After losing his memory, Rob Spencer discovered what time really means.

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Blake Rea (00:02):
Hello everyone, welcome to the Lonely Race
podcast.
I am your host, as always BlakeRay.
Today we have a man of manytalents whose amazingly powerful
film Capacity in Reserve isrunning its way through the
indie film festivals.
He's also busy with hisnon-profit Project Heal the Land

(00:24):
, which is focused on education,restoration and conservation of
forests, deserts and oceans,while empowering the lives with
the proven therapeutic benefitsof outdoor activity.
This guest has an insane storyand a unique relationship with
time, and I'm going to let himtell you why.
Here is my close and personalfriend, robert Spencer.

(00:47):
Welcome to the show, buddywhat's up, man?

Rob Spencer (00:51):
how you doing?
I'm hanging in there, how areyou?
Thanks for having me on, Ithink.
Uh, I think this would be fun.
I haven't done a podcast in along time, so yeah, I love the
platform, though I love.
What do you think of my shirt?
I haven't worn a black t-shirtor a white t-shirt in years.
Probably I broke this shinywhite shirt out just for you, my

(01:12):
friend, yeah, and the glassestoo, man, you rocked those
before those are the contentglasses, huh, it's the only way
I can see stuff, no worries.

Blake Rea (01:24):
Let's get into your story.
I don't want to like pop theseal on capacity and reserve, so
like anybody who is curiousabout rob's story, like you,
have to see this.
I was lucky enough to get aprivate screening with the rob
uh like a couple weeks ago inthe parking lot on an iPad which

(01:46):
I'd been begging him for monthsto see it, but I think you had
said that it's going to beavailable on streaming services
soon.

So pretty soon, so sometime around mid June, we're
going to try to start seeing ifwe can't negotiate some
streaming deals.
Well, honestly, I'm going todecide, if I can either, if I
either want to negotiate andmove forward with streaming
deals or just throw it up on myYouTube channel and just say
check it out, everybody, if youwant.

Blake Rea (02:15):
Yeah, either way.
Either way you can't go wrong.
So whatever you're willing totell us about you know, with the
story, you know how you gothere.
I did kind of sizzle a littlebit about your unique
relationship with time and Iknow why.
But if you can tell everybodywhy you're on a watch podcast,

(02:38):
not only are you a watchenthusiast, but you have
probably the most importantrelationship with time that I've
ever heard.

So I appreciate that.
I appreciate that I'm going todrink.
Hey, is there any way that wecould not?
I don't know if it's for angleson your camera or what, but I
like the visual with you and mein there.
Okay, yeah, I'll keep it likethis.

Blake Rea (03:02):
I don't need, I don't .
I don't do much editing, so I'ma very like, just straight
blasted, that's the best.

All right, let's do it.
So, anyways, I'll give you myrelationship with time first.
Sure, and that will kind oflead into the capacity and
reserve thing.
Yeah, let's do it.
So I have a very different takeon time, because I really
believe in living 100% in thenow, totally present.

(03:31):
It doesn't mean that I don'tlearn from yesterday or plan for
tomorrow.
It just means I take myconsciousness and I leave it in
present time mode.
Right, and the reason I do thatis because I believe that we're
called to live that way.
I believe that we are supposedto think about this.

(03:52):
Whenever you think about pastregrets, how does it make you
feel Terrible?
And whenever you worry abouttomorrow's paycheck or rent or
how does that make you feel soterrible?
So it should let us know withour little built-in radars that
we shouldn't be spending ourtime there.

(04:13):
Right, fair enough.
So?
So the flip side is that, well,what if I think about, uh, past
successes?
Well, that takes you out ofsucceeding in the moment because
you're focused on then and notnow.
Well, what if I think about allthe good things that are coming
tomorrow?
That takes you out of theconsciousness of the good things
that we all have around usright now.

(04:35):
So living present time, totallycurrent, right here, right now,
in this moment, is exactlywhere we should be as people.
Yeah, so how does that bring me?
To the?
To the, my relationship withtime.
So my relationship with timeand my connection with watches

(04:56):
are because when I look at awatch, it's it's not just a time
piece, it's not just art, it'snot just all the cool things
that come with watches, it's acontinuous reminder to be
present right now.
I look at my wrist and it'sfour o'clock it's four o'clock.
If I look at my wrist and it'ssix o'clock, it's six o'clock.

(05:17):
So living in the moment is whatyou get every time you actually
look down, at your risk, atyour watch.
You can't escape it.
I cannot look at my watch andsee tomorrow or yesterday.
It only tells me what moment Iam right now, which to me is
kind of a little reminder to payattention to what's going on,

(05:39):
to focus on the people around me, the experiences I'm having
right now, because today is allwe're guaranteed, so let's
maximize every moment.
That is my connection to time.
The reason why I'm connected totime brings us into the film.
When I was 23, I was downsurfing at a place called San

(06:01):
Ofre Trestles.
It's right, there're right nextto each other down in Southern
California we were camping, mywife and some friends.
We were camping down there forthe weekend.
I got up extra early to go meeta friend who couldn't camp but
he could come down and surf withme the next day.
So I was just meeting him offthe freeway there at the off
ramp.
We were just going to kind ofgo into.

(06:22):
He would follow me into aparking lot, whatever the
details.
And while I was waiting therehappened to be a whole nother
story going on, disconnectedwith me, 100%.
There was this man who was inLong Beach, california, visiting
his parents.
This man was a diabetic guy andhe, for whatever reason, wasn't

(06:48):
feeling that great because ofhis diabetes.
So he thought that he should gohome and his house was in
Oceanside.
He was going from Long Beach,california, to Oceanside,
california, which is roughly anhour away, give or take 20
minutes, with no traffic.
Actually, just give there's notaking 20 minutes on that,

(07:10):
especially in SouthernCalifornia traffic, sure, but as
he's driving on the freeway hecontinued to feel worse and
worse and worse until ultimatelythat guy slipped into what's
called a diabetic coma wherehe's completely unconscious.
What's called a diabetic comawhere he's completely
unconscious, holy coma hits thecenter divider of the freeway
and manages to bounce off ofthat and veer up through all of

(07:33):
the lanes of the freeway and upthe off ramp without hitting
another thing, except for thepoor slob me that was sitting at
the top of that off ramp.
He T-boned me at 65 miles anhour.
I happened to be in a Jeep atthe time, so when he hit me he
kind of caught me just behind mydoor.

(07:54):
So the Jeep goes in the air andas it goes in the air it's also
spinning.
He goes right through me downthe off ramp and I land on the
side of my Jeep spinning in thisdirection.
My head was in between the rollbar of the Jeep, which was on
my neck, and the street, so Ihave the top in between me and

(08:16):
the street, but that didn'treally stop the impact.
So I hit.
The entire vehicle basicallylands on my head.
If that roll bar were even twoinches closer to the door, it
probably would have just pinchedmy head off, and that would
have been it, to be quite honest.

(08:36):
But I'm spinning with so muchvelocity I hit the curb that
bounces me back up in the air.
I hit a light post and over asix foot chain link fence and I
land wheels down in the walkwaythat leads you down to the beach
.
And although I didn't spend awhole lot of time unconscious

(08:59):
there, it was more like a flashas my world is coming to play.
I just remember the, thisMiddle Eastern voice saying hey,
your Jeep is on fire, jeep ison fire.
You got to get out and as myworld came to focus, that all
started to make sense to me andI knew, um, that I'm in trouble.
So I get myself out of thevehicle and I walk a couple

(09:20):
hundred yards away.
Um, I don't know why the, themiddle-aged guy, jumped back
into his vehicle and continueddown his path, probably because
we're in southern california andeverybody's selfish, but at
least he told me my jeep was onfire.
So because that would have hurt.
So he continues down his way.

(09:41):
Now I'm sitting on the curb andI have to keep myself from going
.
I realize I do a quickassessment of my body.
I realized my jaw is broken, soI can't swallow, I can't do
anything, I just have to setforward, my head down, let the
blood pour out of my mouth andkeep myself from going into
shock for 47 minutes beforeparamedics got there.
Gosh, I just, I really justremember, trying to just stay

(10:04):
calm.
Don't let my heart rate getcrazy, don't go unconscious.
Whatever you do, don't gounconscious and do not lay down
flat, because you will justchoke and end up drowning right
In your own blood or vomiting.
If I go into shock as soon asthe fire department paramedics
show up, I go unconscious.

