September 19, 2024 • 61 mins
Welcome to another episode of A Brother's Creed podcast, where the Thomas Brothers inspire fathers to build the blueprint for the next generation. In this episode, Ethan and Jared delve into the intriguing attribute of defiance. They explore its dual nature, where one person's hero can be another's lunatic.
Join the conversation as they discuss the complexities of teaching children to be defiant in positive ways, share stories of defiance throughout history, and reflect on personal experiences. Discover when defiance is warranted, the importance of critical thinking, and the balance between standing up for what's right and respecting authority.
Whether it's standing against tyranny, questioning harmful authority, or setting personal boundaries, this episode encourages listeners to add defiance as a powerful tool in their life's toolkit. Tune in and let's build our creed together!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to another episode of A Brother's Creed podcast,
where we inspire fathers to build the blueprint for the next generation.
We are the Thomas Brothers. I'm Ethan. And I'm Jared.
And today we're talking about a very unique attribute, can be a virtue.
It's the attribute of defiance. And it's so interesting. There's so many facets to this.
(00:23):
I'm excited to kind of pick your brain. I have a couple stories,
but a lot of questions I think I just want to just talk with you back and forth
on to see what your thoughts are, Ethan.
So it'll be an interesting one to explore as defiance is one of those things
that it's kind of a double-edged sword.
For some people, you could be a hero or a martyr.
(00:46):
And for others, you're a terrorist or a lunatic.
And so it's exactly almost opposite.
It can be just depending on who's perceiving it. I think that probably the most
important perception is your own, how you feel about something.
And it's kind of one of those things that requires a lot of bravery.
(01:08):
I think that that's why it can be seen as a virtue or maybe not a virtue,
but as a good attribute, because you got to be brave if you're going to stand
up in defiance of something.
And the bigger that something is, the more bravery often it takes.
And so we're going to talk through this one. think about
and also the complexities of how we
might teach our kids to be defiant in good ways without you know teaching them
(01:34):
to go off the rails you know because as parents having a defiant children is
that's not what parents usually want so it'll be an interesting conversation
i'm excited to get into it with you yeah let's do it all right let's dive in,
do not go gentle into that good night old age should burn and rave at close of day.
Music.
(01:58):
You should be a monster an absolute monster and then you should learn how to
control it no retreat no surrender you can't conceive of what i'm capable of.
Music.
(02:23):
All right, so I look at the... Oh, you had something. I had something first.
First of all, how do you like my stash? It's looking pretty good.
It's... I didn't mention anything about it. You got a thick stash.
It would take me about 10 years to grow that stash. So I grew it,
and then I... And it would still be patchy.
And then I went to a jujitsu, and the guys were like, hey, man,
(02:46):
that looks really good. And I was like, oh, you think?
And then Shanna at first, she was like, you look like your dad,
you know? Because our dad had a mustache for many, many years.
Although his didn't come over the edge. His was BYU approved.
It only went to the corners of your mouth.
And then I was like, okay. So I grew a little bit of a scruff with it too.
(03:08):
And my wife Shannon, she's like, you look like a pilot or something.
And I told one of the guys at Jiu-Jitsu that. And he says, well,
my girlfriend told me I look like a pervert.
Or a pedophile or something like that. so he's like a
pilot's much better and then the other day you know shan said i think i think
it's growing on me a little bit i told the guys that and they were like yeah
(03:30):
so maybe i'll keep it until after my competition maybe it'll bring me mustache
powers and there you go and if you need to cut a little bit of weight just bring
a razor and you might have to cut it off,
i'll sit in the sauna for an extra hour before i cut this thing off now Yeah.
So anyway, we want to get that right off the top. There you go. There you go.
(03:51):
And some would say that it is defiant that you are growing a mustache against cultural norms.
Against cultural norms, you know? Yeah. Over the, especially over the- Slightly
over the corners of the mouth, you know?
Yeah. It's borderline sinful territory.
Well, it's funny, you know, at the beginning you kind of said,
(04:11):
well, defiance is a virtue. you and then you kind of said well maybe you know
I almost see defiance as it's more of like a tool that,
needs to be used at certain times, but it can be overused, which is just freaking annoying.
(04:34):
So I guess from a definition standpoint, defiance is the act of openly resisting
or challenging authority, rules, or norms.
And I like that. The bold disobedience. Yeah.
Openly defying, right? It's like bold, deliberate opposition where a person
(04:55):
refuses to comply with or shows like a lack of respect for a certain thing or
a certain power or control.
It can be expressed with actions or words or demonstrated by a refusal to do
something or to submit or obey to somebody's orders. disorders.
(05:15):
So I think there's a lot of things. And I had some examples too of defiance
throughout history that I thought were interesting.
And you're absolutely right. As I was going through that, I was almost looking
at defiance in the face of tyranny.
But then I started thinking about it and I was like, what about defiant kids?
Who wants a kid that's going
(05:37):
to constantly be defying you know your your
your suggestions and your
your you know commands or whatever else i mean
especially little kids like they don't know anything yeah and so you know i
kind of broke it down into two things of when is it okay to be defiant from
like like an adult standpoint or i guess like a person standpoint and then breaking
(06:00):
it down a little bit into like when is it okay okay, for kids to be defiant.
And then I got a couple of quotes too. But I know you said you kind of had some questions.
Maybe we should start with a couple of those and then we can get into some examples or...
Well, I think that just kind of also kind of setting the stage,
I think defiance is a very personal, a very personal, and it's very real in
(06:22):
that you're standing up for your most closely held beliefs.
Hopefully, if you're in defiance of something, hopefully you're defiant because
it's based off of a core principle or core belief that you have that you will not budge on.
And that involves bravery. I don't, like a virtue is something that I think
(06:43):
is likely always, when you say something is a virtue, that has a connotation that it's always good.
I don't think defiance is always good. Yeah.
I think that it can be bad, but I think that in many ways it can be that mechanism
to stand up for what you truly believe in.
And that involves bravery. And that's oftentimes why, historically,
(07:05):
when we look back, sometimes favorably on historic figures like,
you know, we look at Leonidas and the 300 Spartans, and we see how defiant they were.
We're like, yeah, that's such a great example of defiance. We look back at Galileo
and his heliocentric model in the 1600s and how he was defiant against the Catholic Church,
(07:28):
and they eventually imprisoned him in a home arrest for, quote,
vehemently suspect of heresy.
That's what he was sentenced for. Was it Martin Luther?
Not the king, but Martin Luther, you know, against the church at that time when
they had a complete monopoly on all religion, right?
(07:51):
They didn't even, not that people could read, but we didn't have translations
of the Bible or you didn't have different things. And it's like,
you know, I'm going to go against that.
I'm going to go against the norm and what's been done. And yeah,
like. Yeah. And then he translated.
Nail, yeah. Translated the. Bible into German. sermon the bible you know yeah
nail a freaking scroll to the door of the catholic church.
(08:13):
Yeah actually it's funny you say that because i actually did do a little bit
of research on him and he's actually a lot
more controversial than you think yeah so i decided not to not to talk about
him i probably did 20 minutes of research into martin luther and i think some
of his ideas were kind of extreme but like yeah so but but it's an example of
defiance with that and defiance is It's not always a good thing. It can be.
(08:37):
Yeah. I mean, but the thing is, is like, I think that sometimes we look back
at history and we like to put, and this is kind of a theme I have throughout
my thing as we'd like to put people.
In certain archetypes or in certain roles to say, look, he was a hero.
I really admire him because of this. Or oftentimes, these people are extremely flawed.
(09:00):
Or it's like, we'll simplify history for our own sake to say good and bad.
The North in the Civil War, good. The South, bad. Watch your tongue.
That's just a simplified version of history that everybody is taught,
and we say, well, and then we simplify the reasons.
(09:21):
Oh, this is what it was for. Well, to the victor goes the spoils,
right? Exactly. To the victor always goes the spoils.
They write the history. And so instead of being a hero, you're the terrorist.
So that's kind of what happened with the Robert E. Lee statues.
Instead of being the hero, he was the terrorist. And so as we go through some
(09:42):
of my examples, it's actually interesting to see some of that.
But I have one example. Maybe I'll start this example with a personal example of...
Of defiance. And I think this is something that also we can do.
I feel like defiance is a muscle, right?
If you don't exercise a muscle, then it's going to atrophy. You're not going
(10:05):
to be able to know how to use that.
So I want to share an example of small acts of defiance.
So when I was As a young lad, I was 19 years old, yeah, I went on a mission, a religious mission,
and I was in something called the Missionary Training Center.
(10:28):
Now, this thing was locked down.
You had basically no freedom to do anything other than what they were telling
you to do, which was simply...
They lock out the outside world just so you can focus on what you're doing.
Yeah, it's like you're so focused on like preparing to teach people.
And then I was learning a language as well.
(10:48):
So it's like you're learning a language and you're preparing to learn all this
scriptures and all this kind of stuff.
So you and you you have like one hour a day that you can go outside and play.
But the rest of that you're studying and you live in these dorms and you can't
go off the campus. Like you're on the campus.
You have no TV, no television, no nothing, no contact with family.
(11:09):
I mean, you could leave if you wanted to.
It's not like a prison, but... Well, yeah, but... It would be, yeah.
You're willing to go on this thing.
But it is very controlled, I'll say. And so one of the things that really bugged
me, and I still remember this to this day, is that when people go up in one of the dorms.
(11:33):
There was like an old just corded phone on the wall.
You know, the one just like there was a receiver And it had like the little
bungee thing and it just was on the receiver.
Now somebody would go and they would take that phone, they would turn it upside
down and they would put it on the receiver.
So it was like, the phone was still hung up, but it was upside down.
I don't know why. And it still kind of fascinates me to today.
(11:57):
But that really bugged me.
And every single time I went by there, I grabbed it and I put it back on right.
That's not how it should be. That's not right. You know, these guys are just
freaking causing chaos in here.
And, you know, it's just so funny that I actually, in some ways,
now that I think about that, I actually admire that a little bit as a small act of defiance.
(12:21):
And it's a small act of innocent defiance whoever was
flipping it upside down whoever was flipping that upside down kudos to
you and i think that it it's actually
thinking about that i think maybe it is important for us
to do small acts of defiance to keep that muscle strong so that when we need
to create do a large act of defiance it is not that action is not foreign to
(12:46):
us And so that was one example that I had that I've always remembered that.
And I always thought that was so silly that that bugged me so much.
But perhaps he was onto something. Yeah, that's awesome.
Awesome you know a couple or one
of the the the stories that came to
(13:08):
my mind right and this is something that kind of directly
has impacted the future of the country
we live in was kind of american defiance against tyranny you know specifically
talking about how you know the the The 13 colonies were defiant to England that
(13:29):
eventually led to the Revolutionary War.
And some of those, I guess for a quick history lesson, so after the French and
Indian War, where the British were fighting the French, British,
the Brit, Britain was like flat broke and they owed lots of money to other countries
(13:49):
because they had spent so much money fighting the,
the French and the Indian population in, in, in the Americas.
And so to, to kind of grow their territories.
So they basically imposed some very heavy taxes on the American colonies to pay their war debts.
(14:10):
Some of these were the Stamp Act, the Townshend Act, and a couple other ones.
And so the colonists, obviously, they hated this because they didn't have any say in these taxes.
