have a lot of power. So yeah, I don't know.
I guess it would be a lifelong experiment, right to
raise your children ways and see, but then, you know,

(29:28):
I don't know if that's something we want to experiment with.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
But it's so unpredictable though, because the kids that we
have today are not the same kids when they were little.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
I know, I would agree with so a whole.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Different some of them actually swap. You know, the boys
a little bit more sensitive than the girl, and the
girls like, you know, I don't care, Dad, I can
handle it.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah. I mean I got a daughter, my daughter, Annabelle,
who's now twelve. We I mean, of all five of
my children, we would all agree that she's the fearless one, right,
see that. I don't know we see that. But she
came out of the woob like that. Oh really, I mean,
as far as we could tell, she was always like that.
It's not like we said, walk it off or here,

(30:09):
here's a dirt bike. Let's learn. She just on her own,
would climb things, fall, get hurt, and get back on.
We have, you know, two boys, and they're quite the opposite.
I mean, same house, same parents, same everything, same everybody.
I don't know for.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Whatever we do, so I don't get it.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
So I do know that Emily, you know, really loves
having mama boys. Right, So she love her boys, and
we argue and kind of have a little debate how
much of a part, and she's like, well, they're my boys.
That's what I'm gonna do. Yeah, I'm thinking yeah, But
then she gets mad at me, saying there are a
bunch of whims. You got to toughen them up. I'm like,
quit puddling with them in bed, and when they cry

(30:53):
and they want to sleep with you, quit doing that. Yeah,
and then maybe we can toughen them up. But when
when you know? So, they're twins, right, we have twins.
And this year the school year, I wanted them in
separate classes. The decision. I went to the teacher or
the principal and said, I want them in separate classes.
They give the twins the option, so they allowed parents

(31:14):
to decide if they want them together or not. I
didn't know that. I learned that over the last few years,
and I thought, okay, my last their last teacher said
one more year, she goes I would advise one more year.
I don't remember the reasonings, but she did that, so
I honored that because she was a teacher. Then the
next year, which was fourth grade, I made a decision.
I told the school separate classes please, and interesting, one

(31:38):
of them was not having it, plaining, crying, and I
kept telling Emily, no, he's got to learn, because there
is all the more reason why they're in separate classes.
Exactly what happens lo and behold magically they go in
the same class. I find out when one of the kids,

(32:02):
one of them, it was Luke, who was all excited
he was going to the other classroom and I'm like
what And then mom called to school and had them together,
and so you know, Mom, I know you'll have to
tease her next time you see her. So you know,
did she baby them? Yes? Can I say that that's wrong? No?

(32:25):
I disagreed with it. Yeah, but you know, to sit
here and say it's wrong. And I don't really know.
Maybe it would have gone the other way around. Maybe
he would have been overly depressed and really focused on
his schooling. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
I did disagree with that. I thought, here, you are
yelling at me to toughen him up. Well, yeah, taking
him from one classroom to the next so he can
be with his little brother.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
You know, it's it's hard only because I've seen my
kids evolved and done different things, and you know, just
the and they're still growing into who they are as characters. Right,
they have a whole life ahead of them. And I
say that because I'm the same but the different person today.

(33:10):
You know that I was when I was younger.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Well, I imagine we're the same but with much more experiences
and ability to make decisions. Right, But that doesn't mean
we don't think differently, Like the same thoughts come through
our head, the same fears. Like you you still you
know you have a fear of fighters, yeah, or needles,
let's use needs that. You know you have a fear
of needles. Yeah, but you've overcome it, right, so you

(33:34):
you didn't really, you just changed the way you approach it.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
And there's another thing that's kind of happened to me
in my old age. I'm a lot more empathetic I can.
I take the perfect example is road rage. You know,
when I was younger, I'd get pissed off, and you know,
I'd cut them off or i'd make a point. Nowadays,
I understand people have shit going on there in their lives.
And if you cut me off, whether it's or on purpose,

(34:01):
as long as there's no accident or you made me
do something, you know, like have my own accident, then
we don't have a problem. Just let them go, you know,
let them be. You don't know what their situation is.
There's no reason for me to aggravate myself or or
you know, make it a bigger deal than it is.
But when I was younger, it's a whole different story,

(34:21):
like oh yeah, oh yeah, you better believe it was.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
I'm very much there with you. I rarely use the horn,
and I teach my children. I'm like, I used to
use it all the time. I don't know, maybe they didn't.
They don't see that it's a you know, they don't
see Maybe I don't see what's ahead of them, you know,
like they want to make a right turn. I don't
see what's ahead of them, So maybe I should be
so quick to judge, and then a lot of the

(34:46):
pedestrian there or other times it's just like I said,
it's not is this really going to solve the problem
by me getting after this person? Are they really going to, like,
you know, have a come to Jesus moment and sit
there and think, hey, I better be you know, more
of an obadi and driver. No, so you're right, you
let it go. Plus, we've heard stories at our age
you never know who that person is that you're gonna know.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah, I mean that's the other thing I was just
gonna mention is there's been many times I pulled into
my neighborhood and there's this person driving like an idiot,
and I just either want to, you know, rip around
him or honk on them. And then I realized he's
in my neighborhood, and you know, really, he's probably gonna
be three degrees away from my neighbors. They're going to

(35:30):
talk about it, and I don't want to be the jerk,
so I have to hold myself back, like, just chill out,
slow down, it's okay, there's no rush here.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
I would agree with you on the road rage. I
think that's a really good example that might be a
lot of men as they get older, they realize, you know,
it's not that big of a deal, and I'm not
going to get any get there any slower, right, I mean,
you know, you know another thing is how many times
if I cut someone off I don't even know? Yeah, right,
So I might be that person, and I'm grateful that
you're not honking at me if I cut you off unintentionally.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
You fear that I do have, but I never really
had to experience it. And I've told this to many people,
but I don't have to experience it. Is it's bears,
bears Okay, there was to be scared of, it would
be a bear. Because a crocodile allegator, you could jump
on a table, right, these you could probably Yet, they

(36:26):
say you can run, zig zag or whatever. Right, you know,
dogs you could probably fight off somewhat, right, I mean
that don't mean you won't go with injury. But you
have a chance with a bear. What can you do?
You can't dimb a tree, you can't even probably hide
in your closet or a car. You can't run faster
than them, they say, the only thing you can do

(36:48):
is run down hill Because bears their rear legs or
paws are shorter than their front so they have difficulty
running down hill. But how I don't have I'd have
to search for a hill to run down, so just
getting to that hill would be a problem. Yeah, I
mean if I could even make it that far. But
I've always thought if there's some animal to be scared of,

(37:11):
it would be a bear. And they say, what do
they say to do when you encounter a bear?

Speaker 1 (37:15):
What are you to play dead?