(10:26):
So that's full blown, like.
I believe that's just like heyGod, stepping in fight or flight
mode with human beings, that'swhat we're created to do.
You know.
We're created to really handlea lot of adversity, a lot of
craziness.
It's, you know, we're verycomplex in our design and we can

(10:49):
.
We get it.
We hear stories like you know,little old ladies lifting cars
off of their grandkids and stufflike that.
That's what this was a versionof that, right, yeah, so my
first, uh, my first memoriesfrom from that moment forward is
waking up in the hospital,strapped to a backboard.
I remember the lights.
I remember the nurses and thedoctors coming in and telling me

(11:09):
basically what's going on,asked me questions that I
couldn't answer and, and as this, I'm going to kind of fast
track this a little bit asthings kind of continue to to
progress.
I was basically paralyzed onthe right side of my body.
This ear was ripped off.
My jaw is broken in three spots.

(11:31):
But the worst thing thathappened is it took my memory
from birth to that accidentTotal, complete amnesia.
It never came back.
That means I don't remember myfamily.
That means I don't remember myfriends.
That means I don't have anymemories of education.
That means I don't have anylife experiences.
Education that means I don'thave any life experiences.
That means everything that you,everything that makes you make

(11:51):
your decisions today, were allerased.
All of that was gone.
I was 23.
Besides being physically beatup a blank canvas, besides being
physically beat up a blankcanvas, you know, and they tried
to, they brought in photos andthis was back in the 90s.

(12:12):
So, yeah, photos and people andwhatever they could they thought
to jump start my, my brain, butnothing was working.
Um, I did, however, collect allthis data from the old me's
life kind of thing, because theywere telling they were sharing
there.
So there was a point when Idecided, ok, I'm done being a
guinea pig.
My mouth is wired shut forprobably two more months after I

(12:36):
left it.
My jaw is really trashed, allmy teeth got knocked out.
It was crazy.
Anyways, I just told everybodyI remembered and went home,
checked myself out, went home.
It was a big, it was look andthat.
And I was just trying to dowhat I thought would be best for

(12:57):
the moment.
Right, probably wasn't the bestdecision in hindsight.
A lot of trouble came afterthat decision.
In hindsight, a lot of troublecame after that, but, um, that's
what I did in that moment.
And so I went home and for thenext 10 years, I lied to
everybody about remembering,including the wife, that I

(13:22):
didn't remember that I woke upto, which is wild, right,
totally so, and every, obviouslyevery problem I've ever had
with her has to do with, likethis, emotional disconnect, you
know, but where she thought itwas emotional disconnect.
For in a humanity kind of asituation it was an emotional

(13:45):
disconnect because of a completeamnesia situation.
Yeah, but I didn't tell herthat because I was lying to her
about it.
Sure and honestly, in my head Ijust thought it would be better
for her.
You know, I didn't tell myparents.
They lived on the East Coast.

(14:05):
I faked it for about six, seventimes before they passed away.
You know, I have four brothers.
I didn't tell them until aftermy parents were dead because I
just thought it'd be incrediblyselfish to lay that burden on
their deathbed doorsteps.
You know, in their senior yearsof life it's not going to help
me remember.
So why would I do that to them?

(14:26):
You know, and I figured mybrothers, they probably couldn't
keep their mouth shut.
So I won't tell them eitheruntil my parents are gone.
Then I told them.
Interestingly enough, I onlyhave a relationship with one
brother, two brothers I only metonce each and one brother I met
a few times and but that's it.

(14:48):
They have zero interest inreconnecting, that's crazy so
what?
what's interesting about that isI don't have the desire to do
that.
I will do it because you guysare my brothers, right?
If you expect me to initiateand chase you down so I can have
some kind of weird relationshipwith you, I don't even remember

(15:11):
you that.
That doesn't.
That's not going to happen,right?
So if you're not meeting me atthe 50 yard line, we're not
doing this.
Yeah, I don't miss you, I don'teven know you.
You know that thing?
It sounds brutal, yeah, butit's just the harsh reality of
the situation.
Yeah, so I got one relationshipwith one brother and that's
about it.
Of my entire family, other thanthat, it's my wife, my kid and

(15:32):
me.
That's it, it's crazy so youknow, from there, uh, my life
kind of goes on and I was ableto accomplish some pretty cool
things in life, I think becauseof my experience, because of
what happened to me.
You know I often say I wouldn'twish it on anybody but I
wouldn't change it for myself.
You know, I was a union guyworking in the LA Harbor for

(15:58):
Nissan or whatever at the timeand I'm sure it was a great,
safe job.
That would have been fine.
But I've lived a life thatmovies are made of it's.
Yeah, I've had fantasticexperiences.
I've been all over the world,I've done things that have
helped families in their worstplaces in life.

(16:20):
But you know, it's been like Isaid, I wouldn't wish it on you
but I wouldn't change it for me.

Blake Rea (16:27):
Yeah, and that I mean that's a perfect kind of uh, I
guess capacity reserve goes intodetail about like getting back
on your feet, you know, likewhat happened, how it happened.
Um, you know, you, you talk alittle bit about time and your
relationship with time and thefilm, but I mean the full story.

(16:53):
It.
It feels like you just startedtelling the story and capacity
reserve kind of picks up fromwhere you left off, in a weird
way.

That's kind of the case, right.
So capacity reserve is aboutthis capacity that we all have
deep within us, and the morethat we allow life's
domestication process to dictatewho we are as people, the less
we could connect to thatcapacity.
But it's there, we just have toget out of our own way, kind of

(17:23):
thing.
I went on to have a 20-yearcareer in MMA.
I have a couple of gyms.
I can go to A 10-year careerlocating missing kids that were
kidnapped and stuff One of thebest in the country and since
then I've started two charities,a blog that's blown up to a
humongous outdoor kind ofoff-road passion of mine that's

(17:44):
now rolled into working withbrands and stuff.
But I say that stuff notbecause I'm great.
I say that stuff because I'mthe dumbest guy in the room,
always quite literally to thestandards of society.
Right, there's zero education.
So why is it that the dumbestguy in the room can go on to
accomplish successfully somepretty cool things where the,

(18:08):
where the statistics are againstus?
Because I was free from thedomestication process that we
all go through from birth,teaching me who I can't be and
what I can't do, all of thelessons of hurt through past
relationships or even physicalpain that make me hesitate on

(18:31):
doing something.
Those are all gone.
There's no rhyme or reason.
It doesn't make sense for me inmy present Now.
You know, I'm 30 years removed,so you know I have a lot of
that.
But back then those thingsdidn't make sense to me in my
present time consciousness,right.
So I remember getting out ofthe hospital and quickly

(18:52):
realizing that people, humanityis a mess.
No, I don't know how anybodyaccomplishes anything.
Everything is backwards.
People cannot get out of theirown way.
It's wild.
And then you, as I studyhumanity, I start to understand
that a lot of that stuff isbased on trauma.
A lot of that stuff is based ondisconnecting from our true

(19:15):
purpose, right?
So let's say I go hey, what'syour purpose in life, blake?
Can you tell me?
Oh, you know, I really believeI was called to be a heart
surgeon.
I would tell you that is yourpassion, not your purpose, right
?
That makes sense.
Our purpose is to be connectedwith God and to be connected
with people and be connectedwith nature.

(19:36):
That's why we are all created.
We're all.
Obviously there's people thatdon't don't believe in creation
or believe in God and all thatkind of thing, but you're never
going to convince me otherwisebecause of my own very unique
experience.
But our purpose is to be inthat connection.
Our passion comes after that.

(19:57):
So let's, let's take kind of ona tangent here, but now I'm
going to follow my tangents arefun, man, they're fun.
So let's take the uh, themiddle-aged guy who turns 46 and
, uh, he's overweight, has a lotof money but hates his job,
leaves his wife, hooks up with aconvertible and a woman half

(20:19):
his age and thinks that's whathe's missing in life.
Sure, well, that's because hiswhole life, his purpose was to
get to where he got.
He lost at some point he lostsight of the grounding of a true
purpose, or maybe he never hadit because of that domestication

(20:39):
process from birth.
Right, your parents?
They don't mean to do you harmas a baby, installing wisdom and
lessons of life for you, right,your parents.
They don't mean to do you harmas a baby, installing wisdom and
lessons of life for you.
Right, they're trying to makeyou succeed a normality stage.
But normality sucks.
Normality is addiction,normality is divorce, normality

(21:01):
is fear and loss.
So why would we bedomesticating our kids to grow
into that?
It doesn't make sense.
So, anyways, I would say thatthat guy is chasing what he
thinks is purpose, but it'sreally passion, and when he

(21:24):
finds his passion it's notrewarding enough, because what
he's craving in his soul ispurpose that's deep.

Blake Rea (21:34):
Um, I have to ask and this brings up, I guess,
thoughts, right, because I'm awatch guy, this is a watch
podcast and your, yourrelationship with time is is
bonkers, but maybe you probablysaw this question coming what
was the first watch you rememberwearing?

(21:54):
After check this out?
Not only, oh, man, I shouldhave brought it with me here.