And that's kind of where we get the phrase, no taxation without representation,
(14:30):
because they didn't have any colonists or anybody Anybody representing the colonists
in the British Parliament, the British Parliament were just like,
oh, you know, yeah, increased taxes, increased taxes, increased taxes,
and they didn't have any say in it.
And so you had the Boston Massacre, which was in 1770, which,
you know, had to do with the British soldiers.
(14:52):
There was a couple things that were going on, but some of it was confiscation
of weapons, and there was a large argument, and some of the British soldiers fired into the crowd,
killed a bunch of colonists, and maybe some went the other way, too.
But then you had the Boston Tea Party, where the colonists were defiant to the
(15:16):
tea tax, and they went into Boston
Harbor and dumped all the tea overboard into the ship for the ships.
And so all of that defiance eventually led to the United States declaring independence
in 1776 and starting the Revolutionary War.
(15:36):
Because it was an act of people kind of in unity standing up against what we
felt at the time was unfair regulation and was tyranny.
And there were colonists who, or excuse me, there were, what do they call people
that were still loyal to the crown who lived in the colonies at that time and
(16:01):
they supported the crown crown,
and they didn't defy or rebel.
But I think luckily for not only us, but for the world, I think it... I'm glad that we did.
I'm glad that those people stood up against injustice and said, this is not right.
This isn't how we should live.
(16:22):
This isn't how we want our future to be. This isn't how we want our kids to be raised.
And so they pushed back. And I think that was kind of, I guess,
a good example of defiance in my mind.
Yeah, I think the American Revolution is clearly an example.
But those guys were terrorists on the other end. They were treasonous terrorists,
(16:46):
and there were bounties out for their lives, and,
And so, but we think about the reason for their defiance, and I think some of
the reasons for their defiance, we've kind of, over time, we've really sugared it up, if you will.
Perhaps more to the truth is like, hey, man, I want to keep more of my money,
(17:08):
and I want the government out of my pocket, you know?
And I want to be able to do what I want to do. i saw this
thing and it was like you know a massive rebellion
and revolution over a three percent t-tax yet
now we're okay with 40 percent
the capital gains tax yeah you know it's
like tax any single everything you buy anything you do
(17:30):
it's just tax it when you buy it tax it when you make it tax
it when you sell it tax it when you you know oh you're
gonna you're gonna continue to drive your car on the road oh we're gonna
tax it every single year you know it's like and now they want to tax unrealized
gains on your stocks yeah oh you might make money from this oh well yeah yeah
25 unrealized gains tax yeah so insanity um maybe maybe we're not living in
(17:53):
the future that the founding fathers thought that we would i don't think we maybe we are i don't know.
Interesting that story i love that of defiance i have another one of defiance,
have you ever heard of operation valkyrie yeah and against germany it was a
assassination assassination attempt on Hitler, right?
Yep. Yeah. So there was a group of German military officers who were planning...
(18:17):
Tom Cruise tried to kill him. Yeah.
The one-eyed, you can see an eyepatch in that one.
There were officers who were trying to plan an assassination attempt on Hitler.
And this was shortly after he lost the Battle of Stalingrad,
which we have covered how horrible that was.
And Soviet forces were basically inbound to Germany.
So they had tried to, this group of people had tried to assassinate him over five different times.
(18:43):
So this was four different times, and this was the fifth time.
So this guy's name is Klaus von Strauffenberg.
So Strauffenberg, in July of 1944, he was at the Wolf's Lair with Hitler.
That's what they called the Hitler's, I think, one of his getaways.
And he placed a briefcase bomb against the conference room table that Hitler
(19:10):
was sitting at. And it had a timer on it.
Now, if you think about a long...
Just to describe how it was, it was like a long conference table. And...
Kind of, there was two big legs of the table, which were like solid wood.
Hitler was sitting, he wasn't sitting at either end of the conference table.
He was kind of sitting on in the middle on one side.
(19:33):
And so you think that, you know, maybe a couple feet to each of his sides would
be the legs of the table, and then there would be the ends of the table.
So this guy left that bomb, briefcase bomb,
right there next to Hitler, and then he had done it where he would time it so
that he would get a call right at that time so he would leave the room,
(19:54):
and he left the room, and another guy who was in that room named Heinz Brandt.
Unknowingly moved the briefcase to the opposite side of the leg of the table away from Hitler.
Was this Brandt guy in on the thing? No, he didn't.
He just was like, this is in the way, and he moved it out of the way.
(20:15):
And so you think about Hitler sitting in that middle of that table and now the
bomb is on the opposite side of that wooden leg.
And so it was like a solid wooden leg, right? And when the bomb went off.
Blew, you know, that guy up, that guy Heinz Brandt, he died in two,
and I think, and let's see, two other officers died.
(20:37):
And the plotters, they didn't know that Hitler didn't die. They assumed that he had died.
So they were trying to do a coup as well at the same time to try to take back the government.
And it failed, and the Nazis were able to beat them back.
And the guy, Strauffenberg, he actually flew to Berlin right after he left that room.
(20:58):
And he got caught in that night.
Him and a handful of other folks who were with that conspiracy were executed via firing squad.
And in the months following, the Gestapo really cracked down on cleaning house.
Essentially, they were going in and reading people's journals and letters and
(21:20):
all this kind of stuff. And they arrested more than 7,000 people.
And they killed 4,980 people who they thought were treasonous.
And some of them actually... They cleaned the swamp, if you will.
Yeah, some of them actually were sent to concentration camps,
(21:41):
some of the high-level generals.
Except for it's the opposite. It was the bad doing that to the good people.
Yeah, exactly. I guess are what we perceive as the good people.
People who were trying to assassinate Hitler.
Some people say that they wanted to just end the war with the West and kind of call a truce.
I was reading a little bit more saying that, well, maybe they wanted to put
(22:02):
in someone in their own power to replace Hitler.
So it's one of those things that... But nevertheless, it was an act of defiance, right?
And so I thought that was a kind of a cool story from history about defiance.
Not that I'm advocating assassinating anybody, but it was an act of defiance.
And so that story is over, but I want to separately mention something very interesting
(22:26):
that I saw about that story.
And something that last night in the debate, Trump, he said that he was almost
assassinated. Trump was almost assassinated.
And his quote was, it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.
Now, do you know what Hitler said when he almost got killed by that bomb?
(22:48):
He said it was a, quote, divine moment in history.
And he said almost the exact same thing on the German media,
that God had intervened to save his life.
So I think it's so interesting. I'm not necessarily comparing Trump to Hitler,
but I am saying that it's so interesting how people will use whatever's happening as,
(23:16):
they'll try to use it and put God behind it to make them look better,
to make it seem as though they have favor for the gods.
Well, you look at almost pretty much any ruler in history, and I mean,
look at the entire Roman royalty in Great Britain and that whole lineage.
(23:37):
They believe that they are chosen by God to lead the United Kingdom.
And so to kind of say that is very interesting and it's kind of like i think
sometimes people take coincidences or chance.
Happenings and you know chance turned his head and they take that
(23:58):
to mean oh well this was god you know maybe
it was just something that happened you know maybe it could
have been it could have been god or it could have been it could have been a coincidence it could
have been could god maybe have saved hitler or could
it just end in a coincidence i don't think we'll ever really know but you
definitely whoever's has that brush with
death is obviously gonna claim it was
(24:19):
God so anyway I don't know yeah well if maybe Hitler
would have died then there would have been some kind of uprising that extended
the war for you know so many more years or something or you know it's it's you
can't yeah it's like a butterfly effect it just like yeah a butterfly effect
you know and I and I yeah a lot of people will just they'll take credit for
(24:39):
or you You know, for more of like,
I don't know, I don't want to say sales, but more of, yeah, trying to add the
divine into something that they really like. It adds to their credibility.
It's like, not only am I a great politician, but God also is on my side. Yeah.
Interesting. I thought that was very interesting that he said,
because I was reading through like what he said about it, and I was like,
(25:00):
that is exactly, almost word for word what Trump just said. Yeah.
So I thought that was kind of interesting.
So I kind of had, I want to talk quickly about...
When it is okay to be defiant or when maybe you should be defiant,
and then give an example as well.
So when is it okay to be defiant?
(25:24):
And I kind of read a bunch of different things and kind of put together four
times that I thought was important, right?
So the first one is when there's moral or ethical values are at stake.
If following the rules leads to violating a core principle or causing harm,
(25:45):
you can stand up for that. You can be defiant.
It's a good time to be defiant. When the rights or freedoms are being threatened,
when our basic life, liberty, pursuit of happiness is being threatened,
maybe that's a good time to be defiant.
When laws or systems are unjust?
And how many times are there, I don't know, maybe there's taxes that are being
(26:08):
implemented that we believe or the colonists believed that they were unjust.
And then the last one was standing up for the vulnerable and the weak.
I think that is kind of of four times that I think it is important to be outwardly
bold and defiant and to stand up against those types of things.
(26:34):
One thing, not to get too political, but one thing in our lifetime that I believe was a.
Kind of stand up and be defiant was with all this COVID-19 stuff that happened.
(26:55):
Everyone kind of has their own opinion, which is completely fine.
But a lot of times people that didn't have the opinion of the masses were highly looked down upon,
or they were accused of being bigots or right-wingers or anti-scientists or
whatever else it might be.
(27:15):
And I'm not talking, can, it's a whole group of things that are compiled together, right?
And I don't think you can take out one specific thing and say,
oh, I was defiant against this or defiant against that.
Or I think you have to look at it holistically. So you had, you know,
these mask mandates, and then you had lockdowns from businesses.
(27:37):
You had lockdowns in schools. You had lockdowns in all these different You had,
number one, you had lies and just massive financial gain and greed from certain bodies,
companies, organizations, right?
And then you had mandatory vaccinations in many cases that was,
(28:01):
hey, if you don't do this, then you'll lose your job, or you can't go here,
you can't go there, your kid can't
come to our school if they're not vaccinated, or whatever it might be.
But I think that there was a lot of people that kind of were defiant against
those things and pushed back against what the social norm was.
(28:25):
And I think as time went on and we understood more, I think a lot of it was just kind of out of fear.
We understood more that 99% of children that got COVID showed barely no symptoms
or maybe a light cold symptoms and had no negative effect.
(28:47):
Maybe it wasn't the best idea to be masking kids and taking them out of schools for an entire year.
I don't know. I think personally that that was a good time opportunity to kind
of show some outward personal defiance and people hated it.
(29:08):
I mean, if you didn't have your mask pulled over your nose in public,
then people were like freaking out and you get attacked and all that sort of stuff.
Stuff when it's like dude this this mask is
not even if i sneezed it would go right
through this mask anyway it's all for show you know
and there are certain populations that were
(29:29):
you know maybe should have listened
more or were more susceptible than others and
and like i said i think the science has we've understood a little bit
more about that but i don't
i think it's kind of an example particularly in in our lifetime
that's like hey no i'm not just gonna do something
just because somebody told me to because you know
(29:50):
fauci said oh it was you know this crazy bat thing and then you know come to
find out that it's you know this man-made thing in a lab somewhere that was
leaked on purpose or not yeah you know it's like oh i didn't even know it's
like we've You've frigging funded half of this stuff. Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, I don't know. It was an opportunity for certain people to kind
(30:14):
of exercise that defiant muscle, for sure.
And it was uncomfortable for a lot of people. Yeah.
I think that you're absolutely right. Yeah.