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Wait? Hell, you know, good luck? I'm sorry. I can't
play dead. I will run like crazy, no way.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, you're right, it is scary. That's that's something I
have feared when I'm out in the woods on my motorcycle.
But and I've even seen videos where bears, you know,
come after them and all they do is, you know,
throttle it and make a bunch of noise and that
usually scares them.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
But if there's I don't know if I could take
that chance.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
I don't know either. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
I don't know if I'm going to sit there and think, well,
maybe I'll bring these pots and pans and it'll run away,
or instead of wasting these thirty precious seconds, I'm gonna start.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Running right Yeah, Or especially if there's a cop around,
like your dust, if there's a cover around, he's going
to eat you just to protect their cups. Yeah, that's
that's a that's a legitimate fear. Do you know speaking
of bears, that in California they outlawed bear spray. You

(38:15):
cannot buy bear spray. When I went to Montana on
a on a motorcycle trip, it was everywhere, I mean every.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Story that was out everywhere.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, And when I came home, and I don't remember
how we were talking about bears, I said, well, just
get some bear spray. I mean it's I I discovered
it in Montana. I try to order it. They wouldn't
deliver into California.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
A large canister of probably intense like pepper spray or something.
But it's large and it's sprayed like and then far.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Yeah, I mean if it if it diverts a bear,
it must be pretty poete. I don't know. I don't know.
I didn't look into that deep, but I was like, okay,
just you know, take my guns away and my bear
spray away.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Burglars will use that if there's a dog, that'll incapacitate
the dog.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
I wonder if that's one of the thinkings.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
But I don't know. I don't know what California law thinks.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
So you do in Utah. In Utah, there were bears
when we lived there, and there were bear attacks and unfortunately, jeez, fatalities.
It was It wasn't common, but it certainly happened my
time there.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Do you have any fear of flying, particularly in what's
going on right now with all these planes falling out
of the sky.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
So I have I do have a fear of flying,
but it's never stopped me from traveling anywhere. There's always
that concern that the planet would down, but I know
statistically it's very unlikely, so I shouldn't be worried. And
oddly enough, one thing that I have done over the
past five years is I read a lot about airplanes.
I've read a lot about crashes, disasters, why they happen.

(40:01):
I've watched a lot of videos. My daughter Annabel started
watching it with me, and she really enjoyed it. She
would I would always try to make a with it, right, like,
this is what went wrong, this is this is why
they You know, the pilot shouldn't have left the child
in the cockpit. Believe it or not, that's a story.
So all these different things I would stare they're okay,
as we'll get something good out of it. So she

(40:22):
goes flying with Emily to Ohio and Emily has a
very big fear of flying. I don't know. We don't
even like to sit next to each other when she's
flying because she is she is a mess. So she
flies to Ohio calls me when they land to get
upset with me because apparently Annabel, who was like nine

(40:43):
at the time, I think. So when the stewardess or
the flight attendant's going over like some of the things.
And the flight attendant's done with all the basic emergency
precaution and instructions, walks by and Annabel raises her hand
and says, I have a question, and the flight tens
says yes. She goes, what do we do in the
case of a nose dive? And Emily says the flight

(41:05):
attendants like mouth is dropped. That doesn't not just shouting
out what do we do in the event of those dives?
So this is prior to her like five hour flight, right,
so just on edge, yeah, and thinking about yeah, but
she's also not scared. This little girl's thinking, hey, if

(41:27):
our plane starts to go straight down, what do we do?
You know? And it's just like, just let me know
what I'm supposed to do, you know.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
That's hilarious.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah, So we do that a lot and and and
I still do. I read a lot about it. I
love the idea of flying. Yeah, you know, we went
and flew on A friend's husband has a she six
fifty and he flies it though, so he holds it
and he flies it, right, Okay, So when we went

(41:56):
somewhere a year or two ago, whenever it was, I
wasn't in the back taking photo, was with all these
ladies that want to get the ex fancy. So as
I was up in the cockpit in the jump seat,
oh awsome, that was a treat. That was really something.
And so here I am kind of scared of flying,
but I am facing it because I know statistically it's
it's just unlikely, you know, so I kind of think

(42:19):
I shouldn't be scared, even though so I am.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
Yeah, I I don't think I've ever been afraid of flying,
because the only thing I can think of is the
people I've flown with that have freaked out have either
looked at me for you know, comfort or weirdnness.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
Because I'm not afraid the planes, you know, doing all
this stuff and all this weird stuff happening in the plane.
I'm like, it's just what planes do. That's the big deal,
right exactly.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Bump in the road.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yeah, So I and I, particularly with plane crashes, I
try not to watch them because then I'm going to
start you know. It's kind of like that fear of addiction.
I'm gonna have that thought because it's an image I've seen,
and if I'm on a plane, I might revert back
to that image that I saw that may or may
not happen.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Right, So I go with Emily, who's an example of
someone that has a fear of flying. While she's flying,
I know what she's doing. She's thinking of crashing. Yeah,
so of course you're scared. She's thinking, we're gonna crash.
We're gonna crash, We're gonna crash, We're gonna crash. And
then so naturally you'd be scared. You know. I reminded
of a time I flew to Colorado, and I can

(43:32):
tell you what year it was. It was in oh
oh eight. So, landing in Colorado and Denver, Windy city, right,
the plane kind of going sideways and this and that
and rock in a little bit, landing next to an
airplane that had crashed landed.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
So out the window, I'm looking and we see off
to another runway and like right in front of us
that is just mashed into the ground. The wings are
off and everything's just the fuselages is broken up. And
it was like, oh that was It was kind of comical, right,
And I was like, oh, yeah, I saw this plane

(44:13):
crash just yesterday, and here I am landing right next
to it.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
So that that would be kind of scary.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, So American Airlines flight is going from I think
it was that land er somewhere in the US across
seas had a divert to Rome with fighter jets escorting them,
And there's a lot of video footage of it. You
can find it because there was a bomb scare. It
ended up being not an issue, but there was a
bomb there, so two fighter jets were flying alongside it

(44:43):
to escort it to Rome. Now, how would you feel
if you had a window seat and you see two
fighter jets that are escorting you because there's a supposed
bomb on board that may go off.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Well, I'm sure they didn't tell anybody why they were diverted, right.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
I don't know. More scary? Why do I have these
fighter jets? Are they all?

Speaker 1 (45:05):
The first thing I would think is terrorism? There's something happening. Yeah,
that would probably scare me a little.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
I think that's the hell out of me.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
Yeah, I could see that and that that kind of
reminds me of a fear that I just remembered I
had recently recently, as I want to say six years ago,
I went mountain biking to Big Bear and I hadn't
been there in a while. And you know, when you're
skiing and you get on the lift and you look down,

(45:34):
everything's white, so there's no real perception of death or
height or anything like that. But when you're on a
dry land and you're on this chair and you look down,
it's pretty far. And for some reason I started getting scared,
like panic attack scared, and I'm like, what is wrong
with me? I'd never ever been afraid of heights. In fact,

(45:57):
I love heights. I love going to the tallest building
in the world and looking down to me, that's that's
just powerful, it feels it makes me feel confident. Why
am I afraid of this right now?

Speaker 2 (46:09):
Well, it sounds like you're you came across the stair
because you were thinking about falling. You're thinking, if I fell,
I canfue I fall this far, there's trees or whatever,
there's rocks, and yeah, bring yourself falling, and then yeah,
hell yeah, that's scary.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
And of course the why is is it because I'm
getting older that I'm starting to fear these things? Is
this going to start happening with other things? Because I
don't like to be scared, and if I am scared,
I try to flip it and use it as energy
to get over the fear. Right. So that's kind of
why sometimes I say I thrive on fear, the fear

(46:46):
of failure. I will push myself to the edge as
hard as I can, so I don't fear the fear
of pain. You know, I will figure out a way
around it or even push through the pain because I
know on the other side of that is no pain. Right.
So maybe that's just the way I'm wired.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
But well, certainly a quality that you should embrace. But
when you're on a chair lift, what could you do
to the fears you're kind of not so, Yeah, it's
understandable that maybe you felt I don't have control, I
could fall. There's nothing I can do about it, right,
I can't step away. I can't. I can't, you know,

(47:24):
secure myself any further in any way.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah, But the complicated part is I've never ever had
that fear because I've been I've done that that the
chairlifts on on the summer, riding my mountain bikes in
various places, and I've never ever been afraid to.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Get sweats or shaky or anything, or I.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Got little scared. I got shaky, Yeah, like stop looking
down kind of thing, where like normally I'm looking at
for fear enjoy.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah, have you been on that lift since I have?