It's in the other room.
But, um, man, I should havebrought it with me.
Here it's in the other room.
But, freestyle, a Shark watch.
That was my first watch I gotback Right.
So, basie, coming out of the80s, if you surfed in Southern
California you wore a Sharkwatch.
I don't know if you want toGoogle it, but they're made by

(22:21):
Freestyle and they're kind oflike G-Shock-y, but they're a
lot smaller and I would assumethey're made by freestyle and
they're they're kind of like gshocky, but they're a lot
smaller and I would assumethey're not nearly as good.
It's a digital watch and it'svery colorful.
But so that's probably my first, um, my first look at a watch,
right?
Um, that shark watch didn'treally mean anything to me

(22:42):
though, right.
So what I do do, what I attachwatches to, are life experiences
, which a lot of collectors do,right.
And my first significant pieceand although it was a nice watch
, it really is the story behindit that makes it so valuable to
me is I had a student who hadmore money than you could count.

(23:08):
It must be nice, but I know.
But he was a train wreck as anindividual, divorced like three
times not a very goodrelationship with his kids.
He was super stressed,overweight, overworked.
He was an accountant, a verysuccessful accountant that had
an accounting firm and it justsays you know he had I call it

(23:31):
engineer brain, where you knowit's not.
It works a certain way.
Right that engineer?
You actually probably have itbut, but you can, but you can
actually you have yourselfgrounded.

Blake Rea (23:43):
I do, yeah, I have.
I.

I have engineer brain, but I have a detached
sense of it yeah, like I overprocess, over analyze so most
people can't stop overprocessing, over analyzing that
have that way of thinking.
This was the guy.
So, anyways, um, we got to apoint where where he got his

(24:04):
life in balance and he got areconnected with his kid and
they had a great relationship.
Now, in fact, his daughter evencame in and lived with him and
his business is doing great.
He's in this relationship andthis is now years, probably two
years after we stopped training,and he comes back and he gives

(24:29):
me a gift and he says I want tothank you for everything you've
done.
I said you know I'm, you're theguy who did it.
I was just the deliverer of themessage.
You know, yes, you know, butthrough our relationship, the
principles and the lessons of ofabsolute truth and the
understanding of human nature isso valuable that it allowed me

(24:51):
to reset my way of thinking.
To this, this, this, this, this, I just want to say thank you.
I just want to show you that Iappreciate you.
And he gave me this gift.
I opened it up and this waslate 90s and it was a two-toned
black dialed submariner.
Loved it, loved it.
It was a cool watch.
Obviously it's a great watchback then.

Blake Rea (25:12):
I think they're worth like 4500 bucks on the market
or something like that,something like that.
But it was a cool thing that heuh like that meant something.

You you know what I mean and that's really what
started me getting into thecollection of watches back in
the late 90s, early 2000s.
Since then, that watch gotstolen.
I've never replaced it withanother Rolex.
I'm not even at a place where Icould justify spending that

(25:46):
kind of money on a watch, whichkills me because I would love to
have.
There's a couple pieces that Ireally love that are just a
little bit out of my range, uh,but that one, that one, hurt the
most when it was lost and itmeant the most when it was given
yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Blake Rea (26:02):
Um, I I have.
So I kind of want to like, Iguess, peel back a little bit,
because I have been on therecord in multiple instances,
because I look at timedifferently.
I look at time as I look atwatches as time machines.
Not only that, tell the past,but tell the future, but ground
you.

(26:22):
So what I mean when I say thatis like I can look at a watch
that I'm wearing and say, like Iremember when this happened,
when I was wearing that watch,or that happened, or like you
know, or I even think about likefuture accomplishments I know
that sounds weird to say, butlike I hope that when this
happens I'm wearing this watch,right, so I'm so silly to say

(26:45):
that's cool.
But but how do you, how do youreframe and I I don't, I don't
use it very much as a groundingmechanism like you do so how do
you frame and and adapt into,like using time, a timekeeping
device as as as like an anchor?

that's it Right.
It's a constant reminder ofbeing present and remember.
I believe that present isexactly where we should be.

Blake Rea (27:21):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess it's hard for people who
haven't experienced what youhave to to cherish the moment,
right, we all, we all live to,to better our lives, or to maybe
even write some of your wrongs,you know, but we all forget
about the moment that we're inusually, and I'm guilty of that

(27:43):
too.

Which is sad, right , because now is all you're
guaranteed to have in your life.
Right now, this very moment isall you're guaranteed, you know,
because a minute from now youmay drop dead.
Yeah.

Blake Rea (27:57):
You know what I?

mean yeah.
And if you go through yourwhole life thinking about the
next thing without spending timein this thing, your whole life
flashes before your eyes one dayand you're like man, I missed
it all.

Blake Rea (28:13):
Yeah, eyes one day and you're like, man, I missed
it all.
Yeah, let's use this as a segueto project heal the land, which
is where I mean, it's one ofyour, you know your non-profits,
where you're, you know out toto heal the land, right?
Um, how did that start?
Like where?

(28:33):
Where was the concept for, forthat?
And so for me, the.

My first charity was uh called the academy care
project, and that was a charitythat I started within one of my
martial arts gyms.
That would allow not only us tonot only allow the kids of the
school and even the adults ofthe school the the students of
the school to really engage inthe community around us service

(29:01):
projects, Right but that alsogave me a back door for somebody
who found me that I could helpthem go find their missing kid.
That thing evolved into thisvery fine-tuned machine working
with LA County Foster Care undera different name, with a whole

(29:23):
bunch of leaders around me andthat kind of thing.
So I stepped away from thatbecause my real passion was the
moment I realized that withoutthe connection of love, this is
just good stuff.
You know what I mean.
It's not as meaningful as itshould be.

(29:49):
I believe that if I can connectpeople to nature, they will
experience it in a way thatchanges their lives right.
So I often say I don't believethat you could be in creation
without coming to terms with thecreator at least a little bit,

(30:11):
and that could be like oh man,what a beautiful sunset that is.
Oh man, look at that awesomelooking tree can't believe that
oak tree is 375 years old.
That's wild to think about,right.
But all those things are soawesome you cannot experience
them without being changed right.
So my real passion to startproject till the Land was to

(30:35):
connect people through nature,or connect people to nature
through the experiences that wecan give them at the charity
level, at the service level.
So in the beginning we worked alot with the Forest Service
here in SoCal.
I worked a lot with BLM, theBureau of Land Management here
in SoCal.
I worked with BLM, the Bureauof Land Management here in SoCal
.
We did tree plants and we builtOHV staging areas.

(30:58):
We did all this cool stuff thatwould never get done without
outside organizations.
But two years ago we kind ofsettled into the lane of
education and now I work.
I spend most of my time gettinghigh school and junior high

(31:19):
kids from public schools out onhiking trails and it's awesome,
that sounds fun.
A lot of those guys never evenget a.
You know a lot of our innercity kids so they never even get
out of the city usually.
Yeah, you know the cars and theconcrete and the violence and
the graffiti and the trash andthe homelessness and the and all
the things that they have toexperience every day, that
they've numbed themselves to.

(31:40):
They get to step away from thatand experience what creation is
before man created cities andtown and chaos and you know that
kind of thing, and not onlywhen people go into nature do

(32:02):
you experience these things.
But you come to a point ofrealization Eventually.
I think it happenssubconsciously right away, but
eventually that we are, we are apart of this ecosystem, not
just a consumer of it, and whatwe do matters and that changes

(32:24):
hopefully behaviors and stufflike that to take care of this
place yeah, I guess, as, asbeing you know friends with you,
I know what's in your watchcollection.

Blake Rea (32:36):
but what watches do you trust when you're in the
field, when you're going forhikes?
You need something rugged, youneed a field watch.
I wore this just one for you,the Hamilton.

I was going to say my Hamilton khaki field
expedition is my favorite watchon the trails.
That's what I figured.
I love it, I love it.
I'm going to grab it real quick.
This is going to take a second.
I'm sorry.

Blake Rea (32:56):
Yeah.

Yeah, for sure, I got this one little box handy.
Look at that.

Blake Rea (33:01):
Oh, perfect, you can see that poster while we're
waiting.

Yeah, I got one little box close to me, so I'll
show these are probably my mostused watches, right, this one is
.
I buy watches and I think, ohman, this watch is beautiful,
it's so awesome, and then Ialways find myself going back to

(33:26):
the same watch for theadventures, and it's this
Hamilton khaki field expedition,here with a white dial.
Yeah, I love it.
I love it.
It's super comfortable, it's, Iknow it's gonna work.

Blake Rea (33:39):
I you know what influences a guy like you to buy
a watch, um, and then we'lljump back into the rest of the
so depending on this, like thiswatch I got when I really got
into the charity stuff, right,right, um, right.