I think for me, it was a major, major kind of catalyst, I think,
(30:36):
in my life, as well as my family's.
I think that it was kind of a, you know, I felt like there was so much trying
to be shoved down my throat from the media, from the vaccine,
from work, from everywhere, every single angle.
(31:00):
And I personally felt like, even from religious leaders, I felt like it was being pushed on me.
And I just was very, very skeptical of that.
And it really- I think it goes back to what you said at the beginning,
which defiance is like a very personal thing. It is, yeah.
And it can mean something different for everyone. one some people
thought i know that some people you know
(31:22):
i was friends with some people on instagram and stuff
like that that believe the exact opposite of
what i believe and they were like people who don't take the vaccine should not
be admitted to the hospital and and they should just die and so i'm probably
a lunatic to some but for me personally i'm not going to be injecting myself
(31:43):
with something that's an experimental thing that we've been lied to up and down.
And that was kind of probably one of the times where I feel like in my life,
I took the biggest stand and I was like, I'm going to die on this hill.
I'm not going to allow my kids and I'm not going to put myself through that,
(32:08):
even though I had every single thing telling me around me,
including many of those who I had almost unlimited trust in,
telling me that I should do this.
So I really took a step back and was...
Questioned a lot. Questioned a significant amount, which was,
(32:31):
I think, one of the first of many dominoes to fall since then.
But it's kind of just like there's a thread that I began to tug at and unravel more and more.
And that it had a big impact. And I think that...
I think that being defined and standing up for what you truly believe in,
(32:52):
what's truly important to you, it's one, it's very, very personal.
And oftentimes no one's going to understand it other than you.
I think that maybe not even your wife.
Maybe her, but like someone who's extremely close to you might understand.
But sometimes you might be the only one that understands. And I think that if you're going...
(33:13):
Go ahead, yeah. I was just saying someone might have like, you know,
personal past experiences or personal situations that make it so that you,
you know, aren't defiant in certain situations.
You know, maybe you say, well, I've actually had this experience before,
or, you know, maybe someone who was older with the vaccine or maybe someone
(33:36):
had a pre-existing condition or something like that is like,
hey, you know, it's maybe worth the risk to me to try it in case it does maybe
have some sort of efficacy because I'm more at risk.
Yeah. You know, that's completely understandable. Right.
And so, you know, and I'm not going to judge anybody for doing that at all.
(33:57):
Just like I would hope somebody wouldn't judge me for the opposite.
And I think you and I, Jerry, we're in a very similar situation when it comes
to just kind of taking a stand against certain requirements that were put on
us and ultimatums and to push back.
(34:18):
I think it takes a lot of guts. Yeah, I mean, I remember at my work when I was
at Vanguard, they offered everyone $1,000 bonus to get the vaccine.
And then once that was gone, we were all just waiting for the vaccine.
Everyone that's not vaccinated to die. We were waiting for the notices to be
(34:40):
like, okay, now you have to do it.
And I was ready to just, I mean, have them fire me.
I was not going to, and figure out what I could do. Join the class.
If I had to go dig ditches to support my family, I'd do that.
But luckily, it never came to that.
And I was, they didn't let me come into the office.
(35:02):
I worked from home for even longer than that because I was a pariah,
obviously, sleep because I hadn't gotten the vaccine.
And so I had to stay home, work from home longer. And then I was just like, man.
But I submitted an exception and said, hey, I will not do this.
If you want to keep me in my talent, this is what I've done.
(35:24):
Did you ever submit an exception for your work? Did you have to do that?
Yeah. Yeah, I did. And then you know what?
Two years later, nobody even cares. Yeah. It's like in the US military,
you talk about people in the military,
dude they got let go and now the military
is going back to these people and asking them hey you
want to come back to the military after we dishonorably discharged you
(35:45):
for not taking the vaccine and oh by the way you don't have to take it now it's
like oh man i i would not want to be the recruiter on the other end of that
phone call because i i bet you they got an earful but yeah the the insanity
level was at a thousand percent and when i think i think fear makes a lot of makes people do really
weird things. Yeah, absolutely.
(36:09):
And it is frightening. And so, you know, like I said, sometimes you're the hero,
sometimes you're the villain, and sometimes you're the same thing at the same time.
And so I have a, and I had some other things I was going to talk about.
Like, I think with defiance, you have to think about who you're defying, right?
So with the case of a COVID government mandate, you know, people were getting
(36:32):
arrested for going and playing at neighbors' houses and you remember going to church,
or remember when that video that came out where those people were sitting on
their front porch and the police were walking by and get in your houses,
get in your houses and they were shooting people with paintballs on their front porch?
Yeah. Remember that video? Mm-hmm. That is, you know, Kamala's running mate, Waltz or...
(36:53):
Walls. Walls. That was in his district, dude. That was in his place.
That does not surprise me. And so it's like, who are you defying against?
Is it the government? Is it bad policies? Is it bad principles that you're in defiance of?
Is it evil that you're in defiance of?
However you define that. Are you defiant against a corporation?
Or is it against a king, a dictator, a ruler?
(37:17):
Could it be a religion? Martin Luther or Galileo saying, hey,
I think that we're revolving around the sun.
Or, you know, I think that these 99 things are wrong.
Or is your defiance against your neighbors or family or friends?
Or is it against yourself?
And maybe it's made me think of.
(37:37):
You know, a quote from like David Goggins, he's like, you know,
just try bet against me or, you know, like this like mentality of defiance.
So I think it's important to consider who you're defying. And then the secondly,
how you're defying is going and looting a footlocker a way to defy.
Is that the defiance that you, are you exceeding your end goal of defiance?
(38:00):
You know? No. You're mad that someone, you're mad. I can understand someone
possibly mad because of what they perceive to be police brutality.
Okay, I'm against police brutality too.
Does that mean I need to go burn a footlocker and I need to go burn down a car
dealership and I need to go rob a 7-Eleven?
Is that the proper form of defiance?
(38:21):
So think about that too. How are you defiant?
I mean, probably no clear example in the history of America and the United States
of the dichotomy of defiance is January 6th.
If you either believe that January 6th was an attempted overthrow of the government
(38:42):
by terrorists led by Donald Trump,
a modern day Boston massacre, if you will, or you think that,
hey, these people knew the election was rigged, they were upset with their government
for ramming through a rigged election,
and they went in there and protested, and the only person that got shot was
(39:05):
not anybody that was in the Capitol,
or not anybody that was in the Capitol building, but it was a protester,
a woman protester that was inside.
I mean, technically, she was inside the Capitol building, but she wasn't one
of the people that was already in there. The veteran.
Yeah, who was the veteran, Air Force veteran. and so that
(39:27):
is i think the biggest dichotomy her say
hundreds of police officers died did she
say that i don't think i'm pretty sure i'm pretty sure she said hundreds of
police officers died from you know as a result of that so all we get was all
we get is nancy pelosi's daughter's boyfriend's crocodile tears about how emotionally
sad he is about january 6th And how, you know, come on.
(39:50):
So obviously, you guys know what side I'm on.
But wait, what? But that is a clear example.
You're either on one side or you're on the other. I don't think that there are
very many people that are in the middle of that, that are just like,
well, I don't know. It's really complex.
You know, it's you kind of like whatever, you know.
So it's a clear example of how defiance can be seen as either you're a lunatic
(40:13):
or a terrorist or you're a hero and a freedom fighter. Yeah.
So I had a little bit about,
that I wanted to discuss. The downside of defiance, I think,
first of all, you need to understand who you're defying, what you're doing to defy.
And then some of the downsides of defiance is if you're always in defiance,
(40:33):
in some ways you can be blocking yourself from learning or from understanding
something that you might not understand.
And so I would suggest that it's important to really understand a topic before
you just adamantly are in defiance of it.
And, and by doing that, you'll feel more solidly on the ground of the defiance
(40:57):
that you're standing on.
Because, you know, I think about a kid who's just in school,
he's like, I'm not gonna learn this.
And he's just jumping around crazy. And he's being belligerent.
He's not going to be able to operate in society, he's not going to be open to
learning, he's not going to be a sponge to absorb information,
so that he can make a logical decision if he's just defiant across the board.
(41:20):
I have a kid on my soccer team, I'm coaching my seven-year-old's soccer team,
and there's this one kid who is so, I mean, Defiant is like literally his middle name.
I mean, it is so bad that it is so distracting to the other kids on the team
(41:41):
that it's almost like they can't learn these fundamentals of soccer because
this one kid just won't freaking listen.
Listen yeah and it's like i'm trying to help
you and because you're just
being constantly defiant about like hey you know do this do that or don't do
this don't do that and it's just like he's the opposite kid he does the opposite
(42:04):
of whatever you say yeah and it affects everybody else it affects everybody
else's ability to you know learn and so yeah i mean in that in that case it's like dude Dude,
sometimes you need to cut the defiant kid out. Yeah.
So speaking of kids, and I had a little bit on this, but I wanted to hear your
thoughts first. So what are some of your thoughts about how to –,
(42:26):
teach kids about defiance. It's a delicate balance.
Yeah. So what I had about kids, I think kids should generally be encouraged
to follow the rules and respect authority.
I think that that is a good thing to teach, but there are definitely situations
where teaching constructive, let's say, defiance can be a very valuable tool.
(42:49):
I think if we teach kids to think critically and to stand up for themselves and others,
then I think that they will be able to find a balance between when is appropriate
to be defiant and when it is not.
(43:09):
And some of these things of times that might be appropriate as a child to be
defiant are maybe similar to the other ones that I came up with or that I had put together.
But one of them was when children are facing unfair treatment,
if a child is being bullied or discriminated against or treated unfairly.
(43:34):
And a lot of these are kind of from adult to child, then I think it's good to
encourage a child to stand up and to stand their ground and to speak their mind,
especially when there's unfair,
clearly unfair treatment.
Treatment another one is you know standing up for for what's
(43:54):
right just generally if someone else is being treated on
unfairly or or wrong then
it is definitely an act of courage to stand up and be like hey don't talk about
him like that or there's no reason for you to say that or stop you know i remember
there was this one kid in middle school and he's kind of a heavier kid and for some reason.
(44:21):
It was like after I remember, I remember specifically, I think it was like sixth
grade after lunch, we would all go to the bathroom before we go back to the class.
And there was like two or three kids in the class. They were just like these
bully kids and they were bigger than everybody else or whatever.
And they thought that it would be funny if they basically they would slap this
(44:45):
kid on the stomach and like to see if they could get a handprint to show up.
And so he would go to the bathroom and they'd go
and they'd just be like just slapping this kid like
crazy and this kid felt such a need
to be like accepted that
he was like you know he thought it was funny but
i could tell that this like that the kid hated it
(45:08):
and it hurt and i mean it went on
for for a while and it was
like just a like a it happened almost every day
and i remember me as like
a i don't know how old are you in sixth grade like 10 year
old 11 year old yeah and i remember 12
or something yeah yeah i mean i'm i remember i wanted to be cool too and so
(45:29):
you know it's like i remember just racking my brain just oh do i say something
do i not do i whatever and i knew the kids wouldn't do it to me but if i associated
myself with this kid then i was going to kind of to be deemed a loser.
And so I maybe didn't stand up as fast as I should have, which I regret,
(45:50):
but it got to a point to where I was just like, guys, you got to stop.