Speaker 1 (47:54):
I have. Again, It's one of those things that it
scares me, but I'm going to keep doing it until
I'm no longer scared. And it worked and I think
I ended up getting like three or four runs that day.
But it was just a weird feeling to think, how
forty fifty years later am I feeling fear. I shouldn't
be fearing fear. I mean, this is just the way

(48:14):
I handle fear, you know, I thrive on it sometimes
and I don't like it to debilitate me, so I
try to convert it to energy.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
Well, that's interesting. You know what's interesting would be a
statistic on how many people actually suffer death from the
thing they feared the most. Right, It's probably very little. Right,
Like I might be scared of a bear my whole
life and I never come across one. I never so
what so I wasted whatever time it was being scared
of a bear or fear of flying. But you know,

(48:46):
you could spend your whole life being scared of flying,
but you never really have an airline crash on you
so right, you know, it's like we're scared for I
guess you could say no reason when there's probably things
that were not fearful of that are actually going to
cause us some harm.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Yeah, fear debilitates a lot of people from living their life,
you know, fear of you know, when you start a business,
like you're afraid to start a business because you're afraid
that you're going to fail. And you don't start a

(49:25):
relationship because you're afraid you're going to get hurt. You
don't have kids because you're afraid you're not going to
be able to afford them, and you know, various things
like that. Do you do you fear love at all?
Have you ever been afraid to fall in love?

Speaker 2 (49:40):
No? I don't. I don't think I can. I know
I never really thought enough about love to be scared
of it. I never really did, I mean, I guess yeah, no, No.
The fear as far as family goes, The fear of
my children is worry that they will grow up with
trouble or difficulties, or they might have their own addictions

(50:03):
or things that are you know, you know, prevent them
from living a life of you know, comfortable life, that
would be it. I don't fear, you know, falling in love.
I guess I do have concerns that Emily would. You know,
if Emily and I were to part ways, I certainly
wouldn't like that, so I wouldn't do everything I could
prevent that from happening. I know, coming on the show,

(50:27):
Emily joining the Housewives, I guess you could say I
had fear of that because you know, statistically and historically
you see families fall apart on the show. Whether it's
coincidence or the show or how they handle it, I
can't say, but it does happen. My concern was for
her to then maybe take her life in a different direction,

(50:51):
you know, I'm better than this, or getting a big head,
or wanting to be gone so much to pursue whatever
opportunity to come her way that she wouldn't be around
us anymore. Yeah, those were my concerns, and I did
express that to her, and that was that was my
main concern about the show, was family unit. And I'm

(51:14):
very glad that that didn't end up being the case.
And it certainly didn't stop me from allowing it didn't.
It didn't cause me to prevent Emily from being on
the show, nor could I write I mean that she
make that decision for her solely. But that was a
very big worrisome for me. And that's why the first

(51:35):
couple of years I wasn't very comfortable on camera. Wasn't
because of the camera, was because I was just really
on edge about where is this going to go?

Speaker 1 (51:45):
Right? That makes sense, and that that was it.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
And then fortunately we've overcome that and realized that that's
not the case, and so you know, we're able to
navigate her being on the show and being a part
of all the ladies and everything, you know, during this time.
So yeah, I mean, if anything, it's made us stronger
because we've worked together on how how to navigate this,

(52:09):
how to navigate her schedule, the opportunities that come our away,
how do we work, what parts do we team up on,
what parts are just for you?

Speaker 1 (52:16):
And so yeah, I could see that, and I think
when we first got together, my wife and I, the
camera didn't scare me. I think I remember talking to
you about taking acting classes when I was younger, so
cameras weren't totally you know, foreign, and they still kind

(52:39):
of put me.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
You know they're there. Yeah, you know they're there.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Now, I know they're there. But in the beginning, I
don't know if I remember telling you this, but well,
first time we ever filmed, I was all gonna ready
to go. I'm like, I could do this. I've been
on camera before, you know this. It's going to be
easy and just be myself. How hard can that be?
And it wasn't until the production walked into the house

(53:08):
and they all introduced themselves very nice, and then suddenly
these big ass cameras walked in and I looked at
it and I turned white. My wife said, I backed
myself against the wall and I said, I can't do this.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
It became real at that point.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
I guess it became real and I just remembered I
was actually afraid. And of course, seven shots of tequila
later and I think half a bottle of wine that
took away all the fear, and I did stupid shit.
That was the very first time we ever filmed where
we did the tub scene. I don't know if you
remember the tubs. Yeah, it was just I mean, where
do you go from there? Right? But that's a moment

(53:45):
I was I was actually afraid of when when I
first got on the show, Yeah I was afraid.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
Yeah, well, you know, there's I don't think. I don't
think if anyone said they weren't afraid to be on
a show, I don't know if I would believe them.
There might be different levels of concern and worries them
in fear, you know, fear how they look on TV.
Fear if they are going to get along, if they're
going to be liked or hated. There's got I mean,
no one can say that it's jump in and got

(54:14):
no problems with it.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
I think ultimately though, it's how you handle them right,
how you handle fear, because it's it's up there with jealousy.
Jealousy is an emotional feeling, irrational emotional feeling that sometimes
can you know, be quantified. If your wife or your partners,
you know, flirting or something, or trying to make you

(54:38):
jealous so that they like you more. I guess it's
a manipulation tool. But when I was young, I made
a determination that I am not going to let jealousy
get the best of me. And I have thought even
if I am jealous, I'm not going to show it
because it's just going to produce negative emotions and negative results.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Experience some jealousy, and then it was then that you
realize what you were experiencing, and so you made that
effort to, you know, stay away from that.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
I think so which which goes along in the same
lines as fear, you know, And I don't know how
old I was when I finally realized fear is stabilitating
and if you let it cripple you, you're not going
to do anything in life, or experience anything in life,
or really live life. You know, I sense I see
fear as a limitation for people that just absolutely sometimes

(55:31):
it's justifiable. You know, Let's say you had a traumatic
experience when you were young. This is this is probably
a terrible example, but let's say you were molested when
you were young, you know, continually molested, and it becomes
sort of a normal thing, and then you grow up
as an adult and you become a pedophile because of
what happened to you, and you think it's normal when

(55:53):
in reality it's it's not a normal thing, and society
is not going to accept that. But do you fear
that society is not accept it, or do you fear
that you're going to get caught? Go to jail.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Yeah, what is it?