I love the ocean, so things that inspire me to be
in the water.
Well, when I see a watch, if itinspires me to want to be more
adventurous, I'll buy it, Ithink.
Or if it's like, hey, I'm goingto buy a watch for this
occasion.
You know that kind of thing.
I bought one watch, which is aSurf Rider Foundation

(34:14):
collaboration, and it's a watchthat I never wear because it's
too small for me, but it's likean iconic thing, sure, and it's
this 5600 G-Shock right.
Maybe I'd wear it one day, but Idon't know.
So I have my the eco drive.

(34:36):
This is another.
This is another big, reliable,a stupid eco drive by citizen.
They're awesome, they'reawesome, they're totally so.
This is my fishing watch.
I wear that when I fish all thetime.

Blake Rea (34:49):
It's a good one.
It's a good one.

It is my.
This is a watch that I know Igot off the tangent a little bit
, but now I got these watches infront of me.
This watch is by a companycalled mtm and, uh, I think what
they do is I think theyactually make components for
other brands and little mtmbrand is their kind of deal yeah

(35:12):
, but this is a very cool fieldwatch, but I'll tell you what I
hate about it also is it looksgreat right?
oh yeah, totally.
It's very rugged.
Great looking watch.
I love the crown protector, buton their lugs, let's see if you
can get this close.
See how sharp those are.
Oh yeah come on dude just rightoff the lugs, just watch it.
I'm halfway tempted to grindthese or dribble these down

(35:35):
myself, if it didn't have thisplating on it, you know, because
this would be perfect for that.
It looks great on the wrist.
Look at this thing.
This is money.

Blake Rea (35:44):
It does look, yeah, that's a great, looks awesome
but it's too pointy.

All right now we got I got three dive watches all
right in front of me that areall very, they all play very
specific roles.
Uh, one is this I bought thisbecause I never owned a seiko
and I and I've up to this pointwhen I got this watch, I was was

(36:11):
always a Swiss watch knob.
Right, I didn't want to.
Don't even talk to me, unlessthis was remember before one oh,
a little bit of back history,when I, when my Rolex, got
stolen, it really sucked thelife out of me.

Blake Rea (36:28):
Yeah, sold off probably 35 watches.

I had probably 35 nice Swiss watches in my
collection at that point.
I just got rid of them, gavethem away, sold whatever.
Most of these gave them awaybecause I was crushed by that.
Whatever, I'm an idiot.
Now we're back in the game.
I got a few Swiss watches and Inever owned a Seiko.
I'm like, okay, I'm going tobuy a Seiko.

(36:53):
Okay, you got the 007.
You got the what do they callit?
The Tuna.
Those are great watches, butthose are kind of like that's
what you get when you want tobuy something.
So this one is kind of likethat too.
But I bought this one because Ilike the color of the dial

(37:13):
mainly, and the cushion case wasvery comfortable on the wrist.
And this, this king turtle yeah, it's the grenade one.
I don't know if you can seethat green, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I changed the strapbecause single straps evidently
are horrible and they're veryuncomfortable.
It's super rigid.
I mean, it was like hardcore,like I expect to see rubber,

(37:35):
like that strap on my car tire,not on my wristwatch band.
Right, right, I love it.
The next one is probably mymost worn watch I think I know I
love it it's a beast.
it's a beast and this actuallyis a bit of a workhorse.
Whenever I do things, you knowI do some, I do some search and

(37:58):
rescue stuff.
I do some stuff like that.
That's what inspired thepurchase of this watch, but I
love the look.
It's never failed me.
It's a quartz watch and I Ibelieve there's a place in
everybody's collection forcourts, by the way totally,
totally um, and this is mymarathon.

(38:18):
Oh yeah, it's the big boy too.
Yeah, but when you're wearing abig jacket, you want this
monster, you know, popping outof the bottom of it.
You don't want, you don't wantthe 41 millimeter, you need this
beast.
But you know, plus, I'm a bigfat guy with big fat wrists, so
I need a, I need a marathon atsome point.

(38:38):
I need two more marathons.
They just released an aviationone.
It's.
It kind of looks diverage butit's, but it's the most
beautiful colored blue on thebezel, on the dial it's and and
it's kind of like a bead blastedfinish.
So the blue looks amazing.
But the other one I want Iforget the name of it, but it's

(39:00):
a dive watch and I want to getthe 41 millimeter version of it.
But it's their Arctic dial, soit's white.
It looks awesome and it hasaround the markers.
It has the dots.
See how how these have thetubes, the trident tubes.
Yeah, yeah, this has just theloom dots.
So I forget whatever model thatis, but it is awesome, that's.

(39:25):
That's probably the nextmarathon I want, and then I
wouldn't mind checking out theblue one, but marathon's a good
one.
But certainly, not least, thisis actually my dress watch.
Okay, and this is most peoplewould be like really, yeah, I
don't do nice things.
What can I say?
I don't need a nice dress watch.
It's by Christopher Ward, c60,ceramic dial gives a little

(39:52):
dressy look.
That's my dress watch.
Dope, dope.
If we have any brands out therethat want to dress me up a
little nicer try, you could trybut I don't know.
To be quite honest, the fit andfinish on this chris ward
probably feels nicer than my oldsub wow, that's a bold

(40:14):
statement.

Blake Rea (40:15):
I know Especially considering the price point too.

I mean they're very aggressively priced.
Yeah, well, yeah, the pricepoint too, and I'm not
necessarily talking about theart of watchmaking.
Yeah, you know, because youknow they do their own Rolex is
what 97% in-house built.
I don't even know 87% or 90%.
Yeah, chris Ward, you know theydid the thing, but then they put
the Salidas in there, but justthe fit and finish feels really

(40:40):
nice, very nice, and I love thephilosophy of Christopher Ward,
how they're like hey look, we'regoing to go direct to consumer,
we'll mark it up three timeswhat it costs us to make it.
That's it.
Everybody knows.
Now that's our game, have at itguys.
You know, and I've I've checkedout a bunch of chris wards and
they've all been pretty nice,but this one is my dress fair

(41:04):
enough now I got one watch toshow you that I think I saw your
youtube video about it.
I'm going to do a YouTube videoabout it soon Okay.
I want to talk about that soon.
I had some changes coming up,but this watch, this one.
In fairness, the company sentthis one out to me.

(41:24):
These are the ones I bought,but this one the company sent me
out because I asked them.
I thought what they were doingwas kind of cool and creative
and, although it wouldn't belike this legacy time piece, you
know that you would keep inyour collection and pass down to
generations.
The price didn't reflect thateither.
It's like 400 bucks or whatever, but this is made by original

(41:48):
grain.
Have you ever heard of originalgrain?

Blake Rea (41:50):
I haven't so original grain uses.

They integrate wood into their watch designs so
like if you look on thatbracelet, those center yeah,
that's wood you look at thatdial, that's wood, that's I have
what it is those wooded, woodedand hybrid watches that are.

Blake Rea (42:09):
They're very popular, like even cool looking.

You know that's different.
I's different.
I appreciate the creativity.
That's what I appreciate.
This is from their militaryline, so this is a bigger one.
This is a solar-poweredmovement, so it's got a citizen
movement in it.
And the wood in this one a lotof their watches have cool, like

(42:32):
polo wood and like really coolwhere it really shows.
This one's a little bit morediscreet because it's the wood
from ammo crates that they shipall the ammunition in.
Oh wow, you know, like thelittle crates that you see go
into big crates.
Then they go all over the worldand those big crates are
actually made out of wood andthat's what they made this out

(42:53):
of.
So this one's cool, you knowcool.
You know the class, whatever.
Not that great, but that's whythe wood integrate and you can
even, but the wood integrationis super cool.
So I'll make sure to puttingsome in on that.
That's what I had in front ofme.

Blake Rea (43:11):
Anyways, yeah, and I was waiting for you to pull out
your, uh, your marin.
Oh, yeah, well, it's because I,I let my kid borrow it.
Oh, he's using it right now inmy a, in my.

Yeah, it is in my but I did just repost a video on
it.
That's what I was saying.
I just saw, you just saw thatlet's bash g-shock before we go
on any further.
Okay, so so, look, I got,here's what I got.
Here's what I want to bashabout g-shock.
I got two beefs.
Two beefs one would g-shockthemselves, one with the, the

(43:45):
fanboy, blind, hypocriticaloverthinking of g-shock fans.
Let's start with the.
Let's start with the g-shockbeef, okay all of their straps
are horrible trash.
Why do they make those awfulresin straps?

(44:06):
They're uncomfortable.
They're disgusting when you getsweaty.
It is a you can.
You can pay one hundred dollars, you can pay five thousand
dollars.
You're still going to get thatcrappy resin strap.
That is what they say.
It's durable.
Come on, dude, it's awfulg-shock.