Either you stop or I'm going to tell a teacher,
I'm going to bring this whole thing to light and it's going to be a bigger So,
I don't know, standing up for what's right sometimes can seem defiant in the
(46:10):
face of what might seem cool or might seem, you know, socially accepted or whatever.
That's important. Another one for kids is when you're questioning harmful authority.
If an adult is acting inappropriately or, you know, saying things or,
you know, we had a, we had a, an issue at one of our family friends,
(46:35):
their daughter was going to like a charter school or whatever.
And she was like 16 years old and apparently there
was a teacher there that he would get their cell phone numbers because these
these especially the girls in the class because they would do like these after-school
(46:57):
like technology classes or something and he started texting these girls and And,
you know, oh, you're you're so beautiful or your boyfriend's so lucky or,
you know, he would, you know, text him in the morning.
Hey, good morning. Something something's like individually.
And she was kind of like, hey, this like seems really weird.
(47:20):
Like this does not seem right.
These texts are kind of weird. And so she told her parents about it and they
were like, yeah, like, what is this?
And she was like, he does this all the time. And it's not just me.
It's like a bunch of the girls like, hey, sweetie, good morning. blah
blah blah blah it's like some 40 year old teacher hmm
that's not and and so and
the thing is though is that this teacher was like beloved
(47:43):
by everyone everyone loved him he was the most popular teacher
at the school and you know every you know
all of the students whatever and so she talked to
her friends about it and you know what her friends told
her oh no it's nothing it's nothing don't
you know don't say anything it's he's just being nice he's so
fun he's all this sort of kind of stuff you know don't make
(48:04):
a fuss about it or whatever and she did
she she i think she anonymously said some stuff and there ended up being this
massive investigation and and she had to record all you know send all of her
texts over and screenshots and all that kind of stuff and it turned out to be
this pretty big deal but you know her to be defiant enough to go against against, you know,
(48:27):
all of her friends that were telling her not to like question harmful authority. 100%. Yes.
And then the last one was personal boundaries. Obviously you need to be able
to, you need to teach your kids when to say no, when it comes to their body, right.
When it comes to, you know, touching or talking about or whatever else,
(48:49):
like even from a young age, you know, teach about private parts and different
things like that. Like...
They need to feel empowered to be able to say no and to know when something is wrong.
This is my last thing. I know this episode is probably – No,
those are great. No, those are great.
Great ideas. This episode has kind of gone way long, but as I was saying that
(49:13):
personal boundaries one, it
reminds me of that – what was that one doctor for the U.S. Olympics team?
Oh, yeah. Nassar. Larry Nassar. Yeah, Larry Nassar, right? Right.
So, you know, he's and I'm not I'm not this is this might sound bad,
but I'm not victim blaming at all.
I'm saying like or parent shaming, let's say.
(49:35):
But I don't know. No, I think if parents have open conversations with their kids,
like I would hope
that my kids understand and have
an open enough communication with me to like if a doctor in a dark room with
just him and my 14 year old daughter is giving her very intimate massages that
(50:03):
require him to like insert his fingers.
In areas that like that's that's
not appropriate like and and you know some
of these went on for years and it's oh it's just normal it's just
normal it's just normal it's like well maybe
maybe if there would have been more talks about personal boundaries and space
and hey nobody touches you here and if they do come talk to me about it you
(50:26):
will not get in trouble at all if if you know come talk to me and creating a
with your children an environment of trust you know maybe Maybe some of those
things could have been avoided.
Now, you know, that guy's a freaking sleazebag and should be buried under the...
Freaking jail but well i think that you
(50:48):
know i don't know yeah i totally agree and i think in a lot of those cases it's
an abuse of power these yeah people are abusing their power to and also one
of the main weapons of abuse of power is shame and that's why a lot of times,
(51:08):
people won't talk about their their abuse is because there's so much shame that
they have and that they feel so and they feel like they're going to be in trouble i mean literally.
It's like i know that they're for example like there's colleges and i'll just
(51:31):
say colleges where, let's just say, premarital sex is not allowed and you will
be kicked out for having premarital sex.
And there are situations where if a woman is raped,
then she's like, well, I can't go tell anybody because I was a part of this
(51:52):
and I'll get kicked out of school because I engaged in premarital sex.
And so there's this shame that... It's not premarital sex, by the way.
It well some people would say well you know you're just
saying that it was rape because and you maybe you're just
feeling guilty and so maybe we do need to maybe maybe
you need to be kicked out of school and so like that absolutely
(52:13):
happens and and i think that and then and then you get someone who's interviewing
you that's like well tell me exactly what happened and tell me exactly where
you put your hands and so like these type of inappropriate things that that
i and that's one thing i try to to teach my kids is just like, hey,
you're not, like you mentioned the same thing, you're not going to be in trouble.
(52:33):
And like, I don't want you to
feel any shame. And like, even if you think you're in trouble, you're not.
And so like, but abusers will use that as a shield so that they can continue to do that thing.
Oh man, if I, you know, if you tell on me, I'm going to tell them,
I'm going to tell the school that you were complicit in this and you're going to get kicked out too.
(52:57):
Or if you tell your parents, you know, how many Catholic, how many priests.
Abused young boys, even in the Boy Scouts, I mean, across almost any religion
where it's like, well, if you tell your parents, then God is going to get kicked
out or you'll, yeah, you'll be a sinner.
You'll be a sinner or God's going to hate you or don't tell your parents. I'm the authority here.
(53:20):
And so there's all these ways that abusers will use. And I think shame is is one of the main reasons.
Swords that they use against these kids or these people that are being abused.
Larry Nassar, oh, if you tell anybody, he's such a power authority.
Imagine going against Larry Nassar, then you get kicked out of one of the best
(53:41):
Olympic programs in the world that goes to the Olympics. You won't get to be
able to go to the Olympics. Sorry, give up your dream of the Olympic gold medal because you spoke up.
Think about Harvey Weinstein. Oh, give up your goals of being in the movies
because you don't want to go meet Harvey Weinstein in a hotel room.
You know so and then and then they use the shame was like well you came to the
(54:01):
hotel room so you kind of accepted that this was going to happen you know and
then that person's like well i don't want to tell anybody that because i was
there and you know it's like well you were abused and so.
That that's what happened and so i think it's so important talking to kids and
that list that you shared of all those reasons why to be defiant that's a great
list and you know telling the kids our kids, my kids,
(54:26):
that you can come and tell me anything.
And I'm not going to like, and it's a delicate thing, though. It's easy to say that.
It's very easy to say that. And I'll say that there have been times in my life
when I was very scared that I was going to get in trouble for telling my parents anything.
So there's a lot of things I didn't tell my parents, even though I needed some
(54:46):
guidance, I didn't say anything because I felt so much shame.
Or I felt like I was going to be in trouble or I was, I mean,
even at the slightest thing, I remember, I remember when the Janet Jackson wardrobe
malfunction thing. Yeah.
I felt like whenever that happened, I felt personally responsible.
(55:10):
I was in trouble. I felt that it was my fault that that happened.
And I was just like, I felt like there was a lot of...
That's that mechanism of shame that just kind of prevents kids from being open
with their parents and talking about things.
And you know there's times when
(55:31):
i was a kid that were it was so heightened that i
actually felt guilt for literally everything things i
had absolutely no control over that it was my fault or whatever and some of
that probably was like secondhand like cringe you know you're just like you
know just general general uncomfortableness with the situation yeah some of
it was that too but anyway i think that it's uh so important to understand that
(55:53):
and and i think that our Our new generation, us as fathers,
we're changing things than how it was done previously.
We're teaching kids to think for themselves, to stand up for themselves.
We're a lot more vigilant, I think, than the prior generation was in many ways.
Because we're way more involved as parents. I think millennial fathers are some
(56:15):
of the most involved parents that there ever has been, probably in the history of the world.
And so I think we're on a good track when it comes to that. So great examples.
Thank you for sharing those.
Do you want to share our last quotes or do you have anything else you want to share? You can go.
So I have two. I'll share one. Okay. Yeah, go ahead. I had one by Martin Luther King Jr.
(56:35):
He said, in the face of injustice, silence is betrayal. Hmm.
Saying nothing is a betrayal of injustice. Yeah.
It's a call to action you know i have
one from thoreau henry david thoreau he said
you know he's he was had a lot on civil disobedience he said anyone in a free
(56:59):
society where the laws are unjust has an obligation to break the law so it's
kind of like it pretty interesting the the the last one that i had in this one
it says by anonymous so i don't know
whatever that means but it i thought
was that means it's open to take credit for yeah certainly i
(57:19):
should just put ethan thomas in there no it says it
says stand up even if you stand alone
yeah you know it's
a lot of times defiance is very hard because you probably are not in the majority
whenever you're being defiant and so it can be very i think the very nature
(57:42):
of of being defiant is against the majority of whatever you're being defined against.
Yeah. And so it can be scary. It can feel lonesome.
It can feel, you know, like there's going to be consequences or,
you know, just, just different things. And, and so, um.
(58:06):
Even if you're alone, don't be afraid to do what's right. Yeah. Yeah.
I like that. And I feel like defiance is something that in the culture that
I grew up in, I feel like it's in me.
It's a part of what I was raised in. I would agree with that when it comes to
(58:28):
you. I think you could be very defiant.
Well, yeah, but I think... Not in a bad way. Not in a bad way.
I think you've always been a questioner, which is a good thing.
Yeah, but I think it's... Like a critical thinker, I guess. But I think that
the culture that I was raised in and the beliefs that I had all growing up,
I feel like all of it was in a culture of defiance.
(58:50):
You stand up for what's true, even if you're the only one in the room.
And there was a lot of times I felt like I was doing that.
And people were like, oh, man, you believe in something that's crazy or whatever. or whatever.
And I was like, well, I know it's right. So I'll be hated by everybody.
And so I think that in many ways, it can be a good thing.
(59:12):
And it can keep, as long as you don't get to overdo it, I think,
like we talked about. I think it can lead to resilience as well,
which is always a good thing. Yeah.
All right. Well, this has been a long episode, but I think this was one of our
best episodes So it's like a conversational standpoint. I think there was a ton of great stuff.
You know, I'm definitely going to kind of take this back in,
(59:34):
especially when it comes to teaching my kids about kind of defiance and what's
what's OK and what's not.
And that's kind of what I got out of this from from what I'm going to do for my next steps.
I mean, I I understand from an adult, from my own perspective,
when when it's right and when it's not right.
But that's definitely a knowledge that all of us can pass on to the next generation.
(59:56):
Can you hit that list one more time? Just one last time. Just real quick.
Those three, four, I think you have four bullet points of when it's appropriate to be defiant.
So when you're facing unfair treatment, when you're standing up for what is
right, when you're questioning harmful authority, and then when it comes to personal boundaries.
Those are always, for kids, excellent times to teach them to be defiant.
(01:00:20):
Right go against what might seem normal
if it doesn't feel right then you know
say something it's probably not right yep yeah no excellent
well you know thanks for all those out here listening to the podcast and supporting
us you might not agree with all of our opinions but at least you can agree that
it's worth discussing and these are things that you should be thinking about
(01:00:43):
and these are things you think that maybe you don't agree with everything that
we're saying saying, but what does that mean for you?
And that's the whole point of the podcast is you're applying these principles
in your own life and you're adding them to your own creed so that you can live
the life that is virtuous.
You can live the life that when you look yourself in the mirror,
you're pleased with the person who's looking back at you and the things that you stand for.