Speaker 1 (56:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
I guess fear would be acceptable if it's for your
own safety, right, So it's fear of you know, like
in your example of maybe growing up in an unfortunate
household where there's abuse, So now you're prospective of your
just your safety. Yeah, so I'm going to stay away
from this type of person because I've experienced that they

(56:25):
hurt me physically or they harm my lifestop right, not
just they hurt my feelings so they said something rude,
but they actually debilitate me from living a life. Right,
So yeah, you know, speaking of fear, though, we have
a we had we have a foster dog and uh,
which I imagine will not be a foster dog. But for

(56:47):
now I'm like, I'm like, he's trying to sell me
on it being a foster on. It's our third dog
that we have right now. Oh my gosh, very very
scared of everything. Okay, six months old. We believe never really,
I'm guessing based on her behavior, never experienced human interaction,
at least good human interaction with you know, compassion and whatnot.

(57:08):
And it's and she is always protecting herself. She's running
away from me. She never turns her back on me
or Emily. She's stopping up to Emily now. But she's
very fearful and and it's it's natural for her, right
because she's experienced things that might cause her harm and
injury and death. So she's doing what she can to
stay alive. It's right, it's just survival. So it's it's

(57:33):
based on her experiences. And there's no doubt in my
mind that she's just trying to stay alive, right, not
that she's you know, a whim right whatever, experienced abuse
or whatever it was. She's trying to stay alive. And
so I guess humans can you know, if we're if
I've experienced, you know, being injured by a weapon, and
so now I choose to stay away from that weapon. Yeah,

(57:56):
that's be pretty valid.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
That's yeah, that's that is valid. Yeah, going back to love,
which is kind of along the same lines of what
we were just talking about. For me, I think I
fell in love for the first time as a teenager,
my first girlfriend. I was madly in love and I

(58:19):
was afraid, you know, because growing up to me, love
was so important and so valuable and so sentimental and
you just cannot fall in love with just anybody, right,
it's like marrying. You can't just marry anybody. You got
to marry somebody that you can spend the rest of
your life with, or somebody that you love. So when
I fell in love, it was it was awesome. I

(58:44):
thought she was going to be the one for the
rest of my life.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
And what.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
It wasn't a fear. It wasn't a fear. But when
she broke up and we broke up, the pain was
so deep and so emotional and so detrimental that I
said that I am never falling in love again.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
And it took seven years for me to finally fall
in love again, fell in love with this beautiful woman
that just was everything that I know ever wanted. And unfortunately,
five years later that relationship ended and again debilitating. I
couldn't leave the house for three days. I was in
the fetal position and I cried, and it was the

(59:27):
hardest pain I've experienced next to my broken collarbone.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
And then and how did you overcome either of those?

Speaker 1 (59:37):
I think, Well, my dad, you know one thing I'll
never forget he said during that time, was just get
up and put one foot in front of the other.
And you will get past it. And it took time. Yeah,
it definitely took time. But again the second time, I
was heartbroken, devastated. I said, I'm never falling in love again.

(59:59):
But I it was in my probably my mid twenties
at the time, and I decided, you know what, I'm
not going to look for love anymore. I'm just going
to be partying, having a good time, working.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
And take care of yourself kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Care of myself.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
You won't bring anyone in your little circle.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Yeah, and then I fell in love again and it
wasn't deep love, but it was sort of like I
don't know if I is the right person, you know.
And even though I didn't fall in love with her,
I introduced her to all my friends, especially the very
critical ones that you know, just protect me, and they

(01:00:37):
loved her. They said she's amazing, she's so different, she's awesome.
And I ended up marrying her. The night before I
was freaking out and just like, am I doing the
right thing? I don't know. I was literally sitting on
the floor just contemplating my life, and she came to me,
She's like, are you sure you want to do this?

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Like, I don't know? When everyone wants to hear.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
And of course that didn't last very long. And then
when I met Tiamra, it was one of those things
like that's it. I'm not falling in love, not falling
forward again. I'm just gonna have a good time. And
the chemistry was there. What I think I experienced the
very first time I saw her was love at first sight,
but I wasn't ready to let it happen. But when

(01:01:27):
I saw her, I saw birds, I saw stars, I
saw out all these tingly feelings in my body, but
I did everything I could to suppress it because I
didn't want to be vulnerable like that again. Right. And
the other part of it is she was married at
the time, So why am I going to pursue something
that I'm not gonna, you know, be able to have?

(01:01:49):
But why am I getting these feelings? It was such
a weird situation. And it wasn't until not even you know,
when she left her husband and we went on a
first date. It was probably just before, like a month
before we got married, you know, leading up to it,
planning and everything. You know, It's about a year of

(01:02:10):
all that and I'm just going through the motions. I'm
like yeah, I guess I'm getting married. But I think
it was when I was sitting at the altar looking
at her that it hit me like, holy shit, I'm
in love. This is happening. And what I've experienced in
my life at the end of the day is I'd

(01:02:32):
rather be in love and feel the pain of breaking
up than never ever feeling love. Because what I know
now in my fifties is even today, my love just
gets getting deeper and deeper with Tama. The more time
I spend with her, the more challenges we have with life,
and the more things we experienced together, It's bringing me

(01:02:55):
deeper and deeper connected with her. Where I'm getting back,
I think, close to that level of love when I
first experienced it as a teenager, where I thought like
I found that this is the greatest feeling in my
life and.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
Right you're completely fulfilled and everything's great. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
Yeah, and I'm there now, but it took a while
to get there, which is the interesting journey for me,
Like I'm not afraid to fall in love, but I
was afraid when I was younger because it was so painful,
and there was a period of seven years between love
and another period of five years between love and then this

(01:03:33):
one was maybe fifteen years where I started feeling like, Okay,
I can trust this person. I can open up to
this person and give my heart and be vulnerable and
talk to her and you know, share her, you know,
with her what really scares me and what I really
want to accomplish in life. And I say that because
you know, there's this this stereo type. But men being men,

(01:03:57):
men are not supposed to be afraid of anything.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
You're not allowed to cry. You're not cry.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
You're not supposed to cry. You're not supposed to be afraid.
You're not supposed to be vulnerable. What are you? What
are your thoughts on that? Do you agree or disagree? No?

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
I agree? You know we talked to earlier. You know,
you tell the little kid to walk it off, get
back on your bike and go, you're fine, tough it
out right, and then the girl don't. We don't generally speaking,
we don't say that, we put a band aid on it.
We hug them, you know. In that so it's understandable
that you would grow up not you, you, but men

(01:04:30):
in general would grow up thinking we're not supposed to cry,
and women won't like that, right, if I sit there
and cry on my third date with whomever, I don't
think there's going to be a fourth date. Right, that's
what we're thinking, Right, She's like, maybe that's not the case.
But then that begs the question do our women taught that, Hey,
you know, men shouldn't be crying. He's weak. Yeah, so yeah,

(01:04:53):
I don't know. You know, I was married prior and
without finding she left, and she left and moved out
of state and took my two kids. And it was
heart breaking for you, Oh yeah, because I there was
no plan. It was just they were gone. It's different

(01:05:14):
if it's hey, this is what I want my life,
I'm going to leave you and I'm going to move there,
and you know we figured it out. But that wasn't
the case. It was they were gone, and that probably
as we're talking about, this is probably what my worry
was with the family unit when Emily got on the show.
Maybe I would have had that concern anyway, but I'm

(01:05:35):
sure I was thinking, I'm going to lose my kids again.
Right if you move, you know, you leave me and
this and that the family breaks up. I'm not going
to see my kids. Saying yeah, so that was you know,
there's no doubt in my mind that that caused a
lot of worry for me. With the family unit being
broken up again. It was it was a pretty bad experience,