(44:27):
I will not buy g-shock untilthey stop putting those stupid
straps on them and they don'tmake them very easy to like
change the strap either.
You'd like take?
the whole like like frame offyeah, if I gotta change the
strap, I gotta put like theseweird little things ends on it.
And now my already way tooobnoxious looking g-shocks even

(44:48):
looks more obnoxious lookingbecause it's got in links on
there and going to a littleskinny nylon.
Come on, man, that's stupid.
Yeah, g-shock, come on, pull ittogether, guys, you've been
around long enough to know thatthere's more materials that you
can rely on than the stupidresin straps that you do.
Agree or disagree?

Blake Rea (45:08):
agree, all right, hopefully they're listening,
though they probably don'tlisten to people like us no,
they definitely don't listen topeople like us.

No, they definitely don't listen to people like me.
All right, g shock fans, I'm,hopefully I'm going to educate
you guys, all right, hopefully,we're going to take this
opportunity to educate ourselveson the idea of watch knob.
Elites that love G shock andhate Apple watches are just

(45:37):
being stupid.
It's the same digital watchplatform.
One just has more features,right?
So if you love G shock and youhate Apple watches, I'm saying
you're dumb.
That's what I'm saying, right?
It does not make sense to ohapple watch.
What tell me the beef on applewatch?

(46:00):
You tell me, what is the world?
Why does the world hate applewatches?
Because they sell more watchesthan any other company, probably
than the top 10 companiescombined, every year.

Blake Rea (46:08):
I I think I think people hate on them if could
weigh in because it's more of aconsumer tech product than it is
like a utility poweredtimepiece.

So why is it more of a consumer tech product than
a G-Shock or any digital watch?
As far as that goes?

Blake Rea (46:26):
I think maybe the product cycle, like the life
cycle, has a little bit to dowith it, you know, because you'd
be lucky to get three years outof Apple Watch.

So the difference and software with it.
You know, because you're you'dbe lucky to get three years out
of apple watch.
So the software you can buy anapple watch that will last you a
long time.
It you can get more out of it.
The problem is they just createbetter versions.

Blake Rea (46:47):
Well, they, you know the software, they're like oh,
three years, we're not going tosupport, you know, then it
starts to like run slow and thenlike all the features and this
and you know it's like they,they, they're, they're
constantly chasing new featuresand new innovations, when you
don't really see that so much inthe watch industry, like with
g-shocks, for example well, yeah, you don't see that at all,
because g-shocks still use resinstraps for crying out loud.

So the digital watch platform, regardless of
marketing strategy behind thewatch itself, the concept is the
same.
Yeah, yeah, just because yousay one has a different life
because of the battery than theother one, that's a battery
issue, not a watch issue.
Sure, you would like apple touse more traditional batteries

(47:33):
so we don't have a life cyclethat's shorter.
But if they put a differentbattery in there, the tech
between their watch and adigital watch is the same.
Yeah, yeah, I can see that.
Give me some more.
Give me some more beef.
Give me some more.

Blake Rea (47:51):
I mean, I'm a huge fan of apple watches and apple
products and, um, you know, Ifeel like watches are.
You know, now we've got, we'vetranscended what watches used to
be, which was a utility, apurpose-built utility function,
and now you know, I mean, youknow, having an apple watch, I
can put 30 apps on my wrist.

(48:13):
You know, whether it's trackingstress or tracking sleep or
tracking activity, like how howcan you hate on that?
And then, and then you havepeople that are going to
transcend the Apple watch Like,uh, like I was, like all the
people that are listening tothis podcast know, you know that
that an Apple watch justdoesn't scratch the edge, or

(48:34):
maybe you used to wearing it.
And then you're like, no, youknow that that an Apple watch
just doesn't scratch the edge,or maybe you used to wearing it.
And then you're like, okay,this looks silly when I, you
know, go out to like a cocktailor like a, like a date or
whatever, right.
So you've transcended and and itjust doesn't do it for you.
So I mean, in a normal day, Imean I wear two, I wear an Apple
watch for the tracking aspectsof it, and then I wear, you know

(48:57):
, and in today's sense, ahamilton, you know, or whatever
I'm wearing, because it justdoesn't.
I don't feel like I'm wearing awatch, I feel like I'm wearing
a piece of tracking technology,right?

yeah, I, I agree, that tells time, right.
Right, I mean, yeah, I don'teven I I use it for the tracking
aspects.

Blake Rea (49:13):
I I use it for the tracking aspects.
I don't use it for the timeaspects.

What?
What I'm saying is that theidea that I kind of agree with
that's the, that's the thing,Same thing with the phone, right
?
So like, when was the last timeyou made a phone call?
Oh, I hate when people call me.
You, you can't text.
What's wrong with you, Blake?
Why would you call me?
Especially out of the blue,especially out of the blue.
Getting back to the watch idea,I'm saying that that is all just

(49:38):
marketing and branding of theproduct, Because your
Bluetooth-connected G-Shock thateverybody loves tracks your
Garmin.
Makes a cooler looking watchthan the Apple Watch?

(49:58):
I think I think so too.
They track, that's what they do.
They have all of these features.
Anything that's digital thatcould connect is the same.
It's the same thing.
If you hate Apple because youjust want to hate Apple, just
say I hate Apple because I wantto eat Apple.
You hate, Apple because youthink it's so different than a G
shock.
Please educate yourself.

Blake Rea (50:21):
You sound dumb right, if, if, if you could build the
ultimate watch, what would thatlook like?

So I also don't own an Apple watch, by the way,
okay, but I'm not opposed tohaving one.
Sure, yeah, I could build.
My favorite type of watch isthree hand, three hand numbered

(50:51):
hashes, no date.
I have about as simple as youcould get when it comes to watch
.
Now, what I would do, though,it would have to be a certain
size and it would have to be acertain spec so far as a
durability factor, because itwould be the ultimate adventure
watch.
I would build an ultimateadventure watch that does

(51:14):
nothing but tell the time, nodate, no, nothing.
It would be super precise towhere you can now track on your
set.
I don't want chronographs, Idon't want any of that stuff.
I want three hands, a simple,clean, minimalistic but
contemporary looking dial in abeefy, rugged package made out

(51:39):
of titanium.

Blake Rea (51:41):
That's what I would build no complications Zero.

It sounds stupid.
Right, I am a simple man, blake.
A simple man, only complicationTell me what time it is.

Blake Rea (51:55):
Okay, yeah, I mean mean you have with the
expedition there, you have the,the compass, which is, which is
nice for what it is that you do,right yeah, I mean it's cool
but I guess not not used by you,huh no, I've used it to try it,
you know.

But uh, I pretty much don't get lost when I you
know yeah, do your homework onthe front half, you don't get
screwed on the back yeah, yeah,let's talk about some of the
content tell me what you wouldbuild.

Blake Rea (52:26):
Oh, it would definitely have to be a super
complicated like flybackchronograph, like maybe I don't
know, I don't even know, Ihaven't even thought about it.
Um, you know, I'm a utilitypowered guy like I want a watch
that can do what I needed to doand I mean, my favorite
complication is by farchronograph.

(52:46):
Um, I do see practical utilityand having like a, like a gmt
watch, you know, because you canuse it, I mean not only as a
compass but you can use it as asecond might be the most
practical one yeah, yeah, right,um, but I find myself trading
into chronographs.
So, um, and stupidly enough, Imean, I just love the flyback
complication for whatever, nowthat I ever use it or need it,

(53:10):
or whatever but I, I, I findmyself, when I have a
chronograph, tracking littlelittle moments of my day, like,
you know, like, because I'mabout efficiency, right, you
know, because you brought it outthat I have that engineering
brain, so I'm like, oh, how longdid this take me?
Like, you know, like I'm goingto the grocery store, like how
long is this going to take?
Or you know, okay, I'm editinga video, like maybe I can do

(53:31):
this in an hour.
You know, like, I'm alwaysconstantly like tracking and
comparing myself to you know, my, my guesstimation of how much
time this is going to consume.
So, right, when I wear achronograph, I always, I always
do do that, um, but but yeah, soI haven't really thought too
much about it.
But, um, and people have askedme, like a dress watch, would it

(53:54):
look like a?
No, no, it would have to belike a utility, like a
purpose-built tool watch, like atool watch.
Yeah, I always find myselffaced like if I'm facing the
barrel of a gun, you know, and atool watch would be the one
that I would have to to go for awatch that I can keep up with,
a watch that's rugged.
Not that I'm as adventurous asyou, but I, I tend to be rough

(54:20):
with my things and I tend to um,like, the stuff that I own
usually doesn't last very long.
So you know something that Iknow that can keep up with me.
You know, should I decide to,you know whatever right, and so
I funny go ahead.
So funny, funny enough, I was,um, I was at the, uh, like I

(54:41):
went, I did like a like a spaday with like a massage, like
the other day, the other day,and I took one watch with me,
you know, yeah, yeah, I was justlike I needed a good massage,
right.