(01:01:06):
And if you're going to stand for something, that might be in a defiant manner sometimes.
So So would love for you to add this one to your list of creeds or maybe it's
not a virtue particularly, but a weapon that your virtues can use.
Put it in your tool belt. Tool belt, exactly.
So with that, let's build our creed together. All right, let's do it.
(01:01:28):
Music.
Hello and welcome to another episode of A Brother's Creed podcast,
where we inspire fathers to build the blueprint for the next generation.
We are the Thomas Brothers. I'm Ethan. And I'm Jared.
And today we're talking about a very unique attribute, can be a virtue.
It's the attribute of defiance. And it's so interesting. There's so many facets to this.
(00:23):
I'm excited to kind of pick your brain. I have a couple stories,
but a lot of questions I think I just want to just talk with you back and forth
on to see what your thoughts are, Ethan.
So it'll be an interesting one to explore as defiance is one of those things
that it's kind of a double-edged sword.
For some people, you could be a hero or a martyr.
(00:46):
And for others, you're a terrorist or a lunatic.
And so it's exactly almost opposite.
It can be just depending on who's perceiving it. I think that probably the most
important perception is your own, how you feel about something.
And it's kind of one of those things that requires a lot of bravery.
(01:08):
I think that that's why it can be seen as a virtue or maybe not a virtue,
but as a good attribute, because you got to be brave if you're going to stand
up in defiance of something.
And the bigger that something is, the more bravery often it takes.
And so we're going to talk through this one. think about
and also the complexities of how we
might teach our kids to be defiant in good ways without you know teaching them
(01:34):
to go off the rails you know because as parents having a defiant children is
that's not what parents usually want so it'll be an interesting conversation
i'm excited to get into it with you yeah let's do it all right let's dive in,
do not go gentle into that good night old age should burn and rave at close of day.
Music.
(01:58):
You should be a monster an absolute monster and then you should learn how to
control it no retreat no surrender you can't conceive of what i'm capable of.
Music.
(02:23):
All right, so I look at the... Oh, you had something. I had something first.
First of all, how do you like my stash? It's looking pretty good.
It's... I didn't mention anything about it. You got a thick stash.
It would take me about 10 years to grow that stash. So I grew it,
and then I... And it would still be patchy.
And then I went to a jujitsu, and the guys were like, hey, man,
(02:46):
that looks really good. And I was like, oh, you think?
And then Shanna at first, she was like, you look like your dad,
you know? Because our dad had a mustache for many, many years.
Although his didn't come over the edge. His was BYU approved.
It only went to the corners of your mouth.
And then I was like, okay. So I grew a little bit of a scruff with it too.
(03:08):
And my wife Shannon, she's like, you look like a pilot or something.
And I told one of the guys at Jiu-Jitsu that. And he says, well,
my girlfriend told me I look like a pervert.
Or a pedophile or something like that. so he's like a
pilot's much better and then the other day you know shan said i think i think
it's growing on me a little bit i told the guys that and they were like yeah
(03:30):
so maybe i'll keep it until after my competition maybe it'll bring me mustache
powers and there you go and if you need to cut a little bit of weight just bring
a razor and you might have to cut it off,
i'll sit in the sauna for an extra hour before i cut this thing off now Yeah.
So anyway, we want to get that right off the top. There you go. There you go.
(03:51):
And some would say that it is defiant that you are growing a mustache against cultural norms.
Against cultural norms, you know? Yeah. Over the, especially over the- Slightly
over the corners of the mouth, you know?
Yeah. It's borderline sinful territory.
Well, it's funny, you know, at the beginning you kind of said,
(04:11):
well, defiance is a virtue. you and then you kind of said well maybe you know
I almost see defiance as it's more of like a tool that,
needs to be used at certain times, but it can be overused, which is just freaking annoying.
(04:34):
So I guess from a definition standpoint, defiance is the act of openly resisting
or challenging authority, rules, or norms.
And I like that. The bold disobedience. Yeah.
Openly defying, right? It's like bold, deliberate opposition where a person
(04:55):
refuses to comply with or shows like a lack of respect for a certain thing or
a certain power or control.
It can be expressed with actions or words or demonstrated by a refusal to do
something or to submit or obey to somebody's orders. disorders.
(05:15):
So I think there's a lot of things. And I had some examples too of defiance
throughout history that I thought were interesting.
And you're absolutely right. As I was going through that, I was almost looking
at defiance in the face of tyranny.
But then I started thinking about it and I was like, what about defiant kids?
Who wants a kid that's going
(05:37):
to constantly be defying you know your your
your suggestions and your
your you know commands or whatever else i mean
especially little kids like they don't know anything yeah and so you know i
kind of broke it down into two things of when is it okay to be defiant from
like like an adult standpoint or i guess like a person standpoint and then breaking
(06:00):
it down a little bit into like when is it okay okay, for kids to be defiant.
And then I got a couple of quotes too. But I know you said you kind of had some questions.
Maybe we should start with a couple of those and then we can get into some examples or...
Well, I think that just kind of also kind of setting the stage,
I think defiance is a very personal, a very personal, and it's very real in
(06:22):
that you're standing up for your most closely held beliefs.
Hopefully, if you're in defiance of something, hopefully you're defiant because
it's based off of a core principle or core belief that you have that you will not budge on.
And that involves bravery. I don't, like a virtue is something that I think
(06:43):
is likely always, when you say something is a virtue, that has a connotation that it's always good.
I don't think defiance is always good. Yeah.
I think that it can be bad, but I think that in many ways it can be that mechanism
to stand up for what you truly believe in.
And that involves bravery. And that's oftentimes why, historically,
(07:05):
when we look back, sometimes favorably on historic figures like,
you know, we look at Leonidas and the 300 Spartans, and we see how defiant they were.
We're like, yeah, that's such a great example of defiance. We look back at Galileo
and his heliocentric model in the 1600s and how he was defiant against the Catholic Church,
(07:28):
and they eventually imprisoned him in a home arrest for, quote,
vehemently suspect of heresy.
That's what he was sentenced for. Was it Martin Luther?
Not the king, but Martin Luther, you know, against the church at that time when
they had a complete monopoly on all religion, right?
(07:51):
They didn't even, not that people could read, but we didn't have translations
of the Bible or you didn't have different things. And it's like,
you know, I'm going to go against that.
I'm going to go against the norm and what's been done. And yeah,
like. Yeah. And then he translated.
Nail, yeah. Translated the. Bible into German. sermon the bible you know yeah
nail a freaking scroll to the door of the catholic church.
(08:13):
Yeah actually it's funny you say that because i actually did do a little bit
of research on him and he's actually a lot
more controversial than you think yeah so i decided not to not to talk about
him i probably did 20 minutes of research into martin luther and i think some
of his ideas were kind of extreme but like yeah so but but it's an example of
defiance with that and defiance is It's not always a good thing. It can be.
(08:37):
Yeah. I mean, but the thing is, is like, I think that sometimes we look back
at history and we like to put, and this is kind of a theme I have throughout
my thing as we'd like to put people.
In certain archetypes or in certain roles to say, look, he was a hero.
I really admire him because of this. Or oftentimes, these people are extremely flawed.
(09:00):
Or it's like, we'll simplify history for our own sake to say good and bad.
The North in the Civil War, good. The South, bad. Watch your tongue.
That's just a simplified version of history that everybody is taught,
and we say, well, and then we simplify the reasons.
(09:21):
Oh, this is what it was for. Well, to the victor goes the spoils,
right? Exactly. To the victor always goes the spoils.
They write the history. And so instead of being a hero, you're the terrorist.
So that's kind of what happened with the Robert E. Lee statues.
Instead of being the hero, he was the terrorist. And so as we go through some
(09:42):
of my examples, it's actually interesting to see some of that.
But I have one example. Maybe I'll start this example with a personal example of...
Of defiance. And I think this is something that also we can do.
I feel like defiance is a muscle, right?
If you don't exercise a muscle, then it's going to atrophy. You're not going
(10:05):
to be able to know how to use that.
So I want to share an example of small acts of defiance.
So when I was As a young lad, I was 19 years old, yeah, I went on a mission, a religious mission,
and I was in something called the Missionary Training Center.
(10:28):
Now, this thing was locked down.
You had basically no freedom to do anything other than what they were telling
you to do, which was simply...
They lock out the outside world just so you can focus on what you're doing.
Yeah, it's like you're so focused on like preparing to teach people.
And then I was learning a language as well.
(10:48):
So it's like you're learning a language and you're preparing to learn all this
scriptures and all this kind of stuff.
So you and you you have like one hour a day that you can go outside and play.
But the rest of that you're studying and you live in these dorms and you can't
go off the campus. Like you're on the campus.
You have no TV, no television, no nothing, no contact with family.
(11:09):
I mean, you could leave if you wanted to.
It's not like a prison, but... Well, yeah, but... It would be, yeah.
You're willing to go on this thing.
But it is very controlled, I'll say. And so one of the things that really bugged
me, and I still remember this to this day, is that when people go up in one of the dorms.
(11:33):
There was like an old just corded phone on the wall.
You know, the one just like there was a receiver And it had like the little
bungee thing and it just was on the receiver.
Now somebody would go and they would take that phone, they would turn it upside
down and they would put it on the receiver.
So it was like, the phone was still hung up, but it was upside down.
I don't know why. And it still kind of fascinates me to today.
(11:57):
But that really bugged me.
And every single time I went by there, I grabbed it and I put it back on right.
That's not how it should be. That's not right. You know, these guys are just
freaking causing chaos in here.
And, you know, it's just so funny that I actually, in some ways,
now that I think about that, I actually admire that a little bit as a small act of defiance.
(12:21):
And it's a small act of innocent defiance whoever was
flipping it upside down whoever was flipping that upside down kudos to
you and i think that it it's actually
thinking about that i think maybe it is important for us
to do small acts of defiance to keep that muscle strong so that when we need
to create do a large act of defiance it is not that action is not foreign to
(12:46):
us And so that was one example that I had that I've always remembered that.
And I always thought that was so silly that that bugged me so much.
But perhaps he was onto something. Yeah, that's awesome.
Awesome you know a couple or one
of the the the stories that came to
(13:08):
my mind right and this is something that kind of directly
has impacted the future of the country
we live in was kind of american defiance against tyranny you know specifically
talking about how you know the the The 13 colonies were defiant to England that
(13:29):
eventually led to the Revolutionary War.
And some of those, I guess for a quick history lesson, so after the French and
Indian War, where the British were fighting the French, British,
the Brit, Britain was like flat broke and they owed lots of money to other countries
(13:49):
because they had spent so much money fighting the,
the French and the Indian population in, in, in the Americas.
And so to, to kind of grow their territories.
So they basically imposed some very heavy taxes on the American colonies to pay their war debts.
(14:10):
Some of these were the Stamp Act, the Townshend Act, and a couple other ones.
And so the colonists, obviously, they hated this because they didn't have any say in these taxes.
And that's kind of where we get the phrase, no taxation without representation,
(14:30):
because they didn't have any colonists or anybody Anybody representing the colonists
in the British Parliament, the British Parliament were just like,
oh, you know, yeah, increased taxes, increased taxes, increased taxes,
and they didn't have any say in it.
And so you had the Boston Massacre, which was in 1770, which,
you know, had to do with the British soldiers.