(01:05:57):
you know, at that time, and not seeing your kids
for a couple weeks, not knowing where they are and
trying to find them, and then and then having to
transition back into that and so, yeah, you know, I
and I know Emily and I have I mean, I
don't think it's a secret. We've had times where we
think we want to split up or this and that
because we're just in some heated moment, and then we

(01:06:18):
both start to think, is this what we want? Do
we We've been trade one set of problems for another,
So do we want to lose our kids? We want
to break up the family? And then we kind of
come to terms. And I know, I'm a big believer
in just kind of trying to work it out and
keep the family together. And that might have to do
with what I've experienced before.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
Yeah, do you think the difference in your religion scared
you getting into the that deep of religion of a
relationship with Emily.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
A little bit? Because you know, you worry about being
judged or or you know, having different outlooks on life.
But you know, fortunately, I think both of us have
the same outlook on life, which is family is important,
family in it, and respecting each other and kind of
you know, living a you know, kind of a decent
life and respecting one another's views. I know Emily, as

(01:07:12):
she's gotten older, she's kind of softened up and become
a little bit you know, as we all should.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
Yea.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
And so you know, it hasn't really caused any riffs
in our relationship, that's for sure. Yeah, sometimes scheduling issues
and things like that. You know, I go to church
on Sundays. Sometimes she comes, sometimes she doesn't. I just
let her and I always take the kids. So you
know that that's a little awkward on those days because

(01:07:39):
but but we respect each others, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
I mean, that's that's super important in any relationship, is
to respect each other because once you lose that, you know,
it's it's hard to come back to that. Let's talk
a little bit about your experience and becoming a lawyer.
I know you took the bar three times. Were you
ever afraid that you weren't gonna make it or were
you just determined Yeah, that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
Was It was a little bit of both. You know,
it was pretty determined, but I also was fearful that
it would never happen. Not to blame, not to place
blame elsewhere, But it was really tough while this show
was going that I'm supposed to sit there and also
juggle my older two kids and their schedules with their mother,

(01:08:28):
who which was not the easiest. So juggling that juggling
you know what was she three or four year old
daughter with you know, two year old twins. Yeah, and
then my wife's were rigorous schedule and me having to
quit my job and then prepare and finances, as we've

(01:08:48):
talked about earlier, it was very hard on me. And
so yeah, for that reason, I thought, I'm never going
to pass because under these circumstances. Yeah, at least for me,
under these circumstances, it's not going to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
Yeah, I mean it's like looking at Mount Whitney and going,
how the hell am I going to do this?

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
Yeah, unless I'm going to do something different, which is
all those factors. Unless I remove some of those, like
you know, Emily's at home all the time, or our
finances are in order, or the mother my older two children,
was more cooperative, like then what might have been eating?
But I was like, nothing's changing. I'm still going to
go through this hellhole, you know. And Emily's sit in there,
you know, when I'm supposed to kind of a comedy
in her schedule to take care of the kids. And

(01:09:34):
and I'll blame on Emily. She was doing what she could.
But it was, Yeah, it was very worrisome that I
would never pass. And I'm just going to be this
endless you know, I'm in this endless pursuit of getting
a bar license and it never happened. I had one
in Utah, but I didn't have one in California. So
it was it was And the other fear was embarrassment. Sure,
there's away embarrassment, you know, being in feeling inferior. You know,

(01:09:57):
there's people that have been in worse conditions in my
that pass, right, so it can be done, and here
I am not being able to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
Yeah, yeah, but you did it. Yeah, And and what
do you think contributed the most for you to accomplish
that goal to pass the bar?

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
You know, it was it was just kept putting to
you know, I'll be honest, I don't think I did
anything different as I should have. I was really first
of all, it was quite a while ago, so so
my memory is a little vague, but it was just,
you know, they did change the the the guidelines of

(01:10:40):
the bar exam, which kind of worked in my favor
as much as you know, I don't want to say that,
but it did work in my favor. So that kind
of gave me the little edge I needed. I'm pretty
certain I would have eventually passed, but nonetheless that that's
where I was. So it was it was a scary time.
It was a scary time.

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
Yeah, I've you. I always thought about this when I
was working with my dad, like the fear of going
to court. Do you go to court a lot?

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
Yeah, I don't. I didn't hear that. I have a
fear in terms of just doing well. Yeah, we're doing
well for the client, doing well for for the owner
of the law firm. Yeah. But I'm not scared in
front of a judge, because.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
Were you though the very first time? Thank you the
first case.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Yeah, I could, I could. I was nervous. I was
practicing in Utah and I was thrown in judges all
the time. Oh, that's right, okay, but it was it
was I was nervous yacause you know, you feel people
are looking at you and now you're going to look
like a beginner. You don't know what you're doing, you know,
you don't know the proper terminology, right, and you sound
like an idiot. That was a concern, But in front

(01:11:47):
of it, because of the judge, I was not scared. Now,
Oh yeah, there're people so yeah, they really are.

Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
Course, I know pretty.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
Much lawyers that don't want to be lawyers, right, don't
they know better? And you know, have I been depart
by judge in front of people? Absolutely? Really? Oh wow,
I think everyone has. Absolutely. Yeah, And that's more embarrassing
than it's fearful. That for me, that's embarrassing. And that's
like sister, she's overcome it, but she I think she

(01:12:16):
would even vomit before she went before a judge. Oh
really really scared. Yeah, but she also would admit it.
She wasn't hiding. Yeah, And but I don't know what happened.
Then a few years go by, you know, we kind
of you know, she's doing her thing, I'm doing mine,
and I don't really connect with her on that level.
And then all of a sudden, I realized, Oh, she's
going to court and she seems fine. She's picking court calls,

(01:12:37):
she's doing it online, she's going in person, so she
overcame it somehow. I should find out how she did that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Yeah, it's interesting times. My neighbor's an attorney as well,
and I see a lot of him, you know, during
the day, you know, because I have a pretty easy schedule.
And I asked him recently, like, didn't you go to
court anymore? It's like, zoom, I don't even have to
get us anymore. That would take fear completely away. Like

(01:13:06):
just the thought of being in chambers and fighting, you know,
with the opponent and talking to a judge that scares me,
like that would drive me. It spins my head. But
I also see that, you know, once you've done that
a few times, like anything else, you become very proficient
at it and the fear goes away and now you

(01:13:26):
know what you're saying doing And that just takes practice, right,
practicing law right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
Well, they always say you fear what you don't know, right, Yeah,
So if you've been there, you've experienced it many times.
You've ridden your bike on the freeway many times. Now
it's no longer an unknown to worry about.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
Yeah. So speaking of do you, did you ever fear
being a lawyer or was that just something you always
wanted to do?

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
Well? I kind of kind of went that direction because
my parents would let me become a cop. Okay, Like literally,
I interviewed, I took the exams, I took the physicals.
I even got you know then as a you know,
for PDI and Orange, and then I had to back out,
probably cut mostly because of my parents and you know,

(01:14:17):
them having a worry and they were always scared and
they didn't like it, and probably they want me sending
in an office and YadA, YadA, YadA. Yeah, and you know,
maybe if I really really wanted it, I should I
could have done it, But you know, I made the
choice to back out. So I was fearful of my mother.
We could say.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
That's a big deal.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
If if if in my profession, what was I fearful of?
It would probably be being successful, you know, whole good job,
earning more money every year doing them, not in front
of the judge or in front of a client or
co workers or anything.