So I went to the fontaine blue like did their
whole spa thing and you live invegas, but you got like, that's
what they, that's what vegaspeople do, they go to.

Blake Rea (55:00):
Maybe not me, not me, but I did that day and I wore.
I know this is a lot of peoplehate, right, a lot of people
hate on hubla, but I wore myhubla and it's a titanium sports
watch and um as I got up why dopeople hate hublais so bad?
because they're overpriced.
I think you know they'reoverpriced.
They don't have any horologicalsignificance, is you know what

(55:23):
people tend to to say?
And, and you know, I can'tdisagree with the fact that
they're overpriced.
But they sell, they sell,people sell them and people buy
them and, um, I would never payretail for one, you know, and if
you're that guy, that's fine,cool, whatever.
Like you know you're, you'relike the guy that gave you the,
the rolex.
You've got, you know, moremoney I wouldn't say more money

(55:44):
than cents.
But you know, you've, you've,you've clearly got pockets it's
relevant it's always relevant tothe money you make, right but,
uh, when I was wearing thatwatch, I like stepped out of the
um, I stepped out of like thehot tub and like slipped and
like busted my ass, man, mywatch went face first into the
tile, yeah, you know, and I waslike, oh well, there's, yeah,

(56:08):
that watch is destroyed.
Did it damage?
Not a single bit, not a thing.
I couldn't even, I couldn'teven tell, I couldn't even tell
that I hit it.

So I mean that right, there is the definition
of a good watch, right?

Blake Rea (56:21):
I would think so.
I mean not again, not at $7,600or whatever.
They sell for eight grand, youknow.
But you know the price I paidunder three grand.
Yes, yes so.

What is your?
I'm trying to, I'm trying to dosomething here real quick.
I'm looking for something whileI'm talking, but sure, what is
your favorite right now?
Because it's always going to besubjective and it's always
going to change.
Right now, what's your favoritewatch company?

Blake Rea (56:49):
I think you already know the answer.
What is it, doxa?
What's my?
favorite uh, I think doxa too.
That's right, it is.
Yeah, I think we've talkedabout that.
I was gonna say hamilton therefor a second, but I'm such a fan
of doxa right now I I was.
The reason why is becausethey're just the epitome of that

(57:11):
right.
Like they know their lane, theystay in it, like they make you
know what dive watches that arerugged, you know, built to last,
built for a lifetime.
I mean, they're not spendingmoney on on these crazy
ambassadors and and overpricedin-house.

What is my?
You'll know the answer, I think.
What is my favorite watch inthe industry today that I want
so bad?

Blake Rea (57:40):
Well, I mean, I think you've talked about the 300,
right, which one, though?
Which one?

The professional, the one that I have, the limited
edition the Clive Cussler.

Blake Rea (57:50):
Oh, that's right, the Clive.

Cussler Black Nile.
Yeah, black Nile.

Blake Rea (57:54):
Yeah, they should get on that.
I hope they will.

I doubt it will.
I'm just a nobody knucklehead,yeah Well they've been.

Blake Rea (58:00):
They've been on the podcast before and I've tried to
put put you on their radar.

Yeah, I would love that.
I.
I would be look, without beingat risk of sounding obnoxious, I
would be so good for them, morethan like this big YouTube type
blah, blah, blah.
Grassroots, down to earth,boots on the ground.
That's where I've alwaysthrived when it comes to working

(58:31):
with brands and I would be sogood for them.
So good, I couldn't, couldn'tdisagree.
All right, couldn't disagreenumber three before we move on.
Number three watch that I wouldlike to have, but I don't think
I'll never buy.
I'll ever buy because I alreadyown one is the blue expedition,

(58:53):
but I want it on a bracelet.
Okay, number two, watch.
What's your number three?

Blake Rea (59:03):
um, you know, my, my number three for me or for for
you?
Oh dude, I don't even know.
I'm at a point where I'mstarting to trend.
I feel this sounds so weird,but I'm starting to transcend
watch collecting oh yeah, likeno, I mean you, you know how
many watches I have, like I'vegot everything.

You just appreciate whatever's in front of you.

Blake Rea (59:20):
Yeah, I appreciate what.
I'm starting to get to thatmoment where I appreciate what I
own and I appreciate wearingthe watches that I own.
And you know, I'm lucky enoughthat I can get a taste of brands
who send me loaner watches orwhatever that fulfills that need
of buying something.

(59:41):
But I did just buy a couple ofvintage Zeniths.
I posted it on my Instagramstory.
I bought two vintage Zenithsthat I'm going to get restored
which I'm super stoked for.
That'd be cool.
Yeah, they're so cool.
They're from the late 60.
I'm super stoked.
That'd be cool.
Yeah, they're so cool.
They're from the the 60s, likethe late 60s.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
And I just think they're socool because, like you, had to

(01:00:02):
be a crazy ass dude to wear oneof those in the 70s you know,
just because of their bold casearchitecture and just I mean,
they're, just, they're, theywere.
They were literally tanks in the70s.
That's rad, that's rad.
So yeah, yeah, I'm excited.

Rob Spencer (01:00:19):
Number two for me, believe it or not, I don't have
a GMT.
I've always wanted one, but Inever want to get a cheap one,
right One that I want, one thatI would keep like I wanted to.
I wanted to like represent myfirst GMT watch, kind of thing.

(01:00:40):
Anyways, this one popped up asby Hamilton and I really like it
.
I really like it.
That's probably number two forme right now.
If I were to pick a watch,that'd be number two.
That's probably number two forme right now.
If I were to pick a watch,that'd be number two.

(01:01:07):
But there's a huge gap betweennumber two and number one, and
that is, of course, the CliveCussler.
I got to find it.
The black, yeah, black dialwatch too good, it's too good.
I like the tan dial too.
You know I don't dislike thetan at all.

(01:01:29):
I in fact, in many ways I likeit more in the sense of it
represents.
It reminds me of, like sanddunes and adventure and treasure
hunting and all that right,sure.
But the black one is super cooland it, uh the the dial is

(01:01:51):
almost a little, almost subtlewith the yeah, yeah.
But there's the.
I do like that one too.
It's good, so good.
I don't know if I'd get theblack one or that one.
I probably would.
I don't know.
I like them both.
There's a big gap.

(01:02:11):
And look, there are watches outthere.
I mean, we're just dreaming.
So I could pick a milliondollar watch, sure, but what I
want more than any other watchis that doxa that's crazy in the
wild.

Blake Rea (01:02:29):
Yeah, I dot, I have a .
I have a very weirdrelationship with Doxa in the
sense that Doxa was one of thosebrands that, like, eluded me
for so long.
Like they were on my radar,like I loved just the utility
aspects of like, hey, this is atool, like, use it like a tool,

(01:02:50):
beat it up, like, if somethinggoes wrong, like we'd love to
see how much you can destroythis.
You know the type, the type ofvibe that I got they've never
said that, but that's the, thevibe that I've got, and um, and
I, I they eluded me for so long.
I would go traveling and Iwould try to see if I could, if
I get hands-on with the doxa,and every, every um place I'd go

(01:03:14):
, like the I could just neverfind one.
And then, eventually, like, Ireached out to their rep, um,
and I told this story also onthe doxa pod podcast.
But, um, you know, then, youknow, a few weeks I don't know,
it seemed like a few weeks later, we were, you know, planning an
event here and I got hands-onwith, you know, doxa for the

(01:03:35):
first time and and I just saw,you know, you know what the hype
was about.
You know, because I'm not gonnalie like I, I was influenced by
some of the hype from the brandum.
So so, ever since then, I justknew I had to add one, and then
I bought my 300t um, then I um,I bought the um, the sub 200,

(01:03:58):
the, the limited that they didwith uh, art of time, which is a
caribbean dealer in saintmartin, um, and I'm thinking
about my next, my next one, likewhat my next doxo will look
like.
You know, I'm not sure.
I like the sub 600.
I like the carbon.
I like the carbon, full loolike carbon is amazing.

The carbon with the blue.
I like the carbon white dudesmoking.
The carbon white is cool too.
It's a full dial.
The carbon with the blue.

Blake Rea (01:04:27):
For me is smoking carbon baby blue or the carbon
dark blue.
I love that baby blue, okay, Ilike the dark blue too.

The dark blue is what came to mind first.
The Caribbean I really do lovethe baby blue, yeah.
So for me docks was always.
I knew they existed, didn'treally know much about them.
I surfed my whole life thatkind of thing, but I never
really started looking into themuntil I got into the boat
component here of being on theocean, yeah.