(14:52):
There was a couple things that were going on, but some of it was confiscation
of weapons, and there was a large argument, and some of the British soldiers fired into the crowd,
killed a bunch of colonists, and maybe some went the other way, too.
But then you had the Boston Tea Party, where the colonists were defiant to the
(15:16):
tea tax, and they went into Boston
Harbor and dumped all the tea overboard into the ship for the ships.
And so all of that defiance eventually led to the United States declaring independence
in 1776 and starting the Revolutionary War.
(15:36):
Because it was an act of people kind of in unity standing up against what we
felt at the time was unfair regulation and was tyranny.
And there were colonists who, or excuse me, there were, what do they call people
that were still loyal to the crown who lived in the colonies at that time and
(16:01):
they supported the crown crown,
and they didn't defy or rebel.
But I think luckily for not only us, but for the world, I think it... I'm glad that we did.
I'm glad that those people stood up against injustice and said, this is not right.
This isn't how we should live.
(16:22):
This isn't how we want our future to be. This isn't how we want our kids to be raised.
And so they pushed back. And I think that was kind of, I guess,
a good example of defiance in my mind.
Yeah, I think the American Revolution is clearly an example.
But those guys were terrorists on the other end. They were treasonous terrorists,
(16:46):
and there were bounties out for their lives, and,
And so, but we think about the reason for their defiance, and I think some of
the reasons for their defiance, we've kind of, over time, we've really sugared it up, if you will.
Perhaps more to the truth is like, hey, man, I want to keep more of my money,
(17:08):
and I want the government out of my pocket, you know?
And I want to be able to do what I want to do. i saw this
thing and it was like you know a massive rebellion
and revolution over a three percent t-tax yet
now we're okay with 40 percent
the capital gains tax yeah you know it's
like tax any single everything you buy anything you do
(17:30):
it's just tax it when you buy it tax it when you make it tax
it when you sell it tax it when you you know oh you're
gonna you're gonna continue to drive your car on the road oh we're gonna
tax it every single year you know it's like and now they want to tax unrealized
gains on your stocks yeah oh you might make money from this oh well yeah yeah
25 unrealized gains tax yeah so insanity um maybe maybe we're not living in
(17:53):
the future that the founding fathers thought that we would i don't think we maybe we are i don't know.
Interesting that story i love that of defiance i have another one of defiance,
have you ever heard of operation valkyrie yeah and against germany it was a
assassination assassination attempt on Hitler, right?
Yep. Yeah. So there was a group of German military officers who were planning...
(18:17):
Tom Cruise tried to kill him. Yeah.
The one-eyed, you can see an eyepatch in that one.
There were officers who were trying to plan an assassination attempt on Hitler.
And this was shortly after he lost the Battle of Stalingrad,
which we have covered how horrible that was.
And Soviet forces were basically inbound to Germany.
So they had tried to, this group of people had tried to assassinate him over five different times.
(18:43):
So this was four different times, and this was the fifth time.
So this guy's name is Klaus von Strauffenberg.
So Strauffenberg, in July of 1944, he was at the Wolf's Lair with Hitler.
That's what they called the Hitler's, I think, one of his getaways.
And he placed a briefcase bomb against the conference room table that Hitler
(19:10):
was sitting at. And it had a timer on it.
Now, if you think about a long...
Just to describe how it was, it was like a long conference table. And...
Kind of, there was two big legs of the table, which were like solid wood.
Hitler was sitting, he wasn't sitting at either end of the conference table.
He was kind of sitting on in the middle on one side.
(19:33):
And so you think that, you know, maybe a couple feet to each of his sides would
be the legs of the table, and then there would be the ends of the table.
So this guy left that bomb, briefcase bomb,
right there next to Hitler, and then he had done it where he would time it so
that he would get a call right at that time so he would leave the room,
(19:54):
and he left the room, and another guy who was in that room named Heinz Brandt.
Unknowingly moved the briefcase to the opposite side of the leg of the table away from Hitler.
Was this Brandt guy in on the thing? No, he didn't.
He just was like, this is in the way, and he moved it out of the way.
(20:15):
And so you think about Hitler sitting in that middle of that table and now the
bomb is on the opposite side of that wooden leg.
And so it was like a solid wooden leg, right? And when the bomb went off.
Blew, you know, that guy up, that guy Heinz Brandt, he died in two,
and I think, and let's see, two other officers died.
(20:37):
And the plotters, they didn't know that Hitler didn't die. They assumed that he had died.
So they were trying to do a coup as well at the same time to try to take back the government.
And it failed, and the Nazis were able to beat them back.
And the guy, Strauffenberg, he actually flew to Berlin right after he left that room.
(20:58):
And he got caught in that night.
Him and a handful of other folks who were with that conspiracy were executed via firing squad.
And in the months following, the Gestapo really cracked down on cleaning house.
Essentially, they were going in and reading people's journals and letters and
(21:20):
all this kind of stuff. And they arrested more than 7,000 people.
And they killed 4,980 people who they thought were treasonous.
And some of them actually... They cleaned the swamp, if you will.
Yeah, some of them actually were sent to concentration camps,
(21:41):
some of the high-level generals.
Except for it's the opposite. It was the bad doing that to the good people.
Yeah, exactly. I guess are what we perceive as the good people.
People who were trying to assassinate Hitler.
Some people say that they wanted to just end the war with the West and kind of call a truce.
I was reading a little bit more saying that, well, maybe they wanted to put
(22:02):
in someone in their own power to replace Hitler.
So it's one of those things that... But nevertheless, it was an act of defiance, right?
And so I thought that was a kind of a cool story from history about defiance.
Not that I'm advocating assassinating anybody, but it was an act of defiance.
And so that story is over, but I want to separately mention something very interesting
(22:26):
that I saw about that story.
And something that last night in the debate, Trump, he said that he was almost
assassinated. Trump was almost assassinated.
And his quote was, it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.
Now, do you know what Hitler said when he almost got killed by that bomb?
(22:48):
He said it was a, quote, divine moment in history.
And he said almost the exact same thing on the German media,
that God had intervened to save his life.
So I think it's so interesting. I'm not necessarily comparing Trump to Hitler,
but I am saying that it's so interesting how people will use whatever's happening as,
(23:16):
they'll try to use it and put God behind it to make them look better,
to make it seem as though they have favor for the gods.
Well, you look at almost pretty much any ruler in history, and I mean,
look at the entire Roman royalty in Great Britain and that whole lineage.
(23:37):
They believe that they are chosen by God to lead the United Kingdom.
And so to kind of say that is very interesting and it's kind of like i think
sometimes people take coincidences or chance.
Happenings and you know chance turned his head and they take that
(23:58):
to mean oh well this was god you know maybe
it was just something that happened you know maybe it could
have been it could have been god or it could have been it could have been a coincidence it could
have been could god maybe have saved hitler or could
it just end in a coincidence i don't think we'll ever really know but you
definitely whoever's has that brush with
death is obviously gonna claim it was
(24:19):
God so anyway I don't know yeah well if maybe Hitler
would have died then there would have been some kind of uprising that extended
the war for you know so many more years or something or you know it's it's you
can't yeah it's like a butterfly effect it just like yeah a butterfly effect
you know and I and I yeah a lot of people will just they'll take credit for
(24:39):
or you You know, for more of like,
I don't know, I don't want to say sales, but more of, yeah, trying to add the
divine into something that they really like. It adds to their credibility.
It's like, not only am I a great politician, but God also is on my side. Yeah.
Interesting. I thought that was very interesting that he said,
because I was reading through like what he said about it, and I was like,
(25:00):
that is exactly, almost word for word what Trump just said. Yeah.
So I thought that was kind of interesting.
So I kind of had, I want to talk quickly about...
When it is okay to be defiant or when maybe you should be defiant,
and then give an example as well.
So when is it okay to be defiant?
(25:24):
And I kind of read a bunch of different things and kind of put together four
times that I thought was important, right?
So the first one is when there's moral or ethical values are at stake.
If following the rules leads to violating a core principle or causing harm,
(25:45):
you can stand up for that. You can be defiant.
It's a good time to be defiant. When the rights or freedoms are being threatened,
when our basic life, liberty, pursuit of happiness is being threatened,
maybe that's a good time to be defiant.
When laws or systems are unjust?
And how many times are there, I don't know, maybe there's taxes that are being
(26:08):
implemented that we believe or the colonists believed that they were unjust.
And then the last one was standing up for the vulnerable and the weak.
I think that is kind of of four times that I think it is important to be outwardly
bold and defiant and to stand up against those types of things.
(26:34):
One thing, not to get too political, but one thing in our lifetime that I believe was a.
Kind of stand up and be defiant was with all this COVID-19 stuff that happened.
(26:55):
Everyone kind of has their own opinion, which is completely fine.
But a lot of times people that didn't have the opinion of the masses were highly looked down upon,
or they were accused of being bigots or right-wingers or anti-scientists or
whatever else it might be.
(27:15):
And I'm not talking, can, it's a whole group of things that are compiled together, right?
And I don't think you can take out one specific thing and say,
oh, I was defiant against this or defiant against that.
Or I think you have to look at it holistically. So you had, you know,
these mask mandates, and then you had lockdowns from businesses.
(27:37):
You had lockdowns in schools. You had lockdowns in all these different You had,
number one, you had lies and just massive financial gain and greed from certain bodies,
companies, organizations, right?
And then you had mandatory vaccinations in many cases that was,
(28:01):
hey, if you don't do this, then you'll lose your job, or you can't go here,
you can't go there, your kid can't
come to our school if they're not vaccinated, or whatever it might be.
But I think that there was a lot of people that kind of were defiant against
those things and pushed back against what the social norm was.
(28:25):
And I think as time went on and we understood more, I think a lot of it was just kind of out of fear.
We understood more that 99% of children that got COVID showed barely no symptoms
or maybe a light cold symptoms and had no negative effect.
(28:47):
Maybe it wasn't the best idea to be masking kids and taking them out of schools for an entire year.
I don't know. I think personally that that was a good time opportunity to kind
of show some outward personal defiance and people hated it.
(29:08):
I mean, if you didn't have your mask pulled over your nose in public,
then people were like freaking out and you get attacked and all that sort of stuff.
Stuff when it's like dude this this mask is
not even if i sneezed it would go right
through this mask anyway it's all for show you know
and there are certain populations that were
(29:29):
you know maybe should have listened
more or were more susceptible than others and
and like i said i think the science has we've understood a little bit
more about that but i don't
i think it's kind of an example particularly in in our lifetime
that's like hey no i'm not just gonna do something
just because somebody told me to because you know
(29:50):
fauci said oh it was you know this crazy bat thing and then you know come to
find out that it's you know this man-made thing in a lab somewhere that was
leaked on purpose or not yeah you know it's like oh i didn't even know it's
like we've You've frigging funded half of this stuff. Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, I don't know. It was an opportunity for certain people to kind
(30:14):
of exercise that defiant muscle, for sure.
And it was uncomfortable for a lot of people. Yeah.
I think that you're absolutely right. Yeah.
I think for me, it was a major, major kind of catalyst, I think,
(30:36):
in my life, as well as my family's.
I think that it was kind of a, you know, I felt like there was so much trying
to be shoved down my throat from the media, from the vaccine,
from work, from everywhere, every single angle.
(31:00):
And I personally felt like, even from religious leaders, I felt like it was being pushed on me.
And I just was very, very skeptical of that.