Speaker 1 (01:15:01):
Were you at all concerned or afraid of starting that
podcast with your wife. I think it's called Legally Brunette.

Speaker 2 (01:15:11):
Yeah, no, No, my wife is, I mean Emily Is.
She loves that stuff. She could talk about it all
day long. She she overworks to study those cases and
learn the facts, you know, the interesting cases that are
kind of you know, across the media, high profile. So
I knew that she would take the lead on that,

(01:15:31):
and I think she does really well. And my place
in that I've learned was I'll just be the viewer
that asks the questions, right, Okay, I'm asking the questions
that the viewers want to know. So I go in
she has more of the knowledge, and then I asked
these lay term questions, right, and I answer those questions,

(01:15:52):
and so we have a good connection that way. Here
she is presenting the cases talking about them, and then
I asked the questions on when I think is on
behalf of the viewers, because you know, you can get
really legally in the way you talk, so it's kind
of breaking her down. Yeah. So no, we do well
with that, and that that's enjoyable for me.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
Awesome, awesome. How often do you do that?

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
It's twice a month. Yeah, we're doing twice a month
and right now she's covering the Blake Lively and Baldoni case.
That's a big one. I don't know if you know
that one. I'm sure viewers do. That's a big one.
There's some pr disputes and creative differences on the set
of it ends with us, and so there's some sexual
harassment allegations and things like that. It's getting pretty heated.

(01:16:37):
I think with Blake Lively being such a big star,
that's caught a lot of attention from people. The other
case that she's doing that, we like to cover the
Menendez trial. Okay, so she's doing that. I'm sure you've
heard that one.

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
I have. Yeah, there's a whole documentary on that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
There's a lot of documentaries on that. So she's fascinated
by that one because that is interesting. The case is
where you know, you could kind of go either way.
You do both points, and that's what makes it interesting
to talk about.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
Yeah, what do you fear it at all? About practicing law?

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
I think disappointing clients. You know, clients, unfortunately, they naturally
they come in with expectations, right, I'm going to win
this case. I practice workers competations with people that get
injured on the job. We represent the insurance companies and employers, right,
so the injured worker gets injured, they have a right
to file a claim because it's a no fault state,

(01:17:37):
so the employers should cover their injuries at their work
related right. So it's a right that they have and
I support that. But we represent the insurance compani's employees.
So you know a lot of times the employers will
just without really knowing all the details, they think, no,
this is this is no break. That guy's a jerk.
He got hurt playing soccer on the weekend and not here.
It's like, yeah, but we got to go through this

(01:17:58):
process to get that if that needs in the case.
So disappointing clients is my concern, so I always try
to give them realistic expectations. My very first case that
I tried all by myself was an adoption case. So
a family wanted to adopt the child and terminate the
parental rights of the father.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
Who was an absence, which is really hard.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
Yeah, and it's it's a tough one too, because you
know the emotions involved. My fear in that case was
not winning because this loving family and the stepfather who
just did everything for this child, and was the father's
as far as I was concerned, because the biological father

(01:18:43):
was Mia, like truly Mia until the case services, and
of course he wants to act like he's fathered the
hear and stop everything. That was my fear was then
this family leaving the courtroom not having the ability to
adopt the child, and then now they can't bring up
this case for a number of years. Yeah, and so

(01:19:03):
now they're stuck in this position of now we have
this biological father has been brought back into the life
because of the lawsuit, and now he's causing havoc in
our household. And that was I was terrified that I
would lose this case. That was all on me there,
I had no partners. I was working by myself, all
on me, and you know, and I had never tried

(01:19:24):
a case before. So I'm up there putting witnesses on
the stand, asking questions, doing all this stuff, trying to
prepare case. And I didn't know the threshold, you know,
how much is enough? Yeah. I don't have the experience
to say, yeah, we got enough evidence. Yeah, So I
just had to keep going and going and going, and
I probably overdid it anyway, I succeeded, But oh good,
Now my fear was this family heartbreaking? You know this family?

Speaker 1 (01:19:48):
Well, how many times have you heard of cases like
that where a kid of a drug induced family you
know can't handle it there in jail, the kid ends
up being you know, fast from home, and finally a
family you know, sees the connection and raises a kid
and you know, goes through all the proper channels, finally

(01:20:10):
adopts a child, and ten years later the parents get
out of jail, even though they obviously have to sign
a release for the kid to be adopted. Now they
want to be back in the kid's life. How do
you how do you would you handle that?

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
Well? I've never experienced it that much. But if the parents'
rights are terminated, you can only have two parents, right, Yeah,
So if if a if a husband will call them,
if a husband wants to adopt the wife's son or child,
you can. You cannot terminate a biological father's rights and

(01:20:45):
parental rights without someone stepping in his shoes, right. Okay,
So in your example, if I understood it correctly, you
have new adopted adoptive family. Right, So a mother and
father presumably a mother and father adopt the child. Now
the biological parents are no longer. They have no rights anymore,
right as if they don't exist, your records are stealed,

(01:21:07):
everything's gone. But when the child becomes an adult, then
they might choose to search out their biological father or
parents to answer some questions. So I guess it was.
It was a long way to answer your question. I
don't think the original biological parents can come back into
their lives once they're terminated. They have no rights.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
Okay, interesting so.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
But but I don't have any experience in that area.
And the example you gave I have not gotten that
far along. When I was practicing family law too, how did.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
You get this case being in workers' comp.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
I'll tell you how so well, I wasn't a workers
I was in Utah at the time, so I was
practiced family law. And Emily was just like, you know,
you can practice on your own. It's no problem you
can do. Let's just do it. Do it on your own.
So I went on my own, rented a little office,
and she sent out a mailer like across the county
to every house. And these cases are coming in, and

(01:21:59):
this one came into adopt. I'm like have I've never
done this before. She goes, yeah, I can help you.
I can do that, no problem. Because she worked in
family law in LA. She's like, I can help you
with that. I'm like okay. Then like the next week
she went and got a job. She worked for some
law firm. It's like, I can't help you anymore. But
it was all on my own. She never came to
court with me. Nothing never came. That was on my

(01:22:20):
own anyway. That was that was how that came. So
and then all these cases started coming in that were
family law cases, and I learned I don't law because
it's too emotional. It's it's necessary, and I praise those
that do it. It's an imperfect system. It can't be perfect.
It's you know, you can't have a black and white
letter law that that's gonna be equal across the board.
I know you. I'm sure you've experienced it, know enough

(01:22:43):
that it doesn't work like that. You know there's it's
it's so hard. It's a brown peg in a square hole, right,
or a square peg in a round hole. It's it's
just doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
It's arguably one of the hardest types of lot of
practice is family law.

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
No, I can't stand it. Yeah, it's just too heartbreaking.
And I praise those that are able to do it
because it needs to be done.

Speaker 1 (01:23:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
Yeah. You know. The thing is it's so emotionally. You
get these people coming in your office just shouting out
all this stuff. He did this, he did he did this. Yeah,
that's great, that's not that's not a legal argument. That's
more of an emotional argument. I need little stuff, you know.
Him sleeping with someone else doesn't matter, all right, crappy
as that is. It doesn't matter. He's still a dad,

(01:23:29):
but that's not there or the other way around. I
don't want to save her a dime. Too bad. You
signed up for it. That's what you got to do.

Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
Yeah yeah, and you have to do that to protect
the family because there are some legit situations for men,
you know, they especially if they own their own business,
suddenly they don't make any money. Right, How does that?

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):
Yeah? Absolutely, I can't. I tell you, I can't stand.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
I can't stand.

Speaker 2 (01:23:54):
I tell you, a dead beat dad is I can't,
especially because I fall all the rules. I cannot stand that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:02):
Yeah. See that would that would drive me nuts. One
of the things that my my father gave me the
option to go to law school, and I just couldn't
do it because there's this one part of law that
I just can't wrap my head around. I understand it,
and and and and and I believe it's it's a necessity.
But when you become an attorney and you have to

(01:24:24):
defend a criminal, or you have to defend somebody you
do know committed the crime, how do you know I've
never done get.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
Him out of it. It's a very valid thought. I've
never had done criminal defense. But I know one way
to look at it is so you have, you know,
an obvious plea uh guilty, like oh, jay one, you
never have a client you don't want to know. But

(01:24:56):
if you know they did it, like let's say they yeah,
I did it, I get crap out of her right, Well,
then what you're trying to do is not say that
the person's not that the person's innocent. You're trying to
make sure that they don't get any more of a
punishment than you think they're entitled to. So in a way,
you're kind of controlling the system that way. It's not

(01:25:16):
I'm trying to get this person off and out in
the world. And say it's innocent. It's let's see if
we can reduce the charges. Let's see if we can
get it with in reason. And so that's and again,
and how you have to look like, maybe you don't
agree with the death penalty, right right, you know, you're
going to try to pursue life in prison or some
lesser sentence and the death penalty. Negotiate that so you're

(01:25:38):
not you know, there's a big difference between not guilty
and as innocent as you didn't do it, not guilty.
By law, you're not guilty. So if you look at
it that way, it might help.

Speaker 1 (01:25:49):
So what about those cases where they're wrongfully in farstrated,
you know, And and it's going back to what we
were talking about family law. It's it's an imperfect system, right,
So when it comes down to it, the law is
not the law. It's not like black and white. There's
so many levels and moving parts, particularly with cases like

(01:26:12):
the O J case where he had money, he had connections,
he had yeah, and there's a lot of that, and
there's always been a lot of that. You know, when
it comes to one of one of my biggest pet
peeves of law is you know, you try to sue
big Pharma. Well, they're going to win solely because they

(01:26:32):
have so much more money to outlaw you, right, or
outlaw lorrier youth.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
So yeah, absolutely, to make your life hell.

Speaker 1 (01:26:40):
And it's just so hard to win those cases, even
though they are responsible for what happened. So that's one
of the things that.

Speaker 2 (01:26:48):
Like a casino, they're always going to win because they
never run out of money. You will run out of money, yeah,
they will never playing and playing and playing until you quit.
And that's how it is. In your example, big Farm,
They'll they'll play all day long. Yeah, and they have
the means to the money too, and they're incentivized to
win much more.

Speaker 1 (01:27:09):
And and they'll just hire a law firm that has
one hundred lawyers that are going to work on this
one case.

Speaker 2 (01:27:14):
Yeah right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
And it's not fair. It's not fair, especially when it
comes to discovery. I mean, you can get buried in
that stupid ship.

Speaker 2 (01:27:23):
But you know, it's a first comp It's such a
unique area of law procedurally that we've come across lawyers
that may do very well in their niche and are
very successful, and then they think that they're going to
try to help their brother in this work comp case,
and you know, you mop the floor with them because

(01:27:45):
they just don't know how it works. And so in
your example, Big if I were to try to suit
Big Pharma or anyone that doesn't have the experience, it's
not even a matter of money at that points, a
matter of knowing what you're doing. And they know all
all the tricks and the loopholes and things that you don't. Yeah,
and that's how it was with workers compleen, we get you.
Oh I've done personal injury for it. Yeah, it's not

(01:28:07):
the same thing. You might be very you might do
very well in your area, but it's not the same thing.
So you got a disadvantage already. And so that's the
example with you know, the deep pockets, right, they have
the experience.

Speaker 1 (01:28:20):
That was one of the actually, that was the main
reason why when I was running my dad's practice, we
made sure we focused on ho A law bankruptcy transaction
of foreclosures because it's a very niche industry that just
grew big time in California and across the nation, but
mostly in California. There's so many hoa's here it's ridiculous.

(01:28:42):
But I made sure my dad wanted to dabble into
all kinds of other stuff. I had to reel him in, like, God,
Dad's get out of there. We're not doing family law,
we're not doing a state planning, and we're just doing
ho law. Yeah, and if we if we weren't great
at that, I don't think we would have been a
successful as we were because the firm did really great.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
You know. Really just have to find one thing and
excel in it, right.

Speaker 1 (01:29:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree, it'd be really
really good at that one thing. Except when it comes
to medicine. I'm not a doctor or anything, but you know,
I believe that a doctor should know how all the
body parts work together, you know, instead of sending you,
you know, to seven doctors for one ailment that just

(01:29:28):
doesn't make any sense absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:29:31):
Or they should have a team maybe they collectively, right,
so they kind of work together, so it's like you
know what I'm I'm not a specialty. I'm not a
specialist the cardiovascular, but my partner right here is, and
then they can work together instead of it going to
another office and trying to find someone and yeah, you
should have one one stop shop, right you should?

Speaker 1 (01:29:52):
Yeah, where you know, everybody's communicating and talking to each other.
My other pet peeve with the pharmaceutical or the doctor
the healthcare industry is they'll put you on a drug
that's going to result one issue. Then that drug creates
other issues, so they have to put you on another
drug to fix that issue. So that's just perpetual.

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
The classic example. The classic example is, uh, you know,
Emily gets a UTI right and my daughter both at
you time. They're like, here, take this antibiotic, but it
will cause a yeast infect so now take this. You know.
It's like, well, yeah, yeah, it's just it's I don't know,
I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:29):
I don't like it, but I don't get it. Anyways,
I think that's it. I think we talked about being afraid.
You know, I coming into this conversation, I didn't know
what I was going to really say. Because I thrive
on fear. I make it a point that if it
scares me, it's it's worth the pursuit or worth the fight.

(01:30:53):
If it's not scary, it's kind of like, eh, I
don't really you know, I'm not that interested. And I
was really curious to see you what you thought where
your stance on fear is because I know this generation
nowadays are very sensitive and you know, the men today,
you know, they're okay with crying in front of people,
and I just don't see that. I don't see that

(01:31:15):
as as as what it takes to be a man.
For example, you're in a situation, a precarious situation with
your family, and it doesn't make sense to me that
the woman has to step up and take care of
the family when the man should be standing up for
his family and not being afraid of anything, right. So

(01:31:36):
it just it spins my head to imagine or even
witness a man standing behind his woman while the woman
is taking charge and you know, making shit happen. You know,
for whatever reason that is.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
I would agree with you on that, and maybe that's
a pride thing, but I try to I try to
be the leader in the family right and take take
things on myself to try to be a that way.
But you know, one thing I got out of this podcast,
that's for sure, is to try to face my fears
more so rather than just like you know, like the
plane example, not just going on a plane and trying

(01:32:10):
to be okay with it and thinking I shouldn't be scared,
but actually kind of lean into it like you did
with your fears. Yeah, so you know, I'm gonna that
next fear I have that I come across, I think
I'll try to take it on as a challenge to
overcome it and maybe kind of fine tune it and
and uh, you know, be superior that way.