(01:04:58):
But then I'm like, oh, I want tobuy a cool watch that's going
to kind of commemorate megetting into this boat life.
This is going to be forever.
I love the ocean and you know.
So that's what it kind ofbrought up.
I kind of brought it up on myradar.
So I'm checking them out andfor what I do as a man, like

(01:05:20):
just personally, my lifestyle onthe water, that watch is like
that's what they're built for meto a t, me too, yeah, if, um.
And then from then I was justlike oh, man, man, I love it, I
love it.
But then, you know, I got mywife threatening to kill me If I
spend that much money.

(01:05:40):
She doesn't get it Right, shedoesn't get it Clearly.

Blake Rea (01:05:43):
But yeah, come on, if that's not even that much money
that's not even that much money, not, I think they're, I think
they're really, I think they'rereasonably priced.

I do too, I do too but especially when you look at
some of their who doesn't lovewatches like you, love watches
my wife hates, watches, shehates that she hates yeah, she's
like another one, but shesupports me and she understands
that.

Blake Rea (01:06:10):
That's what makes me happy well, my wife doesn't, so
there you go, that's all rightso you talked about kind of
consolidating, which is reallychallenging to do, and I've
actually went through aconsolidation period recently,
just getting rid of a lot of thewatches that I don't wear.
I sold a watch yesterday to apersonal friend and I know it

(01:06:33):
helped me understand that it'sgoing to go to good hands.
But so you talked aboutconsolidating once your watch is
getting rid of things, yeah, um, with what you have now in your
watch collection, is there onethat that you'd never part with?
You know?
Yeah, I think why believe it ornot.

I mean, it's probably how that batch I just
showed you, right?
So here's what I did when I,when I consolidated, I went to
only tool watches.
Yeah, if it's not a adventurewatch, I'll say even more than
tool watch it's an adventurewatch but, like I wouldn't
necessarily, wouldn'tnecessarily consider, I would

(01:07:16):
consider this a tool watch, butmaybe not an adventure watch.
You know, maybe if I put it ona different strap, I don't know,
but I like it, don't get mewrong, but it's not, it's not a,
it's not a Doxa or it's evennot a Marathon.
Right, right, right.
So if I were just to narrowthat down, this is probably the

(01:07:38):
most comfortable watch on mywrist that I own, the Seiko, but
that's not it.
What would be?
It would be between these two.
It's Chris Ward, and the reasonwhy I picked the Chris Ward is
because I think for the moneythis watch really delivers.

Blake Rea (01:07:58):
You've got a lot of versatility there it just
delivers really on a nato likeboom field, you know, or divers
watch, or probably my favoritewatch as of now.

Okay, and it would be replaced by the doxa in a
heartbeat, but it's kind ofalong the same line.

Blake Rea (01:08:14):
Yeah, I'm gonna have to send this to doxa and see.
First of all they say theyreply for one.

But so this marathon is probably my favorite
watch.
It gets the most wrist time.

Blake Rea (01:08:29):
But you know, again, it's hand in hand with that
style of watches, as what the Iwant, I, I want one of those
like marathon, like no rats dude, those things are sick dude.

Yeah, like little radiation logo.

Blake Rea (01:08:41):
Yeah, you had government use for sure.

You know MTM these with the, with the lugs that
practically chop your hand offevery time you wear the watch
they make a watch that has aradiation detector.

Blake Rea (01:08:58):
I have seen that.
I have seen that pretty well.
That's a super cool.
That's a super cool watch.
I actually reached out to themto make some content about it
and I got ghosted but it's notbecause of you, it's because of
them.

I have some experience with those guys.
Yeah, they are, um, I don'tknow if they just do this, I
don't know if they just havethis brand so they can show
their real business towatchmakers that buy cases and
stuff like that.
You can go with this brand.
This is owned by I forget thename of the brand, I want to
think it's called like Americansomething but what they do is

(01:09:31):
they just make all the parts andthey sell them to micro branch.
Yeah, and that's their mainline, you know.
And then MTM watches is ownedby them and they have these cool
watches, but uh, there's Idon't know why, but they're all.
They always land flat with me.

Blake Rea (01:09:53):
Yeah, like this.

Good to know Cool.

Blake Rea (01:09:55):
It's good to know, it's cool looking Good to know
for the future.

This is a cool looking watch.
It is.
It just doesn't hit it for me.
It's flat Granted.
If I ever did want to watch orwork with these guys again, I
probably just killed it.
But I wouldn't recommend buyingan MPM watch.
They don't listen to us?

Blake Rea (01:10:16):
for sure, probably not docs of mine, but I don't
know about anybody.

Well, docs is about a million times better than mtm
, so if you wanted to havesomebody listen, it's better to
have docs.
But uh, mtm watch sucks let'sget so.

Blake Rea (01:10:32):
I've got a couple more questions here.

You want me to call any more watches out as sucking
.

Blake Rea (01:10:37):
We can say that for a later one.
We're probably better offmoving.
Yeah, I, I'm not one of thoseguys that likes to call out
people.

I don't really call out.
I know you don't, but I willalso be honest with my opinion.

Blake Rea (01:10:52):
Yeah, yeah, your, your, your opinions are.
I will also be honest with myopinion.
Yeah, your opinions are valid.
They're valid concerns ofprobably 90% of the market.
G-shock.

Stupid resin bands suck.
Never own a G-Shock MTM watch.
Lands flat, practically cutyour wrist off.
Never own an MTM watch.
I can hear them hitting thefloor.
Hit me up, boys.
I need one of those Clives.

Blake Rea (01:11:15):
I love them.
I can hear you tossing them andhitting the floor, for sure.
Um, all right, so this is goingto be super hard.
This probably will be.
Well, I got two really hardquestions that I've saved
intentionally.
So, obviously, when you thinkabout watches, you know you talk
a lot about time being avaluable asset, so I'm going to

(01:11:36):
come back to that.
But you know, I don't know toomany people that engrave watches
.
But if you were to engravesomething on the back of a watch
that would ground you or youknow, or root you yeah, um, you
know, a personaled whatever whatwould you engrave on the back

(01:11:58):
of those that watch?

forever.
That's a good one.
So I love cool case backs.
Like I'm not really anexhibition case back guy, I like
a solid case back that has acool thing on it.
You, yeah, yeah, um.
So, with that being said,there's some cool imagery that I
would put on one, but if we'retalking like a motto or

(01:12:22):
something like that, it would bealong the lines something that
you can read, like when you'relike shit's hitting the fan and
you're like like let me takethis off and, for you know, get
back to to ground zero.
I would say something.
I.
It would have to be somethingalong the lines of like, um, uh,

(01:12:43):
it would have to be short Causeon the back of the case that
was.

Blake Rea (01:12:48):
That's the reason why I made this hard, hard question
.

I would say it would be, I would say it would
be, I would do something like umpresent time, present time,
that would be one thing.
Maybe, uh, the time is nowwould be something along that
long.
That thread that would bring meback to right now, in this
moment.

Blake Rea (01:13:11):
Totally, totally engravable too, which is nice,
because I don't even know how toanswer that question.
So this is probably one of themore important questions, right?
So we've talked about timebeing one of those real
important assets to you, themost important thing that you'll
never get back.
We all know why at this pointand we all know why at this

(01:13:32):
point.
So let's talk about the futureof Rob Spencer.
What do you plan to do now thatyou appreciate time, and how do
you plan to spend your time inthe future?
I know you and I have talkedpersonally about film production
and we've talked about workingon new projects and things like

(01:13:53):
that, but I'm curious to hearagain from your voice.

So this sounds crazy, but what I've gotten to a
place in my life where I'mfortunate enough to be able to
just do passion projects Rightso I have not it sounds stupid
is what it does.
It's not crazy stupid.
So, I will not do anything thatisn't fun for me, right?

(01:14:23):
I?
Granted, that's not realisticin a lot of things in life, but
more importantly than thinkingI'm doing something fun is I'm
having fun in everything I do,right?
So I probably am not veryemployable as an employee, so
I'll never have a job.
I've always done my own thing,I've always had small business

(01:14:46):
or whatever.
I've never you know.
But after my last film, I'm II'm deciding and I'm deciding if
I have the bug or not to createfilms.
I have three films that are inthe pipe, if I want them, all
based on the nature, all basedon the resilience of man and

(01:15:07):
with an inspirational storybehind it.
Now, the thing is that's a lotof work, man, I don't know if I
want to work that hard in mylife, you know.
Yeah yeah, totally a lot of work.
So that's probably like mycrossroad that I'm at now for
career.
What I am doing, though, whichis still a lot of work, is so I

(01:15:28):
have now consolidated not justmy watch collection of dual
watch but my lifestyle and mycontent stuff, so I have now
taken full.
I have a partner in one of mychannels, and that partner was
about outdoors and stuff likethat, but really the niche of
like adventure vans, like thesebig sprinters that are built out

(01:15:48):
like mine, and that kind ofthing, yeah, and so I met with
him and I won't get into all thedirty details.
And so I met with him and Iwon't get into all the dirty
details, but we've come to anagreement that we are going to
start a new channel together,just adventure van travel stuff,

(01:16:09):
nothing else.
And I am personally going totake over all of my other stuff
again, which is mostly Jeepoutdoor off-road.
What I what I really call mychannel is a is a motor powered
adventure, right, so it's myboat, it's my jeep, adventure
watches and gear.