And it really- I think it goes back to what you said at the beginning,
which defiance is like a very personal thing. It is, yeah.
And it can mean something different for everyone. one some people
thought i know that some people you know
(31:22):
i was friends with some people on instagram and stuff
like that that believe the exact opposite of
what i believe and they were like people who don't take the vaccine should not
be admitted to the hospital and and they should just die and so i'm probably
a lunatic to some but for me personally i'm not going to be injecting myself
(31:43):
with something that's an experimental thing that we've been lied to up and down.
And that was kind of probably one of the times where I feel like in my life,
I took the biggest stand and I was like, I'm going to die on this hill.
I'm not going to allow my kids and I'm not going to put myself through that,
(32:08):
even though I had every single thing telling me around me,
including many of those who I had almost unlimited trust in,
telling me that I should do this.
So I really took a step back and was...
Questioned a lot. Questioned a significant amount, which was,
(32:31):
I think, one of the first of many dominoes to fall since then.
But it's kind of just like there's a thread that I began to tug at and unravel more and more.
And that it had a big impact. And I think that...
I think that being defined and standing up for what you truly believe in,
(32:52):
what's truly important to you, it's one, it's very, very personal.
And oftentimes no one's going to understand it other than you.
I think that maybe not even your wife.
Maybe her, but like someone who's extremely close to you might understand.
But sometimes you might be the only one that understands. And I think that if you're going...
(33:13):
Go ahead, yeah. I was just saying someone might have like, you know,
personal past experiences or personal situations that make it so that you,
you know, aren't defiant in certain situations.
You know, maybe you say, well, I've actually had this experience before,
or, you know, maybe someone who was older with the vaccine or maybe someone
(33:36):
had a pre-existing condition or something like that is like,
hey, you know, it's maybe worth the risk to me to try it in case it does maybe
have some sort of efficacy because I'm more at risk.
Yeah. You know, that's completely understandable. Right.
And so, you know, and I'm not going to judge anybody for doing that at all.
(33:57):
Just like I would hope somebody wouldn't judge me for the opposite.
And I think you and I, Jerry, we're in a very similar situation when it comes
to just kind of taking a stand against certain requirements that were put on
us and ultimatums and to push back.
(34:18):
I think it takes a lot of guts. Yeah, I mean, I remember at my work when I was
at Vanguard, they offered everyone $1,000 bonus to get the vaccine.
And then once that was gone, we were all just waiting for the vaccine.
Everyone that's not vaccinated to die. We were waiting for the notices to be
(34:40):
like, okay, now you have to do it.
And I was ready to just, I mean, have them fire me.
I was not going to, and figure out what I could do. Join the class.
If I had to go dig ditches to support my family, I'd do that.
But luckily, it never came to that.
And I was, they didn't let me come into the office.
(35:02):
I worked from home for even longer than that because I was a pariah,
obviously, sleep because I hadn't gotten the vaccine.
And so I had to stay home, work from home longer. And then I was just like, man.
But I submitted an exception and said, hey, I will not do this.
If you want to keep me in my talent, this is what I've done.
(35:24):
Did you ever submit an exception for your work? Did you have to do that?
Yeah. Yeah, I did. And then you know what?
Two years later, nobody even cares. Yeah. It's like in the US military,
you talk about people in the military,
dude they got let go and now the military
is going back to these people and asking them hey you
want to come back to the military after we dishonorably discharged you
(35:45):
for not taking the vaccine and oh by the way you don't have to take it now it's
like oh man i i would not want to be the recruiter on the other end of that
phone call because i i bet you they got an earful but yeah the the insanity
level was at a thousand percent and when i think i think fear makes a lot of makes people do really
weird things. Yeah, absolutely.
(36:09):
And it is frightening. And so, you know, like I said, sometimes you're the hero,
sometimes you're the villain, and sometimes you're the same thing at the same time.
And so I have a, and I had some other things I was going to talk about.
Like, I think with defiance, you have to think about who you're defying, right?
So with the case of a COVID government mandate, you know, people were getting
(36:32):
arrested for going and playing at neighbors' houses and you remember going to church,
or remember when that video that came out where those people were sitting on
their front porch and the police were walking by and get in your houses,
get in your houses and they were shooting people with paintballs on their front porch?
Yeah. Remember that video? Mm-hmm. That is, you know, Kamala's running mate, Waltz or...
(36:53):
Walls. Walls. That was in his district, dude. That was in his place.
That does not surprise me. And so it's like, who are you defying against?
Is it the government? Is it bad policies? Is it bad principles that you're in defiance of?
Is it evil that you're in defiance of?
However you define that. Are you defiant against a corporation?
Or is it against a king, a dictator, a ruler?
(37:17):
Could it be a religion? Martin Luther or Galileo saying, hey,
I think that we're revolving around the sun.
Or, you know, I think that these 99 things are wrong.
Or is your defiance against your neighbors or family or friends?
Or is it against yourself?
And maybe it's made me think of.
(37:37):
You know, a quote from like David Goggins, he's like, you know,
just try bet against me or, you know, like this like mentality of defiance.
So I think it's important to consider who you're defying. And then the secondly,
how you're defying is going and looting a footlocker a way to defy.
Is that the defiance that you, are you exceeding your end goal of defiance?
(38:00):
You know? No. You're mad that someone, you're mad. I can understand someone
possibly mad because of what they perceive to be police brutality.
Okay, I'm against police brutality too.
Does that mean I need to go burn a footlocker and I need to go burn down a car
dealership and I need to go rob a 7-Eleven?
Is that the proper form of defiance?
(38:21):
So think about that too. How are you defiant?
I mean, probably no clear example in the history of America and the United States
of the dichotomy of defiance is January 6th.
If you either believe that January 6th was an attempted overthrow of the government
(38:42):
by terrorists led by Donald Trump,
a modern day Boston massacre, if you will, or you think that,
hey, these people knew the election was rigged, they were upset with their government
for ramming through a rigged election,
and they went in there and protested, and the only person that got shot was
(39:05):
not anybody that was in the Capitol,
or not anybody that was in the Capitol building, but it was a protester,
a woman protester that was inside.
I mean, technically, she was inside the Capitol building, but she wasn't one
of the people that was already in there. The veteran.
Yeah, who was the veteran, Air Force veteran. and so that
(39:27):
is i think the biggest dichotomy her say
hundreds of police officers died did she
say that i don't think i'm pretty sure i'm pretty sure she said hundreds of
police officers died from you know as a result of that so all we get was all
we get is nancy pelosi's daughter's boyfriend's crocodile tears about how emotionally
sad he is about january 6th And how, you know, come on.
(39:50):
So obviously, you guys know what side I'm on.
But wait, what? But that is a clear example.
You're either on one side or you're on the other. I don't think that there are
very many people that are in the middle of that, that are just like,
well, I don't know. It's really complex.
You know, it's you kind of like whatever, you know.
So it's a clear example of how defiance can be seen as either you're a lunatic
(40:13):
or a terrorist or you're a hero and a freedom fighter. Yeah.
So I had a little bit about,
that I wanted to discuss. The downside of defiance, I think,
first of all, you need to understand who you're defying, what you're doing to defy.
And then some of the downsides of defiance is if you're always in defiance,
(40:33):
in some ways you can be blocking yourself from learning or from understanding
something that you might not understand.
And so I would suggest that it's important to really understand a topic before
you just adamantly are in defiance of it.
And, and by doing that, you'll feel more solidly on the ground of the defiance
(40:57):
that you're standing on.
Because, you know, I think about a kid who's just in school,
he's like, I'm not gonna learn this.
And he's just jumping around crazy. And he's being belligerent.
He's not going to be able to operate in society, he's not going to be open to
learning, he's not going to be a sponge to absorb information,
so that he can make a logical decision if he's just defiant across the board.
(41:20):
I have a kid on my soccer team, I'm coaching my seven-year-old's soccer team,
and there's this one kid who is so, I mean, Defiant is like literally his middle name.
I mean, it is so bad that it is so distracting to the other kids on the team
(41:41):
that it's almost like they can't learn these fundamentals of soccer because
this one kid just won't freaking listen.
Listen yeah and it's like i'm trying to help
you and because you're just
being constantly defiant about like hey you know do this do that or don't do
this don't do that and it's just like he's the opposite kid he does the opposite
(42:04):
of whatever you say yeah and it affects everybody else it affects everybody
else's ability to you know learn and so yeah i mean in that in that case it's like dude Dude,
sometimes you need to cut the defiant kid out. Yeah.
So speaking of kids, and I had a little bit on this, but I wanted to hear your
thoughts first. So what are some of your thoughts about how to –,
(42:26):
teach kids about defiance. It's a delicate balance.
Yeah. So what I had about kids, I think kids should generally be encouraged
to follow the rules and respect authority.
I think that that is a good thing to teach, but there are definitely situations
where teaching constructive, let's say, defiance can be a very valuable tool.
(42:49):
I think if we teach kids to think critically and to stand up for themselves and others,
then I think that they will be able to find a balance between when is appropriate
to be defiant and when it is not.
(43:09):
And some of these things of times that might be appropriate as a child to be
defiant are maybe similar to the other ones that I came up with or that I had put together.
But one of them was when children are facing unfair treatment,
if a child is being bullied or discriminated against or treated unfairly.
(43:34):
And a lot of these are kind of from adult to child, then I think it's good to
encourage a child to stand up and to stand their ground and to speak their mind,
especially when there's unfair,
clearly unfair treatment.
Treatment another one is you know standing up for for what's
(43:54):
right just generally if someone else is being treated on
unfairly or or wrong then
it is definitely an act of courage to stand up and be like hey don't talk about
him like that or there's no reason for you to say that or stop you know i remember
there was this one kid in middle school and he's kind of a heavier kid and for some reason.
(44:21):
It was like after I remember, I remember specifically, I think it was like sixth
grade after lunch, we would all go to the bathroom before we go back to the class.
And there was like two or three kids in the class. They were just like these
bully kids and they were bigger than everybody else or whatever.
And they thought that it would be funny if they basically they would slap this
(44:45):
kid on the stomach and like to see if they could get a handprint to show up.
And so he would go to the bathroom and they'd go
and they'd just be like just slapping this kid like
crazy and this kid felt such a need
to be like accepted that
he was like you know he thought it was funny but
i could tell that this like that the kid hated it
(45:08):
and it hurt and i mean it went on
for for a while and it was
like just a like a it happened almost every day
and i remember me as like
a i don't know how old are you in sixth grade like 10 year
old 11 year old yeah and i remember 12
or something yeah yeah i mean i'm i remember i wanted to be cool too and so
(45:29):
you know it's like i remember just racking my brain just oh do i say something
do i not do i whatever and i knew the kids wouldn't do it to me but if i associated
myself with this kid then i was going to kind of to be deemed a loser.
And so I maybe didn't stand up as fast as I should have, which I regret,
(45:50):
but it got to a point to where I was just like, guys, you got to stop.
Either you stop or I'm going to tell a teacher,
I'm going to bring this whole thing to light and it's going to be a bigger So,
I don't know, standing up for what's right sometimes can seem defiant in the
(46:10):
face of what might seem cool or might seem, you know, socially accepted or whatever.
That's important. Another one for kids is when you're questioning harmful authority.
If an adult is acting inappropriately or, you know, saying things or,
you know, we had a, we had a, an issue at one of our family friends,
(46:35):
their daughter was going to like a charter school or whatever.