Speaker 1 (01:32:28):
Well, give me, give me, give me a shout out
on that. I want to hear how you did that.
I'm really curious because it's it's worked for me for
a long time. But like I said, what what I
hate seeing is when people don't live their life because
they're afraid. You know, they're afraid, especially the people that
think about all the worst possible things that can happen

(01:32:50):
in this one scenario. And my wife is one of them.
She thinks the worst case scenario about everything. Simple. Let's
go on a road trip, okay, where we're gonna suffer gas,
we're gonna eat, where we're gonna stay. How much time
are we going to take? You know, are we there yet? Like,
oh god, it's crazy And I'll never forget this one
trip we took. It was at the end of the year.

(01:33:11):
It was a tough year. We were done filming and everything,
and it was between Christmas and New Year's Eve, and
I said, listen, I'm done with schedules. I'm done with calendars.
I'm done with you know, you know, doing my life
on a schedule. Let's just get an RB and hit
the road. And sure enough, day later, I rented a
little Mercedes RBS that pop outs and everything, and I said, okay,

(01:33:36):
just grab a few clothes. We're just going to drive.
And I don't know where we're going. We're just going
to drive.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
Not knowing where you're going, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:33:43):
Yeah, And she was totally gun ho on board, and
it blew my mind that she was. So I said,
all right, let's go, got a few pieces together, jumped
in the car, and just started driving north with the
goal to get to I think Yosemite was one of
my goals. As we're driving, we get in I think
it was Ventura County, and we both realized we didn't

(01:34:06):
bring any food.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
We exited the freeway.

Speaker 1 (01:34:11):
Ten miles in we got to find a grocery store
and we're in there walking around buying groceries. And this
is like way out in the middle of nowhere, right,
and the people, of course are recognized or they recognized me,
and they're like, what the hell are you doing now here?
Like we're just getting groceries. So we jumped back in

(01:34:32):
the car back on the freeway, and as we're driving,
I'm realizing, oh shit, it's winter. There's going to be
a bunch of snow in the mountains. So we can't
go to the snow. So where we going I don't know,
but we're running out of time and we need to
find a place to go, you know, part the RB
for the night. So we end up in this gas
station and we're trying to figure out we can go
to a camping army ground or we can go to

(01:34:53):
this little wow.

Speaker 2 (01:34:55):
You literally didn't plan anything, you just got anything.

Speaker 1 (01:34:58):
It was it was so much fun. I can't tell
you how much fun that trip was, because yeah, yeah,
whatever whatever came to us, we did. And I can't
remember the last time, well the last time I did that.
My dad gave me a book written by Jack Cua.
I think it's called On the Road. I don't know

(01:35:20):
if you read it. It's a book about a kid
that just you know, got on the road and just
took the adventure and whatever came came you know, it
was a great book, and I think it was because
of that book that I wanted to do this trip
because all the rest of our lives is on schedules
and organized, and if it's not, it's chaos. Right, if

(01:35:42):
your life is not organized, it's freaking chaos. So I
just didn't want any of that at that time. And
we had such a blast. We ended up going all
the way to Napa Valley, and of course when we
get there, we didn't realize it's winter, so all the
all the vineyards are closed except for one. But we
were looking for a vineyard and you know, we couldn't

(01:36:03):
find when that was open, Like why are we here?

Speaker 2 (01:36:06):
Well, you know, you I'm certain you experienced things that
you wouldn't have had you planned.

Speaker 1 (01:36:11):
Yeah. Yeah, it was. It was almost like freedom, you know,
because when you're on a schedule, even though you know
you have to be on a schedule an organized to
make life successful and accomplishable, it felt like I was free.

Speaker 2 (01:36:29):
When you have a plan, you're you must do this,
you must do that, or you're supposed to check in
at a certain time. But here you are, you know,
you were free to do as.

Speaker 1 (01:36:38):
You wish for you to do as I wish, and
I love that. You know. I have had friends where
we've traveled and they have this whole agenda. I'm like, dude,
I am not doing any of that on vacation, Okay,
I just relaxing.

Speaker 2 (01:36:52):
Yeah, you're all when I get home. Right now, right now,
I'm just gone with the flow.

Speaker 1 (01:36:59):
There's there's really something to say for that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
I do commend those, and I experienced that a little
bit in Utah. I don't have him any stories, but
people who literally just like, now I'm just gonna go
on the mountains for a week or two, yeah, you know, literally,
and I'll find food. Literally. I know a guy he
was he loved it. He's like, I ate snake. Yeah,
it was just it was just hunting. And he lived
out there for two weeks and he just like he

(01:37:24):
said it was the best thing. I never really dug into.
I wish I did, but yeah, gone already know who
is anymore. But he he said the snake was the
best thing here, probably because he captured it and he
did it himself and it was really you know, and
maybe he was hungry for it, you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:38):
Know, really hungry, right like he you know.

Speaker 2 (01:37:41):
He experienced things that he wouldn't have otherwise, and to
be able to do that without any I mean that's yeah.
I wish I could live a life like that sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:37:48):
Yeah, yeah, I mean you can start little by little.

Speaker 2 (01:37:51):
Yeah, I'm going to go get a camper tomorrow. Yeah,
just you know, Emily, he's going to get in it
and we'll go to the beach food.

Speaker 1 (01:37:58):
Go to the beach right here and send say Clamenty.
You know, there's always I used to ride my bike
there a lot, and I used to see people camp
there all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:38:05):
It's a good start, yeah, yeah, just.

Speaker 1 (01:38:08):
It could be fun and then expand because that's one
of my goals to get on my Harley and go
across the nation one day. You know, I have to
find the right people to teach me and be part
of because I don't have the balls yet to just
jump on it and go by myself. I thought about it.
I literally thought, I'm just going to jump on my
bike one day and go. But I got a wife,

(01:38:29):
I got kids, now, I got a damned dog.

Speaker 2 (01:38:31):
I got to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:38:35):
But I think that would be such a fun, fun
adventures just to be.

Speaker 2 (01:38:39):
I had a friend that did that from Northern California
all the way down to the south of Chile on
a bike.

Speaker 1 (01:38:45):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:38:46):
And I followed him through Facebook and it was literally
just stamp wherever he would share stories of people he met,
and he just improvised all the way down and then
he unloaded his bike, you know, sold there whatever, it
blew back up and that was a couple of months.

Speaker 1 (01:39:03):
Yeah, that's so cool.

Speaker 2 (01:39:05):
That's you next next.

Speaker 1 (01:39:07):
All right, on that note, thank you so much Shane
for coming on. And it's been a real pleasure, always
fun talking with you. And that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
That's the show. Yeah, well, thank you for writing me
and inspiring me on facing my fear.

Speaker 1 (01:39:21):
So guys, don't forget go listen to Legally Brunette if
you're into understanding the law and you know, figuring out
what you can learn. I'm always about learning, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:39:33):
So some kind of high profile celebrity type cases.

Speaker 1 (01:39:35):
Yeah, it's going to be fun to listen to.

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):
Very good. Well, thank you Eddie.

Speaker 1 (01:39:39):
Okay, guys, thank you so much for listening. That's the
wrap and we will see you or hear you at
the next one.

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Hosts And Creators

Edwin Arroyave

Eddie Judge

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