Blake Rea (01:16:25):
That's what it is all of my time in that area, that's
it yeah, I was about to saythere's some watches sprinkled
in there, which is which Iappreciate.
People like me appreciate.
Appreciate.

So this is the thing, right.
So I started building a watchchannel and it was doing pretty
well.
Actually I was right therealmost monetization status,
people were starting to checkout the watches and that kind of
thing.
And I just deleted the wholething Because I'm integrating it
back into my big channel whichis called venture the wild,

(01:16:57):
b-e-n-t-u-r-e.
So venture the wild is myyoutube channel now.
That is, uh, boats, jeeps,watches and gear right.
Everything outdoor is focused,right, uh consolidation.

Blake Rea (01:17:10):
What's that I said, consolidation?

again.
Yeah, so when it comes towatches, it's only going to be
adventure watches, so there's aplaylist on there that's
adventure watches.
I got probably five videos upthat I've just been trying to
re-throw up, but I got it.
I got it, and I can't.
You can't do it too fast foryoutube, because I can't just
upload 16 videos in a day yeahyeah, so I gotta kind of slowly

(01:17:33):
bring it back around.
I'm hoping I don't killeverything off, you know, in
this process yeah but I want tojust do one channel, venture the
wild.
I might.
I might revive my actualwritten blog because I love the
creative process of that writing.
Yeah, uh, venture the wildcom.
There's some stuff on there now.

(01:17:54):
It's pretty rad looking littleblog.
It's just a little datedbecause I haven't I haven't
really done anything.
There is a trailer on theircapacity and reserve trailer if
you want to see it.
But venture the wild is theyoutube.
That will have everything onthere and then, if I bring back
my website, that's it.
That's it one thing.

(01:18:14):
That's what I want to do.
I just want to do one.
For years I've just been likeworking with this brand and this
brand and this brand and thisbrand on how they can build
engagement with their audiencesand how they can build like a
platform to transition fromcompany to lifestyle brand and
like that's what I, that's whatmy original blog kind of grew

(01:18:36):
into, that type of brandinteraction with me.
Right, right, right.
And as I'm coming to the tailend, I would rather use, like
this, this watch to for me totell a story on my platform and
you know, kind of, do that Right.
So the brands still get thebenefit.
Don't get me wrong becausebecause they now get the

(01:18:59):
exposure to my warm pool ofpeople, which will then become
their warm pool of people, right, and that's kind of how it
works.
But versus like jobs, I don't doanything for money anymore,
thank goodness, um, I feel veryfortunate.
Yeah, it must be nice, veryfortunate I don't have to work,
chase the rabbit around, yeah soeverything I do is just passion

(01:19:21):
, and I want to zero it intoonly my one youtube channel,
where I'm just either screwingaround on my boat, screwing
around in my jeep, geeking outon adventure watches or some
crazy gear like this Look atthis, dude, I just got this new
Benchmade.
Look at that.
Oh shit, stuff like that.

(01:19:45):
Let me show you this too.
Stuff like this.
This is from Olight.

Blake Rea (01:19:50):
They sent me this out the EDC guy toys.

Yeah, but it's got this cool.
Let's see if it shows up.
Do you see the green laser?
Yeah, it's got a few different.
It's got a black light.
When you're in the mountains orout in the desert, you turn on
this black light at night andyou go and you point it in the
bushes and stuff and scorpionsglow oh shit, it's really cool.
And scorpions glow oh shit.

(01:20:16):
Yeah, so it's really cool.
It's very cool.
So stuff like that you know,stuff I think is cool and I geek
out on, I want to share withpeople.
Yeah, you know, I wanteverybody just to have fun.
I want everybody to getoutdoors, enjoy their
relationships and have a goodlife.
That's really what I want.
So all of my platforms isdesigned to help people do that.

Blake Rea (01:20:45):
We're sound.
It sounds like a good kind of amark for now, cause we can rant
for more.
Two more hours, three morehours, um, I want to thank you
for coming on, for sharing yourstory, you know, for you know,
know, helping us grow ourplatform through, through your
story, um, everybody who'slistening.
If you made it this far, youknow, I would highly encourage
you to check out rob, if youdidn't make it this far, dude.

Go get yourself an adderall prescription so you can
pay attention for crying outloud yeah, we've, we've.

Blake Rea (01:21:13):
We've done some weaving, we've done some
storytelling, we've jumpedaround.
That's the way these podcastsdo, like I think a lot of people
listen.
We get a lot of people thatstay to the end, which is super
cool and humbling.
That's cool and and and.
Yeah, you don't know what I'mgonna ask next, because I'm I, I
jump around, so I don't know.
Maybe that's the reason whythey're staying, who knows?
Whatever, whatever, but youshould definitely check out Rob,

(01:21:34):
check out his channel.
I'm going to make sure that weplug his links in the
description.
You can click directly through.
Watch his YouTube.
I really enjoy his videos.
There's a lot of contentcreators that I'm friends with,
real quick.

I met you because you edited one of my videos I
did.
That's how I first met you.
I did and it was the, up tothat point, the best edit thank
you that I've ever had in any ofmy content, thank you, I was
like oh man, this guy's great.
And then the guy messed it allup for us, but we stayed
connected still for sure I'm notgonna let a little I still

(01:22:13):
appreciate that, because notonly was the edit cool, what it
really did for me was biggerthan that one edit.
It opened my mind up to a morebuilt-out kind of edit, to any
of my sure.

Blake Rea (01:22:27):
Yeah, anyways, I made an impression, my friend, I
love editing and I, yeah, I, um,I very quickly I mean our
aligned our, our.
Our ideals are aligned, Our.
You know we all wanttransparency, we want to have
fun, we want to push the watchindustry.
I mean, at the time, you knowwe, you were focused on gym
content, but you know we stillshare the same passions.

(01:22:48):
So, immediately, just gravitatetowards your energy, your
mission and everything, and I'mglad that can call you a friend,
of course, and I'm glad thatyou're, you know you're willing
to come onto my platform andhelp me with storytelling and
share your adventure and story.
And so, yeah, I definitelythink there would be a lot of

(01:23:09):
overlap with the people that arelistening to us now.
You know, would enjoy yourcontent and there's, like I said
, I work with a lot of contentcreators, but there's very few
people out there whose content Ienjoy as much as yours.
And I'm saying that in allhonesty.
I watch all your videos.
I you know I obviously have thebell.
I watch everything that youpost when it relates to watches.

(01:23:31):
There's the caveat.

Hopefully you're going gonna watch them twice,
because yeah no, I will.
I will, I'm trying to like, cutthem a little bit.
Maybe do a new title thumbnail,try to do something.
They add some kind of value topeople so that maybe they'll
return for this.

Blake Rea (01:23:49):
But your, your vision is your value.
There you go, that's it.
Thank you so much, and, uh, wemight have to have a part two,
because I feel like we can keepgoing and I'm in anytime.

And if anybody wants, if anybody has any
questions for me personally,best way, dm me on instagram at
adv.
Like adventure rob at adv.
Rob, dm me whatever questionsyou might have, because the
accident thing is wild.
Yeah, I get a lot of questionsfrom that, uh, but I'm happy to
help any way I can.

Blake Rea (01:24:22):
So we're gonna link the instagram.
We're gonna link capacity andreserve.
We're gonna link, you know, thetrailer.
We're gonna link, you know,project heal the land.
We're gonna I mean, we're gonnalink your youtube channel.
Everything that you need to getin touch with Robert to hear
his story, to connect with him,engage with him, is going to be
found in the description of thispodcast, the YouTube, wherever
you're listening to this, so youwill be able to easily find him

(01:24:46):
.

It was a good time, my friend.

Blake Rea (01:24:49):
Yeah, same same.

I love it.

Blake Rea (01:24:52):
Next time you come back to Vegas we'll have to do a
little bit more fun stuff.
Let's do it again tomorrow.

Let's do this again tomorrow.
I'm just kidding.

Blake Rea (01:24:59):
All right, buddy, I will see you very, very, very
soon there you go have a goodone Later.

Thank you.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}After losing his memory, Rob Spencer discovered what time really means.

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

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After losing his memory, Rob Spencer discovered what time really means.

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