And she was like 16 years old and apparently there
was a teacher there that he would get their cell phone numbers because these
these especially the girls in the class because they would do like these after-school
(46:57):
like technology classes or something and he started texting these girls and And,
you know, oh, you're you're so beautiful or your boyfriend's so lucky or,
you know, he would, you know, text him in the morning.
Hey, good morning. Something something's like individually.
And she was kind of like, hey, this like seems really weird.
(47:20):
Like this does not seem right.
These texts are kind of weird. And so she told her parents about it and they
were like, yeah, like, what is this?
And she was like, he does this all the time. And it's not just me.
It's like a bunch of the girls like, hey, sweetie, good morning. blah
blah blah blah it's like some 40 year old teacher hmm
that's not and and so and
the thing is though is that this teacher was like beloved
(47:43):
by everyone everyone loved him he was the most popular teacher
at the school and you know every you know
all of the students whatever and so she talked to
her friends about it and you know what her friends told
her oh no it's nothing it's nothing don't
you know don't say anything it's he's just being nice he's so
fun he's all this sort of kind of stuff you know don't make
(48:04):
a fuss about it or whatever and she did
she she i think she anonymously said some stuff and there ended up being this
massive investigation and and she had to record all you know send all of her
texts over and screenshots and all that kind of stuff and it turned out to be
this pretty big deal but you know her to be defiant enough to go against against, you know,
(48:27):
all of her friends that were telling her not to like question harmful authority. 100%. Yes.
And then the last one was personal boundaries. Obviously you need to be able
to, you need to teach your kids when to say no, when it comes to their body, right.
When it comes to, you know, touching or talking about or whatever else,
(48:49):
like even from a young age, you know, teach about private parts and different
things like that. Like...
They need to feel empowered to be able to say no and to know when something is wrong.
This is my last thing. I know this episode is probably – No,
those are great. No, those are great.
Great ideas. This episode has kind of gone way long, but as I was saying that
(49:13):
personal boundaries one, it
reminds me of that – what was that one doctor for the U.S. Olympics team?
Oh, yeah. Nassar. Larry Nassar. Yeah, Larry Nassar, right? Right.
So, you know, he's and I'm not I'm not this is this might sound bad,
but I'm not victim blaming at all.
I'm saying like or parent shaming, let's say.
(49:35):
But I don't know. No, I think if parents have open conversations with their kids,
like I would hope
that my kids understand and have
an open enough communication with me to like if a doctor in a dark room with
just him and my 14 year old daughter is giving her very intimate massages that
(50:03):
require him to like insert his fingers.
In areas that like that's that's
not appropriate like and and you know some
of these went on for years and it's oh it's just normal it's just
normal it's just normal it's like well maybe
maybe if there would have been more talks about personal boundaries and space
and hey nobody touches you here and if they do come talk to me about it you
(50:26):
will not get in trouble at all if if you know come talk to me and creating a
with your children an environment of trust you know maybe Maybe some of those
things could have been avoided.
Now, you know, that guy's a freaking sleazebag and should be buried under the...
Freaking jail but well i think that you
(50:48):
know i don't know yeah i totally agree and i think in a lot of those cases it's
an abuse of power these yeah people are abusing their power to and also one
of the main weapons of abuse of power is shame and that's why a lot of times,
(51:08):
people won't talk about their their abuse is because there's so much shame that
they have and that they feel so and they feel like they're going to be in trouble i mean literally.
It's like i know that they're for example like there's colleges and i'll just
(51:31):
say colleges where, let's just say, premarital sex is not allowed and you will
be kicked out for having premarital sex.
And there are situations where if a woman is raped,
then she's like, well, I can't go tell anybody because I was a part of this
(51:52):
and I'll get kicked out of school because I engaged in premarital sex.
And so there's this shame that... It's not premarital sex, by the way.
It well some people would say well you know you're just
saying that it was rape because and you maybe you're just
feeling guilty and so maybe we do need to maybe maybe
you need to be kicked out of school and so like that absolutely
(52:13):
happens and and i think that and then and then you get someone who's interviewing
you that's like well tell me exactly what happened and tell me exactly where
you put your hands and so like these type of inappropriate things that that
i and that's one thing i try to to teach my kids is just like, hey,
you're not, like you mentioned the same thing, you're not going to be in trouble.
(52:33):
And like, I don't want you to
feel any shame. And like, even if you think you're in trouble, you're not.
And so like, but abusers will use that as a shield so that they can continue to do that thing.
Oh man, if I, you know, if you tell on me, I'm going to tell them,
I'm going to tell the school that you were complicit in this and you're going to get kicked out too.
(52:57):
Or if you tell your parents, you know, how many Catholic, how many priests.
Abused young boys, even in the Boy Scouts, I mean, across almost any religion
where it's like, well, if you tell your parents, then God is going to get kicked
out or you'll, yeah, you'll be a sinner.
You'll be a sinner or God's going to hate you or don't tell your parents. I'm the authority here.
(53:20):
And so there's all these ways that abusers will use. And I think shame is is one of the main reasons.
Swords that they use against these kids or these people that are being abused.
Larry Nassar, oh, if you tell anybody, he's such a power authority.
Imagine going against Larry Nassar, then you get kicked out of one of the best
(53:41):
Olympic programs in the world that goes to the Olympics. You won't get to be
able to go to the Olympics. Sorry, give up your dream of the Olympic gold medal because you spoke up.
Think about Harvey Weinstein. Oh, give up your goals of being in the movies
because you don't want to go meet Harvey Weinstein in a hotel room.
You know so and then and then they use the shame was like well you came to the
(54:01):
hotel room so you kind of accepted that this was going to happen you know and
then that person's like well i don't want to tell anybody that because i was
there and you know it's like well you were abused and so.
That that's what happened and so i think it's so important talking to kids and
that list that you shared of all those reasons why to be defiant that's a great
list and you know telling the kids our kids, my kids,
(54:26):
that you can come and tell me anything.
And I'm not going to like, and it's a delicate thing, though. It's easy to say that.
It's very easy to say that. And I'll say that there have been times in my life
when I was very scared that I was going to get in trouble for telling my parents anything.
So there's a lot of things I didn't tell my parents, even though I needed some
(54:46):
guidance, I didn't say anything because I felt so much shame.
Or I felt like I was going to be in trouble or I was, I mean,
even at the slightest thing, I remember, I remember when the Janet Jackson wardrobe
malfunction thing. Yeah.
I felt like whenever that happened, I felt personally responsible.
(55:10):
I was in trouble. I felt that it was my fault that that happened.
And I was just like, I felt like there was a lot of...
That's that mechanism of shame that just kind of prevents kids from being open
with their parents and talking about things.
And you know there's times when
(55:31):
i was a kid that were it was so heightened that i
actually felt guilt for literally everything things i
had absolutely no control over that it was my fault or whatever and some of
that probably was like secondhand like cringe you know you're just like you
know just general general uncomfortableness with the situation yeah some of
it was that too but anyway i think that it's uh so important to understand that
(55:53):
and and i think that our Our new generation, us as fathers,
we're changing things than how it was done previously.
We're teaching kids to think for themselves, to stand up for themselves.
We're a lot more vigilant, I think, than the prior generation was in many ways.
Because we're way more involved as parents. I think millennial fathers are some
(56:15):
of the most involved parents that there ever has been, probably in the history of the world.
And so I think we're on a good track when it comes to that. So great examples.
Thank you for sharing those.
Do you want to share our last quotes or do you have anything else you want to share? You can go.
So I have two. I'll share one. Okay. Yeah, go ahead. I had one by Martin Luther King Jr.
(56:35):
He said, in the face of injustice, silence is betrayal. Hmm.
Saying nothing is a betrayal of injustice. Yeah.
It's a call to action you know i have
one from thoreau henry david thoreau he said
you know he's he was had a lot on civil disobedience he said anyone in a free
(56:59):
society where the laws are unjust has an obligation to break the law so it's
kind of like it pretty interesting the the the last one that i had in this one
it says by anonymous so i don't know
whatever that means but it i thought
was that means it's open to take credit for yeah certainly i
(57:19):
should just put ethan thomas in there no it says it
says stand up even if you stand alone
yeah you know it's
a lot of times defiance is very hard because you probably are not in the majority
whenever you're being defiant and so it can be very i think the very nature
(57:42):
of of being defiant is against the majority of whatever you're being defined against.
Yeah. And so it can be scary. It can feel lonesome.
It can feel, you know, like there's going to be consequences or,
you know, just, just different things. And, and so, um.
(58:06):
Even if you're alone, don't be afraid to do what's right. Yeah. Yeah.
I like that. And I feel like defiance is something that in the culture that
I grew up in, I feel like it's in me.
It's a part of what I was raised in. I would agree with that when it comes to
(58:28):
you. I think you could be very defiant.
Well, yeah, but I think... Not in a bad way. Not in a bad way.
I think you've always been a questioner, which is a good thing.
Yeah, but I think it's... Like a critical thinker, I guess. But I think that
the culture that I was raised in and the beliefs that I had all growing up,
I feel like all of it was in a culture of defiance.
(58:50):
You stand up for what's true, even if you're the only one in the room.
And there was a lot of times I felt like I was doing that.
And people were like, oh, man, you believe in something that's crazy or whatever. or whatever.
And I was like, well, I know it's right. So I'll be hated by everybody.
And so I think that in many ways, it can be a good thing.
(59:12):
And it can keep, as long as you don't get to overdo it, I think,
like we talked about. I think it can lead to resilience as well,
which is always a good thing. Yeah.
All right. Well, this has been a long episode, but I think this was one of our
best episodes So it's like a conversational standpoint. I think there was a ton of great stuff.
You know, I'm definitely going to kind of take this back in,
(59:34):
especially when it comes to teaching my kids about kind of defiance and what's
what's OK and what's not.
And that's kind of what I got out of this from from what I'm going to do for my next steps.
I mean, I I understand from an adult, from my own perspective,
when when it's right and when it's not right.
But that's definitely a knowledge that all of us can pass on to the next generation.
(59:56):
Can you hit that list one more time? Just one last time. Just real quick.
Those three, four, I think you have four bullet points of when it's appropriate to be defiant.
So when you're facing unfair treatment, when you're standing up for what is
right, when you're questioning harmful authority, and then when it comes to personal boundaries.
Those are always, for kids, excellent times to teach them to be defiant.
(01:00:20):
Right go against what might seem normal
if it doesn't feel right then you know
say something it's probably not right yep yeah no excellent
well you know thanks for all those out here listening to the podcast and supporting
us you might not agree with all of our opinions but at least you can agree that
it's worth discussing and these are things that you should be thinking about
(01:00:43):
and these are things you think that maybe you don't agree with everything that
we're saying saying, but what does that mean for you?
And that's the whole point of the podcast is you're applying these principles
in your own life and you're adding them to your own creed so that you can live
the life that is virtuous.
You can live the life that when you look yourself in the mirror,
you're pleased with the person who's looking back at you and the things that you stand for.
(01:01:06):
And if you're going to stand for something, that might be in a defiant manner sometimes.
So So would love for you to add this one to your list of creeds or maybe it's
not a virtue particularly, but a weapon that your virtues can use.
Put it in your tool belt. Tool belt, exactly.
So with that, let's build our creed together. All right, let's do it.
(01:01:28):
Music.
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